CHAPTER XIV

TO PERSONS ABOUT TO MARRY

A LOUNGE IN THE PARK--THE NOON OF FASHION--THE FAIR EQUESTRIAN--A LOVER ON FOOT--BOUNCE’S COMFORTERS--THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER--A FRIEND’S ADVICE

It was high noon in the great world of London--that is to say, it was about half-past five P.M.--and the children of Mammon were in full dress. In the streets, gay, glittering, well-appointed carriages were bowling smoothly along, with sleek horses stepping proudly together, and turning, as coachmen say, on a sixpence, guided by skilful pilots who could drive to an inch. Inside, shaded by parasols of the most gorgeous hues, sat fair delicate women, dressed to the utmost perfection of the art, with aërial bonnets at the very back of their glossy hair and dainty heads, bent down as they reclined upon their cushions till every upward glance shot from beneath those sweeping eyelashes bore a tenfold shaft of conquest against the world. Anon taper fingers in white kid gloves were kissed to a dandy on the pavement, and the fortunate dandy bowed, and sprang erect again, a taller man by an inch. ’Tis always judicious to _appear_ on the best of terms with smart ladies in coroneted carriages. Bond Street was in a state of siege--“Redmayne’s” looked like a beehive--“Hunt and Roskell’s” resembled a flower-show--country cousins were bewildered and overcome--quiet old gentlemen like ourselves were pining for their strawberries and their roses--wearied servants meditated on the charms of beer--the narrow strip of sky overhead smiled blue as the Mediterranean, and the tide of carriages in Piccadilly was like the roar of the ocean. In the Park, though the space was greater, yet did the crowd appear no less--double lines of carriages blocked up the drive by the Serpentine, and unassuming broughams with provokingly pretty faces inside halted perforce amongst the matronage of England, defiant in the liveries and escutcheons of their lawful lords. In the Ride the plot was thickening still, and half a country seemed to be gathering on “the broad road”--we speak literally, not metaphorically--mounted on steeds worth a prince’s ransom, we ought to say, but here our conscientious regard for verity compels us to stop short, and to remark that although every now and then our eye may be gladdened by that most beautiful of all spectacles, a handsome woman on a fine horse, yet in many sorry instances the gentlemen of England, who “sit at home at ease,” effectually prevent their wives and daughters from enjoying a like sedentary composure, by mounting them on the veriest “_rips_” that ever disgraced a side-saddle. “He’ll do to carry a lady,” they say of some wretch that has neither pace nor strength nor action for themselves, and forthwith gentle woman, blest in her ignorance, tittups along, nothing doubting, upon this tottering skeleton. Fortune favours her own sex, but _if_ anything happens a woman is almost sure to be hurt. No--to carry a lady a horse ought to be as near perfection as it is possible for that animal to arrive--strong, fast, well-shaped, handsome, and fine-tempered, his good qualities and his value should correspond with the treasure and the charms which are confided to his charge. But we have said there are exceptions, and Blanche’s bay horse, “Water King,” was a bright particular star among his equine fellows. Humble pedestrians stopped to gaze open-mouthed on that shapely form--the marble crest, the silky mane, the small quivering ear, the wide proud nostril, and the game wild eye--the round powerful frame, hard and smooth and well-defined as sculptured marble, showing on the “off-side” its whole lengthy proportions uninterrupted save by girth and saddle-flap, and the little edge of cambric handkerchief peeping from the latter. High-couraged as he was gentle, few horses could canter up the Ride like “Water King,” and as he bent himself to his mistress’s hand, snorting in his pride, his thin black tail swishing in the air, and his glossy skin flecked with foam, many a smart philosopher of the “_nil admirari_” school turned upon his saddle to approve, and drawled to his brother idler, “’Gad, that’s a monstrous clever horse, and _rather_ a pretty girl riding him.” Major D’Orville thought they were a charming couple as he accompanied Miss Kettering and her steed with the careful air of proprietorship seldom assumed save by an accepted suitor. The Major was a delightful companion for the Park. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him. He had the knack of making that sort of quiet disjointed conversation which accords so well with an equestrian _tête-à-tête_. Defend us at all times from a long story, but especially on horse-back! The Major’s remarks, however, were seldom too diffuse. “You see that man on the cream-coloured horse,” he would say; “that’s Discount, the famous money-lender. He gave a dinner yesterday to ten people that cost a hundred pounds, and he is telling everybody to-day all the particulars of the ‘carte’ and the ‘bill.’ Do you know that lady with the dark eyes and a netting all over her horse?--that’s Lady Legerdemain--she keeps a legion of spirits, as she says, and will raise the dead for you any night you like to go to her house in Tyburnia proper.” “How shocking!” Blanche replies, with a look of incredulity. “Fact, I assure you,” returns the Major. “Sir Roger Rearsby asked to see an old brother-officer who was killed at Toulouse, and they showed him his own French cook! but Lady Legerdemain says the spirits are fallible, just like ourselves. Who is this in uniform?--why, it’s ‘Uppy’--he don’t look very disconsolate, does he, Miss Kettering?” and the Major smiled a meaning smile, and Blanche looked down and blushed. “Some men would not ‘wear the willow’ so contentedly,” proceeded D’Orville, lowering his voice to half-melancholy tone--“it’s setting too much upon a cast to ask a question when a negative is to swamp one’s happiness for life. I honour the man that has the courage to do it, but for my part I confess I have _not_.” “I never knew you were deficient in that particular,” replied Blanche, looking down again, and blushing deeper than before. Blanche! Blanche! you little coquette, you are indeed coming on in the atmosphere of London--you like the Major very much, but you do not like him well enough to marry him--yet you would be unhappy to lose him, you spoilt child!--and so you lead him on like this, and look more bewitching than ever with those downcast eyes and long, silky lashes. Notwithstanding their difference of years, our pair are playing a game very common in society, called “Diamond cut diamond.” “I am a thorough coward in some things,” returned D’Orville, not without a flush of conscious pride, as he remembered how his spirit used to rise with the tide of battle; “like all other cowards, nothing would make me bold but the certainty of success.” He pressed closer to “Water King’s” side, and sank his voice almost to a whisper as he added--“Could I but hope for _that_, I could dare anything. Could I but think that my devotion, my idolatry, was not entirely thrown away, I should be----” The Major stopped short, for Blanche turned pale as death, and her head drooped as if she must have fallen from her horse.

What made the girl start and sicken as though an adder had stung her to the quick? What made her lean her little hand for support on “Water King’s” strong, firm neck? Because her brain was reeling, and everything--joy--sunshine--existence--seemed to be passing away. Was it for the mute reproach conveyed by that pale face amongst the crowd--was it for the calm, broad eye, bent on her “more in sorrow than in anger,” and seeming, as it gazed, to bid her an eternal farewell?

Frank Hardingstone had seen it all. Unobserved himself among the pedestrians that thronged the footway, he had marked Blanche and her cavalier as they paced slowly down the Ride, had marked the girl’s flush of triumph as her admirer drew closer and closer to her side, had marked that nameless “something” between the pair which people can never entirely conceal when they “understand each other,” and had drawn his own conclusions from the sight. But the decencies of society must be preserved, though the heart is breaking, and Frank drew himself up and took his hat off with a bow that did honour to his qualities as an actor. The old gentleman in gaiters and the tall boy from Eton on either side of him never guessed the amount of mental agony undergone by a fellow-creature whom they actually touched! Civilisation has its tortures as well as barbarism. Blanche, too, returned the courtly gesture, but her weaker nature was scarcely equal to the effort, and had it not been that Uncle Baldwin had fidgeted up, on the instant, in more than his usual hurry to get home, she was conscious that her strength must have given way, and--feel for her, beautiful and daring Amazons who frequent the Ride!--that she must have burst into tears, and made a scene in the Park!

Now old Bounce, albeit a gentleman of extremely punctual habits, as is often the case with those who have nothing to do, and, moreover, a man of healthy appetite and a strong regard for the dinner-hour, had never before betrayed such a morbid anxiety to get home and dress as on the occasion in question. The fact is, he, too, was restless and excited, although the sensation had its own peculiar charms for the veteran, who entertained at sixty a spice of that romance which is often erroneously considered peculiar to sixteen. Yes, “the boy with the bow” no more disdained to take a shot at Bounce than at Falstaff, and our old friend was even now balancing on the brink of that eventful plunge which, if not made before “the grand climacteric,” it is generally thought advisable to postpone _sine die_. Mary Delaval had made an unconscious conquest. The feeling had been gradually but surely developed, and the constant presence of such a woman had been too much, even for a heart hardened by more than forty years of soldiering, baked by an Indian sun, and further defended by triple plies of flannel, worn for chronic rheumatism, and usually esteemed as effective a rampart against the assaults of love as the “æs triplex” of Horace itself. First the General thought, “This Mrs. Delaval was a very nice creature. Zounds! it’s lucky for her I’m not a younger man!” then he arrived at “_Beautiful_ woman, begad. _Zounds!_ it’s lucky for _me_ she’s not half aware of her attractions!” and from that the transition was easy and natural to “Sensible person; such manners, such dignity; fit for any position in the world. Zounds! I’ll make her Mrs. Bounce--do as I like--my own commanding-officer, nobody else to consult--of course _she_ won’t throw such a chance away.” This latter consideration, however, although he repeated it to himself twenty times a day, had hitherto prevented the General from making any decided attack. When a man, even an old one, _really_ cares for a woman, he is always somewhat diffident of success, and Mary’s sexagenarian suitor, though bold as brass in theory, was like any other lover in practice. But the breakfast at the barracks had wonderfully encouraged the General. He found Mrs. Delaval constantly at his side. He knew nothing of her previous acquaintance with D’Orville, still less could he guess at the secret which lay buried in her heart, and which was fading her beauty and deepening her expression day by day. How could he tell whose tears they were that blistered the newspaper on that “African Mail” column?--so the natural conclusion at which he arrived was, that the same charms which had done such execution in India, and had driven the Cheltenham widow to the verge of despair, were again at their old tricks; and that, having succeeded in attaching the most adorable of her sex, it only remained for him, in common humanity, to present her with all that was left of his fascinating self. And now began in earnest the General’s qualms and misgivings. It was a tremendous step; he had never done it before; though often on the brink, he had always drawn back in time, and yet many of his old friends had got through it. Mulligatawney had married a widow--by the by, was Mrs. Delaval a widow? he never thought of asking--perhaps her husband was alive! At any rate this state of uncertainty was not to be borne, and after consulting one or two of his old cronies, and getting their opinions, he would take some decided step--that he would--ask the question, and stand the shot like a man. The General agreed with Montrose--

“He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch, To win or lose it all.”

In pursuance of this doughty resolution, our veteran warrior took advantage of his niece’s long _tête-à-tête_ with Major D’Orville to drop behind on the black cob, and sound his two old friends, Mulligatawney of the Civil Service, and Sir Bloomer Buttercup of no service at all, save that of the ladies, on the important step which he meditated taking.

“Lonely place, London,” said the General, reining in the cob, and settling himself into what he considered a becoming attitude, “at least for a bachelor. No solitude like that of a crowd.--What?”

“Better be alone than bothered to death by women,” growled Mulligatawney, a thin, withered, sour-looking individual, with a long yellow face. “I _like_ London, _en garçon_, only Mrs. Mulligatawney always _will_ come up whenever I do. Egad, you bachelors don’t know when you’re well off.”

“Poor bachelors,” simpered Sir Bloomer Buttercup, riding up with his best air, he having dropped behind (a young rogue!) to make eyes at a very smart lady on the _trottoir_. “Poor fellows, nobody lets us alone, Bounce, and yet we’re perfectly harmless--innocent as doves. I wish I was married, though, too; it fixes one, eh? keeps the butterfly constant to the rose;” and Sir Bloomer heaved his padded chest with an admirably got-up sigh, still shooting _oeillades_ at the nowise disconcerted lady on the _trottoir_. You would hardly have guessed Sir Bloomer to be sixty-five; at least, not as he appeared before the world on that cantering grey horse. To be sure, he had his riding costume on; riding hat, riding wig, riding coat, trousers, boots, and padding; not to mention a belt, the loosening of which let the whole fabric fall to pieces. They say he is lifted on his horse; we have reason to believe he could not _walk_ five yards in that dress to save his life. Perhaps if we saw him, as his valet does, divested of his beautiful white teeth, his dark hair and whiskers, his florid healthy colour, and that stalwart deep-chested figure of buckram and wadding which encases the real man within, we might not be disposed to question the accuracy of Burke’s “Peerage and Baronetage” in point of dates. But as he sits now, on his high broke horse, in his well-stuffed saddle, the very youngest of the shavelings who aspire to dandyism call him “Buttercup” to his face, and plume themselves on his notice, and quote him, and look up to him, not as a beacon, but an example.

“You’re _right_, sir,” says the General, with his accustomed energy, in a tone that makes the black cob start beneath him. “Don’t tell me--should have married forty years ago. Never mind; better late than never. Now, I’ll tell you, I’ve thought of it. We’re not to live entirely for ourselves. How d’ye mean? I’ve thought of it, I tell you!”

“_Thought_ of it, have you?” rejoined Mulligatawney, with a grim smile; “then at _your_ time of life, Bounce, I should recommend you to confine yourself to _thinking_ of it.”

“Not at all, my dear fellow,” lisps Sir Bloomer. “Bounce, I congratulate you. Introduce me, _pray_. Is she charming? young? beautiful? graceful? Happy Bounce--lucky dog--irresistible warrior!” The General feels three inches taller, and resolves to settle the matter the instant he gets home. But Mulligatawney interposes with his sardonic grin. “No fool like an old one. You’ll excuse me, but if you ask my advice, I’ll give it you in three words, ‘Do and Repent’; you’ll never regret it but once--_experto crede_.” The General turns from one to the other, like the Wild Huntsman between his ghostly advisers, the Radiant Spirit on his white charger, and the Mocking Demon on his steed from hell--he feels quite incapable of making up his mind.

“Delightful state,” says Sir Bloomer;--“Always in hot water,” growls Mulligatawney. “Lovely woman; affectionate nurse; take care of you when you’re ill,” pleads the one;--“Cross as two sticks; open carriage in an east wind; give a ball when you’ve got the gout,” urges the other. “Interchange of sentiment; linked in rosy chains; heaven upon earth,” lisps the ancient dandy;--“Always quarrelling; Kilkenny cats; if you _must_ go to the devil, go your own way, but not in double harness,” grunts the world-worn cynic: and the General turns his cob’s head and accompanies his niece home, more perplexed than ever, as is usually the case with a man when, bethinking him that “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety,” he has been led into the hopeless labyrinth of “talking the matter over with a few friends.”