‘Dear me, the shaft of the carriage broken!’ cried Elfride. She was disappointed: Stephen doubly so. The vicar showed more warmth of temper than the accident seemed to demand, much to Stephen’s uneasiness and rather to his surprise. He had not supposed so much latent sternness could co-exist with Mr. Swancourt’s frankness and good-nature.
‘You shall not be disappointed,’ said the vicar at length. ‘It is almost too long a distance for you to walk. Elfride can trot down on her pony, and you shall have my old nag, Smith.’
Elfride exclaimed triumphantly, ‘You have never seen me on horseback – Oh, you must!’ She looked at Stephen and read his thoughts immediately. ‘Ah, you don’t ride, Mr. Smith?’
‘I am sorry to say I don’t.’
‘Fancy a man not able to ride!’ said she rather pertly.
The vicar came to his rescue. ‘That’s common enough; he has had other lessons to learn. Now, I recommend this plan: let Elfride ride on horseback, and you, Mr. Smith, walk beside her.’
The arrangement was welcomed with secret delight by Stephen. It seemed to combine in itself all the advantages of a long slow ramble with Elfride, without the contingent possibility of the enjoyment being spoilt by her becoming weary. The pony was saddled and brought round.
‘Now, Mr. Smith,’ said the lady imperatively, coming downstairs, and appearing in her riding-habit, as she always did in a change of dress, like a new edition of a delightful volume, ‘you have a task to perform to-day. These earrings are my very favourite darling ones; but the worst of it is that they have such short hooks that they are liable to be dropped if I toss my head about much, and when I am riding I can’t give my mind to them. It would be doing me knight service if you keep your eyes fixed upon them, and remember them every minute of the day, and tell me directly I drop one. They have had such hairbreadth escapes, haven’t they, Unity?’ she continued to the parlour-maid who was standing at the door.
‘Yes, miss, that they have!’ said Unity with round-eyed commiseration.
‘Once ‘twas in the lane that I found one of them,’ pursued Elfride reflectively.
‘And then ‘twas by the gate into Eighteen Acres,’ Unity chimed in.
‘And then ‘twas on the carpet in my own room,’ rejoined Elfride merrily.
‘And then ‘twas dangling on the embroidery of your petticoat, miss; and then ‘twas down your back, miss, wasn’t it? And oh, what a way you was in, miss, wasn’t you? my! until you found it!’
Stephen took Elfride’s slight foot upon his hand: ‘One, two, three, and up!’ she said.
Unfortunately not so. He staggered and lifted, and the horse edged round; and Elfride was ultimately deposited upon the ground rather more forcibly than was pleasant. Smith looked all contrition.
‘Never mind,’ said the vicar encouragingly; ‘try again! ‘Tis a little accomplishment that requires some practice, although it looks so easy. Stand closer to the horse’s head, Mr. Smith.’
‘Indeed, I shan’t let him try again,’ said she with a microscopic look of indignation. ‘Worm, come here, and help me to mount.’ Worm stepped forward, and she was in the saddle in a trice.
Then they moved on, going for some distance in silence, the hot air of the valley being occasionally brushed from their faces by a cool breeze, which wound its way along ravines leading up from the sea.
‘I suppose,’ said Stephen, ‘that a man who can neither sit in a saddle himself nor help another person into one seems a useless incumbrance; but, Miss Swancourt, I’ll learn to do it all for your sake; I will, indeed.’
‘What is so unusual in you,’ she said, in a didactic tone justifiable in a horsewoman’s address to a benighted walker, ‘is that your knowledge of certain things should be combined with your ignorance of certain other things.’
Stephen lifted his eyes earnestly to hers.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘it is simply because there are so many other things to be learnt in this wide world that I didn’t trouble about that particular bit of knowledge. I thought it would be useless to me; but I don’t think so now. I will learn riding, and all connected with it, because then you would like me better. Do you like me much less for this?’
She looked sideways at him with critical meditation tenderly rendered.
‘Do I seem like LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI?’ she began suddenly, without replying to his question. ‘Fancy yourself saying, Mr. Smith:
“I sat her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy’s song,
She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew;”
and that’s all she did.’
‘No, no,’ said the young man stilly, and with a rising colour.
‘“And sure in language strange she said,
I love thee true.”’
‘Not at all,’ she rejoined quickly. ‘See how I can gallop. Now, Pansy, off!’ And Elfride started; and Stephen beheld her light figure contracting to the dimensions of a bird as she sank into the distance – her hair flowing.
He walked on in the same direction, and for a considerable time could see no signs of her returning. Dull as a flower without the sun he sat down upon a stone, and not for fifteen minutes was any sound of horse or rider to be heard. Then Elfride and Pansy appeared on the hill in a round trot.
‘Such a delightful scamper as we have had!’ she said, her face flushed and her eyes sparkling. She turned the horse’s head, Stephen arose, and they went on again.
‘Well, what have you to say to me, Mr. Smith, after my long absence?’
‘Do you remember a question you could not exactly answer last night – whether I was more to you than anybody else?’ said he.
‘I cannot exactly answer now, either.’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘Because I don’t know if I am more to you than any one else.’
‘Yes, indeed, you are!’ he exclaimed in a voice of intensest appreciation, at the same time gliding round and looking into her face.
‘Eyes in eyes,’ he murmured playfully; and she blushingly obeyed, looking back into his.
‘And why not lips on lips?’ continued Stephen daringly.
‘No, certainly not. Anybody might look; and it would be the death of me. You may kiss my hand if you like.’
He expressed by a look that to kiss a hand through a glove, and that a riding-glove, was not a great treat under the circumstances.
‘There, then; I’ll take my glove off. Isn’t it a pretty white hand? Ah, you don’t want to kiss it, and you shall not now!’
‘If I do not, may I never kiss again, you severe Elfride! You know I think more of you than I can tell; that you are my queen. I would die for you, Elfride!’
A rapid red again filled her cheeks, and she looked at him meditatively. What a proud moment it was for Elfride then! She was ruling a heart with absolute despotism for the first time in her life.
Stephen stealthily pounced upon her hand.
‘No; I won’t, I won’t!’ she said intractably; ‘and you shouldn’t take me by surprise.’
There ensued a mild form of tussle for absolute possession of the much-coveted