“O, of course, Miss Bedford!” said Laura pettishly. “It would be so absurd if the carriage came and found us gone;” when, seeing that the dark beauty evidently wished to be alone with her thoughts, the other remained silent.
“Who in the world can that be with her?” mused Charley, as he rode along. “Might have had the decency to introduce me, anyhow. Don’t know when I’ve seen a softer or more gentle face. Splendid hair too! No sham there: no fear of her moulting a curl here and a tress there, if her back hair came undone. No, she don’t seem as if there were any sham about her—quiet, ladylike, and nice. ’Pon my word, I believe Laura Bray would make a better man than Max. Seem to like those silver-grey dresses with a black-velvet jacket, they look so—There, what a muff I am, going right out of the way, while that little darling is getting wet as a sponge! Easy, lass! Now, then—over!” he cried to his mare, as she skimmed another hedge. “Wonder what her name is! Some visitor come to the flower-show, I suppose—fiancée of Long-ears probably. Steady, then, Beauty!” he cried again to the mare, who, warming to her work, was beginning to tear furiously over the ground; for, preoccupied by thought, Charley had inadvertently been using his spurs pretty freely.
But he soon reduced his steed to a state of obedience, and rode on, musing upon his late encounter.
“Can’t be!” he thought. “A girl with a head like that would never take up with such a donkey! Ah, there he goes, drenched like a rat! Ha, ha, ha! How miserably disgusted the puppy did look! Patronising me, too—a gnat! Advising me to go into society, etcetera! Well, I can’t help it: I do think him a conceited ass! But perhaps, after all, he thinks the same of me; and I deserve it.
“Dear old dad,” he mused again after awhile. “Like to see me married and settled, would he? What should I be married for?—a regular woman-hater! Why, in the name of all that’s civil, didn’t Laura introduce me to that little blonde? Like to know who she is—not that it matters to me! Over again, my lass!” he cried, patting the mare as she once more bounded over a hedge, this time to drop into a lane straight as a line, and a quarter of a mile down which Maximilian Bray could be seen hurrying along—Charley’s short cut across the fields having enabled him to gain upon the fleeing dandy.
“May as well catch up to him, and tell him what I’ve seen,” said Charley, urging on his mare. “No, I won’t,” he said, checking. “Better too, perhaps. No, I won’t. Why should I send the donkey back to them? Not much fear, though: he’ll be too busy for a couple of hours restoring his damaged plumes—a conceited popinjay!”
He cantered gently on now, seeming to take the shower with him, for he could see, on turning, that it was getting fine and bright. But the rain had quite ceased as he rode up to the door of the Brays’ seat—a fine old red-brick mansion known as the Elms—just as a groom was leading the ambling palfrey to its stable at the King’s Arms—there not being accommodation in the paternal stables—a steed not much more than half the size of the great rawboned hunter favoured by Max’s masculine sister.
“Why, here’s Mr Charley Vining!” cried a shrill loud voice, from an open window. “How de do, Mr Vining—how de do? Come to lunch, haven’t you? So glad! And so sorry Laura isn’t at home! Caught in the shower, I’m afraid.”
The owner of the voice appeared at the window, in the shape of a very big bony lady in black satin—bony not so much in figure as in face, which seemed fitted with too much skull, displaying a great deal of cheek prominence, and a macaw-beaked nose, with the skin stretched over it very tightly, forming on the whole an organ of a most resonant character—one that it was necessary to hear before it could be thoroughly believed in. In fact, with all due reverence to a lady’s nose, it must be stated that the one in question acted as a sort of war-trump, which Mrs Bray blew with masculine force when about to engage in battle with husband or servant for some case of disputed supremacy.
“Ring the bell, girls,” shrieked the lady; “and let some one take Mr Vining’s horse. Do come in, Mr Vining!”