The man jumped down and touched his hat; Crawley got in; Gould gathered up the reins, sat beside him, and started, the man springing up behind as they moved off, and balancing himself, with folded arms, as smart and natty as you please.
Crawley wondered more and more that he had never perceived any superiority in Gould; surely he must be very blind.
“It is only half-an-hour’s drive, behind an animal like this,” said his new friend. “The frost is giving, so we may have a run with the harriers in a few days. In the meantime there are a good many snipe. We will have a crack at them to-morrow morning, if you like.”
“I should like very much,” replied Crawley.
The country they were driving through was not very picturesque, as it wanted wood, a strange want for Suffolk; but they soon came to a lodge with a gate, opened for them by a curtseying woman, and admitting them to a park where there were trees, and fine ones, though standing about by themselves, not grouped together. They spun along through this up to a large white house with a colonnade in front, and a terrace, with urns for flowers and statues all along it, looking bare and cheerless enough at this time of year. But the hall made amends when they entered it, for it was warm, luxurious, and bright enough for a sitting-room. Two footmen in plush and with slightly powdered hair inhabited it, and one of them helped Crawley to get rid of his wraps, and then Gould led the way to the drawing-room, where Mrs Gould and three daughters were drinking tea and eating muffins and things, for fear they should have too good appetites for dinner, I suppose, and introduced him.
Crawley shook several hands and accepted a cup of tea, and sat down on a very low and very soft seat, which he could have passed the night in luxuriously if beds had run short, and felt as awkward as you please. He always was shy in ladies’ society. Not in that of his sisters, of course; he patronised them and made them fag for him. It was certainly their own fault if they did not like it, for they had taught him. But they did like it, he being one of his sort, and not often at home, and in return he waltzed with them, which was a bore, and gave them easy service at lawn-tennis, which made him slow, and was generally an amiable young Turk.
But the Misses Gould did not look like being fagged, rather the reverse. They were all grown up, at least to look at, though one was not yet “out.” Clarissa, the next, a girl of eighteen, came and sat down by him and talked to him, for which he felt very grateful, for he was beginning to wish the floor to open and let him through. At first, indeed, she talked of things he knew nothing about: balls, and levées, and the four-in-hand club, and the Orleans. But finding the service was too severe, and he could not send the ball back, she asked if he was fond of the theatre, and as he was, very, and had been to one a few nights before, he became more like himself, and showed some animation in his description of the piece he had seen, and the performers.
At this juncture a quiet-looking man out of livery came softly into the room, and asked him deferentially for his keys, as his luggage had arrived. Seizing the idea that he proposed to unpack for him, an operation he disliked, he gladly gave them up, wondering whether these rich people ever did anything for themselves at all.
“I see that you are great upon acting,” said Miss Clarissa when the valet was gone, “and I am so glad! For we are getting up some private theatricals; you will take a part?”
“Why,” said Crawley in some dismay, “I never yet tried to act myself; I am afraid I should spoil everything.”