Belles and Ringers Part 8

"Certainly; well thought of, sister mine. It's a lovely evening for a gallop."

CHAPTER VI.

A SHORT CUT HOME.

Through the streets of Todborough and on through the environs of the city the gay cavalcade rode decorously and discreetly; but nearing Tapton Downs, the spirits of the party seemed to rise as they encountered the fresh sea-breeze.

"I am sure you must be dying for a good gallop," said Blanche, turning to Sylla Chipchase. "We turn off the main road a little farther on, and then, if you remember, we have lovely turf upon each side of the way. We generally have what Jim calls a 'real scurry' over that."

"I understand--an impromptu race; that will be great fun. But tell me, Miss Bloxam--you know all these horses--have I any chance of beating Lionel?"

"I can hardly say," returned Blanche, laughing. "We have really never tried them in that way I should think old Selim, the horse he is riding, is rather faster than yours."

"Ah; but then, you see, I am much lighter than he is. Lionel, I challenge you to a race as soon as we turn off across the downs. You shall bet me two dozen pair of gloves to one. I always make him do that, you know," she remarked confidentially to Blanche, "in all our battles, whatever they may be at."

"Very well," replied Beauchamp. "Only remember, I shall expect those gloves if I win them; and as I did my best for you yesterday at Rockcliffe, so I intend to do the best for myself now."

"A very sporting match," exclaimed Bloxam. "There's about a mile of capital going over the downs without trespa.s.sing. I'll ride forward, and be judge and winning-post, while Sartoris will start you." And so saying, Jim trotted forward.

"Now," exclaimed Blanche, as, quitting the main highway, they turned into the cross-country road that led over the downs towards the sea, "this is where you ought to start from. If one of you will take the turf on the right-hand side, and the other that on the left, and do your best till you come to Jim, we shall all have a splendid gallop, whichever of you wins. You start them, Mr. Sartoris. Let them get a hundred yards in front of us, and then we'll follow as fast as we can."

The antagonists took their places as directed; Mr. Sartoris gave the word "Go!" and away they dashed. Miss Bloxam, sailing away on King Cole in the wake of Sylla Chipchase, scans that young lady's performance with a critical eye. A first-rate horsewoman herself, she was by no means favourably impressed with it. Sylla rides well enough, but her seat is not such as would have been held in high repute in the shires. She also displays a most ladylike tendency on the present occasion to what is technically called ride her horse's head off.

"Two to one!" murmured Blanche; "why, it should be ten to one upon old Selim!" and with that she turned her eyes to ascertain after what fashion old Selim's jockey is conducting himself. But a single glance at Lionel bending slightly forward in his stirrups, with hands low and his horse held firmly by the head, pretty well convinces her that he is a first-flight man to hounds, and probably has appeared in silk on a racecourse. The match terminates as might be antic.i.p.ated: Sylla, under the laudable impression that she is making her advantage in the weights tell, gallops her luckless mare pretty nearly to a standstill, and Lionel, though winning as he likes, good-naturedly reduces it to a half length, whereby his defeated antagonist lays the flattering unction to her soul that, had he carried a few more pounds, the result would have been the other way.

They jogged soberly along some couple of miles, when Blanche exclaimed gaily, "Who is for the short cut home? 'Let all who love me follow me.'" And, putting King Cole at the small fence that bordered the road, she jumped into the big gra.s.s-field on the other side. Lionel Beauchamp and Laura Chipchase followed promptly; but Jim, who was a little in advance, said quietly,

"We had better, I think, keep the road, Sartoris. The governor's hack, though admirable in his place, is not quite calculated for the inspection of the agriculture of the neighbourhood."

He said this good-naturedly, solely upon Sylla's account. He had marked the finish of her race with Lionel, and had come to the conclusion that the young lady was not much of a horsewoman. Now this short cut, although over an easy country, did involve the negotiation of two or three good-sized fences, and he thought it just possible that the girl would prefer not being called upon to ride over anything of that sort. Sylla was possessed of a good many accomplishments, but riding across country was not one of them. She had, however, that curious but common desire to excel in that for which she had no apt.i.tude; still, if she possessed no other attribute of a horsewoman, she was undoubtedly gifted with nerve amounting almost to recklessness.

"Oh, no, Captain Bloxam," she exclaimed; "I am sure we can go anywhere that the rest of them do. Don't you think so, Mr. Sartoris?"

Without waiting for a reply, the young lady jumped her horse into the field, and cantered smartly after Blanche and her cousin.

"Well, wilful woman must have her way," Jim said drily. "Come along, Sartoris; the governor's hack can jump well enough if you don't hurry him." And the two men promptly followed their fair leader across the gra.s.s.

King Cole enjoyed the scurry across country to the full as much as his mistress, and expressed his pleasure by shaking his head and reaching hard at his bit. Laura Chipchase's horse was also roused by the smart canter at which they were going, and began to pull unpleasantly.

"Let him go, Laura," cried Miss Bloxam; "the King, too, is fidgeting most uncomfortably. A good gallop will take the nonsense out of them."

And with that the two girls quickened their pace, and, going on side by side, led the way at a fair hunting gallop. The first few fences were small, and as she sailed triumphantly over them, Sylla's pulses tingled, and she was fired with the spirit of emulation. Although she was some little distance behind, she resolved to catch and pa.s.s the leaders, and with that intent commenced bucketing her mare along in rather merciless fashion. In vain did Jim shout words of warning. She turned a deaf ear to them. Had he not recommended that she should keep the road? Did he think the art of crossing a country was known only to the maidens of Fernshire? She was determined to catch Blanche and her cousin, whatever her escort might urge to the contrary, and saw with infinite satisfaction that she was rapidly closing the gap between them. Jim Bloxam, galloping a little to her left, and watching her closely, has already come to the conclusion that wilful woman will have her fall, and only trusts it may not be serious.

The mare Sylla was riding was a fairly good hunter, and if she would but have left her alone would have carried the girl safely over such obstacles as they had to encounter. But Jim noticed with dismay that Sylla had some indistinct idea of a.s.sisting her at her fences, the result of which could only be inevitable grief. The exhilaration of the trio in front, as attested by the wild shout sent back by Lionel Beauchamp as they cleared the first of those bigger fences previously mentioned, put Sylla's blood thoroughly up. Heedless of Jim's "For G.o.d's sake, take a pull!" she struck her mare sharply with the whip, and sent her at it as fast as she could lay legs to the ground. The consequence was the mare took off too soon, and the pair landed in the next field somewhat in a heap. Jim was over and off his horse in a minute, and at once came to the discomfited fair's a.s.sistance. It is seldom that a lady shows to advantage after a regular "crumpler," the story of Arabella Churchill notwithstanding; nor, for the matter of that, do men either look the better for the process. No real harm having been done, the ludicrous side of the situation generally presents itself; but Sylla was certainly an exception. Although her hat was broken, her habit woefully torn and mud-stained, n.o.body could have looked at her somewhat flushed face and flashing dark eyes without admitting that she was a very pretty girl even "in ruins."

"No, thanks; I am not in the least hurt, Captain Bloxam," she replied, as Jim helped her to her feet; "but I could cry with vexation. I had set my heart upon catching those two; but now," she continued, with a comical little grimace, "I have got to first catch my mare."

With the a.s.sistance of Mr. Sartoris, who, taking Jim's advice, had followed at a more sedate pace, this was soon done; and Sylla, having rectified her toilette as far as circ.u.mstances permitted, was once more in the saddle. That she presented a rather dilapidated and woebegone appearance, n.o.body could be more conscious than herself; but, as a woman always does under such affliction, she put the best face she could upon it.

"I am looking a dreadful guy," she said; "and it is very good of you two not to laugh at me. I dare not even think of my hat, for n.o.body ever did, nor ever will, succeed in straightening that article into any semblance of its former shape when it has been once stove in. I have only one thing to be thankful for. Do you know what that is?"

"That you are not hurt in any way," replied Jim.

"Hurt!" she rejoined, with a contemptuous shrug of her shoulders; "I never thought of that. Can you guess, Mr. Sartoris?"

"I think so," he returned, laughing. "You are well pleased that your cousin and Miss Bloxam were well in front."

"Just so," said Sylla. "It is easy to see that you are married, Mr.

Sartoris, and can to some extent follow the windings of our feminine minds. _They_ would have laughed, and, under pretence of a.s.sistance, called attention," and here the girl looked ruefully down at her rent habit, "to all the weak joints in my armour; and, lastly, they would have done what you won't,--tease me to death about it for the next week."

"Matrimony has inculcated that blindness is wisdom as far as I am concerned," said Sartoris.

"You see, Captain Bloxam, how that ceremony quickens the understanding.

But you are very good. I know you think that my fall was my own fault; that if I had listened to your warning it wouldn't have happened; and you remain mute. Laura is a dear good girl; but, in your place, she couldn't have resisted saying, 'Didn't I tell you so?' to save her life."

Jim muttered a courteous and most mendacious disclaimer of Miss Sylla's "grief" being due to disregard of his warning.

The leading trio, in the meanwhile, lost in all the exultation of a good gallop, and in utter ignorance of Sylla Chipchase's fall, kept on without slacking rein till they once more found themselves near the high-road, sweeping round from the point they had left it to this, in an arc, by traversing the chord of which they had saved about a mile; and now, looking round for the remainder of the party, discovered, to their surprise, that they were nowhere in sight.

"They must have gone round by the road!" exclaimed Blanche. "Perhaps your cousin, Laura, is not used to crossing a country."

"That I can't say," replied Miss Chipchase. "Till this Easter I haven't seen her since she was quite a small child; but I must say, from what I know of her, that I am rather surprised she didn't try."

"I think it most probable she has tried," observed Lionel quietly.

"Shall I ride back and see what has become of them?"

"No," said Miss Chipchase, "I don't think that is necessary. Jim and Mr. Sartoris will no doubt take every care of her. We had better jump into the road, Blanche, and see if they are coming that way."

But of course there were no signs of the rearguard along the highway; and after a delay of a few minutes the party agreed that Sylla was well taken care of, and they might as well proceed leisurely homewards. The victim of her ambition to "witch the world with n.o.ble horsemanship" saw the leaders vanish from her view with much satisfaction. Under Jim Bloxam's guidance, and proceeding quietly over more moderate fences, which, though not the straightest, was perhaps the safest, path to the high-road, they regained it without further accident. It must not be supposed that Sylla's nerves were shaken by her fall. She rode as boldly as at first at everything her Mentor allowed; but she was in a strange country, and compelled, whether she liked it or not, to trust herself to Jim Bloxam's guidance.

"Now," she exclaimed, "you have come very nearly to the end of your responsibilities, Captain Bloxam. You have only, if possible, to smuggle me into the rectory; and remember--I swear you both to secresy."

"I can take you," replied Jim, "by a bridle-path through the wood, which will in all probability insure your reaching the rectory grounds unnoticed; but your getting into the house I must leave to your own ingenuity."

When, in the course of the evening, Jim, in his own impetuous fashion, told that he had asked the Chipchase girls to come up to the Grange the next evening, with a view to charades and an impromptu valse or two, Lady Mary received the intelligence with the calm resignation of a follower of Mahomet. She saw it was hopeless attempting any further to control the march of events.

"No," she murmured confidentially to Mr. Cottrell in the drawing-room, "the Fates are against me. I have done all that woman could, but I cannot contend with destiny. It is sad; but whatever with due forethought I propose, destiny, embodied in the shape of that wretch Jim, persistently thwarts. There is no such thing as instilling the slightest tact into him."

"But, my dear Lady Mary," rejoined Cottrell, whose sense of the humorous was again highly gratified by the outcome of the trip to Trotbury, "I really cannot see that you have any cause for complaint.

Things look to me progressing very favourably in the direction you wish."

"My dear Pansey," replied her ladyship, solemnly, "you do not understand these things _quite so well_ as I thought you did. A variety of belles disturbs concentration, and prevents that earnestness of purpose which is so highly desirable."

"I see," rejoined Pansey, laughing. "To revert to the metaphor you used in our conversation some days since, you object to a peal of belles. Your doctrine may be embodied in the formula, I presume, of one belle and one ringer."