The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
Simon was in no mood to hear of the delinquencies of the Princess of Wales; so,
thanking his informant for the civility he had shown him, he drew back, and fixed his
eyes again on the curtain of the royal box. But she who sat behind it gave no further
sign of life; and by-and-bye, shortly before the play ended, Simon made his way into the
air again, taking up his position near the box entrance. Standing back a little from the
Grecian portico, so that the light from the lamps should not fall across his face, he
watched eagerly for the appearance of Rachel.
Presently there came a tramping of feet, a rustling of skirts, a hum of voices; and the
company began to pour out. Coaches drove into the semi-circular space in front of the
building, chairmen crowded towards the doorway, link-boys shrieked themselves
hoarse.
All at once, with a start, Simon recognised Rachel's voice, and bending forward, saw
her emerge into the portico, leaning on the arm of a young man with a particularly wellformed
and graceful figure. Several other gentlemen pressed round her, one carrying her
fan, another a glove, another officiously uplifting the trailing end of her scarf. Her head
was turned away from Simon, so that he could see nothing of her face beneath the silken
hood.
"I wonder, indeed," observed the gentleman on whose arm she leaned, "that a young
lady so remarkable for delicacy and elegance as Miss Charnock can condescend to enter
this clumsy, old-fashioned carriage of Lady Susan's, when the distance is short enough
to be traversed with ease in a sedan."
"Why, you see, we are sleepy, Mr. Brummel, after our late hours last night; and we are
also hungry. I vow I could eat no dinner for thinking of the play, and her ladyship was
in so crabbed a temper that she ate
[337]
nothing, And now we are in haste to be home to our little ragout."
"That is no explanation, my dear madam," returned Mr. Brummel, in his low-pitched,
musical voice. "Properly trained chairmen could carry you home quite as quickly and
easily as those great hulking horses yonder. Pray, Miss Charnock, why does not Lady
Susan select cattle with a little more breeding about them?"