Again she struggled for some security. Could it be found this time with a gay, fox-hunting, rollicking young squire of Sussex, easy alike in his cups and amours, Sir Harry Fetherstonchaugh?—“Fetherstone,” his cup-companions called him. He needed a pretty “whoman,” as poor Emma spelt it, to sit at his table when the company was not too drunk to appreciate feminine charm—and was proud of her astonishing beauty much after the manner of King Ahasuerus, who also hoped to dazzle his sycophants and create envy by disclosing the charms of Queen Vashti at his banquets.
But Vashti proudly declined to be an exhibit, and so did not Emma. She did her best to please. She smiled, and could not tell for the life of her how to hit the mean between friendly reception and familiarity with these men who were equally ready to tally-ho with Sir Harry in the field, and make love to his lovely mistress after dinner. She shared their sport, riding with the best of them, wild bright hair streaming from her velvet cap as she galloped furiously over the swelling Sussex Downs with the blue sea below. Never a man could outride her; and not one of them but wondered at the brilliant beauty, the brilliant cheeks and eyes, the rushing vitality of this lovely creature Sir Harry had picked up, God knows where, to be the envy of half a county. She sat behind her tray of tea in the old drawing-room, where the ghostly crucifix is reflected from nowhere in a great mirror and none can tell how, and tried to put on the modest graces of a Lady Fetherstonehaugh when some bold arm was thrust about her waist, and must for all her efforts subside into the kitchen giggle and the scuffle and escape.
She did not, however, always escape, for Destiny, whom beauty must draw like a lover, was at her heels again with the ironic smile that is no lover’s, God knows!
The Honourable Charles Greville, younger son of the Earl of Warwick, conferred his honourable company upon Sir Harry, merely for a shooting party—no long visit, for the brainlessness of these masculine gatherings had no attraction for him. One went, because in his world men shot or hunted and could not take their proper place in it if they did not, but it was impossible that a man of real attainments could please himself long in the company of a mere man of sport and fashion and his boon companions crowding foolishly about him.
Mr. Greville did not drink, save in a gentlemanly moderation. He shot in moderation; in moderation he hunted; and the amours of an uncelibate life were also in moderation, governed by a due regard to expenditure. But he was an amateur, a dilettante of beauty, for all that—beauty in woman, but still more in chaste Greek statuary, in noble Etruscan vases with figures dancing upon them in a long-dead joy; in strange crystals, coins, and all the fascinating stuff that Time picks up on the seashore of Eternity and drops from his pack as he goes on to the next adventure, forgetting the last. And not only for himself must he collect (and indeed could do little enough because of this limited income), but also for his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who was Ambassador in Naples; a very distinguished virtuoso indeed and all but final authority on the art of Greece and Rome.
So, armed with all his well-born graces and a prudence beyond his years, Mr. Greville came down to Up Park, his latest sacrifice on the altar of fashion. There might be a pretty maid-servant to chuck under the chin; there would certainly be the glorious champagne of the air on the wild Downs, not to mention Sir Harry’s cellars, and—Lord, he had forgotten that!—there would be Sir Harry’s new mistress to ridicule when he returned to the clubs. The last had been a common enough little slut; indeed, a man of birth might well wonder how another might amuse himself with such poor company when ladies of family were by no means unapproachable and less costly in more ways than one if discreetly wooed.
Mr. Greville was never to forget, however, in the course of a long and virtuous life, how he first saw the new charmer.
When he arrived at Up Park, it was a gay autumn afternoon, a light air crisping the dry leaves of the great copper beeches ere it tossed them to the earth, the late dahlias flaunting in the gardens, and the chrysanthemums in rows. Sir Harry was at the great hall-door with two grooms, both doing their utmost to control as magnificent a horse as Greville had ever clapt eyes on, a great bony bay thoroughbred, plunging and trembling, mad with nerves and spirits, quivering and sweating. A lady’s saddle was on his back, and a girl in riding dress and feathered hat stood on the steps of the portico, watching him so keenly that she never noted Greville winding up the garden from the park. Sir Harry was swearing like a trooper. I spare my readers the greater part of his oaths, since they are out of fashion and therefore useless. One rests familiar, however.
“I tell you, Emily, you shall not. And what’s more, I’m damned if I don’t flog you instead of the horse if you attempt it. That beast must be broken—if they break every bone of him, before man or woman can master him. How dare you order him round, you damned hussy!—”
And so forth, and so forth, the grooms with an eye apiece on the horse and another on the lady. Greville stopped to watch the contest. Her face he could not see for she was sideways on to him, but the figure in her habit was pleasing.