by Susan Barrie
Meg called something out to her as she flew by, and it sounded like “In at the death! ” to Carol. In any case Carol decided that she must follow, and Beauty was not slow to respond to her light touch on the reins. The little mare, indeed, began to spurt forward as if the day had but just begun, or her brief rest had so refreshed her that the shining example of the chestnut ahead had inspired her with the vainglorious wish to emulate such effortless speed and if possible outdistance it Carol felt the wind sing past her ears, and excitement stirred in her breast as the drumming of hooves filled the air around her, and still Meg's lead refused to lessen by so much as half of a horse's head.
For the first time that day Carol felt the thrill of the chase in her veins, and Beauty was undoubtedly exerting herself to the utmost, and obviously thoroughly enjoying it. Meg had only one idea in her mind, and that was to lessen the distance between herself and the sound of the master's horn as quickly as possible, and all her magnificent horsemanship was called into play in her effort.
She leaped streams and low hedges and crossed fields and open stretches of moorland where the dusk was already gathering, without even pausing to weigh up obstacles, and Carol found herself doing the same, and doing it with ridiculous ease. Why, she wondered, had she ever felt nervous about taking such a thing as a simple fence, when all she had to do was to have confidence in Beauty and be sure of landing on the other side.
Up till now she had completely under-estimated Beauty’s powers, but the little mare was a jewel, and if she had suddenly sprouted wings she could not have carried her rider forward with
a greater amount of triumphant ease.
Ahead of them Meg and the chestnut crashed through the coppice of larch and juniper, came out on a bleak strip of hillside where the wind tore at their faces and screeched in their ears, and then descended in a headlong fashion to where a road wound snake-like on the other side of a high and straggling hedge. But before the hedge was reached there was a sudden chasm in the hillside, neither particularly wide nor particularly deep, and filled after much rain by a bubbling torrent of water which found its outlet in the wide pond of a near-by farm. Just now the water at the bottom of this jagged cleft was low and beginning to be completely frozen over with the coming down of the bitterly cold night, and in any case Meg knew about it and her mount cleared it with ease, afterwards sailing over the hedge with a beautiful smoothness and precision.
Carol realized that the hedge was going to test Beauty’ s powers to the utmost, but she had no doubt at all that the mare would get across. What she did not take into account was that sudden break in the hillside, and it was not to be expected that Beauty, in possession of some additional sense, would become aware of it before she did. Beauty was conserving all her energies for the hedge, and her neck was stretched forward and her ears laid back against her head with the fixity of purpose which was animating her whole flying form.
Carol’s hands tightened automatically on the reins, and for the first time her knees gripped rather hard at the little mare’s sides. Her heart was pounding so quickly that it seemed to be keeping pace with the drumming of the hooves, and there was so much pressure on her ear-drums that she felt as if they might burst at any moment. Her lips were parted with excitement, her eyes were strained now and anxious, but they were also eager—and hopeful.
The distance was shortening rapidly. Another hundred yards or so ...
She was flung clean over the top of Beauty’s head, and the little mare herself went slithering and sliding down into the chasm, where she finally rolled over, and a shower of loosened clods of earth and stones came hurtling on top of her.
Carol was flung clear, but she lay very still, several yards away from the tall hedge. Her bowler hat had rolled off and down into the chasm, but her white stock gleamed no whiter than her face which was upturned to the grey evening sky, and the deepening dusk stole down upon her like a mantle and wrapped her cold form about.
VIOLA displayed a leech-like tendency to keep Timothy at her side, and although there were others amongst the ring of younger men around her who would have welcomed such a distinction, and were undoubtedly envious of the favors bestowed upon Timothy—a married man, as they regarded him—it was not until late afternoon that, as a result of a sudden change of mood, she transferred her attentions to one of the others, and Timothy was thus temporarily discarded.
Viola and the younger man, who was one of the members of her house-party, decided that they had had enough of the hunt for one day, and made up their minds to go home, where greater comforts awaited them.
Timothy also was not particularly keen on being in at the death of a fox—if there was to be a kill. And from the sounds of excitement, and the baying of the hounds and the repeated blasts on the M.F.H.’ s horn, which had reached his ears within the last ten minutes, coming from a quarter which would take him still farther away from Brown Furrows, he gathered that a large amount of interest was still being taken in the proceedings by quite a fair proportion of the field. But he was rather anxious about Carol, whom he had last glimpsed having difficulty with her horse on an open hillside, and who might very well feel that he had left her in something not unlike the lurch while he had allowed himself to be carried impetuously forward with Viola Featherstone and her following admirers.
Not that he could very well have done anything else, for their headlong passage downhill had made it more or less impossible for him to pull up and halt suddenly and return to Carol, especially hemmed in as he was by such a gang of determined rough-riders.
Even so, he had thought about her continually, and the lonely figure she made standing beside her sleek little mare with the snowy-white forelegs, and he was most anxious to establish what had happened to her. She might very likely have gone home, but on the other hand the noise of what sounded like a kill might have decided her to get back to the main body of the hunt. In any case he felt it would be the right thing to find out, and he turned his tired horse’s head in the direction from which the hubbub of sounds—arriving at what sounded like a crisis—reached him.
But he had not gone very far before the hubbub grew positively tumultuous, and along the shut-in country road over which he was journeying at a slow and rather weary trot came a lively cavalcade of horses and dogs and riders, some of whom were triumphantly walking beside their animals while others were still in the saddle, in addition to men, boys and countrywomen who formed a solid mass of hangers-on. And in the midst of them Meg, with an expression on her face which betrayed the utmost satisfaction, displayed the ‘brush’ for all to see.
She waved a delighted hand when she caught sight of her brother, but he scarcely noticed her trophy. He was searching the welter of faces before him for one face which refused to materialize.
“Have you seen Carol?” he asked, rather abruptly.
“Carol?” she echoed. “Why, I—er—why, yes, I saw her about half an hour ago,” she admitted. She looked round her vaguely as if half expecting that Carol was near at hand. “She was following me across country, and I thought she was doing very well—she's a better horsewoman than I thought! But she doesn't seem to be here.”
“She isn't here,” Timothy said, and his voice this time was hard and cold with anxiety.
It was so dark in the lane that when anyone lighted a cigarette the flame of the match seemed temporarily to illumine an eerie cavern, and the steam from the horses' flanks rose like a mysterious vapor between the close-packed rows of suddenly curious faces.
“Has anyone seen Mrs. Carrington?” Meg asked, addressing those on the fringe of the crowd. “Are you sure she isn't somewhere behind there, bringing up the rear?”
But Carol was not behind, and she was not bringing up the rear. No one recalled seeing her for quite a while.
“Then what can have happened to her?” For an instant Meg's face betrayed a most un-Meg-like look of anxiety, and then she said quickly: “Oh, I know, she’s gone home! Of course she’s gone home! How simple! That's
the explanation, Timothy.”
But Timothy said nothing, and instead he wheeled his horse.
“Yes, you go ahead,” Meg urged him. “I'll be with you in about another half-hour, and by that time I think we will be able to do with a drink and celebrate our victory.” She waved the brush which she still clutched. “Colonel Dennison's coming over for dinner tonight, and so are about a dozen others. See you later, Timothy! ”
Timothy did not answer. He was already getting the best out of a tired mount and making all speed for Brown Furrows.
The dinner-party Meg had apparently arranged for that night did not after all take place. Instead, the guests who had been invited went out searching the fields and the bleak stretches of moorland for the young mistress of the house who was most unaccountably missing. With torches and storm lanterns and stable lamps they searched for at least three hours before Meg managed to recall where it was that she had last seen Carol following her, and then they found her almost immediately—or Timothy did.
Timothy knelt down and touched the face which was so cold and so completely lifeless to his touch. He gathered the slight figure into his arms and cradled it up against him, protecting it from the viciousness of the night wind, although he was quite certain she was beyond all human aid.
Judson appeared suddenly out of the darkness holding a lantern aloft, and with him was one of the farm hands.
“Better bring a gate, hadn’ t we, sir, and get her home?” he suggested. “Or Dulverton House is nearest—it would mean less bumping and save a lot of time. Young Jim here can run and telephone for the doctor. ”
Timothy was automatically feeling for a pulse in one of Carol’ s limp wrists, but if there was any response his anxiety was too great to detect it. He looked up with a blank face at Judson.
“Yes; get a gate—get her to Dulverton House. Get her anywhere away from Meg,” he added silently to himself, unaware that Meg was at that moment engaged in heating blankets and stoking up the boiler to ensure an inexhaustible supply of hot water should the worst happen at any moment and Carol be brought home—in need of every possible attention.
And Meg had a cold and most unpleasant feeling at the base of her stomach which told her that the worst was bound to happen, and that Carol would need that attention She did not know why she was so certain, but she was beginning to feel slightly sick.
C H A PT E R N I N ET E E N
AUNT Harry was doing some exceedingly fine needlework, and she was bending over it as if it was the most important thing in the world. Every time she put in one of her ridiculously neat stitches she paused to gaze at it admiringly, and she held it up and looked at it through her glimmering, gold-rimmed spectacles, and then nodded her head in a kind of obvious satisfaction and proceeded to put in another stitch.
It was not to be wondered at, therefore, that the work did not grow quickly. As far as Carol could make it out, when she saw it held against the light, it was some sort of a soft pink material, and there were little ruchings of lace at what might have been the neck and sleeves of a garment. And there was also a spray of flowers—tiny blue flowers, like forget-me-nots—bordering one side of the neck (if it was a neck!) and some fairy-like tucks....
Carol shut her eyes then, rather hastily, for this concentration hurt her—or it hurt her eyes, and her head ached behind her eyes. When she opened them again it was dark, and the lamp beside the bed was burning in a subdued fashion, as if it was shielded by something more than an ordinary shade. Aunt Harry was still there, but she was lying back in a chair and her beautiful silvery hair was resting against a cushion, and her eyes were closed, as if she was enjoying a nap. Her complexion was almost perfect, Carol thought, gazing at it admiringly— soft and pink like apple blossom, and with scarcely a line to mar it, and yet she must be really quite old. At any rate she was not young ...
But what, Carol wondered, was she doing sitting beside her like this?
The girl tried to think—but thinking was too painful to be pursued for long. Every time she moved her head even the merest fraction of an inch on the pillow she was engulfed by feelings of nausea, and the world—the only world she knew at the moment, and which was made up of Aunt Harry and the lampshade—threatened to become blotted out again. So she decided to lie absolutely still, and not even to try to think.
Aunt Harry opened her eyes and looked at her. She had only closed them for a few minutes, not because she was tired, but because her eyes were tired.
“Hello, my dear!” she said, very softly.
Carol did not answer, but her lips moved.
Aunt Harry held a glass of something to her mouth, and she took—or tried to take—a sip at it. The Marchesa rested her hand, which smelled of lavender toilet soap, with a feather’ s touch on her brow, and then withdrew into the shadows behind and around the bed.
It was a nurse who took her place, a nurse in crisp white uniform, who placed business-like fingers upon Carol’s wrist, and then inserted a thermometer between her lips. Carol watched her read it, shake it down, and then place it in a little muslin-covered jar beside the bed. The glass was then held once more to her lips, she was able to take a couple of sips this time, and the nurse said in a very, very soothing voice:
“You’ re feeling better, aren’ t you? But you’ ve got to sleep—no lying there bothering your brain about anything! ”
After that the days passed, and each one was almost exactly the same as the other. She knew when the sun was shining, and the room was flooded by it, she knew when Aunt Harry drew the blinds because she thought it might bother her a little, and when the evening came and the lamp was lighted. One day she thought she recognized snow against the windows, and there was a great howling of wind in the chimney, and the fire in the grate gave off little puffs of smoke which curled upwards to the mantelpiece. But it was not the mantelpiece of her room at home—her bedroom at Brown Furrows!... Yes; of course, Brown Furrows was her home—or was it? What about Selbourne...?
And what, and where, was this... ?
She looked round the room, for she could turn her head now without being greatly upset by it. A most pleasant room, a charming room, with tiny bunches of rosebuds on the wallpaper, and curtains of highly glazed chintz. The dressing-table stood in a petticoat of snowy muslin, and the little oval-mirror was white-framed also. The carpet was green—clear green like a carpet of moss. Where had she seen a green carpet before, just like this one, overflowing into every nook and corner, even disappearing under the wardrobe? Oh, yes, of course!—Viola Featherstone’s house.... Then who was Viola Featherstone...?
Always she came up against a kind of blank wall when pursuing inquiries of this sort in her own mind. Names recurred to her—names of people and places, but she was never able to link them up satisfactorily with any events or situations or happenings which would awake to life any other events or happenings which must have occurred in a life she had once lived, unless that life had been wrapped in a kind of perpetual fog. But, even so—she must have felt something—sometime.... She must have experienced something more acute than just lying here in bed, in this white and green room, with an Aunt Harry she knew coming to her several times a day and laying offerings of deliciously-smelling spring flowers, snowdrops and aconites and even little pale, long-stemmed violets, down beside her on the quilt, where she loved to lie and watch them. Sometimes she put out her hand and touched them, marvelling at the cool, crisp feel of them, the vitality in the fragile stems, and Aunt Harry would smile at her gently, smile and stroke her hair.
“Better today, dear...? Very much better today...?” she would ask.
“Much better today,” Carol would echo, like a child repeating a lesson.
The nurse was never very far away, and even Aunt Harry was not allowed to stay beside her for long. But Aunt Harry’s presence was soothing, her brown serene eyes always gave her a feeling of fresh courage, of a sudden little bubbling up of her strength. With Aunt Harry she was inclined to smile and to look and feel—
happy about nothing very much in particular, but conscious of a delightful sensation of contentment, and a desire to probe no further. The Marchesa was always so dignified, and yet warmth, gentleness and peace flowed from her. She would answer any slightest little look of inquiry in Carol's eyes with a most comforting and reassuring little pat on her hands, and she would murmur soothingly:
“Not yet, dear—not yet. All in good time!...”
From which Carol would gather that in time the mists would be pierced, the blank wall scaled, but for the moment she must rest content.... And she really was content....
Until one morning when she awoke and there was a deep red rose on her breakfast tray. It was a hot-house rose, of course, but particularly choice and almost passionately scarlet. Aunt Harry, who followed the tray into the room, picked it up and rested it beside her cheek when she had been supported into a sitting position and her soft little fleecy bed-jacket wrapped round her.
“Many happy returns, child!...” she said.
Carol looked perplexed.
“Why, is it a birthday?” she asked. “Then how old am I?” A sudden light flashed on her, and she exclaimed: “Oh, of course, it's the twenty-eighth of February, and I'm nineteen. That's it, isn't it, nineteen?”
“Perfectly right, dear.” Aunt Harry sat down beside her on the bed, and she still fingered the rose, which made a rich contrast with her white, beautifully cared-for hands. She said in a voice which she endeavoured to free from every trace of emotion save calm, ordinary everydayness, “Timothy sent you this, dear, with his best wishes for your birthday. Perhaps you’d like to see him presently, when you’ve had your breakfast? Just for a few minutes, shall we say? If you are feeling up to it?” Carol lay back against her pillows, and her face was whiter than the fair, lace-edged linen. Her grey eyes looked enormous in a face which was small, pathetic and childlike, and her gold curls had been kept cropped close while she had lain in bed, and were no more than feathery gold rings framing the delicate, blue-veined structure of her forehead. The corners of her mouth drooped wistfully, and the expression in her eyes was anxious. One hand started to pluck nervously at the sheet.
