That day week saw Alice, Harry, and Celeste (a little pert _soubrette_,
whom Alice had brought back from Paris with her), on their way to the
railway-station at H--------; a groom and a couple of saddle-horses
(without which Harry could not support the burden of a London life)
having preceded them by a slower train. As Harry had a great horror
of being too late, and had flurried and bustled Alice to such a degree
that, if she had not been the most good-natured little woman in the
world (except in matters connected with the feelings), she would
assuredly have lost her temper, of course they were at least a quarter
of an hour too soon, and were forced to promenade up and down beneath a
Brobdignagian glass roof, open at each end, and enjoy the large supply
of draughts afforded by this ingenious compromise between indoors and
out of doors. Having paced up and down the platform for some ten minutes
or so--lost Celeste and the trunks, and found them again--and narrowly
escaped violent death from wild luggage-barrows, urged by reckless and
excited porters, neatly bound in green corduroy, and numbered like
the lots in a saleroom,--the train by which they were to fly to London
crawled up ignominiously at the tail of a strong-minded cart-horse,
which a heroic but unclean supernumary conducted in the way he should
go. Just as Alice had taken her seat, and was imploring Harry to join
her before a dreadful green dragon of a locomotive engine (which had
been getting up its steam, and taking in its fuel, and wetting its
whistle, and otherwise performing its awful toilet in a neighbouring
cavern, whence it issued looking as vicious, and dangerous, and eager to
burst in a tunnel, as a furious steam-devil could do) should get at
him and do him a mischief, a tall, elegant-looking young man, who was
seeking for an unoccupied place, suddenly exclaimed--
“I beg pardon, but surely I have the pleasure of seeing Harry--a--that
is--Mr. Coverdale?”
“A true bill, sir,” replied Harry; “but just at present you’ve all
the pleasure to yourself, for I must honestly confess that I do
not recollect you; and yet--no--yes--why, it can’t be little Alfred
Courtland?”
“As for the ‘little,’ I must leave you to judge for yourself; the
copy-books tell us that ‘all weeds grow apace,’ and I’m afraid I’m
a shocking example; but Alfred Courtland I most certainly am, and
delighted to meet an old acquaintance--if an urchin in the under-school
dare pretend to have been on such a footing with one of the sixth form.”
“Little Alfred Courtland, six feet high, and cultivating whiskers!
Wonders will never cease,” resumed Harry, meditatively: “but are you
going by this train? Jump in here, man, and I’ll introduce you to my
wife. Alice, this is Alfred--I beg his pardon, but I can’t remember
he’s not a little boy still--_Lord_ Alfred Courtland. You remember Arthur
Hazlehurst, my _fidus Achates_, don’t you, Courtland? my wife is his
sister. Tickets! well, here they are. What a suspicious generation these
railway officials are! anybody would suppose they had been accustomed
to deal with thieves and pickpockets all their lives, instead of honest
Englishmen. But I hate the railroads, root and branch, that’s a fact;
they’ve ruined the breed of horses in this country.”
While Harry ran on in this style, Alice had time to observe her new
acquaintance more attentively. He appeared very young, scarcely above
nineteen or twenty. His figure, though tall and graceful, was slight
and boyish; his head was small and well set on, and his pale, delicate
features were shaded by a profusion of fair curling hair; while his
bearing and appearance were singularly refined and aristocratic; or, as
Harry afterwards observed, “He looked thorough bred, every inch of
him.” His expression was good and amiable; but a want of firmness and
resolution about the lines of his mouth belied the promise of intellect
afforded by his high, smooth brow, and bright, speaking eyes.
“And what are you doing with yourself?” inquired Coverdale, after sundry
mutual acquaintances had been talked over, and the reminiscences
usual between old schoolfellows run through; “are you at either of the
universities?”
“Yes, I’m a Cantab,” was the reply; “but scarcely more than nominally
so, for during my first term I got a tumble into the Cam, boating--dined
at Ely in my wet clothes, and was rewarded for my carelessness by an
aguish low fever, which I am only now recovering from; so I am ordered
to be perfectly idle and amuse myself--a prescription which I am afraid
agrees but too well with my tastes and habits.”
“And finding country ingredients too mild, you are going to town to try
and get a stronger dose there, I suppose?” inquired Harry.
“You must be a wizard,” was the reply. “The fact is, my people have
wintered abroad, and Chiselborough became so dull the moment the hunting
was over, that I found _ennui_ was bringing my ague back again; so
holding solemn conclave with the apothecary and my valet, we yesterday
decided, _nem. con_., upon a couple of months’ sojourn in the modern
Babylon.”
To this piece of intelligence Harry vouchsafed no further answer than
a shrug of the shoulders, by which significant gesture he intended to
telegraph to his wife his opinion as to the wisdom of trusting the young
gentleman to his own sapient guidance amidst the shoals and quicksands
of a London season. At this period the dragon, which had been drawing
the train very quietly and peacefully, suddenly gave a prolonged scream
(by courtesy termed a whistle), panted violently, hissed a good deal,
and having by these manœuvres “blown off” its superfluous steam, it
kindly postponed bursting for a short time, and condescended obligingly
to stop at the Tearem and Smashingly Junction, without demanding any
immediate sacrifice of human life. Coverdale and Lord Alfred instantly
jumped out (although perfectly aware that they should be obliged to jump
in again at the expiration of three minutes and a quarter), and,
after the fashion of impatient male humanity, which, as Harry somewhat
paradoxically observed, “Cannot stand sitting,” began stamping up and
down the platform as though a legion of black-beetles, or some such
entymological freebooters, had crept up their trousers’ legs, and they
were striving to dislodge them. Some operation, however, which was going
on under one of those queer kind of sheds peculiar to railway-stations,
which give one an idea of a child’s toy magnified, attracted their
attention, and caused them to discontinue their amusement. After gazing
earnestly for a few seconds, Harry exclaimed,--
“They’ll never do it so, never! There, do you see, he’s standing right
before him, dragging at his head, and yet expects the poor animal to
go on; the man must be an idiot! Yes, of course, hit the poor thing for
your own fault, and frighten him, so that you’ll be able to do nothing
with him. Ah! I thought so; they’ll have an accident directly, the
fools! as if there wasn’t a quiet manner of doing these things. Hold
my great coat, Alfred; I shall be back in two seconds.” And suiting the
action to the word, he tossed his coat to his companion and ran off.
“Where _has_ he gone to?” inquired Alice, disconsolately, from the
window of the railway-carriage.
“To assist a stupid groom to put a very fine horse into one of the
horse-boxes,” was the reply. “He said he should be back in a minute.”
“Now, gentlemen, take your places; the train’s going to start--take your
places,” vociferated an individual, who looked like a very oddly-dressed
soldier, but who was the railway-guard.
“Oh! where can he be? We shall start without him!” exclaimed Alice in
dismay.
“I’ll go and look for him,” rejoined Lord Alfred, good-naturedly.
“If you would be so very kind,” returned Alice, her lovely eyes
sparkling with gratitude.
“Better not, sir; only lose your own place, without finding the
gent--train’s agoin’ to start. I must shut the door,” grumbled a cynical
porter.
“Pray keep it open till the last moment!” exclaimed Alice, drawing out
her purse, while Lord Alfred, disregarding the porter’s advice, dashed
off on his mission.
“Am I allowed to give you anything?” continued Alice, timidly, as a
vague suspicion of the illegality of bribing railway porters flashed
across her.
The man looked up and down the platform, and perceiving no informer
near, did not commit himself by words, but partially closing the door,
so as to conceal the action, held out his hand, with the palm turned
suggestively upwards. As his fingers closed over the half-crown which
Alice, with a strong idea that she was committing an indictable offence,
placed within his grasp, an angry and imperative voice called out, “Now
then, shut that door there!” and in spite of Alice’s remonstrances, the
porter was about to obey, when, breathless with running, Lord Alfred
sprang into the carriage, the door was slammed to, a bell rang
furiously, the dragon gave a short, pert scream of delight at getting
its head, and the train started. Unheeding, in fact scarcely hearing
Lord Alfred’s mild remonstrance that he believed it was reckoned
dangerous to put one’s head out of the window of a railway carriage,
Alice immediately committed that folly, and was rewarded for her
imprudence by seeing, just as the train was getting to its full speed,
Harry rush distractedly on to the platform, shake his fist at the
retreating carriages, and then, watch in hand, stride up to the
station-master, and evidently afford him a specimen of his quiet
manner. With a feeling half way between an inclination to laugh and
a disposition to cry, Alice resumed her seat, and, under pretence
of arranging her veil, took a glance round the carriage. Her only
companion, besides Lord Alfred Courtland, was a species of prize old
gentleman, who having spent his life hitherto in growing as fat as the
nature of the case admitted, was evidently resolved to guard against the
possibility of his shadow becoming less, by devoting the remainder of
his existence to the duties of eating, drinking, and sleeping, which
latter accomplishment he was then displaying to the admiration of all
lovers of that science of which honest Sancho Panza so fervently blessed
the inventor. Having mentally summed him up in the definition “wretched
old thing,” Alice next took a survey of her new friend, and decided that
he had such a good, innocent, child-like expression of countenance,
that young and handsome as he was, she would not have minded even if the
“wretched old thing” had not been present to play _chaperone_ in dumb
show.
“How very provoking for Mr. Coverdale to lose the train, and all through
his good-nature, too,” began Lord Alfred; “I saw the affair as well as
he did, but it would never have occurred to me to interfere.”
“Nor to any one else except Mr. Coverdale,” returned Alice, scornfully;
“his devotion to horses and dogs is quite exemplary.”
“As a pattern or as a warning?” inquired Lord Alfred, favouring her with
a look of intelligence for which she was scarcely prepared.
“You are laughing at me,” she said; “but I will honestly confess that
it is rather trying to see Mr. Coverdale place himself and me in a
ridiculous, if not actually an embarrassing situation, merely for the
sake of a horse.”
“It was a very _fine_ horse,” observed Lord Alfred, meditatively.
“And therefore the worthier animal of the two--thank you for the
compliment, my lord,” was the slightly piqued reply, which of course
produced a carefully veiled but teasing rejoinder; and with such-like
light _badinage_ did they beguile the time, until having rushed for
some distance over acres of turnips, stubble, grass-land, and other such
agricultural territory, changing as by some pantomimic agency to the
roofs of houses, with elegant _parterres_ of chimney-pots, they were
surprised to find they had reached the London terminus.
The cessation of movement having roused the prize elder from his
meritorious slumbers, Alice waited until, with many snorts and grunts he
had aroused his legs (which were evidently each enjoying a separate and
independent nap of its own) and toddled off upon them, ere she inquired
in rather a forlorn tone, “And now I wonder what is to become of me?
Would you kindly ascertain when the next train will be in?”
Lord Alfred made the inquiry, and obtained the cheering intelligence
that the next train which stopped at the Tearem and Smashingly Junction
would arrive in exactly two hours fifteen minutes and a quarter, at
which time, as nearly as Alice could calculate, the Crane butler would
be removing the fish and soup.
“It is impossible that you can wait here all that time, my dear Mrs.
Coverdale!” exclaimed Lord Alfred. “What will you like me to do for
you? You must tell me exactly what you wish.”
“You are very kind,” returned Alice, feeling much inclined to get into a
fuss at the oddness of the situation which thus forced her to rely on
a handsome young man, with whom she had been acquainted some two
hours. Then submitting to her fate with a feeling of desperation,
she continued, “First give me your arm, and conduct me to the ladies’
waiting-room; and then if you would be so kind as to look for Celeste,
my maid, and--really I am ashamed to trouble you, my lord, but there
are some trunks she ought to find, and she can’t speak a dozen words
of English intelligibly; and--how you’re to recognize her I can’t tell;
really how Mr. Coverdale could----”
But before she could finish her accusatory sentence, Lord Alfred,
anxious to distinguish himself in his new capacity of squire of dames,
had disappeared. In less time than Alice had deemed possible, he
returned with Celeste and a bundle of shawls and wrappers on one arm,
and carrying a carpet-bag with the other.
“My mission has been accomplished with the most signal success, I
flatter myself: and now I hope your difficulties are ended, my dear Mrs.
Coverdale; Celeste and I have found _all_ the trunks. Fortunately, my
brougham is here, and I need scarcely add, entirely at your service.”
Seeing she hesitated, he continued, “Don’t be alarmed about the
proprieties, I have been too well drilled in such matters by my sisters
to intrude where I am not wanted.”
“Really your lordship is most kind,” exclaimed Alice, all her scruples
vanishing before his good-nature and consideration. And there being
nothing for it but to take his arm (relinquished somewhat hastily by
Celeste when she discovered that it was a _Milor Anglais_ with whom
she had made so free) and allow him to put her into the well-appointed
brougham, Alice did so with an interesting succession of smiles and
blushes which made her look most dangerously pretty. Thereupon the two
hundred guinea horse, which was so thoroughly stuffed with oats that it
might almost as well have been a corn-bin, and which, being an animal of
the highest breeding, had evinced such an amount of disgust and terror
at the hissing, snorting, whistling, and other low habits of the steam
dragon, that nothing but the strongest sense of propriety and a very
severe curb-bit could have kept it from running away, stood on its hind
legs like a Christian, vindicated its transcendentalism by salaaming
like a Turk ere it resumed its quadrupedal attitude, and finally set
off, at about the rate of fifteen miles an hour, with its head and tail
as erect as if some invisible giant were attempting to lift it up by
them.