"Yes," observed Mr. Cottrell, in a meditative manner; "I have known Lady Mary for many years, and that is her great charm as a hostess. She is always anxious that her guests should amuse themselves after their own fashion. Too many of our entertainers, alas! will insist upon it we shall amuse ourselves in theirs."
Jim Bloxam looked sharply at the speaker as he lit his bed-room candle. Jim had a shrewd idea that Mr. Cottrell at times laughed a little at his friends as well as with them.
"Cottrell is right, however," he said. "It's time to go to bed. After dancing all last night and running races this afternoon, Beauchamp, like myself, feels no doubt fit for it."
When Mr. Cottrell reached his bed-room, he took two or three turns up and down the floor in a somewhat preoccupied manner. At length a faint smile played about his mouth, and muttering to himself, "I will!" he seated himself at the writing-table, rapidly penned a short note, addressed it, and then sought his pillow in the tranquil frame of mind that befits a man who has planned a pleasant surprise for his fellow-creatures. When his valet brought him his cup of tea the next morning at nine, Mr. Cottrell briefly informed him that there was a note on the table for the rectory.
"If you don't know where it is, Smithson," he continued, "inquire quietly. Take it at once; there is no answer; and no tattling about where you have been, mind."
Smithson vanished silently, though aggrieved. He did feel that the latter injunction to such a model of discretion as himself amounted almost to an insult. A very paragon of valets was Smithson—could be relied on to be mute as a fish concerning his master's doings, unless paid to be otherwise, when he of course held to the accepted traditions of his class.
After a previous conference with the stable authorities, Jim Bloxam at breakfast proposed the Trotbury expedition. Lady Mary listened to the proposed excursion at first with some misgivings. She expected to hear it announced that the Chipchase girls had been already asked to join the party. They had been thus invited so often before, that they would have been quite justified in themselves proposing to do so on hearing such an expedition was in contemplation; but no, neither from Blanche nor Jim came a hint of such being the case; and then Lady Mary expressed most unqualified approval of the idea. It was settled that they should start punctually at twelve; and as Mr. Cottrell had not as yet made his appearance, Lady Mary very thoughtfully sent a message up to his room to inform him of what was in contemplation. The breakfast party had nearly all dispersed, even the late comers had thrown their napkins on the table, and yet the hostess, usually one of the first to bustle off upon her own private affairs, still lingered over the Morning Post.
"Come, mother," said Jim, suddenly putting his head into the room, "if you have finished. I want you to help me to tell people off. The governor is not coming; so that leaves his hack at our disposal. I thought if we gave that to Sartoris, Beauchamp and myself can take the hunters, Blanche has her own horse, and the rest of you can go quite comfortably in the break. I told them to take the hood off. And as for Braybrooke, he is going over to Rockcliffe to see some chum of his who is quartered there."
"I have no doubt, my dear Jim, that will all do very well," replied
Lady Mary. "I don't think I shall go myself; and Mrs. Evesham is also,
I fancy, of my way of thinking."
"All right, then; I shall consider that as settled;" and with that observation Jim left his mother once more in the undisturbed enjoyment of her paper.