The day will come

by M. E. Braddon

“Yes, but now you have given it up, you ought to be a member of the Hunt. Let my brother put you up at the next meeting. You are pretty sure of being elected, and then you can order your pink swallow-tail coat in time for the Hunt Ball in December.”

Harrington shivered. That would mean two red coats—a hunting coat and a dancing coat. But this idea of twenty pounds laid out upon coats was not the worst. Twenty years ago, when he had ridden as hard and kept as good horses as any member of the Hunt, Matthew Dalbrook had resolutely declined the honour of membership. He had considered that a provincial solicitor had other work than to ride to hounds twice or three times a week. He might allow himself that pleasure now and again as an occasional relaxation in a hard-working professional life; but it was not for him to spend long days tearing about the country with the men of whose lands and interests he was in some wise custodian.

Theodore, who was at heart much more of a sportsman than his younger brother, had respected his father’s old-fashioned prejudices, whatever line they took, and he had never allowed his name to be put up for the Hunt. He had subscribed liberally to the fund for contingent expenses, as his father and grandfather had done before him; but he had been content to forego the glory of a scarlet coat, and the privilege of the Hunt buttons.

Harrington was not strong in that chief virtue of man, moral courage—the modern and loftier equivalent for that brute-courage which was the Roman’s only idea of virtue. He felt that to acknowledge himself afraid to put up for election into the sacred circle of the Hunt lest he should offend his father, was to own by implication that a solicitor was not quite upon the social level of landed gentry and retired military men, the colonels and majors who form the chief ornament of the average Hunt club.

He murmured something to the effect that his father was not sporting, and wouldn’t like him to waste too much time riding to hounds.

“What does that matter?” exclaimed Juliet. “You needn’t go out any oftener because you are a member of the Hunt. There are men who appear scarcely half a dozen times in a season—men who have left the neighbourhood, and only come down for a run now and then for old sake’s sake.”

“I’ll think it over,” faltered Harrington. “Don’t say anything to Sir Henry about it just yet.”

“As you please; but I shan’t dance with you at the ball if you wear a black coat,” said Juliet, giving her bridle a sharp little shake and trotting forward to join her brother.

Mahmud, discomposed by that sudden start, gave a shambling elderly shy; Harrington pulled him up into a walk, and rode sulkily on, and allowed the other three riders to melt from him in the shades of evening.

Yes, she was beautiful exceedingly, and it would be promotion for a country solicitor to be engaged to a girl of such high standing; but he felt that his relations with her were hedged round with difficulty. She was expensive herself, and a cause of expense in others. She had spent the brightest years of her girlhood in visiting in country houses, where everything was on a grander scale than at the Mount. She had escaped from the barrenness of home to the mansions of noblemen and millionaires. She had strained all her energies towards one aim—to be popular, and to be asked to good houses. She had run the gauntlet of most of the best smoke-rooms in the three kingdoms, and had been talked about everywhere as the handsome Miss Baldwin. Yet her twenty-seventh birthday had sounded, and she was Miss Baldwin still. Half a dozen times she had fancied herself upon the eve of a great success—such a marriage as would at once exalt her to the pinnacle of social distinction—and at the last moment, as it seemed, the man had changed his mind. Some malicious mother of ugly daughters, or disappointed spinster, had told the eligible suitor “things” about Miss Baldwin—harmless little deviations from the rigid lines of maidenly etiquette, and the suitor had cried off, fearing in his own succinct speech that he was going to be “had.”