Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (30 page)

Mr Hazey's house, Tarring Neville, was about nine miles from Beldon Hall by the road, but only some six or seven by the fields and those convenient cuts that foxhunters establish during the season. Being upon two distinct trusts, however, with an intervening mile of township road, the distance could be lengthened or contracted according to the wishes and views of the speaker. Thus, for instance, if Mr Hazey wanted Mrs Hazey and Miss to call upon Mrs Somerville and leave his card for Mr Romford, the distance would only have been seven miles by the road; but as Mr Hazey disliked riding in carriages, especially with women in hoops, the distance suddenly elongated to eleven,—“far too far,” as he said, “for calling on a short winter day, travelling over newly metalled roads without any moon.”

Moreover, Mr Hazey wanted to look at a horse belonging to Farmer Lightcrop, of Hollywell Lane, and which Jawkins the huntsman said had gone pretty well with their, hounds on the Friday, and which Hazey thought might be picked up a bargain. And Sunday being a day on which farmers' horses do not get much exercise, Hazey thought to come upon the horse
au naturel
, without its having had any of the bandagings and hand rubbings that Silkey and he were so well up to giving. So when Mrs Hazey began hinting and suggesting, half to him, half to her daughter, that they ought to be calling upon Mrs Somerville, Hazey lengthened the road, extinguished the moon, and mounting the “friendliness-amongfoxhunters horse,” proclaimed that Bill and he would ride over and make all square with the master.

“But Mrs Somerville! There's Mrs Somerville to be considered—she can't be squared like a sportsman,” exclaimed Mrs Hazey.

“Oh, yes, we'll make her all right, too,” said Hazey; “I'll pretend that you didn't know that she had come, but that you will drive over and pay your respects at the earliest possible opportunity.”

“But why not all go now?” asked madam.

“Oh, no,” retorted Hazey; it will be far better for Bill and I to go over together and reconnoitre—see what sort of people they are, and then you will know how the land lies against you go over. Besides,” added he, “Mrs Somerville may be serious, and not like to be called upon on a Sunday.”

And, this latter argument prevailing, the ladies had no alternative but to submit, and let Hazey and Bill, duly attired in duplicate riding jackets and Chipping Norton trousers, canter over together.

It was lucky for the interests of our story that it suited Mr Hazey to go on a Sunday, and that too on the very first Sunday that our friends at the Hall were qualified to receive him with a proper display of footmen. Somehow, Mrs Somerville thought there would be callers, and she not only got herself and her servants up with extra care, but hid her mother, who, in truth, was not very produceable, and put old Billy Balsam through his facings, beginning at the front door and ending in the music-room, which she had fixed upon as her reception apartment. This was a beautiful circular, domed, gilt-ceilinged apartment, fitted up with violet-coloured brocaded satin damask, a splendid Tournay carpet, and magnificent mirrors, interspersed with costly statues, china, and articles of
vertu
. It was second only to the drawing-room in point of size and magnificence.

Mr Romford had been an advocate for living altogether in one room—the breakfast one—where, as he said, he could have his pipe and his newspaper and his flute and all things to hand; but Mrs Somerville insisted that it would cost nothing more to live in large rooms than in small ones, and that living in the latter would add very much to their comfort and consequence. So friend Romford, who had no objection to be made a great man of, provided it cost nothing, consented, more readily perhaps when he found he could get coals from the garden for nothing—at least for a trifling tip to the cartman who led them. Added to this, Lucy said it would keep the Dirties better employed, and give them less time for flirting with young Proudlock, the keeper's son, or the butcher's boy, proceedings of which she greatly disapproved. Thus they got into form on this conspicuous Sunday, when the knowing Mr Hazey came over on his complimentary visit of inspection.

Lucy had scarcely got Balsam through his facings, and instructed Bob Short how to support him during the advance, than, almost with the regularity of stage effect, the front-door bell rang a sonorous peal; and Mrs Somerville, after taking a last hasty glance at herself in the statuary marble mantel-piece mirror, subsided—in a half-recumbent attitude, with a volume of “Blair's Sermons” in her hand—upon a richly carved and gilt sofa, covered with violet Genoa velvet and silk fringe.

“Who can it be?” exclaimed she.

“I wonder!” ejaculated Romford, taking a chair—an elegant gilt one, stuffed and covered en-suite with the sofa, as the upholsterers would say.

“Soon see,” rejoined Lucy, listening intently, with upraised hand to keep silence.

“Must be women, with their confounded pettikits!” observed Facey; “and can't get out of the carriage.”

“Hark, they come!” added Lucy, dropping her hand as the solemn tramp, tramp, tramp, of old Balsam's heavy feet approached the door. It opened.

“M
R
H
AZEY
!—M
R
W
ILLIAM
H
AZEY
!” now announced Balsam—coming well into the room—in the clear distinct voice that Lucy had taught him; whereupon Mrs Somerville laid aside her volume of “Blair's Sermons,” and Facey arose from his white-and-gold chair, into which he had just subsided.

Lucy, with folded arms, then made two of her best stage curtsies, one to Hazey, the other to Bill, motioning them respectively to conveniently-placed chairs as she did it. Facey seconded the motion, and all parties presently got seated.

Mrs Somerville, as usual, was extremely neat, and her beautiful hair was arranged to perfection.

“Mr Hazey!—Mr William Hazey!” muttered Romford, conning the matter over in his mind, as he scrutinised the two with his little, roving pig-eyes. “Mr Hazey and Mr William Hazey! Dash it! this is the hard and sharp man—the chap the 'busman told me of.” And Romford reckoned Hazey up in a minute. “Looks more like a muffin-maker than a master of hounds,” thought he.

Mr Hazey felt rather uncomfortable, for he was now in the presence of a highly-bred gentleman, to whom a nobleman had lent his house, thus stamping him, as it were, with the impress of friendship; and he thought, perhaps, that Mrs Hazey ought to have accompanied him in this visit of ingratiation. Added to which, he wasn't sure that he would be welcome on a Sunday. However, he got over that difficulty by recollecting that the old peacocks of footmen who let him in should have said “Not at home,” if Mr Romford or Mrs Somerville did not mean to see him; so, omitting the paragraph he had arranged in two sections in his own mind—one referring to his own occupations as a master of hounds on the week days, the other alluding to the greater certainty of finding Mr Romford and Mrs Somerville together at home on a Sunday—he began to strain at an apology for Mrs Hazey not coming, declaring she had got such a cold, she could hardly hold her head up. Whereas, his boy Bill knew that Hazey would not let her have the carriage.

And Mrs Somerville, who didn't care much about seeing Mrs Hazey, accepted the apologies with the greatest readiness, expressing her obligations for the intention, but her hopes that Mrs Hazey would not think of coming until she was quite well, reflecting all the while on the good luck that Romford and she were in, by having got into the music-room, with the mirrors uncovered, and all the beautiful china and statuary displayed.

Romford's mind, meanwhile, ran upon the probability of his guests wanting luncheon, and the unpleasantness of seeing his dinner voraciously despatched before his eyes.

The weather having been duly produced and disposed of, Mr Romford began to sound his brother master on the subject of hunting—scent, hounds, horses, the system of kennel—each thinking how he would like to have a chance of cheating the other: Romford settling in his own mind that the nutmeg-grey that scrubbed against carriages would carry Hazey capitally; Hazey, on his part, wondering whether Lightcrop's horse would be up to Mr Romford's weight. He (Romford) didn't look such a monster out of his hunting things as people said he was.

“Yours is a three-days-a-week pack, I think,” said Facey, with the patronising air of a-man who hunts four.

“Three and a bye,” replied Hazey, anxious to make the most of himself.

“Not often a bye, I should think,” thought Facey, scrutinising him attentively.

“I wonder you don't hunt four reg'larly,” said Facey; “if it was only for the sake of havin' the same hounds out together.”

“Well—yes—no—yes!” hesitated Hazey; “only ours is a country that lames a good many hounds, and I shouldn't like to attempt more than I could accomplish satisfactorily.”

“Only a question of a few more horses and hounds,” replied Facey.

“Yes; but, then, horses and hounds involve £—s—d,” rejoined Hazey, with a solemn shake of the head.

“Fiddle the farthins!” exclaimed Facey; “fiddle the farthins!—I mean, grudge money for huntin'! Give anything for good hounds—anything in moderation, at least,” added he.

“Ah, but then we haven't all got Mr Romford's deep purse to dive into,” rejoined Hazey, with a deferential bow to our great master. Hazey always wished to impress upon his boy Bill that he was poor.

They then got into a dissertation upon hounds,—Hazey expatiating learnedly upon legs and loins; Facey insisting upon nose as the
sine quâ non
.

“
Nose, nose, nose
, is my motto,” said Facey, thumping Lord Lovetin's fine marqueterie centre table as he spoke. “Legs are of no use,” repeated he, “if they only drive the nose beyond the scent.”

Then Hazey sought to sound his brother master on the interesting subject of subscription; whether his was guaranteed, whether it was well paid, whether he paid much for cover rent, or had the country found.

Upon this subject, however, friend Facey could really give him very little information. There was, he said, a subscription attached to the country, and he meant to maintain it, not on his own account, because in all probability he should let it accumulate, to found what he had always been most anxious to see, namely, a hospital for decayed sportsmen; but because it might not be convenient to after-comers to hunt the country without a subscription, and indeed, upon the whole, he thought it rather tended to encourage sport, inasmuch as people always thought more highly of what they paid for, than what they had for nothin' and, altogether, Facey talked in such a magnificent way as fairly to shut up Mr Hazey. The latter sat half lost in astonishment at Mr Romford's liberality, yet half afraid that he might ask him to contribute to the funds for the hospital.

So they were mute for a time.

Mr Facey saw that he had taken the wind out of his brother master's sails, and he wondered how long he was going to sit, and whether the mention of lunch would help to send him away. He thought it might, provided it were done cleverly. He would try.

“You're
sure
you won't take any lunch,” at length observed he, as if he had offered it before, muttering something about Cambridge brawn, venison pasty, rabbit pie (which latter there was); but Facey put such a decided negative upon his own proposition, that, though both Hazey and his boy Bill were extremely hungry and anxious for something to eat, yet neither of them had the courage to say that they would take any. Then, by way of keeping them up to the mark, Facey indulged in a tirade against luncheons generally, saying he never took any—he hated to fritter away a good appetite piecemeal—adding, that if a man was hungry, he had better dine at once, and not make two bites of a cherry, as some did.

The last ray of hope being thus utterly extinguished, there was nothing for it but to arise and depart; so, after a few observations about the crops and the state of the country, Hazey gave the boy Bill a wink, who forthwith used his leg like a mace, to draw his truant hat from under the table, and Hazey, having clutched his arm, arose, greatly in doubt, like the Watkinses, as to the right course to pursue, whether to offer his hand, or wait for Mr Romford to tender his; whether to go boldly up to Mrs Somerville, and take his chance of a shake, or to bow from where he stood, and so lose the intimation the shake, if he got one, might convey.

Romford, however, quickly cut the Gordian knot by tendering his great heavy hand to them both, in turn; while Mrs Somerville, rising from her violet-velvet throne, first rang the bell to summon the servants, and then, folding her arms, gave a couple of those captivating smiles and curtsies wherewith she used to express her gratitude to a Surrey audience after an
encore
. Nothing could be better done, for it relieved Mr Hazey at once, letting him see that, though Mr Romford was called upon, Mrs Somerville would not consider herself properly visited until Mrs Hazey had been there. Then the smiles were so sweet as to satisfy Mr Hazey that she considered his part of the compliment properly performed. So he backed gaily towards the now opened door, treading heavily on the angry corns of old Balsam, who happened to have obtruded his great foot in the way. Then Short, seeing what had happened, took the lead towards the front door, leaving the now string-halting Balsam to follow at his leisure.

“Away they go!” said Romford to Lucy, as the music-room door closed, adding, “now let you and I go and see them off.” So saying, Facey led the way to a side door that communicated with the back passage.

Lucy and he then ascended the back stairs, and taking up positions on either side of the usual window of observation, generally occupied by the Dirties, obtained a good view of the mount.

“It will be incumbent upon us to do that beggar,” whispered Facey to Lucy, as Hazey, with a
dégagé
air, approached the blue-coated, leather-breeched, cockaded groom, who now hurried his horses up to the front door, whither the guests were conducted by Balsam and Short in due form.