Chapter Twenty Four.
Rowena and Guy Seton gave themselves up to the pleasures of the hunt, blissfully forgetful of the young brothers and sisters who were following on wheels; and, indeed, of everything and everyone but just their own two selves. There seemed always to be some incontrovertible reason why they should keep by themselves, a little apart from the rest of the field. Rowena’s hunting experiences had been few, and her escort was too anxious about her safety to allow her to try any but the very simplest and smallest of jumps. This excess of precaution necessitated many a détour, but neither of the two seemed anxious to make up for lost time by putting on extra speed to catch up with their friends; and the interest in the pursuit of the fox was of so perfunctory a nature that it often seemed more by chance than by design that they took the right turnings at all!
It was after two o’clock when Rowena was refreshing herself with sandwiches produced from Guy Seton’s case during an interval of rest, when the hounds were drawing a spinney, that she cast her eyes to right and left over the scattered field, and remarked carelessly:
“I don’t see Dreda! The boys are there, and the Websters and Maud; but I don’t see Dreda anywhere—do you?”
Guy Seton cast a cursory glance in the direction indicated.
“She is probably behind a tree or a hedge, hiding from the wind. Miss Dreda strikes me as a young woman who can take remarkably good care of herself. Do take another sandwich! To please me! I’m so afraid you will feel faint.”
Evidently Rowena was considered less able to look after herself than her younger sister; for on this, as at every moment of the afternoon, she was guarded, directed, and cared for as though she had been the most helpless and timid of children; and the extraordinary thing about it was that Rowena, who was in reality a most capable and self-confident young woman, made not the slightest objection, but seemed thoroughly to enjoy the experience.
Half an hour later on Gurth took the opportunity of another halt to ride up to Rowena’s side with a repetition of her own question.
“I say, Ro—have you seen anything of Dreda? She and Norah West seem to have disappeared altogether. I can’t think what’s happened to them.”
“Perhaps they felt tired, and have gone home. Dreda’s all right if she has someone with her,” returned Rowena easily, and Gurth accepted the explanation and immediately dismissed the subject from his mind.
Guy Seton was troubled with no fears about the missing girls; but hearing Rowena mention the word “tired,” became straightway devoured with anxiety lest the epithet should in any way apply to herself. In vain did she protest with the most radiant and dimpling of smiles. She could no more deny that four hours in the saddle was an unusual exertion than that the weather had taken a change for the worse, and that home lay a good eight miles away. The exhilaration of the moment was such that she felt as if it were impossible ever to be tired again; nevertheless, it was sweet to be cared for, sweet to subject her own will to that of Guy Seton. So the end of the discussion was that the hunt was abandoned, and while the field went gaily chasing after a fresh scent, these two riders turned their horses’ heads and jogged slowly in the direction of home.
Suddenly an overpowering feeling of shyness seized upon Rowena. Every moment took her farther away from her companions; the country ahead looked misty and solitary; Guy Seton’s eyes were fixed upon her face with an expression at once so wistful and so ardent that it seemed impossible to meet it with her own. In her heart of hearts Rowena knew perfectly well what that look meant; but with the curious inconsistency of her sex the impulse was strong upon her to fly from what she had most longed for and desired. Conversation was the best refuge for the moment, and she plunged hastily into the first subject which presented itself.
“I wonder if we shall find Dreda waiting at home! Poor Dreda, she was so disgusted at having to follow on wheels. She refused point blank to come, as she had not a mount; but at the last moment it seemed too dull to stay at home all by herself. She is such a good horsewoman—far better than I am. Perhaps next meet you will be very, very kind and take her with you?”
Guy Seton’s face suddenly assumed an expression of acute anxiety and discomfort.
“Why should I take her? You are not—surely you are not going away?”
“Oh, no—oh, no; but it is Dreda’s holiday. She would love it so! It would be such a treat.”
“And you? Does that mean that you don’t enjoy it? That you would rather stay at home and let her come in your place?”
Rowena blushed.
“Of course it doesn’t. I love it, too; but I wasn’t thinking of myself. Dreda thinks—she believes that you made some sort of promise that you would give her a mount, and she is counting upon you to keep it. She would be so disappointed—”
But Guy Seton had forgotten all about his lightly spoken words, and was in no mood to be reminded.
“I think she must be mistaken, don’t you know!” he protested easily. “It’s always the same thing with youngsters of that age. If one is foolish enough to say a word, they leap to the conclusion that it is a definite arrangement. I’ve learnt that with my own nephews and nieces. I saw so very little of Miss Dreda before she went off to school that I could hardly have had time to promise.”
“I don’t think it took very much time. So far as I understand, it was on the afternoon when you first met—”
“The afternoon when I came over to call? I remember nothing whatever about that afternoon except that I saw you, for the first time, and that you were unkind to me, and wouldn’t speak.”
The blush on Rowena’s cheeks flamed up again more rosily than before.
“Don’t speak of it, please! It makes me hot and so furious with Maud even now. You are not a girl, so you can’t understand; but I was so wretchedly embarrassed, and angry, and ashamed.”
“But why? That’s what I could not understand! You had been sweet enough, and unselfish enough, and hospitable enough to go to the trouble of putting on a pretty frock—I adore that blue frock—for the benefit of a casual stranger whom you had never even seen. Why should you be ashamed of that? I think it was jolly unselfish. It’s such a fag changing one’s kit. You ought to have been very complacent and pleased. You would have been if you could have changed places with me for a minute, and seen yourself walking into the room. If you knew what I thought—”
He paused, and Rowena, scenting danger, resolved that nothing on earth would make her put the obvious question. The resolution lasted for a whole half-minute, at the end of which time a feeble little voice demanded softly:
“Wh–at did you think?”
“I thought—oh, Rowena! so many, many things! I thought that I had dreamt of you all my life, and had found you at last. I thought you were the loveliest thing in the whole wide world. I wished I had been a better man for your sake! I was so happy to have met you, and so miserable because you were cross. It was such a bad beginning that I was afraid you would always be prejudiced—always dislike me.”
Again he paused, and Rowena bent over her horse’s head, stroking its mane, keeping her eyes persistently downcast. They traversed another hundred yards before the low, insistent tones again struck on her ear.
“Do you, Rowena?”
“Do I—what?”
“Dislike me still?”
“I? Oh, what a question! I never disliked you. I was angry with Maud, and with myself—not with you at all.”
“But I want so much more. Don’t you know that, Rowena? I tumbled headlong in love with you that very afternoon, and I’ve gone on tumbling deeper and deeper ever since. Do you care for me a little bit, Rowena? Could you care? I’m such a stupid, ordinary sort of fellow. I don’t know how I dare ask such a thing of a girl like you—the loveliest, sweetest girl that ever lived—but I just have to, and that’s the truth! I can’t stand the suspense another hour.—If I waited long enough would there be a chance for me in the end? If I were very, very patient!”
A dimple dipped in the lovely curve of Rowena’s cheek. She was sure now—quite, quite sure! It was not merely a foolish, girlish imagination. Guy loved her. Guy wanted her for his wife. She had entered into her woman’s kingdom, and, womanlike, began instantly to adopt provocative little airs and graces.
“But I—I don’t want you to be—to be—”
“To be what? What don’t you want me to be, Rowena?”
“P–atient!” sighed Rowena, and turned her head with a smile and a glance and a blush which transformed the grey winter landscape into a very Garden of Eden for the man by her side.
Ah, well! it was a blissful half-hour which followed, filled with the inevitable questionings and recollections which every fresh Adam and Eve believe to be their own exclusive property. “What did you think?”
“What did you mean?”
“Why did you say?”
“What was the first—the very first moment when you began to care?” Hand in hand they passed along the country lanes, the reins lying slack on the necks of their tired steeds; hand in hand they turned in at the farther gate of the ploughed roads which lay across the fields, and halfway along its length came suddenly upon the two still, half-conscious figures of Dreda and Norah West.