‘He’s married, he’s married!’ said a hilarious group of other boys near, with smiles several inches broad, and shining teeth; and so the exclamation echoed down the street.
Jim cursed his ill-luck; the loss of time that this dilemma entailed grew serious; for Mrs. Peach was now in such a hysterical state that he could not leave her with any good grace or feeling. It was necessary to take her to a refreshment room, lavish restoratives upon her, and altogether to waste nearly half an hour. When she had kept him as long as she chose, she forgave him; and thus at last he got away, his heart swelling with tenderness towards Margery. He at once hurried up the street to effect the reconciliation with her.
‘How shall I do it?’ he said to himself. ‘Why, I’ll step round to her side, fish for her hand, draw it through my arm as if I wasn’t aware of it. Then she’ll look in my face, I shall look in hers, and we shall march off the field triumphant, and the thing will be done without takings or tears.’
He entered the field and went straight as an arrow to the place appointed for the meeting. It was at the back of a refreshment tent outside the mass of spectators, and divided from their view by the tent itself. He turned the corner of the canvas, and there beheld Vine at the indicated spot. But Margery was not with him.
Vine’s hat was thrust back into his poll. His face was pale, and his manner bewildered. ‘Hullo? what’s the matter?’ said Jim. ‘Where’s my Margery?’
‘You’ve carried this footy game too far, my man!’ exclaimed Vine, with the air of a friend who has ‘always told you so.’ ‘You ought to have dropped it several days ago, when she would have come to ’ee like a cooing dove. Now this is the end o’t!’
‘Hey! what, my Margery? Has anything happened, for God’s sake?’
‘She’s gone.’
‘Where to?’
‘That’s more than earthly man can tell! I never see such a thing! ’Twas a stroke o’ the black art—as if she were sperrited away. When we got to the games I said—mind, you told me to!—I said, “Jim Hayward thinks o’ going off to London with that widow woman”—mind you told me to! She showed no wonderment, though a’ seemed very low. Then she said to me, “I don’t like standing here in this slummocky crowd. I shall feel more at home among the gentlepeople.” And then she went to where the carriages were drawn up, and near her there was a grand coach, a-blazing with lions and unicorns, and hauled by two coal-black horses. I hardly thought much of it then, and by degrees lost sight of her behind it. Presently the other carriages moved off, and I thought still to see her standing there. But no, she had vanished; and then I saw the grand coach rolling away, and glimpsed Margery in it, beside a fine dark gentleman with black mustachios, and a very pale prince-like face. As soon as the horses got into the hard road they rattled on like hell-and-skimmer, and went out of sight in the dust, and—that’s all. If you’d come back a little sooner you’d ha’ caught her.’