Volume One—Chapter Seven.
A Dawning Sense.
They were rather famous for their flower-shows at Lexville, not merely for the capital displays of Nature’s choicest beauties, educated by cunning floriculturists to the nearest point to perfection, but also for their wet days. When the exhibition was first instituted, people said that the marquee was soaked and the ladies’ dresses spoiled, simply because the show was held upon a Friday. “Just,” they said, “as if anybody but a committee would have chosen a Friday for an outdoor fête!”
But, if anything, the day was a little worse upon the next occasion, when Thursday had been selected, the same fate attending the luckless managers upon a Monday, a Tuesday, and a Wednesday. But now at last it seemed as if the fair goddess Flora herself had enlisted the sympathies of that individual known to mortals as “the clerk of the weather,” and, in consequence, the day was all that could be desired. In fact, the weather was so fine, that the bandsmen of the Grenadier Guards, instead of coming down in their old and tarnished uniforms—declared, as a rule, to be good enough for Lexville—mustered in full force, gorgeous in their brightest scarlet and gold. The committee-men had shaken hands in the secretary’s tent a dozen times over as many glasses of sherry, and forgotten to eat their biscuits in their hurry to order the cords of Edgington’s great tent to be tightened, so potent were the rays of the sun; while within the canvas palace, in a golden hazy shade, the floral beauties from many a hot house and conservatory were receiving the last touches by way of arrangement.
Lexville was in a profound state of excitement that day, and Miss l’Aiguille, the dressmaker, declared that she had been nearly torn to pieces by her customers.
“As for Miss Bray,” she said, “not another dress would she make for her—no, not if she became bankrupt to-morrow—that she wouldn’t! Six tryings-on, indeed, and then not satisfied!”
However, Miss l’Aiguille’s troubles were so far over that, like the rest of Lexville, she had partaken of an early dinner, or lunch, and prepared herself to visit the great fête.
Lexville flower-show was always held in the grounds of one of the county magistrates, the Rev. Henry Lingon, concerning whose kindness the reporter for the little newspaper generally went into raptures in print, and received orders for half-a-dozen extra copies the next bench-day. And now fast and furiously the carriages began to set down—the wealth and fashion of the neighbourhood making a point of being the earlier arrivals, so as to miss the crowd of commoner beings who would afterwards flock together.
“Ah, Vining! You’re here, then, mai dear fellow! Why didn’t you come to lunch?” exclaimed Maximilian Bray, sauntering up to the young man, who, rather flushed and energetic, was talking to a knot of flower-button-holed committee-men.
“How do, Max?” exclaimed Charley, hastily taking the extended hand, and giving it a good shake. Then, turning to the committee-men: “Much rather not—would, really, you know—don’t feel myself adapted. Well, there,” he exclaimed at last, in answer to several eager protestations, “I’ll do it, if you can get no one else!—Want me to give away the prizes,” he said, turning to Max Bray, who was gazing ruefully at his right glove, in whose back a slight crack was visible, caused, no doubt, by the hearty but rough grasp it had just received.