CHAPTER XLIV

She watched her father as he went across the field and into the lane. Her

breathing was suppressed till he appeared in view at different points,

more and more distant, and then she sighed heavily, stopped her

breathing, and hoped her unshaped hope again. The last time he was in

sight, she found herself calling to him with a voice like that of a

burdened sleeper: her thought being, "How can you act so cruelly to

Robert!" He passed up Wrexby Heath, and over the black burnt patch where

the fire had caught the furzes on a dry Maynight, and sank on the side of

the Hall.

When we have looked upon a picture of still green life with a troubled

soul, and the blow falls on us, we accuse Nature of our own treachery to

her. Rhoda hurried from the dairy-door to shut herself up in her room and

darken the light surrounding her. She had turned the lock, and was about

systematically to pull down the blind, when the marvel of beholding

Dahlia stepping out of the garden made her for a moment less the creature

of her sickened senses. Dahlia was dressed for a walk, and she went very

fast. The same paralysis of motion afflicted Rhoda as when she was gazing

after her father; but her hand stretched out instinctively for her bonnet

when Dahlia had crossed the green and the mill-bridge, and was no more

visible. Rhoda drew her bonnet on, and caught her black silk mantle in

her hand, and without strength to throw it across her shoulders, dropped

before her bed, and uttered a strange prayer. "Let her die rather than go

back to disgrace, my God! my God!"

She tried to rise, and failed in the effort, and superstitiously renewed

her prayer. "Send death to her rather!"--and Rhoda's vision under her

shut eyes conjured up clouds and lightnings, and spheres in

conflagration.

There is nothing so indicative of fevered or of bad blood as the tendency

to counsel the Almighty how he shall deal with his creatures. The strain

of a long uncertainty, and the late feverish weeks had distempered the

fine blood of the girl, and her acts and words were becoming remoter

exponents of her character.

She bent her head in a blind doze that gave her strength to rise. As

swiftly as she could she went in the track of her sister.

That morning, Robert had likewise received a letter. It was from Major

Waring, and contained a bank-note, and a summons to London, as also an

enclosure from Mrs. Boulby of Warbeach; the nature of which was an

advertisement cut out of the county paper, notifying to one Robert Eccles

that his aunt Anne had died, and that there was a legacy for him, to be

paid over upon application. Robert crossed the fields, laughing madly at

the ironical fate which favoured him a little and a little, and never

enough, save just to keep him swimming.

The letter from Major Waring said:--

"I must see you immediately. Be quick and come. I begin to be of your

opinion--there are some things which we must take into our own hands and

deal summarily with."

"Ay!--ay!" Robert gave tongue in the clear morning air, scenting

excitement and eager for it as a hound.

More was written, which he read subsequently

"I wrong," Percy's letter continued, "the best of women. She was

driven to my door. There is, it seems, some hope that Dahlia will

find herself free. At any rate, keep guard over her, and don't

leave her. Mrs. Lovell has herself been moving to make discoveries

down at Warbeach. Mr. Blancove has nearly quitted this sphere. She

nursed him--I was jealous!--the word's out. Truth, courage, and

suffering touch Margaret's heart.

"Yours,

"Percy."

Jumping over a bank, Robert came upon Anthony, who was unsteadily gazing

at a donkey that cropped the grass by a gate.

"Here you are," said Robert, and took his arm.

Anthony struggled, though he knew the grasp was friendly; but he was led

along: nor did Robert stop until they reached Greatham, five miles beyond

Wrexby, where he entered the principal inn and called for wine.

"You want spirit: you want life," said Robert.

Anthony knew that he wanted no wine, whatever his needs might be. Yet the

tender ecstacy of being paid for was irresistible, and he drank, saying,

"Just one glass, then."

Robert pledged him. They were in a private room, of which, having ordered

up three bottles of sherry, Robert locked the door. The devil was in him.

He compelled Anthony to drink an equal portion with himself, alternately

frightening and cajoling the old man.

"Drink, I tell you. You've robbed me, and you shall drink!"

"I haven't, I haven't," Anthony whined.

"Drink, and be silent. You've robbed me, and you shall drink! and by

heaven! if you resist, I'll hand you over to bluer imps than you've ever

dreamed of, old gentleman! You've robbed me, Mr. Hackbut. Drink! I tell

you."

Anthony wept into his glass.

"That's a trick I could never do," said Robert, eyeing the drip of the

trembling old tear pitilessly. "Your health, Mr. Hackbut. You've robbed

me of my sweetheart. Never mind. Life's but the pop of a gun. Some of us

flash in the pan, and they're the only ones that do no mischief. You're

not one of them, sir; so you must drink, and let me see you cheerful."

By degrees, the wine stirred Anthony's blood, and he chirped feebly, as

one who half remembered that he ought to be miserable. Robert listened to

his maundering account of his adventure with the Bank money, sternly

replenishing his glass. His attention was taken by the sight of Dahlia

stepping forth from a chemist's shop in the street nearly opposite to the

inn. "This is my medicine," said Robert; "and yours too," he addressed

Anthony.

The sun had passed its meridian when they went into the streets again.

Robert's head was high as a cock's, and Anthony leaned on his arm;

performing short half-circles headlong to the front, until the mighty arm

checked and uplifted him. They were soon in the fields leading to Wrexby.

Robert saw two female figures far ahead. A man was hastening to join

them. The women started and turned suddenly: one threw up her hands, and

darkened her face. It was in the pathway of a broad meadow, deep with

grass, wherein the red sorrel topped the yellow buttercup, like rust upon

the season's gold. Robert hastened on. He scarce at the moment knew the

man whose shoulder he seized, but he had recognised Dahlia and Rhoda, and

he found himself face to face with Sedgett.

"It's you!"

"Perhaps you'll keep your hands off; before you make sure, another time."

Robert said: "I really beg your pardon. Step aside with me."

"Not while I've a ha'p'orth o' brains in my noddle," replied Sedgett,

drawling an imitation of his enemy's courteous tone. "I've come for my

wife. I'm just down by train, and a bit out of my way, I reckon. I'm

come, and I'm in a hurry. She shall get home, and have on her

things--boxes packed, and we go."

Robert waved Dahlia and Rhoda to speed homeward. Anthony had fallen

against the roots of a banking elm, and surveyed the scene with

philosophic abstractedness. Rhoda moved, taking Dahlia's hand.

"Stop," cried Sedgett. "Do you people here think me a fool? Eccles, you

know me better 'n that. That young woman's my wife. I've come for her, I

tell ye."

"You've no claim on her," Rhoda burst forth weakly, and quivered, and

turned her eyes supplicatingly on Robert. Dahlia was a statue of icy

fright.

"You've thrown her off, man, and sold what rights you had," said Robert,

spying for the point of his person where he might grasp the wretch and

keep him off.

"That don't hold in law," Sedgett nodded. "A man may get in a passion,

when he finds he's been cheated, mayn't he?"

"I have your word of honour," said Rhoda; muttering, "Oh! devil come to

wrong us!"

"Then, you shouldn't ha' run ferreting down in my part o' the country.

You, or Eccles--I don't care who 'tis--you've been at my servants to get

at my secrets. Some of you have. You've declared war. You've been trying

to undermine me. That's a breach, I call it. Anyhow, I've come for my

wife. I'll have her."

"None of us, none of us; no one has been to your house," said Rhoda,

vehemently. "You live in Hampshire, sir, I think; I don't know any more.

I don't know where. I have not asked my sister. Oh! spare us, and go."

"No one has been down into your part of the country," said Robert, with

perfect mildness.

To which Sedgett answered bluffly, "There ye lie, Bob Eccles;" and he was

immediately felled by a tremendous blow. Robert strode over him, and

taking Dahlia by the elbow, walked three paces on, as to set her in

motion. "Off!" he cried to Rhoda, whose eyelids cowered under the blaze

of his face.

It was best that her sister should be away, and she turned and walked

swiftly, hurrying Dahlia, and touching her. "Oh! don't touch my arm,"

Dahlia said, quailing in the fall of her breath. They footed together,

speechless; taking the woman's quickest gliding step. At the last stile

of the fields, Rhoda saw that they were not followed. She stopped,

panting: her heart and eyes were so full of that flaming creature who was

her lover. Dahlia took from her bosom the letter she had won in the

morning, and held it open in both hands to read it. The pause was short.

Dahlia struck the letter into her bosom again, and her starved features

had some of the bloom of life. She kept her right hand in her pocket, and

Rhoda presently asked,--

"What have you there?"

"You are my enemy, dear, in some things," Dahlia replied, a muscular

shiver passing over her.

"I think," said Rhoda, "I could get a little money to send you away. Will

you go? I am full of grief for what I have done. God forgive me."

"Pray, don't speak so; don't let us talk," said Dahlia.

Scorched as she felt both in soul and body, a touch or a word was a wound

to her. Yet she was the first to resume: "I think I shall be saved. I

can't quite feel I am lost. I have not been so wicked as that."

Rhoda gave a loving answer, and again Dahlia shrank from the miserable

comfort of words.

As they came upon the green fronting the iron gateway, Rhoda perceived

that the board proclaiming the sale of Queen Anne's Farm had been

removed, and now she understood her father's readiness to go up to Wrexby

Hall. "He would sell me to save the farm." She reproached herself for

the thought, but she could not be just; she had the image of her father

plodding relentlessly over the burnt heath to the Hall, as conceived by

her agonized sensations in the morning, too vividly to be just, though

still she knew that her own indecision was to blame.

Master Gammon met them in the garden.

Pointing aloft, over the gateway, "That's down," he remarked, and the

three green front teeth of his quiet grin were stamped on the

impressionable vision of the girls in such a way that they looked at one

another with a bare bitter smile. Once it would have been mirth.

"Tell father," Dahlia said, when they were at the back doorway, and her

eyes sparkled piteously, and she bit on her underlip. Rhoda tried to

detain her; but Dahlia repeated, "Tell father," and in strength and in

will had become more than a match for her sister.