and there was no danger of HIS riding by the Fitzbattleaxe carriage. A fortnight after the above events, his lordship was prancing by her Grace's great family coach, and chattering with Lady Gwinever about the strange wager.
"Do you know what a pony is, Lady Gwinever?" he asked. Her ladyship said yes: she had a cream-colored one at Castle Barbican; and stared when Lord Martingale announced that he should soon have a thousand ponies, worth five-and-twenty pounds each, which were all now kept at Coutts's. Then he explained the circumstances of the bet with Bagnigge. Parliament was to adjourn in ten days; the season would be over! Bagnigge was lying ill chez lui; and the five-and-twenty thousand were irrecoverably his. And he vowed he would buy Lord Binnacle's yacht--crew, captain, guns and all.
On returning home that night from Lady Polkimore's, Martingale found among the many billets upon the gold plateau in his antichambre, the following brief one, which made him start--
"DEAR MARTINGALE.--Don't be too sure of Binnacle's yacht. There are still ten days before the season is over; and my ponies may lie at Coutts's for some time to come.
"Yours,
"BAGNIGGE.
"P. S.--I write with my left hand; for my right is still splintered up from that confounded fall."
III.
The tall footman, number four, who had come in the place of John, cashiered, (for want of proper mollets, and because his hair did not take powder well,) had given great satisfaction to the under-butler, who reported well of him to his chief, who had mentioned his name with praise to the house-steward. He was so good-looking and well-spoken a young man, that the ladies in the housekeeper's room deigned to notice him more than once; nor was his popularity diminished on account of a quarrel in which he engaged with Monsieur Anatole, the enormous Walloon chasseur, who was one day found embracing Miss Flouncy, who waited on Amethyst's own maid. The very instant Miss Flouncy saw Mr. Jeames entering the Servants' Hall, where Monsieur Anatole was engaged in "aggravating" her, Miss Flouncy screamed: at the next moment the Belgian giant lay sprawling upon the carpet; and Jeames, standing over him, assumed so terrible a look, that the chasseur declined any further combat. The victory was made known to the house-steward himself, who, being a little partial to Miss Flouncy herself, complimented Jeames on his valor, and poured out a glass of Madeira in his own room.
Who was Jeames? He had come recommended by the Bagnigge people. He had lived, he said, in that family two years. "But where there was no ladies," he said, "a gentleman's hand was spiled for service;" and Jeames's was a very delicate hand; Miss Flouncy admired it very much, and of course he did not defile it by menial service: he had in a young man who called him sir, and did all the coarse work; and Jeames read the morning paper to the ladies; not spellingly and with hesitation, as many gentlemen do, but easily and elegantly, speaking off the longest words without a moment's difficulty. He could speak French, too, Miss Flouncy found, who was studying it under Mademoiselle Grande fille-de-chambre de confiance; for when she said to him, "Polly voo Fransy, Munseer Jeames?" he replied readily, "We, Mademaselle, j'ay passay boco de tong a Parry. Commong voo potty voo?" How Miss Flouncy admired him as he stood before her, the day after he had saved Miss Amethyst when the horses had run away with her in the Park!
Poor Flouncy, poor Flouncy! Jeames had been but a week in Amethyst's service, and already the gentle heart of the washing-girl was irrecoverably gone! Poor Flouncy! Poor Flouncy! he thought not of thee.
It happened thus. Miss Amethyst being engaged to drive with her cousin the prince in his phaeton, her own carriage was sent into the Park simply with her companion, who had charge of her little Fido, the dearest little spaniel in the world. Jeames and Frederick were behind the carriage with their long sticks and neat dark liveries; the horses were worth a thousand guineas each, the coachman a late lieutenant-colonel of cavalry: the whole ring could not boast a more elegant turn-out.
The prince drove his curricle, and had charge of his belle cousine. It may have been the red fezzes in the carriage of the Turkish ambassador which frightened the prince's grays, or Mrs. Champignon's new yellow liveries, which were flaunting in the Park, or hideous Lady Gorgon's preternatural ugliness, who passed in a low pony-carriage at the time, or the prince's own want of skill, finally; but certain it is that the horses took fright, dashed wildly along the mile, scattered equipages, pietons, dandies' cabs, and snobs' pheaytons. Amethyst was screaming; and the prince, deadly pale, had lost all presence of mind, as the curricle came rushing by the spot where Miss Amethyst's carriage stood.
"I'm blest," Frederick exclaimed to his companion, "if it ain't the prince a-drivin our missis! They'll be in the Serpingtine, or dashed to pieces, if they don't mind." And the runaway steeds at this instant came upon them as a whirlwind.
But if those steeds ran at a whirlwind pace, Jeames was swifter. To jump from behind, to bound after the rocking, reeling curricle, to jump into it, aided by the long stick which he carried and used as a leaping-pole, and to seize the reins out of the hands of the miserable Borodino, who shrieked piteously as the dauntless valet leapt on his toes and into his seat, was the work of an instant. In a few minutes the mad, swaying rush of the horses was reduced to a swift but steady gallop; presently into a canter, then a trot; until finally they pulled up smoking and trembling, but quite quiet, by the side of Amethyst's carriage, which came up at a rapid pace.
"Give me the reins, malappris! tu m'ecrases le corps, manant!" yelled the frantic nobleman, writhing underneath the intrepid charioteer.
"Tant pis pour toi, nigaud," was the reply. The lovely Amethyst of course had fainted; but she recovered as she was placed in her carriage, and rewarded her preserver with a celestial smile.
The rage, the fury, the maledictions of Borodino, as he saw the latter--a liveried menial--stoop gracefully forward and kiss Amethyst's hand, may be imagined rather than described. But Jeames heeded not his curses. Having placed his adored mistress in the carriage, he calmly resumed his station behind. Passion or danger seemed to have no impression upon that pale marble face.
Borodino went home furious; nor was his rage diminished, when, on coming to dinner that day, a recherche banquet served in the Frangipane best style, and requesting a supply of a puree a la bisque aux ecrevisses, the clumsy attendant who served him let fall the assiette of vermeille cisele, with its scalding contents, over the prince's chin, his Mechlin jabot, and the grand cordon of the Legion of honor which he wore.
"Infame," howled Borodino, "tu l'as fait expres!"
"Oui, je l'ai fait expres," said the man, with the most perfect Parisian accent. It was Jeames.
Such insolence of course could not be passed unnoticed even after the morning's service, and he was chassed on the spot. He had been but a week in the house.
The next month the newspapers contained a paragraph which may possibly elucidate the above mystery, and to the following effect:--
"Singular Wager.--One night, at the end of last season, the young and eccentric Earl of B-gn-gge laid a wager of twenty-five thousand pounds with a broken sporting patrician, the dashing Marquis of M-rt-ng-le, that he would pass a week under the roof of a celebrated and lovely young heiress, who lives not a hundred miles from B-lgr-ve Squ-re. The bet having been made, the earl pretended an illness, and having taken lessons from one of his lordship's own footmen (Mr. James Plush, whose name he also borrowed) in 'the MYSTERIES of the PROFESSION,' actually succeeded in making an entry into Miss P-ml-co's mansion, where he stopped one week exactly; having time to win his bet, and to save the life of the lady, whom we hear he is about to lead to the altar. He disarmed the Prince of Borodino in a duel fought on Calais sands--and, it is said, appeared at the C---- club wearing his PLUSH COSTUME under a cloak, and displaying it as a proof that he had won his wager."
Such, indeed, were the circumstances. The young couple have not more than nine hundred thousand a year, but they live cheerfully, and manage to do good; and Emily de Pentonville, who adores her daughter-in-law and her little grandchildren, is blest in seeing her darling son enfin un homme range.
CRINOLINE.