"Margaret Wriothesley may stand in my way again, as indeed she has all her life; but she sha'n't, at all events, be treated to the luxury of a 'walk over.'"
Not encountering Mr. Cottrell in the course of the next two or three days, she dropped him a line of inquiry as to the composition of this coming water party, and concluded her note with—
"Blanche is most provoking. She has evidently had some tiff with Lionel Beauchamp. She is very resolute about not going to this affair—hints mysteriously she wants to know something, and declines to say what. I have no patience with such nonsense; and if I hear from you that the right people will be there, shall insist upon her going. Her thirst for knowledge applies, I suspect, to some proceedings of Mr. Beauchamp's. If she would only confide what it is to me, I have little doubt I could put her mind at rest in eight and forty hours.
"Yours sincerely,
"MARY BLOXAM."
Mr. Cottrell received this note the morning after he had dined and supped in Hans Place. Putting one thing and the other together, he began to have a tolerable inkling of how matters stood. He was looking forward to spending rather a pleasant day at this party of Beauchamp's, and he now saw the possibility of adding still greater zest to his enjoyment by pulling the strings of one of those small social dramas so constantly occurring in our midst, which was a thing Pansey Cottrell dearly loved. He felt that he should be the good fairy on board that steamer,—that two or three of the human puppets thereon would dance in accordance with his fingering of the wires; and mischievously as he would interfere at times in such matters, felt upon this occasion that the puppets would jig as much to their own gratification as to his.
"Dear Lady Mary," he replied, "it is to be quite one of the pleasantest things of the season. All your own set will be there—pre-eminently the right people all round. I saw Beauchamp and his confrères last night. They say they are overwhelmed with applications for tickets, but have adhered rigidly to the number originally determined on. They may naturally expect to find themselves quite out of society next season. Those that were asked will have forgotten all about it, while those that were not won't. Kind regards to Miss Blanche. Tell her that there is a great deal of information to be picked up at water parties, and that I will guarantee her making one or two discoveries which I think will surprise and please her.
"Yours sincerely,
"PANSEY COTTRELL."
On receipt of that note Miss Bloxam's determination not to attend the Beauchamp party vanished. It would be hard to say now whether mother or daughter were more impatient for that afternoon, or more curious as to what it might bring forth. Lady Mary's speculations were vague in the extreme. Mr. Cottrell's shadowy announcement she regarded as liable to mean as much or as little as "hear of something to one's advantage" might in an advertisement in the second column of the Times. But with Blanche the case was different. Miss Bloxam's ideas took definite shape, and, with very slight grounds to go upon, she jumped instinctively to the conclusion—as women will in such cases—that whether Lionel Beauchamp was to be all to her or nothing would be effectually settled that afternoon. The promoters of the picnic themselves could not have prayed more fervently for fine weather than did Lady Mary and her daughter.
"Happy is the bride that the sun shines on," saith the proverb; but if it is vouchsafed one to command a fine day at will in the course of existence, it would be better to reserve that privilege not for one's wedding, but for our first important picnic. Lionel Beauchamp and his confrères were especially favoured. The day for their picnic was like unto that described by De Quincey, when "midsummer with all its banners was marching through the sky." A more gorgeous afternoon to loiter away upon the water it was hard to imagine. Moored along the side of the Westminster Pier was, if not the Great Eastern, at all events as large a steamer as it was practicable to bring there. Awnings were stretched both fore and aft above decks, the snowy whiteness of which would have done no discredit to a man-of-war. In the bows of the boat a band was pouring forth all sorts of popular melody, inciting the fashionable crowd to "Haste to the Wedding," "Down among the Coals," "When Johnny comes marching Home," &c. At the head of the gangway the hosts received their guests, and the numbers in which they trooped on board gave some warrant to Lionel Beauchamp's laughing assertion that giving a party in London is something like the making of a snowball: it increases with undreamt-of rapidity.
"Twenty-five guests apiece, Mrs. Wriothesley, was, I give you my word, the first faint-hearted conception of myself and three companions," said Beauchamp, laughing, as he welcomed that lady and Miss Chipchase; "but you see people have been kind to us, and that we are more popular in society than we dared venture to hope."