God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

work in less than an hour!”

Walden turned upon him.

“Very well then, I shall ask Miss Vancourt to set the police to watch her trees and take you into custody;” he said, coolly; “If you have sold the trees standing, to cover your gambling debts, you will have to UNsell them, that’s all! They never were yours to dispose of;—you can no more sell them than you can sell the Manor. You have no permission to make money for yourself out of other people’s property. That kind of thing is common thieving, though it MAY sometimes pass for Estate Agency business!”

Leach sprang forward, his whip uplifted,—but before it could fall, with one unanimous yell, the young rustics rushed upon him and wrested it from his hand. At this moment Bainton, who had been silently binding Spruce’s cut forehead with a red cotton handkerchief, so that the poor man presented the appearance of a melodramatic ‘stage’ warrior, suddenly looked up, uttered an exclamation, and gave a warning signal.

“Better not go on wi’ the hargyment jes’ now, Passon!” he said,— “‘Ere comes the humpire!”

Even as he spoke, the quick gallop of hoofs echoed thuddingly on the velvety turf, and the group of disputants hastily scattered to right and left, as a magnificent mare, wild-eyed and glossy-coated, dashed into their centre and came to a swift halt, drawn up in an instant by the touch of her rider on the rein. All eyes were turned to the slight woman’s figure in the saddle, that sat so easily, that swayed the reins so lightly, and that seemed as it were, throned high above them in queenly superiority—a figure wholly unconventional, clad in a riding-skirt and jacket of a deep soft violet hue, and wearing no hat to shield the bright hair from the fresh wind that waved its fair ripples to and fro caressingly and tossed a shining curl loose from the carelessly twisted braid. Murmurs of ‘The new Missis!’ ‘Th’ owld Squire’s darter!’—ran from mouth to mouth, and John Walden, seized by a sudden embarrassment, withdrew as far as possible into the shadow of the trees in a kind of nervous hope to escape from the young lady’s decidedly haughty glance, which swept like a flash of light, round the assembled group and settled at last with chill scrutiny on the livid and breathless Oliver Leach.

“You are the agent here, I presume?”

Maryllia’s voice rang cold and clear,—there was not a trace of the sweet and coaxing tone in it that had warmed the heart of old Josey Letherbarrow.

Leach looked up, lifting his cap half reluctantly.

“I am!”

“You have had my orders?”

Leach was silent. The young rustics hustled one another forward, moved by strong excitement, all eager to see the feminine ‘Humpire’ who had descended upon them as suddenly as a vision falling from the skies, and all wondering what would happen next.

“You have had my orders?” repeated Maryllia;—then, as no answer was vouchsafed to her, she looked round and perceived Bainton. To him she at once addressed herself.

“Who has struck Spruce?”

Bainton hesitated. It was an exceedingly awkward position. He looked appealingly, as was his wont, up into the air and among the highest branches of the ‘Five Sisters’ for ‘Passon Walden,’ but naturally could not discover him at that elevation.

“Come, come!” said Maryllia, imperatively—“You are not all deaf, I hope! Give me a straight answer, one of you! Who struck Spruce?”

“Mister Leach did!” said the big-boned lad who had constituted himself Spruce’s defender. “We ‘eerd down in the village as ‘ow you’d come ‘ome, Miss, and as ‘ow you’d give your orders that the Five Sisters was to be left stannin’, and we coomed up wi’ Spruce to see ‘ow Leach ‘ud take it, an’ ‘fore we could say a wurrd Leach he up wi’ his whip and cut Spruce across the for’ead as ye see—”

Maryllia raised her hand and silenced him with a gesture. “Thank you! That will do. I understand!” She turned towards Leach; “What have you to say for yourself?” “I take no orders from a servant,” replied Leach, insolently; “I have managed this estate for ten years, and I give in my statements and receive my instructions from the firm of solicitors who have it in charge. I am not called upon to accept any different arrangement without proper notice.”

Maryllia heard him out with coldly attentive patience.

“You will accept a different arrangement without any further notice at all,” she said; “You will leave the premises and resign all management of my property from this day henceforward. I dismiss you, for disobedience and insolence, and for assaulting my servant, Spruce, in the execution of his duty. And as for these trees, if any man touches a bough of one of them without my permission, I will have him prosecuted! Now you know my mind!”.

She sat proudly erect in her saddle, while the village hobbledehoys who had instinctively gathered round her, like steel shavings round a magnet, fairly gasped for breath. Oliver Leach dismissed! Oliver Leach, the petty tyrant, the carping, snarling jack-in-office, cast out like a handful of bad rubbish! It was like a thunderbolt fallen from heaven and riving the earth on which they stood! Bainton heard, and could scarcely keep back a chuckle of satisfaction. He longed to make Spruce understand what was going on, but that unfortunate individual was slightly stunned by Leach’s heavy blow, and sitting on the grass with his head between his two hands, was gazing, in a kind of stupefaction at the ‘new Missis’; so that any ‘bellowing’ into his ear was scarcely possible.

Leach himself stared blankly and incredulously,—his face crimsoned with a sudden rush of enraged blood and then paled again, and changing his former insolent tone for one both fawning and propitiatory, he stammered out:

“I am very sorry—I—I beg your pardon, Madam!—if you will give yourself a little time to consider, you will see I have done my duty on this property all the time I have been connected with it. I hope you will not dismiss me for the first fault!—I--I—admit I should not have struck Spruce,—but—I—I was taken by surprise—I—I know my business,—and I am not accustomed to be interfered with—” Here his pent-up anger got the better of him and he again began to bluster. “I have done my duty—no man better!” he said in fierce accents. “There’s not an acre of woodland here that isn’t in a better condition than it was ten years ago—Ah!—and bringing in more money too!—and now I am to be turned off for a parcel of village idiots who hardly know a beech from an elm! I’ll make a case of it! Sir Morton Pippitt knows me—I’ll speak to Sir Morton Pippitt—”

“Sir Morton Pippitt!” echoed Maryllia disdainfully; “What has he to do with me or my property?” Here she suddenly spied Walden, who, in his eagerness to hear every word that passed had, unconsciously to himself, moved well out of the sheltering shadow of the trees—“Are YOU Sir Morton Pippitt?”

A broad grin, deepening into a scarcely suppressed titter, Went the round of the gaping young rustics. Walden himself smiled,—and recognising that the time had now come to declare himself, he advanced a step or two and lifted his hat.

“I have not that pleasure! I am the minister of this parish, and my name is John Walden. I’m afraid I am rather a trespasser here!—but I have loved these old trees for many years, and I came up this morning,—having heard what your orders were from my gardener Bainton,—to see that those orders were properly carried out,—and also to save possible disturbance—”

He broke off. Maryllia, while he spoke, had eyed him somewhat critically, and now favoured him with a charming smile.

“Thank you very much!” she said sweetly; “It was most kind of you! I wonder—” And she paused, knitting her pretty brows in perplexity; “I wonder if you could get rid of everybody for me?”

He glanced up at her in a little wonderment.

“Could you?” she repeated.

He drew nearer.

“Get rid of everybody?—you mean?—”

She leaned confidentially from her saddle.

“Yes—YOU know! Send them all about their business! Clergymen can always do that, can’t they? There’s really nothing more to be said or done—the trees shall not be touched,—the matter is finished. Tell all these big boys to go away—and—oh, YOU know!”

A twinkle of merriment danced in Walden’s eyes. But he turned quite a set and serious face round on the magnetised lads of the village, who hung about, loth to lose a single glance or a single word of the wonderful ‘Missis’ who had the audacious courage to dismiss Leach.

“Now, boys!” he said peremptorily; “Clear away home and begin your day’s work! You’re not wanted here any longer. The trees are safe,— and you can tell everyone what Miss Vancourt says about them. Bainton! You take these fellows home,—Spruce had better go with you. Just call at the doctor’s on the way and get his wound attended to. Come now, boys!—sharp’s the word!”

A general scrambling movement followed this brief exordium. With shy awkwardness each young fellow lifted his cap as he shambled sheepishly past Maryllia, who acknowledged these salutes smilingly,- Bainton assisted Spruce to rise to his feet, and then took him off under his personal escort,-and only Leach remained, convulsively gripping his dog-whip which he had picked up from the ground where the lads had thrown it,—and anon striking it against his boot with a movement of impatience and irritation.

“GOOD-morning, Mr. Leach!” said Walden pointedly. But Leach stood still, looking askance at Maryllia.

“Miss Vancourt,” he said, hoarsely; “Am I to understand that you meant what you said just now?”

She glanced at him coldly.

“That I dismiss you from my service? Of course I meant it! Of course I mean it!”

“I am bound to have fair notice,” he muttered. “I cannot collect all my accounts in a moment—”

“Whatever else you may do, you will leave this place at, once;” said Maryllia, firmly,—“I will communicate my decision to the solicitors and they will settle with you. No more words, please!”

She turned her mare slowly round on the grassy knoll, looking up meanwhile at the lovely canopy of tremulous young green above her head. John Walden watched her. So did Oliver Leach,—and with a sudden oath, rapped out like a discordant bomb bursting in the still air, he exclaimed savagely:

“You shall repent this, my fine lady! By God, you shall! You shall rue the day you ever saw Abbot’s Manor again! You had far better have stayed with your rich Yankee relations than have made such a home-coming as this for yourself, and such an outgoing for me! My curse on you!”

Shaking his fist threateningly at her, he sprang down the knoll, and plunging through the grass and fern was soon lost to sight.

The soft colour in Maryllia’s cheeks paled a little and a slight tremor ran through her frame. She looked at Walden,—then laughed carelessly.

“Guess I’ve given him fits!” she said, relapsing into one of her Aunt Emily’s American colloquialisms, with happy unconsciousness that this particular phrase coming from her pretty lips sent a kind of shock through John’s sensitive nerves. “He’s not a very pleasant man to meet anyway! And it isn’t altogether agreeable to be cursed on the first morning of my return home. But, after all, it doesn’t matter much, as there’s a clergyman present!” And her blue eyes. danced mischievously; “Isn’t it lucky you came? You can stop that curse on its way and send it back like a homing pigeon, can’t you? What do you say when you do it? ‘Retro me Sathanas,’ or something