‘We want you, Jasper, to drive up with us to High Tor, if you feel strong enough this morning. Maud has written to Blanche, as she promised, you know, to let us know when her silver pheasants arrived from the dealer’s in London; and this note’—and Lucy indicated the letter in her sister’s hand—‘has just come, begging us to go round and see the birds made comfortable in their new abode. The day is charming. You must come with us, indeed.’
‘Pheasants before the First of October gives one leave to shoot them, are not much in my line,’ said Jasper carelessly. ‘What are your plans for this morning, Miss Willis?’
Ruth with becoming modesty replied that Captain Denzil was only too good to inquire as to the proceedings of so insignificant a person as she was. ‘I try to be useful,’ she said. ‘Sometimes Sir Sykes allows me to read aloud to him the newspapers or a book. If nobody wants me, I think I shall stroll down to the quiet cool path in the woods beside the river. It is a favourite haunt of mine.’
‘Well, I’ll walk down there with you, if you don’t mind my cigar, Miss Willis,’ replied the captain languidly. ‘I don’t want particularly to go to High Tor, or to go into ecstasies over the fine feathers of a lot of fancy poultry cooped in a pen and called pheasants.’
‘No, no,’ said Blanche and Lucy with one accord; ‘we are not going to allow you to play truant to-day. You must come, and so must Ruth. We never thought of leaving her behind’ (this by-the-bye was the whitest of white fibs, for up to that moment Ruth’s companionship on the projected expedition had never once crossed the mind of either of the sisters); ‘and there is plenty of room for all in the double basket-carriage.’
‘I shall be bored, and shew it. The De Veres are not a bit in my line. Harrogate, for instance, I can’t get on with for five minutes—my fault, I daresay. But he knows nothing and cares nothing about the things that interest me; and I trouble my head just as little about his model cottages and reclamation of waste lands and militia drill. The one subject we have in common is fox-hunting, and even on that we take somewhat different views.’ This was a long speech for Jasper; but the concession which it somewhat ungraciously implied was readily accepted by his jubilant sisters.
‘You forget Lady Gladys,’ said Blanche archly; ‘she would never forgive us if we appeared without you.’
The double basket-carriage, one of those convenient, roomy, and perhaps to male eyes ugly vehicles, that do so much good service in country places, came round in due course, drawn by its pair of strong and spirited Exmoor ponies, coblike, sturdy little animals, well fitted to make light of the steep Devonshire roads, yet shewing some of the fire and fleetness due to their dash of Arab blood. The ‘clothes-basket on wheels,’ as Jasper irreverently styled it, received its human freight; Miss Willis, in spite of Blanche’s instances, seating herself meekly with her back to the horses, and the captain of course beside her. Lucy took the reins; the smart boy in livery who had been standing at the ponies’ heads, let go the bridles and sprang deftly to his perch behind as the light carriage bowled merrily away along the smooth park road.
Never yet, since first she made her appearance at Carbery Chase, had Ruth looked one half so attractive, in her quaint elfish way, as she did then, as flashing and animated, her dark eyes saying far more than did her lips, she conversed with Jasper on the outward drive.
‘I declare,’ thought the captain to himself, ‘if the governor had been a little more explicit, I wouldn’t mind speaking out. With three thousand a year, or four—ay, it would require to be four—the thing might be managed.’