Both Lord Rufford and his sister were very much disturbed as to what they should do on the occasion. At half-past six Lord Rufford was told that the Major had recovered his senses, but that the case was almost hopeless. Of course he saw his guest. “I’m all right,” said the Major. The Lord sat there by the bedside, holding the man’s hand for a few moments, and then got up to leave him. “No nonsense about putting off,” said the Major in a faint voice; “beastly bosh all that!”
But what was to be done? The dozen people who were in the house must of course sit down to dinner. And then all the neighbourhood for miles round were coming to a ball. It would be impossible to send messages to everybody. And there was the feeling too that the man was as yet only ill, and that his recovery was possible. A ball, with a dead man in one of the bedrooms, would be dreadful. With a dying man it was bad enough;—but then a dying man is always also a living man! Lord Rufford had already telegraphed for a first-class surgeon from London, it having been whispered to him that perhaps Old Nokes from Rufford might be mistaken. The surgeon could not be there till four o’clock in the morning by which time care would have been taken to remove the signs of the ball; but if there was reason to send for a London surgeon, then also was there reason for hope;—and if there were ground for hope, then the desirability of putting off the ball was very much reduced. “He’s at the furthest end of the corridor,” the Lord said to his sister, “and won’t hear a sound of the music.”
Though the man were to die why shouldn’t the people dance? Had the Major been dying three or four miles off, at the hotel at Rufford, there would only have been a few sad looks, a few shakings of the head, and the people would have danced without any flaw in their gaiety. Had it been known at Rufford Hall that he was lying at that moment in his mortal agony at Aberdeen, an exclamation or two—“Poor Caneback!”—“poor Major!”—would have been the extent of the wailing, and not the pressure of a lover’s hand would have been lightened, or the note of a fiddle delayed. And nobody in that house really cared much for Caneback. He was not a man worthy of much care. He was possessed of infinite pluck, and now that he was dying could bear it well. But he had loved no one particularly, had been dear to no one in these latter days of his life, had been of very little use in the world, and had done very little more for society than any other horse-trainer! But nevertheless it is a bore when a gentleman dies in your house—and a worse bore if he dies from an accident than from an illness for which his own body may be supposed to be responsible. Though the gout should fly to a man’s stomach in your best bedroom, the idea never strikes you that your burgundy has done it! But here the mare had done the mischief.
Poor Caneback;—and poor Lord Rufford! The Major was quite certain that it was all over with himself. He had broken so many of his bones and had his head so often cracked that he understood his own anatomy pretty well. There he lay quiet and composed, sipping small modicums of brandy and water, and taking his outlook into such transtygian world as he had fashioned for himself in his dull imagination. If he had misgivings he showed them to no bystander. If he thought then that he might have done better with his energies than devote them to dangerous horses, he never said so. His voice was weak, but it never quailed; and the only regret he expressed was that he had not changed the bit in Jemima’s mouth. Lord Rufford’s position was made worse by an expression from Sir John Purefoy that the party ought to be put off. Sir John was in a measure responsible for what his mare had done, and was in a wretched state. “If it could possibly affect the poor fellow I would do it,” said Lord Rufford; “but it would create very great inconvenience and disappointment. I have to think of other people.” “Then I shall send my wife home,” said Sir John. And Lady Purefoy was sent home. Sir John himself of course could not leave the house while the man was alive. Before they all sat down to dinner the Major was declared to be a little stronger. That settled the question and the ball was not put off.
The ladies came down to dinner in a melancholy guise. They were not fully dressed for the evening and were of course inclined to be silent and sad. Before Lord Rufford came in Arabella managed to get herself on to the sofa next to Lady Penwether, and then to undergo some little hysterical manifestation, “Oh Lady Penwether; if you had seen it;—and heard it!”
“I am very glad that I was spared anything so horrible.”
“And the man’s face as he passed me going to the leap! It will haunt me to my dying day!” Then she shivered, and gurgled in her throat, and turning suddenly round, hid her face on the elbow of the couch.
“I’ve been afraid all the afternoon that she would be ill,” whispered Lady Augustus to Miss Penge. “She is so susceptible!”
When Lord Rufford came into the room Arabella at once got up and accosted him with a whisper. Either he took her or she took him into a distant part of the room where they conversed apart for five minutes. And he, as he
