MARGOT: "No, my horse was ..."
STRANGER: "Would you like to wear the blue and buff?"
MARGOT: "It"s pretty for women, but I don"t think it looks sporting for men, though I see you wear it; but in any case I could not get the blue habit."
STRANGER: "Why not?"
MARGOT: "Because the old Duke of Beaufort only gives it to women who own coverts; I am told he hates people who go hard and after today I mean to ride like the devil."
STRANGER: "Oh, do you? But is the "old Duke," as you call him, so severe?"
MARGOT: "I"ve no idea; I"ve never seen him or any other duke!"
STRANGER: "If I told you I could get you the blue habit, what would you say?"
MARGOT (with a patronising smile): "I"m afraid I should say you were running hares!"
STRANGER: "You would have to wear a top-hat, you know, and you would not like that! But, if you are going to ride like the devil, it might save your neck; and in any case it would keep your hair tidy."
MARGOT (anxiously pushing back her stray curls): "Why, is my hair very untidy? It is the first time it has ever been up; and, when I was "thrown from my horse," as the papers call it, all the hair- pins got loose."
STRANGER: "It doesn"t matter with your hair; it is so pretty I think I shall call you Miss Fluffy! By the bye, what is your name?"
When I told him he was much surprised:
"Oh, then you are a sister-in-law of the Ancestor"s, are you?"
This was the first time I ever heard Ribblesdale called "the Ancestor"; and as I did not know what he meant, I said:
"And who are you?"
To which he replied:
"I am the Duke of Beaufort and I am not running hares this time. I will give you the blue habit, but you know you will have to wear a top-hat."
MARGOT: "Good gracious! I hope I"ve said nothing to offend you? Do you always do this sort of thing when you meet any one like me for the first time?"
DUKE OF BEAUFORT (with a smile, lifting his hat): "Just as it is the first time you have ever hunted, so it is the first time I have ever met any one like you."
On the third day with the Beaufort hounds, my horse fell heavily in a ditch with me and, getting up, galloped away. I was picked up by a good-looking man, who took me into his house, gave me tea and drove me back in his brougham to Easton Grey; I fell pa.s.sionately in love with him. He owned a horse called Lardy Dardy, on which he mounted me.
Charty and the others chaffed me much about my new friend, saying that my father would never approve of a Tory and that it was lucky he was married.
I replied, much nettled, that I did not want to marry any one and that, though he was a Tory, he was not at all stupid and would probably get into the Cabinet.
This was my first shrewd political prophecy, for he is in the Cabinet now.
I cannot look at him without remembering that he was the first man I was ever in love with, and that, at the age of seventeen, I said he would be in the Cabinet in spite of his being a Tory.
For pure unalloyed happiness those days at Easton Grey were undoubtedly the most perfect of my life. Lucy"s sweetness to me, the beauty of the place, the wild excitement of riding over fences and the perfect certainty I had that I would ride better than any one in the whole world gave me an insolent confidence which no earthquake could have shaken.
Off and on, I felt qualms over my lack of education; and when I was falling into a happy sleep, dreaming I was overriding hounds, echoes of "Pray, Mamma" out of Mrs. Markham, or early punishments of unfinished poems would play about my bed.
On one occasion at Easton Grey, unable to sleep for love of life, I leant out of the window into the dark to see if it was thawing.
It was a beautiful night, warm and wet, and I forgot all about my education.
The next day, having no mount, I had procured a hireling from a neighbouring farmer, but to my misery the horse did not turn up at the meet; Mr. Golightly, the charming parish priest, said I might drive about in his low black pony-carriage, called in those days a Colorado beetle, but hunting on wheels was no role for me and I did not feel like pursuing the field.
My heart sank as I saw the company pa.s.s me gaily down the road, preceded by the hounds, trotting with a staccato step and their noses in the air.
Just as I was turning to go home, a groom rode past in mufti, leading a loose horse with a lady"s saddle on it. The animal gave a clumsy lurch; and the man, jerking it violently by the head, b.u.mped it into my phaeton. I saw my chance.
MARGOT: "Hullo, man! ... That"s my horse! Whose groom are you?"
MAN (rather frightened at being caught jobbing his lady"s horse in the mouth): "I am Mrs. Chaplin"s groom, miss."
MARGOT: "Jump off; you are the very man I was looking for; tell me, does Mrs. Chaplin ride this horse over everything?"
MAN (quite unsuspicious and thawing at my sweetness and authority): "Bless your soul! Mrs. Chaplin doesn"t "unt this "orse! It"s the Major"s! She only "acked it to the meet."
MARGOT (apprehensively and her heart sinking): "But can it jump?
... Don"t they hunt it?"
MAN (pulling down my habit skirt): "It"s a "orse that can very near jump anythink, I should say, but the Major says it shakes every tooth in "is gums and she says it"s pig-"eaded."
It did not take me long to mount and in a moment I had left the man miles behind me. Prepared for the worst, but in high glee, I began to look about me: not a sign of the hunt! Only odd remnants of the meet, straggling foot-pa.s.sengers, terriers straining at a strap held by drunken runners--some in old Beaufort coats, others in corduroy--one-horse shays of every description by the sides of the road and sloppy girls with stick and tammies standing in gaps of the fences, straining their eyes across the fields to see the hounds.
My horse with a loose rein was trotting aimlessly down the road when, hearing a "Halloa!" I pulled up and saw the hounds streaming towards me all together, so close that you could have covered them with a handkerchief.
What a scent! What a pack! Have I headed the fox? Will they cross the road? No! They are turning away from me! Now"s the moment!!
I circled the Chaplin horse round with great resolution and trotted up to a wall at the side of the road; he leapt it like a stag; we flew over the gra.s.s and the next fence; and, after a little scrambling, I found myself in the same field with hounds.
The horse was as rough as the boy said, but a wonderful hunter; it could not put a foot wrong; we had a great gallop over the walls, which only a few of the field saw.
When hounds checked, I was in despair; all sorts of ladies and gentlemen came riding towards me and I wondered painfully which of them would be Mr. and which Mrs. Chaplin. What was I to do?
Suddenly remembering my new friend and patron, I peered about for the Duke; when I found him and told him of the awkward circ.u.mstances in which I had placed myself, he was so much amused that he made my peace with the Chaplins, who begged me to go on riding their horse. They were not less susceptible to dukes than other people and in any case no one was proof against the old Duke of Beaufort. At the end of the day I was given the brush--a fashion completely abandoned in the hunting-field now--and I went home happy and tired.
CHAPTER IV
MARGOT AT A GIRLS" SCHOOL--WHO SPILT THE INK?--THE ENGINE DRIVER"S MISTAKEN FLIRTATION--MARGOT LEAVES SCHOOL IN DISGUST-- DECIDES TO GO TO GERMANY TO STUDY
Although I did not do much thinking over my education, others did it for me.