'Shall we try behind, mamma?' asked one of the young ladies. 'Who could possibly see us behind?' exclaimed Mrs. Bangley Coffin, who was getting cross. Nevertheless, we did try behind, and somebody did see us—several very intelligent footmen.
'Is there no place,' I inquired for the fourth or fifth time, 'where we could buy a little light refreshment?' Mrs. Bangley Coffin didn't say there was not, but seemed to think it so improbable that it was hardly worth our while to look. 'Nobody lunches at Ascot, Miss Wick,' she said at last, with a little asperity, 'except on the drags or at the club enclosures. It's—it's impossible.'
'Well,' I said, 'I think it's very unenterprising not to make provision for such a large number of people. If this were in America——' But just then we came face to face with Colonel and Mrs. B. J. Silverthorn, of St. Paul's, Minnesota. To say that I was glad to see these old friends in this particular emergency is to say very little. I knew the Colonel's theory of living, and I was quite sure that starving for six hours on an English racecourse had no place in it. I knew his generous heart, too, and was confident that any daughter of poppa's might rely upon it to the utmost. So, after introducing Mrs. and the Misses Bangley Coffin, I proceeded to explain our unfortunate situation. 'Can you tell us,' I begged, 'where we can get something to eat?'
The Colonel did not hesitate a moment. 'Come right along with me,' he said. 'It isn't just the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but it'll do if you're hungry, and I guess you are!' And we all followed him to the rather abridged seclusion of the restaurant behind the Grand Stand. The Colonel did it all very handsomely—ordered champagne, and more dishes than twice as many people could have disposed of; but the cloud that rested upon the brows of Mrs. and the Misses Bangley Coffin did not disperse with the comforting influence of food, and they kept a nervous eye upon the comers and goers. I suppose they had waited too long for their meal really to enjoy it.
We parted from Colonel and Mrs. Silverthorn almost immediately afterwards—they said they wanted to go and have another good look at the Royalties and Dukes in their own yard, and Mrs. Bangley Coffin thought it was really our duty to stay where Mr. Bangley Coffin might find us. So we went and sat in a row and saw the Gold Cup won, and shortly after took an early train for London, Mrs. Bangley Coffin declaring that she had no heart for another sovereign for the Paddock. On the way home she said she was sorry I had had such a dull day, and that it was her first and last attempt to 'screw' Ascot. But I had not had at all a dull day—it had been immensely interesting, to say nothing of the pleasure of meeting Colonel and Mrs. Silverthorn. I quite agreed with Mrs. Bangley Coffin, however, that it is better to make liberal arrangements for Ascot when you go as an Ascot person.
XXII
I DON'T know what we were about to let Miss Wick miss the Boats,' said Mr. Mafferton one day, over his after-noon-tea in Lady Torquilin's flat. I looked at Lady Torquilin, and said I thought Mr. Mafferton must be mistaken; I had never missed a boat in my life, and, besides, we hadn't been going anywhere by boat lately. The reason we had put off our trip to Richmond five times was invariably because of the weather. Peter Corke happened to be there that afternoon, too, though she didn't make much of a visit. Miss Corke never did stay very long when Mr. Mafferton was there—he was a person she couldn't bear. She never called him anything but 'That.' She declared you could see hundreds of him any afternoon in Piccadilly, all with the same hat and collar and expression and carnation in their button-holes. She failed to see why I should waste any portion of my valuable time in observing Mr. Mafferton, when I had still to see 'Dolly's Chop House,' and Guy the King-maker's tablet in Warwick Lane, and the Boy in Panyer Alley, and was so far unimproved by anything whatever relating to Oliver Goldsmith or Samuel Johnson. She could not understand that a profoundly uninteresting person might interest you precisely on that account. But, 'Oh you aborigine!' she began about the Boats, and I presently understood another of those English descriptive terms by which you mean something that you do not say.
The discussion ended, very happily for me, in an arrangement suggested jointly by Miss Corke and Mr. Mafferton. Lady Torquilin and I should go to Oxford to see 'the Eights.' Mr. Mafferton had a nephew at Pembroke, and no doubt the young cub would be delighted to look after us. Miss Corke's younger brother was at Exeter, and she would write to the dear boy at once that he must be nice to us. Peter was very sorry she couldn't come herself—nothing would have given her greater pleasure, she said, than to show me all I didn't know in the Bodleian.