It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 155

The deep Meadows never ventured on that ground again. He feared she wanted to be off the marriage, and he determined to hurry it on. He pressed her to name the day. She would not.

"Would she let him name it?"

"No."

Her father came to Meadows' a.s.sistance. "I'll name it," said he.

"Father! no! no!"

Old Merton then made a pretense of selecting a day. Rejected one day for one reason, another for another, and pitched on a day only six weeks distant.

The next day Meadows bought the license. "I thought you would like that better than being cried in church, Susan." Susan thanked him and said, "Oh, yes."

That evening he had a note from her in which "she humbly asked his pardon, but she could not marry him; he must excuse her. She trusted to his generosity to let the matter drop, and forgive a poor brokenhearted girl who had behaved ill from weakness of judgment, not lightness of heart."

Two days after this, which remained unanswered, her father came to her in great agitation and said to her: "Have you a mind to have a man's death upon your conscience?"

"Father!"

"I have seen John Meadows, and he is going to kill himself. What sort of a letter was that to write to the poor man? Says he, 'It has come on me like a thunder-clap.' I saw a pistol on his table, and he told me he wouldn't give a b.u.t.ton to live. You ought to be ashamed of yourself trifling with folks' hearts so."

"I trifle with folks' hearts! Oh! what shall I do!" cried Susan.

"Think of others as well as yourself," replied the old man in a rage.

"Think of me."

"Of you, dear father? Does not your Susan think of you?"

"No! what will become of me if the man kills himself? He is all I have to look to, to save me from ruin."

"What, then?" cried Susan, coloring scarlet, "it is not his life you care for, it is his means of being useful to us! Poor Mr. Meadows! He has no friend but me. I will give you a line to him." The line contained these words: "Forgive me."

Half an hour after receipt of it Meadows was at the farm. Susan was going to make some faint apology. He stopped her and said: "I know you like to make folk happy. I have got a job for you. A gentleman, a friend of mine in Ches.h.i.+re, wants a bailiff. He has written to me. A word from me will do the business. Now is there any one you would like to oblige?

The place is worth five hundred a year." Susan was grateful to him for waiving disagreeable topics. She reflected and said: "Ah! but he is no friend of yours."

"What does that matter if he is yours?"

"Will Fielding."

"With all my heart. Only my name must not be mentioned. You are right.

He can marry on this. They would both have starved in 'The Grove.'"

Thus he made the benevolent girl taste the sweets of power. "You will be asked to do many a kind action like this when you are Mrs. Meadows." So he bribed father and daughter each after their kind.

The offer came in form from the gentleman to Will Fielding. He and Miss Holiday had already been cried in church. They were married, and went off to Ches.h.i.+re.

So Meadows got rid of Will Fielding at a crisis. When it suited his strategy he made his enemy's fortune with as little compunction as he would have ruined him. A man of iron! Cold iron, hot iron, whatever iron was wanted.

Mr. and Mrs. Fielding gone off to Ches.h.i.+re, and Mrs. Holiday after them on a visit of domestic instruction, Meadows publicly announced his approaching marriage with Miss Merton. The coast being clear, he clinched the last nail. From this day there were gusts of repugnance, but not a shadow of resistance on Susan's side. It was to be.

The weather was fine, and every evening this man and woman walked together. The woman envied by all the women; the man by all the men. Yet they walked side by side like the ghosts of lovers. And, since he was her betrothed, one or two iron-gray hairs in the man's head had turned white, and lines deepened in his face. The victim had unwittingly revenged herself.

He had stabbed her heart again and again, and drained it. He had battered this poor heart till it had become more like leather than flesh and blood, and now he wanted to nestle in it and be warmed by it. To kill the affections and revive them at will. No!!!!

She tried to give happiness and to avoid giving pain, but her heart of hearts was inaccessible. The town had capitulated, but the citadel was empty yet impregnable. And there were moments when flashes of hate mingled with the steady flame of this unhappy man's love, and he was tempted to kill her and himself.

But these weaknesses pa.s.sed like air, the iron purpose stood firm. This day week they were to be married. Meadows counted the days and exulted; he had faith in the magic ring. It was on this Monday evening then they walked arm in arm in the field, and it so happened that Meadows was not speaking of love, but of a scheme for making all the poor people in Gra.s.smere comfortable, especially of keeping the rain out of their roofs and the wind out of what they vulgarly, but not unreasonably, called their windys, and Susan's color was rising and her eyes brightening at this the one interesting side marriage offered--to make people happy near her and round about her, and she cast a look of grat.i.tude upon her companion--a look that, coming from so lovely a face, might very well pa.s.s for love. While thus pleasantly employed the pair suddenly encountered a form in a long bristling beard, who peered into their faces with a singular expression of strange and wild curiosity and anxiety, but did not stop; he was making toward Farnborough.

Susan was a little startled. "Who is that?"

"I don't know."

"He looked as if he knew us."

"A traveler, I think, dearest. The folk hereabouts have not got to wear those long beards yet."

"Why did you start when he pa.s.sed us?"

"Did I start, Susan?"

"Your arm twitched me."

"You must have fancied it," replied Meadows, with a sickly smile; "but, come, Susan, the dew is falling, you had better make toward home."

He saw her safe home, then, instead of waiting to supper as usual, got his horse out and rode to the town full gallop.

"Any one been here for me?"

"Yes! a stranger."

"With a long beard?"

"Why, yes, he had."

"He will come again?"

"In half an hour."

"Show him into my room when he comes, and admit no one else."

Meadows was hardly seated in his study and his candles lighted when the servant ushered in his visitor.

"Shut both the doors, and you can go to bed. I will let Mr. Richards out."

"Well?"

"Well, we have done the trick between us, eh?"