Chapter 23. In Which Richard Rides Alone

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_ CHAPTER XXIII. In Which Richard Rides Alone

"EVE."

"Yes, Pip."

"Can't you see that if he cared Richard would do the thing that pleased you--that New York would be Paradise if you were in it?"

"Why shouldn't Crossroads be Paradise to me--with him?"

"It couldn't be."

"I am going to make it. I talked it over last night with Aunt Maude. She's an old dear. And I shall be the Lady of the Manor. If Dicky won't come to New York, I'll bring New York down to him."

"It can't be done. And it's going to fail."

"What is going to fail?"

"Your marriage. If you are mad enough to marry Brooks."

She mused. "Pip, do you remember the fat Armenian?"

"At Coney? Yes."

"He said that--I had reached for something beyond my grasp. That my fingers would touch it, but that it would soar always above me."

"Sounds as if Brooks were some fat sort of a bird. I can't think of him as soaring. I should call him the cock that crowed at Crossroads. Oh, it's all rot, Eve, this idea that love makes things equal. I went to the Hippodrome not long ago and saw 'Pinafore.' Our fathers and mothers raved over it. But that was a sentimental age, and Gilbert poked fun at them. He made the simple sailor a captain in the end, so that Josephine shouldn't wash dishes and cook smelly things in pots and hang out the family wash. But your hero balks and won't be turned into a millionaire. If you were writing a book you might make it work out to your satisfaction, but you can't twist life to the happy ending."

"I shall try, Pip."

"In Heaven's name, Eve! It is sheer obstinacy. If everybody wanted you to marry Brooks, you'd want to marry me. But because Aunt Maude and Winifred and I, and a lot of others know that you shouldn't, you have set your heart on it."

She flashed her eyes at him. "Is it obstinacy, Pip, I wonder? Do you know I rather think I am going to like it."

Her letters said something of the sort to Richard. "I shall love it down there. But you must let me have my own way with the house and garden. Don't you think I shall make a charming chatelaine, Dicky, dear?"

He had a sense of relief in her unexpected acquiescence in his decision. If she had objected, he would have felt as if he had turned his back not only on the work that he hated but on the woman he had promised to marry. It would have looked that way to others. Yet no matter how it had looked, he could not have done differently. The call had been insistent, and the deeps of his nature been stirred.

He was thinking of it all as one morning in October he rode to the Playhouse on big Ben to see Beulah.

Dismounting at the gate, he followed the path which led to the kitchen. Beulah was not there, and, searching, he saw her under an old apple tree at the end of the garden. She wore a checked blue apron, stiffly starched, and she was holding it up by the corners. A black cat and three sable kittens frisked at her feet.

Some one was dropping red apples carefully into the apron, some one who laughed as he swung himself down and tipped Beulah's chin up with his hand and kissed her. Richard felt a lump in his throat. It was such a homely little scene, but it held a meaning that love had never held for himself and Eve.

Eric untied Beulah's apron string, and carrying the apples in this improvised bag, with his arm about her waist sustaining her, they came down the walk.

"This is Beulah's pet tree. When she was sick she asked for apples and apples and apples."

Beulah, sinking her little white teeth into a red one, nodded. "It is perfectly wonderful," she said when she was able to speak, "how good everything tastes, and I can't get enough."

Eric pinched her cheek. "Pretty good color, doctor. We'll have them matching the apples yet."

Richard wanted to ask Eric about the dogs. "Some of my friends are coming down to-morrow for the Middlefield hunt."

"If they start old Pete there'll be some sport," Eric said.

"I shall be half sorry if they do," Richard told him. "I am always afraid I shall lose him out of my garden. He is a part of the place, like the box hedge and the cedars."

He said it lightly, but he meant it. He had hunting blood in his veins, and he loved the horses and the dogs. He loved the cold crisp air, and the excitement of the chase. But what he did not love was the hunted animal, doubling on its tracks, pursued, panting, torn to pieces by the hounds.

"Old Pete deserved to live and die among the hills," Beulah said. "Is Miss Chesley coming down?"

"Yes, and a lot of others. They will put up at the club. Mother and Sulie aren't up to entertaining a crowd."

He wanted Eric's dogs for ducks. Dutton-Ames and one or two others did not ride to hounds, and would come to Bower's in the morning.

As he rode away, he was conscious that as soon as his back was turned Eric's arm would again be about Beulah, and Beulah's head would be on Eric's shoulder. And that he would lift her over the threshold as they went in.

That afternoon Richard motored over to the Country Club to welcome Eve. She laughed at his little car. "I'd rather see you on big Ben than in that."

"Ben can't carry me fast enough."

"Don't expect me to ride in it, Dicky."

"Why not?"

"Oh, Dicky, can you _ask_?"

Meade's great limousine which had brought them seemed to stare the little car out of countenance. But Richard refused to be embarrassed by the contrast. "She's a snug little craft, and she has carried me miles. What would Meade's car do on these roads and in the hills?"

Pip had come up and as the two men stood together Eve's quick eye contrasted them. There was no doubt of Richard's shabbiness. His old riding coat was much the worse for wear. He had on the wrong kind of hat and the wrong kind of shoes, and he seemed most aggravatingly not to care. He was to ride to-morrow one of the horses which had been sent down from Pip's stables. He hadn't even a proper mount!

Pip, on the other hand, was perfectly groomed. He was shining and immaculate from the top of his smooth head to the heel of his boots. And he wore an air of gay inconsequence. It seemed to Eve that Richard's shoulders positively sagged with responsibility.

There was a dance at the club that night. Richard, coming in, saw Eve in Pip's arms. They were a graceful pair, and their steps matched perfectly. Eve was all in white, wide-skirted, and her shoulders and arms were bare. She had on gold slippers, and her hair was gold. Richard had a sense of discomfort as he watched them. He was going to marry her, yet she was letting Pip look at her like that. His cheeks burned. What was Pip saying? Was he making love to Eve?

He had tried to meet the situation with dignity. Yet there was no dignity in Eve's willingness to let Pip follow her. To speak of it would, however, seem to crystallize his feeling into a complaint.

Hence when he danced with her later, he tried to respond to the lightness and brightness of her mood. He tried to measure up to all the requirements of his position as an engaged man and as a lover. But he did not find it easy.

When he reached home that night, he found little Francois awake, and ready to ask questions about the hunt.

"Do you think they will get him?" he challenged Richard, coming in small pink pajamas to the door of the young doctor's room.

"Get who?"

"Old Pete."

"He is too cunning."

"Will he come through here?"

"Perhaps."

"I shall stick my fingers in my ears and shut my eyes. Are you going to ride with them?"

"Yes."

"You won't let them kill old Pete, will you?"

"Not if I can help it."

After that, the child was more content. But when Richard was at last in bed, Francois came again across the hall, and stood on the threshold in the moonlight. "It would be dreadful if it was his last night."

"Whose last night, Francois?" sleepily.

"Old Pete's."

"Don't worry. And you must go to bed, Francois."

Richard waked to a glorious morning and to the hunt. Pink coats dotted the countryside. It seemed as if half the world was on its way to the club. Richard, as he mounted one of Pip's hunters, a powerful bay, felt the thrill of it all, and when he joined Eve and her party he found them in an uproarious mood.

Presently over hills streamed a picturesque procession--the hounds in the lead, the horses following with riders whose pink blazed against the green of the pines, against the blue of the river, against the fainter blue of the skies above.

And oh, the music of it, the sound of the horn, the bell-like baying, the thud of flying feet!

Then, ahead of them all, as the hounds broke into full cry, a silent, swift shadow--the old fox, Pete!

At first he ran easily. He had done it so often. He had thrown them off after a chase which had stirred his blood. He would throw them off again.

In leisurely fashion he led them. As the morning advanced, however, he found himself hard pushed. He was driven from one stronghold to another. Tireless, the hounds followed and followed, until at last he knew himself weary, seeking sanctuary.

He came with confidence to Crossroads. Beyond the garden was his den. Once within and the thing would end.

Across the lawn he loped, and little Francois, anxious at the window, spied him. "Will he get to it, will he get to it?" he said to Nancy, his small face white with the fear of what might happen, "and when he gets there will he be safe?"

"Yes," she assured him; "and when they have run him aground, they will ride away."

But they did not ride away. It happened that those who were in the lead were unaware of the tradition of the country, and so they began to dig him out, this old king of foxes, who had felt himself secure in his castle!

They set the dogs at one end, and fetched mattocks and spades from the stable.

Pip and Eve were among them. Pip directing, Eve mad with the excitement of it all.

Little Francois, watching, clung to Nancy. "Oh, they can't, they mustn't!"

She soothed him, and at last sent Milly out, but they would not listen.

Nancy and Sulie were as white now as little Francois. "Oh, where is Richard?" Nancy said. "It is like murder to do a thing like that. It is bad enough in the open--but like a rat--in a trap."

The big bay was charging down the hill with Richard yelling at the top of his voice. The bay had proved troublesome and had bolted in the wrong direction, but Richard had brought him back to Crossroads just in time!

Francois screamed. "It is Dr. Dicky. He'll make them stop. He'll make them."

He did make them. His voice rang sharply. "Get the dogs away, Meade, and stop digging."

They were too eager at first to heed him. Eve hung on his arm, but he shook her off. "We don't like things like that down here. Our foxes are too rare."

It was a motley group which gathered later at the club for the hunt breakfast. There were fox-hunting farmers born on the land, of sturdy yeoman stock, and careless of form. There were the lords of newly acquired acres, who rode carefully on little saddles with short stirrups in the English style.

There were the descendants of the great old planters, daring, immensely picturesque. There was Eve's crowd, trained for the sport, and at their ease.

A big fire burned on the hearth. A copper-covered table held steaming dishes. Another table groaned under its load of cold meats and cheese. On an ancient mahogany sideboard were various bottles and bowls of punch.

Old songs were sung and old stories told. Brinsley beamed on everybody with his face like a round full moon. There were other round and red-faced gentlemen who, warmed by the fire and the punch, twinkled like unsteady old stars.

Eve was the pivotal center of all the hilarity. She sat on the table and served the punch. Her coat was off, and in her silk blouse and riding breeches she was like a lovely boy. The men crowded around her. Pip, always at her elbow, delivered an admiring opinion. "No one can hold a candle to you, Eve."

Richard was out of it. He sat quietly in a corner with David, old Jo at their feet, and watched the others. Eve had been angry with him for his interference at Crossroads. "I didn't know you were a molly-coddle, Dicky," she had said, "and I wanted the brush."

She was punishing him now by paying absolutely no attention to him. She was punishing him, too, by making herself conspicuous, which she knew he hated. The scene was not to his liking. The women of his household, Nancy, Sulie and Anne, had had a fastidious sense of what belonged to them as ladies. Eve had not that sense. As he sat there, it occurred to him that things were moving to some stupendous climax. He and Eve couldn't go on like this.

* * * * *

Far up in the hills a man was in danger of bleeding to death. He had cut himself while butchering a pig. The doctor was called.

Richard, making his way through the shouting and singing crowd which surrounded Eve, told her, "I shall have to go for a little while. There's a man hurt. I'll be back in an hour."

She looked down at him with hard eyes. "We are going to ride cross-country--to the Ridge. You might meet us there, if you care to come."

"You know I care."

"I'm not sure. You don't show it. I--I am tired of never having a lover--Dicky."

It was a wonderful afternoon. The heavy frost had chilled the air, the leaves were red, and the sky was blue--and there was green and brown and gold. But Richard as he rode up in the hills had no eyes for the color, no ears for the song beaten out by big Ben's hoofs. The vision which held him was of Eve in the midst of that shouting circle.

The man who had cut himself was black. He was thin and tall and his hair was gray. He had worked hard all of his life, but he had never worked out of himself the spirit of joyous optimism.

"I jes' tole 'um," he said, "to send for Dr. Brooks, and he'd beat the devil gettin' to me."

When Richard reached the Ridge, a flash of scarlet at once caught his eye. On the slope below Eve, far ahead of Meade, in a mad race, was making for a grove at the edge of the Crossroads boundaries. She was a reckless rider, and Richard held his breath as she took fences, leaped hurdles, and cleared the flat wide stream.

As she came to the grove she turned and waved triumphantly to Pip. For a moment she made a vivid and brilliant figure in her scarlet against the green. Then the little wood swallowed her up.

Pip came pounding after, and Richard, spurring his big Ben to unaccustomed efforts, circled the grove to meet them on the other side.

But they did not come. From the point where he finally drew up he could command a view of both sides of the slope. Unless they had turned back, they were still in the grove.

Then out of the woods came Pip, running. He had something in his arms.

"It is Eve," he said, panting; "there was a hole and her horse stumbled. I found her."

Poor honest Pip! As if she were his own, he held her now in his arms. Her golden head, swung up to his shoulder, rested heavily above his heart. Her eyes were shut.

Richard's practiced eye saw at once her state of collapse. He jumped from his horse. "Give her to me, Meade," he said, "and get somebody's car as quickly as you can."

And now the tiger in Pip flashed out. "She's mine," he said, breathing hoarsely. "I love her. You go and get the car."

"Man," the young doctor said steadily, "this isn't the time to quarrel. Lay her down, then, and let me have a look at her."

He had his little case of medicines, and he hunted for something to bring her back to consciousness. Pip, pale and shaken, folded his coat under her head and chafed her hands.

Presently life seemed to sweep through her body. She shivered and moved.

Her eyes came open. "What happened?"

"You fell from your horse. Meade found you."

There were no bones broken, but the shock had been great. She lay very still and white against Pip's arm.

Richard closed his medicine case and rose. He stood looking down at her.

"Better, old lady?"

"Yes, Dicky."

He spoke a little awkwardly. "I'll ride down if you don't mind, and come back for you in Meade's car." His eyes did not meet hers.

As he plunged over the hill on his heavy old horse, her puzzled gaze followed him. Then she gave a queer little laugh. "Is he running away from me, Pip?"

"I told him you were--mine," the big man burst out.

"You told him? Oh, Pip, what did he say?"

"That this was not the time to talk about it."

She lay very still thinking it out. Then she turned on his arm. "Good old Pip," she said. He drew her up to him, and she said it again, with that queer little laugh, "Good old Pip, you're the best ever. And all this time I have been looking straight over your blessed old head at--Dicky." _

Read next: Chapter 24. In Which St. Michael Finds Love In A Garden

Read previous: Chapter 22. In Which Anne Weighs The People Of Two Worlds

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