Though Sim Slee had omitted on two occasions to convey letters to Daisy
Banks making appointments for meetings in different parts of the country
walks round Dumford, Daisy had had a pretty good supply of messages; and
feeling as it were compelled to obey, she had gone on more than one
occasion with sinking heart, to return with aching eyes, whose lids
looked swollen and red with weeping.
For the girl was simply wretched, and time after time she looked back to
the days when her heart was whole, and as she threw herself wearily on
her bed she sobbed herself again and again to sleep, wishing that her
very life were ended; the deceit she was obliged to practise, the anger
of her mother, and the open sneers and innuendoes of neighbours wounding
her so that the smart was almost more than she could bear.
Whether Dick chose east, west, north, or south for the appointment, poor
Daisy could never get out of the town without encountering some one to
give her a peculiar look, more than once driving the poor girl to make
pretence of calling at some place that she did not want to visit, and as
often turning her back home, making Richard Glaire, who had been kept
waiting and "fooled," as he called it, write her the cruellest and most
angry letters, some even of a threatening nature.
It happened one evening that poor Daisy, who had broken faith the night
before, was going slowly up the High Street, with a basket on her arm,
as if bound on some marketing expedition, when it seemed as if it was
impossible that she could get to her trysting place, where she knew that
Dick must have been waiting for an hour.
First the landlord of the Bull was standing at his door smoking, and he
gave a sneering nod, which seemed to say, "I know where you are going,
my lass."
A little further on sat Miss Purley, at her window, ready to put up her
great square, chased gold eye-glass, and stare at the blushing girl with
all the indignant force of thirty-nine tinged yellow, against nineteen
of the freshest pink.
Again a little further, and she came suddenly upon Eve Pelly, who came
from the big house, started, stopped, caught her hands, ejaculating "Oh,
Daisy!" and then breaking down, turned suddenly away and re-entered the
house.
To her horror, poor Daisy found that this meeting had been witnessed by
Miss Primgeon, the lawyer's sister, who was seated at her window,
staring as hard as she could.
Not twenty yards farther on there stood Tom Podmore, leaning against a
corner of a lane, also watching her; but as she approached he turned
away without a word.
It was almost unbearable, and now a feeling of anger began to rise in
Daisy's bosom, making her pant, and flush up, as she determined to go on
at all hazards.
Jane Budger, who kept the little beerhouse, and knew all the gossip of
the place, which she retailed with gills of ale to her customers, saw
her, stared, or rather squinted at her, and moved her hands as she
exclaimed:
"Yes, my dear, I know where you are agate for to-night."
Then there seemed a peculiar meaning in the innocent remark of one
neighbour who met her in the street, and observed that the stones were
"strange and slape." So it was with another a little higher up, who
remarked that the road was "very clatty."
Next she met Big Harry in the muddiest part of the main street, and he
exclaimed to her:
"Saay, lass, it's solid soft."
A little farther on she passed the druggist's, where the great bottle of
the trophies of his dental work seemed to grin at her in a ghastly way,
for it was three parts full of extracted teeth.
Again a little further, and as she was passing Riggall's, the
bone-setter's, his ghastly sign over his front door, of a skull and
cross-bones, made her shudder; for it seemed to tell her of the goal to
which she was steering, and so affected her, that outside the town in
the winding road, she sat down shivering upon the mile-stone, crying as
though her heart would break.
"What shall I do! What shall I do!" she sobbed, when she started up
with a faint shriek, for a light hand was laid upon her shoulder.
"Miss Eve!" she cried, on seeing the pale tearless girl before her.
"Yes, Daisy, it is I," said Eve. "I want to speak to you. Let us walk
on together."
"No, no, Miss Eve. No, no, dear; not that way."
"Is Dick waiting for you up there?" said Eve, huskily.
"Don't ask me, Miss; don't ask me, please," cried Daisy, imploringly, as
they walked down a side lane.
"I thought he was," said Eve, speaking in a very low deep voice, as if
her emotion was stifling her. "I followed you to speak to you."
"You've been following and watching me," cried Daisy, with a burst of
passion. "You all do; everybody watches me. What have I done that I
should be so cruelly used? I wonder some one don't want to put me in
prison."
"Daisy!" cried Eve, hoarsely, as she caught her by the wrist, "what have
I done to you that you should have been so cruel and treacherous?"
"I haven't been," cried Daisy, with a burst of pettish sobs.
"Have I not always been kind and affectionate to you?"
"Yes, yes; I know that," cried Daisy.
"And you reward me by trying to rob me of my promised husband."
"I didn't, I didn't," sobbed Daisy. "I didn't want to; but he was
always following me, and hunting me, and worrying me."
"Daisy, Daisy!" cried Eve, with a passionate cry, as she threw herself
on her knees to the homely girl, "give him back to me; oh, give him
back."
"Miss Eve! Miss Eve!" cried the girl, startled at the vehemence and
suddenness of this outburst, "oh, do please get up. What can I do?"
"Oh, Daisy, you'll break my heart. You'll kill poor aunt. What have we
done, that you should come like a blight upon us?"
Eve rose slowly and stood facing the girl, over whom a change seemed to
be coming as she said sulkily:
"It wasn't my doing."
"But you must have led him on," moaned poor Eve. "You, who are so
bright and pretty, while I--while I--"
Daisy gave her now a jealous, vindictive look, as if she felt danger;
and that this gentle girl was about to rob her of the man she loved, and
she exclaimed:
"I must go. I won't stop to be scolded. You want to win him back; but
he belongs to me."
"Daisy, Daisy!" cried Eve, catching at her shawl; but it was too late--
the girl had turned and run back into the road, hastening on to the
place where she was to have found Richard Glaire, up by the chalk pit;
and as she hastened on, she would not look back. Still poor Eve
followed her sadly as far as the road, and then turned back towards the
town, saying sadly:--
"I could not move her. It is too late, too late."
Long before Eve Pelly had reached the town, with its knots of men out of
work, Daisy had climbed the hill to the chalk pit, where Richard was
waiting, smoking angrily.
"At last!" he cried. "I was just going back."
He gave a glance round, and was about to throw his arms round the
flushed and panting girl, when he started back, and stood staring, as
Mrs Glaire came slowly forward from amongst the trees, and taking
Daisy's wrist in her hand, she pointed down the road.
"There, you can go back," she said, quietly. "I wish to speak to Daisy
Banks."
"No, no, Richard--Dick, dear, don't leave me with her; she'll kill me!"
screamed Daisy, frightened by the pale, resolute-looking little woman,
who held her so tightly.
"Silence, child!" cried Mrs Glaire.
"Oh, come, let's have an end of this," cried Richard.
"I intend to try for an end," said Mrs Glaire, sharply, "for with you I
can make no compact that will not be broken."
"Oh, if it's coming to that," said Richard, sharply, "I shall bring
matters to an end."
"Go, sir! Go home," said Mrs Glaire, sternly.
"Come, you needn't bully that poor girl," said Dick, with a half-laugh;
then seeing the hand still pointing down the road, he grew uneasy,
fidgeted, and ended by saying--"There, just as you like."
"Dick, don't leave me," gasped Daisy.
"Don't you be a little silly," laughed Richard. "She won't hurt you. I
say, mother, you'd better make matters up with Daisy and bring her home,
for I think I shall marry her after all."
"Don't, don't leave me, Dick," whispered Daisy, straining to reach him;
but her wrist was tightly clasped, and she sank shivering on the bank by
the deep chalk pit, whose side was separated from the lane by a low post
and rail fence, beyond which the descent was a sheer precipice of
seventy or eighty feet, the old weakened side being dotted with flowers;
a place which, as she stood holding Daisy's wrist still tightly and
watching her son till he disappeared down the road, Mrs Glaire
remembered to have been a favoured spot in her girlhood for gathering
nosegays; and where, more than once, she had met her dead husband in the
happy days of her own courtship.
As these thoughts came back from the past, a feeling of pity for the
poor girl beside her stole into Mrs Glaire's heart, and she trembled in
her purpose; but after a few moments' indecision, she told herself that
it was for the happiness of all, and that Daisy Banks must suffer in
place of Eve.
The stars were beginning to peer out faintly and the glow in the west
was paling; but still she stood holding the wrist tightly; while, after
making a few energetic efforts to free herself, Daisy submitted like a
trapped bird, and crouched there palpitating, and not daring once to
raise her eyes to those of the angry mother of the man she believed she
loved; but who had at all events obtained so strong a hold upon her that
she was forced to submit her will to his, and obey his every command.
Volume 2, Chapter VII.