Kate Coventry: An Autobiography

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

Well, I waited and waited, and John never came for me, as was his usual habit; and I began to think I must lose my ride, for I am not allowed to go by myself in the afternoons; and at last I was obliged to coax Aunt Deborah to take me out in the open carriage, for it was a beautiful day, and it would be just the thing for her cold. So we went dowagering about, and shopped in Bond Street, and looked at some lace in Regent Street, and left cards for Lady Horsingham, as in duty bound, after helping her to "make a good ball;" and then we went into the Ring, and I looked and looked everywhere, but I could not see anything like Frank or his brown hack. To be sure the Ride was as crowded as a fair. But I did see Cousin John, and I must say it was too bad of him to keep me waiting and watching all the afternoon, and then never to take the trouble of sending a note or a message, but to start off by himself and escort Miss Molasses, as if he was her brother at least, if not a nearer relation. Miss Molasses, forsooth, with her lackadaisical ways and her sentimental nonsense; and that goose John taking it all in open-mouthed, as if she was an angel upon earth. Well, at all events she don't ride like me. Such a figure I never saw on a horse!—all on one side, like the handle of a teapot, bumping when she trots and wobbling when she canters, with braiding all over her habit, and a white feather in her hat, and gauntlet gloves (of course one may wear gauntlet gloves for hunting, but that's not London), and her sallow face. People call her interesting, but I call her bilious. And a wretched long-legged Rosinante, with round reins and tassels, and a netting over its ears, and a head like a fiddle-case, and no more action than a camp-stool. Such a couple I never beheld. I wonder John wasn't ashamed to be seen with her, instead of leaning his hand upon her horse's neck, and looking up in her face with his broad, honest smile, and taking no more notice of her sister Jane, who is a clever girl, with something in her, than if she had been the groom. I was provoked with him beyond all patience. Had it been Mrs. Lumley, for instance, I could have understood it; for she certainly is a chatty, amusing woman, though dreadfully bold, and it is a pleasure to see her canter up the Park in her close-fitting habit and her neat hat, with her beautiful round figure swaying gracefully to every motion of her horse, yet so imperceptibly that you could fancy she might balance a glassful of water on her head without spilling a drop. To say nothing of the brown mare, the only animal in London I covet, who is herself a picture. Such action! such a mouth! and such a shape! I coaxed Aunt Deborah to wait near Apsley House, on purpose that we might see her before we left the Park. And sure enough we did see her, as usual surrounded by a swarm of admirers; and next to her—positively next to her—Frank Lovell, on the very brown hack that had been standing an hour at our door. He saw me too, and took his hat off; and she said something to him, and they both laughed!

I asked Aunt Deborah to go home, for it was getting late, and the evening air was not very good for her poor cold. I did not feel well myself somehow; and when dear aunty told me I looked pale, I was forced to confess to a slight headache. I am not subject to low spirits generally—I have no patience with a woman that is—but of course one is sometimes a "little out of sorts;" and I confess I did not feel quite up to the mark that evening, I cannot tell why. If John flatters himself it was because he behaved so brutally in disappointing me, he is very much mistaken; and as for Captain Lovell, I am sure he may ride with anybody he likes for what I care. I wonder, with all his cleverness, he can't see how that woman is only laughing at him. However, it's no business of mine. So I went into my boudoir, drank some tea, and then locked myself in and had a "good cry."

CHAPTER VII.

It is wonderful how soon the London season comes to an end; and, in fact, it is difficult to say when its tide is really at the flood. Single men—and they are necessary ingredients for gaiety wherever there are young ladies—single men seldom go to town much before the Derby. Then comes Ascot, for which meeting they leave the metropolis, and enjoy some quiet retreat in the neighbourhood of Windsor, taking with them many potables and what they call a "dog cook." After Ascot people begin to think about going away, and before you know where you are three more weeks have elapsed, and it is July. Dear, what a scatter there is then!—some off to Norway, some to Cowes, some to Caithness, and some to Galway. Those that remain for Goodwood are sure to go to Newmarket; and the man who sticks religiously to the pavement, and resists the allurements of all the above-mentioned resorts, only does so because he is meditating a trip to California, Kamtschatka, or the Rocky Mountains, and is so preoccupied with portable soup, patent saddle-bags, bowie-knives, and revolvers that he might just as well be at his ultimate destination in person for all the benefit one gets from his society. I confess I don't like the end of the season. You keep on trying to be gay, whilst your friends are dropping off and disappearing one by one. Like the survivor in some horrid pestilence, you know your time must come too; but you shut your eyes to the certainty, and greet every fresh departure with a gaiety more forced and a smile more and more hopeless.

Well, my London season too was drawing to its close, and I confess I had enjoyed it very much. What with my morning gallops and afternoon saunters (for John had returned to his allegiance, and came to take me out regularly, although he always joined Miss Molasses' party when he got into the Park); what with Aunt Deborah's tiresome cold, which obliged me to go about a good deal by myself, and the agreeable society of Frank Lovell, who never missed an opportunity of being with us, I had been very happy, and I was quite sorry to think it was all so soon to come to an end. John was already talking of a fishing excursion to Norway, and actually proposed that I should accompany him; an arrangement which Aunt Deborah declared "was totally impracticable," and which I confess I do not myself think would have been a very good plan. I had made several pleasant acquaintances, amongst whom I may number Lady Scapegrace—that much-maligned dame having taken a great fancy to me ever after the affair of the bull, and proving, when I came to know her better, a very different person from what the world gave her credit for being. With all her faults—the chief of which were an uncontrollable temper and much too strong feelings for the nineteenth century—she had a warm, affectionate heart, and was altogether an energetic, straightforward woman, very much in earnest, whether for good or evil. But there was one thing that vexed me considerably amongst all my regrets for past pleasures and castles in the air for the future, and this was the conduct of Captain Lovell. What did he mean? I couldn't make him out at all. One day calling on my aunt at eleven in the morning, and staying to luncheon, and making himself so agreeable to her, and bringing bouquets of the loveliest flowers (which I know came from Harding's or else direct from Covent Garden) to me; and then going away as if he had fifty more things to say, and lingering over his farewell as if he was on the eve of departure for China instead of Mayfair, and joining me again in the Park, and asking me if I was going to the Opera, and finding out all my engagements and intentions, as if he couldn't possibly live five minutes out of my sight; and then, perhaps, never coming near us for days together, till even my aunt "wondered what had become of that pleasant Captain Lovell;" and when he met me in the Park, taking off his hat with a civil bow, as if he had only been introduced the night before. All this I couldn't make out, and I didn't half like, as I told Lady Scapegrace one hot morning, sitting with her in her boudoir. I was a good deal at Lady Scapegrace's now, and the more so because that was the place of all others at which I was least likely to meet Sir Guy. "Men are so uncertain, my dear," said her ladyship, sitting in a morning deshabille, with her long black hair combed straight out over her shoulders and reaching nearly to her knees. "If you ask me candidly whether he means anything, I tell you I think Frank Lovell a shocking flirt." "Flirt!" I replied, half crying with vexation. "It's time enough for him to flirt with me when I give him any encouragement. But I don't, Lady Scapegrace, and I never will. I hope I'm too proud for that. Only when a man is always in one's pocket wherever one goes; when he sends one bouquets, and rides out in the rain to get one's bracelet mended, and watches one from a corner of the room if one happens to be dancing with anybody else, and looks pleased when one is dull and cross when one laughs—why, he either does prefer, or ought to prefer, one's society to that of Miss Molasses and Mrs. Lumley, and that is why I tell you I can't quite make out Captain Lovell."

"Don't talk of that odious woman," exclaimed Lady Scapegrace, between whom and Mrs. Lumley there was a polite feud of some years' standing. "She is ready and willing to jump down Frank Lovell's throat, or any one else's for the matter of that, so bold as she is, and so utterly regardless—such stories, my dear. But take my advice, Kate: play that cheerful cousin of yours against Master Frank. I never knew it fail yet if you only go the right way to work. Men are not only very vain, but very jealous. Don't let him think you are going to marry your cousin, or he may consider it a capital arrangement and a sort of matter-of-course affair, which is all in his favour. Men like Frank always prefer other people's property, and I have no doubt he would be over head and ears in love with you if you were not single. So don't be going to marry Mr. Jones, but just appeal to him about every earthly thing you do or say, look after him when he leaves the room, as if you couldn't bear him out of your sight. Get Frank to abuse him if you can, and then fight his battles fiercely; and directly the latter thinks there is a rival in the field he will be down on his knees, you mark my words, in two days' time at the furthest. I think I ought to know what men are, my dear" (and to do Lady Scapegrace justice, she had studied that variety of the creation to some purpose, or she was much maligned). "I know that they can't, any of them, see three yards before their noses, and that you can turn and twist them which way you will if you only go upon this principle—that they are full of vanity and self-conceit, and totally deficient in brains."

"But I'm sure Captain Lovell's a clever man," said I, not disposed to come to quite such sweeping conclusions as those of my monitress; "and—and—I don't mean to say that I care about him, Lady Scapegrace, but still it mightn't answer with him, and—and—I shouldn't like to lose him altogether."

"Pooh! Lose him! Fiddlestick!" rejoined her ladyship. "You'll see. He is to join our party at Greenwich this afternoon. By the way, when Sir Guy heard you were coming, he proposed to drive us all down on that horrid coach. But I told him we should be taken for the people that usually occupy it, and nothing should induce me to go; so that plan was given up. But you and I will go down in the barouche, and I'll call for you, and we'll take Mr. Jones with us. And mind you're very civil to him, and only notice the other in a quiet, good-humoured way—for he mustn't think you do it out of pique—and before the whitebait is on the table you'll see he'll be a different man. But now you must go—there's a dear. I'll call for you at five. It's too bad to turn you out; but I'm never at home to any one between three and half-past four. Good-bye, dear, good-bye."

And Lady Scapegrace kissed me most affectionately, and promised to call for me punctually at five, till which hour I cannot make out why her time was always engaged.

As I tripped downstairs, hoping to make my escape without being attended by the whole establishment to open the house-door, whom should I come across but odious Sir Guy, in a sort of scarlet fancy dress, which I concluded was his morning "demi-toilette." He actually had the effrontery to propose that I should accompany him to the stable, and that he should then "show me his boudoir—hey? You look like a rose this morning, Miss Coventry. Should like to transplant you. What?" And whilst he stood dodging and grinning on the stairs, I managed to slip by him and get safe into the street. I wonder when men think they are beginning to grow old! I am sure Sir Guy fancies he is still in the flower of his youth, and so charming that nobody can resist him.