Margaret Maliphant

by Alice Vansittart Strettel Carr

So I put on my habit and set out. It was quite true that the old black horse did not go so well as the mare, but for some reason best known to myself I had a particular desire to ride to Broadlands that particular afternoon.

I let the poor beast go at his own pace, however, for the heat was still very great; the plain was opal-tinted with it, and the long, soft, purple clouds above the sea horizon had a thundery look. I jogged along dreamily until I was close beneath the old market-town upon the hill. Somehow the memory of that winter drive with Joyce, when we had first met Captain Forrester, came back to me vividly. I don't know how it was, but I began to think of how he had looked at her, of how he had bent towards her hand just a moment longer than was necessary in parting from her. I wondered if those were always the signs of love. I wondered if a man might possibly be in love and yet give none of those signs.

I rode on slowly, watching the rising breeze sweep across the meadows, swaying the long grass in a rhythmic motion like the waves of a gentle sea. I had passed the town by this time, and had come down the little street paved with cobble-stones, and through the grim old gate onto the marsh again. The river ran turbidly by, between its mud banks and across its flat pastures to the sea a mile beyond. Above the river the houses of the town stood, in steps, up the hill, flanked by the dark gray stone of the old prison-house, and crowned by the church with its quaint flying-buttresses; the wall of the battlements hemmed the town; beneath it lay the marsh and then the sea.

This was all behind me; around and in front was the faint, gray flat land, scarcely green under the creeping haze of heat, with the breeze undulating over the long grass, and the light-house, the brightest spot on the scene as it shone white through the mist, on the distant point of beach.

I took the shortest way, avoiding the regular road, and was soon lost upon the grassy sea. The soft, bright monotony of the landscape was scarcely broken by a single incident, save for the Martello towers that stood at regular intervals along the coast, or the sheep and cows that were strewn over the pasture-land lazily cropping and chewing the cud; there was not a house within sight, and even the low line of the downs had dipped here into the flatness of the marsh.

I tried to whip the horse into a canter, but the poor beast felt the heat as I did, and I soon let him fall again into his own jog-trot. It was not at all my usual method of riding, but that day I did not mind it so much; I had my thoughts to keep me busy. They were pleasant thoughts—if so vague a dream was a thought at all—and kept me good company. The dream was a dream of love, but I am not sure whether that time Joyce was the heroine. I think, if I had been asked, that I should have said that there was no heroine to my dream—that it was far too vague, too entirely a dream to have one.

I rode on for another hour across the hot plain before I came to the village of Broadlands. It lay there sleepily upon the bosom of the marsh, with scarce a tree to shelter it from the fierce midsummer sun or the wild sea winds, and until my horse's hoofs were clattering up the little street I scarcely saw man, woman, or child to tell me that the place was alive. But around the Woolsacks some half-dozen men lounged, smoking, and a fat farmer in a cart had stopped in the middle of the road to exchange a few observations on agricultural news. It was the inn at which Trayton Harrod must have put up in the middle of the day for dinner.

This farmer had evidently returned from market. I wondered how long it would be before Trayton Harrod would also come along the same road and stop at the Woolsacks for a drink. I don't think I deceived myself as to there being a little hope within me that I might meet him somewhere on the road. But I reckoned that he could not possibly be as far on his homeward route yet a while, for he probably had had much farther to come than the farmer in the cart, and had not reached the market so early.

I trotted on up the street to Mrs. Winter's cottage, which stood at the extreme end of the village, looking out along the Ashford road. I am afraid that all the time I was in the cottage—although I gave all mother's messages, and inquired with due attention after every one of the old lady's distinct pains—my eyes were ever wandering along that dusty road and listening for horse's hoofs in the distance.

But Mrs. Winter noticed no remissness on my part—she was too pleased to see me, too glad to have news of mother, who had been her friend and benefactress these many years past. I took her a pair of stockings that I had knit for her in the long winter evenings, and I can remember now the matter-of-fact way in which she received the gift, and how, when I said that I hoped they would fit, she answered, with happy trustfulness, "Oh yes, miss; the Lord he knows my size."