Free The Finishing School by Gail Godwin Page B

their land right next to the DeVane land? I saw myself, looking splendid on horseback, somehow running into
her.
    My mother got animated when I told her about the invitation. She dragged out her trunk and unpacked the riding clothes her parents had bought for Sweet Briar, unaware that she was planning to elope with my father instead. “I’ve hardly even worn these,” she said, “but now they might fit you.” She seemed so pleased about Ann Cristiana’s asking me that I felt selfish for not having come home with an invitation sooner.
    The jodhpur boots were a little roomy, but they stayed on when we strapped them tight. The jacket was way too big in the chest, even though it was the right length. But the brown twill jodhpurs fit perfectly, as if they had been made for me. “Thank goodness it’s so warm,” my mother said. “You can wear your yellow oxford cloth shirt without a jacket.” Then she suddenly frowned.
    “Oh Lord, Justin, haven’t we forgotten something?”
    “What?”
    “You can’t ride very well, honey. Remember those few times when I took you out to Mr. Eames’s stable? And how your horse was always stopping on the trail and Mr. Eames finally said to you, ‘Let him know who’s boss, Justin,’ and
you
said, ‘Oh, he already knows, sir.’ ”
    I didn’t remember saying that, I barely remembered those trail rides, but it was wonderful to see my mother laugh.
    “I expect I ought to have taken you there every weekend while you were still so young,” she mused, frowning again. “But that’s when Rivers and I were commuting back and forth from Charlottesville so he could go to school, and our weekends with you and Honey and Daddy were just so short.”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll keep my heels down and watch my posture and try to fool him about who’s boss.”
    “If it was me going over there,” said Jem, who had been overseeing my costuming with interest, “you know what I’d do?”
    “I hope you’d ask for a gentle horse,” said my mother, looking at me.
    “Well, I might do that,” said Jem. “But if it was me going over there in those jodhpurs, I’d just act like they were mine and I’d been riding since I was a
baby.
”
    Aunt Mona, coming home from work, heard our voices and poked her head around the door. “Why, if it isn’t Miz Scarlett,” she said when she saw me in the riding clothes.
    “Scarlett never wore jodhpurs,” said I.
    “Well, the effect is the same,” said my aunt. “You look like one of the privileged few, getting ready to ride off on your horse.”
    “That’s what I told her!” shouted Jem, for once agreeing with Aunt Mona. “She looks like she’s
always
ridden.”
    “Come in, Mona,” said my mother. “Justin’s been asked to go riding over at the Cristianas’. Do you know who they are?”
    “Oh, they’re fine. Mott was on the Volunteer Fire Squad with Abel Cristiana. He liked him. The Cristianas have been here forever, just like the DeVanes. Only they don’t put on airs like the DeVanes; they’re just simple farming types.”
    “Who are the DeVanes?” asked my mother.
    “All that’s
left
of them are a brother and sister who live in the old family house over on Old Clove. The brother is an awful man who used to teach Becky piano;
she
puts on a show of having been greater places and done greater things. But get your daughter to tell you about her: they’re great friends.”
    “That’s not so, Aunt Mona,” I said, feeling my face go hot, “I only met her that once.”
    “You never mentioned it to me, Justin,” said my mother.
    “I didn’t think you’d be interested.” Then, sensing that I had hurt her feelings, I added somewhat coldly, “It just wasn’t very important. She was just this woman I happened to meet when I was out riding my bike.”
    “Why is the man awful?” Jem wanted to know. “Has he done something bad?”
    “Well, he killed music for your cousin Becky,” said Aunt Mona, her feather cut