"Indeed, you shall do nothing of the kind."
"The idea of a basket of birds to atone for such insults and calumny as that man has heaped on you!"
"The birds will be only a first instalment," said the Vicar,--and then there were more quips and quirks about that. It was presumed by Mr. Fenwick that the second instalment would be the first pheasants shot in October. But the second instalment came before September was over in the shape of the following note:--
Turnover Park, 20th September, 186--.
The Marquis of Trowbridge and the Ladies Sophie and Carolina Stowte request that Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick will do them the honour of coming to Turnover Park on Monday the 6th October, and staying till Saturday the 11th.
"That's an instalment indeed," said Mrs. Fenwick. "And now what on earth are we to do?" The Vicar admitted that it had become very serious. "We must either go, and endure a terrible time of it,"
continued Mrs. Fenwick, "or we must show him very plainly that we will have nothing more to do with him. I don't see why we are to be annoyed, merely because he is a Marquis."
"It won't be because he is a Marquis."
"Why then? You can't say that you love the old man, or that the Ladies Sophie and Carolina Stowte are the women you'd have me choose for companions, or that that soapy, silky, humbugging Lord St. George is to your taste."
"I am not sure about St. George. He can be everything to everybody, and would make an excellent bishop."
"You know you don't like him, and you know also that you will have a very bad time of it at Turnover."
"I could shoot pheasants all the week."
"Yes,--with a conviction at the time that the Ladies Sophie and Carolina were calling you an infidel behind your back for doing so.
As for myself I feel perfectly certain that I should spar with them."
"It isn't because he's a Marquis," said the Vicar, carrying on his argument after a long pause. "If I know myself, I think I may say that that has no allurement for me. And, to tell the truth, had he been simply a Marquis, and had I been at liberty to indulge my own wishes, I would never have allowed myself to be talked out of my righteous anger by that soft-tongued son of his. But to us he is a man of the very greatest importance, because he owns the land on which the people live with whom we are concerned. It is for their welfare that he and I should be on good terms together; and therefore if you don't mind the sacrifice, I think we'll go."
"What;--for the whole week, Frank?"
The Vicar was of opinion that the week might be judiciously curtailed by two days; and, consequently, Mrs. Fenwick presented her compliments to the Ladies Sophie and Carolina Stowte, and expressed the great pleasure which she and Mr. Fenwick would have in going to Turnover Park on the Tuesday, and staying till the Friday.
"So that I shall only be shooting two days," said the Vicar, "which will modify the aspect of my infidelity considerably."
They went to Turnover Castle. The poor old Marquis had rather a bad time of it for the hour or two previous to their arrival. It had become an acknowledged fact now in the county that Sam Brattle had had nothing to do with the murder of Farmer Trumbull, and that his acquaintance with the murderers had sprung from his desire to see his unfortunate sister settled in marriage with a man whom he at the time did not know to be disreputable. There had therefore been a reaction in favour of Sam Brattle, whom the county now began to regard as something of a hero. The Marquis, understanding all that, had come to be aware that he had wronged the Vicar in that matter of the murder.
And then, though he had been told upon very good authority,--no less than that of his daughters, who had been so informed by the sisters of a most exemplary neighbouring curate,--that Mr. Fenwick was a man who believed "just next to nothing," and would just as soon associate with a downright Pagan like old Brattle, as with any professing Christian,--still there was the fact of the Bishop's good opinion; and, though the Marquis was a self-willed man, to him a bishop was always a bishop. It was also clear to him that he had been misled in those charges which he had made against the Vicar in that matter of poor Carry Brattle's residence at Salisbury. Something of the truth of the girl's history had come to the ears of the Marquis, and he had been made to believe that he had been wrong. Then there was the affair of the chapel, in which, under his son's advice, he was at this moment expending 700 in rectifying the mistake which he had made. In giving the Marquis his due we must acknowledge that he cared but little about the money. Marquises, though they may have large properties, are not always in possession of any number of loose hundreds which they can throw away without feeling the loss. Nor was the Marquis of Trowbridge so circumstanced now. But that trouble did not gall him nearly so severely as the necessity which was on him to rectify an error made by himself. He had done a foolish thing. Under no circumstances should the chapel have been built on that spot. He knew it now, and he knew that he must apologise. Noblesse oblige.
The old lord was very stupid, very wrong-headed, and sometimes very arrogant; but he would not do a wrong if he knew it, and nothing on earth would make him tell a wilful lie. The epithet indeed might have been omitted; for a lie is not a lie unless it be wilful.
Lord Trowbridge passed the hours of this Tuesday morning under the frightful sense of the necessity for apologising;--and yet he remembered well the impudence of the man, how he had ventured to allude to the Ladies Stowte, likening them to--to--to--! It was terrible to be thought of. And his lordship remembered, too, how this man had written about the principal entrance to his own mansion as though it had been no more than the entrance to any other man's house! Though the thorns still rankled in his own flesh, he had to own that he himself had been wrong.
And he did it,--with an honesty that was beyond the reach of his much more clever son. When the Fenwicks arrived, they were taken into the drawing-room, in which were sitting the Ladies Sophie and Carolina with various guests already assembled at the Castle. In a minute or two the Marquis shuffled in and shook hands with the two new comers.
Then he shuffled about the room for another minute or two, and at last got his arm through that of the Vicar, and led him away into his own sanctum. "Mr. Fenwick," he said, "I think it best to express my regret at once for two things that have occurred."
[Illustration: The drawing-room at Turnover Castle.]
"It does not signify, my lord."
"But it does signify to me, and if you will listen to me for a moment I shall take your doing so as a favour added to that which you have conferred upon me in coming here." The Vicar could only bow and listen. "I am sorry, Mr. Fenwick, that I should have written to the bishop of this diocese in reference to your conduct." Fenwick found it very difficult to hold his tongue when this was said. He imagined that the Marquis was going to excuse himself about the chapel,--and about the chapel he cared nothing at all. But as to that letter to the bishop, he did feel that the less said about it the better. He restrained himself, however, and the Marquis went on. "Things had been told me, Mr. Fenwick;--and I thought that I was doing my duty."
"It did me no harm, my lord."
"I believe not. I had been misinformed,--and I apologise." The Marquis paused, and the Vicar bowed. It is probable that the Vicar did not at all know how deep at that moment were the sufferings of the Marquis. "And now as to the chapel," continued the Marquis.
"My lord, that is such a trifle that you must let me say that it is not and has not been of the slightest consequence."
"I was misled as to that bit of ground."
"I only wish, my lord, that the chapel could stand there."
"That is impossible. The land has been appropriated to other purposes, and though we have all been a little in the dark about our own rights, right must be done. I will only add that I have the greatest satisfaction in seeing you and Mrs. Fenwick at Turnover, and that I hope the satisfaction may often be repeated." Then he led the way back into the drawing-room, and the evil hour had passed over his head.
Upon the whole, things went very well with both the Vicar and his wife during their visit. He did go out shooting one day, and was treated very civilly by the Turnover gamekeeper, though he was prepared with no five-pound note at the end of his day's amusement.
When he returned to the house, his host congratulated him on his performance just as cordially as though he had been one of the laity.
On the next day he rode over with Lord St. George to see the County Hunt kennels, which were then at Charleycoats, and nobody seemed to think him very wicked because he ventured to have an opinion about hounds. Mrs. Fenwick's amusements were, perhaps, less exciting, but she went through them with equanimity. She was taken to see the parish schools, and was walked into the parish church,--in which the Stowte family were possessed of an enormous recess called a pew, but which was in truth a room, with a fireplace in it. Mrs. Fenwick thought it did not look very much like a church; but as the Ladies Stowte were clearly very proud of it she held her peace as to that idea. And so the visit to Turnover Park was made, and the Fenwicks were driven home.
"After all, there's nothing like burying the hatchet," said he.
"But who sharpened the hatchet?" asked Mrs. Fenwick.
"Never mind who sharpened it. We've buried it."
CHAPTER LXXIII.
CONCLUSION.
There is nothing further left to be told of this story of the village of Bullhampton and its Vicar beyond what may be necessary to satisfy the reader as to the condition and future prospects of the Brattle family. The writer of these pages ventures to hope that whatever may have been the fate in the readers' mind of that couple which are about to settle themselves peaceably at Dunripple, and to wait there in comfort till their own time for reigning shall have come, some sympathy may have been felt with those humbler personages who have lived with orderly industry at the mill,--as, also, with those who, led away by disorderly passions, have strayed away from it, and have come back again to the old home.
For a couple of days after the return of the miller with his daughter and son, very little was said about the past;--very little, at least, in which either the father or Sam took any part. Between the two sisters there were no doubt questions and answers by the hour together as to every smallest detail of the occurrences at Salisbury.
And the mother almost sang hymns of joy over her child, in that the hour which she had so much dreaded had passed by. But the miller said not a word;--and Sam was almost equally silent. "But it be all over, Sam?" asked his mother, anxiously one day. "For certain sure it be all over now?"
"There's one, mother, for whom it ain't all over yet;--poor devil."
"But he was the--murderer, Sam."
"So was t'other fellow. There weren't no difference. If one was more spry to kill t'old chap than t'other, Acorn was the spryest. That's what I think. But it's done now, and there ain't been much justice in it. As far as I sees, there never ain't much justice. They was nigh a-hanging o' me; and if those chaps had thought o' bringing t'old man's box nigh the mill, instead of over by t'old woman's cottage, they would a hung me;--outright. And then they was twelve months about it! I don't think much on 'em." When his mother tried to continue the conversation,--which she would have loved to do with that morbid interest which we always take in a matter which has been nearly fatal to us, but from which we have escaped,--Sam turned into the mill, saying that he had had enough of it, and wouldn't have any more.
Then, on the third day, a report of the trial in a county newspaper reached them. This the miller read all through, painfully, from the beginning to the end, omitting no detail of the official occurrences.
At last, when he came to the account of Sam's evidence, he got up from the chair on which he was sitting close to the window, and striking his fist upon the table, made his first and last comment upon the trial. "It was well said, Sam. Yes; though thou be'est my own, it was well said." Then he put the paper down and walked out of doors, and they could see that his eyes were full of tears.
But from that time forth there came a great change in his manner to his youngest daughter. "Well, Carry," he would say to her in the morning, with as much outward sign of affection as he ever showed to any one; and at night, when she came and stood over him before he lifted his weary limbs out of his chair to take himself away to his bed, he turned his forehead to her to be kissed, as he did to that better daughter who had needed no forgiveness from him. Nevertheless, they who knew him,--and there were none who knew him better than Fanny did,--were aware that he never for a moment forgot the disgrace which had fallen upon his household. He had forgiven the sinner, but the shame of the sin was always on him; and he carried himself as a man who was bound to hide himself from the eyes of his neighbours because there had come upon him a misfortune which made it fit that he should live in retirement.