‘Ay, and so it is to me, seeing you by scraps, and not getting on in the least,’ said Endymion gloomily. ‘I’ll tell you what, Charis: we must talk about it – decide what’s to be done, you know. Dashed if I won’t bring Chloë and Diana to see the balloon tomorrow! Ay, that’s the barber! You can tell your sister you wish to speak to Chloë: no harm in that! I’ll play least-in-sight, and while everyone’s watching the balloon we’ll slip off together. Shouldn’t think it will be difficult: bound to be a devilish crowd in the park.’
‘No, no!’ she said distressfully. ‘If you bring your sisters to see the ascent, you must promise not to come near me! Felix has persuaded Lord Alverstoke to take him there, and you may depend upon it that he will bring his carriage as close to ours as he may!’
‘Alverstoke going to watch a balloon go up?’ exclaimed Endymion incredulously. ‘You’re bamming!’
‘No, indeed I’m not! He is taking Lady Elizabeth too, so you see – !’
‘He must be getting queer in his attic! Well, I mean to say – ! Alverstoke! Why the deuce must he take it into his head to come and play boots with everything? What a dam – what a dashed thing! Seems to me the end of it will be that we shall have to take a bolt to the Border!’
‘Endymion!’ she uttered, in shocked dismay. ‘You couldn’t ask me to do anything so dreadful! You’re joking me! It would be beyond everything!’
‘Yes, I know it would. My Colonel wouldn’t like it, either. But we can’t stand on points for ever, love! Got to bring ourselves about somehow!’
‘We will – oh, I know we shall succeed in the end! Hush, here comes Lord Wrenthorpe!’
Nineteen
When Knapp drew back the blinds in his master’s bedroom upon the following morning, the Marquis was first revolted by the sight of brilliant sunshine, and then by his valet’s announcement that it was a beautiful day. He had hoped for rain, gales, or even snow: anything, in fact, which would make a balloon ascension impossible. But a cloudless sky met his gaze; and when, hope dying hard, he asked Knapp if it was not very still and windless, Knapp replied, with all the air of one bearing good tidings: ‘Just a nice, light breeze, my lord: what you might call a perfect June day!’
‘You are mistaken!’ responded his lordship. ‘At what time does this damned balloon make its ascension?’
‘At two o’clock, my lord – according to what Master Felix told Wicken,’ said Knapp demurely.
‘And you may depend upon it,’ said his lordship, ‘that that brat will be upon the doorstep on the stroke of noon!’
But when he himself emerged from his dressing-room at noon he found that young Mr Merriville had arrived some little time earlier, and was discussing a hearty nuncheon under the aegis of Lady Elizabeth. Owing to the exertions of his sisters, he was impeccably attired in spotless nankeens, his best jacket, and a freshly laundered shirt; with his nails scrubbed, and his curly locks brushed till they glowed. Between mouthfuls of mutton-pie, he was initiating his hostess into the mysteries of aeronautics. He greeted Alverstoke with acclaim, explaining that he had come to the house perhaps a little early because he knew that he and Cousin Elizabeth wouldn’t wish to reach the park too late to obtain a good place for the phaeton. Upon receiving a somewhat embittered rejoinder, he at once subjugated his lordship by saying anxiously: ‘You do wish to go, don’t you, sir?’
‘Yes – but you are a vile and an abominable young thatchgallows!’ said his lordship.
Accepting this as a compliment, Felix bestowed a seraphic smile upon him, and applied himself again to the pie.
‘Also,’ said his lordship, levelling his glass at the loaded plate, and slightly shuddering, ‘a bacon-picker!’
‘I know. Sir, do you know how they were used to fill balloons, and how they now do it?’
‘No,’ said Alverstoke. ‘I’ve no doubt, however, that I soon shall.’
He was right. From then on Felix, who had acquired a tattered copy of the History and Practice of Aerostation, maintained a flow of conversation, largely informative, but interspersed with eager questions. He sat wedged between Alverstoke and Eliza in the phaeton; but since he addressed himself exclusively to Alverstoke, Eliza was able to sit back at her ease, listening with amusement and some surprise to her brother’s very creditable answers to the posers set him by his youthful admirer. Felix, though much indebted to Cavallo’s History, had discovered that it was deplorably out-of-date, which, as he ingenuously told Alverstoke, was disappointing, since he felt that there was a great deal he did not yet know about aeronautics. And what was the peculiar virtue of silk, which made it a better covering for balloons than linen?
From the properties of silk to the intricacies of valves was a short step, but it was one which seemed to Eliza to sweep her companions into a foreign language. Abandoning all attempt to grasp the subject, she withdrew her attention, until it was reclaimed by Felix, who startled her by expressing a wistful desire to float through the air attached to a parachute. She exclaimed: ‘What an appalling thought! I should be frightened out of my life!’
‘No, why, ma’am?’ he said. ‘Only fancy what it must be like! Cousin Alverstoke says he once saw a man giving displays: I wish I had!’
They had by this time entered the park; and when they reached the site of the ascension Felix was delighted to see that, although the balloon was already tethered, the casks of hydrogen, from which the bag would presently be inflated by means of a hose-pipe, were still being assembled within the roped-off enclosure. He drew a deep breath of gratification, demanded of Alverstoke if he wasn’t now glad they had started early, jumped down from the ph
aeton, and made all haste towards the scene of activity.
‘I do hope he won’t meet with a repulse!’ remarked Eliza. ‘It would quite ruin his day!’
‘From what I know of him he is more likely to meet with quite unnecessary encouragement,’ replied Alverstoke. ‘They took him to their bosoms at the foundry, to which it was my fate to escort him; and he appears to have had a similar success on the steam-boat he once boarded. He has a thirst for information on all forms of mechanical invention, and, for his age, a remarkable grasp of the subject.’
‘You too seem to know more about such things than I had suspected!’
‘No more than any other man of moderate understanding. I am now going to withdraw into the shade of the trees – no matter how anxious you may be to remain as close as possible to the enclosure!’
She laughed. ‘I shall be thankful – though I fear Felix will think it very poor-spirited of us!’
Early though it was, they had not been the first of the spectators to arrive. A number of persons had gathered round the enclosure already; and several carriages had taken up positions under the shade of the trees. Amongst these was Lady Buxted’s landaulet: a circumstance which made Eliza ejaculate: ‘Good God, isn’t that Louisa’s carriage? I wonder how she was induced to lend it? She detests the Merrivilles, you know.’