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Flaming June

<h3>Chapter Seven.</h3> On Thursday afternoon at three o’clock Cornelia retired to her bedroom, and with the help of the devoted Mary proceeded to make an elaborate toilette for the drive. Those wonderful trunks seemed to contain garments suitable for every possible occasion which could arise; for every fluctuation of weather, for every degree of festivity. From one of the number out came a long driving coat, snowy white, light of texture, an ideal garment for a warm yet dusty summer’s day, which being fastened down the side by huge pearl buttons, displayed a degree of smartness nothing short of uncanny in an untrimmed garment. To wear with the coat there was a jaunty cap, and a pair of driving gloves with wide, gauntleted cuffs. Cornelia made faces at herself in the glass as her custom was the while she arranged the “set” of her hat, puffed out her shaded locks, and affably cross-questioned her attendant on her private affairs. “Mury, how’s your friend?” “He isn’t so well as he was, miss, thank you all the same. He’s been a bit upset in his indigestion.” “Think of that now! Isn’t that sad! You buy him a bottle of physic and send it along. I’ll pay! It’s not a mite of use having a friend with indigestion. He’ll be just as doleful, and you want him to give you a real good time. ... How’s your mother getting along?” “Nicely, thank you, miss. She said she didn’t know how to thank you enough for the shawl. Her poor old bones haven’t ached half so much since she’s had it to hap round her of a night.” “Isn’t that sweet! Hustle up now with my high shoes, and don’t mind buttoning in bits of flesh as you did last time. I’d just as lief be left out. See here, Mury, I want everything put back in its place after I’m gone! I hate to find a muss when I get back, and that blue muslin has got to be pressed out for to-night, and those bits of lace washed, and the parcels changed at the shop. Mind, it’s got to be all done by the time I am back. And see here, next time you go out to meet your friend, there’s that taffetas waist you can have for yourself! You’ll look dandy in it, and he’ll be so proud. Maybe it will help the indigestion better than physic.” Mary was incoherent with delight, and promised ardently to execute all the young lady’s orders, knowing full well that it was the silver afternoon, and that her time should of rights be fully occupied with household duties. She promised, and she intended to perform. By dint of smiles, pleasant words, kindly interests in “friends,” and ceaseless doles of finery and physic, Cornelia had established such a hold upon the affections of the staff, that her wish already took precedent of her aunt’s law. Mary mentally condemned half the contents of the silver cupboard to neglect, the while she ironed out foaming frills and floating sash ends. Mrs Ramsden accompanied Elma to the gate of The Nook, and stood beside Miss Briskett looking on with dubious eyes, while the two girls took their places in the high dog-cart. A groom had driven the horse from the livery stable, and both good ladies expected him to take possession of the back seat, in the double capacity of chaperon and guide. It came, therefore, as a shock, when Cornelia dismissed the man with a smile, and a rain of silver dropped into an eager hand, but protestations, feeble and stern, were alike disregarded. “How do you suppose we are going to talk, with him perched there, with his ears sticking out, listening to every word we say? We don’t want any men poking round, this journey!” laughed Cornelia, settling herself in her seat, and taking the reins in her gauntleted hands. Miss Briskett was dismayed to feel a thrill of pride mingling with her displeasure, for the girl looked so fresh, so trim, so sparklingly alive perched up on her high driving seat. Elma Ramsden, for all her superior beauty, looked tame and insignificant beside her. Although she would not condescend to look around, Miss Briskett divined that behind the curtains of the neighbouring houses the occupants were looking on with admiring curiosity, and noting every detail of the girl’s attire. If Cornelia were self-willed and defiant, in appearance at least she was a worthy representative of her race. The stern lines of the spinster’s mouth relaxed into an unwilling smile as she said urgently— “But, my dear, the horse! I am responsible for your safety. Are you quite sure that you are capable of managing him?” Cornelia’s ripple of amusement was sufficiently expressive. “One old mare in a hired trap, when I’ve driven a four-in-hand over some of the wickedest roads in America! If we are smashed, Aunt Soph, you can lay it to providence, and not to my driving. Don’t get to worrying if we are late. If we’re killed you’ll hear all about it soon enough. You can only die once, and a carriage spill is a good slick way of getting it over.” “Cornelia, I insist—” “Miss Cornelia, I beg—” The cart dashed suddenly onward in response to a flip of the whip, leaving the two old ladies upon the roadway, the unfinished appeal frozen upon their lips. Elma turned round to wave an abashed adieu, the long habit of servitude struggling with a delicious new sense of liberty and adventure. “Oh—oh, Cornelia, if you could only see them! They are standing stock-still, staring after us. They look petrified! ... It was naughty of you. You frightened your aunt on purpose.” “That’s so!” assented Cornelia, frankly. “I meant to do it. It’s going to hurt me a lot more than it does her, as the mommar said when she spanked the nipper, but she’s got just as set as a fossil, paddling along in this little backwater, and imagining it’s the whole big ocean, and there’s no one on hand to rouse her but myself. It’s my mission. Wake up, England!” and she flourished her whip dramatically as the mare trotted through the south gateway of the park. Outside the gate lay a smooth wide road stretching uphill, and in response to a movement of Elma’s outstretched hand, Cornelia turned the mare in this direction, flashing a radiant smile into the pink-and-white face. “Well?” “Well what?” “How do you feel?” “Excited!—As if something were going to happen!” Cornelia nodded sagely. “Perhaps it is; there’s no saying. I’ve seen horses I’d sooner trust in a scrimmage, but a little spill would do you no harm. You’re skeery as a cat. You want nerve, my dear, nerve!” Cornelia flicked her whip round the horse’s ears to give emphasis to her words, and chuckled with mischievous amusement as Elma clutched the seat, and gasped in dismay. “I call this crawling, not driving. When we get out into the real country I’ll make her go, so we get some fresh air into our lungs, then you can hold on if you like, but don’t pay before the show begins. Now, then—where are we bound?” Elma cast down her eyes, faintly blushing beneath her hat. Surely there was something infectiously electric in the air this afternoon, or why should her thoughts fly as an arrow from the bow to just that very spot which it should have been her maidenly duty to avoid? She blushed at her own audacity; telling herself sternly that she ought to be ashamed; held the temptation afar off, looking at it, longing after it, regretfully deciding to cast it aside, then with a sudden impetuous change of front, hugged it to her breast. Yes, she would! For one afternoon, one golden, glorious afternoon, she would send prudence to the winds, and follow her own instincts. After all, why not? Because a certain person happened to be squire of a certain district it did not follow that other people could not drive over his land without being suspected of personal designs. It was to the last degree unlikely that one would happen to meet anyone one knew, but if one did—Elma acknowledged to herself that a lift of the hat, a glance of pleased recognition, would remain in memory as the pleasantest episode of the afternoon. As a palliative to her conscience, Elma suggested a farther village as the termination to the drive, directing the course with a thrill of guilty triumph at each fresh turning. “Ain’t this dandy!” cried Cornelia, preening her little head, and showing her white teeth in a smile of delight. “This England of yours is just a ’cute little garden, with the roads rolled out like gravel paths. You’d stare to see the roads about my home. Over here it’s all grass and roses. You are a rose, too—a real, sweet garden rose, with the dewdrops on its leaves. If I were an artist I’d paint a picture of you on one panel, and Aunt Soph on the other, as two types of English life, and the people could look on, and learn a lesson. It’s kinder sweet and touching to dream along so long as you’re young, but if you go on keeping your eyes shut, it don’t pan out well in old age. It’s best to have ’em wide open, and realise that there are two or three more people in the world beside yourself.” Elma smiled in vague, preoccupied fashion. Her own thoughts were all engrossing, and at every fresh winding of the road she held her breath in suspense, while the wild rose colour deepened in her cheeks. Suppose—suppose they met him! How would he look? What would he do? What would he think? Even the compliment to herself faded into insignificance beside such questions as these. The mare was trotting briskly along a high level road, on the right side of which lay the boundary wall of a large estate—the estate, every inch of which was thrilling with interest to one onlooker, at least; to the right a bank of grass sloped gradually to a lower road, beneath which again could be seen a wide-stretched panorama of country. Cornelia slackened the reins, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the moment. Up to now decorous toddles to and fro the outlying villas had been her only form of exercise, and she was amazed and delighted with the verdant beauty of the scene. As Elma did not seem inclined for conversation she made no further remark, and for the next quarter of an hour the two girls drove onward in silence, each happy in her own thoughts, in the sunshine, in the sweet, balmy air, fragrant with the scent of the flowering trees. Then of a sudden one of the lodges of the park came into view, and on the roadside beside the door a dazzling golden object, at sight of which Cornelia puckered puzzled brows. “What in the land’s name is that? The sun dazzles so that I can’t see.” “It’s a—a cage, I think! I see something like bars.” “What fool-trick are they up to, then, putting a gilt cage on the high road in the blazing sunshine? They might use the sense they were born with. Steady, old lady, steady!” cried Cornelia, soothingly, as the mare pricked up her ears and shied uneasily to the farther side of the road. “Yes, it’s a cage right enough, and a poll parrot inside. Guess I’ll pull up at that house, and tell the inmates that it looks for all the world like a blazing firework on the side of the path; enough to scare any horse in creation. This old lady is as nervous as a cat!” The fact was painfully apparent even to Elma’s inexperience, for the mare, refusing to be soothed by Cornelia’s cajoling words and chuckles, shied still nearer the opposite hedge, her ears cocked nervously erect. Seen nearer at hand, and out of the direct dazzle of sunlight, the cage looked innocent enough with its grey inmate swinging solemnly to and fro on its perch, but as the cart swung rapidly past, Mistress Poll evidently felt that it was time to assert herself, and opened her mouth to emit a shrill, raucous cry, at the sound of which the mare bounded forward in a headlong gallop. “I knew it!” cried Cornelia, shortly. “I just guessed that had to come next.” She sat bolt upright, twisting the reins round her fingers, her lips pressed into a thin red line, her eyes ashine with an excitement in which was more than a spice of enjoyment. She shook herself impatiently free from Elma’s frenzied grasp. “Now, then, none of that! You leave my arms alone. I’ll need all my strength before we’re through with this trouble. My stars and stripes, how she does pull.” “Oh, oh, Cornelia! What shall we do? What shall we do? Shall we be thrown? What’s going to happen? Cornelia?” Not by a fraction of an inch did Cornelia turn her head in answer to this frenzied appeal. Upright as a dart she sat in her seat, her slender wrists straining at the reins. “Don’t yelp!” she said shortly. “Keep that till you’re hurt. Say! what happens to the road after the next turn?” “I don’t know. ... Oh, what shall we do? Why did we ever come? ... Cornelia, can you hold her back?...” “No!” snapped Cornelia, shortly. “I can’t!—Not for many minutes longer, at this rate. My wrists are about broken as it is. What happens after this turning, I say? You must know. Use your brains, for goodness’ sake—if you want any left to use another day. Is it a good road—better than this? What’s on the sides—hedgerows, walls, water? For the land’s sake, child, sort your ideas!” Thus admonished, Elma made a violent effort to pull herself together. For reasons already mentioned, this particular bit of country was clearly imprinted on her memory, and she had but to collect her scattered wits to see a clear picture of the path ahead. “The road is quite good. There is a wall—two walls. Some farm buildings on the right. At the end there is a hill; it leads down into the next village.” “Humph!” Cornelia’s nostrils dilated widely, and two spots of pink showed on her white cheeks. “Then I guess this is the end of the volume. A grass bank is better than a wall any day of the week. ... Now then, young woman, if you’ve got any grit stowed away, get it out, and use it. It’s coming! Are you ready?” “No, no!” shrieked Elma, wildly. She clutched the seat with despairing hands, as with a sudden convulsive movement Cornelia switched the mare violently to the right. “Help, help! Oh, help—” The bank rose before her eyes in a sudden mountainous sweep; the mare, instead of being in front, soared suddenly on the top of the trap; the hinges creaked and strained; and the seat assumed a perpendicular position. It was all over in a couple of minutes, but to Elma it seemed as many hours. She had time to hear the rush of approaching footsteps, to see over the top of the hedge three startled masculine faces; to recognise the nearer of the three with a great throb of relief, and to stretch out her arms towards him with a shrill cry of appeal—then the crash came, and she was shot headlong into space. Fireworks! that was the first impression. Little dots of flame flitting about before her eyes, forming into circles of light and whizzing rapidly round and round. Then when her eyes were open, a heavy confused stupor, in which she saw, but refused to understand. Why was she lying on the grass in the middle of the day? Why did Cornelia look so queer, with her face stained with soil, and her hat on one side? Why did they offer her things to drink? She wasn’t thirsty; the tea was bad; it stung her mouth. It wasn’t tea at all, but something hot and nasty. It was brandy out of a flask! Elma lifted big, lovely eyes of a pansy blue, and stared vacantly into the face by her side, but at the sight of it memory came back in a rush. She sat up stiffly, moving her limbs in nervous, tentative fashion—gasped, sighed, and quavered out a tremulous— “What happened? Is it all over? Are we saved?” Cornelia loomed above her, alert even in this moment of shock and dishevelment. One cheek was plastered with soil; patches of green stain discoloured her coat, her hair hung rakishly askew, yet never had her manner been more composed nor complacently matter of fact. “We’ve had a pretty lucky let-off. You are alive all right, and I guess there’s not much the matter with you but nerves. There’s nothing wrong with your lungs, anyway. You scared the mare pretty near as much as the bird—yelping like a crazed thing, and hanging on to my arm. The grass is soft enough. It hasn’t hurt you any. You needn’t worry feeling all over to see if there’s a break. You’d know it fast enough if there were.” “Miss Ramsden is feeling stunned. I think it would be wiser to allow her to recover gradually. It is a shock to—er—to most systems, to be shot out of a cart, however short the distance!” The masculine voice was thunderous with indignation, and the arm which supported Elma’s back tightened its hold, as if to protect her against the world. Cornelia turned aside, her red lips twisted into a smile, and walked along the bank to where the other two men were unharnessing the mare, which lay on her side trembling with fright, the blood oozing from several ugly-looking cuts and scratches. As Cornelia walked she held her right wrist tightly with her left hand, as if she still felt the strain of that wrestle with the reins, but there was no flinching in voice or manner as she stood over the men, issuing instructions in brisk, incisive tones. The nearer of the two was impressed to the extent of ceasing work to touch his cap; the second darted one contemptuous glance in her direction, and placidly continued to disobey. Cornelia promptly knelt on the grass by his side, with intent to demonstrate her own greater efficiency, but the first movement of the strained wrist brought a flush of pain to her cheeks. She sat back, pursing her lips together to restrain an involuntary groan, while the stranger flashed a second look in her direction. He was a tall, lean, somewhat cadaverous—looking man, with steel-like eyes shaded by haughty eyelids, perpetually adroop as though no object on earth were worthy of his regard. Cornelia took him in in a swift, comprehensive glance, and with youthful ardour decided that she loathed the creature. “Hurt yourself?” “Not a bit, thanks. I guess there’s enough of you to do the work without me, but I’m used to seeing things done in a hurry, and you seemed pretty deliberate—” “A little caution is not thrown away sometimes. What induced you to come out driving alone if you could not manage a horse?” There being no reply to this question, and the last buckle of the harness being unstrapped, the speaker turned an inquiring glance over his shoulder, to behold a rigid figure and a face ablaze with indignation. There was something in the girl’s face at that moment so vital, so bizarre and arresting, that so long as Rupert Guest lived, it remained with him as one of the most striking pictures in his mental picture-gallery. He had but to pass a high green hedge in the June sunshine, to catch the fragrance of the honeysuckle and roses, and it rose up before him again—the white, furious face, with the red, roughened locks, and the gleam of white teeth through the scarlet lips. There was no admiration in his thoughts; this was not at all the type of girl whom he admired, but she was a being by herself, different from anyone whom he had met. He stared at her with curious attention. “Do you mean,” said Cornelia, in the slow, even tones of intense anger, “that you think this was my doing—that I upset the cart by my bad driving? If that’s so, you are a little out in your reckoning. If I hadn’t been used to horses all my days we might have been in kingdom come by this time. I pulled her into the bank before worse things happened!” “Then what sent her off in the first instance?” “A poll parrot, screeching in its cage, set right out in the roadway by some fool owner, who ought to be had up for murder.” The stranger pursed up his lips in an expressive whistle, then suddenly sprang upwards as the mare, freed from her harness, rolled on her side and struggled to her feet, where she stood shivering and tossing her head, displaying fresh cuts and bruises in her dusty coat. The labourer put his hand on her neck, soothing her with gentle words and touches, while his master surveyed her with kindly concern. “Poor brute! Better take her to the stables, James, and send off for a vet. Mrs Greville can no doubt spare a carriage to take these ladies home.” He turned towards Cornelia with an impulse of provocation which seemed to spring from some source outside himself. As a rule he was chivalrous where women were concerned, but there was something in the personality of this girl which aroused his antagonism. It seemed almost a personal offence that she should be so alert and composed while the mare bled and trembled, and that pale, lovely thing lay like a broken snowdrop on the bank. He felt a growing desire to annoy, to wound, to break down this armour of complacent vanity. “So you could not hold her till she tired herself out? Well! the experiment seems to have answered less successfully from her point of view than your own. She’ll need a considerable time to recover her nerves and give these scratches time to heal.” “Skin deep!” sneered Cornelia, with a curl of the lip. “I’ll drive her back in a day or two; and up and down this road until she learns not to play that trick again. I’ve never given in to a horse yet, and I’m not going to begin with a hack mare!” The stranger eyed her with cold disapproval. “Perhaps her owner may refuse to allow her to be experimented upon again. I should, in his place! It may be foolish, but I hate to see a brute suffer, even for the noble purpose of proving my own superiority.” He swung away as he spoke, thus failing to see the stunned blankness of Cornelia’s expression. Straight as a dart she stood, with head thrown back, scarlet lips pressed tightly together, and dark brows knitted above the wounded tragedy of her eyes. The labourer standing by the mare’s side looked towards her with honest sympathy. He had had personal experience of the “length of the Captain’s tongue,” and was correspondingly sympathetic towards another sufferer. A tender of dumb animals, he was quick to understand the expression on the girl’s face, and to know that she had been wrongfully accused. “Don’t you take on, miss!” he said, touching his cap with the unashamed servility at which the American girl never ceased to wonder. “I’ll look after her meself, and if the dirt is washed out of the sores at once, she’ll come to no harm. Likely as not there’ll be nothing for the vet to do by the time he arrives. At the worst it’ll be only a few stitches. She’ll soon get over that.” Cornelia shivered, and bit hard on her lower lip. She slipped her hand into an inside pocket of the white coat, and, coming a step nearer, dropped a coin into the man’s hand. He cast down his eyes, started, and flushed a deep red. “Thank you, miss. Beg pardon, but you’ve made a mistake!” A sovereign lay brightly on his grimy palm; he stared at it with respectful awe, scarcely regretful, since it did not enter his mind to conceive that such a munificent gift could seriously have been offered for his acceptance. It had seldom happened that he had had the handling of such a fortune, since his whole weekly earnings reached a total of eighteen shillings, but Cornelia in her turn looked abashed and discomfited, thrusting her hand once again into the tightly-buttoned little pocket. “I’m sorry! I ken’t get used to your money over here. Will that make it enough?” To the man’s utter stupefaction she placed a second sovereign beside the first in his outstretched palm. He stared at it with distended eyes, thrilled by the discovery that she had meant it after all, awed by the revelation of such munificence. “Beg pardon, miss, I was thinking as you’d mistook it for a shilling, not making so bold as to complain. I thank your ladyship kindly! I’m sure I can’t rightly say what I ought—” He stuttered, incoherent with excitement, but even as he spoke he held out the second sovereign, and Cornelia understood that his good feeling permitted him to accept only what had been originally offered. She would have felt the same in his place, and realising as much, took back the coin without a demur. “Well! it’s waiting for you next time I come, if you’ve done your duty by that mare.” She turned, and walked slowly back to where the two men were standing talking together, some eight or ten yards away. Their backs were turned towards her, and her assailant of a few minutes past was evidently answering an appeal from his friend. She caught the last words as she drew near: “I will go to the stable and look after the mare. ... You can take them up to the house without my help. I can’t stand any more of that girl—” He wheeled round as he spoke, and found himself face to face with Cornelia. They stared each other full in the eyes, like two combatants measuring strength before a battle. <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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