“I really am very much obliged to Goarly,” said Arabella, “because it is so nice to have something to talk about.”
“That’s just what I think, Miss Trefoil,” declared a young lady, Miss Penge, who was a friend of Lady Penwether. “The gentlemen have so much to say about hunting which nobody can understand! But now this delightful man has scattered poison all over the country there is something that comes home to our understanding. I declare myself a Goarlyite at once, Lord Rufford, and shall put myself under the Senator’s leading directly he comes.”
During all this time not a word had been said of John Morton, the master of Bragton, the man to whose party these newcomers belonged. Lady Augustus and Arabella clearly understood that John Morton was only a peg on which the invitation to them had been hung. The feeling that it was so grew upon them with every word that was spoken—and also the conviction that he must be treated like a peg at Rufford. The sight of the hangings of the room, so different to the old-fashioned dingy curtains at Bragton, the brilliancy of the mirrors, all the decorations of the place, the very blaze from the big grate, forced upon the girl’s feelings a conviction that this was her proper sphere. Here she was, being made much of as a newcomer, and here if possible she must remain. Everything smiled on her with gilded dimples, and these were the smiles she valued. As the softness of the cushions sank into her heart, and mellow nothingnesses from well-trained voices greeted her ears, and the air of wealth and idleness floated about her cheeks, her imagination rose within her and assured her that she could secure something better than Bragton. The cautions with which she had armed herself faded away. This—this was the kind of thing for which she had been striving. As a girl of spirit was it not worth her while to make another effort even though there might be danger? Aut Caesar aut nihil. She knew nothing about Caesar; but before the tardy wheels which brought the Senator and Mr. Morton had stopped at the door she had declared to herself that she would be Lady Rufford. The fresh party was of course brought into the drawing-room and tea was offered; but Arabella hardly spoke to them, and Lady Augustus did not speak to them at all, and they were shown up to their bedrooms with very little preliminary conversation.
It was very hard to put Mr. Gotobed down; or it might be more correctly said—as there was no effort to put him down—that it was not often that he failed in coming to the surface. He took Lady Penwether out to dinner and was soon explaining to her that this little experiment of his in regard to Goarly was being tried simply with the view of examining the institutions of the country. “We don’t mind it from you,” said Lady Penwether, “because you are in a certain degree a foreigner.” The Senator declared himself flattered by being regarded as a foreigner only “in a certain degree.” “You see you speak our language, Mr. Gotobed, and we can’t help thinking you are half-English.”
“We are two-thirds English, my lady,” said Mr. Gotobed; “but then we think the other third is an improvement.”
“Very likely.”
“We have nothing so nice as this;” as he spoke he waved his right hand to the different corners of the room. “Such a dinner-table as I am sitting down to now couldn’t be fixed in all the United States though a man might spend three times as many dollars on it as his lordship does.”
“That is very often done, I should think.”
“But then as we have nothing so well done as a house like this, so also have we nothing so ill done as the houses of your poor people.”
“Wages are higher with you, Mr. Gotobed.”
“And public spirit, and the philanthropy of the age, and the enlightenment of the people, and the institutions of the country all round. They are all higher.”
“Canvasback ducks,” said the Major, who was sitting two or three off on the other side.
“Yes, sir, we have canvasback ducks.”
“Make up for a great many faults,” said the Major.
“Of course, sir, when a man’s stomach rises above his intelligence he’ll have to argue accordingly,” said the Senator.
“Caneback, what are you going to ride tomorrow?” asked the lord who saw the necessity of changing the conversation, as far at least as the Major was concerned.
“Jemima;—mare of Purefoy’s; have my neck broken, they tell me.”
“It’s not improbable,” said Sir John Purefoy who was sitting at Lady Penwether’s left hand. “Nobody ever could ride her yet.”
“I was thinking of asking you to let Miss Trefoil try her,” said Lord Rufford. Arabella was sitting between Sir John Purefoy and the Major.
“Miss Trefoil is quite welcome,” said Sir John. “It isn’t a bad idea. Perhaps she may carry a lady, because she has never been tried. I know that she objects strongly to carry a man.”
“My dear,” said Lady Augustus, “you shan’t do anything of the kind.” And Lady Augustus pretended to be frightened.
“Mamma, you don’t suppose Lord Rufford wants to kill me at once.”
“You shall either ride her, Miss Trefoil, or my little horse Jack. But I warn you beforehand that as Jack is the easiest ridden horse in the country, and can scramble over anything, and never came down in his life, you won’t get any honour and glory; but on Jemima you might make a character that would stick to you till your dying day.”
“But if I ride Jemima that dying day might be tomorrow. I think I’ll take Jack, Lord Rufford, and let Major Caneback have the honour. Is Jack fast?” In this way the anger arising between the Senator and the Major was assuaged. The Senator still held his own,
