BY THE HAMMER POND.
Discouraged at her lack of success, Mehetabel now turned her steps
towards Thursley. She was sick at heart. It seemed to her as if
every door of escape from her wretched condition was shut against
her.
She ascended the dip in the Common through which the stream ran
that fed the Hammer ponds, and after leaving the sheet of water
that supplied the silk mill, reached a brake of willow and bramble,
through which the stream made its way from the upper pond.
The soil was resolved into mud, and oozed with springs; at the
sides broke out veins of red chalybeate water, of the color of
brick.
She started teal, that went away with a rush and frightened her
child, which cried out, and fell into sobs.
Then before her rose a huge embankment; with a sluice at the top
over which the pond decanted and the overflow was carried a little
way through a culvert, beneath a mound on which once had stood the
smelting furnace, and which now dribbled forth rust-stained springs.
The bank had to be surmounted, and in Mehetabel's condition it
taxed her powers, and when she reached the top she sank out of
breath on a fallen bole of a tree. Here she rested, with the child
in her lap, and her head in her hand. Whither should she go? To
whom betake herself? She had not a friend in the world save Iver,
and it was not possible for her to appeal to him.
Now, in her desolation, she understood what it was to be without a
relative. Every one else had some one tied by blood to whom to
apply, who would counsel, assist, afford a refuge. A nameless girl,
brought up by the parish, with--as far as she was aware--but one
relative in the world, her mother's sister, whose name she knew
not, and whose existence she could not be sure of--she was indeed
alone as no other could be.
The lake lay before her steely and cold.
The chill wind hissed and sobbed among the bulrushes, and in the
coarse marsh grass that fringed the water on all sides except that
of the dam.
The stunted willows shed their broad-shaped leaves that sailed and
drifted, formed fleets, and clustered together against the bank.
The tree bole on which she was seated was rotting away; a huge
fleshy fungus had formed on it, and the decaying timber emitted a
charnel-house smell.
Now the babe in Mehetabel's arms was quiet. It was asleep. She
herself was weary, and quivering in all her limbs, hot and yet
cold, with an aguish feeling. Her strength of purpose was failing
her. She was verging on despair.
She could not remain with Betty Chivers without paying for her
lodging and for her food. The woman did but just maintain herself
out of the little school and the post-office. She was generous and
kind, but she had not the means to support Mehetabel, nor could
Mehetabel ask it of her.
What should she do? What the silk manufacturer had said was quite
true. The babe stood in her way of getting employment, and the
babe she must not leave. That little life depended on her, and
her time, care, thought must be devoted to it.
Oh, if now she could but have had that fifteen pounds which Simon
Verstage in his providence had given her on her wedding day! With
that she would have been easy, independent.
When Jonas robbed her of the sum he cut away from her the chance
of subsistence elsewhere save in his house--at all events at such
a time as this.
She looked dreamily at the water, that like an eye exercised a
fascination on her.
Would it not be well to cast herself into this pool, with her
babe, and then both would be together at rest, and away from the
cruel world that wanted them not, that rejected them, that had
no love, no pity for them?
But she put the thought resolutely from her.
Presently she noticed the flat-bottomed boat usually kept on the
pond for the convenience of fishers; it was being propelled over
the stream in her direction. A minute later, a man seated in the
boat ran it against the bank and stepped out, fastened the point
to a willow stump, and came towards her.
"What--is this the Squiress?"
She looked up and recognized him.
The man who came to her and addressed her was Mr. Markham, the
young barrister, who had been to the Punch-Bowl to obtain the
assistance of Jonas in wild-duck shooting.
She recalled his offensively familiar manner, and was troubled to
see him again. And yet she remembered his last remark on leaving,
when he had offered his services to help her to free herself from
her bondage to Jonas. The words might have been spoken in jest,
yet now, she caught at them.
He stood looking at her, and he saw both how pale she was, with a
hectic flame in her cheek, and a feverish glitter in her eye, and
also how beautiful she thus was.
"Why," said he, "what brings you here?"
"I have been to the silk mill in quest of work."
"Work! Broom-Squiress, one such as you should not work. You missed
your vocation altogether when you left the Ship. Jonas told me you
had been there."
"I was happy then."
"But are you not so in the Punch-Bowl?"
"No. I am very miserable. But I will not return there again."
"What! fallen out with the Squire?"
"He has made it impossible for me to go back."
"Then whither are you bound?"
"I do not know."
He looked at her intently.
"Now, see here," said he. "Sit down on that log again from which
you have risen and tell me all. I am a lawyer and can help you, I
daresay."
"I have not much to tell," she answered, and sank on the tree bole.
He seated himself beside her.
"There are things that have happened which have made me resolve to
go anywhere, do anything, rather than return to Jonas. I promised
what I could not keep when I said I would love, honor, and obey him."
Then she began to sob. It touched her that this young man should
express sympathy, offer his help.
"Now listen to me," said Mr. Markham; "I am a barrister. I know the
law, I have it at my ringers' ends, and I place myself, my knowledge
and my abilities at your disposal. I shall feel proud, flattered to
do so. Your beauty and your distress appeal to me irresistibly.
Has the Squire been beating you?"
"Oh, no, not that."
"Then what has he done?"
"There are things worse to bear than a stick."
"What! Oh, the gay Lothario! He has been casting his eye about and
has lost his leathery heart to some less well-favored wench than
yourself."
Mehetabel moved further from him on the tree-bole.
He began picking at the great lichen that grew out of the decaying
tree, and laughed.
"Have I hit it? Jealous, eh? Jealousy is at the bottom of it all.
By Jove, the Broom-Squire isn't worth expending a jealous thought
on. He's a poor sordid creature. Not worthy of you. So jealous, my
little woman, eh?"
Mehetabel turned and looked steadily at him.
"You do not understand me," she said. "No Jonas has not sunk so
low as that."
"He would have been a fool to have cast aside a jewel for the sake
of quartz crystal," laughed Markham. "But, come. A lawyer is a
confessor. Tell me everything. Make no reservations. Open your
heart to me, and see if the law, or myself--between us we cannot
assist you."
Mehetabel hesitated. The manner in which the man offered his
services was offensive, and yet in her innocent mind she thought
that perhaps the fault lay in herself in not understanding and
receiving his address in the way in which it was intended. Besides,
in what other manner could she obtain relief? Every other means was
taken from her.
Slowly, reluctantly, she told him much that she had not told to any
one else--only not that Jonas had endeavored to kill the child.
That she would not relate.
When she had finished her tale, he said, "What you have told me is
a very sad story, and makes my heart ache for you. You can rely on
me, I will be your friend and protector. We have had a case on
lately, of a woman who was equally unhappy in her married life; her
name was Jane Summers. You may have seen it in the papers."
"I'll never see the papers. How did Jane Summers manage?"
"She had a crabbed, ill-conditioned husband, and she was a fine,
handsome, lusty woman. He fell ill, and she did not afford him all
that care and attention which was requisite in his condition. She
went out amusing herself, and left him at home with no one to see
to his necessities. The consequence was that he died, and she was
tried for it, but the case against her broke down. It could not be
proved that had she been devoted to him in his sickness he would
have recovered. The law takes cognizance of commission of a crime,
and not of neglect of duty."
Mehetabel opened her eyes. "If Jonas were ill I would attend him
day and night," she said. "But he is not ill--never was, till the
shot entered his arm, and then I was with him all day and all
night."
"How did he receive your ministry?"
"He was very irritable. I suppose the pain made him so."
"You got no thanks for your trouble?"
"None at all. I thought he would have been kinder when he recovered."
"Then," said the young man, laughing; "the man is not to be cured.
You must leave him."
"I have done so."
"And you are seeking a home and a protector?"
"I want to earn my living somewhere."
"A pretty young thing like you," said the stranger, "cannot fail
to make her way. Come! I have offered you my aid," he put his arm
round her and attempted to snatch a kiss.
"So!" exclaimed Mehetabel, starting to her feet. "This is the
friend and protector you would be! I trusted you with my troubles,
and you have taken advantage of my trust. Let me alone! Wherever
I turn there hell hath opened her mouth! A moment ago I thought of
ending all my troubles in this pond--that a thousand times before
trusting you further."
With beating heart--beating with anger--proudly raising her weary
head, she walked away.