It was soon time to go upstairs and change her gown for dinner. She was placed at table between Lord Robert Manners and Mr. Pierrepoint, nowhere near the Earl, and as he joined the Duke of York after dinner, with his host and another inveterate whist-player, whom everyone called Chig, she did not speak to him again that evening.
She was not the only lady to join the Hunt next day, but no more than three others had enough energy or enthusiasm to appear, and by no means all the gentlemen. She was somewhat surprised to find Mr. Brummell attired for riding when she came down to an early breakfast, and opened her eyes at him.
He drew out a chair for her beside his own. “I know,” he said understandingly, “but it has a good appearance, and one need not go beyond the second field.”
“Not go beyond the second field!” she echoed. “Why, won’t you go farther, Mr. Brummell?”
“No, I don’t think so,” he replied very gravely. “There is sure to be a farmhouse where I can get some bread and cheese, and you must know there is nothing I like better than that.”
“Bread and cheese instead of hunting!” she said. “I cannot allow it to be a choice!”
“Yes, but you see, if I went very far I should get my tops and leathers splashed by all the greasy, galloping farmers,” he replied softly.
But even her partiality for him could not induce Miss Taverner to smile at such a speech as that. She looked reproachful, and would only say: “I am persuaded you do not mean it.”
She was to discover later that he had for once spoken in all sincerity. He abandoned the Hunt after the first few fields, and was no more seen. She commented on it with strong disapproval to her guardian, who had drawn up beside her at a check, but he merely looked faintly surprised, and said that the notion of Brummell muddied and dishevelled from a long day in the saddle was too absurd to be contemplated. Upon reflection she had to admit him to be right.
Mr. Brummell, encountered again at dinner, was unabashed. He had discovered a very excellent cheese in a farmhouse he had not previously known to exist, had regaled himself on it, and having satisfied himself that no speck of mud sullied his snowy tops, had ridden gently back to Belvoir to discuss with his hostess a plan for landscape gardening which had occurred to him in the night watches.