  Towards four o’clock on the following afternoon Mr Beveridge and Moggridge were walking leisurely down the long drive leading from the mansion of Clankwood to the gate that opened on the humdrum outer world. Finding that an inelastic matter of yards was all the tether he could hope for, Mr Beveridge thought it best to take the bull by the horns, and make a companion of this necessity. So he kept his attendant by his side, and regaled him for some time with a series of improbable reminiscences and tolerable cigars, till at last, round a bend of the avenue, a lady on horseback came into view. As she drew a little nearer he stopped with an air of great surprise and pleasure. “I believe, Moggridge, that must be Lady Alicia À Fyre!” he exclaimed. “It looks huncommon like her, sir,” replied Moggridge. “I must really speak to her. She was”—and Mr Beveridge assumed his inimitable air of manly sentiment—“she was one of my poor mother’s dearest friends. Do you mind, Moggridge, falling behind a little? In fact, if you could step behind a tree and wait here for me, it would be pleasanter for us both. We used to meet under happier circumstances, and, don’t you know, it might distress her to be reminded of my misfortunes.” Such a reasonable request, beseechingly put by so fine a gentleman, could scarcely be refused. Moggridge retired [pg 40] “I hardly expected to see you to-day, Mr Beveridge,” she began. “I, on the other hand, have been thinking of nothing else,” he replied. She blushed still deeper, but responded a little reprovingly, “It’s very polite of you to say so, but——” “Not a bit,” said he. “I have a dozen equally well-turned sentences at my disposal, and, they tell me, a most deluding way of saying them.” Suddenly out of her depth again, poor Lady Alicia could only strike out at random. “Who tell you?” she managed to say. “First, so far as my poor memory goes, my mother’s lady’s-maid informed me of the fact; then I think my sister’s governess,” he replied, ticking off his informants on his fingers with a half-abstracted air. “After that came a number of more or less reliable individuals, and lastly the Lady Alicia À Fyre.” “Me? I’m sure I never said——” “None of them ever said,” he interrupted. “But what have I done, then?” she asked, tightening her reins, and making her horse fidget a foot or two farther away. “You have begun to be a most adorable friend to a most unfortunate man.” Still Lady Alicia looked at him a little dubiously, and only said, “I—I hope I’m not too friendly.” [pg 41]“There are no degrees in friendly,” he replied. “There are only aloofly, friendly, and more than friendly.” “I—I think I ought to be going on, Mr Beveridge.” That experienced diplomatist perceived that it was necessary to further embellish himself. “Are you fond of soldiers?” he asked, abruptly. “I beg your pardon?” she said in considerable bewilderment. “Does a red coat, a medal, and a brass band appeal to you? Are you apt to be interested in her Majesty’s army?” “I generally like soldiers,” she admitted, still much surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. “Then I was a soldier.” “But—really?” “I held a commission in one of the crackest cavalry regiments,” he began dramatically, and yet with a great air of sincerity. “I was considered one of the most promising officers in the mess. It nearly broke my heart to leave the service.” He turned away his head. Lady Alicia was visibly affected. “I am so sorry!” she murmured. Still keeping his face turned away, he held out his hand and she pressed it gently. “Sorrow cannot give me my freedom,” he said. “If there is anything I can do——” she began. “Dismount,” he said, looking up at her tenderly. Lady Alicia never quite knew how it happened, but certainly she found herself standing on the ground, and the next moment Mr Beveridge was in her place. [pg 42]“An old soldier,” he exclaimed, gaily; “I can’t resist the temptation of having a canter.” And with that he started at a gallop towards the gate. With a blasphemous ejaculation Moggridge sprang from behind his tree, and set off down the drive in hot pursuit. Lady Alicia screamed, “Stop! stop! Francis—I mean, Mr Beveridge; stop, please!” But the favorite of the crack regiment, despite the lady’s saddle, sat his steed well, and rapidly left cries and footsteps far behind. The lodge was nearly half a mile away, and as the avenue wound between palisades of old trees, the shouts became muffled, and when he looked over his shoulder he saw in the stretch behind him no sign of benefactress or pursuer. By continued exhortations and the point of his penknife he kept his horse at full stretch; round the next bend he knew he should see the gates. “Five to one on the blank things being shut,” he muttered. He swept round the curve, and there ahead of him he saw the gates grimly closed, and at the lodge door a dismounted groom, standing beside his horse. Only remarking “Damn!” he reined up, turned, and trotted quietly back again. Presently he met Moggridge, red in the face, muddy as to his trousers, and panting hard. “Nice little nag this, Moggridge,” he remarked, airily. “Nice sweat you’ve give me,” rejoined his attendant, wrathfully. [pg 43]“You don’t mean to say you ran after me?” “I does mean to say,” Moggridge replied grimly, seizing the reins. “Want to lead him? Very well—it makes us look quite like the Derby winner coming in.” “Derby loser you means, thanks to them gates bein’ shut.” “Gates shut? Were they? I didn’t happen to notice.” “No, o’ course not,” said Moggridge, sarcastically; “that there sunstroke you got in India prevented you, I suppose?” “Have a cigar?” To this overture Moggridge made no reply. Mr Beveridge laughed and continued lightly, “I had no idea you were so fond of exercise. I’d have given you a lead all round the park if I’d known.” “You’d ’ave given me a lead all round the county if them gates ’ad been open.” “It might have been difficult to stop this fiery animal,” Mr Beveridge admitted. “But now, Moggridge, the run is over. I think I can take Lady Alicia’s horse back to her myself.” Moggridge smiled grimly. “You won’t let go?” “No fears.” Mr Beveridge put his hand behind his back and silently drove the penknife a quarter of an inch into his mount’s hind quarters. In an instant his keeper felt himself being lifted nearly off his feet, and in another actually [pg 44] “Well, I am back from my ride,” he remarked in a perfectly usual voice, dismounting as he spoke. “The man!” she cried, “where is that dreadful man?” “What man?” he asked in some surprise. “The man who chased you.” Mr Beveridge laughed aloud, at which Lady Alicia took fresh refuge in her handkerchief. “He follows on foot,” he replied. “Did he catch you? Oh, why didn’t you escape altogether?” she sobbed. Mr Beveridge looked at her with growing interest. “I had begun to forget my petticoat psychology,” he reflected (aloud, after his unconventional fashion). “Oh, here he comes,” she shuddered. “All blood! Oh, what have you done to him?” “On my honour, nothing,—I merely haven’t washed his face.” By this time Moggridge was coming close upon them. “You won’t forget a poor soldier?” said Mr Beveridge in a lower voice. There was no reply. “A poor soldier,” he added, with a sigh, glancing at her from the corner of his eye. “So poor that even if I had got out, I could only have ridden till I dropped.” [pg 45]“Would you accept——?” she began, timidly. “What day?” he interrupted, hurriedly. “Tuesday,” she hesitated. “Four o’clock, again. Same place as before. When I whistle throw it over at once.” Before they had time to say more, Moggridge, blood- and gravel-stained, came up. “It’s all right, miss,” he said, coming between them; “I’ll see that he plays no more of ’is tricks. There’s nothin’ to be afrightened of.” “Stand back!” she cried; “don’t come near me!” Moggridge was too staggered at this outburst to say a word. “Stand away!” she said, and the bewildered attendant stood away. She turned to Mr Beveridge. “Now, will you help me up?” She mounted lightly, said a brief farewell, and, forgetting all about the call at Clankwood she had ostensibly come to pay, turned her horse’s head towards the lodge. “Well, I’m blowed!” said Moggridge. “They do blow one,” his patient assented. Naturally enough the story of this equestrian adventure soon ran through Clankwood. The exact particulars, however, were a little hard to collect, for while Moggridge supplied many minute and picturesque details, illustrating his own activity and presence of mind and the imminent peril of the Lady Alicia, Mr Beveridge recounted an equally vivid story of a runaway horse recovered by himself to its fair owner’s unbounded gratitude. Official opinion naturally accepted the official [pg 46] “I can’t make the man out,” said Sherlaw to Escott. “I had begun to think there was nothing much the matter with him.” “No more there is,” replied Escott. “His memory seems to me to have suffered from something, and he simply supplies its place in conversation from his imagination, and in action from the inspiration of the moment. The methods of society are too orthodox for such an aberration, and as his friends doubtless pay a handsome fee to keep him here, old Congers labels him mad and locks the door on him.” A day or two afterwards official opinion was a little disturbed. Lady Alicia, in reply to anxious inquiries, gave a third version of the adventure, from which nothing in particular could be gathered except that nothing in particular had happened. “What do you make of this, Escott?” asked Dr Congleton, laying her note before his assistant. “Merely that a woman wrote it.” “Hum! I suppose that is the explanation.” Upon which the doctor looked profound and went to lunch. |
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