Lady Good-for-Nothing Part 27

"To d.i.c.ky, then, if you will; but I was attempting to lay down the general rule which d.i.c.ky ill.u.s.trates. A little gentle notice taken of the child not only appeals to the man as womanly in itself, but delicately conveys to him that the past is, to some extent, condoned.

He has sown his wild oats: he is, so to speak, _range_; but he is none the less grateful for some a.s.surance--"

Lady Caroline's discourse had whiled the way back to Sabines, to the drawing-room; and here Diana wheeled round on her with the question, sudden and straight,--

"Do you suppose that Cousin Oliver is _range_, as you call it?"

"My child, we have every reason to believe so."

"Then what do you make of this?" The girl took up a small volume that lay on the top of the harpsichord, and thrust it into her mother's hands.

"Eh? What?" Lady Caroline turned the book back uppermost and spelled out the t.i.tle through her eyegla.s.s. "'Ovid'--he's Latin, is he not?

Dear, I had no notion that you kept up your studies in that--er-- tongue."

"I do not. I have forgot what little I learned of it, and that was next to nothing. But open the book, please, at the t.i.tle-page."

"I see nothing. It has neither book-plate nor owner's signature."

(Indeed Ruth never wrote her name in her books. She looked upon them as her lord's, and hers only in trust.)

"The t.i.tle-page, I said. You are staring at the flyleaf."

"Ah, to be sure--" Lady Caroline turned a leaf. "Is this what you mean?" She held up a loose sheet of paper covered with writing.

"Read it."

The elder lady found the range of her eyegla.s.s and conned--in silence and without well grasping its purport--the following effusion:--

Other maids make Love a foeman, Lie in ambush to defeat him; I alone will step to meet him Valiant, his accepted woman.

Equal, consort in his car, Ride I to his royal war.

Victims of his bow and targe, Yet who toyed with lovers' quarrels, Envy me my braver laurels!

Lord! thy s.h.i.+eld of shadow large Lift above me, shout the charge!

"Well?"

"I make nothing of it," owned Lady Caroline. "It appears to be poetry of a sort--probably some translation from the Latin author."

"You note, at least, that the handwriting is a woman's?"

"H'm, yes," Lady Caroline agreed.

"Nothing else?"

"Dear, you speak in riddles."

"It _is_ a riddle," said Diana. "Take the first letter of each line, and read them down, in order."

"O, L, I, V, E, R V, Y, E, L, L," spelled Lady Caroline, and lowered her eyegla.s.s. "My dear, as you say, this cannot be a mere coincidence."

"_Did_ I say that?" asked Diana.

"But who can it be, or have been? . . . That Dance woman, perhaps?

She was infatuated enough."

"It was not she," said Diana positively.

"_Somebody_ can tell us. . . . That Mr. Silk, for instance."

"Ah, you too think of him?"

"As a clergyman--and to some extent a boon companion of Oliver's--he would be likely to know--"

"--And to tell? You are quite right, mamma: I have asked him."

Chapter XI.

THE ESPIAL.

Ruth Josselin came down from the mountain to the stream-side, where, by a hickory bush under a knoll, her mare Madcap stood at tether.

Slipping behind the bush--though no living soul was near to spy on her-- she slid off her short skirt and indued a longer one more suitable for riding; rolled the discarded garment into a bundle which she strapped behind the saddle; untethered the mare, and mounted.

At her feet the plain stretched for miles, carpeted for the most part with short sweet turf and dotted in the distance with cattle, red in the sunlight that overlooked the mountain's shoulder. These were Farmer Cordery's cattle, and they browsed within easy radius of a clump of elms cl.u.s.tered about Sweet.w.a.ter Farm. Some four miles beyond, on the far edge of the plain, a very similar clump of elms hid another farm, Natchett by name, in like manner outposted with cattle; and these were the only habitations of men within the ring of the horizon.

The afternoon sun cast the shadow of the mountain far across this plain, almost to the confines of Sweet.w.a.ter homestead. A breeze descended from the heights and played with Ruth's curls as she rested in saddle for a moment, scanning the prospect; a gentle breeze, easily out-galloped.

Time, place, and the horse--all promised a perfect gallop; her own spirits, too. For she had spent the day's hot hours in clambering among the slopes, battling with certain craggy doubts in her own mind; and with the afternoon shadow had come peace at heart; and out of peace a certain careless exultation. She would test the mare's speed and enjoy this hour before returning to Tatty's chit-chat, the evening lamp, and the office of family prayer with which Farmer Cordery duly dismissed his household for the night.

She p.r.i.c.ked Madcap down the slope, and at the foot of it launched her on the gallop. Surely, unless it be that of sailing on a reach and in a boat that fairly heels to the breeze, there is no such motion to catch the soul on high. The breeze met the wind of her flight and was beaten by it, but still she carried the moment of encounter with her as a wave on the crest of which she rode. It swept, lifted, rapt her out of herself--yet in no bodiless ecstasy; for her blood pulsed in the beat of the mare's hoofs. To surrender to it was luxury, yet her hand on the rein held her own will ready at call; and twice, where Sweet.w.a.ter brook meandered, she braced herself for the water-jump, judging the pace and the stride; and twice, with many feet to spare, Madcap sailed over the silver-grey riband.

All the while, ahead of her, the mountain lengthened its shadow.

She overtook and pa.s.sed it a couple of furlongs short of the homestead; pa.s.sed it--so clearly defined it lay across the pasture--with a firmer hold on the rein, as though clearing an actual obstacle. . . . She was in sunlight now. Before her a wooden fence protected the elms and their enclosure. At the gate of it by rule she should have drawn rein.

She had never leapt a gate; had attempted a bank now and then, but nothing serious. Her success at the water-jumps tempted her; and the mare, galloping with her second wind, seemed to feel the temptation every whit as strongly.

In the instant of rising to it Ruth wondered what Farmer Cordery would say if she broke his top bar. . . . The mare's feet touched it lightly-- rap, rap. She was over.

A wood pile stood within the gate to the left, hiding the house. She had pa.s.sed the corner of it before she could bring Madcap to a standstill, and was laughing to herself in triumph as she glanced around.

Heavens!

The house was of timber, with a deep timbered verandah; and in the verandah, not twenty paces away, beside a table laid for coffee, stood Tatty with three ladies about her--three ladies all elegantly dressed and staring.

Ruth's hand went up quickly, involuntarily, to her dishevelled hair; and at the same moment the little lady, as though making a bolt from captivity, stepped down from the verandah and came shuffling across the yard towards her, almost at a run.

"Ruth, dear!" she panted. "Oh, dear, dear! I am so glad you have come!"