Edina: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

Frank made no remark.

"Blase has found a place at a druggist's close by," continued Mrs. Bell: whose chatter, once in full flow, was not easily stopped. "I don't suppose he'll like London as well as Trennach, and so I told him. I don't. Great noisy bustling place!"

It seemed that there was nothing more to ask or learn, and Frank bethought himself of his patients. Wishing the old dame good-night, he departed. His first visit led him past the druggist's; and his glance, as though fascinated, turned to the window. There, amidst the sheen of red and green and blue reflected from the brilliant globes, he saw the face of Blase Pellet; just as he had been wont to see it amidst the glow of the same varied colours at Trennach.

[CHAPTER III.]

CROPPING UP AGAIN

"Why, Daisy. Out marketing, my dear?"

The salutation to Mrs. Frank Raynor came from her husband. One winter's morning, regardless of the extreme cold and the frost that made the streets partly deserted, she followed her husband when he went out after breakfast. The dwelling-place of Mrs. Bell and her daughter in West Street had become known to her long ago; and Daisy was always longing to see whether her husband's footsteps took him to it.

That most unreasoning jealousy, which had seized upon her mind, increased in force. It was growing almost into a disease. She felt as sure as if she had seen it written in letters of divination, that her husband's love had been, was, and ever would be Rosaline Bell's: that it never had been hers: and over and over again she asked herself the question—why had he married her?

It all appeared so plain to Daisy. Looking back, she could, as she fully believed, trace out the past, in regard to it, bit by bit. First of all, there was the girl's unusual and dangerous beauty; Frank Raynor's attendance at the house on the Bare Plain, under the plea of visiting the mother professionally; and the intimacy that was reported to have existed between himself and Rosaline. A great deal more frequently than was wise or necessary, Daisy recalled the evening when Frank had been dining at The Mount, and the conversation had turned upon the mysterious disappearance of Bell, the miner, and the beauty of his daughter. Frank's signs of agitation—his emotional voice, his flushings from red to white—Daisy had then been entirely unable to comprehend: she had considered them as unaccountable as was the absence of the man of whom they were speaking. Now the reason was very apparent to her: the emotion had arisen from his love of Rosaline. She remembered, as though it had been yesterday, the tales brought home by Tabitha, and repeated to herself—that this beautiful daughter of Bell the miner was Frank Raynor's best and only love, and that the girl worshipped the very ground he trod on. It was too late then to be influenced by the information, for the secret marriage had taken place in the church at Trennach. Daisy had hardly known whether to believe the story or not; but it had shaken her. Later, as time went on, and she and her husband moved far away from the scene of events, and Rosaline Bell seemed to have faded out of sight; almost, so far as they were concerned, out of existence; Daisy had suffered herself to forget the doubt and jealousy. But only to call it up with tenfold force now.

And so, Mrs. Frank Raynor had amused herself, if the word may be applied to a state of mind so painful as was hers, with the pastime of watching her husband. Not often of course; only now and then. Her steps, as of their own uncontrollable will, would take her to the quiet street in which Dame Bell lived, and she had on one or two rare occasions been rewarded by seeing him pass in or out of the house. Of course she could not watch very often. She dared not do so. She would have been ashamed to do so. As it was, she knew that Sam's eyes had taken to opening with wonder whenever she followed her husband through the surgery, and that the boy's curiosity was much exercised as to the cause. Therefore, as she was unable to make Frank's shadow frequently, and as, with all her expectation, she had been gratified so rarely by seeing what she looked for, she drew the conclusion that fortune did not favour her, and that Frank's times for going to the house were just those when she did not happen to be out herself. An ingenious inference: as all sensible people must allow, but one that jealousy would be certain to invent.