Meanwhile Rhoda, at Duckwell Farm, supposed herself to be too unhappy to care much for anything. She did not have a fever, nor fall into a consumption, nor waste away visibly; but she passed hours crying alone in her own room, or sitting idle-handed, whilst her thoughts languidly retraced the past, or strove to picture what sort of a lady Algernon's wife might be. Headaches, pallid cheeks, and red eyes resulted from these solitary hours. Mrs. Seth Maxfield wondered what had come to the girl, having no suspicion that young Errington's marriage could be more to Rhoda than an interesting subject for gossip.
Old Jonathan went over to Duckwell immediately after receiving the first newspaper, sent by Mrs. Errington from Westmoreland.
The announcement of the intended wedding had taken him wholly by surprise. It would be hard to say whether wrath or amazement predominated in his mind, on first reading the paragraph which Mrs. Errington had so complacently marked with red ink. But it is not at all hard to say which feeling predominated within an hour after having read it.
According to old Max's judgment, there was not one extenuating circumstance in Algernon's behaviour; not one plea to be urged on his behalf. Utter vindictive anger filled the old man's soul as he read. He had been deceived, played upon, laughed at by this boy! That was the first, and, perhaps, the most venomous of his mortifications. But many other stinging thoughts rankled in his mind. David Powell had been right! That was almost unendurable. As to Rhoda, old Max could not, in the mood he was then in, contemplate her being bowed down by grief and disappointment. He would have her raise her head, and revenge herself on her faithless lover. He would have her successful, admired, and prosperous. He would have her trample on Algernon's pride and poverty with all the insolence of wealth. Even his beloved money, so hardly earned, so eagerly hoarded, seemed to him, for the first time in his life, to be of small account in comparison with a sentiment.
He took his Bible, and gloated over menaces of vengeance and threats of destruction. Future condemnation was, no doubt, in store for Algernon Errington. But that was too vague and too distant a prospect to appease old Max's stomach for revenge. He wanted to see his enemy in the dust, and that his enemy should be seen there by others. In the midst of his reading, he suddenly recollected the acknowledgment he held of Algernon's debt to him, and jumped up and ran to his strong-box to feast his eyes on it. It seemed almost like a clear leading from on High that the I.O.U. should come into his head just then, old Max thought. He was not the first, nor the worst man who has wrested Scripture into the service of his own angry passions.
Then he sent to order a gig from the "Blue Bell," and set out for Duckwell Farm.
"I hope your father isn't sickening for any disease, or going to get a stroke, or something," said Betty Grimshaw to her nephew James. "But I never see anybody's face such a colour out of their coffin. It's a greeny grey, that's what it is. And he was frowning like thunder."
But Jonathan Maxfield's disorder was not of the body. He arrived at Duckwell unexpectedly, but his arrival did not cause any particular surprise. He had business transactions to discuss with his son Seth, to whom he had advanced money on mortgage. And then there was Rhoda staying at the farm, and, of course, her father would like to see Rhoda.
Rhoda was called from her own room, and came down, pale and nervous. She dreaded meeting her father. Did he, or did he not, know the news from Westmoreland? It had only come to Duckwell Farm by means of Mr. Pawkins's servants. It might possibly not yet have reached Whitford.
On his side, old Max took care to say nothing about the Applethwaite Advertiser. He had destroyed that journal before leaving home, placing it in the heart of the kitchen fire, and holding it there with the poker, until the remains of it fluttered up the chimney in black, impalpable fragments.