Edina: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

"Come back as quickly as you can, Frank," she said. "You have to dress, you know. Don't stay chattering with Rosaline."

"With Rosaline!" he exclaimed, in surprise. "Oh, I see. It is not Mrs. Bell who wants me; it is Molly Janes. She and her husband have been at issue again."

With a gay laugh at Edina's advice touching Rosaline, and the rather serious and meaning tone she gave it in, Frank hastened away. The fact was, some odds and ends of joking had been heard in the village lately, coupling Frank's name with the girl's, and they had reached the ears of Edina. She intended to talk to Frank warningly about it on the first opportunity.

When about half-way across the Bare Plain, Frank saw some man before him, in the moonlight, who was not very steady on his legs. The lad had gone rushing forward, thinking to come in at the end of the fight; should it, haply, still be going on.

"What, is it you, Bell!" exclaimed Frank, recognizing the staggerer as he overtook and passed him. "You've had nearly as much as you can carry, have you not?" he added, in light good-nature.

It was Bell. Stumbling homewards from the Golden Shaft. A very early hour indeed, considering the state he was in, for him to quit the seductions of that hostelry. He had been unwise enough to go back to it after his dinner, and there he had sat until now. Had he chosen to keep sober, the matter whispered by Blase Pellet would not have returned to rankle in his mind: as he did not, it had soon begun to do so ominously. With every cup he took, the matter grew in his imagination, until it assumed an ugly look, and became a very black picture. And he had now come blundering forth with the intention of "looking out for himself," as ingeniously suggested by Blase Pellet that day when they were parting. In short, to track the steps and movements of the two suspected people; to watch whether they met, and all about it.

"Perhaps other folks will have as much as they can carry soon," was his insolent retort to Frank, lifting the heavy stick in his hand menacingly. At which Frank only laughed, and sped onwards.

A terribly savage mood rushed over Josiah Bell. Seeing Frank strike off towards Bleak Row, he concluded that it was to his dwelling-house he was bent, and to see Rosaline. And he gnashed his teeth in fury, and gave vent to a fierce oath because he could not overtake the steps of the younger man.

Bursting in at his own door when he at length reached it, he sent his eyes round the room in search of the offenders. But all the living inmates that met his view consisted of his wife in her mob-cap and white apron, knitting, as usual, in her own chair, and the cat sleeping upon the hearth.

"Where's Rosaline?"