Volume I Part 7 (1/2)
”Yes. I suppose it's an old City custom, you know. Anyhow they always dine with the Lord Mayor. That's what they die of.”
”And now I have something to tell you, Lucy,” said Mrs. Haggard. ”It's all been decided. After the Christmas festivities at the Castle we are to go to Rome, and we hope you will come too.”
Lucy clapped her hands with girlish glee. ”Go with you, Georgie dear? Of course I will. How good of you to ask me.” The girl was evidently delighted.
”And have you the heart, Miss Warrender, to leave me, Mr. Sleek, and your other countless admirers, here in England to 'dree our weary weirds alone?'”
And so the idle talk ran on. The Italian trip was discussed, and considerable ignorance of geography was, as is usual, manifested by all present. Lucy expressed her disappointment, on being informed that there were now no brigands in Italy, save those behind the shop counters, or in the choruses of the opera.
A trim maid then brought in the tea equipage, and Georgie did the honours with her usual unaffected grace.
And now Parson Dodd and his sister were announced. The Dodds presented a rather dishevelled appearance. They, too, had seen the Lord Mayor's Show. But the vicar, in a moment of weakness, had yielded to Anastatia's wish to see something of the real Londoner, whom ”dear d.i.c.kens has described so well,” as she had put it.
Great had been her indignation at the want of respect shown to the Reverend John Dodd's cloth. With horror she had heard her brother addressed by a disreputable costermonger in a mangy fur cap, as ”Old pal.” And though the Reverend John stood all unmoved in the surging crowd, muscular pillar of the Church that he was, it was only by clutching him very tightly that poor Anastatia preserved herself from annihilation. She had seen the Lord Mayor's Show indeed, but at what a price! The long grey cloak which she wore, a sort of semi-religious garb which Miss Dodd, as a clergyman's sister, affected, had been splashed with mud and creased into a thousand wrinkles. Her maiden feet, which had never felt the sacrilegious touch of the toe of obtrusive appreciation, had been trampled on by an exhilarated London mob. And after several hours of agony, just as the Lord Mayor was actually pa.s.sing, she had heard and felt a horrid rending, crackling sound, and had almost shrieked into her awe-stricken brother's ear, ”Oh, Jack, I'm gone at the gathers!” What she meant neither the Reverend John Dodd, or any other male person, could ever truly know. But evidently something dreadful had occurred. ”Take me back, Jack; take me back to Mrs.
Haggard's at once,” the poor little woman had pleaded to the parson. He got her into a cab at last, and they had reached the Haggards' house in May Fair, at which, they were stopping for the night. But Georgie Haggard came to the poor lady's rescue; she and her cousin bore her off to her hostess's own quarters, where she detailed her sufferings to their sympathizing ears. Eau de Cologne was duly dabbed upon her temples, strong tea was administered, but at length the wounded feelings of the vicar's sister found vent in a little gentle fit of sobbing, and she was accordingly put to bed.
”What possessed me I can't imagine,” said the Reverend Jack to his two male friends; ”we were quite comfortable at first, you know,” said poor Jumbo, warm with the remembrance of his numerous humiliations. ”I had put Anastatia on a bench; the man made an exceedingly moderate charge of threepence. I gave him sixpence, and strange to say he had no change. I didn't like to be done; the man urged me to occupy one place that was yet vacant; my evil genius prompted me to do so. Alas! I had no sooner stepped upon the frail structure when it suddenly and unaccountably gave way in the middle. I was precipitated to the ground in a sitting posture. Anastatia was fortunately unhurt, but she was much frightened.
Those who had paid for the use of the bench demanded their money _from me_; while the miserable proprietor, who had previously been most respectful, in a truculent manner, and with horrible menaces, claimed a sovereign, and on my declining to comply with his extortionate demand, he actually offered to fight me, me a clergyman of the Church of England. From a sense of justice, I hastened to remunerate those who had been deprived of their coign of vantage, but, alas! the claimants were innumerable; every man and boy in my vicinity declared that he had paid for a place. The mob cheered me with derisive epithets. The climax was reached when a most offensive policeman in a dictatorial manner ordered me to 'Move on.' The Church of England, in my person, was ordered to 'move on.' I attempted to remonstrate, but I and the proprietor of the broken bench were both suddenly propelled by the Jack in-office into a bye street, and I discovered, to my horror, that I had lost Anastatia.
Of course I had to satisfy the ruffian's insolent demands, but I did so under protest. The officer, however, now became more civil, and I, fortunately, with his a.s.sistance, was able to rescue my sister from the mob. I _will_ take another cup of tea, if you please. Thank you, three lumps. I _have_ seen the Lord Mayor's Show, never again will I a.s.sist at that degrading spectacle.”
In vain did Haggard and Lord Spunyarn attempt to rea.s.sure the indignant vicar. Only on the return of Mrs. Haggard and Lucy did the Reverend John Dodd become comparatively tranquil. Under the soothing influence of beauty, however, the vicar forgot his woes.
CHAPTER VIII.
AT THE CASTLE.
The Haggards were heartily glad to leave town. The nasty scandal at the Pandemonium had been particularly irritating to Haggard personally.
”Thank G.o.d,” he said to himself, ”the head of the family will probably never hear of it, unless Hetton should go out of his way to tell him; but I don't think he'd do that, he's not too particular himself, so it would be only a case of the pot calling the kettle, after all. It wasn't my fault. How could I know the young idiot was drugging himself with Chartreuse? I was too much interested in the game. Besides, some one was bound to have his money sooner or later; in fact,” pondered the big man, ”I've been rather ill-used, when I come to think of it. It's just my luck.”
Just his luck! Yes, it was just his luck; just his luck to squander every farthing he possessed, and to be pitied by everybody when deported to do the best he could for himself. Just his luck to have what the Americans call a ”high-old time” in Mexico, to hunt, to shoot, to enjoy the free wild life and absence of restraint in America. Just his luck to thoroughly clear out that wealthy gambler Don Emanuel Garcia, at poker; but then Haggard had all the qualifications for a poker player: he had the very luck which he grumbled at; good temper, for your thoroughly selfish man is far too fond of himself ever to be other than good-tempered; his ”cheek” was unlimited, and in the big ”flutter” with the Mexican, he had also had good cards. Given good luck, good temper, good ”cheek,” and good cards, a poker player is always invincible; so the Americans say, and they ought to know. Just his luck to become the possessor of a large sum of ready cash, when valuable land was going a-begging; just his luck at that precise moment to invest his easily-got winnings in the Mexican ranches and pastures, now worth ten times what they cost him. Just his luck to come home at the right moment to be accepted by the loveliest girl in Ess.e.x, a girl whose beauty had now even received the _imprimatur_ of so fastidious a judge as his Royal Highness. Just his luck to be adored by his young wife, and looked upon by her as a king of men; to be clothed in purple and fine raiment, with the possibility of a peerage and the possession of immense wealth in the future. But he was quite right in carping at her, for fortune, like other fickle jades, is more likely to be true if steadily abused.
The two girls, his wife and her cousin, interrupted his soliloquy. The gaieties of the season had, if possible, rendered Georgie's beauty still more perfect. A succession of _recherche_ entertainments, of concerts, b.a.l.l.s and routs, and their attendant late hours and excitement, had given the young wife that almost indefinable stamp of delicate refinement for which we have no word, which is so seldom seen in England, and which the Italians call _morbidezza_.
But there was no _morbidezza_ about Lucy; she, too, had shone, perhaps with a certain amount of reflected l.u.s.tre; but she had shone, she had dazzled. When a very young woman is exceedingly good-looking, no prude, and prepared to go any lengths, being at the same time perfectly heartless, she is bound to be a success, and Lucy had been a great success. The Duc de la Houspignolle, the French Amba.s.sador in London, that duke who was so much missed from the cotillions at the Tuileries of his imperial mistress, had p.r.o.nounced Lucy _petillante_. M. Barb.i.+.c.he, his second secretary, the best valseur of the season, had declared that Miss Warrender was the lightest stepper in town. ”She make my heart to beat as it never beat before,” said the young diplomatist to his chief; ”but she is not distinguished like her cousin, she is a woman. I think her cousin is only a G.o.ddess after all. They are cold, these married English. I suppose it is the 'spleen.'”
”You'll get back your roses, old woman, at the Castle,” said Haggard to his wife. ”I think we've both had about enough of it,” said he, as he poured out a brandy and soda. ”I'm getting rather sick of seeing my wife twirled round like a teetotum by a succession of well-dressed idiots, while twenty more noodles round me are all saying how very charming she is, and consequently hating and envying me. It's all devilish fine for you girls, but I really think I shall enjoy a fortnight's dulness and the counting of possible chickens which may never be hatched at Walls End. Anyhow, one will get one's rubber.”
”And I shall have two new strings to my bow in the shape of Hetton and his cousin. By-the by, what is Hetton like? One can't judge of a man at a wedding breakfast,” said Lucy.
”Oh, horsey; when you say that you say everything.”
”I've a good mind to upset all your plans, Reginald, after all,” said the girl. ”Lady Hetton would look well on my cards. And then I should come in for the Walls End diamonds. By-the-way, are the Walls End diamonds black diamonds?”
”Bother Hetton; you've got about as much chance with him as with the old man, my dear,” for it annoyed Haggard to see the slightest cloud to his prospects, even were it no bigger than a man's hand.
”Anyhow, there are two bachelors, Reginald, besides his lords.h.i.+p, who is hardly a bachelor, being, I suppose, wedded to art.”
”Oh! three, my dear; you have forgotten my father; he, too, is aged, but impressionable. If you'll only talk about pigs, Lucy, and manifest an intelligent interest, especially in black ones, you can put my nose out of joint most effectually!”