The Project Gutenberg Etext of Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v3
by George Meredith
#85 in our series by George Meredith

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Title: Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v3

Author: George Meredith

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4479]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on February 25, 2002]


The Project Gutenberg Etext Lord Ormont and his Aminta, v3, by Meredith
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BOOK 3.

XII.      MORE OF CUPER'S BOYS
XIII.     WAR AT OLMER
XIV.      OLD LOVERS NEW FRIENDS
XV.       SHOWING A SECRET FISHED WITHOUT ANGLING
XVI.      ALONG TWO ROADS TO STEIGNTON



CHAPTER XII

MORE OF CUPER'S BOYS

Entering the dining-room at the appointed minute in a punctual household,
Mrs. Lawrence informed the company that she had seen a Horse Guards
orderly at the trot up the street.  Weyburn said he was directing a boy
to ring the bell of the house for him.  Lord Ormont went to the window.

'Amends and honours?'  Mrs. Lawrence hummed and added an operatic
flourish of an arm.  Something like it might really be imagined.  A large
square missive was handed to the footman.  Thereupon the orderly trotted
off.

My lord took seat at table, telling the footman to lay 'that parcel'
beside the clock on the mantelpiece.  Aminta and Mrs. Lawrence gave out a
little cry of bird or mouse, pitiable to hear: they could not wait, they
must know, they pished at sight of plates.  His look deferred to their
good pleasure, like the dead hand of a clock under key; and Weyburn
placed the missive before him, seeing by the superscription that it was
not official.

It was addressed, in the Roman hand of a boy's copybook writing, to

          General the Earl of Ormont, I.C.B., etc.,
                                   Horse Guards,
                                             London.'

The earl's eyebrows creased up over the address; they came down low on
the contents.

He resumed his daily countenance.  'Nothing of importance,' he said to
the ladies.

Mrs. Lawrence knocked the table with her knuckles.  Aminta put out a
hand, in sign of her wish.

'Pray let me see it.'

'After lunch will do.'

'No, no, no!  We are women--we are women,' cried Mrs. Lawrence.

'How can it concern women?'

'As well ask how a battle-field concerns them!'

'Yes, the shots hit us behind you,' said Aminta; and she, too, struck the
table.

He did not prolong their torture.  Weyburn received the folio sheet and
passed it on.  Aminta read.  Mrs. Lawrence jumped from her chair and ran
to the countess's shoulder; her red lips formed the petitioning word to
the earl for the liberty she was bent to take.

'Peep?  if you like,' my lord said, jesting at the blank she would find,
and soft to the pretty play of her mouth.

When the ladies had run to the end of it, he asked them: 'Well; now
then?'

'But it's capital--the dear laddies!' Mrs. Lawrence exclaimed.

Aminta's eyes met Weyburn's.

She handed him the sheet of paper; upon the transmission of which empty
thing from the Horse Guards my lord commented: 'An orderly!'

Weyburn scanned it rapidly, for the table had been served.

The contents were these:



                    'HIGH BRENT NEAR ARTSWELL.
                                             'April 7th.

     'To GENERAL THE EARL OF ORMONT
                         'Cavalry.

     'May it please your Lordship, we, the boys of Mr. Cuper's school,
     are desirous to bring to the notice of the bravest officer England
     possesses now living, a Deed of Heroism by a little boy and girl,
     children of our school laundress, aged respectively eight and six,
     who, seeing a little fellow in the water out of depth, and sinking
     twice, before the third time jumped in to save him, though unable to
     swim themselves; the girl aged six first, we are sorry to say; but
     the brother, Robert Coop, followed her example, and together they
     made a line, and she caught hold of the drowning boy, and he held
     her petycoats, and so they pulled.  We have seen the place: it is
     not a nice one.  They got him ashore at last.  The park-keeper here
     going along found them dripping, rubbing his hands, and blowing into
     his nostrils.  Name, T. Shellen, son of a small cobbler here, and
     recovered.

     'May it please your Lordship, we make bold to apply, because you
     have been for a number of years, as far as the oldest can recollect,
     the Hero of our school, and we are so bold as to ask the favour of
     General Lord Ormont's name to head a subscription we are making to
     circulate for the support of their sick mother, who has fallen ill.
     We think her a good woman.  Gentlemen and ladies of the
     neighbourhood are willing to subscribe.  If we have a great name to
     head the list, we think we shall make a good subscription.  Names:--

               'Martha Mary Coop, mother.
               'Robert Coop.
               'Jane Coop, the girl, aged six.

     'If we are not taking too great a liberty, a subscription paper will
     follow.  We are sure General the Earl of Ormont's name will help to
     make them comfortable.
               'We are obediently and respectfully,
                              'DAVID GOWEN,
                              'WALTER BENCH,
                              'JAMES PANNERS PARSONS,
                              'And seven others.'

Weyburn spared Aminta an answering look, that would have been a begging
of Browny to remember Matey.

'It's genuine,' he said to Mrs. Lawrence, as he attacked his plate with
the gusto for the repast previously and benignly observed by her.  'It
ought to be the work of some of the younger fellows.'

'They spell correctly, on the whole.'

'Excepting,' said my lord, 'an article they don't know much about yet.'

Weyburn had noticed the word, and he smiled.  'Said to be the happy
state!  The three signing their names are probably what we called bellman
and beemen, collector, and heads of the swarm-enthusiasts.  If it is not
the work of some of the younger hands, the school has levelled on minors.
In any case it shows the school is healthy.'

'I subscribe,' said Mrs. Lawrence.

'The little girl aged six shall have something done for her,' said
Aminta, and turned her eyes on the earl.

He was familiar with her thrilled voice at a story of bravery.  He said--

'The boys don't say the girl's brother turned tail.'

'Only that the girl's brother aged eight followed the lead of the little
girl aged six,' Mrs. Lawrence remarked.  'Well, I like the schoolboys,
too--"we are sorry to say!"  But they're good lads.  Boys who can
appreciate brave deeds are capable of doing them.'

'Speak to me about it on Monday,' the earl said to Weyburn.

He bowed, and replied--

'I shall have the day to-morrow.  I 'll walk it and call on Messrs.' (he
glanced at the paper) 'Gowen, Bench, and Parsons.  I have a German friend
in London anxious to wear his legs down stumpier.'

'The name of the school?'

'It is called Cuper's.'

Aminta, on hearing the name of Cuper a second time, congratulated herself
on the happy invention of her pretext to keep Mrs. Pagnell from the table
at midday.  Her aunt had a memory for names: what might she not have
exclaimed!  There would have been little in it, but it was as well that
the 'boy of the name of Weyburn' at Cuper's should be unmentioned.  By an
exaggeration peculiar to a disgust in fancy, she could hear her aunt
vociferating 'Weyburn!' and then staring at Mr. Weyburn opposite--perhaps
not satisfied with staring.

He withdrew after his usual hearty meal, during which his talk of boys
and their monkey tricks, and what we can train them to, had been pleasant
generally, especially to Mrs. Lawrence.  Aminta was carried back to the
minute early years at High Brent.  A line or two of a smile touched her
cheek.

'Yes, my dear countess, that is the face I want for Lady de Culme
to-day,' said Mrs. Lawrence.'  She likes a smiling face.  Aunty--aunty
has always been good; she has never been prim.  I was too much for her,
until I reflected that she was very old, and deserved to know the truth
before she left us; and so I went to her; and then she said she wished to
see the Countess of Ormont, because of her being my dearest friend.  I
fancy she entertains an 'arriere' idea of proposing her flawless niece
Gracey, Marchioness of Fencaster, to present you.  She's quite equal to
the fatigue herself.  You 'll rejoice in her anecdotes.  People were
virtuous in past days: they counted their sinners.  In those days, too,
as I have to understand, the men chivalrously bore the blame, though the
women were rightly punished.  Now, alas!  the initiative is with the
women, and men are not asked for chivalry.  Hence it languishes.  Lady
de Culme won't hear of the Queen of Blondes; has forbidden her these many
years!'

Lord Ormont, to whom the lady's prattle was addressed, kept his visage
moveless, except in slight jerks of the brows.

'What queen?'

'You insist upon renewing my old, old pangs of jealousy, my dear lord!
The Queen of Cyprus, they called her, in the last generation; she fights
our great duellist handsomely.'

'My dear Mrs. Lawrence!'

'He triumphs finally, we know, but she beats him every round.'

'It's only tattle that says the duel has begun.'

'May is the month of everlasting beauty!  There's a widower marquis now
who claims the right to cast the glove to any who dispute it.'

'Mrs. May is too good-looking to escape from scandal.'

'Amy May has the good looks of the Immortals.'

'She can't be thirty.'

'In the calendar of women she counts thirty-four.'

'Malignity!  Her husband's a lucky man.'

'The shots have proved it.'

Lord Ormont nodded his head over the hopeless task of defending a woman
from a woman, and their sharp interchange ceased.  But the sight of his
complacency in defeat told Aminta that he did not respect his fair
client: it drew a sketch of the position he allotted his wife before the
world side by side with this Mrs. Amy May, though a Lady de Culme was
persuaded to draw distinctions.

He had, however, quite complacently taken the dose intended for him by
Mrs. Lawrence, who believed that the system of gently forcing him was the
good one.

The ladies drove away in the afternoon.  The earl turned his back on
manuscript.  He sent for a couple of walking sticks, and commanded
Weyburn to go through his parades.  He was no tyro, merely out of
practice, and unacquainted with the later, simpler form of the great
master of the French school, by which, at serious issues, the guarding of
the line can be more quickly done: as, for instance, the 'parade de
septime' supplanting the slower 'parade de prime;' the 'parade de quarte'
having advantage over the 'parade de quince;' the 'parade de tierce'
being readier and stronger than the 'parade de sixte;' the same said for
the 'parade de seconde' instead of the weak 'parade d'octave.'

These were then new points of instruction.  Weyburn demonstrated them as
neatly as he