Chapter 17

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_ CHAPTER XVII

EDWARD SEVERNE, master of arts, dreaded Rhoda Gale, M.D. He had deluded, in various degrees, several ladies that were no fools; but here was one who staggered and puzzled him. Bright and keen as steel, quick and spirited, yet controlled by judgment and always mistress of herself, she seemed to him a new species. The worst of it was, he felt himself in the power of this new woman, and, indeed, he saw no limit to the mischief she might possibly do him if she and Zoe compared notes. He had thought the matter over, and realized this more than he did when in London. Hence the good youth's delight at her illness, noticed in a former chapter.

He was very thoughtful all breakfast time, and as soon as it was over drew Vizard apart, and said he would postpone his visit to London until he had communicated with his man of business. He would go to the station and telegraph him, and by that means would do the civil and meet Miss Gale. Vizard stared at him.

"You meet my virago? Why, I thought you disapproved her entirely."

"No, no; only the idea of a female doctor, not the lady herself. Besides, it is a rule with me, my dear fellow, never to let myself disapprove my friends' friends."

"That is a bright idea, and you are a good fellow," said Vizard. "Go and meet the pest, by all means, and bring her here to luncheon. After luncheon we will drive her up to the farm and ensconce her."

Edward Severne had this advantage over most impostors, that he was masculine or feminine as occasion required. For instance, he could be hysterical or bold to serve the turn. Another example--he watched faces like a woman, and yet he could look you in the face like a man, especially when he was lying. In the present conjuncture a crafty woman would have bristled with all the arts of self-defense, but stayed at home and kept close to Zoe. Not so our master of arts; he went manfully to meet Rhoda Gale, and so secure a te'te-'a-te'te, and learn, if possible, what she meant to do, and whether she could be cannily propitiated. He reached the station before her, and wired a very intelligent person who, he knew, conducted delicate inquiries, and had been very successful in a divorce case, public two years before. Even as he dispatched this message there was a whistling and a ringing, and the sound of a coming train, and Ned Severne ran to meet Rhoda Gale with a heart palpitating a little, and a face beaming greatly to order. He looked for her in the first-class carriages, but she was in the second, and saw him. He did not see her till she stepped out on the platform. Then he made toward her. He took off his hat, and said, with respectful zeal, "If you will tell me what luggage you have, the groom shall get it out."

Miss Gale's eyes wandered over him loftily. "I have only a box and a bag, sir, both marked 'R. G.' "

"Joe," said he--for he had already made friends with all the servants, and won their hearts--"box and bag marked 'R. G.' Miss Gale, you had better take your seat in the carriage."

Miss Gale gave a little supercilious nod, and he showed her obsequiously into the carriage. She laid her head back, and contemplated vacancy ahead in a manner anything but encouraging to this new admirer Fate had sent her. He turned away, a little discomfited, and when the luggage was brought up, he had the bag placed inside, and the box in a sort of boot, and then jumped in and seated himself inside. "Home," said he to the coachman, and off they went. When he came in she started with well-feigned surprise, and stared at him.

"Oh," said she, "I have met you before. Why, it is Mr. Severne. Excuse me taking you for one of the servants. Some people have short memories, you know."

This deliberate affront was duly felt, but parried with a master-hand.

"Why, I am one of the servants," said he; "only I am not Vizard's. I'm yours."

"In-deed!"

"If you will let me."

"I am too poor to have fine servants."

"Say too haughty. You are not too poor, for I shan't cost you anything but a gracious word now and then."

"Unfortunately I don't deal in gracious words, only true ones."

"I see that."

"Then suppose you imitate me, and tell me why you came to meet me?"

This question came from her with sudden celerity, like lightning out of a cloud, and she bent her eyes on him with that prodigious keenness she could throw into those steel gray orbs, when her mind put on its full power of observation.

Severne colored a little, and hesitated.

"Come now," said this keen witch, "don't wait to make up a reason. Tell the truth for once--quick!--quick!--why did you come to meet me?"

"I didn't come to be bullied," replied supple Severne, affecting sullenness.

"You didn't!" cried the other, acting vast surprise. "Then what did you come for?"

"I don't know; and I wish I hadn't come."

"That I believe." Rhoda shot this in like an arrow.

"But," continued Severne, "if I hadn't, nobody would; for it is Vizard's justicing day, and the ladies are too taken up with a lord to come and meet such vulgar trifles as genius and learning and sci--"

"Come, come!" said Rhoda, contemptuously; "you care as little about science and learning and genius as I possess them. You won't tell me? Well, I shall find you out." Then, after a pause, "Who is this lord?"

"Lord Uxmoor."

"What kind of a lord is he?"

"A very bushy lord."

"Bushy?--oh, bearded like the pard! Now tell me," said she, "is he cutting you out with Miss Vizard?"

"You shall judge for yourself. Please spare me on that one topic--if you ever spared anybody in your life."

"Oh, dear me!" said Rhoda, coolly. "I'm not so very cruel. I'm only a little vindictive and cat-like. If people offend me, I like to play with them a bit, and amuse myself, and then kill them--kill them--kill them; that is all."

This pretty little revelation of character was accompanied with a cruel smile that showed a long row of dazzling white teeth. They seemed capable of killing anything from a liar up to a hickory-nut.

Severne looked at her and gave a shudder. "Then Heaven forbid you should ever be my enemy!" said he, sadly, "for I am unhappy enough already."

Having delivered this disarming speech, he collapsed, and seemed to be overpowered with despondency. Miss Gale showed no signs of melting. She leaned back and eyed him with steady and composed curiosity, as a zoologist studying a new specimen and all its little movements.

They drove up to the Hall door, and Miss Gale was conducted to the drawing-room, where she found Lord Uxmoor and the two young ladies. Zoe shook hands with her. Fanny put a limp paw into hers, which made itself equally limp directly, so Fanny's dropped out. Lord Uxmoor was presented to her, at his own request. Soon after this luncheon was announced. Vizard joined them, welcomed Rhoda genially, and told the party he had ordered the break, and Uxmoor would drive them to the farm round by Hillstoke and the Common. "And so," said he, "by showing Miss Gale our most picturesque spot at once, we may perhaps blind her to the horrors of her situation--for a time."

The break was driven round in due course, with Uxmoor's team harnessed to it. It was followed by a dog-cart crammed with grooms, Uxmoorian and Vizardian. The break was padded and cushioned, and held eight or nine people very comfortably.. It was, indeed, a sort of picnic van, used only in very fine weather. It rolled on beautiful springs. Its present contents were Miss Gale and her luggage and two hampers full of good things for her; Vizard, Severne, and Miss Dover. Zoe sat on the box beside Lord Uxmoor. They drove through the village, and Mr. Severne was so obliging as to point out its beauties to Miss Gale. She took little notice of his comments, except by a stiff nod every now and then, but eyed each house and premises with great keenness.

At last she stopped his fluency by inquiring whether he had been into them all; and when he said he had not, she took advantage of that admission to inform him that in two days' time she should be able to tell him a great deal more than he was likely to tell her, upon his method of inspecting villages.

"That is right," said Vizard; "snub him: he gets snubbed too little here. How dare he pepper science with his small-talk? But it is our fault--we admire his volubility."

"Oh," said Fanny, with a glance of defiance at Miss Gale, "if we are to talk nothing but science, it will be a weary world."

After the village there was a long, gradual ascent of about a mile, and then they entered a new country. It was a series of woods and clearings, some grass, some arable. Huge oaks, flung their arms over a road lined on either side by short turf, close-cropped by the gypsies' cattle. Some band or other of them was always encamped by the road-side, and never two bands at once. And between these giant trees, not one of which was ever felled, you saw here and there a glade, green as an emerald; or a yellow stubble, glowing in the sun. After about a mile of this, still mounting, but gradually, they emerged upon a spacious table-land--a long, broad, open, grass plateau, studded with cottages. In this lake of grass Uxmoor drew up at a word from Zoe, to show Miss Gale the scene. The cottages were white as snow, and thatched as at Islip; but instead of vegetable-gardens they all had orchards. The trees were apple and cherry: of the latter not less than a thousand in that small hamlet. It was literally a lawn, a quarter of a mile long and about two hundred yards broad, bordered with white cottages and orchards. The cherries, red and black, gleamed like countless eyes among the cool leaves. There was a little church on the lawn that looked like a pigeon-house. A cow or two grazed peacefully. Pigs, big and little, crossed the lawn, grunting and squeaking satisfaction, and dived into the adjacent woods after acorns, and here and there a truffle the villagers knew not the value of. There was a pond or two in the lawn; one had a wooden plank fixed on uprights, that went in some way. A woman was out on the board, bare-armed, dipping her bucket in for water. In another pond an old knowing horse stood gravely cooling his heels up to the fetlocks. These, with shirts, male and female, drying on a line, and whiteheaded children rolling in the dust, and a donkey braying his heart out for reasons known only to himself, if known at all, were the principal details of the sylvan hamlet; but on a general survey there were grand beauties. The village and its turf lay in the semicircular sweep of an unbroken forest; but at the sides of the leafy basin glades had been cut for drawing timber, stacking bark, etc., and what Milton calls so happily "the checkered shade" was seen in all its beauty; for the hot sun struggled in at every aperture, and splashed the leaves and the path with fiery flashes and streaks, and topaz brooches, all intensified in fire and beauty by the cool adjacent shadows.

Looking back, the view was quite open in most places. The wooded lanes and strips they had passed were little more in so vast a panorama than the black stripes on a backgammon board. The site was so high that the eye swept over all, and rested on a broad valley beyond, with a patchwork pattern of variegated fields and the curling steam of engines flying across all England; then swept by a vast incline up to a horizon of faint green hills, the famous pastures of the United Kingdom. So that it was a deep basin of foliage in front; but you had only to turn your body, and there was a forty-mile view, with all the sweet varieties of color that gem our fields and meadows, as they bask in the afternoon sun of that golden time when summer melts into autumn, and mellows without a chill.

"Oh," cried Miss Gale, "don't anybody speak, please! It is too beautiful!"

They respected an enthusiasm so rare in this young lady, and let her contemplate the scene at her ease.

"I reckon," said she, dogmatically, and nodding that wise little head, "that this is Old England--the England my ancestors left in search of liberty, and that's a plant that ranks before cherry-trees, I rather think. No, I couldn't have gone; I'd have stayed and killed a hundred tyrants. But I wouldn't have chopped their heads off" (to Vizard, very confidentially); "I'd have poisoned 'em."

"Don't, Miss Gale!" said Fanny; "you make my blood run cold."

As it was quite indifferent to Miss Gale whether she made Miss Dover's blood run cold or not, she paid no attention, but proceeded with her reflections. "The only thing that spoils it is the smoke of those engines, reminding one that in two hours you or I, or that pastoral old hermit there in a smock-frock, and a pipe--and oh, what bad tobacco!--can be wrenched out of this paradise, and shrieked and rattled off and flung into that wilderness of brick called London, where the hearts are as hard as the pavement--except those that have strayed there from Barfordshire."

The witch changed face and tone and everything like lightning, and threw this last in with a sudden grace and sweetness that contrasted strangely with her usual sharpness.

Zoe heard, and turned round to look down on her with a smile as sweet as honey. "I hardly think that is a drawback," said she, amicably. "Does not being able to leave a place make it sweeter? for then we are free in it, you know. But I must own there is a drawback--the boys' faces, Miss Gale, they are so pasty."

"Indeed!" says Rhoda, pricking up her ears.

"Form no false hopes of an epidemic. This is not an infirmary in a wood, Miss Gale," said Vizard. "My sister is a great colorist, and pitches her expectations too high. I dare say their faces are not more pasty than usual; but this is a show place, and looks like a garden; so Zoe wants the boys to be poppies and pansies, and the girls roses and lilies. Which--they--are--not."

"All I know is," said Zoe, resolutely, "that in Islip the children's faces are rosy, but here they are pasty--dreadfully pasty."

"Well, you have got a box of colors. We will come up some day and tint all the putty-faced boys." It was to Miss Dover the company owed this suggestion.

"No," said Rhoda. "Their faces are my business; I'll soon fix them. She didn't say putty-faced; she said pasty."

"Grateful to you for the distinction, Miss Gale," said Zoe.

Miss Gale proceeded to insist that boys are not pasty-faced without a cause, and it is to be sought lower down. "Ah!" cried she, suddenly, "is that a cherry that I see before me? No, a million. They steal them and eat them by the thousand, and that's why. Tell the truth, now, everybody--they eat the stones."

Miss Vizard said she did not know, but thought them capable.

"Children know nothing," said Vizard. "Please address all future scientific inquiries to an 'old inhabitant.' Miss Gale, the country abounds in curiosities; but, among those curiosities, even Science, with her searching eye, has never yet discovered an unswallowed cherry stone in Hillstoke village."

"What! not on the trees?"

"She is too much for me. Drive on, coachman, and drown her replies in the clatter of hoofs. Round by the Stag, Zoe. I am uneasy till I have locked Fair Science up. I own it is a mean way of getting rid of a troublesome disputant."

"Now I think it is quite fair," said Fanny. "She shuts you up, and so you lock her up."

"'Tis well," said Vizard, dolefully. "Now I am No. 3--I who used to retort and keep girls in their places--with difficulty. Here is Ned Severne, too, reduced to silence. Why, where's your tongue? Miss Gale, you would hardly believe it, this is our chatterbox. We have been days and days, and could not get in a word edgewise for him. But now all he can do is to gaze on you with canine devotion, and devour the honey--I beg pardon, the lime-juice--of your lips. I warn you of one thing, though; there is such a thing as a threatening silence. He is evidently booking every word you utter; and he will deliver it all for his own behind your back some fine day."

With this sort of banter and small talk, not worth deluging the reader dead with, they passed away the time till they reached the farm.

"You stay here," said Vizard--"all but Zoe. Tom and George, get the things out." The grooms had already jumped out of the dog-cart, and two were at the horses' heads. The step-ladder was placed for Zoe, and Vizard asked her to go in and see the rooms were all right, while he took Miss Gale to the stables. He did so, and showed her a spirited Galloway and a steady old horse, and told her she could ride one and drive the other all over the country.

She thanked him, but said her attention would be occupied by the two villages first, and she should make him a report in forty-eight hours.

"As you please," said he. "You are terribly in earnest."

"What should I be worth if I was not?'

"Well, come and see your shell; and you must tell me if we have forgotten anything essential to your comfort."

She followed him, and he led her to a wing of the farmhouse comparatively new, and quite superior to the rest. Here were two good sunny rooms, with windows looking south and west, and they were both papered with a white watered pattern, and a pretty French border of flowers at the upper part, to look gay and cheerful.

Zoe was in the bedroom, arranging things with a pretty air of hospitality. It was cheerily fitted up, and a fire of beech logs blazing.

"How good you are!" said Rhoda, looking wistfully at her. But Zoe checked all comments by asking her to look at the sitting-room and see if it would do. Rhoda would rather have stayed with Zoe; but she complied, and found another bright, cheerful room, and Vizard standing in the middle of it. There was another beech fire blazing, though it was hot weather. Here was a round table, with a large pot full of flowers, geraniums and musk flowers outside, with the sun gilding their green leaves most amiably, and everything unpretending, but bright and comfortable; well padded sofa, luxurious armchair, stand-up reading desk, and a very large knee-hole table; a fine mirror from the ceiling to the dado; a book-case with choice books, and on a pembroke table near the wall were several periodicals. Rhoda, after a cursory survey of the room, flew to the books. "Oh!" said she, "what good books! all standard works; and several on medicine; and, I declare, the last numbers of the Lancet and the Medical Gazette, and the very best French and German periodicals! Oh, what have I done? and what can I ever do?"

"What! Are you going to gush like the rest--and about nothing?" said Vizard. "Then I'm off. Come along, Zoe;" and he hurried his sister away.

She came at the word; but as soon as they were out of the house, asked him what was the matter.

"I thought she was going to gush. But I dare say it was a false alarm."

"And why shouldn't she gush, when you have been so kind?"

"Pooh--nonsense! I have not been kind to her, and don't mean to be kind to her, or to any woman; besides, she must not be allowed to gush; she is the parish virago--imported from vast distances as such--and for her to play the woman would be an abominable breach of faith. We have got our gusher, likewise our flirt; and it was understood from the first that this was to be a new dramatis persona--was not to be a repetition of you or la Dover, but--ahem--the third Grace, a virago: solidified vinegar."

Rhoda Gale felt very happy. She was young, healthy, ambitious, and sanguine. She divined that, somehow, her turning point had come; and when she contrasted her condition a month ago, and the hardness of the world, with the comfort and kindness that now surrounded her, and the magnanimity which fled, not to be thanked for them, she felt for once in a way humble as well as grateful, and said to herself, "It is not to myself nor any merit of mine I owe such a change as all this is." What some call religion, and others superstition, overpowered her, and she kneeled down and held communion with that great Spirit which, as she believed, pervades the material universe, and probably arises from it, as harmony from the well strung harp. Theory of the day, or Plato redivivus--which is it?

"O great creative element, and stream of tendencies in the universe, whereby all things struggle toward perfection, deign to be the recipient of that gratitude which fills me, and cannot be silent; and since gratitude is right in all, and most of all in me at this moment, forgive me if, in the weakness of my intellect, I fall into the old error of addressing you as an individual. It is but the weakness of the heart; we are persons, and so we cry out for a personal God to be grateful to. Pray receive it so--if, indeed, these words of mine have any access to your infinitely superior nature. And if it is true that you influence the mind of man, and are by any act of positive volition the cause of these benefits I now profit by, then pray influence my mind in turn, and make me a more worthy recipient of all these favors; above all, inspire me to keep faithfully to my own sphere, which is on earth; to be good and kind and tolerant to my fellow creatures, perverse as they are sometimes, and not content myself with saying good words to you, to whose information I can add nothing, nor yet to your happiness, by any words of mine. Let no hollow sentiment of religion keep me long prating on my knees, when life is so short, and" (jumping suddenly up) "my duties can only be discharged afoot."

Refreshed by this aspiration, the like of which I have not yet heard delivered in churches--but the rising generation will perhaps be more fortunate in that respect--she went into the kitchen, ordered tea, bread and butter, and one egg for dinner at seven o'clock, and walked instantly back to Hillstoke to inspect the village, according to her ideas of inspection.

Next morning down comes the bailiff's head man in his light cart, and a note is delivered to Vizard at the breakfast table. He reads it to himself, then proclaims silence, and reads it aloud:

"DEAR SIR--As we crossed your hall to luncheon, there was the door of a small room half open, and I saw a large mahogany case standing on a marble table with one leg, but three claws gilt. I saw 'Micro' printed on the case. So I hope it is a microscope, and a fine one. To enable you to find it, if you don't know, the room had crimson curtains, and is papered in green flock. That is the worst of all the poisonous papers, because the texture is loose, and the poisonous stuff easily detached, and always flying about the room. I hope you do not sit in it, nor Miss Vizard, because sitting in that room is courting death. Please lend me the microscope, if it is one, and I'll soon show you why the boys are putty faced. I have inspected them, and find Miss Dover's epithet more exact than Miss Vizard's, which is singular. I will take great care of it. Yours respectfully,

"RHODA GALE."

Vizard ordered a servant to deliver the microscope to Miss Gale's messenger with his compliments. Fanny wondered what she wanted with it. "Not to inspect our little characters, it is to be hoped," said Vizard. "Why not pay her a visit, you ladies? then she will tell you, perhaps." The ladies instantly wore that bland look of inert but rocky resistance I have already noted as a characteristic of "our girls." Vizard saw, and said, "Try and persuade them, Uxmoor."

"I can only offer Miss Vizard my escort," said Lord Uxmoor.

"And I offer both ladies mine," said Ned Severne, rather loud and with a little sneer, to mark his superior breeding. The gentleman was so extremely polite in general that there was no mistaking his hostile intentions now. The inevitable war had begun, and the first shot was fired. Of course the wonder was it had not come long before; and perhaps I ought to have drawn more attention to the delicacy and tact of Zoe Vizard, which had averted it for a time. To be sure, she had been aided by the size of the house and its habits. The ladies had their own sitting rooms; Fanny kept close to Zoe by special orders; and nobody could get a chance te'te-'a-te'te with Zoe unless she chose. By this means, her native dignity and watchful tact, by her frank courtesy to Uxmoor, and by the many little quiet ways she took to show Severne her sentiments remained unchanged, she had managed to keep the peace, and avert that open competition for her favor which would have tickled the vanity of a Fanny Dover, but shocked the refined modesty of a Zoe Vizard.

But nature will have her way soon or late, and it is the nature of males to fight for the female.

At Severne's shot Uxmoor drew up a little haughtily, but did not feel sure anything was intended. He was little accustomed to rubs. Zoe, on the other hand, turned a little pale--just a little, for she was sorry, but not surprised; so she proved equal to the occasion. She smiled and made light of it. "Of course we are all going," said she.

"Except one," said Vizard, dryly.

"That is too bad," said Fanny. "Here he drives us all to visit his blue-stocking, but he takes good care not to go himself."

"Perhaps he prefers to visit her alone," suggested Severne. Zoe looked alarmed.

"That is so," said Vizard. "Observe, I am learning her very phrases. When you come back, tell me every word she says; pray let nothing be lost that falls from my virago."

The party started after luncheon; and Severne, true to his new policy, whipped to Zoe's side before Uxmoor, and engaged her at once in conversation.

Uxmoor bit his lip, and fell to Fanny. Fanny saw at once what was going on, and made herself very agreeable to Uxmoor. He was polite and a little gratified, but cast uneasy glances at the other pair.

Meantime Severne was improving his opportunity. "Sorry to disturb Lord Uxmoor's monopoly," said he, sarcastically, "but I could not bear it any longer."

"I do not object to the change," said Zoe, smiling maternally on him; "but you will be good enough to imitate me in one thing--you will always be polite to Lord Uxmoor."

"He makes it rather hard."

"It is only for a time; and we must learn to be capable of self-denial. I assure you I have exercised quite as much as I ask of you. Edward, he is a gentleman of great worth, universally respected, and my brother has a particular wish to be friends with him. So pray be patient; be considerate. Have a little faith in one who--"

She did not end the sentence.

"Well, I will," said he. "But please think of me a little. I am beginning to feel quite thrust aside, and degraded in my own eyes for putting up with it."

"For shame, to talk so," said Zoe; but the tears came into her eyes.

The master of arts saw, and said no more. He had the art of not overdoing: he left the arrow to rankle. He walked by her side in a silence for ever so long. Then, suddenly, as if by a mighty effort of unselfish love, went off into delightful discourse. He cooed and wooed and flattered and fascinated; and by the time they reached the farm had driven Uxmoor out of her head.

Miss Gale was out. The farmer's wife said she had gone into the town--meaning Hillstoke--which was, strictly speaking, a hamlet or tributary village. Hillstoke church was only twelve years old, and the tithes of the place went to the parson of Islip.

When Zoe turned to go, Uxmoor seized the opportunity, and drew up beside her, like a soldier falling into the ranks. Zoe felt hot; but as Severne took no open notice, she could not help smiling at the behavior of the fellows; and Uxmoor got his chance.

Severne turned to Fanny with a wicked sneer. "Very well, my lord," said he; "but I have put a spoke in your wheel."

"As if I did not see, you clever creature!" said Fanny, admiringly.

"Ah, Miss Dover, I need to be as clever as you! See what I have against me: a rich lord, with the bushiest beard."

"Never you mind," said Fanny. "Good wine needs no bush, ha! ha! You are lovely, and have a wheedling tongue, and you were there first. Be good, now--and you can flirt with me to fill up the time. I hate not being flirted at all. It is stagnation."

"Yes, but it is not so easy to flirt with you just a little. You are so charming." Thereupon he proceeded to flatter her, and wonder how he had escaped a passionate attachment to so brilliant a creature. "What saved me," said he, oracularly, "is, that I never could love two at once; and Zoe seized my love at sight. She left me nothing to lay at your feet but my admiration, the tenderest friendship man can feel for woman, and my lifelong gratitude for fighting my battle. Oh, Miss Dover, I must be quite serious a moment. What other lady but you would be so generous as to befriend a poor man with another lady, when there's wealth and title on the other side?"

Fanny blushed and softened, but turned it off. "There--no heroics, please," said she. "You are a dear little fellow; and don't go and be jealous, for he shan't have her. He would never ask me to his house, you know. Now I think you would perhaps--who knows? Tell me, fascinating monster, are you going to be ungrateful?"

"Not to you. My home would always be yours; and you know it." And he caught her hand and kissed it in an ungovernable transport, the strings of which be pulled himself. He took care to be quick about it, though, and not let Zoe or Uxmoor see, who were walking on before and behaving sedately.

In Hillstoke lived, on a pension from Vizard, old Mrs. Greenaway, rheumatic about the lower joints, so she went on crutches; but she went fast, being vigorous, and so did her tongue. At Hillstoke she was Dame Greenaway, being a relic of that generation which applied the word dame to every wife, high and low; but at Islip she was "Sally," because she had started under that title, fifty-five years ago, as house-maid at Vizard Court; and, by the tenacity of oral tradition, retained it ever since, in spite of two husbands she had wedded and buried with equal composure.

Her feet were still springy, her arms strong as iron, and her crutches active. At sight of our party she came out with amazing wooden strides, agog for gossip, and met them at the gate. She managed to indicate a courtesy, and said, "Good day, miss; your sarvant, all the company. Lord, how nice you be dressed, all on ye, to--be--sure! Well, miss, have ye heerd the news?"

"No, Sally. What is it?"

"What! haant ye heerd about the young 'oman at the farm?"

"Oh yes; we came to see her."

"No, did ye now? Well, she was here not half an hour agone. By the same toaken, I did put her a question, and she answered me then and there."

"And may I ask what the question was?"

"And welcome, miss. I said, says I, 'Young 'oman, where be you come from?' so says she, 'Old 'oman, I be come from forin parts.' 'I thought as much,' says I. 'And what be 'e come for?' 'To sojourn here,' says she, which she meant to bide a time. 'And what do 'e count to do whilst here you be?' says I. Says she, 'As much good as ever I can do, and as little harm.' 'That is no answer,' says I. She said it would do for the present; 'and good day to you, ma'am,' says she. 'Your sarvant, miss,' says I; and she was off like a flash. But I called my grandson Bill, and I told him he must follow her, go where she would, and let us know what she was up to down in Islip. Then I went round the neighbors, and one told me one tale, and another another. But it all comes to one--we have gotten A BUSYBODY; that's the name I gives her. She don't give in to that, ye know; she is a Latiner, and speaks according. She gave Master Giles her own description. Says she, 'I'm suspector-general of this here districk.' So then Giles he was skeared a bit--he have got an acre of land of his own, you know--and he up and asked her did she come under the taxes, or was she a fresh imposition; 'for we are burdened enough a'ready, no offense to you, miss,' says Josh Giles. 'Don't you be skeared, old man,' says she, 'I shan't cost you none; your betters pays for I.' So says Giles, 'Oh, if you falls on squire, I don't vally that; squire's back is broad enough to bear the load, but I'm a poor man.' That's how a' goes on, ye know. Poverty is always in his mouth, but the old chap have got a hatful of money hid away in the thatch or some're, only he haan't a got the heart to spend it."

"Tell us more about the young lady," asked Uxmoor.

"What young lady? Oh, her. She is not a young lady--leastways she is not dressed like one, but like a plain, decent body. She was all of a piece--blue serge! Bless your heart, the peddlers bring it round here at elevenpence half-penny the yard, and a good breadth too; and plain boots, not heeled like your'n, miss, nor your'n, ma'am; and a felt hat like a boy. You'd say the parish had dressed her for ten shillings, and got a pot of beer out on't."

"Well, never mind that," said Zoe; "I must tell you she is a very worthy young lady, and my brother has a respect for her. Dress? Why, Sally, you know it is not the wisest that spend most on dress. You might tell us what she does."

Dame Greenaway snatched the word out of her mouth. "Well, then, miss, what she have done, she have suspected everything. She have suspected the ponds; she have suspected the houses; she have suspected the folk; she must know what they eat and drink and wear next their very skin, and what they do lie down on. She have been at the very boys and forebade 'em to swallow the cherry stones, poor things; but old Mrs. Nash--which her boys lives on cherries at this time o' year, and to be sure they are a godsend to keep the children hereabout from starving--well, Dame Nash told her the Almighty knew best; he had put 'em together on the tree, so why not in the boys' insides; and that was common sense to my mind. But la! she wouldn't heed it. She said, 'Then you'd eat the peach stones by that rule, and the fish bones and all.' Says she, quite resolute like, 'I forbid 'em to swallow the stones;' and says she, 'Ye mawnt gainsay me, none on ye, for I be the new doctor.' So then it all come out. She isn't suspector-general; she is a wench turned doctor, which it is against reason. Shan't doctor me for one; but that there old Giles, he says he is agreeable, if so be she wool doctor him cheap--cussed old fool!--as if any doctoring was cheap that kills a body and doan't cure 'em. Dear heart, I forgot to tell ye about the ponds. Well, you know there be no wells here. We makes our tea out of the ponds, and capital good tea to drink, far before well water, for I mind that one day about twenty years agone some interfering body did cart a barrel up from Islip; and if we wants water withouten tea, why, we can get plenty on't, and none too much malt and hops, at 'The Black Horse.' So this here young 'oman she suspects the poor ponds and casts a hevil-eye on them, and she borrows two mugs of Giles, and carries the water home to suspect it closer. That is all she have done at present, but, ye see, she haan't been here so very long. You mark my words, miss, that young 'oman will turn Hillstoke village topsy-turvy or ever she goes back to London town."

"Nonsense, Sally," said Zoe; "how can anybody do that while my brother and I are alive?" She then slipped half a crown into Sally's hand, and led the way to Islip.

On the road her conversation with Oxmoor took a turn suggestive of this interview. I forget which began it; but they differed a little in opinion, Uxmoor admiring Miss Gale's zeal and activity, and Zoe fearing that she would prove a rash reformer, perhaps a reckless innovator.

"And really," said she, "why disturb things? for, go where I will, I see no such Paradise as these two villages."

"They are indeed lovely," said Uxmoor; "but my own village is very pretty. Yet on nearer inspection I have found so many defects, especially in the internal arrangements of the cottages, that I am always glad to hear of a new eye having come to bear on any village."

"I know you are very good," said Zoe, "and wish all the poor people about you to be as healthy and as happy as possible."

"I really do," said, warmly. "I often think of the strange inequality in the lot of men. Living in the country, I see around me hundreds of men who are by nature as worthy as I am, or thereabouts. Yet they must toil and labor, and indeed fight, for bare food and clothing, all their lives, and worse off at the close of their long labor. That is what grieves me to the heart. All this time I revel in plenty and luxuries--not forgetting the luxury of luxuries, the delight of giving to those who need and deserve. What have I done for all this? I have been born of the right parents. My merit, then, is the accident of an accident. But having done nothing meritorious before I was born, surely I ought to begin afterward. I think a man born to wealth ought to doubt his moral title to it, and ought to set to work to prove it--ought to set himself to repair the injustice of fortune by which he profits. Yes, such a man should be a sort of human sunshine, and diffuse blessings all round him. The poor man that encounters him ought to bless the accident. But there, I am not eloquent. You know how much more I mean than I can say."

"Indeed I do," said Zoe, "and I honor you."

"Ah, Miss Vizard," said Uxmoor, "that is more than I can ever deserve."

"You are praising me at your own expense," said Zoe. "Well, then," said she, sweetly, "please accept my sympathy. It is so rare to find a gentleman of your age thinking so little of himself and so much of poor people. Yet that is a Divine command. But somehow we forget our religion out of church--most of us. I am sure I do, for one."

This conversation brought them to the village, and there they met Vizard, and Zoe repeated old Sally's discourse to him word for word. He shook his head solemnly, and said he shared her misgivings. "We have caught a Tartar."

On arriving at Vizard Court, they found Miss Gale had called and left two cards.

Open rivalry having now commenced between Uxmoor and Severne, his lordship was adroit enough to contrive that the drag should be in request next day.

Then Severne got Fanny to convey a note to Zoe, imploring her to open her bedroom window and say good-night to him the last. "For," said he, "I have no coach and four, and I am very unhappy."

This and his staying sullenly at home spoiled Zoe's ride, and she was cool to Uxmoor, and spoiled his drive.

At night Zoe peeped through the curtain and saw Severne standing in the moonlight. She drank him in for some time in silence, then softly opened her window and looked out. He took a step nearer.

She said, very softly and tenderly, "You are very naughty, and very foolish. Go to bed di-rectly." And she closed her window with a valiant slam; then sat down and sighed.

Same game next day. Uxmoor driving, Zoe wonderfully polite, but chill, because he was separating her and Severne. At night, Severne on the wet grass, and Zoe remonstrating severely, but not sincerely, and closing the window peremptorily she would have liked to keep open half the night.

It has often been remarked that great things arise out of small things, and sometimes, when in full motion, depend on small things. History offers brilliant examples upon its large stage. Fiction has imitated history in un verre d'eau and other compositions. To these examples, real or feigned, I am now about to add one; and the curious reader may, if he thinks it worth while, note the various ramifications at home and abroad of a seemingly trivial incident.

They were all seated at luncheon, when a servant came in with a salver, and said, "A gentleman to see you, sir." He presented his salver with a card upon it. Severne clutched the card, and jumped up, reddening.

"Show him in here," said the hospitable Vizard.

"No, no," cried Severne, rather nervously; "it is my lawyer on a little private business."

Vizard told the servant to show the visitor into the library, and take in the Madeira and some biscuits.

"It is about a lease," said Ned Severne, and went out rather hurriedly.

"La!" said Fanny, "what a curious name--Poikilus. And what does S. I. mean, I wonder?"

"This is enigmatical discourse," said Vizard, dryly. "Please explain."

"Why, the card had Poikilus on it."

"You are very inquisitive," said Zoe, coloring.

"No more than my neighbors. But the man put his salver right between our noses, and how could I help seeing Poikilus in large letters, and S. I. in little ones up in the corner?"

Said Vizard, "The female eye is naturally swift. She couldn't help seeing all that in half a minute of time; for Ned Severne snatched up the card with vast expedition."

"I saw that too," said Fanny, defiantly.

Uxmoor put in his word. "Poikilus! That is a name one sees in the papers."

"Of course you do. He is one of the humbugs of the day. Pretends to find things out; advertises mysterious disappearances; offers a magnificent reward--with perfect safety, because he has invented the lost girl's features and dress, and her disappearance into the bargain; and I hold with the schoolmen that she who does not exist cannot disappear. Poikilus, a puffing detective. S. I., Secret Inquiry. I spell Enquiry with an E--but Poikilus is a man of the day. What the deuce can Ned Severne want of him? I suppose I ought not to object. I have established a female detective at Hillstoke. So Ned sets one up at Islip. I shall make my own secret arrangements. If Poikilus settles here, he will be drawn through the horse-pond by small-minded rustics once a week."

While he was going on like this, Zoe felt uncomfortable, and almost irritated by his volubility, and it was a relief to her when Severne returned. He had confided a most delicate case to the detective, given him written instructions, and stipulated for his leaving the house without a word to any one, and, indeed, seen him off--all in seven minutes. Yet he returned to our party cool as a cucumber, to throw dust in everybody's eyes.

"I must apologize for this intrusion," he said to Vizard; "but my lawyer wanted to consult me about the lease of one of my farms, and, finding himself in the neighborhood, he called instead of writing."

"Your lawyer, eh?" said Vizard, slyly. "What is your lawyer's name?"

"Jackson," said Ned, without a moment's hesitation.

Fanny giggled in her own despite.

Instead of stopping here, Severne must go on; it was his unlucky day.

"Not quite a gentleman, you know, or I would have inflicted his society on you."

"Not quite--eh?" said Harrington, so dryly that Fanny Dover burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

But Zoe turned hot and cold to see him blundering thus, and telling lie upon lie.

Severne saw there was something wrong, and buried his nose in pigeon pie. He devoured it with an excellent appetite, while every eye rested on him; Zoe's with shame and misery, Uxmoor's with open contempt, Vizard's with good humored satire.

The situation became intolerable to Zoe Vizard. Indignant and deeply shocked herself, she still could not bear to see him the butt of others' ridicule and contempt. She rose haughtily and marched to the door. He raised his head for a moment as she went out. She turned, and their eyes met. She gave him such a glance of pity and disdain as suspended the meat upon his fork, and froze him into comprehending that something very serious indeed had happened.

He resolved to learn from Fanny what it was, and act accordingly. But Zoe's maid came in and whispered Fanny. She went out, and neither of the young ladies was seen till dinner-time. It was conveyed to Uxmoor that there would be no excursion of any kind this afternoon; and therefore he took his hat, and went off to pay a visit. He called on Rhoda Gale. She was at home. He intended merely to offer her his respects, and to side with her generally against these foolish rustics; but she was pleased with him for coming, and made herself so agreeable that he spent the whole afternoon comparing notes with her upon village life, and the amelioration it was capable of. Each could give the other valuable ideas; and he said he hoped she would visit his part of the country ere long; she would find many defects, but also a great desire to amend them.

This flattered her, naturally; and she began to take an interest in him. That interest soon took the form of curiosity. She must know whether he was seriously courting Zoe Vizard or not. The natural reserve of a well-bred man withstood this at first; but that armor could not resist for two mortal hours such a daughter of Eve as this, with her insidious questions, her artful statements, her cat-like retreats and cat-like returns. She learned--though he did not see how far he had committed himself--that he admired Zoe Vizard and would marry her to-morrow if she would have him; his hesitation to ask her, because he had a rival, whose power he could not exactly measure; but a formidable and permitted rival.

They parted almost friends; and Rhoda settled quietly in her mind he should have Zoe Vizard, since he was so fond of her.

Here again it was Severne's unlucky day, and Uxmoor's lucky. To carry this same day to a close, Severne tried more than once to get near Zoe and ask if he had offended her, and in what. But no opportunity occurred. So then he sat and gazed at her, and looked unhappy. She saw, and was not unmoved, but would not do more than glance at him. He resigned himself to wait till night.

Night came. He went on the grass. There was a light in Zoe's room. It was eleven o'clock. He waited, shivering, till twelve. Then the light was put out; but no window opened. There was a moon; and her windows glared black on him, dark and bright as the eyes she now averted from him. He was in disgrace.

The present incident I have recorded did not end here; and I must now follow Poikilus on his mission to Homburg; and if the reader has a sense of justice, methinks he will not complain of the journey, for see how long I have neglected the noblest figure in this story, and the most to be pitied. To desert her longer would be too unjust, and derange entirely the balance of this complicated story. _

Read next: Chapter 18

Read previous: Chapter 16

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