CHAPTER XIV
Debopened her window to the soft, damp breath of a real hunting morning. The trees on the hillside showed weirdly through the gray mist. The river below looked like a tarnished ribbon run through an ancient cobweb veil. When the sun broke, it would be smooth silver, and the tree-trunks would be black, and the wet slope of the hill green as an emerald sheath.
From the kennels she could hear the eager hounds, already scenting the day’s sport, and smiled to find she could still distinguish between them—from the deep-throated note of old Conquest to Chanter’s steady baritone and the hysterical tremolo of young Mornington. The quiet air thrilled with the promise of vivid life soon to be unleashed upon its quest of death.
As she had prophesied, the meet was still uppermost in her father’s mind, and he looked approval when she entered the room in her short skirt and nailed boots. He had a stout ashplant in his hand, which he pushed across the table as she sat down to breakfast.
“It’s the stick I used to take hunting in WilliamLyndesay’s time,” he told her. “I kept it for rough work, and I haven’t seen it for at least ten years. You may not believe it, but it fell upon me out of a corner as I came downstairs!”
“It must have heard hounds and got hankering!” Deb laughed, picking it up and running her finger appreciatively down the good grain. “The wind’s that way, you know. Poor old thing! It shall have its day out all right. It shan’t be left at home to hanker in the dark. It has good taste in weather, too,” she added gaily, “for it’s going to be a grand day.”
“Yes—perfect!” Roger’s eyes went round to the window, to see the first pale gold of the sun climbing the shoulder of the hill. “I feel very much inclined to postpone my appointment, and come with you to the meet, after all.”
“It wouldn’t be very wise, would it?” Deb asked hurriedly, keeping her eyes on her plate, for she knew he was only waiting for the slightest sign of encouragement, having evidently forgotten the episode of the night before. “It will be very damp underfoot, I’m afraid, and you haven’t worn your biggest big boots for some time. I’m not quite certain where they are, to tell the truth! And if we make for Monteagle, as we’re nearly sure to, it will be pretty bad going, you know.”
Roger Lyndesay nodded, disappointed but acquiescent.
“I thought I might just have walked up to thehouse,” he said wistfully, and again Deb longed passionately for a resuscitated Slinker, at whatever cost to herself—“but I should only want to follow when once I was among hounds, and I don’t feel equal to that. I’ve done that Monteagle run in all weathers; ay, and seen the hare swim the river with hounds no more than a yard behind! It’s hard to keep indoors when their music’s in the air.”
“I’ll tell you everything when I come back, dad. We’ll follow every ring, and cover every yard, and struggle together through every spiky fence. You’ll feel as though you’d tramped every inch, you’ll see, instead of sitting quietly in your own arm-chair. And you’ll be able to correct Mr. Callander about all sorts of things when he comes for his next lesson in Crump geography. Nothing is so upsetting to your sense of locality as running rings round the same hill and crossing the river every ten minutes.
“And even if we were both dumb, the ashplant would have plenty to say, anyhow!” she added lightly, flourishing it as she went out. “It feels as though it were ready to walk out on its own. I could almost swear it was alive!”
She walked quickly across the park, a straight, slim figure in her dark jersey and close cap, and waved her hand to her father standing at his window on the other side of the fast-running water. Not until she was half-way to Crump did she realise that she had crossed the old bridge without a second’s hesitation, and with never a whisper of Slinker’s in her ear.
Sportsmen were approaching from all directions, cycles, traps and cars hurrying up and converging at Crump front; small boys playing truant, with shining eyes and sticks much taller than themselves; all classes and kinds and species, from the High Sheriff to half the loafing element of the village, who were only equal to an hour’s good work under pressure, but could pant after hounds all day on a crust of bread and the dregs of a split soda.
The keenest spirit of this last contingent caught Deb up on the narrow track. They had hunted together in the old days, and he was confident of her smiling greeting as he touched the remains of a cap. He had the plans for the day by heart, as well as any amount of private and possibly valuable information, gleaned from keeper, farmer and beck-watcher; and he remained beside her, pouring out eager opinions as to their chance of sport, and the best means of obtaining it.
Hounds were at Crump door, by now. They could see old Brathay sunk in a climbing sea of black and white and tan, and at the reiterated throaty chorus they quickened their steps instinctively and at the same moment. Deb, looking at the ragged figure beside her, half-starved, consumptive, little more than a log any other day, but alive to his finger-tips on this, wondered what could be the real nature of the spell that summoned them both alike. Not merely the lust of death, surely, for hares were scarce and exceedingly cunning, and a kill was rarely in the day’sprogramme; moreover, she loved every animal, and the little man at her side owned a miserable mongrel who was always fed, even if his master went hungry. Something higher must lie at the back of that eager response to pack-music and winded horn—something born of the smell of the good earth and the soft, spring morning, the clean air and the quick movement—some great wine of joy that Nature keeps for those who have the soil and the chase in their blood. Deborah Lyndesay and the loafer had this heritage in common, and the godlike, unforgettable days it gives. They came to the steps of Crump sporting equals.
Hounds were grouped a little to the right, round Brathay and the young whip, and Deb paused to say good-day and to pick out her favourites, while her ragged escort stood on anxious guard as wheels rolled perilously near.
Close to the house the crowd was thickening, and among the group on the steps she could discern Nettie, lending an inattentive ear to Rishwald, while her eyes strayed eagerly over the press in front. They sought for Dixon of Dockerneuk, in vain.
Savaury of Tasser had come in a brougham and a buttonhole, and was fearfully bored. He kept pulling out his watch and remarking that the best of the day was going, and was positively rude to Mrs. Lyndesay about the hall-clock.
“We must wait for Larrupper,” Christian said soothingly, looking very young and fair in the roughgreen of the hunt. “He’s late, of course, but then he always is, and we can’t leave him to follow, because he’ll make such a howling nuisance of himself all over the county, asking his way.”
His eye fell suddenly on Deb, and he made his way to her at once, nodding brightly on all sides. The Bracewell girls, who had turned well-cut backs upon Deborah, while endeavouring to collect the wordless doctor for a subscription dance, had the same trap set for the Master, but he evaded it smilingly and passed on. The Honourable tapped him on the shoulder from her majestic landaulette, and inquired if he intended standing for the County Council, but again he escaped; and after skirting several other dangerous dowagers, and a farmer or two bent on shippon repairs, arrived at last at his destination.
“I’m ever so glad you’ve turned out!” he said eagerly, acknowledging her attendant’s anxious salute with a kindly nod. “Callander told me there was just a chance you might. I’ve often wondered if you would care about it, but I knew you’d be there if you did. Lyndesays don’t need invitations from Lyndesays, do they?” he added, smiling, veiling the reason he could not speak.
“Father wanted me to come——” she began, and coloured sharply, for the sympathy in his eyes told her that he was in full possession of the facts.
“I wish he could have honoured us on his own account,” he answered, stooping to respond to the earnest pleading of a sleek head at his knee. “I’mcoming in, to-night, if I may? I want some advice. And look here, you’ll stop out to lunch, of course? We’re making straight along the river to Monteagle, and probably round by Bytham to Halfrebeck. It’s a grand day, and we should have some sport.”
Here Swainson broke in breathlessly with information, and Christian listened attentively, putting in a word from time to time. Then he turned to Deborah again.
“You haven’t seen Larry anywhere about, have you? He’ll look after you, of course—and Callander. And Nettie wants to know whetheryou’ll look afterher, though I expect Rishwald will take that as his prerogative. I wonder if he’s returned that fish-thing of Savaury’s, yet!” Their eyes met, and they laughed. Then he lowered his voice. “May I see you home when we draw off?”
“Certainly not!” Deb answered quickly, turning hastily to look for signs of Larrupper. “You’re wasting too much time on me as it is—Mrs. Stalker thinks so, at least. And the Master’s place is with hounds until they’re safely back in kennels—surely you ought to know that!”
“Yes, but Brathay can take them all right, and he simply loves walking them along the road, with all the kiddies in the place admiring behind. And you know I want to see your father.”
“Then you can come after tea, when I shall be busy writing to registry-offices,” she told him unkindly. “And if you intend to hunt to-day, you’d better getstarted, especially as I can see a streak of mud in the distance that is probably Larry.”
It was. He came racing through the crowd just as Christian snatched the last word of the conversation. “I’m coming!” he insisted, in a tone she had not heard from him before, and gave her no chance of reply, turning away to drag his tardy cousin out of the splashed car.
“No end sorry, Laker—shouldn’t have waited—sprintin’ like the deuce!” he gasped, throwing off his leather coat, and beckoning to a groom in the stable-yard. “Grange goin’ huntin’, too, old man,” he explained kindly. “Awful sport, Grange. S’pose your chap can shove the beastly thing in somewhere?”
Without waiting for an answer he fell upon Deborah, and with his arm through hers marched her off at the tail of the pack in full view of all present, as Christian started up the avenue.
“I’m badly in want of soothin’, Debbie dear,” he announced plaintively, bending his black bullet head to her cool cheek. “I ran over for Verity—she’s always been a nailer at huntin’, you know—but there was no gettin’ her off the spot, she was so busy slavin’ for that evenin’ shout of hers. She was sittin’ round sortin’ hanks an’ hanks of white piqué an’ a stack of black, fluffy bobs; and all the time I was persuadin’ her to come huntin’ she was fixin’ a skirt-thing on me, an’ tryin’ the bobs up an’ down it, to see where they looked best. It was no use tellin’ her what a rippin’day it was, an’ plenty of scent, an’ real interestin’ news like that. All she said was—‘Yes, dear, just an inch or two to the right’—an’—‘Yes, dear, five, I think, instead of six’—all that sort of irritatin’ piffle. So at last I got rattled an’ cleared out to go huntin’ without her, but old Grange grabbed me half-way down the drive an’ said I’d forgotten to leave the skirt-thing behind; an’ just as I was rushin’ back, blushin’, two of the squawkers arrived for a mornin’ sing-song, an’ giggled fit to kill themselves. Of course I pretended I was used to goin’ about like that, but I felt dancin’ mad, I can tell you, and I want soothin’ very badly, Debbie dear, so you can just start in an’ do it!”
“Oh, Larry, Iwishyou’d come in the skirt!” Deb laughed blissfully. “What a dear old crackpot you are! I’m sure Verity must be frantically busy; these things take no end of trouble and arranging. I’m going over, to-morrow, to give her a hand. The concert will soon be over, now, so try not to worry her until she’s recovered.”
“Worry her?” Larry exploded, dreadfully injured. “Worryher? Why, I’m her right-hand man and the L.N.W.R. and the Army and Navy Stores combined! I spend my days shootin’ into Witham after music, an’ droppin’ notes on the squawkers, an’ judgin’ patterns an’ huntin’ up words that look a bit rocky in the programme. D’you suppose I find it amusin’ playin’ errand-boy and encyclopædia, an’ all the rest of the tommy-rot?”
“Why, yes, you simply love it!” Deb said firmly. “You like being ordered about by Verity and told to do things, because it saves you the trouble of thinking. You care for each other all right, but you don’t take the matter seriously enough—either of you; that’s what’s wrong, Larry dear. Some day you’ll have a big row over something that goes deep, and you’ll not be able to get back. You should stop away from her, and refuse to be played with any longer. She’d soon find that she couldn’t do without you.”
“How can you turn your head one way an’ your heart another?” Larry asked reproachfully, “or keep away from the fire when you’re freezin’, or lock up the ginger-beer when you’re thirsty? You’re not a bit soothin’, dear old thing! An’ I don’t see that I’ll ever quarrel with Verity, in spite of your interestin’ prophecy. She’s not playin’ Queensberry, I’ll admit, but she’s as straight as a regiment, for all that, an’ she’ll never do anythin’ that I’d be ashamed to own up to in my little girl!”
Deb’s maternal heart warmed towards Verity’s black donkey.
“You’re just the very nicest person that ever was, Larry!” she exclaimed affectionately. “And Verity knows it as well as I do. You’re both dears. But oh,dobe careful not to crock up things by accident!”
As they quitted the road for the river-bank, Mrs. Slinker lined up with them in thankful haste, leavingRishwald to propel the Honourable through the narrow stile. Larry knew her, of course—he knew everybody—(especially the members of that interesting force, the County police)—and greeted her with a pumping handshake.
“I hope you’re soothin’?” he inquired pathetically. “I’ve had a nasty jar, an’ Miss Lyndesay’s out of practice, this mornin’.”
“I should have thought the morning itself would have been sufficiently soothing,” Mrs. Slinker replied, looking at the quiet, brown-hedged land with the river curving from field to field between the white gleam of snowdrops, and the faint sun gilding the green in patches. Christian was in front with hounds bunched close at his heels, walking easily yet with that covering swing that must be followed to prove its pace. The whips were a yard or two behind, keeping a stern watch on any sudden desire after a stray rabbit. Then came the field at a respectful distance, here and there a red jersey or a blue wing standing out on the soft background. Horses came to the fences and lifted surprised heads. Cattle lowered theirs anxiously, and followed awhile in mild curiosity, while the sheep in meadow after meadow, within sight or out of it, huddled together, facing outward, with the unerring prescience that warns them of any canine close at hand.
Nettie, looking nervously behind her, saw Rishwald shuffle the Honourable on to the doctor, and with a wild signal of distress to her companions, slid througha hedge before their astonished eyes. Scouting by means of a gate, they discovered her on the far side, sitting in a bramble.
“I hadn’t any conversation left about tea-caddies,” she informed Deborah, when Larry had extricated her. “And I was quite right about kleptomania being in the family. He’s always talking about ‘collecting’ things. It’s the modern form, you know. I kept a strict look-out when he lunched at Crump, but he didn’t actually make off with anything except a few match-boxes and a handkerchief of Christian’s; though as we haven’t been through the inventory yet, there’s no knowing what may have happened to the drawing-room silver!”
Hounds found in the marshy bottom by Guard Hill, and were over the ditch and half-way across the big meadow before the field had got into its stride. Deb found Callander beside her as she measured her distance for the slippery jump into the thorny arms of the well-laid fence in front.
“Well, was it very bad?” he asked bluntly, when he had engineered her through the prickins, and they were racing side by side over the short grass. “I didn’t see you hanging out any signals of distress, so I kept away. And I rather think myself that you’re enjoying it!”
She laughed, turning a glowing face towards him.
“Swainson took me under his protection,” she said breathlessly, as they climbed the hill. “It’s an honour, though it may not exactly jump to the eye!And the people who cut me are wallowing in that last ditch, which is distinctly cheering. No, it wasn’t so bad, except when Larry marched me out at the head of the procession. And of course I’m enjoying it!” she added, as they stopped at a closed gate. “It’s good for the soul to run up and down the earth in the spring of the year, and come home covered with mud and scratches and full of fresh air. It’s a pity one can’t always do it.”
“You’re stopping in too much,” Callander growled, arguing with a Westmorland method of securing gates that had not as yet come under his notice. “You stick in that pretty little house of yours and mope. You should get out, and stop out. Things are right enough, out of doors. Doyouknow how the confounded thing works?”
Deb solved the problem for him, and they hurried on, for hounds had vanished round a plantation.
“Life sounds so simple with you Men of the Land!” she said, smiling. “Your recording Angel doesn’t need to use shorthand! And of course you’re right. It’s a true gospel, at least, for us who ‘belong.’”
He glanced at her sideways—that “belong” had been a revelation—but she was watching eagerly for the reappearance of the first smooth head, and was evidently unconscious of her last words. She did indeed “belong,” he thought, looking at the alert figure, the lightly ruffled hair and sparkling face. She was part and parcel of the picture rolling away beneaththem—plough and meadow, hedge, river, plantation and snug-laid farm, backed beyond and beyond by mountain and sea. She had been made of the warm, living earth, the crisp wind, the soft, gray-blue sky. Given every tie that binds a human to the soil, she “belonged” to the land by heritage, by affinity and by love.
Nettie and Larrupper were at their heels by the time they reached the top gate of all, which Larry fastened with great deliberation in the face of a panting horde behind, while his companion stamped with impatience and entreated him to come on, for hounds were still in full cry below.
“Etiquette of huntin’!” Larry reproved her gravely, fumbling with the chain, and placidly ignoring the shrieks in rear, faint but pursuing. “Looks a bit wantin’ in feelin’, perhaps, but it’s etiquette, all the same. Leave a gate ajar, an’ you’ll have all the field scuttlin’ through without so much as givin’ it a hitch. That’s how a huntin’ crowd gets itself disliked. An’ you needn’t get worryin’ about hounds, I assure you. They’re certain to lose her in the long covert. They always do.”
They did; and there followed a long check, during which Rishwald resumed his private chase with a discourse upon snuff-boxes, much to Larry’s disgust, as he was finding Mrs. Slinker distinctly “soothin’,” he informed Deborah, aside.
“Of course I’m not sayin’ she’s in the same street with you, Debbie dear!” he added apologetically,“but she’s so sportin’—youdothink she’s sportin’, don’t you? An’ she’s simply burstin’ with good sense, almost as bad as old Grange. She makes you feel the world’s so clinkin’ all right, doesn’t she? I expect that’s why Slinker took a fancy to her. Slinker was always pessimistin’ about things. Lyndesays are generally grousin’ an’ wantin’ a leg-up.”
“Yes, we’re a depressing crowd,” Deb answered cheerfully. “We want a desperate amount of encouragement. And you needn’t apologise, Larry. I admire Mrs. Stanley myself.”
They moved along by Quinfell and into Winderwath, and there they chopped a hare in the first five minutes. Mrs. Slinker instantly disappeared round the nearest corner, her fingers in her ears, but Deb stood rigidly where she was, though Callander saw the hand on the ashplant quiver when the quarry screamed.
“Mrs. Stanley said we were all brutes, both hounds and men,” he observed. “Is that your opinion, Miss Lyndesay?”
“I suppose so,” Deb said slowly. “I’d choose a sharp death in the open, myself, rather than lingering misery in a sick-room. But a hare is so soft and so—afraid——” She stopped, shutting her lips determinedly. This man was getting to know too much.
Larry came up with a long face and an air of having been warned off the premises.
“Mrs. Stanley’s been callin’ me names!” he informed them, desperately wounded. “Says Ithoroughly enjoyed seein’ the poor brute chopped! It’s very disheartenin’. I’m afraid she’s not as sportin’ as I thought. I offered to borrow a herrin’ an’ let hounds have a shot at collarin’ me, just to see how it felt, but she thought I was simply foolin’. Rishwald’s car’s followin’, an’ he’s goin’ to take her home—just at lunch-time, too! Laker will be ravin’. It’s very upsettin’.”
The lunch-cart was in the lane close by, with the butler already at work, the field standing about in groups or scattered haphazard on wall or bank. Christian seized Deborah as she looked longingly towards the near plantation.
“You’re coming to lunch!” he said firmly, piloting her to a spread rug. “I’ll not have you sneaking away and eating biscuits in the hedge, or pretending you’re not hungry. Callander, keep an eye on her while I go and forage!”
“Did you know that you were a favourite of Parker’s?” he added, when he returned. “He was quite snubby to me on your account, over the sandwiches. ‘Miss Lyndesay, sir, doesn’t eat potted rabbit!’ he informed me, coldly. How on earth do they know these things, the dear old Marconis?”
The next moment he was beside Rishwald’s car, looking up at Nettie with his face full of concern.
“You’re not really going, are you? Won’t you stop for lunch, first? Oh, very well—you’ll be in time at Crump, if you fly; and take Rishwald in with you, will you? I say, dear, you’re not ill, or anythingelse? Didn’t like the worry—was that it? I suppose we’re a lot of ravening savages, but that’s hunting, you know—the sport of gentlemen, they call it! I’m frightfully sorry if you’re upset!”
“I must be getting old,” Mrs. Slinker answered, smiling with rather an effort. “It hurts me to see things harried out of life. I just hate making a fuss, so let me slip away quietly, Youngest One, there’s a lamb. I reckon this sort of game’s got to be in your blood. I liked the running and the scrambling all right—but oh, Laker, why didn’t you warn me that a driven hare screams like a frightened child!”
Rishwald thought himself in clover all the way to Crump, and covered four miles with descriptions of a pet jug, to which he referred familiarly as “my little Toby”; but he was a little downcast when they stopped to find that she had understood him to be talking about a dog.
The field fell off sadly in the afternoon, Honourables and other notabilities vanishing like clouds upon the horizon, and sport improved—perhaps accordingly. Grange had gone back with the Crump cart, and, later, spent a trying hour chasing his master up inaccessible lanes. Larry had a dealing practice at five. He was on the point of offering Deborah a lift back to Kilne, when café diplomacy suddenly prompted otherwise, and he faded silently through a hedge into Grange’s thankful embrace, feeling very mean and destitute of manners.
Deb, however, did not notice his departure, for sheherself had designs upon a hedge in a totally opposite direction, the situation having suddenly taken on a very awkward complexion. The last halt had been called near the Bracewells’ house, and the girls were inviting the tail of the field in to tea. The dumb doctor, whose patients had finally decided to die without him, was swallowed up in an instant; and even wary Callander was collared before he realised that Deb was not of the party. She was well across the next field, keeping close in the shadow of the fence, when Christian dropped beside her.