"As far as you and Frank are concerned, that would be a matter-of-course to me. But it cannot be so--yet--in regard to Mary.
At any rate, I will not intrude upon her till I know that my coming will not be a trouble to her." After this it was not necessary that Mrs. Fenwick should be told much more of the manner in which these new betrothals had been made.
Mary was, of course, congratulated both by the Vicar and his wife, and she received their congratulations with a dignity of deportment which, even from her, almost surprised them. She said scarcely a word, but smiled as she was kissed by each of them and did whisper something as to her hope that she might be able to make Mr. Gilmore happy. There was certainly no triumph; and there was no visible sign of regret. When she was asked whether she would not wish that he should come to the vicarage, she declared that she would have him come just as he pleased. If she only knew of his coming beforehand she would take care that she would be within to receive him. Whatever might be his wishes, she would obey them. Mrs. Fenwick suggested that Gilmore would like her to go up to the Privets, and look at the house which was to be her future home. She promised that she would go with him at any hour that he might appoint. Then there was something said as to fixing the day of the wedding. "It is not to be immediately,"
she replied; "he promised me that he would give me time." "She speaks of it as though she was going to be hung," the Vicar said afterwards to his wife.
On the day after her engagement she saw Gilmore, and then she wrote to her aunt to tell her the tidings. Her letter was very short, and had not Miss Marrable thoroughly understood the character of her niece, and the agony of the struggle to which Mary was now subjected, it would have seemed to be cold and ungrateful. "My dear Aunt," said the letter, "Yesterday I accepted Mr. Gilmore's offer. I know you will be glad to hear this, as you have always thought that I ought to do so. No time has been fixed for the wedding, but it will not be very soon. I hope I may do my duty to him and make him happy; but I do not know whether I should not have been more useful in remaining with my affectionate aunt." That was the whole letter, and there was no other friend to whom she herself communicated the tidings.
It occurred to her for a moment that she would write to Walter Marrable;--but Walter Marrable had told her nothing of Edith Brownlow. Walter Marrable would learn the news fast enough. And then, the writing of such a letter would not have been very easy to her.
On the Sunday afternoon, after church, she walked up to the Privets with her lover. The engagement had been made on the previous Thursday, and this was the first occasion on which she had been alone with him for more than a minute or two at a time since she had then parted from him. They started immediately from the churchyard, passing out through the gate which led into Mr. Trumbull's field, and it was understood that they were to return for an early dinner at the vicarage. Mary had made many resolutions as to this walk. She would talk much, so that it might not be tedious and melancholy to him; she would praise everything, and show the interest which she took in the house and grounds; she would ask questions, and display no hesitation as to claiming her own future share of possession in all that belonged to him. She went off at once as soon as she was through the wicket gate, asking questions as to the division of the property of the parish between the two owners, as to this field and that field, and the little wood which they passed, till her sharp intelligence told her that she was over-acting her part. He was no actor, but unconsciously he perceived her effort; and he resented it, unconsciously also, by short answers and an uninterested tone. She was aware of it all, and felt that there had been a mistake. It would be better for her to leave the play in his hands, and to adapt herself to his moods.
"We had better go straight up to the house," he said, as soon as the pathway had led them off Lord Trowbridge's land into his own domain.
"I think we had," said she.
"If we go round by the stables it will make us late for Fenwick's dinner."
"We ought to be back by half-past two," she said. They had left the church exactly at half-past twelve, and were therefore to be together for two hours.
He took her over the house. The showing of a house in such circumstances is very trying, both to the man and to the woman. He is weighted by a mixed load of pride in his possession and of assumed humility. She, to whom every detail of the future nest is so vitally important, is almost bound to praise, though every encomium she pronounces will be a difficulty in the way of those changes which she contemplates. But on the present occasion Mary contemplated no change. Marrying this man, as she was about to do, professedly without loving him, she was bound to take everything else as she found it. The dwelling rooms of the house she had known before; the dining-room, the drawing-room, and the library. She was now taken into his private chamber, where he sat as a magistrate, and paid his men, and kept his guns and fishing-rods. Here she sat down for a moment, and when he had told her this and that,--how he was always here for so long in the morning, and how he hoped that she would come to him sometimes when he was thus busy, he came and stood over her, putting his hand upon her shoulder. "Mary," he said, "will you not kiss me?"
"Certainly I will," she said, jumping up, and offering her face to his salute. A month or two ago he would have given the world for permission to kiss her; and now it seemed as though the thing itself were a matter but of little joy. A kiss to be joyful should be stolen, with a conviction on the part of the offender that she who has suffered the loss will never prosecute the thief. She had meant to be good to him, but the favour would have gone further with him had she made more of it.
Then they went up stairs. Who does not know the questions that were asked and that were answered? On this occasion they were asked and answered with matter-of-fact useful earnestness. The papers on the walls were perhaps old and ugly; but she did not mind it if they were so. If he liked to have the rooms new papered, of course it would be nice. Would she like new furniture? Did she object to the old-fashioned four-post bedsteads? Had she any special taste about hangings and colours? Of course she had, but she could not bring herself to indulge them by giving orders as to this or that. She praised everything; was satisfied with everything; was interested in everything; but would propose no changes. What right had she, seeing that she was to give him so little, to ask him to do this or that for her? She meant on this occasion to do all that she could for his happiness, but had she ordered new furniture for the whole house, begged that every room might be fresh papered, and pointed out that the panelling was old and must be altered, and the entire edifice re-painted inside and out, he would have been a happier man. "I hope you will find it comfortable," he said, in a tone of voice that was beyond measure lugubrious.
"I am sure that I shall," she replied. "What more can any woman want than there is here? And then there are so many comforts to which I have never been used."
This passed between them as they stood on the steps of the house, looking down upon green paddocks in front of the house; "I think we will come and see the gardens another day," he said.
"Whenever you like," she answered. "Perhaps if we stay now we shall be keeping them waiting." Then, as they returned by the road, she remembered an account that Janet Fenwick had given her of a certain visit which Janet had made to the vicarage as Miss Balfour, and of all the joys of that inspection. But what right had she, Mary Lowther, to suppose that she could have any of the same pleasure?
Janet Balfour, in her first visit to the vicarage, had been to see the home in which she was to live with the man to whom her whole heart had been given without reserve.
CHAPTER LI.
THE GRINDER AND HIS COMRADE.
As the day drew near for the final examination at Heytesbury of the suspected murderers,--the day on which it was expected that either all the three prisoners, or at least two of them, would be committed to take their trial at the summer assizes, the Vicar became anxious as to the appearance of Carry Brattle in the Court. At first he entertained an idea that he would go over to Salisbury and fetch her; but his wife declared that this was imprudent and Quixotic,--and that he shouldn't do it. Fenwick's argument in support of his own idea amounted to little more than this,--that he would go for the girl because the Marquis of Trowbridge would be sure to condemn him for taking such a step. "It is intolerable to me," he said, "that I should be impeded in my free action by the interference and accusations of such an ass as that." But the question was one on which his wife felt herself to be so strong that she would not yield, either to his logic or to his anger. "It can't be fit for you to go about and fetch witnesses; and it won't make it more fit because she is a pretty young woman who has lost her character." "Honi soit qui mal y pense," said the Vicar. But his wife was resolute, and he gave up the plan. He wrote, however, to the constable at Salisbury, begging the man to look to the young woman's comfort, and offering to pay for any special privilege or accommodation that might be accorded to her. This occurred on the Saturday before the day on which Mary Lowther was taken up to look at her new home.
The Sunday passed by, with more or less of conversation respecting the murder; and so also the Monday morning. The Vicar had himself been summoned to give his evidence as to having found Sam Brattle in his own garden, in company with another man with whom he had wrestled, and whom he was able to substantiate as the Grinder; and, indeed, the terrible bruise made by the Vicar's life-preserver on the Grinder's back, would be proved by evidence from Lavington. On the Monday evening he was sitting, after dinner, with Gilmore, who had dined at the vicarage, when he was told that a constable from Salisbury wished to see him. The constable was called into the room, and soon told his story. He had gone up to Trotter's Buildings that day after dinner, and was told that the bird had flown. She had gone out that morning, and Mrs. Stiggs knew nothing of her departure. When they examined the room in which she slept, they found that she had taken what little money she possessed and her best clothes. She had changed her frock and put on a pair of strong boots, and taken her cloak with her. Mrs. Stiggs acknowledged that had she seen the girl going forth thus provided, her suspicions would have been aroused; but Carry had managed to leave the house without being observed. Then the constable went on to say that Mrs. Stiggs had told him that she had been sure that Carry would go. "I've been a waiting for it all along," she had said; "but when there came the law rumpus atop of the other, I knew as how she'd hop the twig." And now Carry Brattle had hopped the twig, and no one knew whither she had gone. There was much sorrow at the vicarage; for Mrs. Fenwick, though she had been obliged to restrain her husband's impetuosity in the matter, had nevertheless wished well for the poor girl;--and who could not believe aught of her now but that she would return to misery and degradation? When the constable was interrogated as to the need for her attendance on the morrow, he declared that nothing could now be done towards finding her and bringing her to Heytesbury in time for the magistrates'
session. He supposed there would be another remand, and that then she, too, would be--wanted.
But there had been so many remands that on the Tuesday the magistrates were determined to commit the men, and did commit two of them. Against Sam there was no tittle of evidence, except as to that fact that he had been seen with these men in Mr. Fenwick's garden; and it was at once proposed to put him into the witness-box, instead of proceeding against him as one of the murderers. As a witness he was adjudged to have behaved badly; but the assumed independence of his demeanour was probably the worst of his misbehaviour. He would tell them nothing of the circumstances of the murder, except that having previously become acquainted with the two men, Burrows and Acorn, and having, as he thought, a spite against the Vicar at the time, he had determined to make free with some of the vicarage fruit.
He had, he said, met the men in the village that afternoon, and had no knowledge of their business there. He had known Acorn more intimately than the other man, and confessed at last that his acquaintance with that man had arisen from a belief that Acorn was about to marry his sister. He acknowledged that he knew that Burrows had been a convicted thief, and that Acorn had been punished for horse stealing. When he was asked how it had come to pass that he was desirous of seeing his sister married to a horse-stealer, he declined to answer, and, looking round the Court, said that he hoped there was no man there who would be coward enough to say anything against his sister. They who heard him declared that there was more of a threat than a request expressed in his words and manner.
A question was put to him as to his knowledge of Farmer Trumbull's money. "There was them as knew; but I knew nothing," he said. He was pressed on this point by the magistrates, but would say not a word further. As to this, however, the police were indifferent, as they believed that they would be able to prove at the trial, from other sources, that the mother of the man called the Grinder had certainly received tidings of the farmer's wealth. There were many small matters of evidence to which the magistrates trusted. One of the men had bought poison, and the dog had been poisoned. The presence of the cart at the farmer's gate was proved, and the subsequent presence of the two men in the same cart at Pycroft Common. The size of the footprints, the characters and subsequent flight of the men, and certain damaging denials and admissions which they themselves had made, all went to make up the case against them, and they were committed to be tried for the murder. Sam, however, was allowed to go free, being served, however, with a subpoena to attend at the trial as a witness. "I will," said he, "if you send me down money enough to bring me up from South Shields, and take me back again. I ain't a coming on my own hook as I did this time;--and wouldn't now, only for Muster Fenwick." Our friends left the police to settle this question with Sam, and then drove home to Bullhampton.
The Vicar was triumphant, though his triumph was somewhat quelled by the disappearance of Carry Brattle. There could, however, be no longer any doubt that Sam Brattle's innocence as to the murder was established. Head-Constable Toffy had himself acknowledged to him that Sam could have had no hand in it. "I told you so from the beginning," said the Vicar. "We 'as got the right uns, at any rate,"
said the constable; "and it wasn't none of our fault that we hadn't 'em before." But though Constable Toffy was thus honest, there were one or two in Heytesbury on that day who still persisted in declaring that Sam was one of the murderers. Sir Thomas Charleys stuck to that opinion to the last; and Lord Trowbridge, who had again sat upon the bench, was quite convinced that justice was being shamefully robbed of her due.
When the Vicar reached Bullhampton, instead of turning into his own place at once, he drove himself on to the mill. He dropped Gilmore at the gate, but he could not bear that the father and mother should not know immediately, from a source which they would trust, that Sam had been declared innocent of that great offence. Driving round by the road, Fenwick met the miller about a quarter of a mile from his own house. "Mr. Brattle," he said, "they have committed the two men."
"Have they, sir?" said the miller, not condescending to ask a question about his own son.
"As I have said all along, Sam had no more to do with it than you or I."
"You have been very good, Muster Fenwick."
"Come, Mr. Brattle, do not pretend that this is not a comfort to you."
"A comfort as my son ain't proved a murderer! If they'd a hanged 'im, Muster Fenwick, that'd a been bad, for certain. It ain't much of comfort we has; but there may be a better and a worser in everything, no doubt. I'm obleeged to you, all as one, Muster Fenwick--very much obleeged; and it will take a heavy load off his mother's heart." Then the Vicar turned his gig round, and drove himself home.
CHAPTER LII.
CARRY BRATTLE'S JOURNEY.
Mrs. Stiggs had been right in her surmise about Carry Brattle. The confinement in Trotter's Buildings and want of interest in her life was more than the girl could bear, and she had been thinking of escape almost from the first day that she had been there. Had it not been for the mingled fear and love with which she regarded Mr.
Fenwick, had she not dreaded that he should think her ungrateful, she would have flown even before the summons came to her which told her that she must appear before the magistrates and lawyers, and among a crowd of people, in the neighbourhood of her old home. That she could not endure, and therefore she had flown. When it had been suggested to her that she should go and live with her brother's wife as her servant, that idea had been hard to bear. But there had been uncertainty, and an opinion of her own which proved to be right, that her sister-in-law would not receive her. Now about this paper that the policeman had handed to her, and the threatened journey to Heytesbury, there was no uncertainty,--unless she might possibly escape the evil by running away. Therefore she ran away.
The straight-going people of the world, in dealing with those who go crooked, are almost always unreasonable. "Because you have been bad,"
say they who are not bad to those who are bad, "because you have hitherto indulged yourself with all pleasures within your reach, because you have never worked steadily or submitted yourself to restraint, because you have been a drunkard, and a gambler, and have lived in foul company, therefore now,--now that I have got a hold of you and can manipulate you in reference to your repentance and future conduct,--I will require from you a mode of life that, in its general attractions, shall be about equal to that of a hermit in the desert.
If you flinch you are not only a monster of ingratitude towards me, who am taking all this trouble to save you, but you are also a poor wretch for whom no possible hope of grace can remain." When it is found that a young man is neglecting his duties, doing nothing, spending his nights in billiard rooms and worse places, and getting up at two o'clock in the day, the usual prescription of his friends is that he should lock himself up in his own dingy room, drink tea, and spend his hours in reading good books. It is hardly recognised that a sudden change from billiards to good books requires a strength of character which, if possessed, would probably have kept the young man altogether from falling into bad habits. If we left the doors of our prisons open, and then expressed disgust because the prisoners walked out, we should hardly be less rational. The hours at Mrs.
Stiggs's house had been frightfully heavy to poor Carry Brattle, and at last she escaped.
It was half-past ten on the Monday morning when she went out. It was her custom to go out at that hour. Mr. Fenwick had desired her to attend the morning services at the Cathedral. She had done so for a day or two, and had then neglected them. But she had still left the house always at that time; and once, when Mrs. Stiggs had asked some question on the subject, she had replied almost in anger that she was not a prisoner. On this occasion she made changes in her dress which were not usual, and therefore she was careful to avoid being seen as she went; but had she been interrogated she would have persevered.
Who had a right to stop her?
But where should she go? The reader may perhaps remember that once when Mr. Fenwick first found this poor girl, after her flight from home and her great disgrace, she had expressed a desire to go to the mill and just look at it,--even if she might do no more than that.
The same idea was now in her mind, but as she left the city she had no concerted plan. There were two things between which she must choose at once,--either to go to London, or not to go to London. She had money enough for her fare, and perhaps a few shillings over. In a dim way she did understand that the choice was between going to the devil at once,--and not going quite at once; and then, weakly, wistfully, with uncertain step, almost without an operation of her mind, she did not take the turn which, from the end of Trotter's Buildings, would have brought her to the Railway Station, but did take that which led her by the Three Honest Men out on to the Devizes road,--the road which passes across Salisbury Plain, and leads from the city to many Wiltshire villages,--of which Bullhampton is one.
She walked slowly, but she walked nearly the whole day. Nothing could be more truly tragical than the utterly purposeless tenour of her day,--and of her whole life. She had no plan,--nothing before her; no object even for the evening and night of that very day in which she was wasting her strength on the Devizes road. It is the lack of object, of all aim, in the lives of the houseless wanderers that gives to them the most terrible element of their misery. Think of it!
To walk forth with, say, ten shillings in your pocket,--so that there need be no instant suffering from want of bread or shelter,--and have no work to do, no friend to see, no place to expect you, no duty to accomplish, no hope to follow, no bourn to which you can draw nigher,--except that bourn which, in such circumstances, the traveller must surely regard as simply the end of his weariness! But there is nothing to which humanity cannot attune itself. Men can live upon poison, can learn to endure absolute solitude, can bear contumely, scorn, and shame, and never show it. Carry Brattle had already become accustomed to misery, and as she walked she thought more of the wretchedness of the present hour, of her weary feet, of her hunger, and of the nature of the rest which she might purchase for herself at some poor wayside inn, than she did of her future life.
[Illustration: Carry Brattle.]
She got a lump of bread and a glass of beer in the middle of the day, and then she walked on and on till the evening came. She went very slowly, stopping often and sitting down when the road side would afford her some spot of green shade. At eight o'clock she had walked fifteen miles, straight along the road, and, as she knew well, had passed the turn which would have taken her by the nearest way from Salisbury to Bullhampton. She had formed no plan, but entertained a hope that if she continued to walk they would not catch her so as to take her to Heytesbury on the morrow. She knew that if she went on she might get to Pycroft Common by this road; and though there was no one in the whole world whom she hated worse than Mrs. Burrows, still at Pycroft Common she might probably be taken in and sheltered. At eight she reached a small village which she remembered to have seen before, of which she saw the name written up on a board, and which she knew to be six miles from Bullhampton. She was so tired and weary that she could go no further, and here she asked for a bed. She told them that she was walking from Salisbury to the house of a friend who lived near Devizes, and that she had thought she could do it in one day and save her railway fare. She was simply asked to pay for her bed and supper beforehand, and then she was taken in and fed and sheltered. On the next morning she got up very late and was unwilling to leave the house. She paid for her breakfast, and, as she was not told to go her way, she sat on the chair in which she had been placed, without speaking, almost without moving, till late in the afternoon. At three o'clock she roused herself, asked for some bread and cheese which she put in her pocket, and started again upon her journey. She thought that she would be safe, at any rate for that day, from the magistrates and the policemen, from the sight of her brother, and from the presence of that other man at Heytesbury. But whither she would go when she left the house,--whether on to the hated cottage at Pycroft Common, or to her father's house, she had not made up her mind when she tied on her hat. She went on along the road towards Devizes, and about two miles from the village she came to a lane turning to the left, with a finger-post. On this was written a direction,--To Bullhampton and Imber; and here she turned short off towards the parish in which she had been born. It was then four o'clock, and when she had travelled a mile further she found a nook under the wall of a little bridge, and there she seated herself, and ate her dinner of bread and cheese. While she was there a policeman on foot passed along the road. The man did not see her, and had he seen her would have taken no more than a policeman's ordinary notice of her; but she saw him, and in consequence did not leave her hiding-place for hours.
About nine o'clock she crept on again, but even then her mind was not made up. She did not even yet know where she would bestow herself for that night. It seemed to her that there would be an inexpressible pleasure to her, even in her misery, in walking round the precincts of the mill, in gazing at the windows of the house, in standing on the bridge where she had so often loitered, and in looking once more on the scene of her childhood. But, as she thought of this, she remembered the darkness of the stream, and the softly-gurgling but rapid flow with which it hurried itself on beneath the black abyss of the building. She had often shuddered as she watched it, indulging herself in the luxury of causeless trepidation. But now, were she there, she would surely take that plunge into the blackness, which would bring her to the end of all her misery!
And yet, as she went on towards her old home, through the twilight, she had no more definite idea than that of looking once more on the place which had been cherished in her memory through all her sufferings. As to her rest for the night she had no plan,--unless, indeed, she might find her rest in the hidden mill-pool of that dark, softly-gurgling stream.