Lionel awoke gaily to the consciousness that he was in love, and
beloved, and going hunting in Arcadia. What young man could expect more
of the gods? True, Joyce remained at home. But absence, after the first
intoxicating avowal, does indeed make the heart grow fonder.
Nevertheless, he “funked” his confession to Margot. Had he been less
ingenuous and modest that “funk” might have been greater. But he
couldn’t bring himself to believe that Margot really wanted him, as he,
for example, wanted Joyce. And it must be self-evident by this time that
such non-belief was justified. Men and women have so much energy. Some
have more than others, but the underlying principle is constant. Energy
can be conserved or dissipated. Margot squandered vital force upon many
people and many things. Let the sages decide whether she had received
value or not. Assuredly she had eaten many cakes.
Alfred assisted at the drawing on of boots, polished till they shone
like glass.
Lionel said to him: “Prudence and you must mark time, Alfred.”
“Ah-h-h! That be gospel truth. And ’tis true, too, that stolen kisses be
sweet, but I fair ache for more of ’em. Mr. Fishpingle do say: ‘Enough,
’tis as good as a feast!’ but I be hungry for the feast, Master Lionel.”
“You leave it to me.”
“But can you downscramble Squire, Master Lionel?”
“‘Downscramble’ is good. Keep a stiff upper lip. She’s worth waiting for
and fighting for.”
“That she be, the dinky dear.”
“I say, Alfred, scent ought to be good to-day.”
That, also, was the Squire’s opinion, expressed thrice at breakfast.
Hounds met at twelve about six miles from Nether-Applewhite. The horses
were to be sent on, a motor would convey Margot, Sir Geoffrey and Lionel
to the meet. A second horse was generously provided, for Margot in case
the tufting were prolonged. The Squire said to her:
“I want you to see the real thing from start to finish, a wild buck
scientifically hunted and killed.”
“I don’t want it killed, Sir Geoffrey.”
The Squire was shocked. Such a remark from Moxon would have amused him.
He thought this lady of quality knew better.
“Hounds must have blood, or they won’t hunt. These deer wouldn’t exist
if it wasn’t for the huntin’. They do a lot of mischief, the artful
dodgers. And they lead a glorious life for many years, with a sporting
finish. For myself, I ask nothing better.”
“Have you been hunted?”
“Oh—ho! You ask my lady that? She ran me down in the open, broke me up,
b’ Jove!”
He made a hunting breakfast—fish, grilled kidneys, ham of his own
curing—solemnly commended to visitors—and a top dressing of marmalade.
“Tell me what a man eats for breakfast,” he would say, “and I’ll tell
you what he is.”
After breakfast, the Squire was busy with Bonsor in his own room. Lionel
burned to tell his tale to Fishpingle, to read his face, to set about
planning a sly campaign against the Squire. Joyce stood high in the old
fellow’s esteem. After a night’s rest and half an hour’s snug thinking
in bed, Lionel came to the conclusion that his lady-love was
irresistible. Fishpingle would share and fortify this opinion. Together
they would leap to the assault. If a true lover does not entertain such
high faith in the beloved, is he worth a pinch of salt? And when she is
his, when that tender assurance has percolated to his marrow, with what
enhanced value he regards the priceless possession. We have heard a
collector “crab” a Kang He blue-and-white bottle as he bartered with a
dealer, and, next day, rave about it when it stood in his cabinet.
Lionel had never “crabbed” Joyce, but he had described her to friends as
a “ripper,” a “real good sort,” and “bang out of the top drawer.” Now,
in a jiffey, she became Euphrosyne. He intended to ransack the poets for
satisfying epithets. With any encouragement, he might have essayed
a—sonnet. The metrical difficulties would not have daunted him.
In this exalted mood, he sped, hot-foot, to Fishpingle’s room. Finding
him alone, he held out both hands:
“Congratulate me, you dear old chap, I’ve got her.”
To his amazement Fishpingle remained luke-warm. He said almost
awkwardly:
“I wish you and her ladyship all happiness, Master Lionel.”
“Her ladyship!”
Lionel laughed as loudly and jovially as the Squire. Then he slapped
Fishpingle hard on the shoulder.
“Her ladyship be—blowed for a shining bubble! I’ve hooked and landed
Miss Joyce.”
Fishpingle beamed speechless with emotion. It was a tremendous moment, a
soul-satisfying pause as if the whole world stood still. Then he said
fervently:
“God bless you both! I have prayed for this day. Here, in this very
room, just before you came back, the Squire and I drank a toast: ‘Master
Lionel’s future wife.’”
Lionel stared at him.
“What? Father was thinking of—her?”
“No,” said Fishpingle grimly; “but I was.”
Lionel sat upon the edge of the Cromwellian table.
“Sit down, old chap. What d’ye think father will say to this?”
“Sir Geoffrey will say a great deal. I hardly dare think what he will
say.”
Lionel betrayed distress. Fishpingle’s expression brought back the
qualms which kindly sleep had banished.
“She’s so sweet,” he murmured.
Fishpingle nodded.
“She is, Master Lionel. You’ve chosen a wife, sweet as a field the Lord
has blessed. She’ll make your life and the lives of others as fragrant
as her own.”
“If you feel that, why can’t father feel the same, after—after the
first disappointment? Of course, you guessed his little plan. Everybody
did. When I passed round the field with that little plan on Saturday, I
heard snickers—and so did she.”
“That clean bowled me, Master Lionel. I saw you together. It was too
much for me. I missed an easy ball, because one eye was on you.”
“How shall we break this to father?”
“We?”
“You old humbug. I measure your power with the Squire.”
Fishpingle answered with dignity:
“I have never measured that power or abused it, such as it is. And I owe
everything, everything, to your family.”
“And what do we owe you?” Lionel spoke warmly. “You have devoted
yourself to us.”
“Most gladly.”
“And my father doesn’t quite see it. He takes what you have done for
granted—as I did. It hurts me.”
“Your father is dear to me as a brother, Master Lionel. I venture to
hope that I am more than a faithful servant to him.”
“Of course you are. Am I a coward because I ask your help?”
“I am the coward.”
“You?”
Fishpingle spread out his hands. When he spoke his voice was low and
troubled.
“I am quaking with fear.”
He held out a trembling hand. Lionel seized it and pressed it. Then he
went on, confidently:
“Joyce, the blessed honey-pot, has everything except money.”
“Which is so badly needed here.”
“I’m hanged if you’re not depressing me.”
Fishpingle made another gesture before he replied, selecting carefully
each word:
“If you ask for my help, it’s yours. But the Squire may resent
interference on the part of his butler. It might lead to a breach,
to—to my dismissal from his service. That possibility, Master Lionel,
makes a coward of me. And if such a dreadful thing happened, it would
make matters ten times as hard for you. You are dependent on him.”
“Not absolutely. I could exchange into another regiment. I——” he broke
off suddenly. “I won’t admit that father’s heart is flint. But, rain or
shine, my Joyce will stick to me, and I to her.”
“Amen, to that.”
“Now, what do you advise? When I was in debt, you said: ‘Tackle him at
once!’ What do you say now?”
Fishpingle got up, and began to pace the floor, a trick of the Squire’s
when much perturbed. Lionel appraised that perturbation too lightly. He
said gaily:
“You and I must downscramble Squire.”
Fishpingle stood still.
“And her little ladyship?”
“I deal with her to-day, out hunting. We are good friends. So far as she
is concerned, my hands are clean. She has stayed on for this hunt. She
leaves on Wednesday.”
“We must wait till then, Master Lionel.”
“Agreed! Between now and then we’ll collogue.”
A small field assembled at Bramshaw Telegraph, small but select, true
lovers of the game, such as you meet on noble Exmoor. Hounds and
hunt-servants were awaiting the Master. Presently he dashed up in a
motor car, one of the finest horsemen in the kingdom, a lover of hounds
and beloved by them. As he walked towards the pack, the veterans, the
fourth and fifth season hounds, rushed at him. He greeted them by name:
“Ravager, old boy!—Down Hemlock, down!—Sportsman, you sinner, you’re
rolin’ in fat!” Then he approached a group of men standing back from the
hounds. They touched their hats. These, for the most part, were forest
keepers acting as “harbourers.” One, riding a pony,—the head keeper of
Ashley Walk—reported three In the New Forest a “stag” means a red deer,
bigger, speedier, with more endurance than his fallow kinsmen. The
Master, who hunted his own hounds, shook his head. Margot heard him say:
“Ah, they must wait for a day or too, I’ve too many young ’uns out.”
Lionel told Margot that a red deer might make a fifteen mile point. The
Master talked with the under-keepers. One, not a servant of the Crown,
had seen very early in the morning, a herd of four bucks in Pound
Bottom, including a “great buck” (over seven years old).
“I allows he’s that buck, zir, you had that tarr’ble run wi’ las’ year,
when he fair diddled ’ee in Oakley.”
The master laughed. “We’ll diddle him to-day.”
He returned to the pack, and instructed three men to couple-up and hold
them, selecting three couple of “tufters,” hounds that will hunt a herd
of deer, throw their tongues, and if they get a buck warmed up “stick”
to him. Tufters must draw well, and be fine tryers on a cold scent.
Whilst the hounds were being coupled-up the keeper walked on to where he
had harboured the deer. The Master mounted his first horse, a sage
beast, handy in thick timber, a gentleman with manners and experience.
Then he jogged on with the tufters. The pack bayed, loath to be left
behind. The whips followed the tufters. Lionel impressed upon Margot the
necessity of trotting about quietly, and not “riding in the Master’s
pocket.” He must be left alone, so that he can hear as well as see.
Those of the field who go tufting can best help by watching the rides to
see if any deer slip across.
The Squire, on such occasions, generally joined the Master till they
reached the cover. He knew every yard of the New Forest, having hunted
in it since he was a boy of six. Before riding on, he said an emphatic
word to Margot:
“This is not Leicestershire, my dear. You stick to Lionel. He’ll pilot
you. Go slow at doubtful places. You mustn’t let that horse out in
woodlands. If you try to take your own line, you’ll be bogged to a
certainty.”
He touched his mare with the spur and joined the master.
“Sir Geoffrey looks his best outside a horse,” said Margot, “and so do
you.”
“Do you like to see hounds work?” asked Lionel.
Margot preferred a “quick thing,” a rousing gallop. Lionel hoped that
this would be forthcoming. Meanwhile, he dwelt affectionately upon the
superlative merits of certain tufters who knew their job. Really, to
enjoy hunting in the Forest, it was necessary to watch individual
hounds, whether good or bad. The duffers of the pack running a fresh
deer told the tale of a false scent as unerringly as the body of the
pack lagging behind, with heads up, mutely protesting. His enthusiasm
infected Margot as he talked on about the arts and crafts of deer. She
didn’t know that buckhounds were big foxhounds, with inherited instincts
to hunt foxes instead of deer, instincts which had to be whipped and
rated out of them.
Some of the field remained with the pack. Lionel explained this. A
“tuft” might be better fun than the hunt afterwards, and _vice versâ_.
With one horse out, unless he happened to be a clinker, it was sound
policy to keep him fresh for the hunt proper.
Meanwhile, they had reached the spot where the herd of bucks had been
harboured that morning—the “great” buck, a smaller five-year-old, and
two prickets. Lionel pointed out their slots to Margot. The Master,
leaving the green ride, waved his tufters into the woodland. Lionel
trotted on to a corner which commanded two rides.
“We may see the deer cross,” he said. “There is no prettier sight,
except when we rouse them in the open.”
A hound spoke in cover.
“That’s old Sportsman,” said the Squire, who had joined them. “I’ll nip
on to the next ride.”
The rest of the field hung about with Lionel. The horses, very fresh,
and full of corn, fidgeted and pulled at their bits.
“There they go.”
The herd crossed the ride some fifty yards away, Music arose behind
them.
“Now comes the real job,” said Lionel to Margot. “That big buck must be
separated from the herd, and driven, if possible, into the open. Then he
will gallop away fast and far, making his point. Meanwhile, he’ll try
every dodge known to his tribe.”
An excellent and typical tuft followed. The “great” buck, an old deer
with finely palmated horns, left the others, but refused to break cover.
He prodded up an outlying deer and lay down in its couch, he took to a
“gutter” and travelled down it, he found some does and ran with them for
a few minutes. Margot saw “the real right thing” and was properly
impressed.
A whistle came from the whip on ahead.
“He’s away,” said Lionel, galloping on.
They reached the edge of the cover just in time to see the buck trotting
over the Salisbury Road, heading for the finest galloping ground in the
Forest. The tufters followed.
“Hold hard, old boys!” roared the whip.
The Master, very hot and red in the face, emerged from the woodlands. He
collected his tufters and jogged back with them to the pack, about half
a mile distant. The Squire joined Lionel.
“We lay the pack on here,” he said to Margot. “We shall have a gallop,
and I shan’t see the end of it unless I nick in somewhere. You stick to
Lionel like wax. If he doesn’t ride at the top of the hunt, I’ll disown
him.”
Lionel dismounted and loosened his horse’s girths. Margot nibbled at a
sandwich, as she waited for her second horse and the pack. Soon the
Master appeared with hounds trotting at his heels. The buck had a start
of about fifteen minutes.
“He’ll need it,” predicted Lionel, as he tossed the little lady on to
her fresh mount. “The going is good at first, but if we get to Hasleys’
look out for ruts. Sit well back and go at ’em slow and at right angles.
If your gee pecks he may save himself.”
“Sounds thrilling!”
“A gallop over heather is thrilling. And you’ll be with hounds as long
as we’re in the open. I’ve seen thrusters from your country go very
pawky over our moors. But your horse can be trusted.”
“I trust him and you.”
Instantly his thoughts flew to Joyce, who was not a horsewoman. She
could not share this tremendous pleasure with him. Nevertheless, his
soul sang within him, as he vowed not to be too selfish about sport.
Riding home, after this jolly day, he would square things with Margot.
The Master waved his hand. Hounds swung upon the line of the deer.
“Give ’em time, gentlemen!”
With a crash of music they were racing away. A good holding scent in
purple heather! The big dog-hounds settled down to their work in rare
style.
Lionel thrust his feet home into the stirrups, with a last injunction to
Margot:
“Keep a fair twenty-five yards behind me. We’re in for a fast thing.”
Men threw away their cigars; women tossed their sandwiches into the
heather. The Master tooted his horn.
“Forrard! Forrard!”
The Squire, and others of the heavy brigade, fetched a compass, hoping
to save distance and horses. Lionel rode a little to the left of hounds.
Leaving Island Thorns on his left and Pitt’s woods on his right, the
buck headed straight for Letchmore Stream. Here hounds threw up. The
Master cast them a quarter of a mile down water, hitting the line again
at the spot where the buck took to dry land.
“Look how the leading hounds drive,” said Lionel to Margot. “He’s not
far ahead. He tarried as long as possible.”
The pace was now terrific. An August sun blazed down. The pace was
hotter than the sun.
“If this lasts,” thought Lionel, “he’ll beat us.”
They sped past Hasleys’ over holes and ruts. To the right of Margot one
young fellow took an appalling toss, hurled from the saddle like a stone
from a catapult, as his horse rolled end over end. He jumped up,
shouting cheerily: “I’m all right. Go on!” Another thruster, a stranger,
was bogged near Broomy Water. Lionel steered a little to the left, which
brought him to the ford. Here the Master had expected the buck to soil.
But the leading hounds flung themselves across the stream, picked up the
line without a check and raced into Broomy.
“Ware rabbit-holes!” yelled Lionel, looking over his shoulder.
Margot’s horse jumped half a dozen cleverly.
“Forrard! Forrard!”
Out of Broomy on to the heather again, through Milkham, where the buck
had passed a half-dried-up stream, and into Roe. Here the quarry soiled.
On and on to Buckherd Bottom. Coming through this, Lionel caught a
glimpse of ten bucks cantering away across the open, but too far off to
determine whether the hunter deer was amongst them or not. The Master
divined, happily, that he wasn’t. He picked up his hounds, jogged on
steadily, hounds casting themselves well in front of him, and before he
had gone three hundred yards, four or five couple began throwing their
tongues.
“They’ve hit the line again,” said Margot.
“Have they?” wondered Lionel, watching the Master. “Some of the old ’uns
don’t think so.”
Margot heard the Master talking confidentially to Ravager:
“That won’t do, old boy, will it?” He roared out to his Whip: “Stop
’em!” So well-broken were the hounds that as soon as the Whip called
“Hold hard!” they streamed back to the Master, looking rather ashamed of
themselves. He rated them kindly: “Silly beggars! Think you can catch a
fresh deer, do you? Let’s see what you can do with a half-cooked ’un.”
“Have we lost him?” Margot asked Lionel.
“We shall hit him off all right.”
The Master held hounds on till they spoke to the true line a hundred
yards beyond the false.
“They’re away,” said Lionel. “Look at the three- and four-season hounds
racing to the front. Oh, you beauties!”
The Master touched his horn—one melodious note.
“Forrard!”
But the buck was too spent to go very far. He soiled again in Handy
Cross Pond. Just beyond the Ringwood Road a forest-keeper was seen
carrying his gun.
“Don’t shoot the deer!”
“Ah-h-h! I seed ’un—a gert buck with his jaw out, an’ not gone six
minutes, seemin’ly. Turnin’ left-handed, zur, to Ridley. There’s a herd
o’ bucks afore ’un, too.”
“Forrard on!”
Ravager and Whistler, who had been leading, now gave pride of place to
Welladay and Armlet. Old hounds know full well when their quarry is
sinking. The gallant buck turned again, right-handed, and swung between
Picket Post and Burley upon an open plain where hounds got a view of
him. They coursed him, running mute, for nearly a mile, and at last
rolled him over in the open. A ten-mile point from where the pack was
laid on and eleven from the couch where he was roused. Time—one hour
and forty minutes!
“A clinker,” said Lionel to Margot.
After the last rites had been swiftly performed, the Master took Lionel
aside.
“Who is the little lady? She went like a bird.”
When he heard her name he laughed and winked knowingly. Evidently the
Squire had been talking indiscreetly. The Master chuckled and winked
again as he said:
“This deer’s head, set up by Rowland Ward, would make a corkin’ wedding
present—what?”
Hounds went back to kennels.
* * * * *
The Squire had jogged home by himself. His horse was out of condition,
and, probably, he wished to give Lionel a chance. Marriages may or may
not be made in heaven, but many are comfortably arranged in the
hunting-field, and most of these, we fancy, bud and blossom when a man
and a maid ride home together after a good run.
Long before Lionel began his tale, Margot’s intuition warned her that
the expected would not come to pass. His too cheery manner, revealing
rather than concealing nervousness, betrayed him. She remembered the
round of golf, and her premonition that Joyce would win the greater
game.
Joyce was Euphrosyne.
It is difficult to analyse her feelings at this moment, because she
failed to analyse them herself. Nor was this a first experience. She had
seen men she liked, men whom she had deliberately considered as possible
Prince Consorts, men who had pursued her, grow cold in the chase and
drop out. And always she had accepted this philosophically, with a
disdainful shrug of the shoulders. Unlike most women, she could shift
her point of view with disconcerting swiftness and adroitness.
Disconcerting to herself and to others! Boredom inevitably followed
fresh excitements. Lionel’s word “mirage” had kept her awake on the
night after the cricket match. Was life, for her, a succession of
mirages? Would the charm of Pomfret Court fade and vanish if she married
Lionel?
She had not answered such questions. Perhaps the kindly sprites whom
old-fashioned folk still speak of as “guardian angels” were soaping the
ways by which Lionel’s tale might slide into her mind. Nevertheless it
would be fatuous to deny that her pride escaped humiliation, although
pride saved an unhappy situation for Lionel.
He began hesitatingly:
“You and I are good pals, Margot.”
At this opening doubt vanished. Instantly, with a ripple of laughter,
she said quickly:
“You have something to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“A secret to share with a pal.”
“How amazingly quick you are!”
“I can guess your secret, my dear young friend.”
He flushed at a faintly derisive inflection. She continued in the same
tone:
“The nice little girls whom I had picked out for your inspection and
selection may be left in peace, so far as you are concerned.”
“How did you guess?”
“You have a delightfully ingenuous face, Lionel. It is at once an asset
and a liability. Let me do some more guessing. Put me right, if I am
wrong. Poor Mr. Moxon might be a happy man to-day if you had stayed in
India. Well, my dear,” her tone became maternal, “you have chosen a
pretty, good, amiable girl, but can I—can I congratulate you with all
my heart?”
The adjectives rankled, but he remained silent. Margot was reflecting
that revenge, so dear to slighted women, was a weapon that would be
wielded quite adequately by Sir Geoffrey Pomfret. She continued sweetly:
“I want to congratulate you, but I see so plainly all the obstacles. You
rode straight to-day. I am wondering how you will negotiate the fences
between your father and his parson’s daughter.”
“They look big enough to me, I can assure you.”
The paramount desire to please herself by pleasing others rose strong
within her. Why be “cattish” with a jolly boy? Let him think of her for
ever and ever as a pal. All trace of claws vanished as she said softly:
“If I can help you I will.”
He responded affectionately:
“You are a good sort. Help me? Of course you can. I—I think mother will
side with me.”
Almost she betrayed herself. The words flew to her lips, “Lady Pomfret
didn’t side with me.” Fortunately they remained unspoken. She said
instead:
“Probably. Joyce Hamlin is dear to her. Frankly, I feel most sorry for
your mother. What a poignant position! If she sides with you she
declares war against her husband, who boasts that he is still her
lover.”
Lionel grew more and more depressed. His next remark had humour in it,
not intended by him.
“You aren’t helping me much, Margot.”
She saw the humour and laughed.
“Cheer up! You are an only child. Your father loves you. In the end he
will climb down, but the fences are there, and you are still on the
wrong side of them.”
“I dare say you would dash at ’em.”
“I am I. I’ve ridden for a fall before now, and had it. You are you. A
fall over these particular fences might be disastrous. Go canny! Creep!
Crane! That is my advice.”
“I feel that way myself, although I hate creeping and craning. Did
father say anything to you about Johnnie Fordingbridge?”
“You mean the man who tootled the tandem horn?”
“Yes. He married his agent’s daughter. He was going fast to the bowwows
before I went to India. I never saw such a change in a fellow—never.”
“Sir Geoffrey did say something. What was it? Oh, yes. He pointed him
out as a man who had paid a preposterous price for twins.”
“I wonder what father would be willing to pay for another son?”
“Or a grandson,” murmured Margot.
She was very nice and sympathetic after this, the more so, perhaps, as
unconsciously he made plain his position—that of dependence on his
father. Margot smiled when he prattled of living on his pay in another
regiment. And yet the boy’s unworldliness, his faith in true love and
hard work (which he knew so little about), caught oddly in her heart.
She knew that she had been right in one thing, her “flair” had not
failed her—he sat upright in his saddle, a gallant gentleman, a credit
to his Order.
We must admit that she dealt kindly with him under considerable
provocation to be unkind. Sensible of this, he showed his gratitude,
almost too effusively. But he had wit enough not to praise his ladylove.
The adjectives still rankled—pretty—good—amiable.
They rode into the stable-yard.
* * * * *