Chapter XXI: Mrs. Beacham Goes a Pleasuring

“Well, mother, ain’t this better now than to be sitting mending stockings, and to be bothering about pickles and preserves at home?” asked genial John Beacham of his highly respectable parent as mother and son, sitting in the front-seat of the most well-appointed of “traps,” were jogging quietly along the pleasant lanes towards Danescourt.

It was somewhat against the grain, and not a little to his own inconvenience, that John Beacham was devoting a day to amuse his womankind on that eventful twenty-fourth of July. Danescourt was a good five-and-twenty miles from the Paddocks. In little more than half-an-hour the travellers could be conveyed by rail from Switcham to Gawthorpe; the latter place being the nearest town and station--distant about three miles--from Danescourt. But Mrs. Beacham unfortunately entertained, amongst other immutable prejudices, a very decided one against steam locomotion. As a rule she was not greatly troubled with “nerves;” but the exception was when, by some extraordinary concatenation of circumstances, she found herself whirled along in an express-train, gasping for breath, and ejaculating piteous appeals for protection to that Power which, under the ordinary circumstances of everyday life, we are all of us so given both to ignore and to forget. It was a standing joke (when that lady was not present) that old Mrs. Beacham invariably began to say her prayers the moment the pace of the train by which she was travelling commenced to accelerate. Indeed, so patent and unmistakable were her sufferings, that John--well-to-do, open-handed John--who, “thank goodness, was not obliged to look twice at a shilling before he spent it,” and who was unwilling to turn a day’s pleasure into one of penance, decided to drive his mother and his pretty wife in the new “trap;” services of that famous horse “Jolly Boy,” an animal who could “trot his nine mile an hour, sir, without turning a hair,” being put into requisition on the occasion. As a matter of course, her own personal dignity being concerned in the matter, Mrs. Beacham had required some pressing before she allowed herself to be persuaded to attend the gala scene at Danescourt. _She_ was not wanted, the old lady declared, in such gay places as that. At _her_ age she was better at home minding the house; while other people, who _were_ fond of gadding about, took their pleasure in Lord Guernsey’s park. It was rather provoking, Honor thought, to see her stepmother _poser en victime_, when she, the younger woman, was perfectly well aware that had Mrs. Beacham been sixteen instead of sixty-five, she could hardly have looked forward with greater satisfaction than was in fact the case, to that day’s long-promised “outing.” That _she_, Honor, did not press her stepmother to do violence to her feelings by condescending to form one of the little party to Danescourt was a fruitful source of aggravation; and when the old lady _did_ eventually take her place in the front-seat of the “trap,” attired in a wonderful new bonnet from Leigh, and a Paisley shawl of many colours--her own choice, and worn for the first time that day--her temper could not, with justice, be said to be above its average standard of good humour and composure.

With a little sign of resignation Honor took her place on the back-seat, where, for the next three hours, she was doomed to be imprisoned, her limbs cramped by sundry bags and boxes--for they had decided to spend the night at Gawthorpe--and her view circumscribed by John’s broad shoulders, and by the gaudy shawl pinned with old-fashioned tightness round his mother’s ample back. Though wanting yet two hours to noon, the July sun was already darting its broiling rays over the travellers’ heads; and Mrs. Beacham’s solid cotton umbrella, hoisted for that autocratic lady’s comfort, materially interfered with that of the slight figure behind, which was clad in the simplest of airy muslins, while there rested on the thick braids of her fair hair a dainty hat that was, in Mrs. Beacham’s opinion, most reprehensibly juvenile and coquettish.

“Better, ain’t it, mother?” John said, as the well-bred brown horse dragged the heavy weight behind him through the sand of a cross-country lane. “The country is beautiful to-day. Hold up, Jolly Boy; and, Honor, sit close, my dear. This road is rather in a go-to-the-bad state; and it wouldn’t do to be pitched out in the dust in that pretty get-up of yours.”

Honor laughed. She was a girl--child enough, also, you may say--to be amused by the jolts that half shook her out of her seat, and so greatly disturbed the old lady’s temper. In the excitement of the drive, the changing of the scene, and the anticipation of the coming gaiety, she had forgotten Mr. Vavasour altogether; and that gentleman would have been but ill-pleased could he have guessed how small a share he had in young Mrs. Beacham’s thoughts during the long drive that day.

“Well, thank goodness, here we are at last!” exclaimed the discomfited old lady, when at length a sudden turn in the high-road brought them in sight of a pretty ivy-covered lodge, which stood invitingly open, and which John informed Honor was the principal entrance to the Danescourt grounds. “Such a dusting as I’ve had to be sure! I declare to goodness that my best silk won’t be worth five shillings when I get it home. A silk, too, that cost me seven shillings a yard no longer ago than last May twelvemonth, and was as good this morning as it was the day I bought it.”

“Well, mother, we must buy you another, that’s all,” said John good-humouredly. “But, I say! if there isn’t jolly Jack Winthrop, with the old chestnut out, I see!--How are you, Jack? and how’s the mare?”--pulling up Jolly Boy to have a few moments horsey talk with his old acquaintance. “Sound again, eh? Steps a little short still, don’t she, with the near foreleg?”

Jack Winthrop, who was a wiry-made sporting-looking character, in a black cut-away and a low-crowned hat, was sitting behind a wicked-looking “red” mare, the which animal was harnessed to a vehicle called a dog-cart, but incapable of containing, with any degree of comfort, any creature, four-footed or otherwise, in addition to the said wiry Jack himself. He gave a knowing nod and wink to John, and threw an admiring glance at Honor, as he passed, at the full swing of the wicked chestnut, the more steady-going “family man.”

John shook his head gravely. “There he goes!” he said. “That’s just the way with those fellows! Jack, now, has doctored up that mare of his; and some poor devil of a muff will be stuck, I’ll answer for it, before the day is out.”

It was scarcely, however, the place or the season for moralising. They were by this time in the ruck of carriages and horsemen, all going in one direction, and John Beacham’s attention was amply employed, not only on the steering of Jolly Boy through the crowd, but in returning the cordial greetings of his many friends and acquaintances. At length, and after sundry exclamations of alarm, and more than one involuntary clutch at the reins on the part of John’s agitated parent, the little party in the “trap” came in sight, through an opening in the trees, of a great white marquee, capable--if the voice of rumour could be believed--of containing within its canvas walls a whole regiment of soldiers, the said marquee having been erected in a broad and sheltered glen, at about five hundred yards’ distance from the house. The scene that presented itself to Honor’s admiring gaze was full of life and colour and animation. The band of an infantry regiment, at that time stationed at Leigh, was thundering forth a popular polka, adapted to brazen instruments in full regimental force. Groups of well-dressed people were scattered here and there over the greensward: the branching trees lent a delicious shelter from the fierce rays of the summer sun; and a glimpse that could be caught by the curious of the interior of the tent disclosed an array of plates, dishes, and glasses that would have caused the heart of a fasting man to dance with anticipated bliss.

“Now, then, look alive! Jump out! The horse won’t stand in this row,” said John, a little impatiently perhaps, for Jolly Boy, in spite of the five and twenty miles’ journey, was restless with excitement, and Will Burton, one of Mr. Beacham’s trusted “helpers,” who had been sent on by train to wait his master’s coming, was holding him (though with some little difficulty) steady by the bit during the “young missus’s” descent.

Honor made what haste she could, gathering together her full skirts to save them as best she might from the dusty wheel, and feeling, she scarcely knew why, a something in her husband’s tone that jarred against her sense of what was delicate and becoming; jarred too against her own consciousness of beauty, of being well-dressed; of being, in short, a little woman worthy to be petted and admired. She was not cross--far from it--as she shook out her ample drapery and took John’s sturdy arm, while Mrs. Beacham held firm possession of the other; but, though not the least angry with her husband, Honor was too habitually good-tempered, and, at the moment too happy, to be _that_, she was perhaps rather more disposed than she had been before to greet with satisfaction any appreciating words or flattering attentions which might chance to fall to her lot. Nor were such opportunities for the gratification of a vanity which was more natural than harmless, likely to be wanting. Honor’s beauty was not of the kind to be passed over in a crowd, be that crowd ever so dense or individually preoccupied. The exquisite colouring, delicate as it was rich, of her bright young face--the lips slightly parted, red and dewy--and the violet eyes, half-shy, half-laughing, made up a _tout ensemble_ that many a man turned and turned again to look upon, as Honor Beacham flitted amongst the throng that day, leaning on her husband’s arm.