The reapers had laid low the last of the golden heads, and the sheaves stood like yellow tombstones on Racket Field. Beyond the field was Chelfordbury, where the gray old spire of the church came up from a velvety knoll of trees; beyond again, the green and white downs of Sussex, along the foot of which the railway runs.
Dick Alford sat on a stile on the top of a little hillock and could see across the weald for fifteen miles. He could turn his head and take in the home farm and the green roofs and cupolas of Fossaway Manor, with its broad lawns and its clipped yew hedges. Neither cornfield nor down, manor house nor pleasaunce, interested him for the moment. His eyes were fixed and his mind centred upon the girl who was walking quickly up the winding path that would bring her presently to where he sat.
She was singing as she walked, the riding crop she carried whirling round and round like a drum major’s baton. His lips twitched to the ghost of a smile. Presently she would see him, and he wondered if she would be annoyed. He had never seen Leslie Gwyn except in such circumstances that her face was a pleasant mask and her manner conventionally charming. She had been nicely brought up and taught that all things are permissible except one: to make one’s equal feel foolish.
The song ceased. She had seen him, but she did not check her pace and came quickly up the hill path, slashing at a nettle bush as she walked.
“Peeping Tom!” she greeted him reproachfully.
She was not so tall as the average English girl, but her slimness gave her height, and the supple movement of her hinted at greater strength than her slight figure suggested. Her face, delicately modelled, had the subtle refinement of her class. Small, beautiful hands and feet, a head finely poised, eyes of a deep gray, and a red mouth that smiled easily, Leslie Gwyn in rags would have been unmistakably a beautiful lady.
Dick had seen her riding; she gripped the withers with her knees, jockey fashion, and was part of the horse. He had seen her on the polished dancing floor; there was lissom grace in every line. When he danced with her, he held in his arms a fragrant something that had more substance and character than he had thought. The hand on his shoulder was definitely placed, the body which his arm encircled was firm; he could feel the tiny muscles ripple under his hand.
She stood now, her little black riding hat askew, her figure clad in neat black relieved by the lawn collar. Her neatly booted legs were planted stubbornly apart, one gloved hand holding her waist, the other swinging the crop. In her gray eyes was an imp of mischief that gleamed and danced all the merrier for the studied solemnity of every other feature.
Dick Alford, from his vantage place on the top rail of the stile, chewed a blade of toddy grass between his white teeth and surveyed her approvingly.
“Been riding, Leslie?”
“I have been riding,” she said gravely, and added: “a horse.”
He looked round innocently.
“Where is the favoured animal?” he demanded.
She looked at him suspiciously, but not a muscle of the tanned, lean face so much as twitched.
“I dismounted to pick wild flowers and the beastie ran away. You saw him!” she accused.
“I saw something that looked like a horse running toward Willow House,” he confessed calmly. “I thought he had thrown you.”
She nodded.
“For that prevarication you can go and find him--I’ll wait here,” she said, and, when he got down from the stile with a groan: “I meant you to do that, anyway. The moment I saw you I said to myself: ‘There’s a lazy man who wants exercise!’ Sisters-in-law-to-be have privileges.”
He winced a little at this. She may have noticed the cloud that came momentarily to his face, for she put out her hand and checked him.
“One of the grooms can find him, Dick. He is such a hungry pig that he is certain to make for his stable… no, I don’t mean the groom. Sit down; I want to talk to you.”
She swung up to the stile and took the place he had vacated.
“Richard Alford, I don’t think you are enjoying the prospect of my being the mistress of Fossaway House?”
“Manor,” he corrected.
“Don’t quibble--are you?”
“I count the days,” he said lightly.
“Do you?”
He took a battered silver case from his hip pocket, selected a cigarette and lit it.
“My dear Leslie----” he began, but she shook her head. She was very serious now.
“You think I will--interfere with things? With the management of the estate--I know poor Harry couldn’t manage a small holding--with--oh, with all sorts of things, but I think you are wrong.”
He blew three smoke rings into the air before he answered.
“I wish you would manage the estate,” he said quietly. “It would be a blessing to me. No, I’m not worried about that. With your money--forgive the brutality--the estate will not count. A bailiff could manage it as well as any second son!”
