Carteret

“ The horse made no attempt to run away, and Mr. Carteret caught it. One glance showed him that there was mud on its ears, mud on its rump, and that one of the pommels was broken. Immediately, although he had never seen horse or saddle before, a strange and unreasonable apprehension seized him. He felt that it was Miss Rivers’s horse; and yet his common sense told him that the idea was absurd. She was probably not out hunting, and if she were, the chances were a thousand to one against it being she. Nevertheless, he opened the sandwich-box strapped to the saddle and took out the silver case. ”

“ Carteret; “Prince Royal is his father. I’m certain about it because he’s marked with our Prince Royal brand.”
The Major and Lady Withers looked at Mr. Carteret, and then at each other. Their eyes seemed to say, “We must humor this person until attendants from the madhouse can be brought to secure him.”
“Perhaps,” said Lady Withers, “you would care to see your horses.”
“I should like to see the other one,” he answered stubbornly, and they went into the stable.
Lady Withers paused before a box-stall which was boarded up to the ceiling. ”

“ Upon your head be it, Carteret, and not on mine!"
"Gentlemen," said Carteret, entering with Mr. Delamere the room where the men were gathered, and raising his hand for silence, "the people of Wellington were on the point of wreaking vengeance upon a negro who was supposed to have been guilty of a terrible crime. The white men of this city, impelled by the highest and holiest sentiments, were about to take steps to defend their hearthstones and maintain the purity and ascendency of their race. Your purpose sprung from hearts wounded in their tenderest susceptibilities." ”

“ Carteret, “but my opinion is that no man would have ridden that horse when hounds were running unless he wanted to marry either the woman who owned it or the woman who was riding it.”
“Well?” said Barclay.
“Well,” said Mr. Carteret, “is it Lady Withers?”
“No,” said Barclay decisively; “it isn’t Lady Withers.”
Mr. Carteret looked at his young friend with outward indifference. Inwardly he was experiencing much relief. “When are you going to announce your engagement?” he asked.
Barclay shook his head grimly. “I wish I knew,” he said. “I’m up against it, I fancy.” ”

“ Here is a young man with a bad arm and something extremely important on his mind that is for your ear alone, and he’ll unquestionably get killed if he goes near enough that horse to tell you about it. Be a good girl,” he added in a whisper, “and be kind to him. Perhaps he’s worth it.” A quick flush came into the girl’s face. And Mr. Carteret, without glancing back, hurried out of the paddock.
Just outside the gate he ran into Lady Withers, the Major, and Mr. Tappingwell-Sikes, who had just arrived. They had been following as fast as they could. ”

“ It's usual for a man to go there, I believe, to get ready for dinner," added young Carteret, always ripe for a wordy war, in his antipathy to the countess-dowager.
"You said he had come in;" and the angry woman faced round on Captain Dawkes. "You saw them going into their rooms, you said. Which was it—you did, or you didn't?"
"I did see Carteret make his appearance; and assumed that Lord Hartledon had gone on to his room," replied the captain, suppressing a laugh. "I am sorry to have misled your ladyship. I dare say Hart was about the house somewhere." ”

“ III MR. CARTERET’S ADVENTURE WITH A LOCKET
Mrs. Ascott-Smith knew that Mr. Carteret had been attentive to Miss Rivers, but she had never known how attentive. She never suspected that the affair had reached the point of an engagement, subsequently broken by Miss Rivers. If she had known the facts, she would not have invited Mr. Carteret to Chilliecote Abbey when Miss Rivers and Captain Wynford were there.
Yet the presence of Miss Rivers and Wynford was not the reason that Mr. Carteret gave himself for declining the invitation. He did not dread meeting Miss Rivers ”

“ Mrs. Carteret said that evening to her husband. “Bad temper is one of the worst signs. Men in love are always cross.”
“Oh, he’s a rotter!” said Captain Carteret conclusively.
In the meantime the object of this condemnation was driving his ten Irish miles home, by the light of a frosty full moon. Between the shafts of his cart a trim-looking mare of about fifteen hands trotted lazily, forging, shying, and generally comporting herself in a way only possible to a grass-fed animal who has been in the hands of such as Mr. William Fennessy. ”

“ There was something in his tone, in the look in his eyes, which made Evanston’s protest melt away, then transfixed him, then made him whiten and tremble.
Presently they heard the rustle of a woman’s dress in the hallway. “Do you understand?” said Mr. Carteret, quickly. “You must ask her. You must force it out of her. If she refuses to tell you, you must choke it out of her. The ghosts have come back!” Then he hurriedly crossed the room to the French window that opened upon the terrace. As he reached the window, Edith stood in the doorway. ”

“ Walking in the garden this evening with Sir G. Carteret and Sir J. Minnes, Sir G. Carteret told us with great contempt how like a stage-player my Lord Digby spoke yesterday, pointing to his head as my Lord did, and saying, "First, for his head," says Sir G. Carteret, "I know what a calf's head would have done better by half for his heart and his sword, I have nothing to say to them." ”

“ I believe very much in an occupation for young men.”
Mr. Carteret saw that his time had come. He looked at Lady Withers and smiled sadly. “Of course I’m very fond of Barclay,” he said in a lower tone, “and of course he is an awfully charming, plausible boy—” Then he stopped, apparently [Pg 52] because Major Hammerslea was returning with his cigar.
“What do you mean?” asked Lady Withers.
Mr. Carteret made no direct reply, but moved toward the piano, and Lady Withers followed. “It is best to speak plainly,” he said, “because, after all, business is business, as we say.” ”

“ Finding that not a man would show himself ready to become his accuser, Captain Carteret was compelled to order all those whom be suspected to be most averse to him to be summoned, as well as an entire quarter of the ship’s company taken by lot. ”

“ Carteret. “There is a prejudice against American horses.”
“Exactly,” said Barclay; “and the way to meet it would be to have them ridden and handled by a well-known Englishman. In fact, I have the man in mind.”
“Who?”
“Young Granvil,” was the answer.
Why Barclay should be interested in making money out of a horse business or in any other way had perplexed Mr. Carteret, for it was not according to his habits [Pg 39] of mind. Now it became clear to him, and he suppressed a cynical smile. “I don’t suppose Lady Withers has discussed this matter with you,” he observed. ”

“ Throughout life Carteret not only showed a keen love of the classics, but a taste for, and a knowledge of, modern languages and literatures. He was almost the only Englishman of his time who knew German. Harte, the author of the Life of Gustavus Adolphus, acknowledged the aid which Carteret had given him. On the 17th of October 1710 he married at Longleat Lady Frances Worsley, grand-daughter of the first Viscount Weymouth. ”

“ Hole-in-the-Ground had caught the fox!
“Most unprecedented!” Mr. Carteret heard the Major exclaim. He pulled up his horse, as the field did theirs, and waited apprehensively. He saw Hole-in-the-Ground circle around, jerk the Major’s five hundred guinea hunter to a standstill close to Lord Ploversdale and address him. He was speaking in his own language.
As the Chief went on, he saw Grady smile.
“He says,” said Grady translating, “that the white chief can eat the fox if he wants him. He’s proud himself bein’ packed with store grub.”
The English onlookers heard and beheld with blank faces. ”

“ Carteret, uneasily.
[Pg 50]
“But, about how large?” insisted Lady Withers.
“There is something over a million acres in the Texas piece,” said Mr. Carteret, with some embarrassment, “and something under six hundred thousand in Wyoming.”
Lady Withers and the Major both looked at him with eyes of amazement. But Lady Withers’s amazement was admiring.
“I thought so,” said she, calmly. The Major in silence walked over to the table and took a cigar. “Looking at it from all points of view,” she continued, “it would be just the thing for Cecil. He is intelligent with regard to horses.” ”

“ As it grew thinner her face gave promise of hardness; she had replaced her lost colour very cunningly with some rose bloom. Carteret followed her slowly. He loved his wife, her touch, a look from her blue eyes always had power to move him, but he realized suddenly that she was too brilliant, too well-dressed for a foot-soldier's wife.
She was talking to Luke Holbrook, smiling at him, but the smile had lost its girlish charm; the kindly man who had been willing to help a young couple not well off had no idea of losing money to this brilliant woman. ”

“ I added. “We will make you a venison broth, and then take you to the fort, where the rest of our party await us.”
But Carteret, who had the keener eye, shook his head gravely.
“It is no use,” he whispered.
The old man heard him.
152“Ay, you are right,” he said. “I am past help. I feel death stealing over me. Months of privation have worn out my rugged frame—this frightful wilderness has drained my life blood. Comrades, I have journeyed on foot from the far province of Alaska.”
Carteret shrugged his shoulders, and the captain and I exchanged incredulous glances. ”

“ Carteret had no reason to suppose that Miller had ever learned of what had occurred at the house during Dr. Burns's visit to Wellington. The major himself had never mentioned the controversy, and no doubt the other gentlemen had been equally silent.
"I'll go for him myself," said Dr. Evans, noting Carteret's hesitation and suspecting its cause. "I can do nothing here alone, for a little while, and I may be able to bring the doctor back with me. He likes a difficult operation." ”

“ Her son, heir to a title, was at Sir Cyril Blakeney's house and she could not claim him.
"Bertie"—she walked restlessly about the room—"I heard such a strange story the other day, a woman who did something hideously dreadful and—was afraid to tell."
"Deceit is the one thing I could never forgive," said Carteret, firmly. "I'd put a woman away, even if it broke my heart, if I found out that she had done anything mean or had deceived me."
Esmé grew white, for hers was a plot which no man could forgive. She had sold her son for a paltry allowance, for the right to amuse herself in peace. ”

“ So Wilmington reigned, and Carteret governed for a while in Walpole's stead. The shadowy form of the First Minister could not veil for a moment the bold outline of the Secretary of State, for Carteret, though scarcely attaining real greatness, remains one of the most brilliant and striking figures in the eighteenth century. It is almost enough to say that in all but disregard of money he was the exact antipodes of Newcastle. No man of his time was so splendidly equipped for the highest public service as Carteret. ”

“ Carteret. “I have no false delicacy about proposing to a lady merely because I’m not sure she’s in love with me.”
At ten o’clock the next morning he and Barclay were sitting in the motor in front of Crumpeton, while a footman explained that the ladies were at the stables and Major Hammerslea was with them. Mr. Carteret told the chauffeur to go to the stables, and there they got out. Standing saddled on the floor of an open box-stall was a showy-looking chestnut thoroughbred horse. As was only natural, the occupants of the motor stopped to examine him, and Mr. ”

“ For he knew Carteret's unrelenting hostility to anything that savored of recognition of the negro as the equal of white men. It was traditional in Wellington that no colored person had ever entered the front door of the Carteret residence, and that the luckless individual who once presented himself there upon alleged business and resented being ordered to the back door had been unceremoniously thrown over the piazza railing into a rather thorny clump of rosebushes below. If Miller were going as a servant, to hold a basin or a sponge, there would be no difficulty ”

“ These young ladies were known as the Three Guardsmen, a sobriquet not wholly inappropriate; for, as Lord Frederic described them, they were “big-boned, upstanding fillies,” between twenty-five and thirty and very hard goers across any country, and always together.
“Good morning,” said Mr. Carteret, bowing. “I suppose the hounds are close by?” It was a natural assumption, as Lady Violet on hunting days was never very far from the hounds. ”

“ The monument of Philip Carteret, son to Lord George Carteret, who died a King’s scholar at Westminster, ripe for the university, on the 19th of March 1710, aged nineteen. On the upper part is an admirable bust of this noble youth, and underneath a very fine figure of Time standing on an altar, and holding a scroll in his hand, whereon is written in Sapphic verses, lines to the following import, which he is supposed to be repeating:
Why flows the mournful Muse’s tear,
For thee! cut down in life’s full prime? ”

“ Carteret, on the other hand, was far too strong a man to be quietly pushed into the background. He was determined that if he remained in the service of the State he would be a statesman, and not a clerk.
[Sidenote: 1723—A match making intrigue]
Therefore, while Carteret and Walpole were colleagues there was always a struggle going on between them, and, like all the political struggles of the time, it had a great deal of underhand influence, and the worst kind of petticoat influence, engaged in it. One of the King's mistresses—the most influential of them—gave all her support to Walpole ”