MRS. BEACHAM GOES A PLEASURING.
“Well, mother, ain’t this better now than to be sitting mending
stockings, and to be bothering about pickles and preserves at home?”
asked genial John Beacham of his highly respectable parent as mother and
son, sitting in the front-seat of the most well-appointed of “traps,”
were jogging quietly along the pleasant lanes towards Danescourt.
It was somewhat against the grain, and not a little to his own
inconvenience, that John Beacham was devoting a day to amuse his
womankind on that eventful twenty-fourth of July. Danescourt was a good
five-and-twenty miles from the Paddocks. In little more than
half-an-hour the travellers could be conveyed by rail from Switcham to
Gawthorpe; the latter place being the nearest town and station--distant
about three miles--from Danescourt. But Mrs. Beacham unfortunately
entertained, amongst other immutable prejudices, a very decided one
against steam locomotion. As a rule she was not greatly troubled with
“nerves;” but the exception was when, by some extraordinary
concatenation of circumstances, she found herself whirled along in an
express-train, gasping for breath, and ejaculating piteous appeals for
protection to that Power which, under the ordinary circumstances of
everyday life, we are all of us so given both to ignore and to forget.
It was a standing joke (when that lady was not present) that old Mrs.
Beacham invariably began to say her prayers the moment the pace of the
train by which she was travelling commenced to accelerate. Indeed, so
patent and unmistakable were her sufferings, that John--well-to-do,
open-handed John--who, “thank goodness, was not obliged to look twice at
a shilling before he spent it,” and who was unwilling to turn a day’s
pleasure into one of penance, decided to drive his mother and his pretty
wife in the new “trap;” services of that famous horse “Jolly Boy,” an
animal who could “trot his nine mile an hour, sir, without turning a
hair,” being put into requisition on the occasion. As a matter of
course, her own personal dignity being concerned in the matter, Mrs.
Beacham had required some pressing before she allowed herself to be
persuaded to attend the gala scene at Danescourt. _She_ was not wanted,
the old lady declared, in such gay places as that. At _her_ age she was
better at home minding the house; while other people, who _were_ fond of
gadding about, took their pleasure in Lord Guernsey’s park. It was
rather provoking, Honor thought, to see her stepmother _poser en
victime_, when she, the younger woman, was perfectly well aware that had
Mrs. Beacham been sixteen instead of sixty-five, she could hardly have
looked forward with greater satisfaction than was in fact the case, to
that day’s long-promised “outing.” That _she_, Honor, did not press her
stepmother to do violence to her feelings by condescending to form one
of the little party to Danescourt was a fruitful source of aggravation;
and when the old lady _did_ eventually take her place in the front-seat
of the “trap,” attired in a wonderful new bonnet from Leigh, and a
Paisley shawl of many colours--her own choice, and worn for the first
time that day--her temper could not, with justice, be said to be above
its average standard of good humour and composure.
With a little sign of resignation Honor took her place on the back-seat,
where, for the next three hours, she was doomed to be imprisoned, her
limbs cramped by sundry bags and boxes--for they had decided to spend
the night at Gawthorpe--and her view circumscribed by John’s broad
shoulders, and by the gaudy shawl pinned with old-fashioned tightness
round his mother’s ample back. Though wanting yet two hours to noon, the
July sun was already darting its broiling rays over the travellers’
heads; and Mrs. Beacham’s solid cotton umbrella, hoisted for that
autocratic lady’s comfort, materially interfered with that of the slight
figure behind, which was clad in the simplest of airy muslins, while
there rested on the thick braids of her fair hair a dainty hat that was,
in Mrs. Beacham’s opinion, most reprehensibly juvenile and coquettish.
“Better, ain’t it, mother?” John said, as the well-bred brown horse
dragged the heavy weight behind him through the sand of a cross-country
lane. “The country is beautiful to-day. Hold up, Jolly Boy; and, Honor,
sit close, my dear. This road is rather in a go-to-the-bad state; and it
wouldn’t do to be pitched out in the dust in that pretty get-up of
yours.”
Honor laughed. She was a girl--child enough, also, you may say--to be
amused by the jolts that half shook her out of her seat, and so greatly
disturbed the old lady’s temper. In the excitement of the drive, the
changing of the scene, and the anticipation of the coming gaiety, she
had forgotten Mr. Vavasour altogether; and that gentleman would have
been but ill-pleased could he have guessed how small a share he had in
young Mrs. Beacham’s thoughts during the long drive that day.
“Well, thank goodness, here we are at last!” exclaimed the discomfited
old lady, when at length a sudden turn in the high-road brought them in
sight of a pretty ivy-covered lodge, which stood invitingly open, and
which John informed Honor was the principal entrance to the Danescourt
grounds. “Such a dusting as I’ve had to be sure! I declare to goodness
that my best silk won’t be worth five shillings when I get it home. A
silk, too, that cost me seven shillings a yard no longer ago than last
May twelvemonth, and was as good this morning as it was the day I bought
it.”
“Well, mother, we must buy you another, that’s all,” said John
good-humouredly. “But, I say! if there isn’t jolly Jack Winthrop, with
the old chestnut out, I see!--How are you, Jack? and how’s the
mare?”--pulling up Jolly Boy to have a few moments horsey talk with his
old acquaintance. “Sound again, eh? Steps a little short still, don’t
she, with the near foreleg?”
Jack Winthrop, who was a wiry-made sporting-looking character, in a
black cut-away and a low-crowned hat, was sitting behind a
wicked-looking “red” mare, the which animal was harnessed to a vehicle
called a dog-cart, but incapable of containing, with any degree of
comfort, any creature, four-footed or otherwise, in addition to the said
wiry Jack himself. He gave a knowing nod and wink to John, and threw an
admiring glance at Honor, as he passed, at the full swing of the wicked
chestnut, the more steady-going “family man.”
John shook his head gravely. “There he goes!” he said. “That’s just the
way with those fellows! Jack, now, has doctored up that mare of his; and
some poor devil of a muff will be stuck, I’ll answer for it, before the
day is out.”
It was scarcely, however, the place or the season for moralising. They
were by this time in the ruck of carriages and horsemen, all going in
one direction, and John Beacham’s attention was amply employed, not only
on the steering of Jolly Boy through the crowd, but in returning the
cordial greetings of his many friends and acquaintances. At length, and
after sundry exclamations of alarm, and more than one involuntary clutch
at the reins on the part of John’s agitated parent, the little party in
the “trap” came in sight, through an opening in the trees, of a great
white marquee, capable--if the voice of rumour could be believed--of
containing within its canvas walls a whole regiment of soldiers, the
said marquee having been erected in a broad and sheltered glen, at
about five hundred yards’ distance from the house. The scene that
presented itself to Honor’s admiring gaze was full of life and colour
and animation. The band of an infantry regiment, at that time stationed
at Leigh, was thundering forth a popular polka, adapted to brazen
instruments in full regimental force. Groups of well-dressed people were
scattered here and there over the greensward: the branching trees lent a
delicious shelter from the fierce rays of the summer sun; and a glimpse
that could be caught by the curious of the interior of the tent
disclosed an array of plates, dishes, and glasses that would have caused
the heart of a fasting man to dance with anticipated bliss.
“Now, then, look alive! Jump out! The horse won’t stand in this row,”
said John, a little impatiently perhaps, for Jolly Boy, in spite of the
five and twenty miles’ journey, was restless with excitement, and Will
Burton, one of Mr. Beacham’s trusted “helpers,” who had been sent on by
train to wait his master’s coming, was holding him (though with some
little difficulty) steady by the bit during the “young missus’s”
descent.
Honor made what haste she could, gathering together her full skirts to
save them as best she might from the dusty wheel, and feeling, she
scarcely knew why, a something in her husband’s tone that jarred against
her sense of what was delicate and becoming; jarred too against her own
consciousness of beauty, of being well-dressed; of being, in short, a
little woman worthy to be petted and admired. She was not cross--far
from it--as she shook out her ample drapery and took John’s sturdy arm,
while Mrs. Beacham held firm possession of the other; but, though not
the least angry with her husband, Honor was too habitually
good-tempered, and, at the moment too happy, to be _that_, she was
perhaps rather more disposed than she had been before to greet with
satisfaction any appreciating words or flattering attentions which might
chance to fall to her lot. Nor were such opportunities for the
gratification of a vanity which was more natural than harmless, likely
to be wanting. Honor’s beauty was not of the kind to be passed over in a
crowd, be that crowd ever so dense or individually preoccupied. The
exquisite colouring, delicate as it was rich, of her bright young
face--the lips slightly parted, red and dewy--and the violet eyes,
half-shy, half-laughing, made up a _tout ensemble_ that many a man
turned and turned again to look upon, as Honor Beacham flitted amongst
the throng that day, leaning on her husband’s arm.