‘Sit back!’ Emily shouted as she closed on the bolting animal, her mount known to be the fastest in the yard. ‘Sit back and try to pull his head round!’
The other rider did as Emily instructed but even though she managed to half turn the horse’s head, it was so frightened by the insect sting that it gave no sign of even slowing up let alone of stopping. ‘Just keep sitting back!’ Emily called again. ‘I’m going to come and try to catch his bridle!’
They were both now through the traffic and into the park, heading down Rotten Row at full gallop. Other horses which up to that point had been under perfect control now scattered as the bolting horse either headed towards them or sped past them, depending upon their direction, until the bolter decided to leave the Row altogether and cut across the park proper. But by this time Emily was almost alongside, riding as hard and as fast as she could. She had long ago lost her plumed hat and she made quite a sight, with her head of auburn hair having come loose to fly out in the wind behind her like a great mane as she swung her horse ever closer and closer to the bolter’s head until finally and at great risk to herself she leaned out and grabbed hold of the side of the headcollar, gripping it as hard as she could while leaning back with all her own weight set against the still wildly frightened animal.
‘There!’ she shouted. ‘I have him now! So hold hard and pull him up as hard as you can!’
At the same time as the other rider did as Emily told her, sitting back and reining in against the action of her horse, Emily pulled the animal’s head towards her as hard as she could. She had lost control of her own animal, but he was such a bright and intelligent creature that it was as if realizing the trouble they all were in he too threw his skill and his strength behind the battle, turning himself the way Emily was turning the bolter’s head so that in a moment they were both circling and then the next moment back at the canter and also back in control.
‘I shan’t let him go until we’re at a walk!’ Emily called to the other girl, whose face was hidden by her veil, her own hat having somehow miraculously stayed in place. ‘Are you all right!’
‘Yes!’ the other girl returned. ‘Thanks entirely to you! I’m so sorry!’
‘Heaven help us!’ Emily laughed. ‘And haven’t we all been bolted with at some time or other! There’s nothing at all to be sorry for, believe me!’
Once they were safely at a walk, with the bolter apparently recovering his senses, Emily asked for one last reassurance that her co-rider was safe enough, and when assured that she indeed was she let go of the headcollar and settled herself back in her saddle.
‘Ah well,’ she said gaily, having long ago that morning completely forgotten her patron’s oft repeated instructions that she was never to be heard speaking with her native accent in public. ‘That certainly got the day off to a bit of a start all right.’
From behind her veil the other girl stared at Emily for a second. ‘What happened?’ she then asked. ‘Have you any idea? He’s normally such a completely sensible fellow.’
‘He got a nasty old sting right on the turn,’ Emily replied. ‘And that eejit of a lad just flapped at it with his stable rubber which of course only made matters worse.’
The other girl suddenly laughed. ‘That what of a boy, did you say?’
‘Oh my giddy aunt,’ Emily sighed as she realized her faux pas. ‘I’d completely forgotten my accent. I just hope you don’t know anybody I know.’
‘Why ever not?’ the veiled rider wondered. ‘There’s nothing wrong in being Irish, surely?’
‘There is if you were me and you were being launched as they call it by my patron,’ Emily replied. ‘Launched indeed. You’d think I was some sort of boat, wouldn’t you?’
‘Well, I can see nothing wrong in being Irish at all. In fact of all the countries I wish to go to when I can, Ireland is the very first stop I shall make. But by being launched did you mean you are making your debut? For so am I. Isn’t that a coincidence?’
‘I’m not entirely sure about it being coincidental. It seems half the young women in London are being launched. By the way, forgive me and my manners, would you? My name is Emily Persse. How do you do?’
‘How do you do?’ The two young women shook hands. ‘My name is Portia Tradescant.’
Portia lifted her veil, fixed it to the brim of her new wide-awake and smiled. ‘Thank you for saving me from what could have been a dreadful misadventure. You were very brave and I shall always be in your debt.’
‘Baloney,’ Emily laughed. ‘As I said, it’s got the day off to a rare old start. So you’re called Portia Tradescant, are you? Now that is a wonderfully pretty name. Portia Tradescant. Isn’t that the woman lawyer in what is it? The Merchant of Venice? Isn’t she called Portia?’
‘She is,’ Portia replied. ‘My late mother had a fixation about Shakespearean names.’
‘Your late mother?’
‘She died when I was six. I hardly remember her at all.’
‘Dear Lord, that’s awful. I really am sorry.’
‘You needn’t be, really. As I said, I hardly knew her. I’ve been brought up by a quite wonderful aunt so I can hardly be thought of as a tragic figure.’
‘Ah well that’s good anyway,’ Emily concluded. ‘As long as you had a decent childhood.’
‘Did you?’
‘Oh, I had a rare old childhood, Miss Tradescant. Most of it was spent like this. On horse.’
Emily turned and smiled again at the young woman now riding so elegantly beside her. Hardly had she spoken before Emily had taken a liking to her, this small and elegant young woman with her slim and perfect figure, her dark colouring, large grey eyes, retroussé nose and her oddly shaped mouth. She was certainly no conventional beauty, Emily had realized, but she had a look of such sweetness and honesty that it would take a hard heart not to be charmed by such a creature.
In turn Portia was equally captivated by her heroic rescuer who seemed to embody all the virtues Portia so envied, glamour, brio, dash, courage and above all a seemingly wonderful sense of humour. The moment they had begun to talk she had felt immediately that they must surely become the very greatest of friends.
‘So you are to be launched as well, are you, Miss Tradescant?’ Emily asked. ‘I suppose they call it being launched because they hope we’ll make a great splash.’
Portia laughed again and agreed that she was indeed destined to make her debut, although it had not been something of her own choosing but of her other aunt, her Aunt Augustine.
‘Had I been allowed a say in what I wanted to do at this point in my life, Miss Persse, I would not have chosen being presented at court. I would have chosen to continue with my sailing, since my burning ambition is to sail round the world.’
‘Now that is really quite a notion,’ Emily said, after some consideration. ‘Myself, I’m not at all keen on the sea, so if I had a choice I’d ride round the world, but then you can’t really consider that as a serious possibility.’
As they continued to hack around the park so they talked, and the more they talked the more obvious it became how much they liked and complemented each other, although of course like all true and natural friends they found they also begged to differ, Emily readily confessing to an instant dislike of London while Portia owned up to liking it more than she could ever have conceived possible. They both had perfectly good reasons for their feelings, Emily preferring the freedom that living in her native land afforded her while Portia was enjoying London so readily because she realized with hindsight how restricted and provincial her life had been up until now.
‘This isn’t to say that I haven’t been happy, you understand, Miss Persse,’ she said. ‘It’s just that my life had obviously become almost routine, and had I not been summoned to London I might well never have strayed further afield than Norfolk and its Broads.’
‘No, surely not?’ Emily asked. ‘What about your ambition to circumnavigate the globe?’
‘It might well have remained just
that, an ambition. I should have to have remained with my aunt for the rest of her life, you see, because she is unmarried and the least I could do in return for her bringing me up was not to desert her.’
‘Ah ha,’ Emily sighed. ‘You have put your finger on something which I have been feeling for some time now. That we are expected to live our lives out as ordained by our elders, particularly us women. Do you know what I mean, Miss Tradescant? As soon as we are born they have plans for us. We’re not allowed the smallest word on the matter. We are to grow up in such a way, be schooled in such a way, and then either to marry not for love but for social and financial benefit, or failing that to remain spinsters whose entire purpose in life is to care for and then nurse our elders. Until it’s our turn.’ Emily laughed hugely, as if she found this dreadful prospect genuinely funny, but as she continued Portia realized it had not been a laugh at all but a hoot of derision. ‘But isn’t it true what I’m saying, Miss Tradescant?’ Emily asked. ‘Having sacrificed all the best part of our lives doing what our parents want or expect us to do, the few young and vigorous years we’re given, we then do exactly the same either to our own daughters or to our younger female relatives! There just seems no point to it, really there doesn’t. So much so that almost every day now I think I shall pack my bag, do a bolt and be shot of all this before they marry me off to some chinless English eejit in whose execrably boring company I shall be expected to pass the rest of my precious days!’
‘Bravo!’ Portia cried, laughing as she did so. ‘And you know I find an echo in myself at what you say, Miss Persse, because I do see that there is very real misery for most women nowadays, since the sole expectation it seems they are allowed is that they become someone’s wife. My aunt, that is the one who brought me up, my Aunt Tatiana who is here with me in London, Aunt Tattie has always been very much for the cause of the New Woman, and I feel very sympathetic to the cause as well. Brought up the way I have been I feel that women should be allowed a much greater participation in life, up to, including and perhaps even beyond having the vote.’
‘Grand!’ Emily exclaimed. ‘This is revolutionary stuff, Miss Tradescant!’
‘Yes, I’m afraid that it is.’ Portia smiled in return. ‘Which is perhaps why we had better keep our voices down.’
‘So you really do believe the only way women may improve their lot is to fight for the vote, do you?’ Emily asked, almost conspiratorially. ‘In this country at least.’
‘I do, Miss Persse, and I hope I do not shock you.’
‘On the contrary, Miss Tradescant. Back home my mother entertains some pretty revolutionary views about Fenianism, I’ll have you know. Some of which have rubbed off on me.’
‘Fenianism?’ Portia wondered. ‘Is that not all to do with Irish Nationalism?’
‘It is so.’ Emily dropped her voice almost to a whisper as they walked their two fine horses beneath the burgeoning trees. ‘It’s heady stuff, and dangerous too. The really serious Fenians plot revolution and the overthrow of English government in Ireland.’
‘And does your mother subscribe to such extreme views?’
Emily suddenly gave another great roar of laughter, slapping her knee with a gloved hand. ‘Heavens no, Miss Tradescant! My mother gives parties which are often attended by people with vague Fenian sympathies. Her drawing room is the limit of her political activities, which she prefers to hear expressed in song, rather than in any action. I myself, however—’ Emily stopped and dreamed for a moment, remembering Rory O’Connor and the mystery of their alliance. ‘I myself have a friend – I had a friend, rather,’ she corrected herself. ‘I had a friend back home who was not content with just singing about what people might do. This friend of mine would I am sure lay down his life for Ireland.’
‘My word,’ Portia said thoughtfully. ‘I often wonder about things like that, don’t you? About how far I should be prepared to go for something in which I believed?’
‘No,’ Emily said somewhat airily. ‘I never give it a thought. I suppose I see life as a sequence of big stone walls which either have to be lepped or not lepped. And if you want to lepp them you do, and if you don’t, you don’t. And if you do you either clear them or you fall and break your head. I suppose by that I mean you make a choice or not as the case may be, and once you have made that choice then you have to live with it. Or die with it. Shall we have another canter?’
As they rode they passed a group of cavalry officers riding in the opposite direction who as one man raised their caps to the two of them. ‘You surely must find a little excitement and glamour about London life, Miss Persse?’ Portia wondered. ‘Not that young men are of abiding interest, but you surely can’t deny there is something a little thrilling and dare I say it romantic? About being able to ride out in this beautiful park and be greeted with such elegance by so many dashing young men?’
‘I’d be a terrible fibber if I pretended otherwise, Miss Tradescant,’ Emily admitted. ‘Really what spoils it for me is the company of my patron, Lady Evesham. You probably are familiar with her. It seems the whole of London is.’
Portia pulled her horse to a halt at this piece of information, and as she did Emily circled her own mount back round to join her and ask her companion why she had stopped. For the moment, as she thought the matter through, Portia pretended that nothing was amiss and she was simply adjusting a strap on her saddle. She knew well enough who Lady Evesham was, because just as her new friend had remarked, all of London must know who she was, if not every informed person in the land. She was the woman to whom Cook had invariably referred as Teddy-boy’s latest piece of stray and who for a long time when she was Lady Lanford had been the central subject for discussion around the Bannerwick kitchen table.
‘You are familiar with my patron?’ Emily enquired, and when Portia simply confirmed that she was, Emily then continued. ‘She is not exactly the greatest of company I assure you, Miss Tradescant. She is completely obsessed with the comings and goings of Society and all its boring old tittle-tattle, and as far as I am concerned she is simply determined that I be a great social success and that I marry into the top drawer by the end of the Season. I never once met her, you know, all the time I was growing up. And then suddenly – lo and behold it! She arrives to hunt at Glendarven and the next thing I know snaffles me back to England with her. Knowing her as I am beginning to know her, I am starting to suspect she might have some other motive for all her shenanigans.’
‘What do you mean?’ Portia asked mischievously. ‘Do you think she’s going to sell you into slavery?’
‘Do you mean that expecting me to marry some dreadfully drippy Englishman isn’t precisely that?’ Emily returned with a laugh. ‘For I’m certain that it is.’
‘What do you mean by drippy, Miss Persse? I’m not sure I’ve heard that word before.’
‘Ah don’t mind me and what I say too much, Miss Tradescant. For I make up half of it. Drippy means infernally wet and feeble, which as far as I can see an awful lot of the young Englishmen are. So to get back to you—’ Emily pushed a strand of her auburn hair out of her eyes and walked her horse on now that her new friend had finished fiddling with her buckles and straps. ‘Your aunt is presenting you, did you say?’
‘Yes,’ Portia agreed. ‘Well, yes and no really. Aunt Tattie, the aunt who brought me up, is actually presenting me at court but my other aunt, Aunt Augustine, is my patron. I wish it were Aunt Tattie altogether because she doesn’t give a fiddle for Society, and if it was her who was bringing me out then she’d have taken it as done the moment we left Aunt Augustine’s At Home.’
‘You don’t by any chance mean Aunt Augustine as in Lady Medlar I suppose?’
‘Yes. Why? Were you at her At Home as well?’
‘Christmas no!’ Emily replied, widening her wonderful green eyes. ‘Did you not know, Miss Tradescant, that your Aunt Augustine and my blithery old patron Lady Evesham do not speak?’
Portia closed her eyes momentarily as she remembered, recalli
ng the scandal of the love letters which had apparently been smuggled into the Medlar household through the connivances of Daisy Lanford as she then was. Although Aunt Tattie had no real malice in her at all, the one thing she did obtain some satisfaction from was the fact that as a consequence of her husband’s reading his wife’s love letters to Daisy Lanford’s husband her brother’s precious sister-in-law enjoyed one of the most notorious marriages in Society.
‘Imagine not being spoken to by your husband either publicly or privately ever again,’ Emily wondered out loud, before adding with a grin, ‘Mind you, in certain circumstances that could well be counted as a great blessing. Now then, it’s time I think we should head for home, and if that’s the case I’d better start practising my English again.’
‘It does seem a little ludicrous that you’re not allowed to speak the way you do,’ Portia said. ‘You have such a lovely and lilting way of talking.’
‘Lady Devenish who had the task of knocking me into shape before I came to London assured me as did Lady Evesham subsequently that if I spoke the way I do then no eligible gentleman in England would even want to dance with me, let alone propose marriage.’ Here Emily resumed her English accent a little too perfectly. ‘They considah one’s brague to be not at all ladylike, doan-cher-know? Let aylone the simply frightful things one comes out with.’
‘When I see you and hear you talking in future at a ball or whatever I shall not be able to keep a straight face, I promise you,’ Portia said with a smile.
‘Oh but you must,’ Emily urged her. ‘You must keep my secret or I shall get in the most awful trouble. In fact you must help me make sure I watch my tongue.’
‘Of course I shall, I was just teasing,’ Portia replied, as they crossed back onto the road to head for the stables. ‘The only thing is, there is one small problem. You do understand that it is going to be rather awkward for us? To be friends in public, I mean?’
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