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diff --git a/2996-0.txt b/2996-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9b91019 --- /dev/null +++ b/2996-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4199 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid, by +Thomas Hardy + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid + + +Author: Thomas Hardy + + + +Release Date: May 2, 2015 [eBook #2996] +[This file was first posted on October 12, 2000] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF A +MILKMAID*** + + +Transcribed from the 1920 Macmillan and Co. _A Changed Man and Other +Tales_ edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF A MILKMAID. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +IT was half-past four o’clock (by the testimony of the land-surveyor, my +authority for the particulars of this story, a gentleman with the +faintest curve of humour on his lips); it was half-past four o’clock on a +May morning in the eighteen forties. A dense white fog hung over the +Valley of the Exe, ending against the hills on either side. + +But though nothing in the vale could be seen from higher ground, notes of +differing kinds gave pretty clear indications that bustling life was +going on there. This audible presence and visual absence of an active +scene had a peculiar effect above the fog level. Nature had laid a white +hand over the creatures ensconced within the vale, as a hand might be +laid over a nest of chirping birds. + +The noises that ascended through the pallid coverlid were perturbed +lowings, mingled with human voices in sharps and flats, and the bark of a +dog. These, followed by the slamming of a gate, explained as well as +eyesight could have done, to any inhabitant of the district, that +Dairyman Tucker’s under-milker was driving the cows from the meads into +the stalls. When a rougher accent joined in the vociferations of man and +beast, it would have been realized that the dairy-farmer himself had come +out to meet the cows, pail in hand, and white pinafore on; and when, +moreover, some women’s voices joined in the chorus, that the cows were +stalled and proceedings about to commence. + +A hush followed, the atmosphere being so stagnant that the milk could be +heard buzzing into the pails, together with occasional words of the +milkmaids and men. + +‘Don’t ye bide about long upon the road, Margery. You can be back again +by skimming-time.’ + +The rough voice of Dairyman Tucker was the vehicle of this remark. The +barton-gate slammed again, and in two or three minutes a something became +visible, rising out of the fog in that quarter. + +The shape revealed itself as that of a woman having a young and agile +gait. The colours and other details of her dress were then disclosed—a +bright pink cotton frock (because winter was over); a small woollen shawl +of shepherd’s plaid (because summer was not come); a white handkerchief +tied over her head-gear, because it was so foggy, so damp, and so early; +and a straw bonnet and ribbons peeping from under the handkerchief, +because it was likely to be a sunny May day. + +Her face was of the hereditary type among families down in these parts: +sweet in expression, perfect in hue, and somewhat irregular in feature. +Her eyes were of a liquid brown. On her arm she carried a withy basket, +in which lay several butter-rolls in a nest of wet cabbage-leaves. She +was the ‘Margery’ who had been told not to ‘bide about long upon the +road.’ + +She went on her way across the fields, sometimes above the fog, sometimes +below it, not much perplexed by its presence except when the track was so +indefinite that it ceased to be a guide to the next stile. The dampness +was such that innumerable earthworms lay in couples across the path till, +startled even by her light tread, they withdrew suddenly into their +holes. She kept clear of all trees. Why was that? There was no danger +of lightning on such a morning as this. But though the roads were dry +the fog had gathered in the boughs, causing them to set up such a +dripping as would go clean through the protecting handkerchief like +bullets, and spoil the ribbons beneath. The beech and ash were +particularly shunned, for they dripped more maliciously than any. It was +an instance of woman’s keen appreciativeness of nature’s moods and +peculiarities: a man crossing those fields might hardly have perceived +that the trees dripped at all. + +In less than an hour she had traversed a distance of four miles, and +arrived at a latticed cottage in a secluded spot. An elderly woman, +scarce awake, answered her knocking. Margery delivered up the butter, +and said, ‘How is granny this morning? I can’t stay to go up to her, but +tell her I have returned what we owed her.’ + +Her grandmother was no worse than usual: and receiving back the empty +basket the girl proceeded to carry out some intention which had not been +included in her orders. Instead of returning to the light labours of +skimming-time, she hastened on, her direction being towards a little +neighbouring town. Before, however, Margery had proceeded far, she met +the postman, laden to the neck with letter-bags, of which he had not yet +deposited one. + +‘Are the shops open yet, Samuel?’ she said. + +‘O no,’ replied that stooping pedestrian, not waiting to stand upright. +‘They won’t be open yet this hour, except the saddler and ironmonger and +little tacker-haired machine-man for the farm folk. They downs their +shutters at half-past six, then the baker’s at half-past seven, then the +draper’s at eight.’ + +‘O, the draper’s at eight.’ It was plain that Margery had wanted the +draper’s. + +The postman turned up a side-path, and the young girl, as though deciding +within herself that if she could not go shopping at once she might as +well get back for the skimming, retraced her steps. + +The public road home from this point was easy but devious. By far the +nearest way was by getting over a fence, and crossing the private grounds +of a picturesque old country-house, whose chimneys were just visible +through the trees. As the house had been shut up for many months, the +girl decided to take the straight cut. She pushed her way through the +laurel bushes, sheltering her bonnet with the shawl as an additional +safeguard, scrambled over an inner boundary, went along through more +shrubberies, and stood ready to emerge upon the open lawn. Before doing +so she looked around in the wary manner of a poacher. It was not the +first time that she had broken fence in her life; but somehow, and all of +a sudden, she had felt herself too near womanhood to indulge in such +practices with freedom. However, she moved forth, and the house-front +stared her in the face, at this higher level unobscured by fog. + +It was a building of the medium size, and unpretending, the façade being +of stone; and of the Italian elevation made familiar by Inigo Jones and +his school. There was a doorway to the lawn, standing at the head of a +flight of steps. The shutters of the house were closed, and the blinds +of the bedrooms drawn down. Her perception of the fact that no crusty +caretaker could see her from the windows led her at once to slacken her +pace, and stroll through the flower-beds coolly. A house unblinded is a +possible spy, and must be treated accordingly; a house with the shutters +together is an insensate heap of stone and mortar, to be faced with +indifference. + +On the other side of the house the greensward rose to an eminence, +whereon stood one of those curious summer shelters sometimes erected on +exposed points of view, called an all-the-year-round. In the present +case it consisted of four walls radiating from a centre like the arms of +a turnstile, with seats in each angle, so that whencesoever the wind +came, it was always possible to find a screened corner from which to +observe the landscape. + +The milkmaid’s trackless course led her up the hill and past this +erection. At ease as to being watched and scolded as an intruder, her +mind flew to other matters; till, at the moment when she was not a yard +from the shelter, she heard a foot or feet scraping on the gravel behind +it. Some one was in the all-the-year-round, apparently occupying the +seat on the other side; as was proved when, on turning, she saw an elbow, +a man’s elbow, projecting over the edge. + +Now the young woman did not much like the idea of going down the hill +under the eyes of this person, which she would have to do if she went on, +for as an intruder she was liable to be called back and questioned upon +her business there. Accordingly she crept softly up and sat in the seat +behind, intending to remain there until her companion should leave. + +This he by no means seemed in a hurry to do. What could possibly have +brought him there, what could detain him there, at six o’clock on a +morning of mist when there was nothing to be seen or enjoyed of the vale +beneath, puzzled her not a little. But he remained quite still, and +Margery grew impatient. She discerned the track of his feet in the dewy +grass, forming a line from the house steps, which announced that he was +an inhabitant and not a chance passer-by. At last she peeped round. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +A fine-framed dark-mustachioed gentleman, in dressing-gown and slippers, +was sitting there in the damp without a hat on. With one hand he was +tightly grasping his forehead, the other hung over his knee. The +attitude bespoke with sufficient clearness a mental condition of anguish. +He was quite a different being from any of the men to whom her eyes were +accustomed. She had never seen mustachios before, for they were not worn +by civilians in Lower Wessex at this date. His hands and his face were +white—to her view deadly white—and he heeded nothing outside his own +existence. There he remained as motionless as the bushes around him; +indeed, he scarcely seemed to breathe. + +Having imprudently advanced thus far, Margery’s wish was to get back +again in the same unseen manner; but in moving her foot for the purpose +it grated on the gravel. He started up with an air of bewilderment, and +slipped something into the pocket of his dressing-gown. She was almost +certain that it was a pistol. The pair stood looking blankly at each +other. + +‘My Gott, who are you?’ he asked sternly, and with not altogether an +English articulation. ‘What do you do here?’ + +Margery had already begun to be frightened at her boldness in invading +the lawn and pleasure-seat. The house had a master, and she had not +known of it. ‘My name is Margaret Tucker, sir,’ she said meekly. ‘My +father is Dairyman Tucker. We live at Silverthorn Dairy-house.’ + +‘What were you doing here at this hour of the morning?’ + +She told him, even to the fact that she had climbed over the fence. + +‘And what made you peep round at me?’ + +‘I saw your elbow, sir; and I wondered what you were doing?’ + +‘And what was I doing?’ + +‘Nothing. You had one hand on your forehead and the other on your knee. +I do hope you are not ill, sir, or in deep trouble?’ Margery had +sufficient tact to say nothing about the pistol. + +‘What difference would it make to you if I were ill or in trouble? You +don’t know me.’ + +She returned no answer, feeling that she might have taken a liberty in +expressing sympathy. But, looking furtively up at him, she discerned to +her surprise that he seemed affected by her humane wish, simply as it had +been expressed. She had scarcely conceived that such a tall dark man +could know what gentle feelings were. + +‘Well, I am much obliged to you for caring how I am,’ said he with a +faint smile and an affected lightness of manner which, even to her, only +rendered more apparent the gloom beneath. ‘I have not slept this past +night. I suffer from sleeplessness. Probably you do not.’ + +Margery laughed a little, and he glanced with interest at the comely +picture she presented; her fresh face, brown hair, candid eyes, +unpractised manner, country dress, pink hands, empty wicker-basket, and +the handkerchief over her bonnet. + +‘Well,’ he said, after his scrutiny, ‘I need hardly have asked such a +question of one who is Nature’s own image . . . Ah, but my good little +friend,’ he added, recurring to his bitter tone and sitting wearily down, +‘you don’t know what great clouds can hang over some people’s lives, and +what cowards some men are in face of them. To escape themselves they +travel, take picturesque houses, and engage in country sports. But here +it is so dreary, and the fog was horrible this morning!’ + +‘Why, this is only the pride of the morning!’ said Margery. ‘By-and-by +it will be a beautiful day.’ + +She was going on her way forthwith; but he detained her—detained her with +words, talking on every innocent little subject he could think of. He +had an object in keeping her there more serious than his words would +imply. It was as if he feared to be left alone. + +While they still stood, the misty figure of the postman, whom Margery had +left a quarter of an hour earlier to follow his sinuous course, crossed +the grounds below them on his way to the house. Signifying to Margery by +a wave of his hand that she was to step back out of sight, in the hinder +angle of the shelter, the gentleman beckoned to the postman to bring the +bag to where he stood. The man did so, and again resumed his journey. + +The stranger unlocked the bag and threw it on the seat, having taken one +letter from within. This he read attentively, and his countenance +changed. + +The change was almost phantasmagorial, as if the sun had burst through +the fog upon that face: it became clear, bright, almost radiant. Yet it +was but a change that may take place in the commonest human being, +provided his countenance be not too wooden, or his artifice have not +grown to second nature. He turned to Margery, who was again edging off, +and, seizing her hand, appeared as though he were about to embrace her. +Checking his impulse, he said, ‘My guardian child—my good friend—you have +saved me!’ + +‘What from?’ she ventured to ask. + +‘That you may never know.’ + +She thought of the weapon, and guessed that the letter he had just +received had effected this change in his mood, but made no observation +till he went on to say, ‘What did you tell me was your name, dear girl?’ + +She repeated her name. + +‘Margaret Tucker.’ He stooped, and pressed her hand. ‘Sit down for a +moment—one moment,’ he said, pointing to the end of the seat, and taking +the extremest further end for himself, not to discompose her. She sat +down. + +‘It is to ask a question,’ he went on, ‘and there must be confidence +between us. You have saved me from an act of madness! What can I do for +you?’ + +‘Nothing, sir.’ + +‘Nothing?’ + +‘Father is very well off, and we don’t want anything.’ + +‘But there must be some service I can render, some kindness, some votive +offering which I could make, and so imprint on your memory as long as you +live that I am not an ungrateful man?’ + +‘Why should you be grateful to me, sir?’ + +He shook his head. ‘Some things are best left unspoken. Now think. +What would you like to have best in the world?’ + +Margery made a pretence of reflecting—then fell to reflecting seriously; +but the negative was ultimately as undisturbed as ever: she could not +decide on anything she would like best in the world; it was too +difficult, too sudden. + +‘Very well—don’t hurry yourself. Think it over all day. I ride this +afternoon. You live—where?’ + +‘Silverthorn Dairy-house.’ + +‘I will ride that way homeward this evening. Do you consider by eight +o’clock what little article, what little treat, you would most like of +any.’ + +‘I will, sir,’ said Margery, now warming up to the idea. ‘Where shall I +meet you? Or will you call at the house, sir?’ + +‘Ah—no. I should not wish the circumstances known out of which our +acquaintance rose. It would be more proper—but no.’ + +Margery, too, seemed rather anxious that he should not call. ‘I could +come out, sir,’ she said. ‘My father is odd-tempered, and perhaps—’ + +It was agreed that she should look over a stile at the top of her +father’s garden, and that he should ride along a bridle-path outside, to +receive her answer. ‘Margery,’ said the gentleman in conclusion, ‘now +that you have discovered me under ghastly conditions, are you going to +reveal them, and make me an object for the gossip of the curious?’ + +‘No, no, sir!’ she replied earnestly. ‘Why should I do that?’ + +‘You will never tell?’ + +‘Never, never will I tell what has happened here this morning.’ + +‘Neither to your father, nor to your friends, nor to any one?’ + +‘To no one at all,’ she said. + +‘It is sufficient,’ he answered. ‘You mean what you say, my dear maiden. +Now you want to leave me. Good-bye!’ + +She descended the hill, walking with some awkwardness; for she felt the +stranger’s eyes were upon her till the fog had enveloped her from his +gaze. She took no notice now of the dripping from the trees; she was +lost in thought on other things. Had she saved this handsome, +melancholy, sleepless, foreign gentleman who had had a trouble on his +mind till the letter came? What had he been going to do? Margery could +guess that he had meditated death at his own hand. Strange as the +incident had been in itself; to her it had seemed stranger even than it +was. Contrasting colours heighten each other by being juxtaposed; it is +the same with contrasting lives. + +Reaching the opposite side of the park there appeared before her for the +third time that little old man, the foot-post. As the turnpike-road ran, +the postman’s beat was twelve miles a day; six miles out from the town, +and six miles back at night. But what with zigzags, devious ways, +offsets to country seats, curves to farms, looped courses, and triangles +to outlying hamlets, the ground actually covered by him was nearer +one-and-twenty miles. Hence it was that Margery, who had come straight, +was still abreast of him, despite her long pause. + +The weighty sense that she was mixed up in a tragical secret with an +unknown and handsome stranger prevented her joining very readily in chat +with the postman for some time. But a keen interest in her adventure +caused her to respond at once when the bowed man of mails said, ‘You hit +athwart the grounds of Mount Lodge, Miss Margery, or you wouldn’t ha’ met +me here. Well, somebody hey took the old place at last.’ + +In acknowledging her route Margery brought herself to ask who the new +gentleman might be. + +‘Guide the girl’s heart! What! don’t she know? And yet how should +ye—he’s only just a-come.—Well, nominal, he’s a fishing gentleman, come +for the summer only. But, more to the subject, he’s a foreign noble +that’s lived in England so long as to be without any true country: some +of his letters call him Baron, some Squire, so that ’a must be born to +something that can’t be earned by elbow-grease and Christian conduct. He +was out this morning a-watching the fog. “Postman,” ’a said, +“good-morning: give me the bag.” O, yes, ’a’s a civil genteel nobleman +enough.’ + +‘Took the house for fishing, did he?’ + +‘That’s what they say, and as it can be for nothing else I suppose it’s +true. But, in final, his health’s not good, ’a b’lieve; he’s been living +too rithe. The London smoke got into his wyndpipe, till ’a couldn’t eat. +However, I shouldn’t mind having the run of his kitchen.’ + +‘And what is his name?’ + +‘Ah—there you have me! ’Tis a name no man’s tongue can tell, or even +woman’s, except by pen-and-ink and good scholarship. It begins with X, +and who, without the machinery of a clock in’s inside, can speak that? +But here ’tis—from his letters.’ The postman with his walking-stick +wrote upon the ground, + + ‘BARON VON XANTEN’ + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +The day, as she had prognosticated, turned out fine; for weather-wisdom +was imbibed with their milk-sops by the children of the Exe Vale. The +impending meeting excited Margery, and she performed her duties in her +father’s house with mechanical unconsciousness. + +Milking, skimming, cheesemaking were done. Her father was asleep in the +settle, the milkmen and maids were gone home to their cottages, and the +clock showed a quarter to eight. She dressed herself with care, went to +the top of the garden, and looked over the stile. The view was eastward, +and a great moon hung before her in a sky which had not a cloud. Nothing +was moving except on the minutest scale, and she remained leaning over, +the night-hawk sounding his croud from the bough of an isolated tree on +the open hill side. + +Here Margery waited till the appointed time had passed by three-quarters +of an hour; but no Baron came. She had been full of an idea, and her +heart sank with disappointment. Then at last the pacing of a horse +became audible on the soft path without, leading up from the water-meads, +simultaneously with which she beheld the form of the stranger, riding +home, as he had said. + +The moonlight so flooded her face as to make her very conspicuous in the +garden-gap. ‘Ah my maiden—what is your name—Margery!’ he said. ‘How +came you here? But of course I remember—we were to meet. And it was to +be at eight—_proh pudor_!—I have kept you waiting!’ + +‘It doesn’t matter, sir. I’ve thought of something.’ + +‘Thought of something?’ + +‘Yes, sir. You said this morning that I was to think what I would like +best in the world, and I have made up my mind.’ + +‘I did say so—to be sure I did,’ he replied, collecting his thoughts. ‘I +remember to have had good reason for gratitude to you.’ He placed his +hand to his brow, and in a minute alighted, and came up to her with the +bridle in his hand. ‘I was to give you a treat or present, and you could +not think of one. Now you have done so. Let me hear what it is, and +I’ll be as good as my word.’ + +‘To go to the Yeomanry Ball that’s to be given this month.’ + +‘The Yeomanry Ball—Yeomanry Ball?’ he murmured, as if, of all requests in +the world, this was what he had least expected. ‘Where is what you call +the Yeomanry Ball?’ + +‘At Exonbury.’ + +‘Have you ever been to it before?’ + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘Or to any ball?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘But did I not say a gift—a present?’ + +‘Or a treat?’ + +‘Ah, yes, or a treat,’ he echoed, with the air of one who finds himself +in a slight fix. ‘But with whom would you propose to go?’ + +‘I don’t know. I have not thought of that yet.’ + +‘You have no friend who could take you, even if I got you an invitation?’ + +Margery looked at the moon. ‘No one who can dance,’ she said; adding, +with hesitation, ‘I was thinking that perhaps—’ + +‘But, my dear Margery,’ he said, stopping her, as if he half-divined what +her simple dream of a cavalier had been; ‘it is very odd that you can +think of nothing else than going to a Yeomanry Ball. Think again. You +are sure there is nothing else?’ + +‘Quite sure, sir,’ she decisively answered. At first nobody would have +noticed in that pretty young face any sign of decision; yet it was +discoverable. The mouth, though soft, was firm in line; the eyebrows +were distinct, and extended near to each other. ‘I have thought of it +all day,’ she continued, sadly. ‘Still, sir, if you are sorry you +offered me anything, I can let you off.’ + +‘Sorry?—Certainly not, Margery,’ be said, rather nettled. ‘I’ll show you +that whatever hopes I have raised in your breast I am honourable enough +to gratify. If it lies in my power,’ he added with sudden firmness, ‘you +_shall_ go to the Yeomanry Ball. In what building is it to be held?’ + +‘In the Assembly Rooms.’ + +‘And would you be likely to be recognized there? Do you know many +people?’ + +‘Not many, sir. None, I may say. I know nobody who goes to balls.’ + +‘Ah, well; you must go, since you wish it; and if there is no other way +of getting over the difficulty of having nobody to take you, I’ll take +you myself. Would you like me to do so? I can dance.’ + +‘O, yes, sir; I know that, and I thought you might offer to do it. But +would you bring me back again?’ + +‘Of course I’ll bring you back. But, by-the-bye, can _you_ dance?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘What?’ + +‘Reels, and jigs, and country-dances like the New-Rigged-Ship, and +Follow-my-Lover, and Haste-to-the-Wedding, and the College Hornpipe, and +the Favourite Quickstep, and Captain White’s dance.’ + +‘A very good list—a very good! but unluckily I fear they don’t dance any +of those now. But if you have the instinct we may soon cure your +ignorance. Let me see you dance a moment.’ + +She stood out into the garden-path, the stile being still between them, +and seizing a side of her skirt with each hand, performed the movements +which are even yet far from uncommon in the dances of the villagers of +merry England. But her motions, though graceful, were not precisely +those which appear in the figures of a modern ball-room. + +‘Well, my good friend, it is a very pretty sight,’ he said, warming up to +the proceedings. ‘But you dance too well—you dance all over your +person—and that’s too thorough a way for the present day. I should say +it was exactly how they danced in the time of your poet Chaucer; but as +people don’t dance like it now, we must consider. First I must inquire +more about this ball, and then I must see you again.’ + +‘If it is a great trouble to you, sir, I—’ + +‘O no, no. I will think it over. So far so good.’ + +The Baron mentioned an evening and an hour when he would be passing that +way again; then mounted his horse and rode away. + +On the next occasion, which was just when the sun was changing places +with the moon as an illuminator of Silverthorn Dairy, she found him at +the spot before her, and unencumbered by a horse. The melancholy that +had so weighed him down at their first interview, and had been +perceptible at their second, had quite disappeared. He pressed her right +hand between both his own across the stile. + +‘My good maiden, Gott bless you!’ said he warmly. ‘I cannot help +thinking of that morning! I was too much over-shadowed at first to take +in the whole force of it. You do not know all; but your presence was a +miraculous intervention. Now to more cheerful matters. I have a great +deal to tell—that is, if your wish about the ball be still the same?’ + +‘O yes, sir—if you don’t object.’ + +‘Never think of my objecting. What I have found out is something which +simplifies matters amazingly. In addition to your Yeomanry Ball at +Exonbury, there is also to be one in the next county about the same time. +This ball is not to be held at the Town Hall of the county-town as usual, +but at Lord Toneborough’s, who is colonel of the regiment, and who, I +suppose, wishes to please the yeomen because his brother is going to +stand for the county. Now I find I could take you there very well, and +the great advantage of that ball over the Yeomanry Ball in this county +is, that there you would be absolutely unknown, and I also. But do you +prefer your own neighbourhood?’ + +‘O no, sir. It is a ball I long to see—I don’t know what it is like; it +does not matter where.’ + +‘Good. Then I shall be able to make much more of you there, where there +is no possibility of recognition. That being settled, the next thing is +the dancing. Now reels and such things do not do. For think of +this—there is a new dance at Almack’s and everywhere else, over which the +world has gone crazy.’ + +‘How dreadful!’ + +‘Ah—but that is a mere expression—gone mad. It is really an ancient +Scythian dance; but, such is the power of fashion, that, having once been +adopted by Society, this dance has made the tour of the Continent in one +season.’ + +‘What is its name, sir?’ + +‘The polka. Young people, who always dance, are ecstatic about it, and +old people, who have not danced for years, have begun to dance again, on +its account. All share the excitement. It arrived in London only some +few months ago—it is now all over the country. Now this is your +opportunity, my good Margery. To learn this one dance will be enough. +They will dance scarce anything else at that ball. While, to crown all, +it is the easiest dance in the world, and as I know it quite well I can +practise you in the step. Suppose we try?’ + +Margery showed some hesitation before crossing the stile: it was a +Rubicon in more ways than one. But the curious reverence which was +stealing over her for all that this stranger said and did was too much +for prudence. She crossed the stile. + +Withdrawing with her to a nook where two high hedges met, and where the +grass was elastic and dry, he lightly rested his arm on her waist, and +practised with her the new step of fascination. Instead of music he +whispered numbers, and she, as may be supposed, showed no slight aptness +in following his instructions. Thus they moved round together, the +moon-shadows from the twigs racing over their forms as they turned. + +The interview lasted about half an hour. Then he somewhat abruptly +handed her over the stile and stood looking at her from the other side. + +‘Well,’ he murmured, ‘what has come to pass is strange! My whole +business after this will be to recover my right mind!’ + +Margery always declared that there seemed to be some power in the +stranger that was more than human, something magical and compulsory, when +he seized her and gently trotted her round. But lingering emotions may +have led her memory to play pranks with the scene, and her vivid +imagination at that youthful age must be taken into account in believing +her. However, there is no doubt that the stranger, whoever he might be, +and whatever his powers, taught her the elements of modern dancing at a +certain interview by moonlight at the top of her father’s garden, as was +proved by her possession of knowledge on the subject that could have been +acquired in no other way. + +His was of the first rank of commanding figures, she was one of the most +agile of milkmaids, and to casual view it would have seemed all of a +piece with Nature’s doings that things should go on thus. But there was +another side to the case; and whether the strange gentleman were a wild +olive tree, or not, it was questionable if the acquaintance would lead to +happiness. ‘A fleeting romance and a possible calamity;’ thus it might +have been summed up by the practical. + +Margery was in Paradise; and yet she was not at this date distinctly in +love with the stranger. What she felt was something more mysterious, +more of the nature of veneration. As he looked at her across the stile +she spoke timidly, on a subject which had apparently occupied her long. + +‘I ought to have a ball-dress, ought I not, sir?’ + +‘Certainly. And you shall have a ball-dress.’ + +‘Really?’ + +‘No doubt of it. I won’t do things by halves for my best friend. I have +thought of the ball-dress, and of other things also.’ + +‘And is my dancing good enough?’ + +‘Quite—quite.’ He paused, lapsed into thought, and looked at her. +‘Margery,’ he said, ‘do you trust yourself unreservedly to me?’ + +‘O yes, sir,’ she replied brightly; ‘if I am not too much trouble: if I +am good enough to be seen in your society.’ + +The Baron laughed in a peculiar way. ‘Really, I think you may assume as +much as that.—However, to business. The ball is on the twenty-fifth, +that is next Thursday week; and the only difficulty about the dress is +the size. Suppose you lend me this?’ And he touched her on the shoulder +to signify a tight little jacket she wore. + +Margery was all obedience. She took it off and handed it to him. The +Baron rolled and compressed it with all his force till it was about as +large as an apple-dumpling, and put it into his pocket. + +‘The next thing,’ he said, ‘is about getting the consent of your friends +to your going. Have you thought of this?’ + +‘There is only my father. I can tell him I am invited to a party, and I +don’t think he’ll mind. Though I would rather not tell him.’ + +‘But it strikes me that you must inform him something of what you intend. +I would strongly advise you to do so.’ He spoke as if rather perplexed +as to the probable custom of the English peasantry in such matters, and +added, ‘However, it is for you to decide. I know nothing of the +circumstances. As to getting to the ball, the plan I have arranged is +this. The direction to Lord Toneborough’s being the other way from my +house, you must meet me at Three-Walks-End—in Chillington Wood, two miles +or more from here. You know the place? Good. By meeting there we shall +save five or six miles of journey—a consideration, as it is a long way. +Now, for the last time: are you still firm in your wish for this +particular treat and no other? It is not too late to give it up. Cannot +you think of something else—something better—some useful household +articles you require?’ + +Margery’s countenance, which before had been beaming with expectation, +lost its brightness: her lips became close, and her voice broken. ‘You +have offered to take me, and now—’ + +‘No, no, no,’ he said, patting her cheek. ‘We will not think of anything +else. You shall go.’ + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +But whether the Baron, in naming such a distant spot for the rendezvous, +was in hope she might fail him, and so relieve him after all of his +undertaking, cannot be said; though it might have been strongly suspected +from his manner that he had no great zest for the responsibility of +escorting her. + +But he little knew the firmness of the young woman he had to deal with. +She was one of those soft natures whose power of adhesiveness to an +acquired idea seems to be one of the special attributes of that softness. +To go to a ball with this mysterious personage of romance was her ardent +desire and aim; and none the less in that she trembled with fear and +excitement at her position in so aiming. She felt the deepest awe, +tenderness, and humility towards the Baron of the strange name; and yet +she was prepared to stick to her point. + +Thus it was that the afternoon of the eventful day found Margery trudging +her way up the slopes from the vale to the place of appointment. She +walked to the music of innumerable birds, which increased as she drew +away from the open meads towards the groves. + +She had overcome all difficulties. After thinking out the question of +telling or not telling her father, she had decided that to tell him was +to be forbidden to go. Her contrivance therefore was this: to leave home +this evening on a visit to her invalid grandmother, who lived not far +from the Baron’s house; but not to arrive at her grandmother’s till +breakfast-time next morning. Who would suspect an intercalated +experience of twelve hours with the Baron at a ball? That this piece of +deception was indefensible she afterwards owned readily enough; but she +did not stop to think of it then. + +It was sunset within Chillington Wood by the time she reached +Three-Walks-End—the converging point of radiating trackways, now floored +with a carpet of matted grass, which had never known other scythes than +the teeth of rabbits and hares. The twitter overhead had ceased, except +from a few braver and larger birds, including the cuckoo, who did not +fear night at this pleasant time of year. Nobody seemed to be on the +spot when she first drew near, but no sooner did Margery stand at the +intersection of the roads than a slight crashing became audible, and her +patron appeared. He was so transfigured in dress that she scarcely knew +him. Under a light great-coat, which was flung open, instead of his +ordinary clothes he wore a suit of thin black cloth, an open waistcoat +with a frill all down his shirt-front, a white tie, shining boots, no +thicker than a glove, a coat that made him look like a bird, and a hat +that seemed as if it would open and shut like an accordion. + +‘I am dressed for the ball—nothing worse,’ he said, drily smiling. ‘So +will you be soon.’ + +‘Why did you choose this place for our meeting, sir?’ she asked, looking +around and acquiring confidence. + +‘Why did I choose it? Well, because in riding past one day I observed a +large hollow tree close by here, and it occurred to me when I was last +with you that this would be useful for our purpose. Have you told your +father?’ + +‘I have not yet told him, sir.’ + +‘That’s very bad of you, Margery. How have you arranged it, then?’ + +She briefly related her plan, on which he made no comment, but, taking +her by the hand as if she were a little child, he led her through the +undergrowth to a spot where the trees were older, and standing at wider +distances. Among them was the tree he had spoken of—an elm; huge, +hollow, distorted, and headless, with a rift in its side. + +‘Now go inside,’ he said, ‘before it gets any darker. You will find +there everything you want. At any rate, if you do not you must do +without it. I’ll keep watch; and don’t be longer than you can help to +be.’ + +‘What am I to do, sir?’ asked the puzzled maiden. + +‘Go inside, and you will see. When you are ready wave your handkerchief +at that hole.’ + +She stooped into the opening. The cavity within the tree formed a lofty +circular apartment, four or five feet in diameter, to which daylight +entered at the top, and also through a round hole about six feet from the +ground, marking the spot at which a limb had been amputated in the tree’s +prime. The decayed wood of cinnamon-brown, forming the inner surface of +the tree, and the warm evening glow, reflected in at the top, suffused +the cavity with a faint mellow radiance. + +But Margery had hardly given herself time to heed these things. Her eye +had been caught by objects of quite another quality. A large white +oblong paper box lay against the inside of the tree; over it, on a +splinter, hung a small oval looking-glass. + +Margery seized the idea in a moment. She pressed through the rift into +the tree, lifted the cover of the box, and, behold, there was disclosed +within a lovely white apparition in a somewhat flattened state. It was +the ball-dress. + +This marvel of art was, briefly, a sort of heavenly cobweb. It was a +gossamer texture of precious manufacture, artistically festooned in a +dozen flounces or more. + +Margery lifted it, and could hardly refrain from kissing it. Had any one +told her before this moment that such a dress could exist, she would have +said, ‘No; it’s impossible!’ She drew back, went forward, flushed, +laughed, raised her hands. To say that the maker of that dress had been +an individual of talent was simply understatement: he was a genius, and +she sunned herself in the rays of his creation. + +She then remembered that her friend without had told her to make haste, +and she spasmodically proceeded to array herself. In removing the dress +she found satin slippers, gloves, a handkerchief nearly all lace, a fan, +and even flowers for the hair. ‘O, how could he think of it!’ she said, +clasping her hands and almost crying with agitation. ‘And the glass—how +good of him!’ + +Everything was so well prepared, that to clothe herself in these garments +was a matter of ease. In a quarter of an hour she was ready, even to +shoes and gloves. But what led her more than anything else into +admiration of the Baron’s foresight was the discovery that there were +half-a-dozen pairs each of shoes and gloves, of varying sizes, out of +which she selected a fit. + +Margery glanced at herself in the mirror, or at as much as she could see +of herself: the image presented was superb. Then she hastily rolled up +her old dress, put it in the box, and thrust the latter on a ledge as +high as she could reach. Standing on tiptoe, she waved the handkerchief +through the upper aperture, and bent to the rift to go out. + +But what a trouble stared her in the face. The dress was so airy, so +fantastical, and so extensive, that to get out in her new clothes by the +rift which had admitted her in her old ones was an impossibility. She +heard the Baron’s steps crackling over the dead sticks and leaves. + +‘O, sir!’ she began in despair. + +‘What—can’t you dress yourself?’ he inquired from the back of the trunk. + +‘Yes; but I can’t get out of this dreadful tree!’ + +He came round to the opening, stooped, and looked in. ‘It is obvious +that you cannot,’ he said, taking in her compass at a glance; and adding +to himself; ‘Charming! who would have thought that clothes could do so +much!—Wait a minute, my little maid: I have it!’ he said more loudly. + +With all his might he kicked at the sides of the rift, and by that means +broke away several pieces of the rotten touchwood. But, being thinly +armed about the feet, he abandoned that process, and went for a fallen +branch which lay near. By using the large end as a lever, he tore away +pieces of the wooden shell which enshrouded Margery and all her +loveliness, till the aperture was large enough for her to pass without +tearing her dress. She breathed her relief: the silly girl had begun to +fear that she would not get to the ball after all. + +He carefully wrapped round her a cloak he had brought with him: it was +hooded, and of a length which covered her to the heels. + +‘The carriage is waiting down the other path,’ he said, and gave her his +arm. A short trudge over the soft dry leaves brought them to the place +indicated. + +There stood the brougham, the horses, the coachman, all as still as if +they were growing on the spot, like the trees. Margery’s eyes rose with +some timidity to the coachman’s figure. + +‘You need not mind him,’ said the Baron. ‘He is a foreigner, and heeds +nothing.’ + +In the space of a short minute she was handed inside; the Baron buttoned +up his overcoat, and surprised her by mounting with the coachman. The +carriage moved off silently over the long grass of the vista, the shadows +deepening to black as they proceeded. Darker and darker grew the night +as they rolled on; the neighbourhood familiar to Margery was soon left +behind, and she had not the remotest idea of the direction they were +taking. The stars blinked out, the coachman lit his lamps, and they +bowled on again. + +In the course of an hour and a half they arrived at a small town, where +they pulled up at the chief inn, and changed horses; all being done so +readily that their advent had plainly been expected. The journey was +resumed immediately. Her companion never descended to speak to her; +whenever she looked out there he sat upright on his perch, with the mien +of a person who had a difficult duty to perform, and who meant to perform +it properly at all costs. But Margery could not help feeling a certain +dread at her situation—almost, indeed, a wish that she had not come. +Once or twice she thought, ‘Suppose he is a wicked man, who is taking me +off to a foreign country, and will never bring me home again.’ + +But her characteristic persistence in an original idea sustained her +against these misgivings except at odd moments. One incident in +particular had given her confidence in her escort: she had seen a tear in +his eye when she expressed her sorrow for his troubles. He may have +divined that her thoughts would take an uneasy turn, for when they +stopped for a moment in ascending a hill he came to the window. ‘Are you +tired, Margery?’ he asked kindly. + +‘No, sir.’ + +‘Are you afraid?’ + +‘N—no, sir. But it is a long way.’ + +‘We are almost there,’ he answered. ‘And now, Margery,’ he said in a +lower tone, ‘I must tell you a secret. I have obtained this invitation +in a peculiar way. I thought it best for your sake not to come in my own +name, and this is how I have managed. A man in this county, for whom I +have lately done a service, one whom I can trust, and who is personally +as unknown here as you and I, has (privately) transferred his card of +invitation to me. So that we go under his name. I explain this that you +may not say anything imprudent by accident. Keep your ears open and be +cautious.’ Having said this the Baron retreated again to his place. + +‘Then he is a wicked man after all!’ she said to herself; ‘for he is +going under a false name.’ But she soon had the temerity not to mind it: +wickedness of that sort was the one ingredient required just now to +finish him off as a hero in her eyes. + +They descended a hill, passed a lodge, then up an avenue; and presently +there beamed upon them the light from other carriages, drawn up in a +file, which moved on by degrees; and at last they halted before a large +arched doorway, round which a group of people stood. + +‘We are among the latest arrivals, on account of the distance,’ said the +Baron, reappearing. ‘But never mind; there are three hours at least for +your enjoyment.’ + +The steps were promptly flung down, and they alighted. The steam from +the flanks of their swarthy steeds, as they seemed to her, ascended to +the parapet of the porch, and from their nostrils the hot breath jetted +forth like smoke out of volcanoes, attracting the attention of all. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +The bewildered Margery was led by the Baron up the steps to the interior +of the house, whence the sounds of music and dancing were already +proceeding. The tones were strange. At every fourth beat a deep and +mighty note throbbed through the air, reaching Margery’s soul with all +the force of a blow. + +‘What is that powerful tune, sir—I have never heard anything like it?’ +she said. + +‘The Drum Polka,’ answered the Baron. ‘The strange dance I spoke of and +that we practised—introduced from my country and other parts of the +continent.’ + +Her surprise was not lessened when, at the entrance to the ballroom, she +heard the names of her conductor and herself announced as ‘Mr. and Miss +Brown.’ + +However, nobody seemed to take any notice of the announcement, the room +beyond being in a perfect turmoil of gaiety, and Margery’s consternation +at sailing under false colours subsided. At the same moment she observed +awaiting them a handsome, dark-haired, rather _petite_ lady in +cream-coloured satin. ‘Who is she?’ asked Margery of the Baron. + +‘She is the lady of the mansion,’ he whispered. ‘She is the wife of a +peer of the realm, the daughter of a marquis, has five Christian names; +and hardly ever speaks to commoners, except for political purposes.’ + +‘How divine—what joy to be here!’ murmured Margery, as she contemplated +the diamonds that flashed from the head of her ladyship, who was just +inside the ball-room door, in front of a little gilded chair, upon which +she sat in the intervals between one arrival and another. She had come +down from London at great inconvenience to herself; openly to promote +this entertainment. + +As Mr. and Miss Brown expressed absolutely no meaning to Lady Toneborough +(for there were three Browns already present in this rather mixed +assembly), and as there was possibly a slight awkwardness in poor +Margery’s manner, Lady Toneborough touched their hands lightly with the +tips of her long gloves, said, ‘How d’ye do,’ and turned round for more +comers. + +‘Ah, if she only knew we were a rich Baron and his friend, and not Mr. +and Miss Brown at all, she wouldn’t receive us like that, would she?’ +whispered Margery confidentially. + +‘Indeed, she wouldn’t!’ drily said the Baron. ‘Now let us drop into the +dance at once; some of the people here, you see, dance much worse than +you.’ + +Almost before she was aware she had obeyed his mysterious influence, by +giving him one hand, placing the other upon his shoulder, and swinging +with him round the room to the steps she had learnt on the sward. + +At the first gaze the apartment had seemed to her to be floored with +black ice; the figures of the dancers appearing upon it upside down. At +last she realized that it was highly-polished oak, but she was none the +less afraid to move. + +‘I am afraid of falling down,’ she said. + +‘Lean on me; you will soon get used to it,’ he replied. ‘You have no +nails in your shoes now, dear.’ + +His words, like all his words to her, were quite true. She found it +amazingly easy in a brief space of time. The floor, far from hindering +her, was a positive assistance to one of her natural agility and +litheness. Moreover, her marvellous dress of twelve flounces inspired +her as nothing else could have done. Externally a new creature, she was +prompted to new deeds. To feel as well-dressed as the other women around +her is to set any woman at her ease, whencesoever she may have come: to +feel much better dressed is to add radiance to that ease. + +Her prophet’s statement on the popularity of the polka at this juncture +was amply borne out. It was among the first seasons of its general +adoption in country houses; the enthusiasm it excited to-night was beyond +description, and scarcely credible to the youth of the present day. A +new motive power had been introduced into the world of poesy—the polka, +as a counterpoise to the new motive power that had been introduced into +the world of prose—steam. + +Twenty finished musicians sat in the music gallery at the end, with +romantic mop-heads of raven hair, under which their faces and eyes shone +like fire under coals. + +The nature and object of the ball had led to its being very inclusive. +Every rank was there, from the peer to the smallest yeoman, and Margery +got on exceedingly well, particularly when the recuperative powers of +supper had banished the fatigue of her long drive. + +Sometimes she heard people saying, ‘Who are they?—brother and +sister—father and daughter? And never dancing except with each other—how +odd?’ But of this she took no notice. + +When not dancing the watchful Baron took her through the drawing-rooms +and picture-galleries adjoining, which to-night were thrown open like the +rest of the house; and there, ensconcing her in some curtained nook, he +drew her attention to scrap-books, prints, and albums, and left her to +amuse herself with turning them over till the dance in which she was +practised should again be called. Margery would much have preferred to +roam about during these intervals; but the words of the Baron were law, +and as he commanded so she acted. In such alternations the evening +winged away; till at last came the gloomy words, ‘Margery, our time is +up.’ + +‘One more—only one!’ she coaxed, for the longer they stayed the more +freely and gaily moved the dance. This entreaty he granted; but on her +asking for yet another, he was inexorable. ‘No,’ he said. ‘We have a +long way to go.’ + +Then she bade adieu to the wondrous scene, looking over her shoulder as +they withdrew from the hall; and in a few minutes she was cloaked and in +the carriage. The Baron mounted to his seat on the box, where she saw +him light a cigar; they plunged under the trees, and she leant back, and +gave herself up to contemplate the images that filled her brain. The +natural result followed: she fell asleep. + +She did not awake till they stopped to change horses; when she saw +against the stars the Baron sitting as erect as ever. ‘He watches like +the Angel Gabriel, when all the world is asleep!’ she thought. + +With the resumption of motion she slept again, and knew no more till he +touched her hand and said, ‘Our journey is done—we are in Chillington +Wood.’ + +It was almost daylight. Margery scarcely knew herself to be awake till +she was out of the carriage and standing beside the Baron, who, having +told the coachman to drive on to a certain point indicated, turned to +her. + +‘Now,’ he said, smiling, ‘run across to the hollow tree; you know where +it is. I’ll wait as before, while you perform the reverse operation to +that you did last night.’ She took no heed of the path now, nor regarded +whether her pretty slippers became scratched by the brambles or no. A +walk of a few steps brought her to the particular tree which she had left +about nine hours earlier. It was still gloomy at this spot, the morning +not being clear. + +She entered the trunk, dislodged the box containing her old clothing, +pulled off the satin shoes, and gloves, dress, and in ten minutes emerged +in the cotton and shawl of shepherd’s plaid. + +Baron was not far off. ‘Now you look the milkmaid again,’ he said, +coming towards her. ‘Where is the finery?’ + +‘Packed in the box, sir, as I found it.’ She spoke with more humility +now. The difference between them was greater than it had been at the +ball. + +‘Good,’ he said. ‘I must just dispose of it; and then away we go.’ + +He went back to the tree, Margery following at a little distance. +Bringing forth the box, he pulled out the dress as carelessly as if it +had been rags. But this was not all. He gathered a few dry sticks, +crushed the lovely garment into a loose billowy heap, threw the gloves, +fan, and shoes on the top, then struck a light and ruthlessly set fire to +the whole. + +Margery was agonized. She ran forward; she implored and entreated. +‘Please, sir—do spare it—do! My lovely dress—my-dear, dear slippers—my +fan—it is cruel! Don’t burn them, please!’ + +‘Nonsense. We shall have no further use for them if we live a hundred +years.’ + +‘But spare a bit of it—one little piece, sir—a scrap of the lace—one bow +of the ribbon—the lovely fan—just something!’ + +But he was as immoveable as Rhadamanthus. ‘No,’ he said, with a stern +gaze of his aristocratic eye. ‘It is of no use for you to speak like +that. The things are my property. I undertook to gratify you in what +you might desire because you had saved my life. To go to a ball, you +said. You might much more wisely have said anything else, but no; you +said, to go to a ball. Very well—I have taken you to a ball. I have +brought you back. The clothes were only the means, and I dispose of them +my own way. Have I not a right to?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ she said meekly. + +He gave the fire a stir, and lace and ribbons, and the twelve flounces, +and the embroidery, and all the rest crackled and disappeared. He then +put in her hands the butter basket she had brought to take on to her +grandmother’s, and accompanied her to the edge of the wood, where it +merged in the undulating open country in which her granddame dwelt. + +‘Now, Margery,’ he said, ‘here we part. I have performed my contract—at +some awkwardness, if I was recognized. But never mind that. How do you +feel—sleepy?’ + +‘Not at all, sir,’ she said. + +‘That long nap refreshed you, eh? Now you must make me a promise. That +if I require your presence at any time, you will come to me . . . I am a +man of more than one mood,’ he went on with sudden solemnity; ‘and I may +have desperate need of you again, to deliver me from that darkness as of +Death which sometimes encompasses me. Promise it, Margery—promise it; +that, no matter what stands in the way, you will come to me if I require +you.’ + +‘I would have if you had not burnt my pretty clothes!’ she pouted. + +‘Ah—ungrateful!’ + +‘Indeed, then, I will promise, sir,’ she said from her heart. ‘Wherever +I am, if I have bodily strength I will come to you.’ + +He pressed her hand. ‘It is a solemn promise,’ he replied. ‘Now I must +go, for you know your way.’ + +‘I shall hardly believe that it has not been all a dream!’ she said, with +a childish instinct to cry at his withdrawal. ‘There will be nothing +left of last night—nothing of my dress, nothing of my pleasure, nothing +of the place!’ + +‘You shall remember it in this way,’ said he. ‘We’ll cut our initials on +this tree as a memorial, so that whenever you walk this path you will see +them.’ + +Then with a knife he inscribed on the smooth bark of a beech tree the +letters M.T., and underneath a large X. + +‘What, have you no Christian name, sir?’ she said. + +‘Yes, but I don’t use it. Now, good-bye, my little friend.—What will you +do with yourself to-day, when you are gone from me?’ he lingered to ask. + +‘Oh—I shall go to my granny’s,’ she replied with some gloom; ‘and have +breakfast, and dinner, and tea with her, I suppose; and in the evening I +shall go home to Silverthorn Dairy, and perhaps Jim will come to meet me, +and all will be the same as usual.’ + +‘Who is Jim?’ + +‘O, he’s nobody—only the young man I’ve got to marry some day.’ + +‘What!—you engaged to be married?—Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ + +‘I—I don’t know, sir.’ + +‘What is the young man’s name?’ + +‘James Hayward.’ + +‘What is he?’ + +‘A master lime-burner.’ + +‘Engaged to a master lime-burner, and not a word of this to me! Margery, +Margery! when shall a straightforward one of your sex be found! Subtle +even in your simplicity! What mischief have you caused me to do, through +not telling me this? I wouldn’t have so endangered anybody’s happiness +for a thousand pounds. Wicked girl that you were; why didn’t you tell +me?’ + +‘I thought I’d better not!’ said Margery, beginning to be frightened. + +‘But don’t you see and understand that if you are already the property of +a young man, and he were to find out this night’s excursion, he may be +angry with you and part from you for ever? With him already in the field +I had no right to take you at all; he undoubtedly ought to have taken +you; which really might have been arranged, if you had not deceived me by +saying you had nobody.’ + +Margery’s face wore that aspect of woe which comes from the repentant +consciousness of having been guilty of an enormity. ‘But he wasn’t good +enough to take me, sir!’ she said, almost crying; ‘and he isn’t +absolutely my master until I have married him, is he?’ + +‘That’s a subject I cannot go into. However, we must alter our tactics. +Instead of advising you, as I did at first, to tell of this experience to +your friends, I must now impress on you that it will be best to keep a +silent tongue on the matter—perhaps for ever and ever. It may come right +some day, and you may be able to say “All’s well that ends well.” Now, +good morning, my friend. Think of Jim, and forget me.’ + +‘Ah, perhaps I can’t do that,’ she said, with a tear in her eye, and a +full throat. + +‘Well—do your best. I can say no more.’ + +He turned and retreated into the wood, and Margery, sighing, went on her +way. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Between six and seven o’clock in the evening of the same day a young man +descended the hills into the valley of the Exe, at a point about midway +between Silverthorn and the residence of Margery’s grandmother, four +miles to the east. + +He was a thoroughbred son of the country, as far removed from what is +known as the provincial, as the latter is from the out-and-out gentleman +of culture. His trousers and waistcoat were of fustian, almost white, +but he wore a jacket of old-fashioned blue West-of-England cloth, so well +preserved that evidently the article was relegated to a box whenever its +owner engaged in such active occupations as he usually pursued. His +complexion was fair, almost florid, and he had scarcely any beard. + +A novel attraction about this young man, which a glancing stranger would +know nothing of, was a rare and curious freshness of atmosphere that +appertained to him, to his clothes, to all his belongings, even to the +room in which he had been sitting. It might almost have been said that +by adding him and his implements to an over-crowded apartment you made it +healthful. This resulted from his trade. He was a lime-burner; he +handled lime daily; and in return the lime rendered him an incarnation of +salubrity. His hair was dry, fair, and frizzled, the latter possibly by +the operation of the same caustic agent. He carried as a walking-stick a +green sapling, whose growth had been contorted to a corkscrew pattern by +a twining honeysuckle. + +As he descended to the level ground of the water-meadows he cast his +glance westward, with a frequency that revealed him to be in search of +some object in the distance. It was rather difficult to do this, the low +sunlight dazzling his eyes by glancing from the river away there, and +from the ‘carriers’ (as they were called) in his path—narrow artificial +brooks for conducting the water over the grass. His course was something +of a zigzag from the necessity of finding points in these carriers +convenient for jumping. Thus peering and leaping and winding, he drew +near the Exe, the central river of the miles-long mead. + +A moving spot became visible to him in the direction of his scrutiny, +mixed up with the rays of the same river. The spot got nearer, and +revealed itself to be a slight thing of pink cotton and shepherd’s plaid, +which pursued a path on the brink of the stream. The young man so shaped +his trackless course as to impinge on the path a little ahead of this +coloured form, and when he drew near her he smiled and reddened. The +girl smiled back to him; but her smile had not the life in it that the +young man’s had shown. + +‘My dear Margery—here I am!’ he said gladly in an undertone, as with a +last leap he crossed the last intervening carrier, and stood at her side. + +‘You’ve come all the way from the kiln, on purpose to meet me, and you +shouldn’t have done it,’ she reproachfully returned. + +‘We finished there at four, so it was no trouble; and if it had been—why, +I should ha’ come.’ + +A small sigh was the response. + +‘What, you are not even so glad to see me as you would be to see your dog +or cat?’ he continued. ‘Come, Mis’ess Margery, this is rather hard. +But, by George, how tired you dew look! Why, if you’d been up all night +your eyes couldn’t be more like tea-saucers. You’ve walked tew far, +that’s what it is. The weather is getting warm now, and the air of these +low-lying meads is not strengthening in summer. I wish you lived up on +higher ground with me, beside the kiln. You’d get as strong as a hoss! +Well, there; all that will come in time.’ + +Instead of saying yes, the fair maid repressed another sigh. + +‘What, won’t it, then?’ he said. + +‘I suppose so,’ she answered. ‘If it is to be, it is.’ + +‘Well said—very well said, my dear.’ + +‘And if it isn’t to be it isn’t.’ + +‘What? Who’s been putting that into your head? Your grumpy granny, I +suppose. However, how is she? Margery, I have been thinking to-day—in +fact, I was thinking it yesterday and all the week—that really we might +settle our little business this summer.’ + +‘This summer?’ she repeated, with some dismay. ‘But the partnership? +Remember it was not to be till after that was completed.’ + +‘There I have you!’ said he, taking the liberty to pat her shoulder, and +the further liberty of advancing his hand behind it to the other. ‘The +partnership is settled. ’Tis “Vine and Hayward, lime-burners,” now, and +“Richard Vine” no longer. Yes, Cousin Richard has settled it so, for a +time at least, and ’tis to be painted on the carts this week—blue +letters—yaller ground. I’ll boss one of ’em, and drive en round to your +door as soon as the paint is dry, to show ’ee how it looks?’ + +‘Oh, I am sure you needn’t take that trouble, Jim; I can see it quite +well enough in my mind,’ replied the young girl—not without a flitting +accent of superiority. + +‘Hullo,’ said Jim, taking her by the shoulders, and looking at her hard. +‘What dew that bit of incivility mean? Now, Margery, let’s sit down +here, and have this cleared.’ He rapped with his stick upon the rail of +a little bridge they were crossing, and seated himself firmly, leaving a +place for her. + +‘But I want to get home-along,’ dear Jim, she coaxed. + +‘Fidgets. Sit down, there’s a dear. I want a straightforward answer, if +you please. In what month, and on what day of the month, will you marry +me?’ + +‘O, Jim,’ she said, sitting gingerly on the edge, ‘that’s too +plain-spoken for you yet. Before I look at it in that business light I +should have to—to—’ + +‘But your father has settled it long ago, and you said it should be as +soon as I became a partner. So, dear, you must not mind a plain man +wanting a plain answer. Come, name your time.’ + +She did not reply at once. What thoughts were passing through her brain +during the interval? Not images raised by his words, but whirling +figures of men and women in red and white and blue, reflected from a +glassy floor, in movements timed by the thrilling beats of the Drum +Polka. At last she said slowly, ‘Jim, you don’t know the world, and what +a woman’s wants can be.’ + +‘But I can make you comfortable. I am in lodgings as yet, but I can have +a house for the asking; and as to furniture, you shall choose of the best +for yourself—the very best.’ + +‘The best! Far are you from knowing what that is!’ said the little +woman. ‘There be ornaments such as you never dream of; work-tables that +would set you in amaze; silver candlesticks, tea and coffee pots that +would dazzle your eyes; tea-cups, and saucers, gilded all over with +guinea-gold; heavy velvet curtains, gold clocks, pictures, and +looking-glasses beyond your very dreams. So don’t say I shall have the +best.’ + +‘H’m!’ said Jim gloomily; and fell into reflection. ‘Where did you get +those high notions from, Margery?’ he presently inquired. ‘I’ll swear +you hadn’t got ’em a week ago.’ She did not answer, and he added, ‘_Yew_ +don’t expect to have such things, I hope; deserve them as you may?’ + +‘I was not exactly speaking of what I wanted,’ she said severely. ‘I +said, things a woman _could_ want. And since you wish to know what I +_can_ want to quite satisfy me, I assure you I can want those!’ + +‘You are a pink-and-white conundrum, Margery,’ he said; ‘and I give you +up for to-night. Anybody would think the devil had showed you all the +kingdoms of the world since I saw you last!’ + +She reddened. ‘Perhaps he has!’ she murmured; then arose, he following +her; and they soon reached Margery’s home, approaching it from the lower +or meadow side—the opposite to that of the garden top, where she had met +the Baron. + +‘You’ll come in, won’t you, Jim?’ she said, with more ceremony than +heartiness. + +‘No—I think not to-night,’ he answered. ‘I’ll consider what you’ve +said.’ + +‘You are very good, Jim,’ she returned lightly. ‘Good-bye.’ + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Jim thoughtfully retraced his steps. He was a village character, and he +had a villager’s simplicity: that is, the simplicity which comes from the +lack of a complicated experience. But simple by nature he certainly was +not. Among the rank and file of rustics he was quite a Talleyrand, or +rather had been one, till he lost a good deal of his self-command by +falling in love. + +Now, however, that the charming object of his distraction was out of +sight he could deliberate, and measure, and weigh things with some +approach to keenness. The substance of his queries was, What change had +come over Margery—whence these new notions? + +Ponder as he would he could evolve no answer save one, which, eminently +unsatisfactory as it was, he felt it would be unreasonable not to accept: +that she was simply skittish and ambitious by nature, and would not be +hunted into matrimony till he had provided a well-adorned home. + +Jim retrod the miles to the kiln, and looked to the fires. The kiln +stood in a peculiar, interesting, even impressive spot. It was at the +end of a short ravine in a limestone formation, and all around was an +open hilly down. The nearest house was that of Jim’s cousin and partner, +which stood on the outskirts of the down beside the turnpike-road. From +this house a little lane wound between the steep escarpments of the +ravine till it reached the kiln, which faced down the miniature valley, +commanding it as a fort might command a defile. + +The idea of a fort in this association owed little to imagination. For +on the nibbled green steep above the kiln stood a bye-gone, worn-out +specimen of such an erection, huge, impressive, and difficult to scale +even now in its decay. It was a British castle or entrenchment, with +triple rings of defence, rising roll behind roll, their outlines cutting +sharply against the sky, and Jim’s kiln nearly undermining their base. +When the lime-kiln flared up in the night, which it often did, its fires +lit up the front of these ramparts to a great majesty. They were old +friends of his, and while keeping up the heat through the long darkness, +as it was sometimes his duty to do, he would imagine the dancing lights +and shades about the stupendous earthwork to be the forms of those giants +who (he supposed) had heaped it up. Often he clambered upon it, and +walked about the summit, thinking out the problems connected with his +business, his partner, his future, his Margery. + +It was what he did this evening, continuing the meditation on the young +girl’s manner that he had begun upon the road, and still, as then, +finding no clue to the change. + +While thus engaged he observed a man coming up the ravine to the kiln. +Business messages were almost invariably left at the house below, and Jim +watched the man with the interest excited by a belief that he had come on +a personal matter. On nearer approach Jim recognized him as the gardener +at Mount Lodge some miles away. If this meant business, the Baron (of +whose arrival Jim had vaguely heard) was a new and unexpected customer. + +It meant nothing else, apparently. The man’s errand was simply to inform +Jim that the Baron required a load of lime for the garden. + +‘You might have saved yourself trouble by leaving word at Mr. Vine’s,’ +said Jim. + +‘I was to see you personally,’ said the gardener, ‘and to say that the +Baron would like to inquire of you about the different qualities of lime +proper for such purposes.’ + +‘Couldn’t you tell him yourself?’ said Jim. + +‘He said I was to tell you that,’ replied the gardener; ‘and it wasn’t +for me to interfere.’ + +No motive other than the ostensible one could possibly be conjectured by +Jim Hayward at this time; and the next morning he started with great +pleasure, in his best business suit of clothes. By eleven o’clock he and +his horse and cart had arrived on the Baron’s premises, and the lime was +deposited where directed; an exceptional spot, just within view of the +windows of the south front. + +Baron von Xanten, pale and melancholy, was sauntering in the sun on the +slope between the house and the all-the-year-round. He looked across to +where Jim and the gardener were standing, and the identity of Hayward +being established by what he brought, the Baron came down, and the +gardener withdrew. + +The Baron’s first inquiries were, as Jim had been led to suppose they +would be, on the exterminating effects of lime upon slugs and snails in +its different conditions of slaked and unslaked, ground and in the lump. +He appeared to be much interested by Jim’s explanations, and eyed the +young man closely whenever he had an opportunity. + +‘And I hope trade is prosperous with you this year,’ said the Baron. + +‘Very, my noble lord,’ replied Jim, who, in his uncertainty on the proper +method of address, wisely concluded that it was better to err by giving +too much honour than by giving too little. ‘In short, trade is looking +so well that I’ve become a partner in the firm.’ + +‘Indeed; I am glad to hear it. So now you are settled in life.’ + +‘Well, my lord; I am hardly settled, even now. For I’ve got to finish +it—I mean, to get married.’ + +‘That’s an easy matter, compared with the partnership.’ + +‘Now a man might think so, my baron,’ said Jim, getting more +confidential. ‘But the real truth is, ’tis the hardest part of all for +me.’ + +‘Your suit prospers, I hope?’ + +‘It don’t,’ said Jim. ‘It don’t at all just at present. In short, I +can’t for the life o’ me think what’s come over the young woman lately.’ +And he fell into deep reflection. + +Though Jim did not observe it, the Baron’s brow became shadowed with +self-reproach as he heard those simple words, and his eyes had a look of +pity. ‘Indeed—since when?’ he asked. + +‘Since yesterday, my noble lord.’ Jim spoke meditatively. He was +resolving upon a bold stroke. Why not make a confidant of this kind +gentleman, instead of the parson, as he had intended? The thought was no +sooner conceived than acted on. ‘My lord,’ he resumed, ‘I have heard +that you are a nobleman of great scope and talent, who has seen more +strange countries and characters than I have ever heard of, and know the +insides of men well. Therefore I would fain put a question to your noble +lordship, if I may so trouble you, and having nobody else in the world +who could inform me so trewly.’ + +‘Any advice I can give is at your service, Hayward. What do you wish to +know?’ + +‘It is this, my baron. What can I do to bring down a young woman’s +ambition that’s got to such a towering height there’s no reaching it or +compassing it: how get her to be pleased with me and my station as she +used to be when I first knew her?’ + +‘Truly, that’s a hard question, my man. What does she aspire to?’ + +‘She’s got a craze for fine furniture.’ + +‘How long has she had it?’ + +‘Only just now.’ + +The Baron seemed still more to experience regret. + +‘What furniture does she specially covet?’ he asked. + +‘Silver candlesticks, work-tables, looking-glasses, gold tea-things, +silver tea-pots, gold clocks, curtains, pictures, and I don’t know what +all—things I shall never get if I live to be a hundred—not so much that I +couldn’t raise the money to buy ’em, as that to put it to other uses, or +save it for a rainy day.’ + +‘You think the possession of those articles would make her happy?’ + +‘I really think they might, my lord.’ + +‘Good. Open your pocket-book and write as I tell you.’ + +Jim in some astonishment did as commanded, and elevating his pocket-book +against the garden-wall, thoroughly moistened his pencil, and wrote at +the Baron’s dictation: + +‘Pair of silver candlesticks: inlaid work-table and work-box: one large +mirror: two small ditto: one gilt china tea and coffee service: one +silver tea-pot, coffee-pot, sugar-basin, jug, and dozen spoons: French +clock: pair of curtains: six large pictures.’ + +‘Now,’ said the Baron, ‘tear out that leaf and give it to me. Keep a +close tongue about this; go home, and don’t be surprised at anything that +may come to your door.’ + +‘But, my noble lord, you don’t mean that your lordship is going to give—’ + +‘Never mind what I am going to do. Only keep your own counsel. I +perceive that, though a plain countryman, you are by no means deficient +in tact and understanding. If sending these things to you gives me +pleasure, why should you object? The fact is, Hayward, I occasionally +take an interest in people, and like to do a little for them. I take an +interest in you. Now go home, and a week hence invite Marg—the young +woman and her father, to tea with you. The rest is in your own hands.’ + +A question often put to Jim in after times was why it had not occurred to +him at once that the Baron’s liberal conduct must have been dictated by +something more personal than sudden spontaneous generosity to him, a +stranger. To which Jim always answered that, admitting the existence of +such generosity, there had appeared nothing remarkable in the Baron +selecting himself as its object. The Baron had told him that he took an +interest in him; and self-esteem, even with the most modest, is usually +sufficient to over-ride any little difficulty that might occur to an +outsider in accounting for a preference. He moreover considered that +foreign noblemen, rich and eccentric, might have habits of acting which +were quite at variance with those of their English compeers. + +So he drove off homeward with a lighter heart than he had known for +several days. To have a foreign gentleman take a fancy to him—what a +triumph to a plain sort of fellow, who had scarcely expected the Baron to +look in his face. It would be a fine story to tell Margery when the +Baron gave him liberty to speak out. + +Jim lodged at the house of his cousin and partner, Richard Vine, a +widower of fifty odd years. Having failed in the development of a +household of direct descendants this tradesman had been glad to let his +chambers to his much younger relative, when the latter entered on the +business of lime manufacture; and their intimacy had led to a +partnership. Jim lived upstairs; his partner lived down, and the +furniture of all the rooms was so plain and old fashioned as to excite +the special dislike of Miss Margery Tucker, and even to prejudice her +against Jim for tolerating it. Not only were the chairs and tables +queer, but, with due regard to the principle that a man’s surroundings +should bear the impress of that man’s life and occupation, the chief +ornaments of the dwelling were a curious collection of calcinations, that +had been discovered from time to time in the lime-kiln—misshapen ingots +of strange substance, some of them like Pompeian remains. + +The head of the firm was a quiet-living, narrow-minded, though friendly, +man of fifty; and he took a serious interest in Jim’s love-suit, +frequently inquiring how it progressed, and assuring Jim that if he chose +to marry he might have all the upper floor at a low rent, he, Mr. Vine, +contenting himself entirely with the ground level. It had been so +convenient for discussing business matters to have Jim in the same house, +that he did not wish any change to be made in consequence of a change in +Jim’s domestic estate. Margery knew of this wish, and of Jim’s +concurrent feeling; and did not like the idea at all. + +About four days after the young man’s interview with the Baron, there +drew up in front of Jim’s house at noon a waggon laden with cases and +packages, large and small. They were all addressed to ‘Mr. Hayward,’ and +they had come from the largest furnishing ware-houses in that part of +England. + +Three-quarters of an hour were occupied in getting the cases to Jim’s +rooms. The wary Jim did not show the amazement he felt at his patron’s +munificence; and presently the senior partner came into the passage, and +wondered what was lumbering upstairs. + +‘Oh—it’s only some things of mine,’ said Jim coolly. + +‘Bearing upon the coming event—eh?’ said his partner. + +‘Exactly,’ replied Jim. + +Mr. Vine, with some astonishment at the number of cases, shortly after +went away to the kiln; whereupon Jim shut himself into his rooms, and +there he might have been heard ripping up and opening boxes with a +cautious hand, afterwards appearing outside the door with them empty, and +carrying them off to the outhouse. + +A triumphant look lit up his face when, a little later in the afternoon, +he sent into the vale to the dairy, and invited Margery and her father to +his house to supper. + +She was not unsociable that day, and, her father expressing a hard and +fast acceptance of the invitation, she perforce agreed to go with him. +Meanwhile at home, Jim made himself as mysteriously busy as before in +those rooms of his, and when his partner returned he too was asked to +join in the supper. + +At dusk Hayward went to the door, where he stood till he heard the voices +of his guests from the direction of the low grounds, now covered with +their frequent fleece of fog. The voices grew more distinct, and then on +the white surface of the fog there appeared two trunkless heads, from +which bodies and a horse and cart gradually extended as the approaching +pair rose towards the house. + +When they had entered Jim pressed Margery’s hand and conducted her up to +his rooms, her father waiting below to say a few words to the senior +lime-burner. + +‘Bless me,’ said Jim to her, on entering the sitting-room; ‘I quite +forgot to get a light beforehand; but I’ll have one in a jiffy.’ + +Margery stood in the middle of the dark room, while Jim struck a match; +and then the young girl’s eyes were conscious of a burst of light, and +the rise into being of a pair of handsome silver candlesticks containing +two candles that Jim was in the act of lighting. + +‘Why—where—you have candlesticks like that?’ said Margery. Her eyes flew +round the room as the growing candle-flames showed other articles. +‘Pictures too—and lovely china—why I knew nothing of this, I declare.’ + +‘Yes—a few things that came to me by accident,’ said Jim in quiet tones. + +‘And a great gold clock under a glass, and a cupid swinging for a +pendulum; and O what a lovely work-table—woods of every colour—and a +work-box to match. May I look inside that work-box, Jim?—whose is it?’ + +‘O yes; look at it, of course. It is a poor enough thing, but ’tis mine; +and it will belong to the woman I marry, whoever she may be, as well as +all the other things here.’ + +‘And the curtains and the looking-glasses: why I declare I can see myself +in a hundred places.’ + +‘That tea-set,’ said Jim, placidly pointing to a gorgeous china service +and a large silver tea-pot on the side table, ‘I don’t use at present, +being a bachelor-man; but, says I to myself, “whoever I marry will want +some such things for giving her parties; or I can sell em”—but I haven’t +took steps for’t yet—’ + +‘Sell ’em—no, I should think not,’ said Margery with earnest reproach. +‘Why, I hope you wouldn’t be so foolish! Why, this is exactly the kind +of thing I was thinking of when I told you of the things women could +want—of course not meaning myself particularly. I had no idea that you +had such valuable—’ + +Margery was unable to speak coherently, so much was she amazed at the +wealth of Jim’s possessions. + +At this moment her father and the lime-burner came upstairs; and to +appear womanly and proper to Mr. Vine, Margery repressed the remainder of +her surprise. + +As for the two elderly worthies, it was not till they entered the room +and sat down that their slower eyes discerned anything brilliant in the +appointments. Then one of them stole a glance at some article, and the +other at another; but each being unwilling to express his wonder in the +presence of his neighbours, they received the objects before them with +quite an accustomed air; the lime-burner inwardly trying to conjecture +what all this meant, and the dairyman musing that if Jim’s business +allowed him to accumulate at this rate, the sooner Margery became his +wife the better. Margery retreated to the work-table, work-box, and +tea-service, which she examined with hushed exclamations. + +An entertainment thus surprisingly begun could not fail to progress well. +Whenever Margery’s crusty old father felt the need of a civil sentence, +the flash of Jim’s fancy articles inspired him to one; while the +lime-burner, having reasoned away his first ominous thought that all this +had come out of the firm, also felt proud and blithe. + +Jim accompanied his dairy friends part of the way home before they +mounted. Her father, finding that Jim wanted to speak to her privately, +and that she exhibited some elusiveness, turned to Margery and said; +‘Come, come, my lady; no more of this nonsense. You just step behind +with that young man, and I and the cart will wait for you.’ + +Margery, a little scared at her father’s peremptoriness, obeyed. It was +plain that Jim had won the old man by that night’s stroke, if he had not +won her. + +‘I know what you are going to say, Jim,’ she began, less ardently now, +for she was no longer under the novel influence of the shining silver and +glass. ‘Well, as you desire it, and as my father desires it, and as I +suppose it will be the best course for me, I will fix the day—not this +evening, but as soon as I can think it over.’ + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +Notwithstanding a press of business, Jim went and did his duty in +thanking the Baron. The latter saw him in his fishing-tackle room, an +apartment littered with every appliance that a votary of the rod could +require. + +‘And when is the wedding-day to be, Hayward?’ the Baron asked, after Jim +had told him that matters were settled. + +‘It is not quite certain yet, my noble lord,’ said Jim cheerfully. ‘But +I hope ’twill not be long after the time when God A’mighty christens the +little apples.’ + +‘And when is that?’ + +‘St. Swithin’s—the middle of July. ’Tis to be some time in that month, +she tells me.’ + +When Jim was gone the Baron seemed meditative. He went out, ascended the +mount, and entered the weather-screen, where he looked at the seats, as +though re-enacting in his fancy the scene of that memorable morning of +fog. He turned his eyes to the angle of the shelter, round which Margery +had suddenly appeared like a vision, and it was plain that he would not +have minded her appearing there then. The juncture had indeed been such +an impressive and critical one that she must have seemed rather a +heavenly messenger than a passing milkmaid, more especially to a man like +the Baron, who, despite the mystery of his origin and life, revealed +himself to be a melancholy, emotional character—the Jacques of this +forest and stream. + +Behind the mount the ground rose yet higher, ascending to a plantation +which sheltered the house. The Baron strolled up here, and bent his gaze +over the distance. The valley of the Exe lay before him, with its +shining river, the brooks that fed it, and the trickling springs that fed +the brooks. The situation of Margery’s house was visible, though not the +house itself; and the Baron gazed that way for an infinitely long time, +till, remembering himself, he moved on. + +Instead of returning to the house he went along the ridge till he arrived +at the verge of Chillington Wood, and in the same desultory manner roamed +under the trees, not pausing till he had come to Three-Walks-End, and the +hollow elm hard by. He peeped in at the rift. In the soft dry layer of +touch-wood that floored the hollow Margery’s tracks were still visible, +as she had made them there when dressing for the ball. + +‘Little Margery!’ murmured the Baron. + +In a moment he thought better of this mood, and turned to go home. But +behold, a form stood behind him—that of the girl whose name had been on +his lips. + +She was in utter confusion. ‘I—I—did not know you were here, sir!’ she +began. ‘I was out for a little walk.’ She could get no further; her +eyes filled with tears. That spice of wilfulness, even hardness, which +characterized her in Jim’s company, magically disappeared in the presence +of the Baron. + +‘Never mind, never mind,’ said he, masking under a severe manner whatever +he felt. ‘The meeting is awkward, and ought not to have occurred, +especially if as I suppose, you are shortly to be married to James +Hayward. But it cannot be helped now. You had no idea I was here, of +course. Neither had I of seeing you. Remember you cannot be too +careful,’ continued the Baron, in the same grave tone; ‘and I strongly +request you as a friend to do your utmost to avoid meetings like this. +When you saw me before I turned, why did you not go away?’ + +‘I did not see you, sir. I did not think of seeing you. I was walking +this way, and I only looked in to see the tree.’ + +‘That shows you have been thinking of things you should not think of,’ +returned the Baron. ‘Good morning.’ + +Margery could answer nothing. A browbeaten glance, almost of misery, was +all she gave him. He took a slow step away from her; then turned +suddenly back and, stooping, impulsively kissed her cheek, taking her as +much by surprise as ever a woman was taken in her life. + +Immediately after he went off with a flushed face and rapid strides, +which he did not check till he was within his own boundaries. + +The haymaking season now set in vigorously, and the weir-hatches were all +drawn in the meads to drain off the water. The streams ran themselves +dry, and there was no longer any difficulty in walking about among them. +The Baron could very well witness from the elevations about his house the +activity which followed these preliminaries. The white shirt-sleeves of +the mowers glistened in the sun, the scythes flashed, voices echoed, +snatches of song floated about, and there were glimpses of red +waggon-wheels, purple gowns, and many-coloured handkerchiefs. + +The Baron had been told that the haymaking was to be followed by the +wedding, and had he gone down the vale to the dairy he would have had +evidence to that effect. Dairyman Tucker’s house was in a whirlpool of +bustle, and among other difficulties was that of turning the cheese-room +into a genteel apartment for the time being, and hiding the awkwardness +of having to pass through the milk-house to get to the parlour door. +These household contrivances appeared to interest Margery much more than +the great question of dressing for the ceremony and the ceremony itself. +In all relating to that she showed an indescribable backwardness, which +later on was well remembered. + +‘If it were only somebody else, and I was one of the bridesmaids, I +really think I should like it better!’ she murmured one afternoon. + +‘Away with thee—that’s only your shyness!’ said one of the milkmaids. + +It is said that about this time the Baron seemed to feel the effects of +solitude strongly. Solitude revives the simple instincts of primitive +man, and lonely country nooks afford rich soil for wayward emotions. +Moreover, idleness waters those unconsidered impulses which a short +season of turmoil would stamp out. It is difficult to speak with any +exactness of the bearing of such conditions on the mind of the Baron—a +man of whom so little was ever truly known—but there is no doubt that his +mind ran much on Margery as an individual, without reference to her rank +or quality, or to the question whether she would marry Jim Hayward that +summer. She was the single lovely human thing within his present +horizon, for he lived in absolute seclusion; and her image unduly +affected him. + +But, leaving conjecture, let me state what happened. + +One Saturday evening, two or three weeks after his accidental meeting +with her in the wood, he wrote the note following:— + + DEAR MARGERY,— + + You must not suppose that, because I spoke somewhat severely to you + at our chance encounter by the hollow tree, I have any feeling + against you. Far from it. Now, as ever, I have the most grateful + sense of your considerate kindness to me on a momentous occasion + which shall be nameless. + + You solemnly promised to come and see me whenever I should send for + you. Can you call for five minutes as soon as possible, and disperse + those plaguy glooms from which I am so unfortunate as to suffer? If + you refuse I will not answer for the consequences. + + I shall be in the summer shelter of the mount to-morrow morning at + half-past ten. If you come I shall be grateful. I have also + something for you. + + Yours, + X. + +In keeping with the tenor of this epistle the desponding, self-oppressed +Baron ascended the mount on Sunday morning and sat down. There was +nothing here to signify exactly the hour, but before the church bells had +begun he heard somebody approaching at the back. The light footstep +moved timidly, first to one recess, and then to another; then to the +third, where he sat in the shade. Poor Margery stood before him. + +She looked worn and weary, and her little shoes and the skirts of her +dress were covered with dust. The weather was sultry, the sun being +already high and powerful, and rain had not fallen for weeks. The Baron, +who walked little, had thought nothing of the effects of this heat and +drought in inducing fatigue. A distance which had been but a reasonable +exercise on a foggy morning was a drag for Margery now. She was out of +breath; and anxiety, even unhappiness was written on her everywhere. + +He rose to his feet, and took her hand. He was vexed with himself at +sight of her. ‘My dear little girl!’ he said. ‘You are tired—you should +not have come.’ + +‘You sent for me, sir; and I was afraid you were ill; and my promise to +you was sacred.’ + +He bent over her, looking upon her downcast face, and still holding her +hand; then he dropped it, and took a pace or two backwards. + +‘It was a whim, nothing more,’ he said, sadly. ‘I wanted to see my +little friend, to express good wishes—and to present her with this.’ He +held forward a small morocco case, and showed her how to open it, +disclosing a pretty locket, set with pearls. ‘It is intended as a +wedding present,’ he continued. ‘To be returned to me again if you do +not marry Jim this summer—it is to be this summer, I think?’ + +‘It was, sir,’ she said with agitation. ‘But it is so no longer. And, +therefore, I cannot take this.’ + +‘What do you say?’ + +‘It was to have been to-day; but now it cannot be.’ + +‘The wedding to-day—Sunday?’ he cried. + +‘We fixed Sunday not to hinder much time at this busy season of the +year,’ replied she. + +‘And have you, then, put it off—surely not?’ + +‘You sent for me, and I have come,’ she answered humbly, like an obedient +familiar in the employ of some great enchanter. Indeed, the Baron’s +power over this innocent girl was curiously like enchantment, or mesmeric +influence. It was so masterful that the sexual element was almost +eliminated. It was that of Prospero over the gentle Ariel. And yet it +was probably only that of the cosmopolite over the recluse, of the +experienced man over the simple maid. + +‘You have come—on your wedding-day!—O Margery, this is a mistake. Of +course, you should not have obeyed me, since, though I thought your +wedding would be soon, I did not know it was to-day.’ + +‘I promised you, sir; and I would rather keep my promise to you than be +married to Jim.’ + +‘That must not be—the feeling is wrong!’ he murmured, looking at the +distant hills. ‘There seems to be a fate in all this; I get out of the +frying-pan into the fire. What a recompense to you for your goodness! +The fact is, I was out of health and out of spirits, so I—but no more of +that. Now instantly to repair this tremendous blunder that we have +made—that’s the question.’ + +After a pause, he went on hurriedly, ‘Walk down the hill; get into the +road. By that time I shall be there with a phaeton. We may get back in +time. What time is it now? If not, no doubt the wedding can be +to-morrow; so all will come right again. Don’t cry, my dear girl. Keep +the locket, of course—you’ll marry Jim.’ + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +He hastened down towards the stables, and she went on as directed. It +seemed as if he must have put in the horse himself, so quickly did he +reappear with the phaeton on the open road. Margery silently took her +seat, and the Baron seemed cut to the quick with self-reproach as he +noticed the listless indifference with which she acted. There was no +doubt that in her heart she had preferred obeying the apparently +important mandate that morning to becoming Jim’s wife; but there was no +less doubt that had the Baron left her alone she would quietly have gone +to the altar. + +He drove along furiously, in a cloud of dust. There was much to +contemplate in that peaceful Sunday morning—the windless trees and +fields, the shaking sunlight, the pause in human stir. Yet neither of +them heeded, and thus they drew near to the dairy. His first expressed +intention had been to go indoors with her, but this he abandoned as +impolitic in the highest degree. + +‘You may be soon enough,’ he said, springing down, and helping her to +follow. ‘Tell the truth: say you were sent for to receive a wedding +present—that it was a mistake on my part—a mistake on yours; and I think +they’ll forgive . . . And, Margery, my last request to you is this: that +if I send for you again, you do not come. Promise solemnly, my dear +girl, that any such request shall be unheeded.’ + +Her lips moved, but the promise was not articulated. ‘O, sir, I cannot +promise it!’ she said at last. + +‘But you must; your salvation may depend on it!’ he insisted almost +sternly. ‘You don’t know what I am.’ + +‘Then, sir, I promise,’ she replied. ‘Now leave me to myself, please, +and I’ll go indoors and manage matters.’ + +He turned the horse and drove away, but only for a little distance. Out +of sight he pulled rein suddenly. ‘Only to go back and propose it to +her, and she’d come!’ he murmured. + +He stood up in the phaeton, and by this means he could see over the +hedge. Margery still sat listlessly in the same place; there was not a +lovelier flower in the field. ‘No,’ he said; ‘no, no—never!’ He +reseated himself, and the wheels sped lightly back over the soft dust to +Mount Lodge. + +Meanwhile Margery had not moved. If the Baron could dissimulate on the +side of severity she could dissimulate on the side of calm. He did not +know what had been veiled by the quiet promise to manage matters indoors. +Rising at length she first turned away from the house; and, by-and-by, +having apparently forgotten till then that she carried it in her hand, +she opened the case, and looked at the locket. This seemed to give her +courage. She turned, set her face towards the dairy in good earnest, and +though her heart faltered when the gates came in sight, she kept on and +drew near the door. + +On the threshold she stood listening. The house was silent. Decorations +were visible in the passage, and also the carefully swept and sanded path +to the gate, which she was to have trodden as a bride; but the sparrows +hopped over it as if it were abandoned; and all appeared to have been +checked at its climacteric, like a clock stopped on the strike. Till +this moment of confronting the suspended animation of the scene she had +not realized the full shock of the convulsion which her disappearance +must have caused. It is quite certain—apart from her own repeated +assurances to that effect in later years—that in hastening off that +morning to her sudden engagement, Margery had not counted the cost of +such an enterprise; while a dim notion that she might get back again in +time for the ceremony, if the message meant nothing serious, should also +be mentioned in her favour. But, upon the whole, she had obeyed the call +with an unreasoning obedience worthy of a disciple in primitive times. A +conviction that the Baron’s life might depend upon her presence—for she +had by this time divined the tragical event she had interrupted on the +foggy morning—took from her all will to judge and consider calmly. The +simple affairs of her and hers seemed nothing beside the possibility of +harm to him. + +A well-known step moved on the sanded floor within, and she went forward. +That she saw her father’s face before her, just within the door, can +hardly be said: it was rather Reproach and Rage in a human mask. + +‘What! ye have dared to come back alive, hussy, to look upon the dupery +you have practised on honest people! You’ve mortified us all; I don’t +want to see ’ee; I don’t want to hear ’ee; I don’t want to know +anything!’ He walked up and down the room, unable to command himself. +‘Nothing but being dead could have excused ’ee for not meeting and +marrying that man this morning; and yet you have the brazen impudence to +stand there as well as ever! What be you here for?’ + +‘I’ve come back to marry Jim, if he wants me to,’ she said faintly. ‘And +if not—perhaps so much the better. I was sent for this morning early. I +thought—.’ She halted. To say that she had thought a man’s death might +happen by his own hand if she did not go to him, would never do. ‘I was +obliged to go,’ she said. ‘I had given my word.’ + +‘Why didn’t you tell us then, so that the wedding could be put off, +without making fools o’ us?’ + +‘Because I was afraid you wouldn’t let me go, and I had made up my mind +to go.’ + +‘To go where?’ + +She was silent; till she said, ‘I will tell Jim all, and why it was; and +if he’s any friend of mine he’ll excuse me.’ + +‘Not Jim—he’s no such fool. Jim had put all ready for you, Jim had +called at your house, a-dressed up in his new wedding clothes, and +a-smiling like the sun; Jim had told the parson, had got the ringers in +tow, and the clerk awaiting; and then—you was _gone_! Then Jim turned as +pale as rendlewood, and busted out, “If she don’t marry me to-day,” ’a +said, “she don’t marry me at all! No; let her look elsewhere for a +husband. For tew years I’ve put up with her haughty tricks and her +takings,” ’a said. “I’ve droudged and I’ve traipsed, I’ve bought and +I’ve sold, all wi’ an eye to her; I’ve suffered horseflesh,” he says—yes, +them was his noble words—“but I’ll suffer it no longer. She shall go!” +“Jim,” says I, “you be a man. If she’s alive, I commend ’ee; if she’s +dead, pity my old age.” “She isn’t dead,” says he; “for I’ve just heard +she was seen walking off across the fields this morning, looking all of a +scornful triumph.” He turned round and went, and the rest o’ the +neighbours went; and here be I left to the reproach o’t.’ + +‘He was too hasty,’ murmured Margery. ‘For now he’s said this I can’t +marry him to-morrow, as I might ha’ done; and perhaps so much the +better.’ + +‘You can be so calm about it, can ye? Be my arrangements nothing, then, +that you should break ’em up, and say off hand what wasn’t done to-day +might ha’ been done to-morrow, and such flick-flack? Out o’ my sight! I +won’t hear any more. I won’t speak to ’ee any more.’ + +‘I’ll go away, and then you’ll be sorry!’ + +‘Very well, go. Sorry—not I.’ + +He turned and stamped his way into the cheese-room. Margery went +upstairs. She too was excited now, and instead of fortifying herself in +her bedroom till her father’s rage had blown over, as she had often done +on lesser occasions, she packed up a bundle of articles, crept down +again, and went out of the house. She had a place of refuge in these +cases of necessity, and her father knew it, and was less alarmed at +seeing her depart than he might otherwise have been. This place was +Rook’s Gate, the house of her grandmother, who always took Margery’s part +when that young woman was particularly in the wrong. + +The devious way she pursued, to avoid the vicinity of Mount Lodge, was +tedious, and she was already weary. But the cottage was a restful place +to arrive at, for she was her own mistress there—her grandmother never +coming down stairs—and Edy, the woman who lived with and attended her, +being a cipher except in muscle and voice. The approach was by a +straight open road, bordered by thin lank trees, all sloping away from +the south-west wind-quarter, and the scene bore a strange resemblance to +certain bits of Dutch landscape which have been imprinted on the world’s +eye by Hobbema and his school. + +Having explained to her granny that the wedding was put off; and that she +had come to stay, one of Margery’s first acts was carefully to pack up +the locket and case, her wedding present from the Baron. The conditions +of the gift were unfulfilled, and she wished it to go back instantly. +Perhaps, in the intricacies of her bosom, there lurked a greater +satisfaction with the reason for returning the present than she would +have felt just then with a reason for keeping it. + +To send the article was difficult. In the evening she wrapped herself +up, searched and found a gauze veil that had been used by her grandmother +in past years for hiving swarms of bees, buried her face in it, and +sallied forth with a palpitating heart till she drew near the tabernacle +of her demi-god the Baron. She ventured only to the back-door, where she +handed in the parcel addressed to him, and quickly came away. + +Now it seems that during the day the Baron had been unable to learn the +result of his attempt to return Margery in time for the event he had +interrupted. Wishing, for obvious reasons, to avoid direct inquiry by +messenger, and being too unwell to go far himself, he could learn no +particulars. He was sitting in thought after a lonely dinner when the +parcel intimating failure as brought in. The footman, whose curiosity +had been excited by the mode of its arrival, peeped through the keyhole +after closing the door, to learn what the packet meant. Directly the +Baron had opened it he thrust out his feet vehemently from his chair, and +began cursing his ruinous conduct in bringing about such a disaster, for +the return of the locket denoted not only no wedding that day, but none +to-morrow, or at any time. + +‘I have done that innocent woman a great wrong!’ he murmured. ‘Deprived +her of, perhaps, her only opportunity of becoming mistress of a happy +home!’ + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +A considerable period of inaction followed among all concerned. + +Nothing tended to dissipate the obscurity which veiled the life of the +Baron. The position he occupied in the minds of the country-folk around +was one which combined the mysteriousness of a legendary character with +the unobtrusive deeds of a modern gentleman. To this day whoever takes +the trouble to go down to Silverthorn in Lower Wessex and make inquiries +will find existing there almost a superstitious feeling for the moody +melancholy stranger who resided in the Lodge some forty years ago. + +Whence he came, whither he was going, were alike unknown. It was said +that his mother had been an English lady of noble family who had married +a foreigner not unheard of in circles where men pile up ‘the cankered +heaps of strange-achieved gold’—that he had been born and educated in +England, taken abroad, and so on. But the facts of a life in such cases +are of little account beside the aspect of a life; and hence, though +doubtless the years of his existence contained their share of trite and +homely circumstance, the curtain which masked all this was never lifted +to gratify such a theatre of spectators as those at Silverthorn. Therein +lay his charm. His life was a vignette, of which the central strokes +only were drawn with any distinctness, the environment shading away to a +blank. + +He might have been said to resemble that solitary bird the heron. The +still, lonely stream was his frequent haunt: on its banks he would stand +for hours with his rod, looking into the water, beholding the tawny +inhabitants with the eye of a philosopher, and seeming to say, ‘Bite or +don’t bite—it’s all the same to me.’ He was often mistaken for a ghost +by children; and for a pollard willow by men, when, on their way home in +the dusk, they saw him motionless by some rushy bank, unobservant of the +decline of day. + +Why did he come to fish near Silverthorn? That was never explained. As +far as was known he had no relatives near; the fishing there was not +exceptionally good; the society thereabout was decidedly meagre. That he +had committed some folly or hasty act, that he had been wrongfully +accused of some crime, thus rendering his seclusion from the world +desirable for a while, squared very well with his frequent melancholy. +But such as he was there he lived, well supplied with fishing-tackle, and +tenant of a furnished house, just suited to the requirements of such an +eccentric being as he. + + * * * * * + +Margery’s father, having privately ascertained that she was living with +her grandmother, and getting into no harm, refrained from communicating +with her, in the hope of seeing her contrite at his door. It had, of +course, become known about Silverthorn that at the last moment Margery +refused to wed Hayward, by absenting herself from the house. Jim was +pitied, yet not pitied much, for it was said that he ought not to have +been so eager for a woman who had shown no anxiety for him. + +And where was Jim himself? It must not be supposed that that tactician +had all this while withdrawn from mortal eye to tear his hair in silent +indignation and despair. He had, in truth, merely retired up the +lonesome defile between the downs to his smouldering kiln, and the +ancient ramparts above it; and there, after his first hours of natural +discomposure, he quietly waited for overtures from the possibly repentant +Margery. But no overtures arrived, and then he meditated anew on the +absorbing problem of her skittishness, and how to set about another +campaign for her conquest, notwithstanding his late disastrous failure. +Why had he failed? To what was her strange conduct owing? That was the +thing which puzzled him. + +He had made no advance in solving the riddle when, one morning, a +stranger appeared on the down above him, looking as if he had lost his +way. The man had a good deal of black hair below his felt hat, and +carried under his arm a case containing a musical instrument. Descending +to where Jim stood, he asked if there were not a short cut across that +way to Tivworthy, where a fête was to be held. + +‘Well, yes, there is,’ said Jim. ‘But ’tis an enormous distance for +’ee.’ + +‘Oh, yes,’ replied the musician. ‘I wish to intercept the carrier on the +highway.’ + +The nearest way was precisely in the direction of Rook’s Gate, where +Margery, as Jim knew, was staying. Having some time to spare, Jim was +strongly impelled to make a kind act to the lost musician a pretext for +taking observations in that neighbourhood, and telling his acquaintance +that he was going the same way, he started without further ado. + +They skirted the long length of meads, and in due time arrived at the +back of Rook’s Gate, where the path joined the high road. A hedge +divided the public way from the cottage garden. Jim drew up at this +point and said, ‘Your road is straight on: I turn back here.’ + +But the musician was standing fixed, as if in great perplexity. +Thrusting his hand into his forest of black hair, he murmured, ‘Surely it +is the same—surely!’ + +Jim, following the direction of his neighbour’s eyes, found them to be +fixed on a figure till that moment hidden from himself—Margery Tucker—who +was crossing the garden to an opposite gate with a little cheese in her +arms, her head thrown back, and her face quite exposed. + +‘What of her?’ said Jim. + +‘Two months ago I formed one of the band at the Yeomanry Ball given by +Lord Toneborough in the next county. I saw that young lady dancing the +polka there in robes of gauze and lace. Now I see her carry a cheese!’ + +‘Never!’ said Jim incredulously. + +‘But I do not mistake. I say it is so!’ + +Jim ridiculed the idea; the bandsman protested, and was about to lose his +temper, when Jim gave in with the good-nature of a person who can afford +to despise opinions; and the musician went his way. + +As he dwindled out of sight Jim began to think more carefully over what +he had said. The young man’s thoughts grew quite to an excitement, for +there came into his mind the Baron’s extraordinary kindness in regard to +furniture, hitherto accounted for by the assumption that the nobleman had +taken a fancy to him. Could it be, among all the amazing things of life, +that the Baron was at the bottom of this mischief; and that he had amused +himself by taking Margery to a ball? + +Doubts and suspicions which distract some lovers to imbecility only +served to bring out Jim’s great qualities. Where he trusted he was the +most trusting fellow in the world; where he doubted he could be guilty of +the slyest strategy. Once suspicious, he became one of those subtle, +watchful characters who, without integrity, make good thieves; with a +little, good jobbers; with a little more, good diplomatists. Jim was +honest, and he considered what to do. + +Retracing his steps, he peeped again. She had gone in; but she would +soon reappear, for it could be seen that she was carrying little new +cheeses one by one to a spring-cart and horse tethered outside the +gate—her grandmother, though not a regular dairywoman, still managing a +few cows by means of a man and maid. With the lightness of a cat Jim +crept round to the gate, took a piece of chalk from his pocket, and wrote +upon the boarding ‘The Baron.’ Then he retreated to the other side of +the garden where he had just watched Margery. + +In due time she emerged with another little cheese, came on to the +garden-door, and glanced upon the chalked words which confronted her. +She started; the cheese rolled from her arms to the ground, and broke +into pieces like a pudding. + +She looked fearfully round, her face burning like sunset, and, seeing +nobody, stooped to pick up the flaccid lumps. Jim, with a pale face, +departed as invisibly as he had come. He had proved the bandsman’s tale +to be true. On his way back he formed a resolution. It was to beard the +lion in his den—to call on the Baron. + +Meanwhile Margery had recovered her equanimity, and gathered up the +broken cheese. But she could by no means account for the handwriting. +Jim was just the sort of fellow to play her such a trick at ordinary +times, but she imagined him to be far too incensed against her to do it +now; and she suddenly wondered if it were any sort of signal from the +Baron himself. + +Of him she had lately heard nothing. If ever monotony pervaded a life it +pervaded hers at Rook’s Gate; and she had begun to despair of any happy +change. But it is precisely when the social atmosphere seems stagnant +that great events are brewing. Margery’s quiet was broken first, as we +have seen, by a slight start, only sufficient to make her drop a cheese; +and then by a more serious matter. + +She was inside the same garden one day when she heard two watermen +talking without. The conversation was to the effect that the strange +gentleman who had taken Mount Lodge for the season was seriously ill. + +‘How ill?’ cried Margery through the hedge, which screened her from +recognition. + +‘Bad abed,’ said one of the watermen. + +‘Inflammation of the lungs,’ said the other. + +‘Got wet, fishing,’ the first chimed in. + +Margery could gather no more. An ideal admiration rather than any +positive passion existed in her breast for the Baron: she had of late +seen too little of him to allow any incipient views of him as a lover to +grow to formidable dimensions. It was an extremely romantic feeling, +delicate as an aroma, capable of quickening to an active principle, or +dying to ‘a painless sympathy,’ as the case might be. + +This news of his illness, coupled with the mysterious chalking on the +gate, troubled her, and revived his image much. She took to walking up +and down the garden-paths, looking into the hearts of flowers, and not +thinking what they were. His last request had been that she was not to +go to him if be should send for her; and now she asked herself, was the +name on the gate a hint to enable her to go without infringing the letter +of her promise? Thus unexpectedly had Jim’s manœuvre operated. + +Ten days passed. All she could hear of the Baron were the same words, +‘Bad abed,’ till one afternoon, after a gallop of the physician to the +Lodge, the tidings spread like lightning that the Baron was dying. + +Margery distressed herself with the question whether she might be +permitted to visit him and say her prayers at his bedside; but she feared +to venture; and thus eight-and-forty hours slipped away, and the Baron +still lived. Despite her shyness and awe of him she had almost made up +her mind to call when, just at dusk on that October evening, somebody +came to the door and asked for her. + +She could see the messenger’s head against the low new moon. He was a +man-servant. He said he had been all the way to her father’s, and had +been sent thence to her here. He simply brought a note, and, delivering +it into her hands, went away. + + DEAR MARGERY TUCKER (ran the note)—They say I am not likely to live, + so I want to see you. Be here at eight o’clock this evening. Come + quite alone to the side-door, and tap four times softly. My trusty + man will admit you. The occasion is an important one. Prepare + yourself for a solemn ceremony, which I wish to have performed while + it lies in my power. + + VON XANTEN. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +Margery’s face flushed up, and her neck and arms glowed in sympathy. The +quickness of youthful imagination, and the assumptiveness of woman’s +reason, sent her straight as an arrow this thought: ‘He wants to marry +me!’ + +She had heard of similar strange proceedings, in which the orange-flower +and the sad cypress were intertwined. People sometimes wished on their +death-beds, from motives of esteem, to form a legal tie which they had +not cared to establish as a domestic one during their active life. + +For a few minutes Margery could hardly be called excited; she was +excitement itself. Between surprise and modesty she blushed and trembled +by turns. She became grave, sat down in the solitary room, and looked +into the fire. At seven o’clock she rose resolved, and went quite +tranquilly upstairs, where she speedily began to dress. + +In making this hasty toilet nine-tenths of her care were given to her +hands. The summer had left them slightly brown, and she held them up and +looked at them with some misgiving, the fourth finger of her left hand +more especially. Hot washings and cold washings, certain products from +bee and flower known only to country girls, everything she could think +of, were used upon those little sunburnt hands, till she persuaded +herself that they were really as white as could be wished by a husband +with a hundred titles. Her dressing completed, she left word with Edy +that she was going for a long walk, and set out in the direction of Mount +Lodge. + +She no longer tripped like a girl, but walked like a woman. While +crossing the park she murmured ‘Baroness von Xanten’ in a pronunciation +of her own. The sound of that title caused her such agitation that she +was obliged to pause, with her hand upon her heart. + +The house was so closely neighboured by shrubberies on three of its sides +that it was not till she had gone nearly round it that she found the +little door. The resolution she had been an hour in forming failed her +when she stood at the portal. While pausing for courage to tap, a +carriage drove up to the front entrance a little way off, and peeping +round the corner she saw alight a clergyman, and a gentleman in whom +Margery fancied that she recognized a well-known solicitor from the +neighbouring town. She had no longer any doubt of the nature of the +ceremony proposed. ‘It is sudden but I must obey him!’ she murmured: and +tapped four times. + +The door was opened so quickly that the servant must have been standing +immediately inside. She thought him the man who had driven them to the +ball—the silent man who could be trusted. Without a word he conducted +her up the back staircase, and through a door at the top, into a wide +corridor. She was asked to wait in a little dressing-room, where there +was a fire, and an old metal-framed looking-glass over the mantel-piece, +in which she caught sight of herself. A red spot burnt in each of her +cheeks; the rest of her face was pale; and her eyes were like diamonds of +the first water. + +Before she had been seated many minutes the man came back noiselessly, +and she followed him to a door covered by a red and black curtain, which +he lifted, and ushered her into a large chamber. A screened light stood +on a table before her, and on her left the hangings of a tall dark +four-post bedstead obstructed her view of the centre of the room. +Everything here seemed of such a magnificent type to her eyes that she +felt confused, diminished to half her height, half her strength, half her +prettiness. The man who had conducted her retired at once, and some one +came softly round the angle of the bed-curtains. He held out his hand +kindly—rather patronisingly: it was the solicitor whom she knew by sight. +This gentleman led her forward, as if she had been a lamb rather than a +woman, till the occupant of the bed was revealed. + +The Baron’s eyes were closed, and her entry had been so noiseless that he +did not open them. The pallor of his face nearly matched the white +bed-linen, and his dark hair and heavy black moustache were like dashes +of ink on a clean page. Near him sat the parson and another gentleman, +whom she afterwards learnt to be a London physician; and on the parson +whispering a few words the Baron opened his eyes. As soon as he saw her +he smiled faintly, and held out his hand. + +Margery would have wept for him, if she had not been too overawed and +palpitating to do anything. She quite forgot what she had come for, +shook hands with him mechanically, and could hardly return an answer to +his weak ‘Dear Margery, you see how I am—how are you?’ + +In preparing for marriage she had not calculated on such a scene as this. +Her affection for the Baron had too much of the vague in it to afford her +trustfulness now. She wished she had not come. On a sign from the Baron +the lawyer brought her a chair, and the oppressive silence was broken by +the Baron’s words. + +‘I am pulled down to death’s door, Margery,’ he said; ‘and I suppose I +soon shall pass through . . . My peace has been much disturbed in this +illness, for just before it attacked me I received—that present you +returned, from which, and in other ways, I learnt that you had lost your +chance of marriage . . . Now it was I who did the harm, and you can +imagine how the news has affected me. It has worried me all the illness +through, and I cannot dismiss my error from my mind . . . I want to right +the wrong I have done you before I die. Margery, you have always obeyed +me, and, strange as the request may be, will you obey me now?’ + +She whispered ‘Yes.’ + +‘Well, then,’ said the Baron, ‘these three gentlemen are here for a +special purpose: one helps the body—he’s called a physician; another +helps the soul—he’s a parson; the other helps the understanding—he’s a +lawyer. They are here partly on my account, and partly on yours.’ + +The speaker then made a sign to the lawyer, who went out of the door. He +came back almost instantly, but not alone. Behind him, dressed up in his +best clothes, with a flower in his buttonhole and a bridegroom’s air, +walked—Jim. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +Margery could hardly repress a scream. As for flushing and blushing, she +had turned hot and turned pale so many times already during the evening, +that there was really now nothing of that sort left for her to do; and +she remained in complexion much as before. O, the mockery of it! That +secret dream—that sweet word ‘Baroness!’—which had sustained her all the +way along. Instead of a Baron there stood Jim, white-waistcoated, +demure, every hair in place, and, if she mistook not, even a deedy spark +in his eye. + +Jim’s surprising presence on the scene may be briefly accounted for. His +resolve to seek an explanation with the Baron at all risks had proved +unexpectedly easy: the interview had at once been granted, and then, +seeing the crisis at which matters stood, the Baron had generously +revealed to Jim the whole of his indebtedness to and knowledge of +Margery. The truth of the Baron’s statement, the innocent nature as yet +of the acquaintanceship, his sorrow for the rupture he had produced, was +so evident that, far from having any further doubts of his patron, Jim +frankly asked his advice on the next step to be pursued. At this stage +the Baron fell ill, and, desiring much to see the two young people united +before his death, he had sent anew Hayward, and proposed the plan which +they were to now about to attempt—a marriage at the bedside of the sick +man by special licence. The influence at Lambeth of some friends of the +Baron’s, and the charitable bequests of his late mother to several +deserving Church funds, were generally supposed to be among the reasons +why the application for the licence was not refused. + +This, however, is of small consequence. The Baron probably knew, in +proposing this method of celebrating the marriage, that his enormous +power over her would outweigh any sentimental obstacles which she might +set up—inward objections that, without his presence and firmness, might +prove too much for her acquiescence. Doubtless he foresaw, too, the +advantage of getting her into the house before making the individuality +of her husband clear to her mind. + +Now, the Baron’s conjectures were right as to the event, but wrong as to +the motives. Margery was a perfect little dissembler on some occasions, +and one of them was when she wished to hide any sudden mortification that +might bring her into ridicule. She had no sooner recovered from her +first fit of discomfiture than pride bade her suffer anything rather than +reveal her absurd disappointment. Hence the scene progressed as follows: + +‘Come here, Hayward,’ said the invalid. Hayward came near. The Baron, +holding her hand in one of his own, and her lover’s in the other, +continued, ‘Will you, in spite of your recent vexation with her, marry +her now if she does not refuse?’ + +‘I will, sir,’ said Jim promptly. + +‘And Margery, what do you say? It is merely a setting of things right. +You have already promised this young man to be his wife, and should, of +course, perform your promise. You don’t dislike Jim?’ + +‘O, no, sir,’ she said, in a low, dry voice. + +‘I like him better than I can tell you,’ said the Baron. ‘He is an +honourable man, and will make you a good husband. You must remember that +marriage is a life contract, in which general compatibility of temper and +worldly position is of more importance than fleeting passion, which never +long survives. Now, will you, at my earnest request, and before I go to +the South of Europe to die, agree to make this good man happy? I have +expressed your views on the subject, haven’t I, Hayward?’ + +‘To a T, sir,’ said Jim emphatically; with a motion of raising his hat to +his influential ally, till he remembered he had no hat on. ‘And, though +I could hardly expect Margery to gie in for my asking, I feels she ought +to gie in for yours.’ + +‘And you accept him, my little friend?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ she murmured, ‘if he’ll agree to a thing or two.’ + +‘Doubtless he will—what are they?’ + +‘That I shall not be made to live with him till I am in the mind for it; +and that my having him shall be kept unknown for the present.’ + +‘Well, what do you think of it, Hayward?’ + +‘Anything that you or she may wish I’ll do, my noble lord,’ said Jim. + +‘Well, her request is not unreasonable, seeing that the proceedings are, +on my account, a little hurried. So we’ll proceed. You rather expected +this, from my allusion to a ceremony in my note, did you not, Margery?’ + +‘Yes, sir,’ said she, with an effort. + +‘Good; I thought so; you looked so little surprised.’ + +We now leave the scene in the bedroom for a spot not many yards off. + +When the carriage seen by Margery at the door was driving up to Mount +Lodge it arrested the attention, not only of the young girl, but of a man +who had for some time been moving slowly about the opposite lawn, engaged +in some operation while he smoked a short pipe. A short observation of +his doings would have shown that he was sheltering some delicate plants +from an expected frost, and that he was the gardener. When the light at +the door fell upon the entering forms of parson and lawyer—the former a +stranger, the latter known to him—the gardener walked thoughtfully round +the house. Reaching the small side-entrance he was further surprised to +see it noiselessly open to a young woman, in whose momentarily illumined +features he discerned those of Margery Tucker. + +Altogether there was something curious in this. The man returned to the +lawn front, and perfunctorily went on putting shelters over certain +plants, though his thoughts were plainly otherwise engaged. On the grass +his footsteps were noiseless, and the night moreover being still, he +could presently hear a murmuring from the bedroom window over his head. + +The gardener took from a tree a ladder that he had used in nailing that +day, set it under the window, and ascended half-way, hoodwinking his +conscience by seizing a nail or two with his hand and testing their +twig-supporting powers. He soon heard enough to satisfy him. The words +of a church-service in the strange parson’s voice were audible in +snatches through the blind: they were words he knew to be part of the +solemnization of matrimony, such as ‘wedded wife,’ ‘richer for poorer,’ +and so on; the less familiar parts being a more or less confused sound. + +Satisfied that a wedding was in progress there, the gardener did not for +a moment dream that one of the contracting parties could be other than +the sick Baron. He descended the ladder and again walked round the +house, waiting only till he saw Margery emerge from the same little door; +when, fearing that he might be discovered, he withdrew in the direction +of his own cottage. + +This building stood at the lower corner of the garden, and as soon as the +gardener entered he was accosted by a handsome woman in a widow’s cap, +who called him father, and said that supper had been ready for a long +time. They sat down, but during the meal the gardener was so abstracted +and silent that his daughter put her head winningly to one side and said, +‘What is it, father dear?’ + +‘Ah—what is it!’ cried the gardener. ‘Something that makes very little +difference to me, but may be of great account to you, if you play your +cards well. _There’s been a wedding at the Lodge to-night_!’ He related +to her, with a caution to secrecy, all that he had heard and seen. + +‘We are folk that have got to get their living,’ he said, ‘and such ones +mustn’t tell tales about their betters,—Lord forgive the mockery of the +word!—but there’s something to be made of it. She’s a nice maid; so, +Harriet, do you take the first chance you get for honouring her, before +others know what has happened. Since this is done so privately it will +be kept private for some time—till after his death, no question;—when I +expect she’ll take this house for herself; and blaze out as a widow-lady +ten thousand pound strong. You being a widow, she may make you her +company-keeper; and so you’ll have a home by a little contriving.’ + +While this conversation progressed at the gardener’s Margery was on her +way out of the Baron’s house. She was, indeed, married. But, as we +know, she was not married to the Baron. The ceremony over she seemed but +little discomposed, and expressed a wish to return alone as she had come. +To this, of course, no objection could be offered under the terms of the +agreement, and wishing Jim a frigid good-bye, and the Baron a very quiet +farewell, she went out by the door which had admitted her. Once safe and +alone in the darkness of the park she burst into tears, which dropped +upon the grass as she passed along. In the Baron’s room she had seemed +scared and helpless; now her reason and emotions returned. The further +she got away from the glamour of that room, and the influence of its +occupant, the more she became of opinion that she had acted foolishly. +She had disobediently left her father’s house, to obey him here. She had +pleased everybody but herself. + +However, thinking was now too late. How she got into her grandmother’s +house she hardly knew; but without a supper, and without confronting +either her relative or Edy, she went to bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +On going out into the garden next morning, with a strange sense of being +another person than herself, she beheld Jim leaning mutely over the gate. + +He nodded. ‘Good morning, Margery,’ he said civilly. + +‘Good morning,’ said Margery in the same tone. + +‘I beg your pardon,’ he continued. ‘But which way was you going this +morning?’ + +‘I am not going anywhere just now, thank you. But I shall go to my +father’s by-and-by with Edy.’ She went on with a sigh, ‘I have done what +he has all along wished, that is, married you; and there’s no longer +reason for enmity atween him and me.’ + +‘Trew—trew. Well, as I am going the same way, I can give you a lift in +the trap, for the distance is long.’ + +‘No thank you—I am used to walking,’ she said. + +They remained in silence, the gate between them, till Jim’s convictions +would apparently allow him to hold his peace no longer. ‘This is a bad +job!’ he murmured. + +‘It is,’ she said, as one whose thoughts have only too readily been +identified. ‘How I came to agree to it is more than I can tell!’ And +tears began rolling down her cheeks. + +‘The blame is more mine than yours, I suppose,’ he returned. ‘I ought to +have said No, and not backed up the gentleman in carrying out this +scheme. ’Twas his own notion entirely, as perhaps you know. I should +never have thought of such a plan; but he said you’d be willing, and that +it would be all right; and I was too ready to believe him.’ + +‘The thing is, how to remedy it,’ said she bitterly. ‘I believe, of +course, in your promise to keep this private, and not to trouble me by +calling.’ + +‘Certainly,’ said Jim. ‘I don’t want to trouble you. As for that, why, +my dear Mrs. Hayward—’ + +‘Don’t Mrs. Hayward me!’ said Margery sharply. ‘I won’t be Mrs. +Hayward!’ + +Jim paused. ‘Well, you are she by law, and that was all I meant,’ he +said mildly. + +‘I said I would acknowledge no such thing, and I won’t. A thing can’t be +legal when it’s against the wishes of the persons the laws are made to +protect. So I beg you not to call me that anymore.’ + +‘Very well, Miss Tucker,’ said Jim deferentially. ‘We can live on +exactly as before. We can’t marry anybody else, that’s true; but beyond +that there’s no difference, and no harm done. Your father ought to be +told, I suppose, even if nobody else is? It will partly reconcile him to +you, and make your life smoother.’ + +Instead of directly replying, Margery exclaimed in a low voice: + +‘O, it is a mistake—I didn’t see it all, owing to not having time to +reflect! I agreed, thinking that at least I should get reconciled to +father by the step. But perhaps he would as soon have me not married at +all as married and parted. I must ha’ been enchanted—bewitched—when I +gave my consent to this! I only did it to please that dear good dying +nobleman—though why he should have wished it so much I can’t tell!’ + +‘Nor I neither,’ said Jim. ‘Yes, we’ve been fooled into it, Margery,’ he +said, with extraordinary gravity. ‘He’s had his way wi’ us, and now +we’ve got to suffer for it. Being a gentleman of patronage, and having +bought several loads of lime o’ me, and having given me all that splendid +furniture, I could hardly refuse—’ + +‘What, did he give you that?’ + +‘Ay sure—to help me win ye.’ + +Margery covered her face with her hands; whereupon Jim stood up from the +gate and looked critically at her. ‘’Tis a footy plot between you two +men to—snare me!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why should you have done it—why should +he have done it—when I’ve not deserved to be treated so. He bought the +furniture—did he! O, I’ve been taken in—I’ve been wronged!’ The grief +and vexation of finding that long ago, when fondly believing the Baron to +have lover-like feelings himself for her, he was still conspiring to +favour Jim’s suit, was more than she could endure. + +Jim with distant courtesy waited, nibbling a straw, till her paroxysm was +over. ‘One word, Miss Tuck—Mrs.—Margery,’ he then recommenced gravely. +‘You’ll find me man enough to respect your wish, and to leave you to +yourself—for ever and ever, if that’s all. But I’ve just one word of +advice to render ’ee. That is, that before you go to Silverthorn Dairy +yourself you let me drive ahead and call on your father. He’s friends +with me, and he’s not friends with you. I can break the news, a little +at a time, and I think I can gain his good will for you now, even though +the wedding be no natural wedding at all. At any count, I can hear what +he’s got to say about ’ee, and come back here and tell ’ee.’ + +She nodded a cool assent to this, and he left her strolling about the +garden in the sunlight while he went on to reconnoitre as agreed. It +must not be supposed that Jim’s dutiful echoes of Margery’s regret at her +precipitate marriage were all gospel; and there is no doubt that his +private intention, after telling the dairy-farmer what had happened, was +to ask his temporary assent to her caprice, till, in the course of time, +she should be reasoned out of her whims and induced to settle down with +Jim in a natural manner. He had, it is true, been somewhat nettled by +her firm objection to him, and her keen sorrow for what she had done to +please another; but he hoped for the best. + +But, alas for the astute Jim’s calculations! He drove on to the dairy, +whose white walls now gleamed in the morning sun; made fast the horse to +a ring in the wall, and entered the barton. Before knocking, he +perceived the dairyman walking across from a gate in the other direction, +as if he had just come in. Jim went over to him. Since the unfortunate +incident on the morning of the intended wedding they had merely been on +nodding terms, from a sense of awkwardness in their relations. + +‘What—is that thee?’ said Dairyman Tucker, in a voice which unmistakably +startled Jim by its abrupt fierceness. ‘A pretty fellow thou be’st!’ + +It was a bad beginning for the young man’s life as a son-in-law, and +augured ill for the delicate consultation he desired. + +‘What’s the matter?’ said Jim. + +‘Matter! I wish some folks would burn their lime without burning other +folks’ property along wi’ it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You +call yourself a man, Jim Hayward, and an honest lime-burner, and a +respectable, market-keeping Christen, and yet at six o’clock this +morning, instead o’ being where you ought to ha’ been—at your work, there +was neither vell or mark o’ thee to be seen!’ + +‘Faith, I don’t know what you are raving at,’ said Jim. + +‘Why—the sparks from thy couch-heap blew over upon my hay-rick, and the +rick’s burnt to ashes; and all to come out o’ my well-squeezed pocket. +I’ll tell thee what it is, young man. There’s no business in thee. I’ve +known Silverthorn folk, quick and dead, for the last couple-o’-score +year, and I’ve never knew one so three-cunning for harm as thee, my +gentleman lime-burner; and I reckon it one o’ the luckiest days o’ my +life when I ’scaped having thee in my family. That maid of mine was +right; I was wrong. She seed thee to be a drawlacheting rogue, and ’twas +her wisdom to go off that morning and get rid o’ thee. I commend her +for’t, and I’m going to fetch her home to-morrow.’ + +‘You needn’t take the trouble. She’s coming home-along to-night of her +own accord. I have seen her this morning, and she told me so.’ + +‘So much the better. I’ll welcome her warm. Nation! I’d sooner see her +married to the parish fool than thee. Not you—you don’t care for my hay. +Tarrying about where you shouldn’t be, in bed, no doubt; that’s what you +was a-doing. Now, don’t you darken my doors again, and the sooner you be +off my bit o’ ground the better I shall be pleased.’ + +Jim looked, as he felt, stultified. If the rick had been really +destroyed, a little blame certainly attached to him, but he could not +understand how it had happened. However, blame or none, it was clear he +could not, with any self-respect, declare himself to be this peppery old +gaffer’s son-in-law in the face of such an attack as this. + +For months—almost years—the one transaction that had seemed necessary to +compose these two families satisfactorily was Jim’s union with Margery. +No sooner had it been completed than it appeared on all sides as the +gravest mishap for both. Stating coldly that he would discover how much +of the accident was to be attributed to his negligence, and pay the +damage, he went out of the barton, and returned the way he had come. + +Margery had been keeping a look-out for him, particularly wishing him not +to enter the house, lest others should see the seriousness of their +interview; and as soon as she heard wheels she went to the gate, which +was out of view. + +‘Surely father has been speaking roughly to you!’ she said, on seeing his +face. + +‘Not the least doubt that he have,’ said Jim. + +‘But is he still angry with me?’ + +‘Not in the least. He’s waiting to welcome ’ee.’ + +‘Ah! because I’ve married you.’ + +‘Because he thinks you have not married me! He’s jawed me up hill and +down. He hates me; and for your sake I have not explained a word.’ + +Margery looked towards home with a sad, severe gaze. ‘Mr. Hayward,’ she +said, ‘we have made a great mistake, and we are in a strange position.’ + +‘True, but I’ll tell you what, mistress—I won’t stand—’ He stopped +suddenly. ‘Well, well; I’ve promised!’ he quietly added. + +‘We must suffer for our mistake,’ she went on. ‘The way to suffer least +is to keep our own counsel on what happened last evening, and not to +meet. I must now return to my father.’ + +He inclined his head in indifferent assent, and she went indoors, leaving +him there. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +Margery returned home, as she had decided, and resumed her old life at +Silverthorn. And seeing her father’s animosity towards Jim, she told him +not a word of the marriage. + +Her inner life, however, was not what it once had been. She had suffered +a mental and emotional displacement—a shock, which had set a shade of +astonishment on her face as a permanent thing. + +Her indignation with the Baron for collusion with Jim, at first bitter, +lessened with the lapse of a few weeks, and at length vanished in the +interest of some tidings she received one day. + +The Baron was not dead, but he was no longer at the Lodge. To the +surprise of the physicians, a sufficient improvement had taken place in +his condition to permit of his removal before the cold weather came. His +desire for removal had been such, indeed, that it was advisable to carry +it out at almost any risk. The plan adopted had been to have him borne +on men’s shoulders in a sort of palanquin to the shore near Idmouth, a +distance of several miles, where a yacht lay awaiting him. By this means +the noise and jolting of a carriage, along irregular bye-roads, were +avoided. The singular procession over the fields took place at night, +and was witnessed by but few people, one being a labouring man, who +described the scene to Margery. When the seaside was reached a long, +narrow gangway was laid from the deck of the yacht to the shore, which +was so steep as to allow the yacht to lie quite near. The men, with +their burden, ascended by the light of lanterns, the sick man was laid in +the cabin, and, as soon as his bearers had returned to the shore, the +gangway was removed, a rope was heard skirring over wood in the darkness, +the yacht quivered, spread her woven wings to the air, and moved away. +Soon she was but a small, shapeless phantom upon the wide breast of the +sea. + +It was said that the yacht was bound for Algiers. + +When the inimical autumn and winter weather came on, Margery wondered if +he were still alive. The house being shut up, and the servants gone, she +had no means of knowing, till, on a particular Saturday, her father drove +her to Exonbury market. Here, in attending to his business, he left her +to herself for awhile. Walking in a quiet street in the professional +quarter of the town, she saw coming towards her the solicitor who had +been present at the wedding, and who had acted for the Baron in various +small local matters during his brief residence at the Lodge. + +She reddened to peony hues, averted her eyes, and would have passed him. +But he crossed over and barred the pavement, and when she met his glance +he was looking with friendly severity at her. The street was quiet, and +he said in a low voice, ‘How’s the husband?’ + +‘I don’t know, sir,’ said she. + +‘What—and are your stipulations about secrecy and separate living still +in force?’ + +‘They will always be,’ she replied decisively. ‘Mr. Hayward and I agreed +on the point, and we have not the slightest wish to change the +arrangement.’ + +‘H’m. Then ’tis Miss Tucker to the world; Mrs. Hayward to me and one or +two others only?’ + +Margery nodded. Then she nerved herself by an effort, and, though +blushing painfully, asked, ‘May I put one question, sir? Is the Baron +dead?’ + +‘He is dead to you and to all of us. Why should you ask?’ + +‘Because, if he’s alive, I am sorry I married James Hayward. If he is +dead I do not much mind my marriage.’ + +‘I repeat, he is dead to you,’ said the lawyer emphatically. ‘I’ll tell +you all I know. My professional services for him ended with his +departure from this country; but I think I should have heard from him if +he had been alive still. I have not heard at all: and this, taken in +connection with the nature of his illness, leaves no doubt in my mind +that he is dead.’ + +Margery sighed, and thanking the lawyer she left him with a tear for the +Baron in her eye. After this incident she became more restful; and the +time drew on for her periodical visit to her grandmother. + +A few days subsequent to her arrival her aged relative asked her to go +with a message to the gardener at Mount Lodge (who still lived on there, +keeping the grounds in order for the landlord). Margery hated that +direction now, but she went. The Lodge, which she saw over the trees, +was to her like a skull from which the warm and living flesh had +vanished. It was twilight by the time she reached the cottage at the +bottom of the Lodge garden, and, the room being illuminated within, she +saw through the window a woman she had never seen before. She was dark, +and rather handsome, and when Margery knocked she opened the door. It +was the gardener’s widowed daughter, who had been advised to make friends +with Margery. + +She now found her opportunity. Margery’s errand was soon completed, the +young widow, to her surprise, treating her with preternatural respect, +and afterwards offering to accompany her home. Margery was not sorry to +have a companion in the gloom, and they walked on together. The widow, +Mrs. Peach, was demonstrative and confidential; and told Margery all +about herself. She had come quite recently to live with her +father—during the Baron’s illness, in fact—and her husband had been +captain of a ketch. + +‘I saw you one morning, ma’am,’ she said. ‘But you didn’t see me. It +was when you were crossing the hill in sight of the Lodge. You looked at +it, and sighed. ’Tis the lot of widows to sigh, ma’am, is it not?’ + +‘Widows—yes, I suppose; but what do you mean?’ + +Mrs. Peach lowered her voice. ‘I can’t say more, ma’am, with proper +respect. But there seems to be no question of the poor Baron’s death; +and though these foreign princes can take (as my poor husband used to +tell me) what they call left-handed wives, and leave them behind when +they go abroad, widowhood is widowhood, left-handed or right. And +really, to be the left-handed wife of a foreign baron is nobler than to +be married all round to a common man. You’ll excuse my freedom, ma’am; +but being a widow myself, I have pitied you from my heart; so young as +you are, and having to keep it a secret, and (excusing me) having no +money out of his vast riches because ’tis swallowed up by Baroness Number +One.’ + +Now Margery did not understand a word more of this than the bare fact +that Mrs. Peach suspected her to be the Baron’s undowered widow, and such +was the milkmaid’s nature that she did not deny the widow’s impeachment. +The latter continued— + +‘But ah, ma’am, all your troubles are straight backward in your +memory—while I have troubles before as well as grief behind.’ + +‘What may they be, Mrs. Peach?’ inquired Margery with an air of the +Baroness. + +The other dropped her voice to revelation tones: ‘I have been forgetful +enough of my first man to lose my heart to a second!’ + +‘You shouldn’t do that—it is wrong. You should control your feelings.’ + +‘But how am I to control my feelings?’ + +‘By going to your dead husband’s grave, and things of that sort.’ + +‘Do you go to your dead husband’s grave?’ + +‘How can I go to Algiers?’ + +‘Ah—too true! Well, I’ve tried everything to cure myself—read the words +against it, gone to the Table the first Sunday of every month, and all +sorts. But, avast, my shipmate!—as my poor man used to say—there ’tis +just the same. In short, I’ve made up my mind to encourage the new one. +’Tis flattering that I, a new-comer, should have been found out by a +young man so soon.’ + +‘Who is he?’ said Margery listlessly. + +‘A master lime-burner.’ + +‘A master lime-burner?’ + +‘That’s his profession. He’s a partner-in-co., doing very well indeed.’ + +‘But what’s his name?’ + +‘I don’t like to tell you his name, for, though ’tis night, that covers +all shame-facedness, my face is as hot as a ’Talian iron, I declare! Do +you just feel it.’ + +Margery put her hand on Mrs. Peach’s face, and, sure enough, hot it was. +‘Does he come courting?’ she asked quickly. + +‘Well only in the way of business. He never comes unless lime is wanted +in the neighbourhood. He’s in the Yeomanry, too, and will look very fine +when he comes out in regimentals for drill in May.’ + +‘Oh—in the Yeomanry,’ Margery said, with a slight relief. ‘Then it +can’t—is he a young man?’ + +‘Yes, junior partner-in-co.’ + +The description had an odd resemblance to Jim, of whom Margery had not +heard a word for months. He had promised silence and absence, and had +fulfilled his promise literally, with a gratuitous addition that was +rather amazing, if indeed it were Jim whom the widow loved. One point in +the description puzzled Margery: Jim was not in the Yeomanry, unless, by +a surprising development of enterprise, he had entered it recently. + +At parting Margery said, with an interest quite tender, ‘I should like to +see you again, Mrs. Peach, and hear of your attachment. When can you +call?’ + +‘Oh—any time, dear Baroness, I’m sure—if you think I am good enough.’ + +‘Indeed, I do, Mrs. Peach. Come as soon as you’ve seen the lime-burner +again.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +Seeing that Jim lived several miles from the widow, Margery was rather +surprised, and even felt a slight sinking of the heart, when her new +acquaintance appeared at her door so soon as the evening of the following +Monday. She asked Margery to walk out with her, which the young woman +readily did. + +‘I am come at once,’ said the widow breathlessly, as soon as they were in +the lane, ‘for it is so exciting that I can’t keep it. I must tell it to +somebody, if only a bird, or a cat, or a garden snail.’ + +‘What is it?’ asked her companion. + +‘I’ve pulled grass from my husband’s grave to cure it—wove the blades +into true lover’s knots; took off my shoes upon the sod; but, avast, my +shipmate,—’ + +‘Upon the sod—why?’ + +‘To feel the damp earth he’s in, and make the sense of it enter my soul. +But no. It has swelled to a head; he is going to meet me at the Yeomanry +Review.’ + +‘The master lime-burner?’ + +The widow nodded. + +‘When is it to be?’ + +‘To-morrow. He looks so lovely in his accoutrements! He’s such a +splendid soldier; that was the last straw that kindled my soul to say +yes. He’s home from Exonbury for a night between the drills,’ continued +Mrs. Peach. ‘He goes back to-morrow morning for the Review, and when +it’s over he’s going to meet me. But, guide my heart, there he is!’ + +Her exclamation had rise in the sudden appearance of a brilliant red +uniform through the trees, and the tramp of a horse carrying the wearer +thereof. In another half-minute the military gentleman would have turned +the corner, and faced them. + +‘He’d better not see me; he’ll think I know too much,’ said Margery +precipitately. ‘I’ll go up here.’ + +The widow, whose thoughts had been of the same cast, seemed much relieved +to see Margery disappear in the plantation, in the midst of a spring +chorus of birds. Once among the trees, Margery turned her head, and, +before she could see the rider’s person she recognized the horse as Tony, +the lightest of three that Jim and his partner owned, for the purpose of +carting out lime to their customers. + +Jim, then, had joined the Yeomanry since his estrangement from Margery. +A man who had worn the young Queen Victoria’s uniform for seven days only +could not be expected to look as if it were part of his person, in the +manner of long-trained soldiers; but he was a well-formed young fellow, +and of an age when few positions came amiss to one who has the capacity +to adapt himself to circumstances. + +Meeting the blushing Mrs. Peach (to whom Margery in her mind sternly +denied the right to blush at all), Jim alighted and moved on with her, +probably at Mrs. Peach’s own suggestion; so that what they said, how long +they remained together, and how they parted, Margery knew not. She might +have known some of these things by waiting; but the presence of Jim had +bred in her heart a sudden disgust for the widow, and a general sense of +discomfiture. She went away in an opposite direction, turning her head +and saying to the unconscious Jim, ‘There’s a fine rod in pickle for you, +my gentleman, if you carry out that pretty scheme!’ + +Jim’s military _coup_ had decidedly astonished her. What he might do +next she could not conjecture. The idea of his doing anything +sufficiently brilliant to arrest her attention would have seemed +ludicrous, had not Jim, by entering the Yeomanry, revealed a capacity for +dazzling exploits which made it unsafe to predict any limitation to his +powers. + +Margery was now excited. The daring of the wretched Jim in bursting into +scarlet amazed her as much as his doubtful acquaintanceship with the +demonstrative Mrs. Peach. To go to that Review, to watch the pair, to +eclipse Mrs. Peach in brilliancy, to meet and pass them in withering +contempt—if she only could do it! But, alas! she was a forsaken woman. + +‘If the Baron were alive, or in England,’ she said to herself (for +sometimes she thought he might possibly be alive), ‘and he were to take +me to this Review, wouldn’t I show that forward Mrs. Peach what a lady is +like, and keep among the select company, and not mix with the common +people at all!’ + +It might at first sight be thought that the best course for Margery at +this juncture would have been to go to Jim, and nip the intrigue in the +bud without further scruple. But her own declaration in after days was +that whoever could say that was far from realizing her situation. It was +hard to break such ice as divided their two lives now, and to attempt it +at that moment was a too humiliating proclamation of defeat. The only +plan she could think of—perhaps not a wise one in the circumstances—was +to go to the Review herself; and be the gayest there. + +A method of doing this with some propriety soon occurred to her. She +dared not ask her father, who scorned to waste time in sight-seeing, and +whose animosity towards Jim knew no abatement; but she might call on her +old acquaintance, Mr. Vine, Jim’s partner, who would probably be going +with the rest of the holiday-folk, and ask if she might accompany him in +his spring-trap. She had no sooner perceived the feasibility of this, +through her being at her grandmother’s, than she decided to meet with the +old man early the next morning. + +In the meantime Jim and Mrs. Peach had walked slowly along the road +together, Jim leading the horse, and Mrs. Peach informing him that her +father, the gardener, was at Jim’s village further on, and that she had +come to meet him. Jim, for reasons of his own, was going to sleep at his +partner’s that night, and thus their route was the same. The shades of +eve closed in upon them as they walked, and by the time they reached the +lime-kiln, which it was necessary to pass to get to the village, it was +quite dark. Jim stopped at the kiln, to see if matters had progressed +rightly in his seven days’ absence, and Mrs. Peach, who stuck to him like +a teazle, stopped also, saying she would wait for her father there. + +She held the horse while he ascended to the top of the kiln. Then +rejoining her, and not quite knowing what to do, he stood beside her +looking at the flames, which to-night burnt up brightly, shining a long +way into the dark air, even up to the ramparts of the earthwork above +them, and overhead into the bosoms of the clouds. + +It was during this proceeding that a carriage, drawn by a pair of dark +horses, came along the turnpike road. The light of the kiln caused the +horses to swerve a little, and the occupant of the carriage looked out. +He saw the bluish, lightning-like flames from the limestone, rising from +the top of the furnace, and hard by the figures of Jim Hayward, the +widow, and the horse, standing out with spectral distinctness against the +mass of night behind. The scene wore the aspect of some unholy +assignation in Pandaemonium, and it was all the more impressive from the +fact that both Jim and the woman were quite unconscious of the striking +spectacle they presented. The gentleman in the carriage watched them +till he was borne out of sight. + +Having seen to the kiln, Jim and the widow walked on again, and soon Mrs. +Peach’s father met them, and relieved Jim of the lady. When they had +parted, Jim, with an expiration not unlike a breath of relief; went on to +Mr. Vine’s, and, having put the horse into the stable, entered the house. +His partner was seated at the table, solacing himself after the labours +of the day by luxurious alternations between a long clay pipe and a mug +of perry. + +‘Well,’ said Jim eagerly, ‘what’s the news—how do she take it?’ + +‘Sit down—sit down,’ said Vine. ‘’Tis working well; not but that I +deserve something o’ thee for the trouble I’ve had in watching her. The +soldiering was a fine move; but the woman is a better!—who invented it?’ + +‘I myself,’ said Jim modestly. + +‘Well; jealousy is making her rise like a thunderstorm, and in a day or +two you’ll have her for the asking, my sonny. What’s the next step?’ + +‘The widow is getting rather a weight upon a feller, worse luck,’ said +Jim. ‘But I must keep it up until to-morrow, at any rate. I have +promised to see her at the Review, and now the great thing is that +Margery should see we a-smiling together—I in my full-dress uniform and +clinking arms o’ war. ’Twill be a good strong sting, and will end the +business, I hope. Couldn’t you manage to put the hoss in and drive her +there? She’d go if you were to ask her.’ + +‘With all my heart,’ said Mr. Vine, moistening the end of a new pipe in +his perry. ‘I can call at her grammer’s for her—’twill be all in my +way.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Margery duly followed up her intention by arraying herself the next +morning in her loveliest guise, and keeping watch for Mr. Vine’s +appearance upon the high road, feeling certain that his would form one in +the procession of carts and carriages which set in towards Exonbury that +day. Jim had gone by at a very early hour, and she did not see him pass. +Her anticipation was verified by the advent of Mr. Vine about eleven +o’clock, dressed to his highest effort; but Margery was surprised to find +that, instead of her having to stop him, he pulled in towards the gate of +his own accord. The invitation planned between Jim and the old man on +the previous night was now promptly given, and, as may be supposed, as +promptly accepted. Such a strange coincidence she had never before +known. She was quite ready, and they drove onward at once. + +The Review was held on some high ground a little way out of the city, and +her conductor suggested that they should put up the horse at the inn, and +walk to the field—a plan which pleased her well, for it was more easy to +take preliminary observations on foot without being seen herself than +when sitting elevated in a vehicle. + +They were just in time to secure a good place near the front, and in a +few minutes after their arrival the reviewing officer came on the ground. +Margery’s eye had rapidly run over the troop in which Jim was enrolled, +and she discerned him in one of the ranks, looking remarkably new and +bright, both as to uniform and countenance. Indeed, if she had not +worked herself into such a desperate state of mind she would have felt +proud of him then and there. His shapely upright figure was quite +noteworthy in the row of rotund yeomen on his right and left; while his +charger Tony expressed by his bearing, even more than Jim, that he knew +nothing about lime-carts whatever, and everything about trumpets and +glory. How Jim could have scrubbed Tony to such shining blackness she +could not tell, for the horse in his natural state was ingrained with +lime-dust, that burnt the colour out of his coat as it did out of Jim’s +hair. Now he pranced martially, and was a war-horse every inch of him. + +Having discovered Jim her next search was for Mrs. Peach, and, by dint of +some oblique glancing Margery indignantly discovered the widow in the +most forward place of all, her head and bright face conspicuously +advanced; and, what was more shocking, she had abandoned her mourning for +a violet drawn-bonnet and a gay spencer, together with a parasol +luxuriously fringed in a way Margery had never before seen. ‘Where did +she get the money?’ said Margery, under her breath. ‘And to forget that +poor sailor so soon!’ + +These general reflections were precipitately postponed by her discovering +that Jim and the widow were perfectly alive to each other’s whereabouts, +and in the interchange of telegraphic signs of affection, which on the +latter’s part took the form of a playful fluttering of her handkerchief +or waving of her parasol. Richard Vine had placed Margery in front of +him, to protect her from the crowd, as he said, he himself surveying the +scene over her bonnet. Margery would have been even more surprised than +she was if she had known that Jim was not only aware of Mrs. Peach’s +presence, but also of her own, the treacherous Mr. Vine having drawn out +his flame-coloured handkerchief and waved it to Jim over the young +woman’s head as soon as they had taken up their position. + +‘My partner makes a tidy soldier, eh—Miss Tucker?’ said the senior +lime-burner. ‘It is my belief as a Christian that he’s got a party here +that he’s making signs to—that handsome figure o’ fun straight over-right +him.’ + +‘Perhaps so,’ she said. + +‘And it’s growing warm between ’em if I don’t mistake,’ continued the +merciless Vine. + +Margery was silent, biting her lip; and the troops being now set in +motion, all signalling ceased for the present between soldier Hayward and +his pretended sweetheart. + +‘Have you a piece of paper that I could make a memorandum on, Mr. Vine?’ +asked Margery. + +Vine took out his pocket-book and tore a leaf from it, which he handed +her with a pencil. + +‘Don’t move from here—I’ll return in a minute,’ she continued, with the +innocence of a woman who means mischief. And, withdrawing herself to the +back, where the grass was clear, she pencilled down the words + + ‘JIM’S MARRIED.’ + +Armed with this document she crept into the throng behind the +unsuspecting Mrs. Peach, slipped the paper into her pocket on the top of +her handkerchief; and withdrew unobserved, rejoining Mr. Vine with a +bearing of _nonchalance_. + +By-and-by the troops were in different order, Jim taking a left-hand +position almost close to Mrs. Peach. He bent down and said a few words +to her. From her manner of nodding assent it was surely some arrangement +about a meeting by-and-by when Jim’s drill was over, and Margery was more +certain of the fact when, the Review having ended, and the people having +strolled off to another part of the field where sports were to take +place, Mrs. Peach tripped away in the direction of the city. + +‘I’ll just say a word to my partner afore he goes off the ground, if +you’ll spare me a minute,’ said the old lime-burner. ‘Please stay here +till I’m back again.’ He edged along the front till he reached Jim. + +‘How is she?’ said the latter. + +‘In a trimming sweat,’ said Mr. Vine. ‘And my counsel to ’ee is to carry +this larry no further. ’Twill do no good. She’s as ready to make +friends with ’ee as any wife can be; and more showing off can only do +harm.’ + +‘But I must finish off with a spurt,’ said Jim. ‘And this is how I am +going to do it. I have arranged with Mrs. Peach that, as soon as we +soldiers have entered the town and been dismissed, I’ll meet her there. +It is really to say good-bye, but she don’t know that; and I wanted it to +look like a lopement to Margery’s eyes. When I’m clear of Mrs. Peach +I’ll come back here and make it up with Margery on the spot. But don’t +say I’m coming, or she may be inclined to throw off again. Just hint to +her that I may be meaning to be off to London with the widow.’ + +The old man still insisted that this was going too far. + +‘No, no, it isn’t,’ said Jim. ‘I know how to manage her. ’Twill just +mellow her heart nicely by the time I come back. I must bring her down +real tender, or ’twill all fail.’ + +His senior reluctantly gave in and returned to Margery. A short time +afterwards the Yeomanry hand struck up, and Jim with the regiment +followed towards Exonbury. + +‘Yes, yes; they are going to meet,’ said Margery to herself, perceiving +that Mrs. Peach had so timed her departure as to be in the town at Jim’s +dismounting. + +‘Now we will go and see the games,’ said Mr. Vine; ‘they are really worth +seeing. There’s greasy poles, and jumping in sacks, and other trials of +the intellect, that nobody ought to miss who wants to be abreast of his +generation.’ + +Margery felt so indignant at the apparent assignation, which seemed about +to take place despite her anonymous writing, that she helplessly assented +to go anywhere, dropping behind Vine, that he might not see her mood. + +Jim followed out his programme with literal exactness. No sooner was the +troop dismissed in the city than he sent Tony to stable and joined Mrs. +Peach, who stood on the edge of the pavement expecting him. But this +acquaintance was to end: he meant to part from her for ever and in the +quickest time, though civilly; for it was important to be with Margery as +soon as possible. He had nearly completed the manœuvre to his +satisfaction when, in drawing her handkerchief from her pocket to wipe +the tears from her eyes, Mrs. Peach’s hand grasped the paper, which she +read at once. + +‘What! is that true?’ she said, holding it out to Jim. + +Jim started and admitted that it was, beginning an elaborate explanation +and apologies. But Mrs. Peach was thoroughly roused, and then overcome. +‘He’s married, he’s married!’ she said, and swooned, or feigned to swoon, +so that Jim was obliged to support her. + +‘He’s married, he’s married!’ said a boy hard by who watched the scene +with interest. + +‘He’s married, he’s married!’ said a hilarious group of other boys near, +with smiles several inches broad, and shining teeth; and so the +exclamation echoed down the street. + +Jim cursed his ill-luck; the loss of time that this dilemma entailed grew +serious; for Mrs. Peach was now in such a hysterical state that he could +not leave her with any good grace or feeling. It was necessary to take +her to a refreshment room, lavish restoratives upon her, and altogether +to waste nearly half an hour. When she had kept him as long as she +chose, she forgave him; and thus at last he got away, his heart swelling +with tenderness towards Margery. He at once hurried up the street to +effect the reconciliation with her. + +‘How shall I do it?’ he said to himself. ‘Why, I’ll step round to her +side, fish for her hand, draw it through my arm as if I wasn’t aware of +it. Then she’ll look in my face, I shall look in hers, and we shall +march off the field triumphant, and the thing will be done without +takings or tears.’ + +He entered the field and went straight as an arrow to the place appointed +for the meeting. It was at the back of a refreshment tent outside the +mass of spectators, and divided from their view by the tent itself. He +turned the corner of the canvas, and there beheld Vine at the indicated +spot. But Margery was not with him. + +Vine’s hat was thrust back into his poll. His face was pale, and his +manner bewildered. ‘Hullo? what’s the matter?’ said Jim. ‘Where’s my +Margery?’ + +‘You’ve carried this footy game too far, my man!’ exclaimed Vine, with +the air of a friend who has ‘always told you so.’ ‘You ought to have +dropped it several days ago, when she would have come to ’ee like a +cooing dove. Now this is the end o’t!’ + +‘Hey! what, my Margery? Has anything happened, for God’s sake?’ + +‘She’s gone.’ + +‘Where to?’ + +‘That’s more than earthly man can tell! I never see such a thing! ’Twas +a stroke o’ the black art—as if she were sperrited away. When we got to +the games I said—mind, you told me to!—I said, “Jim Hayward thinks o’ +going off to London with that widow woman”—mind you told me to! She +showed no wonderment, though a’ seemed very low. Then she said to me, “I +don’t like standing here in this slummocky crowd. I shall feel more at +home among the gentlepeople.” And then she went to where the carriages +were drawn up, and near her there was a grand coach, a-blazing with lions +and unicorns, and hauled by two coal-black horses. I hardly thought much +of it then, and by degrees lost sight of her behind it. Presently the +other carriages moved off, and I thought still to see her standing there. +But no, she had vanished; and then I saw the grand coach rolling away, +and glimpsed Margery in it, beside a fine dark gentleman with black +mustachios, and a very pale prince-like face. As soon as the horses got +into the hard road they rattled on like hell-and-skimmer, and went out of +sight in the dust, and—that’s all. If you’d come back a little sooner +you’d ha’ caught her.’ + +Jim had turned whiter than his pipeclay. ‘O, this is too bad—too bad!’ +he cried in anguish, striking his brow. ‘That paper and that fainting +woman kept me so long. Who could have done it? But ’tis my fault. I’ve +stung her too much. I shouldn’t have carried it so far.’ + +‘You shouldn’t—just what I said,’ replied his senior. + +‘She thinks I’ve gone off with that cust widow; and to spite me she’s +gone off with the man! Do you know who that stranger wi’ the lions and +unicorns is? Why, ’tis that foreigner who calls himself a Baron, and +took Mount Lodge for six months last year to make mischief—a villain! O, +my Margery—that it should come to this! She’s lost, she’s ruined!—Which +way did they go?’ + +Jim turned to follow in the direction indicated, when, behold, there +stood at his back her father, Dairyman Tucker. + +‘Now look here, young man,’ said Dairyman Tucker. ‘I’ve just heard all +that wailing—and straightway will ask ’ee to stop it sharp. ’Tis like +your brazen impudence to teave and wail when you be another woman’s +husband; yes, faith, I see’d her a-fainting in yer arms when you wanted +to get away from her, and honest folk a-standing round who knew you’d +married her, and said so. I heard it, though you didn’t see me. “He’s +married!” says they. Some sly register-office business, no doubt; but +sly doings will out. As for Margery—who’s to be called higher titles in +these parts hencefor’ard—I’m her father, and I say it’s all right what +she’s done. Don’t I know private news, hey? Haven’t I just learnt that +secret weddings of high people can happen at expected deathbeds by +special licence, as well as low people at registrars’ offices? And can’t +husbands come back and claim their own when they choose? Begone, young +man, and leave noblemen’s wives alone; and I thank God I shall be rid of +a numskull!’ + +Swift words of explanation rose to Jim’s lips, but they paused there and +died. At that last moment he could not, as Margery’s husband, announce +Margery’s shame and his own, and transform her father’s triumph to +wretchedness at a blow. + +‘I—I—must leave here,’ he stammered. Going from the place in an opposite +course to that of the fugitives, he doubled when out of sight, and in an +incredibly short space had entered the town. Here he made inquiries for +the emblazoned carriage, and gained from one or two persons a general +idea of its route. They thought it had taken the highway to London. +Saddling poor Tony before he had half eaten his corn, Jim galloped along +the same road. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Now Jim was quite mistaken in supposing that by leaving the field in a +roundabout manner he had deceived Dairyman Tucker as to his object. That +astute old man immediately divined that Jim was meaning to track the +fugitives, in ignorance (as the dairyman supposed) of their lawful +relation. He was soon assured of the fact, for, creeping to a remote +angle of the field, he saw Jim hastening into the town. Vowing vengeance +on the young lime-burner for his mischievous interference between a +nobleman and his secretly-wedded wife, the dairy-farmer determined to +balk him. + +Tucker had ridden on to the Review ground, so that there was no necessity +for him, as there had been for poor Jim, to re-enter the town before +starting. The dairyman hastily untied his mare from the row of other +horses, mounted, and descended to a bridle-path which would take him +obliquely into the London road a mile or so ahead. The old man’s route +being along one side of an equilateral triangle, while Jim’s was along +two sides of the same, the former was at the point of intersection long +before Hayward. + +Arrived here, the dairyman pulled up and looked around. It was a spot at +which the highway forked; the left arm, the more important, led on +through Sherton Abbas and Melchester to London; the right to Idmouth and +the coast. Nothing was visible on the white track to London; but on the +other there appeared the back of a carriage, which rapidly ascended a +distant hill and vanished under the trees. It was the Baron’s who, +according to the sworn information of the gardener at Mount Lodge, had +made Margery his wife. + +The carriage having vanished, the dairyman gazed in the opposite +direction, towards Exonbury. Here he beheld Jim in his regimentals, +laboriously approaching on Tony’s back. + +Soon he reached the forking roads, and saw the dairyman by the wayside. +But Jim did not halt. Then the dairyman practised the greatest duplicity +of his life. + +‘Right along the London road, if you want to catch ’em!’ he said. + +‘Thank ’ee, dairyman, thank ’ee!’ cried Jim, his pale face lighting up +with gratitude, for he believed that Tucker had learnt his mistake from +Vine, and had come to his assistance. Without drawing rein he diminished +along the road not taken by the flying pair. The dairyman rubbed his +hands with delight, and returned to the city as the cathedral clock +struck five. + +Jim pursued his way through the dust, up hill and down hill; but never +saw ahead of him the vehicle of his search. That vehicle was passing +along a diverging way at a distance of many miles from where he rode. +Still he sped onwards, till Tony showed signs of breaking down; and then +Jim gathered from inquiries he made that he had come the wrong way. It +burst upon his mind that the dairyman, still ignorant of the truth, had +misinformed him. Heavier in his heart than words can describe he turned +Tony’s drooping head, and resolved to drag his way home. + +But the horse was now so jaded that it was impossible to proceed far. +Having gone about half a mile back he came again to a small roadside +hamlet and inn, where he put up Tony for a rest and feed. As for +himself, there was no quiet in him. He tried to sit and eat in the inn +kitchen; but he could not stay there. He went out, and paced up and down +the road. + +Standing in sight of the white way by which he had come he beheld +advancing towards him the horses and carriage he sought, now black and +daemonic against the slanting fires of the western sun. + +The why and wherefore of this sudden appearance he did not pause to +consider. His resolve to intercept the carriage was instantaneous. He +ran forward, and doggedly waiting barred the way to the advancing +equipage. + +The Baron’s coachman shouted, but Jim stood firm as a rock, and on the +former attempting to push past him Jim drew his sword, resolving to cut +the horses down rather than be displaced. The animals were thrown nearly +back upon their haunches, and at this juncture a gentleman looked out of +the window. It was the Baron himself. + +‘Who’s there?’ he inquired. + +‘James Hayward!’ replied the young man fiercely, ‘and he demands his +wife.’ + +The Baron leapt out, and told the coachman to drive back out of sight and +wait for him. + +‘I was hastening to find you,’ he said to Jim. ‘Your wife is where she +ought to be, and where you ought to be also—by your own fireside. +Where’s the other woman?’ + +Jim, without replying, looked incredulously into the carriage as it +turned. Margery was certainly not there. ‘The other woman is nothing to +me,’ he said bitterly. ‘I used her to warm up Margery: I have now done +with her. The question I ask, my lord, is, what business had you with +Margery to-day?’ + +‘My business was to help her to regain the husband she had seemingly +lost. I saw her; she told me you had eloped by the London road with +another. I, who have—mostly—had her happiness at heart, told her I would +help her to follow you if she wished. She gladly agreed; we drove after, +but could hear no tidings of you in front of us. Then I took her—to your +house—and there she awaits you. I promised to send you to her if human +effort could do it, and was tracking you for that purpose.’ + +‘Then you’ve been a-pursuing after me?’ + +‘You and the widow.’ + +‘And I’ve been pursuing after you and Margery! My noble lord, your +actions seem to show that I ought to believe you in this; and when you +say you’ve her happiness at heart, I don’t forget that you’ve formerly +proved it to be so. Well, Heaven forbid that I should think wrongfully +of you if you don’t deserve it! A mystery to me you have always been, my +noble lord, and in this business more than in any.’ + +‘I am glad to hear you say no worse. In one hour you’ll have proof of my +conduct—good and bad. Can I do anything more? Say the word, and I’ll +try.’ + +Jim reflected. ‘Baron,’ he said, ‘I am a plain man, and wish only to +lead a quiet life with my wife, as a man should. You have great power +over her—power to any extent, for good or otherwise. If you command her +anything on earth, righteous or questionable, that she’ll do. So that, +since you ask me if you can do more for me, I’ll answer this, you can +promise never to see her again. I mean no harm, my lord; but your +presence can do no good; you will trouble us. If I return to her, will +you for ever stay away?’ + +‘Hayward,’ said the Baron, ‘I swear to you that I will disturb you and +your wife by my presence no more. And he took Jim’s hand, and pressed it +within his own upon the hilt of Jim’s sword. + +In relating this incident to the present narrator Jim used to declare +that, to his fancy, the ruddy light of the setting sun burned with more +than earthly fire on the Baron’s face as the words were spoken; and that +the ruby flash of his eye in the same light was what he never witnessed +before nor since in the eye of mortal man. After this there was nothing +more to do or say in that place. Jim accompanied his +never-to-be-forgotten acquaintance to the carriage, closed the door after +him, waved his hat to him, and from that hour he and the Baron met not +again on earth. + +A few words will suffice to explain the fortunes of Margery while the +foregoing events were in action elsewhere. On leaving her companion Vine +she had gone distractedly among the carriages, the rather to escape his +observation than of any set purpose. Standing here she thought she heard +her name pronounced, and turning, saw her foreign friend, whom she had +supposed to be, if not dead, a thousand miles off. He beckoned, and she +went close. ‘You are ill—you are wretched,’ he said, looking keenly in +her face. ‘Where’s your husband?’ + +She told him her sad suspicion that Jim had run away from her. The Baron +reflected, and inquired a few other particulars of her late life. Then +he said: ‘You and I must find him. Come with me.’ At this word of +command from the Baron she had entered the carriage as docilely as a +child, and there she sat beside him till he chose to speak, which was not +till they were some way out of the town, at the forking ways, and the +Baron had discovered that Jim was certainly not, as they had supposed, +making off from Margery along that particular branch of the fork that led +to London. + +‘To pursue him in this way is useless, I perceive,’ he said. ‘And the +proper course now is that I should take you to his house. That done I +will return, and bring him to you if mortal persuasion can do it.’ + +‘I didn’t want to go to his house without him, sir,’ said she, +tremblingly. + +‘Didn’t want to!’ he answered. ‘Let me remind you, Margery Hayward, that +your place is in your husband’s house. Till you are there you have no +right to criticize his conduct, however wild it may be. Why have you not +been there before?’ + +‘I don’t know, sir,’ she murmured, her tears falling silently upon her +hand. + +‘Don’t you think you ought to be there?’ + +She did not answer. + +‘Of course you ought.’ + +Still she did not speak. + +The Baron sank into silence, and allowed his eye to rest on her. What +thoughts were all at once engaging his mind after those moments of +reproof? Margery had given herself into his hands without a +remonstrance, her husband had apparently deserted her. She was +absolutely in his power, and they were on the high road. + +That his first impulse in inviting her to accompany him had been the +legitimate one denoted by his words cannot reasonably be doubted. That +his second was otherwise soon became revealed, though not at first to +her, for she was too bewildered to notice where they were going. Instead +of turning and taking the road to Jim’s, the Baron, as if influenced +suddenly by her reluctance to return thither if Jim was playing truant, +signalled to the coachman to take the branch road to the right, as her +father had discerned. + +They soon approached the coast near Idmouth. The carriage stopped. +Margery awoke from her reverie. + +‘Where are we?’ she said, looking out of the window, with a start. +Before her was an inlet of the sea, and in the middle of the inlet rode a +yacht, its masts repeating as if from memory the rocking they had +practised in their native forest. + +‘At a little sea-side nook, where my yacht lies at anchor,’ he said +tentatively. ‘Now, Margery, in five minutes we can be aboard, and in +half an hour we can be sailing away all the world over. Will you come?’ + +‘I cannot decide,’ she said, in low tones. + +‘Why not?’ + +‘Because—’ + +Then on a sudden, Margery seemed to see all contingencies: she became +white as a fleece, and a bewildered look came into her eyes. With +clasped hands she leant on the Baron. + +Baron von Xanten observed her distracted look, averted his face, and +coming to a decision opened the carriage door, quickly mounted outside, +and in a second or two the carriage left the shore behind, and ascended +the road by which it had come. + +In about an hour they reached Jim Hayward’s home. The Baron alighted, +and spoke to her through the window. ‘Margery, can you forgive a lover’s +bad impulse, which I swear was unpremeditated?’ he asked. ‘If you can, +shake my hand.’ + +She did not do it, but eventually allowed him to help her out of the +carriage. He seemed to feel the awkwardness keenly; and seeing it, she +said, ‘Of course I forgive you, sir, for I felt for a moment as you did. +Will you send my husband to me?’ + +‘I will, if any man can,’ said he. ‘Such penance is milder than I +deserve! God bless you and give you happiness! I shall never see you +again!’ He turned, entered the carriage, and was gone; and having found +out Jim’s course, came up with him upon the road as described. + +In due time the latter reached his lodging at his partner’s. The woman +who took care of the house in Vine’s absence at once told Jim that a lady +who had come in a carriage was waiting for him in his sitting-room. Jim +proceeded thither with agitation, and beheld, shrinkingly ensconced in +the large slippery chair, and surrounded by the brilliant articles that +had so long awaited her, his long-estranged wife. + +Margery’s eyes were round and fear-stricken. She essayed to speak, but +Jim, strangely enough, found the readier tongue then. ‘Why did I do it, +you would ask,’ he said. ‘I cannot tell. Do you forgive my deception? +O Margery—you are my Margery still! But how could you trust yourself in +the Baron’s hands this afternoon, without knowing him better?’ + +‘He said I was to come, and I went,’ she said, as well as she could for +tearfulness. + +‘You obeyed him blindly.’ + +‘I did. But perhaps I was not justified in doing it.’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Jim musingly. ‘I think he’s a good man.’ Margery +did not explain. And then a sunnier mood succeeded her tremblings and +tears, till old Mr. Vine came into the house below, and Jim went down to +declare that all was well, and sent off his partner to break the news to +Margery’s father, who as yet remained unenlightened. + +The dairyman bore the intelligence of his daughter’s untitled state as +best he could, and punished her by not coming near her for several weeks, +though at last he grumbled his forgiveness, and made up matters with Jim. +The handsome Mrs. Peach vanished to Plymouth, and found another sailor, +not without a reasonable complaint against Jim and Margery both that she +had been unfairly used. + +As for the mysterious gentleman who had exercised such an influence over +their lives, he kept his word, and was a stranger to Lower Wessex +thenceforward. Baron or no Baron, Englishman or foreigner, he had shown +a genuine interest in Jim, and real sorrow for a certain reckless phase +of his acquaintance with Margery. That he had a more tender feeling +toward the young girl than he wished her or any one else to perceive +there could be no doubt. That he was strongly tempted at times to adopt +other than conventional courses with regard to her is also clear, +particularly at that critical hour when she rolled along the high road +with him in the carriage, after turning from the fancied pursuit of Jim. +But at other times he schooled impassioned sentiments into fair conduct, +which even erred on the side of harshness. In after years there was a +report that another attempt on his life with a pistol, during one of +those fits of moodiness to which he seemed constitutionally liable, had +been effectual; but nobody in Silverthorn was in a position to ascertain +the truth. + +There he is still regarded as one who had something about him magical and +unearthly. In his mystery let him remain; for a man, no less than a +landscape, who awakens an interest under uncertain lights and touches of +unfathomable shade, may cut but a poor figure in a garish noontide shine. + +When she heard of his mournful death Margery sat in her nursing-chair, +gravely thinking for nearly ten minutes, to the total neglect of her +infant in the cradle. Jim, from the other side of the fire-place, said: +‘You are sorry enough for him, Margery. I am sure of that.’ + +‘Yes, yes,’ she murmured, ‘I am sorry.’ After a moment she added: ‘Now +that he’s dead I’ll make a confession, Jim, that I have never made to a +soul. If he had pressed me—which he did not—to go with him when I was in +the carriage that night beside his yacht, I would have gone. And I was +disappointed that he did not press me.’ + +‘Suppose he were to suddenly appear now, and say in a voice of command, +“Margery, come with me!”’ + +‘I believe I should have no power to disobey,’ she returned, with a +mischievous look. ‘He was like a magician to me. I think he was one. +He could move me as a loadstone moves a speck of steel . . . Yet no,’ she +added, hearing the infant cry, ‘he would not move me now. It would be so +unfair to baby.’ + +‘Well,’ said Jim, with no great concern (for ‘_la jalousie +rétrospective_,’ as George Sand calls it, had nearly died out of him), +‘however he might move ’ee, my love, he’ll never come. He swore it to +me: and he was a man of his word.’ + +_Midsummer_, 1883. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF A +MILKMAID*** + + +******* This file should be named 2996-0.txt or 2996-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/9/9/9/9/2996 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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