A THUNDER-CLAP
Fully ten days were wanting before the Eton and Harrow cricket-match,
which appears to be pretty generally recognised as the last 'turn' in
the great variety entertainment of the season; there was plenty of
life, and of high life, too, in the town yet; and, what was even more
essential to a thorough enjoyment of the Park, the afternoon, as
regarded the weather, was for once beyond all praise. Moreover,
Royalty was there for at least half an hour; so that the circumstances
attendant upon young Mrs Bligh's first appearance in the ring of
fashion were in every way all that could be desired.
It was an 'appearance'; for Lady Bligh, though in no sense a woman of
fashion, was sufficiently well known to attract attention, which was
heightened by the increasing rarity of her appearances in the
fashionable world. Even had it been otherwise, the robust, striking
beauty of the dark young woman at her side must have awakened interest
on its own account. It did, among those who did not know the Blighs by
sight. But with most people the questions were: Where had Lady Bligh
discovered such a fresh and taking type of prettiness? Was the girl a
relative? Was that Alfred Bligh sitting opposite to the ladies, come
back from Australia disfigured by a beard? Was she his fiancee--or
were they already married? It is intended by no means to imply that
the modest and even homely equipage of Lady Bligh became the cynosure
of Hyde Park; but it was certainly seen; and few saw it with
unawakened curiosity.
One or two persons were able to satisfy to some extent this curiosity,
and took a delight in doing so; Lady Lettice Dunlop, for one. The
curiosity that Lady Lettice relieved was of a languid and peculiarly
well-bred kind. A coronet adorned the barouche in which she rode. She
said rather more than she knew, yet not quite all that she did know,
and said it with a gentle disdain. But Lady Lettice was stopped by a
deprecatory gesture of her mother the Countess before she came to the
end--which made her regret having over-elaborated the beginning. The
Countess considered the story most coarse, and regretted the almost
friendly nature of the bow with which she had just favoured poor Lady
Bligh. Yet, as the Lady Lettice was generous enough to fancy, the
Colonial creature did seem on her very best behaviour this afternoon.
And in her fancy Lady Lettice was nearer the mark than in her facts.
Another person, in an even better position to answer questions
concerning the Bride, was Mr Travers, M.P.--now the newest M.P. but
one. He was walking under the trees with his daughter, whom he was
boring somewhat with his political 'shop'; for he was enough of a new
boy still to be full of his nice new lessons. This Miss Travers,
however, was no young girl, but a woman of thirty, with a kind, sweet,
sympathetic face, and a nature intensely independent. She was best
known for her splendid work in Whitechapel, though how splendid that
work really was no one knew outside the slums, where her face was her
only protection--but a greater one than a cordon of police. But she
had also a reputation as a singer, which need not have been confined
to a few drawing-rooms in the West, and numberless squalid halls in
the East, had she been ambitiously inclined. And this Miss Travers was
attracted and charmed by the bold, conspicuous beauty of young Mrs
Bligh; pressed for an introduction; pressed all the harder on hearing
some plain truths about the Bride and her Bush manners; and presently
had her way.
It was now six o'clock. The crowning period of the afternoon had
commenced with the arrival of Royalty a few minutes before the hour.
Carriages were drawn up by the rails on either side in long, regular
ranks. The trough between presented visions of glossy horseflesh and
flashing accoutrements and flawless japan, to say nothing of fine
looks and finer dress; visions changeful as those of the shaken
kaleidoscope; marvellous, magical visions--no matter how much or how
little they owed to the golden glamour of the sinking sun, visions of
intrinsic wonder.
The Blighs' serviceable vehicle had found an anchorage by the inner
rails in the thick of all this, but not in the thickest. They were, in
fact, no farther than a furlong from the Corner, and thus in
comparatively open water. At this point the shrubs planted between the
two converging courses come to an end, and the two roads are separated
by little more than twenty yards. A little way farther on you can see
only the bobbing heads of the riders over in Rotten Row; but at this
point you have indeed 'the whole show' before you. The position had
been taken up on the Bride's express petition. It was the riding that
interested Gladys. She had no eyes for the smart people in the
carriages when once she could watch with as little trouble the hacks
and their riders in Rotten Row. The little interest she took in the
passing and re-passing of Royalty was somewhat disappointing. But it
was plain that she was enjoying herself in her own way; and that was
everything. When the Traverses came up, the interruption of this
innocent enjoyment was a distinct annoyance to Gladys.
Alfred--to whom it was not an afternoon of wild delight--got out of
the carriage with some alacrity; and Miss Travers, with a very
engaging freedom of manner, got in. She button-holed the Bride (if
that is not an exclusively masculine act--as between man and man),
and at first the Bride did not like it. Very soon, however, Gladys was
pleased to withdraw her attention, partially, from Rotten Row and
transfer it to Miss Travers. Like everybody else, the Bride was
immensely attracted; Miss Travers's manner was so sympathetic, yet
unaffected, and so amazingly free (Gladys thought) from English
stiffness; and her face was infinitely kind and sweet, and her voice
musical and soft.
So Mr Travers, with one foot upon the carriage-step, brought Lady
Bligh up to date in her politics generally, and in his own political
experiences in particular; and Alfred made aimless patterns on the
ground with his feet; and Miss Travers questioned Gladys on the
subject upon which all strangers who were told where she came from
invariably and instantly did question her. But Miss Travers did this
in a way of her own, and a charming way. You would have thought it had
been the dream of her life to go to Australia; you would have inferred
that it was her misfortune and not her fault that her lines were cast
in England instead of out there; and yet you would not, you could not,
have suspected her of hypocrisy. She was one of those singular people
who seem actually to prefer, in common conversation, the _tuum_ to
the _meum_. Gladys was charmed. But still she stole furtive glances
across the space dividing them from the tan; and her answers, which
would have been eager and impetuous enough in any other circumstances,
came often slowly; she was obviously _distraite_.
Miss Travers saw this, and followed the direction of the dark, eager
eyes, and thought she understood. But suddenly there came a quick
gleam into the Bride's eyes which Miss Travers did not understand. A
horsewoman was crossing their span of vision in the Row at a brisk
canter. The Bride became strangely agitated. Her face was transfigured
with surprise and delight and incredulity. Her lips came apart, but no
breath escaped them. Her flashing eyes followed the cantering
horsewoman, who, in figure and in colouring, if not in feature, was
just such another as Gladys herself, and who sat her horse to
perfection. But she was cantering past; she would not turn her head,
she would not look; a moment more and the shrubs would hide her from
Gladys--perhaps for ever.
Before that moment passed, Gladys stood up in the carriage, trembling
with excitement. Careless of the place--forgetful of Lady Bligh, of
all that had passed, of the good understanding so hardly
gained--attracting the attention of Royalty by conspicuously turning
her back upon them as they passed for the fourth time--the Bride
encircled her lips with her two gloved palms, and uttered a cry that
few of the few hundreds who heard it ever forgot:--
'_Coo-ee!_'
That was the startling cry as nearly as it can be written. But no
letters can convey the sustained shrillness of the long, penetrating
note represented by the first syllable, nor the weird, die-away wail
of the second. It is the well-known Bush call, the 'jodel' of the
black-fellow; but it has seldom been heard from a white throat as
Gladys Bligh let it out that afternoon in Hyde Park, in the presence
of Royalty.
To say that there was a sensation in the vicinity of the Blighs'
carriage--to say that its occupants were for the moment practically
paralysed--is to understate matters, rather. But, before they could
recover themselves, the Bride had jumped from the carriage, pressed
through the posts, rushed across to the opposite railings, and seized
in both hands the hand of the other dark and strapping young woman,
who had reined in her horse at once upon the utterance of the
'_Coo-ee!_'
And there was a nice little observation, audible to many, which Gladys
had let fall in flying:--
'Good Lord deliver us--it's _her_!'