Page:A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc. George du Maurier, 1898.djvu/187



E will not follow Mrs. Spratt through all the steps of her downward social career, nor describe how she, who had seen Dukes, Ambassadors, and Princes at her feet, had for a time to condescend to grovelling Honourables, and fall back on Baronets again, and even put up with Knights from the City; how she rouged, and blanched, and violet-powdered, and blackened her under-lids, and auricoma'd and soda'd her beautiful black hair till half of it turned red, and the rest fell off; how she dressed more extravagantly than ever, and became extremely High Church, and sat in tableaux vivants, held stalls at fashionable bazaars, sang Offenbach and Lecocq at private theatricals, with short skirts on, &c., &c.

Even the Knights and Baronets failed her at last, and their dames ignored.

For some little while longer the would-be fashionable people—the hangers-on at the tail-end of Society, who had not yet received the straight tip about the sculptor's wife, or couldn't get her—would still ask Mrs. Spratt, in spite of the snubs she had showered on them the preceding year. And much as she sickened at the contact of their vulgarity—for what can be more vulgar than second or third-rate people of fashion?—she was glad of their countenance as long as it lasted. But even this was withdrawn in time, and she fell out of the hollow world of fashion altogether. The hollow world had grown sick of the Spratts, and dropped them—beauty, genius, sock-darning, and all!

And you may be sure that Poetical Justice was at hand, with scales inexorably poised, and sword on high! And heavily did she smite them as they fell; and thus ran her decrees:—

Firstly,—That John Spratt should become a bankrupt—which he did. And straightway that beautiful old red-brick dwelling, where they had lived since they were first married, and might have lived happily ever after, was placarded all over with unsightly bills, and defiled from garret to basement by the muddy hoof of the ubiquitous Hebrew broker; and all their household gods were bared to the vulgar gaze; and every stick of their quaint old furniture was sold under the hammer, without reserve; and not a wrack was left behind to tell the wretched tale of ruin, except eight huge, frameless, staring Sock-darners, which nobody could be induced to buy, nor even take away for the sake of the canvas on which they were painted.

Secondly,—That the said John Spratt be written down a FOOL, so that his fame as such should reach the uttermost ends of the earth, and endure thereon so long as the English tongue be spoken.

"And think thyself lucky, thou miserable Spratt," exclaimed P. J. in her sternest accents, "that thy name should go down to endless posterity uncoupled with a still more disgraceful epithet!"

Thirdly, and lastly—(and here P. J. frowned ominously through the bandage that veils her impartial eyes)—That Mrs. John Spratt, wife of the above, and mother of his childrenBut what is this?

Oh! Woman, lovely Woman! ever since Troy became a heap of ashes (and even before!) what evil hast thou left unwrought, what wild and wicked things have not been done for thy sweet beauty's sake? And yet oh! to what base weakness hast thou brought the hearts of the sons of men, that even at the bare thought of thee crouching in shame and terror, and bathed in tears, the righteously indignant, but alas! too susceptible Punch should 87