CHAPTER XX

The park-sward of Fairly, white with snow, rolled down in long sweeps to

the salt water: and under the last sloping oak of the park there was a

gorse-bushed lane, green in Summer, but now bearing cumbrous

blossom--like burdens of the crisp snow-fall. Mrs. Lovell sat on

horseback here, and alone, with her gauntleted hand at her waist,

charmingly habited in tone with the landscape. She expected a cavalier,

and did not perceive the approach of a pedestrian, but bowed quietly when

Robert lifted his hat.

"They say you are mad. You see, I trust myself to you."

"I wish I could thank you for your kindness, madam."

"Are you ill?"

"I had a fall last night, madam."

The lady patted her horse's neck.

"I haven't time to inquire about it. You understand that I cannot give

you more than a minute."

She glanced at her watch.

"Let us say five exactly. To begin: I can't affect to be ignorant of the

business which brings you down here. I won't pretend to lecture you about

the course you have taken; but, let me distinctly assure you, that the

gentleman you have chosen to attack in this extraordinary manner, has

done no wrong to you or to any one. It is, therefore, disgracefully

unjust to single him out. You know he cannot possibly fight you. I speak

plainly."

"Yes, madam," said Robert. "I'll answer plainly. He can't fight a man

like me. I know it. I bear him no ill-will. I believe he's innocent

enough in this matter, as far as acts go."

"That makes your behaviour to him worse!"

Robert looked up into her eyes.

"You are a lady. You won't be shocked at what I tell you."

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Lovell, hastily: "I have learnt--I am aware of the

tale. Some one has been injured or, you think so. I don't accuse you of

madness, but, good heavens! what means have you been pursuing! Indeed,

sir, let your feelings be as deeply engaged as possible, you have gone

altogether the wrong way to work."

"Not if I have got your help by it, madam."

"Gallantly spoken."

She smiled with a simple grace. The next moment she consulted her watch.

"Time has gone faster than I anticipated. I must leave you. Let this be

our stipulation"

She lowered her voice.

"You shall have the address you require. I will undertake to see her

myself, when next I am in London. It will be soon. In return, sir, favour

me with your word of honour not to molest this gentleman any further.

Will you do that? You may trust me."

"I do, madam, with all my soul!" said Robert.

"That's sufficient. I ask no more. Good morning."

Her parting bow remained with him like a vision. Her voice was like the

tinkling of harp-strings about his ears. The colour of her riding-habit

this day, harmonious with the snow-faced earth, as well as the gentle

mission she had taken upon herself, strengthened his vivid fancy in

blessing her as something quite divine.

He thought for the first time in his life bitterly of the great fortune

which fell to gentlemen in meeting and holding equal converse with so

adorable a creature; and he thought of Rhoda as being harshly earthly;

repulsive in her coldness as that black belt of water contrasted against

the snow on the shores.

He walked some paces in the track of Mrs. Lovell's horse, till his doing

so seemed too presumptuous, though to turn the other way and retrace his

steps was downright hateful: and he stood apparently in profound

contemplation of a ship of war and the trees of the forest behind the

masts. Either the fatigue of standing, or emotion, caused his head to

throb, so that he heard nothing, not even men's laughter; but looking up

suddenly, he beheld, as in a picture, Mrs. Lovell with some gentlemen

walking their horses toward him. The lady gazed softly over his head,

letting her eyes drop a quiet recognition in passing; one or two of the

younger gentlemen stared mockingly.

Edward Blancove was by Mrs. Lovell's side. His eyes fixed upon Robert

with steady scrutiny, and Robert gave him a similar inspection, though

not knowing why. It was like a child's open look, and he was feeling

childish, as if his brain had ceased to act. One of the older gentlemen,

with a military aspect, squared his shoulders, and touching an end of his

moustache, said, half challengingly,--

"You are dismounted to-day?"

"I have only one horse," Robert simply replied.

Algernon Blancove came last. He neither spoke nor looked at his enemy,

but warily clutched his whip. All went by, riding into line some paces

distant; and again they laughed as they bent forward to the lady,

shouting.

"Odd, to have out the horses on a day like this," Robert thought, and

resumed his musing as before. The lady's track now led him homeward, for

he had no will of his own. Rounding the lane, he was surprised to see

Mrs. Boulby by the hedge. She bobbed like a beggar woman, with a rueful

face.

"My dear," she said, in apology for her presence, "I shouldn't ha'

interfered, if there was fair play. I'm Englishwoman enough for that. I'd

have stood by, as if you was a stranger. Gentlemen always give fair play

before a woman. That's why I come, lest this appointment should ha'

proved a pitfall to you. Now you'll come home, won't you; and forgive

me?"

"I'll come to the old Pilot now, mother," said Robert, pressing her hand.

"That's right; and ain't angry with me for following of you?"

"Follow your own game, mother."

"I did, Robert; and nice and vexed I am, if I'm correct in what I heard

say, as that lady and her folk passed, never heeding an old woman's ears.

They made a bet of you, dear, they did."

"I hope the lady won," said Robert, scarce hearing.

"And it was she who won, dear. She was to get you to meet her, and give

up, and be beaten like, as far as I could understand their chatter;

gentlefolks laugh so when they talk; and they can afford to laugh, for

they has the best of it. But I'm vexed; just as if I'd felt big and had

burst. I want you to be peaceful, of course I do; but I don't like my boy

made a bet of."

"Oh, tush, mother," said Robert impatiently.

"I heard 'em, my dear; and complimenting the lady they was, as they

passed me. If it vexes you my thinking it, I won't, dear; I reelly won't.

I see it lowers you, for there you are at your hat again. It is lowering,

to be made a bet of. I've that spirit, that if you was well and sound,

I'd rather have you fighting 'em. She's a pleasant enough lady to look

at, not a doubt; small-boned, and slim, and fair."

Robert asked which way they had gone.

"Back to the stables, my dear; I heard 'em say so, because one gentleman

said that the spectacle was over, and the lady had gained the day; and

the snow was balling in the horses' feet; and go they'd better, before my

lord saw them out. And another said, you were a wild man she'd tamed; and

they said, you ought to wear a collar, with Mrs. Lovell's, her name,

graved on it. But don't you be vexed; you may guess they're not my

Robert's friends. And, I do assure you, Robert, your hat's neat, if you'd

only let it be comfortable: such fidgeting worries the brim. You're best

in appearance--and I always said it--when stripped for boxing. Hats are

gentlemen's things, and becomes them like as if a title to their heads;

though you'd bear being Sir Robert, that you would; and for that matter,

your hat is agreeable to behold, and not like the run of our Sunday hats;

only you don't seem easy in it. Oh, oh! my tongue's a yard too long. It's

the poor head aching, and me to forget it. It's because you never will

act invalidy; and I remember how handsome you were one day in the field

behind our house, when you boxed a wager with Simon Billet, the waterman;

and you was made a bet of then, for my husband betted on you; and that's

what made me think of comparisons of you out of your hat and you in it."

Thus did Mrs. Boulby chatter along the way. There was an eminence a

little out of the road, overlooking the Fairly stables. Robert left her

and went to this point, from whence he beheld the horsemen with the

grooms at the horses' heads.

"Thank God, I've only been a fool for five minutes!" he summed up his

sensations at the sight. He shut his eyes, praying with all his might

never to meet Mrs. Lovell more. It was impossible for him to combat the

suggestion that she had befooled him; yet his chivalrous faith in women

led him to believe, that as she knew Dahlia's history, she would

certainly do her best for the poor girl, and keep her word to him. The

throbbing of his head stopped all further thought. It had become violent.

He tried to gather his ideas, but the effort was like that of a light

dreamer to catch the sequence of a dream, when blackness follows close

up, devouring all that is said and done. In despair, he thought with

kindness of Mrs. Boulby's brandy.

"Mother," he said, rejoining her, "I've got a notion brandy can't hurt a

man when he's in bed. I'll go to bed, and you shall brew me some; and

you'll let no one come nigh me; and if I talk light-headed, it's blank

paper and scribble, mind that."

The widow promised devoutly to obey all his directions; but he had begun

to talk light-headed before he was undressed. He called on the name of a

Major Waring, of whom Mrs. Boulby had heard him speak tenderly as a

gentleman not ashamed to be his friend; first reproaching him for not

being by, and then by the name of Percy, calling to him endearingly, and

reproaching himself for not having written to him.

"Two to one, and in the dark!" he kept moaning "and I one to twenty,

Percy, all in broad day. Was it fair, I ask?"

Robert's outcries became anything but "blank paper and scribble" to the

widow, when he mentioned Nic Sedgett's name, and said: "Look over his

right temple he's got my mark a second time."

Hanging by his bedside, Mrs. Boulby strung together, bit by bit, the

history of that base midnight attack, which had sent her glorious boy

bleeding to her. Nic Sedgett; she could understand, was the accomplice of

one of the Fairly gentlemen; but of which one, she could not discover,

and consequently set him down as Mr. Algernon Blancove.

By diligent inquiry, she heard that Algernon had been seen in company

with the infamous Nic, and likewise that the countenance of Nicodemus was

reduced to accept the consolation of a poultice, which was confirmation

sufficient. By nightfall Robert was in the doctor's hands, unconscious of

Mrs. Boulby's breach of agreement. His father and his aunt were informed

of his condition, and prepared, both of them, to bow their heads to the

close of an ungodly career. It was known over Warbeach, that Robert lay

in danger, and believed that he was dying.