“Well, I don’t know,” said Charley, hesitating; for he was thinking whether it would not be better than going quite alone – “I don’t know what to say.”
“Sa-a-ay? Sa-a-ay ya-a-s,” drawled Bray. “Come in good time and have a weed first in my room; and then we’ll taste some sherry the governor has got da-awn. He always leaves it till I come da-awn from ta-awn. Orders execrable stuff himself, as I often tell him. Wouldn’t have a drop fit to drink if it weren’t for me. You’d better come.”
“Well, really,” said Charley again, half mockingly, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Why, sa-a-ay ya-a-as, and come.”
“Well, then, ‘ya-a-as’!” drawled Charley, in imitation of the other’s tone.
But Maximilian Bray’s skin was too thick for the little barb to penetrate; and he rode gingerly on, petting his whiskers, and altering the sit of his hat; when, being thoroughly occupied with his costume, horse and man nearly came headlong to the ground, in consequence of the mare stumbling over a small heap of road-scrapings. But the little animal saved herself, though only by a violent effort, which completely unseated Maximilian Bray, who was thrown forward upon her neck, his hat being dislodged and falling with a sharp bang into the dusty road.
“All right! No bones broken! You’ve better luck than I have!” laughed Charley, as he fished up the fallen hat with his hunting-whip. “Nip her well with your knees, man, and then you won’t be unseated again in that fashion. Here, take your hat.”
“Bai Jove!” ejaculated the breathless dandy, “it’s too bad! That fellow who left the sweepings by the roadside ought to be shot! Mai dear fellow, your governor, as a magistrate, ought to see to it! Tha-a-anks!”
He took his hat, and began ruefully to wipe off the dust with a scented handkerchief before again covering his head; but though he endeavoured to preserve an outward appearance of calm, there was wrath in his breast as he gazed down at one lemon-coloured tight glove split to ribbons, and a button burst away from his surtout coat. He could feel too that his moustache was coming out of curl, and it only wanted the sharp shower which now came pattering down to destroy the last remains of his equanimity.
“Bai Jove, how beastly unfortunate!” he exclaimed, urging his steed into a smart canter.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Charley coolly, in his rough tweed suit that no amount of rain would have injured. “Better to-day than to-morrow. Do no end of good, and bring on the hay.”
“Ya-a-as, I suppose so,” drawled Bray; “but do a confounded deal of harm!” and he gazed at the sleeves of his glossy Saville-row surtout.
“O, never mind your coat, man!” laughed Charley. “See how it lays the dust!”
“Ya-a-as, just so,” drawled Bray. “I shall take this short cut and get home. Only a shower! Bye-bye! See you to-morrow! Come to lunch.”
The ragged lemon glove was waved to Charley as its owner turned down a side lane; and now that his costume was completely disordered and wet, he made no scruple about digging his spurs into his mare’s flanks, and galloping homewards; while, heedless of the sharply-falling rain, Charley gently cantered on towards the town.
“Damsels in distress!” exclaimed the young man suddenly. “‘Bai Jove!’ as Long-ears says. Taken refuge from the rain beneath a tree! Leaves, young and weak, completely saturated – impromptu shower – bath! What shall I do? Lend them my horse? No good. They would not ride double, like Knight Templars. Ride off, then, for umbrellas, I suppose. Why didn’t that donkey stop a little longer? and then he could have done it.”
So mused Charley Vining as he cantered up to where, beneath a spreading elm by the roadside, two ladies were waiting the cessation of the rain – faring, though, very little better than if they had stood in the open. One was a fashionably-dressed, tall, dark, bold beauty, black of eye and tress, and evidently in anything but the best of tempers with the weather; the other a fair pale girl, in half-mourning, whose yellow hair was plainly braided across her white forehead, but only to be knotted together at the back in a massive cluster of plaits, which told of what a glorious golden mantle it could have shed over its owner, rippling down far below the waist, and ready, it seemed, to burst from prisoning comb and pin. There was something ineffably sweet in her countenance, albeit there was a subdued, even sorrowful look as her shapely little head was bent towards her companion, and she was evidently speaking as Charley cantered up.
“Sorry to see you out in this, Miss Bray,” he cried, raising his low-crowned hat. “What can I do? – Fetch umbrellas and shawls? Speak the word.”
“O, how kind of you, Mr Vining!” exclaimed the dark maiden, with brightening eyes and flushing cheeks. “But really I should not like to trouble you.”
“Trouble? Nonsense!” cried Charley. “Only speak before you get wet through.”
“Well, if you really – really, you know – would not mind,” hesitated Laura Bray, who, in spite of the rain, was in no hurry to bring the interview to a close.
“Wouldn’t mind? Of course not!” echoed Charley, whose bold eyes were fixed upon Laura Bray’s companion, who timidly returned his salute, and then shrank back, as he again raised his little deer-stalker hat from its curly throne. “Now, then,” he exclaimed, “what’s it to be? – shawls and Sairey Gamps of gingham and tape?”
“No, no, Mr Vining! How droll you are!” laughed the beauty. “But if you really wouldn’t mind – really, you know – ”
“I tell, you, Miss, Bray, that, I, shall, only, be, too, happy,” said Charley, in measured tones.
“Then, if you wouldn’t mind riding to the Elms, and asking them to send the brougham, I should be so much obliged!”
“All right!” cried Charley, turning his mare. “Max has only just left me.”
“But it seems such a shame to send you away through all this rain!” said Laura loudly.
“Fudge!” laughed Charley, as, putting his mare at the hedge in front, she skimmed over it like a bird, and her owner galloped across country, to the great disadvantage of several crops of clover.
“What a pity!” sighed Laura to herself, as she watched the retreating form. “And the rain will be over directly. I wonder whether he’ll come back!”
“Do you think we need wait?” said her companion gently. “The rain has ceased now, and the sun is breaking; through the clouds.”
“O, of course, Miss Bedford!” said Laura pettishly. “It would be so absurd if the carriage came and found us gone;” when, seeing that the dark beauty evidently wished to be alone with her thoughts, the other remained silent.
“Who in the world can that be with her?” mused Charley, as he rode along. “Might have had the decency to introduce me, anyhow. Don’t know when I’ve seen a softer or more gentle face. Splendid hair too! No sham there: no fear of her moulting a curl here and a tress there, if her back hair came undone. No, she don’t seem as if there were any sham about her – quiet, ladylike, and nice. ’Pon my word, I believe Laura Bray would make a better man than Max. Seem to like those silver-grey dresses with a black-velvet jacket, they look so – There, what a muff I am, going right out of the way, while that little darling is getting wet as a sponge! Easy, lass! Now, then – over!” he cried to his mare, as she skimmed another hedge. “Wonder what her name is! Some visitor come to the flower-show, I suppose —fiancée of Long-ears probably. Steady, then, Beauty!” he cried again to the mare, who, warming to her work, was beginning to tear furiously over the ground; for, preoccupied by thought, Charley had inadvertently been using his spurs pretty freely.
But he soon reduced his steed to a state of obedience, and rode on, musing upon his late encounter.
“Can’t be!” he thought. “A girl with a head like that would never take up with such a donkey! Ah, there he goes, drenched like