‘Nice, isn’t he?’ said Michael as soon as he was out of the room.
‘Awfully sweet,’ said Bobby.
‘He’s an angel, I think,’ said Philadelphia dreamily.
Later Lord Lewes said to his Aunt Gloria, ‘What a really charming, cultured young man, that Mr Fisher, it is a real pleasure to have made his acquaintance. I think you were so clever to find him. He is just the very person for Bobby, too; full of brains and yet most human.’
‘Yes, he seems all right,’ said Lady Bobbin. ‘He was very much recommended to me. I only hope he will get the boy out of doors and make himself useful with Brenda Chadlington’s brats. She announced today that she is bringing them again; most thoughtless and inconsiderate of her to my mind, but still – !’
Paul looked forward with no feelings of delight to his first ride to Compton Bobbin. He was, in fact, extremely terrified at the idea of it. Bobby, noticing his aversion to that form of exercise, tried to reassure him by pointing out that the distance to Mulberrie Farm was well under three miles, that it would be unnecessary for them to proceed at any pace more desperate than a walk, and that Boadicea, the mare which had been allotted to him to ride, was as quiet as any old cow; but in vain. Paul, most unfortunately for his own peace of mind, had happened to see the said mare out at exercise the day before, and had noticed in her a very different aspect from that of the ancient hireling on whose back he had spent so many painful hours jogging up and down the Rotten Row. To compare her to an old cow was simply silly. It was, in fact, only too apparent that here was a beast of pride and pedigree, who would almost certainly consider it a point of honour to cast the trembling tyro from her back. Paul knew, alas! how fatally easy, in his case, this would be; the smallest jerk, nay, even the transition between trot and canter, often proved sufficient to unseat him. He visualized with a shudder that horrid moment when everything would fly from his grip, the universe become black and roll several times round him, while the earth would suddenly rise up and bang him in the kidneys. It had happened in the soft and friendly Row and had been extraordinarily painful; what of the tarmac road, hard, black and shining like ebonite, which lay between Compton Bobbin and Mulberrie Farm? Poor Paul spent a wakeful night pondering these things, and by the morning had quite made up his mind that he would return to London sooner than court an end so sudden and unpleasing.
After breakfast, however, he felt more of a man again, and the sight of the precious red morocco volumes peeping from behind the schoolroom radiator put new courage into him. Besides, it would be a pity not to see a little more of Philadelphia. He was looking forward with some interest to hearing her verdict upon Crazy Capers, which he had lent her to read, saying that a friend of his had written it. Unsophisticated but intelligent, he thought, it was just possible that she might prove to be the one person who would put a proper construction on it. Possible, not likely. If she joined in the chorus of laughter he knew that he would be hurt, far more hurt than when Marcella had, who was always a hard, unimaginative little thing with a mind like a tennis ball. Meanwhile, fasting, for he felt too nervous to touch food at luncheon time, he prepared to face his ordeal.
By the most unlucky accident of fate Lady Bobbin happened to be talking to the stud groom in the stable yard when Paul and Bobby arrived there, and waited to see them mount. Paul, sadly conscious of the newness of his clothes, which had elicited roars of delight from the heartless Bobby as they left the house, stood a quaking and, no doubt, he thought bitterly, a pathetically comic figure, as he waited for Boadicea to be brought from her dark and smelly lair inside the stables.
‘Cold, isn’t it?’ he said between chattering teeth to Lady Bobbin, who took no notice whatever of this remark. At that moment the snorting animal was led out, tossing her head from side to side in what seemed to be an ecstasy of rage and contempt, and showering little bits of froth in all directions. Paul, his unreasonable terror of horses now quite overcome by his unreasonable terror of Lady Bobbin, whose cold gimlet eye seemed to be reading his every emotion, decided that here was one of the few occasions in a man’s life on which death would be preferable to dishonour, and advanced towards the mounting block with a slight swagger which he hoped was reminiscent of a French marquis approaching the scaffold. Grasping the reins and the pommel of the saddle firmly as he had been taught, he placed his left foot in the stirrup, when the animal, as indeed he had feared it probably would, began to wriggle its hind quarters away from him. When this had happened in the Row it had been his invariable custom to remove his foot from the stirrup and begin all over again. Now, however, feeling (he dared not look) that Lady Bobbin’s eyes, not to mention the eyes of the stud groom, two under grooms, the stable boy, Bobby and two men who were carting away manure, were upon him, he rather lost his head and with the courage of despair gave a tremendous leap in pursuit of Boadicea’s retreating back. To his immense astonishment, this piece of bravura was rewarded with complete success, and he found himself sitting fair and square in the saddle, with the stable
