But do not think that I want to hurry you. I have said come at once; but I do not mean that so as to interfere with you. You must have so many things to do; and if I get one line from you to say that you will come, I can be ever so patient. I have not been happy once since we parted.
It is easy for people to say that they will conquer their feelings, but it has seemed to me to be quite impossible to do it. I shall never try again.
As soon as the body of her letter was written, she could have continued her postscript for ever. It seemed to her then as though nothing would be more delightful than to let the words flow on with full expressions of all her love and happiness. To write to him was pleasant enough, as long as there came on her no need to mention Mr.
Gilmore's name.
That was to be her last evening at Bullhampton; and though no allusion was made to the subject, they were all thinking that she could never return to Bullhampton again. She had been almost as much at home with them as with her aunt at Loring; and now she must leave the place for ever. But they said not a word; and the evening passed by almost as had passed all other evenings. The remembrance of what had taken place since she had been at Bullhampton made it almost impossible to speak of her departure.
In the morning she was to be again driven to the railway-station at Westbury. Mr. Fenwick had work in his parish which would keep him at home, and she was to be trusted to the driving of the groom. "If I were to be away to-morrow," he said, as he parted from her that evening, "the churchwardens would have me up to the archdeacon, and the archdeacon might tell the Marquis, and where should I be then?"
Of course she begged him not to give it a second thought. "Dear Mary," he said, "I should of all things have liked to have seen the last of you,--that you might know that I love you as well as ever."
Then she burst into tears, and kissed him, and told him that she would always look to him as to a brother.
She called Mrs. Fenwick into her own room before she undressed.
"Janet," she said, "dearest Janet, we are not to part for ever?"
"For ever! No, certainly. Why for ever?"
"I shall never see you, unless you will come to me. Promise me that if ever I have a house you will come to me."
"Of course you will have a house, Mary."
"And you will come and see me,--will you not? Promise that you will come to me. I can never come back to dear, dear Bullhampton."
"No doubt we shall meet, Mary."
"And you must bring the children--my darling Flos! How else ever shall I see her? And you must write to me, Janet."
"I will write,--as often as you do, I don't doubt."
"You must tell me how he is, Janet. You must not suppose that I do not care for his welfare because I have not loved him. I know that my coming here has been a curse to him. But I could not help it. Could I have helped it, Janet?"
"Poor fellow! I wish it had not been so."
"But you do not blame me;--not much? Oh, Janet, say that you do not condemn me."
"I can say that with most perfect truth. I do not blame you. It has been most unfortunate; but I do not blame you. I am sure that you have struggled to do the best that you could."
"God bless you, my dearest, dearest friend! If you could only know how anxious I have been not to be wrong. But things have been wrong, and I could not put them right."
On the next morning they packed her into the little four-wheeled phaeton, and so she left Bullhampton. "I believe her to be as good a girl as ever lived," said the Vicar; "but all the same, I wish with all my heart that she had never come to Bullhampton."
CHAPTER LXVI.
AT THE MILL.
The presence of Carry Brattle was required in Salisbury for the trial of John Burrows and Lawrence Acorn on Wednesday the 22nd of August.
Our Vicar, who had learned that the judges would come into the city only late on the previous evening, and that the day following their entrance would doubtless be so fully occupied with other matters as to render it very improbable that the affair of the murder would then come up, had endeavoured to get permission to postpone Carry's journey; but the little men in authority are always stern on such points, and witnesses are usually treated as persons who are not entitled to have any views as to their own personal comfort or welfare. Lawyers, who are paid for their presence, may plead other engagements, and their pleas will be considered; and if a witness be a lord, it may perhaps be thought very hard that he should be dragged away from his amusements. But the ordinary commonplace witness must simply listen and obey--at his peril. It was thus decided that Carry must be in Salisbury on the Wednesday, and remain there, hanging about the Court, till her services should be wanted. Fenwick, who had been in Salisbury, had seen that accommodation should be provided for her and for the miller at the house of Mrs. Stiggs.
The miller had decided upon going with his daughter. The Vicar did not go down to the mill again; but Mrs. Fenwick had seen Brattle, and had learned that such was to be the case. The old man said nothing to his own people about it till the Monday afternoon, up to which time Fanny was prepared to accompany her sister. He was then told, when he came in from the mill for his tea, that word had come down from the vicarage that there would be two bed-rooms for them at Mrs. Stiggs'
house. "I don't know why there should be the cost of a second room,"
said Fanny; "Carry and I won't want two beds."
Up to this time there had been no reconciliation between the miller and his younger daughter. Carry would ask her father whether she should do this or that, and the miller would answer her as a surly master will answer a servant whom he does not like; but the father, as a father, had never spoken to the child; nor, up to this moment, had he said a word even to his wife of his intended journey to Salisbury. But now he was driven to speak. He had placed himself in the arm chair, and was sitting with his hands on his knees gazing into the empty fire-grate. Carry was standing at the open window, pulling the dead leaves off three or four geraniums which her mother kept there in pots. Fanny was passing in and out from the back kitchen, in which the water for their tea was being boiled, and Mrs.
Brattle was in her usual place with her spectacles on, and a darning needle in her hand. A minute was allowed to pass by before the miller answered his eldest daughter.
"There'll be two beds wanted," he said; "I told Muster Fenwick as I'd go with the girl myself;--and so I wull."
Carry started so that she broke the flower which she was touching.
Mrs. Brattle immediately stopped her needle, and withdrew her spectacles from her nose. Fanny, who was that instant bringing the tea-pot out of the back kitchen, put it down among the tea cups, and stood still to consider what she had heard.
"Dear, dear, dear!" said the mother.
"Father," said Fanny, coming up to him, and just touching him with her hand; "'twill be best for you to go, much best. I am heartily glad on it, and so will Carry be."
"I knows nowt about that," said the miller; "but I mean to go, and that's all about it. I ain't a been to Salsbry these fifteen year and more, and I shan't be there never again."
"There's no saying that, father," said Fanny.
"And it ain't for no pleasure as I'm agoing now. Nobody 'll s'pect that of me. I'd liever let the millstone come on my foot."
There was nothing more said about it that evening, nothing more at least in the miller's hearing. Carry and her sister were discussing it nearly the whole night. It was very soon plain to Fanny that Carry had heard the tidings with dismay. To be alone with her father for two, three, or perhaps four days, seemed to her to be so terrible, that she hardly knew how to face the misery and gloom of his company,--in addition to the fears she had as to what they would say and do to her in the Court. Since she had been home, she had learned almost to tremble at the sound of her father's foot; and yet she had known that he would not harm her, would hardly notice her, would not do more than look at her. But now, for three long frightful days to come, she would be subject to his wrath during every moment of her life.
"Will he speak to me, Fanny, d'ye think?" she asked.
"Of course he'll speak to you, child."
"But he hasn't, you know,--not since I've been home; not once; not as he does to you and mother. I know he hates me, and wishes I was dead.
And, Fanny, I wishes it myself every day of my life."
"He wishes nothing of the kind, Carry."
"Why don't he say one kind word to me, then? I know I've been bad.
But I ain't a done a single thing since I've been home as 'd a' made him angry if he seed it, or said a word as he mightn't a' heard."
"I don't think you have, dear."
"Then why can't he come round, if it was ever so little? I'd sooner he'd beat me; that I would."
"He'll never do that, Carry. I don't know as he ever laid a hand upon one of us since we was little things."
"It 'd be better than never speaking to a girl. Only for you and mother, Fan, I'd be off again."
"You would not. You know you would not. How dare you say that?"