But it had quite a wrong effect upon the lady. Pausing one moment to recover her breath and her balance, she extricated herself from his insolent clutch with a sudden athletic movement which flung him reeling into the hedge, where he lodged amid a great crackling of branches.
“I shall not require your escort further, thank you,” said Miss Denison then imperturbably to the spluttering swain.
And she walked on again with a perfect and defiant security. She had not misjudged her effect, for Mr. Williams did not attempt to molest her again. Just as she reached the farm gates, however, he hurried after her, and without coming to close quarters, said, maliciously—
“Very well, madam. Don’t be afraid that I shall interfere with you again. But before you take up with Parson Brander, I’d just ask him, if I were you, what has become of Nellie Mitchell.”
But Miss Denison walked through the gates without a word.
CHAPTER V.
To be able to inflict a severe physical defeat upon an obtrusive admirer may be a highly convenient accomplishment, but the necessity for its exercise cannot but be a humiliating experience. Olivia Denison felt the hot tears rise to her eyes as she walked up through the farmyard to the Hall. If only one of her own stalwart brothers, Edward or Ernest, were here to give this insolent cad the thrashing he deserved! But Edward was in India with his regiment, and Ernest was tied to a desk in a solicitor’s office in London. She must depend upon her own arm and own head for her protection now; fortunately, neither was of the weakest, as she herself felt with some satisfaction. In fact, she scarcely knew yet what measure of strength, both mental and physical, was hers; for she had led hitherto an easy, sheltered life, idle in the sense that all her energy had been spent in amusing herself, happy but for certain uncongenial elements at home.
Now there was to be a difference. Without being expected to know how it came to pass, Olivia knew that papa had grown poorer, that he had become frightfully irritable about bills of late, and that various violent and spasmodic efforts at retrenchment, and papa’s reiterated declarations that he must “do something,” had culminated in the sale of the beautiful house at Streatham, and in the taking of Rishton Hall Farm. There was something not quite painful in the feeling that she would have to “do something” too, and in the knowledge that she might now be able to turn her quickness of eye and hand to useful account in the service of the father whom she adored. What would his sensitive nature do among these Oldshaws, and these Williamses, and these Walls, with the most unpleasant and disturbing rumors afloat about the very clergyman in charge? This was the reflection which troubled Olivia’s mind as she approached the Hall for the second time, and going up the worn steps, let herself in without any need to knock at the door.
“Lucy!” she called, as she opened the door of the big room on the right.
There was no answer. The room was deserted, and the fire had burnt low. Olivia shivered as she went in. The run down the hill had put her in a glow; the entrance into this mouldy old chamber chilled her. She put more wood on the fire, and sat down to await the return of Lucy, who, she did not doubt, had found the loneliness of the place too much for her nerves, and had gone out to look for her mistress. In a few minutes Olivia began to long even for the patter of a mouse’s feet, for the song of a cricket, for any sign of life in the desolate old house, if it were only the sight of the loathly black beetle. The spirit of the unknown Nellie Mitchell seemed to haunt her. That girl, who had lived in the house, gone about her daily work in this room, whose mementoes still remained undisturbed and undecayed in these deserted old walls, who was she? What had become of her? “Ask Mr. Brander”: so the odious Fred Williams has said with intensely malicious significance. Should she dare to do this, and perhaps satisfy once for all those doubts of her new friend which not only the conflicting opinions of the villagers, but certain morose and repellent changes of expression on his own face, had instilled into her? She could not decide. Between her doubts, her loneliness, and her sense of the difficulties of her desolate situation, the poor girl was growing so unhappy that when at last she heard the sound of footsteps upon the ground outside, she sprang up with a cry, and ran to the door, ready to force whoever it might be to share her vigil.