Oh, was she right or was she wrong in avoiding him?
Nowhere in Europe can such a sight be seen as that presented on such a day beside the Serpentine when the meet of the Four-in-Hand Club takes place. All London seemed to be looking its brightest and best, and all London—at least, the fashionable world thereof—seemed to have found some excuse for being in the vicinity of the Serpentine Bridge and the powder magazine which stands thereby.
It was May, and the young green trees were in full foliage, and the parterres of rhododendrons and azaleas were in bloom; and gathering there were the beauty and fashion of the greatest city in the world, with the best horse flesh, the most accomplished drivers, and the most perfect drags, with shining panels and plated harness.
On either side of the drive all the hawthorns, pink and white, were in bloom, loading the morning air with the perfume of the almond; and the waters of the Serpentine were seen at intervals between the flowery shrubs and long avenues of leafy trees in all the fresh greenery of May; but as Alison looked around her she thought of Essilmont in May—Essilmont, which too probably she would never see again, with the pool in the Ythan where the Black Hound appeared when one of her race was drowned in it; where the grey-clad angler loved to linger by the stream in the silvery morning mist; where the black gled crowed overhead as he winged his way across the purple heather, or the cushet doo cooed with bell-like note in the pine coppice, and the high antlers of the stag were seen as he couched amid the cool and fan-leaved bracken.
But the acclamations of the little girls who clung to her hands or skirts roused Alison from her reverie, for the procession had started, and above thirty drags, horsed magnificently, with splendid silver harness blazing in the sunshine, were getting into motion, their drivers—when not clad in the club uniform, blue, with gilded buttons—wearing accurate morning costume, while the dresses of the many ladies who crowded the lofty seats on the roof, were such as only Regent Street can furnish—and for beauty, no other city on earth could have produced such women as were seen there, in carriages or on foot.
Team after team went past, the German Ambassador with his bays, the Guards' drag, with four glossy blacks, the Hussars from Hounslow, chestnuts, greys, and roans, all criticised and critically examined by the onlookers, and surrounded by Hyde Park in all its glory, the route being taken from the magazine to Hyde Park corner, thence by Knightsbridge Barracks, passing the Albert Memorial, and out by the Queen's Gate, where the whole passed away like a phantasmagoria from the eyes of Alison, whose gaze followed the line of drags like one lost in a painful dream, after her heart had given the first bound of bewilderment, on seeing that the leading coach was driven by Bevil Goring!
She had seen a dashing drag drawn by a team of beautiful roans, and certainly her heart beat painfully with joy, amazement, and then with something of mortification, when she recognised in the driver thereof, 'tooling along in a most workmanlike manner,' as a bystander remarked, her fiancé, Bevil Goring, while on the top seats were Jerry Wilmot, Tony Dalton, young Fleming, and others of the Rifles, with Laura, and several ladies, some of whom were seated close behind Goring, and in animated conversation with him, one of them apparently a rather flirty party, who insisted on shading his eyes sometimes with her scarlet silk parasol.
She again shrank behind a tree, as she had done when Cadbury came in sight. Her gaze, and her heart too, followed the gay drag with its roans and brilliant party going away to luncheon, no doubt at Muswell Hill, and she watched it until it disappeared.
How she got through the remainder of the day in the dull school-room on the attic floor in Pembridge Square, she scarcely knew; but the next was considerably advanced before she saw an account of the coaching meet in a fashionable paper, and read that 'Captain Goring of the Rifles' drag and team were considered by eminent connoisseurs as the most perfect in the park.' A little further on she saw that at his rooms in Piccadilly he had, after the meet, entertained a number of the club at dinner, with many persons of distinction, including H.R.H. the F.M. commanding, and one or two foreign ambassadors.
His drag and team! What a change was here! Poor Alison was indeed sorely bewildered; but on reflection the change failed to give her joy. Here were evidences of great and sudden wealth, and yet he made no effort to discover her. And those ladies on the drag, who were they; and who was she who seemed so familiar with him, and to whose playful remarks he stooped to listen from time to time?