get down to him in time. I had not seen him since his marriage, when I was a girl!—and to meet one of his children!—But, my dear, in quinsey, I have heard that there is nothing on earth like a good hearty laugh.”
Mr. John Raikes hearing this, sucked down the flavour of a glass of champagne, and with a look of fierce jollity, said: “Then our vocation is at last revealed to us! Quinsey-doctor! I remember when a boy, wandering over the paternal mansion, and envying the life of a tinker, which my mother did not think a good omen in me. But the traps of a Quinsey-doctor are even lighter. Say twenty good jokes, and two or three of a practical kind. From place to place he travels on, tracked by the loud guffaw! A man most enviable!—’Gad,” our mercurial friend added, in a fit of profound earnestness, “I know nothing I should like so much!” But lifting his head, and seeing in the face of the ladies that it was not the profession of a gentleman, he exclaimed: “I have better prospects, of course!” and drank anew, inwardly cursing his betraying sincerity.
“It appears,” he remarked aloud to one of the Conley girls, “that quinsey is needed before a joke is properly appreciated.”
“I like fun,” said she. Mr. Raikes looked at her with keen admiration. “I can laugh at a monkey all day long,” she continued. Mr. Raikes drifted leagues away from her.
What did that odious woman mean by perpetually talking about Sir Abraham? The Countess intercepted a glance between her and the hated Juliana. She felt it was a malignant conspiracy: still the vacuous vulgar air of the woman told her that most probably she was but an instrument, not a confederate, and was only trying to push herself into acquaintance with the great: a proceeding scorned and abominated by the Countess, who longed to punish her for her insolent presumption. The bitterness of her situation stung her tenfold when she considered that she dared not.
Meantime the champagne became as regular in its flow as the bull-dogs, and the monotonous bass of these latter sounded through the music like life behind the murmur of pleasure, if you will. The Countess had a not unfeminine weakness for champagne, and old Mr. Bonner’s cellar was well and choicely stocked. But was this enjoyment to the Countess?—this dreary station in the background! No creatures grinding their teeth with envy of her! None bursting with admiration and the ardent passions! “May I emerge?” she as much as asked her judgment. The petition was infinitely tender. She thought she might, or it may be that nature was strong, and she could not restrain herself.
Taking wine with Sir John, she said:
“This bowing! Do you know how amusing it is deemed by us Portuguese? Why not embrace? as the dear Queen used to say to me.”
“I am decidedly of Her Majesty’s opinion,” observed Sir John, with emphasis, and the Countess drew back into a mingled laugh and blush.
Her fiendish persecutor gave two or three nods. “And you know the Queen!” she said.
She had to repeat the remark: whereupon the Countess murmured, “Intimately.”
“Ah, we have lost a staunch old Tory in Sir Abraham,” said the lady, performing lamentation.
What did it mean? Could design lodge in that empty-looking head with its crisp curls, button nose, and diminishing simper? Was this pic-nic to be made as terrible to the Countess by her putative father as the dinner had been by the great Mel? The deep, hard, level look of Juliana met the Countess’s smile from time to time, and like flimsy light horse before a solid array of infantry, the Countess fell back, only to be worried afresh by her perfectly unwitting tormentor.
“His last days?—without pain? Oh, I hope so!” came after a lapse of general talk.
“Aren’t we getting a little funereal, Mrs. Perkins?” Lady Jocelyn asked, and then rallied her neighbours.
Miss Carrington looked at her vexedly, for the fiendish Perkins was checked, and the Countess in alarm, about to commit herself, was a pleasant sight to Miss Carrington.
“The worst of these indiscriminate meetings is that there is no conversation,” whispered the Countess, thanking Providence for the relief.
Just then she saw Juliana bend her brows at another person. This was George Uploft, who shook his head, and indicated a shrewd-eyed, thin, middle-aged man, of a lawyer-like cast; and then Juliana nodded, and George Uploft touched his arm, and glanced hurriedly behind for champagne. The Countess’s eyes dwelt on the timid young squire most affectionately. You never saw a fortress more unprepared for dread assault.
“Hem!” was heard, terrific. But the proper pause had evidently not yet come, and now to prevent it the Countess strained her energies and tasked her genius intensely. Have you an idea of the difficulty of keeping up the ball among a host of ill-assorted, stupid country people, who have no open topics, and can talk of nothing continuously but scandal of their neighbours, and who, moreover, feel they are not up to the people they are mixing with? Darting upon Seymour Jocelyn, the Countess asked touchingly for news of the partridges. It was like the unlocking of a machine. Seymour was not blythe in his reply, but he was loud and forcible; and when he came to the statistics—oh, then you would have admired the Countess!—for comparisons ensued, braces were enumerated, numbers given were contested, and the shooting of this one jeered at, and another’s sure mark respectfully admitted. And how lay the coveys? And what about the damage done by last winter’s floods? And was there good hope of the pheasants? Outside this clatter the Countess hovered. Twice the awful “Hem!” was heard. She fought on. She kept them at it. If it flagged she wished to know this or that, and finally thought that, really, she should like herself to try one shot. The women and Mr. John Raikes had previously been left behind. This brought in the women. Lady Jocelyn proposed a female expedition for the morrow.
