By Birth a Lady

“All right! No bones broken! You’ve better luck than I have!” laughed Charley, as he fished up the fallen hat with his hunting-whip. “Nip her well with your knees, man, and then you won’t be unseated again in that fashion. Here, take your hat.”

“Bai Jove!” ejaculated the breathless dandy, “it’s too bad! That fellow who left the sweepings by the roadside ought to be shot! Mai dear fellow, your governor, as a magistrate, ought to see to it! Tha-a-anks!”

He took his hat, and began ruefully to wipe off the dust with a scented handkerchief before again covering his head; but though he endeavoured to preserve an outward appearance of calm, there was wrath in his breast as he gazed down at one lemon-coloured tight glove split to ribbons, and a button burst away from his surtout coat. He could feel too that his moustache was coming out of curl, and it only wanted the sharp shower which now came pattering down to destroy the last remains of his equanimity.

“Bai Jove, how beastly unfortunate!” he exclaimed, urging his steed into a smart canter.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Charley coolly, in his rough tweed suit that no amount of rain would have injured. “Better to-day than to-morrow. Do no end of good, and bring on the hay.”

“Ya-a-as, I suppose so,” drawled Bray; “but do a confounded deal of harm!” and he gazed at the sleeves of his glossy Saville-row surtout.

“O, never mind your coat, man!” laughed Charley. “See how it lays the dust!”

“Ya-a-as, just so,” drawled Bray. “I shall take this short cut and get home. Only a shower! Bye-bye! See you to-morrow! Come to lunch.”

The ragged lemon glove was waved to Charley as its owner turned down a side lane; and now that his costume was completely disordered and wet, he made no scruple about digging his spurs into his mare’s flanks, and galloping homewards; while, heedless of the sharply-falling rain, Charley gently cantered on towards the town.

“Damsels in distress!” exclaimed the young man suddenly. “‘Bai Jove!’ as Long-ears says. Taken refuge from the rain beneath a tree! Leaves, young and weak, completely saturated – impromptu shower – bath! What shall I do? Lend them my horse? No good. They would not ride double, like Knight Templars. Ride off, then, for umbrellas, I suppose. Why didn’t that donkey stop a little longer? and then he could have done it.”

So mused Charley Vining as he cantered up to where, beneath a spreading elm by the roadside, two ladies were waiting the cessation of the rain – faring, though, very little better than if they had stood in the open. One was a fashionably-dressed, tall, dark, bold beauty, black of eye and tress, and evidently in anything but the best of tempers with the weather; the other a fair pale girl, in half-mourning, whose yellow hair was plainly braided across her white forehead, but only to be knotted together at the back in a massive cluster of plaits, which told of what a glorious golden mantle it could have shed over its owner, rippling down far below the waist, and ready, it seemed, to burst from prisoning comb and pin. There was something ineffably sweet in her countenance, albeit there was a subdued, even sorrowful look as her shapely little head was bent towards her companion, and she was evidently speaking as Charley cantered up.

“Sorry to see you out in this, Miss Bray,” he cried, raising his low-crowned hat. “What can I do? – Fetch umbrellas and shawls? Speak the word.”

“O, how kind of you, Mr Vining!” exclaimed the dark maiden, with brightening eyes and flushing cheeks. “But really I should not like to trouble you.”

“Trouble? Nonsense!” cried Charley. “Only speak before you get wet through.”

“Well, if you really – really, you know – would not mind,” hesitated Laura Bray, who, in spite of the rain, was in no hurry to bring the interview to a close.

“Wouldn’t mind? Of course not!” echoed Charley, whose bold eyes were fixed upon Laura Bray’s companion, who timidly returned his salute, and then shrank back, as he again raised his little deer-stalker hat from its curly throne. “Now, then,” he exclaimed, “what’s it to be? – shawls and Sairey Gamps of gingham and tape?”

“No, no, Mr Vining! How droll you are!” laughed the beauty. “But if you really wouldn’t mind – really, you know – ”

“I tell, you, Miss, Bray, that, I, shall, only, be, too, happy,” said Charley, in measured tones.

“Then, if you wouldn’t mind riding to the Elms, and asking them to send the brougham, I should be so much obliged!”

“All right!” cried Charley, turning his mare. “Max has only just left me.”

“But it seems such a shame to send you away through all this rain!” said Laura loudly.

“Fudge!” laughed Charley, as, putting his mare at the hedge in front, she skimmed over it like a bird, and her owner galloped across country, to the great disadvantage of several crops of clover.

“What a pity!” sighed Laura to herself, as she watched the retreating form. “And the rain will be over directly. I wonder whether he’ll come back!”

“Do you think we need wait?” said her companion gently. “The rain has ceased now, and the sun is breaking; through the clouds.”

“O, of course, Miss Bedford!” said Laura pettishly. “It would be so absurd if the carriage came and found us gone;” when, seeing that the dark beauty evidently wished to be alone with her thoughts, the other remained silent.

“Who in the world can that be with her?” mused Charley, as he rode along. “Might have had the decency to introduce me, anyhow. Don’t know when I’ve seen a softer or more gentle face. Splendid hair too! No sham there: no fear of her moulting a curl here and a tress there, if her back hair came undone. No, she don’t seem as if there were any sham about her – quiet, ladylike, and nice. ’Pon my word, I believe Laura Bray would make a better man than Max. Seem to like those silver-grey dresses with a black-velvet jacket, they look so – There, what a muff I am, going right out of the way, while that little darling is getting wet as a sponge! Easy, lass! Now, then – over!” he cried to his mare, as she skimmed another hedge. “Wonder what her name is! Some visitor come to the flower-show, I suppose —fiancée of Long-ears probably. Steady, then, Beauty!” he cried again to the mare, who, warming to her work, was beginning to tear furiously over the ground; for, preoccupied by thought, Charley had inadvertently been using his spurs pretty freely.

But he soon reduced his steed to a state of obedience, and rode on, musing upon his late encounter.

“Can’t be!” he thought. “A girl with a head like that would never take up with such a donkey! Ah, there he goes, drenched like a rat! Ha, ha, ha! How miserably disgusted the puppy did look! Patronising me, too – a gnat! Advising me to go into society, etcetera! Well, I can’t help it: I do think him a conceited ass! But perhaps, after all, he thinks the same of me; and I deserve it.

“Dear old dad,” he mused again after awhile. “Like to see me married and settled, would he? What should I be married for? – a regular woman-hater! Why, in the name of all that’s civil, didn’t Laura introduce me to that little blonde? Like to know who she is – not that it matters to me! Over again, my lass!” he cried, patting the mare as she once more bounded over a hedge, this time to drop into a lane straight as a line, and a quarter of a mile down which Maximilian Bray could be seen hurrying along – Charley’s short cut across the fields having enabled him to gain upon the fleeing dandy.

“May as well catch up to him, and tell him what I’ve seen,” said Charley, urging on his mare. “No, I won’t,” he said, checking. “Better too, perhaps. No, I won’t. Why should I send the donkey back to them? Not much fear, though: he’ll be too busy for a couple of hours restoring his damaged plumes – a conceited popinjay!”

He cantered gently on now, seeming to take the shower with him, for he could see, on turning, that it was getting fine and bright. But the rain had quite ceased as he rode up to the door of the Brays’ seat – a fine old red-brick mansion known as the Elms – just as a groom was leading the ambling palfrey to its stable at the King’s Arms – there not being accommodation in the paternal stables – a steed not much more than half the size of the great rawboned hunter favoured by Max’s masculine sister.

“Why, here’s Mr Charley Vining!” cried a shrill loud voice, from an open window. “How de do, Mr Vining – how de do? Come to lunch, haven’t you? So glad! And so sorry Laura isn’t at home! Caught in the shower, I’m afraid.”

The owner of the voice appeared at the window, in the shape of a very big bony lady in black satin – bony not so much in figure as in face, which seemed fitted with too much skull, displaying a great deal of cheek prominence, and a macaw-beaked nose, with the skin stretched over it very tightly, forming on the whole an organ of a most resonant character – one that it was necessary to hear before it could be thoroughly believed in. In fact, with all due reverence to a lady’s nose, it must be stated that the one in question acted as a sort of war-trump, which Mrs Bray blew with masculine force when about to engage in battle with husband or servant for some case of disputed supremacy.

“Ring the bell, girls,” shrieked the lady; “and let some one take Mr Vining’s horse. Do come in, Mr Vining!”

“How do, Vining – how do?” cried a little pudgy man, appearing at the window, but hardly visible beside his lady – Mrs Bray in more ways than one eclipsing her lord. “How do? How’s Sir Philip?”

“Quite well, thanks; but not coming in,” cried Charley, from his horse’s back. “Miss Bray and some lady caught in the rain – under tree – bad shelter – want the brougham.”

“Dear me, how tiresome!” screamed Mrs Bray. “But must we send it, Ness?”

Mr Bray, named at his baptism Onesimus, replied by stroking his cheek and looking thoughtfully at his lady.

“The rain’s about over now, and they might surely walk,” shrieked Mrs Bray. “Dudgeon grumbles so, too, when he has to go out like this, and he was ordered for two o’clock.”

“Better send, my dear,” whispered Mr Bray, with a meaning look. “Vining won’t like it if you don’t.”

Mrs Bray evidently approved of her husband’s counsel; for orders were given that the brougham should be in immediate readiness.

“They won’t be long,” she now screamed, all smiles once more. “But do come in and have some lunch, Mr Vining: don’t sit there in your wet clothes.”

“No – no. I’m all right,” cried Charley. “I’m off again directly.”

But for all that, he lingered.

“You’ll be at the flower-show to-morrow, won’t you?” said Mrs Bray.

“Well, yes, I think I shall go,” said Charley. “I suppose everybody will be there.”

“O, of course; Laura’s going. I suppose you send some things from the Court?”

“Yes,” said Charley; but he added, laughing, “What will be the use, when you are going to send such a prize blossom?”

“For shame, you naughty man!” said Mrs Bray. “I shall certainly tell Laura you’ve turned flatterer.”

“I say, Charley Vining,” squeaked a loud voice from the next window, “we’re going to beat you Court folks.”

“We are, are we?” laughed Charley, turning in the direction of the voice, which proceeded from a very tall angular young lady of sixteen – a tender young plant, nearly all stem, and displaying very little blossom or leaf. She was supported on either side by two other tender plants, of fourteen and twelve respectively, forming a trio known at the Elms as “the children.” “I’m very glad to hear it, Miss Nell; but suppose we wait till after the judge’s decision. But there goes the carriage. Good-bye, all!”

And turning his horse’s head, he soon overtook the brougham, when, after soothing Mr Dudgeon, the driver, with a shilling, the progress was pretty swift until they reached the tree, where, now finding shelter from the sun instead of the rain, yet stood Laura Bray and her companion.

“O, how good of you, Mr Vining! and to come back, too!” gushed Laura, with sparkling eyes. “I shall never be out of debt, I’m sure. I don’t know what I should have done if it had not been for you!”

“Walked home, and a blessed good job, too!” muttered Mr John Dudgeon.

“Don’t name it!” said Charley. “Almost a pity it’s left off raining.”

“For shame – no! How can you talk so!” exclaimed Laura, shaking her sunshade at the speaker. “But I really am so much obliged – I am indeed!”

Charley dismounted and opened the carriage-door, handing in first Miss Bray, who stepped forward, leaned heavily upon his arm, and then took her place, arranging her skirts so as to fill the back seat, talking gushingly the while as she made play at Charley with her great dark eyes.

But the glances were thrown away, Charley’s attention being turned to her companion, who bent slightly, just touched the proffered hand, and stepped into the brougham, taking her seat with her back to the horse.

“So much obliged – so grateful!” cried Laura, as Charley closed the door. “I shall never be able to repay you, I’m sure. Thanks! So much! Good-bye! See you at the flower-show to-morrow, of course? Good-bye! —good-bye!”

“She’s getting a precious deal too affectionate! Talk about wanting me to marry her, why she’ll run away with me directly!” grumbled Charley, as Mr Dudgeon impatiently drove off, leaving the young man with the impression of a swiftly passing vision of Laura Bray showing her white teeth in a great smile as she waved her hand, and of a fair gentle face bent slightly down, so that he could see once more the rich massive braids resting upon a shapely, creamy neck. “Have they been saying anything to her?” said Charley, as the brougham disappeared. “She’s getting quite unpleasant. Grows just like the old woman: regularly parrot-beaked. Why didn’t she introduce me? Took the best seat, too! Looks strange! I say, though, ‘bai Jove’ – as that sweet brother says – this sort of thing won’t do! I should like to please the dad; but I don’t think I could manage to do it ‘that how,’ as they say about here. She quite frightens me! Heigho! what a bother life is when you can’t spend it just as you like! Wish I was out in Australia or Africa, or somewhere to be free and easy – to hunt and shoot and ride as one liked. Let’s see: I shall not go over to the town now – it’s nearly lunch-time, and I’m wet.”

He had mounted his horse, and was about to turn homeward, when something shining in the grass caught his eye, and leaping down, he snatched up from among the glistening strands, heavy with raindrops, a little golden cross – one that had evidently slipped from velvet or ribbon as the ladies stood beneath that tree.

“That’s not Miss Laura’s – can’t be!” muttered Charley, as he gazed intently at the little ornament. “Not half fine enough for her.”

Then turning it over, he found engraved upon the reverse:

“E.B. From her Mother, 1860.”

“E.B. – E.B. – E.B.! And pray who is E.B.?” muttered Charley, as, once more mounting, he turned his horse’s head homeward. “Eleanor B. or Eliza – no, that’s a housemaid’s name – Ernestine, Eva. Who can she be? Not introduced – given the back seat – hardly spoken to, and yet so ladylike, and – There, get on, Beauty! What am I thinking about? We sha’n’t be back to lunch.”

He cantered on for a mile: and then as they entered a sunny lane – a very arcade of gem-besprinkled verdure – he drew rein, and taking the little cross from his pocket, once more read the inscription.

“‘E.B. From her mother, 1860.’ And pray who is her mother? and who is E.B.? Nobody from about here, I’ll be bound. But what a contrast to that great, tall, dark woman! And they call her beautiful! Not half so beautiful as you, my lass!” he cried, rousing himself, and patting his mare’s arched neck. “You are my beauty, eh, lass? Get on, then!”

But as Charley Vining rode on he grew thoughtful, and more than once he absently muttered:

“Yes; I think I’ll go to the flower-show to-morrow!”

Volume One – Chapter Six.

A Second Meeting

Maximilian Bray, Esq., clerk in her Majesty’s Treasury, Whitehall, sat in his dressing-room soured and angry. He had been hard at work trying to restore the mischief done by the rain; but in spite of “Bandoline” and “Brilliantine,” he could not get hair, moustache, or whiskers to take their customary curl: they would look limp and dejected. Then that superfine coat was completely saturated with water, as was also his hat, neither of which would, he knew, ever again display the pristine gloss. And, besides, he had been unseated before “that coarse boor, Charley Vining,” and the fellow had had the impertinence to grin. But, there, what could you expect from such a country clown? Altogether, Maximilian Bray, Esq., was cross – not to say savage – and more than once he had caught himself biting his nails – another cause for annoyance, since he was very careful with those almond-shaped nails, and had to pare, file, and burnish them afterwards to remove the inequality.

The above causes for a disordered temper have been recorded; but they were far from all. It is said that it never rains but it pours, and as that was the case out of doors, so it was in. But it would be wearisome to record the breaking of boot-loops, the tearing out of shirt-buttons, and the crowning horror of a spot of iron-mould right in the front of the principal plait. Suffice it that Maximilian Bray felt as if he could have quarrelled with the whole world; and as he sat chilled with his wetting, he had hard work to keep from gnawing his finger-nails again and again.

He might have gone down into the drawing-room, warm with the sun, while his northern-aspected window lent no genial softness; but no: there was something on his mind; and though he was dressed, he lingered still.

He knew that the luncheon bell would ring directly; in fact, he had referred several times to his watch. But still he hung back, as if shrinking from some unpleasant task, till, nerving himself, he rose and went to the looking-glass, examining himself from top to toe, grinning to see if his teeth were perfectly white, dipping a corner of the towel in water to remove the faintest suspicion of a little cherry tooth-paste from the corner of his mouth, biting his lips to make them red, trying once more to give his lank moustache the customary curl, but trying in vain – in short, going through the varied acts of a man who gives the whole of his mind to his dress; and then, evidently thoroughly dissatisfied, he strode across the room, flung open the door, and began to descend the stairs.

The builder of the Elms, not being confined for space, had made on the first floor a long passage, upon which several of the bedrooms opened; and this passage, being made the receptacle for the cheap pictures purchased at sales by Mr Onesimus Bray, was known in the house as the “long gallery.”

Descending a short flight of stairs, Maximilian Bray was traversing this gallery, when the encounter which in his heart of hearts he had been dreading ever since he came down the night before was forced upon him; for, turning into the passage from the other end, the companion of Laura Bray’s morning walk came hurriedly along, slackening her pace, though, as she perceived that there was a stranger in advance; but as their eyes met, a sudden start of surprise robbed the poor girl for a few moments of her self-control; the blood flushed to her temples, and for an instant she stopped short.

But Maximilian Bray was equal to the occasion. He had fought off the encounter as long as he could; but now that the time had come, he had determined upon brazening it out.

“Ha ha!” he laughed playfully. “Know me again, then? Quite frightened you, didn’t I? Shouldn’t have been so cross last time, when I only wanted to see you safe on your journey. Didn’t know who I was, eh? But, bai Jove! glad to see you again – am indeed!”

There was no reply for an instant to these greetings. But as the flush faded, to leave the lace of her to whom they were addressed pale and stern, Maximilian Bray’s smile grew more and more forced. The words were too shallow of meaning not to be rightly interpreted; and overcoming the surprise that had for a few moments fettered her, the fair girl turned upon Bray a keen piercing look, as moving forward she slightly bent, and said coldly in her old words:

“I think, sir, you have made some mistake.”

“Mistake? No! Stop a minute. No mistake, bai Jove – no! You remember me, of course, when I startled you at the station. Only my fun, you know, only that young donkey must interfere. Glad to see you again – am, indeed, bai Jove! We shall be capital friends, I know.”

As he spoke, he stepped before his companion, arresting her progress, and holding out his hand.

Driven thus to bay, the young girl once more turned and faced her pursuer with a look so firm and piercing, that he grew discomposed, and the words he uttered were unconnected and stammering.

“Sorry, you know, bai Jove! Mistook my meaning. Glad to see you again – am, bai Jove! Eh? What say?”

“I was not aware that Mr Maximilian Bray and the gentleman” – she laid a hardly perceptible emphasis on the word “gentleman” – “whom I encountered at that country station were the same. Allow me to remind you, sir, that you made a mistake then in addressing a stranger. You make another error in addressing me again; for bear in mind we are strangers yet. Excuse me for saying so, but I think it would be better to forget the past.”

“Ya-as, just so – bai Jove! yes. It was nothing, you know, only – ”

Maximilian Bray stopped short, for the simple reason that he was alone; for, turning hastily, his companion had retraced her steps, leaving the exquisite son of the house – the pride of his mother, the confidant of his sister, and the pest of the servants – looking quite “like a fool, you know, bai Jove!”

They were his own words, though meant for no other ears but his own, being a little too truthful. Then he stood thinking and gnawing one nail for a few moments before continuing his way down to the dining-room.

“So we are to be as if we met for the first time, are we?” he muttered; and then his countenance lighted up into an inane smile as he thought to himself, “Well, I’ve got it over. And, after all, it’s something like being taken into her confidence, for haven’t we between us what looks uncommonly like a secret?”

Volume One – Chapter Seven.

A Dawning Sense

They were rather famous for their flower-shows at Lexville, not merely for the capital displays of Nature’s choicest beauties, educated by cunning floriculturists to the nearest point to perfection, but also for their wet days. When the exhibition was first instituted, people said that the marquee was soaked and the ladies’ dresses spoiled, simply because the show was held upon a Friday. “Just,” they said, “as if anybody but a committee would have chosen a Friday for an outdoor fête!”

But, if anything, the day was a little worse upon the next occasion, when Thursday had been selected, the same fate attending the luckless managers upon a Monday, a Tuesday, and a Wednesday. But now at last it seemed as if the fair goddess Flora herself had enlisted the sympathies of that individual known to mortals as “the clerk of the weather,” and, in consequence, the day was all that could be desired. In fact, the weather was so fine, that the bandsmen of the Grenadier Guards, instead of coming down in their old and tarnished uniforms – declared, as a rule, to be good enough for Lexville – mustered in full force, gorgeous in their brightest scarlet and gold. The committee-men had shaken hands in the secretary’s tent a dozen times over as many glasses of sherry, and forgotten to eat their biscuits in their hurry to order the cords of Edgington’s great tent to be tightened, so potent were the rays of the sun; while within the canvas palace, in a golden hazy shade, the floral beauties from many a hot house and conservatory were receiving the last touches by way of arrangement.

Lexville was in a profound state of excitement that day, and Miss l’Aiguille, the dressmaker, declared that she had been nearly torn to pieces by her customers.

“As for Miss Bray,” she said, “not another dress would she make for her – no, not if she became bankrupt to-morrow – that she wouldn’t! Six tryings-on, indeed, and then not satisfied!”

However, Miss l’Aiguille’s troubles were so far over that, like the rest of Lexville, she had partaken of an early dinner, or lunch, and prepared herself to visit the great fête.