At last they were alone together in Gilmore’s own study or office, and then the Vicar spoke. “Harry,” he said, “I am, indeed, surprised that such a one as you should not have more manhood at his command.”
“Were you ever tried as I am?”
“What matters that? You are responsible for your own conduct, and I tell you that your conduct is unmanly.”
“Why should I have the rooms done up? I shall never live here. What is it to me how they are left? The sooner I stop a useless expenditure the better. It was being done for her, not for me.”
“Of course you will live here.”
“You know nothing about it. You cannot know anything about it. Why has she treated me in this way? To send up to a man and simply tell him that she has changed her mind! God in heaven!—that you should bring me such a message!”
“You have not allowed me to give my message yet.”
“Give it me, then, and have done with it. Has she not sent you to tell me that she has changed her mind?”
Now that opportunity was given to him, the Vicar did not know how to tell his message. “Perhaps it would have been better that Janet should have come to you.”
“It don’t make much difference who comes. She’ll never come again. I don’t suppose, Frank, you can understand the sort of love I have had for her. You have never been driven by failure to such longing as mine has been. And then I thought it had come at last!”
“Will you be patient while I speak to you, Harry?” said the Vicar, again taking him by the arm. They had now left the house, and were out alone among the shrubs.
“Patient! yes; I think I am patient. Nothing further can hurt me now;—that’s one comfort.”
“Mary bids me remind you,”—Gilmore shuddered and shook himself when Mary Lowther’s name was mentioned, but he did not attempt to stop the Vicar—“she bids me remind you that when the other day she consented to be your wife, she did so—.” He tried to tell it all, but he could not. How could he tell the man the story which Mary had told to him?
“I understand,” said Gilmore. “It’s all of no use, and you are troubling yourself for nothing. She told me that she did not care a straw for me;—but she accepted me.”
“If that was the case, you were both wrong.”
“It was the case. I don’t say who was wrong, but the punishment has come upon me only. Look here, Frank; I will not take this message from you. I will not even give her up yet. I have a right, at least, to see her, and see her I will. I don’t suppose you will try to prevent me?”
“She must do as she pleases, Harry, as long as she is in my house.”
“She shall see me. She is self-willed enough, but she shall not refuse me that. Be so good as to tell her with my compliments, that I expect her to see me. A man is not going to be treated like this, and then not speak his own mind. Be good enough to tell her that from me. I demand an interview.” So saying he turned upon his heel, and walked quickly away through the shrubbery.
The Vicar stood for awhile to think, and then slowly returned to the vicarage by himself. What Gilmore had said to him was true enough. He had, indeed, never been tried after that fashion. It did seem to him that his friend was in fact brokenhearted. Harry Gilmore might live on—as is the way with men and women who are brokenhearted;—but life for the present, life for some years to come, could be to him only a burden.
LXIII
The Miller Tells His Troubles
When the Vicar went on his unhappy mission to the Squire’s house Carry Brattle had been nearly two months at the mill. During that time both Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick had seen her more than once, and at last she had been persuaded to go to church with her sister. On the previous Sunday she had crept through the village at Fanny’s side, and had taken a place provided for her in the dark corner of a dark pew under the protection of a thick veil. Fanny walked with her boldly across the village street, as though she were not in any slightest degree ashamed of her companion, and sat by her side, and then conveyed her home. On the next Sunday the sacrament would be given, and this was done in preparation for that day.
Things had not gone very pleasantly at the mill. Up to this moment old Brattle had expressed no forgiveness towards his daughter, had uttered no word of affection to her, had made no sign that he had again taken her to his bosom as his own child. He had spoken to her, because in the narrow confines of their home it was almost impossible that he should live in the house with her without doing so. Carry had gradually fallen into the way of doing her share of the daily work. She cooked, and baked, and strove hard that her presence in the house should be found to be a comfort. She was useful, and the very fact of her utility brought her father into a certain state of communion with her; but he never addressed her specially, never called her by her name, and had not yet even acknowledged to his wife or to Fanny that he recognised her as
