the parlor-maid, how Angelica felt, and he repented his act. He had
tried to buy the mare back, but the man to whom he had sold her had
sold her to a dealer, and he had sold her to somebody who had gone
abroad, and no one knew what this person had done with her. So Lady
Washington had disappeared, and Angelica mourned for her. Two years
passed, two years that were filled with doubt and disappointment.
Each autumn Jim went North with his horses, but never suggested
taking Angelica. As for Angelica, the subject was too near her heart
for her to broach it. Thus it seemed that life was slipping away,
harshly withholding opportunity.
That November, for reasons of his own, Jim decided to take Angelica
along with him. When he told her of his intention, she gasped, but
made no demonstration. On the threshold of fulfilling her hope she
was afraid to exult: she knew how things are snatched away the
moment one begins to count upon them; but inwardly she was happy to
the point of apprehension. On the trip North she “knocked wood”
scrupulously every time she was lured into a day-dream which
pictured the finding of Lady Washington, and thus she gave the evil
forces of destiny no opening.
The first hour of the show overwhelmed her. It was too splendid and
mystifying to be comprehended immediately, or to permit a divided
attention. Even Lady Washington dropped out of her thoughts, but
only until the jumping classes began. The first hunter that trotted
across the tan-bark brought her back to her quest.
But after two days the mystery was no more a mystery, and the
splendor had faded out. The joy of it had faded out, too. For two
days she had pored over the entry-lists and had studied every horse
that entered the ring; but the search for Lady Washington had been a
vain one. Furthermore, all the best horses by this time had appeared
in some class, and the chances of Lady Washington’s turning up
seemed infinitesimal. Reluctantly she gave up hope. She explained it
to herself that probably there had been a moment of vainglorious
pride when she had neglected to “knock wood.” She would have liked
to discuss it with somebody; but Chloe and her colored mammy, who
understood such matters, were at the “Pines” in Virginia, and Jim
would probably laugh at her; so she maintained silence and kept her
despair to herself.
It was the evening of the third day, and she was at the show again,
dressed in her habit, because she was going to ride. Her brother was
at the other end of the Garden, hidden by a row of horses. He was
waiting to show in a class of park hacks. There was nothing in it
that looked like Lady Washington, and she turned her eyes away from
the ring with a heavy heart. The band had stopped playing, and there
was no one to talk to but her aunt’s maid, and this maid was not
companionable. She fell to watching the people in the boxes; she
wished that she knew some of them. There was a box just below her
which looked attractive. There were two pretty women in it, and some
men who looked as if they were nice; they were laughing and seemed
to be having a good time. She wished she was with them, or home, or
anywhere else than where she was.
Presently the music struck up again; the hum of the innumerable
voices took a higher pitch. The ceaseless current of promenaders
staring and bowing at the boxes went slowly around and around.
Nobody paid any attention to the horses, but all jostled and
chattered and craned their necks to see the people. When her
brother’s Redgauntlet took the blue ribbon in the heavy-weight
green-hunter class, not a person in the whole Garden applauded
except herself. She heard a man ask, “What took the blue?” And she
heard his friend answer, “Southern horse, I believe; don’t know the
owner.” They didn’t even know Jim! She would have left the place and
gone back to her aunt’s for a comfortable cry, but she was going to
ride Hilda in the ladies’ saddle class, which came toward the end of
the evening.
The next thing on the program were some qualified hunters which
might be expected to show some good jumping. This was something to
be thankful for, and she turned her attention to the ring.
“I think I’ll go down on the floor,” she said to the maid. “I’m
tired of sitting still.”
In theory Miss Angelica Stanton was at the horse show escorted by
her brother; but in fact she was in the custody of Caroline, the
maid of her aunt Henrietta Cushing, who lived in Washington Square.
Miss Cushing was elderly, and she disapproved of the horse show
because her father had been a charter member of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and because to go to it in the
afternoon interfered with her drive and with her tea, while to go to
it in the evening interfered with her whist, and that was not to be
thought of. Consequently, when Angelica arrived, the horse show
devolved upon Caroline, who accepted the situation not altogether
with resignation. She had done Miss Cushing’s curls for twenty
years, and had absorbed her views.
Angelica would have preferred stopping at the hotel with Jim; but
that, he said, was out of the question. Jim admitted that Aunt
Henrietta was never intentionally entertaining, but he said that
Angelica needed her womanly influence. Jim had brought up Angelica,
and the problem sometimes seemed a serious one. She was now sixteen,
and he was satisfied that she was going to be a horsewoman, but at
times he doubted whether his training was adequate in other
respects, and that was why he had brought her to the horse show and
had incarcerated her at Aunt Henrietta’s.
The girl led Caroline through the crowd, and took a position at the
end, between the first and last jumps. As the horses were shown,
they went round the ring, came back, and finished in front of them.
It was the best place from which to watch, if one wished to see the
jumping.
Angelica admitted to herself that some of the men rode pretty well,
but not as well as some of the men rode at their out-of-door shows
at home; and the tan-bark was not as good as turf. It was a large
class, and after eight or ten had been shown, a striking-looking
black mare came out of the line and started plunging and rearing
toward the first jump. Her rider faced her at the bars, and she
minced reluctantly forward. Just before they reached the wings the
man struck her. She stopped short and whirled back into the ring.
From the time the black mare appeared Angelica’s heart almost
stopped beating. “I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it!” she gasped.
“Three white feet and the star. Caroline,” she said, “that’s Lady
Washington. He oughtn’t to strike her. He mustn’t!”
“Hush, miss,” said Caroline. “We’ll be conspicuous.”
The man was bringing the mare back toward the jump. As before, he
used his whip, intending to drive her into the wings, and, as
before, she stopped, reared angrily, wheeled about, and came back
plunging. The man quieted her after a little, and turned her again
toward the hurdle. It was his last chance. She came up sulkily,
tossing her head and edging away from the bars. As he got near the
wings he raised his whip again. Then the people in that part of the
Garden heard a girl’s shrill, excited voice cry out: “You mustn’t
hit her! Steady, Lady Washington! Drop your curb!” The black mare’s
ears went forward at the sound of the voice. The young man on her
back put down his uplifted whip and loosened the rein on the bit. He
glanced around with an embarrassed smile, and the next instant he
was over the jump, and the mare was galloping for the hurdle beyond.
Suddenly Angelica became conscious that several thousand people were
staring at her with looks of wonder and amusement. Caroline clutched
her arm and dragged her away from the rail. The girl colored, and
shook herself free.
“I don’t care,” she said. “He shouldn’t have hit her. She can jump
anything if she’s ridden right. I knew we’d find her,” she muttered
excitedly. “I knew it!”
Caroline struggled desperately through the crowd with her charge.
“Whatever will Miss Cushing say!” she gasped.
Angelica forgot the crowd. “I don’t care,” she said. “If Aunt
Henrietta had ever owned Lady Washington she’d have done the same
thing. And if you tell her I’ll pay you back. She’ll know that you
let me leave my seat, and she told you not to.” This silenced
Caroline.
“There! He’s fussed her mouth again,” she went on. The black mare
had refused, and was rearing at the jump next the last. The girl
stood on tiptoe and watched impatiently for a moment.
“There she goes,” she murmured, with a sigh. The judges had ordered
the horse out.
Angelica tagged along disconsolately through the crowd till a
conversation between two men who were leaning against the rail
caught her ear.
“I wonder who that little girl was,” said one. “The mare seemed to
know her voice, but Reggie doesn’t call her Lady Washington.”
“No—Hermione,” said the other. “He may have changed it, though,” he
added. “He gives them all names beginning with H.”
“You’ll have an easy time beating him in the five-foot-six jumps,”
said the first man. “It’s a good mare, but he can’t ride her.”
Angelica wondered who they were, but they turned around just then,
and she dropped her eyes and hurried after Caroline.
As they made their way through the crowd, a nudge from the maid took
her thoughts from Lady Washington. She had been wondering how she
would find the young man who had ridden her. She looked up and saw
that a man was bowing to her. It was Mr. “Billy” Livingstone. Mr.
Livingstone was nearly sixty, but he had certain qualities of
permanent youth which made him “Billy” to three generations.
“Hello, Angelica!” he exclaimed. “When did you turn up? How you’ve
grown!”
“I came up North with Jim,” she replied.
“You should have let me know,” he said. “You know Jim never writes
any one. This is the first time I’ve been here. I’m just back from
the country. Where’s your box—that is, who are you with?”
“I’m here with my maid,” said Angelica, with a somewhat conscious
dignity. “Jim is with the horses.”
Livingstone looked from the slender girl to the substantial
Caroline, and the corners of his mouth twitched.
“I prefer to be alone this way,” she explained. “It’s more
independent.”
Mr. Livingstone thought a moment. “Of course that’s so,” he said.
“But I think I’ve got a better plan; let’s hunt up Mrs. Dicky
Everett.”
“Is she an old woman?” asked Angelica.
“Not so terribly old,” said Mr. Livingstone. “I suppose you’d call
her middle-aged.”
“Thirty?” asked Angelica.
“Near it, I’m afraid,” he answered.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Angelica. “That’s pretty old. She won’t
have anything to say to me.”
“She knows something about a horse,” said Livingstone, “though, of
course, she can’t ride the way you do. If you find her stupid, I’ll
take you away; but I want you to come because she will be very nice
to me for bringing you.”
He turned to Caroline. “I’m a friend of Miss Stanton’s brother. Go
to your seat, and I’ll bring Miss Stanton back to you.”
Then he led the way up the stairs, and Angelica followed, wondering
what sort of person Mrs. “Dicky” Everett might be.
She cheered herself with the thought that she could not be any older
or more depressing than Aunt Henrietta, and if she was fond of
horses she might know who owned Lady Washington.
Livingstone consulted his program. “It’s down on this side,” he
said. She followed him mechanically, with her eyes wandering toward
the ring, till presently they stopped.
“Hello!” she heard them call to Livingstone, as he stepped in ahead
of her, and the next moment she realized that she was in the very
box which she had watched from her seat among the chairs.
“I want to present you to my friend Miss Stanton,” Livingstone said.
He repeated the names, but they made no impression upon her, because
there, standing in front of her, was the young man who had ridden
Lady Washington.
“You seem to know each other,” said Livingstone. “Am I wasting my
breath? Is this a joke?”
He looked at Angelica. She was speechless with mixed joy and
embarrassment.
“Come here, my dear,” said one of the two pretty women, “and sit
down beside me. Miss Stanton,” she went on to Livingstone, “very
kindly tried to teach Reggie how to ride Hermione, and we are glad
to have the chance to thank her.”
“I don’t understand at all,” said Livingstone. “But there are so
many things that I shall never understand that one more makes no
difference.”
Angelica’s self-confidence began to come back.
“Why, he was riding Lady Washington with a whip,” she explained.
“And I just called out to him not to. You remember Lady
Washington,—she was a four-year-old when you were at the Pines,—and
you know you never could touch her with a whip.”
“I remember very well,” said Livingstone. “You flattered me by
offering to let me ride her, an offer which, I think, I declined.
When did you sell her?”
“Two years ago,” said Angelica.
Then the other young woman spoke. “But how did you recognize the
horse?” she asked. “You haven’t seen it for two years.”
“Recognize her!” exclaimed Angelica. “I guess if you had ever owned
Lady Washington you would have recognized her. I broke her as a
two-year-old, and schooled her myself. Jim says she’s the best mare
we ever had.” Angelica looked at the woman pityingly. She was
sweet-looking and had beautiful clothes, but she was evidently a
goose.
“Miss Stanton won the high jump with the mare,” Livingstone
remarked, “at their hunt show down in Virginia.”
“It was only six feet,” said the girl, “but she can do better than
that. Jim wouldn’t let me ride her at anything bigger.”
“I should hope not,” said the lady by whose side she was sitting.
Then she asked suddenly, “You are not Jimmie Stanton’s sister?”
“Yes,” said Angelica.
“I’d like to know why he hasn’t brought you to see me!”
“He’s awfully busy with the horses,” the girl replied. “He has to
stop at the Waldorf and see about the show with the men, and he
makes me stay with Aunt Henrietta Cushing.” She stopped abruptly.
She was afraid that what she had said might sound disloyal. “I like
to stop with Aunt Henrietta,” she added solemnly. “Besides, I’ve
been busy looking for Lady Washington.”
The young man whom they called Reggie, together with Mr. Livingstone
and the lady beside Angelica, laughed openly at this allusion to
Miss Cushing.
“Do you know her?” asked Angelica.
“Oh, everybody knows your Aunt Henrietta,” said the lady.
“And loves her,” added Livingstone, solemnly.
The lady laughed a little. “You see, she’s connected with nearly
everybody. She’s a sort of connection of Reggie’s and mine, so I
suppose we’re sort of cousins of yours. I hope you will like us.”
“I don’t know much about my relations on my mother’s side,” Angelica
observed. The distinction between connections and relatives had
never been impressed upon her. She was about to add that Jim said
that his New York relatives tired him, but caught herself. She
paused uneasily.
“Please excuse me,” she said, “but I didn’t hear Mr. Livingstone
introduce me to you.”
“Why,” said Livingstone, who overheard, “this is Mrs. Everett. I
told you we were coming into her box.
“I thought she must have stepped out,” said Angelica. “You told me
she was middle-aged.”
A peal of laughter followed.
“Angelica! Angelica!” Livingstone exclaimed.
“But you did,” said Angelica. “I asked you if she was an old lady,
and you said, ‘Not so terribly old—middle-aged.’ And she’s not;
she’s young.”
“Things can never be as they were before,” said Livingstone,
mournfully, as the laughter died away.
“No,” said Mrs. Everett.
There was a pause, and one of the men turned to Reggie. “What are
you going to do about the five-foot-six jumps?”
“Let it go,” said Reggie.
“It’s a pity,” said the other. “If you had met Miss Stanton earlier
in the evening, I think she could have taught you to ride that mare.
I wanted to see you win your bet.”
“Bet?” said Livingstone.
“Reggie’s such an idiot,” said Mrs. Everett. “He bet Tommy Post that
Hermione would beat his chestnut in the five-foot-six jumps, and
Reggie can’t make Hermione jump at all, so he’s lost.”
“Not yet; I’ve got a chance,” said Reggie, good-naturedly. “Perhaps
I’ll go in, after all.” The other men laughed.
“I should think you had made monkey enough of yourself for one
evening,” observed Palfrey, who was his best friend and could say
such things.
“Five feet six would be easy for Lady Washington,” said Angelica. “I
can’t get used to calling her by that new name.” She hesitated a
moment with embarrassment, and then she stammered: “Why don’t you
let _me_ ride her?”
The people in the box looked aghast.
“I’m afraid it wouldn’t do,” said Reggie, seriously. “It’s awfully
good of you, but, you see, it wouldn’t look well to put a lady on
that horse. Suppose something should happen?”
“Good of me!” the girl exclaimed. “I’d love it! I want to ride her
again so much!”
“Well,” said Reggie, “I’ll have her at the park for you tomorrow
morning. You can ride her whenever you like.”
A low cry of alarm ran through the Garden, and the conversation in
the box hushed. A tandem cart had tipped over, and the wheeler was
kicking it to pieces.
“I don’t like that sort of thing,” said Mrs. Everett, with a
shudder.
They finally righted the trap, and the driver limped off to show
that he was not hurt. The great crowd seemed to draw a long breath
of relief, and the even hum of voices went on again. The judges
began to award the ribbons, and Angelica looked down at her program.
“Dear me!” she exclaimed. “The saddle class I’m going to ride in is
next. I’m afraid I’ll be late. Good-by.”
“Good-by,” they all replied.
“Don’t you come,” she said to Livingstone. “It’s just a step.”
“I must keep my word with Caroline,” he answered, and he took her to
her seat.
“She’s immense, isn’t she?” he said, as he came back. “I’m glad
Reggie didn’t let her ride that brute. She will be killed one of
these days.”
“She’s going to be a great beauty,” said Mrs. Everett.
“She looks like her blessed mother,” said Livingstone. “I was very
fond of her mother. I think that if it hadn’t been for Stanton—”
“Stop!” interrupted Mrs. Everett. “Your heart-tragedies are too
numerous. Besides, if you _had_ married her you wouldn’t be here
trying to tell us why you didn’t.” And they all laughed, and
cheerfully condemned the judging of the tandem class.
* * * * *
The negro groom who had come up with the Stanton horses met Angelica
as she was going down-stairs into the basement where the stalls
were. Jim had not appeared, so Angelica and Caroline had started off
alone.
“Hilda’s went lame behind, Miss Angie,” the man said. “She must have
cast huhself. They ain’t no use to show huh.”
Ordinarily this calamity would have disturbed Angelica, but the
discovery of Lady Washington was a joy which could not be dimmed.
“Have you told my brother?” she asked.
“Yes, Miss Angie,” said the man. “He was gwine to tell you.”
“I want to see her,” said Angelica, and they went on toward the
stall. But what Angelica most wanted was to get among the horses and
look for a certain black mare.
Hilda was very lame, and there was fever in the hock. Angelica
patted her neck, and turned away with a side glance at Caroline,
who, she feared, would rebel at being led through the horses’
quarters. She walked down the row of stalls till she came to the
corner, then up through another passage till she stopped at a big
box-stall over the side of which stretched a black head set on a
long, thoroughbred-looking neck.
The small, fine ears, the width between the eyes, the square little
muzzle, were familiar; and there was a white star on the forehead.
But Angelica did not enumerate these things. Horses to her had
personalities and faces, just as people had them. She recognized
Lady Washington as she had recognized Mr. Livingstone. She made a
little exclamation, and, standing on tiptoe, put her arms about the
mare’s neck, and kissed it again and again.
“The dear! She remembers me!” the girl said, wiping her eyes. “It’s
Lady Washington,” she explained to Caroline. She reached up to
fondle the little muzzle, and the mare nipped playfully.
“Look out, miss,” called the stable-boy, who was sitting on a
soap-box; “she’s mean.”
“She’s no such thing,” said the girl.
“Oh, ain’t she?” said the boy.
“Well, if she is, you made her so,” retorted Angelica.
The boy grinned. “I ain’t only been in the stable two weeks,” he
said. “She caught me on the second day and nigh broke me leg. You
see her act in the ring? Mr. Haughton says he won’t ride her no
more, and she’s entered in the five-foot-six jumps.”
The girl looked thoughtfully at the boy and then at the horse. An
idea had come to her. She was reflecting upon the last words Mr.
Haughton had spoken before she left the box: “_You can ride her
whenever you like_.”
“I know,” she said aloud. “I’m going to ride her in that class. I’m
Miss Stanton. I used to own her, you know. My saddle is down there
with Mr. Stanton’s horses, and I want you to go and get it.”
“Oh, never, Miss Angelica!” exclaimed Caroline. “Dear me, not that!”
“You hush,” said Angelica.
The stable-boy looked at her incredulously. “I ain’t had no orders,
miss,” he said. “I’ll have to see William. Did Mr. Haughton say you
might?”
“Of course he said I might,” she replied.
The boy said no more and went off after William.
“Of course he said I might,” she repeated half aloud. “Didn’t he say
I might ride her ‘whenever I wanted to’? ‘Whenever’ is any time, and
I want to now.” She fortified herself behind this sophistry, but she
was all in a flutter lest Jim or Mr. Haughton should appear. The
thought, however, of being on Lady Washington’s back, and showing
people that she wasn’t sulky and bad-tempered, was a temptation too
strong to be resisted.
The boy came back with the head groom, to whom he had explained the
matter.
“Why, miss,” said William, “she’d kill you. I wouldn’t want to show
her myself. Mr. Haughton, miss, must have been joking. Honest, miss,
you couldn’t ride Hermione.” The man was respectful but firm.
“Think what Miss Cushing would say,” said Caroline.
“But I tell you I can,” retorted Angelica. She paid no attention to
Caroline; her temper flashed up. “You don’t seem to understand. I
owned that mare when she was Lady Washington, and broke her all
myself, and schooled her, too. Mr. Haughton hasn’t any ‘hands,’ and
he ought to know better than to raise a whip on her.”
William grinned at the unvarnished statement about his master’s
“hands.”
“Are you the young lady what called out to him in the ring?” he
asked.
“Yes, I am,” said Angelica. “And if he’d done what I told him to she
would have won. Here’s our Emanuel,” she went on. “He’ll tell you I
can ride her. Emanuel,” she demanded, as the negro approached,
“haven’t I ridden Lady Washington?”
“You jest have, Miss Angie,” said Emanuel. “Why,” said he, turning
to William, “this heah young lady have rode that maah ovah six feet.
She done won the high jump at ouah hunt show. That’s Lady Washington
all right,” he went on, looking at the head poked out over the
stall. “I got huh maahk on mah ahm foh to remembah huh.”
The stable-boy grinned.
“Well, she never bit me,” said Angelica.
“The young lady,” said William, doubtfully, “wants to ride her in
the five-foot-six class. She says Mr. Haughton said she might.”
“Oh, Miss Angelica,” interposed Caroline, “you’ll be kilt!”
“You’re a goose,” said Angelica. “I’ve ridden her hundreds of
times.”
“I don’t know how Mistah Jim would like it,” said Emanuel; “but she
could ride that maah all right, you jest bet.”
William was getting interested. He was not so concerned about Mr.
Stanton’s likes as he was that his stable should take some ribbons.
“Mr. Haughton said you might ride her?” he repeated.
“Of course he did,” said Angelica; “I just left him in Mrs.
Everett’s box, and I’ve got my own saddle and everything.”
“All right, miss,” said William. “Get the saddle, Tim.”
William did not believe that Mr. Haughton had given any such orders,
but he had gotten into trouble not long before by refusing to give a
mount to a friend of Haughton’s whom he did not know and who came
armed only with verbal authority. He knew that if any harm was done
he could hide behind that occurrence.
“I want a double-reined snaffle,” said Angelica. “Emanuel,” she
added, “you have the bit I used to ride her with. Bring my own
bridle.”
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to hold her, miss,” muttered William;
“but it’s as you say. Hurry up with that saddle,” he called to the
stable-boy. “We ain’t got no time to lose. They’re callin’ the class
now. You’re number two, miss; I’ll get your number for you.”