Then hastily, unable further to control herself, she passed him, and left the garden.
CHAPTER XLVIII
A SHADOW-SHAPE
Kate walked at once to the house of Mr. Puddicombe, and, without giving any reasons, announced to him that the engagement to Walter Bramber was at an end. She calculated on his publishing the fact, but she had not calculated on his inventing and promulgating reasons of his own supposition for explaining the rupture. According to him, she had formed a preference for Noah Flood, and regarded an alliance with Noah more to her advantage than one with a person of whose origin nothing was known, and whose prospects were uncertain. One of the first to hear the news was Rose Ash, and she made an excursion immediately to the house of the Floods, where Noah lived with his mother, a widow. The Floods were a well-to-do yeoman family, with land of their own. The father of Noah had died three years previous to the events recorded in this tale. Noah was the only child, and had been the idol of his mother. That he should seek a wife, she admitted, was natural. She would greatly have preferred his taking someone of more position and means, and in greater favour than Kitty Alone, but she was accustomed to regard everything her son did as right, and she would not offer any opposition to what he determined on. As Rose Ash was not to be won, he might take Kitty; though she would have vastly preferred Rose. The old woman was, it is true, made uneasy by the reports relative to Kitty and the fire at the Cellars, but her son knew how to set her mind at rest, by ridiculing them as idle and baseless, bred of malice or stupidity.
Rose was really energetic on behalf of Kitty. She did brave battle for her, and combated every adverse opinion. She was thoroughly resolved to forward the match between Noah and Kate, and now that the field was cleared of the schoolmaster, she hurried to the house of the Floods to spur on Noah to immediate action.
The evening was already closing in, and the house of the Floods was at some distance out of Coombe; but Rose was impulsive, and what she did was done in impulse. She was generous, so far as did not interfere with her own prospects and wishes and comforts. Mrs. Flood was her aunt, and with her she was ever welcome. Noah was happily at home when Rose arrived. She was not the girl to beat about the bush, and she rushed at once upon the topic uppermost in her mind.
“You must put on your hat at once, Noah, and come with me. I’m going to the Cellars, and going to make all right between you and Kitty. The time has arrived. The door is ajar, and you must thrust your shoulder in before it is shut. It’s off with the schoolmaster, and must be on with you at once.”
“Noah hasn’t been hisself of late,” said Mrs. Flood. “I don’t think he ought to be out with the dew falling heavy.”
“Nonsense, Aunt Sally! it’s love,” said Rose. “The dew won’t hurt. It’s his disappointment has upset him.”
“He’s been off his feed terrible,” said the mother; “there is a nice piece of boiled bacon I’ve had cold, but he don’t seem to relish it.”