The Vicar of Bullhampton II

THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON

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

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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

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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

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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.”

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.

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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 bet-

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ter 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.

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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.

The next morning after breakfast Fenwick himself went away. “I’ve had more than enough of it,” he said, to his wife, “and I won’t be near them.”

Mrs. Fenwick was with her friend up to the moment at which the bell was heard at the front door. There was no coming up across the lawn now.

“Dear Janet,” Mary said, when they were alone, “how I wish that I had never come to trouble you here at the vicarage!”

Mrs. Fenwick was not without a feeling that much of all this unhappiness had come from her own persistency on behalf of her husband’s friend, and thought that some expression was due from her to Mary to that effect. “You are not to

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suppose that we are angry with you,” she said, putting her arm round Mary’s waist.

“Pray, —pray do not be angry with me.”

“The fault has been too much ours for that. We should have left this alone, and not have pressed it. We have meant it for the best, dear.”

“And I have meant to do right; —but, Janet, it is so hard to do right.”

When the ring at the door was heard, Mrs. Fenwick met Harry Gilmore in the hall, and told him that he would find Mary in the drawing-room. She pressed his hand warmly as she looked into his face, but he spoke no word as he passed on to the room which she had just left. Mary was standing in the middle of the floor, half-way between the window and the door, to receive him. When she heard the door-bell she put her hand to her heart, and there she held it till he was approaching; but then she dropped it and stood without support, with her face upraised to meet him. He came up to her very quickly and took her by the hand. “Mary,” he said, “I am not to believe this message that has been sent to me. I do not believe it. I will not believe it. I will not accept it. It is out of the question; —quite out of the question. It shall be withdrawn, and nothing more shall be said about it.”

“That cannot be, Mr. Gilmore.”

“What cannot be? I say that it must be. You cannot deny, Mary, that you are betrothed to me as my wife. Are such betrothals to be nothing? Are promises to go for nothing because there has been no ceremony? You might as well come and tell me that you would leave me even though you were my wife.”

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