XXI
I WENT to Ascot with the Bangley Coffins—Mr., Mrs., and the two Misses Bangley Coffin. I didn't know the Bangley Coffins very well, but they were kind enough to ask Lady Torquilin if I might go with them, and Lady Torquilin consented with alacrity. 'You couldn't go away from England without seeing Ascot,' said she. 'It would be a sin! It's far too much riot for me; besides, I can't bear to see the wretched horses. If they would only learn to race without beating the poor beasties! To say nothing of the expense, which I call enormous. So by all means go with the Bangley Coffins, child—they're lively people—I daresay you'll enjoy yourself.'
Lady Torquilin was surprised and disappointed, however, when she learned that the party would go by train. 'I wonder at them,' she said, referring to the Bangley Coffins; 'they know such a lot of people. I would have said they were morally certain to be on somebody's drag. Shall you care to go by train?' Whereupon I promptly assured Lady Torquilin that I was only too happy to go any way.
So we started, the morning of the Gold Cup day, I and the Bangley Coffins. I may as well describe the Bangley Coffins, in the hope that they may help to explain my experiences at Ascot. I have to think of Mrs. Bangley Coffin very often myself, when I try to look back intelligently upon our proceedings.
Mrs. Bangley Coffin was tall, with a beautiful figure and pale gold hair. The Misses Bangley Coffin were also tall, with prospectively beautiful figures and pale gold hair. I never saw such a resemblance between mother and daughters as there was between the Misses Bangley Coffin and their mamma. They sat up in the same way, their shoulders had the same slope, their elbows the same angle. The same lines developed on the countenance of Mrs. Bangley Coffin were undeveloped on the countenances of the Misses Bangley Coffin. Except in some slight matter of nose or eyes, Mr. Bangley Coffin hardly suggested himself in either of the young ladies. When they spoke, it was in their mother's voice and in their mother's manner—a manner that impressed you for the moment as being the only one in the world. Both they and their mamma had on dresses which it was perfectly evident they had never worn before, and of which they demanded my opinion with a frankness that surprised me. 'What do you think,' said they, 'of our Ascot frocks?' I admired them very much; they represented, amongst them, nearly all the fashionable novelties, and yet they had a sort of conventional originality, if I may say such a thing, which was extremely striking. They seemed satisfied with my applause, but promptly fell upon me for not meriting applause myself. 'We saw you,' they said unitedly, 'in that frock last Sunday in the park!'—and there was a distinct reproach in the way they said it. 'It's quite charming!' they assured me—and it was—'but it's not as if you hadn't quantities of them! Do you mean to say Lady Torquilin didn't tell you you ought to have a special frock for Ascot?' 'She said I should do very well in this,' I declared, 'and that it would be a sin to buy another; I had much better give the money to Dr. Barnardo!' Whereat Mrs. Bangley Coffin and the two Misses Bangley Coffin looked at one another and remarked, 'How like Lady Torquilin!'
'I didn't give it to Dr. Barnardo,' I continued—to which Mrs. Bangley Coffin rejoined, in parenthesis, 'I should hope not'—' but I'm glad Lady Torquilin did not advise me to get an Ascot frock, though yours are very pretty. I feel that I couldn't have sustained one—I haven't the personality!' And indeed this was quite true. It occurred to me often again through the day; I could not have gone about inside an Ascot frock without feeling to some extent the helpless and meaningless victim of it. The Bangley Coffin girls thought this supreme nonsense, and declared that I could carry anything off, and Mrs.
Bangley Coffin said, with pretended severity, that it was not a question of feeling but of looking; but they united in consoling me so successfully that I at last believed myself dressed to perfection for Ascot—if I had only worn something else to the park the Sunday before!
