Olivia flew along the road towards St. Cuthbert’s as if pursued. The thought that the man who had done so much both to help and protect her should have been exposed to the vulgar insults of the tyrant of her father’s household threw her into a frenzy of anger and humiliation for which she found no balm. With her indignation against Mrs. Meredith Brander, on the other hand, there mingled an unacknowledged consolation. She did not like that lady; she was also unconsciously jealous of her strong hold upon her brother-in-law. Therefore the discovery of Mrs. Brander’s perfidy, which could not fail to weaken that hold, had an element which was not unwelcome. But to do the girl justice, this selfish feeling was in very small proportion to the passionate wish to make some amends to him for the indignity he had just suffered.
It has been a dull morning and now the rain was beginning to fall, and to envelope the hills far away on the left with a haze which by its density threatened something worse than a light shower. In her impulsive eagerness to start on her errand of consolation, she had not thought of the mundane precaution of taking an umbrella, and although she was now not too much absorbed to regret the omission, she was far too impatient to go back. As the rain fell faster she began to run, and when she came in sight of the ruinous church, standing still far away in the valley below her, partly hidden by the gaunt and cheerless Vicarage, she had to pause for breath, although by that time her clothes were wet through. Through the veil of rain she caught sight of a man who was making his way towards St. Cuthbert’s by a shorter path, over the meadows and through the straggling trees which at this point skirted the hill on the south side of the valley. It must be Vernon Brander, she felt sure, returning passionately angry or deeply humiliated, from his unlucky visit to the farm.
Olivia wanted to overtake him before he could reach his house: so with her usual impetuous rashness, she broke through the hedge on her left, ran, tumbled, and slipped down the hill, which was slippery with wet grass, scrambled through the damp, dead underwood which grew between the trees at the bottom, and, running for the rest of the way, got into the lane leading to the church, and, turning the last sharp corner in a brilliant spurt, ran into the man she was pursuing as he leaned against the churchyard gate.
And it was not Vernon Brander after all!
The man had turned, hearing the rapid footsteps behind him, and the change in the girl’s face, as she learnt her mistake, was far too pronounced for him not to see easily that she was disappointed.
“I’m the wrong man, missee, I’m afraid,” said he good-humoredly, and in a manner perfectly free from offence.
Olivia knew that this was the new tenant of Rishton Church Cottage; she had seen him on the previous Sunday, not indeed inside the church, of which he had confessed to the vicar a frank abhorrence, but leaning over the low wall of his garden to watch the worshippers, as they left the building, with half-shut, critical eyes.
“No,” said she, apologetically; “I thought it was the vicar.”
A curious look, partly of interest and partly, as it seemed to her, of pity came over his face.
“The vicar of this rat run?” he asked, with a nod of his head in the direction of the church.