The Love-Story of Aliette Brunton
Herbert, and that "young Cavendish" whom he remembered at Jaffa.
* * * * *
So far, Aliette and Ronnie had scarcely spoken. The dog-fox had gone
away too suddenly, the ground beyond that first flown fence had been too
full of rabbit-holes, for anything except concentration on the immediate
job. But even in that first moment they had been aware of comradeship.
Their thoughts, if either could have uttered them, would have been: "I'm
glad we were together--just in that place, just at that moment."
Now, as they swept side by side across the twenty-acre grass--gray
pulling like mad; chestnut scarcely extended; wind of their going in
their faces; field behind and hounds in full cry ahead--the man spoke:
"We got away well."
"Rather." Aliette, drawing in front, smiled at him over her left
shoulder. He let the gray have his head. Hounds topped their hedge,
flashed on. They saw Will Oakley's roan fly over; saw the master's
scarlet back and bell-topper lift disappear; and cleared the
stake-and-bound side by side.
More grass. They grew aware of other riders behind them: Sir Siegfried,
very pleased with himself; Ross Titterton, riding jealous to be up; Lady
Helen.
The next fence was blackthorn, thick as night, not a gap in it. The
hounds, spreading out, scrambled through. Will Oakley's horse balanced
himself like a good hunter; jumped; and took it clean. Jock Herbert
followed him over. The colonel, hat crammed to pate, galloped at it;
blundered through somehow.
Sir Siegfried, on his bay, shot past Ronnie. Aliette, easing Miracle for
his leap, saw the self-satisfied smile wiped from the politician's face
as he took off; felt Miracle rise under her; landed safe on plow; turned
her head to glimpse a big gray horse in mid-air; and, turning, heard the
thud of a fall as Sir Siegfried's four-hundred-guinea bay pecked, slid,
and rolled over sideways, wrenched to disaster by clumsy hands.
"Good toss, that," laughed Ronald Cavendish as they cantered slow over
the heavy plow. "Who is he?"
"The member for Mid-Oxfordshire." Aliette, too, laughed: it had been a
great little burst from covert, and the heart in her--the heart that
loved hounds and horses--still beat to it.
"Good fox," said Ronnie.
"Isn't he!" said Aliette.
He was! By now four good fields separated its brushed quarry from the
loud pack that labored--sterns and heads level--across sliced loam.
"Devil take the stuff!" muttered Colonel Sanders, watching hounds draw
away from him. And "Thank God for a gate!" muttered Colonel Sanders as
he made for it.
Huntsman and whip, too, were making for that gate. Aliette and Ronnie
followed their lead, the gray plunging across the holding furrows like a
ship in a storm. Looking back, they saw the pink politician struggling
with his horse, half a dozen black-coats safely landed, Lady Helen
barging in their wake.
A bumpkin in corduroys at the open gate shouted the master to "mind they
wheatfields." The colonel damned his impertinence, and rode on after
Will Oakley. Aliette and Ronnie shot single file down the trodden path
between pricking corn, and flew the stile at end of it.
The pack, overrunning scent, had thrown up half-way across the next
wheatfield. Casting themselves to pick up the line, hounds--noses to
ground, sterns high--hunted on their own. Huntsman, whip and master,
motionless on their horses, glad of the breather, sat watching. Suddenly
Ranger feathered with eager stem, whimpered, and gave tongue. They were
off again--Ranger in front, Audacious at Ranger's flank, a quiet smile
on Will Oakley's face as he cantered after them.
"Pretty work," said Ronald Cavendish. He and Aliette still led the
field; but the moment's check had given Ross Titterton and half a dozen
others their chance. They came now, full split after gray and chestnut,
across the young wheat. Among them, though the wheat was his own,
galloped the red-faced, red-waistcoated farmer--and the Rev. Adrian,
whose eye for country had compensated for his dislike of jumping.
Something inside Aliette, some curious instinct, vague and
incomprehensible, seemed to resent those crowding horsemen. She was
aware, dimly, that she would rather be alone, alone with the man who
rode at her side. She wanted hounds to mend their pace, to run mute on a
breast-high scent, clean away from the field. She wanted to feel Miracle
extended under her, to hear the gray thudding after.
But now the hounds hunted slowly, puzzling out their line across a
sheep-fouled pasture. As Miracle sailed a low fence, Aliette saw Key
Hatch Church, squatting among poplars a mile to their right; a plowman,
hat off by halted team, pointing the line; some foot-followers in a lane
on the left; and in front, six fields away, the sudden gleam of water.
Then the pace mended. The pack raced in full cry to Parson's Brook;
plunged in, plunged through; and checked dead on the far side. Will
Oakley, putting spurs to his horse, got over. Jock Herbert just managed
it. Pulling up this side the brook, Aliette and the rest of the first
flighters watched the huntsman as he cast hounds forward.
"There's a ford half a mile down," spluttered the Rev. Adrian; and made
for it, followed by Lady Helen, Sir Siegfried, his hat dented, his pink
plow-plastered, who had at last managed to catch up, the red-waistcoated
farmer, and half a dozen others.
Ronnie glanced at Aliette. He had no idea if his horse would face water
or not. The brook, broadish under rotting banks, looked formidable; and
it was almost like taking it in cold blood--this waiting for hounds to
pick up the scent again. All the same, he knew that if Miracle went over
he would get the gray across if he had to swim for it.
"Better make for the ford, Mrs. Brunton," called the colonel. He and
Ross Titterton galloped off.
They were alone again: two ordinary orderly English people, a little
dumb in each other's presence, both moved by very extraordinary
thoughts, thoughts to which they were quite incapable of giving exact
expression.
Aliette's red lips had pursed to stubborn determination. "I hate funking
things," thought Aliette. To her, subconsciously, it was as though the
water typified something more than a mere obstacle encountered in the
day's hunting. She knew Miracle could jump it. Neither she nor Miracle
would "funk things." Then why the thought? "Because," some voice in her
gave clear answer, "_he_ might."
"It isn't as bad as it looks," said the voice of the man at her side.
"I'll give you a lead over."
And at that the voice in her began laughing. She felt unaccountably
comforted. "Why should I mind?" she thought.
Beyond the brook, at the big bullfinch on the far side of the meadow, a
hound feathered. "Yoi-doit, then. Yoi-doit," came Will Oakley's voice.
The hound gave tongue, owning to the line; Aliette saw Ronnie take his
gray short by the head, ram his spurs home, and ride straight at the
water.
Miracle raced after the gray, catching up with every stride. Side by
side, they galloped the fifty yards to the brook, rose at it, glimpsed
it deep under them, flew it, landed.
Landing, she knew him safely over. Racing on, she heard the thud of his
horse-hoofs behind. Her heart thrilled to the horse-hoofs; it seemed,
suddenly, as though some string had snapped in her heart. The pack in
front was utterly mad: she heard a burst of hound-music from beyond the
bullfinch, knew that they were running a breast-high scent, running
clean away from her. She gave Miracle his head, shielded her eyes with
her crop-arm, crashed through the hedge, heard the gray crash through
behind her.
Now she saw the hounds again, a close ripple of black, white, and tan,
eight hundred yards away across post-and-railed common land. Miracle
went after them, drawing up stride by stride, steeplechasing his fences.
But the man on the gray would not be denied. A rail smashed behind her.
He was following, following. He mustn't catch up with her--must never
catch up with her.
The ground rose. Not very far ahead she saw a dark-red dot making for
the gorse-clad hills. She heard Will Oakley's "Halloo! Halloo!" as he
capped hounds on. They ran nearly mute now, sterns straight, hackles up.
The fox vanished from view as they raced up-hill; reappeared again.
But Aliette was no longer aware of the chase. She could barely realize
that hounds were running into their fox, that the two pink coats twenty
yards ahead of her were whip and huntsman. All her conscious mind was at
her left shoulder, listening, listening to the horse-hoofs behind. Could
it be that she herself was the quarry of those thudding hoofs, quarry of
the man who drove those thudding hoof-beats onward? He mustn't catch up
with her! He must never catch up with her! And yet could it be that some
instinct in her, some instinct earth-old and primeval, wanted to be
caught?
That same instinct had been at work in the man on the fiddle-headed
horse, the man who rode with his hands low and his teeth clenched,
sitting down to his job as though he would go through Oxfordshire and
out the other side in pursuit of Aliette. He had been aware of it,
dimly, as they waited by the brook; aware of it, furiously, as he
jumped. But now, instinct was blurred by the actual chase. He had come
out for a "good gallop"; he was having his gallop. His feet were jammed
home to the hunting-heel, his hat rammed to his head. His eye took in
and loved the whole scene: the sky clouding blue-gray above them, the
shadows skimming green turf below, the speeding pink of the hunt-coats
behind the speeding black, white, and tan of the pack, the flame of
gorse on the crest-line ahead.
Yet always, as he galloped, the man knew an urge stronger than the mere
urge of the chase; knew that there was some dim reason why he had waited
at Parson's Brook on a strange horse instead of going full split for the
ford; why he must ride on--on and on--ride as he had never ridden
before--ride the gray's shoes off, rather than lose touch with that
black-habited figure in front. God! How well she went! How magnificently
she went!
Will Oakley was not worrying about either of them. For once in their
lives the Mid-Oxfordshire hounds were going like the Belvoir or the
Cottesmore. Their fox was sinking before them. Will Oakley knew, as his
roan topped the green bank which runs like an earthwork round the foot
of Gorse Hill, that he would view "the varmint" close; viewed him.
No need, now, to lift hounds from scent: they, too, saw that draggled
down-brushed shape, making its last effort; and crashed to fiercest
music. Will Oakley hallooed them on, and Jock Herbert. "Yooi to him,
Ranger," they hallooed, "Yooi to him, Audacious." Reynard swerved
snarling from Ranger's teeth; Audacious snapped, missed; Victory rolled
him over; massed pack were on him, mad for blood, as Will Oakley flung
himself to ground.
Aliette, pulling up by instinct, saw the huntsman's scarlet ringed with
leaping hounds; heard his joyful "Tear him and eat him, tear him and eat
him"; and came back to sanity as the gray galloped up, halted, and stood
with steaming flanks and steaming nostrils while his rider slid from
saddle.
6
"By Jove, Mrs. Brunton, that was perfectly great!"
"Thanks to your lead over Parson's Brook."
They stood by their sweating horses, two perfectly normal people, rather
pleased with their prowess, quite childishly delighted with the brush
which Will Oakley held out to her.
"'T isn't often we gives you a run like that, ma'm," said the huntsman;
and his saturnine face might have been a boy's, as he produced a piece
of whipcord from his breeches pocket and began fastening the brush to
Aliette's saddle-ring.