Margot Asquith, an Autobiography Part 36

We were miles away from any human habitation and I felt depressed.

"Perhaps I had better ride home with your man," said I, looking tentatively at Peter.

"Home! What for?" said he.

MARGOT: "Are you sure Havoc is not tired?"

PETER: "I wish to G.o.d he was! But I daresay this infernal Bicester gra.s.s, which is heavier than anything I saw in Yorks.h.i.+re, has steadied him a bit; you'll see he'll go far better with you this afternoon. I'm awfully sorry and would put you on my second horse, but it isn't mine and I'm told it's got a bit of a temper; if you go through that gate we'll have our lunch together. ...Have a cigarette?"

I smiled and shook my head; my mouth was as dry as a j.a.panese toy and I felt shattered with fatigue. The ground on which I was standing was deep and I was afraid of walking in case I should leave my boots in it, so I tapped the back of Havoc's fetlocks till I got him stretched and with great skill mounted myself. This filled Peter with admiration; and, lifting his hat, he said:

"Well! You are the very first woman I ever saw mount herself without two men and a boy hanging on to the horse's head."

I rode towards the gate and Peter joined me a few minutes later on his second horse. He praised my riding and promised he would mount me any day in the week if I could only get some one to ask me down to Brackley where he kept his horses; he said the Grafton was the country to hunt in and that, though Tom Firr, the huntsman of the Quorn, was the greatest man in England, Frank Beers was hard to beat. I felt pleased at his admiration for my riding, but I knew Havoc had not turned a hair and that, if I went on hunting, I should kill either myself, Peter or some one else.

"Aren't you nervous when you see a helpless woman riding one of your horses?" I said to him.

PETER: "No, I am only afraid she'll hurt my horse! I take her off pretty quick, I can tell you, if I think she's going to spoil my sale; but I never mount a woman. Your sister is a magnificent rider, or I would never have put her on that horse. Now come along and with any luck you will be alone with hounds this afternoon and Havoc will be knocked down at Tattersalls for five hundred guineas."

MARGOT: "You are sure you want me to go on?"

PETER: "You think I want you to go home? Very well! If you go..._I_ go!"

I longed to have the courage to say, "Let us both go home," but I knew he would think that I was funking and it was still early in the day. He looked at me steadily and said:

"I will do exactly what you like."

I looked at him, but at that moment the hounds came in sight and my last chance was gone. We shogged along to the next cover, Havoc as mild as milk. I was amazed at Peter's nerve: if any horse of mine had taken such complete charge of its rider, I should have been in a state of anguish till I had separated them; but he was riding along talking and laughing in front of me in the highest of spirits. This lack of sensitiveness irritated me and my heart sank. Before reaching the cover, Peter came up to me and suggested that we should change Havoc's bit. I then perceived he was not quite so happy as I thought; and this determined me to stick it out. I thanked him demurely and added, with a slight and smiling shrug:

"I fear no bit can save me to-day, thank you."

At which Peter said with visible irritability:

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake then don't let us go on! If you hate my horse I vote we go no farther!"

"What a cross man!" I said to myself, seeing him flushed and snappy; but a ringing "Halloa!" brought our deliberations to an abrupt end.

Havoc and I shot down the road, pa.s.sing the bl.u.s.tering field; and, hopping over a gap, we found ourselves close to the hounds, who were running h.e.l.l-for-leather towards a handsome country seat perched upon a hill. A park is what I hate most out hunting: hounds invariably lose the line, the field loses its way and I lose my temper.

I looked round to see if my benefactor was near me, but he was nowhere to be seen. Eight or ten hard riders were behind me; they shouted:

"Don't go into the wood! Turn to your left! Don't go into the wood!"

I saw a fancy gate of yellow polished oak in front of me, at the end of one of the gra.s.s rides in the wood, and what looked like lawns beyond. I was unable to turn to the left with my companions, but plunged into the trees where the hounds paused: not so Havoc, who, in spite of the deep ground, was still going great guns. A lady behind me, guessing what had happened, left her companions and managed somehow or other to pa.s.s me in the ride; and, as I approached the yellow gate, she was holding it open for me. I shouted my thanks to her and she shouted back:

"Get off when you stop!"

This was my fixed determination, as I had observed that Havoc's tongue was over the bit and he was not aware that any one was on his back, nor was he the least tired and no doubt would have jumped the yellow gate with ease.

After leaving my saviour I was joined by my former companions. The hounds had picked up again and we left the gate, the wood and the country seat behind us. Still going very strong, we all turned into a chalk field with a white road sunk between two high banks leading down to a ford. I kept on the top of the bank, as I was afraid of splas.h.i.+ng people in the water, if not knocking them down. Two men were standing by the fence ahead, which separated me from what appeared to be a river; and I knew there must be a considerable drop in front of me. They held their hands up in warning as I came galloping up; I took my foot out of the stirrup and dropping my reins gave myself up for lost, but in spite of Havoc slowing up he was going too fast to stop or turn. He made a magnificent effort, but I saw the water twinkling below me; and after that I knew no more.

When I came to, I was lying on a box bed in a cottage, with Peter and the lady who had held the yellow gate kneeling by my side.

"I think you are mad to put any one on that horse!" I heard her say indignantly. "You know how often it has changed hands; and you yourself can hardly ride it."

Havoc had tried to scramble down the bank, which luckily for me had not been immediately under the fence, but it could not be done, so we took a somersault into the brook, most alarming for the people in the ford to see. However, as the water was deep where I landed, I was not hurt, but had fainted from fear and exhaustion.

Peter's misery was profound; ice-white and in an agony of fear, he was warming my feet with both his hands while I watched him quietly. I was taken home in a brougham by my kind friend, who turned out to be Mrs. Bunbury, a sister of John Watson, the Master of the Meath hounds, and the daughter of old Mr. Watson, the Master of the Carlow and the finest rider to hounds in England.

This was how Peter and I first came really to know each other; and after that it was only a question of time when our friends.h.i.+p developed into a serious love-affair. I stayed with Mrs. Bunbury in the Grafton country that winter for several weeks and was mounted by every one.

As Peter was a kind of hero in the hunting field and had never been known to mount a woman, I was the object of much jealousy.

The first scene in my life occurred at Brackley, where he and a friend of his, called Hatfield Harter, shared a hunting box together.

There was a lady of charm and beauty in the vicinity who went by the name of Mrs. Bo. They said she had gone well to hounds in her youth, but I had never observed her jump a twig. She often joined us when Peter and I were changing horses and once or twice had ridden home with us. Peter did not appear to like her much, but I was too busy to notice this one way or the other. One day I said to him I thought he was rather snubby to her and added:

"After all, she must have been a very pretty woman when she was young and I don't think it's nice of you to show such irritation when she joins us."

PETER: "Do you call her old?"

MARGOT: "Well, oldish I should say. She must be over thirty, isn't she?"

PETER: "Do you call that old?"

MARGOT: "I don't know! How old are you, Peter?"

PETER: "I shan't tell you."

One day I rode back from hunting, having got wet to the skin. I had left the Bunbury brougham in Peter's stables but I did not like to go back in wet clothes; so, after seeing my horse comfortably gruelled, I walked up to the charming lady's house to borrow dry clothes. She was out, but her maid gave me a coat and skirt, which--though much too big--served my purpose.

After having tea with Peter, who was ill in bed, I drove up to thank the lady for her clothes. She was lying on a long, thickly pillowed couch, smoking a cigarette in a boudoir that smelt of violets. She greeted me coldly; and I was just going away when she threw her cigarette into the fire and, suddenly sitting very erect, said:

"Wait! I have something to say to you."

I saw by the expression on her face that I had no chance of getting away, though I was tired and felt at a strange disadvantage in my flowing skirts.

MRS. BO: "Does it not strike you that going to tea with a man who is in bed is a thing no one can do?"

MARGOT: "Going to see a man who is ill? No, certainly not!"

MRS. BO: "Well, then let me tell you for your own information how it will strike other people. I am a much older woman than you and I warn you, you can't go on doing this sort of thing! Why should you come down here among all of us who are friends and make mischief and create talk?"

I felt chilled to the bone and, getting up, said:

"I think I had better leave you now, as I am tired and you are angry."

MRS. BO (standing up and coming very close to me): "Do you not know that I would nurse Peter Flower through yellow fever! But, though I have lived next door to him these last three years, I would never dream of doing what you have done to-day."