The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid

Chapter 16

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.