“Lord, Lizzy, but it is hot! Give me some ginger beer like a good sister, and pray do not be telling our mother in what state you found me.” Mr. Edward Bridges, Lizzy's younger brother, mopped his brow with a linen handkerchief by way of a courtesy, and accepted the glass that Miss Sharpe proffered. “Woodford and I are just come from a capital little cocking ring set up on the edge of the course, and a pretty penny we lost there, too. I shall depend upon your Commodore to restore our fortunes.”

“I might almost hope that you depend in vain,” Lizzy retorted, “but that you should apply to my husband for relief from any debts of honour. In either case, win or lose, the Austens must be the making of you.”

Her brother smiled roundly, as though Lizzy had uttered nothing like a reproach; and there the matter ended.

Mr. Bridges is a very different sort of gentleman from his companion in cocking, the gallant Captain. A well-made, high-coloured fellow of five-and-twenty, he is bent on spending his purse entire in pursuit of a sporting life. No London fashion may be heralded by The Gentleman's Magazine without first being seen on Mr. Bridges's back; no cricket match may be bruited in the neighbourhood, without Mr. Bridges laying a guinea against the odds; no pack of hounds loosed upon the trail of some unfortunate vixen, without Mr. Bridges hot in pursuit on the back of his latest hunter. I relish his absurdities, and find him lively company enough — but I cannot approve him. Long the favourite of his indulgent mother, and lingering still in the single state, he kicks his heels at Goodnestone Farm to the exasperation and expense of all his excellent family. Lizzy, at least, is anxious for her brother's prospects — and has declared that a taste for gaming and fast company will lead him to ruin e'er long.

Despite these storied charms, Mr. Bridges may support at least one claim to sobriety and good conduct — for he is ordained a clergyman in the Church of England, having taken Holy Orders some few years past. He is at present the fortunate beneficiary of two livings: perpetual curate of Goodnestone, which fell in his late father's gift; and very lately, rector of Orlingbury, a parish in Northamptonshire — and one he never visits. In this we may read the reverence of our age: Mr. Edward Bridges, determined Dandy and half-hearted curate!

But perhaps I am too severe. I am quick to detect a convenience, and call it hypocrisy, where another might divine only the usual way of the world.

“You have seen the Commodore, Uncle?” Fanny enquired of Mr. Bridges excitedly. “Is he mad to be off?”

Mr. Bridges then delighted us with the intelligence that the lamentable animal had spent a tolerable half-hour cooling down in his shed between heats; that he had been walked to admiration; and that the quality of his dung was said to be unassailable. Only the famed Eclipse himself could display a sweeter action.[6] A description of the Commodore's chief competitors — who must all be lame, spavined, or doltish in the extreme — then followed, to the delight of Fanny, who declared that Uncle Henry must be the champion of the day. Only Captain Woodford saw fit to ruin her hopes.

“I should agree with Mr. Bridges in everything excepting Mrs. Grey's little filly,” he said. “In respect of Josephine, I cannot be sanguine. She is a fine-stepping goer, and over such a distance — a heat of two miles;—might give the Commodore a fair run for the plate. We shall have some excellent sport when the horn is blown. But enough of racing! You look very well this morning, Mrs. Austen — and your sister might be Diana the Huntress herself, established over the picnic hamper in that becoming habit.”

I blushed, for my riding dress was a cast-off of Lizzy's made over to suit myself, and I feared the truth might be blurted out by Fanny, to the mortification of us all. It is a lovely summer thing of lilac muslin, with a high collar and scalloped sleeves ending just at the elbow; the train is fashioned long for the accommodation of a lady's posture when riding sidesaddle, a sad encumbrance in the present confines of the barouche, and I am sure that Fanny has trampled it on several occasions at least. My hair had been cut and arranged for Race Week by Mr. Hall, Lizzy's modish London hairdresser, who has been resident at Godmersham for over a fortnight. I had thus abandoned my usual cap, and wore a dashing lilac top hat tied round with a sheer green silk scarf. However cast off by my brother's fortunate wife, the ensemble was ravishing; and I felt distinctly elevated in my borrowed feathers. I shall not know how to bear the deprivation when once I am returned to Bath.

“Do not flatter me, Captain Woodford,” I managed, “or like Diana I shall prove the ruin of masculine ardour.”

“I await your worst, madam,” he replied, with an inclination of the head, “for it cannot be more severe than Buonaparte's cannon — and I have steeled myself to those, you know, these two years and more.”

“Perhaps we should establish Miss Austen at the headlands at Deal,” Edward Bridges suggested, “with a sword in one hand and a martial light in her eye, the better to forestall invasion — for a whole company of French cavalry could hardly ignore such loveliness. It must halt them in their tracks, and preserve the nation inviolate.”

At my failure to reply, Mr. Bridges threw out his most engaging smile. “I might rescue you then in a dashing manner, my dear Miss Austen, and the both of us be celebrated throughout the country.”

The determined silliness of these remarks was entirely in keeping with Mr. Bridges's character; but I adopted a tragic air, as befit a noble heroine. “Not even the prospect of rescue by yourself, sir, shall be deemed too great a sacrifice for my country. But tell me: How does my dearest sister in your wretched hands?”

“Miss Cassandra Austen, when last I had the pleasure of meeting her over the breakfast table, was in excellent looks — tho' entirely cast down at the loss of this race-meeting. She was to remain at the Farm, you know, in attendance upon my sister Harriot, who cannot abide horses in any guise. I offered to smuggle Cassandra out of the house in my curricle, but she affected the vapours at the mere notion of such a scheme, and quitted the breakfast parlour directly.”

I could not suppress a laugh at this telling picture.

“You are in wine again, Edward, I am sure of it,” Lizzy said in mock exasperation. “Have you led him astray, Captain Woodford?”

“I? Astray? Quite the reverse, I assure you.”

“Mamma! Mamma! Only look — there is Mrs. Grey!”

The Commodore momentarily forgotten, Fanny had jumped up from her seat and was craning for a view of the rail.

“Sit dawn, Fanny,” Miss Sharpe whispered shrilly, with one hand on her charge's sash. “You will make of yourself a spectacle, child.”

“Do observe, Mamma,” Fanny persisted, “she has gone quite forward in all the bustle, and intends to o'erlook the race. There is her scarlet habit, not far from Papa and my uncle.”

I followed my niece's outflung arm and saw again the dashing figure, late of the perch phaeton. Mrs. Grey had abandoned her equipage and secured a place of advantage quite close to the rail. She was mounted, as though she meant to follow the heat on horseback.[7] Extraordinary! She should be the only lady in the midst of the crush, and exposed to every sort of coarse behaviour— for a race-meeting is hardly the most select, being at liberty to the common labourer as readily as a lord.

But at least she displayed a little sense, in adopting a veil, the better to shield her countenance from the impertinent. Or perhaps the better to invite their gaze — for the black illusion netting, however suited to the disguise of her features, hung jauntily enough from the tricorn hat. Hers was a tall, womanly figure astride the mettlesome beast — the jet-black gelding I had last seen tied to the phaeton. However unseemly her behaviour, however determined her flaunting of convention, I could not fail to admire Mrs. Grey. And pity her, too. Such an one must be very rich, indeed — or very unhappy. Only the most extreme sense of liberty, or the utter depths of misery, could give spur to the sort of recklessness she displayed.