“Never mind about that. Are you ill? Let me help you up.”
“She’s tricked you, Nicco,” cried Olver, fawning round him.
“Hold your tongue, Olver; she’s in pain. You poor fool, why didn’t you tell me? Heaven knows if I can get to Marlborough through this snow with darkness coming on. Lean on me, I’ll take you upstairs. Lean on me; never mind anything else.”
Olver was pulling frantically at him.
“Is it true, Nicco? is it me? Oh, my poor Nicco,—first me and then her,—what can I do?—but I’ll do something,—I’ll find something to do,—oh, my head, my heart.”
“The pain, the pain!” cried Daisy.
“Lean on me,” said Lovel, putting his arm round her.
“Gorwyn’s child!” screamed Olver in a frenzy. He followed them to the foot of the stairs, where he stumbled and fell on the lowermost step, still calling incoherently after Lovel, who was persuading his wife up to her room, saying meanwhile, “Lean on me, Daisy, I won’t let you fall, don’t be afraid, it’ll all be over soon.”
The word was quickly passed down the village street that Daisy Lovel’s time was come, and that Lovel begged the kindness of some charitable woman to remain near his wife while he rode to Marlborough in search of the midwife. “There’s a chance for somebody,” said one woman, “to see the inside of that house for herself.” “And there’s a come-down for Gipsy Lovel,” said another, “to have to beg for one of us to go into his place. Where would he be if we all refused?” “Her time come already? and she married,—let me see,—four, five months, is it?” said a third. But in spite of these and other scornful remarks, volunteers were forthcoming, and even those who had lagged most behind, or who had recommended that Lovel be left to suffer now the penalty of his years of unneighbourliness, watched enviously the departure of Mrs. Blagdon for the house of mystery and evil legend. They saw her received at the door by Lovel, drawn in and swallowed up, as to their imagination Daisy herself had been swallowed up on the day of her wedding.
They continued, however, to observe Lovel’s house for some time, glancing at intervals between the lace curtains which decked their own windows, and saw a light spring up in the room they assumed to be Daisy’s, and a gigantic shadow passing to and fro upon the blind. Evening had come, swiftly to be followed by night; the snow had begun to fall again in large flakes; very soon the street was white, unbroken by footmarks, since every soul was within doors. The women idly watching between their curtains saw Lovel emerge from his house, close the door behind him, and pass down the alley between two houses to the shed where he kept his horse. They saw him emerge again, leading the horse; they saw him swing himself into the saddle and ride away, his coat collar turned up high against the snow, tall and spare as he disappeared silently into the thick dusk. The women said, “He’s off to Marlborough to find the midwife. Things can’t be going,” they added with relish, “as well as they should.” The men only growled, “He must be crazed to think he can find the road to Marlborough on a night like this; he’ll break his own neck and his horse’s legs.” But the women had a curious faith in Lovel’s efficiency.