“You should take comfort in the reflection that his sides will be quite as full of thorns as your own,” said Mary; “and perhaps there may come some blessed opportunity for crushing him altogether by heaping hot coals of fire on his head. Offer him the use of the Vicarage lawn for one of his school tea-parties, and that, I should think, would about finish him.”
This was all very well, and was written on purpose to show to Mrs. Fenwick that Mary could still be funny in spite of her troubles; but the pith of the letter, as Mrs. Fenwick well understood, lay in the few words of the last paragraph.
“Don’t suppose, dear, that I am going to die of a broken heart. I mean to live and to be as happy as any of you. But you must let me go on in my own way. I am not at all sure that being married is not more trouble than it is worth.”
That she was deceiving herself in saying this Mary knew well enough; and Mrs. Fenwick, too, guessed that it was so. Nevertheless, it was plain enough that nothing more could be said about Mr. Gilmore just at present.
“You ought to blow him up, and make him come to us,” Mrs. Fenwick said to her husband.
“It is all very well to say that, but one man can’t blow another up, as women do. Men don’t talk to each other about the things that concern them nearly—unless it be about money.”
“What do they talk about, then?”
“About matters that don’t concern them nearly;—game, politics, and the state of the weather. If I were to mention Mary’s name to him, he would feel it to be an impertinence. You can say what you please.”
Soon after this, Gilmore came again to the Vicarage; but he was careful to come when the Vicar would not be there. He sauntered into the garden by the little gate from the churchyard, and showed himself at the drawing-room window, without going round to the front door. “I never go to the front now,” said Mrs. Fenwick; “I have only once been through the gate since they began to build.”
“Is not that very inconvenient?”
“Of course it is. When we came home from dining at Sir Thomas’s the other day, I had myself put down at the church gate, and walked all the way round, though it was nearly pitch dark. Do come in, Harry.”
Then Mr. Gilmore came in, and seated himself before the fire. Mrs. Fenwick understood his moods so well, that she would not say a word to hurry him. If he chose to talk about Mary Lowther, she knew very well what she would say to him; but she would not herself introduce the subject. She spoke for awhile about the Brattles, saying that the old man had suffered much since his son had gone from him. Sam had left Bullhampton at the end of January, never having returned to the mill after his visit to the Vicar, and had not been heard of since. Gilmore, however, had not been to see his tenant; and though he expressed an interest about the Brattles, had manifestly come to the Vicarage with the object of talking upon matters more closely interesting to himself.
“Did you write to Loring, Mrs. Fenwick?” he asked at last.
“I wrote to Mary soon after you were last here.”
“And has she answered you?”
“Yes; she wrote again almost at once. She could not but write, as I had said so much to her about the chapel.”
“She did not allude to—anything else, then?”
“I can’t quite say that, Harry. I had written to her out of a very full heart, telling her what I thought as to her future life generally, and just alluding to our wishes respecting you.”
“Well?”
“She said just what might have been expected—that for the present she would rather be let alone.”
“I have let her alone. I have neither spoken to her nor written to her. She does not mean to say that I have troubled her?”
“Of course you have not troubled her—but she knows what we all mean.”
“I have waited all the winter, Mrs. Fenwick, and have said not a word. How long was it that she knew her cousin before she was engaged to him?”
“What has that to do with it? You know what our wishes are; but, indeed, indeed, nothing can be done by hurrying her.”
“She was engaged to that man, and the engagement broken off all within a month. It was no more than a dream.”
“But the remembrance of such dreams will not fade away quickly. Let us hope that hereafter it may be as a dream;—but time must be allowed to efface the idea of its reality.”
“Time;—yes; but cannot we arrange some plan for the future? Cannot something be done? I thought you said you would ask her to come here?”
“So I did—but not yet.”
“Why shouldn’t she come now? You needn’t ask because I am here. There is no saying whom she may meet, and then my chance will be gone again.”
“Is that all you know about women, Harry? Do you think that the girl whom you love so dearly will take up with one man after another in that fashion?”
“Who can say? She was not very long in taking up, as you call it, with Captain Marrable. I should be happier if she were here, even if I did not see her.”
“Of course you would see her, and of course you would propose again—and of course she would refuse you.”
“Then there is
