"Bai Jove, Vining! that you?" languidly exclaimed a little, thin,
carefully-dressed man, ambling gently along on one of the most
thoroughly-broken of ladies' mares, whose pace was so easy that not a
curl of her master's jetty locks was disarranged, or a crease formed in
his tightly-buttoned surtout. His figure said "stays" as plainly as
figure could speak; he wore an eyeglass screwed into the brim of his
very glossy hat; his eyes were half closed; his moustache was waxed and
curled up at the ends like old-fashioned skates; and his
carefully-trained whiskers lightly brushed their tips against his
shoulders. And to set off such arrangements to the greatest advantage,
he displayed a great deal of white wristband and shirt-front; his collar
came down into the sharpest of peaks; and he rode in lemon-kid gloves
and patent-leather boots.
"Hallo, Max!" exclaimed Charley, looking like some Colossus as he reined
in by the side of the dandy, who was going in the same direction along a
shady lane. "How are you? When did you come down?"
"So, so--so, so, mai dear fellow! Came down la-a-ast night. But pray
hold in that confounded great beast of yours: she's making the very
deuce of a dust! I shall be covered!"
Charley patted and soothed his fiery curveting steed into a walk, which
was quite sufficient to keep it abreast of Maximilian Bray's ambling
jennet, which kept up a dancing, circus-horse motion, one evidently
approved by its owner for its aid in displaying his graceful
horsemanship.
"Nice day," said Charley, scanning with a side glance his companion's
"get-up," and evidently with a laughing contempt.
"Ya-a-s, nice day," drawled Bray, "but confoundedly dusty!"
"Rain soon," said Charley maliciously. "Lay it well."
"Bai Jove, no--surely not!" exclaimed the other, displaying a great deal
of trepidation. "You don't think so, do you?"
"Black cloud coming up behind," said Charley coolly.
"Bai Jove, mai dear fellow, let's push on and get home! You'll come and
lunch, won't you?"
"No, not to-day," said Charley. "But I'm going into the town to see the
saddler. I'll ride with you."
"Tha-a-anks!" drawled Bray, with a grin of misery. "But, mai dear
fellow, hadn't you better go on the grass? You're covering me with
dust!"
"Confounded puppy! Nice brother-in-law! Wring his neck!" muttered
Charley, as he turned his mare on to the grass which skirted the side of
the road, as did Bray on the other, when, the horses' paces being
muffled by the soft turf, conversation was renewed.
"Bai Jove, Vining, you'll come over to the flower-show to-morrow, won't
you? There'll be some splendid girls there! Good show too, for the
country. You send a lot of things, don't you?--Covent-garden stuff and
cabbages, eh?"
"Humph!" growled Charley. "The governor's going to have some sent, I
s'pose; our gardener's fond of that sort of thing. Think perhaps I
shall go."
"Ya-a-s, I should go if I were you. It does you country fellows a deal
of good, I always think, to get into society."
"Does it?" said Charley, raising his eyebrows a little.
"Bai Jove, ya-a-s! You'd better go. Laura's going, and the Lingon's
girls are coming to lunch. You'd better come over to lunch and go with
us," drawled the exquisite.
"Well, I don't know," said Charley, hesitating; for he was thinking
whether it would not be better than going quite alone--"I don't know
what to say."
"Sa-a-ay? Sa-a-ay ya-a-s," drawled Bray. "Come in good time and have a
weed first in my room; and then we'll taste some sherry the governor has
got da-awn. He always leaves it till I come da-awn from ta-awn. Orders
execrable stuff himself, as I often tell him. Wouldn't have a drop fit
to drink if it weren't for me. You'd better come."
"Well, really," said Charley again, half mockingly, "I don't know what
to say."
"Why, sa-a-ay ya-a-as, and come."
"Well, then, `ya-a-as'!" drawled Charley, in imitation of the other's
tone.
But Maximilian Bray's skin was too thick for the little barb to
penetrate; and he rode gingerly on, petting his whiskers, and altering
the sit of his hat; when, being thoroughly occupied with his costume,
horse and man nearly came headlong to the ground, in consequence of the
mare stumbling over a small heap of road-scrapings. But the little
animal saved herself, though only by a violent effort, which completely
unseated Maximilian Bray, who was thrown forward upon her neck, his hat
being dislodged and falling with a sharp bang into the dusty road.
"All right! No bones broken! You've better luck than I have!" laughed
Charley, as he fished up the fallen hat with his hunting-whip. "Nip her
well with your knees, man, and then you won't be unseated again in that
fashion. Here, take your hat."
"Bai Jove!" ejaculated the breathless dandy, "it's too bad! That fellow
who left the sweepings by the roadside ought to be shot! Mai dear
fellow, your governor, as a magistrate, ought to see to it!
Tha-a-anks!"
He took his hat, and began ruefully to wipe off the dust with a scented
handkerchief before again covering his head; but though he endeavoured
to preserve an outward appearance of calm, there was wrath in his breast
as he gazed down at one lemon-coloured tight glove split to ribbons, and
a button burst away from his surtout coat. He could feel too that his
moustache was coming out of curl, and it only wanted the sharp shower
which now came pattering down to destroy the last remains of his
equanimity.
"Bai Jove, how beastly unfortunate!" he exclaimed, urging his steed into
a smart canter.
"Well, I don't know," said Charley coolly, in his rough tweed suit that
no amount of rain would have injured. "Better to-day than to-morrow.
Do no end of good, and bring on the hay."
"Ya-a-as, I suppose so," drawled Bray; "but do a confounded deal of
harm!" and he gazed at the sleeves of his glossy Saville-row surtout.
"O, never mind your coat, man!" laughed Charley. "See how it lays the
dust!"
"Ya-a-as, just so," drawled Bray. "I shall take this short cut and get
home. Only a shower! Bye-bye! See you to-morrow! Come to lunch."
The ragged lemon glove was waved to Charley as its owner turned down a
side lane; and now that his costume was completely disordered and wet,
he made no scruple about digging his spurs into his mare's flanks, and
galloping homewards; while, heedless of the sharply-falling rain,
Charley gently cantered on towards the town.
"Damsels in distress!" exclaimed the young man suddenly. "`Bai Jove!'
as Long-ears says. Taken refuge from the rain beneath a tree! Leaves,
young and weak, completely saturated--impromptu shower--bath! What
shall I do? Lend them my horse? No good. They would not ride double,
like Knight Templars. Ride off, then, for umbrellas, I suppose. Why
didn't that donkey stop a little longer? and then he could have done
it."
So mused Charley Vining as he cantered up to where, beneath a spreading
elm by the roadside, two ladies were waiting the cessation of the rain--
faring, though, very little better than if they had stood in the open.
One was a fashionably-dressed, tall, dark, bold beauty, black of eye and
tress, and evidently in anything but the best of tempers with the
weather; the other a fair pale girl, in half-mourning, whose yellow hair
was plainly braided across her white forehead, but only to be knotted
together at the back in a massive cluster of plaits, which told of what
a glorious golden mantle it could have shed over its owner, rippling
down far below the waist, and ready, it seemed, to burst from prisoning
comb and pin. There was something ineffably sweet in her countenance,
albeit there was a subdued, even sorrowful look as her shapely little
head was bent towards her companion, and she was evidently speaking as
Charley cantered up.
"Sorry to see you out in this, Miss Bray," he cried, raising his
low-crowned hat. "What can I do?--Fetch umbrellas and shawls? Speak
the word."
"O, how kind of you, Mr Vining!" exclaimed the dark maiden, with
brightening eyes and flushing cheeks. "But really I should not like to
trouble you."
"Trouble? Nonsense!" cried Charley. "Only speak before you get wet
through."
"Well, if you really--really, you know--would not mind," hesitated Laura
Bray, who, in spite of the rain, was in no hurry to bring the interview
to a close.
"Wouldn't mind? Of course not!" echoed Charley, whose bold eyes were
fixed upon Laura Bray's companion, who timidly returned his salute, and
then shrank back, as he again raised his little deer-stalker hat from
its curly throne. "Now, then," he exclaimed, "what's it to be?--shawls
and Sairey Gamps of gingham and tape?"
"No, no, Mr Vining! How droll you are!" laughed the beauty. "But if
you really wouldn't mind--really, you know--"
"I tell, you, Miss, Bray, that, I, shall, only, be, too, happy," said
Charley, in measured tones.
"Then, if you wouldn't mind riding to the Elms, and asking them to send
the brougham, I should be so much obliged!"
"All right!" cried Charley, turning his mare. "Max has only just left
me."
"But it seems such a shame to send you away through all this rain!" said
Laura loudly.
"Fudge!" laughed Charley, as, putting his mare at the hedge in front,
she skimmed over it like a bird, and her owner galloped across country,
to the great disadvantage of several crops of clover.
"What a pity!" sighed Laura to herself, as she watched the retreating
form. "And the rain will be over directly. I wonder whether he'll come
back!"
"Do you think we need wait?" said her companion gently. "The rain has
ceased now, and the sun is breaking; through the clouds."
"O, of course, Miss Bedford!" said Laura pettishly. "It would be so
absurd if the carriage came and found us gone;" when, seeing that the
dark beauty evidently wished to be alone with her thoughts, the other
remained silent.
"Who in the world can that be with her?" mused Charley, as he rode
along. "Might have had the decency to introduce me, anyhow. Don't know
when I've seen a softer or more gentle face. Splendid hair too! No
sham there: no fear of her moulting a curl here and a tress there, if
her back hair came undone. No, she don't seem as if there were any sham
about her--quiet, ladylike, and nice. 'Pon my word, I believe Laura
Bray would make a better man than Max. Seem to like those silver-grey
dresses with a black-velvet jacket, they look so--There, what a muff I
am, going right out of the way, while that little darling is getting wet
as a sponge! Easy, lass! Now, then--over!" he cried to his mare, as
she skimmed another hedge. "Wonder what her name is! Some visitor come
to the flower-show, I suppose--_fiancee_ of Long-ears probably. Steady,
then, Beauty!" he cried again to the mare, who, warming to her work, was
beginning to tear furiously over the ground; for, preoccupied by
thought, Charley had inadvertently been using his spurs pretty freely.
But he soon reduced his steed to a state of obedience, and rode on,
musing upon his late encounter.
"Can't be!" he thought. "A girl with a head like that would never take
up with such a donkey! Ah, there he goes, drenched like a rat! Ha, ha,
ha! How miserably disgusted the puppy did look! Patronising me, too--a
gnat! Advising me to go into society, etcetera! Well, I can't help it:
I do think him a conceited ass! But perhaps, after all, he thinks the
same of me; and I deserve it.
"Dear old dad," he mused again after awhile. "Like to see me married
and settled, would he? What should I be married for?--a regular
woman-hater! Why, in the name of all that's civil, didn't Laura
introduce me to that little blonde? Like to know who she is--not that
it matters to me! Over again, my lass!" he cried, patting the mare as
she once more bounded over a hedge, this time to drop into a lane
straight as a line, and a quarter of a mile down which Maximilian Bray
could be seen hurrying along--Charley's short cut across the fields
having enabled him to gain upon the fleeing dandy.
"May as well catch up to him, and tell him what I've seen," said
Charley, urging on his mare. "No, I won't," he said, checking. "Better
too, perhaps. No, I won't. Why should I send the donkey back to them?
Not much fear, though: he'll be too busy for a couple of hours restoring
his damaged plumes--a conceited popinjay!"
He cantered gently on now, seeming to take the shower with him, for he
could see, on turning, that it was getting fine and bright. But the
rain had quite ceased as he rode up to the door of the Brays' seat--a
fine old red-brick mansion known as the Elms--just as a groom was
leading the ambling palfrey to its stable at the King's Arms--there not
being accommodation in the paternal stables--a steed not much more than
half the size of the great rawboned hunter favoured by Max's masculine
sister.
"Why, here's Mr Charley Vining!" cried a shrill loud voice, from an
open window. "How de do, Mr Vining--how de do? Come to lunch, haven't
you? So glad! And so sorry Laura isn't at home! Caught in the shower,
I'm afraid."
The owner of the voice appeared at the window, in the shape of a very
big bony lady in black satin--bony not so much in figure as in face,
which seemed fitted with too much skull, displaying a great deal of
cheek prominence, and a macaw-beaked nose, with the skin stretched over
it very tightly, forming on the whole an organ of a most resonant
character--one that it was necessary to hear before it could be
thoroughly believed in. In fact, with all due reverence to a lady's
nose, it must be stated that the one in question acted as a sort of
war-trump, which Mrs Bray blew with masculine force when about to
engage in battle with husband or servant for some case of disputed
supremacy.
"Ring the bell, girls," shrieked the lady; "and let some one take Mr
Vining's horse. Do come in, Mr Vining!"
"How do, Vining--how do?" cried a little pudgy man, appearing at the
window, but hardly visible beside his lady--Mrs Bray in more ways than
one eclipsing her lord. "How do? How's Sir Philip?"
"Quite well, thanks; but not coming in," cried Charley, from his horse's
back. "Miss Bray and some lady caught in the rain--under tree--bad
shelter--want the brougham."
"Dear me, how tiresome!" screamed Mrs Bray. "But must we send it,
Ness?"
Mr Bray, named at his baptism Onesimus, replied by stroking his cheek
and looking thoughtfully at his lady.
"The rain's about over now, and they might surely walk," shrieked Mrs
Bray. "Dudgeon grumbles so, too, when he has to go out like this, and
he was ordered for two o'clock."
"Better send, my dear," whispered Mr Bray, with a meaning look.
"Vining won't like it if you don't."
Mrs Bray evidently approved of her husband's counsel; for orders were
given that the brougham should be in immediate readiness.
"They won't be long," she now screamed, all smiles once more. "But do
come in and have some lunch, Mr Vining: don't sit there in your wet
clothes."
"No--no. I'm all right," cried Charley. "I'm off again directly."
But for all that, he lingered.
"You'll be at the flower-show to-morrow, won't you?" said Mrs Bray.
"Well, yes, I think I shall go," said Charley. "I suppose everybody
will be there."
"O, of course; Laura's going. I suppose you send some things from the
Court?"
"Yes," said Charley; but he added, laughing, "What will be the use, when
you are going to send such a prize blossom?"
"For shame, you naughty man!" said Mrs Bray. "I shall certainly tell
Laura you've turned flatterer."
"I say, Charley Vining," squeaked a loud voice from the next window,
"we're going to beat you Court folks."
"We are, are we?" laughed Charley, turning in the direction of the
voice, which proceeded from a very tall angular young lady of sixteen--a
tender young plant, nearly all stem, and displaying very little blossom
or leaf. She was supported on either side by two other tender plants,
of fourteen and twelve respectively, forming a trio known at the Elms as
"the children." "I'm very glad to hear it, Miss Nell; but suppose we
wait till after the judge's decision. But there goes the carriage.
Good-bye, all!"
And turning his horse's head, he soon overtook the brougham, when, after
soothing Mr Dudgeon, the driver, with a shilling, the progress was
pretty swift until they reached the tree, where, now finding shelter
from the sun instead of the rain, yet stood Laura Bray and her
companion.
"O, how good of you, Mr Vining! and to come back, too!" gushed Laura,
with sparkling eyes. "I shall never be out of debt, I'm sure. I don't
know what I should have done if it had not been for you!"
"Walked home, and a blessed good job, too!" muttered Mr John Dudgeon.
"Don't name it!" said Charley. "Almost a pity it's left off raining."
"For shame--no! How can you talk so!" exclaimed Laura, shaking her
sunshade at the speaker. "But I really am so much obliged--I am
indeed!"
Charley dismounted and opened the carriage-door, handing in first Miss
Bray, who stepped forward, leaned heavily upon his arm, and then took
her place, arranging her skirts so as to fill the back seat, talking
gushingly the while as she made play at Charley with her great dark
eyes.
But the glances were thrown away, Charley's attention being turned to
her companion, who bent slightly, just touched the proffered hand, and
stepped into the brougham, taking her seat with her back to the horse.
"So much obliged--so grateful!" cried Laura, as Charley closed the door.
"I shall never be able to repay you, I'm sure. Thanks! So much!
Good-bye! See you at the flower-show to-morrow, of course?
Good-bye!--_good-bye_!"
"She's getting a precious deal too affectionate! Talk about wanting me
to marry _her_, why she'll run away with _me_ directly!" grumbled
Charley, as Mr Dudgeon impatiently drove off, leaving the young man
with the impression of a swiftly passing vision of Laura Bray showing
her white teeth in a great smile as she waved her hand, and of a fair
gentle face bent slightly down, so that he could see once more the rich
massive braids resting upon a shapely, creamy neck. "Have they been
saying anything to her?" said Charley, as the brougham disappeared.
"She's getting quite unpleasant. Grows just like the old woman:
regularly parrot-beaked. Why didn't she introduce me? Took the best
seat, too! Looks strange! I say, though, `bai Jove'--as that sweet
brother says--this sort of thing won't do! I should like to please the
dad; but I don't think I could manage to do it `that how,' as they say
about here. She quite frightens me! Heigho! what a bother life is when
you can't spend it just as you like! Wish I was out in Australia or
Africa, or somewhere to be free and easy--to hunt and shoot and ride as
one liked. Let's see: I shall not go over to the town now--it's nearly
lunch-time, and I'm wet."
He had mounted his horse, and was about to turn homeward, when something
shining in the grass caught his eye, and leaping down, he snatched up
from among the glistening strands, heavy with raindrops, a little golden
cross--one that had evidently slipped from velvet or ribbon as the
ladies stood beneath that tree.
"That's not Miss Laura's--can't be!" muttered Charley, as he gazed
intently at the little ornament. "Not half fine enough for her."
Then turning it over, he found engraved upon the reverse:
"E.B. From her Mother, 1860."
"E.B.--E.B.--E.B.! And pray who is E.B.?" muttered Charley, as, once
more mounting, he turned his horse's head homeward. "Eleanor B. or
Eliza--no, that's a housemaid's name--Ernestine, Eva. Who can she be?
Not introduced--given the back seat--hardly spoken to, and yet so
ladylike, and--There, get on, Beauty! What am I thinking about? We
sha'n't be back to lunch."
He cantered on for a mile: and then as they entered a sunny lane--a very
arcade of gem-besprinkled verdure--he drew rein, and taking the little
cross from his pocket, once more read the inscription.
"`E.B. From her mother, 1860.' And pray who is her mother? and who is
E.B.? Nobody from about here, I'll be bound. But what a contrast to
that great, tall, dark woman! And they call her beautiful! Not half so
beautiful as you, my lass!" he cried, rousing himself, and patting his
mare's arched neck. "You are my beauty, eh, lass? Get on, then!"
But as Charley Vining rode on he grew thoughtful, and more than once he
absently muttered:
"Yes; I think I'll go to the flower-show to-morrow!"
Volume 1, Chapter VI.