Book: The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid

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'If the Baron were alive, or in England,' she said to herself (for
sometimes she thought he might possibly be alive), 'and he were to
take me to this Review, wouldn't I show that forward Mrs. Peach what
a lady is like, and keep among the select company, and not mix with
the common people at all!'

It might at first sight be thought that the best course for Margery
at this juncture would have been to go to Jim, and nip the intrigue
in the bud without further scruple. But her own declaration in after
days was that whoever could say that was far from realizing her
situation. It was hard to break such ice as divided their two lives
now, and to attempt it at that moment was a too humiliating
proclamation of defeat. The only plan she could think of--perhaps
not a wise one in the circumstances--was to go to the Review herself;
and be the gayest there.

A method of doing this with some propriety soon occurred to her. She
dared not ask her father, who scorned to waste time in sight-seeing,
and whose animosity towards Jim knew no abatement; but she might call
on her old acquaintance, Mr. Vine, Jim's partner, who would probably
be going with the rest of the holiday-folk, and ask if she might
accompany him in his spring-trap. She had no sooner perceived the
feasibility of this, through her being at her grandmother's, than she
decided to meet with the old man early the next morning.

In the meantime Jim and Mrs. Peach had walked slowly along the road
together, Jim leading the horse, and Mrs. Peach informing him that
her father, the gardener, was at Jim's village further on, and that
she had come to meet him. Jim, for reasons of his own, was going to
sleep at his partner's that night, and thus their route was the same.
The shades of eve closed in upon them as they walked, and by the time
they reached the lime-kiln, which it was necessary to pass to get to
the village, it was quite dark. Jim stopped at the kiln, to see if
matters had progressed rightly in his seven days' absence, and Mrs.
Peach, who stuck to him like a teazle, stopped also, saying she would
wait for her father there.

She held the horse while he ascended to the top of the kiln. Then
rejoining her, and not quite knowing what to do, he stood beside her
looking at the flames, which to-night burnt up brightly, shining a
long way into the dark air, even up to the ramparts of the earthwork
above them, and overhead into the bosoms of the clouds.

It was during this proceeding that a carriage, drawn by a pair of
dark horses, came along the turnpike road. The light of the kiln
caused the horses to swerve a little, and the occupant of the
carriage looked out. He saw the bluish, lightning-like flames from
the limestone, rising from the top of the furnace, and hard by the
figures of Jim Hayward, the widow, and the horse, standing out with
spectral distinctness against the mass of night behind. The scene
wore the aspect of some unholy assignation in Pandaemonium, and it
was all the more impressive from the fact that both Jim and the woman
were quite unconscious of the striking spectacle they presented. The
gentleman in the carriage watched them till he was borne out of
sight.

Having seen to the kiln, Jim and the widow walked on again, and soon
Mrs. Peach's father met them, and relieved Jim of the lady. When
they had parted, Jim, with an expiration not unlike a breath of
relief; went on to Mr. Vine's, and, having put the horse into the
stable, entered the house. His partner was seated at the table,
solacing himself after the labours of the day by luxurious
alternations between a long clay pipe and a mug of perry.

'Well,' said Jim eagerly, 'what's the news--how do she take it?'

'Sit down--sit down,' said Vine. ''Tis working well; not but that I
deserve something o' thee for the trouble I've had in watching her.
The soldiering was a fine move; but the woman is a better!--who
invented it?'

'I myself,' said Jim modestly.

'Well; jealousy is making her rise like a thunderstorm, and in a day
or two you'll have her for the asking, my sonny. What's the next
step?'

'The widow is getting rather a weight upon a feller, worse luck,'
said Jim. 'But I must keep it up until to-morrow, at any rate. I
have promised to see her at the Review, and now the great thing is
that Margery should see we a-smiling together--I in my full-dress
uniform and clinking arms o' war. 'Twill be a good strong sting, and
will end the business, I hope. Couldn't you manage to put the hoss
in and drive her there? She'd go if you were to ask her.'

'With all my heart,' said Mr. Vine, moistening the end of a new pipe
in his perry. 'I can call at her grammer's for her--'twill be all in
my way.'



CHAPTER XVI



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 manoeuvre 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.



CHAPTER XVII



Now Jim was quite mistaken in supposing that by leaving the field in
a roundabout manner he had deceived Dairyman Tucker as to his object.
That astute old man immediately divined that Jim was meaning to track
the fugitives, in ignorance (as the dairyman supposed) of their
lawful relation. He was soon assured of the fact, for, creeping to a
remote angle of the field, he saw Jim hastening into the town.
Vowing vengeance on the young lime-burner for his mischievous
interference between a nobleman and his secretly-wedded wife, the
dairy-farmer determined to balk him.

Tucker had ridden on to the Review ground, so that there was no
necessity for him, as there had been for poor Jim, to re-enter the
town before starting. The dairyman hastily untied his mare from the
row of other horses, mounted, and descended to a bridle-path which
would take him obliquely into the London road a mile or so ahead.
The old man's route being along one side of an equilateral triangle,
while Jim's was along two sides of the same, the former was at the
point of intersection long before Hayward.

Arrived here, the dairyman pulled up and looked around. It was a
spot at which the highway forked; the left arm, the more important,
led on through Sherton Abbas and Melchester to London; the right to
Idmouth and the coast. Nothing was visible on the white track to
London; but on the other there appeared the back of a carriage, which
rapidly ascended a distant hill and vanished under the trees. It was
the Baron's who, according to the sworn information of the gardener
at Mount Lodge, had made Margery his wife.

The carriage having vanished, the dairyman gazed in the opposite
direction, towards Exonbury. Here he beheld Jim in his regimentals,
laboriously approaching on Tony's back.

Soon he reached the forking roads, and saw the dairyman by the
wayside. But Jim did not halt. Then the dairyman practised the
greatest duplicity of his life.

'Right along the London road, if you want to catch 'em!' he said.

'Thank 'ee, dairyman, thank 'ee!' cried Jim, his pale face lighting
up with gratitude, for he believed that Tucker had learnt his mistake
from Vine, and had come to his assistance. Without drawing rein he
diminished along the road not taken by the flying pair. The dairyman
rubbed his hands with delight, and returned to the city as the
cathedral clock struck five.

Jim pursued his way through the dust, up hill and down hill; but
never saw ahead of him the vehicle of his search. That vehicle was
passing along a diverging way at a distance of many miles from where
he rode. Still he sped onwards, till Tony showed signs of breaking
down; and then Jim gathered from inquiries he made that he had come
the wrong way. It burst upon his mind that the dairyman, still
ignorant of the truth, had misinformed him. Heavier in his heart
than words can describe he turned Tony's drooping head, and resolved
to drag his way home.

But the horse was now so jaded that it was impossible to proceed far.
Having gone about half a mile back he came again to a small roadside
hamlet and inn, where he put up Tony for a rest and feed. As for
himself, there was no quiet in him. He tried to sit and eat in the
inn kitchen; but he could not stay there. He went out, and paced up
and down the road.

Standing in sight of the white way by which he had come he beheld
advancing towards him the horses and carriage he sought, now black
and daemonic against the slanting fires of the western sun.

The why and wherefore of this sudden appearance he did not pause to
consider. His resolve to intercept the carriage was instantaneous.
He ran forward, and doggedly waiting barred the way to the advancing
equipage.

The Baron's coachman shouted, but Jim stood firm as a rock, and on
the former attempting to push past him Jim drew his sword, resolving
to cut the horses down rather than be displaced. The animals were
thrown nearly back upon their haunches, and at this juncture a
gentleman looked out of the window. It was the Baron himself.

'Who's there?' he inquired.

'James Hayward!' replied the young man fiercely, 'and he demands his
wife.'

The Baron leapt out, and told the coachman to drive back out of sight
and wait for him.

'I was hastening to find you,' he said to Jim. 'Your wife is where
she ought to be, and where you ought to be also--by your own
fireside. Where's the other woman?'

Jim, without replying, looked incredulously into the carriage as it
turned. Margery was certainly not there. 'The other woman is
nothing to me,' he said bitterly. 'I used her to warm up Margery: I
have now done with her. The question I ask, my lord, is, what
business had you with Margery to-day?'

'My business was to help her to regain the husband she had seemingly
lost. I saw her; she told me you had eloped by the London road with
another. I, who have--mostly--had her happiness at heart, told her I
would help her to follow you if she wished. She gladly agreed; we
drove after, but could hear no tidings of you in front of us. Then I
took her--to your house--and there she awaits you. I promised to
send you to her if human effort could do it, and was tracking you for
that purpose.'

'Then you've been a-pursuing after me?'

'You and the widow.'

'And I've been pursuing after you and Margery! My noble lord, your
actions seem to show that I ought to believe you in this; and when
you say you've her happiness at heart, I don't forget that you've
formerly proved it to be so. Well, Heaven forbid that I should think
wrongfully of you if you don't deserve it! A mystery to me you have
always been, my noble lord, and in this business more than in any.'

'I am glad to hear you say no worse. In one hour you'll have proof
of my conduct--good and bad. Can I do anything more? Say the word,
and I'll try.'

Jim reflected. 'Baron,' he said, 'I am a plain man, and wish only to
lead a quiet life with my wife, as a man should. You have great
power over her--power to any extent, for good or otherwise. If you
command her anything on earth, righteous or questionable, that she'll
do. So that, since you ask me if you can do more for me, I'll answer
this, you can promise never to see her again. I mean no harm, my
lord; but your presence can do no good; you will trouble us. If I
return to her, will you for ever stay away?'

'Hayward,' said the Baron, 'I swear to you that I will disturb you
and your wife by my presence no more. And he took Jim's hand, and
pressed it within his own upon the hilt of Jim's sword.

In relating this incident to the present narrator Jim used to declare
that, to his fancy, the ruddy light of the setting sun burned with
more than earthly fire on the Baron's face as the words were spoken;
and that the ruby flash of his eye in the same light was what he
never witnessed before nor since in the eye of mortal man. After
this there was nothing more to do or say in that place. Jim
accompanied his never-to-be-forgotten acquaintance to the carriage,
closed the door after him, waved his hat to him, and from that hour
he and the Baron met not again on earth.

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