upstart!” muttered Cora, as she gave her ponies a sharp cut, making them tear along. “I’m not good enough for her to even see; but maybe smuts will fall on the whitest snow. Who knows, my pretty baby madam? Get on with you then!”
Whish-swish, and the ponies sent the chalky dust flying as they tore along.
“Now, lookye here, Betsy, once for all,” said Mrs Dean angrily; “if you are going to drive like that, I stay at home. I like my bones, though they do ache sometimes, and I’m not going to have them broke to please you.”
Cora frowned, and softly took up the second rein with the effect of checking the ponies’ rattling gallop just as heads were being turned and gentlemen on horseback were starting off in pursuit.
“I ain’t easily frightened, Betsy, you know,” said Mrs Dean, panting. “Speaking as a woman as has faced a whole company in the bad days on treasury night, when there’s been nothing in the cash-box, and your poor father off his head, I say I ain’t easily frightened.”
“Now, mother – I mean mamma – how are we to get into society if you will refer so constantly to those wretched old days?”
“They weren’t wretched old days, my dear, and I was a deal happier then than I am now. But never mind; we’ve got our tickets. I knew old Denville would get ’em, and my Betsy’ll startle some of ’em at the ball, I know. Hold ’em in tighter, my dear, do.”
“Don’t be so foolishly nervous, mother. I have them well in hand.”
“But why does that one keep laying down its ears and squeaking, and trying to bite t’other one?”
“Play,” said Cora shortly.
“Then I wish he’d play in the stable, and behave himself when he comes out on the cliff. My word, look at that old Drelincourt, Bet – Cora,” said the old woman, giving her daughter a nudge. “Look at the nasty old thing in black. If she’d had any decency, she’d have left the place when her old sister was killed, instead of being pushed about in her chair like that.”
“But she has a house here of her own,” said Cora shortly, as she guided her ponies in and out among the fashionable equipages, not one of whose lady occupants noticed her.
“Look at ’em,” whispered Mrs Dean, nudging her daughter again. “They’re a-busting with envy, but they shall be civil to you yet. I did grudge the money for the turn out, and I told Ashley it was a swindle, but they do show off, and I’m glad I bought ’em. Look at the fine madams in that broosh; they’re as envious as can be. Hit’m up, Cora, and make ’em go. I should like to see anybody else’s gal with such a turn-out.”
Too showy, and with a suspicion of the circus in the style of the harness and the colours of the rosettes; but Cora Dean’s pony carriage, driven as it was in masterly style, created no little sensation in Saltinville; and if, in addition to the salutes of the gentlemen, which she acknowledged very superciliously, only one lady would have bowed in recognition, Cora Dean would have enjoyed her drive, and probably have gone more slowly.
As it was, in obedience to her mother’s nudges and admonitions to “Hit ’m up again,” she gave the ponies flick after flick with the whip, and increased the restiveness consequent upon plenty of spirit and too much corn.
It was a risky drive with restive beasts along that cliff with so slight a railing, and the archives of the town told how one Sir Rumble Thornton had gone over with his curricle and pair on to the shingle below, to be killed with his horses. But Cora Dean and her mother thought only of making a show, and the well-bred little ponies seemed to be kept thoroughly in hand by their mistress, though they were fretting and champing their bits and sending flakes of foam all over their satin coats.
“I’m getting used to it now, Cora, my dear,” panted the old woman. “I don’t feel so squirmy inside, and as if I should be obliged to go home for a drop of brandy. Humph! I wish you wouldn’t bow to him.”
“Why not? He’s our neighbour,” said Cora tartly, as Richard Linnell took off his hat. “He’s the most thorough gentleman in this town.”
“P’raps he is, but I don’t think anything of such gentlemen as he is – now Betsy, do a’ done. Don’t drive like that. I was getting used to it, but now you’ve made my pore ’art fly up into my mouth.”
A sharp snatch at the reins had made the ponies rear up, and Richard Linnell, who was looking after them, started to go to Cora’s help, but a cut of the whip sent the two ponies on again, and the carriage spun along, past the wide opening to the pier, down which Richard Linnell turned to think out how he might get over the prejudice he knew that Mr Denville had against him, and to wonder why Claire had grown so cold and strange.
“I am getting well used to it now, Betsy,” said Mrs Dean, as they drove right along the London road for a mile or two; “but, I say, hadn’t you better turn their heads now? Let’s get back on the cliff, where they can see us. I hate these fields and hedges. Let’s go back by the other road, down by Lord Carboro’s house, and through the street down to the pier.”
“Very well,” said Cora shortly; and she turned the ponies, and took the upper road.
Now, it so happened that after a short promenade Lord Carboro’ had found out that it was going to rain, by a double barometer which he carried in his boots.
“Confound these corns!” he grumbled. “Ah, Barclay,” he cried to a thick-set man whom he met at that moment, “collecting your dues? It’s going to rain.”
“Yes, my lord. My corns shoot horribly.”
“So do mine; doosid bad. I’m going to get the carriage and have a drive. Can’t walk.”
He nodded and went back to his handsome house and grounds, contenting himself with sitting down in the lodge portico while the gardener’s wife ordered the carriage to be got ready.
“It isn’t handsome, but it suits me,” his lordship used to say, “and it’s comfortable. If I can’t have things as I like with my money, and at my time of life, why it’s doosid strange.”
So he waited till a groom brought the carriage down the drive, and then looked at it as it came.
“Don’t do to go wooing in,” he said, with a chuckle, as he got in and took the reins; and certainly it did not look like the chariot of love, for it was a little, low basket carriage, big enough to hold one, and shaped very much like a bath-chair. It was drawn by a very large, grey, well-clipped donkey with enormous ears, quite an aristocrat of his race, with his well-filled skin and carefully blackened harness.
“Thankye, John. Thankye, Mrs Roberts,” said his lordship, as he shook the reins. “Go on, Balaam.”
Balaam went deliberately on, and just as they were going out of the great iron gates, and his lordship was indulging in a pinch of snuff, there was the rattle of wheels to his right, and Cora Dean came along with her ponies at a smart trot, her mother looking like an over-blown peony by her side.
“Juno, by Jove!” said his lordship, preparing to raise his hat.
But just then – it was a matter of moments – Balaam stood stock still, drew his great flap ears forward and pointed them at the ponies, and staring hard, lifted his tail, and, showing his teeth, uttered with outstretched neck a most discordant roaring —Hee-haw – Hee-haw!
Cora’s ponies
