 | CHAPTER XXXII.
THE GAME OF CROQUET. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history |  |
32. CHAPTER XXXII.
THE GAME OF CROQUET.
NOW I advise all serious, sensible individuals who
never intend to do anything that is not exactly most
reasonable and most prudent, and who always do
exactly as they intend, not to follow my steps on the
present occasion, for I am going to do exactly what is not
to be recommended to young gentlemen in my situation,
and certainly what is not at all prudent.
For if a young man finds himself without recall, hopelessly
in love with one whose smiles are all for another,
his best way is to keep out of her society, and in a course
of engrossing business that will leave him as little time
to think of her as possible.
I had every advantage for pursuing this course, for I had
a press of writing upon me, finishing up a batch of literary
job-work which I wished to get fairly out of the way so that
I might give my whole energies to Bolton in our new enterprise.
In fact, to go off philandering to a croquet party up
the North River was a sheer piece of childish folly, and
the only earthly reason I could really give for it was the
presence of a woman there that I had resolved to avoid.
In fact I felt that the thing was so altogether silly that
I pretended to myself that I was impregnably resolved
against it, and sat myself down in Bolton's room making
abstracts from some of his books, knowing all the while
that Jim would seek me out there and have his moral
fish-hook fast in my coat collar, as in truth he did.
“Come, come, Hal,” he said, bursting in, “I promised the
divinest of her sex to bring you along.”
“Oh nonsense, Jim! it's out of the question,” said I. “I've
got to get this article done.”
“Oh, you be hanged with your article, come along!
What's the use of a fellow's shutting himself up with
books? I tell you, Hal, if you're going to write for folks
you must see folks and folks must see you, and you must
be around and into and a part of all that's going on. Come
on! Why, you don't know the honor done you. Its a
tip-top select party, and all the handsomest girls and all
the nobby fellows will be there, and no end of fun. Sydney's
place alone is worth going to see. Its the crack
place on the river; and then they say the engagement is
going to be declared, and everybody is wild to know
whether it is or isn't to be, and the girls are furbishing
up fancy suits to croquet in. Miss Alice treated me to
a glimpse of hers as I met her on Tullegig's steps, and
its calculated to drive a fellow crazy, and so come now,”
said Jim, pulling away my papers and laying hold of me,
“let's go out and get some gloves and proceed to make
ourselves up. We have the press to represent, and we
must be nobby, so hang expense! here's for Jouvin's best,
and let to-morrow take care of itself.”
Now, seconding all these temptations was that perverse
inclination that makes every man want to see a little
more and taste a little more of what he has had too
much already. Moreover I wanted to see Eva and Wat
Sydney together. I wanted to be certain and satisfy myself
with my own eyes, not only that they were engaged
but that she was in love with him. If she be, said I to
myself, she is certainly an exquisite coquette and a dangerous
woman for me to keep up an acquaintance with.
In thinking over as I had done since Mrs. Van Arsdel's
motherly conversation, all our intercourse and acquaintance
with each other, her conduct sometimes seemed to
me to be that of a veritable “Lady Clara Vere de Vere,”
fashionable life by exciting feelings which she had no
thought of returning. When I took this view of matters
I felt angry and contemptuous and resolved to show the
fair lady that I could be as indifferent as she. Sometimes
I made myself supremely wretched by supposing
that it was by her desire that Mrs. Van Arsdel had held
the conversation with me, and that it was a sort of intimation
that she had perceived my feelings, and resolved
to put a decided check upon them. But of course nothing
so straightforward and sensible as going to her for
an explanation of all this was to be thought of. In fact
our intercourse with one another ever since the memorable
occasion I refer to had been daily lessening, and
now was generally limited to passing the most ordinary
common-places with each other. She had grown cold and
dry, almost haughty, and I was conscious of a most unnatural
rigidity and constraint. It seemed to me sometimes
astonishing when I looked back a little, to reflect
how perfectly easy and free and unconstrained we always
had been up to a certain point, to find that now we met
with so little enjoyment, talked and said so little to any
purpose. It was as if some evil enchanter had touched
us with his wand stiffening every nerve of pleasure. To
look forward to meeting her in society was no longer, as
it had been, to look forward to delightful hours; and yet
for the life of me I could not help going where this most
unsatisfactory, tantalizing intercourse was all I had to hope
for.
But to-day, I said to myself, I would grasp the thorns
of the situation so firmly as to break them down and
take a firm hold on reality. If, indeed, her engagement
were to-day to be declared, I would face the music like
a man, walk up to her and present my congratulations in
due form, and then the acquaintance would make a gallant
finale in the glare of wedding lamps and the fanfaronade
of wedding festivities, and away to fresh fields and pastures
new.
In short, whatever a man is secretly inclined to do there
are always a hundred sensible incontrovertible reasons to
be found for doing, and so I found myself one of the
gay and festive throng on board the steamer. A party
of well-dressed people floating up the North River of a
bright Spring day is about as ideal a picture of travel as
can be desired. In point of natural scenery the Rhine is
nothing compared with the Hudson, and our American
steamboats certainly are as far ahead of any that ever
appeared on the Rhine as Aladdin's palace is ahead of an
ordinary dwelling. The most superb boat on the river had
been retained for the occasion, and a band of music added
liveliness to the scene as we moved off from the wharf
in triumph, as gay, glittering, festive a company as heart
could wish.
Wat Sydney as host and entertainer was everywhere
present, making himself agreeable by the most devoted
attentions to the comfort of the bright band of tropical
birds, fluttering in silks and feathers and ribbons, whom
he had charge of for the day. I was presented to him
by Jim Fellows, and had an opportunity to see that apart
from his immense wealth he had no very striking personal
points to distinguish him from a hundred other young men
about him. His dress was scrupulously adjusted, with a
care and nicety which showed that he was by no means
without consideration of the personal impression he made.
Every article was the choicest and best that the most orthodox
fashionable emporiums pronounced the latest thing,
or as Jim Fellows phrased it, decidedly “nobby.” He was
of a medium height, with very light hair and eyes, and
the thin complexion which usually attends that style, and
which, under the kind of exposure incident to a man's
life, generally tends to too much redness of face.
Altogether, my first running commentary on the man
as I shook hands with him was, that if Eva were in love
with him it was not for his beauty; yet I could see glances
falling on him on all sides from undeniably handsome
conceit of his own personal presence.
Mr. Sydney was well accustomed to being the cynosure
of female eyes, and walked the deck with the assured
step of a man certain of pleasing. A rich good-humored
young man who manifests himself daily in splendid turnouts,
who rains down flowers and confectionery among
his feminine acquaintances, and sends diamonds and pearls
as philopœna presents, certainly does not need a romantic
style of beauty or any particular degree of mental culture
to make his society more than acceptable. Prudent mammas
were generally of opinion that the height of felicity
for a daughter would be the position that should enable
her to be the mistress and dictatrix of his ample fortune.
Mr. Sydney was perfectly well aware of this state of things.
He was a man a little blasé with the kind attentions of
matrons, and tolerably secure of the good-will of very
charming young ladies. He had the prestige of success,
and had generally carried his points in the world of men
and things. Miss Eva Van Arsdel had been the first young
lady who had given him the novel sensation of a repulse,
and thenceforth became an object of absorbing interest
in his eyes. Under the careless good-humor of his general
appearance Sydney had a constitutional pertinacity, a
persistence in his own way that had been a source of many
of his brilliant successes in business. He was one of those
whom obstacles and difficulties only stimulate, and whose
tenacity of purpose increases with resistance. He was
cautious, sagacious, ready to wait and watch and renew
the attack at intervals, but never to give up. To succeed
was a tribute to his own self-esteem, and whatever was
difficult of attainment was the more valuable.
A little observation during the course of the first hour
convinced me that there was as yet no announcement of
an engagement. Mrs. Van Arsdel and Aunt Maria Wouvermans,
to be sure, were on most balmy and confidential
terms with Mr. Sydney, addressing him with every appearance
the impression that the whole fête was in some
manner a tribute to the family, but these appearances
were not carried out by any coöperative movements on
the part of Eva herself. She appeared radiant in a fanciful
blue croquet suit which threw out to advantage the
golden shade of her hair, and the pink sea-shell delicacy
of her cheek, and as usual she had her court around her
and was managing her circle with the address of a practiced
habituée of society.
Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
Bright as the sun, her beams the gazers strike,
And like the sun, they smile on all alike.”
Unlike many of her sex, Eva had the faculty of carrying
the full cup of bellehood without spilling an unseemly drop,
and as she was one of those who seem to have quite as
much gift in charming her feminine as her masculine acquaintances,
she generally sat surrounded by an admiring
body-guard of girls who laughed at her jests and echoed
her bon mots and kept up a sort of radiant atmosphere
of life and motion and gayety around her. Her constitutional
good-nature, her readiness to admire other people,
and to help each in due season to some small portion of
the applause and admiration which is lying about loose
for general circulation in society, all contributed to her
popularity. As I approached the circle they were discussing
with great animation the preliminaries of a match
game of croquet that was proposed to be played at Clairmont
to-day.
“Oh, here comes Mr. Henderson! let's ask him,” she said,
as I approached the circle.
“Don't you think it will be a nice thing?” she said.
“Mr. Sydney has arranged that after playing the first
games as a trial the four best players shall be elected to
play a match game, two on each side.”
“I think it will vary the usual monotony of croquet,”
said I.
“Hear him,” she said, gaily, “talk of the usual monotony
of croquet! For my part I think there is a constant variety
to it, no two games are ever alike.”
“To me,” I said, “it seems that after a certain amount
of practice the result is likely to be the same thing, game
after game.”
“Girls,” she said, “I perceive that Mr. Henderson is used
to carrying all before him. He is probably a champion
player who will walk through all the wickets as a matter
of course.”
“Not at all,” I said. “On the contrary I shouldn't wonder
if I should `booby' hopelessly at the very first wicket.”
“And none the worse for that,” said Sydney. “I've
boobied three times running, in the first of a game, and
yet beaten; it gets one's blood up, and one will beat.”
“For my part,” said Miss Alice, “the more my blood is
up the less I can do; if I get excited I lose my aim, my
hand trembles, and I miss the very simplest move.”
“I think there is nothing varies so much as one's luck
in croquet,” said Eva. “Sometimes for weeks together I
am sure to hit every aim and to carry every wicket, and
then all of a sudden, without rhyme or reason, I make
the most absurd failures, and generally when I pique myself
on success.”
“I think, Miss Eva, I remember you as the best player in
Newport last Summer,” said Mr. Sydney.
“And likely as not I shall fail ingloriously to-day,”
said she.
“Well, we shall all have a time for bringing our hands
in,” said Mr. Sydney. “I have arranged four croquet
grounds, and the fifth one is laid out for the trial game
with longer intervals and special difficulties in the arrangement,
to make it as exciting as possible. The victorious
side is to have a prize.”
“Oh, how splendid! What is the prize to be? was the
general exclamation.”
“Behold, then!” said Mr. Sydney, drawing from his pocket
mallet wrought in gold and set as a lady's pin. Depending
from it by four gold chains were four little balls of
emerald, ruby, amethyst, and topaz.
“How perfectly lovely! how divine! how beautiful!”
were the sounds that arose from the brilliant little circle
that were in a moment precipitated upon the treasure.
“You will really set them all by the ears, Mr. Sydney,”
said Mrs. Van Arsdel. “Croquet of itself is exciting
enough; one is apt to lose one's temper.”
“You ought to see mamma and Mrs. Van Duzen and Aunt
Maria play,” said Eva, “if you want to see an edifying
game, it's too funny. They are all so polite and so dread
fully courtly and grieved to do anything disagreeable to
each other, and you know croquet is such a perfectly
selfish, savage, unchristian game; so when poor Mrs. Van
Duzen is told that she ought to croquet mamma's ball
away from the wicket, the dear lady, is quite ready to
cry and declares that it would be such a pity to disappoint
her, that she croquets her through her wicket, and
looks round apologizing for her virtues with such a pitiful
face! `Indeed, my dear, I couldn't help it!”'
“Well,” said Mrs. Van Arsdel, “I really think it is too
bad when a poor body has been battering and laboring
at a difficult wicket to be croqueted back a dozen times.”
“It's meant for the culture of Christian patience, mamma,”
said Eva. “Croquet is the game of life, you see.”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Sydney, rubbing his hands, “and
it teaches you just how to manage, use your friends to
help yourself along, and then croquet them into good
positions; use your enemies as long as you want them,
and then send them to —.”
“The devil,” said Jim Fellows, who never hesitated to
fill up an emphatic blank in the conversation.
“I didn't say that,” said Mr. Sydney.
“But you meant it, all the same; and that's the long
and the short of the philosophy of the game of life,”
said Jim.
“And” said I, “one may read all sorts of life-histories
in the game. Some go on with a steady aim and true
stroke, and make wickets, and hit balls, yet are croqueted
back ingloriously or hopelessly wired and lose the game,
while others blunder advantageously and are croqueted
along by skillful partners into all the best places.”
“There are few of us girls that make our own wickets
in life,” said Eva. “We are all croqueted along by papas
and mammas.”
“And many a man is croqueted along by a smart
wife,” said Sydney.
“But more women by smart husbands,” said Mrs. Van
Arsdel.
On that there was a general exclamation, and the conversation
forthwith whisked into one of those animated
whirlwinds that always arise when the comparative merits
of the sexes are moved. There was a flutter of ribbons
and a rustle of fans and a laughing cross-fire of sharp
sayings, till the whole was broken up by the announcement
that we were drawing near the landing.
| CHAPTER XXXII.
THE GAME OF CROQUET. My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history | |