Foxglove Manor, Volume III (of III). Robert W Buchanan
together.
“Miss Dove! Is anything the matter? Why are you here, so late, and in such company?”
He paused, looking suspiciously at Sal, who laughed impudently.
“I was passing by, and she stopped me. Do send her away!”
“Send me away?” cried the pariah. “I’ll come when I please, and I’ll go when I please. I’m as good as she.” Mr. Santley stepped forward, and placed his hand on her arm.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were far away.”
“So I were; but I’ve come back. Well?”
“Remember what I told you. I will not have my parish disgraced any longer by your conduct. I have warned you repeatedly before. Where are you staying?”
“Down by the river-side, master. I’ve joined the gipsies, d’ye see.”
“Always an outcast,” said Santley, with, a certain gloomy pity. “Will nothing reform you?”
“No, master,” answered the girl, grinning. “I’m a bad lot.”
“I’m afraid you are.”
“But mind this,” she continued, with some vehemence, “there’s others, fine ladies too, as bad as me. Though I like a chap, and ain’t afraid to own it, and though I gets my living anyhow, I’m no worse than my betters, master. You’ve no cause to bully me, so don’t try it on, master. I can speak when I like, and I can hold my tongue when I like. Gi’ me a guinea, and I’ll hold my tongue.”
She held out her brown hand, leering up into his face.
“What do you mean?” he exclaimed. “I shall give you no money.”
She looked round at Edith, who stood by trembling.
“Tell him he’d best, mistress – for thy sake! Come, it’s worth a guinea! There’s many a folk hereabouts would gi’ five, to see what I saw t’other day, down to Omberley wood.”
Edith started in a new terror, while her face flushed scarlet and her head swam round. Santley winced, but preserving his composure, looked fixedly and sternly at the outcast.
“You’re a bold hussy,” he said, between his set teeth, “as bold as bad. But take care! Do you know that if I only say one word, I can have you up before the magistrates and sent back to prison?”
“What for?” snarled the girl.
“For vagrancy, begging, and threatening a lady on the roadside!”
“A pretty lady. And I bean’t begging, neither. Well, send me to prison, and when I’m up before the magistrates, I’ll tell’em why you were down upon me. Come!”
Santley was about to reply angrily, when Edith interposed. Trembling and almost fainting, she had taken out her purse.
“Here is some money,” she cried; “give it to her and let her go!”
“She does not deserve a farthing,” exclaimed Santley. “Still, if you wish it – ”
“Yes, yes! I – I am sorry for her.”
Santley opened the purse, and took out a sovereign.
“If I give you this, will you promise to go out of the parish?”
“Maybe.”
“And to conduct yourself properly – to turn over a new leaf?”
Sal grinned viciously from ear to ear.
“I take example by you, master, and your young lady there! Leastways, if I do go a-larking I’ll be like you gentry, and say naught about it. There, gi’ me the guinea! Stop, though, make it two, and I’ll go away out o’ Omberley this very night.”
Santley and Edith rapidly exchanged a look, and a second piece of gold was at once added to the first. Then, after giving Sal a few words of solemn warning, in his priestly character, Santley walked away with Edith. The pariah girl watched them until they disappeared; then, with a low laugh, she rejoined her companion, a one-eyed and middle-aged gipsy, who, during the preceding scene, had phlegmatically stretched himself on his back, along the roadside.
CHAPTER XXX. “AND LO! WITHIN HER, SOMETHING LEAPT!”
Santley and Edith walked along for some time without a word. At last, after looking round nervously to see that they were not observed or followed, the clergyman broke the silence. – :
“It is horrible! It is insufferable!” he cried. “I shall be ruined by your indiscretion.”
She looked at him in amazement. It was too dark to see his face, but his whole frame, as well as his voice, trembled with anger.
“My indiscretion!” she echoed.
“Yes.”
“But I have done nothing.”
“I found you talking to that creature, and it is evident that she knows our secret. I shall be ruined through you. What have you told her?”
“Nothing. I met her by accident, and she spoke to me; that is all.”
There was a pause. Then Santley stopped short, saying in a whisper —
“Go home now. After to-day we must not be seen together.”
But she clung to his arm, weeping.
“Charles, for Gods sake, do not be so unkind!”
“I am not unkind,” he said; “but I am thinking of your good name, as well as of my own reputation. What that woman knows others must know. It will be the talk of the place. Edith, think of it. We shall both be lost. Go home, I entreat you.”
“Charles, listen to me!” exclaimed the weeping girl. “If there is any scandal it will kill me. But there need to be none. You have only to keep your word, as you have promised, and then – ”
“What? and marry you?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot – at least, not yet.”
“Why not? Oh, Charles, have I not been patient? There is nothing but your own will to come between us. Make me your wife, as you have promised, before it is too late. Even my aunt begins to suspect something. My life is miserable – a daily falsehood. I have loved you next to God. For your sake I have even forgotten Him. I thought there was no sin; you yourself told me there was no sin – that we were man and wife in God’s sight.. But now I am terrified. I cannot sleep,’ I cannot pray. Sometimes I feel as if God had cast me out. And you – ”
She ceased, choked with tears, and, placing her head upon his shoulder, sobbed wildly. He shrank from her touch, and sought to disengage himself, gazing round on every side and searching the darkness; in dread of being watched.
“Control yourself. If we should be seen!”
But she did not seem to hear, and his anger increased in proportion to her terror.
“Do you want to compromise me?” he cried. “I begin to think you have no discretion, no respect for yourself – I hate these scenes. They make me wish that we had never met.”
“If I thought you wished that from your heart,” she sobbed, “I would not live another day.”
“There, again. You are so unreasonable, so violent. When I attempt to reason, you talk of suicide or some such mad thing. If you really loved me, as you say, you would be willing to make some sacrifice for my sake. But no; you have only one cry – marriage, marriage! – till I am sick of the very word. Cease crying. Dry your eyes, and listen to me. Go home tonight, and I will think it over. Yes, I will do what I can – anything, rather than be so tormented.”
She obeyed him passively, and tried to stifle her deep sorrow. Child as she was, and loving him as she did, she could not bear his words of blame; and her soul shuddered at the strange tones of the voice that had once been so kind. For it was as she had said. She had made an idol of this man,