On the following afternoon Fanny Trehearne announced her intention of
riding with Mr. Brinsley.
"I'd take you, too," she said to Lawrence, with a singularly cold
stare. "Only as you can't ride much, you wouldn't enjoy it, you
know."
"Certainly not," answered Lawrence, returning her glance with all
coolness. "I shouldn't enjoy it at all."
"You might take my cousins out in the boat, instead."
"Are they tired of life?" enquired the young man, smiling. "No. I
want to make a sketch in the woods. I'll go out by myself, thank
you."
"Do you mean to sketch the place where we stopped yesterday?"
"Oh no--I'm going in quite another direction. I can't exactly
explain where it is, because I've such a bad memory for names of
roads, and all that. But I can find it."
Miss Cordelia Miner looked up from the magazine she was reading.
"You're not going to ride alone with Mr. Brinsley, are you?" she
asked suddenly.
"Why not?" asked Fanny. "I don't see any reason why I shouldn't,
It's safer than riding alone, isn't it?"
"I confess, I don't like the idea," said Miss Cordelia. "It looks as
though there were something."
"Something of what kind?" Fanny watched Lawrence's face.
"Something--well--not really an engagement--but--"
"Well--why shouldn't I be engaged to Mr. Brinsley, if I like?"
enquired the young girl, arching her brows.
"Why, Fanny! I'm surprised!" And, indeed, Miss Miner seemed so, for
she almost sprang out of her chair.
"I don't know why you need be horrified, though," returned Fanny,
calmly. "Should you be shocked if any one said that you were engaged
to Mr. Brinsley? What's the matter with him, anyway?" she demanded,
dropping into her favourite slang. "You'd be proud to be engaged to
him--so would Elizabeth--so would Augusta! Then why shouldn't I be
proud if I can get him? I'm sure, he's awfully good-looking, and he
rides--like an angel."
"An angel jockey," suggested Lawrence, without a smile.
"Not at all!" exclaimed Fanny. "He rides like a gentleman and not in
the least like a jockey."
Miss Cordelia had risen from her chair, and turned her back on the
young people.
"You've no right to say such things to me, Fanny," she said, going
slowly towards the window. Her voice shook.
The young girl saw that she was deeply hurt, and followed her quickly.
"I didn't mean to be horrid!" said Fanny, penitently. "I was only
laughing, you know, and of course I shall take Stebbins. And I'm not
engaged to Mr. Brinsley at all."
"Why didn't you say so at once?" asked Cordelia, half choking, and
turning away her face.
Fanny, unseen by her cousin, glanced at Lawrence, and then at the
door, and the young man departed immediately, leaving the two cousins
to make peace.
He did not remain long in the house. Thrusting a sketch-book and a
pencil into his pocket, with his pipe and pouch, he went out without
seeing Fanny again, taking her at her word with regard to her plans
for the afternoon. An hour later, he was seated under a tree high
upon the side of the hill and almost out of sight of the Otter Cliff
road. There was nothing particular in the way of a view from that
point, but there were endless trees, and Lawrence amused himself in
making a rough study of a mixed group of white pines, firs, and
hackmatacks.
He did not draw very carefully, nor even industriously, and more than
once he stopped working altogether for a quarter of an hour at a
time. His principal object in coming had been to get out of the way
just a little more promptly and completely than Fanny could have
expected. His thoughts were much more concerned with her than with
what he was doing.
Naturally enough, he was trying to understand the real bent of the
girl's feelings. Setting aside the absurd chaff which had formed a
good deal of the conversation on the previous afternoon, he tried to
extract from it enough of truth to guide him, aiding himself by
recalling little circumstances as well as words, for the one had
often belied the other.
He saw clearly that Fanny Trehearne might have said to him, 'I like
you, but I do not love you--win me if you can!' But it was like her
to propose to 'flirt for a bet'--being at heart perhaps less of a
flirt than she laughingly admitted herself to be. But that was not
the point which chiefly interested him. What he wished to know was,
just how far that undefined liking for him extended. To speak in the
common phrase, he did not 'know where he was' with her, and it seemed
that he had no means of finding out. On the other hand, he knew very
well indeed that he himself was badly in love. The symptoms were not
to be mistaken, nor had he been in love so often already as to make
him sceptical as to what he felt. He was more distrustful of the
result than of the impulse.
In his opinion Fanny was much too frank to be a flirt. Her
directness was one of her principal charms, though he could not help
suspecting that it must be one of her chief weapons. A little
hesitation is often less deceptive than clear-eyed, outspoken truth.
But Lawrence was no more able than most men of his age--or, indeed,
of any age--to follow out a continuous train of thought where a woman
was concerned. It is more often the woman's personality that
concerns us, unreasoning men, than the probable direction of her own
reasoning about us. We do not make love to an argument, so to speak,
nor to a set of ideas, nor to a preconceived opinion of our merits or
demerits. We make love to our own idea of what the woman is--and the
depth of our disillusionment is the measure of our sincerity, when
love is gasping between the death-blow and the death.
Moreover, what is called nowadays analysis of human nature, belongs
in reality to transcendental thought. 'Transcendent' is defined as
designating that which lies beyond the bounds of all possible
experience. So far as we know, it is beyond those bounds to enter
into the intelligence of our neighbour, subjectively, to identify
ourselves with him and to see and understand the world with his eyes
and mind. It follows that we are never sure of what we are doing
when we attempt to set down exactly another man's train of thought,
and it follows also that few are willing to recognize the result as
at all resembling the process of which they are conscious within
themselves. On certain bases, all men can appeal subjectively to all
men, and all women to all women. But, as between the sexes, all
observation is objective and tentative, whether it be that of the
author, condemned to analyze a woman's character, or that of the man
in love and attempting to understand the woman he loves.
And further, if we could see--as it is pretended by some that we can
see on paper--precisely what is taking place in the intelligence of
those we meet in the world, our friends would be as unrecognizable to
us as a dissected man is unrecognizable for a human being except in
the eyes of a doctor. The soul, laid bare, dissected, and turned
inside out, with real success, would not be recognized by its dearest
friend, were it ever so truthful a soul. We are all fundamentally
and totally incapable of expressing exactly what we feel, and as we
have no means of conveying truth without some sort of expression, we
are helpless and are all more or less hopelessly misunderstood--a
fact to which, if we please, we may ascribe that variety which is
proverbially said to be the charm of life. Doubtless, this is a
literary heresy; but it is a human truth a little above literature.
Lawrence had never attempted to write a book, but as he sat on the
slope above the Otter Cliff road, drawing trees, it did not occur to
him to draw a picture of what he thought about the inside of each
tree, instead of a representation of what he saw. But he made the
usual fruitless attempt to understand the woman he loved, and to
reason about her, and failed to do either, which is also usual. The
conclusion he reached was that he loved her, of which he had been
aware before he had set himself to think it out.
What he saw was a strong girl's face with cool, inscrutable grey eyes
that never took fire and gleamed, nor ever turned dull and vacant.
Their unchanging steadiness contradicted the wayward speech, the
sudden capricious confidence, even the gay laugh, sometimes.
Lawrence had a lively impression that whatever Fanny said or did, she
never meant but one thing, whatever that might be. And with this
impression he was obliged to content himself.
From the place where he sat, he had a glimpse between the trees of
the road below. On the side towards him there was a little open bit
of meadow, where the gorge widened, and a low fence with a little
ditch separated it from the highway. On the hillside, above this
stretch of grass, the trees grew here and there, wide apart at first,
and then by degrees more close together. He himself was seated just
within the thick wood, at the edge of the first underbrush.
Now and then, people passed along the road: a light buckboard drawn
by a pair of bays and containing a smart-looking couple, with no
groom behind; a farmer's wagon, long, hooded, and dusty, dragged at a
disjointed trot by a broken-down grey horse; a solitary rider, whose
varnished shoes reflected the sunlight even to where Lawrence was
sitting; a couple of pedestrians; a lad driving a cow; and then
another buckboard; and so on.
Lawrence was thinking of shutting up his book and climbing higher up
the steep side of New Port Mountain--as the hill is called--in search
of another study, when, glancing down through the trees, he saw three
riders coming slowly along the road--two in front, and one at some
distance behind--a lady and gentleman and then a groom. His eyes
were good, and he would have known Fanny Trehearne's figure and
bearing even at a greater distance. She sat so straight--hands down,
elbows in, head high, square in her saddle, yet flexible, and all
moving with every movement of her Kentucky thoroughbred. They came
nearer, and Lawrence saw them distinctly now. Brinsley was beside
her. Lawrence laughed to himself at the idea that the man could ever
have been in the Marines. He sat the horse he rode much more like a
Mexican or an Indian than like a sailor or a marine. Even at that
distance Lawrence could not help admiring his really magnificent
figure, for Brinsley's perfections were showy and massed well afar
off.
The riders reached the point where the little meadow spread out on
their left, and to Lawrence's surprise, they halted and seemed to be
consulting about something. They had turned towards him, and as they
talked, he could see that Fanny looked across the meadow and up at
the woods where he was sitting. It was of course utterly impossible
that she should have known where he was, and it was almost incredible
that she should see him, seated low upon the ground in the deep
shade, when she was only visible to him between the stems of the
trees. Nevertheless, not caring to be discovered, he crouched down
amongst the ferns and grasses, still keeping his eye on the couple in
the road far below.
Presently he saw Fanny turn her horse's head, walk him to the other
side of the road, and turn again, facing the meadow. She looked up
and down the road once, saw that no one was coming, and put her mare
at the fence. It was a low one, and the ditch on the outer side was
neither broad nor deep. The thoroughbred cleared it with a
contemptuously insignificant effort, and cantered a few strides
forward into the grass, shaking her bony head almost between her
knees as Fanny brought her to a stand and turned again. Brinsley
followed her on the big Hungarian horse he rode,--Mr. Trehearne's
horse,--jumping the fence and ditch, and taking them again almost
immediately, to wait for Fanny on the other side in the road. She
followed again, and pulled up by his side. But they did not ride on
at once. They seemed to be discussing some point connected with the
place, for they pointed here and there with their hands as they
spoke. Fanny reined in her mare and backed a little, as though she
were going to jump again. The animal seemed nervous, stamping and
pawing, and laying back her small ears.
A hundred yards or more in the direction from which they had come the
road made a short bend round the foot of the spur of the hill, known
as Pickett's. Just as Fanny put the mare at the fence a third time,
a coach and four turned the corner of the road at a smart pace,
leaders cantering and wheelers at a long trot.
Seeing three horses apparently halting in the way, some one in the
coach sent a terrific and discordant blast from a post-horn ringing
along the road as a warning. At that moment Fanny's mare was rising
at the bars. She cleared them as easily as ever, but on reaching the
ground instantly bolted across the grass, head down, ears back, heels
flying. It all happened in a moment. The two men, Brinsley and
groom, knew too much to scare the thoroughbred by a pursuit, and
confident in Fanny's good riding, sat motionless on their horses in
the road, after drawing away enough to let the coach pass.
The idiot with the horn continued to blow fiercely, and the big
vehicle came swinging along at a great rate, with clattering of
hoofs, for the road was hard and dry, baked after a recent rain--and
with jingling of harness and sound of voices. The mare grew more and
more frightened, and tore up the hillside like a flash, directly away
from the noise. The young girl was a first-rate rider and knew the
fearful danger, if she should be carried at such a pace amongst the
trees. But her strength, great as it was, for a woman, was not able
to produce the slightest impression upon the terrified creature she
rode.
Lawrence knew nothing of riding, but the imminent peril of the woman
he loved was clear to him in a moment. He had a horrible vision of
the wild-eyed mare tearing straight towards him through the
trees--wide apart at first, and then dangerously near together.
On they came, the thoroughbred swerving violently at one stem after
another--the young girl's strong figure swaying to her balance at
each headlong movement. He could see her set face, pale under the
tan, and he could see the desperate exertion of her strength. He
sprang forward and ran down between the trees at the top of his speed.