singularly pleasant. I was confused. People I did not know made me dreadfully self-conscious, and I could not take in any of the details of her appearance. I just had an impression of a rather large blond woman. I do not know if I noticed then or only remembered afterward that she wore a full skirt of blue serge, a pink shirt with a starched front and a starched collar, and a straw hat, called in those days, I think, a boater, perched on the top of a lot of golden hair.
“I think bicycling’s lovely, don’t you?” she said, looking at my beautiful new machine which leaned against the stile. “It must be wonderful to be able to ride well.”
I felt that this inferred an admiration for my proficiency.
“It’s only a matter of practice,” I said.
“This is only my third lesson. Mr. Driffield says I’m coming on wonderful, but I feel so stupid I could kick myself. How long did it take you before you could ride?”
I blushed to the roots of my hair. I could hardly utter the shameful words.
“I can’t ride,” I said. “I’ve only just got this bike and this is the first time I’ve tried.”
I equivocated a trifle there, but I made it all right with my conscience by adding the mental reservation : except yesterday at home in the garden.
“I’ll give you a lesson if you like,” said Driffield in his good-humoured way. “Come on.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Why not?” asked his wife, her blue eyes still pleasantly smiling. “Mr. Driffield would like to and it’ll give me a chance to rest.”
Driffield took my bicycle, and I, reluctant but unable to withstand his friendly violence, clumsily mounted. I swayed from side to side, but he held me with a firm hand.
“Faster,” he said.
I pedalled and he ran by me as I wobbled from side to side. We were both very hot when, notwithstanding his struggles, I at last fell off. It was very hard under such circumstances to preserve the standoffishness befitting the vicar’s nephew with the son of Miss Wolfe’s bailiff, and when I started back again and for thirty or forty thrilling yards actually rode by myself and Mrs. Driffield ran into the middle of the road with her arms akimbo shouting, “Go it, go it, two to one on the favourite,” I was laughing so much that I positively forgot all about my social status. I got off of my own accord, my face no doubt wearing an air of immodest triumph, and received without embarrassment the Driffields’ congratulation on my cleverness in riding a bicycle the very first day I tried.
“I want to see if I can get on by myself,” said Mrs. Driffield, and I sat down again on the stile while her husband and I watched her unavailing struggles.
Then, wanting to rest again, disappointed but cheerful, she sat down beside me. Driffield lit his pipe. We chatted. I did not of course realize it then, but I know now that there was a disarming frankness in her manner that put one at one’s ease. She talked with a kind of eagerness, like a child bubbling over with the zest of life, and her eyes were lit all the time by her engaging smile. I did not know why I liked it. I should say it was a little sly, if slyness were not a displeasing quality; it was too innocent to be sly. It was mischievous rather, like that of a child who has done something that he thinks funny, but is quite well aware that you will think rather naughty; he knows all the same that you won’t be really cross and if you don’t find out about it quickly he’ll come and tell you himself. But of course then I only knew that her smile made me feel at home.
Presently Driffield, looking at his watch, said that they must be going and suggested that we should all ride back together in style. It was just the time that my aunt and uncle would be coming home from their daily walk down the town and I did not like to run the risk of being seen with people whom they would not at all approve of; so I asked them to go on first, as they would go more quickly than I. Mrs. Driffield would not hear of it, but Driffield gave me a funny, amused little look, which made me think that he saw through my excuse so that I blushed scarlet, and he said:
“Let him go by himself, Rosie. He can manage better alone.”
“All right. Shall you be here to-morrow? We’re coming.”
“I’ll try to,” I answered.
They rode off, and in a few minutes I followed. Feeling very much pleased with myself, I rode all the way to the vicarage gates without falling. I think I boasted a good deal at dinner, but I did not say that I had met the Driffields.
Next day at about eleven I got my bicycle out of the coachhouse. It was so called though it held not even a pony trap and was used by the gardener to keep the mower and the roller, and by Mary-Ann for her sack of meal for the chickens. I wheeled it down to the gate and, mounting none too easily, rode along the Tercanbury Road till I came to the old turnpike and turned into Joy Lane.
The sky was blue and the air, warm and yet fresh, crackled, as it were, with the heat. The light was brilliant without harshness. The sun’s beams seemed to hit the white road with a directed energy and bounce back like a rubber ball.
I rode backward and forward, waiting for the Driffields, and presently saw them come. I waved to them and turned round (getting off to do so) and we pedalled along together. Mrs. Driffield and I complimented one another on our progress. We rode anxiously, clinging like grim death to the handle-bars, but exultant, and Driffield said that as soon as we felt sure of ourselves we must go for rides all over the country.
“I want to get rubbings of one or two brasses in the neighbourhood,” he said.
I did not know what he meant, but he would not explain.
“Wait and I’ll show you,” he said. “Do you think you could ride fourteen miles to-morrow, seven there and seven back?”
“Rather,” I said.
“I’ll bring a sheet of paper for you and some wax and you can make a rubbing. But you’d better ask your uncle if you can come.”
“I needn’t do that.”
