"Your father. He hates this man Lister."
"How can my father hate a man he has never even seen?" she demanded; "you are talking rubbish."
"Miss Huxham"--Pence detained her by laying his thin fingers on her arm--"if you marry this man Lister"--he kept to this sentence as though it were a charm--"you will be a pauper."
She flashed up into a royal rage and stamped. "How dare you say that?"
"I dare tell the truth."
"It is not the truth. How can you tell if----"
"Your father told me," insisted the preacher, hotly.
Bella withdrew a step or so, her eyes growing round with surprise.
"My--father--said--that?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Silas feverishly. "I went to him this very afternoon to ask permission to present myself to you as a suitor. He consented, but only when he heard that you loved this man who----"
"You told him that?" demanded Bella, her breath coming quick and short.
"Yes," said Pence, trying to be courageous, "and it is true."
"Who says that it is?"
"Everyone in the village."
"The village has nothing to do with my business," she declared imperiously, "and even if I do love--but let that pa.s.s. You told me that my father said I should be a pauper."
"If you married the man Lister," he reminded her. "Yes, he did say so, and declared also that he would give me the manor-house and the farm when he died, if I made you my wife."
Bella shrugged her shoulders. "My father does not mean what he says,"
she remarked disbelievingly; "as I am his only child, the Solitary Farm, as they call it, comes to me in any case. And I see no reason why I should discuss my father"s business with you. Stand aside and let me pa.s.s."
"No." Silas was wonderfully brave for one of his timid soul. "You shall not pa.s.s until you learn the truth. You think that I am a fool and weak.
I am not. I feel wise and strong; and I am strong--strong enough to withstand temptation, even when you are offered as a bribe."
Bella grew somewhat alarmed. She did not like the glittering of his shallow, grey eyes. "You are mad."
"I am sane; you know that I am sane, but you think to put me off by saying that I am crazy. I have had enough to make me so. Your father"--here his voice took on the sing-song pulpit style--"your father took me up to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed me the kingdoms of the world. All of them he offered me, together with you, if I murdered Lister."
"What!" Bella"s voice leaped an octave; "you--you--murder Cyril?"
"Yes, Cyril, the man you love. And if I dared----"
"Mr. Pence"--Bella saw the necessity of keeping herself well in hand with this hysterical youth, for he was nothing else, and spoke in a calm, kind voice--"my father has not seen Mr. Lister, and cannot hate him."
"Go and ask him what he thinks," said Pence fiercely. "I tell you that to-day I was offered everything if I would kill this man Lister."
"You are talking at random," she said soothingly; "go home, and lie down."
"I am talking of what may come to pa.s.s. Your father wishes it, so why not, when I love you so deeply? I offer you the heart of an honest man, and yet you would throw that aside for this profligate."
"Cyril is not a profligate," interrupted Bella, and could have bitten out her tongue for the hasty speech.
"He is. He comes from London, the City of Evil, that shall yet fall like Babylon the Great. But your soul shall not be lost; you shall not marry him."
"I shall!" cried Bella, indignantly, and becoming rash again in her anger; "and what is more, I am engaged to him now. So there! Let me pa.s.s."
She slipped deftly past him, and walked swiftly homeward. Silas Pence stood where he was, staring after her, unable to speak or move or to follow. Then the sun sank, leaving him in the twilight of sorrow.
CHAPTER III
A TARDY LOVER
Miss Huxham did not credit for one moment the story which Pence had told her. It was ridiculous to think that her father would even hint at the murder of an unoffending man whom he had never seen, and to hesitating, timid Silas, of all people. Bella remembered that, months previously, when she had mentioned a chance meeting with Lister--then a stranger--at the cottage of the Marshely school-mistress, Captain Huxham had not only forbidden her to bring him to Bleacres, which the young man desired to see, but had ordered her to discontinue the acquaintance. Evidently the retired mariner deemed this prohibition sufficient, for he made no further mention of the matter. That he gave no reason for his tyrannical edict, did not trouble him; but because of this very omission, his daughter took her own way. By stealth, it is true, lest Huxham should exhibit annoyance--for annoyance with him meant wild-beast rage.
Now the girl felt puzzled. According to Silas, her father knew that she had disobeyed him, and she returned to the Manor in a somewhat nervous state of mind, quite prepared to do battle for her lover. But, to her surprise, Captain Huxham made no remark, and behaved much the same as usual, save that at odd times he was more observant of her comings and goings. In the face of his newly-acquired knowledge this very unusual demeanour should have made Bella more circ.u.mspect, but, being high-spirited, she did not change her life in any way. Also she believed that Silas had greatly exaggerated the captain"s anger, and argued from his quietness that he cared very little what she did. She had reason to take this view, for Huxham was not an affectionate parent, and, save when things interfered with his own comfort, usually ignored his daughter. And on her side, Bella could not subscribe to the fifth commandment. It was impossible to honour King Log, who had an unpleasant way of becoming King Henry VIII. when contradicted.
Several times, Bella, needing sympathy, was on the point of reporting Pence"s conversation to Mrs. Coppersley, so as to learn her opinion as to the truth of the preacher"s preposterous statement. But the buxom widow was too much taken up with her own love-affairs to trouble about those of her niece, for whom she displayed no great affection. She attended to the house-keeping, cajoled her brother into a good humour when necessary, and nearly every evening slipped out to meet Henry Vand, who usually awaited her arrival on the hither side of the boundary channel. He did not dare to venture nearer to the lion"s den, as Captain Huxham, aware of his sister"s desire to contract a second marriage, discouraged the idea. The captain being aggressively selfish, did not intend to lose Mrs. Coppersley, whose services were necessary to his comfort. Besides, as she managed everything connected with the domestic arrangement of Bleacres, a.s.sisted by Bella, Huxham was spared the necessity of paying a servant. It was better, from the captain"s point of view, to have two slaves who asked for no wages, and who could be bullied when he felt like playing the tyrant.
To a young girl in the first strong flush of womanhood, life at the solitary farm was extremely dreary, Captain Huxham rose early and strolled round his wealthy acres until breakfast, which for him was a Gargantuan meal. He then shut himself for the whole morning in his den, where he laboured at his accounts, with a locked door. In the afternoon he ordinarily walked to Marshely and conversed over strong drink with cronies at the village public-house. He returned to walk around the farm again, and after supper again sought his room to smoke and drink rum until bedtime, at ten o"clock. The routine of the captain"s life never varied in any particular, even to seeking the quarter-deck once a day for the purpose, apparently, of viewing the results of his life"s work.
Also from his eyrie, the captain, armed with a long telescope, could gaze at outward and homeward-bound ships, and so enjoy vicariously the sea-life he had abandoned these ten years. Of Bella he took scarcely any notice.
It was indeed a dull life, especially as Bella was intellectual, and felt that she required food for her active brain. For some odd reason, which did not suit with his rough nature, Huxham had given his neglected daughter a first-cla.s.s education, and only within the last two years had she returned from a fashionable Hampstead school to live this uneventful, unintellectual life on an Ess.e.x farm. She possessed a few books, and these she read over and over again. Huxham was not actively unkind, and gave her plenty of frocks, ribbons, hats, gloves, and such-like things, which he presumed were what the ordinary girl wanted.
But he overlooked the fact that Bella was not an ordinary girl, and that she hungered for a more moving life, or, at least, for one which would afford her an opportunity of displaying her social abilities. Bella sang excellently, and played the piano unusually well; but her uncouth father did not care for music, and Mrs. Coppersley scorned it also. The girl therefore allowed her talents to lie dormant, and became a silent, handsome image of a woman, moving ghost-like through the dreary mansion.
But her chance meeting with the clever young man aroused all her disused capabilities; aroused also her womanly coquetry, and stimulated her into exhibiting a really fascinating nature. Warned that her father would have no strangers coming to the manor, by his own lips, she kept secret the delightful meetings with Lister, and only when the two met at the cottage of Miss Ankers could they speak freely. Bella thought that her secret attachment was unknown, whereas everyone in the village watched the progress of Lister"s wooing. It came as has been seen, to Pence"s jealous ears, and he reported the same to Captain Huxham. Knowing this, Bella was more perplexed than ever, that, as time went on, Huxham did nothing and said nothing. At one time he had been peremptory, but now he appeared inclined to let her act as she chose. And the mere fact that he did so, made Bella feel more than ever what an indifferent father she possessed.
For quite a week after his interview with the captain, and his futile wooing of Bella, the lovesick preacher kept away from the farm and attended sedulously to his clerical duties in connection with Little Bethel. The truth was, that he felt afraid of Huxham, now knowing what use the captain desired to make of him. For this reason also, Silas did not report that Bella was engaged to Lister. He feared lest Huxham, in a rage at such disregard of his wishes, should slay the young journalist, and perhaps might, in his infernal cunning, lay the blame on Silas himself. At all events, Pence was wise enough to avoid the danger zone of the farm, and although, after reflection, aided by jealousy, he was not quite so shocked at the idea of thrusting Lister to a muddy death, he yet thought it more judicious to keep out of Huxham"s way. The old mariner, as Pence knew, possessed a strong will, and might force him to be his tool in getting rid of the journalist. Silas was wiser than he knew in acting so discreetly, for the sailor-turned farmer was a more dangerous man than even he imagined, despite the glimpse he had gained of Huxham"s possible iniquity.
Things were in this position when Bella, rendered reckless by her father"s indifference, actually met Cyril Lister in a secluded nook of the corn-field, and on the sacred ground of Bleacres itself. Usually the lovers met in Miss Ankers" cottage, or in Mrs. Tunks" hut, but on this special occasion the weather was so hot that Lister proposed an adjournment to the open field. "You will be Ruth, and I Boaz," suggested the young man, with a smile.
Bella shivered even in the warm air into which she had stepped out of the malodorous gloom of Mrs. Tunks" hut. "What an unlucky comparison,"
she said, leading the way along the bank of the boundary channel.
"Ruth left her people and her home, to go amongst strangers, and earn her living as a gleaner."
"But she found a devoted husband in the end," Cyril reminded her.
"Peace and happiness also, I hope," sighed Bella. "I have plenty of peace, but very little happiness, save of the vegetable sort."
"When we are married," began Lister, then stopped short, biting his moustache--"we shall be very happy," he ended lamely, seeing that Bella looked inquiringly at him.
"That is obvious, since we love one another," she said somewhat tartly, for his hesitation annoyed her. "Why did you change the conclusion of your sentence?"