Wilfrid Cumbermede

In a few moments I was within the lodge gates, walking my mare along the gravelled drive, and with the reins on the white curved neck before me, looking up at those lofty pines, whose lonely heads were swinging in the air like floating but fettered islands. My head had begun to feel dizzy with the ever-iterated, slow, half-circular sweep, when, just opposite the lawn stretching from a low wire fence up to the door of the steward’s house, my mare shied, darted to the other side of the road, and flew across the grass. Caught thus lounging on my saddle, I was almost unseated. As soon as I had pulled her up, I turned to see what had startled her, for the impression of a white flash remained upon my mental sensorium. There, leaning on the little gate, looking much diverted, stood the loveliest creature, in a morning dress of white, which the wind was blowing about her like a cloud. She had no hat on, and her hair, as if eager to join in the merriment of the day, was flying like the ribbons of a tattered sail. A humanized Dryad!—one that had been caught young, but in whom the forest-sap still asserted itself in wild affinities with the wind and the swaying branches, and the white clouds careering across! Could it be Clara? How could it be any other than Clara? I rode back.

I was a little short-sighted, and had to get pretty near before I could be certain; but she knew me, and waited my approach. When I came near enough to see them, I could not mistake those violet eyes.

I was now in my twentieth year, and had never been in love. Whether I now fell in love or not, I leave to my reader.

Clara was even more beautiful than her girlish loveliness had promised. ‘An exceeding fair forehead,’ to quote Sir Philip Sidney; eyes of which I have said enough; a nose more delicate than symmetrical; a mouth rather thin-lipped, but well curved; a chin rather small, I confess;—but did any one ever from the most elaborated description acquire even an approximate idea of the face intended? Her person was lithe and graceful; she had good hands and feet; and the fairness of her skin gave her brown hair a duskier look than belonged to itself.

Before I was yet near enough to be certain of her, I lifted my hat, and she returned the salutation with an almost familiar nod and smile.

‘I am very sorry,’ she said, speaking first—in her old half-mocking way, ‘that I so nearly cost you your seat.’

‘It was my own carelessness,’ I returned. ‘Surely I am right in taking you for the lady who allowed me, in old times, to call her Clara? How I could ever have had the presumption I cannot imagine.’

‘Of course that is a familiarity not to be thought of between full-grown people like us, Mr Cumbermede,’ she rejoined, and her smile became a laugh.

‘Ah, you do recognize me, then?’ I said, thinking her cool, but forgetting the thought the next moment.

‘I guess at you. If you had been dressed as on one occasion, I should not have got so far as that.’

Pleased at this merry reference to our meeting on the Wengern Alp, I was yet embarrassed to find that nothing more suggested itself to be said. But while I was quieting my mare, which happily afforded me some pretext at the moment, another voice fell on my ear—hoarse, but breezy and pleasant.

‘So, Clara, you are no sooner back to old quarters than you give a rendezvous at the garden-gate—eh, girl?’

‘Rather an ill-chosen spot for the purpose, papa,’ she returned, laughing, ‘especially as the gentleman has too much to do with his horse to get off and talk to me.’

‘Ah! our old friend Mr Cumbermede, I declare! Only rather more of him!’ he added, laughing, as he opened the little gate in the wire fence, and coming up to me, shook hands heartily. ‘Delighted to see you, Mr Cumbermede. Have you left Oxford for good?’

‘Yes,’ I answered—‘some time ago.’

‘And may I ask what you’re turning your attention to now?’

‘Well, I hardly like to confess it, but I mean to have a try at—something in the literary way.’

‘Plucky enough! The paths of literature are not certainly the paths of pleasantness or of peace even—so far as ever I heard. Somebody said you were going in for the law.’

‘I thought there were too many lawyers already. One so often hears of barristers with nothing to do, and glad to take to the pen, that I thought it might be better to begin with what I should most probably come to at last.’

‘Ah! but, Mr Cumbermede, there are other departments of the law which bring quicker returns than the bar. If you would put yourself in my hands now, you should be earning your bread at least within a couple of years or so.’

‘You are very kind,’ I returned, heartily, for he spoke as if he meant what he said; ‘but you see I have a leaning to the one and not to the other. I should like to have a try first, at all events.’

‘Well, perhaps it’s better to begin by following your bent. You may find the road take a turn, though.’

‘Perhaps. I will go on till it does, though.’

While we talked, Clara had followed her father, and was now patting my mare’s neck with a nice, plump, fair-fingered hand. The creature stood with her arched neck and small head turned lovingly towards her.

‘What a nice white thing you have got to ride!’ she said. ‘I hope it is your own.’

‘Why do you hope that?’ I asked.

‘Because it’s best to ride your own horse, isn’t it?’ she answered, looking up naïvely.

‘Would you like to ride her? I believe she has carried a lady, though not since she came into my possession.’

Instead of answering me, she looked round at her father, who stood by smiling benignantly. Her look said—

‘If papa would let me.’

He did not reply, but seemed waiting. I resumed.

‘Are you a good horsewoman, Miss—Clara?’ I said, with a feel after the recovery of old privileges.

‘I must not sing my own praises, Mr—Wilfrid,’ she rejoined, ‘but I have ridden in Rotten Row, and I believe without any signal disgrace.’

‘Have you got a side-saddle?’ I asked, dismounting.

Mr Coningham spoke now.

‘Don’t you think Mr Cumbermede’s horse a little too frisky for you, Clara? I know so little about you, I can’t tell what you’re fit for.—She used to ride pretty well as a girl,’ he added, turning to me.

‘I’ve not forgotten that,’ I said. ‘I shall walk by her side, you know.’

‘Shall you?’ she said, with a sly look.

‘Perhaps,’ I suggested, ‘your grandfather would let me have his horse, and then we might have a gallop across the park.’

‘The best way,’ said Mr Coningham, ‘will be to let the gardener take your horse, while you come in and have some luncheon. We’ll see about the mount after that. My horse has to carry me back in the evening, else I should be happy to join you. She’s a fine creature, that of yours.’

‘She’s the handiest creature!’ I said—‘a little skittish, but very affectionate, and has a fine mouth. Perhaps she ought to have a curb-bit for you, though, Miss Clara.’

‘We’ll manage with a snaffle,’ she answered, with, I thought, another sly glance at me, out of eyes sparkling with suppressed merriment and expectation! Her father had gone to find the gardener, and as we stood waiting for him she still stroked the mare’s neck.

‘Are you not afraid of taking cold,’ I said, ‘without your bonnet?’

‘I never had a cold in my life,’ she returned.

‘That is saying much. You would have me believe you are not made of the same clay as other people.’

‘Believe anything you like,’ she answered carelessly.

‘Then I do believe it,’ I rejoined.

She looked me in the face, took her hand from the mare’s neck, stepped back half-a-foot and looked round, saying—

‘I wonder where that man can have got to. Oh, here he comes, and papa with him!’

We went across the trim little lawn, which lay waiting for the warmer weather to burst into a profusion of roses, and through a trellised porch entered a shadowy little hall, with heads of stags and foxes, an old-fashioned glass-doored bookcase, and hunting and riding whips, whence we passed into a low-pitched drawing-room, redolent of dried rose-leaves and fresh hyacinths. A little pug-dog, which seemed to have failed in swallowing some big dog’s tongue, jumped up barking from the sheep-skin mat, where he lay before the fire.

‘Stupid pug!’ said Clara. ‘You never know friends from foes! I wonder where my aunt is.’

She left the room. Her father had not followed us. I sat down on the sofa, and began turning over a pretty book bound in red silk, one of the first of the annual tribe, which lay on the table. I was deep in one of its eastern stories when, hearing a slight movement, I looked up, and there sat Clara in a low chair by the window, working at a delicate bit of lace with a needle. She looked somehow as if she had been there an hour at least. I laid down the book with some exclamation.

‘What is the matter, Mr Cumbermede?’ she asked, with the slightest possible glance up from the fine meshes of her work.

‘I had not the slightest idea you were in the room.’

‘Of course not. How could a literary man, with a Forget-me-not in his hand, be expected to know that a girl had come into the room?’

‘Have you been at school all this time?’ I asked, for the sake of avoiding a silence.

‘All what time?’

‘Say, since we parted in Switzerland.’

‘Not quite. I have been staying with an aunt for nearly a year. Have you been at college all this time?’

‘At school and college. When did you come home?’

‘This is not my home, but I came here yesterday.’

‘Don’t you find the country dull after London?’

‘I haven’t had time yet.’

‘Did they give you riding lessons at school?’

‘No. But my aunt took care of my morals in that respect. A girl might as well not be able to dance as ride now-a-days.’

‘Who rode with you in the park? Not the riding-master?’

With a slight flush on her face she retorted,

‘How many more questions are you going to ask me? I should like to know, that I may make up my mind how many of them to answer.’

‘Suppose we say six.’

‘Very well,’ she replied. ‘Now I shall answer your last question and count that the first. About nine o’clock, one—day—’

‘Morning or evening?’ I asked.

‘Morning of course—I walked out of—the house—’

‘Your aunt’s house?’

‘Yes, of course, my aunt’s house. Do let me go on with my story. It was getting a little dark—’

‘Getting dark at nine in the morning?’

‘In the evening, I said.’

‘I beg your pardon, I thought you said the morning.’

‘No, no, the evening; and of course I was a little frightened, for I was not accustomed—’

‘But you were never out alone at that hour,—in London?’

‘Yes, I was quite alone. I had promised to meet—a friend at the corner of–You know that part, do you?’

‘I beg your pardon. What part?’

‘Oh—Mayfair. You know Mayfair, don’t you?’

‘You were going to meet a gentleman at the corner of Mayfair—were you?’ I said, getting quite bewildered.

She jumped up, clapping her hands as gracefully as merrily, and crying—

‘I wasn’t going to meet any gentleman. There! Your six questions are answered. I won’t answer a single other you choose to ask, unless I please, which is not in the least likely.’

She made me a low half merry, half mocking courtesy and left the room.

The same moment her father came in, following old Mr Coningham, who gave me a kindly welcome, and said his horse was at my service, but he hoped I would lunch with him first. I gratefully consented, and soon luncheon was announced. Miss Coningham, Clara’s aunt, was in the dining-room before us. A dry, antiquated woman, she greeted me with unexpected frankness. Lunch was half over before Clara entered—in a perfectly fitting habit, her hat on, and her skirt thrown over her arm.

‘Soho, Clara!’ cried her father; ‘you want to take us by surprise—coming out all at once a town-bred lady, eh?’

‘Why, where ever did you get that riding-habit, Clara?’ said her aunt.

‘In my box, aunt,’ said Clara.

‘My word, child, but your father has kept you in pocket-money!’ returned Miss Coningham.

‘I’ve got a town aunt as well as a country one,’ rejoined Clara, with an expression I could not quite understand, but out of which her laugh took only half the sting.

Miss Coningham reddened a little. I judged afterwards that Clara had been diplomatically allowing her just to feel what sharp claws she had for use if required.

But the effect of the change from loose white muslin to tight dark cloth was marvellous, and I was bewitched by it. So slight, yet so round, so trim, yet so pliant—she was grace itself. It seemed as if the former object of my admiration had vanished, and I had found another with such surpassing charms that the loss could not be regretted. I may just mention that the change appeared also to bring out a certain look of determination which I now recalled as having belonged to her when a child.

‘Clara!’ said her father, in a very marked tone; whereupon it was Clara’s turn to blush and be silent.

I started some new subject, in the airiest manner I could command. Clara recovered her composure, and I flattered myself she looked a little grateful when our eyes met. But I caught her father’s eyes twinkling now and then as if from some secret source of merriment, and could not help fancying he was more amused than displeased with his daughter.

CHAPTER XXVI. 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.