CHAPTER VII
THE FALL
They found a fox after some delay in a copse on the side of a hill, andthe run that followed scattered even Anne's sedateness to the winds.Something of youth, something of girlishness, yet dwelt within her andbounded to the surface in response to the wild excitement of the chase.
The grey went like the wind. He and the black mare that Nap Errol rodeled the field, a distinction that Anne had never sought before, and whichshe did not greatly appreciate on this occasion. For when they killed ina chalky hollow, after half-an-hour's furious galloping across countrywith scarcely a check, she dragged her animal round with a white, setface and forced him from the scene.
Nap followed her after a little and found her fumbling at a gateinto a wood.
"I've secured the brush for you," he began. Then, seeing her face, "Whatis it? You look sick."
"I feel sick," Anne said shakily.
He opened the gate for her, and followed her through. They foundthemselves alone, separated from the rest of the hunt by a thickbelt of trees.
"Do you mean to say you have never seen a kill before?" he said.
"Never at close quarters," murmured Anne, with a shudder.
He rode for a little in silence. At length, "I'm sorry you didn't likebeing in at the death," he said. "I thought you would be pleased."
"Pleased!" she said, and shuddered again.
"Personally," said Nap, "I enjoy a kill."
Anne's face expressed horror.
"Yes," he said recklessly, "I am like that. I hunt to kill. It is mynature." A red gleam shone suddenly in his fiery eyes. He looked at heraggressively. "What do you hunt for anyway?" he demanded.
"I don't think I shall hunt any more," she said.
"Oh, nonsense, Lady Carfax! That's being ultrasqueamish," he protested."You mustn't, you know. It's bad for you."
"I can't help it," she said. "I never realised before how cruel it is."
"Of course it's cruel," said Nap. "But then so is everything, so is life.Yet you've got to live. We were created to prey on each other."
"No, no!" she said quickly, for his words hurt her inexplicably. "I takethe higher view."
"I beg your pardon," said Nap, in the tone of one refusing a discussion.
She turned to him impulsively. "Surely you do too!" she said, and therewas even a note of pleading in her voice.
Nap's brows met suddenly. He turned his eyes away. "I am nothing but ananimal," he told her rather brutally. "There is nothing spiritual aboutme. I live for what I can get. When I get the chance I gorge. If I have asoul at all, it is so rudimentary as to be unworthy of mention."
In the silence that followed he looked at her again with grimcomprehension. "P'r'aps you don't care for animals," he suggestedcynically. "To change the subject, do you know we are leaving thehunt behind?"
She reined in somewhat reluctantly. "I suppose we had better go back."
"If your majesty decrees," said Nap.
He pulled the mare round and stood motionless, waiting for her to pass.He sat arrogantly at his ease. She could not fail to note that hishorsemanship was magnificent. The mare stood royally as though she borea king. The man's very insignificance of bulk seemed to make him themore superb.
"Will you deign to lead the way?" he said.
And Anne passed him with a vague sense of uneasiness that almostamounted to foreboding. For it seemed to her as if for those few momentshe had imposed his will upon hers, had without effort overthrown allbarriers of conventional reserve, and had made her acknowledge in himthe mastery of man.
Rejoining the hunt, she made her first deliberate attempt to avoid him,an attempt that was so far successful that for the next hour she sawnothing of him beyond casual glimpses. She did not join her husband, forhe resented her proximity in the hunting-field.
They drew blank in a wood above the first kill, but finally found afterconsiderable delay along a stubbly stretch of ground bordering Baronmead,a large estate that the eldest Errol had just bought. The fox headedstraight for the Baronmead woods and after him streamed the huntpell-mell along a stony valley.
It was not Anne's intention to be in at a second death that day, and shedeliberately checked the grey's enthusiasm when he would have borne herheadlong through the scampering crowd. To his indignation, instead ofpursuing the chase in the valley, she headed him up the hill. Heprotested with vehemence, threatening to rebel outright, but Anne wasdetermined, and eventually she had her way. Up the hill they went.
It was a scramble to reach the top, for the ground was steep and sloppy,but on the summit of the ridge progress was easier. She gave the grey therein and he carried her forward at a canter. From here she saw the lastof the horsemen below her sweep round the curve towards Baronmead, andthe hubbub growing fainter in the distance told her that the hounds werealready plunging through the woods. Ahead of her the ridge culminated ina bare knoll whence it was evident that she could overlook a considerablestretch of country. She urged her animal towards it.
The mist was thickening in the valley, and it had begun to drizzle. Thewatch on her wrist said two o'clock, and she determined to turn her facehomewards as soon as she had taken this final glimpse.
The grey, snorting and sweating, stumbled up the slippery ascent. He wasplainly disgusted with his rider's tactics. They arrived upon the summit,and Anne brought him to a standstill. But though she still heard vagueshoutings below her the mist had increased so much in the few minutesthey had taken over the ascent that she could discern nothing. Her horsewas winded after the climb, however, and she remained motionless to givehim time to recover. The hubbub was dying away, and she surmised that thefox had led his pursuers out on the farther side of the woods. Sheshivered as the chill damp crept about her. A feeling of loneliness thatwas almost physical possessed her. She half wished that she had notforsaken the hunt after all.
Stay! Was she quite alone? Out of the clinging, ever-thickening curtainthere came sounds--the sounds of hoofs that struggled upwards, of ananimal's laboured breathing, of a man's voice that encouraged and sworealternately.
Her heart gave a sudden sharp throb. She knew that voice. Though she hadonly met the owner thereof three times she had come to know it ratherwell. Why had he elected to come that way, she asked herself? He almostseemed to be dogging her steps that day.
Impulse urged her to strike in another direction before he reachedher. She did not feel inclined for another _tete-a-tete_ with NapErrol just then.
She tapped the grey smartly with her switch, more smartly than sheintended, for he started and plunged. At the same instant there broke outimmediately below them a hubbub of yelling and baying that was like theshrieking of a hundred demons. It rose up through the fog as from themouth of an invisible pit, and drove the grey horse clean out of hissenses. He reared bolt upright in furious resistance to his rider's will,pawed the air wildly, and being brought down again by a sharp cut overthe ears, flung out his heels in sheer malice and bolted down the hill,straight for that pandemonium of men and hounds. If the pleasures of thehunt failed to attract his mistress, it was otherwise with him, and hemeant to have his fling in spite of her.
For the first few seconds of that mad flight Anne scarcely attempted tocheck his progress. She was taken by surprise and was forced to give allher attention to keeping in the saddle.
The pace was terrific. The scampering hoofs scarcely seemed to touch theground at all. Like shadows they fled through the rising mist. It struckchill upon her face as they swooped downwards. She seemed to be plunginginto an icy, bottomless abyss.
And then like a dagger, stabbing through every nerve, came fear, ahorror unspeakable of the depth she could not see, into which she wasbeing so furiously hurled. She was clinging to the saddle, but shemade a desperate effort to drag the animal round. It was quitefruitless. No woman's strength could have availed to check thatheadlong gallop. He swerved a little, a very little, in answer, thatwas all, and galloped madly on.
And then--al
l in a moment it came, a moment of culminating horror moreawful than anything she had ever before experienced--the ground fellsuddenly away from the racing feet. A confusion of many lights dancedbefore her eyes--a buzzing uproar filled her brain--she shot forwardinto space....