CHAPTER XXXVI
A RETURN BLOW
ZITA hurried along the tow-path. Her mind was in a tumult. The full force of the words of Ephraim she could not understand. He and his comrades were letting the waters of the river Lark over Drownlands' farm, that she knew; but to what an extent they would overflow, and what amount of injury they might do, that was what she was incapable of judging. It was a relief to her mind that no personal violence was contemplated. The water that was let out could be pumped back again. The Fens were wont to be flooded at times, and the mills could always throw the flood from off them.
It was natural that her thoughts should revert to certain words that had been dropped by the men—words that had fallen on her ears like drops of fire. Why had Pip Beamish spoken to her as an 'unhappy girl'? Why had she been referred to as 'belonging to Drownlands,' as 'Tiger Ki's wench'? The tone in which these words had been used had conveyed more insult than the words themselves. They implied that she was sold, as Mark had said, body and soul, to the master of Prickwillow. Mark was not alone in his ill opinion of her.
How had this opinion come to be formed? Surely not from the fact that she was staying on in the house where she had been sheltered when her father died? Every one must know that it was impossible for her to leave it, unless she deserted her van and her wares.
There had been nothing in Drownlands' conduct towards her in public to breed this opinion. The spring of the scandal must have been in Leehanna Tunkiss. That woman had viewed the presence of Zita at Prickwillow with jealousy, and had come to hate her.
In the first gush of womanly sympathy with a forlorn child, left solitary, bereaved of her only parent, the housekeeper had urged Zita to accept the hospitality offered her, and had welcomed her when she transferred herself from the van in the outhouse into a room in the farm dwelling. But no sooner did the keen eye of Leehanna observe that Drownlands watched Zita with interest, and that the girl was acquiring an extraordinary influence over him, than her envy was roused, and she was filled with alarm lest her own position should be undermined, and she should have to make way for the girl whom she had so readily taken under the shelter of Prickwillow roof.
Zita had not failed to notice the growing malevolence exhibited towards her by this woman. She had endeavoured to keep out of her way, but had not laid much store on her ill-humour. Now she saw, or suspected, that Leehanna had been poisoning the minds of the neighbourhood against her, and she had little doubt that the alienation of Mark was due in a measure to the slanders of Mrs. Tunkiss.
Presently Zita saw the light that shone from Kainie's window. The girl had not as yet deserted her habitation. A little muslin blind was drawn across the casement, and the candlelight shone hazily through that. During the frost, when the waters were chained down, the windmills were not worked, so that there was no immediate necessity for a successor to take the place of the girl-miller. No doubt that Mark would inform the Commissioners that Kainie's charge of the mill was at an end, and that it was incumbent on them to immediately look out for a successor. But Kainie had not as yet departed, though it might be she was preparing for her 'flitting.'