Tom Rattleworth was the only son of a man who had begun life as a land-agent and attorney in H—————; but having very early in his career dabbled in stock-jobbing till he made a considerable sum of money, which his business connection enabled him to lay out to great advantage, he grew rich, purchased an estate, married into one of the county families, and brought his son up “as a gentleman”—that is, he sent him to Eton, where he learned nothing but how to get into and out of scrapes; and bought him a commission which he would have done better without. Nature having thus placed a silver spoon in Tom’s mouth, appeared to consider his head sufficiently furnished without going to any unusual expense in the article of brains; so she gave him barely an average quantity, and made up the deficiency by an actual passion for horse-flesh. Thomas, thus endowed, was the schoolfellow and holiday associate of Harry Coverdale; and having one, and only one taste in common, they had kept up their intimacy, until Harry started on his grand tour, and Tom was sent with his regiment to Canada, since which period the interview we have just described was their first meeting.
As Coverdale cantered home through the mud, and rain, and sleet, it suddenly flashed across him that the next was the only day remaining in which to call on the Duke and Duchess of Brentwood before the dinner at Allerton House; and his conscience smote him as he reflected that the engagement he had formed would prevent him from accompanying Alice; indeed, so annoyed did he feel at this unlucky coincidence, that for a moment he was on the point of turning his horse’s head, and riding after Tom Rattleworth to get off the engagement; but it was growing dusk, and he reflected that Chase Hall, the residence of the renowned Thomas, was so far out of his way that he should be unable to reach home by dinner-time, and then Alice would get frightened about him, which would annoy her more than being obliged to pay her visit alone; so with this bit of sophistry he, for the moment, quieted his conscience. Before he arrived at his own house, he had mentally decided that, as it would only worry his wife, he should say nothing about the Rattleworth engagement to her that evening, and that in the morning he should mention it as an equally unfortunate and unavoidable necessity, and persuade her to pay the first visit without him. Of course she would be a little annoyed just at first, but she was so sweet-tempered and amiable, that—that—and here his reflections refused to clothe themselves in intelligible language;—had they done so honestly, the sentence would have ended thus—“that she would submit without making a scene.” And so he cantered home, where Alice, with her sunny smile and bright loving eyes, was waiting to receive him, and made a vast fuss with the poor dear because he must be so wet, which, thanks to Mr. Macintosh—his admirable invention—he was not in the slightest degree, though he appreciated the affectionate fuss Alice made about him all the same.
Harry! you blind, stupid Harry!—as if her little finger, bless it, were not worth all the horse-flesh that ever was foaled, from Bucephalus, down to the winner of the last Derby.
The next morning was a very fine one. Alice and Harry made their appearance in the breakfast parlour about nine o’clock; each was a little out of sorts. Alice, not having been able to get any air or exercise on the previous day, had waked with a headache, which Harry continually forgetting, would leave the door of his dressing-room open, and attire himself to the tune of “A hunting we will go.” Then a new morning gown, on which Miss Flippery, the dressmaker at H————, had staked her credit, did not fit, and in turning round to look at the set of the back, Alice trod on the skirt, and tore it out of the “gathers”—whatever they may be; and as women seldom swear, and the evil was scarcely serious enough to cry over, poor little Mrs. Coverdale was unable to vent her annoyance, and brought it down to breakfast with her accordingly. Harry, on the other hand, conscious that he was about to commit an act of injustice, on which (although he repented of it sufficiently to feel very uncomfortable) he was still determined, tried to keep up his courage by affecting a degree of hilarity which caused him to make bad jokes about every subject mentioned, and to evince such a total want of sympathy with his wife’s headache and consequent depression of spirits, that Alice for the first time in her life considered him tiresome and in the way, and felt inclined to say sharp things to him and snub him. After a longish pause, interrupted only when, on two occasions, Harry was pulled up for whistling, and a third time for beating the devil’s tattoo on the chimney-piece, Alice began, “Really Wilkins has taken to burning the toast so black, it is impossible to eat it. I wish you would speak to him about it, Harry.”
“Certainly, my love,” was the cheerful reply; “what shall I say to him? That although I approve of his blacking my boots, I disapprove of his blacking my toast, and that I shall thank him to do it brown in future?”
“If you like to risk the chance, which is almost a certainty, that the man will misunderstand you, for the sake of making a stupid slang pun, I advise you to do so,” was the captious reply.
“Phew!” whistled Harry; “how solemn, and sensible, and serious we’ve grown all of a sudden! I beg to inform you, Mrs. Coverdale that I expect my wife to admire my puns, if nobody else does.”
“Then you must contrive to make better ones, and to time them rather more appropriately,” rejoined Alice, so snappishly that her husband looked up in surprise. Recalled to herself by the unmistakeable astonishment depicted on the bright, good-natured countenance of her better half, Alice continued in a milder tone, “You must not mind what I say this morning, Harry, dear; my headache makes me so dreadfully cross and stupid.”
“Poor little thing! you were shut up all yesterday, you know, and that is enough to give anybody a headache,” returned Harry, who considered houses were built only to dine and sleep in, and would have had Alice spend her days al fresco, even as he delighted to do. “You must go out as much as possible to-day; luckily it is very fine.”
“Yes; and I am to be honoured with my husband’s company too, which is a most unaccustomed pleasure,” rejoined Alice, brightening up at the recollection. “It is certainly very good policy to make yourself so scarce, though I wish you did not adhere quite so strictly to it; why you have not driven out with me since we returned from Popem Park! At what time do you mean to order the carriage?”