I was glad he had not been able to peep in at the Manor then, he would have seen little to reassure him. Those first few months at Hinkleton were like a nightmare to me when I looked back at them. My struggle to understand Clementina and find the way to her heart; my troubles with the maids, my sordid quarrels with the odious Miss Milston—these were not the things I liked to remember, I should not like Garth to know of these things. But later, when all the difficulties had been solved and the tangles straightened out, I should have liked Garth to peep in, and I should have liked him to see the rock garden, which was shaping so satisfactorily, just as he had planned it.
Chapter Three
The Steeplechase
Geoff Howard rang up to tell me he was sailing for Australia at the end of the month and to offer to come to lunch at Hinkleton and say good-bye. I told him he could come to lunch if he liked, but I hated good-byes.
“It’s your own fault,” he said. “You are sending me to Australia and nobody else. I shall come and weep upon your shoulder.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” I replied.
“What d’you mean?”
“Just that I shall wear my mackintosh,” I told him.
Geoff arrived early. I was working in the garden and I showed him a hand covered with earth.
“What’s a little mud between friends?” he asked, shaking it warmly.
“I see you are determined to keep on the right side of the dragon,” I replied.
“It’s my only hope. I suppose I can write to you, if I can’t write to Clementina?”
“Yes, you can write to me.”
“Generous woman!” he exclaimed.
We walked up to the house together, sparring a little in our usual manner. I felt quite a different person when I was with Geoff. He brought out a certain quality in me which I had never known I possessed. His light-hearted impudence provoked a light-hearted return. I was young and gay in his company and full of repartee.
“We’re going to the hunt point-to-point this afternoon,” he said. “Did you know?”
“Who are you going with?”
“With you, of course.”
“No, Geoff.”
“Yes, Charlotte.”
“I’m far too busy. I write in the afternoons.”
“Not today you don’t. I’m determined to take you, so just make up your mind to it and accept the invitation gracefully. You’re working too hard at that book—it will be as dull as ditchwater—you know what all work and no play made of Jack.”
“Seriously, Geoff, I’m not coming,” I said. “It isn’t only the book, it’s partly because I don’t want to meet people. Yes, I know. I meet them out hunting, but that’s different; I feel safer on a horse, and people don’t snub you in the field, they’re too busy.”
“You won’t get snubbed,” he replied. “I’ll take care of you. We needn’t go into the enclosure if you’d rather not. We can go up onto the hill and see the whole thing. It’s a lovely day. You must come, Charlotte. I want to go and I’ve nobody to go with—I want to back Red Star for the Ladies’ Cup, it’s a snip.”
“I don’t know about that, with Sweet Molly running.”
“Good, you’ll come.”
“I never said so.”
“Of course you did. You said you wanted to back Sweet Molly for the Ladies’ Cup.”
“Oh, Geoff!” I said.
“Be a sport, Charlotte! You won’t see me again for four years—you won’t be bothered with me all that time. You’ll be sorry when you think of me toiling and moiling in Australia among a lot of woolly headed blacks living in a tin shanty and eating dampers—or whatever they’re called—and drinking tea. Australians live on dampers and tea, I know that from the war.”
He persuaded me to go—I could hardly refuse, for he was a wheedling man—and after lunch I found myself in his two-seater Fiat on my way to the race meeting which I had determined to avoid at all costs.
We left the car in a field near some buses and walked up onto the hill. It was a real March day—a cold wind blew from the east but the sun was hot and golden. A few white cotton-woolly clouds moved across the pale blue heavens with the dignity of galleons, and their pale gray shadows followed them slowly over the sunlit land. The country was very beautiful—the meadowland a radiant green, and the plough a dusty brown. The hills rolled softly to the horizon, broken by the uneven line of woods, black woods touched by a faint haze of green. Spring was coming, coming slowly but sweetly despite the cold dry winds of March; they could stay her progress but could not stop it, for there was warmth in the sun, and the earth was turning her face toward its beams.
Two partridges rose from our feet with frightened cries and swirled away with a flutter of brown wings across the field.
“God, how I love this country!” Geoff said. “I used to think about it when I was in Canada with a kind of pain. And now I’m pushing off again to the ends of the earth—life is hell!”
We reached the top of the hill and looked down. Below us in the shallow valley was an orderly line of cars, winking and glittering in the bright sunlight, and beyond them, straggling up the farther slope was a scattered line of tents. The enclosures and the surrounding fields were black with people. They swarmed like ants and, like ants, seemed to be hurrying busily in all directions. Groups formed and divided and reformed endlessly, aimlessly; it was a curious sight. The noise of the crowd and the raucous voices of the bookies shouting the odds for the first race drifted up to our ears.
“We’ll watch the first race from here, shall we,” said Geoff, “and then I’ll go down and put my shirt on Red Star. It is funny how few people come up here. You can see the whole course—or very nearly.”
There were half a dozen people on the hill besides ourselves—a couple of bus drivers, a farmer with a rubicund countenance, two tweed-clad women, and a horsy-looking man in a bowler hat with field glasses glued to his eyes.
“Yes, it is queer,” I agreed. “They start from the tents I suppose. Where is the first jump?”
Geoff tried to explain the course, which was mapped out in the usual way with white and red flags, but he was a little hazy about it, and the horsy-looking man came to the rescue. He pointed out the water-jump and explained that they had to make a circle of the hill upon which we were standing and go over the shoulder of a neighboring hill behind a clump of trees. He seemed to know all about it and to be quite glad to share his knowledge with the bus drivers and ourselves. I seemed to remember the man’s face and concluded that I must have seen him out hunting. “The water-jump is the worst of the lot,” he told us, “and that tall fence comin’ off the plough is a bit nasty, but there’s nothin’ in it really. It’s a stayer you want for this course.”
It was true, I saw that. The jumps were not so serious as I had expected, and I half regretted that I had not entered Brown Betty for the lightweights. Sim had tried to persuade me to do so, and to get somebody to ride her, but I was so afraid of something happening to her, and I disliked the idea of a stranger riding her. If Sim could have ridden her I would have consented at once, but she was not up to Sim’s weight for a grueling race like this, so I had dismissed the idea from my mind.
“They’re off!” exclaimed Geoff.
They streamed across the meadow—a dozen little toy horses with toy men on their backs, gay in pink or workmanlike in black. They took the first jump in a bunch—it was a low wall—and turned toward us across the plough. The dry earth rolled away from beneath their hooves like smoke. Another jump—a hedge this time—and they were breasting the hill. A pink coat on a bright chestnut was leading, and, two lengths behind, came a group of five. The rest had strung out, they were already outpaced. They approached quite near us, so that we could hear the thud of hooves on the dry turf and see the strained faces of the riders as they leaned forward a little to ease the horses up the hill. They rose eas
ily over a turfed wall and fled away toward the woods, where a hunt servant in a pink coat stood like a colored statue against the deep blue of the sky.
“That first feller is going well,” Geoff remarked.
“Gay Day,” said the horsy-looking man. “He has the race in his pocket.”
“It certainly looks like it,” agreed Geoff.
They were approaching the water-jump now. Gay Day had increased his lead and was going easily. I thought the race was safe to him and was already regretting, in the time-honored manner of race-goers, that I had not backed the horse. He was obviously in a different class from his rivals.
“By gad!” exclaimed the horsy man.
Gay Day had refused the water-jump—he had swerved to the left, nearly unseating his rider, and the others had swept past. We watched with some excitement. Gay Day’s rider was by no means beaten yet; he tugged at his horse’s mouth and forced him over the stream. Away he went up the hill after the others. He was still fresh and had plenty of stamina—I felt he might do it yet. They swung round the corner of the wood and disappeared for a few moments. When next they came into view, Gay Day was making up on them with every stride. They took a fence in fine style and went down the hill toward the enclosure at a rattling pace. Gay Day had almost caught them. As they swung into the straight piece of meadow that led to the winning post, he came into the bunch and forged through it. The sound of shouting increased.
I was tense with excitement. He was a splendid horse, and I wanted him to win. I felt he would do it. I was sure he would do it. There was only the black in front of him now, and he was overtaking the black with every stride. His nose was creeping along the black’s side as they raced for the post but the black made a spurt and held him. It was too late for Gay Day; he was beaten by a neck.
“As foine a race as ever I did see,” exclaimed the farmer.
“And as fine a horse,” added Geoff.
“He is, sir,” said the horsy man, shutting his field glasses with a snap. “Gay Day is a fine horse. I’ve ridden him all the winter so I should know his points. The devil only knows why he refused the water. I’ve never known him refuse anythin’.”
“A hunter doesn’t understand racing,” Geoff said. “Give a hunter hounds to follow and he’ll take you over the moon.”
“You’re right, sir,” replied the other eagerly. “By Jove, you’re right—it’s what I’ve always said. Huntin’ for hunters and racin’ for racers. I didn’t want to race Gay Day, but my boy persuaded me. He wanted to ride him, so there you are.”
He put his field glasses into their case, and set off down the hill with the rolling gait of a riding man. I looked at my race-card and found—somewhat to my surprise—that Gay Day’s owner was Lord Bournesworth.
“Did you know it was Lord Bournesworth?” I asked Geoff.
“No, and I don’t much care. He was a decent little cuss. Come on, Charlotte, are you coming to back Sweet Molly or shall I do it for you?”
“I’ll come,” I said. “We needn’t go near the members’ enclosure.”
We followed Lord Bournesworth down the hill, crossed the brook and skirted a bit of plough. As we approached the enclosures, the noise of the shouting increased; it became a roar. Geoff pushed through the crowd which surrounded the bookies’ stands.
“Take a good look at them, Charlotte,” he said. “They’re a dying race. The Tote’s killing them off slowly but surely. In another four years, when I come back from Australia to marry Clementina, the last bookie will be exhibited in a glass case. You’ll probably have to pay sixpence to look at him and another sixpence to hear him shout.”
“I’d rather pay sixpence not to hear him shout,” I replied breathlessly. The bookies looked anything but dying to my inexperienced eyes. Their faces were red and shiny, their voices were deafening. One of them was standing on a couple of packing-cases signaling wildly to a friend in the members’ enclosure.
“I always choose the fattest, they can’t run so fast,” Geoff explained, pushing his way toward an enormous man with a walrus mustache to lay his bet. I followed him and put a pound on Sweet Molly at eight to one. She belonged to Mr. Felstead and although she was not much of a jumper she had plenty of stamina and I knew she could stay the course. Geoff only got three to one for Red Star, he was the favorite.
As I was turning away, I felt a touch on my arm and found a small, fat woman in gray tweeds standing beside me.
“Miss Dean isn’t it?” she inquired. “I am Lady Bournesworth.”
“Oh yes,” I said, slightly dazed with surprise.
“Yes,” she said perkily—she was rather like a fat, perky little bird. “I used to know your father, Miss Dean, a very fine man. The parish has never been the same since he died. Mr. Frale is too much of a recluse. Very clever, of course, but not human. The human touch is missing. I should like to call.”
I was not altogether pleased at these sudden overtures. For one thing I could not understand them, and for another, Hinkleton Manor had been shunned by the County for so long that I had grown used to the solitude of my life. My work and the garden were enough for me. I did not want to be invaded. Last, but not least, I was angry with the neighborhood for ostracizing Garth and his daughter, angry and sore. I had resolved that they could go their own way and Clementina and I would go ours—we could do without them very easily. And now, all of a sudden, for no reason that I could see, we were to be received into the fold—I did not want to be received. But, before I had answered Lady Bournesworth ungraciously, I had changed my mind—what sort of a guardian was I to dream of refusing to be friendly with Clementina’s neighbors? I had grieved because she had no young people to play about with, and here was the opportunity to supply the want. I must pocket my pride—Garth’s pride it was, really—and meet the advances as amiably as I could.
Lady Bournesworth had been watching my face—she was no fool.
“I hope you will allow me to call,” she said graciously. “I should have done it long ago, but I am the world’s worst caller. We want your niece to come over to Bourne in the summer for tennis. There are so few young people about. My grandchildren come to me for the holidays and—”
“Don’t call,” I said. “Come and have tea instead—perhaps one day next week?”
“Yes, that would be delightful…so good of you…Wednesday? No, Wednesday is the Unionist Meeting. We shall have to rope you in to some of our activities, Miss Dean—Thursday would suit me admirably.”
She called to Lord Bournesworth, who was backing a horse, and introduced him to me.
“Diddles, this is Miss Dean,” she said.
“We’ve met before,” he said, smiling. “Miss Dean knows the best place to see the racin’ from. And she knows a good horse when she sees him.”
Several other people who had seen me talking to the Bournesworths came up and introduced themselves, or were introduced. It was quite a social triumph, but, unfortunately, I did not enjoy it. My head buzzed with their names, and I wondered vaguely what it was all about. I saw that if I accepted the various invitations to tea or bridge or to “see the garden” which were being showered upon me, I should soon find myself involved in a social round for which I had neither the desire nor the aptitude. I struggled wildly as I felt the toils closing round me, assuring everybody that I couldn’t play bridge and that I was very busy editing my brother-in-law’s book.
“Are you rahlly?” inquired a sallow youth with an eyeglass whose name I had not caught. “Most int’resting job, what? I read his last book but it was too clever for me, what?”
“I’ve seen you out huntin’, haven’t I?” inquired a tall angular woman with a brown face and bright eyes—she was the woman who rode the chestnut, and I remembered that Sim had told me she was Lady Vera Hill.
“Yes,” I said. “You saved me from a duck-pond.”
There was a general laugh.
> “You’re lucky, Miss Dean,” said a thin man with a weather-beaten face. “Next time you follow Lady Vera she’ll lead you into a bank with a thorn hedge on the top.”
Lady Vera took no notice of him. “Why didn’t you enter that brown mare?” she demanded. “I noticed her at once. Fine action she has—and good hocks. I like good hocks.”
“You’ve pretty fair hocks yourself, Vera,” said the thin man, smiling with bared teeth.
“They’re not too hairy,” she admitted gravely. “But you’re interrupting, Harry. I’m talkin’ to Miss Dean about her mare. You didn’t think of enterin’ her for the lightweights, Miss Dean?”
“I did think of it,” I said, “or rather my groom thought of it—but I hate anybody else riding her.”
Lady Vera looked at me with friendly eyes. “I know,” she said. “It’s hell to see a stranger ridin’ a horse you’re fond of. I lent a man a mare once to ride in a ’chase and he pushed her to death. She came in first and fell down dead. I nearly killed the feller…nicest mare I ever bred. Come and see the stables one day, Miss Dean. I’ve got somethin’ might int’rest you…geldin’ just about your weight…”
I was hemmed in on every side. Geoff had disappeared and left me to my fate. It was not until the horn sounded for the lineup of the runners in the Ladies’ Cup that I found an excuse to escape. I took to my heels and fled from them down the course toward the first jump.
“Good God!” exclaimed Geoff, appearing somewhat breathlessly at my side. “You should go in for a race yourself, Charlotte. You’d beat every horse in the country with your long legs.”
The Young Clementina Page 22