Trevick spotted her and ran over, frowning; the gelding reared, snorted, bucked, and Ravella dropped like a stone from the saddle.
Trevick cried out, appalled, and reaching her, fell to her side. She did not move. Bull waved his arm at the others approaching.
‘She’s thrown, the lass is thrown,’ he called, and caught Luca’s rein.
Ravella was still. Trevick patted her face to no avail.
‘What’s the matter with her? Stunned?’ asked Bull, circling them. The other ignored him, and pulled back Ravella’s eyelid, whereon she stirred a little, and seemed to revive.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked urgently. ‘Can you feel any pain?’
She shook her head a little, groggily; he loosened her helmet.
‘What you doing, man?’ started Bull. ‘Leave her be!’
‘Fetch the doctor, one of you!’ ordered Trevick by way of reply.
Ravella raised her hand vaguely.
‘She’s fine, see?’ retorted Bull. ‘Brave girl as she is! What, reckon she’s had harder knocks than that before now! How’s your head, then, my little lover?’ he cooed from the saddle.
She tried to rise, but swayed uncertainly. Trevick assisted her.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you inside and ring for help, if none of these fine horsemen can be bothered to go.’
Mr. Bull, seeing his chance of a becoming gallantry in jeopardy, took affront and immediately insisted that, as hunt leader, he was personally responsible for her welfare.
‘Well then, as hunt leader,’ returned Trevick, full of wrath, ‘you can also be responsible for getting this goddamn circus off my land!’
This nettled Bull, who handed the reins to another and jumped down to pursue the retreating Trevick and his ward.
‘What’s this nonsense all about, then?’ he demanded generally, and then, to Ravella: ‘You don’t want to be going in with him, my lover, you’d do better off staying with us! At least your friends know how to have a laugh!’ He pursued them indoors.
Trevick settled Ravella on a hallway bench and turned around sharply. ‘I don’t think much of your “laughs.” At least she has one friend who’s prepared to look after her when she’s hurt!’
‘What?’ cried Bull. ‘You’re too high on yourself, that’s all you are! She don’t need none of your help, and that’s a fact. Do you, my pretty ’un?’
‘I suppose you’re leaving?’ said Trevick surlily, with a scowl.
The two men squared up to one another.
‘You know what’s wrong with you?’ said Bull. ‘You’re full of it, that’s what! You reckon with your bit of money every sod’s gonna kow-tow, but I won’t, see? Now, what you got to say about that, aye? And what’s more, that lass won’t, neither. She don’t need your kind muscling in!’
‘And you think she wants yours any better?’
‘Me and her’s as thick as you like,’ asserted Bull then. ‘And that being so, I reckon I know how to look after her better than some young brachet with more money than balls!’
Trevick’s lip curled contemptuously, while his interlocutor, presuming that his last shot had decided the battle, regaled Ravella to join him.
‘You just come along with me, I’ll show you how a real gentleman should treat you.’ He tugged on her arm, which she snatched weakly away.
‘Leave her alone!’ commanded Trevick then, moving between them.
‘What, there’s nothing wrong with her! I saw her come off, didn’t I? She didn’t come to no harm— like an acrobat, she was!’ —at which assertion Ravella gave a languid sigh, and that signal of distress sent Trevick the short distance to the end of his tether. He took Bull by the collar, kicked him out of doors, and, with the threat of further manhandling, drove the poor fellow out of his sight.
Hurrying back to Ravella, he knelt down beside her and asked how she felt. She smiled and gently answered: ‘Rescued.’
‘I’m glad I only had to rescue you from John Bull, though,’ he said seriously. ‘Ravella, when you came off that horse and didn’t get up— God, I thought— I feared the worst.’
At these words Ravella took his hand in hers and said: ‘Thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘For your concern.’
Trevick started to his feet. ‘My concern! Ravella, you say it as though I were some stranger, just passing by! I hope you know it was more than common concern I felt.’
But he stopped, as she gazed on him with enormous, bright eyes.
A tender smile touched his lips. ‘Can you guess what I felt?’ he asked her. ‘Do you know what I feel?’
‘I failed mind-reading at school,’ she replied, ‘but I hope we’re friends, James.’
He turned away abruptly with a frown. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, ‘friends, but— Ravella, Ravella! What am I supposed to make of you?’
She smiled. ‘That’s easy. I’m refreshing. Whenever somebody wants to say something about me, they usually say I’m (with a pause) refreshing.’
Trevick shook his head vigorously. ‘No, these somebodies are wrong, you’re not refreshing, Ravella, you’re the reverse, you’re— you’re stifling.’
‘Oh!’ said Ravella, a little put out.
‘No, I mean intoxicating,’ he argued. ‘You— you get into my breath, I’m always breathing in Ravella.’
He watched her earnestly, hoping she would understand him, but she gave him no openings; he must bring himself out.
He knelt down again. ‘Were you hurt when you fell?’ he probed.
She was guarded by an inscrutable, serene expression. ‘I’m feeling much better,’ she said.
He was thwarted by that, and began again. ‘I should tell you, Ravella, I want to tell you— about— what I think— what I feel.’
She stared back impassively.
He reiterated: ‘What I feel— what I feel about Clare.’
‘About Clare!’ started Ravella, in spite of her poise.
He nodded. ‘Yes, what I feel about Clare. What I feel about her, Ravella, is— different.’
She interrupted him. ‘I think you should discuss your feelings about Clare with Clare herself.’
‘Yes, yes I will,’ he said. ‘I mean to speak to her. But I also have to speak to you, Ravella, because, as I say, what I feel about her— felt about her— is different to what I feel about you.’
She regarded him coolly. ‘Is it? Well, that isn’t surprising, James. You were in love with Clare, after all.’
‘Was I?’
‘You were thinking of marrying her.’
‘I was— but this is what I’m trying to tell you: it’s all different, I’m all upended. I’m not the same as I used to be.’
He watched for some flicker of response, doubting whether he would find it. Ravella did not speak.
He jumped up. ‘I can’t explain it to you,’ he told her, running his hand through his hair. ‘Wait a moment.’ He darted upstairs, and almost immediately returned. ‘Will you read this?’
Ravella took the paper, half unfolded it, saw verse lines, and dropped it. ‘A poem!’ she said, standing. ‘Oh, no, I never could read them. I suppose it’s all mermen dragging up the seaweed, and mermaids luring ships onto the rocks.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ he said urgently, picking it up and handing it again. ‘I can’t explain any other way— please read it.’
Ravella looked at his anxious face and smiled inwardly. ‘I wonder what it says?’ she mused, as she re-folded the paper gingerly into his palm. ‘I wonder if you can tell me yourself, James?’ —and with that, she left him.
But as she closed the front door, he instantly opened it again and called in her wake: ‘I’ll come round tonight— I’ll come round, I’ll tell you!’
She turned and nodded, and then proceeded back to Mrs. Manderville’s with the very taste of victory on her lips.
As soon as she arrived at the guesthouse, she cried out: ‘Mrs. Manderville! Quickly! Run me a bath, bring my vanity case and pu
ll out the black Chanel— I have to look astonishing!’
‘Lor’, whatever’s the matter?’ returned the landlady, caught up in the drama. ‘You been kissing frogs, Miss?’
‘And getting princes, too,’ replied Ravella. ‘Now what about my varnishes, where have I left them? A French polish will do better than colours, men always think it’s natural.’ —and she ran to her room to rummage over the dressing table.
Mrs. Manderville panted up after her. ‘What’s going on, though? All this fuss’s not for nothing— I reckon you’ve got that man of yours, haven’t you?’
‘Of course I have!’ she declared. ‘He’s coming here later to tell me all about it, how he never understood love until he met me, how he’s never felt this way before, how he’ll die if he can’t have me, et cetera, et cetera!’
‘You’re very sure of it.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard it all before— and poet or no poet, it’s amazing how every man sounds the same when he’s fallen in love.’
Mrs. Manderville folded her arms. ‘You want to be careful, my darlin’, in case you mistake him. I’ve found you always think you know where you are with a man, but when it comes to it, you can’t rely on him, nor trust him.’
‘Nonsense!’ Ravella pouted. ‘It only takes him coming over here and he’ll love me— and from that it’s a small jump to a wedding, and then, of course, the game’s up. You’d be surprised how gullible people are, in the main.’
‘Well I don’t hold by that, Miss. It’s true some folks are gullible enough, but for the rest of us, well, it just don’t follow. Oh, by the way, what have you noticed that’s different? The new bed! Nice, ain’t it? I’ve had new beds ordered for all the rooms, see, on