Sir Willoughby's 'in fine', however, did not please her: still less did his lackadaisical Lothario-like bowing and smiling to Miss Dale: and he perceived it and was hurt. For how, carrying his tremendous load, was he to compete with these unhandicapped men in the game of nonsense she had such a fondness for starting at a table? He was further annoyed to hear Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel Patterne agree together that «caricature» was the final word of the definition. Relatives should know better than to deliver these awards to us in public.
'Well?' quoth Lady Busshe, expressive of stupefaction at the strange dust she had raised.
'Are they on view, Miss Middleton?' inquired Lady Culmer.
'There's a regiment of us on view and ready for inspection.' Colonel De Craye bowed to her, but she would not be foiled.
'Miss Middleton's admirers are always on view.' said he.
'Are they to be seen?' said Lady Busshe.
Clara made her face a question, with a laudable smoothness.
'The wedding-presents,' Lady Culmer explained.
'No.'
'Otherwise, my dear, we are in danger of duplicating and triplicating and quadruplicating, not at all to the satisfaction of the bride.'
'But there's a worse danger to encounter in the 'on view', my lady,' said De Craye; 'and that's the magnetic attraction a display of wedding-presents is sure to have for the ineffable burglar, who must have a nuptial soul in him, for wherever there's that collection on view, he's never a league off. And 'tis said he knows a lady's dressing- case presented to her on the occasion fifteen years after the event.'
'As many as fifteen?' said Mrs. Mountstuart.
'By computation of the police. And if the presents are on view, dogs are of no use, nor bolts, nor bars: — he's worse than Cupid. The only protection to be found, singular as it may be thought, is in a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British isles.'
'Rum?' cried Lady Busshe.
'The liquor of the Royal Navy, my lady. And with your permission, I'll relate the tale in proof of it. I had a friend engaged to a young lady, niece of an old sea-captain of the old school, the Benbow school, the wooden leg and pigtail school; a perfectly salt old gentleman with a pickled tongue, and a dash of brine in every deed he committed. He looked rolled over to you by the last wave on the shore, sparkling: he was Neptune's own for humour. And when his present to the bride was opened, sure enough there lay a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British Isles, born before himself, and his father to boot. 'Tis a fabulous spirit I beg you to believe in, my lady, the sole merit of the story being its portentous veracity. The bottles were tied to make them appear twins, as they both had the same claim to seniority. And there was a label on them, telling their great age, to maintain their identity. They were in truth a pair of patriarchal bottles rivalling many of the biggest houses in the kingdom for antiquity. They would have made the donkey that stood between the two bundles of hay look at them with obliquity: supposing him to have, for an animal, a rum taste, and a turn for hilarity. Wonderful old bottles! So, on the label, just over the date, was written large: UNCLE BENJAMIN'S WEDDING PRESENT TO HIS NIECE BESSY. Poor Bessy shed tears of disappointment and indignation enough to float the old gentleman on his native element, ship and all. She vowed it was done curmudgeonly to vex her, because her uncle hated wedding-presents and had grunted at the exhibition of cups and saucers, and this and that beautiful service, and epergnes and inkstands, mirrors, knives and forks, dressing-cases, and the whole mighty category. She protested, she flung herself about, she declared those two ugly bottles should not join the exhibition in the dining-room, where it was laid out for days, and the family ate their meals where they could, on the walls, like flies. But there was also Uncle Benjamin's legacy on view, in the distance, so it was ruled against her that the bottles should have their place. And one fine morning down came the family after a fearful row of the domestics; shouting, screaming, cries for the police, and murder topping all. What did they see? They saw two prodigious burglars extended along the floor, each with one of the twin bottles in his hand, and a remainder of the horror of the midnight hanging about his person like a blown fog, sufficient to frighten them whilst they kicked the rascals entirely intoxicated. Never was wilder disorder of wedding-presents, and not one lost! — owing, you'll own, to Uncle Benjy's two bottles of ancient Jamaica rum.'
Colonel De Craye concluded with an asseveration of the truth of the story.
'A most provident, far-sighted old sea-captain!' exclaimed Mrs. Mountstuart, laughing at Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer. These ladies chimed in with her gingerly.
'And have you many more clever stories, Colonel De Craye?' said Lady Busshe.
'Ah! my lady, when the tree begins to count its gold 'tis nigh upon bankruptcy.'
'Poetic!' ejaculated Lady Culmer, spying at Miss Middleton's rippled countenance, and noting that she and Sir Willoughby had not interchanged word or look.
'But that in the case of your Patterne Port a bottle of it would outvalue the catalogue of nuptial presents, Willoughby, I would recommend your stationing some such constabulary to keep watch and ward.' said Dr. Middleton, as he filled his glass, taking Bordeaux in the middle of the day, under a consciousness of virtue and its reward to come at half-past seven in the evening.
'The rascals would require a dozen of that, sir,' said De Craye.
'Then it is not to be thought of. Indeed one!' Dr. Middleton negatived the idea.
'We are no further advanced than when we began,' observed Lady Busshe.
'If we are marked to go by stages,' Mrs. Mountstuart assented.
'Why, then, we shall be called old coaches,' remarked the colonel.
'You,' said Lady Culmer, 'have the advantage of us in a closer acquaintance with Miss Middleton. You know her tastes, and how far they have been consulted in the little souvenirs already grouped somewhere, although not yet for inspection. I am at sea. And here is Lady Busshe in deadly alarm. There is plenty of time to effect a change — though we are drawing on rapidly to the fatal day, Miss Middleton. We are, we are very near it. Oh! yes. I am one who thinks that these little affairs should be spoken of openly, without that ridiculous bourgeois affectation, so that we may be sure of giving satisfaction. It is a transaction like everything else in life. I, for my part, wish to be remembered favourably. I put it as a test of breeding to speak of these things as plain matter-of-fact. You marry; I wish you to have something by you to remind you of me. What shall it be? — useful or ornamental. For an ordinary household the choice is not difficult. But where wealth abounds we are in a dilemma.'
'And with persons of decided tastes,' added Lady Busshe.
'I am really very unhappy,' she protested to Clara.
Sir Willoughby dropped L?titia; Clara's look of a sedate resolution to preserve silence on the topic of the nuptial gifts made a diversion imperative.
'Your porcelain was exquisitely chosen, and I profess to be a connoisseur,' he said. 'I am poor in Old Saxony, as you know; I can match the country in Savres, and my inheritance of China will not easily be matched in the country.'
'You may consider your Dragon vases a present from young Crossjay,' said De Craye.
'How?'
'Hasn't he abstained from breaking them? the capital boy! Porcelain and a boy in the house together is a case of prospective disaster fully equal to Flitch and a fly.'
'You should understand that my friend Horace — whose wit is in this instance founded on another tale of a boy — brought us a magnificent piece of porcelain, destroyed by the capsizing of his conveyance from the station,' said Sir Willoughby to Lady Busshe.
She and Lady Culmer gave out lamentable Ohs, while Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel Patterne sketched the incident. Then the lady visitors fixed their eyes in united sympathy upon Clara: recovering from which, after a contemplation of marble, Lady Busshe emphasized, 'No, you do not love porcelain, it is evident, Miss Middleton.'
'I am glad to be assured of it,' said Lady Culmer.
'Oh, I know that face: I know that look,' Lady Busshe affected to remark rallyingly: 'it is not the first time I have seen it.'
Sir Willoughby smarted to his marrow. 'We will rout these fancies of an overscrupulous generosity, my dear Lady Busshe.'
Her unwonted breach of delicacy in speaking publicly of her present, and the vulgar persistency of her sticking
