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.