MR. PRESCOTT'S PROCEEDINGS.
The Hansom cab conveying Mr. Prescott went at a rapid pace along the
Strand, through the Pall-Mall district, and by divers short cuts into
Piccadilly. There was nothing to stop it; there were no blocks or
stoppages; and as it was the dead season of the year, and every one
was out of town, the Commissioners of Sewers were good enough to leave
the roads alone; reserving until the traffic was in full play their
right to erect gigantic, hideous hoardings in the most crowded
thoroughfares. The streets were deserted, the public buildings shut
up, dust and straw and dirty paper whirled about in the eddying gusts
of the autumnal wind, and the entire appearance of London was dull and
wretched. People had evidently been in doubt what to do about dress;
and while some were in the faded gaiety of the just-departed summer,
others were putting on an even shadier appearance in the creased and
awkward garments of the previous winter. The doctors' carriages and
the hack-cabs had the thoroughfares to themselves; the occupants of
the former, always on the watch for the recognition of some favoured
patient, sat back in their vehicles, engaged either in the perusal of
some medical work, or in happy day-dreams of increased practice, studs
of wearied horses, noble introductions, enormous fees,--all
culminating, perhaps, in baronetcies and appointments at Court.
Of the hack-cabs seen about, but few were Hansoms; for at that season
men who want to go quickly, and don't mind paying a shilling a mile,
are at a discount. Now and then a sun-tanned swell, whose portmanteau
atop nearly obstructed the driver's sight, and who himself was but
dimly visible among gun-cases, hat-boxes, and railway-rugs, might have
been encountered, passing from one terminus to another; but the
"reg'lar riders,"--the lawyer's clerk, with the tape-tied bundle of
papers, who charges his cab to "the office;" the lounging swell; the
M.P. dashing down to the House; the smug-faced capitalist, whose brain
is full of calculation, and who sits the whole way to the City smiling
at all and seeing none; the impecunious speculator, who rides in a cab
because he cannot afford to be seen in an omnibus,--all these were away
from London. And the four-wheelers, though laden, had but dreary
burdens: the fortnight at Margate is over; no more morning dips, no
more afternoon rambles on the sands, no donkey-backs, no
pleasure-boats, no Pegwell Bay now! Paterfamilias is once more Hobbs
and Motchkin's out-door at thirty shillings a week; the eight-roomed
house in Navarino Terrace, Camden Town, resumes its wonted appearance;
the children return to the "curriculum" of education at Miss Gimp's in
the Crescent; and save the sand-covered little wooden spades which hang
from the hat-pegs in the passage, naught remains of their maritime
excursion.
Dreary, dreary, every where! Dreary down in old country mansions,
where, while the men are pheasant-shooting in the woods, the ladies
look dismally on what was lately the croquet-ground, where the
gardeners are now busy sweeping up the leaves, and pressing them into
huge barrows, and wheeling them away; where the trees stand out gaunt
and brown, and where the evergreens bordering the pleasant walks
rustle with the autumnal winds; where the cracks, and flaws, and
dampnesses of old country mansions begin to make themselves
unpleasantly conspicuous; and where the servants, town-bred, commence
to be colded, sniffy, to have shivers and "creeps." Dreary at the
seaside, where the storm-soaked, worm-eaten jetty, lately echoing to
the pattering feet of children, or the sturdy tread of the visitor
taking his constitutional, is now given over to its normal
frequenters--tarry-trousered men in blue jerseys and oilskin
sou'-wester hats, who are always looking out for some boat that never
arrives, or some storm which always comes when they do not expect it;
bills are stuck on the pleasant plate-glass bow windows so lately
filled with pretty girls, rosy children, and parents who dined at two
o'clock, and enjoyed their nuts and port-wine "looking over the sea;"
and the proprietors of the lodging-houses, who have lived in damp
back-kitchens since June, are once more seen above-ground. Dreary in
Continental towns, where home-returning English are finding out that
they have spent too much money on their trip, and bewailing the
Napoleons left as a tribute to the managers of the Homburgh Bank;
where the discomforts of the return sea-passage first assert
themselves, and where couriers and innkeepers are going in for their
last grand turn of robbery and swindle. Dreary, dreary, every where!
but specially dreary in Hyde Park, at the Piccadilly gates, at which
Mr. Prescott leaves his Hansom, and strolls into Rotten Row.
A blank desert of posts and rails and dry dusty gravel; a long strip
of iron-enclosed sand and grit, with half a dozen figures in the
three-quarter mile range to break the dull monotony. As Prescott
mooned drearily along, at five-minute intervals he would hear the
sound of a horse's hoofs, and turning rapidly, would find some
easy-going steed doing its quiet sanitary business for its owner, a
man who, either from circumstances or disposition, never quitted
London, but was to be seen at some time or other of the day in the
Row, no matter what might be the time of year. Interspersed with these
were grooms, riding in that groomy undress of wide-awake hat, short,
stiff shirt-collar, and tight-fitting, yellow-clay-coloured trousers,
trying the wind and bottom of some that were meant to be flyers in the
approaching hunting-season; beasts with heavy, strong quarters, long
backs, short, sharp heads, and rolling eyes, with a preponderance of
white always showing. Country-bred Mr. Prescott, and cannot therefore
divest himself of a certain canniness in the matter of horseflesh: now
and then he leans over the rail to follow the progress of a horseman
flying past, with his hands well down, and every muscle of his steed
brought into splendid play; or the healthy gymnastics of a
valetudinarian, who had learned exactly the utmost amount of exercise
to be derived from his horse as compared with the least amount of
discomfort to be endured by himself. But these do not rivet his
attention; and he passes on until he is nearly abreast of the
Serpentine, when, looking back, he sees a blue skirt fluttering in the
wind, and in an instant recognising its wearer, pulls up by the rails
and waits her advent.
It does not take long for that chestnut mare to cover the distance,
albeit she is being ridden from side to side, and is evidently
receiving her "finishing" in the elegancies of the _manège_ In less
than two minutes she is pulled up short by the rails where Prescott is
standing, and her rider, Kate Mellon, with the colour flushing in her
cheeks, with her eyes aglow, with her hair a trifle dishevelled from
the exercise, is sitting bolt upright, and with the handle of her
riding-whip giving the young gentleman a mock salute.
"Servant, colonel!" says she.
"How do you do, Kate?" says Prescott, leaning forward and touching the
neat little white cuff on her wrist; "I thought I should find you
here."
"More than I thought of you!" says the lady. "Why ain't you counting
up those figures, and adding and subtracting, and all the rest of it
you do in your office, eh?"
"To-day's a half-holiday, Kitty--Saturday, you know," says Prescott,
with rather a grim smile; for he does not like that rough description
of his official duties.
"Oh, ah!" says the lady, with great simplicity; "Saturday, ah!
Confounded nuisance sometimes! Lost my net veil one Saturday afternoon
here in the Row; went to Marshall and Snelgrove's on my way home; all
shut up tight as wax!"
"You're better than you were yesterday, at the station?"
"Oh, yes; I'm all right; I shall do well enough! Wo-ho! steady, old
lady!" (this to the mare). "I'm always better in town. Don't let's
stand here; I can't hold this mare quiet, and that's the truth; she
frets on the curb most awful."
"Most awfully, Kitty, not most awful. I've told you of that a hundred
times."
"Well, most awfully, if you like it better. Steady, Poll! Walk along
by my side. Who are you, I should like to know, to pull me up about my
talking? What right have you to lecture me about my grammar and that?"
"What right?" asks Prescott, suddenly turning white; "none, save the
fact of my loving you, Kitty. You know it well enough, though I've
never told you in so many words. You know that I _do_ love you! You
can't have seen me hanging about you during the last season, making
excuses to come to your place, first there and last to go, hating
every man who had more chances of talking to you than I had,--you
can't have seen all this without knowing that I loved you, Kitty!"
The mare is pulled suddenly up; there is no one near them in the blank
desert of the Row; and her rider says, "And suppose I _did_ know
it,--what then?"
Prescott shrugs his shoulders and looks upon the ground, but does not
reply.
"Have you ever had one word of encouragement from me? Have you ever
seen a look of mine which has led you on? Can you say that, suppose I
tell you to let me hear no more of this,--as I do tell you at once and
for ever,--I have deceived or thrown you over in any one way?"
"Never!"
"Thank God for that!" says the girl, with some bitterness; "for that's
a chalk in my favour, at least. Now look here! I know you, James
Prescott; and I know that you're too good a man--too well brought up
and fond of home and that sort of thing--to hint any thing but what's
right towards me."
"Kitty!"
"There--I know it. Don't break a blood-vessel with your emotion," she
added, gently tapping him on the shoulder with her riding-whip. "All
right. Well, suppose we were married, you'd feel very jolly, wouldn't
you, while you were down at your office doing your sums and things,
which you got so riled when I spoke of just now, to think that Tom
Orme, and Claverhouse, and De Bonnet, and a whole lot of fellows, were
mooning about this place with me?"
"I'd wring all their necks!" says honest Jim Prescott, looking
excessively wobegone.
"Exactly. But you see, if you wrung their necks, they would not send
their wives and sisters and daughters to be taught riding at The Den;
they would not commission me to look out for ladies' hacks, to break
them, and bring them into order; and my trade would be gone. And we
couldn't live on the twopence-halfpenny a-year you get from your
office, Jim, old fellow."
"I know that, Kitty," said poor Prescott; "I know all that; but--"
"Hold on half a second!" interrupted Kate; "let us look the thing
straight in the face, and have it out, Jim, now and for ever. I know
you--know you're a thoroughgoing good fellow, straight as an arrow,
and know that if you married me, you'd stick to me till you dropped.
But you'd have a hard time, Jim--an awful hard time!"
"I should not mind that, Kitty. I'd work for you--"
"Oh, it isn't in that way I mean. But how would you stand having to
break off with your own people for your wife's sake? How could you
take me down to your governor's parsonage, and introduce me there? How
would my manners and my talk please your mother and sisters? It's
madness, Jim,--it's worse than madness,--to talk of such a scheme.
Shake hands, and let's be always good friends--the best of friends. If
you ever want a good turn that I can do, you know where I'm to be
found. God bless you, old boy; but never mention this subject again!"
James Prescott gave a great gulp at a lump which was rising in his
throat, and warmly grasped Kate Mellon's proffered hand. As she raised
her eyes he noticed her colour fade, and saw a troubled expression in
her face.
"Good by, Jim," the said hurriedly. "Just strike down that path, will
you? Get away quickly; here's some one coming; and--and I don't want
to be seen talking to you. Quick! there's a good fellow. Good by."
She touched her horse with her slight whip, and cantered off at once.
Prescott looked in the direction she had indicated, and saw Mr.
Simnel, mounted on a handsome thoroughbred, calmly curveting up the
Row.
What could there be between Kate Mellon and Robert Simnel?