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.