DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEMALE US
The next morning, a little before eleven, the wonderful Miss Perry,
accompanied by the admirable Mr. Bryant, was approaching Apsley House
when the figure of a solitary horseman was to be seen. It had a
combination of unexpectedness and familiarity which fixed Miss Perry’s
attention. She gave a little exclamation. The horseman was unmistakably
Jim Lascelles.
Jim received a most affectionate greeting.
“You are just in time,” said he. “It is a near thing. Gobo is yonder in
the offing. I was afraid he would get here before you.”
Miss Perry was delighted but perplexed by a suggestion that Jim put
forward. It was that they should go down the left while Gobo rode up on
the right.
“But I promised Gobo,” she said.
“Look here, Goose Girl,” said Jim, with tremendous resolution, “do you
suppose I have invested the last half-sovereign I have in the world on
the worst hack in London, to be cut out by that old duffer? Come on
round, you Goose, before he gets up.”
Really Miss Perry is not to be blamed. Jim Lascelles was resolution
incarnate once he had made up his mind. Jim’s horse, a nondescript who
does not merit serious notice, walked a few paces briskly, the chestnut
followed its example, as chestnuts will, and the next thing was Jim’s
horse broke into a canter. The chestnut did the same. Of course it was
Miss Perry’s business to see that the chestnut did nothing of the sort.
But it has to be recorded that she failed in her obvious duty. And
then, so swift is the road to destruction, in less time than it takes
to inform the incredulous reader, the chestnut and the nondescript
began literally to fly down Rotten Row.
It was a golden morning of glorious June, and, of course, things
constantly happen at that vernal season. But as the four pairs of
irresponsible hoofs came thundering by, flinging up the tan in all
directions and nearly knocking over a policeman, equestrians of both
sexes, and pedestrians too, stared in polite amazement and very decided
disapproval. If not absolutely contrary to the park regulations, it was
certainly very wrong behavior.
There is every reason to suspect that the opinion of that high
authority, Mr. Bryant, was even more uncompromising. Not for an instant
did he attempt to cope with the pace that had been set. He was content
sadly to watch his charge get farther and farther away. He then turned
to look back at the man with the red face, who had just arrived at the
turn.
That elevated personage, who could not see at all well without his
spectacles, halted at the turn and looked in vain for the wonderful
Miss Perry. His friend Cheriton, who had entered the gates just in time
to be _au courant_ with all that had happened, accosted him cheerfully.
“Doctors’ orders, George?”
“Ye-es,” said George, rather gruffly.
“I warned you years ago, my dear fellow,” said his friend,
sympathetically, “that any man who drinks port wine in the middle of
the day as a regular thing, can count later in life on the crown of the
martyr.”
George looked rather cross. He peered to the right and he peered to the
left. The ever-receding pair were by now undecipherable to stronger
eyes than those of George Betterton.
“Seen a gal about?” he inquired rather irritably. There never was
a duke since the creation of the order who could endure to be kept
waiting.
“I’ve seen several,” said his friend, with an air of preternatural
innocence.
“I mean that gal of Caroline Crewkerne’s,” said George.
“I was not aware that she had one.”
“Tall, bouncing gal,” said George. “Ginger hair.”
“Ginger hair!” said his friend. “Tall, bouncing gal! Do you mean my
ward, Miss Perry?”
“Your ward! What d’ye mean, Cheriton?”
“Caroline Crewkerne seems to think,” said Cheriton, coolly, “that
I shall serve the best interests of a lonely and unprotected and
extraordinarily prepossessing girlhood if I act, as it were, _in loco
parentis_ during Miss Perry’s sojourn in the vast metropolis.”
George began to gobble furiously. It was a sign, however, that his mind
was working. That heavy and rusty mechanism was very difficult to set
in motion.
“If it comes to that,” said he, “I should say I am quite as capable of
looking after the gal as you are.”
“A matter of opinion, George, I assure you,” said Cheriton, with genial
candor.
“What d’ye mean?”
“For one thing, I am rather older than you. Therefore, in Caroline’s
opinion, I am better fitted to occupy the paternal office.”
“Are you, though?” said George, stubbornly.
“I am sixty-five, you know,” said his friend, with an air of modest
pride. “The ideal age, if I may say so, for wisdom, experience, and
knowledge of the world to coalesce in the service of innocence, beauty,
and extreme youth. At least, I know that is Caroline Crewkerne’s
opinion.”
“Goin’ to marry the gal, are you?” said George, bluntly.
Some men are very blunt by nature.
“The exigencies of the situation may render that course expedient,”
said Cheriton, rather forensically. “But in any case, my dear George,
speaking with the frankness to which I feel that my advantage in years
entitles me, I am inclined to doubt the seemliness of the open pursuit
by a man of nine-and-fifty of a wayside flower.”
“What d’ye mean, Cheriton?” said George, with a more furious gobble
than any he had yet achieved.
“What I really mean, my dear fellow,” said his friend, “is that you
can no longer indulge in the pleasures of the chase without your
spectacles. Had you been furnished with those highly useful, if not
specially ornamental adjuncts to the human countenance, you would have
been able to observe that the wonderful Miss Perry--whose hair, by the
way, is yellow--was spirited away exactly ninety seconds before you
arrived on the scene.”
“Who took her?” said George, who by now had grown purple with
suppressed energy.
“A young fellow took her,” said Cheriton. “A smart, dashing,
well-set-up young fellow took her, my dear George. He simply came up,
tossed her the handkerchief, and away they set off hell for leather. By
now they are at the Albert Memorial.”
No sooner was this information conveyed to him than George Betterton
did a vain and foolish thing. Without bestowing another word upon
Cheriton he set off in pursuit. It was supremely ridiculous that he
should have behaved in any such fashion. But it is surprising how soon
the most stalwart among us loses his poise; how soon the most careful
performer topples off the tight-rope of perfect discretion and sanity.
The spectacle of George pursuing the runaways with a haste that was
almost as unseemly as their own was certainly romantic. And at the same
time it provided infinitely pleasant food for the detached observer
who was responsible for George’s behavior.
Cheriton stood to watch and to laugh sardonically. The marionette had
begun to answer to the strings in delightful fashion. He promised to
excel all anticipation.
In the meantime Young Blood was careering away like the wind. Faster
and faster it went. It was higher, deeper, richer, more exhilarating
than any of the old Widdiford madnesses. It was in vain that the
British public looked pained and the London police looked important.
This was its crowded hour of glorious life; and if there was to be an
end to all things, there were two persons at least who felt that, after
all, the cosmos had done very well to get itself invented.
However, this sort of thing cannot last forever. The nondescript soon
began to display signs of distress.
“Bellows to mend,” said Jim.
The glorious Miss Perry had difficulty in checking her chestnut.
“Why,” said she, “he is almost as strong as your papa’s pedigree
hunter.”
“We’ve done a record from the Red House to the Parsonage, I think,”
said Jim.
Even when they turned to ride back their high spirits met with no
check. The crowded glorious hour continued, if pitched in a less
emotional key. Jim’s nondescript was no longer equal to the fine
careless rapture.
“Goose Girl,” said Jim, “do you know I have made a resolution?”
“Have you, Jim?” said Miss Perry.
“I am determined to finish that picture of you in your wonderful
Gainsborough frock.”
“Of course, Jim,” said Miss Perry.
“That picture is to be a masterpiece, you know.”
“Is it, Jim?” said Miss Perry.
“Yes,” said Jim. “And when it has made me famous what do you suppose I
am going to do?”
“I don’t know, Jim,” said Miss Perry.
“Can’t you guess?”
Miss Perry knitted her brows in grave perplexity.
“Marry Muffin.”
“What, marry the Ragamuffin!” said Jim, scornfully.
“She is prettier than Polly is.”
“But she _is_ such a Ragamuffin; and she has never an incredible hat
and a Gainsborough frock to call her own.”
“She has her mauve, Jim,” said Miss Perry.
“No,” said Jim, decisively; “in spite of her mauve I decline to marry
the Ragamuffin.”
Miss Perry looked vastly disappointed.
“Milly is too young,” said she.
Jim pressed the nondescript. The ice was getting desperately thin. And
every moment the light of the morning was making it thinner.
“Goose Girl,” said Jim, “do you remember that once you promised to
marry me?”
“Yes, I did, Jim,” said Miss Perry, “if you got those three big
red-cheeked apples off the tree at the Red House at Widdiford.”
“I got them off all right,” said Jim. “But instead of receiving your
hand in matrimony I got a tremendous licking.”
“The apples were awfully nice, though,” said Miss Perry, like a true
daughter of Eve.
The high personage who controls the limelight continued to play most
embarrassing tricks with the light of the morning. The hapless Jim
Lascelles felt himself to be no match for that master hand.
“Goose Girl,” said Jim, defiantly, “assuming for a moment that I made
myself famous enough to buy back the Red House at Widdiford, with
the strawberry beds and the apple orchards, and the old wicket-gate
that leads into the back lane which takes you straight to the
Parsonage--would you keep the promise that you made when you were a
long-legged person of seven, with a very large appetite, and I was a
chubby subject of thirteen and a half with rather thin trousers?”
“Yes, Jim, I would,” said Miss Perry, with remarkable promptitude,
frankness, and sincerity.
“There, now I’ve done it,” groaned Jim. “It was bound to happen. I knew
the royal daylight would provoke me to make a cad of myself before it
had done playing its tricks. But if people will have yellow hair, and
they will wear yellow gauntlets to match it, and that fellow upstairs
will fling the limelight all over the place, how can a poor painting
chap help himself?”
Miss Perry had grown very grave. She was silent for twenty-five seconds.
“Jim,” said she, with slow-drawn solemnity, “if you do marry anybody, I
r-r-really think it ought to be Muffin.”
“That Ragamuffin!”
“She _is_ such a sweet,” said Miss Perry. “And she is _so_ pretty;
and dearest papa says she is _so_ clever; and of course you know I am
_rather_ a Silly.”
“All the world knows it.”
“And Muffin always said she would just love to live at the Red House at
Widdiford.”
“Goose Girl,” said Jim, “I am afraid you are deep. You want to marry
Gobo.”
“Not r-r-really,” said Miss Perry, with wide-eyed earnestness. “Of
course he is a dear, but--but of course, Jim, he is not like you are.”
“Thank you very much for the information. But tell me, Goose Girl,
wouldn’t you like to be a duchess?”
“Oh no, Jim,” said Miss Perry.
“Why not, you Goose?”
“It sounds rather silly.”
“So it does, now you come to mention it,” said Jim. “But think of all
the wonderful frocks and jewels you would have, and the wonderful
houses, and the wonderful horses, and the wonderful ices of every
conceivable color and every possible flavor. And as for cream buns, a
duchess of course can have as many as she requires.”
“I would rather have the Red House at Widdiford,” said Miss Perry.
“Really,” said Jim, “you are the most tremendous thing in Geese. Just
think what you could do if you were a duchess. You could buy old books
and new vestments for your papa; Muffin could have a new mauve; the
Polly Girl could marry her parson, and she could boast of her sister
who married the duke; and the Milly Girl could think more about Persian
kittens and less about self-improvement; and as for Dickie and Charley,
they both might go to Sandhurst and probably become field-marshals.”
The blue eyes of Miss Perry opened in their dazzlement to dimensions
that were perfectly astonishing.
“It would be awfully nice,” said she; “but, Jim----”
“Well?”
“I did promise you, didn’t I?”
“You would never have got those three red-cheeked apples if you
hadn’t,” said Jim.
As they neared the turn at Hyde Park Corner they began unconsciously to
assume airs of decorum. The accusing figure of Mr. Bryant awaited them.
Lord Cheriton too was only a little way off. He stood by the railings
looking the picture of outraged delicacy.
When the runaways came up to greet him he held up both hands before his
face with the gesture of dismay of a very nice old lady.
“I am dumb,” said he.
Apparently Jim Lascelles was smitten with a similar infirmity. As for
Miss Perry, the ineradicable instincts of her sex assumed the control
of that irresponsible person.
“_Have_ you seen Gobo?” she demanded breathlessly.
The blend of disinterested concern and absolute innocence was perfectly
charming.
“I could never have believed it,” said Cheriton, with a pained air.
“The finished duplicity, the Jesuitical depth.”
“_Have_ you seen him?” demanded Miss Perry.
“Have I seen Gobo? I have seen a roaring, outraged lion in the guise of
a rampant turkey cock.”
“It is an awful pity,” said Miss Perry. “We missed him.”
Cheriton felt that he had never observed such gravely sweet concern in
the human countenance. To have suspected its proprietress of _arrière
pensée_ would have been barbarism.
“Yes; an awful pity,” Cheriton assented. “Particularly for men of a
rather full habit of body who are decidedly short in the neck.”
“Do you think Gobo will mind?” said Miss Perry. “You see, Jim”--the
handle of Jim’s crop was ominously near to her knee--“Mr. Lascelles
came up, and we thought if we went down we should be sure to meet Gobo,
but we didn’t.”
“Lascelles, my good fellow,” said his friend, “isn’t it time you began
to play up a bit? Miss Perry’s lucidity is admirable, but somehow one
has the feeling that her verisimilitude wants eking out a little. Your
version will be interesting.”
“My mount cost a cool half-sovereign which I couldn’t afford,” said
Jim, brazenly, “and I thought as it was a fine morning I had better
have my money’s worth.”
Cheriton’s smile expanded to the dimensions of his necktie.
“Yes,” said he, laughing, “this sort of thing is best left to those
who are born with the instinct for diplomacy. Lascelles, my good
fellow, you would have done far better to have pinned your faith to
your companion in guilt. Her version was excellent, if a little bald.
To my mind it was pitched in quite the right key. It was natural,
lucid, admirably reticent. It clearly suggested that the blame could
not belong to either of you, whoever else it might be fixed upon.
Unfortunately, your own version does not tend to exonerate you equally.
I must confess, Lascelles, that upon my mind it leaves a most unhappy
impression.”
“The truth is,” said Jim, “I am seeking a fresh store of inspiration in
order that I may complete the _chef d’œuvre_.”
“I think it should be a masterpiece undoubtedly.”
“I think so too,” said Jim.
Miss Perry’s far-seeing, west-country eyes appeared to be searching for
something on the far horizon.
“Gobo is coming,” said she.
“Which way?” said Jim.
“He is coming up on the right. Don’t you see him?”
Jim had to strain his gaze.
“Yes; by Jove, you are right!” said he. “What wonderful eyes you have
got, Miss Perry!”
“It is so long since one inhabitated the halcyon era of one’s youth,”
said Cheriton, “that one is rather at a loss to remember whether Red
Riding Hood made a similar observation to the wolf, or whether the wolf
made the observation to Red Riding Hood.”
“The former, undoubtedly,” said Jim.
“I am glad of that,” said Cheriton. “I feared it might have been the
latter.”
“Hadn’t we better be going?” said Jim, brazenly, to his companion in
guilt. “This screw of mine seems to have got his wind back.”
“_Has_ he, Jim?” said Miss Perry.
Jim’s nondescript took a turn to the left. The chestnut followed in the
most natural manner. On this occasion, however, the distance between
the Parsonage and the Red House at Widdiford was not accomplished in
quite such record time. All the same, for the greater part of the way
the pace was decidedly hot.
“Seen anything of the gal, George?” inquired his friend Cheriton.
George was looking very purple indeed.
“I saw a cloud of dust just now,” said he. “There was a ginger-haired
gal in it going at a dooce of a rattle.”
“I can’t imagine my ward, Miss Perry, attempting anything in the nature
of a rattle,” said Cheriton.
“Can’t you?” grunted George, sourly.