It was agreed between the two young men that they were to go to Devonshire together in the first week of the new year, Edward Clare remaining only a week in London. Gerard was to accompany Clare as his friend, and to stay at the Vicarage as his guest.
CHAPTER XXIX.
GEORGE GERARD.
John Treverton was out of the doctor’s hands before Christmas was over, and able to appear on his mare, Black Bess, with his wife, mounted on the gentlest of gray Arabs, at the lawn meet which was held at the Manor House on New Year’s Day. It was the first time the hounds had met there since the death of old John Treverton, Jasper’s father, who had been a hunting man. Jasper had never cared for field sports, and had subscribed to the hounds as a duty. But now, John Treverton, the younger, who loved horses and hounds, as it is natural to an Englishman to love them, meant that things should be as they had been in the days of his great-uncle, generally known among the elder section of the community as ‘the old Squire.’ He had bought a couple of hunters and a first-rate hack for himself, an Arabian and a smart cob for his wife; and Laura and he had ridden for many a mile over the moor in the mild afternoons of early autumn, getting into good form for the work they were to do in the winter.
Laura took kindly to the cob, and petted the Arab to a distracting degree. After a month’s experience on the moors, and a good many standing jumps over furze and water, she began to ride really well, and her husband looked forward to the delight of piloting her across the country in pursuit of the red deer before the hunting season was over. But he meant, if he erred at all, to err on the side of caution, and on this New Year’s Day he had declared that he should only take Laura quietly through the lanes, and let her have a peep at the hounds from a distance. Celia, in the shortest of habits, a mere petticoat, and the most coquettish of hats, was mounted on her father’s steady-going roadster, a stalwart animal of prodigious girth, which contemplated the hounds with unvarying equanimity.
‘What has become of your brother?’ Laura asked, as she and Celia waited about, side by side, watching the assembling of the field. ‘I haven’t seen him since my children’s party.’
‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? He is in London, making arrangements about a play that he is to write for one of the big theatres. Mother had a letter from him this morning. He is coming home the day after to-morrow, and he is going to bring a London acquaintance to stay two or three days at the Vicarage. A young doctor, good-looking, clever, a bachelor. Now, Laura, don’t you really think the world must be coming to an end very soon?’
‘No, dear; but I congratulate you on the bachelor. He will be an acquisition. You must bring him to us.’
‘Oh, but Edward says he can only stay two or three days. He has his practice to attend to. He is only coming for a breath of country air.’
‘Poor fellow! What is his name?’