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.