AN ODD WOOING.
We had not much society at Putney--that is, not much ladies' society.
Putney is too near to London for people to call upon new comers; so the
only acquaintances we made were the wives and sisters of the
"Metropolitan" men who resided there. There were only four or five of
them--that is only that number of married men; but that gave us as much
quiet evening visiting as we cared for. We were all very sociable, and
very frequently met at each other's houses to tea, and then, after a
little music, the gentlemen sat down to whist, while we talked and
looked on. It was a great place for whist, and both Polly and I were
fond of it, and played, Harry said, very fairly for girls. We often
played when we were wanted; and when Harry brought in two friends with
him, we took it by turns to play the double rubber. In summer this was
constantly the case, for then Putney was full of "Metropolitan" men, who
took up their quarters there for the rowing season, went up to their
business by the morning train, and came down in quite a strong body for
the rowing; in the evening--increased as their numbers were by those who
lived in other parts of London, and had to return again the same
evening. A finer-looking set of men could hardly be found--men with
straight, active figures, and fresh, healthy complexions; not noisy, and
yet full of fun and life. They were almost all in business of some kind
in the City; merchants, Stock Exchange men, solicitors, and men in
government and other offices. Harry was very particular who he brought
home with him, and certainly Polly's opinion and mine--as far as our
little season in town had qualified us to judge--was, that they were as
pleasant and gentlemanly a set of men as could be found. There were,
Harry said, of course, a few men in the club who were not quite so
presentable; but that was to be expected in any large body of men.
Harry came down twice a week all through the summer, to go out in the
club-eights, and we generally walked a little way along the towing-path
on these evenings, to see them come along with their measured stroke,
and steady swing. In time, from hearing so much talk about it, we got to
know how nearly every man in the club rowed.
It was more especially when the club races were coming on, and three or
four eights had entered, that these matters were discussed with the
greatest interest.
Harry always entered for them. He had taken to rowing too late ever to
become a finished oar; but he was considered a very useful man in the
middle of the boat. What excitement we all felt about it; and I believe
the ladies of the club--if I may call them so--were at least as much
interested as the men. We discussed the chances of the boats quite
scientifically, and laid bets of kid-gloves with each other upon the
result. The first great excitement was the evening when Harry came back
from the club on the night of choosing the crews, with the lists. How
eagerly we looked over them, and how glad we would be to see that he had
Griffin for stroke, and Thompson for seven, a host in themselves; but as
our eye ran down it, our faces would fall greatly, when we saw that he
had also Big Hamper, who it was notorious never pulled his weight along,
and Long Black, who in himself was enough to----well I must not use
Harry's word, though it was very expressive--but enough to spoil any
crew he got among.
During the fortnight they were practising for the race, pretty Miss
Planter would generally call in for us every evening, as we lived nearer
to the water than she did; and we would walk through the cricket-field
to the towing-path, and watch the different boats coming down over the
course. In time we became quite judges of rowing, and could tell pretty
nearly which would be most likely to win, by the regularity of the
stroke and the steadiness of the swing with which they did the last
half-mile down to the bridge; for, as Harry said, any crew could swing
when they were fresh, but the boat which kept its form after going over
the course might be pretty well relied upon to win the race. Miss
Planter was a better judge than we were, for her brother was the life
and soul, the guiding spirit of the club.
Rupert Planter was a tall, wiry man, rather loosely put together, with a
rolling, uncouth walk. On shore, no one would have singled him out as a
man of unusual strength, or as a practised gymnast; but put him into a
boat, and his muscles seemed to stiffen into steel, and, as he tore his
oar through the water, you saw before you the most finished, as well as,
perhaps, the most plucky, oarsman in the world. Rupert Planter's life
was passed, when not at business or asleep, in a boat. His every thought
and energy were devoted to the promotion of the aquatic art in general,
and of the "Metropolitan Rowing Club" in particular. His whole time was
at its disposal, and no trouble was grudged by him in the endeavour to
maintain it in its proud position of the first rowing club in England.
He was rather a despot in his way, and a little fond of carrying things
with a high hand, and anything like shirking was greeted with a force of
denunciation which sometimes rather astonished new members; but no one
minded what he said, for they knew that he only spoke as he did for the
good of the club. It was wonderful the influence he had over them, and
how much better a boat went when he was steering her; and if he were on
the bank, and an eight came along pulling heavily against the tide, the
moment his voice was heard, with his sharp "Now lift her up, boys!" the
way in which the tired crew straightened up and lay out to their work
was almost magical.
On the day of the race we went in the steamer which the club hired to
accompany it, and great was our interest and excitement. I don't know
anything prettier than to see four eights dash off together at the word
"Go!" their oars all dipping together, amidst the burst of shouts and
encouragement from their friends in the accompanying steamer, and the
breathless excitement, lest--as they close nearer to each other, in
their efforts to draw over to the Middlesex shore--there should be a
foul; then the thrill of pleasure and triumph with which you see the
boat you wish to win, slowly, inch by inch, draw itself out from among
the others. Even should the boat which first leads not be your
favourite, still you do not give up hope, but continue to wave your
handkerchief, and to watch each fresh effort, until, perhaps, towards
Hammersmith, your boat, stroke by stroke, slowly gains on the leader
till it is nearly abreast, and then with a desperate spurt, amidst the
wild cheering from the steamer, it snatches the victory in the last
quarter of a mile. Oh, it is a glorious exercise! and if ever I wished
myself a man, it was, certainly, that I might be able to row in a
boat-race.
Polly would get even more excited than I did, and I remember that on one
or two occasions of particularly hard races, she came home with her
handkerchief and gloves literally torn into shreds, quite unconsciously
to herself, in the excitement she felt in watching the varying chances
of the boat Harry pulled in.
On occasions of general interest, such as the University contests, or
races for the championship, we used to go up to the club-room, and out
into the long balcony looking over the river; and it was very
interesting to see the river crowded with steamers, and the excited
crowd on the towing-path, and to hear the burst of cheering which broke
out when they started. But it was only the start we saw, and not even
always that--for the steamers often got in our way--so that, on the
whole, I enjoyed the club races far more than these great contests.
On quiet afternoons, when the tide was favourable, and there was no
racing on, Harry would come down early, and, perhaps, bring a friend
round with him, and take a club skiff, and row us up to Richmond. Very
pleasant it was, lying back in the boat, with its gentle gliding motion
through the still water, and listening to the regular plash of the oars;
and then, when we reached Richmond, to get out, and stroll up into the
park, and look out on the wonderfully beautiful view over the rich
wooded country towards Windsor, with the winding river, and the pretty
mansions, and country seats on its banks. Then, when the tide turned, we
would start again, floating down lazily with the current, and not
getting back to the boat-house until it was growing quite dark, and the
mists were beginning to curl up from the still river.
We had now been two years at Putney, and in this time Polly had many
admirers; indeed, I don't think any one could help loving her; and she
could, had she given them the slightest encouragement, have married
almost any one of Harry's friends. But her heart was evidently quite
untouched at present, and she did not seem to be at all anxious to
change her name. Among Harry's friends it was generally understood that
I was engaged. I wished it to be so, as it made my position more
pleasant, by putting me quite at my ease with them, and by preventing
the possibility of any unfortunate mistake being made; besides, I was
the better able to chaperone Polly.
In the winter season, as I have said, we were much quieter than in
summer, for then the rowing men almost all went away to London till the
spring; but twice a week at any rate we went in of an evening to the
Planters', or one of the other resident families, or they came in to us.
Saturday was the club-day, and then Harry went out on the water when the
weather was fine, and in the evening to the club-room, where he boxed,
fenced, and played whist till twelve o'clock.
It was not till we had been there two years that we came to know one of
Harry's friends, he had never brought home before; and yet we had heard
more of him than of almost any man in the club. This was Charley Horton,
a merchant, with a very good business in the City--not that any one
would have taken him for a merchant, or, indeed, for anything connected
with business in any way. He was a man of about thirty, of middle
height, but very strongly built, with a large pair of whiskers, a ruddy
complexion, a clear, honest eye, a big voice, and a hearty laugh. Harry
had often spoken of him as one of the most popular men in the club, but
when we had asked him why he did not bring him in, Harry had said--
"Oh, Charley can't stand women; it is not that he dislikes them
absolutely, but he says he does not understand them, and can never think
of anything to say to them; a man who once met him at a party reports
that he stood at the door all the evening, and looked as afraid of
speaking to a woman as if he had never seen one before in his life."
One day, however, when Harry came down early with the intention of
taking us up the river, Charley happened to come down in the same
carriage with him, and Harry told him what he was going to do, and asked
him to take an oar. After great difficulty, and only under the promise
that he should pull bow, so as to be as far out of the way of
conversation as possible, Charley consented to come. Harry came home to
fetch us, while his friend went round to the club-room to dress, and met
us at the boat-house. When he saw us coming I do believe that if he
could by any possibility have got away he would have done so; but there
was no escape. Harry introduced him to us, he murmured something vague,
and then went off to help to get the boat down.
I do not think that I ever remember Polly in such a wild humour as she
was on that afternoon. She kept up a string of questions and talk the
whole time we were on the water, I believe on purpose to put Mr. Horton
out, and as we were going up with the tide there was no occasion to pull
hard, and the rowers had no excuse for not talking.
Polly commenced the attack directly the boat had pushed off. I believe
she waited for that lest her victim should escape her.
"Do you know, Mr. Horton, we have been wishing to make your acquaintance
for ever so long; Harry has so often spoken about you, that we seem to
know you quite well."
Charley Horton coloured up like a girl, and murmured something about
"mutual pleasure, he was sure."
I was obliged to hold my face down, while I thought that Harry, who was
pulling stroke and had therefore his back to Charley Horton, would have
laughed out loud. However, he restrained himself, and shook his head
admonishingly at Polly, who, however, paid not the slightest attention
to it; but with a perfectly innocent and unconscious look continued to
talk, sometimes addressing Harry, sometimes his friend, but always a
question requiring rather a long answer or explanation. I do believe
that for his own sake, Charley Horton would willingly have jumped
overboard and swam ashore at any time during our trip up. Coming back
again she was more merciful, and confined her questions chiefly to
boating matters, and on these Charley was able to answer pretty
fluently, and was more at his ease. I leaned forward and asked Harry to
invite his friend round. He nodded, but said nothing about it till we
got out of the boat. Then he asked--
"I suppose you are not going up to town, Charley, till a late train?"
"No," he answered, "not till the 10.40."
"Well, then," Harry said, "you may as well come round with us, we are
going to have a dinner-tea."
Charley opened his eyes with an expression of absolute alarm.
"Much obliged," he said, "but I can't anyhow. It is quite impossible."
"Why, Mr. Horton," I said quietly, "you said you were not going up to
town till late, so there can be surely nothing to prevent your coming in
to us."
"Come, old fellow," Harry laughed, "there can't be any reason why you
won't come, so say no more about it, but come."
"Well, I don't know that there is any particular reason," Charley said
in a tone of extreme depression, and evidently quite unable at the
moment to invent any excuse whatever, "No--well, Ashleigh, I'll come."
"That's right," Harry said, "I want to speak to some one at the rooms,
so I will go round with you; you may as well go on girls and get tea
ready."
As we went home I talked quite seriously to Polly, and told her I was
really very surprised at her; but Polly would by no means allow she was
wrong, and insisted that she had only been very polite and chatty. This
was, to a certain extent, true and I was quite unable to extract any
promise from her that she would be more merciful. Presently the two
gentlemen came in, and Harry told us afterwards that had he not gone
round with his friend he would never have come; as it was, he had
endeavoured to persuade Harry to tell us that he had received some
urgent message calling him to town; but Harry refused to do this, and
pointed out that if he did we should not believe him, and that he would
have to call and apologize next time he came down.
And so Charley, with great discontent, came round, and was for some time
evidently very uncomfortable; but as the evening went on, he became more
at his ease, although it was ridiculous to hear the difference between
his loud, jovial tone when he spoke to Harry, and his shy, disconnected
way of speaking when he answered our questions.
This was Charley Horton's first visit to us, but it was by no means the
last. After this he came with Harry, not often at first, but as he
became more intimate, much more frequently, and sometimes even when
Harry did not bring him in; and as he got to know us, and found that
women were not such terrible beings after all, he became comparatively
at his ease. Certainly Polly did not help to make him so, for she teazed
and put him out of countenance most unmercifully; the consequence was,
that although before very long he got to talk to me almost in the same
way he did to Harry, he was always shy and awkward when he addressed
her. I wondered myself that he came at all, for Polly plagued him sadly
in spite of what I could say to her; I even expressed myself surprised
to Harry, but Harry laughed, and said, "Do you know, Agnes, I am firmly
of opinion that Charley is rather smitten with Polly."
"What nonsense," I said; greatly amused at the idea; "you are not in
earnest, Harry, are you?"
"I am, indeed, Agnes," he said, "and a capital husband he would make,
too."
"Why, my dear Harry, Polly would as soon think of marrying the man in
the moon as Charley Horton. Why, she could marry almost any one she
liked, and she does nothing but make fun of him."
I told Polly what Harry had said, as a very great joke. Polly laughed
too, but she coloured a little, and said, "What ridiculous nonsense,
Agnes;" altogether she was not so amused at the idea as I had thought
she would be. After this I watched them closely, and at last came to the
conclusion that Harry was right, and that Charley really was serious
about it. About Polly I could not tell at all; she was just as teazing
as ever with him, and I could not see the least change in her manner.
I cannot enter into all this at length, or I shall never bring this
story of mine to an end, and I must, therefore, be very brief with it,
as I have been with all this part of my history.
It was a funny courtship, and I never, till it was settled, felt quite
certain that it was a courtship at all. I never heard Charley pay her a
compliment, or say anything such as people in his condition do; never at
least, but once, and that was not at all the usual way of doing it. We
had been talking about a race, and Polly said that she should like to
steer one of the boats, when Charley came out in his loud way,--"By
Jove! Miss Ashleigh, if you did, there would be no occasion to say,
'Eyes in the boat.'" Harry and I laughed heartily, and Polly got up and
made a very deep curtsey, and poor Charley was so completely astonished
at himself that he could not say another word that evening, and took his
leave very shortly. It was only to Harry that he would confide anything,
and he at last told him that he was only waiting for an opportunity to
ask Polly, but that for the life of him he could not imagine what he
should say to her. However, I suppose he did manage it somehow, for one
day Polly told me that it was all settled, and that she was going to
marry Charley Horton.
I was very pleased; for although Charley was not a bit the man I should
have thought Polly would have chosen, still I was sure, from what I had
heard and seen of him, that he was a really good fellow, and would make
her extremely happy. How Charley managed to summon up courage enough to
propose to her I never found out; for although I several times asked
Polly, she always laughed, and would never tell me a word about it. She
at first wanted to wait until Percy came back from India for me, as she
said she did not like to leave me alone; but this, of course, I would
not hear of. I had not so much longer now to wait; and, besides, Charley
urged, if anything should take Harry away from town, that of course I
should come and live with them. And so it was arranged that they should
be married in six months. Now that it was all settled, it seemed very
strange to me; and yet I was very glad that it was so, for I had hoped
anxiously that Polly would be married to some one, whom I could like
very much, before I was myself, as I should have been very loath to have
gone away and left her alone, while leaving her with a husband she
loved, I should know in my far off home in India that she was happy as
well as myself: and so I was heartily glad at her engagement with
Charley Horton.
About this time I was rather anxious about Harry. He was restless and
unhappy; it was some time before I could make out the reason, and then I
guessed, that whether from the idea of Polly being married, or why, I
know not, but that he had fallen in love with Planter's pretty sister.
Of course, Harry, in his present circumstances, could not think of
marrying; and I knew whatever he felt, that he was one of the last men
in the world to become engaged unless he could keep a wife. I said one
day,--
"Well, Harry, I suppose I shall have you following Polly's example
next;" and he answered so sharply,--"Yes, a nice match I should be, on
my L200 a year," that I was certain that there was something of the sort
in his mind.
It happened that one day soon after this I read in the paper a
prospectus of a company to execute some extensive engineering works in
Australia, and Lord Holmeskirk's name was among the directors.
The same day I went up and saw Ada and her husband, and asked if he
could procure Harry an appointment upon it. He kindly said that he would
do what he could, and ten days later Harry received a letter, offering
him the appointment of resident engineer, at a salary of L800 a year to
begin with, and L1,200 at the end of three years. Harry accepted the
offer with the greatest joy; and thus, in the space of a month, I was to
lose my brother and sister--I say, lose them both, because Harry would
be absolutely gone, and Polly would have other loves and cares, and I
should no longer be, as I had so long been, her first object in life.
Harry was not to leave for six months yet, and it was arranged that
Polly should be married immediately before he started, and that I was to
take up my abode with her and her husband.
Charley, now his shyness had worn off, improved wonderfully, and I liked
him more and more every day, with his hearty, straightforward manner.
Polly's manner to him was very little changed, and she still delighted
in teazing and bothering her "dear old bear," as she generally called
him, but I could see now, that under all her fun and raillery she was
very, very fond of him.