Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 23

She nodded, drawing a long breath. "I come from the sea-beach, remember."

"Say but the word, and instead of the mountain, the beach shall be yours."

"No. I have never seen a mountain. It will have the sound of waters, too--of its own cataracts. And on the plain I shall learn to gallop, and feel the wind rus.h.i.+ng past me. These things, and a few books, and Tatty--" Here she broke off, on a sudden thought. "My lord, there is a question I have put to myself many times, and have promised myself to put to you. Why does Tatty never talk to me about G.o.d and religion and such things?"

He did not answer at once.

She went on: "It cannot only be because you do not believe in them.

For Tatty is very religious, and brave as a lion; she would never be silent against her conscience."

"How do you know that I don't believe in them?"

She laughed. "Does my lord truly suppose me so dull of wit? or will he fence with my question instead of answering it?"

"The truth is, then," he confessed, "that before she saw you I thought fit to tell Miss Quiney what you had suffered--"

"She has known it from the first? I wondered sometimes. But oh, the dear deceit of her!"

"--And seeing that this same religion had caused your sufferings, I asked her to deal gently with you. She would not promise more than to wait and choose her own time. But Tatty, as you call her, is an honourable woman."

Ruth stretched out her hands.

"Ah, you were good--you were good! . . . If only my heart were a gla.s.s, and you might see how goodness becomes you!"

He took her hands this time, and laying one over another, kissed the back of the uppermost, but yet so respectfully that Miss Quiney, entering the room just then, supposed him to be merely taking a ceremonious leave.

For a few minutes he lingered out his call, hat and walking-cane in hand, talking pleasantly of his last night's guests, and with a smile that a.s.sumed his pardon to be granted. Incidentally Ruth learned how it had happened that a chair stood empty for her by Mr. Langton's side.

It appeared that Governor s.h.i.+rley himself had called, earlier in the evening, to offer his felicitations; and finding the seat on Sir Oliver's right occupied by a toper who either would not or could not make room, he had with some tact taken a chair at the far end of the table and _vis-a-vis_ with his host, protesting that he chose it as the better vantage-ground for delivering a small speech. His speech, too, had been neat, happy in phrase, and not devoid of good feeling. Having delivered it, he had slipped away early, on an excuse of official business.

Sir Oliver related this appreciatively; and it had, in fact, been one of those small courtesies which, among men of English stock, give a grace to public life and help to keep the fighting clean. But in fact also (Ruth gathered) the two men did not love one another. s.h.i.+rley--able and _ruse_ statesman--had some sense of colonial independence, colonial ambition, colonial self-respect. Sir Oliver had none; he was a Whig patrician, and the colonies existed for the use and patronage of England. More than a year before, when Ma.s.sachusetts raised a militia and went forth to capture Louisbourg--which it did, to the astonishment of the world--the Governor, whose heart was set on the expedition, had approached Captain Vyell and privately begged him to command it. He was answered that, having once borne the King's commission, Captain Vyell did not find a colonial uniform to his taste.

Chapter VIII.

CONCERNING MARGARET.

He called again, next morning. He came on horseback, followed by a groom. The groom led a light chestnut mare, delicate of step us a dancer, and carrying a side-saddle.

Ruth's ear had caught the sound of hoofs. She looked forth at her open window as Sir Oliver reined up and hailed, frank as a schoolboy.

"Your first riding lesson!" he announced.

"But I have no riding-skirt," she objected, her eyes opening wide with delight as they looked down and scanned the mare.

"You shall have one to-morrow." He swung himself out of saddle and gave over his own horse to the groom. "To-day you have only to learn how to sit and hold the reins and ride at a walk."

She caught up a hat and ran downstairs, blithe as a girl should be blithe.

He taught her to set her foot in his hand and lifted her into place.

"But are you not riding also?" she asked as he took the leading-rein.

"No. I shall walk beside you to-day . . . Now take up the reins--so; in both hands, please. That will help you to sit square and keep the right shoulder back, which with a woman is half the secret of a good seat.

Where a man uses grip, she uses balance. . . . For the same reason you must not draw the feet back; it throws your body forward and off its true poise on the hips."

She began to learn at once and intelligently; for, unlike her other tutors, he started with simple principles and taught her nothing without giving its reason. He led her twice around the open gravelled s.p.a.ce before the house, and so aside and along a gra.s.sy pathway that curved between the elms to the right. The pathway was broad and allowed him to walk somewhat wide of the mare, yet not so wide as to tauten the leading-rein, which he held (as she learned afterwards) merely to give her confidence; for the mare was docile and would follow him at a word.

"I am telling you the why-and-how of it all," he said, "because after this week you will be teaching yourself. This week I shall come every morning for an hour; but on Wednesday you start for Sweet.w.a.ter Farm."

"And will there be n.o.body at the Farm to help me," she asked, a trifle dismayed.

"The farmer--his name is Cordery--rides, after a fas.h.i.+on. But he knows nothing of a side-saddle, if indeed he has ever seen one."

"Then to trot, canter, and gallop I must teach myself," she thought; for among the close plantations of Sabines there was room for neither.

"If I experiment here, they will find me hanging like Absalom from a bough." But aloud she said nothing of her tremors.

"d.i.c.ky sits a horse remarkably well for his age," said Sir Oliver after a pause. "I had some thought to pack him off holidaying with you.

But the puppy has taken to the water like a spaniel. He went off to the _Venus_ yesterday, and it seems that on board of her he struck up, there and then, a close friends.h.i.+p with Harry's lieutenant, a Mr. Hanmer; and now he can talk of nothing but rigging and running-gear. He's crazed for a cruise and a hammock. Also it would seem that he used his time to win the affections of Madam Harry; which argues that his true calling is not the Navy, after all, but diplomacy."

Ruth sighed inaudibly. d.i.c.ky's companions.h.i.+p would have been delightful. But she knew the child's craze, and would not claim him, to mar his bliss--though she well knew that at a word from her he would renounce it.

"Diplomacy?" she echoed.

"Well," said Sir Oliver, looking straight before him. "Sally--my brother insists on calling her Sally--appears to have her head fixed well on her shoulders: she looks--as you must not forget to look-- straight between the horse's ears. But your young bride is apt to be the greatest prude in the world. And d.i.c.ky, you see--"

Her hand weighed on the rein and brought the mare to a halt.

"Tell me about d.i.c.ky?"

"About d.i.c.ky?" he repeated.

"About his mother, then."

"She is dead," he answered, staring at the mare's glossy shoulder and smoothing it. His brows were bent in a frown.

"Yes . . . he told me that, in the coach, on our way from Port Na.s.sau.

It was the first thing he told me when he awoke. We had been rolling along the beach for hours in the dark; and I remember how, almost at the end of the beach, it grew light inside the coach and he opened his eyes. . . ."

She did not relate that the child had awaked in her arms.

"It was the first thing d.i.c.ky told me," she repeated; "and the only thing about--her. I think it must be the only thing he knows about her."

"Probably; for she died when he was born and--well, as the child grew up, it was not easy to explain to him. Other folks, no doubt--the servants and suchlike--were either afraid to tell or left it to me as my business. And I am an indolent parent." He paused and added, "To be quite honest, I dare say I distasted the job and s.h.i.+rked it."