“My dear Charley!” remonstrated Sir Philip.
“But she rides well – sits that great rawboned mare of hers gloriously. I saw her take a leap on the last day I was out – one that I took too, about half an hour before that fall; but hang me if it wasn’t to avoid being outdone by a woman! I really wanted to shirk it.”
“Good, good!” laughed Sir Philip.
“But she’s fast, and not feminine, to my way of thinking,” said Charley, gazing up as he spoke at the picture above the mantelpiece, and comparing the lady in question with the truly gentle mother whom he had almost worshipped. “She burst out with a hoarse ‘Bravo!’ when she saw me safely landed, and then shouted, ‘Well done, Charley!’ and I felt so nettled, that I pulled out my cigar-case, and asked her to take one.”
“But she did not?” exclaimed Sir Philip.
“Well, no,” said Charley, “she did not, certainly – she only laughed; but she looked just as if she were half disposed. She’s one of your Spanish style of women: scents, too, tremendously – bathes in Ihlang-Ihlang, I should think; perhaps because she delights in garlic and onions, and wants to smother the odour!”
“My dear boy – my dear boy!” laughed Sir Philip, “you do really want polish horribly! What a way to speak of a lady! It’s terrible, you know! But there, don’t judge harshly, and you are perfectly unfettered; only just bear this in mind: it would give me great pleasure if you were to lead Laura Bray in here some day and say – But there, you know – you know! Still I place no tie upon you, Charley: only bring me some fair sweet girl – by birth a lady, of whom I can be proud – and then all I want is that you shall give me a chair at your table and fireside. You might have the title if it were possible, but you shall have the Court and the income – everything. Only let me have my glass of wine and my bit of snuff, and play with your children. Heaven bless you, my dear boy! I’ll go off the bench directly, and you shall be a county magistrate; but you must be married, Charley – you must be married!”
Charley Vining did not appear to be wonderfully elated by his future prospects, for, sighing, he said:
“Really, father, I could have been very happy to have gone on just as we are; but your wishes – ”
“Yes, my dear boy, my wishes. And you will try? Only don’t bother yourself; take time, and mix a little more with society – accept a few more invitations – go to a few of the archery and croquet parties.”
“Heigho, dad!” sighed Charley. “Why, I should be sending arrows for fun in the stout old dowagers’ backs, and breaking the slow curates’ shins with my croquet mallet! There, leave me to my own devices, and I’ll see what I can do!”
“To be sure – to be sure, Charley! And you do know Maximilian Bray?”
“Horrid snob!” laughed Charley, “such a languid swell! Do you know what our set call him? But there, of course you don’t! ‘Donkey Bray’ or else ‘Long-ears!’”
“There, there – never mind that! I don’t want you to marry him, Charley. And there – there’s Beauty at the door!” exclaimed the old gentleman, shaking his son’s hand. “Go and have your ride, Charley! Good-bye! But you’ll think of what I said?”
“I will, honestly,” said the young man.
“And – stay a moment, Charley: Lexville flower-show is to-morrow. I can’t go. Couldn’t you, just to oblige me? I like to see these affairs patronised; and Pruner takes a good many of our things over. He generally carries off a few prizes. I see they’ve quite stripped the conservatory. You’ll go for me, won’t you?”
“Yes, father, if you wish it,” sighed Charley.
“I do wish it, my dear boy; but don’t sigh, pray!”
“All right, dad,” said the young man, brightening, and shaking Sir Philip’s hand, “I’ll go; give away the prizes, too, if they ask me,” he laughed. And the next moment the door closed upon his retreating form.
Sir Philip Vining listened to his son’s departing step, and then muttering, “They will ask him too,” he rose, and went to the window, from which he could just get a glimpse of the young man mounting at the hall-door. The next moment Charley cantered by upon a splendid roan mare, turning her on to the lawn-like sward, and disappearing behind a clump of beeches.
“He’s a noble boy!” muttered the father proudly; and then as he walked thoughtfully back to his chair, “A fine dashing fellow!”
But of course these were merely the fond expressions of a weak parent.
Volume One – Chapter Five.
Charley’s encounters
“Bai Jove, Vining! that you?” languidly exclaimed a little, thin, carefully-dressed man, ambling gently along on one of the most thoroughly-broken of ladies’ mares, whose pace was so easy that not a curl of her master’s jetty locks was disarranged, or a crease formed in his tightly-buttoned surtout. His figure said “stays” as plainly as figure could speak; he wore an eyeglass screwed into the brim of his very glossy hat; his eyes were half closed; his moustache was waxed and curled up at the ends like old-fashioned skates; and his carefully-trained whiskers lightly brushed their tips against his shoulders. And to set off such arrangements to the greatest advantage, he displayed a great deal of white wristband and shirt-front; his collar came down into the sharpest of peaks; and he rode in lemon-kid gloves and patent-leather boots.
“Hallo, Max!” exclaimed Charley, looking like some Colossus as he reined in by the side of the dandy, who was going in the same direction along a shady lane. “How are you? When did you come down?”
“So, so – so, so, mai dear fellow! Came down la-a-ast night. But pray hold in that confounded great beast of yours: she’s making the very deuce of a dust! I shall be covered!”
Charley patted and soothed his fiery curveting steed into a walk, which was quite sufficient to keep it abreast of Maximilian Bray’s ambling jennet, which kept up a dancing, circus-horse motion, one evidently approved by its owner for its aid in displaying his graceful horsemanship.
“Nice day,” said Charley, scanning with a side glance his companion’s “get-up,” and evidently with a laughing contempt.
“Ya-a-s, nice day,” drawled Bray, “but confoundedly dusty!”
“Rain soon,” said Charley maliciously. “Lay it well.”
“Bai Jove, no – surely not!” exclaimed the other, displaying a great deal of trepidation. “You don’t think so, do you?”
“Black cloud coming up behind,” said Charley coolly.
“Bai Jove, mai dear fellow, let’s push on and get home! You’ll come and lunch, won’t you?”
“No, not to-day,” said Charley. “But I’m going into the town to see the saddler. I’ll ride with you.”
“Tha-a-anks!” drawled Bray, with a grin of misery. “But, mai dear fellow, hadn’t you better go on the grass? You’re covering me with dust!”
“Confounded puppy! Nice brother-in-law! Wring his neck!” muttered Charley, as he turned his mare on to the grass which skirted the side of the road, as did Bray on the other, when, the horses’ paces being muffled by the soft turf, conversation was renewed.
“Bai Jove, Vining, you’ll come over to the flower-show to-morrow, won’t you? There’ll be some splendid girls there! Good show too, for the country. You send a lot of things, don’t you? – Covent-garden stuff and cabbages, eh?”
“Humph!” growled Charley. “The governor’s going to have some sent, I s’pose; our gardener’s fond of that sort of thing. Think perhaps I shall go.”
“Ya-a-s, I should go if I were you.