XXI

I WENT to Ascot with the Bangley Coffins--Mr., Mrs., and the two Misses

Bangley Coffin. I didn't know the Bangley Coffins very well, but they

were kind enough to ask Lady Torquilin if I might go with them, and Lady

Torquilin consented with alacrity. 'You couldn't go away from England

without seeing Ascot,' said she. 'It would be a sin! It's far too much

riot for me; besides, I can't bear to see the wretched horses. If they

would only learn to race without beating the poor beasties! To say

nothing of the expense, which I call enormous. So by all means go with

the Bangley Coffins, child--they're lively people--I daresay you'll

enjoy yourself.'

Lady Torquilin was surprised and disappointed, however, when she

learned that the party would go by train. 'I wonder at them,' she said,

referring to the Bangley Coffins; 'they know such a lot of people. I

would have said they were morally certain to be on somebody's drag.

Shall you care to go by train?' Whereupon I promptly assured Lady

Torquilin that I was only too happy to go any way.

So we started, the morning of the Gold Cup day, I and the Bangley

Coffins. I may as well describe the Bangley Coffins, in the hope that

they may help to explain my experiences at Ascot. I have to think

of Mrs. Bangley Coffin very often myself, when I try to look back

intelligently upon our proceedings.

Mrs. Bangley Coffin was tall, with a beautiful figure and pale gold

hair. The Misses Bangley Coffin were also tall, with prospectively

beautiful figures and pale gold hair. I never saw such a resemblance

between mother and daughters as there was between the Misses Bangley

Coffin and their mamma. They sat up in the same way, their shoulders had

the same slope, their elbows the same angle. The same lines developed

on the countenance of Mrs. Bangley Coffin were undeveloped on the

countenances of the Misses Bangley Coffin. Except in some slight matter

of nose or eyes, Mr. Bangley Coffin hardly suggested himself in either

of the young ladies. When they spoke, it was in their mother's voice and

in their mother's manner--a manner that impressed you for the moment

as being the only one in the world. Both they and their mamma had on

dresses which it was perfectly evident they had never worn before, and

of which they demanded my opinion with a frankness that surprised me.

'What do you think,' said they, 'of our Ascot frocks?' I admired them

very much; they represented, amongst them, nearly all the fashionable

novelties, and yet they had a sort of conventional originality, if I may

say such a thing, which was extremely striking. They seemed satisfied

with my applause, but promptly fell upon me for not meriting applause

myself. 'We saw you,' they said unitedly, 'in that frock last Sunday in

the park!'--and there was a distinct reproach in the way they said it.

'It's quite charming!' they assured me--and it was--'but it's not as if

you hadn't quantities of them! Do you mean to say Lady Torquilin didn't

tell you you ought to have a special frock for Ascot?' 'She said I

should do very well in this,' I declared, 'and that it would be a sin to

buy another; I had much better give the money to Dr. Barnardo!' Whereat

Mrs. Bangley Coffin and the two Misses Bangley Coffin looked at one

another and remarked, 'How like Lady Torquilin!'

'I didn't give it to Dr. Barnardo,' I continued--to which Mrs. Bangley

Coffin rejoined, in parenthesis, 'I should hope not'--' but I'm glad

Lady Torquilin did not advise me to get an Ascot frock, though yours are

very pretty. I feel that I couldn't have sustained one--I haven't the

personality!' And indeed this was quite true. It occurred to me often

again through the day; I could not have gone about inside an Ascot frock

without feeling to some extent the helpless and meaningless victim of

it. The Bangley Coffin girls thought this supreme nonsense, and declared

that I could carry anything off, and Mrs.

Bangley Coffin said, with pretended severity, that it was not a

question of feeling but of looking; but they united in consoling me so

successfully that I at last believed myself dressed to perfection for

Ascot--if I had only worn something else to the park the Sunday before!

Original The husband and father of the Bangley Coffins was a short, square-shouldered gentleman with bushy eyebrows, a large moustache, plaid trousers, and a grey tail-coat that was a very tight fit round the waist. He had an expression of deep sagacity, and he took from an inner pocket, and fondled now and then, a case containing six very large brown cigars. His look of peculiar anticipative intelligence, combined with the cigars, gave me the idea that we should not be overburdened with Mr. Bangley Coffin's society during the day--which proved to be a correct one.

It did not seem to me, in spite of what Lady Torquilin had said, that

it was at all unpopular to go to Ascot by rail. Trains were leaving the

station every four or five minutes, all full of people who preferred

that way of going; and our own car, which was what, I believe, you

call a 'saloon carriage,' had hardly an empty seat. They looked nice

respectable people, too, nearly all in Ascot frocks, though not perhaps

particularly interesting. What surprised me in connection with the ride

was the length of it; it was not a ride, as I had somehow expected, of

twenty minutes or half an hour from London, but a journey of, I forget

how many, interminable hours. And what surprised me in connection

with the people was their endurance of it. They did not fuss, or grow

impatient, or consult their watches as the time dragged by; they sat

up, calm and placid and patient, and only looked occasionally, for

refreshment, at their Ascot frocks. They seemed content to take an

enormous amount of trouble for the amusement which might be supposed to

be tickling their fancy at the other end of the trip--if there was any

other end--to take it unshrinkingly and seriously. It gave me an idea of

how difficult it is to be amused in England--unless you are a foreigner.

Ascot to them was no light matter, and to me it was such a very light

matter. I tried to imagine any fifty Americans of my acquaintance

dressing up in their best clothes, and spending six or seven hours of

a day in protracted railway journeys, for the sake of a little fun

in between; and I failed. It's as much as we would do to inaugurate a

president, or bury a general who saved the Union. We would consider the

terms high. But, of course, it is impossible for me to say how we might

behave if we had Distinguished Occasions, with Royal Inclosures inside

them.

We started with a sense of disappointment, which seemed to come in

through the windows and envelop the Bangley Coffins, because 'some

people' they had expected failed to appear upon the platform. Mr.

Bangley Coffin looked particularly depressed. 'Don't see how the deuce

we're going to arrange!' he said to Mrs. Bangley Coffin, with unction.

'Oh, there's sure to be somebody, Joey, love!' she returned, cheerfully;

'and in any case, you see, we have you.' To which Mr. Bangley Coffin

gave a dubious and indistinct assent. I did not get on well with Mr.

Bangley Coffin. He seemed to mean well, but he had a great many phrases

which I did not in the least understand, and to which he invariably

added, 'As you say in America.' It was never by any chance a thing we

did say in America, but nothing could make Mr. Bangley Coffin believe

that. I can't say that we had much general conversation either, but in

what there was I noticed great good-feeling between the Misses Bangley

Coffins and their mamma.

'The bonnet of that Israelite at the other end of the carriage would

suit you to a "T", mummie,' one of them remarked in joke. The bonnet was

a terrible affair, in four shades of heliotrope.

'Yes,' replied Mrs. Bangley Coffin, smiling quite good-naturedly;

'that's about my form.'

The Bangley Coffins were all form. Form, for them, regulated existence.

It was the all-compelling law of the spheres, the test of all human

action and desire. 'Good form' was the ultimate expression of their

respect, 'bad form' their final declaration of contempt. Perhaps I

should misjudge the Bangley Coffins if I said form was their conscience,

and I don't want to misjudge them--they were very pleasant to me. But I

don't think they would have cared to risk their eternal salvation upon

any religious tenets that were not entirely comme il faut--I mean the

ladies Bangley Coffin. The head of their house twisted his moustache and

seemed more or less indifferent.

There is no doubt that, in the end, we did get to Ascot, and left our

dust-cloaks in charge of that obliging middle-aged person who is to

be found in every ladies' waiting-room in England. There was some

discussion as to whether we should or should not leave our dust-cloaks

with her--they were obviously unbecoming, but, obviously also, it might

rain. However, in the end we did. Mrs. Bangley Coffin thought we might

trust to Providence, and Providence proved itself worthy of Mrs. Bangley

Coffin's confidence.

Again, as we joined the crowd that surged out of the station, I noticed

that look of anxious expectancy on the face of the Bangley Coffin

family. It was keener than before, and all embracing. I even fancied I

noticed an understood division of survey--an arrangement by which Mr.

Bangley Coffin looked to the north, and Mrs. Bangley Coffin to the

south, one young lady to the east, and the other to the west. 'We really

must keep an eye open,' said Mr. Bangley Coffin. 'Coming this way? Oh!

Hullo, Pipply, old man! H'are you?' with extreme cordiality, to a short,

very stout gentleman in grey, with a pink face and a hooked nose, and a

white moustache, and a blue-spotted necktie--a New Yorker, I was sure,

before he spoke. Pipply responded with very moderate transports, and

shook hands hastily with the ladies attached to Mr. Bangley Coffin.

'Mrs. Pipply's with you, I see,' continued Mr. Bangley Coffin, joyously,

'and that charming sister of hers! Kitty, we must see whether they have

forgotten us, mustn't we?'--and he and Kitty advanced upon two very

much-accented fair ladies in frilled muslins and large flowery hats.

They were dressed as fashionably as Bond Street could dress them, and

they were as plump and pretty as could be, but perhaps just a little too

big and blue of eye and pink-and-white of complexion quite to satisfy

the Bangley Coffin idea of 'form.' It would be difficult to account

otherwise for what they did. For the Pipplys, they were very amiable,

but, as you might say, at bay; and after reproaching the Bangley Coffins

with having never, never, never come to see them, after promising

solemnly to do so at Cannes, where they had all had such a good time

together, Mrs. Pipply proceeded to say that she didn't know whether we

were driving--if not, they had room for one, and we might arrange to

meet again somewhere. 'How good of you!' said Mrs. Bangley Coffin, and

looked at her two daughters. 'We're really obliged to you,' said Mr.

Bangley Coffin, and bent a gaze of strong compulsion upon his wife. The

young ladies smiled, hesitated, and looked at me. I couldn't go. I had

not even been introduced. There was an awkward pause--the kind of pause

you never get out of England--and as the Pipplys, rather huffed and

rather in a hurry, were moving off, Mrs. Bangley Coffin covered their

retreat, as it were, with the unblushing statement that she was afraid

we must try to keep our little party together. And we lost the Pipplys;

whereupon Mr. Bangley Coffin regarded his family with the air of a

disciplinarian. 'They're certain to be on a drag,' said he, 'and no

end of Pipply's clubs have tents. Why didn't one of you go? Not classy

enough, eh?' Whereupon they all with one accord began to make excuse,

after which we walked on in a troubled silence. It was very dusty and

very steep, that narrow hill that so many people find fortune at the top

or ruin at the bottom of, leading to the heart of Ascot. But the day had

brightened, and the people--all going uphill--were disposed to be merry,

and two one-armed sailors sat in the sun by the side of the road singing

ballads and shouting, 'Good luck to you, ladies!' so that my spirits

gradually rose. I didn't see how I could help enjoying myself.

'I always think it's such a frightful charge for admission to the Grand

Stand,' said Mrs. Bangley Coffin, as we walked up the arboreal approach

to it. 'A sovereign! Of course, they have to do it, you know, to keep

the mob out; but really, when one thinks of it, it is too much!'

I thought this a real kindness of Mrs. Bangley Coffin, because if I had

not known it was so much I might have let Mr. Bangley Coffin pay for my

ticket too.

It was about this time that Mr. Bangley Coffin disappeared. He launched

us, as it were, upon the crowded terrace in front of the Grand Stand,

where at every turn the Misses Bangley Coffin expected to see a man they

knew. He remained semi-detached and clinging for about a quarter of an

hour, coming up with an agreeable criticism upon a particular costume,

darting off again to talk to a large, calm man with an expansive checked

shirt-front and a silk hat well on the back of his head, who carried a

notebook. Then, once, Mrs. Bangley Coffin addressed him, thinking

him behind her. 'Joey, love!' said she. 'Joey, love!' said she again,

turning her head. But Joey was utterly and wholly gone. I believe he

explained afterwards that he had lost us.

'There!' said Mrs. Bangley Coffin, with incisiveness; 'now we must see

somebody we know! Pet, isn't that Sir Melville Cartus?' It was, and Sir

Melville came up in response to Mrs. Bangley Coffin's eyeglass and bow

and smile, and made himself extremely agreeable for about four minutes

and a-quarter. Then he also took off his hat with much charm of manner

and went away. So did a nervous little Mr. Trifugis, who joined us for

a short time. He said he was on the Fitzwalters's drag, and it was so

uncommon full he had apprehensions about getting back. Whose drag were

we on? and didn't we think it was drawing near the halcyon hour of

luncheon?

'Nobody's,' said Mrs. Bangley Coffin, pointedly. 'We came by train this

year. Joey is suffering from a fit of economy--the result of Surefoot's

behaviour at the Derby. It is about time for luncheon.'

Whereat Mr. Trifugis dropped his eyeglass and looked absently over his

left shoulder, blushing hard. Then he screwed the eyeglass in again very

tight, looked at us all with amiable indefiniteness, took off his

hat, and departed. 'Little beast!' said Mrs. Bangley Coffin, candidly;

'there's not the slightest reason why he couldn't have given us all

luncheon at the Lyric enclosure.'

Then I began to see why it was so necessary that we should meet somebody

we knew--it meant sustenance. It was, as Mr. Trifugis had said, quite

time for sustenance, and neither the Bangley Coffin family nor I had

had any since breakfast, and if it had not been for that consideration,

which was naturally a serious one, I, for my part, would have been

delighted just to go round, as we seemed likely to do, by ourselves.

There was no band, as there never is in England--I suppose because

Edward the Confessor or somebody didn't like bands; but there was

everything else that goes to give an occasion brilliance and variety--a

mingling crowd of people with conventionally picturesque clothes and

interesting manners, sunlight, flags, a race-course, open boxes, an

obvious thrill of excitement, a great many novel noises. Besides, it was

Ascot, and its interest was intrinsic.

'I think we must try the drags,' said Mrs. Bangley Coffin--and we

defiled out into the crowd beyond the gates, whose dress is not

original, that surges unremuneratively between the people who pay on the

coaches and the people who pay on the Lawn. It was more amusing outside,

though less exclusive--livelier, noisier. Men were hanging thick against

the palings of the Lawn, with expressions of deep sagacity and coloured

shirts, calling uninterruptedly, 'Two to one bar one!' 'Two to one

Orveito!' and very well dressed young gentlemen occasionally came up

and entered into respectful conference with them. We were jostled a good

deal in the elbowing multitude, and it seemed to me to be always, as if

in irony, by a man who sold gingerbread or boiled lobsters. We made our

way through it, however, and walked slowly in the very shadow of the

drags, on top of which people with no better appetites than we had were

ostentatiously feasting. We were all to look out for the Pibbly hats,

and we did--in vain. 'I can't imagine,' said Mrs. Bangley Coffin to

each of her daughters in turn, 'why you didn't go with them!' We saw Mr.

Trifugis, and noted bitterly that he had not been at all too late.

An actress on the Lyric drag gave us a very frank and full-flavoured

criticism of our dresses, but it was unsatisfying, except to the

sensibilities.

'Shall we try behind, mamma?' asked one of the young ladies. 'Who could possibly see us behind?' exclaimed Mrs. Bangley Coffin, who was getting cross. Nevertheless, we did try behind, and somebody did see us--several very intelligent footmen.

'Is there no place,' I inquired for the fourth or fifth time, 'where we

could buy a little light refreshment?' Mrs. Bangley Coffin didn't say

there was not, but seemed to think it so improbable that it was hardly

worth our while to look. 'Nobody lunches at Ascot, Miss Wick,' she said

at last, with a little asperity, 'except on the drags or at the club

enclosures. It's--it's impossible.'

'Well,' I said, 'I think it's very unenterprising not to make provision

for such a large number of people. If this were in America----' But just

then we came face to face with Colonel and Mrs. B. J. Silverthorn, of

St. Paul's, Minnesota. To say that I was glad to see these old friends

in this particular emergency is to say very little. I knew the Colonel's

theory of living, and I was quite sure that starving for six hours on an

English racecourse had no place in it. I knew his generous heart, too,

and was confident that any daughter of poppa's might rely upon it to

the utmost. So, after introducing Mrs. and the Misses Bangley Coffin,

I proceeded to explain our unfortunate situation. 'Can you tell us,' I

begged, 'where we can get something to eat?'

The Colonel did not hesitate a moment. 'Come right along with me,' he

said. 'It isn't just the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but it'll do if you're

hungry, and I guess you are!' And we all followed him to the rather

abridged seclusion of the restaurant behind the Grand Stand. The Colonel

did it all very handsomely--ordered champagne, and more dishes than

twice as many people could have disposed of; but the cloud that rested

upon the brows of Mrs. and the Misses Bangley Coffin did not disperse

with the comforting influence of food, and they kept a nervous eye upon

the comers and goers. I suppose they had waited too long for their meal

really to enjoy it.

We parted from Colonel and Mrs. Silverthorn almost immediately

afterwards--they said they wanted to go and have another good look

at the Royalties and Dukes in their own yard, and Mrs. Bangley Coffin

thought it was really our duty to stay where Mr. Bangley Coffin might

find us. So we went and sat in a row and saw the Gold Cup won, and

shortly after took an early train for London, Mrs. Bangley Coffin

declaring that she had no heart for another sovereign for the Paddock.

On the way home she said she was sorry I had had such a dull day, and

that it was her first and last attempt to 'screw' Ascot. But I had not

had at all a dull day--it had been immensely interesting, to say nothing

of the pleasure of meeting Colonel and Mrs. Silverthorn. I quite agreed

with Mrs. Bangley Coffin, however, that it is better to make liberal

arrangements for Ascot when you go as an Ascot person.