Mr Facey Romford's Hounds (65 page)

“Here it is!” at length cried she, looking up, “here it is right to the northeast of this place,” and getting a cedar-wood match out of the lighter stand, she proceeded to measure the scale in the corner of the map, and then the distance from the before-mentioned greasy mark on the side.

“Oh, quite within distance,” said she, “quite within distance; not about twelve miles from here at most, by Burbury and Cracknel.”

So saying, her ladyship dismissed the map, and ordered the dinner for that day, and the carriage for the next, with one and the same breath. And now leaving the reader to imagine a repetition of the former evening's performance, we will pass on to the following morning, and suppose the Countess and party again taking the field in the “Lord Hill” carriage in all the glories of consequence and dress.

Bucktrout had increased his magnificence by adding a pair of tarnished red and white rosettes to his antediluvian horses' heads, and sat cockily in his brass cantreled saddle, thinking how he was taking the shine out of Peter of the “Golden Fleece,” and his greys. Then after the fuss and preparation, gaping and staring and starring of the former occasion, the Countess and her friends came downstairs, and with due importance got themselves seated and adjusted in the carriage.

“Right!” again was the cry, and the low part of the High Street was this time enlivened with the sound of carriage wheels. If people in London ran to the window to look at every vehicle that passed, what a time they would have of it.

Bucktrout rode with much more confidence than he did in going to Spite of All, for he knew his way, and moreover was certain that he was going right. So he rose cockily in his saddle, now admiring his left-leg boot, now looking into the flowing rosettes at his horses' heads, now whipping and spurring the old nags into activity. If he wasn't cutting a dash he didn't know who was. Jip, jip, jip, he went as if they were a pair of five-year-old's instead of being nearer five-and-twenty. The road was good—turnpike all the way: none of the sandstone quagmires, with great boulder stones turning up like flitches of bacon every few yards, that impeded their progress the day before.

They had not gone many miles ere the first indication of the chase appeared. This was a tight-buttoned blue-coated groom riding a well-conditioned brown horse, between whose sleek coat and the rider's tops there seemed to be a species of honourable rivalry as to which should be the darkest. The horse had it perhaps, but only by a shade or two. Formerly grooms couldn't get their boots white enough: now they can't get them dark enough. Such is the mutation of fashion.

“All right today,” said the Countess, eyeing the unmistakeable symptom. Bucktrout then passed him at a half cantering trot.

The plot presently thickened. At the Burbury side bar two grooms were paying their own and their hack-riding masters' tolls, and a little further on a knot of miscellaneous horsemen were regaling themselves at the door of the “Good Intent” inn with early purl and other delicacies. Some people can drink at any time. Bucktrout spurts past them as if he despised such performances. The country was evidently getting alive.

Ah! there's a red coat! Only a seedy one, to be sure, as the first red coat on the road generally is, but still a red coat, thus openly proclaiming the nature of the coming entertainment. It is little Tommy Squirt, the Union Doctor, who is deceiving himself, as Independent Jimmy would say, that he is passing for a great man, though in reality he is only offering himself for a figure of fun. A badly turned-out man in red is always a deplorable object; doubly so when the horse and the coat are equally bad, and all the appointments show that the colour is expected to do everything. On he jogs his badly-clipped mouse-colour very gingerly, having both corns and a curb to take care of. And now the brute trips in a grip just as the carriage is passing, causing an outburst of laughter from the party.

Then the turn of the road reveals another red coat—a red coat on a grey—a rat-tailed grey this time. It is our Old friend the Chairman of the Half-Guinea Hat Company, who has become very assiduous in his attendance on the Larkspur hounds of late. He has got himself up with extra care, with his all-round-the-chin beard combed carefully over his blue tie, like samples of yellow and white worsted on a stall.

“What an ugly man!” exclaimed the Countess in passing, quite loud enough for Bonus to hear.

“Isn't he!” assented Mrs Mountravers in the same tone.

“Wonder he doesn't dye his beard all the same colour,” observed Major Elite, whose turn it now was to stare.

But we are now ascending the slightly rising ground of Cracknel Green—a rise so gentle that it was not until the establishment of railways that it was found out not to be level. Bucktrout's horses, however, who have wonderfully fine shoulders for detecting the collar, feel it at once, and gradually relax into a walk. Half way up stands the ninth milestone, calm and serene as milestones always are, but causing the ladies to start and adjust their bonnets, and Major Elite to button his gloves and feel his collar. They are presently overtaken by a large party of horsemen, some in black, some in red, some in green, who stare and wonder who old Bucktrout has aboard today. Though they all admire the Countess, they think the Major might be very happy with either.

And now the indubitable level being obtained, Bucktrout has no excuse for further nursing, and at the word “trot!” from the Countess he gathers the old horses together, and with the aid of the spur, the whip, and the voice, is presently at the

Our foxy-faced Master has just turned into a large pasture on the right of the road, the hounds looking blooming and well. Daniel—the Right Honourable the Hurl of Scamperdale's Daniel—sober and solemn; and little Chowey, the man with the philanthropic mouth, contracting and dilating his proboscis as though he were considering whom he should kiss. Romford rides the redoubtable Placid Joe, Swig the water-objecting Brick, and Chowey the wriggling Oliver Twist. They now take up a position well into the field, and give the hounds ample space to roll and be criticised.

Then there is the field, large, parti-coloured and gay, as fields generally are when the meets of the hounds are by a turnpike side, and carriages and horsemen can commingle. There are two or three gigs, and two or three phaetons, some containing gentlemen, who on peeling will prove horsemen, while others will follow in their vehicles as far as they can, and then go away.

“Turn in here!” cried the Countess; “turn in here!” as the hesitating Bucktrout pulled up at the field-gate, and looked round with a grin.

“Yes, my lady,” said he, now gathering all his energies to steer through the gate without a collision against either post. He just managed to do it.

“Who have we here?” said Romford to Mr Joseph Large, who still patronised the pack at great personal inconvenience.

“Don't know,” replied Large; adding, “it's the ‘Lord Hill' chaise.”

“So I see,” said Romford, who had long booked the old horses for the boiler.

Then, as the carriage approached and drew up before the pack, Facey, seeing the ladies were pretty, raised his hat, an example that was immediately followed by Chowey and Swig with their caps. Chowey half thought the Countess was an old acquaintance, but for once he couldn't hit it off.

Then, as the hats and caps subsided, there was fresh inquiry as to who the strangers were, and a sending of Todd on the sly to ask Tomkins, and a similar expedition by Large to Ten-and-a half-per-Cent., who now came up on the rat-tailed grey. None of them, of course, could tell. But here comes someone who can, viz., our fair friend, Mrs Somerville, who, entering the field by a gap at the opposite corner, confronts the carriage as she advances mounted on the wondrous Leotard.

Lucy wondered who the strangers were—then she thought she had seen that face before—very like Lady Scattercash's—couldn't be Lady Scattercash—yes it was Lady Scattercash.

“How do you do, Lady Scattercash?” said she, riding up to the carriage-door and tendering her hand as she spoke. But the Countess, who had had the advantage of a quiet carriage-seat for the survey, had realised Lucy before Lucy did her, and her displeasure at seeing the horse going so quietly was not at all diminished by the familiarity of
that person
calling her Lady Scattercash, when she was in fact the Countess of Caperington. So she neglected the proffered hand and preserved a stolid scornful stare.

“I think you don't know me,” said Lucy, timidly, withdrawing her hand as she spoke.

“Yes, I do,” replied the Countess, haughtily. “You are Mrs Sponge—Lucy Glitters that was—most pernicious woman!” added she, with an upward curl of her lip.

If the Countess had stabbed her to the heart she could not have inflicted a more deadly wound, for there were horsemen all around, every one of whom, Lucy felt sure, would hear what was said. The words perfetly rang in her ears—“You are Mrs Sponge—Lucy Glitters that was—most pernicious woman!” She was indeed Mrs Sponge—Lucy Glitters that was; but she felt that it was not for an old comrade like Lady Scattercash to upbraid her. She would not have done so by the Countess. And, turning her horse short round, poor Lucy burst into a flood of tears.

Notwithstanding the unwonted sight of a lady in tears in the hunting-field, we believe if it had not been for that long-eared Chairman of the Half-Guinea-Hat Company, Lucy's misfortune might have escaped observation. He, however, being down-wind, with his ears well cocked as usual for a catch, heard the ominous
“You are Mrs Sponge!”
coupled with the denunciation
“most pernicious woman!”
and immediately put that and that together for a story. Not that he went bellowing about the country exclaiming, “I say, this is not Mrs Somerville, but Mrs Sponge, the wife of our friend Soapey Sponge,” but he inuendoed it, which was just the same thing. The story flew like lightning, and in a very few days was all over Dubleimupshire. But a great deal may be done in a few days, and ere the bubble finally burst a great deal was done in this case. But the
dénouement
of all this spirited conduct deserves a separate chapter.

I
T WAS AN EVENTFUL MORNING
to other parties besides our friend Mrs Somerville. When she got back to Beldon Hall she found the fair auburn-haired lady had played young Joseph Large off so successfully against Mr Lovetin Lonnergan as to make the latter consent to a clandestine marriage, of course to be kept profoundly secret until it pleased father to die. And Mrs Somerville, feeling the pressure of circumstances and the precarious nature of her own position, at once set about furthering the arrangement, not by ordering those voluminous mountains of clothes and dresses that generally mark the coming change, but by quietly procuring a marriage licence and an obliging clergyman to use it.

Then, to make surety doubly sure, and completely baffle old Lonnergan should any reports get into circulation, Mrs Somerville suggested that Miss Howard should be married in a feigned name, and hit upon that of Shannon. “Elizabeth Shannon, say,” as if quite accidentally; and Lovetin thought the idea rather a pull in his favour if anything, being greatly goaded by the persecuting importunities of that disgusting Joseph Large, who, he felt sure, would marry her at any price.

The Registrar, holding the document firmly in one hand while he presented the palm of the other, said in an unbroken breath, “Two pound twelve and sixpence, and I hope it will make you both very happy,” his happiness evidently consisting in getting the two pound twelve and sixpence. And Lovetin paid the money (which “Old Rent-should-never-rise” wouldn't have done) without asking for discount. Lord Lonnergan would certainly have had the sixpence, if not the two and sixpence off.

It would not interest the reader to follow the worthies through the consequences of their mutual disappointments; suffice it to say, that there was presently an uproar, though not of Mrs Lubbins's order, both at Dalberry Lees and Beldon Hall.

Our sprightly friend Betsey Shannon had the best of it, for here was real wealth and an easily-managed husband.

Of course the match was not kept secret—as what match ever is?—but its announcement was not attended by any unpleasant consequences. The fact was, that though father was not obliging enough to die, yet his faculties failed just at the very time, the first indication of which was the conviction that Betsey Shannon, now Mrs Lovetin Lonnergan, was a great City heiress; and Mrs Lonnergan, always trusting her great man implicitly, received her daughter-in-law at Flush House with the greatest cordiality. There Mrs Lovetin was most comfortably located, everything going on most harmoniously, thus contradicting the assertion that there never yet was a house built large enough to hold two families.

The old Lord used to sit in his easy-chair contemplating Betsey's beautiful figure and complexion, muttering aloud, “Ah, lucky dog, Lovetin, lucky dog; always told you to stick up for the money. Beauty and breeding are nothing compared to blunt.” Then he would burst out with the old favourite aphorism, “When has a man got enough money, Lovetin? When he has got a little more than what he has. Ah, lucky dog, lucky dog! Be as rich as Rothschild—rich as Rothschild, my boy.”

But we are occupying ourselves with a minor hero to the neglect of our great Master, Mr Romford.

When matters burst up at Beldon Hall, Cassandra was indignant exceedingly, and we need not say that there was terrible disappointment at Dalberry Lees, crimination and recrimination.

“If he didn't say himself he was the owner of Abbeyfield Park, everybody did for him, and he never contradicted it. Turbot-sitting-upon-its-tail on a cap of dignity, forsooth! What business had he to seal his letters with a turbot-sitting-upon-its-tail on a cap of dignity? Downright imposition. Gaining credit under false pretences. Ought to be transported.” So said Mrs Hazey.