CHAPTER V--CONJUROR TRENDLE
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.
