THE MAGNUM BONUM
WHEN the Reverend’s butler came in the first time with a fresh supply of
claret, he found the assembled guests making themselves happy each in
his own way. His master and Struggles were crossing the Skeffington
Lordship with great enthusiasm, in an imaginary run with Mr. Tailby’s
hounds. Brush was expatiating on the merits of the vintage to the
Honourable Crasher, who, saying but little in reply, was smiling
faintly, and denoting his approval by the regularity with which he
charged and emptied his glass. Savage, who dabbled in science, was
explaining to Sawyer with considerable perspicuity, a new discovery
termed phonography, by which sounds or vibrations of air are to be taken
down as they arise, upon the principle of the photograph, and which,
when thoroughly perfected and carried out, will make it no longer an
impertinence to request a bystander “not to look at you in that tone of
voice,” and flattered himself that so good a listener must be imbibing
stores of valuable information from his remarks; Mr. Sawyer, however,
was lost in delicious dreams, tinged, as the decanter waned, with rosier
and rosier hues. He was, for the moment, unconscious of Savage, of
Brush, of Crasher, and only recognised the Reverend as the purveyor of
the best claret he had ever drunk, and the father of such an angel as
all England could not match.
The second time the white-waistcoated functionary arrived with “another
of the same,” things wore a far different aspect. Everybody was talking
at once on the same subject. Like a bag-fox before an unruly pack of
hounds, the topic of steeple-chasing had been started for the general
confusion, and each ran his own line and threw his tongue for his own
especial encouragement; there seemed no doubt about the long-talked-of
race coming off. Preliminaries were adjusted, weights discussed, and a
country suggested. Even Struggles seemed to have got over his aversion
to the mongrel sport. But on the stout Ganymede’s third and last
appearance with “the landlord’s bottle,” the storm was at its loudest,
Mr. Sawyer laying down the law with the best. Betting-books were out:
even the Reverend had produced what he called “some memorandums;” and
the only intelligible sounds, amidst the clamour, were the ominous words
“five-to-two”—current odds which everybody seemed to lay, and nobody to
take. The discreet servant then whispered to his master that a second
edition of coffee was ready to go into the drawing-room, and ere long a
glass of brown sherry all round screwed our friends’ courage up to face
the ladies once more.
Each man accordingly composed his features into a vacant simper, pulled
his neckcloth up, and his wristbands down, and straddled into the
presence of those indulgent beings, with an abortive attempt to look as
if he, individually, had been drinking little or no wine.
Cissy was at the pianoforte. If Mr. Sawyer had thought her charming
before, what must have been his opinion of that sparkling young lady
now, seen through the medium of a fair share of champagne at dinner, and
the best part of two bottles of claret afterwards? Lights, dress, and a
general atmosphere of luxury and refinement, have a wonderful effect in
enhancing the attractions of the fair. Alas, that we should have lived
to admit it! Though the poet may opine that “beauty unadorned is adorned
the most,” our hackneyed taste cannot but confess that it prefers the
French maid’s _coiffure_ to the dishevelled tresses; the trim silk
stocking, and neat satin shoe, to the slippers down at heel; and the
shapely _corsage_, with its abundant _crinoline_, to the limp and
unassuming dressing-gown. Mr. Sawyer was quite satisfied with Cissy as
she was.
The musician was playing “The Swallows,” or “The Humming Bird,” or “The
Spring Geese;” Sawyer had no ear for music, and neither knew nor cared
which. She just glanced at him as he entered the room, but the
encouragement was sufficient to lead him to the instrument.
“How _long_ you have been!” said Miss Cissy in a low voice, without
looking up, rattling away at the keys in the loudest of _finales_, with
a vehemence that drowned her observations to all ears but her admirer’s.
Then she closed the instrument, whispered papa to order the whist-table,
and went and sat on the sofa by Mrs. Merrywether in such a position that
Mr. Sawyer couldn’t possibly get at her.
They do not read Izaak Walton, these young women, and yet how well they
know how to play their fish! Is it constant reflection and mutual
discussion, I wonder, that makes the least experienced of them such
skilful anglers? or is it not rather an intuitive sagacity, akin to that
with which the kitten teases her ball of cotton as dexterously as the
cat does a full-grown mouse? They suck it in, the science of man-taming,
I am inclined to believe, with their mothers’ milk. Mamma was just the
same, doubtless; and grandmamma too, whom she can just remember, with a
cough and crutches, and so on, up to Eve.
With the good-humoured Struggles for a partner and so much of his brains
as the claret had left untouched, filled with the image of a dark-eyed
young person in white muslin, it was Mr. Sawyer’s lot to do battle at
the noble game of whist, against two no less formidable antagonists than
Savage and Parson Dove, both first-rate performers even after dinner.
To be successful at this pastime, a man’s whole intellects should be
engrossed by the cards, and this was by no means the case with our
friend. In spite of his partner’s good-humoured entreaties to “pay
attention,” he could not prevent his thoughts, and sometimes his eyes,
from wandering to the sofa near the fire-place. He had never liked Brush
quite as well as the rest of his companions, but on the present occasion
he could not refrain from wishing him even in a hotter place than that
which he had selected. The Major with devoted gallantry, having placed
his back to a fire that would have roasted an ox, was holding forth in
his most agreeable manner to Mrs. Merrywether and the laughing Cissy.
Crasher, in the easiest of arm-chairs, was helping Mrs. Dove to make
paper lights, and revolving in his own mind, while he listened amiably
to the continuous discourse of his hostess, whether he wouldn’t pole up
Marathon a little shorter going home, and try the more direct road
against which the Reverend was in the habit of warning his guests. They
would save a mile, in distance, he thought, and there was sure to be
more light on their return. The Honourable had a sort of vague idea,
that there was always a moon about one or two o’clock.
Suddenly an explosion of laughter from the window, under cover of which
the unconscious Sawyer revoked, and was immediately found out, startled
the whole assembly. “How absurd you are!” exclaimed that noisy dame, in
answer to some proposition of the Major’s which appeared highly amusing
to the ladies on the sofa. “Now I appeal to ‘Cissy’ whether she agrees
with you. Girls are the best judges. Cissy! _do_ you think the Major as
invincible as he says he is?”
Mr. Sawyer, on thorns to hear the answer, trumped his partner’s best
with considerable emphasis, and lost _another_ trick.
“It’s not fair to ask _me_,” answered Miss Dove, laughing heartily. “He
knows I admire him _immensely_; I’ve always told him so!” and the three
went on with their conversation, which, I am bound to say, was great
nonsense, but amused them considerably all the same.
After this, Struggles thought the sooner they left off whist the better.
There is scarcely a mistake, of which that intricate game admits, into
which Mr. Sawyer did not rush, so to speak, as if with a suicidal
purpose. “Hang the fellow!” thought Struggles, eyeing his partner with a
kind of good-humoured astonishment: “if he was drunk, one could
understand it; never saw such a thing! never saw such cards so thrown
away! and yet the man’s no fool. Oh! he _must_ be drunk! _must_ be! but
carries his liquor with discretion!” and thereupon Struggles found
himself looking upon his partner’s features with a more indulgent eye,
and contemplating his own losses with the resignation of a man who
suffers in a good cause.
Three rubbers! one of them a bumper! How many points, for the sake of my
hero, I am ashamed to confess. It was indeed, as Struggles pathetically
remarked, “about the worst night he’d ever had, since he left
Westminster.”
Yet there was balm in Gilead, after all. The Honourable, resisting all
entreaties to stay and have some supper, rang to order his phaeton
round, and went fast asleep in his arm-chair after the exertion. Their
host, exhilarated by his winnings, and in high good-humour, began about
the steeple-chase; and the ladies, who, I am convinced, patronise these
exhibitions chiefly on account of the silk jackets, and connect them
remotely in their own minds with a fancy dress ball, began to betray
great curiosity on the subject of the “colours of the riders,” “_gorge
de pigeon_,” the Major’s selected hue, having decidedly the call. During
the discussion which so favourite a topic was sure to engender, it came
out, somehow, that Mr. Sawyer was going to take part in the hazardous
amusement—an announcement which he made darkly, and with a sidelong
glance at Cissy, that seemed to say he would rather break his neck than
not. The young lady having teased him enough, was quite ready to meet
him halfway. “Isn’t it very dangerous?” said she, with clasped hands and
a look of affectionate interest. “Are you _really_ going to ride, Mr.
Sawyer? Oh! how I _hope_ you’ll win!” And down went the eyelashes once
more.
After that, what cared Mr. Sawyer for rubbers, bumpers, points and
losses? Everything was _couleur de rose_ again. Whilst the others
gathered round the wine-and-water tray, he sank down on the sofa by her
side, and for a delicious five minutes had his enslaver all to himself.
In that brief period, he managed to find out her favourite colour, and
promised to adopt it in the coming steeple-chase. A few stars were
twinkling dimly through the cloudy atmosphere when he lit his cigar and
got into the phaeton by the Honourable’s side. Why couldn’t Mr. Sawyer
look at them without thinking of Cissy Dove?
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