The Reckoning (32 page)

‘
Rosy, turn back!' he shouted. He didn't want to race on
like this, with nothing to address himself to but her back. He
wanted a pleasant ride side by side, with the chance to talk to
her properly and privately. 'Turn back!' he shouted again,
thinking she hadn't heard.

She flung a glance at him over her shoulder, and then he
saw her push Magnus on. She had misunderstood his intention, thought he was trying to stop her for her own safety.
Exasperated, he shouted, 'No, Rosy!' and simply made things
worse.

Magnus hopped over the backwater — the mill reservoir —
like a contemptuous cat, cantered five paces along the bank
beside the wheel, sprang over the narrow part of the race, and
was then divided from the common by nothing but the end of
the mill-cottage garden and the two hedges that bounded it.
The hedges were not high, and the garden there came down
to a point where it used up an odd piece of land between the
river and the lane; but still it made a broad and awkward
jump, especially since there was only a short run-up for the
horses — only a couple of strides.

One, two, and Magnus went up into the air like a Congreve
rocket, almost vertically, cleared both hedges with his fore
legs, and brushed through with a snapping of small twigs with
his hind legs. Marcus was even then gathering his own horse
and driving it forward — feeling its reluctance but having no
choice but to follow — when he heard Rosamund's cry of
dismay and saw her leave the saddle and fly off sideways,
starfished against the grey sky, and fall out of sight.

Marcus was right on top of the hedge: no way to go but
forwards. ‘Go on!' he roared at his horse, thumping its sides as it quivered on the brink of refusal. His determination was enough to make it jump, a rather clumsy lurch which carried
it through rather than over both hedges to land with a
stumble on the turf beyond. He dragged it to a halt and was
out of the saddle even as he took in the scene — a ring of
brown cows looking very surprised, Magnus standing, his eyes
wide and his head up, and Rosamund lying on the grass, a
sprawled blue figure against the green, horribly still.

‘
Oh God,' Marcus cried, staggering towards her, his legs
suddenly weak, towing his horse behind him from a
horseman's instinct never to let go of the reins. She was dead,
his mind told him with hideous cold certainty. Her neck was
broken, she was dead, his mother's worst prophecies had
come true. 'She'll break her neck one day, careering about
the countryside in that hoydenish fashion.' In that instant he knew both how much he loved Rosamund, and how much he
hated his mother.

And then he saw that the reason Magnus was still standing
there was that Rosamund, from that same horseman's
instinct, had kept hold of the reins when she fell; as the horse
pulled at them uncomfortably, she groaned and sat up.
Marcus flung himself down on his knees beside her on the
grass. She was laughing and moaning all at once, rubbing her
side with her free hand and trying to catch her breath.

‘
Rosamund! Oh God! Are you all right?'

‘
Ooh!' she groaned, but it was rueful rather than agonised.
‘That was stupid! Oh dear, I do ache!'

‘
You're hurt! Keep still — you've broken your ribs!'

‘
Not my ribs, but my vanity's bruised. It's all right,
Marcus, I'm not hurt — I've just had the breath knocked out
of me. My own fault — I should have known there wasn't
room for a third stride there, for a horse of his size.'

‘
What?' Marcus said, bewildered.

‘
He took off before I was ready and I lost my balance,
that's all. My fault entirely. Hotspur does it so neatly, but of
course Magnus is nearly two hands bigger.' Magnus lowered
his head and blew in her hair, and then began calmly to
graze, while Rosamund, slipping the reins over her arm,
brushed at the grass and dried cow-dung decorating her
habit. 'Look at the state of me!’

Marcus felt as though he had stepped up a step that wasn't there. He sat down with a jolt on the grass, waited an instant
for his insides to resume their accustomed positions, and then
said as steadily as he could, 'I thought you were killed.’

She glanced up from her brushing with an innocent,
amused and affectionate look. 'What, from falling off a horse?
Don't be silly.’

As a remark, it was the essence of her. Suddenly it was all
too much for him. He began to laugh. 'Oh Rosy, Rosy! Oh,
that is so like you! Oh my dear little cousin, I do love you so!’

She grinned impishly. 'Come, that's better. You never used
to be so solemn and pompous, when I was a little girl in plaits
and you were my great hero.'

‘
I know. I don't know what's happened to me lately. I seem
to have lost my lightness of touch.'

‘
I expect it was the war and everything,' she said kindly.
‘But you'll have to get used to things like this if you mean to
marry me. Not that I mean to tumble off horses every day of
the week, of course, but I shan't stop doing things just
because there's a risk —'

‘What did you say?'

‘
I said I don't intend to fall off once a day, just to let you think you're a better rider than me,' she said mischievously. ‘It's too undignified, for one thing, and it's ruinous to one's
clothes.’

He captured her hand and her attention. 'Rosy,
will
you
marry me?’

She was quiet suddenly, looking into his face with a
thoughtful gaze that made him feel very exposed. He wished he knew what that long, searching look meant. He wished he
could be worthy of her. If she would marry him, he damn'
well meant to try to be. He closed his other hand about hers,
too. 'Rosy? Will you?'

‘
I was right, wasn't I?' she said. 'You did intend to ask me?’

‘
Yes. That's why I suggested the ride — but there wasn't
really an opportunity to —’

Her hand tightened. 'I know, I made it too uncomfortable
for you. I behave badly sometimes,' she sighed. 'I'm sorry.'

‘
No, no, it was my fault,' he said. 'I was being such a wet Monday. You were very patient with me, considering how I
was abusing you.’

A faint smile came into her eyes. 'Marcus, I won't marry
your mother. You do understand that?’

His own answered it. 'I won't ask you to. But you will
marry me?’

It wasn't much of a hesitation, but it was agonising to him.
‘Yes,' she said. 'I will marry you.’

He closed his eyes with relief. 'Thank you,' he sighed.

‘But it's the devil of a place to choose to propose to me,' she grumbled.

BOOK TWO

Acts of God

Now, 'tis our boast that we can quell

The wildest passions in their rage,

Can their destructive force repel,

And their impetuous wrath assuage.

George Crabbe:
Late Wisdom

‘
The glass is dropping,' Edward said, standing up from the
breakfast table. 'I think we're in for some bad weather.'

‘
But it's been so mild,' James said, engaged with a pork
chop. This was the last of the pig they had killed for
Christmas – and a good pig it had been, fed on parsnips and
windfall apples, to make the meat sweet and tender.

‘
Too mild,' Edward said shortly. 'Unseasonable for
January. We were bound to pay for it sooner or later.'

‘
What a Methodist you'd have made,' James said. 'Never
happy unless things are going badly.’

Edward ignored this. 'I'm going to get the merinos in off
the North Field and put them in the Fellbrook close. I want to
keep my eye on them, and if there's hard weather to come, I
don't want to find myself cut off from them.'

‘
Just as you please, old fellow,' James said, absorbing the
last of the chop and the front page of the newspaper at the
same time. Edward paused and frowned at him. 'What
is
that
you're reading?’

James looked up at last, grinning. 'It's this new radical sheet everyone's getting so excited about –
Black Dwarf.
Provides a great deal of unintentional amusement.'

‘
Oh, Tuppenny Trash, is it?' said Miss Rosedale with
interest. 'I've heard about it, of course, but I've never seen
one.

‘How can a newspaper cost only tuppence?' Héloïse asked,
buttering a bun. 'I thought that the Stamp Duty alone was
fourpence?'

‘
It is; but this man Cobbett, who used to put out the
Poli
tical Register,
found a way round it – made it smaller, so that
it fell under the heading of pamphlet instead of newspaper.
There's no stamp duty on pamphlets, you see. And then, of
course, the other reformists followed suit. What's the name of
the
Black Dwarf man?'

‘
Wooler,' James said. 'He has a tongue like a cat o' nine
tails, and some of the things he says are so outrageous –'

‘
You shouldn't bring that sort of seditious rubbish into the
house, Jamie,' Edward said, feeling the point was in danger of
being missed. 'It's disgusting. And suppose the servants see it?
Do you want to encourage treason and revolution in our own
home?'

‘Oh come –!' James protested.

‘
I mean it. Don't you know how dangerous the times are?
The country's in ferment. Everywhere you look the lower
orders are meeting together in large numbers and talking
sedition.'

‘
Is it not better for them to talk than to act?' said Father
Moineau.

‘Talking leads to acting,' Edward said shortly.

‘Gammon!' from James.

‘
Gammon, is it?' Edward turned on him hotly. 'What
about Spa Fields, only a month ago? Or have you conveni
ently forgotten that?'

‘
Oh, that was just Orator Hunt,' James began uncomfor
tably. 'He was only spouting his franchise nonsense.'