Hildy Does Something Shocking

22

Hildy Does Something Shocking

    The Madderns had not been wholly correct in explaining to the callers that Hildy was out riding that afternoon. Well, it was true enough that she had ridden out. And certainly they had not been expecting visitors, so there was no particular reason she should have stayed at home. Except that her mamma had earlier ordered her to go to her room and remain there. For Hildy had once again shown herself most recalcitrant in the matter of Sir Julian Naseby, and this time not to Miss Maddern, but directly to her mother.

    “I do not care if his cold is better or not, and if he has not called so far, why should he call today?” she cried, very much flushed up.

    Unfortunately Mrs Maddern, instead of taking a very high tone, the which had certainly been her intention, immediately descended to her daughter’s level. “And why should he not, pray?” she retorted crossly.

    “Because he has not been near us since he came down here, and in any case I do not care, he is a great gaby, if he is a baronet; and if you wish for my opinion, which you need not tell me you do not, for I know I am merely marriage-fodder to you,” declared Hildy bitterly: “he is not one tenth of the man that Sir Edward Jubb is!”

    Mrs Maddern’s colour rose alarmingly. “Jubb is a mere cit, and old enough to be your father, Hildegarde Maddern, what are you saying?” she cried.

    “I’m saying that if I could care for any man it would be he rather than Sir Julian, and if you wish me to be further grist to your matrimony-mill, you had best set your cap on my behalf at Sir Ned, for he at least has intelligence, diligence, application and good sense, all of which Sir Julian noticeably LACKS!” shouted Hildy.

    Her mamma drew an outraged breath but before she could speak Hildy set the seal to her brazen impertinence by shouting: “And how old when you married him was PAPA?”

    This, of course, was lèse majesté of the worst kind, and Mrs Maddern said in a trembling voice: “Get up to your room.”

    “Very well, I shall be glad to, for even if Namby-Pamby Naseby appears I do not wish to set eyes on his stupid head!” shouted Hildy.

    “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT, YOU IMPERTINENT GIRL!” she screamed, getting her second wind.

    Hildy rushed upstairs forthwith.

    Mrs Maddern tottered into the little sitting-room, where on finding Amabel and Mrs O’Flynn already installed with their work, quietly embroidering intertwined Cs and Ps with much decoration of hearts and doves, she immediately burst into tears and told them everything.

    “Muh-muh-marriage fodder!” she sobbed eventually, lowering the handkerchief which Amabel had bestowed on her.

    “Ye-es... I dare say she had it out of some strange book, you know what Hildy is,” said Amabel dubiously.

    “Stupid child, she meant I was destining her for—for any man who should happen along, as the poor soldiers are called cannon fodder!” she cried.

    “I see that, Mamma, but I am sure she did not really mean it, she was just upset,” she said soothingly.

    Mrs Maddern gave an angry sniff. “And grist to my matrimony-mill? I suppose you will claim she had that from a book, next! And I am NOT a match-making mamma!” she cried, dissolving into fresh tears.

    Mrs O’Flynn here rose, folding her work, and crept out quietly. She did not think she could help, and she did not wish to embarrass her already flushed friend any further.

    “Hush, Mamma,” said Amabel feebly, patting her back.

    Mrs Maddern sobbed angrily for a while. “And she need not imagine she is going to ride out this day, for she shall stay in her room, and so I have told her!” she declared.

    Even Amabel could see this was hardly logical: for if she truly wished Hildy to make a push to engage Sir Julian’s interest, and he should call... “What—what if Sir Julian should chance to call, though, Mamma?” she faltered.

    “I am very sure he will not! Why should he, when he never has so far?” she cried angrily.

    “Well... But we know now that he has been laid up with his cold, Mamma.”

    “Pooh!” she said crossly. “In any case she does not deserve him, she has said the cruellest things about the poor man!” Suddenly she looked at her second daughter with new eyes. “Dearest, I am very sure, if he has not already done so, he will soon tire of Hildy and her naughty ways: is it not possible that in the near future his eyes may turn towards another lady entirely?”

    Innocently Amabel replied: “I am sure it could turn out that way, but do not despair just yet, dearest Mamma: after all, he and Lord Rockingham”—her voice faltered for an instant: this was an unhappy reminder that his Lordship had not called, either—“um—have no doubt been very busy, renewing old acquaintance and—and with the fireworks and everything!” she finished desperately.

    “Yes!” cried Mrs Maddern, immediately distracted from the topic in hand. “For do you not remember, when Lord Nelson’s great victories were known at home, how Sir James arranged fireworks for the people, even though the bells had of course been rung immediately, and how extremely occupied he and, indeed, Mr Shallcrass and Dr Rogers as well, all became over them?”

    “And Mr Jenkins from Home Farm,” she agreed eagerly, nodding.

    “Nonsense, dear child, he is not a gentleman! ...All the same,” she said, frowning, as she recalled the original subject of the discussion: “Hildy does not deserve him, and it is not to be wondered at, if he is deserting her! But if he should chance to call, my love,” patting her hand, “you will of course show yourself everything that is amiable.”

    “Yes, of course, Mamma,” said Amabel blankly.

    “Splendid! I knew I might rely on you, dearest! Now, let me see, there are a thousand and one things I promised myself I would see to this morning, and I have not touched upon the half of them!” She bustled out.

    After a moment Amabel went very pink and gasped: “Oh, no!”

    Hildy stayed in her room quite happily, reading, for about two hours, and then the sounds of the family gathering for a meal informed her she was to be starved as well as cloistered, and she became very angry. Finally, after scowling and fuming for a while, she got into her riding dress and crept down the back stairs. Not that any of them would hear her if she thundered down the front stairs like Jupiter Tonens, they were all in the dining-room, stuffing themselves disgustingly!

    “Salut, Berthe: tu ne m’as pas vue, et je meurs de faim,” she said, sticking her head into the kitchen.

    Berthe informed her she would go too far, one of these days, added on a proud note she was picking up quite a Belgian accent, and gave her a juicy plum, a hunk of cheese, a hunk of bread, and a generous slice of cold ham. Hildy thanked her fervently and went out munching.

    In the stable yard, most fortunately, there was no sign of Ned Adams, so she ordered a very young under-groom loftily to saddle up her horse. He looked uncertain, but obeyed. Hildy kindly gave him the plum on the strength of this. He looked even more uncertain, but accepted it gratefully.

    “Missy, you won’t go for to jump nor nothing, will you?” he faltered as she mounted from the block.

    “No, I am not so stupid, and if I was, you can be very sure Blue Moon would have far too much sense to let me!”

    “Aye: he’s a steady nag,” he agreed, patting his neck.

    “Though very beautiful,” said Hildy sedately, but with a twinkle in her eye.

    The unsuspecting boy picked up this gambit. “Aye, pretty is as pretty does, but pretty looks ain’t everything in a horse, Missy! Now, you take—” He gave her a long rigmarole on the merits of horses he had known, ending with a rather unfortunate encomium on a black mare of “his Lordship’s” what had won—something or another: Hildy was not interested in the name of the race. The game of asking “Which lordship?” had long since palled, for there was only the one answer, and it was generally accompanied by “out of course” and an incredulous look, so she refrained, and saying merely: “I am sure you are right, but never mind: those fiery steeds would not do for me!” rode slowly away.

    The young groom scratched his head, but as he was momentarily on duty alone there was little he could do. Mr Adams would not be best pleased that he had not accompanied Miss Hildy, true, but that would be as nothing to his wrath should Sam Potts desert his post. So Sam Potts stayed.

    Hildy had been intending to ride towards the Dittersford turn-off, but she suddenly recalled that this was the day on which Ned Adams and several of his henchmen had gone over to some place on the far side of Daynesford Place to collect a horse that Paul had bought for Luís, and they might be expected to be returning along that road at no very distant time. So she turned the other way, and rode slowly towards Willow Court.

    The day was fine, if overcast, with only a little wind, and the road, which ran between high hedgerows for quite a space, though pretty enough, was rather dull. As soon as she could Hildy turned off, and crossed several fields. She did not hurry, for she was not confident of her ability to make Blue Moon understand that, in the case she might have started to trot or canter, she might wish to slow down again. Blue Moon was not precisely fresh, as Ned saw to it that the young ladies’ horses all had any fidgets they might be expected to experience well shaken out of them in the early morning by a brisk gallop. And no oats right after: was you simple or somethin’, Sam Potts? So Blue Moon was content to go along as slowly as his rider could wish.

    Eventually they came to a small wood.

    “This looks more interesting!” said Hildy on a hopeful note. “And it is not very thick, I’m sure we can’t get lost in it! Besides, Dr Rogers always said I had a great sense of locality! Come on, Blue Moon!”

    They entered the wood. It was mostly young larches and silver birches, with the occasional struggling little oak, so it was very pretty and Hildy was quite pleased with herself for having chosen to enter it. After wandering on for quite some way they came to a stream.

    “Help,” said Hildy, pulling rather at Blue Moon’s mouth.

    Blue Moon had stopped in any case, he was not stupid. And besides—though his fair rider had no notion of this—he had a rooted objection to water jumps. He had actually been bred as a hunter, which explained why he was such a fine-looking creature; but this disinclination to jump half what he should jump, coupled with his placid disposition, had meant that he had had to be sold off as a lady’s hack. Paul had been very pleased to get him.

    “Well,” said Hildy, “shall we go along it?”

    Blue Moon flicked his ear.

    “No, what a beast I am: of course you will wish for a drink! Um—well, come on.” She let him approach the water and slackened the reins. Blue Moon drank thirstily.

    Hildy sighed. “It looks clean. I don’t think we saw any cattle or sheep upstream of it, I’m sure it can’t be dirty... No, I’d better not get off, there’s nothing to mount from. Come up, then, Blue Moon, we’ll go along the bank for a little. I dare say there might be a fallen log, and if there isn’t, I suppose I shall just have to stay thirsty, after all it is not I who am doing the work!” She patted his neck, and they wandered on.

    “Oh, bother!” cried Hildy as the trees opened out into an attractive grassy clearing on their side and a smaller clearing on the other. “Not a fallen log or large rock in sight!”

    She drew the horse to a halt and looked around dubiously. Naturally none of the trees had low branches that might assist her to mount: they were not those sorts of trees. After some pouting a naughty glint came into her eye: the clearing was not wide, but on their side it was fairly deep, forming, indeed, a sort of grassy avenue leading up to the stream.

    “Come up!” she said, steering the horse right down the natural avenue. “Now!” she said, turning him, with some sawing at his mouth. “GO!” She clapped him smartly in the flank with her heels.

    Blue Moon broke into a canter. Hildy kicked him a few more times and he quickened his pace. It was wonderful, it was like flying! “GO!” she screamed as they approached the bank.

    Blue Moon stopped dead, as was his normal practice when confronted with water, and Hildy flew off his back and into the stream, landing with a terrific splash and a thump that knocked the breath out of her.

    The stream was nowhere very deep and just at this point it was about two feet at this time of the year. Hildy struggled to a sitting position without much difficulty, though she was very shaken. And very wet. “You brute!” she cried, as Blue Moon began to crop the grass.

    Blue Moon just went on eating.

    “‘A gentle ride for a lady?’” quoted Hildy loudly and crossly.

    Blue Moon continued to eat.

    “Well, I suppose you have not had your luncheon, either!” conceded Hildy with a giggle. “Oh, help, how wet I am!” She-stood up, looking down at her bedraggled habit. “Help, it’s wet through! Ugh,” she discovered, as she began to squelch to the bank: “my boots are full of water!”

    It was not an easy matter to step out of a stream two feet deep in a soaking habit with boots full of water, but Hildy was young and active, and she managed it. She sat down, and hauling the boots off with immense effort, emptied the water out of them. “Does water inside expensive riding boots that your cousin has paid for ruin them?” she wondered aloud with a giggle. “How very fortunate that Paul is soon to be my brother! Or possibly not, for a cousin could hardly beat me!” More giggling.

    Blue Moon didn’t take much notice of this. He went on eating.

    “The next thing we know, you will be as bloated as Mr Jenkins’s cow that time, and Ned Adams will blame ME!” said Hildy, very loudly. “Oh, well!”

    After few moments of very wet sitting a speculative look came into her eye. “Hildegarde,” she said primly, “you cannot possibly sit there catching your death in that wet habit, child!” She stood up, and clambered out of the habit.

    As no-one had supervised her changing, this left her in a wet shift and a draggled neckcloth. Hildy threw the neckcloth on the grass with a distasteful shudder, and wrung out the skirt of the shift as best she might. Then she attacked the habit, without much success: it was a heavy woollen garment and soaked quite through.

    “It is not very warm today, is it?” she said to her oblivious companion. “Their gloomy predictions that the day would turn out as dull and overcast as yesterday were correct—as usual,” she noted sourly, not bothering to state who “They” were, it being self-evident. “I had best take some exercise to warm me up. Um… I know!”

    Blue Moon took no notice when his lady owner began to dance round the clearing in what she fondly imagined was a Grecian manner: the actions of humans at all times, apart from when they were feeding, watering, grooming or riding him, were of no interest to him.

    Hildy eventually exhausted herself by the dancing, and collapsed onto the grassy bank again. “Why do we wear stupid clothes at all in our so-called civilized state? This is so much nicer!” she cried. “Of course, being a horse would be even better. If I were a horse I would canter and canter! Then I suppose some ugly brute of a human would come along and put a bit in my mouth,” she mused. “Well, I’m sorry, darling Blue Moon,” she said, scrambling up and bestowing a kiss on his nose: “I can’t take it out for you, for I’m not too sure I could get it back correctly, not with all these buckles and straps and so forth! Never mind, I shall get Ned Adams to teach me every single thing he knows about bridling and saddling a horse—yes, and grooming, too—for I am sick of my own ignorance!”

    Blue Moon whickered tolerantly.

    “Dean Swift was in the right of it,” mused Hildy, sitting down and hugging her knees: “we are such greedy, ugly, contumacious creatures, without a single redeeming feature, compared to the noble Houyhnhnms!” She practised saying this word in more and more of a Horse accent, and finally, to her gratification, Blue Moon whinnied in reply.

    Hildy laughed triumphantly, but then said: “Oh, dear, if only we could truly speak to one another, Blue Moon: how wholly rational and noble your discourse would be. Especially when compared with mine,” she added on a glum note.

    Blue Moon took another mouthful of grass.

    “Gratification of the senses, Blue Moon,” warned Hildy, lying on her back and gazing into the sky. “Is there no more to life on earth than that?”

    Blue Moon just stood there quietly. Very probably—though not, of course, definitely—he was unaware of anything contradictory in the remarks his owner had addressed to him.

    “I suppose,” said Hildy with another sigh, “that such as—well, Mr Parkinson, I suppose,”—she made a face, but quite possibly Blue Moon did not mind—“oh, dear, I have used ‘I suppose’ twice in one breath: that is hardly elegant: well, I suppose,” she said firmly, “that such as they—though not dear old Dr Rogers—would claim that life is given to us for the developing of our immortal souls. Only I,” said Hildy with a grimace, “find it very hard to credit such a thing! To my mind the marvels of creation are wonderful in themselves, and that is enough: the teleological argument for the existence of a creating deity does not convince me.

    “No,” said a thoughtful voice: “it don’t convince me, either; but I never thought to hear a young lady say so.”

    Hildy sat up with little scream, clutching at her breasts under the damp shift.

    Ned Jubb, grinning, came into the clearing leading a limping horse.

    “How did you get here?” she gasped.

    “We crossed this some little way upstream,” he said, nodding at it, “and then this brute went lame. I’m not much of a hand with horses, and I’m damned if I know whether he’s got a stone in his shoe, or what, so I thought I’d better just lead him. I, er, overheard the soliloquy and could not resist taking a look to see who was delivering it.”—Hildy’s cheeks were scarlet.—“Then I saw who was delivering it,” said Ned with a naughty and far from paternal twinkle in his eye, “and could not resist coming even closer!”

    “Then you may go away again smartly!” said Hildy crossly.

    “Why be ashamed of the human body? Especially when there ain’t nothing to be ashamed of in the particular instance of created being!” he said with a chuckle.

    “OOH! Bite your tongue, you silly creature!” cried Hildy crossly, forgetting to keep her arms crossed on her chest.

    “You wear little more and call it an evening dress,” he said coolly, sitting down beside her and removing his hat.

    “What a lie!” she cried.

    “Nonsense, I’d bet my entire art collection that you had no corset under that flimsy white thing you wore at Betsy’s!” he choked.

    “Well, if I did not, at least I had a petticoat!” said Hildy crossly.

    “Mm, not even damp like the dashers wear ’em, either!” he choked.

    “That is not amusing, sir,” said Hildy, biting her lip very hard.

    “Oh, isn’t it?” he said sadly, taking his jacket off.

    Hildy gave him a startled look.

    “Do not worry, Miss Hildegarde, I don’t intend to take a dip in front of you: the weather ain’t warm enough. You had best wear this before you catch your death,” he said, draping the coat on her shoulders.

    “Thank you,” said Hildy in tiny voice, hugging it round her.

    “Er… As it ain’t the day for a dip,” he ventured, looking at her horse, “may one presume that that nag—”

    “Very well! I fell off! He would not jump it,” she said, pouting.

    Ned Jubb had a terrific wheezing, gasping fit.

    “My habit is soaked, and I suppose I shall have to ride home in it,” she added glumly.

    “Aye,” he agreed, eyeing the still very wet heap. “Did you not at least try to wring it out?”

    “Yes! The horrid thing weights a ton!” she snapped.

    Ned looked at her affectionately. “Wet wool.” He got up, picked the thing up, and wrung it out thoroughly.

    “Thank you,” sad Hildy on a lame note. “It is so unfair: I wish I were a man!”

    He laughed. “Thank God you ain’t!”

    She looked at him sideways, and smiled slowly. “Mm.”

    “Don’t say that, or I’ll forget all them gennelman things what I learned meself up about!”

    “That was entirely spurious, Sir Edward,” she said with dignity.

    “Aye, well, it’s been a long time, I suppose I have forgotten the accent and the turns of speech. –After trying so long to get rid of ’em,” he said, pulling a face.

    “Mm... Why did you do it?” she asked.

    “Eh?”

    “Endeavour to—to turn yourself into a gentleman, for want of a better phrase. Do you not despise our class?”

    “Not all of its members, Miss Hildy, no.”

    “Becoming a gentleman represents, in a sense, worldly success, I suppose,” she said slowly.

    “Aye... I don’t know, exactly. I was very young when I decided I would beat them at their own game,” he said, grimacing. “It never occurred, back then, that no matter how much I rose in the world, no matter how many large houses or fine horses I owned, and no matter how many fine ladies loved me,”—here Hildy gave him a startled look which he pretended not to remark—“I could never be one of them.”

    She frowned.

    “But then, at that time, it never occurred, either, that I would get all I have now and find the being a gentleman not worth the chasing, after all,” he said lightly.

    She gave him a straight look. “Is that true?”

    Ned Jubb looked into the grey-green eyes, reflecting it was as well she was a complete innocent, for he was damned aroused! Though at the same time, it was a great pity she was a complete innocent!

    “Well, to a large degree. I do enjoy things such as clean linen, a sweet-smelling bed, and a decent meal put before me three times a day. And my art collection never fails to delight me. I don’t think I could have appreciated most of my treasures in my untutored state. I was used to think the more gilding an objet was smothered in, the finer it must be!”—Hildy nodded seriously.—“Fashionable parties—such as the one we are bidden to at Daynesford Place two nights hence,” he added on a dry note—“do not amuse me, however. Neither, on the whole, do fashionable women: they are either empty-heads with nothing on their minds but empty-headed flirtation and, in the case of some, getting away with as much as their husbands will close their eyes to,”—he expected her to blush, but Hildy, thinking of Gaetana’s vivid description of the Lady Violet Cunninghame, merely nodded—“or empty-heads with nothing on their minds but their children and their domestic duties—though in the wealthier circles, they’re in a minority!” he said with feeling: “or empty-heads, plain and simple. And the few bluestockings I have met were so damned dull.”

    “Ye-es... Lady Jersey is said to be both witty and intelligent,” said Hildy dubiously.

    “And political, aye. But she is far above a simple merchant. And in fact, though I have seen her at the opera, and so forth, I have certainly never spoken to her.”

    “I have found Lady Naseby,” said Hildy, pinkening, “to be an extremely intelligent women of great good breeding. She would not—not do anything like those ladies, sir,” she offered, lapsing a little from her first genteelly sophisticated tone.

    “No,” he said kindly, lips twitching just a little. “Lady Naseby is everything that is truly meant by the expression ‘a lady’.”

    “Do you know her, Sir Ned?”

    “Yes. In fact, she was so kind as to send me an invitation to a musical soirée last Season.”—Hildy went very pink and glared at the grass between them.—“But I did not care to go, I would have been quite out of place.”

    “You would NOT!” she cried, looking up sharply, tears starting her eyes. “For the music was excellent, and—and there some quite sensible people there!”

    “Aye, and some quite silly ones, I dare say. Of course I would have been out of place, my dear child,” he said gently.

    “I am not a child,” replied Hildy stiffly, looking away.

    “Not quite any more, no,” said Ned Jubb with a sigh.

    She looked at him uncertainly. After a moment she asked: “How did you meet Lady Naseby, sir?”

    “Through her charity work. Originally I met her because she was on the board of a home for orphan girls in London, which I also sit on. And then I became interested in a larger charitable scheme, in which she and her late husband were very heavily involved.”

    “So—you have known her for many years, then?”

    “Some years, yes. Her husband was a most admirable fellow: it was a sad thing for the poor of London when he died. The son—I do not know if you have met him, Miss Hildy?”—Hildy nodded silently.—“Well, he is a good-hearted fellow, but has none of Sir Ludo’s qualities of leadership and determination. A great deal of grit is needed, you know, to convince authority that certain of the crueller practices of city life must be discontinued if we are to consider ourselves anything that could be called civilized at all.”

    “Yes, and I am sure you have it, and he has not!” she cried.

    Sir Ned blinked a little. “Er—well, I’m stubborn enough, aye. And Sir Julian, as I say, is not the man his father was. Only the business keeps me pretty well occupied, I dare say I don’t do half as much as I should! Or so Lady Naseby would claim!” he said with a laugh.

    “Huh!” replied Hildy. “It is admirable of her to devote so much of her time to the poor and unfortunate, but let us not forget she is a lady with time on her hands in which to do it!”

    “That’s a trifle unfair,” he murmured.

    “Very likely,” she said grimly.

    He looked at her uncertainly. Hildy stared at the grass.

    Finally she said: “When did it begin to seem to you that—that becoming a gentleman was not worth a fig, after all?”

    “Oh—when I had gone as far as I could, I doubt not!” he said with a laugh. “No, don’t eat me, dear Miss Hildy!” he begged, smiling, as she glared. “But of course it was not until I had many possessions, and my house, and the business was solid as a rock, that I paused to look around me and take stock of myself, and realized that I had been striving for pretty much of a chimaera, in the end!”

    “Was it then that you took up charity work?”

    “More or less, yes. I had merely given money before,” he said, grimacing. “Only... Well, I began to reflect on my beginnings, and… I suppose I felt that, having found the genteel classes to be largely shallow and empty, I owed it to my own class to stop aping my betters and do something solid to improve their lot,” he ended, wrinkling his nose a little.

    “That is very fine!” she approved.

    “Aye, but don’t take it into your head that we working fellows are any better than the rest of you, you know!” he said hastily. “We are just as greedy, ugly and contumacious as the rest of-humanity!”

    Hildy went very red, all over again. “How long were you there?” she got out in a strangled voice.

    “Mm? Oh! You were talking about having a bit put in your mouth, when I came up.”

    “Help,” she said, gulping, and beginning to wonder just what she had said.

    “Do you believe me?” he said with a wry little smile.

    “What? Oh! Yes, of course I believe you, I do not subscribe to the theory of the noble savage, at all! Man in his natural state appears to me to reflect Dean Swift’s vision much more nearly than M. Rousseau’s!”

    “Good God, you have read Rousseau?”

    “Only a little,” said Hildy, blushing, and looking down. “I’m afraid a lot of my knowledge is gained from listening to Dr Rogers, rather than solid reading: he was used to say I had a flibbertigibbet mind, and would never make a true scholar. But as I’m a girl,” she added with a sigh, “I suppose it cannot signify.”

    “Well, those of us with minds of the flibbertigibbet variety, or what I prefer to think of as pickers-up of unconsidered trifles,”—Hildy gave a startled laugh—“have perhaps more fun out of life than the earnest scholar in his den, do you not think?”

    “Probably, but can fun signify?” she cried.

    Ned Jubb would not have said so to many girls, and probably not even to his own Johanna, but he looked into Hildegarde’s big grey-green eyes and replied seriously: “Very likely not. But does anything signify?”

    “No,” said Hildy in a low voice, blinking and looking down.

    Ned saw she was plucking at the grass with a little, nervous hand. He covered it with his own big, warm one without thinking what he was doing and said very gently: “We must make our own sense out of life, my dearest child.”

    “Yes,” she whispered.

    “A little love and laughter, a little beauty, and perhaps the opportunity to do a fellow creature good—what more can we expect?” he said.

    “You are very right,” said Hildy, swallowing. “And I have very much to be thankful for.”

    “Aye, well, and very much that is boring and senseless,” he allowed with a tiny smile.

    “Yes: especially since Dr Rogers died and I have to be a lady.”

    “Mm,” he said, squeezing her hand gently.

    Hildy looked up suddenly, blinking. “Only I am so very bad at being a lady, and I cannot even manage a little love correctly, for I never seem to fall in love with the right gentlemen!”

    Ned’s heart beat furiously, but he said steadily: “I know it is a cliché, but when you meet the right man, perhaps he will not seem either vapid or proper.”

    Hildy went very red but replied firmly: “There is only one man I know who is neither vapid nor proper and does not bore me to tears, Sir Ned, now that Dr Rogers is dead, and you must know who that is.”

    “Don’t say that, my dear child,” he croaked.

    “I am not a child! I keep telling you!” she cried.

    “No,” he said hoarsely: “you are not a child, but you are not a woman yet, either, and,”—he swallowed—“I am a man of over fifty,” he said with difficulty.

    “What does that signify, if we have what most matters in common?” she cried.

    Ned Jubb was aware that, if it could be fun between them for a few years, she would not enjoy being the young wife of an ailing, elderly and quite probably gouty and crochety husband. However dutifully—dreadful thought!—she might behave. Had she been from another class he would not have hesitated to offer her a carte blanche on the spot, and would immediately have established a nice little trust fund to support her when he had died or become incapable, or even—for he was a very fair-minded man—when he had tired of her or she of him. But a daughter of the gentry—! Well, just his luck.

    “I ain’t a gent, beside being far too old for you, Miss Hildy, and that’s that,” he said flatly.

    “You—you are a respectable man and a knight,” said Hildy, tears starting to her eyes: “I cannot see that—that class need be a bar.”

    Ned could have argued further—and he was very tempted to do so, just to see, really, what she would say, for he had no intention of changing his mind. He got up. “One day you will meet a man whom you can love and respect, who is truly suitable. You are very young yet, my dear.”

    “I am not!” cried Hildy, bursting into tears. “And I will not meet a muh-man who is suh-suh-suitable!”

    “Out of course you will. Come along, stop crying and get up. For both our sakes, we had best forget we ever had this conversation. It is time to return to the mundane. You have sat here far too long, you must be chilled.” He held out his hand to her.

    Hildy sniffed and gulped for some moments, but then allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, admitting: “Yes. I must get back into my horrid wet habit and go home to be scolded by Mamma—for there is no hoping she will not have found out by now that I have rid out behind her back.

    Ned had to bite his lip. “Aye. Clamber into your habit, then, and I’ll put you up on your horse and escort you out of this wood.” He turned away politely to let her get into the thing.

    He tossed her up onto the horse easily enough. The habit was still wet through, in spite of his efforts to wring it out, and he asked her anxiously: “Are you sure you’ll be all right in those wet things?”

    “I rarely catch colds,” Hildy assured him.

    “Well... You had best take my coat again,” he said, passing it up to her. “Will this nag canter?”

    “Um—yes, but I’m not very good at pulling him up.”

    “I’ll see you home, then,” he decided.

    “But your horse is lame!” she cried.

    “Oh—damnation. Well, I think we had better hurry. I’ll accompany you to the edge of the wood, the brute can carry me that far, I dare say it won’t harm him.” He swung himself up. “Get up!” he added, whacking Blue Moon’s rump.

    Blue Moon started off at his customary pace, and Ned followed silently.

    “There!” he said, as the trees thinned. “See? Cut across these fields, and join the road over there. Do you feel at all chilled?”

    “Not at all,” she assured him. “You had best have your coat back.”

    “Er—thank you,” he said, reflecting that it would be easier for her if she did not have explain to her mamma why she was wearing a man’s coat. “Well, goodbye, my dear,” he added awkwardly. “Try not to brood.”

    Hildy’s lips trembled but she said bravely: “Goodbye, Sir Ned,” and dug her heels viciously into Blue Moon’s flank.

    Ned watched anxiously as they flew across the field, but she seemed to be managing perfectly well. He stayed there under the last few trees, watching for a while. Then he turned his nag slowly and rode it through the wood, finally dismounting on the far side to walk home, he limping as well as the horse by the time they got there.

    Mrs Urqhart’s party had returned from the Manor by this time. She came into the front hall on hearing his step, eager to hear his story, but took one look at his face and gasped: “What is it?”

    “Nothing. I am an old fool, that is all,” he said heavily. “There is no fool as such an old one, do they not say? Well, there is a great deal of truth in it*”

    “Never tell me you let the Widder of Willer Court entrap you!” she gasped.

    “Eh? No!” he said crossly. “Don’t be an imbecile, Betsy, of course I— I’m sorry, my dear. I bumped into Hildy by—by the stream, as I was returning.”

    “Oh, aye?” she said grimly.

    Ned ran a hand through his curls. “She had taken a toss into the stream and was sitting on the bank in nothing but her shift. Well, I suppose I behaved pretty much as an old fool could have been expected to; but at least I had the sense to tell her it could never work, between us!”

    “Nay: for September and May might be all right, but December and May is drawin’ it too fine!” she said forthrightly.

    “I wish you would bite your tongue, Betsy,” he said, sighing, and passing his hand over his face wearily.

    “Lawks, you is not serious, Ned?” she gasped.

    “I think that is what I am trying to say,” he returned grimly. “Will you excuse me, Betsy? I must change.” He hurried upstairs.

    “Oh, Heavens to Murgatroyd!” cried Mrs Urqhart in dismay, sitting down, plump, on an elaborately carved and hideously uncomfortable occasional chair, fashioned by the hand of some Indian artisan in what he had possibly fancied was European taste. “Why did I ever encourage the fellow to come down from London? For I allus said it: he is far too attractive to the women by half!”