CHAPTER VI.
HER NAME.
Most country towns have some great event which marks the year, or some peculiarity which distinguishes them from their neighbors. This one has its annual ball, that its races, another its volunteer reviews. One seems to relish no amusement which has not a semi-religious flavor, and excels in school-feasts, choir-festivals, and bazaars. Some places only wake up on the fifth of November, and some are devoted to amateur theatricals. Fordborough had its agricultural show.
Crowds flocked to it, not because they cared for fat cattle, steam ploughs and big vegetables, but because everybody was to be seen there. You stared at the prize pig side by side with the head of one of the great county families, who had a faint idea that he had been introduced to you somewhere (was it at the last election?), and politely entered into conversation with you on the chance. You might perhaps suspect that his remembrance of you was not very clear, when you reflected afterward that he
Asked after my wife, who is dead,
And my children, who never were born;
but at any rate he meant to be civil, and people who saw you talking together would not know what he said. Or you might find the old friend you had not seen for years, gold eye-glass in hand, peering at a plate of potatoes. Or you were young, and there was a girl—no, the girl, the one girl in all the world—bewitchingly dressed, a miracle of beauty, looking at Jones's patent root-pulper. You lived for months on the remembrance of the words you exchanged by a friendly though rather deafening threshing-machine when her mamma (who never liked you) marched serenely on, unconscious that Edith was lingering behind. Then there was the flower-show, where a band from the nearest garrison town played the last new waltzes, and people walked about and looked at everything except the flowers. Fordborough was decked with flags and garlands, and appropriate sentiments on the subject of agriculture, in evergreen letters stitched on calico, were lavishly displayed. Every one who possessed anything beyond a wheelbarrow got into it and drove about, the bells clashed wildly in the steeple, and everything was exceedingly merry—if it didn't rain.
People in that part of the world always filled their houses with guests when the time for the show came round. Even at Brackenhill, though the squire said he was too old for visitors, he made a point of inviting Godfrey Hammond, while Mrs. Middleton, as soon as the day was fixed, sent off a little note to Horace. It was taken for granted that Horace would come. Aunt Harriet considered his invariable presence with them on that occasion as a public acknowledgment of his position at Brackenhill. But the day was gone by when Mr. Thorne delighted to parade his grandson round the field, showing off the slim handsome lad, and proving to the county that with his heir by his side he could defy the son who had defied him. Matters were changed since then. The county had, as it were, accepted Horace. The quarrel was five-and-twenty years old, and had lost its savor. It was tacitly assumed that Alfred had in some undefined way behaved very badly, that he had been very properly put on one side, and that in the natural course of things Horace would succeed his grandfather, and was a nice, gentlemanly young fellow. Mr. Thorne had only to stick to what he had done to ensure the approval of society.
But people did not want, and did not understand, the foreign-looking young man with the olive complexion and sombre eyes who had begun of late years to come and go about Brackenhill, and who was said to be able to turn old Thorne round his finger. This was not mere rumor. The squire's own sister complained of his infatuation. It is true that she also declared that she believed the newcomer to be a very good young fellow, but the complaint was accepted and the addition smiled away. "It is easy to see what her good young man wants there," said her friends; and there was a general impression that it was a shame. Opinions concerning the probable result varied, and people offered airily to bet on Horace or Percival as their calculations inclined them. The majority thought that old Thorne could never have the face to veer round again; but there was the possibility on Percival's side that his grandfather might die intestate, and with so capricious and unaccountable a man it did not seem altogether improbable. "Then," as people sagely remarked, "this fellow would inherit—that is, if Alfred's marriage was all right." No one had any fault, except of a negative kind, to find with Percival, yet the majority of Mr. Thorne's old friends were inclined to dislike him. He did not hunt or go to races: he cared little for horses and dogs. No one understood him. He was indolent and sweet-tempered, and he was supposed to be satirical and scheming. What could his grandfather see in him to prefer him to Horace? Percival would have answered with a smile, "I am not his heir."
Mr. Thorne was happy this July, his boy having come to Brackenhill for a few days which would include the show.