“For lo! the winter is past,
and the rain is over and gone!-The
Bible.
“That’s Lady Hickle!”
The two men turned in their saddles
as Leonie went by at a canter near the rails.
The raking great waler forging ahead
like an engine of destruction was kept in check by
Leonie, exuberant with health, the knowledge of a
perfect seat and hands, and that uprush of spirits
which an early ride on the Maidan brings-to
some of us.
“Not the Lady Hickle?”
“The same!”
“Well, I’m damned! she’s
only a girl, and what a seat! Chucked
the millions, too, didn’t she? Having
a good time?”
John Thorne frowned as he backed his horse before
answering.
“We’re great friends,”
he said shortly, and the other man tapped his teeth
with his whip.
Thorne hadn’t the slightest
intention of implanting a snub, as the other man knew,
knowing him and his most unfortunate manner.
Friends, yes! they were friends, two
strong, super-sensitive characters drawn in sympathy
one to the other; and John Thorne would have liked
to have been a good deal more than a friend, but he
had the sense to realise that the only kind of woman
he could ever ask to share his rising fortune, bad
manners, and worse temper, would be of the type designated
in the short and unromantic word cow.
One of those slumbrous, sleek creatures
who stand knee deep and content in a field of domestic
trivialities; ruminate placidly upon the happy little
events of the past hour; and always find a hedge under
which to shelter at the first intimation of a storm.
Lucky, lucky cattle who do not know
the temperamental ups and downs, the mental lights
and shadows, the physical and psychological upheavals,
or the intense joys and griefs of the more highly
strung goat.
At that moment Leonie rode back slowly
with some friends, and smiled at John Thorne.
“No!” Thorne went on meditatively,
“no, she’s not having a good time.
I can’t quite make it out. You see, although
she was only married for a day, the defunct tradesman
husband rather overshadows her father’s splendid
career-old Bob Hetth, V.C., you remember.
It would in this caste-bound country.
Caste amongst us, ye gods! Then her clothes
are really lovely, oh! ripping! make Chowringhee confections
look as though they’d come from the durzi
or the Lal Bazaar. And it seems that she’s
living on her capital, and that her hair curls naturally-
The other man laughed out loud.
“Oh! you needn’t laugh.
Wait until you’ve been stationed as long as
I have in Calcutta, then you’ll-
Leonie had turned and was coming up at a gentle trot.
“Gad! isn’t she beautiful?” said
the newcomer.
“Yes! I think that’s
really her trouble,” replied Thorne as
he moved to meet her.
“Good morning, and don’t
come too near the Devil. We were out in the fog
this morning and it has made him as touchy as anything.
Isn’t it a simply perfect morning!”
For a moment she sat and looked at
the funnels and masts swarming the placid Hoogli,
turned her head as a far-away siren announced the arrival
of a liner, gave a little sigh as she looked up at
a kite sailing care-free overhead, and came back to
earth with a smile.
“How d’you do,”
she smiled, upon the introduction of the other man.
“And don’t come too near the Devil, he’s
nervy; in fact I think he will burst with suppressed
energy if I keep him standing longer. Shall we
canter as far-oh!-
“Hell!” finished Thorne
after his kind, causing the corners of Leonie’s
beautiful mouth to lift as she raised a reproving finger.
The razor-tongued, most feared and
detested colonel mem-sahib of the line, in the whole
of India, rode up with a seat which would not have
disgraced the sands of Margate.
Thinking that she might as well share
the pig-skin, she had, upon her husband attaining
his majority, taken a dozen riding lessons somewhere
near Regent’s Park; had hacked irregularly ever
since, and still, when off her equine guard, talked
about a horse’s ankles.
“Don’t come too near the
Devil, Mrs. Hudson, he’s so fidgety.”
“Nonsense!” brusquely
replied the lady as she nodded to the men. “It’s
you who are fidgety; comes of all your sleep-walking,
brain fag or whatever you call it; you’ve-you’ve
inoculated the poor darling,” she added, clapping
her hand on the Devil’s hind-quarters.
Thorne made an ineffectual grab as
the Devil reared so straight that Leonie’s face
was hidden in the mane, and backed his horse as the
waler came down with a terrific clatter on the hard
ground, scraping the colonel mem-sahib’s foot
as she wheeled about, emitting silly little cries,
whilst men tore up from all sides with desire to help.
Up again he shot, pawing the air until
it seemed that he surely must fall backwards, and
men and women stared aghast until Leonie, raising her
arm, brought her whip down between the silky ears.
“Damnation!” said John
Thorne as Leonie patted the Devil’s neck as he
danced nervously on one spot.
Time I took him home, she said. The syce?-no! I darent
give him to anyone as he is-oh! good morning-
“Saw your haute école
stunt, Lady Hickle,” burst out a lad who rode
a fallen star in the shape of a discarded discreditable
polo pony. “Simply topping-but
the Devil’s a nervy demon, you shouldn’t
ride him-he’ll get away with you
one of these fine days. What happened?”
“He bumped into my horse, he’s
not safe to be out amongst us-indeed, he
is not. Lady Hickle, I have been in Cat-
The rest was lost in precipitate flight
with the colonel mem-sahib’s arms closely hugging
her pony’s neck, to the joy and the infinite
delight of the rest of the spectators.
Unseen, uncouth John Thorne, furious
at the scant courtesy shown to the lady of his dreams,
had brought his whip down heftily, just above the
mangy tail of the colonel mem’s pony.
“I think I’ll ride alone,
if you don’t mind,” said Leonie with a
ripple of suppressed laughter in her voice.
“All the way to Alipore?”
“Oh! it’s not far, and
I daren’t trust the syce, the Devil would simply
eat him.”
The boy sidled in between her and
Thorne, to the latter’s infinite annoyance.
“Are you still keen on the shikar stunt,
Lady Hickle?”
He gazed at her adoringly, and she
smiled back into the honest, merry eyes.
“Shikar stunt?”
“Yes! you remember-Sunderbunds-dak bungalows-shikari-wild
animals in bunches-discomfort and all the
rest. Say yes! Oh! do!” as
Leonie slowly shook her head, “It’ll
be such a rag! Major and Mrs. Talbot-she’s
a fine shot-you and me, and we’ve
got to get another fe-woman ’cos
a simply top-hole fellow walked into the club last
night, who’s wonderfully keen on it; we’re
kind of related, his father was my mother’s
second cousin.”
“And the higher the fewer,”
interposed Thorne, as Leonie laughed. “And
what’s the top-hole fellow’s name?”
The youngster eyed the elder man with disapproval.
“Name-coming brain
specialist-setting the old fossils in Harley
Street by the ears-forgotten more than
they’ve ever learned-name-why,
Jan Cuxson. Won’t you come, Lady Hickle?”
Leonie had suddenly bent to adjust her stirrup leather.
Her face was dead white, her eyes
like stars, her mouth like a gate to heaven.
Almost a year and not a word, not a sign!
Tortured by doubt, racked with love,
she had gone her way silently; blaming herself one
moment for the ease with which she had shown her love;
staking her all the next on the honesty of the man
who had kissed her hand in forgiveness in the old
Devon church.
Making excuses, heaping the blame
upon herself, wearying, wondering-and now!
She lifted her face, which shone like
the Taj at noon, and the worshipful company of men
looked at her, almost stunned by its incomprehensible
radiance.
“Yes,” she said softly,
without thought of the Devil’s nerve-storm.
“Yes, I will surely come!”
As she spoke there was a terrific
report as the hind tyre of a passing car burst with
due violence, a sudden convulsive bound as the Devil
leapt with all four feet off the ground, and a thunder
of hoofs as, with the bit between his teeth, he cleared
for the open just as a man on a sixteen-hand bay turned
in at the race-stand opening.