'And if not--perhaps so much the better.I was sent for this morning early.I thought--.' She halted.To say that she had thought a man's death might happen by his own hand if she did not go to him, would never do.'I was obliged to go,' she said.'I had given my word.'
'Why didn't you tell us then, so that the wedding could be put off, without making fools o' us?'
'Because I was afraid you wouldn't let me go, and I had made up my mind to go.'
'To go where?'
She was silent; till she said, 'I will tell Jim all, and why it was;and if he's any friend of mine he'll excuse me.'
'Not Jim--he's no such fool.Jim had put all ready for you, Jim had called at your house, a-dressed up in his new wedding clothes, and a-smiling like the sun; Jim had told the parson, had got the ringers in tow, and the clerk awaiting; and then--you was GONE! Then Jim turned as pale as rendlewood, and busted out, "If she don't marry me to-day," 'a said, "she don't marry me at all! No; let her look elsewhere for a husband.For tew years I've put up with her haughty tricks and her takings," 'a said."I've droudged and I've traipsed, I've bought and I've sold, all wi' an eye to her; I've suffered horseflesh," he says--yes, them was his noble words--"but I'll suffer it no longer.She shall go!" "Jim," says I, "you be a man.If she's alive, I commend 'ee; if she's dead, pity my old age." "She isn't dead," says he; "for I've just heard she was seen walking off across the fields this morning, looking all of a scornful triumph."He turned round and went, and the rest o' the neighbours went; and here be I left to the reproach o't.'
'He was too hasty,' murmured Margery.'For now he's said this Ican't marry him to-morrow, as I might ha' done; and perhaps so much the better.'
'You can be so calm about it, can ye? Be my arrangements nothing, then, that you should break 'em up, and say off hand what wasn't done to-day might ha' been done to-morrow, and such flick-flack? Out o'
my sight! I won't hear any more.I won't speak to 'ee any more.'
'I'll go away, and then you'll be sorry!'
'Very well, go.Sorry--not I.'
He turned and stamped his way into the cheese-room.Margery went upstairs.She too was excited now, and instead of fortifying herself in her bedroom till her father's rage had blown over, as she had often done on lesser occasions, she packed up a bundle of articles, crept down again, and went out of the house.She had a place of refuge in these cases of necessity, and her father knew it, and was less alarmed at seeing her depart than he might otherwise have been.
This place was Rook's Gate, the house of her grandmother, who always took Margery's part when that young woman was particularly in the wrong.
The devious way she pursued, to avoid the vicinity of Mount Lodge, was tedious, and she was already weary.But the cottage was a restful place to arrive at, for she was her own mistress there--her grandmother never coming down stairs--and Edy, the woman who lived with and attended her, being a cipher except in muscle and voice.
The approach was by a straight open road, bordered by thin lank trees, all sloping away from the south-west wind-quarter, and the scene bore a strange resemblance to certain bits of Dutch landscape which have been imprinted on the world's eye by Hobbema and his school.
Having explained to her granny that the wedding was put off; and that she had come to stay, one of Margery's first acts was carefully to pack up the locket and case, her wedding present from the Baron.The conditions of the gift were unfulfilled, and she wished it to go back instantly.Perhaps, in the intricacies of her bosom, there lurked a greater satisfaction with the reason for returning the present than she would have felt just then with a reason for keeping it.
To send the article was difficult.In the evening she wrapped herself up, searched and found a gauze veil that had been used by her grandmother in past years for hiving swarms of bees, buried her face in it, and sallied forth with a palpitating heart till she drew near the tabernacle of her demi-god the Baron.She ventured only to the back-door, where she handed in the parcel addressed to him, and quickly came away.
Now it seems that during the day the Baron had been unable to learn the result of his attempt to return Margery in time for the event he had interrupted.Wishing, for obvious reasons, to avoid direct inquiry by messenger, and being too unwell to go far himself, he could learn no particulars.He was sitting in thought after a lonely dinner when the parcel intimating failure as brought in.The footman, whose curiosity had been excited by the mode of its arrival, peeped through the keyhole after closing the door, to learn what the packet meant.Directly the Baron had opened it he thrust out his feet vehemently from his chair, and began cursing his ruinous conduct in bringing about such a disaster, for the return of the locket denoted not only no wedding that day, but none to-morrow, or at any time.
'I have done that innocent woman a great wrong!' he murmured.
'Deprived her of, perhaps, her only opportunity of becoming mistress of a happy home!'
