CHAPTER II
TRIBULATIONS OF A M.F.H

Brasset it certainly was. And when he came into the room looking delightfully healthy, decidedly handsome, and a great deal more serious than a minister of the Crown, his first words were to the effect that Morton had telephoned through to say that they had a foot of snow on the wolds and that hounds had better stay where they were.

"Awfully good of you, Brasset, to come and tell us," said I, heartily. "Have some breakfast?"

"No, thanks," said Brasset. "The fact is, as we are not going over to Morton's, I thought this would be a good opportunity to – to – "

For some reason the noble Master did not appear to know how to complete his sentence.

"Yes, Lord Brasset," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with an air of acute intelligence.

"A good opportunity to – to – " said Brasset, who in spite of his seriousness really looked absurdly young to be the master of such a pack as ours.

"Yes, Lord Brasset," said Mrs. Arbuthnot again.

"Yes, quite so, my dear fellow," said I, without, as I hope and believe, the least appearance of levity, for the uncompromising eye of authority was upon me.

"What's up, Brasset?" said Jodey, who contrary to the regulations was lighting his pipe at the breakfast table, and who combined with his many engaging qualities an extremely practical mind. "You want a glass of beer. Parkins, bring his lordship a glass of beer."

With this aid to the body corporeal in his hand, and with a pair of large, serious and admirably solicitous eyes fixed upon him, the noble Master made a third attempt to complete his sentence. This time he succeeded.

"The fact is," said he, "I thought this would be a good opportunity to – to" – here the noble Master made a heroic dash for England, home and glory – "to talk over this confounded business of Mrs. Fitz."

Mrs. Arbuthnot sat bolt upright with an air of ecstasy and the expression "There, what did I tell you!" written all over her.

"Quite so, my dear fellow," said I, in simple good faith, but happening at that moment to intercept a glance from a feminine eye, had perforce to smother my countenance somewhat hastily in the voluminous folds of the Times.

"What about her?" inquired the occupant of the breakfast table, who, whatever the angels might happen to be doing at any given moment, never hesitated to walk right in with both feet. "I was saying to Arbuthnot and my sister just as you came in, that you people down here have got Mrs. Fitz on the brain."

"Yes, I am afraid we have," said Brasset, ruefully. "The fact is, things are coming to such a pass that they can't go on."

"I agree with you, Lord Brasset," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with conviction.

"Something must be done."

"It is so uncomfortable for everybody," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "And I can promise this, Lord Brasset" – the fair speaker looked ostentatiously away from the vicinity of the leading morning journal – "whatever steps you decide to take in the matter will have the entire sympathy and support of every woman subscriber to the Hunt."

"Thank you very much indeed, Mrs. Arbuthnot," said the noble Master, with feeling, "I am very grateful to you. It will help me very much."

"We held a meeting in Mrs. Catesby's drawing-room on Sunday afternoon. We passed a resolution expressing the fullest confidence in you – I wish, Lord Brasset, you could have heard what was said about you." The Master's picturesque complexion achieved a more roseate tinge. "Our unanimous support and approval was voted to you in all that you may feel called upon to do."

"A thousand thanks, my dear Mrs. Arbuthnot."

"And we hope you will turn Mrs. Fitz out of the Hunt. I also brought forward an amendment that Fitz be turned out as well, but it was decided by six votes to four to give him another chance. But in the case of Mrs. Fitz the meeting was absolutely unanimous."

"My God," said the occupant of the breakfast table. "If that ain't the limit!"

"Mrs. Fitz is a good deal more than the limit." Mrs. Arbuthnot's eyes sparkled with truculence.

"Have a cigarette, my dear fellow," said I, offering my case to the unfortunate Brasset as soon as the state of my emotions would permit me to do so.

Brasset selected a cigarette with an air of intense melancholy. As he applied the lighted match that was also offered him he favoured me with an eye that was so woebegone that it must have moved a heart of stone to pity. On the contrary, my fellow-pilgrim through this vale of tears had turned a most becoming shade of pink, which she invariably does when she is really out upon the warpath. Also in her china-blue eyes – I hope such a description of these weapons will pass the censor – was a look of grim, unalterable ruthlessness, before which men quite as stout as Brasset have had to quail.

The noble Master took a nervous draw at his Egyptian.

"Look here, Arbuthnot," said he, "you are a wise chap, ain't you?"

"He thinks he's wise," said my helpmeet.

"Every man does," said I, modestly, "not necessarily as an article of faith but as a point of ritual."

"Yes, of course," said Brasset, with an air of intelligence that imposed upon nobody. "But everybody says you are a wise chap. That little Mrs. Perkins says you are the wisest chap she has met out of London."

This indiscretion on the part of Brasset – some men have so little tact! – provoked a stiffening of plumage; and if the china-blue eyes did not shoot forth a spark this chronicle is not likely to be of much account.

"Stick to the point, if you please," said I. "I plead guilty to being a Solomon."

"Well, as you are a wise chap," said the blunderer, "and I'm by way of being an ass – "

"I don't agree with you at all, Lord Brasset," piped a fair admirer.

"Oh, but I am, Mrs. Arbuthnot," said Brasset, dissenting with that courtesy in which he was supreme. "It's awfully good of you to say I'm not, but everybody knows I am not much of a chap at most things."

"You may not be so clever as Odo," said the wife of my bosom, "because Odo's exceptional. But you are an extremely able man all the same, Lord Brasset."

"She means to attend that sale at Tatt's on Wednesday," said the occupant of the breakfast table in an aside to the marmalade.

"Well, if I am not such a fool as I think I am" – so perfect a sincerity disarmed criticism – "it is awfully good of you, Mrs. Arbuthnot, to say so. But what I mean is, I should like Arbuthnot's advice on the subject of – on the subject of – "

"On the subject of Mrs. Fitz," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with the coo of the dove and the glance of the rattlesnake.

"Ye-es," said the noble Master, nervously dropping the ash from his cigarette on to a very expensive tablecloth.

"Odo will be very pleased indeed, Lord Brasset," said the superior half of my entity, "to give you advice about Mrs. Fitz. He agrees with me and Mary Catesby and Laura Glendinning, that she must be turned out of the Hunt."

Poor Brasset removed a bead of perspiration from the perplexed melancholy of his features with a silk handkerchief of vivid hue, own brother to the one sported by the Bayard at the breakfast table, in a futile attempt to cope with his dismay.

"Is it usual, Mrs. Arbuthnot?"

"It may not be usual, Lord Brasset, but Mrs. Fitz is not a usual woman."

"My dear Irene," said I, judicially – Mrs. Arbuthnot rejoices in the classical name of Irene – "my dear Irene, I understand Brasset to mean that there is nothing in the articles of association of the Crackanthorpe Hunt to provide against the contingency of Mrs. Fitz or any other British matron overriding hounds as often as she likes."

Although I have had no regular legal training beyond having once lunched in the hall of Gray's Inn, everybody knows my uncle the judge. But I regret to say that this weighty deliverance did not meet with entire respect in the quarter in which it was entitled to look for it.

"That is nonsense, Odo," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "I am sure the Quorn – "

Brasset's misery assumed so acute a phase at the mention of the Quorn that Mrs. Arbuthnot paused sympathetically.

"The Quorn – my God!" muttered the Bayard at the breakfast table in an aside to the tea-kettle.

"Or the Cottesmore," continued the undefeated Mrs. Arbuthnot, "would not stand such behaviour from a person like Mrs. Fitz."

"Do you think so, Mrs. Arbuthnot?" said the noble Master. "You see, we shouldn't like to get our names up by doing something unusual."

"An unusual person must be dealt with in an unusual way," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, with great sententiousness.

"Mary Catesby thinks – "

The long arm of coincidence is sometimes very startling, and I can vouch for it that the entrance of Parkins at this psychological moment, to herald the appearance of Mary Catesby in the flesh, greatly impressed us all as something quite beyond the ordinary.

"Why, here is Mary," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, giving that source of light and authority a cross-over kiss on both checks. It is the hall-mark of the married ladies of our neighbourhood that they all delight to exhibit an almost exaggerated reverence for Mary Catesby.

I have great esteem for Mary Catesby myself. For one thing, she has deserved well of her country. The mother of three girls and five boys, she is the British matron in excelsis; and apart from the habit she has formed of riding in her horse's mouth, she has every attribute of the best type of Christian gentlewoman. She owns to thirty-nine – to follow the ungallant example of Debrett! – is the eldest daughter of a peer, and is extremely authoritative in regard to everything under the sun, from the price of eggs to the table of precedence.

The admirable Mary – her full name is Mary Augusta – may be a trifle over-elaborated. Her horses are well up to fourteen stone. And as matter and mind are one and the same, it is sometimes urged against her that her manner is a little overwhelming. But this is to seek for blemishes on the noonday sun of female excellence. One of a more fragile cast might find such a weight of virtue a burden. But Mary Catesby wears it like a flower.

In addition to her virtue she was also wearing a fur cloak which was the secret envy of the entire feminine population of the county, although individual members thereof made it a point of honour to proclaim for the benefit of one another, "Why does Mary persist in wearing that ermine-tailed atrocity! She really can't know what a fright she looks in it."

As a matter of fact, Mary Catesby in her fur cloak is one of the most impressive people the mind of man can conceive. That fur cloak of hers can stop the Flying Dutchman at any wayside station between Land's End and Paddington; and on the platform at the annual distribution of prizes at Middleham Grammar School, I have seen more than one small boy so completely overcome by it, that he has dropped "Macaulay's Essays" on the head of the reporter of the Advertiser.

Besides this celebrated garment, Mary was adorned with a bowler hat with enormous brims, not unlike that affected by Mr. Weller the Elder as Cruikshank depicted him, and so redoubtable a pair of butcher boots as literally made the earth tremble under her.

Her first remark was addressed, quite naturally, to the unfortunate Brasset, who had been rendered a little pinker and a little more perplexed than he already was by this notable woman's impressive entry.

"I consider this weather disgraceful," said she. "It always is when we go over to Morton's. Why is it, Reggie?"

She spoke as though the luckless Reggie was personally responsible for the weather and also for the insulting manner in which that much-criticised British institution had deranged her plans.

"I am awfully sorry, Mrs. Catesby. Not much of a day, is it?"

"Disgraceful. If one can't have better weather than this, one might as well go and have a week's skating at Prince's."

The idea of Mary Catesby having a week's skating at Prince's seemed to appeal to Joseph Jocelyn De Vere. At least that sportsman was pleased not a little.

"English style or Continental?" said he.

Mary Catesby did not deign to heed.

"I am awfully sorry, Mrs. Catesby," said Brasset again, with really beautiful humility.

Mrs. Catesby declined to accept this delightfully courteous apology, but gazed down her chin at the unfortunate Brasset with that ample air which invariably makes her look like Minerva as Titian conceived that deity. Silently, pitilessly, she proceeded to fix the whole responsibility for the weather upon the Master of the Crackanthorpe.

She had just performed this feat with the greatest efficiency, when by no means the least of her admirers put in an oar.

"I'm so glad you've come, Mary," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "We were just having it out with Lord Brasset about Mrs. Fitz."

An uncomfortable silence followed.

"Is she a subject for discussion in a mixed company?" said I, to relieve the tension.

"I should say not," said Mary. "But Reggie has been so weak that there is no help for it."

"The victim of circumstances, perhaps," said I, with generous unwisdom.

"People who are weak always are the victims of circumstances. If Reggie had only been firmer at the beginning, we should not now be a laughing-stock for everybody. To my mind the first requisite in a master of hounds is resolution of character."

"Hear, hear," said the occupant of the breakfast table, sotto voce.

The miserable Brasset, whose pinkness and perplexity were ever increasing, fairly quailed before the Great Lady's forensic power.

"Do you think, Mrs. Catesby, I ought to resign?" said he, with the humility that invites a kicking.

"Not now, surely; it would be too abject. If you felt the situation was beyond you, you should have resigned at the beginning. You must show spirit, Reggie. You must not submit to being trampled on publicly by – by – "

The Great Lady paused here, not because she was at a loss for a word, but because, like all born orators, she had an instinctive knowledge of the value of a pause in the right place.

"By a circus rider from Vienna," she concluded in a level voice.