Immediately ahead was an open doorway with a low lintel; beyond, in shadow, she caught a glimpse of gold seeds spilling down from a heap of sacks and a graceful gold and white pony tethered beside a black mare. The pony lifted his head and whickered; Jean caught the coarse, exciting odour of fresh grain; she dropped Blackberry’s rein and let her go free, and the next instant Socks sprang forward and charged through the doorway.
She just had time to lower her head. Had it struck the lintel she would have been killed. As it was, when Socks suddenly stood still, she raised herself, confused by the speed with which this had happened, and struck with her scalp the low roof of corrugated iron. It clanged loudly, and Socks snorted with terror and started backwards through the doorway. She was swept from his back by the doorpost and fell on her side into some straw beside the entrance. She sprang up instantly and ran after him; he had halted outside in the yard and stood trembling and glancing wildly from side to side. Of Blackberry there was no sign. She caught the bridle and patted and soothed Socks, but she did not know what she said; she only felt that she was bruised all over and that her hands were scratched; then she saw the head and shield-like breast of Shooting Star, ready for any mischief, rear itself half-way above his stable door.
Socks’s stable door stood open. She coaxed him across the yard towards it, every inch of the way, for he was still uneasy and unwilling to move, and just as they reached it Shooting Star, who was still pressing eagerly over his own stable door, flung up his head and neighed. Socks shied violently and plunged towards him with bared teeth. Jean’s grasp was jerked from the rein, and for an instant she did not know what was happening. Then someone came behind her and gripped Socks’s head over her shoulder, and a man’s voice said fussily:
“What on earth’s the matter?” It was Mr. Waite.
She thankfully retreated and stood at a little distance, rubbing her bruised arms and side and trying to calm the thudding of her heart, while she watched him force the horse into the stable. Socks did not want to go in, and before he got him in Mr. Waite was red in the face and his lower lip stuck out and when he did shut the stable door he slammed it very hard indeed. He looked as if he were going to shake his fist at Socks and cry, “There, my lord!” but instead he turned to her and said crossly as he set his jacket and sleeves to rights:
“Can’t you manage a horse, Miss Hardcastle?”
“Yes, of course I can, usually, but he’s such an extraordinary horse, he seemed so quiet, and we’ve had a spot of bother down in the meadow with a stallion—oh and where’s the pony?—the children! My goodness! I must fly—thanks awfully—” and she was already hurrying away, ignoring her trembling legs and stiff aching arms, when he came after her, saying:
“Are you all right? What happened? Where are the children? I’ll come too. I must help you.”
This last remark, now a favourite joke between Alda and herself, upset Jean into a silly laugh which she stifled in her handkerchief. He looked at her more tolerantly, pleased that she was feeling hysterical.
“Thank you very much,” she said, and explained what had happened.
“Are they down there now alone with the ponies?” interrupted Mr. Waite. “Can they manage them?”
“There’s only one; the other’s wandered off somewhere and they aren’t trying to manage anything; they’re both sitting on Jenny’s jacket, and I expect they’re both howling by now,” she retorted, annoyed by his hectoring tone.
“I’d better get down there at once,” he muttered, and turned back.
“What are you going to do?” staring.
“Ride. It’ll be quicker,” explained Mr. Waite, who did not believe in leaving anything to the intuitions of his listener, “I’ll bring the ponies back with me. You just go quietly on; I’ll overtake you.”
In a few minutes he did. Far off she heard the exciting, joyous thud of released hoofs flying over turf; the next instant there was a gold flash, a streak of white, a whirlwind, and Shooting Star flew past, carrying Mr. Waite to the rescue.
He rode superbly; she had often read in novels old and new of that harmony between horse and rider which makes them look like a single being, and now she saw it, and very beautiful and impressive it was.
A scene of pastoral peace dawned upon her as the meadow came in view. Mr. Waite was conversing with Jenny and Louise, who were both eating something which presumably he had produced from his pocket. Shooting Star was tethered to a gate, eating. The ponies were tethered to other gates, eating. The stallion was at the far end of the wild meadow, eating. Even Mr. Waite had a cigarette in his mouth, and Jean suddenly sighed aloud:
“Oh, I do want my tea!” and remembered that at this very hour they were all supposed to be drinking it in Mr. Waite’s cottage.
“You’ve managed them all!” she said, smiling at him as she came up to the group. “I don’t know what I should have done with Socks if you hadn’t come along. What a horse! Well, Weez, are you all right now?”
Louise nodded, lifting a face still pale, but comfortably touched with chocolate about the mouth and ready to smile.
“Mr. Waite does ride marvellously!” burst out Jenny. “You should have seen him come up on Shooting Star, it was like the pictures!”
Mr. Waite did not smile. “It’s all a question of letting the horse know who’s master,” he said austerely. “Now, you ladies are supposed to be having tea with me this afternoon, you know; I met Mrs. Lucie-Browne in the lane and she told me you were here and I thought I’d come up to meet you. It was a good thing I did, wasn’t it?”
They all meekly agreed that it was.
“Well, then,” looking at his watch, “we’d better be off.” He turned to Jenny. “Can you ride Blackberry back to the stables?”
“Alone or with you?”
“With me.”
“Of course I can,” she said confidently, and it was arranged that Jean and Louise should walk back with Strawberry.
They rode off, Mr. Waite again godlike upon Shooting Star, and Jean wondered that the force of will necessary to subdue the fiery horse had not gained for him a fuller life than that of a chicken-farmer living in the middle of a damp meadow. She also thought that it was as well that her first sight of him had not been when he was on horseback, or she would certainly have fallen in love again.
17
ALDA LEANT AGAINST the gate of Meadow Cottage, delighting in the afternoon sun and hoping that Mr. Waite and Jean were getting to know each other better while strolling home from Rush House.
She had been struck by the impoverished appearance of his home: it was shabbier and uglier than even bachelor habits could account for, and indicated a freezing lack of money in its owner, yet he never spoke of money; the rueful, contemptuous or envious references to the tiresome stuff which most people, in most classes, make from time to time never came from Mr. Waite. Alda neither thought that this showed a pleasant nature nor a peculiar one; she merely thought that Jean had enough for them both. (And indeed, no one would have suspected that Mr. Waite’s silence upon money resembled the silence with which an experienced lover shrouds the name and habits of his mistress: he loves too much to speak her name: if he did, he would betray himself.)
She was just firmly dismissing Meg s suggestion that they should go into the cottage and explore when he came in sight. He was alone.
“Hullo!” called Alda. “Couldn’t you find them?”
He did not answer until he was almost level with her, and she waited, gazing at him curiously. He was carrying his hat and his appearance somehow suggested that he was on his way to a funeral. He said gravely:
“Now there’s nothing to worry about, Mrs. Lucie-Browne; the little girls and Miss Hardcastle have gone back to Pine Cottage, but they’ll be here any minute. There’s been a little accident, but it’s nothing——”
“What happened?” Alda neither paled nor started and her tone was only impatient. Her nerves were healthy, her imagination just active enough to redeem her from th
e accusation of sheer insensitiveness, and her immediate answer to alarming news was usually amusement or anger. Mr. Waite was shocked.
He looked at her, as she stood by the gate with the sunlight shining on her hair and her old jersey, the colour of thick cream, showing up honeysuckle tints in her skin, and he was shocked. How pretty she was, but she lacked femininity.
“The little girl fell off her pony,” he said severely.
“Weez? Poor old goose!” said Alda, and burst out laughing. “Was she hurt?” But she knew that Weez could not have been hurt, or Jean would have sent Jenny with Mr. Waite: Jean would never have let a stranger break bad news.
“She was very much upset, poor little mite,” said Mr. Waite. Here Meg, who had been listening with eyes fixed first upon his face and then upon her mother’s, broke in with the demand:
“Is she goin’ to die?’
“Of course not, dear,” said Mr. Waite very kindly, smiling down upon her upturned face, which expressed an interest that he interpreted as anxiety for her big sister, “she isn’t even scratched or hurt at all.”
“Was there any blood?” persisted Meg.
“Shut up, you little ghoul,” said Alda, gently touching her with her knee. “Weez was only frightened.”
“Oh, oh, poor Weez, oh! oh!” roared Meg, bursting into tears, “oh, oh, I shan’t shut up, Meg wants tea.”
“Yes, and I am sure poor mummy could do with a cup, too,” said Mr. Waite. “Allow me,” and he bustled past Alda into the house. “The big kettle is boiling, and by the time the tea’s drawn the others will be here.”
He was ready to forgive her if she would only be Poor Mummy, but Alda, who had never felt herself as Poor Mummy in her life and who did not relish being cast for the part now, only answered cheerfully, “That would be marvellous,” and, picking up Meg and giving her an angry kiss that silenced her, carried her into the cottage.
Tea was arranged in the parlour, which was even worse than Alda had expected. The walls were distempered dark acid green, the carpet was grey with beige angles, and there were more pictures of those old men with churchwardens, depicting some jolly incident in their carefree Georgian lives. The curtains were faded blue cotton. There was nothing pretty or attractive in the dark little room except the tea-table, which was spread with a dazzling white cloth of finest lawn inlaid with bands of exquisite drawn-threadwork; the cups were a smiling, open shape with elaborate handles that delighted the eye, made from thin china and coloured a clear pink deeply banded with gold. The smooth silver milk jug flashed blue in the afternoon light; the sugar basin repeated its bland surfaces and narrow fretted bands. Bang in the middle of all this elegance, as if Mr. Waite’s resources and energy had suddenly failed, was a hideous Prewitt vase stuffed with primroses.
“Pink cakes,” said Meg, in a hoarse whisper, pointing.
“Please make yourselves at home,” came Mr. Waite’s voice from the back of the house. “The tea’s just coming.”
“May I see your kitchen?” said Alda, and strolled down the passage followed by Meg.
Mr. Waite, who stood beside a filthy old gas stove, warming the teapot, looked embarrassed. He said nothing.
“Why, it’s much nicer than the sitting-room!” exclaimed Alda, looking round, “and what a lovely view over the fields! Why don’t you have meals out here?”
“I do occasionally,” he said, arranging teapot and hot-water jug, “but when ladies come to tea the proper place is the dining-room. Allow me,” and he went out carrying the tray.
You’re rather nice, decided Alda, loitering after him with hands in her pockets; pussyish, but nice.
Voices and footsteps were now heard in the porch and Jean and the children arrived, freshly washed and brushed and wearing everyday clothes. Louise looked pale but complacent.
“Mother, Weez will say she was ‘thrown’!” burst out Jenny. “She wasn’t, was she?”
“How on earth should I know, ducky? I wasn’t there. Well, Weez, did you fall on your seat?”
“She didn’t even fall!” said Jenny indignantly. “Blackberry just walked on a little way and Weez slid off.”
“You’re all right, aren’t you, darling?” Alda caressed Louise’s hair, with a keen look at the child’s face.
“My back aches,” said Louise, not without pride.
“It’s bound to, for a day or two,” said Jean. “I’ll rub it with that stuff of yours to-night, Alda, and it’ll be all right in the morning. I say, is there any tea? I’m collapsing for mine.” She looked pretty, for the walk across the fields had given her a colour and ruffled her fair curls and her diamonds winked against the yellow, green and blue flecks in a suit of soft tweed.
“Ah, there you are.” Mr. Waite appeared at his front door. “We were beginning to think you had got lost,” and he laughed. “Come along in, tea’s all ready.”
He might be seventy-three and old for his age, thought Alda, as they trooped after him back into the house.
Having directed his guests to their allotted seats, he surveyed them in silence. There was a pause. They gazed back at him. Jenny’s lips were shaping the words, “Can we begin? I’m starving,” when Mr. Waite, whose gaze had come to rest on Alda, said:
“Will you be mother, please?” and moved the tea-tray towards her.
“I was just going to; it’s second nature to me by now,” she said, and began to pour out.
There was not enough to eat on the table, a fact which the children saw from their first mouthfuls and which caused Jean and Alda (who were also hungry, the one after the afternoon’s adventures and the other because of a delayed tea hour) to limit their own intake so that Jenny, Louise and Meg might have the more. Mr. Waite neither noticed what they ate nor thought about it, being too busy eating his own share—which was large—and curbing his impatience over the account, which now took place, of the events at Rush House. Alda listened with deep interest, for she had that strong interest in the discussion of everyday events, especially when they admit of some technical analysis, which is felt by practical women who lack the poetic or speculative streak; her faculty of Wonder was slightly underdeveloped. What she relished was anecdote, or information lucidly and lightly conveyed, or the shrewd entertaining dissection of people’s characters but she disliked scandal.
As soon as his guests had finished commenting upon the behaviour of the horses and their riders, Mr. Waite took advantage of their faces being temporarily buried in their cups and mugs to launch into a lecture upon the folly of ladies and kiddies trying to ride horses at all; adorned with sombre illustrations drawn from the fate of ladies known to him and his family who had attempted to ride horses in Daleham and its neighbouring districts.
His audience listened politely for a while, but at the third account of a female coming to equine disaster, Alda broke in impatiently:
“But that doesn’t prove anything. Thousands of women ride horses every day and are all right. I shan’t let this afternoon’s affair make any difference to the children’s lessons.”
“Oh Mother, need I learn any more?” burst out Louise imploringly. Mr. Waite fixed reproachful eyes upon Alda. There, you see, his look said.
“But, darling, it’s such fun! and later on you’ll be so glad that you started when you were quite young.”
Louise projected her lower lip and looked down at her plate. Her eyelids quivered and she was silent.
“It’s super,” said Jenny, giving her a scornful glance.
Louise muttered something that no one could hear.
“You’ll be all right, now you’ve fallen off,” said Jean, soothingly. “Everyone has to fall off once—I don’t know why,” and she giggled.
“Oh yes!” exclaimed Jenny, suddenly; she had been talking in lowered tones with Louise. “Bicycles,” she added, turning to her mother.
“Yes, but that’s a long way off, if we ever do get them, and you can ride every week for twelve weeks now,” said Alda shortly. She was annoyed with Louise at displaying
her timid, over-feminine aspect before Mr. Waite (who needed no confirmation in his view of The Sex), and making herself appear as an unsympathetic mother.
“I’m not frightened of bicycles,” explained Louise, and Jenny’s mutter of “It’s a wonder you aren’t” was lost in the general laugh. Alda took advantage of this happier turn to lead the conversation on to the pleasures of bicycling and tea ended—though Mr. Waite more than once compressed his lips or shook his head—on a cheerful note.
The children ran out to see what Meg persisted in calling “those poor chickens,” and the ladies lingered over a cigarette with their host in the dark little room where one late ray had found its way through the shaded window and the primroses glimmered green and yellow out of the golden dusk.
Six o’clock from the village church chimed slowly across the fields. A silence had fallen in the casual talk: the three figures seated about the table looked very distinct in the soft dim light. Mr. Waite happened to be gazing at Alda.
“Blackbird!” said Jean suddenly and softly, lifting her head so that her hair slid back, and she got up and wandered over to the window and thence out into the garden. The blackbird was singing near at hand but she could not see him.
“We’ll help you wash up,” announced Alda, determined that she would leave Jean alone with him, thus employed, while she went out to find the children.
“I can’t allow that,” said Mr. Waite gallantly, but Alda was already stacking the cups.
“What beautiful things you have,” she said civilly: she could never admire any objects, except those made by God, without a slight feeling of envy.
“These are my mother’s; they come from The Old Home,” said Mr. Waite and the faithful negro servants, the porch fragrant with mint juleps, the family portraits and the Federal hordes were all contained in his tone.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll break them?” asked Alda, giving him one backward glance as she went out of the door. It was bad of her, but she could not help it; in another minute she would have flung open a window and shrieked.