When the Vicar left his friend Gilmore, as has been told in the last chapter, he did not return to the vicarage across the fields, but took the carriage road down to the lodge, and from thence crossed the stile that led into the path down to the mill. This was on the 15th of August, a Wednesday, and Carry was summoned to be at Salisbury on that day week. As the day drew near she became very nervous. At the Vicar's instance Fanny had written to her brother George, asking him whether he would be good to his poor sister, and take her under his charge. He had written back,--or rather his wife had written for him,--sending Carry a note for 20 as a present, but declining, on the score of his own children, to be seen with her in Salisbury on the occasion. "I shall go with her myself, Mr. Fenwick," Fanny had said to the Vicar; "it'll just be better than nobody at all to be along with her." The Vicar was now going down to the mill to give his assent to this. He could see nothing better. Fanny at any rate would be firm; would not be prevented by false shame from being a very sister to her sister; and would perhaps be admitted where a brother's attendance might be refused. He had promised to see the women at the mill as early in the week as he could, and now he went thither intent on giving them advice as to their proceedings at Salisbury. It would doubtless be necessary that they should sleep there, and he hoped that they might be accommodated by Mrs. Stiggs.
As he stepped out from the field path on to the lane, almost immediately in front of the mill, he came directly upon the miller.
It was between twelve and one o'clock, and old Brattle was wandering about for a minute or two waiting for his dinner. The two men met so that it was impossible that they should not speak; and on this occasion the miller did not seem to avoid his visitor. "Muster Fenwick," said he, as he took the Vicar's hand, "I am bound to say as I'm much obliged to ye for all y' have done for that poor lass in there."
"Don't say a word about that, Mr. Brattle."
"But I must say a word. There's money owing as I knows. There was ten shilling a week for her keep all that time she was at Salsbry yonder."
"I will not hear a word as to any money."
"Her brother George has sent her a gift, Muster Fenwick,--twenty pound."
"I am very glad to hear it."
"George is a well-to-do man, they tell me," continued the father, "and can afford to part with his money. But he won't come forward to help the girl any other gait. I'll thank you just to take what's due, Muster Fenwick, and you can give her sister the change. Our Fanny has got the note as George sent."
Then there was a dispute about the money, as a matter of course.
Fenwick swore that nothing was due, and the miller protested that as the money was there all his daughter's expenses at Salisbury should be repaid. And the miller at last got the best of it. Fenwick promised that he would look to his book, see how much he had paid, and mention the sum to Fanny at some future time. He positively refused to take the note at present, protesting that he had no change, and that he would not burden himself with the responsibility of carrying so much money about with him in his pocket. Then he asked whether, if he went into the house, he would be able to say a word or two to the women before dinner. He had made up his mind that he would make no further attempt at reconciling the father to his daughter. He had often declared to his wife that there could be nothing so hateful to a man as the constant interference of a self-constituted adviser.
"I so often feel that I am making myself odious when I am telling them to do this or that; and then I ask myself what I should say if anybody were to come and advise me how to manage you and the bairns." And he had told his wife more than once how very natural and reasonable had been the expression of the lady's wrath at Startup, when he had taken upon himself to give her advice. "People know what is good for them to do, well enough, without being dictated to by a clergyman!" He had repeated the words to himself and to his wife a dozen times, and talked of having them put up in big red letters over the fire-place in his own study. He had therefore quite determined to say never another word to old Brattle in reference to his daughter Carry. But now the miller himself began upon the subject.
"You can see 'em, Muster Fenwick, in course. It don't make no odds about dinner. But I was wanting just to say a word to you about that poor young ooman there." This he said in a slow, half-hesitating voice, as though he could hardly bring himself to speak of the unfortunate one to whom he alluded. The Vicar muttered some word of assent, and then the miller went on. "You knows, of course, as how she be back here at the mill?"
"Certainly I do. I've seen her more than once."
"Muster Fenwick, I don't suppose as any one as asn't tried it knows what it is. I hopes you mayn't never know it; nor it ain't likely.
Muster Fenwick, I'd sooner see her dead body stretched afore me,--and I loved her a'most as well as any father ever loved his da'ter,--I'd sooner a see'd her brought home to the door stiff and stark than know her to be the thing she is." His hesitation had now given way to emphasis, and he raised his hand as he spoke. The Vicar caught it and held it in his own, and strove to find some word to say as the old man paused in his speech. But to Jacob Brattle it was hard for a clergyman to find any word to say on such an occasion. Of what use could it be to preach of repentance to one who believed nothing; or to tell of the opportunity which forgiveness by an earthly parent might afford to the sinner of obtaining lasting forgiveness elsewhere? But let him have said what he might, the miller would not have listened. He was full of that which lay upon his own heart. "If they only know'd what them as cares for 'em 'd has to bear, maybe they'd think a little. But it ain't natural they should know, Muster Fenwick, and one's a'most tempted to say that a man 'd better have no child at all."
"Think of your son George, Mr. Brattle, and of Mrs. Jay."
"What's them to me? He sends the girl a twenty-pun'-note, and I wish he'd a kep' it. As for t'other, she wouldn't let the girl inside her door! It's here she has to come."
"What comfort would you have, Mr. Brattle, without Fanny?"
"Fanny! I'm not saying nothing against Fanny. Not but what she hadn't no business to let the girl into the house in the middle of the night without saying a word to me."
"Would you have had her leave her sister outside in the cold and damp all night?"
"Why didn't she come and ax? All the same, I ain't a saying nowt again Fanny. But, Muster Fenwick, if you ever come to have one foot bad o' the gout, it won't make you right to know that the other ain't got it. Y'll have the pain a gnawing of you from the bad foot till you clean forget all the rest o' your body. It's so with me, I knows."
"What can I say to you, Mr. Brattle? I do feel for you. I do,--I do."
"Not a doubt on it, Muster Fenwick. They all on 'em feels for me.
They all on 'em knows as how I'm bruised and mangled a'most as though I'd fallen through into that water-wheel. There ain't one in all Bull'ompton as don't know as Jacob Brattle is a broken man along of his da'ter that is a--"
"Silence, Mr. Brattle. You shall not say it. She is not that;--at any rate not now. Have you no knowledge that sin may be left behind and deserted as well as virtue?"
"It ain't easy to leave disgrace behind, any ways. For ought I knows a girl may be made right arter a while; but as for her father, nothing 'll ever make him right again. It's in here, Muster Fenwick,--in here. There's things as is hard on us; but when they comes one can't send 'em away just because they is hardest of all to bear. I'd a put up with aught, only this, and defied all Bull'ompton to say as it broke me;--but I'm about broke now. If I hadn't more nor a crust at home, nor a decent coat to my back, I'd a looked 'em all square in the face as ever I did. But I can't look no man square in the face now;--and as for other folk's girls, I can't bear 'em near me,--no how. They makes me think of my own." Fenwick had now turned his back to the miller, in order that he might wipe away his tears without showing them. "I'm thinking of her always, Muster Fenwick;--day and night. When the mill's agoing, it's all the same.
It's just as though there warn't nothing else in the whole world as I minded to think on. I've been a man all my life, Muster Fenwick; and now I ain't a man no more."
[Illustration: "It's in here, Muster Fenwick,--in here."]
Our friend the Vicar never before felt himself so utterly unable to administer comfort in affliction. There was nothing on which he could take hold. He could tell the man, no doubt, that beyond all this there might be everlasting joy, not only for him, but for him and the girl together;--joy which would be sullied by no touch of disgrace.
But there was a stubborn strength in the infidelity of this old Pagan which was utterly impervious to any adjuration on that side. That which he saw and knew and felt, he would believe; but he would believe nothing else. He knew now that he was wounded and sore and wretched, and he understood the cause. He knew that he must bear his misery to the last, and he struggled to make his back broad for the load. But even the desire for ease, which is natural to all men, would not make him flinch in his infidelity. As he would not believe when things went well with him, and when the comfort of hope for the future was not imperatively needed for his daily solace,--so would he not believe now, when his need for such comfort was so pressing.
The upshot of it all was, that the miller thought that he would take his own daughter into Salisbury, and was desirous of breaking the matter in this way to the friend of his family. The Vicar, of course, applauded him much. Indeed, he applauded too much;--for the miller turned on him and declared that he was by no means certain that he was doing right. And when the Vicar asked him to be gentle with the girl, he turned upon him again.
"Why ain't she been gentle along of me? I hates such gentility, Muster Fenwick. I'll be honest with her, any way." But he thought better of it before he let the Vicar go. "I shan't do her no hurt, Muster Fenwick. Bad as she's been, she's my own flesh and blood still."
After what he had heard, Mr. Fenwick declined going into the mill-house, and returned home without seeing Mrs. Brattle and her daughters. The miller's determination should be told by himself; and the Vicar felt that he could hardly keep the secret were he now to see the women.
CHAPTER LXIV.
IF I WERE YOUR SISTER!
Mr. Gilmore in his last words to his friend Fenwick, declared that he would not accept the message which the Vicar delivered to him as the sufficient expression of Mary's decision. He would see Mary Lowther herself, and force her to confess her own treachery face to face with him,--to confess it or else to deny it. So much she could not refuse to grant him. Fenwick had indeed said that as long as the young lady was his guest she must be allowed to please herself as to whom she would see or not see. Gilmore should not be encouraged to force himself upon her at the vicarage. But the Squire was quite sure that so much as that must be granted to him. It was impossible that even Mary Lowther should refuse to see him after what had passed between them. And then, as he walked about his own fields, thinking of it all, he allowed himself to feel a certain amount of hope that after all she might be made to marry him. His love for her had not dwindled,--or rather his desire to call her his own, and to make her his wife; but it had taken an altered form out of which all its native tenderness had been pressed by the usage to which he had been subjected. It was his honour rather than his love that he now desired to satisfy. All those who knew him best were aware that he had set his heart upon this marriage, and it was necessary to him that he should show them that he was not to be disappointed. Mary's conduct to him from the day on which she had first engaged herself to him had been of such a kind as naturally to mar his tenderness and to banish from him all those prettinesses of courtship in which he would have indulged as pleasantly as any other man. She had told him in so many words that she intended to marry him without loving him, and on these terms he had accepted her. But in doing so he had unconsciously flattered himself that she would be better than her words,--that as she submitted herself to him as his affianced bride she would gradually become soft and loving in his hands. She had, if possible, been harder to him even than her words. She had made him understand thoroughly that his presence was not a joy to her, and that her engagement to him was a burden on her which she had taken on her shoulders simply because the romance of her life had been nipped in the bud in reference to the man whom she did love. Still he had persevered. He had set his heart sturdily on marrying this girl, and marry her he would, if, after any fashion, such marriage should come within his power. Mrs. Fenwick, by whose judgment and affection he had been swayed through all this matter, had told him again and again, that such a girl as Mary Lowther must love her husband,--if her husband loved her and treated her with tenderness. "I think I can answer for myself," Gilmore had once replied, and his friend had thoroughly believed in him. Trusting to the assurance he had persevered; he had persevered even when his trust in that assurance had been weakened by the girl's hardness. Anything would be better than breaking from an engagement on which he had so long rested all his hopes of happiness. She was pledged to be his wife; and, that being so, he could reform his gardens and decorate his house, and employ himself about his place with some amount of satisfaction. He had at least a purpose in his life. Then by degrees there grew upon him a fear that she still meant to escape from him, and he swore to himself,--without any tenderness,--that this should not be so. Let her once be his wife and she should be treated with all consideration,--with all affection, if she would accept it; but she should not make a fool of him now. Then the Vicar had come with his message, and he had been simply told that the engagement between them was over!
Of course he would see her,--and that at once. As soon as Fenwick had left him, he went with rapid steps over his whole place, and set the men again upon their work. This took place on a Wednesday, and the men should be continued at their work, at any rate, till Saturday. He explained this clearly to Ambrose, his gardener, and to the foreman in the house.
"It may be," said he to Ambrose, "that I shall change my mind altogether about the place;--but as I am still in doubt, let everything go on till Saturday."
Of course they all knew why it was that the conduct of the Squire was so like the conduct of a madman.
He sent down a note to Mary Lowther that evening.
DEAR MARY,
I have seen Fenwick, and of course I must see you. Will you name an hour for to-morrow morning?
Yours, H. G.
When Mary read this, which she did as they were sitting on the lawn after dinner, she did not hesitate for a moment. Hardly a word had been said to her by Fenwick, or his wife, since his return from the Privets. They did not wish to show themselves to be angry with her, but they found conversation to be almost impossible. "You have told him?" Mary had asked. "Yes, I have told him," the Vicar had replied; and that had been nearly all. In the course of the afternoon she had hinted to Janet Fenwick that she thought she had better leave Bullhampton. "Not quite yet, dear," Mrs. Fenwick had said, and Mary had been afraid to urge her request.
"Shall I name eleven to-morrow?" she said, as she handed the Squire's note to Mrs. Fenwick. Mrs. Fenwick and the Vicar both assented, and then she went in and wrote her answer.
I will be at home at the vicarage at eleven.--M. L.
She would have given much to escape what was coming, but she had not expected to escape it.