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

the persecution of her detested wooer. Gigue had, through his influence, managed to introduce her under an assumed name, as a friend of his own to certain poor nuns In a Brittany convent, who were only too willing to receive her as a paying guest for a couple of months, and to ask no questions concerning her. There she had stayed with exemplary patience and resignation,—lonely indeed, yet satisfied to have made good her escape for the time being, and, as she imagined, to have saved John Walden from any possibility of annoyance chancing to him through her, or by her means. She would not consent to have even Cicely with her, lest any accidental clue to her hiding-place might be found and followed.

As soon, however, as she heard that Roxmouth had actually left England, she made haste to return at once to the home she had now learned to love with a deep and clinging affection, and she had timed her reappearance purposely for the first meet of the hunting season. She would show herself, so she resolved, as a free and independent woman to all the county,—and if people had gossiped about her, or were prone to gossip, they would soon find out the error of their ways. Hence the ‘creation’ of the becoming violet velvet riding-dress, copied from the picture of her ancestress in Abbot’s Manor gallery. She had determined to make an ‘effective’ entrance on the field,—to look as pretty and picturesque as she possibly could, and to show that she was herself and nobody else, bound to no authority save her own.

In this purely feminine ambition she certainly accomplished her end. She was the centre of attraction,—all the members of the Riversford Hunt dispersed round and about her in Hear or distant groups, discussed her in low tones, even while watching the working of the pack, and scanning every yard of open ground for the first sign of a fox. Gradually the crowd of horses and riders increased,—men from the county-town itself, farmers from the more outlying parts of the neighbourhood, and some of the Badsworth Hall tenantry, having arrived too late at Ittlethwaite Park for the actual meet, now came hurriedly galloping up, and among these last was Oliver Leach. It was the first time Maryllia had seen her dismissed agent since her rescue of the Five Sister beeches, and she had thought of him so little that she would not have recognised him now had not his horse, a vicious-looking restive creature, started plunging close to her own hunter ‘Cleopatra,’ and caused that spirited animal to rear almost upright on her haunches. In the act of reining the mare out of his way she looked at him, while he, in his turn stared full at her in evident astonishment. As he appeared gradually to recognise her identity, his face, always livid, grew more deeply sallow of hue, and an ugly grin made a gargoyle of his mouth and eyes. She, as soon as she recollected him, remembered at the same time the curse he had flung at her—‘a May curse,’ she thought to herself with a superstitious little shudder—‘and a May curse always begins to work in November, so the gossips say!’

Moved by an instinctive distrust and dislike of the man, she turned her back upon, him, and patting Cleopatra’s neck, cantered quickly ahead to join the rest of the field which was now moving towards another cover, while the hounds ran through some low thickets of brushwood and tangled bracken.

She was in a curious frame of mind, and found her own emotions difficult to analyse. The momentary glimpse she had just had of John Walden had filled her with a strangely tender compassion. Why did he look so worn and worried? Had he missed her? Had her two months and more of absence seemed as long to him as they had to her? She wondered! Anon, she asked herself why she wondered! What did it matter to her what he thought, or how he passed his days? Then a sudden rush of colour warmed her cheeks, and a light came into her eyes. It DID matter!—there was no getting away from it,—it did matter very much what he thought, and it had become of paramount importance to her to know how he passed his days!

Deep in her heart a secret sweet consciousness lay nestled,—a consciousness, subtly feminine, which told her that she was held in precious estimation by at least one man,—and that she had advanced towards her most cherished desire of love so far as to have become ‘dear to someone else.’ And that ‘someone else’—who was he? Oh, well!—nobody in particular!—only a country clergyman,—a poor creature, so the world might say, to build romances upon! Yet she was building them fast. One after the other they shaped themselves like cloud-castles in the airy firmament of her dreams, and she permitted herself to dwell on the possible joys they suggested. Very simple joys too!—such as the completion of the rose-window in the church of St. Rest,—he would be pleased if that were done—yes!— she was sure he would be pleased!—and she had managed, during her sojourn in Brittany, to secure some of the loveliest old stained glass, dating from the twelfth century, which she meant to give him to-morrow when he came to see her. To-morrow! What a long time it seemed till then! And suppose he did not come? Well, then she would go and see him herself, and would tell him just why she had gone away from home, and why she had not written, to him or to anybody else in the neighbourhood,—and then—and then---

Here she started at the sound of a sudden ‘tally-ho!’—the hounds had rallied—a fox was ‘drawn,’—the whole field was astir, and with a musical blast of the horn, the hunt swept on in a flash of scarlet and white, black, brown and grey, across the moor. Maryllia gave herself up to the excitement of the hour, and galloped along, her magnificent mare ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt’ scenting sport in the wind and enjoying the wild freedom allowed her by a loose rein and the light weight she bore. On, on!—with the wet chill perfume of fallen leaves rising from the earth on which the eager hoofs of the horses trampled,—on, always on, in the track of stealthy Reynard, over dips and hollows in the ground and shallow pools fringed with gaunt sedges and twisted brambles,—on, still on, crossing and re- crossing lines of scent where the hounds appeared for the moment at a loss, till they dashed off again towards the farther woods. Putting her mare to a fence and clearing it easily, Maryllia crossed a meadow, which she knew to be the shortest way to the spot where she could just see the pack racing silently ahead,—and, coming out on one of the high-roads between St. Rest and Riversford, she drew rein for a moment. Several of the hunters had chosen the same short- cut, and came out of the meadow with her, calling a cheery word or two as they passed her and pressed on in the ardour of the chase.

Quickly resuming her gallop, and yielding to the exhilaration of the air and the pleasure of movement, she urged her mare to a pace which would have been deemed reckless by all save the most skilled and daring riders, unaware of the unpleasant fact that she was being closely followed by Oliver Leach. He rode about twenty paces behind her, every now and then gaining on her, and anon pulling back his horse in an apparent desire not to outstrip her. The rest of the hunting party were well ahead, and they had the road to themselves, with the exception of a fat man on a bicycle, who was careering along in front of them, looking something like a ton on wheels. Maryllia soon flew past this moving rotundity, and even if she had had time to look at it, she would not have known that it was the Reverend Putwood Leveson, as she had never seen that gentleman. Catching a glimpse of the hounds, now racing round the edge of a sloping hill, she galloped faster and faster,—while Oliver Leach, with an odd set expression in his face and eyes, and his hat well pulled down on his brows, followed her at an almost equally flying speed. A ploughed field lay between them, and the smooth dark slope of land edged with broken furze, where the pack could be plainly seen racing for blood. A moderately low, straggling hedge intervened. Such an obstacle was a mere trifle for ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt’ to clear, and Maryllia put her to it with her usual ease and buoyancy. But now up came Oliver Leach on his ill-formed but powerful beast;—and just as the spirited mare, with her lightly poised rider on her back, leaped the hedge, he set his own animal at precisely the same place in deliberate defiance of all hunting rules, and springing at her like a treacherous enemy from behind, closed on her haunches, and pounded straight over her! Maryllia reeled in her saddle,—for one half second, her blue eyes wide with terror, turned themselves full upon her pursuer—she raised her hand appealingly—warningly—in vain! With a crash of breaking brushwood the mare went down under the plunging hoofs that came thudding so heavily upon her,—there was a quick shriek—a blur of violet and gold hurled to the ground—and then,—then Leach galloped on—alone! He dared not look back! His nerves throbbed—his heart beat high,— and his evil soul rejoiced in its wickedness as only the soul of a devil can.

“Verdict—accidental death!” he muttered, with a fierce laugh—“No doubt it will be thought singular that the daughter should have met the same end as her father! And nothing more will be said. But suppose she is not killed, since every cat has nine lives? No matter, she will be disfigured for life! That will suit me just as well!”

He laughed again, and passed on in the wake of the hunt which had now swept far ahead round the bend of the hill.

Meanwhile, ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt,’ rendered stunned and dizzy by her fall, began to recover her equine senses. Sniffing the air and opening her wild bright eyes, she soon perceived her loved mistress lying flung about three yards distant from where she herself had rolled over and over on the thick wet clod of the field. With a supreme effort the gallant beast attempted to rise,—and presently, with much plunging and kicking, in which struggles however, she with an almost human intelligence pushed herself farther away from that prone figure on the ground, so that she might not injure it, she managed to stand upright, quivering in every strained, sore limb. Lifting her head, she whinnied with a melancholy long-drawn plaintiveness, and then with a slow, stiff hobble, moved cautiously closer to Maryllia’s fallen body. There she paused and whinnied again, while the grey skies lowered and rain began to ooze from the spreading leaden weight of cloud.

And now assistance seemed near, for the Reverend Putwood Leveson, having had to lead his bicycle up a hill, and being overcome with a melting tallow of perspiration in the effort, hove in sight like an unwieldy porpoise bobbing up on dry land. Approaching the broken gap in the hedge, he quickly spied the mare, and realised the whole situation. Now was the chance for a minister of Christ to show his brave and gentle ministry! He had a flask of brandy in his pocket,— he never went anywhere without it. He felt it, where it was concealed, comfortably pressed against his heart,—then he peered blandly over the hedge at the helpless human creature lying there unconscious. He knew who it was,—who it must be,—for, as he had cycled through the village