‘Put me down,’ said Mr. Rockley. ‘I haven’t much time, but I might take a turn some day. Hampden, the Champions, Malahyde, Compton, and Edward Bellfield are most eager. Bob Clarke wrote forwarding their subscriptions, though they live rather far off. They hope to have a run now and then for their money.’
‘I think I shall ask your father to let me work him a pair of slippers,’ said Miss Christabel, ‘or an embroidered waistcoat, if he would like it better. He deserves the thanks of every girl in the district for his delightful idea and his spirited way of carrying it out. I hope some of us won’t take to riding jealous, but I wouldn’t answer for it if ever Mrs. Snowden and I get together. I’ll tell you who could cut us both down.’
‘And who may that be?’ asked Wilfred.
‘Why, Vera Fane, of course. Didn’t you know that she rode splendidly? When she was quite a little child she used to gallop after the cattle at Black Mountain, where they live, and they say, though she is very quiet about it, that she can ride anything.’
‘What sort of a place is this Black Mountain? It hasn’t altogether a sound of luxury.’
‘Oh, it’s a terrible place, I believe, for poor Vera to have to live in always,’ said the good-natured Christabel. ‘They say it is as much as you can do to ride there, it’s so rough, and they had to pack all their stores, I believe, till the new road was made. And they’re very poor. Mr. Fane is one of those men who never make money or do anything much except read all day. If it wasn’t for Vera, who teaches her brothers (she’s the only girl), and keeps the accounts, and looks after the stores, and manages the servants, and does a good deal of the housework herself, the whole place would go to ruin.’
‘Apparently, if such a good genius was to be withdrawn; but why doesn’t her father sell out and go away? There are plenty of other stations to be got in more habitable places.’
‘Oh, his wife is buried there—no wonder she died, poor thing. He won’t hear of leaving the place; and I really believe, lonely as it is, that Vera likes it too. She is a wonderful girl, always teaching herself something, when she isn’t darning stockings, or cooking, or having a turn at the wash-tub, for Nelly Jones, who stayed with her one summer, told me that they lost their servant once, and Vera did everything for a month. Sometimes she gets out, as she did to the races last year, and she enjoys that, as you may believe.’
‘I hope she does,’ said Wilfred reflectively. ‘I thought her a very nice girl, but I had no idea she was such a paragon.’
‘She’s a grand girl, and an ornament to her sex,’ said Mr. Rockley suddenly. ‘I couldn’t have believed such a woman was possible, but I stopped there a week once, weatherbound. All the creeks were up, and as you had to cross the river about fifty times to get out of the confounded hole, I was bound to let the water go down. I should have hanged myself looking at old Fane’s melancholy phiz and listening to the rain, if it hadn’t been for Miss Fane. But I’ll tell you all about her another time. I must be off now. You’ll stay to dinner? I’ll find you here, I suppose, when I come back.’