The Vicar Of Bullhampton Part 61

Then f.a.n.n.y told her father the whole story,--everything as it occurred, and did not forget to add her own conviction that Carry's life had been decent in all respects since the Vicar had found a home for her in Salisbury. "You would not have it go on like that, father.

She is naught to our parson."

"I will pay. As long as there is a shilling left, I will pay for her.

She shall not live on the charity of any man, whether parson or no parson. But I will not see her. While she be here you may just send me my vittels to the mill. If she be not gone afore night, I will sleep here among the sacks."

She stayed with him till the labourer came, and then she returned to the house, having failed as yet to touch his heart. She went back and told her story to her mother, and then a part of it to Carry who was still in bed. Indeed, she had found her mother by Carry's bedside, and had to wait till she could separate them before she could tell any story to either. "What does he say of me, Fan?" asked the poor sinner. "Does he say that I must go? Will he never speak to me again?

I will just throw myself into the mill-race and have done with it."

Her sister bade her to rise and dress herself, but to remain where she was. It could not be expected, she said, but that their father would be hard to persuade. "I know that he will kill me when he sees me," said Carry.

At eight o'clock f.a.n.n.y took the old man his breakfast to the mill, while Mrs. Brattle waited on Carry, as though she had deserved all the good things which a mother could do for a child. The miller sat upon a sack at the back of the building, while the hired man took his meal of bread and cheese in the front, and f.a.n.n.y remained close at his elbow. While the old man was eating she said nothing to him. He was very slow, and sat with his eyes fixed upon the morsel of sky which was visible through the small aperture, thinking evidently of anything but the food that he was swallowing. Presently he returned the empty bowl and plate to his daughter, as though he were about at once to resume his work. Hitherto he had not uttered a single word since she had come to him.

"Father," she said, "think of it. Is it not good to have mercy and to forgive? Would you drive your girl out again upon the streets?"

The miller still did not speak, but turned his face round upon his daughter with a gaze of such agony that she threw herself on the sack beside him, and clung to him with her arms round his neck.

"If she were such as thee, Fan," he said. "Oh, if she were such as thee!" Then again he turned away his face that she might not see the tear that was forcing itself into the corner of his eye.

She remained with him an hour before he moved. His companion in the mill did not come near them, knowing, as the poor do know on such occasions, there was something going on which would lead them to prefer that he should be absent. The words that were said between them were not very many; but at the end of the hour f.a.n.n.y returned to the house.

"Carry," she said, "father is coming in."

"If he looks at me, it will kill me," said Carry.

Mrs. Brattle was so lost in her hopes and fears that she knew not what to do, or how to bestow herself. A minute had hardly pa.s.sed when the miller's step was heard, and Carry knew that she was in the presence of her father. She had been sitting, but now she rose, and went to him and knelt at his feet.

"Father," she said, "if I may bide with you,--if I may bide with you--." But her voice was lost in sobbing, and she could make no promise as to her future conduct.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "If I may bide with you,--if I may bide with you."]

"She may stay with us," the father said, turning to his eldest daughter; "but I shall never be able to show my face again about the parish."

He had uttered no words of forgiveness to his daughter, nor had he bestowed upon her any kiss. f.a.n.n.y had raised her when she was on the ground at his feet, and had made her seat herself apart.

"In all the whole warld," he said, looking round upon his wife and his elder child, raising his hand as he uttered the words, and speaking with an emphasis that was terrible to the hearers, "there is no thing so vile as a harlot." All the dreaded fierceness of his manner had then come back to him, and neither of them had dared to answer him. After that he at once went back to the mill, and to f.a.n.n.y who followed him he vouchsafed to repeat the permission that his daughter should be allowed to remain beneath his roof.

Between twelve and one she again went to fetch him to his dinner. At first he declared that he would not come, that he was busy, and that he would eat a morsel, where he was, in the mill. But f.a.n.n.y argued the matter with him.

"Is it always to be so, father?"

"I do not know. What matters it, so as I have strength to do a turn of work?"

"It must not be that her presence should drive you from the house.

Think of mother, and what she will suffer. Father, you must come."

Then he allowed himself to be led into the house, and he sat in his accustomed chair, and ate his dinner in gloomy silence. But after dinner he would not smoke.

"I tell 'ee, la.s.s, I do not want the pipe to-day. Now't has got itself done. D'ye think as grist 'll grind itself without hands?"

When Carry said that it would be better than this that she should go again, f.a.n.n.y told her to remember that evil things could not be cured in a day. With the mother that afternoon was, on the whole, a happy time, for she sat with her lost child's hand within her own. Late in the evening, when the miller returned to his rest, Carry moved about the house softly, resuming some old task to which in former days she had been accustomed; and as she did so the miller's eyes would wander round the room after her; but he did not speak to her on that day, nor did he p.r.o.nounce her name.

Two other circ.u.mstances which bear upon our story occurred at the mill that afternoon. After their tea, at which the miller did not make his appearance, f.a.n.n.y Brattle put on her bonnet and ran across the fields to the vicarage. After all the trouble that Mr. Fenwick had taken, it was, she thought, necessary that he should be told what had happened.

"That is the best news," said he, "that I have heard this many a day."

"I knew that you would be glad to hear that the poor child has found her home again." Then f.a.n.n.y told the whole story,--how Carry had escaped from Salisbury, being driven to do so by fear of the law proceedings at which she had been summoned to attend, how her father had sworn that he would not yield, and how at length he had yielded.

When f.a.n.n.y told the Vicar and Mrs. Fenwick that the old man had as yet not spoken to his daughter, they both desired her to be of good cheer.

"That will come, f.a.n.n.y," said Mrs. Fenwick, "if she once be allowed to sit at table with him."

"Of course it will come," said the Vicar. "In a week or two you will find that she is his favourite."

"She was the favourite with us all, sir, once," said f.a.n.n.y, "and may G.o.d send that it shall be so again. A winsome thing like her is made to be loved. You'll come and see her, Mr. Fenwick, some day?" Mr.

Fenwick promised that he would, and f.a.n.n.y returned to the mill.

The other circ.u.mstance was the arrival of Constable Toffy at the mill during f.a.n.n.y's absence. In the course of the day news had travelled into the village that Carry Brattle was again at the mill;--and Constable Toffy, who in regard to the Brattle family, was somewhat discomfited by the transactions of the previous day at Heytesbury, heard the news. He was aware,--being in that respect more capable than Lord Trowbridge of receiving enlightenment,--that the result of all the inquiries made, in regard to the murder, did, in truth, contain no t.i.ttle of evidence against Sam. As constables go, Constable Toffy was a good man, and he would be wronged if it were to be said of him that he regretted Sam's escape; but his nature was as is the nature of constables, and he could not rid himself of that feeling of disappointment which always attends baffled efforts. And though he saw that there was no evidence against Sam, he did not, therefore, necessarily think that the young man was innocent. It may be doubted whether, to the normal policeman's mind, any man is ever altogether absolved of any crime with which that man's name has been once connected. He felt, therefore, somewhat sore against the Brattles;--and then there was the fact that Carry Brattle, who had been regularly "subpoenaed," had kept herself out of the way,--most flagitiously, illegally and d.a.m.nably. She had run off from Salisbury, just as though she were a free person to do as she pleased with herself, and not subject to police orders! When, therefore, he heard that Carry was at the mill,--she having made herself liable to some terribly heavy fine by her contumacy,--it was manifestly his duty to see after her and let her know that she was wanted.

At the mill he saw only the miller himself, and his visit was not altogether satisfactory. Old Brattle, who understood very little of the case, but who did understand that his own son had been made clear in reference to that accusation, had no idea that his daughter had any concern with that matter, other than what had fallen to her lot in reference to her brother. When, therefore, Toffy inquired after Caroline Brattle, and desired to know whether she was at the mill, and also was anxious to be informed why she had not attended at Heytesbury in accordance with the requirements of the law, the miller turned upon him and declared that if anybody said a word against Sam Brattle in reference to the murder,--the magistrates having settled that matter,--he, Jacob Brattle, old as he was, would "see it out"

with that malignant slanderer. Constable Toffy did his best to make the matter clear to the miller, but failed utterly. Had he a warrant to search for anybody? Toffy had no warrant. Toffy only desired to know whether Caroline Brattle was or was not beneath her father's roof. The old miller, declaring to himself that, though his child had shamed him, he would not deny her now that she was again one of the family, acknowledged so much, but refused the constable admittance to the house.

"But, Mr. Brattle," said the constable, "she was subpoenaed."

"I know now't o' that," answered the miller, not deigning to turn his face round to his antagonist.

"But you know, Mr. Brattle, the law must have its course."

"No, I don't. And it ain't law as you should come here a hindering o'

me; and it ain't law as you should walk that unfortunate young woman off with you to prison."

"But she's wanted, Mr. Brattle;--not in the way of going to prison, but before the magistrates."

"There's a deal of things is wanted as ain't to be had. Anyways, you ain't no call to my house now, and as them as is there is in trouble, I'll ax you to be so kind as--as just to leave us alone."

Toffy, pretending that he was satisfied with the information received, and merely adding that Caroline Brattle must certainly, at some future time, be made to appear before the magistrates at Heytesbury, took his departure with more good-humour than the miller deserved from him, and returned to the village.

CHAPTER LIV.

MR. GILMORE'S RUBIES.

Mary Lowther struggled hard for a week to reconcile herself to her new fate, and at the end of the week had very nearly given way. The gloom which had fallen upon her acted upon her lover and then reacted upon herself. Could he have been light in hand, could he have talked to her about ordinary subjects, could he have behaved towards her with any even of the light courtesies of the every-day lover, she would have been better able to fight her battle. But when he was with her there was a something in his manner which always seemed to accuse her in that she, to whom he was giving so much, would give him nothing in return. He did not complain in words. He did not wilfully resent her coldness to him. But he looked, and walked, and spoke, and seemed to imply by every deed that he was conscious of being an injured man. At the end of the week he made her a handsome present, and in receiving it she had to a.s.sume some pleasure. But the failure was complete, and each of the two knew how great was the failure. Of course, there would be other presents. And he had already,--already, though no allusion to the day for the marriage had yet been made,--begun to press on for those changes in his house for which she would not ask, but which he was determined to effect for her comfort.

There had been another visit to the house and gardens, and he had told her that this should be done,--unless she objected; and that that other change should be made, if it were not opposed to her wishes. She made an attempt to be enthusiastic,--enthusiastic on the wrong side, to be zealous to save him money, and the whole morning was beyond measure sad and gloomy. Then she asked herself whether she meant to go through with it. If not, the sooner that she retreated and hid herself and her disgrace for the rest of her life the better.

She had accepted him at last, because she had been made to believe that by doing so she would benefit him, and because she had taught herself to think that it was her duty to disregard herself. She had thought of herself till she was sick of the subject. What did it matter,--about herself,--as long as she could be of some service to some one? And so thinking, she had accepted him. But now she had begun to fear that were she to marry this man she could not be of service to him. And when the thing should be done,--if ever it were done,--there would be no undoing it. Would not her life be a life of sin if she were to live as the wife of a man whom she did not love,--while, perhaps, she would be unable not to love another man?

Nothing of all this was told to the Vicar, but Mrs. Fenwick knew what was going on in her friend's mind, and spoke her own very freely.