The coveted prize was fabricated by the fair hands of the dames and damsels of the district. The race was confined to amateurs, and those only were permitted to compete who had received invitations from the Secretary of the Ladies’ Committee.
Great interest was taken, it may be supposed, in the carrying-off of this trophy, and many a youthful aspirant might be seen ‘brushing with hasty step the dew away,’ as he reviewed at dawn his training arrangements with a face of anxiety, such as might become the owner of a Derby favourite.
By direct or devious ways the echoes of battle-cries, proper to the approaching fray, commenced to reach The Chase. Faintly interested as had been the family in the probable pleasures of such an assemblage, they could not remain wholly insensible. With each succeeding week tidings and murmurs of the Carnival swelled into sonorous tone. One day a couple of grooms, leading horses sheeted and hooded, of which the satin skins and delicate limbs bore testimony to their title to blue blood, would pass by on their way to Yass; or Mr. Churbett would ride over with the latest news, declaring that Grey Surrey was in such condition that no horse in the district had a chance with him, though Hamilton’s No Mamma had notoriously been in training for a month longer. Also, that the truly illustrious steeplechaser, The Cid, had been stabled at Badajos for the night; but that, in his opinion, he could not be held at his fences, and if so, St. Andrew would make such an exhibition of him as would astonish his backers and the Tasmanian division generally. Then Mrs. Snowden would arrive to lunch, and among other items of intelligence volunteer the information that the ball, which the Racing Club Committee was pledged to give this year, would exceed in magnificence all previous entertainments. Borne on the wings of the weekly post there came a missive from Mrs. Rockley, reminding Mrs. Effingham of her promise to come and bring her daughters for the race week, assuring her that rooms at Rockley Lodge awaited them, and that wilful child Christabel was prepared to die of grief in the event of anything preventing their having the pleasure of their company.
Then Bob Clarke was, after all, to ride The Cid. He was the only man that could hold him at his fences. So there would be such a set-to between him and St. Andrew, with Charlie Hamilton up, as had never been seen in the district. The western division were going to back The Cid to the clothes on their back. Hamilton was a cool hand across country, and a good amateur jock wherever you put him up, but Bob Clarke, who had had his early training among the stiff four-railers and enclosed pasture-lands of Tasmania, was an extraordinary horseman, and had a way of getting a beaten horse over his last fences which stamped him as the man to put your money on.
It was not in human nature altogether to disregard current opinions, which, in default of more important public events, swayed the pastoral community as well as the dwellers in the rural townships. The Effinghams gradually abandoned themselves to the stream, and decided to accept Mrs. Rockley’s invitation for the lady part of the family. To this end Wilfred made a flying visit to the town, where he had been promptly taken in custody by Mr. Rockley and lodged in safe keeping at his hospitable mansion.
He returned with what Beatrice called a rose-coloured description of the whole establishment; notably of the marvellous beauty of Christabel Rockley, the only daughter.
‘Why, you haven’t seen girls for I don’t know how long,’ said Annabel, ‘except us, of course—and you don’t see any beauty in fair people—so how can you tell? The first young woman with a pale face and dark eyes is a vision of loveliness, of course. Wait till we go to Yass, and you will hear a proper description.’
‘Women are always unsympathetic about one another,’ he retorted. ‘That’s the reason one can hardly trust the best woman’s portrait of her friend.’
‘And men are so credulous,’ said Beatrice. ‘I wonder any sensible woman has the patience to appropriate one. See how they admire the merest chits with the beauty of a china doll, and so very, very little more brains. There is a nice woman, I admit, here and there, but a man doesn’t know her when he sees her.’
‘All this is premature,’ said the assaulted brother, trying to assume an air of philosophical serenity. ‘I know nothing about Miss Christabel save and except that she is “beautiful exceedingly,” like the dame in Coleridge. But you will find Mr. Rockley’s the nicest house to stay in, or I much mistake, that you have been in of late years, and, in a general way, you will enjoy yourselves more than you expect.’