"I hope he has gone early enough!" said I, feeling disappointed. "Why, the races won"t begin for hours yet."
"Well, sir," she said, "I suppose there"s a deal more life to be seen there than here, though it is early in the day."
That might easily be. For of all solitary places Sansome Walk was, in those days, the dreariest, especially portions of it. What with the overhanging horse-chestnut trees, and the high dead wall behind those on the one hand, and the flat stretch of lonely fields on the other, Sansome Walk was what Harry Parker used to call a caution. You might pa.s.s through all its long length from end to end and never meet a soul.
Taking that narrow by-path on my way back that leads into the Tything by St. Oswald"s Chapel, and whistling a bar of the sweet song I had heard at the theatre overnight, "There"s nothing half so sweet in life as love"s young dream," some one came swiftly advancing down the same narrow path, and I prepared to back sideways to give her room to pa.s.s--a young woman, with a large shabby shawl on, and the remains of faded gentility about her.
It was Lucy Bird! As she drew near, lifting her sad sweet eyes to mine with a mournful smile, my heart gave a great throb of pity. Faded, worn, anxious, reduced!--oh, how unlike she was, poor girl, to the once gay and charming Lucy Ashton!
"Why, Lucy! I did not expect to see you in Worcester! We heard you had left it months ago."
"Yes, we left last February for London," she answered. "Captain Bird has only come down for the races."
As she took her hand from under her shawl to respond to mine, I saw that she was carrying some cheese and a paper of cold cooked meat. She must have been buying the meat at the cook"s shop, as the Worcester people called it, which was in the middle of High Street. Oh! what a change--what a change for the delicately-bred Lucy Ashton! Better that her Master of Ravenswood had buried his horse and himself in the flooded land, as the other one did, than have brought her to this.
"Where are you going to, down this dismal place, Lucy?"
"Home," she answered. "We have taken lodgings at the top of Sansome Walk."
"At one of the cottages a little beyond it?"
"Yes, at one of those. How are you all, Johnny? How is Mrs. Todhetley?"
"Oh, she"s first-rate. Got no neuralgia just now."
"Is she at Worcester?"
"No; at d.y.k.e Manor. She would not come. The Squire drove us in yesterday. We are at the Star."
"Ah! yes," she said, her eyes taking a dreamy, far-off look. "I remember staying at the Star myself one race-week. Papa brought me. It was the year I left school. Have you heard or seen anything of my brothers lately, Johnny Ludlow?"
"Not since we were last staying at Crabb Cot. We went to Timberdale Church one day and heard your brother Charles preach; and we dined once with Robert at the Court, and he and his wife came once to dine with us.
But--have you not seen your brother James here?"
"No--and I would rather not see him. He would be sure to ask me painful questions."
"But he is always about the streets here, seeing after his patients, Lucy. I wonder you have not met him."
"We only came down last Sat.u.r.day: and I go out as little as I can," she said; a hesitation in her tone and manner that struck me. "I did think I saw James"s carriage before me just now as I came up the Tything. It turned into Britannia Square."
"I dare say. We met it yesterday in Sidbury as we drove in."
"His practice grows large, I suppose. You say Charles was preaching at Timberdale?" she added: "was Herbert Tanerton ill?"
"Yes. Ailing, that is. Your brother came over to take the duty for the day. Will you call at the Star to see the Squire, Lucy? You know how pleased he would be."
"N--o," she answered, her manner still more hesitating; and she seemed to be debating some matter mentally. "I--I would have come after dark, had Mrs. Todhetley been there. At least I think I would--I don"t know."
"You can come all the same, Lucy."
"But no--that would not have done," she went on to herself, in a half-whisper. "I might have been seen. It would never have done to risk it. The truth is, Johnny, I ought to see Mrs. Todhetley on a matter of business. Though even if she were here, I do not know that I might dare to see her. It is--not exactly my own business--and--and mischief might come of it."
"Is it anything I can say to her for you?"
"I--think--you might," she returned slowly, pausing, as before, between her words. "I know you are to be trusted, Johnny."
"That I am. I wouldn"t forget a single item of the message."
"I did not mean in that way. I shall have to entrust to you a private matter--a disagreeable secret. It is a long time that I have wanted to tell some of you; ever since last winter: and yet, now that the opportunity has come that I may do it, I scarcely dare. The Squire is hasty and impulsive, his son is proud; but I think I may confide in you, Johnny."
"Only try me, Lucy."
"Well, I will. _I will._ I know you are true as steel. Not this morning, for I cannot stop--and I am not prepared. Let me see: where shall we meet again? No, no, Johnny, I cannot venture to the hotel: it is of no use to suggest that."
"Shall I come to your lodgings?"
She just shook her head by way of dissent, and remained in silent thought. I could not imagine what it was she had to tell me that required all this preparation; but it came into my mind to be glad that I had chanced to go that morning to Harry Parker"s.
"Suppose you meet me in Sansome Walk this afternoon, Johnny Ludlow? Say at"--considering--"yes, at four o"clock. That will be a safe hour, for they will be on the racecourse and out of the way. People will, I mean,"
she added hastily: but somehow I did not think she had meant people.
"Can you come?"
"I will manage it."
"And, if you don"t meet me at that time--it is just possible that I may be prevented coming out--I will be there at eight o"clock this evening instead," she continued. "That I know I can do."
"Very well. I"ll be sure to be there."
Hardly waiting another minute to say good-morning, she went swiftly on.
I began wondering what excuse I could make for leaving the Squire"s carriage in the midst of the sport, and whether he would let me leave it.
But the way for that was paved without any effort of mine. At the early lunch, the Squire, in the openness of his heart, offered a seat in the phaeton to some old acquaintance from Martley. Which of course would involve Tod"s sitting behind with me, and Giles"s being left out altogether.
"Catch me at it," cried Tod. "You can do as you please, Johnny: I shall go to the course on foot."
"I will also," I said--though you, naturally, understand that I had never expected to sit elsewhere than behind. And I knew it would be easier for me to lose Tod in the crowd, and so get away to keep the appointment, than it would have been to elude the Squire"s questioning as to why I could want to leave the carriage.
Lunch over, Tod said he would go to the Bell, to see whether the Letstoms had come in; and we started off. No; the waiter had seen nothing of them. Onwards, down Broad Street we went, took the Quay, and so got on that way to Pitchcroft--as the racecourse is called. The booths and shows were at this end, and the chief part of the crowd.
Before us lay stretched the long expanse of the course, green and level as a bowling-green. The grand-stand (comparatively speaking a new erection there) lay on the left, higher up, the winning-chair and distance-post facing it. Behind the stand, flanking all that side of Pitchcroft, the beautiful river Severn flowed along between its green banks, the houses of Henwick, opposite, looking down upon it from their great height, over their sloping gardens. It was a hot day, the blue sky dark and cloudless.
"True and correct card of all the running horses, gentlemen: the names, weights, and colours o" the riders!" The words, echoing on all sides from the men who held these cards for sale, are repeated in my brain now; as are other sounds and sights. I was somewhat older then than I had been; but it was not very long since those shows, ranged round there side by side, a long line of them, held the greatest attraction for me in life. "Guy Mannering," the past night, had been very nice to see, very enjoyable; but it possessed not the nameless charm of that first "play" I went to in Scowton"s Show on the racecourse. _That_ charm could never come again. And I was but a lad yet.
The lightning with which the play opened had been real lightning to me; the thunder, real thunder. The gentleman who stood, when the curtain rose, gorgeously attired in a scarlet doublet slashed with gold (something between a king and a bandit), with uplifted face of terror and drawn sword, calling the war of the elements "tremendious," was to me a greater potentate than the world could almost contain! The young lady, his daughter, in ringlets and spangles, who came flying on in the midst of the storm, and fell at his feet, with upraised arms and a piteous appeal, "Alas! my father, and will you not consent to my marriage with Alphonso?" seemed more lovely to me than the Sultanas in the "Arabian Nights," or the Princesses in Fairyland. I sat there entranced and speechless. A new world had opened to me--a world of delight. For weeks and weeks afterwards, that play, with its wondrous beauties, its shifting scenes, was present to me sleeping and waking.
The ladies in spangles, the gentlemen in slashed doublets, were on the platforms of their respective shows to-day, dancing for the benefit of Pitchcroft. Now and again a set would leave off, the music ceasing also, to announce that the performance was about to commence. I am not sure but I should have gone up to see one, but for the presence of Tod and Harry Parker--whom we had met on the course. There were learned pigs, and spotted calves, and striped zebras; and gingerbread and cake stalls; and boat-swings and merry-go-rounds--which had made me frightfully sick once when Hannah let me go in one. And there was the ever-increasing throng, augmenting incessantly; carriages, hors.e.m.e.n, shoals of foot-pa.s.sengers; conjurers and fortune-tellers; small tables for the game of "thimble-rig," their owners looking out very sharply for the constables who might chance to be looking for _them_; and the movable exhibitions of dancing dolls and Punch and Judy. Ay, the sounds and the sights are in my brain now. The bands of the different shows, mostly attired in scarlet and gold, all blowing and drumming as hard as they could blow and drum; the shouted invitations to the admiring spectators, "Walk up, ladies and gentlemen, the performance is just a-going to begin;" the sc.r.a.ping of the blind fiddlers; the screeching of the ballad-singers; the sudden uproar as a stray dog, attempting to cross the course, is hunted off it; the incessant jabber and the Babel of tongues; and the soft roll of wheels on the turf.
Hark! The bell rings for the clearing of the course. People know what it means, and those who are cautious hasten at once to escape under the cords on either side. The gallop of a horse is heard, its rider, in his red coat and white smalls, loudly smacking his whip to effect the clearance. The first race is about to begin. All the world presses towards the environs of the grand-stand to get a sight of the several horses entered for it. Here they come; the jockeys in their distinguishing colours, trying their horses in a brisk canter, after having been weighed in the paddock. A few minutes, and the start is effected; they are off!
It is only a two-mile heat. The carriages are all drawn up against the cords; the foot-pa.s.sengers press it; hors.e.m.e.n get where they can. And now the excitement is at its height; the rush of the racers coming in to the winning-post breaks on the ear. They fly like the wind.