Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (61 page)

Facey and Sir Roger were thus left alone, and Facey renewed his introductions of his friend—Mr Crackenthorpe, Sir Roger Ferguson; Sir Roger Ferguson, Mr Elsome; Mr Thomas Tongue, Sir Roger Ferguson. And Mr Tongue, who was a general acquaintanceship man, believed he had had the honour of meeting Sir Roger before at their mutual friend Lord Lumbago's, if he mistook not; a fact that Sir Roger then perfectly recollected, and was much obliged to his friend, Mr Tongue, for reminding him. And Sir Roger tendered his hand very cordially in return. Then the two old friends walked about the room, and when people afterwards asked Tongue who that was with the star, he replied, “Oh, that's my old friend, Sir Roger Ferguson; haven't seen him these twenty years, never since we met at our poor friend Lord Lumbago's.”

And Sir Roger Ferguson, being now pretty well laid in for acquaintance, told Romford not to mind him any more, but to get himself suited with a nice useful little short-legged woman, and go in for a dance. And the lisper making the grand entry just at the moment, our hero claimed her fair hand at once for a waltz, which he executed so clumsily as to draw forth a mental observation from Sir Roger that Mr R. must be a better hand at riding than he was at dancing. And the dowagers, having now reconnoitred Sir Roger from afar, and thinking he was a nice wholesome-looking man with his clean linen, snow-white head and roseate hue, began to negotiate for an introduction, and think of admitting of his star into their august circle, for which purpose Lady de Tabby, who was a regular pedigree monger, instructed Mr Thomas Tongue to tell his friend that a cousin of Lady Ferguson's would be glad to make his (Sir Roger's) acquaintance. And, though there was no regular Lady Ferguson for Lady de Tabby to claim relationship with, yet he went boldly in for the introduction, and was presently seated between Lady de Tabby and the Honourable Mrs Freezer, to whom he was presently introduced by her ladyship. And Lady de Tabby, not driving the relationship scent beyond the first brush, Sir Roger let it drop also, and was presently engaged in criticising what he called the “field;” this girl's looks, that one's figure and performances. Some he thought clever, but others, he said, wanted condition sadly. Thus Romford gained credit by Goodheart, and Goodheart lost nothing, except perhaps a few H's, which the noise of the room concealed as they fell.

Meanwhile the ball proceeded with great vigour; the floor was good, barring certain sockets about the centre of the room, used for setting up the apparatus of conjurers and chairmen of quarter sessions, which those who had hit their toes against once, took care not to come in contact with a second time if they could help it, and though the three-and-fourpenny tea was a poor substitute for Lord Lovetin's Cliquot champagne, so freely dispensed at Beldon Hall, yet it was better than nothing, and served to make a break in the evening's amusements. And in due time Sir Roger Ferguson sailed grandly up the middle of the room with Lady de Tabby on one arm, and the Honourable Mrs Freezer on the other, looking as consequential as a Lord Mayor in full fig. And Lady Camilla Snuff, who was in pretty much the same line of business as Lady de Tabby, and of course didn't like her, wondered who the pushing, tuft-hunting woman had got hold of now. Both the ladies in possession thought Sir Roger very agreeable, though he did not reciprocate by singing

How happy could I be with either, &c.

The fact was, Sir Roger would rather have been in bed.

And Mrs Somerville played her cards so well between the rival suitors that Lovetin Lonnergan, who was the more ardent and impulsive of the two, screwed up his courage during the dancing of the “Lancers” to sound Betsey Shannon if she would accept him conditionally—that is to say, accept him and keep the thing snug until father would be good enough to die, which he insinuated could not be very long, as he was seventy-six years of age, and getting very shaky on his pins. And Betsey, having the
grande ronde
of the dance to consider the matter in, recollecting that Large had a father too, a tougher-looking one than Lord Lonnergan, and that an offer was an offer—a good thing under any circumstances, she made as pretty a downcast simpering acceptance as she could raise, and at the conclusion of the dance was led, not to the hymenial altar, but to a smoking hot Gladstone claret cup now placed on the tea-table at the lower end of the room, wherein they pledged each other their troth.

“Mrs Lovetin Lonnergan, your very good health.”

“Mr Lonnergan, your good health,” whispered Betsey, turning her beautiful blue eyes full upon him. So they clenched the bargain.

Then meeting Mrs Somerville, who was now fanning the flame of young Large's ardour, telling him about the rich grandmamma addicted to drink, Betsey gave her a knowing look which, with a slight sideways jerk of her pretty head at her partner, as good as said “I've captured this cock.”

And the Honourable Lovetin Lonnergan, flushed with success and the influence of the claret cup, looked at his opponent in a triumphant sort of way, as much as to say, “I pity you, old boy!” But Large, nothing daunted by the haughty appearance of the tenant in possession—on the contrary, rather encouraged by the agreeable intelligence just conveyed by Mrs Somerville—returned his supercilious stare with another, and a tolerably loud exclamation of “What a lout that young Lonnergan is!”

And now Mrs Somerville, having primed them both, and Sir Roger Ferguson having got rid of his tabbies, Mrs Somerville and he did the consequential up and down the ball-room together, eliciting bets from the acute and censorious as to how long it would be before she was Lady Ferguson.

“Too old for her by half,” said one.

“Ah, but a ‘star' will compensate for all that,” observed another.

“Fresh old fellow, too,” muttered a third.

“What will old Bonus say?” asked a fourth.

“Never marry such an old rat as that,” said a fifth.

Then the music sprang up again, and Sir Roger and Mrs Somerville stood criticising the performers, remarking on this one's head, that one's shoulders, t'other one's feet. People do not work themselves so severely at a pay ball as they do at a gratis one. They seem as if they could get enough for their money, and having had it, go away. Whether it is the absence of the Cliquot, or gooseberry, as the case may be, or that they think it does not look well to stay too late, we know not; but certain it is, that there is always a great deal of forethought and arrangement about getting away.

On this occasion the stately patronesses began to move first; and Sir Roger Ferguson's services were again enlisted in calling up and putting them into their carriages, which he did with the ease and agility of a London linkman. Then all the
chaperones
began looking at their variously-going watches, trying amongst them to cast the nativity of the time, followed by rushes at their panting yet avoiding charges, urging them not to engage themselves for any more dances, assuring them, perhaps, that the carriage had been called up a dozen times, or that it was an hour and a-half later than it really was. So at length the effervescence of the evening gradually died out; and, in lieu of sparkling eyes and twirling gauze, hooded nun-like ladies were seen hurrying along the passage, enveloped in the wraps and disguises of the night. Then came the descent of the scaling-ladder, the groping past the wings of the now deserted stage, and the ascent into the great family coach, or the squeeze into the curiously contrived turbot-wells of modern times. Away they drive, amid the varied thoughts and reflections of the hour. Those who have done well hug themselves with the recollection of it; those who have done little make the most of that little, and, casting forward to the future, hope for better luck another time. Foremost in the happy party was our friend Betsey Shannon, who could hardly wait until the melon-frame got clear of the jolty cobble-stones of Butterwick ere she announced to her fair companion (Sir Roger and Facey being outside), that she had brought him to book.

“Well, which?” exclaimed Lucy, who had forwarded both their suits so evenly as to be unable to say which was likely to be the winner.

“Lovetin!”
replied Betsey, with emphasis.

“Bravo, Lovetin!” exclaimed Lucy, clapping her pretty hands. “Bravo, Lovetin!” repeated she. “Ah, now! if father would but die,” she added, with a laugh.

“Well, it's not to be till then,” rejoined Betsey.

“Ah, but I wouldn't stand that,” said Lucy. “Make him marry you now, dear, and keep it snug till father does die, if Lovetin likes. ‘Safe bind, safe find,' is a capital maxim.”

“Well, but suppose he won't?” said Betsey, who did not like to lose the chance of being Mrs Lonnergan.

“Then take t'other chap; he's quite as good a catch as Lovetin, only his pa is a little younger; but then, on the other hand, they say Pippin Priory is a much better place than Flush House.”

“True,” ruminated Betsey, “true;” adding, “either would do very well.”

“He's sure to offer,” observed Lucy, “sure to offer. I'm only surprised he hasn't done it to-night. I primed him up that you were a member of one of the oldest families in Wales, and had a boskey old grandmother at Leighton-Buzzard, who would leave you a hatful of money.”

“Indeed,” laughed Betsey, joyfully. “Anything better than dancing at Highbury Barn. If Large has the pull in the face way, t'other has it in the figure.”

“Oh, all cats are grey in the dark,” rejoined Lucy. “You catch one of them, and get a home of your own; for there's nothing so bad as dependence.”

“True,” assented Miss Shannon.

The two ladies then leant back in the carriage, each following a line of scent of her own; Betsey thinking what a dash she would cut at Flush House (for the Honourable had inducted her into the anticipated carriage splendour), Lucy thinking how to play Large off against Lonnergan, so as to secure one or other for her friend. At length Lucy spoke, breaking in upon an imaginary carriage airing that Betsey was taking with her lovely Lonnergan.

“Oh, I would make him marry you off-hand now,” said she, reverting to her former position. “If he won't, Joe Large will. Indeed, as I said before, I only wonder he didn't offer to-night.”

“Well, I think he will,” replied Betsey; “only, as he seemed to be leading up to the point, that stupid matter-of-fact hatter came up, and would have me to dance with him, and stuck to us till I did.”

“Stupid marplot!” muttered Lucy; “these sort of boobies think that people come to balls to do nothing but dance; whereas everyone knows that the real business of a ball is either to look out for a wife, to look after a wife, or to look after somebody else's wife. However, never mind,” continued she, drawing the buffalo skin coverlid up to her chin, “never mind. Large will come to call before long, and then we will see what we can do, for ‘sharp' must be the word,—first come first served, the rule. Such chances as these don't occur every day; and though people are good enough to take us at our own price at present, yet there is no saying how soon a change may come, and then they would be equally furious the other way; so we must just strike while the iron's hot, and capture one or other of the idiots.”

So saying, she gradually sunk off in a doze, and the next thing that occurred was the tapping of Independent Jimmy's great knuckles at the melon-frame window, announcing that they were back at Beldon Hall.

“Noo, then, get oot!” said he, clattering down the harsh iron! steps, and leaving them to effect the descent as they could.

The ladies and gentlemen hurried into the house, and discarding their wraps, they awoke Dirtiest of the Dirty, who was dosing over the breakfast-room fire, dreaming of Percival Pattycake. They discussed the events of the evening over some of Lord Lovetin's best Cognac brandy; and at twenty minutes to four Mr Romford moved the adjournment of the debate.

M
RS
S
OMERVILLE WAS RIGHT IN
the advice she gave Miss Shannon, when coming home from the Infirmary Ball, to get married as quick as she could, for things at Beldon Hall had gone so extremely well that Lucy feared a reverse.

She thought it was too good to last. We often see things in this world go so smoothly at first that there seems no chance of a failure, when all of a sudden they take a turn, and down they come with a run. Certainly, amongst them our friends at Beldon Hall combined as much duplicity as could well be contained in a party of four. First there was Mr Romford, acting the turbot-on-its-tail, deceiving poor Lord Lovetin, Lord Lonnergan, and all; then there was Mrs Sponge, calling herself Mrs Somerville, and Betsey Shannon, arrogating the distinguished name of Hamilton Howard; and now the old Clerkenwell “'oss dealer,” Mr Goodhearted Green, passing himself off for a baronet.

All or any were liable to be detected at any moment—Mr Romford by Lord Lovetin's making his long-meditated journey to England, Mrs Somerville by the frequenters of theatres and cigar shops, Miss Shannon by half the counter-skippers in London, and Sir Roger Ferguson by any stray tourist or stableman with whom he had ever done business.

The only way our friends bore up against the accumulation of deceit was, by never thinking of the consequences. Enough for the day was the evil thereof, they all felt. There was no disputing one thing, namely, that they had been most wonderfully favoured, and that people seemed quite as much inclined to deceive themselves as they were to deceive them. But a day of reckoning always comes at last, though in this case neither man nor woman was the immediate cause of its advent.

Leotard, the wondrous Leotard, the cream-coloured lady's horse, who has already played such a conspicuous part in our story, was now destined to fulfil still greater achievements. The last we heard of him was, when the boy Bill satisfied himself of his paces by private trial at Tarring Neville, while Mr Romford and Mrs Somerville were regaling after the hunt with the considerate Mrs Watkins's bag fox. Since then Mrs Somerville had ridden Leotard with varying success and satisfaction, the horse sometimes going remarkably well, sometimes only middling—oftener, perhaps, middling than well—at other times ill, or rather not at all. Lucy, however, never risked an open rupture with him. If she found he was going to be queer, she went home with him, pretending that his way was hers also. So the horse maintained his reputation for beauty and docility. Mrs Somerville and her horse were always greatly admired: people were proud to open the gates for her.