Love in Idleness/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
HERE is nothing equal to the absolute fearlessness of a naturally brave man who has no experience of the risk he runs and is bent on saving the life of the woman he loves. Louis Lawrence remembered afterwards what he had done and how he had done it, but he was unconscious of what he was doing at the time.
He rushed down the hill between the closer trees, and with utter recklessness sprang at the bridle as the infuriated mare dashed past him. Grasping snaffle and curb—tight drawn as they were—in both hands, he threw all his light weight upon them and allowed himself to be dragged along the ground between the trees at the imminent risk of his life—a risk so terrible that Fanny Trehearne turned paler for him than for her own danger. In half a dozen more strides they might both have been killed. But the mare stopped, quivering, tried to rear, but could not lift Lawrence far from the ground nor shake off his desperate hold, plunged once and again, and then stood quite still, trembling violently. Lawrence scrambled to his feet, still holding the bridle, and promptly placed himself in front of the mare.
For one breathless instant, Lawrence looked into Fanny's face, and neither spoke nor moved. Both were still very pale. Then the young girl slipped off, the reins in her hand.
"That was uncommonly well done," she said, with great calm. "You've saved my life."
She no longer looked at him while she spoke, but patted and stroked the thoroughbred, looking her over with a critical eye.
"Oh—that's all right," answered Lawrence. "Don't mention it!"
He laughed nervously, still panting from his violent exertion. Fanny herself was not out of breath, but the colour did not come back to her sunburnt cheeks at once, and her hand was hardly steady yet. She did not laugh with Lawrence, nor even smile, but she looked long into his eyes.
"I may not mention it, but I shan't forget it," she said slowly.
"It's one to me, isn't it?" asked Lawrence, who, in reality, was by far the cooler and more collected of the two.
"How do you mean?" enquired Fanny, knitting her brows half angrily.
"One to me—in our game, you know," said the young fellow. "The game we agreed to play, yesterday."
"Yes—it's one to you. By the bye—you're not hurt anywhere, are you?"
She looked him over, as she had looked over her mare, with the same critical glance. His clothes were a little torn, here and there, being but light summer things, and his hat had disappeared, but it was tolerably clear that he was in no way injured.
"Oh, I'm all right," he answered cheerfully. "I should think you'd feel badly shaken, though," he added, with sudden anxiety.
"Not at all," said Fanny, determined to show no more emotion or excitement than he. "It was a case of sitting still—neck or nothing. It's nothing, as it happens."
At that moment Brinsley appeared, riding slowly through the trees, for fear of frightening the mare again.
"Are you hurt?" he shouted.
Fanny looked round, saw him, and shook her head, with a smile. Brinsley trotted up and sprang from his horse.
"Are you sure you're not hurt?" he asked again.
"Not in the least!"
"Thank God!" ejaculated Brinsley, with emphasis.
"You'd better thank Mr. Lawrence, too," observed Fanny, quietly. "He caught her going at a gallop, and hung on and was dragged. I don't remember ever seeing anything quite so plucky."
Brinsley looked coldly at his rival, and his beady eyes seemed nearer together than usual when he spoke to him.
"I think you're quite as much to be congratulated as Miss Trehearne," he said.
"Thanks."
"We'd better be getting down to the road again," said Fanny. "You can lead the mare and your own horse, too, Mr. Brinsley. She's quiet enough now, and I've all I can do to walk in these things."
Brinsley took the mare's bridle over her head and led the way with the two horses.
"Aren't you coming?" asked Fanny, seeing that Lawrence did not follow.
"Thanks—no," he answered. "I must find my hat, in the first place."
Brinsley looked over his shoulder, and saw the two hanging back. He stopped a moment, turning, and laying one hand on the mare's nose.
"You must be shaken, Mr. Lawrence," he said. "Why don't you take the groom's horse and ride home with us?"
"I can't ride," answered the younger man, loud enough for Brinsley to hear him. "And you know it perfectly well," he added under his breath.
Fanny frowned, but took no further notice of the remark.
"Good-bye," she said, holding out her hand to Lawrence. "Come home as soon as you can, won't you?"
"Oh yes—that is, I think I'll just see you take that fence again, and then I want to get a little higher up the hill and do another bit of a sketch. Then I'll come home. There's no hurry, is there?"
"Don't show off," said Fanny, severely. "It isn't pretty. Good-bye."
She walked fast and overtook Brinsley in a few moments. At the foot of the hill he prepared to mount her, leaving his own, horse to the groom. Then a thing happened which he was never able to explain, though he was an expert in the field and no one could mount a lady better than he, of all Fanny's acquaintances. He bent his knee and held out his hand and stiffened his back and made the necessary effort just at the right moment, as he very well knew. But for some inexplicable reason Fanny did not reach the saddle, nor anywhere near it, and she slipped and would certainly have fallen if he had not caught her with his other hand and held her on her feet.
"How awkward you are!" she exclaimed viciously, with a little stamp. "Let me get on alone!"
And thereupon, to his astonishment and mortification, she pushed him aside, set her foot in the stirrup,—for she was very tall and could do it easily,—and was up in a flash. Lawrence, looking down at them from the edge of the woods, saw what had happened, and so did Stebbins, the groom, who grinned in silence. He hated Brinsley, and it is a bad sign when a good servant hates his master's guest. Lawrence felt that in addition to scoring one in the game, he was avenged on his enemy for the latter's taunting invitation to ride.
"I think I may count that, and mark two. "I'm sure she did it on purpose," he said audibly to himself.
Before Brinsley was mounted, Fanny was over the fence with her mare, and waiting for him in the road.
"Oh, come along! " she cried. "Don't be all day getting on!"
"You needn't be so tremendously rough on a fellow," said Brinsley, as his horse landed in the road. "It wasn't my fault that I wasn't waiting for a runaway under the trees up there."
"Yes it was! Everything's your fault," answered Fanny, emphatically. "No—you needn't play Orlando Furioso and make papa's old rocking-horse waltz like that. My mare's got to walk a mile, at least, for her nerves."
It didn't require Brinsley's great natural penetration to tell him that Miss Fanny Trehearne was in the very worst of tempers—even to the point of unfairly calling her papa's sturdy Hungarian bad names. But he could not at all see why she should be so angry. It had certainly been her fault if he had failed to put her neatly in the saddle. But her ill-humour did not frighten him in the least, though he was very quiet for several minutes after she had last spoken.
"It's not wildly gay to ride with people who don't talk," observed Fanny.
"I was trying to think of something appropriate to say," answered Brinsley. "But you're in such an awful rage—"
"Am I? I didn't know it. What makes you think so?"
"What nerves you've got!" exclaimed Brinsley, in a tone of admiration.
"I haven t any nerves at all."
"I mean good nerves."
"I tell you I haven't any nerves. Why do you talk about nerves? They're not amusing things to have, are they?"
"Well—in point of humour—I didn't say they were."
"I asked you to say something amusing, and you began talking about nerves," said Fanny, in explanation.
"I'm not in luck to-day," said Brinsley, after a pause.
"No—you're not," was the answer; but she did not vouchsafe him a glance.
"I wish you'd like me," he said boldly.
"I do—at a certain distance. You look well in the landscape—and you know it."
"Upon my word!" Brinsley laughed roughly, and looked between his horse's ears.
"Upon your word—what?"
"I never had anything said to me quite equal to that, Miss Trehearne."
"No? I'm surprised. Perhaps you haven't known the right sort of people. You must find the truth refreshing."
Brinsley waited a few moments before speaking, and then, turning his head, looked at her with great earnestness.
"I wish you'd tell me why you've taken such a sudden dislike to me," he said in a low voice.
"Why are you so anxious to know, Mr. Brinsley?" asked Fanny, meeting his eyes quietly.
"Because I believe that somebody has been saying disagreeable things about me to you," he answered. "If that s the case, it would be fair to give me a chance, you know."
"Nobody's been talking against you. You've talked against yourself. Besides," she added, her face suddenly clearing, "it's quite absurd to make such a fuss about nothing! I'm only angry about nothing at all. It's my way, you know. You mustn't mind. I'll get over it before we're at home, and then I'll go off, and my cousins will give you lots of weak tea and flattery."
Brinsley, who was clever at most things, was not good at talking nor at understanding a woman's moods, and he felt himself at so great a disadvantage that he slipped into an inane conversation about people and parties without succeeding in finding out what he wished to know. If he had ever conceived any mad hope of winning Fanny's affections, he abandoned it then and there. He was still further handicapped, had Fanny known it, by the desperate state of his own affairs at that moment; and if she had known something of his reflexions, she might have pitied him a little—what she might have thought, if she had guessed the remainder, is hard to guess, for he had a very curious scheme in his mind for improving his finances. He had been playing high for some time, had lost steadily, and was at the end of his present resources, which, with him, meant that he was at the end of all he had in the world.
He was not by any means inclined to give up the pleasant intimacy he had formed and fostered with the three Miss Miners, nor the attendant luxuries which he had gained with it, and the introduction to Bar Harbour society, which meant good society elsewhere. But he felt that he had no choice, since the cards went against him. He was not a sharper. He played fair, for the sake of the enjoyment of the thing. It was his one great passion. When he was in luck he won enough for his extravagant needs, for he always played high, on principle. But when fortune foiled him, he had other talents of a more curious description, by the exercise of which to replenish his purse—talents, too, which he had exercised in America for a long time. His happy hunting-ground was really London, which accounted for his evident and almost extraordinary familiarity with its ways. There are indeed few places in the world where a man may follow a doubtful occupation more freely and more successfully.
Before they reached the Trehearnes' house, Brinsley had made up his mind that he must drink his last cup of tea with the three Miss Miners on that day or very soon afterwards, unless he were to be even more fortunate in his undertaking than he dared to expect. The immediate consequence was an affectation of a sad and stately manner towards Fanny as he helped her off her mare at the door.
"I'm afraid this has been our last ride," he said, in a subdued voice.
"What? Oh—'The Last Ride'—Browning—I remember," answered Fanny.
"No I wasn't alluding to Browning. I'm going away very soon."
Fanny stared at him in some surprise.
"Oh! Are you? I am very sorry." She spoke cheerfully, and led the way into the house, Brinsley following her, with a dejected air. "You'll probably find my cousins in the library," she added. "I'm going to take off my hat—it's so hot."
The three Miss Miners were assembled, as usual at that hour, and greeted Brinsley effusively. Not wishing to be anticipated by Fanny in telling a story altogether to Lawrence's credit, he began to tell the three ladies of what had happened during the ride. He was very careful to explain that he had of course not dared to follow the runaway, lest he should have made matters much worse.
"It's quite dreadful," cried Miss Cordelia, on hearing of Fanny's narrow escape. "You should never have let her jump the fence at all. What do people do such mad things for!"
"If anything happened to the child, we might as well kill ourselves," said Elizabeth. "It's too dreadful to think of!"
"Well," answered Brinsley, "nothing has happened, you see. I've brought Miss Trehearne safe home, though I hadn't the good fortune to be the man who stopped her horse. You see," he added, smiling, "I want all the credit you can spare from Mr. Lawrence. I'm afraid there's not much to be got, though. He's had the lion's share."
"And where is he?" asked Augusta, who felt more sympathy for the artist than the others.
"Oh—he'll come back. He can't ride, you know, so he had to walk, poor fellow! He'd been pretty badly shaken, too, and he's not strong, I'm sure."
"You wouldn't have called him weak if you'd seen him hanging on while the mare dragged him," said Fanny, who had entered unnoticed.
"Oh, that's only strength in the hands!" said Brinsley, in a depreciative tone, and conscious of his own splendid proportions.
"Well, then, he's strong in the hands, that's all," retorted Fanny. "Please, some tea, Elizabeth dear—I'm half dead."
The three Miss Miners did their best to console Brinsley for Fanny's continued ill-treatment of him, but they did not succeed in lifting the cloud from his brow. At last he confessed that he was expecting to leave Bar Harbour at any moment.
