The Vicar of Bullhampton

one knew more than that the Squire’s letters were to be directed to him at his Club. The men were still at work about the place; but Ambrose told him that they were all at sea as to what they should do, and appealed to him for orders. “If we shut off on Saturday, sir, the whole place’ll be a muck of mud and nothin’ else all winter,” said the gardener. The Vicar suggested that after all a muck of mud outside the house wouldn’t do much harm. “But master ain’t the man to put up with that all’ays, and it’ll cost twice as much to have ’em about the place again arter a bit.” This, however, was the least trouble. If Ambrose was disconsolate out of doors, the man who was looking after the work indoors was twice more so. “If we be to work on up to Saturday night,” he said, “and then do never a stroke more, we be a doing nothing but mischief. Better leave it at once nor that, sir.” Then Fenwick was obliged to take upon himself to give certain orders. The papering of the rooms should be finished where the walls had been already disturbed, and the cornices completed, and the woodwork painted. But as for the furniture, hangings, and suchlike, they should be left till further orders should be received from the owner. As for the mud and muck in the garden, his only care was that the place should not be so left as to justify the neighbours in saying that Mr. Gilmore was demented. But he would be able to get instructions from his friend, or perhaps to see him, in time to save danger in that respect.

In the meantime Mary Lowther had gone up to her room, and seated herself with her blotting-book and pens and ink. She had now before her the pleasure⁠—or was it a task?⁠—of answering her cousin’s letter. She had that letter in her hand, and had already read it twice this morning. She had thought that she would so well know how to answer it; but, now that the pen was in her hand, she found that the thing to be done was not so easy. How much must she tell him, and how should she tell it? It was not that there was anything which she desired to keep back from him. She was willing⁠—nay, desirous⁠—that he should know all that she had said, and done, and thought; but it would have been a blessing if all could have been told to him by other agency than her own. He would not condemn her. Nor, as she thought of her own conduct back from one scene to another, did she condemn herself. Yet there was that of which she could not write without a feeling of shame. And then, how could she be happy, when she had caused so much misery? And how could she write her letter without expressing her happiness? She wished that her own identity might be divided, so that she might rejoice over Walter’s love with the one moiety, and grieve with the other at all the trouble she had brought upon the man whose love to her had been so constant. She sat with the open letter in her hand, thinking over all this, till she told herself at last that no further thinking could avail her. She must bend herself over the table, and take the pen in her hand, and write the words, let them come as they would.

Her letter, she thought, must be longer than his. He had a knack of writing short letters; and then there had been so little for him to say. He had merely a single question to ask; and, although he had asked it more than once⁠—as is the manner of people in asking such questions⁠—still, a sheet of notepaper loosely filled had sufficed. Then she read it again. “If you bid me, I will be with you early next week.” What if she told him nothing, but only bade him come to her? After all, would it not be best to write no more than that? Then she took her pen, and in three minutes her letter was completed.

The Vicarage, Friday.

Dearest, dearest Walter,

Do come to me⁠—as soon as you can, and I will never send you away again. I go to Loring tomorrow, and, of course, you must come there. I cannot write it all; but I will tell you everything when we meet. I am very sorry for your cousin Gregory, because he was so good.

Always your own,
Mary.

But do not think that I want to hurry you. I have said come at once; but I do not mean that so as to interfere with you. You must have so many things to do; and if I get one line from you to say that you will come, I can be ever so patient. I have not been happy once since we parted. It is easy for people to say that they will conquer their feelings, but it has seemed to me to be quite impossible to do it. I shall never try again.

As soon as the body of her letter was written, she could have continued her postscript forever. It seemed to her then as though nothing would be more delightful than to let the words flow on with full expressions of all her love and happiness. To write to him was pleasant enough, as long as there came on her no need to mention Mr. Gilmore’s name.

That was to be her last evening at Bullhampton; and though no allusion was made to the subject, they were all thinking that she could never return to Bullhampton again. She had been almost as much at home with them as with her aunt at Loring; and now she must leave the place forever. But they said not a word; and the