The Real Charlotte - Edith Somerville [18]
They turned their backs on the town, and rode along the dazzling, dusty road, that radiated all the heat of a blazing afternoon.
“I think he did you pretty well with that habit,” remarked Lambert presently. “What’s the damage to be?”
“What do you think?” replied Francie gaily, answering one question with another after the manner of her country.
“Ten?”
“Ah, go on! Where’d I get ten pounds? He said he’d only charge me six because you recommended me, but I can tell him he’ll have to wait for his money.”
“Why, are you hard up again?”
Francie looked up at him and laughed with unconcern that was not in the least affected.
“Of course I am! Did you ever know me that I wasn’t?”
Lambert was silent for a moment or two, and half unconsciously his thoughts ran back over the time, six years ago now, when he had first met Francie. There had always been something exasperating to him in her brilliant indifference to the serious things of life. Her high spirits were as impenetrable as a coat of mail; her ignorance of the world was at once sublime and enraging. She had not seemed in the least impressed by the fact that he, whom up to this time she had known as merely a visitor at her uncle’s house, a feature of the Lawn-Tennis tournament week, and a person with whom to promenade Merrion Square while the band was playing, was, in reality, a country gentleman, a J. P., and a man of standing, who owned as good horses as anyone in the country. She even seemed as impervious as ever to the pathos of his position in having thrown himself and his good looks away upon a plain woman six or seven years older than himself. All these things passed quickly through his mind, as if they found an accustomed groove there, and mingled acidly with the disturbing sub-consciousness that the mare would inevitably come home with a sore back if her rider did not sit straighter than she was doing at present.
“Look here, Francie,” he said at last, with something of asperity, “it’s all very fine to humbug now, but if you don’t take care you’ll find yourself in the county court some fine day. It’s easier to get there than you’d think,” he added gloomily, “and then there’ll be the devil to pay, and nothing to pay him with; and what’ll you do then?”
“I’ll send for you to come and bail me out!” replied Francie without hesitation, giving an unconsidered whack behind the saddle as she spoke. The black mare at once showed her sense of the liberty by kicking up her heels in a manner that lifted Francie a hand’s-breadth from her seat, and shook her foot out of the stirrup. “Gracious!” she gasped, when she had sufficiently recovered herself to speak; “what did he do? Did he buck-jump? Oh, Mr. Lambert—” as the mare, satisfied with her protest, broke into a sharp trot, “do stop him, I can’t get my foot into the stirrup!”
Lambert, trotting serenely beside her on his tall chestnut, watched her precarious bumpings for a minute or two with a grin, then he stretched out a capable hand, and pulled the mare into a walk.
“Now, where would you be without me?” he inquired.
“Sitting on the road,” replied Francie. “I never felt such a horrid rough thing—and look at Mrs. Lambert looking at me over the wall! Weren’t you a cad that you wouldn’t stop him before.”
In the matter of exercise, Mrs. Lambert was one of those people who want but little here below, nor want that little long. The tour of the two acres that formed the demesne of Rosemount was generally her limit, and any spare energy that remained to her after that perambulation was spent in taking weeds out of the garden path with a lady-like cane-handled spud. This implement was now in her gauntletted hand, and she waved it feebly to the riders as they passed, while Muffy stood in front of her and