Sally (10 page)

So Sally had never ridden. But she was not going to say so, for she was sure it was all terribly easy. All one did was sit on the beast and let it carry one along.

“I thought of going for a canter before tea, Lady Cecily,” said the marquess. “Around four o’clock. Perhaps you might like to join me? I can show you something of the estate.”

“I would love to,” said Sally fervently.

His face became a well-bred blank, and Sally cursed inwardly. She had been too eager.

“I don’t have a riding habit,” said Sally truthfully—and untruthfully. “My maid forgot to pack it.”

“Mother will find you something,” said the marquess.

“Yes, indeed,” said the duchess, coming forward. “But, Paul, is the whole party going out riding, or just you and Lady Cecily?”

Now, the marquess had just been regretting asking Sally, since she seemed overly eager, and had been about to extend his invitation to several of the others. Since his mother showed every sign of putting a spoke in his wheel, he decided that Lady Cecily was as charming as he had initially thought and wished again to see her on her own.

“No, just Lady Cecily,” he said. “You have invited so many attractive young women, Mother, that you can’t expect me to entertain them all at once.”

The duchess looked as if she were about to protest, but fortunately more guests arrived, and Sally promised to meet the marquess at the stables at four and made her escape with Miss Fleming.

The rooms allocated to them were not so grand as the ones given to Aunt Mabel, but they were prettily furnished for all that. Miss Fleming stood looking grimly at their trunks. “I shall tell the maid not to unpack,” she said.

“But we’re staying
now
,” said Sally. “Don’t you see how easily they accepted me? And in two hours time I’ll be going riding with Paul.”

“With… oh, the Marquess of Seudenham. And
then
we leave,” said Miss Fleming hopefully.

Sally avoided her gaze. “We’ll see,” she mumbled. “Wasn’t it marvelous the way he looked so bored with the gushings of the Guthrie sisters?”

“Sophisticated young men about town often
look
bored with that sort of nonsense,” commented Miss Fleming, “but they marry them just the same. Makes them feel superior. Little woman, and all that. Besides, the Guthrie girls have considerable dowries.”

“The marquess is very rich. He doesn’t need to marry for money,” pointed out Sally, sitting down by the fire.

“My dear child,” said Miss Fleming acidly, beginning to remove her hatpins. “Whenever did an English aristocrat sneer at money? The marquess has considerable estates of his own, and they must cost a mint to keep up.”

“I thought he lived here,” said Sally naively.

Miss Fleming gave a superior titter. “Oh, no. The marquess lives at Seudenham Manor in Surrey. It’s almost as big as this place.”

Sally looked at her friend, round-eyed. It seemed… well…
indecent
to have parents who owned all this, and yet to have nearly as much yourself.

Miss Fleming, having divested herself of her beaver hat, announced she was going to lie down until five o’clock tea. Miss Fleming was accustomed to country house visits. When the owner of the
Daily Bugle
summoned the editor, Mr. Wingles, to a house party, Mr. Wingles always took Miss Fleming along by way of protection.

The great palace seemed much livelier than before, with the voices of the other guests rising and falling from the nearby rooms.

Sally looked out of the window. They were at the top of the house, on the fourth floor, under the attics in the west wing. Over to the left she could see the clock tower over the stables, and up above the clock tower loomed a darkening sky.

Oh, please don’t let it rain
, prayed Sally,
or I won’t have a chance!

Two hours seemed a long time to wait. But a maid arrived with a smart black gaberdine and velvet riding habit over one arm and a smart black riding topper to go with it—“… compliments of Her Grace.”

The outfit looked brand new, and Sally was to find out later that it belonged to Miss Wyndham, who went riding as little as possible.

She spent most of the two hours trying it on and pacing mannishly up and down the room, feeling like a heroine in a novel. She weaved all sorts of fantasies around the forthcoming ride. In some, she would be thrown from her horse, and the marquis would clasp her in his arms and say he loved her. In others,
he
would be thrown from his horse, and
she
would clasp him in her arms and cradle his poor bloodied head on her lap, and then spend endless gorgeous days nursing him back to health.

At precisely ten minutes to four Sally left the palace by a side entrance and made her way by a sort of circular road that led to the stables.

The marquess was already there, talking to the head groom. He gave her a somewhat indifferent nod by way of a greeting, and Sally’s heart fell. The marquess was, in fact, wondering what had come over him to single out Lady Cecily for this honor. He had learned that his mother had put it about that he was looking for a wife, and he was beginning to feel hunted. The duchess had invited quite a bevy of beauties, and everywhere he went in the palace, glowing eyes stared at him from rooms and corridors.

While he continued to chat with the groom, Sally eyed the tall, nasty looking horse the groom was holding and wondered how she could mount something like that in what she was wearing. The riding habit had been made by John Barker of Kensington for 105 shillings—a top price. The dress itself had a very tightly cut bodice, lightly boned to the waist, and the skirt was cut to accommodate the right knee when mounting sidesaddle.

Over the bodice went a very tightly cut waistcoat. Now, most ladies “buttoned up” after they were mounted, but, of course, no one had told Sally that, and she was already having difficulty breathing.

At last the marquess turned his gaze on her. Sally preened a little. She knew that for once she was wearing something that became her.

“Sanders,” said the marquess, leading the groom forward, “we need a mount for Lady Cecily.”

“I’ve put the sidesaddle on Thunderbird,” said Sanders.

“Is that Thunderbird?” asked Sally faintly, looking up at the black snorting animal.

“Yes, my lady,” said Sanders. “Quiet as a lamb.”

Sally bit her lip. “H-haven’t y-you anything
smaller?
”

The marquess had fortunately gone off to attend to his own mount. A faint look of scorn flickered across Sanders’s mahogany face. “Well, I dunno, my lady. Reckon there’s that slug, Dandelion.”

“Dandelion will do perfectly, Sanders,” said Sally in what she hoped was a very autocratic manner.

Sanders gave a faint shrug and led Thunder-bird away toward the stables.

Dandelion, when at last saddled up, proved to be what Sally hoped he would be from his nursery name. He was a broad-backed piebald horse with an expression of patient suffering.

“As long as you’re happy, my lady,” said Sanders as Sally walked to the mounting block. “Dandelion’s an old broken-down show jumper and a bit sluggish.”

Meanwhile the marquess had swung himself easily into the saddle of an enormous hunter. Sally, more by good luck than anything else, succeeded in getting herself into the sidesaddle on Dandelion’s back without much mishap, apart from the fact that her waistcoat buttons snapped under the strain and shot off all around the stable yard like bullets.

Master and groom averted their eyes and politely refrained from comment.

Sally and the marquess ambled out of the stable yard, and all Sally’s fears left her. There was nothing to this horse riding after all. She relaxed her feverish grip on the reins and looked about her with pleasure. She had recovered quickly from the embarrassment of the popping buttons.

The marquess was a little in the lead. “We’ll take the bridle path along the other side of the lake,” he called over his shoulder, and Sally called back a cheery “Right-ho!” feeling no end of a horsewoman.

Everything went very well as they moved slowly along the cinnamon-colored path beside the ruffled black waters of the lake. “That very pretty rotunda over there,” called the marquess, pointing to a marble colonnaded building situated on a knoll, “was built by the second duke.”

Sally was about to make some reply, but Dandelion had decided to amble sideways along the path and was beginning to take up all her attention.

Then the marquess began to move his horse into a canter. Sally looked after his disappearing figure in dismay. So did Dandelion. At last Dandelion judged correctly that the limp weight on his back was devoid of mastery and decided to take the law into his hooves. He tossed his head and set off at a canter along the path after the marquess.

It was then that Sally realized there was more to riding than she could have possibly imagined.

Up and down went Dandelion, and up and down went Sally, like a sack of potatoes, slipping and sliding and always just nearly falling off, and always just managing to haul herself back with the pommel.

The marquess left the lake and cantered along a long, narrow stretch of beaten track that led up a gentle slope towards Sally thought bleakly, infinity.

And then the marquess urged his horse into a gallop.

For one split second Browning’s lines ran madly through Sally’s head: “I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three,” for she knew as sure as she knew anything that Dandelion was going to follow suit. And sure enough off he went like an arrow from a bow.

Now, apart from the fact that one gets hurtled along at a frightening pace, a galloping horse does not chuck one about the place as much as a cantering horse, and so with Sally hanging onto the pommel, Dandelion streamed off in pursuit, up the hill and down the other side. Sleet was beginning to fall and stung her face. There is nothing like novice horse riding for working up a good religious fervor, and Sally certainly prayed as she had never prayed before. At the bottom of the hill, the path swerved sharply to the left at the front of a five-barred gate.

Sally left off praying and opened her mouth to call “Whoa,” but, alas, in her extreme fright, she called out “Hup!” instead and Dandelion, hearing that command from his old show jumping days and being full of oats, went straight for that five-barred gate.

The marquess, hearing the frantic thud of hooves over the sound of his own horse, had reined in and turned just in time to see a splendid sight.

Dandelion sailed over the gate with an inch to spare, with Sally clinging for dear life to his back. Some age-old instinct told her at the last minute to lift her bottom out of the saddle before Dandelion landed. He then galloped hell-for-leather twice around the field and then slowed and stopped finally, putting his head down and amiably beginning to crop the grass.

Stunned and shaken, Sally moved her grip automatically from the pommel to the reins and sat as still as a stone.

“By Jove!” called the marquess, dismounting and opening the gate. “What splendid horsemanship. I didn’t know old Dandelion still had it in him! Wonderful riding!”

He stood smiling up at her, and Sally smiled back, a blinding smile, a wonderful smile. And the marquess was enchanted. He did not know that it was the smile of a girl who could not believe she was still alive.

“Come along!” cried the marquess, all boyish enthusiasm. “I’ll race you back.”

And in one split second love nearly changed to hate in Sally’s bosom.

“I think poor old Dandelion has had enough, and one must always consider one’s horse,” she said sanctimoniously. “Let’s just amble and—and—talk.”

“Right-ho!” he said gaily. He held open the gate for her, and, fortunately for Sally, Dandelion
was
tired and realized it was nearly feeding time, and so he ambled placidly out of the gate.

The marquess mounted and this time rode beside Sally.

“I think that was the most gallant jump I have ever seen,” he said, enthused, and Sally privately agreed with him.

“You hunt, of course. There’s a meet after the ball.”

I can’t
, thought Sally wildly.
I just can’t
. Aloud she said, “I have hunted, yes, but not the fox. I have been out of England a great deal. Pigsticking, you know.”

The marquess surveyed her in amazement. “Pigsticking! In Africa?”

Too late, Sally realized her mistake. “Well, it was not precisely Africa. We were in India—Bombay, for a time.”

“I’ve never heard of a woman going pigsticking in
any
country,” said the marquess suspiciously. “Tell me about it.”

And Sally did, for Sally could. Hadn’t she listened to boring after boring story about that brutal sport at dinner party after dinner party?

So she discoursed at length about the typical pigsticking meets, which would start long before dawn because it was too hot to ride in the heat of the day; of the long line of riders moving across country, usually in heats of three, a few lengths ahead of the beat; of the pandemonium that would break out when a boar was sighted, every beater yelling “
Woh jata!
” or “There he goes!” and the nearest heat galloping off in arrow formation with the man in front shouting, “On! On! On!”; of the incredible speeds of the horses, usually Australian walers—from New South Wales—that seemed to be able to float across the country.

Sally went on to explain how to deliver the spear correctly over the boar’s shoulder and into his shoulder blade. And the marquess listened, entranced. Although he had heard most of it before, he thought it marvelous and amazing that this elflike creature should be capable of such bravery and experience. He was so engrossed in her lecture that he kept his horse to a safe amble and was barely aware, until they were once more moving along beside the lake, that the sleet had changed to large flakes of snow that were gradually blotting out the landscape.

He thought Sally’s indifference to the weather was typical of the girl, not knowing that Sally was freezing to death but would have endured anything other than another gallop, and was trying to keep his attention away from horse riding by going on about pigsticking until she felt she was beginning to bore herself.