Wilfrid Cumbermede

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A RIDING LESSON.

By the time luncheon was over, the horses had been standing some minutes at the lawn-gate, my mare with a side-saddle. We hastened to mount, Clara's eyes full of expectant frolic. I managed, as I thought, to get before her father, and had the pleasure of lifting her to the saddle. She was up ere I could feel her weight on my arm. When I gathered her again with my eyes, she was seated as calmly as if at her lace-needlework, only her eyes were sparkling. With the slightest help, she had her foot in the stirrup, and with a single movement had her skirt comfortable. I left her, to mount the horse they had brought me, and when I looked from his back, the white mare was already flashing across the boles of the trees, and Clara's dark skirt flying out behind like the drapery of a descending goddess in an allegorical picture. With a pang of terror I fancied the mare had run away with her, and sat for a moment afraid to follow, lest the sound of my horse's feet on the turf should make her gallop the faster. But the next moment she turned in her saddle, and I saw a face alive with pleasure and confidence. As she recovered her seat, she waved her hand to me, and I put my horse to his speed. I had not gone far, however, before I perceived a fresh cause of anxiety. She was making straight for a wire fence. I had heard that horses could not see such a fence, and if Clara did not see it, or should be careless, the result would be frightful. I shouted after her, but she took no heed. Fortunately, however, there was right in front of them a gate, which I had not at first observed, into the bars of which had been wattled some brushwood. 'The mare will see that,' I said to myself. But the words were hardly through my mind, before I saw them fly over it like a bird.

On the other side, she pulled up, and waited for me.

Now I had never jumped a fence in my life. I did not know that my mare could do such a thing, for I had never given her the chance. I was not, and never have become, what would be considered an accomplished horseman. I scarcely know a word of stable-slang. I have never followed the hounds more than twice or three times in the course of my life. Not the less am I a true lover of horses--but I have been their companion more in work than in play. I have slept for miles on horseback, but even now I have not a sure seat over a fence.

I knew nothing of the animal I rode, but I was bound, at least, to make the attempt to follow my leader. I was too inexperienced not to put him to his speed instead of going gently up to the gate; and I had a bad habit of leaning forward in my saddle, besides knowing nothing of how to incline myself backwards as the horse alighted. Hence when I found myself on the other side, it was not on my horse's back, but on my own face. I rose uninjured, except in my self-esteem. I fear I was for the moment as much disconcerted as if I had been guilty of some moral fault. Nor did it help me much towards regaining my composure that Clara was shaking with suppressed laughter. Utterly stupid from mortification, I laid hold of my horse, which stood waiting for me beside the mare, and scrambled upon his back. But Clara, who, with all her fun, was far from being ill-natured, fancied from my silence that I was hurt. Her merriment vanished. With quite an anxious expression on her face, she drew to my side, saying--

'I hope you are not hurt?'

'Only my pride,' I answered.

'Never mind that,' she returned gaily. 'That will soon be itself again.'

'I'm not so sure,' I rejoined. 'To make such a fool of myself before you!'

'Am I such a formidable person?' she said.

'Yes,' I answered. 'But I never jumped a fence in my life before.'

'If you had been afraid,' she said, 'and had pulled up, I might have despised you. As it was, I only laughed at you. Where was the harm? You shirked nothing. You followed your leader. Come along, I will give you a lesson or two before we get back.'

'Thank you,' I said, beginning to recover my spirits a little; 'I shall be a most obedient pupil. But how did you get so clever, Clara?'

I ventured the unprotected name, and she took no notice of the liberty.

'I told you I had had a riding-master. If you are not afraid, and mind what you are told, you will always come right somehow.'

'I suspect that is good advice for more than horsemanship.'

'I had not the slightest intention of moralizing. I am incapable of it,' she answered, in a tone of serious self-defence.

'I had as little intention of making the accusation,' I rejoined. 'But will you really teach me a little?'

'Most willingly. To begin, you must sit erect. You lean forward.'

'Thank you. Is this better?'

'Yes, better. A little more yet. You ought to have your stirrups shorter. It is a poor affectation to ride like a trooper. Their own officers don't. You can tell any novice by his long leathers, his heels down and his toes in his stirrups. Ride home, if you want to ride comfortably.'

The phrase was new to me, but I guessed what she meant; and without dismounting, pulled my stirrup-leathers a couple of holes shorter, and thrust my feet through to the instep. She watched the whole proceeding.

'There! you look more like riding now,' she said. 'Let us have another canter. I will promise not to lead you over any more fences without due warning.'

'And due admonition as well, I trust, Clara.'

She nodded, and away we went. I had never been so proud of my mare. She showed to much advantage, with the graceful figure on her back, which she carried like a feather.

'Now there's a little fence,' she said, pointing where a rail or two protected a clump of plantation. 'You must mind the young wood though, or we shall get into trouble. Mind you throw yourself back a little--as you see me do.'

I watched her, and following her directions, did better this time, for I got over somehow and recovered my seat.

'There! You improve,' said Clara. 'Now we're pounded, unless you can jump again, and it is not quite so easy from this side.'

When we alighted, I found my saddle in the proper place.

'Bravo!' she cried. 'I entirely forgive your first misadventure. You do splendidly.'

'I would rather you forgot it, Clara,' I cried, ungallantly.

'Well, I will be generous,' she returned. 'Besides, I owe you something for such a charming ride. I will forget it.'

'Thank you,' I said, and drawing closer would have laid my left hand on her right.

Whether she foresaw my intention, I do not know; but in a moment she was yards away, scampering over the grass. My horse could never have overtaken hers.

By the time she drew rein and allowed me to get alongside of her once more, we were in sight: of Moldwarp Hall. It stood with one corner towards us, giving the perspective of two sides at once. She stopped her mare, and said,

'There, Wilfrid! What would you give to call a place like that your own? What a thing to have a house like that to live in!'

[Illustration: "NOW THERE'S A LITTLE FENCE," SHE SAID.]

'I know something I should like better,' I said.

I assure my reader I was not so silly as to be on the point of making her an offer already. Neither did she so misunderstand me. She was very near the mark of my meaning when she rejoined--

'Do you? I don't. I suppose you would prefer being called a fine poet, or something of the sort.'

I was glad she did not give me time to reply, for I had not intended to expose myself to her ridicule. She was off again at a gallop towards the Hall, straight for the less accessible of the two gates, and had scrambled the mare up to the very bell-pull and rung it before I could get near her. When the porter appeared in the wicket--

'Open the gate, Jansen,' she said. 'I want to see Mrs Wilson, and I don't want to get down.'

'But horses never come in here, Miss,' said the man.

'I mean to make an exception in favour of this mare,' she answered.

The man hesitated a moment, then retreated--but only to obey, as we understood at once by the creaking of the dry hinges, which were seldom required to move.

'You won't mind holding her for me, will you?' she said, turning to me.

I had been sitting mute with surprise both at the way in which she ordered the man, and at his obedience. But now I found my tongue.

'Don't you think, Miss Coningham,' I said--for the man was within hearing, 'we had better leave them both with the porter, and then we could go in together? I'm not sure that those flags, not to mention the steps, are good footing for that mare.'

'Oh! you're afraid of your animal, are you?' she rejoined. 'Very well.'

'Shall I hold your stirrup for you?'

Before I could dismount, she had slipped off, and begun gathering up her skirt. The man came and took the horses. We entered by the open gate together.

'How can you be so cruel, Clara?' I said. 'You will always misinterpret me! I was quite right about the flags. Don't you see how hard they are, and how slippery therefore for iron shoes?'

'You might have seen by this time that I know quite as much about horses as you do,' she returned, a little cross, I thought.

'You can ride ever so much better,' I answered; 'but it does not follow you know more about horses than I do. I once saw a horse have a frightful fall on just such a pavement. Besides, does one think only of the horse when there's an angel on his back?'

It was a silly speech, and deserved rebuke.

'I'm not in the least fond of such compliments,' she answered.

By this time we had reached the door of Mrs Wilson's apartment. She received us rather stiffly, even for her. After some commonplace talk, in which, without departing from facts, Clara made it appear that she had set out for the express purpose of paying Mrs Wilson a visit, I asked if the family was at home, and finding they were not, begged leave to walk into the library.

'We'll go together,' she said, apparently not caring about a tête-à-tête with Clara. Evidently the old lady liked her as little as ever.

We left the house, and entering again by a side door, passed on our way through the little gallery, into which I had dropped from the roof.

'Look, Clara, that is where I came down,' I said.

She merely nodded. But Mrs Wilson looked very sharply, first at the one, then at the other of us. When we reached the library, I found it in the same miserable condition as before, and could not help exclaiming with some indignation,

'It is a shame to see such treasures mouldering there! I am confident there are many valuable books among them, getting ruined from pure neglect. I wish I knew Sir Giles. I would ask him to let me come and set them right.'

'You would be choked with dust and cobwebs in an hour's time,' said Clara. 'Besides, I don't think Mrs Wilson would like the proceeding.'

'What do you ground that remark upon, Miss Clara?' said the housekeeper in a dry tone.

'I thought you used them for firewood occasionally,' answered Clara, with an innocent expression both of manner and voice.

The most prudent answer to such an absurd charge would have been a laugh; but Mrs Wilson vouchsafed no reply at all, and I pretended to be too much occupied with its subject to have heard it.

After lingering a little while, during which I paid attention chiefly to Mrs Wilson, drawing her notice to the state of several of the books, I proposed we should have a peep at the armoury. We went in, and, glancing over the walls I knew so well, I scarcely repressed an exclamation: I could not be mistaken in my own sword! There it hung, in the centre of the principal space--in the same old sheath, split half-way up from the point! To the hilt hung an ivory label with a number upon it. I suppose I made some inarticulate sound, for Clara fixed her eyes upon me. I busied myself at once with a gorgeously hiked scimitar, which hung near, for I did not wish to talk about it then, and so escaped further remark. From the armoury we went to the picture-gallery, where I found a good many pictures had been added to the collection. They were all new and mostly brilliant in colour. I was no judge, but I could not help feeling how crude and harsh they looked beside the mellowed tints of the paintings, chiefly portraits, among which they had been introduced.

'Horrid!--aren't they?' said Clara, as if she divined my thoughts; but I made no direct reply, unwilling to offend Mrs Wilson.

When we were once more on horseback, and walking across the grass, my companion was the first to speak.

'Did you ever see such daubs!' she said, making a wry face as at something sour enough to untune her nerves. 'Those new pictures are simply frightful. Any one of them would give me the jaundice in a week, if it were hung in our drawing-room.'

'I can't say I admire them,' I returned. 'And at all events they ought not to be on the same walls with those stately old ladies and gentlemen.'

'Parvenus,' said Clara. 'Quite in their place. Pure Manchester taste--educated on calico-prints.'

'If that is your opinion of the family, how do you account for their keeping everything so much in the old style? They don't seem to change anything.'

'All for their own honour and glory! The place is a testimony to the antiquity of the family of which they are a shoot run to seed--and very ugly seed too! It's enough to break one's heart to think of such a glorious old place in such hands. Did you ever see young Brotherton?'

'I knew him a little at college. He's a good-looking fellow!'

'Would be if it weren't for the bad blood in him. That comes out unmistakeably. He's vulgar.'

'Have you seen much of him, then?'

'Quite enough. I never heard him say anything vulgar, or saw him do anything vulgar, but vulgar he is, and vulgar is every one of the family. A man who is always aware of how rich he will be, and how good-looking he is, and what a fine match he would make, would look vulgar lying in his coffin.'

'You are positively caustic, Miss Coningham.'

'If you saw their house in Cheshire! But blessings be on the place!--it's the safety-valve for Moldwarp Hall. The natural Manchester passion for novelty and luxury finds a vent there, otherwise they could not keep their hands off it; and what was best would be sure to go first. Corchester House ought to be secured to the family by Act of Parliament.'

'Have you been to Corchester, then?'

'I was there for a week once.'

'And how did you like it?'

'Not at all. I was not comfortable. I was always feeling too well-bred. You never saw such colours in your life. Their drawing-rooms are quite a happy family of the most quarrelsome tints.'

'How ever did they come into this property?'

'They're of the breed somehow--a long way off though. Shouldn't I like to see a new claimant come up and oust them after all! They haven't had it above five-and-twenty years or so. Wouldn't you?'

'The old man was kind to me once.'

'How was that? I thought it was only through Mrs Wilson you knew anything of them.'

I told her the story of the apple.

'Well, I do rather like old Sir Giles,' she said, when I had done. 'There's a good deal of the rough country gentleman about him. He's a better man than his son anyhow. Sons will succeed their fathers, though, unfortunately.'

'I don't care who may succeed him, if only I could get back my sword. It's too bad, with an armoury like that, to take my one little ewe-lamb from me.'

Here I had another story to tell. After many interruptions in the way of questions from my listener, I ended it with these words--

'And--will you believe me?--I saw the sword hanging in that armoury this afternoon--close by that splendid hilt I pointed out to you.'

'How could you tell it among so many?'

'Just as you could tell that white creature from this brown one. I know it, hilt and scabbard, as well as a human face.'

'As well as mine, for instance?'

'I am surer of it than I was of you this morning. It hasn't changed like you.'

Our talk was interrupted by the appearance of a gentleman on horseback approaching us. I thought at first it was Clara's father, setting out for home, and coming to bid us good-bye; but I soon saw I was mistaken. Not, however, until he came quite close, did I recognize Geoffrey Brotherton. He took off his hat to my companion, and reined in his horse.

'Are you going to give us in charge for trespassing, Mr Brotherton?' said Clara.

'I should be happy to take you in charge on any pretence, Miss Coningham. This is indeed an unexpected pleasure.'

Here he looked in my direction.

'Ah!' he said, lifting his eyebrows, 'I thought I knew the old horse! What a nice cob you've got, Miss Coningham.'

He had not chosen to recognize me, of which I was glad, for I hardly knew how to order my behaviour to him. I had forgotten nothing. But, ill as I liked him, I was forced to confess that he had greatly improved in appearance--and manners too, notwithstanding his behaviour was as supercilious as ever to me.

'Do you call her a cob, then?' said Clara. 'I should never have thought of calling her a cob.--She belongs to Mr Cumbermede.'

'Ah!' he said again, arching his eyebrows as before, and looking straight at me as if he had never seen me in his life.

I think I succeeded in looking almost unaware of his presence. At least so I tried to look, feeling quite thankful to Clara for defending my mare: to hear her called a cob was hateful to me.

After listening to a few more of his remarks upon her, made without the slightest reference to her owner, who was not three yards from her side, Clara asked him, in the easiest manner--

'Shall you be at the county ball?'

'When is that?'

'Next Thursday.'

'Are you going?'

'I hope so.'

'Then will you dance the first waltz with me?'

'No, Mr Brotherton.'

'Then I am sorry to say I shall be in London.'

'When do you rejoin your regiment?'

'Oh! I've got a month's leave.'

'Then why won't you be at the ball?'

'Because you won't promise me the first waltz.'

'Well--rather than the belles of Minstercombe should--ring their sweet changes in vain, I suppose I must indulge you.'

'A thousand thanks,' he said, lifted his hat, and rode on.

My blood was in a cold boil--if the phrase can convey an idea. Clara rode on homewards without looking round, and I followed, keeping a few yards behind her, hardly thinking at all, my very brain seeming cold inside my skull.

There was small occasion as yet, some of my readers may think. I cannot help it--so it was. When we had gone in silence a couple of hundred yards or so, she glanced round at me with a quick sly half-look, and burst out laughing. I was by her side in an instant: her laugh had dissolved the spell that bound me. But she spoke first.

'Well, Mr Cumbermede?' she said, with a slow interrogation.

'Well, Miss Coningham?' I rejoined, but bitterly, I suppose.

'What's the matter?' she retorted sharply, looking up at me, full in the face, whether in real or feigned anger I could not tell.

'How could you talk of that fellow as you did, and then talk so to him?'

'What right have you to put such questions to me? I am not aware of any intimacy to justify it.'

'Then I beg your pardon. But my surprise remains the same.'

'Why, you silly boy!' she returned, laughing aloud, 'don't you know he is, or will be, my feudal lord. I am bound to be polite to him. What would become of poor grandpapa if I were to give him offence? Besides, I have been in the house with him for a week. He's not a Crichton; but he dances well. Are you going to the ball?'

'I never heard of it. I have not for weeks thought of anything but--but--my writing, till this morning. Now I fear I shall find it difficult to return to it. It looks ages since I saddled the mare!'

'But if you're ever to be an author, it won't do to shut yourself up. You ought to see as much of the world as you can. I should strongly advise you to go to the ball.'

'I would willingly obey you--but--but--I don't know how to get a ticket.'

'Oh! if you would like to go, papa will have much pleasure in managing that. I will ask him.'

'I'm much obliged to you,' I returned. 'I should enjoy seeing Mr Brotherton dance.'

She laughed again, but it was an oddly constrained laugh.

'It's quite time I were at home,' she said, and gave the mare the rein, increasing her speed as we approached the house. Before I reached the little gate she had given her up to the gardener, who had been on the look-out for us.

'Put on her own saddle, and bring the mare round at once, please,' I called to the man, as he led her and the horse away together.

'Won't you come in, Wilfrid?' said Clara, kindly and seriously.

'No, thank you,' I returned; for I was full of rage and jealousy. To do myself justice, however, mingled with these was pity that such a girl should be so easy with such a man. But I could not tell her what I knew of him. Even if I could have done so, I dared not; for the man who shows himself jealous must be readily believed capable of lying, or at least misrepresenting.

'Then I must bid you good-evening,' she said, as quietly as if we had been together only five minutes. 'I am so much obliged to you for letting me ride your mare!'

She gave me a half-friendly, half-stately little bow, and walked into the house. In a few moments the gardener returned with the mare, and I mounted and rode home in anything but a pleasant mood. Having stabled her, I roamed about the fields till it was dark, thinking for the first time in my life I preferred woods to open grass. When I went in at length I did my best to behave as if nothing had happened. My uncle must, however, have seen that something was amiss, but he took no notice, for he never forced or even led up to confidences. I retired early to bed, and passed an hour or two of wretchedness, thinking over everything that had happened---the one moment calling her a coquette, and the next ransacking a fresh corner of my brain to find fresh excuse for her. At length I was able to arrive at the conclusion that I did not understand her, and having given in so far, I soon fell asleep.

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