“I suppose I had better tell Frank,” said Mrs. Fenwick, after another pause.
This was, of course, what Mary Lowther desired, but she begged for and obtained permission not to see the Vicar herself that evening. She would keep her own room that night, and meet him the next morning before prayers as best she might.
When the Vicar came back to the house, his mind was so full of the chapel, and Lord St. George, and the admirable manner in which he had been cajoled out of his wrath without the slightest admission on the part of the lord that his father had ever been wrong—his thoughts were so occupied with all this, and with Mr. Puddleham’s oratory, that he did not at first give his wife an opportunity of telling Mary Lowther’s story.
“We shall all of us have to go over to Turnover next week,” he said.
“You may go. I won’t.”
“And I shouldn’t wonder if the Marquis were to offer me a better living, so that I might be close to him. We are to be the lamb and the wolf sitting down together.”
“And which is to be the lamb?”
“That does not matter. But the worst of it is, Puddleham won’t come and be a lamb too. Here am I, who have suffered pretty nearly as much as St. Paul, have forgiven all my enemies all round, and shaken hands with the Marquis by proxy, while Puddleham has been man enough to maintain the dignity of his indignation. The truth is, that the possession of a grievance is the one state of human blessedness. As long as the chapel was there, malgré moi, I could revel in my wrong. It turns out now that I can send poor Puddleham adrift tomorrow, and he immediately becomes the hero of the hour. I wish your brother-in-law had not been so officious in finding it all out.”
Mrs. Fenwick postponed her story till the evening.
“Where is Mary?” Fenwick asked, when dinner was announced.
“She is not quite well, and will not come down. Wait awhile, and you shall be told.” He did wait; but the moment that they were alone again he asked his question. Then Mrs. Fenwick told the whole story, hardly expressing an opinion herself as she told it. “I don’t think she is to be shaken,” she said at last.
“She is behaving very badly—very badly—very badly.”
“I am not quite sure, Frank, whether we have behaved wisely,” said his wife.
“If it must be told him, it will drive him mad,” said Fenwick.
“I think it must be told.”
“And I am to tell it?”
“That is what she asks.”
“I can’t say that I have made up my mind; but, as far as I can see at present, I will do nothing of the kind. She has no right to expect it.”
Before they went to bed, however, he also had been somewhat softened. When his wife declared, with tears in her eyes, that she would never interfere at matchmaking again, he began to perceive that he also had endeavoured to be a matchmaker and had failed.
LXII
Up at the Privets
The whole of the next day was passed in wretchedness by the party at the vicarage. The Vicar, as he greeted Miss Lowther in the morning, had not meant to be severe, having been specially cautioned against severity by his wife; but he had been unable not to be silent and stern. Not a word was spoken about Mr. Gilmore till after breakfast, and then it was no more than a word.
“I would think better of this, Mary,” said the Vicar.
“I cannot think better of it,” she replied.
He refused, however, to go to Mr. Gilmore that day, demanding that she should have another day in which to revolve the matter in her mind. It was understood, however, that if she persisted he would break the matter to her lover. Then this trouble was aggravated by the coming of Mr. Gilmore to the vicarage, though it may be that the visit was of use by preparing him in some degree for the blow. When he came Mary was not to be seen. Fancying that he might call, she remained upstairs all day, and Mrs. Fenwick was obliged to say that she was unwell. “Is she really ill?” the poor man had asked. Mrs. Fenwick, driven hard by the difficulty of her position, had said that she did not believe Mary to be very ill, but that she was so discomposed by news from Dunripple that she could not come down. “I should have thought that I might have seen her,” said Mr. Gilmore, with that black frown upon his brow which now they all knew so well. Mrs. Fenwick made no reply, and then the unhappy man went away. He wanted no further informant to tell him that the woman to whom he was pledged regarded her engagement to him with aversion.
“I must see her again before I go,” Fenwick said to his wife the next morning. And he did see her. But Mary was absolutely firm. When he remarked that she was pale and worn and ill, she acknowledged that she had not closed her eyes during those two nights.
“And it must be so?” he asked, holding her hand tenderly.
“I am so grieved that you should have such a mission,” she replied.
Then he explained to her that he was not thinking of himself, sad as the occasion would be to him. But if this great sorrow could have been spared to his friend! It could not, however, be spared. Mary was quite firm, at any rate as to that. No consideration should induce her now to marry Mr. Gilmore. Mr. Fenwick, on her behalf, might express his regret for the grief she had caused in any terms that he might think fit to use—might humiliate her to the ground if he thought it proper. And yet, had not Mr. Gilmore sinned more against her than had
