After what he had heard, Mr. Fenwick declined going into the millhouse, and returned home without seeing Mrs. Brattle and her daughters. The miller’s determination should be told by himself; and the Vicar felt that he could hardly keep the secret were he now to see the women.
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 tomorrow morning?
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
