True Tilda Part 27

"You don't say! Never feared man nor devil, my mother used to tell.

An' to run in a race along with the likes of Jane Pratt! But you never can reckon wi' the gentry--what they'll do, or what they won't."

"With half the county, too, lookin' on from the Grand Stand! I bet Sir Elphinstone's cussin'."

"And I'll bet Miss Sally don't care how hard he cusses. She could do a bit o' that too in her time, by all accounts."

"Ay, a monstrous free-spoken lady always. Swearin' don't sit well upon womankind, I allow--not as a rule. But when there's blood, a d.a.m.n up or down--what is it? For my part I never knew a real gentleman--or lady for that matter--let out a downright thumper but I want to cry 'Old England for ever!'"

Finding it hopeless to skirt the crowd, the children made a plunge through it, with 'Dolph at their heels. But as the crush abated and they breasted the farther slope, Tilda made two discoveries; the first, that whereas a few minutes since the platform had held a company of people among its palms and fairy-lamps, it was now deserted; the second, that the mob at the winning-post had actually shouldered Miss Sally, and was carrying her in triumph towards the platform, with a bra.s.s band bobbing ahead and blaring _See, the Conquering Hero comes!_

This second discovery was serious, for the procession's line of march threatened to intercept them. But luckily the bandsmen, who set the pace, moved slowly, and by taking hands and running the children reached the platform in time, skirted its darker side, and dived under its scarlet draperies into the cavernous darkness beneath the boards.

Here they drew breath, and Tilda again clutched the dog. They were in time, but with a very little to spare. In less than a minute the mob surged all around the platform, shouting, hooraying.

"Three cheers for Miss Sally! The Ham--where's the Ham? Give Miss Sally the Ham! Silence, there--silence for Sir Elphinstone! Speech from Sir Elphinstone! Speech!"

By and by the hubbub died down a little, but still there were cries of "Sir Elphinstone for ever!" "Miss Sally for ever!" and "Your sister's won the Ham, sir!" A high-pitched voice on the outskirts of the throng began to chant--

"For really it was a remarkable 'am!"

But got no further, being drowned first by sporadic, uneasy laughter, and then by a storm of hisses. A tremendous roar of laughter followed, and this (although Tilda could not guess it) was evoked by Miss Sally's finding the ham where it stood derelict on a table among the greenhouse plants, lifting it off its plate and brandishing it before the eyes of her admirers.

Tilda could see nothing of this. But she was listening with all her might, and as the uproar died down again she caught the accents of a man's voice attempting a speech.

"My friends," it was saying, still lifting itself higher against the good-humoured interruptions, "my very good friends--impossible not to be gratified--expression of good will--venture to say, on the whole-- thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. My sister"--(interruptions and cheers for Miss Sally)--"my sister begs me to say--highly gratified--spirit of the thing--but, if I may plead, some degree of fatigue only natural-- won't misunderstand if I ask--disperse--quietly as possible--eh?

Oh, yes, 'G.o.d save the King,' by all means--much obliged, reminder-- thank you--yes, certainly."

Thereupon the band played the National Anthem, and the throng, after yet another outbreak of cheering, dispersed. Followed a silence in the darkness under the platform, broken only by the distant thudding ba.s.s of the roundabout's steam organ; and then between the boards there sounded a liquid chuckle, much like a blackbird's, and a woman's voice said--

"Come, my dear brother, say it out! The Countess has gone; everybody has gone--she must have stampeded 'em, by the way--and as the Jew said, when a thunderstorm broke on the picnic, 'Here's a fuss over a little bit of ham!' Well, my dear, there has always been this about Sally-- a man can swear before her _sans gene_. So, to give you a start, how did they take it?"

"If after these years I didn't know you to be incorrigible--" growled the voice of Sir Elphinstone.

"'For ladies of all ages,' the bills said."

"'Ladies!'"

"I am quoting your own bill--I'll bet a fiver, too, that you drafted it.

Anyway, I'm rising forty--though I'd defy 'em to tell it by my teeth.

And since they pa.s.sed me for a lady--oh, Elphinstone, it _was_ a lark!

And I never thought I had the wind for it. You remember Kipling--you are always quoting that young man--"

'The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.'

"Well, that's how it was: 'Like a barren doe,' I give you my word."

"My dear Sally!"

"Shameless, was it? My dear Elphinstone, you've only to bill it, and I'll do Lady G.o.diva for 'em next year--at _my_ time of life. But if you don't like Kipling, what do you say to this?"

'For really this was a remarkable Ham, A twenty-pound solid Imperial Ham, And old Mrs. Liddicott Tucked up her petticoat--'

"Which reminds me that the crowd specially cheered my white Balbriggans.

They are out of date, but I could never fancy my legs in anything but white."

"What on earth are you reading?"

"The local paper--Opposition. Haven't you seen it? There's a whole column in verse about you, Elphinstone; hits you off to a hair, and none so badly written. I'd a mind to show it to the Countess and Lady Mary, but slipped it under the table cloth and at the last moment forgot it in your eloquence. You really must listen--"

'Sir Elphinstone Breward He rang for his steward, And "Damme," said he, looking up from his letters, This side of the county That feeds on my bounty 's forgotten all proper respect of its betters.'

"The devil!" interrupted Sir Elphinstone. "It's that dirty little Radical, Wrightson."

"You recognise the style? It gets neater, to my thinking, as it goes on--"

'Agitators and pillagers Stir up my villagers-- Worst of those fellows, so easily led!

Some haven't food enough, Else it ain't good enough, Others object to sleep three in a bed.'

'Deuce take their grat.i.tude!

"Life"--that's the att.i.tude-- "Dullish and hard, on the parish half-crown!"

Dull? Give 'em circuses!

Hard? Ain't there work'uses?

What _can_ they see to attract 'em to town?'

"--Neat, in its way," commented Miss Sally, pausing.

"Neat? _I_ call it subversive and d.a.m.nable!"

"Listen! The next is a stinger--"

'Something quite recent, now: "Drainage ain't decent," now: Damme, when _was_ it? I've known, if you please, Old tenants, better ones, Crimean veterans-- Never heard _they_ required w.c.'s--'

"My _dear_ Sally!"

"I read you the thing as it's printed," said Miss Sally, with another liquid chuckle.

["Ain't it just 'eavingly?" whispered Tilda below, clutching the boy's arm while she listened.

"What?"

"The voice of 'er. If I could on'y speak words that way!"]

"He goes on," pursued Miss Sally, "to tell how you and Saunders--that's your new bailiff's name, is it not?--cooked up this woman's race between you as a step towards saving the Empire. The language is ribald in places, I allow; but I shouldn't greatly wonder if that, more or less, is how it happened. And any way I've come to the rescue, and kept the Imperial Ham in the family."

"I have sometimes thought, Sally--if you will forgive my putting it brutally--that you are half a Radical yourself."

Thereat, after a moment's pause, the lady laughed musically. Almost in the darkness you could see her throwing back her head and laughing.

She had a n.o.ble contralto voice, with a rich mannish purr in it.