V
Mrs. Jenny Rusker, who was half dead with fear of an exposé of her part in this unlucky love-affair, was additionally prostrated by the dire reversal of all her hopes by Samson Mountain’s ultimatum. Mrs. Mountain, with the aid of a female servant, supported Julia upstairs, and Samson smoked on stolidly, taking no note whatever of the visitor’s presence. Still in doubt of what Samson might or might not know, and fearing almost to breathe, lest any reminder of her presence should call down his wrath upon her, she listened to the tramping and the muffled noises overhead until they ceased, and then, gathering courage from his continued apathy, slipped from the room and left the house.
She got home and went to bed and passed an interminable night in tossing to and fro, and bewailing the untoward fate of the two children. Dawn came at last, though it had seemed as if it never would break again, and, for the first time for many a year, the first gleam of sunlight saw her dressed and downstairs. She felt feverous and ill, and having brewed for herself a huge jorum of tansy tea, sat down over this inspiring beverage, and tried to pull her scattered wits together and think out some way of untangling the skein of difficulty with which she had to deal. The danger was pressing, and if she had been herself the poor lovesick girl who lay a mile away, stifling her sobs lest they should reach her father’s ears, and vainly calling on her lover’s name, she would scarcely have been more miserable.
One thing was clear. Dick must be warned, and his journey to London postponed by some device. He might lie hidden for a day or two in Birmingham, and Julia be smuggled there and secretly married. It was no time for half measures, and whatever was done should be done quickly and decisively. At this idea, at once romantic and practical, Mrs. Jenny’s spirits revived.
‘Samson ‘ll disown Julia, I know. Her ‘ll never see a penny o’ his money. An’ I doubt as Abel Reddy ‘ll do the same wi’ Dick. He’s just as hard and bitter as th’ other, on’y quieter wi’ it. Well, they shan’t want while I’m alive, nor after my death neither, and Dick ud make his own way with nobody’s help. I’ll write to him, and find somebody to take the letter. I won’t go myself, at this hour o’ the day.’
She concocted a letter and sealed it, and putting on her bonnet sallied out to find a messenger. Fate was so far propitious that scarce a hundred yards from her door she met Ichabod Bubb, bound for his morning’s work at Perry Hall Farm. Ichabod was bent and gnarled and twisted now, stiff in all his joints and slow of movement, but his quaint visage bore the same look of uncertain and rather wistful humour which had marked it in earlier times.
‘Morning, mum,’ he said, with a stiff-necked nod at Mrs. Jenny.
‘Good-mornin’, Mr. Bubb,’ said the old lady. Ichabod beamed at this sudden and unexpected ceremonial of title, and straightened his back.
‘You ‘m afoot early, mum.’
‘Why, yes. But it’s such a beautiful morning; it’s a shaame to lie abed a time like this.’