The next morning at breakfast Lady Anwyll proposed that the two young people should go for a ride after lunch. Franceline demurred, on the plea that she had never ridden but one horse and was afraid to trust herself on any other. The captain, however, settled this difficulty, by volunteering to send a man over to Dullerton for Rosebud. She would come at an easy pace, and after an hour’s rest be ready for the road. On seeing the point so satisfactorily arranged, Franceline immediately dismissed her terrors, and thought it would be rather desirable to try how she could manage on a strange horse. She could not plead that she had forgotten her riding habit, for Angélique had remembered it, as well as the hat and gloves and whip, all of which had been packed up with her other clothes.
The weather was fine, a bright sun beamed from a stainless sky; the furze on the common was yellow enough still to illuminate the flat expanse of the country round Rydal, and as Franceline dashed through the golden bushes on her spirited steed, her youth vindicated itself, the young blood coursed joyously through her veins, her spirits rose, and soon the exercise that she begun reluctantly became one of keen enjoyment. Capt. Anwyll was not a very interesting companion, but he was natural and good-natured, and anxious to please; he knew now what ground he was treading, too, and made no more blunders, but chatted on without shyness or effort, and was pleasant enough.
“Roxham is coming to dinner. You know Roxham? A capital fellow; a dead shot; a clever fellow too; goes in strong for politics and philanthropy and so forth. He’ll be in the ministry one of these days I dare say, and setting the country by the ears with his reform crochets, and that sort of thing: his head is full of them.”
“Not a bad sort of furniture either. Why don’t you follow his example?” demanded Franceline.
“Me! How satirical you are! That’s not my line at all. I don’t go in for politics—only for soldiering, if there were any to do. They set me up as liberal candidate for the last elections, but when I found it was not to be a walk-over, and that I was to contest it, I backed out. My mother was dreadfully savage. But bless her! she does not understand it a bit. I’m no hand at making speeches and addressing constituents. Now, Roxham can hold forth by the hour to a mob, or to any set of fellows; it’s wonderful to see how he spins out the palaver—and first-rate palaver it is, I can tell you. You should hear him on the hustings! We’ll make him describe a great row he and the liberal candidate had at the last elections, when Roxham beat him out of the field in grand style; he was no match for Roxham anyhow, and besides he had a stutter, and when he was in a passion he couldn’t get a word out without stamping like a vicious horse. It’s great fun to hear Roxham tell it; we’ll make him do so this evening. It will amuse you.”
Franceline laughed. The name of Lord Roxham and the mention of his electioneering feats recalled a scene that was seldom absent from her memory now. Every trifling detail of that scene rose vividly before her as she listened to Captain Anwyll. Would he never allude to one figure in it that overshadowed every other? If she could but lead him to speak of Clide! Perhaps he could tell her something of his present movements; throw some light on her perplexity.
“Lord Roxham has a very handsome cousin, Lady Emily Fitznorman; do you know her?” she asked, carelessly.
“Yes. A very nice girl as well as handsome.”
“I wonder she’s not married already.”
“You think she’s on the wane! Wait a while; you won’t think three-and-twenty so antique by and by.”