Part 6 (2/2)
In the meantime, our friends in the stand make their running commentaries on the race. ”How slow they are going,” says Blanche, who, like all ladies, has a most liberal idea of ”pace.” ”_He's over!_” mutters Mary Delaval, as ”blue-and-orange” skims lightly over the first fence, undistinguished, save by _her_, amidst the rest. ”One down!” says a voice, and there is a slight scream from amongst the prettiest of the bonnets. ”Red-and-white cap--who is it?” and what with the distraction of watching the others, and the confusion on the cards, Bendigo has been caught and remounted ere the hapless Lieutenant Mohair can be identified. Meanwhile the string is lengthening out. ”Uppy is making frightful running,” says Major D'Orville, thinking how right he was to stand heavily against Lady Lavender; ”however, the Fox is close upon him; and that's Haphazard, Miss Kettering, just behind Sober John.”
”Two--four--six--seven--nine--what a pretty sight!” says Blanche, but she turns away her head with a shudder as a party-coloured jacket goes down at the next fence, neither horse nor rider rising again. One always fancies the worst, and Mary turns pale as death, and clasps her hands tighter than ever. And now they arrive at the double post and rails, which have been erected purposely for the gratification of the ladies in the stand. The first three bound over it in their stride like so many deer. Captain Rocket pulls his horse into a trot, and Sober John goes in-and-out quite as clever as did the Major's white charger. Mr. Jason is good enough to express his approval. Charlie follows the example of his leader, and though he hits it very hard, Haphazard's fine shape saves him from a fall. Blanche thinks him the n.o.blest hero in England, and n.o.body but D'Orville remarks how very pale Mrs. Delaval is getting. Mohair essays to follow the example thus set him, and succeeds in doing the first half of his task admirably, but no power on earth will induce Bendigo to jump _out_ after jumping _in_, and eventually he is obliged to be ignominiously extricated by a couple of carpenters and a handsaw. His companions diverge, like a flight of wild-fowl, towards the brook. The Fox, who is now leading, refuses; and the charitable Nimrods, and dandies, and swells, and professionals, all vote that Capon's heart failed him, and ”he didn't put in half enough powder.” The Major knows better. The horse was once his property, and he has not laid against it without reason. The brook creates much confusion; but Sober John singles himself out from the ruck, and flies it without an effort, closely followed by Haphazard and Lady Lavender. The rest splash and struggle, and get over as they best can, with but little chance now of coming up with the first three. They all turn towards home, and the pace is visibly increasing. Captain Rocket is leading, but Charlie's horse is obviously full of running, and the boy is gradually drawing away from Lady Lavender, and nearer and nearer to the front. Already people begin to shout ”Haphazard wins”; and the General is hoa.r.s.e with excitement. ”Charlie wins!” he exclaims, his lace purple, and the ends of his blue-and-orange handkerchief floating on the breeze. ”Charlie wins! I tell you. Look how he's coming up. Zounds! don't contradict _me_, sir!” he roars out to the intense dismay of his next neighbour, a meek old gentleman, who has only come to the steeple-chase in order that he may write an account of it for a magazine, and who shrinks from the General as from a raving madman. ”Now, Captain Rocket,”
shouts the mult.i.tude, as if that unmoved man would attend to anything but the business in hand. They reach the last fence neck-and-neck, Haphazard landing slightly in advance. ”Kettering wins!” ”_Blast_ him!” hisses D'Orville between his teeth, turning white as a sheet He stands to lose eighteen hundred by Haphazard alone, and we question whether, on reliable security, the Major could raise eighteen-pence.
Nevertheless, he turns the next instant to Blanche, with a quiet, unmoved smile, to congratulate her on her cousin's probable success.
”If he can only 'finish,' Miss Kettering, he can't lose,” says the speculator; but he still trusts that ”if” may save him the price of his commission.
What a moment for Charlie! Hot, breathless, and nearly exhausted, his brain reeling with the shouts of the populace, and the wild excitement of the struggle, one idea is uppermost in his mind--if man and horse can do it, _win he will_. Steadily has he ridden four long miles, taking the greatest pains with his horse, and restraining his own eagerness to be in front, as well as that of the gallant animal. He has kept his eye fixed on Captain Rocket, and regulated his every movement by that celebrated performer. And now he is drawing slightly in advance of him, and one hundred yards more will complete his triumph. Yet, inexperienced as he is, he cannot but feel that Haphazard is no longer the elastic, eager goer whom he has been regulating so carefully, and the truth shoots across him that his horse is beat. Well, he ought to last another hundred yards. See, the double flags are waving before him, and the shouts of his own name fall dully upon his ear. He hears Captain Rocket's whip at work, and is not aware how that judicious artist is merely plying it against his own boot to flurry the young one. Charlie begins to flog. ”Sit _still_!” shouts Frank Hardingstone from the stand. Charlie works arms and legs like a windmill, upsets his horse, who would win if he were but let alone--Sober John shows his great ugly head alongside.
Haphazard changes his leg--Major D'Orville draws a long breath of relief--Captain Rocket, with a grim smile, and one fierce stab with his spurs, glides slightly in advance--and Haphazard is beaten on the post by half a length, Lady Lavender a bad third, and the rest nowhere!
Blanche is dreadfully disappointed. The General thinks ”the lad deserves great credit for being second in such good company;” but the tears stand in Mary Delaval's eyes--tears, we believe, of grat.i.tude at his not being brought home on a hurdle, instead of riding into the weighing enclosure with the drooping self-satisfied air, and the arms hanging powerless down his side, which distinguish the gentleman-jockey after his exertions. The boy is scarcely disappointed. To have been so near winning, and to have run second for such an event as the ”Grand Military,” is a feather in his cap, of which he is in no slight degree proud; and he walks into the stand the hero of the day, for Captain Rocket is no lady's man, and is engaged to risk his neck again to-morrow a hundred miles from here. So he has put on a long great-coat and disappeared. The General accounts for Charlie's defeat on a theory peculiarly his own. ”_Virtually_” says he, ”my nephew won the race. How d'ye mean _beat_? It was twenty yards over the four miles. Twenty yards from home he was a length in front.
If the stewards had been worth their salt, we should have won. Don't tell _me_!”
There is more racing, but the great event has come off, and our friends in the stand occupy themselves only with luncheon. Frank Hardingstone comes up to speak to Blanche, but she is so surrounded and hemmed in, that beyond shaking hands with her he might as well be back at his own place on the south coast, for any enjoyment he can have in her society. Major D'Orville is rapidly gaining ground in the good graces of all the Newton-Hollows party. He has won a great stake, and is in brilliant spirits. Even Mary thinks ”what an agreeable man he is,” and glances the while at a fair glowing face, eating, drinking, and laughing by turns, and discussing with Sir Ascot the different events of their exciting gallop. Lacquers, with his mouth full, is making the agreeable in his own way to the whole party.
”Deuced good pie--aw--ruin me--aw--in gloves, Miss Kettering--aw--lose everything to you--aw;” and the dandy has a vague sort of notion that he might say something sweet here, but it will not shape itself into words very conveniently, so he has a large gla.s.s of sherry instead.
Our friend Captain Lacquers is not so much ”a man of parts,” as ”a man of figure.” Charlie, somewhat excited, flourishes his knife and fork, and describes how he lost his race to the public in general. Gaston D'Orville, with his most deferential air, is winning golden opinions from Blanche, and thinking in his innermost soul what a traitor he is to his own heart the while; Mrs. Delaval looks very pale and subdued, and Bounce thinks she must be tired, but breaks off to something else before he has made the inquiry--still everybody seems outwardly to be enjoying him or herself to the utmost, and it is with a forced smile and an air of a.s.sumed gaiety that Frank Hardingstone takes his leave, and supposes ”we shall all meet at the ball!”
Fancy Frank deliberately proposing to go to a ball! How bitterly he smiles as he walks away from the course faster and faster, as thought after thought goads him to personal exertion! Now he despises himself thoroughly for his weakness in allowing the smile of a silly girl thus to sink into a strong man's heart--now he a.n.a.lyses his own feelings as he would probe a corporeal wound, with a stern scientific pleasure in the examination--and anon he speculates vaguely on the arrangements of Nature, which provide us with sentimental follies for a _sauce piquante_ wherewith to flavour our daily bread. Nevertheless, our man of action is by no means satisfied with himself. He takes a fierce walk over the most unfrequented fields, and returns to his solitary lodgings, to read stiff chapters of old dogmatic writers, and to work out a tough equation or two, till he can ”get this nonsense out of his head.” In vain, a fairy figure with long violet eyes and floating hair dances between him and his quarto, and the ”unknown quant.i.ty” _plus_ Blanche continually eludes his mental grasp.
We do not think Frank has enjoyed his day's pleasure, any more than Mary Delaval. How few people do, could we but peep into their heart of hearts! Here are two at least of that gay throng in whom the shaft is rankling, and all this discomfort and anxiety exists because, forsooth, people never understand each other in time. We think it is in one of Rousseau's novels that the catastrophe is continually being postponed because the heroine invariably becomes _vivement emue_, and unable to articulate, just at the critical moment when two words more would explain everything, and make her happy with her adorer. Were it not for this provoking weakness, she would be married and settled long before the end of the first volume: but then, to be sure, what would become of all the remaining pages of French sentimentality? If there were no uncertainty, there would be no romance--if we knew each other better, perhaps we should love each other less. Hopes and fears make up the game of life. Better be the germinating flower, blooming in the suns.h.i.+ne and cowering in the blast, than the withered branch, defiant indeed of winter's cold and summer's heat, but drinking in no dew of morning, putting forth no buds of spring, and in its dreary, barren isolation, unsusceptible of pleasure as of pain.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BALL
THE COUNTRY BALL--A POETICAL PEER--BLANCHE'S PARTNERS--SMILES AND SCOWLS--MAMMA'S ADVICE--THE GENERAL'S POLITICS--THE MAJOR'S STRATEGY--”HOME”--THE DREAMER--THE SLEEPER--AND THE WATCHER
Bustle and confusion reign paramount at ”The Kingmakers'
Arms”--princ.i.p.al hotel and posting-house in the town of Guyville. Once a year is there a great lifting of carpets and s.h.i.+fting of furniture in all the rooms of that enterprising establishment. Chambermaids hurry to and fro in smart caps brought out for the occasion, and pale-faced waiters brandish their gla.s.s-cloths in despair at the variety of their duties. All the resources of the plate-basket are brought into use, and knives, forks, tumblers, wine-gla.s.ses, German silver and Britannia metal, are collected and borrowed, and furbished up, to grace the evening's entertainment with a magnificence becoming the occasion. Dust pervades the pa.s.sages, and there is a hot smell of cooking and closed windows, by which the frequenters of the house are made aware that to-night is the anniversary of the Guyville Ball, a solemnity to be spoken of with reverence by the very ostler's a.s.sistant in the yard, who will tell you ”_We_ are very busy, sir, just now, sir, on account of _the ball_.” Tea-rooms, card-rooms, supper-rooms, dancing-rooms, and cloak-rooms, leave but few apartments to be devoted to the purposes of rest; and an unwary bagman, snoring quietly in No. 5, might chance to be smothered ere morning by the heap of cloaks, shawls, polka-jackets, and other lady-like wraps, ruthlessly heaped upon the unconscious victim in his dormitory. The combined attractions of steeple-chasing and dancing bring numerous young gentlemen and their valets to increase the confusion; and, were it not that the six o'clock train takes back the Londoners and ”professionals” to the metropolis, it would be out of the power of mortal functionaries to attend to so many wants, and wait upon so many customers.
That tall, pale, interesting-looking man in chains and ringlets has already created much commotion below with his insatiable demands for foot-baths and hot water. As he waits carelessly in the pa.s.sage at that closed door, receiving and returning the admiring glances of pa.s.sing chambermaids, you would hardly suppose, from his una.s.suming demeanour, that he is no less a person than Lord Mount Helicon's _gentleman_. To be sure, he is now what he calls ”comparatively incog.” It is only at his club in Piccadilly, or ”the room” at Wa.s.sailworth, where he and the Duke's ”own man” lay down the law upon racing, politics, wine, and women, that he is to be seen in his full glory. To give him his due, he is an admirable servant, as far as his own duties are concerned, and a clever fellow to boot, or he would not have picked up seven-and-thirty pounds to-day on the steeple-chase whilst he was looking alter the luncheon and the carriage. We question, however, whether he could complete his toilet as expeditiously as his master, who is now stamping about his room reciting, in an audible voice, a thundering ode on which he has been some considerable time engaged, and elaborating the folds of his white neckcloth (old fifth-form tie) between the stanzas.
Lord Mount Helicon is a literary n.o.bleman; not one of
”Your authors who's all author, fellows In foolscap uniforms turned up with ink;”
but a sportsman as well as a scholar, a man of the world as well as a man of letters; given overmuch to betting, horse-racing, and dissipation in general, but with as keen a zest for the elegances of literature as for those beauties of the drama to which he pays fully more attention, and one who can compute you the odds as readily as he can turn a lyric or round a flowing period. Had his lords.h.i.+p possessed a little more common sense and a slight modic.u.m of prudence, forethought, reflection, and such plebeian qualities, he need not have failed in any one thing he undertook. As it was, his best friends regretted he should waste his talents so unsparingly on versification; whilst his enemies (the bitter dogs) averred ”Mount Helicon's rhyme was, if possible, worse than his reason.” Being member for Guyville (our readers will probably call to mind how the columns of their daily paper were filled with the Guyville Election Committee's Report, and the wonderful appet.i.te for ”treating” displayed by the ”free and independent” of that town during their ”three glorious days”)--being member, then, of course it is inc.u.mbent on him to attend the ball; so after a hurried dinner with Lacquers, Sir Ascot, Major D'Orville, and sundry other gentlemen who _live_ every day of their lives, behold him curling his red whiskers and attiring his tall, gaunt form in a suit of decorous black.
”Deuced bad dinner they give one here,” said his lords.h.i.+p to himself, still hammering away at the ode. ”Wish I hadn't drunk that second bottle of claret, and smoked so much.
When the thunders of a people smite the quailing despot's ear, And the earthquake of rebellion heaves--
No, I can't get it right. How those cursed fiddlers are sc.r.a.ping! and either that gla.s.s maligns me, or I look a little drunk! This life don't suit my style of beauty--something must be done. Shall I marry and pull up? Marry--will I! Bow my cultivated intellect before some savage maiden, and fatten like a tethered calf on the flat swamps of domestic respectability. Straps! go down and find out if many of the people are come.”
”Several of the townspeople have arrived, my lord; but few of the county families as yet,” replies Straps, whose knowledge of a member of parliament's duties would have qualified him to represent Guyville as well as his master. Lord Mount Helicon accordingly completes his toilet and proceeds to the ball-room, still mentally harping on ”the thunders of a people,” and ”the quailing despot's ear.”
The townspeople have indeed arrived in very sufficient numbers, yet is there a strong line of demarcation between their plebeian ranks and those of ”the county families” huddled together at the upper end of the room. Britannia! Britannia! when will you cease to bring your coat-of-arms into society, and to smother your warm heart and sociable nature under pedigrees, and rent-rolls, and dreary conventionalities?
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