The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid

Chapter 15

Seeing that Jim lived several miles from the widow, Margery was

rather surprised, and even felt a slight sinking of the heart, when

her new acquaintance appeared at her door so soon as the evening of

the following Monday. She asked Margery to walk out with her, which

the young woman readily did.

'I am come at once,' said the widow breathlessly, as soon as they

were in the lane, 'for it is so exciting that I can't keep it. I

must tell it to somebody, if only a bird, or a cat, or a garden

snail.'

'What is it?' asked her companion.

'I've pulled grass from my husband's grave to cure it--wove the

blades into true lover's knots; took off my shoes upon the sod; but,

avast, my shipmate,--'

'Upon the sod--why?'

'To feel the damp earth he's in, and make the sense of it enter my

soul. But no. It has swelled to a head; he is going to meet me at

the Yeomanry Review.'

'The master lime-burner?'

The widow nodded.

'When is it to be?'

'To-morrow. He looks so lovely in his accoutrements! He's such a

splendid soldier; that was the last straw that kindled my soul to say

yes. He's home from Exonbury for a night between the drills,'

continued Mrs. Peach. 'He goes back to-morrow morning for the

Review, and when it's over he's going to meet me. But, guide my

heart, there he is!'

Her exclamation had rise in the sudden appearance of a brilliant red

uniform through the trees, and the tramp of a horse carrying the

wearer thereof. In another half-minute the military gentleman would

have turned the corner, and faced them.

'He'd better not see me; he'll think I know too much,' said Margery

precipitately. 'I'll go up here.'

The widow, whose thoughts had been of the same cast, seemed much

relieved to see Margery disappear in the plantation, in the midst of

a spring chorus of birds. Once among the trees, Margery turned her

head, and, before she could see the rider's person she recognized the

horse as Tony, the lightest of three that Jim and his partner owned,

for the purpose of carting out lime to their customers.

Jim, then, had joined the Yeomanry since his estrangement from

Margery. A man who had worn the young Queen Victoria's uniform for

seven days only could not be expected to look as if it were part of

his person, in the manner of long-trained soldiers; but he was a

well-formed young fellow, and of an age when few positions came amiss

to one who has the capacity to adapt himself to circumstances.

Meeting the blushing Mrs. Peach (to whom Margery in her mind sternly

denied the right to blush at all), Jim alighted and moved on with

her, probably at Mrs. Peach's own suggestion; so that what they said,

how long they remained together, and how they parted, Margery knew

not. She might have known some of these things by waiting; but the

presence of Jim had bred in her heart a sudden disgust for the widow,

and a general sense of discomfiture. She went away in an opposite

direction, turning her head and saying to the unconscious Jim,

'There's a fine rod in pickle for you, my gentleman, if you carry out

that pretty scheme!'

Jim's military coup had decidedly astonished her. What he might do

next she could not conjecture. The idea of his doing anything

sufficiently brilliant to arrest her attention would have seemed

ludicrous, had not Jim, by entering the Yeomanry, revealed a capacity

for dazzling exploits which made it unsafe to predict any limitation

to his powers.

Margery was now excited. The daring of the wretched Jim in bursting

into scarlet amazed her as much as his doubtful acquaintanceship with

the demonstrative Mrs. Peach. To go to that Review, to watch the

pair, to eclipse Mrs. Peach in brilliancy, to meet and pass them in

withering contempt--if she only could do it! But, alas! she was a

forsaken woman.

'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.'