By the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this
inquiry. But she had promised to go. Moreover, there was a horrid
fascination at times in becoming instrumental in throwing such possible
light on her own character as would reveal her to be something greater in
the occult world than she had ever herself suspected.
She started just before the time of day mentioned between them, and half-
an-hour's brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension of the
Egdon tract of country, where the fir plantation was. A slight figure,
cloaked and veiled, was already there. Rhoda recognized, almost with a
shudder, that Mrs. Lodge bore her left arm in a sling.
They hardly spoke to each other, and immediately set out on their climb
into the interior of this solemn country, which stood high above the rich
alluvial soil they had left half-an-hour before. It was a long walk;
thick clouds made the atmosphere dark, though it was as yet only early
afternoon; and the wind howled dismally over the hills of the heath--not
improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex
King Ina, presented to after-ages as Lear. Gertrude Lodge talked most,
Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation. She had a strange
dislike to walking on the side of her companion where hung the afflicted
arm, moving round to the other when inadvertently near it. Much heather
had been brushed by their feet when they descended upon a cart-track,
beside which stood the house of the man they sought.
He did not profess his remedial practices openly, or care anything about
their continuance, his direct interests being those of a dealer in furze,
turf, 'sharp sand,' and other local products. Indeed, he affected not to
believe largely in his own powers, and when warts that had been shown him
for cure miraculously disappeared--which it must be owned they infallibly
did--he would say lightly, 'O, I only drink a glass of grog upon
'em--perhaps it's all chance,' and immediately turn the subject.
He was at home when they arrived, having in fact seen them descending
into his valley. He was a gray-bearded man, with a reddish face, and he
looked singularly at Rhoda the first moment he beheld her. Mrs. Lodge
told him her errand; and then with words of self-disparagement he
examined her arm.
'Medicine can't cure it,' he said promptly. ''Tis the work of an enemy.'
Rhoda shrank into herself, and drew back.
'An enemy? What enemy?' asked Mrs. Lodge.
He shook his head. 'That's best known to yourself,' he said. 'If you
like, I can show the person to you, though I shall not myself know who it
is. I can do no more; and don't wish to do that.'
She pressed him; on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she stood,
and took Mrs. Lodge into the room. It opened immediately from the door;
and, as the latter remained ajar, Rhoda Brook could see the proceedings
without taking part in them. He brought a tumbler from the dresser,
nearly filled it with water, and fetching an egg, prepared it in some
private way; after which he broke it on the edge of the glass, so that
the white went in and the yolk remained. As it was getting gloomy, he
took the glass and its contents to the window, and told Gertrude to watch
them closely. They leant over the table together, and the milkwoman
could see the opaline hue of the egg-fluid changing form as it sank in
the water, but she was not near enough to define the shape that it
assumed.
'Do you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look?' demanded
the conjuror of the young woman.
She murmured a reply, in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda, and
continued to gaze intently into the glass. Rhoda turned, and walked a
few steps away.
When Mrs. Lodge came out, and her face was met by the light, it appeared
exceedingly pale--as pale as Rhoda's--against the sad dun shades of the
upland's garniture. Trendle shut the door behind her, and they at once
started homeward together. But Rhoda perceived that her companion had
quite changed.
'Did he charge much?' she asked tentatively.
'O no--nothing. He would not take a farthing,' said Gertrude.
'And what did you see?' inquired Rhoda.
'Nothing I--care to speak of.' The constraint in her manner was
remarkable; her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect, faintly
suggestive of the face in Rhoda's bed-chamber.
'Was it you who first proposed coming here?' Mrs. Lodge suddenly
inquired, after a long pause. 'How very odd, if you did!'
'No. But I am not sorry we have come, all things considered,' she
replied. For the first time a sense of triumph possessed her, and she
did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her side should learn
that their lives had been antagonized by other influences than their own.
The subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk home.
But in some way or other a story was whispered about the many-dairied
lowland that winter that Mrs. Lodge's gradual loss of the use of her left
arm was owing to her being 'overlooked' by Rhoda Brook. The latter kept
her own counsel about the incubus, but her face grew sadder and thinner;
and in the spring she and her boy disappeared from the neighbourhood of
Holmstoke.
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