As soon as he had uttered them, Philip sank down upon the ground, in the miserable convulsions of some species of epileptic fit. The tragic anxiety of poor Mrs. Wone, who had not only heard his words, but seen his collapse, broke up the balcony party in disorder.
Such is human nature, that though not one of the aristocratic personages there assembled, believed for a moment that Philip was anything but a madman; still, the mere weight of such ominous words, though flung at random and by one out of his senses, had an appreciable effect upon them. It was noticed that one after another they drew away from the two persons thus challenged; and this, combined with the movement about the agitated Mrs. Wone, soon left the father and daughter, the girl clinging to her parent’s arm, completely isolated.
Before he led Gladys away, however, Mr. Romer turned a calm and apparently unruffled face upon the scene below. Luke, who, it may be well believed, had missed nothing of the subtler aspects of the situation, was so moved by the man’s imperturbable serenity that he caught himself on the point of raising an admiring and congratulatory shout. He stopped himself in time, however; and in place of acclaiming the father, did all he could to catch the eye of the daughter.
In this he was unsuccessful; for the attention of Gladys, during the brief moment in which she followed Mr. Romer’s glance over the heads of the people, was fixed upon the group of persons who surrounded the prostrate Philip. Among these persons Luke now recognized, and doubtless the girl had recognized too, the figure of the vicar of Nevilton.
Luke apostrophized his rival with an ejaculation of mild contempt. “A good man, that poor priest,” he muttered, “but a most unmitigated fool! As to Romer, I commend him! But I think I’ve put a spoke in the wheel of his good fortune, all the same, in spite of the planet Jupiter!”
CHAPTER XXI CAESAR’S QUARRY
MR. ROMER’S victory in the election was attended by a complete lull in the political world of Nevilton. Nothing but an unavoidable and drastic crisis, among the ruling circles of the country, could have precipitated this formidable struggle in the middle of the holiday-time; and as soon as the contest was over, the general relaxation of the season made itself doubly felt.
This lull in the political arena seemed to extend itself into the sphere of private and individual emotion, in so far as the persons of our drama were concerned. The triumphant quarry-owner rested from his labors under the pleasant warmth of the drowsy August skies; and as, in the old Homeric Olympus, a relapse into lethargy of the wielder of thunder-bolts was attended by a cessation of earthly strife, so in the Nevilton world, the elements of discord and opposition fell, during this siesta of the master of Leo’s Hill, into a state of quiescent inertia.
But though the gods might sleep, and the people might relax and play, the watchful unwearied fates spun on, steadily and in silence, their ineluctable threads.
The long process of “carrying the corn” was over at last, and night by night the magic-burdened moon grew larger and redder above the misty stubble-fields.
The time drew near for the reception of the successful candidate’s daughter into the historic church of the country over which he was now one of the accredited rulers. A few more drowsy sunshine-drugged days remained to pass, and the baptism of Gladys — followed, a week later, by the formal imposition of episcopal hands — would be the signal for the departure of August and the beginning of the fall of the leaves.
The end of the second week in September had been selected for the double marriage, partly because it synchronized with the annual parish feast-day, and partly because it supplied Ralph Dangelis with an excuse for carrying off his bride incontinently to New York by one of his favourite boats.
Under the quiet surface of this steadily flowing flood of destiny, which seemed, just then, to be casting a drowning narcotic spell upon all concerned, certain deep and terrible misgivings troubled not a few hearts.
It may be frequently noticed by those whose interest it is to watch the strange occult harmonies between the smallest human dramas and their elemental accomplices, that at these peculiar seasons when Nature seems to pause and draw in her breath, men and women find it hard to use or assert their normal powers of resistance. The planetary influences seem nearer earth than usual;-nearer, with the apparent nearness of the full tide-drawing moon and the heavy scorching sun;—and for those more sensitive souls, whose nerves are easily played upon, there is produced a certain curious sense of lying back upon fate, with arms helplessly outspread, and wills benumbed and passive.
But though some such condition as this had narcotized all overt resistance to the destiny in store for her in the heart of Lacrima, it cannot be said that the Italian’s mind was free from an appalling shadow. Whether by reason of a remote spark of humanity in him, or out of subtle fear lest by any false move he should lose his prey, or because of some diplomatic and sagacious advice received from his brother-in-law, Mr. John Goring had, so far, conducted himself extremely wisely towards his prospective wife, leaving her entirely untroubled by any molestations, and never even seeing her except in the presence of other people. How far this unwonted restraint was agreeable to the nature of the farmer, was a secret concealed from all, except perhaps from his idiot protégé, the only human being in Nevilton to whom the unattractive man ever confided his thoughts.
Lacrima had one small and incidental consolation in feeling that she had been instrumental in sending to a home for the feeble-minded, the unfortunate child of the gamekeeper of Auber Lake. In this single particular, Gladys had behaved exceptionally well, and the news that came of the girl’s steady progress in the direction of sanity and happiness afforded some fitful gleam of light in the obscurity that surrounded the Pariah’s soul.
The nature of this intermittent gleam, its deep mysterious strength drawn from spiritual sources, helped to throw a certain sad and pallid twilight over her ordained sacrifice. This also she felt was undertaken, like her visit to Auber Lake, for the sake of an imprisoned and fettered spirit. If by means of such self-immolation her friend of Dead Man’s Lane would be liberated from his servitude and set permanently upon his feet, her submission would not be in vain.
She had come once more to feel as though the impending event were, as far as she was concerned, a sort of final death-sentence. The passing fantasy, that in a momentary distortion of her mind had swept over her of the new life it might mean to have children of her own, even though born of this unnatural union, had not approached again the troubled margin of her spirit.
Even the idea of escaping the Romers was only vaguely present. She would escape more than the Romers; she would escape the whole miserable coil of this wretched existence, if the death she anticipated fell upon her; for death, and nothing less than death, seemed the inevitable circumference of the iron circle that was narrowing in upon her.
Had those two strange phantoms that we have seen hovering over Nevilton churchyard, representing in their opposite ways the spiritual powers of the place, been able to survey — as who could deny they might be able? — the fatal stream which was now bearing the Pariah forward to the precipice, they would have been, in their divers tempers, struck with delight and consternation at the spectacle presented to them. There was more in this spectacle, it must be admitted, to bring joy into the heart of a goblin than into that of an angel. Coincidence, casualty, destiny — all seemed working together to effect the unfortunate girl’s destruction.
The fact that, by the recovery of his brother, the astute Luke Andersen, the only one of all the Nevilton circle capable of striking an effective blow in her defence, had been deprived of all but a very shadowy interest in what befell, seemed an especially sinister accident. Equally unfortunate was the luckless chance that at this critical movement had led the diplomatic Mr. Taxater to see fit to prolong his stay in London. Mr. Quincunx was characteristically helpless. James Andersen seemed, since the recovery of his normal mind, to have subsided like a person under some restraining vow. Lacrima was a little surprised that he made no attempt to see her or to communicate with her. She could only suppose she had indelibly hurt him, by her rejection of his quixotic offers, on their way back from Hullaway.