Ravenshoe. Henry Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ don't seem overjoyed to see me."

      "A man can't look joyous with broken shins, my dear Adelaide. Aunt, I've got some bad news for you. I am in trouble."

      "Oh dear," said the old lady, "and what is the matter now? Something about a woman, I suppose. You Ravenshoes are always—"

      "No, no, aunt. Nothing of the kind. Adelaide, don't go, pray; you will lose such a capital laugh. I've got rusticated, Aunt."

      "That is very comical, I dare say," said Adelaide, in a low voice; "but I don't see the joke."

      "I thought you would have had a laugh at me, perhaps," said Charles; "it is rather a favourite amusement of yours."

      "What, in the name of goodness, makes you so disagreeable and cross to-day, Charles? You were never so before, when anything happened. I am sure I am very sorry for your misfortune, though I really don't know its extent. Is it a very serious thing?"

      "Serious, very. I don't much like going home. Welter is in the same scrape; who is to tell her?"

      "This is the way," said Adelaide; "I'll show you how to manage her."

      All this was carried on in a low tone, and very rapidly. The old lady had just begun in a loud, querulous, scolding voice to Charles, when Adelaide interrupted her with—

      "I say, grandma, Welter is rusticated too."

      Adelaide good-naturedly said this to lead the old lady's wrath from Charles, and throw it partly on to her grandson; but however good her intentions, the execution of them was unsuccessful. The old lady fell to scolding Charles; accusing him of being the cause of the whole mishap, of leading Welter into every mischief, and stating her opinion that he was an innocent and exemplary youth, with the fault only of being too easily led away. Charles escaped as soon as he could, and was followed by Adelaide.

      "This is not true, is it?" she said. "It is not your fault?"

      "My fault, partly, of course. But Welter would have been sent down before, if it hadn't been for me. He got me into a scrape this time. He mustn't go back there. You mustn't let him go back."

      "I let him go back, forsooth! What on earth can I have to do with his lordship's movements?" she said, bitterly, "Do you know who you are talking to?—a beggarly orphan."

      "Hush! don't talk like that, Adelaide. Your power in this house is very great. The power of the only sound head in the house. You could stop anything you like from happening."

      They had come together at a conservatory door; and she put her back against it, and held up her hand to bespeak his attention more particularly.

      "I wish it was true, Charles; but it isn't. No one has any power over Lord Ascot. Is Welter much in debt?"

      "I should say, a great deal," was Charles's reply. "I think I ought to tell you. You may help him to break it to them."

      "Ay, he always comes to me for that sort of thing. Always did from a child. I'll tell you what, Charles, there's trouble coming or come on this house. Lord Ascot came home from Chester looking like death; they say he lost fearfully both there and at Newmarket. He came home quite late, and went up to grandma; and there was a dreadful scene. She hasn't been herself since. Another blow like it will kill her. I suspect my lord's bare existence depends on this colt winning the Derby. Come and see it gallop," she added, suddenly throwing her flashing eyes upon his, and speaking with an animation and rapidity very different from the cold stern voice in which she had been telling the family troubles. "Come, and let us have some oxygen. I have not spoken to a man for a month. I have been leading a life like a nun's; no, worse than any nun's; for I have been bothered and humiliated by—ah! such wretched trivialities. Go and order horses. I will join you directly."

      So she dashed away and left him, and he hurried to the yard. Scarcely were the horses ready when she was back again, with the same stem, cold expression on her face, now more marked, perhaps, from the effect of the masculine habit she wore. She was a consummate horsewoman, and rode the furious black Irish mare, which was brought out for her, with ease and self-possession, seeming to enjoy the rearing and plunging of the sour-tempered brute far more than Charles, her companion, did, who would rather have seen her on a quieter horse.

      A sweeping gallop under the noble old trees, through a deep valley, and past a herd of deer, which scudded away through the thick-strewn leaves, brought them to the great stables, a large building at the edge of the park, close to the downs. Twenty or thirty long-legged, elegant, nonchalant-looking animals, covered to the tips of their ears with cloths, and ridden each by a queer-looking brown-faced lad, were in the act of returning from their afternoon exercise. These Adelaide's mare, "Molly Asthore," charged and dispersed like a flock of sheep; and then, Adelaide pointing with her whip to the downs, hurried past the stables towards a group they saw a little distance off.

      There were only four people—Lord Ascot, the stud-groom, and two lads. Adelaide was correctly informed; they were going to gallop the Voltigeur colt (since called Haphazard), and the cloths were now coming off him. Lord Ascot and the stud-groom mounted their horses, and joined our pair, who were riding slowly along the measured mile the way the horse was to come.

      Lord Ascot looked very pale and worn; he gave Charles a kindly greeting, and made a joke with Adelaide; but his hands fidgeted with his reins, and he kept turning back towards the horse they had left, wondering impatiently what was keeping the boy. At last they saw the beautiful beast shake his head, give two or three playful plunges, and then come striding rapidly towards them, over the short, springy turf.

      Then they turned, and rode full speed: soon they heard the mighty hollow-sounding hoofs behind, that came rapidly towards them, devouring space. Then the colt rushed by them in his pride, with his chin on his chest, hard held, and his hind feet coming forward under his girth every stride, and casting the turf behind him in showers. Then Adelaide's horse, after a few mad plunges, bolted, overtook the colt, and actually raced him for a few hundred yards; then the colt was pulled up on a breezy hill, and they all stood a little together talking and congratulating one another on the beauty of the horse.

      Charles and Adelaide rode away together over the downs, intending to make a little détour, and so lengthen their ride. They had had no chance of conversation since they parted at the conservatory door, and they took it up nearly where they had left it. Adelaide began, and, I may say, went on, too, as she had most of the talking.

      "I should like to be a duchess; then I should be mistress of the only thing I am afraid of."

      "What is that?"

      "Poverty," said she; "that is my only terror, and that is my inevitable fate."

      "I should have thought, Adelaide, that you were too high spirited to care for that, or anything."

      "Ah, you don't know; all my relations are poor. I know what it is; I know what it would be for a beauty like me."

      "You will never be poor or friendless while Lady Ascot lives."

      "How long will that be? My home now depends very much on that horse; oh, if I were only a man, I should welcome poverty; it would force me to action."

      Charles blushed. Not many days before, Marston and he had had a battle royal, in which the former had said, that the only hope for Charles was that he should go two or three times without his dinner, and be made to earn it, and that as long as he had a "mag" to bless himself with, he would always be a lazy, СКАЧАТЬ