The Crowded Street

by Winifred Holtby

XI

During the morning, Connie had hoped that it would rain; but wind and weather never favoured her. She walked mutinously along the muddy road, splashing in and out of puddles in the vain hope that she might thus leave her mark upon Clare's polished boots. How exactly like Clare, to be walking booted and habited along the road to the Weare Grange to ride with Godfrey Neale, while Connie, who adored horses, was only going to tea with his mother.

"And she's mad," reflected Connie bitterly.

"It was nice of him to send for the saddle," remarked Clare. "I thought that I should have to walk there carrying it on my head like the ladies walk in Palestine."

"What?" said Connie wearily. "Have you been there too?"

Muriel laughed nervously. It was difficult to keep the peace.

"We've never been allowed to ride since Father's accident," she said. "Years ago he let his favourite horse down on the road from Kepplethorpe market. It was badly hurt, I think, and he had two ribs broken. But he was frightfully angry with it for failing him, so he never said anything to anyone, though he must have been in great pain. He just walked back to the house and got his gun, and went back and shot it. He fainted afterwards, and was brought home and was frightfully ill for ages, and when he got better he sold all his hunters and wouldn't let any of us ride again. But he loves driving."

"Ah, poor Mr. Hammond," murmured Clare, but without much interest, for the road had turned, and to the right the hedge was broken by tall gates of delicately wrought ironwork, as fragile in appearance and as strong in reality as the barrier that enclosed the Neales from Marshington. Beyond the gates, half a mile of straight, shining road led to the grey square house. There was no park, but in the fields between the house and highway fine elms and chestnuts spread their naked boughs above the great Weare cattle, grazing with slow serenity on the vivid grass.

"So this is the Weare Grange," observed Clare. "What a delightful house! But, Dieu, how dull to live here all the year round."

But to Muriel the place was magic. She could not believe that real people moved behind those solemn windows. The still winter day, the cold light of the pale sun, the mouldering stonework of the terrace, were all part of a waking dream. A thrush, starting suddenly from a wet bough, shook down the rain-drops on to her face. She woke from her dream. This was the Weare Grange. She and Connie and Clare were going there to tea. This was the amazing adventure which the gods had brought her.

She did hope that Connie would behave.

The bell of the Weare Grange was one of the most powerful defences of that social fortress. It had a round, rusty head, and a long, stringy neck. Muriel put up her hand (and incidentally her new glove) and pulled. There was a harsh screeching sound. The neck extended three good inches from the wall. She let it go. Nothing happened. She pulled again. No faintest tinkle reached her ears.

"Let me try," said Connie.

"No, no, it may have rung."

They waited on the shallow steps, smudged with bird droppings and the multitudinous paw-marks of the dogs. Muriel's courage began to trickle away more rapidly than it had come. No wonder that only the Marshall Gurneys from all Marshington had dared to call upon the Neales. That bell was in itself a social snub.

"You're no good. Let me try," urged Connie. She thrust Muriel aside, pressing her knee against the wall, and tugged at the bell with both hands. A grinding, screeching sound, followed by a far-off tinkle, rewarded her just as a cheerful-faced young manservant appeared in answer to Muriel's second ring.

He took Muriel unprepared.

"Er—er—is Mrs. Neale at home?"

There was a blurred vision of vast hall, a confusion of shy greetings, the departure of Godfrey and Clare to the stables, and the fortress was entered.

"Once we really get started it will be easier," Muriel told herself.

It was not so. Mrs. Neale had dragged herself away from her kennels and rabbit-hutches at her son's request, but even her devotion to him could not make her genial to the Hammond girls. She disliked the whole affair, and only the knowledge that she could not stop it had brought her to face Muriel and Connie, seated in her great eighteenth-century drawing-room, across the wreckage of her afternoon.

She attacked Muriel first.

"Do you ride too?" she asked.

"No, I'm afraid I don't."

"I often used to meet your father with the Weare Valley hounds."

Muriel nodded dumbly.

There was a pause.

"Your sister ride?"

Connie made no answer. She was looking through the long windows, from which she could see Clare and Godfrey cantering side by side along the level green of the wet grass.

Mrs. Neale turned again to Muriel.

"You like dogs?"

"Not very much."

"Cats?" flashed Mrs. Neale.

"Fairly, when they're clean."

A withering glance. "Perhaps you like goldfish?"

"Fairly. Yes. I mean I do rather," confessed the hapless Muriel.

Enchanted castles are apt to conceal an ogress or two. Mrs. Neale felt disposed to let the Weare Grange live up to its reputation. Between her abrupt boredom and Muriel's timidity, the afternoon appeared interminable to Connie. She hated the white and draughty drawing-room. She hated the small gilt clock ticking in the corner. She hated the mixture of ceremony and discomfort, of wealth and squalor that characterized the house shared by Godfrey and his mother. The place seemed to be getting at her, making her feel vulgar and schoolgirlish. The thought of Clare and Godfrey riding together in the winter sunshine maddened her with jealousy.

But it was Muriel who relieved the situation.

After a longer pause than ever, she looked round the room and saw a single photograph on a table near the fire-place.

"Is that Mr. Neale when he was a little boy?" she asked in desperation.

That was enough for Mrs. Neale. Upon one subject alone could she be trusted to break her habitual silence, and Muriel's ingenuous questioning went direct to her heart. From the drawing-room to the smoking-room, from the smoking-room to the long gallery marched the procession of three, recapitulating pictorially and photographically the stupendous progress of Godfrey Neale from the nursery to Oxford, and from Oxford to the mastership of the Weare Grange and Mardlehammar. Connie, stumbling behind the other two, tripping over dogs and carpentering tools, grew full and more full of passionate resentment. When the riders appeared again by the terrace, so warm, so happy, so pleased with life and with themselves, Connie, who was neither warm nor happy, nor pleased, could bear it no longer.

"Well," snapped Mrs. Neale, with her stiff smile that seemed to creak from lack of use. "Good ride?"

"Ripping. Golden Girl went like a bird, and Miss Duquesne is a real sp—sportswoman."

Connie pushed her way past Muriel down the terrace steps.

"Mr. Neale, can I try?"

"Oh, Connie," began Muriel's shocked voice.

"Do you ride, Miss Hammond? I'm so sorry. I thought that you didn't. I would have found you a mount," lied Godfrey.

"I used to ride a lot before Father had his accident and would not let us any more."

The story was well known in Marshington, where picturesque incidents were not common. Here was a trouble that Mrs. Neale could understand.

"If she really wants to, let her have a trot down the drive while I order tea."

"Connie, you can't. You can't really," protested Muriel. To have stormed successfully the Neale citadel, to have come creditably through the ordeal of the drawing-room, and then for Connie to behave like this, was too bad.

But Connie was determined. The dogged look which Mrs. Hammond knew well upon her husband's face had descended upon Connie.

As for Godfrey, he had no desire to ride with a lumpish schoolgirl after that wonderful afternoon, and yet even he felt a slight compunction at the way in which he had used the two Hammond girls. He knew the glacial atmosphere of his mother's drawing-room.

"But she hasn't a habit or anything," Muriel pleaded.

"That doesn't matter. I have often ridden without," laughed Clare. "Here, take my whip."

She held Golden Girl for Godfrey, while he went to tie his own horse to a ring on the terrace wall. She watched him loosen Blue Boy's girths and tie one end of the reins round the ring.

"Aren't you going to ride?" asked Connie.

But even for his conscience' sake Godfrey would not risk the breaking of the yellow mare's knees.

"No, I think I shall walk this time."

Connie stood before the mare. Somehow she seemed to have grown miraculously taller. The saddle upon which her rider must sit was miles up in the air. The chestnut head tossed restlessly. Even Clare's caressing fingers could not quell the baleful frenzy of the rolling eye.

Godfrey returned.

"Now, put your foot on my knee, Miss Hammond, and hold the reins so, and the saddle here. I shall count one, two, three, up. When I say up, you must jump. Don't worry about the stirrup. That comes later."

Connie obeyed the directions. Golden Girl seemed to grow before her like Alice in Wonderland after she had eaten the magic cake. Was it a cake she ate? Connie could not remember. She could hardly see the sky, or Clare, or Godfrey. A huge yellow mare blotted out heaven and earth.

"One, two, three, UP!" called Godfrey. "Oh, but you must jump, Miss Hammond."

"So sorry. I wasn't quite ready," lied Connie. "Will you count again?"

"One, two, three, JUMP!"

Connie jumped. Unluckily the mare jumped also, and Connie landed back into a puddle sending a shower of water over Godfrey's perfect breeches.

"Oh, Connie, give it up. Don't make a fool of yourself," whispered Muriel. Then she remembered her own school-days, and the rock. "Look how you are splashing poor Mr. Neale."

"That's all right," said Godfrey heroically. After all it was the Hammond girl who was making a fool of herself, not he. "Now then, we'll try again."

Connie jumped. A strong hand seemed to lift her up, up into the cold clear air. She jumped with such a will that she almost seemed to fall on to the other side of the mare, but not quite. There she was, mounted at last, while Godfrey Neale placed her muddy boot in the stirrup, and Clare arranged her short serge skirt.

"Ah, now that is excellent," said Clare. "Hold the reins so, and press your left knee well against the pommel. Sit square and face the horse's head."

"You and your horse's head!" laughed Connie. "You talk as though I'd never been up before."

But for all her defiant gaiety, she felt that indeed she hardly had. Golden Girl was different from the old, lop-lobbing pony. When she thrust down her disquieting head, there seemed to be little enough between Connie and the gravel drive. Still there she was. She looked patronizingly down at the group below, at Mrs. Neale, grimly amused, at Clare laughing back at her, at Muriel, white-faced and anxious.

"I'm ready," she said.

They began to walk sedately down the drive. Now that Golden Girl was actually moving, Connie found it less alarming. Indeed, she told herself, it was good beyond all dreams of goodness. The great house gaped at her from a score of long, blank windows. On the steps stood Clare, now only a spectator in the drama, and by the side of the mare walked Godfrey Neale, Connie's companion for as long as she could keep the mare's head turned away from the house down the long drive.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Rather. Don't bother to hold the reins, please. I'm really quite used to it."

Dubiously he let her go. Just to show her independence, she touched the mare lightly with her whip. It started.

"Steady, steady, old girl. Ride her on the snaffle, Miss Hammond. Her mouth's awfully sensitive. She won't stand the curb."

Curbs and snaffles were all the same to Connie. These slippery, writhing strips of leather slid through her hands as the mare tossed her head. She struggled to arrange them to her satisfaction. In another minute Mr. Neale might say, "Don't you think that we had better turn?" and back they would go to that awful drawing-room and to Clare's easy triumph.

Connie sat straight, her red, wind-blown head high. The reins slipped in her left hand, but her right held Clare's riding-crop. She would show them that even if she could not ride like Clare she too was a sportswoman.

Again she flicked her whip. The mare broke into an uneasy trot, shaking Connie up and down in the unfamiliar saddle.

"Hold hard," called Godfrey, stretching out his hand for the slack rein.

"It's all right. This is splendid," cried Connie and, with set teeth, gave the mare another cut.

The mare shuddered. For one moment Connie felt the earth rise to meet her. Then she was suddenly jolted down into the saddle. The shaking trot gave place to a rhythmical rise and fall, the wind brushed past her, touching her wide bright eyes, her flying hair, and Connie was away at full gallop down the drive.

"Stop her," cried Clare, running down the terrace steps. "Stop her, you idiot. The mare's bolting."

"It's all right. The gate will stop her," Godfrey called. For all his swiftness he could not reach her now.

"It won't. We left it open. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, damn!" Connie mattered less to Godfrey than the mare, but both were serious propositions.

He stopped now. Clare, running, was nearly up to him. He faced her on the drive. There was nobody else in the world then but Clare and Godfrey, looking for some solution of the problem into each other's eyes. Muriel, hurrying behind Clare, felt this even then.

Without a word, Clare ran back to Blue Boy.

"Quick. You must catch her before she reaches the road," she said, tugging at the knotted strap.

"The girth's not fastened," cried Muriel, who knew just enough to see this.

Godfrey never listened. He was mounted, had turned, and was off along the drive in pursuit of Connie's flying figure.

The yellow mare was going hard, making for the gate at the south end of the drive. Godfrey, seeing this, swerved suddenly to the right.

"Where's he going? The gate's not there," cried Muriel, running blindly along the drive. Clare followed, picking her way delicately among the chalky puddles. Then she stopped, watching the stooping figure on the great black horse.

"He's going to take the hedge. And he said that he'd never found a horse to leap it yet! Bravo, the sportsman!" she breathed. Her eyes shone. A smile of excitement parted her lips. The dimple flickered on her cheek.

Muriel gasped. "To jump? With his girth unfastened, and only one rein?" She nearly sobbed. "He'll never do it."

"He will. He will. Did you ever see such riding?"

Above the blackness of the hedge, against the transparent, water-coloured shimmer of the sky, the great horse and his rider thrust up suddenly a black silhouette. They hung for a moment thus, poised between earth and sky, then disappeared.

"Ah, good," whispered Clare, with a little sigh of pure enjoyment.

"But they'll be killed," moaned Muriel.

"Not they," laughed Clare.

The two girls walked in silence down the drive. By the gate the hoof-marks swerved to one side, cutting deeply into the turf, as though Connie had made one desperate effort to pull up. Then they went on again, along the rough, chalk road.

"They've gone a long way," remarked Clare imperturbably. "Your sister is having a good run for her money."

"Oh, Clare, don't joke. What if they are killed?"

"Killed? Nonsense. Why, here they are!"

Over the brow of the rising ground they came, Godfrey leading both the horses, Connie by his side, limping a little, spattered with mud from head to foot, her hair wild, her cheeks flaming.

"I didn't fall off," she announced jubilantly. "Not until right at the very end. Oh, it was glorious. I galloped, and Mr. Neale galloped. We had a race, hadn't we, Mr. Neale? Did you see him jump the hedge? Oh, Muriel, you do look queer. Your eyes are popping out of your head. Were you frightened? I wasn't frightened a bit, although we went at a terrific rate right down the field."

"I was," laughed Godfrey. "I was in a blue funk."

Clare looked at him. "How high is that fence?"

"I don't know. N—nothing much." It confronted them then, laced thick and high with blackthorn, a nasty obstacle under the best conditions.

"With a loose girth and one rein," half-whispered Clare. "That was great riding, Mr. Neale."

They walked back to the house together, Connie chattering all the way. She was upborne upon the wings of triumph. She had conquered her fear, conquered Muriel's prudishness, and Clare's attractions, and the indifference of the Weare Grange. She was happy.

Muriel saw her happiness with a sudden heartache, for she saw also what Connie did not see.

She saw that this adventure was not even their adventure. It was Clare's and Godfrey's—Clare's because she had taken upon herself the command of rescue, Godfrey's because her whisper of praise had fallen upon him like an accolade. Connie had been merely a pretext for Godfrey to perform deeds of daring before Clare. At tea-time, though with remorseful attention Godfrey handed to Connie cakes and little biscuits such as she loved, it was Clare to whom, in the intervals of his duties as a host, he turned and smiled.