Madge huffed away to fill her boxes.
He stood by the cart, hands deep down his pockets, when she descended.
She could have laughed at the spectacle of a champion prize-fighter out of employ, hulking idle, because he was dog to a paytron; but her contempt of him declined pa.s.sing in small change.
"So you"re off. What am I to tell my lord when he comes?" Kit growled.
"His yacht"s fetching for a Welsh seaport."
She counted it a piece of information gained, and jumped to her seat, bidding the driver start. To have pretty well lost her character for a hero changed into a patron"s dog, was a thought that outweighed the show of incivility. Some little distance away, she reproached herself for not having been so civil as to inquire what day my lord was expected, by his appointment. The girl reflected on the strangeness of a body of discontented miners bringing my lord and my lady close, perhaps to meet.
CHAPTER x.x.x. REBECCA WYTHAN
The earl was looked for at the, chief office of the mines, and each day an expectation of him closed in disappointment, leaving it to be surmised that there were more serious reasons for his continued absence during a crisis than any discussed; whether indeed, as when a timepiece neglects to strike the hour which is, by the reckoning of natural impatience, past, the capital charge of "crazy works" must not be brought against a n.o.bleman hitherto precise upon business, of a just disposition, fairly humane. For though he was an absentee sucking the earth through a tube, in Ottoman ease, he had never omitted the duty of personally attending on the spot to grave cases under dispute. The son of the hardheaded father came out at a crisis; and not too highhandedly: he could hear an opposite argument to the end. Therefore, since he refused to comply without hearing, he was wanted on the spot imperatively, now.
Irony perusing History offers the beaten and indolent a sugary acid in the indication of the spites and the pranks, the whims and the tastes, at the springs of main events. It is, taken by itself, destructive nourishment. But those who labour in the field to shovel the clods of earth to History, would be wiser of their fellows for a minor dose of it. Mr. Howell Edwards consulting with Mr. Owain Wythan on the necessity, that the earl should instantly keep his promise to appear among the men and stop the fermentation, as in our younger days a lordly owner still might do by small concessions and the physical influence--the nerve-charm--could suppose him to be holding aloof for his pleasure or his pride; perhaps because of illness or inability to conceive the actual situation at a distance. He mentioned the presence of the countess, and Mr. Wythan mentioned it, neither of them thinking a rational man would so play the lunatic as to let men starve, and wreck precious mines, for the sake of avoiding her.
Sullen days went by. On these days of the slate-cloud or the leaden-winged, Carinthia walked over the hills to her staring or down-eyed silent people, admitted without a welcome at some doors, rejected at some. Her baskets from the castle were for the most part received as graciously. She continued to direct them for delivery where they were needed, and understood why a charity that supplied the place of justice was not thanked. She and her people here were one regarding the master, as she had said. They could not hurt her sensitiveness, she felt too warmly with them. And here it was not the squalid, flat, bricked east-corner of London at the close of her daily pilgrimage. Up from the solitary street of the slate-roofs, she mounted a big hill and had the life of high breathing. A perpetual escape out of the smoky, grimy city mazes was trumpeted to her in the winds up there: a recollected contrast lightened the skyless broad s.p.a.ces overhead almost to sunniness. Having air of the hills and activity for her limbs, she made sunshine for herself. Regrets were at no time her nestlings.
Look backward only to correct an error of conduct for the next attempt, says one of her father"s Maxims; as sharply bracing for women as for men. She did not look back to moan. Now that her hunger for the safety of her infant was momentarily quieted, she could see Kit Ines hanging about the lower ground, near the alehouse, and smile at Madge"s comparison of him to a drummed-out soldier, who would like to be taken for a holiday pensioner.
He saluted; under the suspicion of his patron"s lady his legs were hampered, he dared not approach her; though his innocence of a deed not proposed to him yet--and all to stock that girl Madge"s shop, if done!
knocked at his ribs with fury to vindicate himself before the lady and her maid. A gentleman met them and conducted them across the hills.
And two Taffy gentlemen would hardly be sufficient for the purpose, supposing an ill-used Englishman inclined to block their way!--What, and play footpad, Kit Ines? No, it"s just a game in the head. But a true man hates to feel himself suspected. His refuge is the beer of the country.
Next day there were the two gentlemen to conduct the lady and her maid; and Taffy the first walks beside the countess; and that girl Madge trudges along with no other than my lord"s Mr. Woodseer, chattering like a watering-can on a garden-bed: deuce a glance at Kit Ines. How can she keep it up and the gentleman no more than nodding? How does he enjoy playing second fiddle with the maid while Mr. tall brown-face Taffy violins it to her ladyship a stone"s throw in front? Ines had less curiosity to know the object of Mr. Woodseer"s appearance on the scene.
Idle, unhandsomely treated, and a cave of the yawns, he merely commented on his observations.
"Yes, there he is, don"t look at him," Madge said to Gower; "and whatever he"s here for, he has a bad time of it, and rather more than it"s pleasant for him to think over, if a slave to a "paytron" thinks at all. I won"t judge him; my mistress is bitten with the fear for the child, worse than ever. And the earl, my lord, not coming, and he wanting her to move again, seems to her he durstn"t do it here and intends to snap at the child on the road. She-"s forced to believe anything of such a husband and father. And why does he behave so?
I can"t spell it. He"s kind to my Sally--you"ve seen the Piccadilly shop?--because she was... she did her best in love and duty for my lady.
And behaves like a husband hating his wife"s life on earth! Then he went down with good Mr. Woodseer, and called on Sally, pretending to inquire, after she was kidnapped by that Kit Ines acting to please his paytron, he must be shown up to the room where she slept, and stands at the door and peeps in, Sally"s letter says, and asks if he may enter the room. He went to the window looking on the chimneys she used to see, and touched an ornament over the fireplace, called grandfather"s pigtail case--he was a sailor; only a ridiculous piece of china, that made my lady laugh about the story of its holding a pigtail. But he turns it over because she did--Sally told him. He couldn"t be pretending when he bought the beautiful shop and stocked it for Sally. He gets her lots of customers; and no rent to pay till next Michaelmas a year. She"s a made woman through him. He said to her, he had heard from Mr. Woodseer the Countess of Fleetwood called her sister; he shook her hand."
"The Countess of Fleetwood called both of you her sisters, I think,"
said Gower.
"I"m her servant. I"d rather serve her than have a fortune."
"You were born with a fortune one would like to have a nibble at, Madge."
"I can"t lay hand on it, then."
"It"s the capacity for giving, my dear."
"Please, Mr. Gower, don"t say that; you"ll make me cry. He keeps his wife so poor she hasn"t a shilling of her own; she wearies about her brother; she can"t help. He can spend hundreds on my Sally for having been good to her, in our small way--it"s a fairy tale; and he won"t hear of money for his wife, except that she"s never to want for anything it can buy."
"You give what it can"t buy."
"Me. I"m "a pugilist"s wench"--I"ve heard myself called. She was the first who gave me a lift; never mind me. Have you come to take her away?
She"d trust herself and the child to you."
"Take her?--reason with her as to the best we can do. He holds off from a meeting just now. I fancy he"s wearing round to it. His keeping his wife without money pa.s.ses comprehension. After serving him for a few months, I had a store invested to support me for years--as much as I need before I join the ranks of the pen. I was at my reading and writing and drowsing, and down he rushes: I "m in harness again. I can"t say it"s dead waste of time; besides I pick up an independence for the days ahead. But I don"t respect myself for doing the work. Here"s the difference between us two servants, Madge: I think of myself, and you don"t."
"The difference is more like between the master and mistress we serve, Mr. Gower."
"Well, I"d rather be the woman in this case."
"You know the reputation I"ve got. And can only just read, and can"t spell. My mistress teaches me bits of German and French on her walks."
Gower took a new observation of this girl, whom he had not regarded as like himself, a pushing blade among the gra.s.ses. He proposed to continue her lessons, if she cared to learn; saying it could be done in letters.
"I won"t be ashamed of writing, if you mean it," said she. "My mistress will have a usefuller servant. She had a strange honeymoon of a marriage, if ever was--and told me t" other day she was glad because it brought us together--she a born lady!"
"A fling-above born ladies. She"s quick as light to hit on a jewel where there is one, whether it shines or not. She stands among the Verities of the world."
"Yes," Madge said, panting for more. "Do speak of her. When you praise her, I feel she"s not wasted. Mistress; and friend and wife--if he"d let her be; and mother; never mother like her. The boy "ll be a st.u.r.dy.
She"ll see he has every chance. He"s a lucky little one to have that mother."
"You think her handsome, Madge?"
Gower asked it, wishing to hear a devotee"s confusion of qualities and looks.
The question was a drop on lower spheres, and it required definitions, to touch the exact nature of the form of beauty, and excuse a cooler tone on the commoner plane. These demanded language. She rounded the difficulty, saying: "You see engravings of archery; that "s her figure--her real figure. I think her face... I can"t describe... it flashes."
"That"s it," said Gower, delighted with his perception of a bare mind at work and hitting the mark perforce of warmth. "When it flashes, it"s unequalled. There"s the supremacy of irregular lines. People talk of perfect beauty: suitable for paintings and statues. Living faces, if they"re to show the soul, which is the star on the peak of beauty, must lend themselves to commotion. Nature does it in a breezy tree or over ruffled waters. Repose has never such splendid reach as animation--I mean, in the living face. Artists prefer repose. Only Nature can express the uttermost beauty with her gathering and tuning of discords. Well, your mistress has that beauty. I remember my impression when I saw her first on her mountains abroad. Other beautiful faces of women go pale, grow stale. The diversified in the harmony of the flash are Nature"s own, her radiant, made of her many notes, beyond our dreams to reproduce. We can"t hope to have a true portrait of your mistress. Does Madge understand?"
The literary dose was a strong one for her; but she saw the index, and got a lift from the sound. Her bosom heaved. "Oh, I do try, Mr. Gower.
I think I do a little. I do more while you"re talking. You are good to talk so to me. You should have seen her the night she went to meet my lord at those beastly Gardens Kit Ines told me he was going to. She was defending him. I"ve no words. You teach me what"s meant by poetry. I couldn"t understand that once."
Their eyes were on the countess and her escort in advance. Gower"s praises of her mistress"s peculiar beauty set the girl compa.s.sionately musing. His eloquence upon the beauty was her clue.
Carinthia and Mr. Wythan started at a sharp trot in the direction of the pair of ponies driven by a groom along the curved decline of the narrow roadway. His whip was up for signal.
It concerned the house and the master of it. His groom drove rapidly down, while he hurried on the homeward way, as a man will do, with the dread upon him that his wife"s last breath may have been yielded before he can enfold her.
Carinthia walked to be overtaken, not daring to fever her blood at a swifter pace; "lamed with an infant," the thought recurred.
"She is very ill, she has fainted, she lies insensible," Madge heard from her of Mrs. Wythan. "We were speaking of her when the groom appeared. It has happened twice. They fear the third. He fears it, though he laughs at a superst.i.tion. Now step, I know you like walking, Mr. Woodseer. Once I left you behind."
"I have the whole scene of the angel and the cripple," Gower replied.
"O that day!"
They "were soon speculating on the unimpressionable house in its clump of wood midway below, which had no response for anxieties.
A maid-servant at the garden gate, by Mr. Wythan"s orders, informed Carinthia that her mistress had opened her eyes: There was a hope of weathering the ominous third time. But the hope was a bird of short flight from bush to bush until the doctor should speak to confirm it.
Even the child was under the shadow of the house. Carinthia had him in her arms, trusting to life as she hugged him, and seeing innumerable darts out of all regions a.s.sailing her treasure.