The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid

Chapter 14

Margery returned home, as she had decided, and resumed her old life

at Silverthorn. And seeing her father's animosity towards Jim, she

told him not a word of the marriage.

Her inner life, however, was not what it once had been. She had

suffered a mental and emotional displacement--a shock, which had set

a shade of astonishment on her face as a permanent thing.

Her indignation with the Baron for collusion with Jim, at first

bitter, lessened with the lapse of a few weeks, and at length

vanished in the interest of some tidings she received one day.

The Baron was not dead, but he was no longer at the Lodge. To the

surprise of the physicians, a sufficient improvement had taken place

in his condition to permit of his removal before the cold weather

came. His desire for removal had been such, indeed, that it was

advisable to carry it out at almost any risk. The plan adopted had

been to have him borne on men's shoulders in a sort of palanquin to

the shore near Idmouth, a distance of several miles, where a yacht

lay awaiting him. By this means the noise and jolting of a carriage,

along irregular bye-roads, were avoided. The singular procession

over the fields took place at night, and was witnessed by but few

people, one being a labouring man, who described the scene to

Margery. When the seaside was reached a long, narrow gangway was

laid from the deck of the yacht to the shore, which was so steep as

to allow the yacht to lie quite near. The men, with their burden,

ascended by the light of lanterns, the sick man was laid in the

cabin, and, as soon as his bearers had returned to the shore, the

gangway was removed, a rope was heard skirring over wood in the

darkness, the yacht quivered, spread her woven wings to the air, and

moved away. Soon she was but a small, shapeless phantom upon the

wide breast of the sea.

It was said that the yacht was bound for Algiers.

When the inimical autumn and winter weather came on, Margery wondered

if he were still alive. The house being shut up, and the servants

gone, she had no means of knowing, till, on a particular Saturday,

her father drove her to Exonbury market. Here, in attending to his

business, he left her to herself for awhile. Walking in a quiet

street in the professional quarter of the town, she saw coming

towards her the solicitor who had been present at the wedding, and

who had acted for the Baron in various small local matters during his

brief residence at the Lodge.

She reddened to peony hues, averted her eyes, and would have passed

him. But he crossed over and barred the pavement, and when she met

his glance he was looking with friendly severity at her. The street

was quiet, and he said in a low voice, 'How's the husband?'

'I don't know, sir,' said she.

'What--and are your stipulations about secrecy and separate living

still in force?'

'They will always be,' she replied decisively. 'Mr. Hayward and I

agreed on the point, and we have not the slightest wish to change the

arrangement.'

'H'm. Then 'tis Miss Tucker to the world; Mrs. Hayward to me and one

or two others only?'

Margery nodded. Then she nerved herself by an effort, and, though

blushing painfully, asked, 'May I put one question, sir? Is the

Baron dead?'

'He is dead to you and to all of us. Why should you ask?'

'Because, if he's alive, I am sorry I married James Hayward. If he

is dead I do not much mind my marriage.'

'I repeat, he is dead to you,' said the lawyer emphatically. 'I'll

tell you all I know. My professional services for him ended with his

departure from this country; but I think I should have heard from him

if he had been alive still. I have not heard at all: and this,

taken in connection with the nature of his illness, leaves no doubt

in my mind that he is dead.'

Margery sighed, and thanking the lawyer she left him with a tear for

the Baron in her eye. After this incident she became more restful;

and the time drew on for her periodical visit to her grandmother.

A few days subsequent to her arrival her aged relative asked her to

go with a message to the gardener at Mount Lodge (who still lived on

there, keeping the grounds in order for the landlord). Margery hated

that direction now, but she went. The Lodge, which she saw over the

trees, was to her like a skull from which the warm and living flesh

had vanished. It was twilight by the time she reached the cottage at

the bottom of the Lodge garden, and, the room being illuminated

within, she saw through the window a woman she had never seen before.

She was dark, and rather handsome, and when Margery knocked she

opened the door. It was the gardener's widowed daughter, who had

been advised to make friends with Margery.

She now found her opportunity. Margery's errand was soon completed,

the young widow, to her surprise, treating her with preternatural

respect, and afterwards offering to accompany her home. Margery was

not sorry to have a companion in the gloom, and they walked on

together. The widow, Mrs. Peach, was demonstrative and confidential;

and told Margery all about herself. She had come quite recently to

live with her father--during the Baron's illness, in fact--and her

husband had been captain of a ketch.

'I saw you one morning, ma'am,' she said. 'But you didn't see me.

It was when you were crossing the hill in sight of the Lodge. You

looked at it, and sighed. 'Tis the lot of widows to sigh, ma'am, is

it not?'

'Widows--yes, I suppose; but what do you mean?'

Mrs. Peach lowered her voice. 'I can't say more, ma'am, with proper

respect. But there seems to be no question of the poor Baron's

death; and though these foreign princes can take (as my poor husband

used to tell me) what they call left-handed wives, and leave them

behind when they go abroad, widowhood is widowhood, left-handed or

right. And really, to be the left-handed wife of a foreign baron is

nobler than to be married all round to a common man. You'll excuse

my freedom, ma'am; but being a widow myself, I have pitied you from

my heart; so young as you are, and having to keep it a secret, and

(excusing me) having no money out of his vast riches because 'tis

swallowed up by Baroness Number One.'

Now Margery did not understand a word more of this than the bare fact

that Mrs. Peach suspected her to be the Baron's undowered widow, and

such was the milkmaid's nature that she did not deny the widow's

impeachment. The latter continued -

'But ah, ma'am, all your troubles are straight backward in your

memory--while I have troubles before as well as grief behind.'

'What may they be, Mrs. Peach?' inquired Margery with an air of the

Baroness.

The other dropped her voice to revelation tones: 'I have been

forgetful enough of my first man to lose my heart to a second!'

'You shouldn't do that--it is wrong. You should control your

feelings.'

'But how am I to control my feelings?'

'By going to your dead husband's grave, and things of that sort.'

'Do you go to your dead husband's grave?'

'How can I go to Algiers?'

'Ah--too true! Well, I've tried everything to cure myself--read the

words against it, gone to the Table the first Sunday of every month,

and all sorts. But, avast, my shipmate!--as my poor man used to say-

-there 'tis just the same. In short, I've made up my mind to

encourage the new one. 'Tis flattering that I, a new-comer, should

have been found out by a young man so soon.'

'Who is he?' said Margery listlessly.

'A master lime-burner.'

'A master lime-burner?'

'That's his profession. He's a partner-in-co., doing very well

indeed.'

'But what's his name?'

'I don't like to tell you his name, for, though 'tis night, that

covers all shame-facedness, my face is as hot as a 'Talian iron, I

declare! Do you just feel it.'

Margery put her hand on Mrs. Peach's face, and, sure enough, hot it

was. 'Does he come courting?' she asked quickly.

'Well only in the way of business. He never comes unless lime is

wanted in the neighbourhood. He's in the Yeomanry, too, and will

look very fine when he comes out in regimentals for drill in May.'

'Oh--in the Yeomanry,' Margery said, with a slight relief. 'Then it

can't--is he a young man?'

'Yes, junior partner-in-co.'

The description had an odd resemblance to Jim, of whom Margery had

not heard a word for months. He had promised silence and absence,

and had fulfilled his promise literally, with a gratuitous addition

that was rather amazing, if indeed it were Jim whom the widow loved.

One point in the description puzzled Margery: Jim was not in the

Yeomanry, unless, by a surprising development of enterprise, he had

entered it recently.

At parting Margery said, with an interest quite tender, 'I should

like to see you again, Mrs. Peach, and hear of your attachment. When

can you call?'

'Oh--any time, dear Baroness, I'm sure--if you think I am good

enough.'

'Indeed, I do, Mrs. Peach. Come as soon as you've seen the lime-

burner again.'