Elizabeth took several deep breaths.
“Now say with me, ‘I am not a crazed, fool gent who plans to jump over the tallest fence I can find.’”
Elizabeth giggled.
“You mustactuallysay it.”
“I am not a crazed, fool gent who plans to jump over the tallest fence I can find.” Elizabeth laughed again.
“Very good, Miss Bennet.” Mr. Brown nodded approvingly. “Now you must say this twenty more times — do not laugh. It is vital. Twenty times. And aloud so everyone can hear.”
To her great surprise, Elizabeth felt very little fear, and just a bit of eagerness when she approached Daisy again after she said that aloud so many times.
The horse was positioned by the mounting block, and Mr. Brown told her exactly where to place her leg and how to put her hand on the saddle to swing herself over into it, and then suddenly Elizabeth found herself, without having quite realized it was about to happen, sitting up very high on the horse.
Everyone looked smaller beneath her. Papa leaning against the fence of the paddock, Jane sitting on a chair that had been brought out for her, smiling in her general direction. Lydia and Kitty laughing with each other while talking. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiling warmly at her.
Elizabeth looked down and she felt a sudden moment of fear, but she then started repeating to herself, “I am not a crazy gentleman, I am not a crazy gentleman,” and surprisingly enough it worked.
“Very good, take the reins in hand. Hold them like this, the thumbs pointing upwards. Draw your back higher up. Sit straight, not hunched over like — very good, Miss Bennet. Like that. Your legs looser. Keep your foot pressing into the stirrup at the ball of the foot — yes, yes. Your back straight again, do not hunch. Sit up higher.”
“There is so much to remember.”
“One cannot become a good rider in a day, or a week, or even a month — the thumbs upwards with the reins. You must ride regularly, and receive correction continuously until you simply know by feel, as naturally as you know how to walk, what to do.”
This first lesson ended with Mr. Brown leading the horse in circles around the paddock, while he corrected Elizabeth each time she turned the hands holding the reins downwards, every time she sat back into the seat of the saddle too far, and every time she made a mistake in any of the other twenty matters that it seemed were necessary to ride properly.
Trying to remember everything and hold herself correctly felt so awkward, yet after only twenty minutes of riding, while Elizabeth felt sore from the hard saddle, and holding her legs in an unaccustomed position, she also kept closer to the desired posture without thought.
The mounting block was brought back out, and following Mr. Brown’s instructions she dismounted and was suddenly back on solid ground next to Daisy and the fence.
Her legs were shaky, and Elizabeth felt like laughing hysterically.
“Well, Miss Bennet, how did that agree with you?”
“I felt… almost safe.”
“You were almost safe.”
Now Elizabeth did laugh, she grinned widely. “Tomorrow again?”
“Aye, if that is what you wish — best to practice like this every day for at least a month. Not more than an hour and a half of riding in a day — but that is what will carve the proper motions into your spirit and body… like a chisel into stone.”
Suddenly, it was not for Darcy anymore — Elizabeth wanted to be able to ride, to overcome this limitation in herself for her own sake.
Chapter Twenty Two
Upon reaching Meryton in the late afternoon three days before Christmas, Darcy immediately turned the carriage down the road to Longbourn.
Greatly to his surprise that he found Elizabeth returning from a ride on the horse he’d purchased for her, with a groom riding directly behind, keeping a close eye on her. She startled when she saw him, but the mare had a phlegmatic temperament and did not flinch at the inexperienced rider.
By the time Darcy had made his way out of the carriage and settled himself onto his crutches, Elizabeth was stepping, with the help of the groom, onto the mounting block, and then down.
Elizabeth lithely ran up to him, the fabric of her brown riding skirt flapping around her legs. For a moment he thought she would throw her arms around him, but instead she stopped a bit back, and looked at him with a soft expression and wide eyes. Her hand reached out, as though it were out of her control to touch his chest.
“You are returned.” She bit her lip and looked down. “We expected you tomorrow.”
“The conditions were good, and we started early.”
