CHAPTER II.
You wouldn’t have found two handsomer or finer young fellows on the day of the boatrace, in all London, than the two who started in the new dogcart, at ten o’clock, from the door of Harry Noel’s comfortable chambers in a quaint old house in Duke Street, St James’s. And yet they were very different in type; as widely different as it is possible for any two young men to be, both of whom were quite unmistakable and undeniable young Englishmen.
Harry Noel was heir of one of the oldest families in Lincolnshire; but his face and figure were by no means those of the typical Danes in that distinctively Danish-English county. Sir Walter, his father, was tall and fair—a bluff, honest, hard-featured Lincolnshire man; but Harry himself took rather after his mother, the famous Lady Noel, once considered the most beautiful woman of her time in London society. He was somewhat short and well knit; a very dark man, with black hair, moustache, and beard; and his face was handsome with something of a southern and fiery handsomeness, like his mother’s, reminding one at times of the purest Italian or Castilian stocks. There was undeniable pride about his upper lip and his eager flashing black eye; while his customary nonchalance and coolness of air never completely hid the hot and passionate southern temperament that underlay that false exterior of Pall Mall cynicism. A man to avoid picking a quarrel with, certainly, was Harry Noel, of the Inner Temple, and of Noel Hall, by Boston, Lincolnshire, barrister-at-law.
Edward Hawthorn, on the other hand, was tall and slight, though strongly built; a grand model of the pure Anglo-Saxon type of manhood, with straight fair hair, nearer white almost than yellow, and deep-blue eyes, that were none the less transparently true and earnest because of their intense and unmixed blueness. His face was clear-cut and delicately moulded; and the pale and singularly straw-coloured moustache, which alone was allowed to hide any part of its charming outline, did not prevent one from seeing at a glance the almost faultless Greek regularity of his perfectly calm and statuesque features. Harry Noel’s was, in short, the kind of face that women are most likely to admire: Edward Hawthorn’s was the kind that an artist would rather rejoice to paint, or that a sculptor would still more eagerly wish to model.
‘Much better to go down by the road, you know, Teddy,’ quoth Harry as they took their seats in the new dogcart. ‘All the cads in London are going down by rail, of course. The whole riff-raff of our fellow-man that you’re always talking about so sympathetically, with your absurd notions, overflows to-day from its natural reservoirs in the third class into the upper tanks of first and second. Impossible to travel on the line this morning without getting one’s self jammed and elbowed by all the tinkers and tailors, soldiers and sailors, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers in the whole of London. Enough to cure even you, I should think, of all your nonsensical rights-of-man and ideal equality business.’
‘Have you ever travelled third yourself, to see what it was really like, Harry? I have; and, for my part, I think the third-class people are generally rather kinder and more unselfish than the first or second.’
‘My dear fellow, on your recommendation I tried it last week.—But let that pass, and tell me where are you going to look for your beautiful young lady from Trinidad or Mauritius? You made her the ostensible pretext, you know, for going to the boatrace.’
‘Oh, for that I trust entirely to the chapter of accidents. She said she was going down to see the race from somebody’s lawn, facing the river; and I shall force my way along the path as far as I can get and quietly look out for her. If we see her, I mean to push boldly for an introduction to the somebody unnamed who owns the lawn. Leave the dogcart at some inn or other down, at Putney, stroll along the river casually till you see a beautiful vision of sweet nineteen or thereabout, walk in quietly as if the place belonged to you, and there you are.’
They drove on to Putney through the crowded roads, and put the dogcart up at the Coach and Horses. Then Harry and Edward took to the still more crowded bank, and began to push their way among the densely packed masses of nondescript humanity in the direction of Barnes Bridge.
‘Stand out of the way there, can’t you,’ cried Noel, elbowing aside a sturdy London rough as he spoke with a dexterous application of his gold-tipped umbrella. ‘Why do you get in people’s way and block the road up, my good fellow?’
‘Where are you a-pushin’ to?’ the rough answered, not without reason, crowding in upon him sturdily in defence of his natural rights of standing-room, and bringing his heavy foot down plump on Harry Noel’s neatly fitting walking-shoe. ‘An’ who are you, I should like to know, a-shovin’ other people aside permiscuous like, as if you was acthally the Prince of Wales or the Dook of Edinboro? I’d like to hear you call me a fellow again, I should!’
‘Appears to be some confusion in the man’s mind,’ said Noel, pushing past him angrily, ‘between a fellow and a felon. I haven’t got an etymological dictionary handy in my pocket, I regret to say, but I venture to believe, my good friend, that your philology is quite as much at fault in this matter as your English grammar.’
‘My dear Noel,’ Hawthorn put in, ‘please don’t add insult to injury. The man’s quite within his right in objecting to your pushing him out of a place he took up before you came here. Possession’s nine points of the law, you know—ten in the matter of occupancy, indeed—and surely he’s the prior occupant.’
‘Oh, if you’re going to hold a brief for the defendant, my dear boy, why, of course I throw the case up.—Besides, there she is, Teddy. By Jove, there she is. That’s her. Over yonder on the lawn there—the very pretty girl by the edge of the wall overhanging the path here.’
‘What, the one in blue?’
‘The one in blue! Gracious goodness, no. The other one—the very pretty girl; the one in the pink dress, as fresh as a daisy. Did you ever see anybody prettier?’
‘Oh, her,’ Edward answered, looking across at the lady in pink carelessly. ‘Yes, yes; I see now. Pretty enough, as you say, Harry.’
‘Pretty enough! Is that all you’ve got to say about her! You block of ice! you lump of marble! Why, my dear fellow, she’s absolute perfection. That’s the worst, now, of a man’s being engaged. He loses his eye entirely for female beauty.’
‘What did you say her name was?’
‘Miss Dupuy. I’ll introduce you in a minute.’
‘But, my dear Harry, where are you going? We don’t even know the people.’
‘Nothing easier, then. We’ll proceed to make their acquaintance. See what a lot of cads climbing up and sitting on the wall, obstructing the view there! First, seat yourself firmly on the top the same as they do; then, proceed to knock off the other intruders, as if you belonged to the party by invitation; finally, slip over quietly inside, and mix with the lot exactly as if you really knew them. There is such a precious crowd of people inside, that nobody’ll ever find out you weren’t invited. I’ve long observed that nobody ever does know who’s who at a garden-party. The father always thinks his son knows you; and the son always fancies indefinitely you’re particular friends of his father and mother.’
As Harry spoke, he had already clambered up to the top of the wall, which was steep and high on the side towards the river, but stood only about two feet above the bank on the inner side; and Edward, seeing nothing else to do but follow his example, had taken with shame a convenient seat beside him. In a minute more, Harry was busily engaged in clearing off the other unauthorised squatters, like an invited guest; and two minutes later, he had transferred his legs to the inner side of the wall, and was quietly identifying himself with the party of spectators on the lawn and garden. Edward, who was blessed with less audacity in social matters than his easy-going friend, could only admire without wholly imitating his ready adaptiveness.
‘Miss Dupuy! How delightful! This is indeed lucky. How very fortunate I should happen to have dropped down upon you so unexpectedly.’
Nora Dupuy smiled a delicious smile of frank and innocent girlish welcome, and held out her hand to Harry half timidly. ‘Why, Mr Noel,’ she said, ‘I hadn’t the very slightest idea you knew our good friends the Boddingtons.’
‘Mr Boddington?’ Harry Noel asked with a marked emphasis on the dubious Mr.
‘No; Colonel Boddington, of the Bengal Staff Corps. Why, how on earth do you happen not to know their name even?—You have a friend with you, I perceive.’
‘Exactly,’ Harry said, turning to Edward, who was speechless with surprise. ‘Allow me to introduce him. My friend, Mr Hawthorn, a shining light of the Utter Bar.—By the way, didn’t you say you came from Trinidad or Mauritius or Ceylon or somewhere? I remember distinctly you left upon me a general impression of tropical fragrance, though I can’t say I recollect precisely the particular habitat.’
‘Trinidad,’ she answered, looking down as she spoke.—‘Why, Mr Noel, what about it?’
‘Why, my friend Hawthorn here comes from Trinidad too, so you ought to be neighbours; though, as he hasn’t been there himself for a great many years, I daresay you won’t know one another.’
‘Oh, everybody in Trinidad knows everybody else, of course,’ Nora answered, half turning to Edward. ‘It’s such a little pocket colony, you know, that we’re all first-cousins to one another through all the island. I’m not acquainted with all the people in Trinidad myself, naturally, because I haven’t been there since I was a baby, almost; but my father would be perfectly sure to know him, at anyrate, I’m confident. I don’t think I ever heard the name of Hawthorn before—connected with Trinidad, I mean; in fact, I’m sure not.—Do your people live out there still, Mr Hawthorn, or have they settled in England?’
‘My father and mother are still in the island,’ Edward answered, a little uncomfortably. ‘My father is Mr James Hawthorn, of Agualta Estate, a place at the north side of Trinidad.’
‘Agualta Estate,’ Nora replied, turning the name over with herself once more dubiously, ‘Agualta Estate. I’ve certainly heard the name of the place, I’m sure; but never of your people until this minute. How very strange.’
‘It’s a long time since you’ve been in the island, you say,’ Noel put in suggestively, ‘and no doubt you’ve forgotten Mr Hawthorn’s father’s name. He must be pretty well known in Trinidad, I should think, for he’s an Honourable, you know, and a member of the local Legislative Council.’
Nora looked decidedly puzzled. ‘A member of the Legislative Council,’ she said in some surprise. ‘That makes it stranger still. My papa’s a member of Council too, and he knows everybody in the place, you know—that is to say, of course, everybody who’s anybody; and poor mamma used always to write me home the chattiest letters, all about everybody and everybody’s wife and daughters, and all the society gossip of the colony; and then I see so many Trinidad people when they come home; and altogether, I really thought I knew, by name at least, absolutely every one in the whole island.’
‘And this proves you must be mistaken, Miss Dupuy,’ Noel put in carelessly; for he was half jealous that his own special and peculiar discovery in pretty girls should take so much interest in Edward Hawthorn. ‘But anyhow, you’ll know all about him before very long, I’ve no doubt, for Mr Hawthorn is going to take a judgeship in the uttermost parts of the earth, even Trinidad. He’ll be going out there, no doubt, from what he tells me, in a month or so from now.’
‘Going out there!’ Nora cried. ‘Oh, how nice. Why, I shall be going out, too, in the end of June. How delightful, if we should both happen to sail in the same steamer together!’
‘I should envy him the voyage immensely,’ said Harry. ‘But you don’t mean to say, Miss Dupuy, you’re really going to bury yourself alive in the West Indies?’
‘Oh, I don’t call it burying alive, Mr Noel; it’s perfectly delightful, I believe, from what I remember. Summer all the year round, and dancing, with all the doors and windows open, from September to April.’
‘Pray, inform me which is Colonel Boddington,’ Harry exclaimed eagerly at this particular moment, as an old gentleman of military aspect strolled up casually to speak to Nora. ‘Point me out mine host, for mercy’s sake, or else he’ll be bringing a summary action for ejectment against us both as rogues and vagabonds.’
‘This is he,’ Nora said, as the military gentleman approached nearer. ‘Don’t you know him? Perhaps I’d better introduce you. Colonel Boddington—Mr Noel, Mr Hawthorn.’
‘And I’d better make a clean breast of it at once,’ Harry Noel continued, smiling gracefully with his pleasant easy smile—Edward would have sunk bodily into the earth alive, rather than make the ridiculous confession. ‘The fact is, we’re intruders into your domain, sir—unauthorised intruders. We took our seats on the top of your wall to watch the race; and when we got there, we found a number of roughs were obstructing the view for the ladies of your party; and we assisted the gentlemen of your set in clearing the ground; and then, as I saw my friend Miss Dupuy was here, I made bold to jump over and come to speak to her, feeling sure that a previous acquaintance with her would be a sufficient introduction into your pleasant society here.—What a delightful place, sir, you’ve got on the river here.’
Colonel Boddington bowed stiffly. ‘Any friend of Miss Dupuy’s is quite welcome here,’ he said with some chilly severity.—‘Did I understand Miss Dupuy to say your name was Rowell?’
‘Noel,’ Harry corrected, smiling benignly. ‘You may possibly know my father, Sir Walter Noel, of Noel Hall, near Boston, Lincolnshire.’
Colonel Boddington unbent visibly. ‘I’m very glad of this opportunity, I’m sure, Mr Noel,’ he said with his most gracious manner. ‘As I remarked before, Miss Dupuy’s friends will always be welcome with us. Since you’ve dropped in so unexpectedly, perhaps you and Mr—I didn’t catch the name—will stay to lunch with us. Our friends mean to join us at lunch after the race is over.’
‘Delighted, I’m sure,’ Harry answered, quite truthfully. Nothing could have pleased him better than this opportunity. ‘Here they come—here they come! Round the corner! Cambridge heads the race. Cambridge, Cambridge!’ And for five minutes there was a fluttering of handkerchiefs and straining of eyes and confused sound of shouts and laughter, which left no time for Harry or any one else to indulge in rational conversation.
After the boats had passed out of sight, and the company had returned to the paths of sanity once more, Miss Dupuy turned round to Edward and asked curiously: ‘Do you happen to know any people of the name of Ord, Mr Hawthorn?’
Edward smiled as he answered: ‘General Ord’s family? O yes, I know them very well indeed—quite intimately, in fact.’
‘Ah, then,’ she said gaily—‘then you are the Mr Hawthorn who is engaged to dear Marian. I felt sure you must be, the moment I heard your name. Oh, I do so hope, then, you’ll get this vacant Trinidad appointment.’
‘Get it! He’ll get it as sure as fate,’ Harry said, intervening. ‘But why are you so anxious he should take it?’
‘Why, because, then, Marian would get married, of course, and come out with him to live in Trinidad. Wouldn’t that be charming!’
‘If they do,’ Harry said quietly, ‘and if you’re going to be there, too, Miss Dupuy, I declare I shall come out myself on purpose to visit them.’