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.
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 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."
"But I am not your wife."
"What does it mean? Have I not been patient with you? Have I been hard to you, or cruel? Have you heard anything of me that is to my discredit?" She shook her head, eagerly. "Then what does it mean? Are you aware that you are proposing to yourself to make an utter wreck of me – to send me adrift upon the world without a purpose or a hope? What have I done to deserve such treatment?"
He pleaded his cause very well, – better than she had ever heard him plead a cause before. He held her still by the hand, not with a grasp of love, but with a retention which implied his will that she should not pass away from out of his power. He looked her full in the face, and she did not quail before his eyes. Nevertheless she would have given the world to have been elsewhere, and to have been free from the necessity of answering him. She had been fortifying herself throughout the morning with self-expressed protests that on no account would she yield, whether she had been right before or wrong; – of this she was convinced, that she must be right now to save herself from a marriage that was so distasteful to her.
"You have deserved nothing but good at my hands," she said.
"And is this good that you are doing to me?"
"Yes, – certainly. It is the best that I know how to do now."
"Why is it to be done now? What is it that has changed you?"
She withdrew her hand from him, and waited a while before she answered. It was necessary that she should tell him all the tidings that had been conveyed to her in the letter which she had received from her cousin Walter; but in order that he should perfectly understand them and be made to know their force upon herself she must remind him of the stipulation which she had made when she consented to her engagement. But how could she speak words which would seem to him to be spoken only to remind him of the abjectness of his submission to her?
"I was broken-hearted when I came here," she said.
"And therefore you would leave me broken-hearted now."
"You should spare me, Mr. Gilmore. You remember what I told you. I loved my cousin Walter entirely. I did not hide it from you. I begged you to leave me because it was so. I told you that my heart would not change. When I said so, I thought that you would – desist."
"I am to be punished, then, for having been too true to you?"
"I will not defend myself for accepting you at last. But you must remember that when I did so I said that I should go – back – to him, if he could take me."
"And you are going back to him?"
"If he will have me."
"You can stand there and look me in the face and tell me that you are false as that! You can confess to me that you will change like a weathercock; – be his one day, and then mine, and his again the next! You can own that you give yourself about first to one man, and then to another, just as may suit you at the moment! I would not have believed it of any woman. When you tell it me of yourself, I begin to think that I have been wrong all through in my ideas of a woman's character."
The time had now come in which she must indeed speak up. And speech seemed to be easier with her now that he had allowed himself to express his anger. He had expressed more than his anger. He had dared to shower his scorn upon her, and the pelting of the storm gave her courage. "You are unjust upon me, Mr. Gilmore, – unjust and cruel. You know in your heart that I have not changed."
"Were you not betrothed to me?"
"I was; – but in what way? Have I told you any untruth? Have I concealed anything? When I accepted you, did I not explain to you how and why it was so, – against my own wish, against my own judgment, – because then I had ceased to care what became of me. I do care now. I care very much."
"And you think that is justice to me?"
"If you will bandy accusations with me, why did you accept me when I told you that I could not love you? But, indeed, indeed, I would not say a word to displease you, if you would only spare me. We were both wrong; but the wrong must now be put right. You would not wish to take me for your wife when I tell you that my heart is full of affection for another man. Then, when I yielded, I was struggling to cure that as a great evil. Now I welcome it as the sweetest blessing of my life. If I were your sister, what would you have me do?"
He stood silent for a moment, and then the colour rose to his forehead as he answered her. "If you were my sister, my ears would tingle with shame when your name was mentioned in my presence."
The blood rushed also over her face, suffusing her whole countenance, forehead and all, and fire flashed from her eyes, and her lips were parted, and even her nostrils seemed to swell with anger. She looked full into his face for a second, and then she turned and walked speechless away from him. When the handle of the door was in her hand, she turned again to address him. "Mr. Gilmore," she said, "I will never willingly speak to you again." Then the door was opened and closed behind her before a word had escaped from his lips.
He knew that he had insulted her. He knew that he had uttered words so hard, that it might be doubted whether, under any circumstances, they could be justified from a gentleman to a lady. And certainly he had not intended to insult her as he was coming down to the vicarage. As far as any settled purpose had been formed in his mind, he had meant to force her back to her engagement with himself, by showing to her how manifest would be her injustice, and how great her treachery, if she persisted in leaving him. But he knew her character well enough to be aware that any word of insult addressed to her as a woman, would create offence which she herself would be unable to quell. But his anger had got the better of his judgment, and when the suggestion was made to him of a sister of his own, he took the opportunity which was offered to him of hitting her with all his force. She had felt the blow, and had determined that she would never encounter another.
He was left alone, and he must retreat. He waited a while, thinking that perhaps Mrs. Fenwick or the Vicar would come to him; but nobody came. The window of the room was open, and it was easy for him to leave the house by the garden. But as he prepared to do so, his eye caught the writing materials on a side table, and he sat down and addressed a note to Mrs. Fenwick. "Tell Mary," he said, "that in a matter which to me is of life and death, I was forced to speak plainly. Tell her, also, that if she will be my wife, I know well that I shall never have to blush for a deed of hers, – or for a word, – or for a thought. – H. G." Then he went out on to the lawn, and returned home by the path at the back of the church farm.
He had left the vicarage, making another offer for the girl's hand, as it were, with his last gasp. But as he went, he told himself that it was impossible that it should be accepted. Every chance had now gone from him, and he must look his condition in the face as best he could. It had been bad enough with him before, when no hope had ever been held out to him; when the answers of the girl he loved had always been adverse to him; when no one had been told that she was to be his bride. Even then the gnawing sense of disappointment and of failure, – just there, when only he cared for success, – had been more than he could endure without derangement of the outer tranquillity of his life. Even then he had been unable so to live that men should not know that his sorrow had disturbed him. When he had gone to Loring, travelling with a forlorn hope into the neighbourhood of the girl he loved, he had himself been aware that he had lacked strength to control himself in his misfortune. But if his state then had been grievous, what must it be now? It had been told to all the world around him that he had at last won his bride, and he had proceeded, as do jolly thriving bridegrooms, to make his house ready for her reception. Doubting nothing he had mingled her wishes, her tastes, his thoughts of her, with every action of his life. He had prepared jewels for her, and decorated chambers, and laid out pleasure gardens. He was a man, simple in his own habits, and not given to squandering his means; but now, at this one moment of his life, when everything was to be done for the delectation of her who was to be his life's companion, he could afford to let prudence go by the board. True that his pleasure in doing this had been sorely marred by her coldness, by her indifference, even by her self-abnegation; but he had continued to buoy himself up with the idea that all would come right when she should be his wife. Now she had told him that she would never willingly speak to him again, – and he believed her.
He went up to his house, and into his bedroom, and then he sat thinking of it all. And as he thought he heard the voices and the tools of the men at their work; and knew that things were being done which, for him, would never be of avail. He remained there for a couple of hours without moving. Then he got up and gave the housekeeper instructions to pack up his portmanteau, and the groom orders to bring his gig to the door. "He was going away," he said, and his letters were to be addressed to his club in London. That afternoon he drove himself into Salisbury that he might catch the evening express train up, and that night he slept at a hotel in London.
CHAPTER LXV.
MARY LOWTHER LEAVES BULLHAMPTON
It was considerably past one o'clock, and the children's dinner was upon the table in the dining parlour before anyone in the vicarage had seen Mary Lowther since the departure of the Squire. When she left Mr. Gilmore, she had gone to her own room, and no one had disturbed her. As the children were being seated, Fenwick returned, and his wife put into his hand the note which Gilmore had left for her.
"What passed between them?" he asked in a whisper.
His wife shook her head. "I have not seen her," she said, "but he talks of speaking plainly, and I suppose it was bitter enough."
"He can be very bitter if he's driven hard," said the Vicar; "and he has been driven very hard," he added, after a while.
As soon as the children had eaten their dinner, Mrs. Fenwick went up to Mary's room with the Squire's note in her hand. She knocked, and was at once admitted, and she found Mary sitting at her writing-desk.
"Will you not come to lunch, Mary?"
"Yes, – if I ought. I suppose I might not have a cup of tea brought up here?"
"You shall have whatever you like, – here or anywhere else, as far as the vicarage goes. What did he say to you this morning?"
"It is of no use that I should tell you, Janet."
"You did not yield to him, then?"
"Certainly, I did not. Certainly I never shall yield to him. Dear Janet, pray take that as a certainty. Let me make you sure at any rate of that. He must be sure of it himself."
"Here is his note to me, written, I suppose, after you left him." Mary took the scrap of paper from her hand and read it. "He is not sure, you see," continued Mrs. Fenwick. "He has written to me, and I suppose that I must answer him."
"He shall certainly never have to blush for me as his wife," said Mary. But she would not tell her friend of the hard words that had been said to her. She understood well the allusion in Mr. Gilmore's note, but she would not explain it. She had determined, as she thought about it in her solitude, that it would be better that she should never repeat to anyone the cruel words which her lover had spoken to her. Doubtless he had received provocation. All his anger, as well as all his suffering, had come from a constancy in his love for her, which was unsurpassed, if not unequalled, in all that she had read of among men. He had been willing to accept her on conditions most humiliating to himself; and had then been told, that, even with those conditions, he was not to have her. She was bound to forgive him almost any offence that he could bestow upon her. He had spoken to her in his wrath words which she thought to be not only cruel but unmanly. She had told him that she would never speak willingly to him again; and she would keep her word. But she would forgive him. She was bound to forgive him any injury, let it be what it might. She would forgive him; – and as a sign to herself of her pardon she would say no word of his offence to her friends, the Fenwicks. "He shall certainly never have to blush for me as his wife," she said, as she returned the note to Mrs. Fenwick.
"You mean, that you never will be his wife?"
"Certainly I mean that."
"Have you quarrelled with him, Mary?"
"Quarrelled? How am I to answer that? It will be better that we should not meet again. Of course, our interview could not be pleasant for either of us. I do not wish him to think that there has been a quarrel."
"No man ever did a woman more honour than he has done to you."
"Dearest Janet, let it be dropped; – pray let it be dropped. I am sure you believe me now when I say that it can do no good. I am writing to my aunt this moment to tell her that I will return. What day shall I name?"
"Have you written to your cousin?"
"No I have not written to my cousin. I have not been able to get through it all, Janet, quite so easily as that."
"I suppose you had better go now."
"Yes; – I must go now. I should be a thorn in his side if I were to remain here."
"He will not remain, Mary."
"He shall have the choice as far as I am concerned. You must let him know at once that I am going. I think I will say Saturday, – the day after to-morrow. I could hardly get away to-morrow."
"Certainly not. Why should you?"
"Yet I am bound to hurry myself, – to release him. And, Janet, will you give him these? They are all here, – the rubies and all. Ah, me! he touched me that day."
"How like a gentleman he has behaved always."
"It was not that I cared for the stupid stones. You know that I care nothing for anything of the kind. But there was a sort of trust in it, – a desire to show me that everything should be mine, – which would have made me love him, – if it had been possible."
"I would give one hand that you had never seen your cousin."
"And I will give one hand because I have," said Mary, stretching out her right arm. "Nay, I will give both; I will give all, because, having seen him, he is what he is to me. But, Janet, when you return to him these things say a gentle word from me. I have cost him money, I fear."
"He will think but little of that. He would have given you willingly the last acre of his land, had you wanted it."
"But I did not want it. That was the thing. And all these have been altered, as they would not have been altered, but for me. I do repent that I have brought all this trouble upon him. I cannot do more now than ask you to say so when you restore to him his property."
"He will probably pitch them into the cart-ruts. Indeed, I will not give them to him. I will simply tell him that they are in my hands, and Frank shall have them locked up at the banker's. Well; – I suppose I had better go down and write him a line."
"And I will name Saturday to my aunt," said Mary.
Mrs. Fenwick immediately went to her desk, and wrote to her friend.
Dear Harry,
I am sure it is of no use. Knowing how persistent is your constancy, I would not say so were I not quite, quite certain. She goes to Loring on Saturday. Will it not be better that you should come to us for awhile after she has left us. You will be less desolate with Frank than you would be alone.
Ever yours,Janet Fenwick.
She has left your jewels with me. I merely tell you this for your information; – not to trouble you with the things now.
And then she added a second postscript.
She regrets deeply what you have suffered on her account, and bids me beg you to forgive her.
Thus it was settled that Mary Lowther should leave Bullhampton, again returning to Loring, as she had done before, in order that she might escape from her suitor. In writing to her aunt she had thought it best to say nothing of Walter Marrable. She had not as yet written to her cousin, postponing that work for the following day. She would have postponed it longer had it been possible; but she felt herself to be bound to let him have her reply before he left Dunripple. She would have much preferred to return to Loring, to have put miles between herself and Bullhampton, before she wrote a letter which must contain words of happy joy. It would have gratified her to have postponed for awhile all her future happiness, knowing that it was there before her, and that it would come to her at last. But it could not be postponed. Her cousin's letter was burning her pocket. She already felt that she was treating him badly in keeping it by her without sending him the reply that would make him happy. She could not bring herself to write the letter till the other matter was absolutely settled; and yet, all delay was treachery to him; for, – as she repeated to herself again and again, – there could be no answer but one. She had, however, settled it all now. On the Saturday morning she would start for Loring, and she would write her letter on the Friday in time for that day's post. Walter would still be at Dunripple on the Sunday, and on the Sunday morning her letter would reach him. She had studied the course of post between Bullhampton and her lover's future residence, and knew to an hour when her letter would be in his hands.
On that afternoon she could hardly maintain the tranquillity of her usual demeanour when she met the Vicar before dinner. Not a word, however, was said about Gilmore. Fenwick partly understood that he and his wife were in some degree responsible for the shipwreck that had come, and had determined that Mary was to be forgiven, – at any rate by him. He and his wife had taken counsel together, and had resolved that, unless circumstances should demand it, they would never again mention the Squire's name in Mary Lowther's hearing. The attempt had been made and had utterly failed, and now there must be an end of it. On the next morning he heard that Gilmore had gone up to London, and he went up to the Privets to learn what he could from the servants there. No one knew more than that the Squire's letters were to be directed to him at his Club. The men were still at work about the place; but Ambrose told him that they were all at sea as to what they should do, and appealed to him for orders. "If we shut off on Saturday, sir, the whole place'll be a muck of mud and nothin' else all winter," said the gardener. The Vicar suggested that after all a muck of mud outside the house wouldn't do much harm. "But master ain't the man to put up with that all'ays, and it'll cost twice as much to have 'em about the place again arter a bit." This, however, was the least trouble. If Ambrose was disconsolate out of doors, the man who was looking after the work indoors was twice more so. "If we be to work on up to Saturday night," he said, "and then do never a stroke more, we be a doing nothing but mischief. Better leave it at once nor that, sir." Then Fenwick was obliged to take upon himself to give certain orders. The papering of the rooms should be finished where the walls had been already disturbed, and the cornices completed, and the wood-work painted. But as for the furniture, hangings, and such like, they should be left till further orders should be received from the owner. As for the mud and muck in the garden, his only care was that the place should not be so left as to justify the neighbours in saying that Mr. Gilmore was demented. But he would be able to get instructions from his friend, or perhaps to see him, in time to save danger in that respect.
In the meantime Mary Lowther had gone up to her room, and seated herself with her blotting-book and pens and ink. She had now before her the pleasure, – or was it a task? – of answering her cousin's letter. She had that letter in her hand, and had already read it twice this morning. She had thought that she would so well know how to answer it; but, now that the pen was in her hand, she found that the thing to be done was not so easy. How much must she tell him, and how should she tell it? It was not that there was anything which she desired to keep back from him. She was willing, – nay, desirous, – that he should know all that she had said, and done, and thought; but it would have been a blessing if all could have been told to him by other agency than her own. He would not condemn her. Nor, as she thought of her own conduct back from one scene to another, did she condemn herself. Yet there was that of which she could not write without a feeling of shame. And then, how could she be happy, when she had caused so much misery? And how could she write her letter without expressing her happiness? She wished that her own identity might be divided, so that she might rejoice over Walter's love with the one moiety, and grieve with the other at all the trouble she had brought upon the man whose love to her had been so constant. She sat with the open letter in her hand, thinking over all this, till she told herself at last that no further thinking could avail her. She must bend herself over the table, and take the pen in her hand, and write the words, let them come as they would.
Her letter, she thought, must be longer than his. He had a knack of writing short letters; and then there had been so little for him to say. He had merely a single question to ask; and, although he had asked it more than once, – as is the manner of people in asking such questions, – still, a sheet of note-paper loosely filled had sufficed. Then she read it again. "If you bid me, I will be with you early next week." What if she told him nothing, but only bade him come to her? After all, would it not be best to write no more than that? Then she took her pen, and in three minutes her letter was completed.
The Vicarage, Friday.
Dearest, dearest Walter,
Do come to me, – as soon as you can, and I will never send you away again. I go to Loring to-morrow, and, of course, you must come there. I cannot write it all; but I will tell you everything when we meet. I am very sorry for your cousin Gregory, because he was so good.
Always your own,Mary.
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.