Charty and the others chaffed me much about my new friend, saying that my father would never approve of a Tory and that it was lucky he was married.
I replied, much nettled, that I did not want to marry any one and that, though he was a Tory, he was not at all stupid and would probably get into the Cabinet.
This was my first shrewd political prophecy, for he is in the
Cabinet now.
I cannot look at him without remembering that he was the first man I was ever in love with, and that, at the age of seventeen, I said he would be in the Cabinet in spite of his being a Tory.
For pure unalloyed happiness those days at Easton Grey were undoubtedly the most perfect of my life. Lucy's sweetness to me, the beauty of the place, the wild excitement of riding over fences and the perfect certainty I had that I would ride better than any one in the whole world gave me an insolent confidence which no earthquake could have shaken.
Off and on, I felt qualms over my lack of education; and when I was falling into a happy sleep, dreaming I was overriding hounds, echoes of "Pray, Mamma" out of Mrs. Markham, or early punishments of unfinished poems would play about my bed.
On one occasion at Easton Grey, unable to sleep for love of life,
I leant out of the window into the dark to see if it was thawing.
It was a beautiful night, warm and wet, and I forgot all about my
education.
The next day, having no mount, I had procured a hireling from a neighbouring farmer, but to my misery the horse did not turn up at the meet; Mr. Golightly, the charming parish priest, said I might drive about in his low black pony-carriage, called in those days a Colorado beetle, but hunting on wheels was no role for me and I did not feel like pursuing the field.
My heart sank as I saw the company pass me gaily down the road, preceded by the hounds, trotting with a staccato step and their noses in the air.
Just as I was turning to go home, a groom rode past in mufti, leading a loose horse with a lady's saddle on it. The animal gave a clumsy lurch; and the man, jerking it violently by the head, bumped it into my phaeton. I saw my chance.