Gwendolen Read Online Free PDF Page B

I should not do as other women did, nor be like them. He then made some silly speech about a man who loved me more dearly than anything in the world and would let me do just as I liked. I asked if he meant Mr Middleton, then cantered away after the hounds.
    I was soon far ahead. Primrose, stiff and slow, was not a hunting horse and Rex struggled to catch up. In the effort Primrose caught her hoof in a hole, fell, broke her knees and threw Rex over her head. He was stunned, his shoulder dislocated. Joel Dagge the blacksmith’s son found him lying alone in Mill Lane, wrenched his shoulder back into its socket and helped him home.
    I knew nothing of all this. I supposed Rex to have given up and gone home. I enjoyed the chase and thought no more of him. All those taking part commended my spirited riding. At the end of a triumphant day, escorted by Lord Brackenshaw, I rode home with the fox’s tail fastened to my saddle.
    *
    At the rectory uncle chastised Rex for taking Primrose without asking, using her as a hunter and allowing me to ride with the hounds. He ordered him to leave Pennicote next day, spend the rest of his vacation in Southampton then go back to Cambridge.
    Rex cried and said he could not leave without first telling me he loved me. Uncle told him it was impossible: he was too young, first cousins should not marry and I must ally myself to rank and wealth. Rex, he said, would soon recover; life was full of such brief disappointments. Uncle sent Rex to his room and told him they would talk again in the morning.
    He then came to Offendene to tell mamma and me of Rex’s fall. Rex had suffered no great damage, so I could not care about it. I thought the incident absurd: I had a picture of him, ridiculous on Primrose, stumbling in the lane, his cheeks puffed and red. I am afraid I laughed. Uncle saw I was not the least in love, but he forbade me to hunt again. ‘When you are married it will be different,’ he said. ‘You may do whatever your husband sanctions. But if you intend to hunt you must marry a man who can keep horses.’
    I made some pert retort and left the room. The exchange wiped away my elation of the morning. I abhorred the idea of the wife as a chattel. I intended to hunt without a husband’s sanction. The previous evening I had told mamma men were too ridiculous and I could never fall in love. Of the men who wooed me, Rex was an adoring boy, Clintock wrote risible poems about croquet, and Middleton the assistant clergyman had watery blue eyes, pale whiskers and yellow teeth.
    Uncle, satisfied by my lack of concern, gave Rex permission to walk over and see me next day.
    *
    Offendene was two miles from the rectory. Rex, his arm in a sling, arrived in the early morning. I, tired from the previous day, was not yet down from my room.
    He waited in the drawing room. I did not want to see him. I suspected he intended to inflict embarrassment on me. I wore a black silk dress and a black band in my hair. I stood by the fire, viewed him coldly, then said formally, ‘I hope you are not much hurt, Rex. I deserve your reproach for your accident.’ He responded with some gracious remark about the small price of paying for the pleasure of my company with a tumble.
    He talked about going to Southampton, said it would be an empty place without me and how all the happiness of his life depended on my loving him more than anyone else. I loathed such drivel. It felt like invasion. He tried to take my hand and I backed away. ‘Pray don’t make love to me,’ I scolded. ‘I hate it.’ He went pale and his mortification compounded my contempt. I glared. He was twenty, like me. ‘Is that the last word you have to say to me, Gwendolen?’ he asked. ‘Will it always be so?’
    I observed his wretchedness, felt anger with him for subjecting me and himself to this, and regret for the companionship I supposed we now would lose. ‘About making love? Yes,’ I said. ‘But I don’t dislike you for anything else.’ I