The fact that the Epsom Meeting was not over, appeared to have no effect on the attendance, for faces well-known in the world of sport were to be seen—it was an "indoor Ascot"—Ascot Cup Day so far as the dresses were concerned, mingled with the paddock on Derby Day, with its multiplicity of languages—Ascot with magnificent horses, and instead of racing on the flat, jumping, trotting, and tandem driving.
The gowns showed fairly well in the Ambassadors and other boxes, but Lossie justly complained that it was like a too dense wood, where you can't admire the foliage for the trees, and that every woman requires a special clearing to herself to be shown off properly, which she certainly had not here.
Yet Lossie herself easily made her presence felt in the immediate vicinity, and drew many an envious glance on her exquisite harmony in blue, and bluer eyes, though Gay's frock of white worked muslin, with a great cluster of crimson roses at her girlish breast, appealed to both Carlton and Chris far more.
But as usual in the quartette made by the young people, it was to Lossie that Carlton fell, and very content and lovely the girl looked as she sat beside him, while on his part, he did not find it difficult to make himself pleasant to her, even if Gay apparently had forgotten her quarrel with Chris, laughed, and was happy. The two criticised everything, and discussed with zest the charming coup d'Å“il presented, which was vivid, and full of interest, life and colour.
Overhead, the rays of the sun streamed through the glass roof, and were caught by the festoons and panels, ornamented with the flags and heraldry that emphasised the international nature of the show; roses in long, drooping curves connected the chief parts of the ornamentation, so that there was not one bare, unsightly piece of woodwork in all the vast building to offend the eye, and beneath, the Belgian landscape gardeners had worked marvels, creating a veritable fairyland of delight.
May trees in full blossom, a fresh green lawn, flower-beds, shrubs, everything possible to banish the show-ring, if scarcely to suggest the paddock or hunting-field, had been done, and beyond a ring banked with marguerites and scarlet geraniums, rose row upon row, English, French, Belgian, and American women, tiny splashes of colour that mostly represented the hopes and fears, impending pride or disappointment in the horsemen who competed for their countries' honour.
The pink hunting-coats or uniforms of the riders, the picturesque dress of the attendants, and the sleek, shining horses, all blended into a picture perfectly harmonious in tone, while the black coats of the little group of tall, well-bred men in the arena who acted as judges, somehow struck a note of distinction in the midst of the uniforms, and the gay kaleidoscopic surroundings.
Horse shows in England are apt to be too leisurely entertainments—this was too rapid for many spectators, for the expedition with which everything was carried out in the ring, was a revelation in expert management. Seeing that in one jumping class there were a hundred and twenty entries, it was clear that only by the full-tilt methods of the old tournament, could the events be carried through in time, so when one competition was over, a blast on the coach-horn, and, hey presto! the great doors at the end of the hall flew open, and in swept the next competitors, and jumping or other apparatus vanished as if by magic. There was a neatness and despatch about the whole affair that made the show go as quickly as a well-arranged theatrical performance, though the noise caused by the joint efforts of Lord Lonsdale's band, and the liveried youth in the ring occasionally provoked some amusement.
The vivacity of the scene was undeniable, but Gay, like many others, experienced the greatest difficulty in identifying any particular competition when two or more classes were in the ring, and when afterwards she tried to remember the right sequence of the things that most delighted her, she was not able to, so rapidly had they succeeded each other. She remembered vividly Rensslaer's beautiful little Peter and Mary, under eleven hands, and to her one of the prettiest sights was when a tiny Shetland pony only seventeen inches high, took a prize in a class with big horses, quality, not quantity, winning, the attendant having to kneel down to pin the rosette on the tiny creature.
The tandem teams that moved like clockwork delighted her, and she shared Chris's admiration for the Stansfield Cottin Battak ponies, that bred in Sumatra, with handsome heads set on high-crested necks, full of spirit, and simply balls of muscle, had all the fire and beauty conferred by the Arab strain, together with the hardness and endurance of the Battak breed, the description "miniature Arabs, with more bone than their ancestors" fitting them exactly.