"Well, Mr. Maule."
"You know her so well."
"Adelaide, you mean?"
"You understand her thoroughly. There can"t be anything in it; is there?"
"How anything?"
"She can"t really--like him?"
"Mr. Maule, if I were to tell her that you had asked such a question as that I don"t believe that she"d ever speak a word to you again; and it would serve you right. Didn"t you call him an oaf?"
"I did."
"And how long has she known him?
"I don"t believe she ever spoke to him before yesterday."
"And yet you think that she will be ready to accept this oaf as her husband to-morrow! Do you call that respect?"
"Girls do such wonderful strange things. What an impudent a.s.s he must be!"
"I don"t see that at all. He may be an a.s.s and yet not impudent, or impudent and yet not an a.s.s. Of course he has a right to speak his mind,--and she will have a right to speak hers."
CHAPTER XIX
Something Out of the Way
The Brake hounds went out four days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sat.u.r.day; but the hunting party on this Sat.u.r.day was very small. None of the ladies joined in it, and when Lord Chiltern came down to breakfast at half-past eight he met no one but Gerard Maule.
"Where"s Spooner?" he asked. But neither Maule nor the servant could answer the question. Mr. Spooner was a man who never missed a day from the beginning of cubbing to the end of the season, and who, when April came, could give you an account of the death of every fox killed. Chiltern cracked his eggs, and said nothing more for the moment, but Gerard Maule had his suspicions. "He must be coming,"
said Maule; "suppose you send up to him." The servant was sent, and came down with Mr. Spooner"s compliments. Mr. Spooner didn"t mean to hunt to-day. He had something of a headache. He would see Lord Chiltern at the meet on Monday.
Maule immediately declared that neither would he hunt; but Lord Chiltern looked at him, and he hesitated. "I don"t care about your knowing," said Gerard.
"Oh,--I know. Don"t you be an a.s.s."
"I don"t see why I should give him an opportunity."
"You"re to go and pull your boots and breeches off because he has not put his on, and everybody is to be told of it! Why shouldn"t he have an opportunity, as you call it? If the opportunity can do him any good, you may afford to be very indifferent."
"It"s a piece of d---- impertinence," said Maule, with most unusual energy.
"Do you finish your breakfast, and come and get into the trap. We"ve twenty miles to go. You can ask Spooner on Monday how he spent his morning."
At ten o"clock the ladies came down to breakfast, and the whole party were a.s.sembled. "Mr. Spooner!" said Lady Chiltern to that gentleman, who was the last to enter the room. "This is a marvel!" He was dressed in a dark-blue frock-coat, with a coloured silk handkerchief round his neck, and had brushed his hair down close to his head. He looked quite unlike himself, and would hardly have been known by those who had never seen him out of the hunting field. In his dress clothes of an evening, or in his shooting coat, he was still himself.
But in the garb he wore on the present occasion he was quite unlike Spooner of Spoon Hall, whose only pride in regard to clothes had hitherto been that he possessed more pairs of breeches than any other man in the county. It was ascertained afterwards, when the circ.u.mstances came to be investigated, that he had sent a man all the way across to Spoon Hall for that coat and the coloured neck-handkerchief on the previous day; and some one, most maliciously, told the story abroad. Lady Chiltern, however, always declared that her secrecy on the matter had always been inviolable.
"Yes, Lady Chiltern; yes," said Mr. Spooner, as he took a seat at the table; "wonders never cease, do they?" He had prepared himself even for this moment, and had determined to show Miss Palliser that he could be sprightly and engaging even without his hunting habiliments.
"What will Lord Chiltern do without you?" one of the ladies asked.
"He"ll have to do his best."
"He"ll never kill a fox," said Miss Palliser.
"Oh, yes; he knows what he"s about. I was so fond of my pillow this morning that I thought I"d let the hunting slide for once. A man should not make a toil of his pleasure."
Lady Chiltern knew all about it, but Adelaide Palliser knew nothing.
Madame Goesler, when she observed the light-blue necktie, at once suspected the execution of some great intention. Phineas was absorbed in his observation of the difference in the man. In his pink coat he always looked as though he had been born to wear it, but his appearance was now that of an amateur actor got up in a miscellaneous middle-age costume. He was sprightly, but the effort was painfully visible. Lady Baldock said something afterwards, very ill-natured, about a hog in armour, and old Mrs. Burnaby spoke the truth when she declared that all the comfort of her tea and toast was sacrificed to Mr. Spooner"s frock coat. But what was to be done with him when breakfast was over? For a while he was fixed upon poor Phineas, with whom he walked across to the stables. He seemed to feel that he could hardly hope to pounce upon his prey at once, and that he must bide his time.
Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. "Nice girl, Miss Palliser,"
he said to Phineas, forgetting that he had expressed himself nearly in the same way to the same man on a former occasion.
"Very nice, indeed. It seems to me that you are sweet upon her yourself."
"Who? I! Oh, no--I don"t think of those sort of things. I suppose I shall marry some day. I"ve a house fit for a lady to-morrow, from top to bottom, linen and all. And my property"s my own."
"That"s a comfort."
"I believe you. There isn"t a mortgage on an acre of it, and that"s what very few men can say. As for Miss Palliser, I don"t know that a man could do better; only I don"t think much of those things. If ever I do pop the question, I shall do it on the spur of the moment.
There"ll be no preparation with me, nor yet any beating about the bush. "Would it suit your views, my dear, to be Mrs. Spooner?" that"s about the long and the short of it. A clean-made little mare, isn"t she?" This last observation did not refer to Adelaide Palliser, but to an animal standing in Lord Chiltern"s stables. "He bought her from Charlie d.i.c.kers for a twenty pound note last April. The mare hadn"t a leg to stand upon. Charlie had been stagging with her for the last two months, and knocked her all to pieces. She"s a screw, of course, but there isn"t anything carries Chiltern so well. There"s nothing like a good screw. A man"ll often go with two hundred and fifty guineas between his legs, supposed to be all there because the animal"s sound, and yet he don"t know his work. If you like schooling a young "un, that"s all very well. I used to be fond of it myself; but I"ve come to feel that being carried to hounds without much thinking about it is the cream of hunting, after all. I wonder what the ladies are at? Shall we go back and see?" Then they turned to the house, and Mr. Spooner began to be a little fidgety. "Do they sit altogether mostly all the morning?"
"I fancy they do."
"I suppose there"s some way of dividing them. They tell me you know all about women. If you want to get one to yourself, how do you manage it?"
"In perpetuity, do you mean, Mr. Spooner?"
"Any way;--in the morning, you know."
"Just to say a few words to her?"
"Exactly that;--just to say a few words. I don"t mind asking you, because you"ve done this kind of thing before."
"I should watch my opportunity," said Phineas, remembering a period of his life in which he had watched much and had found it very difficult to get an opportunity.
"But I must go after lunch," said Mr. Spooner; "I"m expected home to dinner, and I don"t know much whether they"ll like me to stop over Sunday."
"If you were to tell Lady Chiltern--"
"I was to have gone on Thursday, you know. You won"t tell anybody?"
"Oh dear no."