General Bounce; Or, The Lady and the Locusts

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

“Bubbleton,” said he, “mother, and why Bubbleton?”

“Can’t you see, Mount?” replied her ladyship; “Bubbleton is within visiting distance of Newton-Hollows.”

“What then?” rejoined her son; “I thought you had made up your mind to drop them when you found they were of no use.”

“So I should, my dear,” confessed the diplomatic lady, “if things had turned out as I expected; but don’t you see that the game is not yet half played out? That unfortunate boy who went off to the Cape has been severely wounded; you know they put on mourning for him, thinking he was dead; and it is quite on the cards that he may not recover; he never looked strong; then our little friend is as great an heiress as ever; and I am sure, with your eloquence, you could easily persuade her that it was jealousy, or pique, or something equally flattering, that made you so remiss for a time, and it would be all on again. Besides, I have been making a good many inquiries lately in a roundabout way, and I find that, even if the ‘beau cousin’ should return safe and sound, there will be a large sum of ready money to which the girl will be entitled when she comes of age. You want money, Mount, I fancy?”

“Not a doubt of it, my dear mother,” replied he; “this has been my worst year for a long time, and you know I never holloa before I’m hurt. Goodwood ought to have pulled me through, if ‘Sennacherib’ hadn’t failed at the last stride. I am afraid to say, and I can believe you had rather not hear, what that odd six inches cost me. No, mother, I can’t go on much longer; I don’t see my way a bit. If a general election comes I shall have to bolt.”

“Listen to me, Mount,” said her ladyship. “I have a plan that may save us all yet. I shall take a house at Bubbleton for the winter, and wherever I have a roof over my head you know I am too happy to give you a home. You can send down two or three horses, and hunt quietly in the neighbourhood, instead of going off to Melton with eight or ten, and losing a fortune at whist; and of all places I know, Bubbleton is the most likely for something to turn up—then if we should arrange matters with Miss Kettering, everything will go smoothly; but there is one thing I must beg of you, my dear Mount, and that is to give up the turf. It is all I ask,” said her ladyship, with tears in her eyes—“all I ask in return for my devotion to your interests is to sell those horrid race-horses, and give the thing up altogether.”

Mount made a wry face—“Sennacherib,” notwithstanding his defeat, which, as usual, was from no lack of speed or stamina, but entirely in consequence of the way the race was run—“Sennacherib” was the very darling of his heart; and he had, besides, amongst his yearlings, such a filly, that promised, as far as babies of that age can promise, to have the speed of the wind. Must these treasures go to Tattersall’s? Must the hopes of Olympic triumphs and future mines of wealth be all knocked down to the highest bidder, as the stud of a nobleman declining racing? It was a bitter pill; but he knew his mother was a strong-minded woman—he knew that if she insisted on the sacrifice being made a part of the bargain, nothing would induce her to fulfil her share unless he fulfilled his. He recollected how, in his father’s time, crabbed as that respectable nobleman undoubtedly was, my lady always got her own way in the long-run, and he determined to make a virtue of necessity and give in, consoling himself with the reflection that, when all was arranged, he could easily buy some more horses with his wife’s money. So he promised with a good grace, and his mother kissed him, and called him “her own dear boy”; and the pair separated—my lord to get upon “Trictrac” and ride down to Richmond, whither there is no occasion for us to follow him—my lady to write sundry little notes to her friends, to consult with her agent about letting her house in London—and then, with a good book upon her knee, to indulge in dreamy castle-building schemes for upholding the integrity of the house of Mount Helicon, not unmixed with rosier visions as regarded her own prospects for the future.

This pair, whatever might be their failings as regarded the rest of the world, seemed at all events blamelessly to fulfil their duties each towards the other. Yet behind this apparent sincerity and affection each was playing a separate game, totally irrespective of aught but self; each was actuated solely by motives of interest; each had a separate path to pursue, a separate object to attain. Mount Helicon came readily into his mother’s views for the best of all reasons. Everything that could save the disbursement of a shilling was now of paramount importance to him. After a problematic trip to Norway in Long-Acre’s yacht he would literally not have a roof to cover him. It was all very well to make a great merit of giving up Melton, and to dwell on the sacrifice he made on his mother’s account in foregoing the delights of that very charming place; but Mount had now neither hunters nor the means of getting them, and a man at Melton without money or horses is like a fish out of water, or a teetotaller at an Irish wake. Everything had failed with him lately. Successful as were his literary schemes, their profits were but a drop in the ocean compared with his necessities. Goodwood had nearly finished him, and he hardly dared think of Doncaster, so unfortunate were his investments on the coming St. Leger. He could see only one way out of his difficulties—to sell himself and his title to some wealthy young lady, and he rather fancied giving Blanche the opportunity of becoming a purchaser; that which he would have considered a mere pittance some six months ago he now looked upon as a very fair competence; and the chance of young Kettering’s death, with the reversion of that large property, was a contingency by no means to be despised; so he submitted, with as good a grace as he could, to selling his race-horses, and spending the winter at Bubbleton with his mother, inwardly resolving that when he had secured his object he would break out again into fresh extravagances, and shine with redoubled splendour.

Lady Mount Helicon, too, had her own ends to further in her affectionate and hospitable invitation to her son. She had found out that his agreeable qualities, his large acquaintance, and his brilliant reputation, always succeeded in filling her house with those whom she was pleased to term “the best men,” fastidious individuals who never condescended to dine with her when Mount and she kept separate establishments. Now my lady calculated that with her title, her cook, and her celebrated son, she would create a prodigious sensation at Bubbleton, where neither rank, talent, nor faultless cutlets are as common as in London; and that with these attractions in her house, she would have an opportunity of seeing all the male eligibles whom that salubrious locality might bring together. And she could thus judge of them at her leisure, and pick and choose at her caprice. That was the end in view. The idea of entering once more into the holy bonds of matrimony had long been present to her ladyship’s mind; and when she consulted her looking-glass, and saw reflected her large, comely form, her still healthy complexion, and her well-arranged hair, by courtesy called auburn, but sufficiently red to lose little of its youthful appearance from an occasional silver line, she grudged more and more that all these charms should be wasted on a widow’s lonely lot, and resolved that when the time came, and the man, it would be no fault of hers if she did not stand again at the altar in the coloured robes of a bride who adds the advantage of experience to the ripe maturity of autumnal beauty. Bubbleton, then, was the very place from which to select the fortunate man. Its frequenters were many of them steady-going, respectable gentlemen of middle age, and like all unmarried middle-aged men, unless completely ruined, sufficiently well-to-do in the world. Such are by no means ineligible matches for a widow; and then, should none of these be found willing to aspire to such happiness, might not General Bounce surrender at discretion, if properly invested—more particularly should the other matrimonial scheme progress favourably, and the relationship thus created afford opportunities for surprises, coups-de-main, or the tardier but no less fatal advances of a regular blockade? He certainly had paid her attention in London; he was a stout, soldier-like man for his years; above all, he had a charming place at Newton-Hollows, and a good fortune of his own. Yes, faute de mieux, the General would do very well; and then the two families might live together, and if Blanche did succeed to everything, what a piece of luck it would be for them all! And her ladyship, with all her knowledge of the world, actually deluded herself into the idea that the two establishments could keep the peace for an hour together in the same house, or that Mount, after he had got all he could, and had no further use for his mother, would hear of such an arrangement for one single moment. So Lady Mount Helicon rose and smoothed her hair in the mirror over the chimney-piece, and looked at a miniature of herself, done before she married, and lying on the drawing-room table; and persuaded herself she was wonderfully little altered since then, and returned in haste to her good book and her seat with her back to the light, you may be sure, as a knock at the door announced an arrival, and her well-powdered figure-footman ushered in Lady Phœbe Featherhead.