THE MISSES SLEEK DROP IN.
It was certainly a great deal to Haggard's credit that he remained tranquilly at The Warren for the space of three whole weeks. It was the London season—just that time of year when flat-racing was at its height; and at all the great meetings the Pandemonium set was conspicuous. It might have been that he really liked his wife's society, and that he found that the only way of getting her all to himself was, as he was pleased to call it, to bury himself alive at King's Warren. It has been said before that Haggard objected to the rôle of Beauty's Husband, but he had found that in town it was willy-nilly forced upon him. He felt it trying that the instant Georgie showed herself in their box at the play, the glasses of all the somebodies and half the nobodies would be immediately levelled at her. Haggard was by no means a jealous man. He was one of those who thoroughly enjoy being a "popper-in" at the boxes of friends where beauty sits triumphant. He had admired and rather laughed at the stoical philosophy of some of his married friends, who were accustomed to calmly go off to enjoy their brandies and sodas, under such circumstances, leaving their wives the centre of a little circle of admirers—a circle of which he himself was often a prominent ornament. But, though not a jealous man, he considered it wise, when at the play, to be particularly attentive to Georgie. Haggard believed in sheep dogs to a certain extent, but he believed still more in the actual presence of the shepherd himself. But his experiences of the last London season as a married man had convinced him that the life of Corydon, particularly at the play, was not an existence of unalloyed bliss. To Mrs. Charmington and her smart set, Haggard's devotion to his wife was particularly touching: in vain would they beckon him, or point to a vacant seat at their sides, with their fans; like Love's Sentinel, sweet was the watch he kept, but, to tell the truth, it bored him horribly.
It is undoubtedly pleasing to a man to find that his choice is appreciated by all his friends, but it is rather trying to a married man when he leaves his wife, even for a few moments, at a garden party, or the inclosure of a race-course, on his return to always find her, by no fault of her own, be it remembered, surrounded by a rapidly-increasing throng of enthusiastic admirers. So Haggard resigned himself, with considerable philosophy, to the innocent delights of country life and the dulness of King's Warren.
At all events, it had the refreshing charm of novelty: there was the fishing, and the King's Warren trout stream was a good one. Before he had filled his creel at the pretty stream that artists used to come to paint, the girls would come down to count the spoil and walk with him through the cool lane, to conduct this most fortunate of men back to the squire's well-supplied breakfast table. Then the model husband would pass the morning in a lounge chair in the shadiest corner of the rose garden, with a big cigar in his mouth, contemplating with lazy satisfaction his prize baby and his handsome wife, while the fair-haired Lucy would swing in the Mexican hammock he had brought her as a souvenir of his American experiences, gaily singing her little scraps of rather risky French songs, which, though he did not understand them, always amused him. The little songs, too, appeared to give intense delight to Mademoiselle Fanchette; that muscular specimen of womanhood would shake with inward laughter, and fluently compliment her younger mistress. "Ah!" she would say, "if mademoiselle had only been a poor girl, what a position! all Paris would be at the feet of the beautiful miss. Why, the café-concerts would be struggling to possess her. Ah, what an enviable position!"
Stimulated by this honest praise, Lucy Warrender would delight her little audience with "La Vénus aux Carottes," or some other well-known ditty of a similar nature. Old Warrender would lean on his daisy-spud a pleased spectator of the Arcadian scene. It delighted him to observe Haggard's suddenly awakened delight in the simple pleasures of country life, and the old gentleman's admiration of Monsieur, Madame and Bébé was unbounded.
The afternoons were enlivened by the unceremonious dropping in of sympathetic visitors; the Reverend John Dodd and his wife were welcome guests, and tea in the garden became quite a function.
It was a standing rule at The Warren that Thursday afternoon was a sort of special day. On Thursdays it was the custom to turn up at the squire's garden for afternoon tea. The men were always in a minority, for most of the gilded youth of King's Warren were of too timid a nature to put in an appearance. Occasionally young Mr. Wurzel, dragged thither by his bride-elect, the sentimental Miss Grains, would come, but he felt like a fish out of water, seldom opened his mouth, and passed most of his time in gazing, with respectful admiration, upon Miss Lucy Warrender; an annoying fact which did not escape the observation of his mother's sharp old eyes, and which caused considerable indignation in the troubled breast of the brewer's daughter. The vicar's curate was, of course, a standing dish; other curates from adjacent parishes, too, would appear and disappear, but they met with little encouragement, for Miss Warrender didn't affect a liking for parsons. Even the short-sighted High-church deacon from the next parish, who spoke of himself as a "Celibate," and "vowed to heaven" and habitually got himself up to resemble a Roman Catholic priest, failed to move her worldly little heart; the Reverend Hopley Porter would have been more in her line, mild curates were not at all in her way. The Misses Sleek, too, freely availed themselves of their entrée to The Warren, and those young ladies were ever on their best behaviour. They were not bad-looking girls, and though both rather fast, while at The Warren they affected a demure primness which made them not unattractive. They patiently submitted to the continual snubbings of the vicar's wife, and to the little sarcasms with which they were occasionally favoured by Miss Warrender. They humbled themselves in dust and ashes to Miss Hood, and seldom made any reference to that patient money-grubber, their papa. With effusive affection they always addressed the squire as "dear Mr. Warrender," and sought favour in Georgie Haggard's eyes by an ecstatic worship of the little Lucius.
"Don't you think you could manage it for us, Miss Hood? It's not a formal affair, and we are so anxious it should be a success. We shall have none but nice people, and it is so terribly dull at The Park: we shall only allow pa to ask three of his friends, and they are quite old gentlemen. I really couldn't ask dear Mr. Warrender myself, nor could Connie, and we are both terribly afraid of Lucy." So spoke the elder Miss Sleek in appealing tones.
"Do help us, Miss Hood," chimed in the younger sister.
"My dear, I don't see why you should be afraid of Miss Warrender," said good-natured Miss Hood, giving that young lady her full title.
"Oh but, dear Miss Hood, she always laughs at us; only just now she inquired after that poor afflicted Mr. Dabbler. I knew she was laughing at us, and so did Connie, and then she said something dreadful in French about an ass and two bundles of hay; I'm sure we're not like bundles of hay," said the girl with an indignant sob. "But we neither mind a joke from dear Miss Warrender, do we, Connie?"
"But we should be such a party, my dears."
"Oh, that would only make it more delightful," cried the girl with triumphant eyes, as she noticed the slight indication of capitulation in Miss Hood's voice. "We're neighbours after all, you know, and haymaking too; why, the squire goes to Mr. Wurzel's harvest home. Nothing but the haymaking, and a little dance afterwards; oh, we should be so grateful."
"What's that about a little dance?" cried Georgie's husband with unaffected interest.
"Oh, Mr. Haggard, it's nothing; it's only an idea of pa's; it's our haymaking, you know, and we've been asking Miss Hood if The Warren won't honour us for once in a way."
Both girls fixed their eyes appealingly on Haggard's face.
The squire's son-in-law was quite aware that the wealthy Mr. Sleek was a parvenu. He knew that old Warrender would no more dine at The Park than he would think of attending the services of the Dissenting minister; but he himself was already beginning to feel rather hipped with the novelty of his quiet life at The Warren.
"Come, my dear Miss Sleek? of course we'll come. Georgie," he said to his wife, "Miss Sleek is good enough to ask us to her father's place. We'll be only too glad, of course."
With Georgie to yield to her husband's slightest wish was a second nature.
"Certainly, Reginald, if you wish it. I shall be very pleased," she added, though with an effort.
"It'll be great fun, I'm sure," exclaimed Haggard; "but you'll have mercy, Miss Sleek: you won't work us so hard at the haymaking as to knock us up for the promised dance, and you'll keep one little dance for me, won't you?" he added with cool familiarity.
The girl's face reddened with pleasure as she acquiesced with effusion. And as she thought of the glowing description in the local paper of the forthcoming festivities at The Park, her eyes sparkled with the anticipation of triumph. It would be an epoch in her life to have danced with a peer's great-nephew, with the husband of one of the reigning queens of society. But fresh joys were yet in store for the Misses Sleek.
"You'll let me bring my friend Spunyarn, won't you?" said Haggard; "he's coming down to-morrow."
"Oh, we shall be delighted," chorused the girls, "for we are wofully short of men down here at King's Warren."
The babble of conversation increased. Next morning each member of the group on The Warren lawn had received an elaborate copper-plate invitation to the Misses Sleek's haymaking, and the small and early dance that was to follow it.
The Misses Sleek carried their point; had there been a Mrs. Warrender, their success would have been more than doubtful. Old Warrender himself cared for none of these things; Miss Hood had protested officially, but found herself very much in the position of the unfortunate member who alone protests once a year, as a sort of duty to his constituents, against the sum voted by Parliament to royal princes or princesses on their marriage. Haggard and Lucy evidently looked forward to the haymaking as a relief to the monotony of their existence; as for Georgie, hers was the simple religion of Ruth, "Whither thou goest I will go, thy people shall be my people."
"One must be neighbourly, you know," said the squire, "in a place like this. For my own part, I see no difference now-a-days between the man who makes his money in business and the landowner. I'm sure I don't know what Dodd would do without the Sleeks; he's always ready with a cheque, and the girls seem almost unobjectionable."
What a curious fact it is, that in the eyes of all old men girls are always unobjectionable. Probably from their very age they look upon even the hoydens, the "mannish," and the fast merely as big and rather naughty children; therefore, all the more interesting. Let a girl be thoroughly detested by her own sex—and to be thoroughly detested by her own sex she must at least be tolerably good-looking—she is certain to be the delight of all the old gentlemen of her circle.
Haggard was in a particularly good humour, for he was hourly expecting the arrival of his fidus Achates, Lord Spunyarn. He was impatient to hear all the talk, the gossip and the scandal, which he had missed during his prolonged absence from the Pandemonium Club. Though they don't acknowledge it, your average club man is as great a scandalmonger and gossip as any village crone; but being by nature more cautious than are women, they hardly ever commit themselves upon paper. A yarn is told by A to B, as a yarn; B tells it to C, as a rumour he has heard; C gives it a tail, and imparts it under the seal of secrecy to D; over the whist table, E, F, and G get hold of it, like the rolling snow-ball, considerably increased in magnitude; sly H overhears it and gives it at once into a society journal, where it becomes public property; perhaps it may even result in an action for libel. Let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung. Besides, perhaps Haggard was a little nervous as to his reception; since he was last at the Pandemonium he had killed a man, not that that fact troubled his conscience in any way. Now-a-days a gambler is by no means an outcast at a smart club, particularly the lucky man; for he is placed on a sort of moral pedestal by his less successful rivals. Still the Lamb episode was not forgotten at the Pandemonium, and this, coupled with the affair of poor Barbiche, caused Georgie's husband to rather dread the cold shoulder. The presence of Spunyarn too would certainly be a break in the monotony of the life at The Warren.
Haggard drove over some five miles on that hot summer day about noon, in the squire's well-appointed dog-cart, to meet his friend Lord Spunyarn, and it was with unaffected pleasure that he shook hands with him upon the platform of the little station. Had they been Frenchmen, they would have rushed into each other's arms and saluted mutually on either cheek. As it was, they merely smiled and nodded, with a mutual, "How are you, old man?" and a careless inquiry from Lord Spunyarn as to the health of "your people" followed as a matter of course. During the five-and-twenty minutes' sharp drive home, they talked of the heat, the crops and the fishing; for the squire's smart groom rendered anything but general conversation impossible: the bay mare, too, was full of oats, and a puller.
Lord Spunyarn was a welcome guest to everybody; the whole party came out to meet him at the door, and with rural hospitality a substantial meal was quickly placed before him. The cool of the afternoon was got through by means of the inevitable croquet; in those days croquet was inevitable wherever there were ladies and a lawn. At The Warren both ladies and lawn were particularly attractive; the ubiquitous curate was conspicuous by his absence; there was a little play, a good deal of small talk, and as usual, Lord Spunyarn was particularly attentive to Lucy Warrender. Now-a-days it is the fashion for the youth of England to leave the spinsters out in the cold, and to affect the society of the more attractive among the married ladies only. But Spunyarn was no lady-killer, and if he had been, there was a certain air about Georgie Haggard, a kind of notice to trespassers, that would have warned off the most determined poacher. His lordship at once resumed his old position of everybody's friend; he chatted with the cousins, he talked politics with old Warrender, he complimented the head gardener; and when Lucy Warrender, assuming a pensive air, inquired if he had no secrets to tell her, he calmly replied:
"There is nothing new, I think, Miss Warrender; nothing new, at least, to you; yours as ever, you know, till death," he added with a little laugh.
"True knight," she cried, "ever faithful?"
"To you, and to your cousin," he added with a little bow.
"Why, you don't even offer me an undivided affection," said the girl. "I suppose you are reserving yourself for the high jinks at The Park, Lord Spunyarn," she said. "Connie Sleek's a pretty girl, you know, and there are piles of untold gold, but in your case, though, that isn't an inducement."
"I'm too great a snob myself, dear Miss Warrender, at least, by birth, as you know, ever to fall a victim to a financial belle."
"Poor Connie Sleek, if she could only hear you. Depend upon it the dreams of both sisters last night were disturbed by visions of possible promotion. They couldn't restrain their raptures when they learnt that they were to entertain a lord, a real live lord, you know. But you are not to turn their heads, Lord Spunyarn; respect the innocence of our simple village maidens."
"It is that simple village innocence, Miss Warrender, which in your case has caused me to sigh so long in vain."
"Thanks," she said with a low courtesy, "the most sincere compliments are always the most grateful. À propos de rien, how did you leave Mrs. Charmington, Lord Spunyarn?"
"On the wane, decidedly on the wane. I think she will soon be a monarch retiring from business. Your cousin and you extinguished her effectually. There's a little Portuguese Jew, a financial light; he has ducats and a daughter: the ducats are undeniable; the daughter is all eyes, hair and diamonds; she is the last startling novelty of the season, and under royal patronage. There's only one chance for the Charmington to keep herself before the public: she should try the stage. God knows she has brass enough."
"You are all the same, Lord Spunyarn; when we cease to please you laugh at us. I suppose you'll be soon recommending me to try the stage."
"Oh, no, Miss Warrender. You are far too genuine, far too sincere."
Here the conversation was broken off by the exigencies of the game.
The two young men sat smoking late into the night. Haggard narrated his American experience, cursed the dilatoriness of lawyers and land agents; told of his feats by flood and field; praised the hospitality of the natives, the horses and the half-castes; but he didn't say much of Mademoiselle de Bondi, of the Mexico Opera House. And then they talked about the Pandemonium, and Haggard heard with pleasure that his numerous club acquaintances would be delighted to see him.
"Not quite so pleased, I fancy, when they know I have forsworn the pasteboards. That Lamb affair was a scorcher. Besides, Shirtings, you know—I may say it to you without swagger—I find now I've made my pile that it's too big to risk, so I mean to set up as a fogey, and to confine myself to whist at pound points."
"Poor old paterfamilias," exclaimed the sympathizing friend with genuine feeling. "I know, port wine, a J.P.-ship, with a lord-lieutenancy and the gout looming in the distant future."
Haggard gave a groan. "I suppose it'll come to that," said he.
"How are the old man and the pigs? Jolly as usual, eh?"
"Well, the pigs are flourishing, but the governor's out of sorts; he speaks thick, and his handwriting's getting rather groggy; the poor old chap may go off at any moment."
There was a short silence.
"Are you going to speculate yourself, Shirtings? If you were one of the impecunious, there'd be a chance for you to-morrow. Two queens of the snobocracy will entertain us at romping in the hay, with Sir Roger de Coverley to follow. From all I hear it is a land flowing with milk and honey. The people themselves are rather dreadful, but for my own part, after three weeks of enforced tranquility, seeing no one but the old boy, my wife and her cousin, I am in a state of mind that is prepared to be grateful for the smallest mercies. My dear fellow, I positively look forward to it. Another week of the existence I have been leading here, and I verily believe that I shall yearn to dance with my own wife."
"Or even her pretty cousin," chimed in Lord Spunyarn.
But Haggard took no notice of the observation. He chuckled, still tickled with the idea of the absurdity of dancing with Georgie.
"And is Lucy, as of old, to be honoured with your attentions, Shirtings?" said Haggard, who was amusing himself by blowing circles of smoke into the air.
"Between ourselves, my boy, I've thought better of it. I shall remain a respectful admirer, of course; but I don't think the lady would go well in double harness. If I were a devilish good-looking fellow as you are, my boy, I might try it; but I fancy Miss Lucy would prove a handful for any fellow, and I have no ambition to play Jack Charmington's part in a sort of perpetual Palais Royal comedy. Life being too short, you know, old man, it seems hardly good enough."
"Rough on Lucy. I fancy she has looked upon you as lawful prize."
"Oh! she can reckon upon me as a permanent admirer; but without compliment, you know, her cousin rather throws her into the shade."
"Thanks, dear boy; there is no accounting for taste."
As the representative of his father-in-law, Haggard asked his lordship with punctilious hospitality if he would take another peg. Then, with a yawn, he closed the Tantalus with a snap, and the pair retired to rest.
