Under this treatment Carry was becoming restive and impatient. On such an occasion as that of going to church and exposing herself to the eyes of those who had known her as an innocent, laughing, saucy girl, she could not but be humble, quiet, and awestruck; but at home she was beginning again gradually to assert her own character. “If father won’t speak to me, I’d better go,” she said to Fanny.
“And where will you go to, Carry?”
“I dun’ know;—into the millpond would be best for them as belongs to me. I suppose there ain’t anybody as ’d have me?”
“Nobody can have you as will love you as we do, Carry.”
“Why won’t father come round and speak to me? You can’t tell what it is to have him looking at one that way. I sometimes feels like getting up and telling him to turn me out if he won’t speak a word to me.” But Fanny had softened her, and encouraged her, bidding her wait still again, explaining the sorrow that weighed upon their father’s heart as well as she could without saying a single cruel word as to Carry’s past life. Fanny’s task was not easy, and it was made the harder by their mother’s special tenderness towards Carry. “The less she says and the more she does, the better for her,” said Fanny to her mother. “You shouldn’t let her talk about father.” Mrs. Brattle did not attempt to argue the matter with her elder daughter, but she found it to be quite out of her power to restrain Carry’s talking.
During these two months old Brattle had not even seen either his landlord or the Vicar. They had both been at the mill, but the miller had kept himself up among his grist, and had not condescended to come down to them. Nor had he even, since Carry’s return, been seen in Bullhampton, or even up on the high road leading to it. He held no communion with men other than was absolutely necessary for his business, feeling himself to be degraded, not so much by his daughter’s fall as by his concession to his fallen daughter. He would sit out in the porch of an evening, and smoke his pipe; but if he heard a footstep on the lane he would retreat, and cross the plank and get among the wheels of his mill, or out into the orchard. Of Sam nothing had been heard. He was away, it was believed in Durham, working at some colliery engine. He gave no sign of himself to his mother or sister; but it was understood that he would appear at the assizes, towards the end of the present month, as he had been summoned there as a witness at the trial of the two men for the murder of Mr. Trumbull.
And Carry, also, was to be a witness at the assizes; and, as it was believed, a witness much more material than her brother. Indeed, it was beginning to be thought that after all Sam would have no evidence to give. If, indeed, he had had nothing to do with the murder, it was not probable that any of the circumstances of the murder would have been confided to him. He had, it seemed, been on intimate terms with the man Acorn—and, through Acorn, had known Burrows and the old woman who lived at Pycroft Common, the mother of Burrows. He had been in their company when they first visited Bullhampton, and had, as we know, invited them into the Vicar’s garden—much to the damage of Mr. Burrows’ shoulder-blade; but it was believed that beyond this he could say nothing as to the murder. But Carry Brattle was presumed to have a closer knowledge of at least one of the men. She had now confessed to her sister that, after leaving Bullhampton, she had consented to become Acorn’s wife. She had known then but little of his mode of life or past history; but he was young, good-looking, fairly well-dressed, and had promised to marry her. By him she was taken to the cottage on Pycroft Common, and by him she had certainly been visited on the morning after the murder. He had visited her and given her money;—and since that, according to her own story, she had neither seen him nor heard from him. She had never cared for him, she told her sister; but what was that to one such as her as long as he would make her an honest woman? All this was repeated by Fanny Brattle to Mrs. Fenwick;—and now the assizes were at hand, and how was Carry to demean herself there? Who would take her? Who would stand near her and support her, and save her from falling into that abyss of self-abasement and almost of self-annihilation which would be her doom, unless there were someone there to give her strength and aid?
“I would not go to Salisbury at all during the assizes, if I were you,” Mrs. Fenwick had said to her husband. The Vicar understood thoroughly what was meant. Because of the evil things which had been said of him by that stupid old Marquis whom he had been cheated into forgiving, he was not to be allowed to give a helping hand to his parishioner! Nevertheless, he acknowledged his wife’s wisdom—tacitly, as is fitting when such acknowledgments have to be made; and he contented himself with endeavouring to find for her some other escort. It had been hoped from day to day that the miller would yield, that he would embrace poor Carry, and promise her that she should again be to him as a daughter. If this could be brought about, then—so thought the Vicar and Fanny too—the old man would
