by R S Surtees
“Has he, indeed?” smiled the Baronet, bowing graciously; “flattering — very flattering, indeed — feel the compliment,” laying his hand upon his heart. “Shall write to his Lordship by this night’s post — thank him for the honour — tell him duly appreciate the compliment, and that I shall be proud to accept the office.”
And Sir Felix, who was fond of the sound of his own voice, then commenced conning over his speech for the ordinary, for which purpose he looked up such books as he thought would enlighten him on the subject. And with very little trouble — for a smattering of learning is easily obtained now-a-days, he got up the heads of a speech, commencing with a little antiquity, and then entering upon the great national subject generally, which he laboured away at, as he mistakenly thought in private, without stint or measure to his voice. So he went pacing up and down his apartment, in the Minerva Mansion, sawing the air, and mouthing out “gentlemen” this, and “gentlemen” that, reminding his imaginary audience how absorbing the Olympic games were, when Philip, King of Macedon, and Hiero, King of Syracuse, contended for the prize. He then got into England, recalling the fact that several race-horses were sent by Hugh Capet, in the ninth century, as a present to Athelstane, and then touching with a masterly hand upon the successive monarchs who had patronised the turf, until he came down to modern times, when feeling that the Crown had gradually been withdrawing from its impurities, he proceeded to give the Rocks races a lift, by pointing out the advantage they were of to that particular place. And so he wound up by calling for a bumper-toast, with all the honours, to the Noble British Turf!
That is the rehearsal, the reader will understand, of what Sir Felix is going to say.
CHAPTER XXI.
MR. JASPER GOLDSPINK.
IT NOW REQUIRED a little management on the part of our fair friends in Sea View Place to keep matters straight as between the unseen suitors; but this is just the sort of diplomacy that ladies excel in, and in which they may be safely left to themselves. As already intimated, they had begun to air Mr. Bunting out the back way, an. arrangement which, though unusual where parading is generally the order of the day — our
“With thee conversing,”
friend by no means objected to; indeed rather approved of, and flattered himself it was done to give him every opportunity of cultivating the young lady’s acquaintance. A clever woman will keep half a dozen men in tow, each believing himself the favoured one, and pitying the rest.
A lady — a lady in the secret at least — would have seen that our pretty friend dimpled her fair cheeks more with smiles when Mr. Admiration Jack and she were comparatively unobserved than when they encountered the public gaze, when Miss would bridle up, take space, and seem unconcerned; but as every woman is a separate enigma, and Mr. Bunting’s opinion of himself none of the meanest, he set the reserve of one moment off against the affability of the next, and took it all to the good. Even when Mrs. McDermot talked of a young friend they had coming down to the races, and drew the name of Mr. Goldspink incidentally upon the tapis, asking our hero No. 2, if he knew him, Mr. Bunting replied, with upraised eyebrows and an indifferent sort of shake of the head —
No, he “had never heard of him,” and turned the conversation back to where it was before. Hear of him and see him too, however, he was now about to do, and as our readers would perhaps like to have a look at him too, we will now introduce him to the public generally.
Mr. Jasper Goldspink, or Mr. Goldspink junior, as he might with greater advantage be called, was just twenty-three, a much more manageable — catchable age at least — than Mr. Bunting, who, in boarding-shool parlance, was an old man of thirty with the experience of a man of forty. Though one would not expect much from the son of old “sivin-and-four,” yet with the inestimable advantage of youth coupled with the polish our Mend Mr. O’Dicey had given him, through the medium of that prince of decorators, Mr. Selvage, whose little back shop, hung round with the “old masters,” is so suggestive of liberality and sixty per cent, discount — young Goldspink was now a nice, plump, fair-haired, middle-sized youth, with if not an expressive, by no means an unpleasing countenance, and manners as good as those of the majority of mankind, when to be as unmannerly as possible seems to be the order of the day. Talk as we will about our superior refinement — it is a good deal coat and waistcoat refinement.
We are not half so courteous or encouraging to strangers as the old school, whose first object was to set every one at ease, and who did not wait for an introduction to proffer a smile and a bow. What gentleman of the last century would come swinging through a hold-open door without making the slightest acknowledgment, as we see parties doing at the clubs every day? That, however, is the getting into the dancing and deportment line, our business is with the high court of Cupid, whither let us now repair.
Were it not that every day’s experience shows how people are often talked into matrimony, and that Rosa’s experience of life was very limited, one would have thought that some one whose appearance was more opposite to her own would have taken her young fancy; but then those contrasts are not to be procured in the country — another proof of the advantage of coming to a place like the Rocks, where all sorts and sizes of men are presented to the unsuited. So, if affairs matrimonial are regulated on the rule-of-contrary principle — dark men liking fair maids, and little ladies preferring tall men — our Mend Mr. Admiration Bunting’s dark hair and superior stature would operate as a set-off against Mr. Goldspink’s better ascertained metallic properties.
There however the reader has them both, and now Mamma must be left to manœuvre them according as the barometer of riches seems to incline. At present the new corner had rather the pull, as the racing people call it, in his favour, consequent upon the suspicion that had been thrown on Mr. Bunting’s possessions. On the morning of Mr. Goldspink’s arrival, our poetical Mend having had his usual bye-way promenade up Lavender Lane, Green Court Terrace, and so by Prospect Place into the Larkfield Downs, was dismissed for the day, with an intimation that the ladies would not be at home in the evening, and took his departure with the same confident security with which Mr. Goldspink rang the door bell about an hour afterwards. John Thomas smiled a welcome greeting when he saw their country neighbour filling the portals of their sea-side mansion, and forthwith motioned him to enter without waiting for any inquiry as to whether anybody was at home or not. And Mr. Goldspink having deposited his hat and hunting-stick — last souvenir of the disagreeable chase — on the entrance hall table, as if he had come for a sit, followed the noiseless servant up stairs and was presently ushered into the sun-obscured back drawingroom, where the lovely Rosa was reclining, Punch in hand, in the glorious amplitude of a well got-up blue and white tarlatan muslin. Never having seen her with her plainly dressed hair, our suitor did not at first recognise her in the gloom of the apartment, and made her a bow, thinking it was some young lady on a visit; and it was not until Rosa advanced with a friendly hand to greet him that he saw his mistake. He then gladly coalesced, and was presently in the full swing of country cordiality — more than it would have done Mr. Bunting good to see.
In due time, a liberal ten minutes or so, Mamma came sidling in, all smiles and graciousness, as if she never thought of admitting any rival near his fair; and after due inquiries respecting Papa and Mamma, and the Wedderburns, and the Holleydales, and the Simeys, and asking how things were looking in the country, Mrs. McDermott gradually contracted the field of speculation, and asked Jasper how he thought Rosa was looking, and how he liked her with her hair in bands. And then our hero related how he actually didn’t know her at first, and then having taken a refreshing stare, he began doubting whether he didn’t like her best in ringlets; he wasn’t sure, but he thought he did. Yes, he did; and then Mamma took the plain side, and so it became a question of “Plain or Ringlets?” for a time, till something else usurped its place.
“When John Thomas descended by three steps at a time into the lower regions, after ushering our he
ro up stairs, there was such a scuttling, and laughing, and laying of heads together, and wondering “how it would be.” Fairplay or Stirling, or Barker and Marshall — any of the betting fraternity — might have made a book upon the event. It had been generally thought by the household, that our fair friend had cried off with the old love before she began with the new. Now things assumed a different aspect. Which would it be? was the question. There was evidently competition. Mrs. Meggison, the cook, still thought it would be Spink. “She didn’t know why, but she thought it would be Spink — a neighbour’s bairn you see.” Miss Perker, Rosa’s maid, who had been most judiciously complimented by Mr. Bunting with a very pretty pink satin scarf, inclined towards him. “She was sure, if she had her choice, she knew which she would take. Spink hadn’t half the blandishment of Bunting.” John Thomas was almost neutral — didn’t know which to think — and Jane Towel, the next door neighbour’s housemaid, who had stepped in to take a surreptitious tea, having only seen Mr. Banting, could not give on opinion. So the down stairs’ debate was adjourned.
Meanwhile our friend Jasper had his family dinner, and his family walk (a retired one), and his family tea, and altogether felt like one of the family. At length he took his departure, after making his racing arrangements with them for the morrow. And Mamma and Miss then talked the two gallants over, Mamma thinking it would be well for Rosa to keep back a little, — at all events not to show any decided preference when they were together — an event that there seemed little probability of averting. If Mr. Bunting had the fine castle and all the money Mrs. Trattles talked about, well and good; if not, Mr. Goldspink would be extremely well off, and there was no doubt the Duke of. Tergiversation and the old gentleman would get agreed sooner or later for the estate our banker wanted to buy, and so enable him to build a house in the country — so that either way, Miss would be very comfortable — with which agreeable conviction Mamma and Miss retired to rest
CHAPTER XXII.
ROSEBERRY ROCKS RACE COURSE.
WE SOMETIMES THINK the elements are unfavourable to Racing. Whether it is that the flimsey nature of people’s attire — the silken jackets and paper boots of the jockies, the gauze and gossamer of the ladies, so pretty in sunshine, so futile in showers — makes one more than ordinarily susceptible to the slightest variations of the atmosphere, or whether it is that so much ruinable finery is too great a temptation for Jupiter Pluvius, we know not, but there certainly often does seem a disposition to give the milliners the benefit of the day by watering the silks and drenching the assembly. How seldom an Epsom, for instance, is got over without some tremendous descent. If the weather has been ever so fine previously, it is almost sure to change about then. So soon as the adventurous travellers get well away from their homes, and a delicate coating of dust has permeated the garments, peacocks begin to scream, donkeys to bray, dust to rise in corkscrew eddying curls, and the whole face of nature to give these unmistakeable yearnings for drink that a sot displays as he sneaks round a street-corner to get into the splendidly illuminated gin palace. Then more screams, more brays, more dust, and great spattering drops that beat like shillings as they fall, are the prelude to the disastrous rain that with all the aid of heads up and umbrellas hoisted, just damages the finery sufficiently to make it finery no more. And the curious contortions of ribbons, and flowers, and gauze, called by courtesy, bonnets, are reduced to the value of as many pence as they before represented pounds.
If racing was brought home to every man’s door, as was attempted some years since on the present site of Notting Hill, how few people would be at the trouble of going to them. A quiet walk in Kensington Gardens or a penny or twopenny seat in the Park, with the aristocracy of England paraded before them, would be considered a much better thing. It is the outing from town, the fun of the rail or the road, the feasting, the fresh air of the downs and the heath, above all, the “once-a-year-ish-ness” of the thing that keeps the great meetings popular. Nine-tenths of the visitors know nothing about the horses or their owners or their riders, or care to confuse themselves about the odds on animals that may be running to win or lose just as it suits their owners’ pockets.
Epsom, too, generally inaugurates summer, for however many false starts Dame Nature may make with her mis-called springs, it is seldom much before Epsom that there is any downright genial outburst of warm that sets things a-growing almost perceptibly, and does in a night what spring has been nibbling at for a month. Then the cattle get a full bite of rich succulent grass, and lilacs and laburnums, and pink and white thorns — all the flowering tribe — mingle their rich hues with the clean newly-burst foliage and the golden-tipped grateful evergreens, that have helped us so handsomely through the winter. How trim and nice and comfortable all the villas, and houses, and parks, and places look as we pass them in quick succession, each containing a little world of its own.
Between Epsom and Ascott there is a good interval which is generally filled up with broken umbrella-ish sort of weather, better for turnip-sowing than for sitting in the park, which generally clears itself off with a good blue sheet-lightning thunder storm, and a copious warm rain at the races, which finishes the proclamation of summer, after which people may safely come up from the country with the certainty of not wanting fires. To those who make an annual sightseeing visit, this is decidedly the best time, a month of fine weather being far more available than six weeks of broken alternations of sunshine and showers.
The road to Roseberry Rocks race-course does not exhibit any great amount of rural or floricultural beauty, whatever it may say for the enterprise of the dairy-farmers, who, with the aid of that great benefactor “muck,” succeed in raising heavy green crops on as unpromising a looking staple as that of the sea-shore itself. Neither, whatever mischief it may lead to, can it be said to possess the “facilis descensus Averni” qualify, for it is extremely difficult to get at, being up a very steep hill, to which a hired-by-the-hour-flyman considers it necessary to pause, and block his wheel once or twice, if not to ease his animal by taking a short walk himself, though the job-gentleman generally trots, angling the severity of the rise as he goes, thus performing two journies to his rival’s one. Thanks to the able legislation of Mr. Fitzroy, the London cabman has become a model both in the ways of charges and civility for the country one to follow.
The summit of the Roseberry Rocks’ Mont Blanc being at length attained, a goodly scene bursts upon the view. To the south is the pure glittering sail-dotted sea, next the dean, white stuccoed town stretching extensively along the equally white cliffs; then the circular green course, with its handsome stand, and distant white posts on the brow of the hills, standing in hold relief against the clear blue sky; anon the sheep-dotted downs, backed by the flourishing woods and enclosures of the vale. One almost feels it a pity that so pure and healthful a place should be polluted by the scenes that occasionally take place upon it. Still, if there is a breath of wind stirring it is sure to be had there, and many have been the ejaculations and regrets of the fair after toiling up the sun-roasting hill, at not having brought “something warmer” to brave the breezes of the heights. On this particular occasion rude Boreas was more than ordinarily boisterous, and having a great breadth of petticoat to play upon, there was a corresponding inflation of Crinoline, many of the fair ladies on emerging from their carriages at the stand being driven past their port like peacocks with their tails up on a windy day.
Railways which have condensed our cares, have condensed our pleasures too, and taught us that novelty and not repetition is the true source of enjoyment. Hence, race-meetings which used to be elaborated and attenuated over a whole week, sometimes enlisting the Sunday at each end into the bargain, for the purposes of the publicans, have gradually shrunk into half their proportions, and yet there is seldom more than one day kept up with anything like interest or spirit. People find that railways enable them to shoot out far away, see friends they had rarely met, and visit places they had only heard of, instead of being doom
ed to the perpetual horse-in-the-mill lives that their forefathers led. Even at our particular watering-place, where pleasure is the real business of life, with the racecourse so near as to be only a walk or shilling’s worth of fly, people think one day quite enough, and some disdain even that. Of course, the show-day is the one upon which Mr. Shiney, the silversmith, shares the prize with the winner in the shape of a conical design for some extremely out-of-the-way appendage that a nobleman might be puzzled to place, let alone a man who perhaps hasn’t even a three-legged stool to put it upon, an inconvenience, however, that Mr. Shiney is always ready to rectify by tilting it back at the price of old silver. Hence what is most attractive to the company is the least so to the turfite, who thinks the chaste design of golden sovereigns is for better than any model the old masters can supply.
CHAPTER XXIII.
JACK AND JASPER.
IT WAS ON the memorable Cup or rather Candelabra day of the Roseberry Rocks races that our two heroes first met in Mrs. McDermott’s back drawing-room in Sea View Place, the meeting arising in the following manner: Mr. Bunting had been duly aired out the back way in the hopes of satisfying him for the day, and inducing him to leave the coast clear for a “young friend who had come from their neighbourhood in the country to see the races.” But Mr. Bunting having, quite unintentionally, — for he was on far too good terms with himself to think such a thing as a rival possible, — put the ladies into a flutter by dwelling rather too much on the announcement; making them think he knew more than he really did, “Mamma,” who was a skilful general, thought it best to parry the point by accepting the double escort up to the course. So Mr. Bunting returned himself at 2.20, as the railway people say, just in time to see Mr. Goldspink fingering Miss Rosa’s pretty pink and white tarlatan muslin dress, in a style of familiarity that he didn’t altogether approve of.