Robert asked whether he should fetch her husband, and Mrs. Murrell caught at the offer. Owen’s presence was the single hope of restoring her, and at least he ought to behold the wreck that he had wrought. Mrs. Murrell gave a terrible thrust by saying, ‘that the young lady at least ought to be let know, that she might not be trusting to him.’
‘Do not fear, Mrs. Murrell,’ he said, almost under his breath. ‘My only doubt is, whether I can meet Owen Sandbrook as a Christian should.’
Cutting off her counsels on the unconverted nature, he strode off to find his colleague, whom he perplexed by a few rapid words on the necessity of going into the country for the day. His impatient condition required vehement action; and with a sense of hurrying to rescue Phœbe, he could scarcely brook the slightest delay till he was on his way to Hiltonbury, nor till the train spared him all action could he pause to collect his strength, guard his resentment, or adjust his measures for warning, but not betraying. He could think of no honourable mode of dealing, save carrying off Owen to London with him at once, sacrificing the sight of his sister for the present, and either writing or going to her afterwards, when the mode of dealing the blow should be more evident. It cost him keen suffering to believe that this was the sole right course, but he had bound himself to it by his promise to the poor suffering wife, blaming himself for continually putting his sister before her in his plans.
At Elverslope, on his demand for a fly for Hiltonbury, he was answered that all were engaged for the Horticultural Show in the Forest; but the people at the station, knowing him well, made willing exertions to procure a vehicle for him, and a taxed cart soon making its appearance, he desired to be taken, not to the Holt, but to the Forest, where he had no doubt that he should find the object of his search.
This Horticultural Show was the great gaiety of the year. The society had originated with Humfrey Charlecote, for the benefit of the poor as well as the rich; and the summer exhibition always took place under the trees of a fragment of the old Forest, which still survived at about five miles from Hiltonbury. The day was a county holiday. The delicate orchid and the crowned pine were there, with the hairy gooseberry, the cabbage and potato, and the homely cottage-garden nosegay from many a woodland hamlet. The young ladies competed in collections of dried flowers for a prize botany book; and the subscriptions were so arranged that on this festival each poorer member might, with two companions, be provided with a hearty
meal; while grandees and farmers had a luncheon-tent of their own, and regarded the day as a county picnic.
It was a favourite affair with all, intensely enjoyed, and full of good neighbourhood. Humfrey Charlecote’s spirit never seemed to have deserted it; it was a gathering of distant friends, a delight of children as of the full grown; and while the young were frantic for its gipsying fun, their elders seldom failed to attend, if only in remembrance of poor Mr. Charlecote, ‘who had begged one and all not to let it drop.’
Above all, Honora felt it due to Humfrey to have prize-roots and fruits from the Holt, and would have thought herself fallen, indeed, had the hardest rain kept her from the rendezvous, with one wagon carrying the cottagers’ articles, and another a troop of school-children. No doubt the Forest would be the place to find Owen Sandbrook, but for the rest—
From the very extremity of his perplexity, Robert’s mind sought relief in external objects. So joyous were the associations with the Forest road on a horticultural day, that the familiar spots could not but revive them. Those green glades, where the graceful beeches retreated, making cool green galleries with their slender gleaming stems, reminded him of his putting his new pony to speed to come up with the Holt carriage; that scathed oak had a tradition of lightning connected with it; yonder was the spot where he had shown Lucilla a herd of deer; here the rising ground whence the whole scene could be viewed, and from force of habit he felt exhilarated as he gazed down the slope of heather, where the fine old oaks and beeches, receding, had left an open space, now covered with the well-known tents; there the large one, broadly striped with green, containing the show; there the white marquees for the eaters; the Union Jack’s gay colours floating lazily from a pole in the Outlaw’s Knoll; the dark, full foliage of the forest, and purple tints of the heather setting off the bright female groups in their delicate summer gaieties. Vehicles of all degrees—smart barouche, lengthy britzschka, light gig, dashing pony-carriage, rattling shanderadan, and gorgeous wagon—were drawn up in treble file, minus their steeds; the sounds of well-known tunes from the band were wafted on the wind, and such an air of jocund peace and festivity pervaded the whole, that for a moment he had a sense of holiday-making ere he sighed at the shade that he was bringing on that scene of merriment.
Reaching the barrier, he paid his entrance-money, and desiring the carriage to wait, walked rapidly down the hill. On one side of the road was the gradual sweep of open heath, on the other was a rapid slope, shaded by trees, and covered with fern, growing tall and grand as it approached the moist ground in the hollow below. Voices made him turn his head in that direction. Aloof from the rest of the throng he beheld two figures half-way down the bank, so nearly hidden among the luxuriant, wing-like fronds of the Osmond royal which they were