‘Oh, I am not so easily tired,’ said Janet, her eyes lighting up, ‘but I have no habit—and then mother——’
‘Her ladyship will be none the wiser,’ said Charlie, ‘and she knows I would take good care of you. She would never mind.’
‘Do you think so?’ said the girl. And in a moment—it seemed but a moment—she was pacing along by the side of the big horse, every movement of which was restrained to harmony with her pony’s smaller paces. Janet had been Tom’s victim to follow at his pace—to do what he pleased. She had never before known the delight of being cared for, considered as the first object. She rode for an hour by Blackmore’s side, excited, delighted, half persuaded that she was a fairy princess, with everything that was beautiful and pleasant made for her use.
This happened again and again, and nobody found it out. It was thought at the Towers that she had taken to wandering in the woods in her loneliness now that Tom had gone away, and though Lady Car remarked a changing colour, and that Janet’s eyes sometimes were bright and sometimes dreamy, yet nothing like suspicion of any secret ever crossed her mind. No such thing entered the mind of anyone. And already the household was full of preparations for going away, which absorbed everybody. The first of October was the last day before the departure of the family from the Towers, and Janet stole out unobserved as usual, for her last ride. Never had the pony carried her so lightly; never had the little escapade been so delightful: they came back slowly side by side, lingering, unwilling to acknowledge that it was over. ‘I’ll keep the pony for you, Miss Janet,’ said Blackmore. ‘Nobody shall touch her but myself. She shall be kept like a lady, like the bonnie lady she belongs to, till you come back.’
‘Oh, but Mr. Charlie,’ cried Janet, ‘you must not do that. They would not let me buy her, and I’ll have no money of my own for a long time—not for five years.’
‘Money!’ he cried; ‘did you suppose I was thinking of money? Ye do me great injustice, Miss Janet—but it’s no fault of yours.’
‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘it was because you said she was mine. Now she cannot be mine unless I buy her—and I cannot buy her. Oh, what have I said wrong? I did not mean to say anything wrong.’
‘That I’m sure of,’ said Charlie, ‘and maybe you’re too young to understand that the pony’s yours and her master’s yours, and not a penny wanted—but something else.’
Janet was greatly bewildered by the look in his eyes. She glanced at him, then turned her eyes away. She could not think what had happened. He was not angry. He looked quite kind; almost more kind than ever. But she could not look at him any more (she said to herself) than she could look at the sun shining. He was leaning down towards her from his big horse, and Janet felt very uncomfortable, confused, and distressed.