Chapter 10 - Rupert
Rupert
The second horse Rupert had procured managed a smart four miles per hour to start with, bringing them to a village not far outside Coventry in time for a light repast. The horse recovered itself well during their meal, and afterwards they set out once more on the road.
However, this second wind was not to last, for although this horse was in better condition than the first, it was much older, a fact Juliet pointed out to Rupert when they were both walking up a steep hill to give the horse a rest.
“How do you know?” Rupert, who was not a countryman, asked.
“His teeth,” Juliet replied. “Has no one ever taught you to look into a horse’s mouth before you buy it?” She shook her head as though in disbelief. “Didn’t you check?”
Rupert felt himself coloring. It was one thing to be in love with a girl, but to have her show one up was a little beyond the pale. He managed a smile. “You will have to show me how, when we are married.”
At the top of the hill they remounted into their vehicle and with Rupert a trifle stiff due to the insult to his masculine pride, continued on their way.
All went well, despite the steadily slowing speed of their horse and the fact that Juliet point-blank refused to let Rupert use the whip they’d been provided with, until, at around five in the evening with the spring sun sinking low in the sky, the wheel came off the pony trap.
Juliet and Rupert were vigorously precipitated into the ditch at the side of the road, which, this being only spring, was not entirely empty of water, and what water there was proved to be stagnant.
Unfortunately, Juliet ended up underneath Rupert, and was thus somewhat squashed into the mud at the bottom.
Once she’d regained her breath, she let out an angry wail. “My dress!” and gave Rupert a shove to one side as though she blamed him for this new accident that had befallen them.
Feeling more than a little beset by bad luck, Rupert managed to extricate himself from the ditch and help Juliet out of it. Their horse was still between the shafts, snacking on the roadside verge as though nothing had happened.
Rupert regarded the broken axle and wheel of their vehicle and knew it was beyond repair.
Juliet stamped her foot. “Now what are we going to do?” she wailed. “Look at me. I’m all wet and muddy. Look at my dress. Look at my boots. Look at my hair.” She held up the remains of a very battered bonnet that had come off in the crash and began to cry.
Oh no. For a moment Rupert had no idea what to do.
In none of his imaginings about a romantic flight north to Gretna Green had he ever thought to experience a wailing bride-to-be.
But he was made of sterner stuff than his friends in London might have thought.
He put his arms around Juliet and hugged her close, heedless of how dirty she was now making him.
He put a hand under her chin and lifted it.
“One day we’ll both laugh with our children about the time we eloped to get married and fell in a ditch, you’ll see. ”
However, if this was supposed to make her feel better about their predicament, it failed miserably. She stared into his eyes for a long moment, then proceeded to burst into floods of yet more tears.
Kindness not having worked, Rupert could see firmness was required. “Wait here while I unhitch the horse. Then you can ride it and I’ll lead it and we’ll go on to the next place that has an inn and spend the night there.”
To his surprise, this did indeed work where comforting had not.
She wiped her eyes with her dirty hands, something not guaranteed to make her look like someone an innkeeper would be happy to house, and nodded.
“Bareback? Astride? I’ve always wanted to do that but that horrid Theo says it’s not ladylike. It will be such an adventure.”
She gave him a watery smile.
Rupert hastened to put his plan into action, acutely aware that at this time of the year darkness fell early.
“Don’t forget my portmanteau,” his bride-to-be said, from the horse’s back.
He heaved it to his shoulder with some difficulty, wondering yet again what she could possibly have in it.
And off they set.