MAKING READY FOR VICTORY.
The fair spring days flit by; the violets and primroses, bluebells
and wind-flowers, fade in the copses, unseen, unknown, uncared for,
save by a few peasant children; the white blossoms of the pears--the
pinky bloom of the apples--have drifted away on the light west winds
like summer snow; ferns uncurl their tender fronds in thicket and
lane, and stand up to hail the summer. The cuckoo’s last call dies
in the silence of the wood, the skylark’s clear carol rings out
above the tall green corn. Summer has come--summer has come--and the
little children of Redcastle--the children of the commonality, at
least--wander far afield under the midday sun, and lose themselves
in distant woods, and drain the cup of summer joys to the dregs. The
children of the _élite_ regard summer as a period in which they wear
starched frocks, find French and German grammar more than usually
oppressive, and entertain hopes of going to the sea-side.
Sibyl welcomes June and the roses with a languid greeting. That
smooth, easy life has begun to pall a little on Stephen Trenchard’s
niece. Despite its pleasantness, it is at best a monotonous
existence, and youth’s eager spirit revolts against monotony. Not
willingly would Sibyl confess even to herself that she is tired of
Lancaster Lodge and Redcastle dinner parties, Redcastle compliments,
Redcastle life altogether.
She wishes that her uncle would extend the circle of his
acquaintance, yet is obliged to admit that it would not be easy for
him to do so at Redcastle. The county people have not called upon
Mr. Trenchard. Aloof in their fastnesses among the hills and moors,
the county people refuse to bow to the golden calf, hug themselves
in their social privileges, and do not recognise the fact of an old
gentleman having made money in India as a reason why they should
go out of the beaten track to take notice of him. From their lofty
region of territorial estate they look down with an equal disdain
upon professional and commercial people who live in a town and call
five acres of garden and paddock _land_. Stephen Trenchard’s million
is nothing to them, or if they think of his wealth at all, it is with
resentment, as a sign of the times, and an irrefutable proof that
England is going to the dogs.
Perhaps it is the very fact of the county people’s exclusiveness
which makes Sibyl regard them with a certain amount of interest.
Those big broad-shouldered young men she has seen ride past her
window in the hunting season, sitting their horses much more easily
than Frederick Stormont sits his chair, glorious in ‘pink’ and
buckskins, loud voiced, large whiskered, seem to her of a different
race from young Groshen, or young Stormont, or Dr. Mitsand’s
pale-faced spectacled son, whose manly vigour has degenerated into
brains, Mr. Twells the curate, or Mr. Jewson the lawyer. To her
fancy there is something grand about these sons of the soil, a rough
nobility, an outspoken contempt for the petty conventionalities which
constitute the small despotism of Redcastle society. _Cæsar est supra
grammaticam._ The county people are above good manners--that is to
say, good manners as understood in Redcastle.
The town and the county meet occasionally in the hunting-field, where
the county looks on with a smile at some of the town’s feats in
horsemanship, leaves the town three fields behind for the most part,
and now and then deposits the town in ditches or hangs it out to dry
on a stiff bullfinch.
Twice in every year town and county meet on equal ground. Redcastle,
small and obscure as it is in the eyes of the outer world, boasts a
racecourse, and as pretty a course in a small way as any in England.
Less than a mile out of the town, on that broad open common known as
Redcastle Woods, gleam the white posts of the course, and the white
walls of the stand, a permanent and substantial building. Redcastle
has its spring and summer meeting, two days on each occasion--and
just the merriest two days in that part of the world. Granted that
horses of much weight or _prestige_ rarely appear at Redcastle;
the fact only leaves the ground open to the horses of the local
aristocracy, and makes the races so much the more interesting to
Redcastle itself.
Sibyl has never seen a race in her life, and it was not without a
struggle that she declined Mrs. Stormont’s invitation to join her
party at the spring meeting. Now comes the summer meeting, and
another invitation from the leader of Redcastle society.
‘Rose and Violet,’ the dear girls are named after those favourite
flowers--five feet ten each of them, and with the complexions of
cookmaids;--‘Rose and Violet will be so disappointed if you refuse
to join our party, my dear Sibyl. Of course I say nothing of Fred’s
feelings.’
‘Why don’t you go with them, child?’ asks Mr. Trenchard, when Sibyl
reads him the letter, laughing as she reads.
‘I don’t care for pleasures that you cannot share, uncle.’
‘Nonsense, my dear! I could share this if I liked. For my part, I
could never understand what people could see in a race, unless as a
hazardous investment with the possibility of enormous returns. I can
fancy a bookman enjoying the races in a business-like way; but for
people to sit in their carriages to look on at other people winning
or losing, and call it pleasure, that passes my comprehension.’
‘I should like to see a race for once in my life,’ says Sibyl,
languishing for any novel sensation that may ruffle the mill-pond of
her existence.
‘Then write and accept Mrs. Stormont’s invitation, my dear.’
‘You won’t think me unkind for going without you?’
‘I should think you much more unkind if you wanted me to go with you.’
So it is settled. Sibyl tells her dear Mrs. Stormont that she is
charmed to accept her kind invitation, and summons Miss Eylett
to immediate counsel. She has ever so many pretty dresses in her
wardrobe, but she must have something new for this occasion, with a
view to crushing dear Violet and Rose by the exhibition of a dress
they have never seen before. The invitation has been given a week
before the races, so there is time for preparation. The council is a
solemn one, and by the intensity of Sibyl’s desire to look her best
may be measured her hatred of dear Rose and Violet.
‘Now mind, Miss Eylett,’ she begins, after she has looked through
_Le Follet_ and pronounced all the illustrations ‘hideous,’ ‘I must
have nothing that can possibly look like a shopkeeper’s wife’s Sunday
gown--no flaming pink or blue that people can see a mile off----’
‘Mauve, or a rich voylet, now,’ suggests Miss Eylett, in her
persuasive voice.
‘My dear Eylett, mauve and violet are the colours vulgar people
choose when they want to be genteel.’
‘A sweet French grey.’
‘Give me a housemaid’s afternoon gown at once.’
‘A cinnamon brown.’
‘A doctor’s wife’s dinner dress. No, I must have some pale indistinct
colour softened with a cloud of India muslin. A dress which looks
nothing particular at a distance, but which is fit for a princess
when you come to look into it. Mr. Trenchard gave me an embroidered
Indian muslin, which will be just the thing, over a pale maize corded
silk,--you know the shade I mean, straw-colour shot with apricot.’
Sibyl opens a huge camphor chest, in which she keeps her treasures,
and displays a muslin dress fine as a cobweb, and covered with
embroidery.
‘Exquisite!’ exclaims Miss Eylett; ‘what taste you have, Miss
Faunthorpe!’
She would have been just as enthusiastic had Sibyl suggested
pickled-cabbage colour, picked out with pea-green.
‘And you must make me a bonnet exactly to match the dress.’
‘Of course, Miss Faunthorpe, I’ll go round to Carmichael’s at once,
and see if they’ve got the colour; and if they haven’t I’ll take the
three o’clock train to Krampston.’
This question settled, Sibyl feels easy in her mind, and looks
forward to next week with pleasure. The summer is at its height--mid
July,--and a delicious July, warm, dry, ripening roses and ripening
corn, swelling the peaches on the wall, and reddening the apples in
the orchard--all the land basking in the sun, and Redcastle High
Street a place to look at blinkingly between two and five in the
afternoon, and a burning ploughshare to walk upon. Marion and Jenny
come toiling along the sun-baked pavement in the very hottest hour
of the afternoon to visit their prosperous sister,--Jane splendid in
the peach-coloured silk and new boots, and a hat that is too small
for her large round head, with its thick brown hair in curls that no
application of the hair-brush will reduce from their disorder to the
smoothness of civilization.
Sibyl receives her sisters languidly, under the plane trees,
exhausted by her interview with Miss Eylett. Marion’s temper is not
improved by the warm walk, or by the labour of getting Jenny up in a
style befitting Lancaster Lodge.
‘There never was such a troublesome child,’ she complains as she
sinks into a rustic arm-chair, conscious that her face is the colour
of a boiled lobster, while Sibyl, in cream-coloured Indian silk, and
a turquoise blue sash, is looking divinely pale. ‘Look at her legs.
She has grown out of that frock already; and as for ever keeping her
decently dressed, I defy you. There’s the print of a slice of bread
and butter on the front breadth, and smears of marmalade all over the
sleeves, though she’s only worn the frock on Sundays.’
‘Let her wear it every day and wear it out,’ says Sibyl, generously;
‘she shall have another for best.’
‘Oh, you dear!’ cries Jenny; ‘but if you knew what a life Marion
leads me when I’ve a good frock on you might think it a greater
charity never to give me one.’
‘You ungrateful minx,’ exclaims Marion, ‘didn’t I stand half an hour
this broiling afternoon doing your hair?’
‘Pulling it, you mean,’ responds Jenny. ‘If you’d combed it with a
hay-fork and brushed it with a bush harrow you couldn’t have hurt me
more.’
‘There’s gratitude!’ ejaculates Marion, pointing to the offender.
‘_My_ idea of gratitude is thankfulness for things we want,’ reasons
Jenny, who is good at argument. ‘I didn’t want my hair pulled.’
‘Well, Sibyl,’ says Marion, ‘is uncle Trenchard going to the races?’
Everybody thinks and talks of the races at this time. It is the one
subject of conversation in Redcastle. A rare thing for Redcastle to
have so much as one subject of conversation; as a rule, the town
contrives to be conversational about nothing.
‘No, uncle Trenchard hates races. I am going with the Stormonts.’
‘Indeed! I thought you wouldn’t go anywhere without your uncle.’
‘No more I would in an ordinary way, but I felt a kind of interest in
the races. One hears so much of them.’
‘I feel a kind of interest in them too,’ says Marion, with an injured
air. ‘I’ve been hearing about Redcastle races ever since I left
school, and yet, living so near, I’ve never seen them. Uncle Robert
has got a pony that would take us, but he has not got the spirit.
You might have asked uncle Trenchard to let you take us all in his
barouche. I dare say uncle Robert would have gone if you’d taken him.’
Sibyl looks doubtful as to the delight of such a family party.
‘I’ve accepted Mrs. Stormont’s invitation, you see,’ she replies,
apologetically.
‘Oh yes, of course, catch you putting yourself out of the way for
anybody! Another girl in your position might have thought of her poor
relations. What are you going to wear?’
Sibyl describes the costume which she and Miss Eylett have arranged
that morning. Poor Marion listens in an agony of envy.
‘What a lot of money uncle Trenchard must give you!’ she exclaims.
‘No, he doesn’t give me much, but he allows me to keep an account at
Carmichael’s.’
‘Well,’ sighs Marion, ‘I would give a year of my life to go to the
races this day week.’
‘What a pity our lives are not transferable like railway stock,’ says
Sibyl, airily. She is not deeply moved by Marion’s piteous condition.
Her mind is occupied with a prophetic vision of her triumphs next
Wednesday. She will see and be seen by the county. That idea is more
inspiring than the prospect of a day spent with the Stormonts, whom
she knows by heart, or even the privilege of beholding Mrs. Groshen’s
raiment, which is sure to be resplendent and of the very latest
fashion, however hideous in the abstract and individually unbecoming
that fashion may be.