Mr. Carteret and Others

by David Gray

III MR. CARTERET’S ADVENTURE WITH A LOCKET

Mrs. Ascott-Smith knew that Mr. Carteret had been attentive to Miss Rivers, but she had never known how attentive. She never suspected that the affair had reached the point of an engagement, subsequently broken by Miss Rivers. If she had known the facts, she would not have invited Mr. Carteret to Chilliecote Abbey when Miss Rivers and Captain Wynford were there.

Yet the presence of Miss Rivers and Wynford was not the reason that Mr. Carteret gave himself for declining the invitation. He did not dread meeting Miss Rivers; she was nothing to him but a mistake and an old friend. Whether she married Wynford or some other man, it was the same to him. The affair was over. He even had it in mind to get married before very long, if only to prove it.

He was in such a mood as he walked down the passage to the smoking-room with Mrs. Ascott-Smith’s note crumpled in his hand. His eyes looked straight before him and saw nothing. Behind him there followed the soft, whispering tread of cushioned feet, and that he did not hear. Perhaps it was not because he was absorbed that he did not hear it, for it was always following him, and he had ceased to note it, as one ceases to note the clock ticking. But as he sat down, he felt the touch of a cold nose on his hand and one little lick. He glanced down, and looked into the sad, wistful eyes of the wire-haired fox terrier. With this, Penwiper dropped gravely upon the floor, gazing up adoring and mournful, yet content. Mr. Carteret was used to this idolatry, as he was used to the patter of the following footsteps, but on this occasion it provoked speculation. It occurred to him to wonder how in a just universe a devotion like Penwiper’s would be repaid. Then he wondered if, after all, it was a just universe. If so, why should Penwiper have that look chronically in his eyes?

Presently Mr. Carteret got up and took the newspapers. He was annoyed with himself and annoyed with Penwiper. It was the dog that called up these disquieting ideas. The dog was irrevocably associated with Miss Rivers. He had given her Penwiper as an engagement present, and when the affair ended, she had sent him back. He ought not to have taken him back. He felt that it had been a great mistake to become interested again in Penwiper, as it had been a great mistake to become interested at all in Miss Rivers. He continued to peruse the newspapers till he found that he was reading a paragraph for the third time. Then he got up and went out to the stables.

March was drawing to a close, and with it the hunting season, when there dawned one of those celestial mornings that are appropriate to May, but in England sometimes appear earlier. It brought to the meet five hundred English ladies and gentlemen, complaining that it was too hot to hunt. In this great assemblage Mr. Carteret found himself riding about, saying “good morning,” automatically inquiring of Lady Martingale about the chestnut mare’s leg, parrying Mrs. Cutcliffe’s willingness to let him a house, and avoiding Captain Coper’s anxiety to sell him a horse. He was not aware that he was restless or that he threaded his way through one group after another, acting as usually he did not act, until Major Hammerslea asked him if he was looking for his second horseman. Then he rode off by himself, and stood still. He had seen pretty much everybody that was out, yet he had come upon none of the Chilliecote party. However, as he asked himself twice, “What was that to him?”

A few minutes later they jogged on to covert and began to draw. A fox went away, the hounds followed him for two fields, then flashed over and checked. After that they could make nothing of it. The fox-hunting authorities said that there was no scent.

At two o’clock they were pottering about Tunbarton Wood, having had a disappointing morning. The second horsemen came up with sandwich-boxes, and, scattered in groups among the broad rides, people ate lunch, smoked, enjoyed the sunshine, and grumbled at the weather, which made sport impossible. And then the unexpected happened, as in fox-hunting it usually does. Hounds found in a far corner of the wood, and disappeared on a burning scent before any one could get to them. Instantly the world seemed to be filled with people galloping in all directions, inquiring where hounds had gone, and receiving no satisfactory answer. Experience had taught Mr. Carteret that under such conditions the most unfortunate thing to do is to follow others who know as little as one’s self. Accordingly he opened a hand gate, withdrew a few yards into a secluded lane, pulled up, and tried to think like a fox. This idea had been suggested by Mr. Kipling’s Gloucester fisherman who could think like a cod. While he was thinking, he saw a great many people gallop by in the highway in both directions. He noted Major Hammerslea, who was apt to be conspicuous when there was hard riding on the road, leading a detachment of people north. He noted Lady Martingale, who liked fences better than roads, leading a charge south. And following Lady Martingale he noted Captain Wynford. Apparently, then, the Abbey people were out, after all. “Perhaps Mrs. Ascott-Smith will turn up,” he said to himself, and he followed Wynford with his eyes until he was out of sight, but saw neither Mrs. Ascott-Smith nor any one else who might have been under his escort.

After a while there were no more people going by in either direction. Something like a sigh escaped him; then he lit a cigarette.

“If I were the hunted fox,” he said to himself, “I think I should have circled over Crumpelow Hill, and then bent south with the idea of getting to ground in Normanhurst Wood. I’ll take a try at it.”