THE GAME OF CROQUET.
Now I advise all serious, sensible individuals who never intend to do
anything that is not exactly most reasonable and most prudent, and who
always do exactly as they intend, not to follow my steps on the present
occasion, for I am going to do exactly what is _not_ to be recommended
to young gentlemen in my situation, and certainly what is not at all
prudent.
For if a young man finds himself without recall, hopelessly in love with
one whose smiles are all for another, his best way is to keep out of her
society, and in a course of engrossing business that will leave him as
little time to think of her as possible.
I had every advantage for pursuing this course, for I had a press of
writing upon me, finishing up a batch of literary job-work which I
wished to get fairly out of the way so that I might give my whole
energies to Bolton in our new enterprise. In fact, to go off
philandering to a croquet party up the North River was a sheer piece of
childish folly, and the only earthly reason I could really give for it
was the presence of a woman there that I had resolved to avoid. In fact
I felt that the thing was so altogether silly that I pretended to myself
that I was impregnably resolved against it, and sat myself down in
Bolton's room making abstracts from some of his books, knowing all the
while that Jim would seek me out there and have his moral fish-hook fast
in my coat collar, as in truth he did.
"Come, come, Hal," he said, bursting in, "I promised the divinest of her
sex to bring you along."
"Oh nonsense, Jim! it's out of the question," said I. "I've got to get
this article done."
"Oh, you be hanged with your article, come along! What's the use of a
fellow's shutting himself up with books? I tell you, Hal, if you're
going to write for _folks_ you must _see_ folks and folks must see you,
and you must be around and into and a part of all that's going on. Come
on! Why, you don't know the honor done you. Its a tip-top select party,
and all the handsomest girls and all the nobby fellows will be there,
and no end of fun. Sydney's place alone is worth going to see. Its the
crack place on the river; and then they say the engagement is going to
be declared, and everybody is wild to know whether it is or isn't to be,
and the girls are furbishing up fancy suits to croquet in. Miss Alice
treated me to a glimpse of hers as I met her on Tullegig's steps, and
its calculated to drive a fellow crazy, and so _come now_," said Jim,
pulling away my papers and laying hold of me, "let's go out and get some
gloves and proceed to make ourselves up. We have the press to represent,
and we must be nobby, so hang expense! here's for Jouvin's best, and let
to-morrow take care of itself."
Now, seconding all these temptations was that perverse inclination that
makes every man want to see a little more and taste a little more of
what he has had too much already. Moreover I wanted to see Eva and Wat
Sydney together. I wanted to be certain and satisfy myself with my own
eyes, not only that they were engaged but that she was in love with him.
If she be, said I to myself, she is certainly an exquisite coquette and
a dangerous woman for me to keep up an acquaintance with.
In thinking over as I had done since Mrs. Van Arsdel's motherly
conversation, all our intercourse and acquaintance with each other, her
conduct sometimes seemed to me to be that of a veritable "Lady Clara
Vere de Vere," bent on amusing herself, and diversifying the tedium of
fashionable life by exciting feelings which she had no thought of
returning. When I took this view of matters I felt angry and
contemptuous and resolved to show the fair lady that I could be as
indifferent as she. Sometimes I made myself supremely wretched by
supposing that it was by her desire that Mrs. Van Arsdel had held the
conversation with me, and that it was a sort of intimation that she had
perceived my feelings, and resolved to put a decided check upon them.
But of course nothing so straightforward and sensible as going to her
for an explanation of all this was to be thought of. In fact our
intercourse with one another ever since the memorable occasion I refer
to had been daily lessening, and now was generally limited to passing
the most ordinary common-places with each other. She had grown cold and
dry, almost haughty, and I was conscious of a most unnatural rigidity
and constraint. It seemed to me sometimes astonishing when I looked back
a little, to reflect how perfectly easy and free and unconstrained we
always had been up to a certain point, to find that now we met with so
little enjoyment, talked and said so little to any purpose. It was as if
some evil enchanter had touched us with his wand stiffening every nerve
of pleasure. To look forward to meeting her in society was no longer, as
it had been, to look forward to delightful hours; and yet for the life
of me I could not help going where this most unsatisfactory, tantalizing
intercourse was all I had to hope for.
But to-day, I said to myself, I would grasp the thorns of the situation
so firmly as to break them down and take a firm hold on reality. If,
indeed, her engagement were to-day to be declared, I would face the
music like a man, walk up to her and present my congratulations in due
form, and then the acquaintance would make a gallant finale in the glare
of wedding lamps and the fanfaronade of wedding festivities, and away to
fresh fields and pastures new.
In short, whatever a man is secretly inclined to do there are always a
hundred sensible incontrovertible reasons to be found for doing, and so
I found myself one of the gay and festive throng on board the steamer. A
party of well-dressed people floating up the North River of a bright
Spring day is about as ideal a picture of travel as can be desired. In
point of natural scenery the Rhine is nothing compared with the Hudson,
and our American steamboats certainly are as far ahead of any that ever
appeared on the Rhine as Aladdin's palace is ahead of an ordinary
dwelling. The most superb boat on the river had been retained for the
occasion, and a band of music added liveliness to the scene as we moved
off from the wharf in triumph, as gay, glittering, festive a company as
heart could wish.
Wat Sydney as host and entertainer was everywhere present, making
himself agreeable by the most devoted attentions to the comfort of the
bright band of tropical birds, fluttering in silks and feathers and
ribbons, whom he had charge of for the day. I was presented to him by
Jim Fellows, and had an opportunity to see that apart from his immense
wealth he had no very striking personal points to distinguish him from a
hundred other young men about him. His dress was scrupulously adjusted,
with a care and nicety which showed that he was by no means without
consideration of the personal impression he made. Every article was the
choicest and best that the most orthodox fashionable emporiums
pronounced the latest thing, or as Jim Fellows phrased it, decidedly
"nobby." He was of a medium height, with very light hair and eyes, and
the thin complexion which usually attends that style, and which, under
the kind of exposure incident to a man's life, generally tends to too
much redness of face.
Altogether, my first running commentary on the man as I shook hands with
him was, that if Eva were in love with him it was not for his beauty;
yet I could see glances falling on him on all sides from undeniably
handsome eyes that would have excused any man for having a favorable
conceit of his own personal presence.
Mr. Sydney was well accustomed to being the cynosure of female eyes, and
walked the deck with the assured step of a man certain of pleasing. A
rich good-humored young man who manifests himself daily in splendid
turn-outs, who rains down flowers and confectionery among his feminine
acquaintances, and sends diamonds and pearls as philopoena presents,
certainly does not need a romantic style of beauty or any particular
degree of mental culture to make his society more than acceptable.
Prudent mammas were generally of opinion that the height of felicity for
a daughter would be the position that should enable her to be the
mistress and dictatrix of his ample fortune. Mr. Sydney was perfectly
well aware of this state of things. He was a man a little _blasé_ with
the kind attentions of matrons, and tolerably secure of the good-will of
very charming young ladies. He had the prestige of success, and had
generally carried his points in the world of men and things. Miss Eva
Van Arsdel had been the first young lady who had given him the novel
sensation of a repulse, and thenceforth became an object of absorbing
interest in his eyes. Under the careless good-humor of his general
appearance Sydney had a constitutional pertinacity, a persistence in his
own way that had been a source of many of his brilliant successes in
business. He was one of those whom obstacles and difficulties only
stimulate, and whose tenacity of purpose increases with resistance. He
was cautious, sagacious, ready to wait and watch and renew the attack at
intervals, but never to give up. To succeed was a tribute to his own
self-esteem, and whatever was difficult of attainment was the more
valuable.
A little observation during the course of the first hour convinced me
that there was as yet no announcement of an engagement. Mrs. Van Arsdel
and Aunt Maria Wouvermans, to be sure, were on most balmy and
confidential terms with Mr. Sydney, addressing him with every
appearance of mysterious intimacy, and quite willing to produce the
impression that the whole fête was in some manner a tribute to the
family, but these appearances were not carried out by any coöperative
movements on the part of Eva herself. She appeared radiant in a fanciful
blue croquet suit which threw out to advantage the golden shade of her
hair, and the pink sea-shell delicacy of her cheek, and as usual she had
her court around her and was managing her circle with the address of a
practiced _habituée_ of society.
"Favors to none, to all, she smiles extends,
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her beams the gazers strike,
And like the sun, they smile on all alike."
Unlike many of her sex, Eva had the faculty of carrying the full cup of
bellehood without spilling an unseemly drop, and as she was one of those
who seem to have quite as much gift in charming her feminine as her
masculine acquaintances, she generally sat surrounded by an admiring
body-guard of girls who laughed at her jests and echoed her bon mots and
kept up a sort of radiant atmosphere of life and motion and gayety
around her. Her constitutional good-nature, her readiness to admire
other people, and to help each in due season to some small portion of
the applause and admiration which is lying about loose for general
circulation in society, all contributed to her popularity. As I
approached the circle they were discussing with great animation the
preliminaries of a match game of croquet that was proposed to be played
at Clairmont to-day.
"Oh, here comes Mr. Henderson! let's ask him," she said, as I approached
the circle.
"Don't you think it will be a nice thing?" she said. "Mr. Sydney has
arranged that after playing the first games as a trial the four best
players shall be elected to play a match game, two on each side."
"I think it will vary the usual monotony of croquet," said I.
"Hear him," she said, gaily, "talk of the usual monotony of croquet! For
my part I think there is a constant variety to it, no two games are ever
alike."
"To me," I said, "it seems that after a certain amount of practice the
result is likely to be the same thing, game after game."
"Girls," she said, "I perceive that Mr. Henderson is used to carrying
all before him. He is probably a champion player who will walk through
all the wickets as a matter of course."
"Not at all," I said. "On the contrary I shouldn't wonder if I should
'booby' hopelessly at the very first wicket."
"And none the worse for that," said Sydney. "I've boobied three times
running, in the first of a game, and yet beaten; it gets one's blood up,
and one _will_ beat."
"For my part," said Miss Alice, "the more my blood is up the less I can
do; if I get excited I lose my aim, my hand trembles, and I miss the
very simplest move."
"I think there is nothing varies so much as one's luck in croquet," said
Eva. "Sometimes for weeks together I am sure to hit every aim and to
carry every wicket, and then all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason, I
make the most absurd failures, and generally when I pique myself on
success."
"I think, Miss Eva, I remember you as the best player in Newport last
Summer," said Mr. Sydney.
"And likely as not I shall fail ingloriously to-day," said she.
"Well, we shall all have a time for bringing our hands in," said Mr.
Sydney. "I have arranged four croquet grounds, and the fifth one is laid
out for the trial game with longer intervals and special difficulties in
the arrangement, to make it as exciting as possible. The victorious side
is to have a prize."
"Oh, how splendid! What is the prize to be? was the general
exclamation."
"Behold, then!" said Mr. Sydney, drawing from his pocket a velvet case
which when opened displayed a tiny croquet mallet wrought in gold and
set as a lady's pin. Depending from it by four gold chains were four
little balls of emerald, ruby, amethyst, and topaz.
"How perfectly lovely! how divine! how beautiful!" were the sounds that
arose from the brilliant little circle that were in a moment
precipitated upon the treasure.
"You will really set them all by the ears, Mr. Sydney," said Mrs. Van
Arsdel. "Croquet of itself is exciting enough; one is apt to lose one's
temper."
"You ought to see mamma and Mrs. Van Duzen and Aunt Maria play," said
Eva, "if you want to see an edifying game, it's too funny. They are all
so polite and so dreadfully courtly and grieved to do anything
disagreeable to each other, and you know croquet is such a perfectly
selfish, savage, unchristian game; so when poor Mrs. Van Duzen is told
that she ought to croquet mamma's ball away from the wicket, the dear
lady, is quite ready to cry and declares that it would be such a pity to
disappoint her, that she croquets her through her wicket, and looks
round apologizing for her virtues with such a pitiful face! 'Indeed, my
dear, I couldn't help it!'"
"Well," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, "I really think it is too bad when a poor
body has been battering and laboring at a difficult wicket to be
croqueted back a dozen times."
"It's meant for the culture of Christian patience, mamma," said Eva.
"Croquet is the game of life, you see."
"Certainly," said Mr. Sydney, rubbing his hands, "and it teaches you
just how to manage, use your friends to help yourself along, and then
croquet them into good positions; use your enemies as long as you want
them, and then send them to----."
"The devil," said Jim Fellows, who never hesitated to fill up an
emphatic blank in the conversation.
"I didn't say that," said Mr. Sydney.
"But you meant it, all the same; and that's the long and the short of
the philosophy of the game of life," said Jim.
"And" said I, "one may read all sorts of life-histories in the game.
Some go on with a steady aim and true stroke, and make wickets, and hit
balls, yet are croqueted back ingloriously or hopelessly wired and lose
the game, while others blunder advantageously and are croqueted along by
skillful partners into all the best places."
"There are few of us girls that make our own wickets in life," said Eva.
"We are all croqueted along by papas and mammas."
"And many a man is croqueted along by a smart wife," said Sydney.
"But more women by smart husbands," said Mrs. Van Arsdel.
On that there was a general exclamation, and the conversation forthwith
whisked into one of those animated whirlwinds that always arise when the
comparative merits of the sexes are moved. There was a flutter of
ribbons and a rustle of fans and a laughing cross-fire of sharp sayings,
till the whole was broken up by the announcement that we were drawing
near the landing.