The travellers spent their first night agreeably enough. The weather was fine, the inn at Hounslow roomy and luxurious. My lady seemed pleased with the fresh eggs, the country cream. My lord found amusement in the airs and graces of his hostess, who was more than flattered by the notice of so fine a gentleman. Even the servants were good enough to express approval of the ale, the lodging, and the change. Our whole party started next morning in good humour, and the very waiting-maid, who had been in tears for the first six miles out of London, protested that under certain conditions the country might be almost tolerable.
My lord's first footman, a stout high-coloured personage in charge of the blunderbuss, was unremitting in his attentions, and Mistress Rachel, as she was called, in the absence of higher game, condescended to receive his homage with the favour five-and-forty shows to five-and-twenty. At a subsequent period indeed she declared "he hadn't the heart of a hen!" but for the present seemed satisfied to accept him as he was.
Such a favourable state of things could not be expected to last four-and-twenty hours. At noon of the second day it began to rain, a trace broke, a horse cast a shoe, the man with the blunderbuss proved useless in a difficulty, Mistress Rachel grew despondent, my lady sulked, my lord swore, the unwieldy vehicle creaked, groaned, swung, and finally stopped in the middle of a hill.
"Let me out!" screamed Lady Bellinger, whose nervous system was of the weakest, and on whose temper fear had an exasperating effect. "I'd rather walk. I will get out, I'll go back,—Richard!—Robin! open the door."
"Don't be a fool!" exclaimed my lord, as the carriage got into motion once more. "How can you go back, Ellen? You're forty miles from London if you're a yard."
My lady's head-dress vibrated with anger. "I am a fool indeed," she replied, "or I shouldn't be here! And this is the reward of my devotion as a wife. This is your return for my accompanying you into exile. Lord Bellinger, I will speak. Indifference I am accustomed to. Unkindness I have put up with for many a long day, patient, and forbearing, while my heart was broke, but I have a spirit ("you have indeed," muttered his lordship), though you try your best to crush it, and ill-usage I will submit to no longer."
It is possible her husband might have entered a more energetic protest than the "d—d nonsense" he whispered under his breath, but that his attention was diverted at this juncture to the beauty and action of a horse passing at a gallop, ridden by a young man whose seat and bearing did justice to the animal he bestrode. When Lord Bellinger, who thrust himself half out of the carriage to follow the pair with his eyes, subsided into his seat, he had forgotten all about their dispute in this new excitement; my lady, however, with her face buried in a handkerchief, continued to sob at intervals, till they reached their destination for the night.
This was a comfortable hostelry enough, yet lacking many of the luxuries that rendered the inn at Hounslow so agreeable a resting-place. Mistress Rachel, alighting with a hand on the shoulder of her admirer, expressed alarm lest it might be tenanted by ghosts; whereat the latter's comely cheek turned pale, while he resolved incontinently to fortify his courage with beer. The new arrivals had no reason to complain of their reception. The servants were amply regaled in the kitchen, a good supper was served for my lord and my lady in the parlour. The choicer meal vanished in profound silence, which Lord Bellinger tried more than once to break; but, finding his efforts ineffectual, and knowing by experience the obstinacy of his wife's reserve when she was "out of spirits," he gave up the attempt, and applied himself to the Burgundy his host brought in person. He finished the bottle as her ladyship, in dignified silence, retired to bed; and ringing the bell for another, felt creeping over him the accustomed longing for cards, dice, company—some excitement in which to spend the evening.
"Landlord," said he, as that stout and stolid personage entered the room with a cobwebbed bottle and a corkscrew, "can you play picquet?"
The landlord smiled foolishly. He did not know what his lordship was driving at.