“But now we talk of mounting steed.”

Hudibras.

After lunch I wrote to Conny. I should like to see that letter now. I composed it as one of Johnson’s poets wrote poetry: “with an incessant ambition of wit;” mentioned that little affair with O’Twist, but made no further reference to Teazer’s treatment (holding that both she and her father would expect my silence); asked if I was missed, if there was anybody at Grove End who would particularly care to see me back again; diversified my pregnant sentimental “asides” with well laboured bursts of cynicism, and concluded four pages of close writing with a very eloquent, “Believe me,” &c.

As I addressed the envelope, Theresa came into the library, and asked me if I would ride with her.

“I should greatly enjoy a ride,” I answered, hardily; “but you mustn’t expect to find me a very good horseman. However, providing my horse doesn’t rear, I daresay I shall be able to hold on.”

“You shall have papa’s horse. He is very quiet.”

“I don’t think I could take a gate,” said I.

“Oh, we’ll keep to the main road.”

This being settled, she went to get on her habit. I was rather sorry I had no straps by me. I am aware that they are not much worn by riders; but depend upon it, they are very useful to incipient horsemen, since they prevent the trowsers from mounting up to the knees, should the horse grow at all distracted. Hat-guards are also valuable. Indeed, a bad rider ought to be sewn into his clothes; and it would not be sometimes amiss, if his clothes were also tacked on to the saddle.

In about ten minutes’ time Theresa was ready. The horses were brought by the groom to the door: and my cousin mounted with fine grace. I, like a blockhead, clambered up the wrong side; but though my uncle, as well as the groom and Teazer, was looking, nobody laughed; and I had, therefore, the satisfaction of believing I had acquitted myself well. To my great relief the animal, under my weight, stood as motionless as a clothes’-horse. Teazer’s, on the other hand, began to dance, like one of your trained brutes at a circus, when the band strikes up.

“Here’s a whip, sir,” said the groom. I jerked the reins, my uncle waved his hand, my horse broke into a trot (I into a perspiration), off went Teazer’s animal sideways, I watching the lateral beast with speechless anxiety, fearful every moment of running into him; we got out of the avenue into the high-road, and away we clattered—God help me!—under an Indian sun.

Teazer kept ahead of me for some ten minutes, her horse being very nettlesome and restive, and defying her restraint. I had settled into a good solid trot, was growing used to the motion, and had no wish to gallop. However, Teazer slackened her pace after a little, and fell into a walk, which I thought uncommonly safe and agreeable.

“Where would you like to go?” she asked.

“Wherever you please.”

“Shall we ride to Blenhall Abbey? We are on the road to it, and the ruins are well worth seeing.”

“I shall be very glad.”

Here her horse sprang forward, mine followed, and away we dashed at full gallop, I stooping my head like a hunchback to keep my hat on, and wondering what pleasure people could take in having their hearts shaken into their throats, and their midriffs into their boots. However, use will father other things besides those begot by sense; and before long I not only began to discover that swift motion was a sensation by no means disagreeable, but found courage to raise my head and attend to my cousin’s figure.

Although, in spite of my fashionable and aristocratic prejudices, I knew almost nothing about riding, the stable, or the turf, I had a good eye for picturesque combinations and graceful movements, for small waists and easy attitudes. I was therefore qualified to admire Theresa on horseback, nor did I require to be told that she was a splendid horsewoman. Even her man’s hat could not deform the perfection of outline submitted to my following gaze by her noble figure. So much has been written about female riders, that all description of Theresa in the saddle would be supererogatory, and I will therefore save you a long account here by briefly referring you for full information on this important subject to the Entertaining Library of six shillings, two shillings, one shilling, and sixpenny novels to be found at all bookstalls and railway stations in town and country.

“I am afraid you find it very hot,” said she, checking; her horse’s canter and dropping alongside of me.

“It is rather hot,” I answered, glancing at a sky whose colour would have figured well in a view of Palmyra. “But I am enjoying my ride very much.”

“I could give you several jumps if you’d care about them. There are some good hedges yonder,” and she pointed with her whip to the plains beneath.“I am very well satisfied,” I replied. “Let me see! There’s the railway station, and yonder’s the hot road I trudged along yesterday. The view from here is very pretty, but I fancy a ride would be more enjoyable in the cool of the evening. Hallo! are we to go down that hill?”

“Yes. Keep a firm hold of your reins.”

We turned into an abominably steep lane. I shoved my feet well out into the stirrups, and uttered no observation whatever until we had reached the bottom. Then I exclaimed,

“Such a descent is enough to try the nerves of a mule.”

“We shall meet with nothing but level roads now,” said she. “Are you for a gallop?”“No. Let’s have a talk.... How superbly you ride, Theresa.”

“Do I?”

“You make me feel as inelegant as a Hindoo, sitting like a tailor on an elephant’s head.”

“Have you ridden with Conny?”

“No. I don’t think she rides, does she?”

“A little. She is not like me: she is womanly in her tastes and aversions.”

“Oh, don’t say that!” I exclaimed, not quite sure whether she meant to compliment herself or her cousin.

“She would never have played you such a trick as I did.”

“Impossible to say. Had she misjudged the motive of my visit to Grove End—imagined, as you did, that I had come to make love to her for the sake of her money—oh, Theresa! she might have poisoned me!”

“Tell me, do you think it is proper that a girl should be made love to only for her money?”

“Certainly not. I consider it insulting.”

“I acted wrongly in not giving myself time to find out what sort of a man you were, before I began my tricks. But then it would have been too late; for after you had seen me in my natural capacity, as the menagerie people say, shamming would have been ridiculous.”

“Don’t let us talk about anything that vexes us, Theresa. Yesterday is dead and gone, and our acquaintance dates from this morning. But there is one view of the question of marrying for money which ought to be considered: Suppose a fellow falls in love with a girl who has a fortune? doesn’t he run a great risk of being misjudged?”

“If a girl has any sense, she will soon see whether he is fond of her or not.”

I shook my head.

“Some men flatter so well, feign so skilfully, appeal so dexterously to a woman’s weaknesses, that it needs more clear-sightedness than most girls possess to divine either their real feelings or their real motives.”

Her fine eyes sparkled as she answered, “That is why I hate flattery. Honest people won’t flatter. I always look upon a compliment as the mask of some sentiment which would be very offensive were it exposed.”

“That’s an extreme view. A man may sometimes flatter with the wish to please; and whom should he wish to please but his sweetheart?”

“I would rather not be complimented by the man I love.”

“He’ll have to be dumb, then,” said I.

“I will agree with you in this,” said she, with a smile, “a girl with money is under great disadvantages as regards courtship and marriage. For she may love a man whose sensitiveness finds an obstacle in her fortune, and keeps him back, lest a proposal should subject him to misconstruction. Or she may meet with a man who sincerely loves her, but whose sincerity she distrusts because she has money. Now a girl without money knows very well that when an offer is made her, she is loved only for herself. That feeling is worth more than the largest fortune, I should think.”“Girls,” said I, “must find out the truth for themselves, as men have to do. Marriage is a game that takes two to play. The man has just as much right to suspect the girl’s sincerity, as the girl has to suspect his. They ought, both of them, to be above suspicion. Loyalty begets loyalty. Where doubt is——whoa!”

Here my horse stumbled, and I barely saved my hat from falling. The movement of my horse startled hers, and away we galloped. Talk was at an end between us; but though many of my faculties were engrossed by the labour of keeping my seat, I could still think. Was Theresa disappointed? Had she a worm i’ the bud? What made her so sensitive about money? She talked very candidly; but then she knew I was in love, and that knowledge conferred on us both privileges we could hardly have exercised had my affections been disengaged. What a change, mon Dieu! from the rude vixen of yesterday! I couldn’t conceive a more agreeable girl than she. Considering that she must still be embarrassed by the memory of her behaviour to me, her ease was wonderful, her amiability delightful.

We had turned, by this time, into a long lane, with a tall hedge on either side of us, and plenty of trees, which, however, did not protect us from the sun. I have no doubt the country around looked very beautiful, and golden and green, with flashes of yellow light here, and splashes of some other kind of colour there—crammed, in a word, with a thousand effects, such as, properly catalogued here, would entitle me to a place in English fiction second only to that occupied by the immortal author of Black’s picturesque Guide Books. But to speak the truth, I was thinking too much about my neck to remark the beautiful and the lovely; for my horse, on entering the lane, had indescribably shocked me by shying at an old man in a blouse, and from that moment I was afflicted with misgivings.

Happily the Ruins were at the end of the lane. We came to an open grassy space, my cousin halted, and pointed to some pieces of wall here and there, supporting what might have been the frame of a window in the reign of St. Lucius.

“Hallo! a fire!” said I, imagining for the moment that here were the remains of a house that had very nearly been burnt to the ground.

Teazer burst into a loud laugh, the merriest that ever made the summer air jocund with human glee.

“Why,” cried she, “this is Blenhall Abbey, the most famous ruin in the county. I don’t know how many books have been written about it.”

“Oh, yes, I see the ivy now, and the green mould about the bricks.”

“Some say it was built in the reign of Henry II., and some in Richard I.’s time. Two gentlemen belonging to a society came to visit it a few months ago, and afterwards called upon papa. That evening there was an argument. Papa’s library was turned topsy-turvey to prove things. One gentleman in a passion smashed his spectacles by thumping his fist on the table where they lay. The best part of it was, papa has a theory that the Abbey is of much more recent date, and declares he can show it was constructed in Queen Mary’s time. You may imagine the hubbub! It ended in all three of them becoming enemies.”

“Oh, those antiquarians!” I exclaimed. “They would wrangle for hours over a brick fresh from a kiln, one swearing it was made in the time of Agricola, and another that it was the work of those Israelites who built the pyramids. I call those ruins rubbish, don’t you?”

Theresa shrugged her shoulders affirmatively. “But don’t tell papa I think so,” she exclaimed with a gay laugh, wheeling her horse round.

It was five o’clock when we sighted home. On the whole, in spite of the heat and my nervousness, I had enjoyed the ride. Going up the hill, a gadfly had bitten my horse; the animal plunged, and I gave myself up for lost. The movement dislodged the fly, and the horse became calm; but feeling by the coolness in that part that my left leg showed its sock, I did not doubt that I had made a spectacle of myself. Judge my surprise when Teazer congratulated me upon the first-rate style in which I had handled the horse. She assured me I had saved him from falling with enviable coolness and address; and added that she was certain I was laughing at her when I pretended I couldn’t ride! My conscience smarted, but I held my tongue. Thus, Eugenio, is honour heaped on the undeserving. Thus do muffs become great by the very ignorance that ought to suppress them. Thus does the simpleton become a field-marshal, the ninny a bishop, the frump a privy-councillor, the sumph a court-physician.

My uncle was very jolly at dinner. He roared over my mistake about the ruins, and brought the tears to my eyes by his description of the two members of the antiquarian society. It was plain that both he and his daughter were striving might and main to make amends for the sufferings I had undergone on the previous day. Teazer, perhaps, was a little bashful, a little demure under her father’s eye; but he was not to be resisted. I daresay a good many of his stories enriched the pages of Joe Miller; I daresay he had told them over and over again any time these twenty years. But what was that to me? What anecdotes he had, he related well. He was so anxious, moreover, that I should be amused, that I more than once echoed his own kindly roar, when the best of his joke lay in his broad, honest, hearty, British expanse of face.

As to O’Twist, the man pained me with his officiousness. He was for ever at my ear, whispering with silvery softness, “A little more sherry, sir?” “I can ricommind this claret, sir;” “Will you throy the champeene, sir?” “Perhaps your honour would preefar the Meedeery?” I think he wanted to make me tipsy to show his remorse. He avoided looking at me from motives of memory and delicacy I could sincerely appreciate; but I could not move without bringing him to my side.After dinner we went into the grounds, where coffee was brought us.

This is a pretty fine life for a banker’s clerk! thought I, stretching back in an arm-chair and smoking one of my uncle’s Imperiales, a cigar, Matilda, worth half-a-crown, as thick as your dainty wrist, and nearly ten inches long. Ten inches of bliss! O crudele fuoco! that so much leaf paradisaical should ever turn to innutritious ash!

Yesterday I should have expected Teazer to pull out a black cutty pipe, load it with cavendish tobacco, and call for a glass of rum. Now she sat in a low chair, her hands folded on her lap, quiet, attentive, gentle in aspect and manner, despite the bright flash that filled her eyes each time she raised them. I thought of yesterday’s comedy, the queer resolution that had prompted her, the histrionic ability that had fooled me. Were I to write such a story, I thought, who would believe me? It was one of those possible things that are incredible. Ghosts, murders, and bigamies, living burials, exhumations, and pushing-your-sweetheart’s-husband-over-precipices, are events which happen every moment, which you may number among the sights you witness every time you take your walks abroad, and are therefore fit subjects for novel-writers to deal with. But that any young lady, calling herself a lady, could act——

Oh! Eugenio!—thou whom I have apostrophised so often, and may now publish thee no myth, but rather my bosom friend—thou knowest I am writing true history; that Theresa did so receive me; that I did so undeceive her; that she did drop her nonsense, and become on a sudden a charming English lady, whom it was a rapture to look at, and a joy to listen to.

“Teazer,” said I——

Here I halted, coughed, and said, “Have you any objection to my calling you by this familiar name?”

“Certainly not. My behaviour yesterday privileges you to find me an uglier title.”

“It hits her character, doesn’t it?” exclaimed her father. “I gave it her, and she shall wear it as long as she deserves it.”

“I was going to ask you,” said I, “to give me a proof of your pistolling powers.”“Make her give up that nonsense, Charlie,” remarked my uncle.

“It is harmless enough,” I replied.

“If the pistol don’t burst. That is all I care about. However, Teazer, since your fame is concerned—for I remember boasting of your dexterity to Charlie, at Grove End—go and get the pistol and show him what you can do.”

She went into the house, and after a short absence, returned with a pistol case, and a small worsted ball, to which a piece of thread was attached.

“Please go and hang this up for me on that rose tree there.”

I took the ball and suspended it to a branch. She loaded her pistol very scientifically.

“Your white hand,” said I, “entirely robs the pistol of its murderous significance.”

“Go and stand near the tree,” she answered, “and then you’ll see the thread cut.”

She had sneered at my courage yesterday, and the wound still bled. That she might have no further occasion to doubt my prodigious valour, I took up a position so close to the tree that, had she suffered me to remain there, it would have been ten to one but I had received the ball. She guessed my motive, and called out laughingly, “Not so near: I might hit you!”

I stalked a few paces away, with a great air of nonchalance, as if I should say, “Pshaw! I am quite used to be shot at.” She levelled her pistol. I looked at her.

“Watch the thread,” she said. She was twenty paces off. I fixed my eyes on the string-bang! a sharp, clear report, and down dropped the ball.

“Wonderful!” I exclaimed.

She came to the tree, re-affixed the ball, and, putting the pistol in my hand, asked me to shoot.

“I’ll try,” said I; “but you must keep behind me. Anybody within a hundred yards either side that tree would run the fearfullest risk. Winkle was a neater shot than I.”

I measured twenty paces, faced the tree, levelled the pistol, pulled the trigger, and by heaven! the ball fell!

Teazer stared: my uncle clapped his hands.

“You are a soldier’s son,” said he, “and ought to be able to shoot well. After that, Teazer, boast no more.”I was now afraid that Teazer would challenge me to shoot again. Another fluke had added another leaf to the crown I felt sprouting about my brows: it would be a great blow to have the growth of that vegetation checked. But to my delight Theresa returned to her chair. I rather fancied that she felt somewhat ashamed of this amusement of hers. Perhaps because it was now associated with her conduct of the previous day; and she would naturally not care to deal with so direct a reference to her rudeness.

This exploit of mine naturally persuaded them that I was a far more accomplished person than my modesty suffered me to represent; and of course Theresa was sure that I could play and sing as well as I could shoot and ride.“No, on my honour, I can’t sing a note.”

My uncle looked incredulous.

“But you can play?” said Theresa.

“By ear only,” I replied. “But I’ll tell you what I can do, I can appreciate fine music and playing when I hear them, and as I am quite sure you are a good singer, you ought to oblige me by teaching me to forget your well-acted noises of yesterday.”

“That’s only fair,” exclaimed my uncle.

So saying, he led the way to the drawing-room.

“What shall I sing?” asked Teazer, taking her place at the piano, and this time not knocking over the music stool.

“Whatever comes into your head,” I answered.“Anything not maudlin,” said her father.

She reflected a moment, and then struck up a very simple, but a very sweet melody, which she accompanied with a voice remarkably pure and rich. Indeed, I never listened to any amateur whose voice I liked so well, nor to any song which gave me more pleasure.

“What a very pretty song,” said I when she had finished.

“Old Kit Marlow’s words, ‘Come, live with me,’ set by some eighteenth century composer,” exclaimed my uncle.

“What a dreadful struggle it must have cost you to sing so badly,” said I, looking at Theresa with a smile.

She coloured up and asked me if I knew—I forget the name of the piece: one of Chopin’s, I think. I begged her to play it; but though she went through it in dashing style, I can’t say I was pleased. It was not music—there were no tunes in it. Here and there a little fragment of melody popped up and provoked the fingers into giving chase, but it invariably vanished among the growls of the bass, or finished with a scream amid the writhings and chatterings and shiverings of the treble. I was well aware that it was one of those pieces which the musical public pay half-a-guinea for sofa-stalls to hear, and so I seemed to applaud. That it was as little to my uncle’s taste as mine, I had no doubt; but then it was his daughter who played it, and he couldn’t be captious.

When she rose, he took her place, and made me laugh heartily over his imitation of the Italian opera. He was a capital mimic—struck his breast and clenched his fist as the basso—shrugged his shoulders, and elevated his arm to heaven, as the tenor—squeaked and wailed as the prima donna; and concluded with a duet, making the oddest noises with his mouth, in excellent imitation of a violoncello. This done, he bowed to the room, and pretended to collect bouquets.

I passed the rest of the evening in playing double-dummy with him, while Theresa sat near us, sometimes reading, but more often watching the game.