CHAPTER XI.
A MOONLIGHT DRIVE.
When Emory stepped into Maury’s buggy to drive the three or four miles into the country to Mrs. Dale’s summer home, he doubted not that he would see Gwendoline there. They had not met since the day Cliquot won. To say he carried a calm heart and easy mind would not be true; and, as they neared the festive scene, he almost longed to turn his face homeward. They had started after an early dinner, and when they arrived most of the guests had already been several hours in the beautiful grounds, gay with both natural and artificial bowers. Cloths stretched for dancing, lawn tennis nets, showing their whiteness against the green, and Chinese lanterns of every description hanging ready to be lighted were in every direction. A few tents were pitched here and there, and the sweet strains of an Italian band filled the air.
During their drive out Maury endeavored in every way to make himself agreeable to his companion, whom he found strangely silent on that beautiful afternoon. Finally as a last resort he began to talk of his horses, launching out most eloquently.
“You see, my father gave them to me,” said he. “I think they are beauties. He bought them several years ago at a sale in Kentucky. A wealthy man died, and all his possessions were sold. They have a good pedigree, but I don’t know their real names, so my boy just calls them what he pleases. They don’t exactly match in color; one is a brown and the other a blood bay; but their action is perfect.”
“Where did your father buy them?” asked Emory, at last a little interested.
“From a gentleman named Gwinn. I wonder if he was any relation to our Miss Gwinn? I have heard that she came from the same State.”
“I think it very likely. Suppose you ask her; perhaps she can enlighten you in regard to your horses’ names.”
“By Joe, I will!” exclaimed Maury. “Ah! here we are! How lovely everything looks!”
They turned into the long drive; their horses were taken away and they were soon amid the scene I have already described after meeting their hostess. Maury went off in search of his sister.
“Where’s Bob?” she asked.
“I am sure I don’t know,” replied her brother. “Hasn’t he been here all day? I have only just arrived. Tell me who are here.”
“Everybody, Clovis included. I don’t know why Mrs. Dale asked her.”
“She is very agreeable, even off the stage,” said Maury, “and there’s nothing against her coming among us.”
“They have been playing lawn tennis, and all that nonsense,” went on the girl. “I hate it and I wish they would not bother me to play!”
“Don’t you think you are a little cross, Selina?” her brother asked.
Just then some young men came up and he was glad to get away. It was an hour or so before he found Gwendoline.
At last he espied her, seated beneath a bower of roses and swinging lanterns, the sun trying to peep at her through the leaves. Two or three young men, in tennis costumes, were collected around her, and one lay on the grass at her feet, playing with his bat. She, too, wore a tennis costume, for she belonged to a club and played. It was the one thing she would do that her mother disapproved of.
She must, at times, shake off those everlasting silks and laces, along with her apparent indolence, and race on foot with bat and ball.
Her suit was a close-fitting skirt and a jacket, trimmed with red, with cap to match. “Much like the jockey’s,” she thought, as she donned it, that morning, before the glass. She made a lovely picture, against a background of green, as she reclined in a garden seat and sipped an ice. The brilliant trimming of her dress enhanced the glory of her hair and contrasted with the whiteness of her skin.
“Oh! Miss Gwendoline, I’ve been hunting you everywhere! You know my horses? I’ve just been told that they might have once belonged to your father; and you, perhaps, can tell me their names,” and Maury took a seat beside her.
“Yes! they did belong to my father, and their names are Castor and Pollux.”
“Oh, indeed! and to think I never knew it before! What lovely names!—and my boy has been calling them Dandy and Jack all this time. Why didn’t you correct me, when I called them by those names?” he asked, eagerly.
“Because”—and she stooped over to swallow the last of her ice—“I never meddle with other people’s affairs!”
“Never?”
She looked up quickly. Neil stood before her in a close-fitting, dark blue Norfolk suit, with a curious smile upon his lips. She grew deadly pale, and her eyes dropped before his for the first time. He must have felt a little for her, for, when he spoke again, his voice trembled somewhat. As he relieved her of the empty saucer in her lap, he said:
“Ices always make me so cold. Do you think it a healthy thing to do—play tennis and eat frozen cream?”
“I don’t know,” she laughed.
And then he turned and left her.
“I won’t worry her any more,” he thought.
He did not go near her again, but wandered about in an aimless way until he came across Clovis, talking with a crowd of men. He felt too dull and out of sorts to be entertained by her then, but paused to shake hands across a table of refreshments.
“Are you coming to see the last of me?” she asked. “You know it is my third week, and we are going away then.”
“Yes, I will be there to-morrow night,” and he was gone.
Did he know what he would do then? Would that the veil might have been lifted and he could have gazed, if but for a moment, on the drama fate was even now preparing for him, to be enacted the next night.
Slowly passing beneath the overhanging boughs, with head erect, he pauses; while the lights from the lanterns, shining forth through the early twilight, fall on him, he dreams alone. Think of him thus, oh, reader! and know that after to-morrow night there will be a shadow cast upon his life.
Some one called him—some one touched his arm, and, turning, he beheld Maury.
“Emory,” said Maury, “I am going to ask a favor of you. Miss Gwinn is willing for me to drive her home, should her mother consent. She knows the horses, and all that. Gray has a vacant seat for you in his drag. You won’t mind accepting it, will you, and let me take Miss Gwinn? I’d do as much for you, any day.”
Neil remembered the eyes that drooped beneath his own, and he didn’t mind in the least. She was quite safe, he thought.
“Mamma,” said Gwendoline, “I am going to drive home with Mr. Maury.”
“Impossible!” replied the lady; “you know I never allow you to drive with young men, especially behind strange horses.”
The girl leaned over and whispered something in her mother’s ear.
“That alters the case, as far as the horses are concerned.”
“Come, come, now, Mrs. Gwinn,” said the young man, approaching, “don’t deny your daughter the pleasure of once more riding behind her own nags; and, you know, I am to be trusted.”
“Quite true, my dear youth!—but how am I to explain matters to others?”
“Oh! just say she’s going to be a bridesmaid to my sister, and we want to talk about her dress.”
Mrs. Gwinn laughed.
“Well! I suppose I am overruled by that wonderful argument—but, Gwendoline!” and she called her daughter to her side, as Maury went to order his team—“be at home on time; remember your engagement with Col. Coutell.”
“I will be there at the appointed hour,” murmured the girl, looking through the gloom. She went with her mother to bid their hostess adieu; and, leaving her to accompany some friends home, she put her hand in Maury’s and got into the buggy that awaited her.
There were two exits to the grounds, and through that nearest to the city the carriages and other conveyances were driving.
“Go out by the lower gate,” said Gwendoline; “I have something to show you.”
Quite willing to take the longer route, Maury turned his horses’ heads and softly trotted them down the rather lonely drive. It became very lonely ere they reached the end; the overhanging boughs touched their cheeks as they drove along this disused pathway. The lights shone in the distance, and the dying strains of the band were faintly heard as they drew up at the gate.
“Stop!” said the lady beside him; “let me open it!” and, before he could prevent her, she had sprung lightly from the vehicle.
She stood for a moment, looking at him in the imperfect light.
“Do you want to hear some sweet music?” she asked.
“I have heard it all the way from the house to this place,” he said, gallantly.
“Nay, listen!” and she stepped to the heads of the horses, ran her hand lightly over their faces and softly called them by name.
A low, quivering neigh answered her.
“They know you,” said Maury; “how sweetly it sounds!”
She quickly opened the gate, and he drove through. It shut with a clang behind them, and he was about to get out to help her in, when she stopped him.
“Never do that! Always remain seated to take care of the horses. You can assist me quite as well from where you sit.”
“But I thought you knew my steeds and were not afraid of them?”
“Nor am I; but do as I tell you; my father taught me that it was right.”
So saying, she was beside him in a moment, and they drove out into the open moonlight. Yes! the queen of night rode high above them, shedding her lustre upon the white turnpike that lay before them, like a sheet of snow. Long years after, they remembered that ride—the flowery lanes and sweet night breeze. She was happy with this slim, bright boy. His gay talk and laughter amused her. No care for the morrow filled her heart. She pulled off her tennis cap to catch the winds of heaven upon her brow, and, as they sped on, the mellow ringing sound of those eight hoofs upon the road reminded her of her old home.
When they had gone about a mile, she turned to him and said:
“Have you a pocket knife?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Will you do me a favor?” she asked.
“I will do anything in the world for you to-night!” he whispered, now thoroughly in love with the beautiful woman beside him.
“Stop the horses. Now, get down and cut those blinds off, and I’ll show you something.”
He obeyed at once, tossing the leathers on the road. When he was in his seat again, she took the reins and said:
“Wait till I get to a wider place. Ah, here is one!”
Dropping the ribbons across the dashboard, she took out her handkerchief and waved it to the right, seeing which the horses turned slowly and trotted back the way they had come. Another wave to the left; they obeyed as before, and were homeward bound. “Halt!” she cried, and they stood like things of stone at the sound of her voice.
“My father taught them that! Now, take the reins; you may need them in the city. I see the lights ahead.”
The horses’ hoofs soon sounded upon the city streets and, when he left her, he went home to dreams such as he had never dreamed before.