The Vicar of Bullhampton

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 to-morrow 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 from the Privets. They did not wish to show themselves to be angry with her, but they found conversation to be almost impossible. "You have told him?" Mary had asked. "Yes, I have told him," the Vicar had replied; and that had been nearly all. In the course of the afternoon she had hinted to Janet Fenwick that she thought she had better leave Bullhampton. "Not quite yet, dear," Mrs. Fenwick had said, and Mary had been afraid to urge her request.

"Shall I name eleven to-morrow?" she said, as she handed the Squire's note to Mrs. Fenwick. Mrs. Fenwick and the Vicar both assented, and then she went in and wrote her answer.

I will be at home at the vicarage at eleven. – M. L.

She would have given much to escape what was coming, but she had not expected to escape it.

The next morning after breakfast Fenwick himself went away. "I've had more than enough of it," he said, to his wife, "and I won't be near them."

Mrs. Fenwick was with her friend up to the moment at which the bell was heard at the front door. There was no coming up across the lawn now.

"Dear Janet," Mary said, when they were alone, "how I wish that I had never come to trouble you here at the vicarage!"

Mrs. Fenwick was not without a feeling that much of all this unhappiness had come from her own persistency on behalf of her husband's friend, and thought that some expression was due from her to Mary to that effect. "You are not to suppose that we are angry with you," she said, putting her arm round Mary's waist.

"Pray, – pray do not be angry with me."

"The fault has been too much ours for that. We should have left this alone, and not have pressed it. We have meant it for the best, dear."

"And I have meant to do right; – but, Janet, it is so hard to do right."

When the ring at the door was heard, Mrs. Fenwick met Harry Gilmore in the hall, and told him that he would find Mary in the drawing-room. She pressed his hand warmly as she looked into his face, but he spoke no word as he passed on to the room which she had just left. Mary was standing in the middle of the floor, half-way between the window and the door, to receive him. When she heard the door-bell she put her hand to her heart, and there she held it till he was approaching; but then she dropped it and stood without support, with her face upraised to meet him. He came up to her very quickly and took her by the hand. "Mary," he said, "I am not to believe this message that has been sent to me. I do not believe it. I will not believe it. I will not accept it. It is out of the question; – quite out of the question. It shall be withdrawn, and nothing more shall be said about it."

"That cannot be, Mr. Gilmore."

"What cannot be? I say that it must be. You cannot deny, Mary, that you are betrothed to me as my wife. Are such betrothals to be nothing? Are promises to go for nothing because there has been no ceremony? You might as well come and tell me that you would leave me even though you were my wife."

"But I am not your wife."

"What does it mean? Have I not been patient with you? Have I been hard to you, or cruel? Have you heard anything of me that is to my discredit?" She shook her head, eagerly. "Then what does it mean? Are you aware that you are proposing to yourself to make an utter wreck of me – to send me adrift upon the world without a purpose or a hope? What have I done to deserve such treatment?"

He pleaded his cause very well, – better than she had ever heard him plead a cause before. He held her still by the hand, not with a grasp of love, but with a retention which implied his will that she should not pass away from out of his power. He looked her full in the face, and she did not quail before his eyes. Nevertheless she would have given the world to have been elsewhere, and to have been free from the necessity of answering him. She had been fortifying herself throughout the morning with self-expressed protests that on no account would she yield, whether she had been right before or wrong; – of this she was convinced, that she must be right now to save herself from a marriage that was so distasteful to her.

"You have deserved nothing but good at my hands," she said.

"And is this good that you are doing to me?"

"Yes, – certainly. It is the best that I know how to do now."

"Why is it to be done now? What is it that has changed you?"

She withdrew her hand from him, and waited a while before she answered. It was necessary that she should tell him all the tidings that had been conveyed to her in the letter which she had received from her cousin Walter; but in order that he should perfectly understand them and be made to know their force upon herself she must remind him of the stipulation which she had made when she consented to her engagement. But how could she speak words which would seem to him to be spoken only to remind him of the abjectness of his submission to her?

"I was broken-hearted when I came here," she said.

"And therefore you would leave me broken-hearted now."

"You should spare me, Mr. Gilmore. You remember what I told you. I loved my cousin Walter entirely. I did not hide it from you. I begged you to leave me because it was so. I told you that my heart would not change. When I said so, I thought that you would – desist."

"I am to be punished, then, for having been too true to you?"

"I will not defend myself for accepting you at last. But you must remember that when I did so I said that I should go – back – to him, if he could take me."

"And you are going back to him?"

"If he will have me."

"You can stand there and look me in the face and tell me that you are false as that! You can confess to me that you will change like a weathercock; – be his one day, and then mine, and his again the next! You can own that you give yourself about first to one man, and then to another, just as may suit you at the moment! I would not have believed it of any woman. When you tell it me of yourself, I begin to think that I have been wrong all through in my ideas of a woman's character."

The time had now come in which she must indeed speak up. And speech seemed to be easier with her now that he had allowed himself to express his anger. He had expressed more than his anger. He had dared to shower his scorn upon her, and the pelting of the storm gave her courage. "You are unjust upon me, Mr. Gilmore, – unjust and cruel. You know in your heart that I have not changed."

"Were you not betrothed to me?"

"I was; – but in what way? Have I told you any untruth? Have I concealed anything? When I accepted you, did I not explain to you how and why it was so, – against my own wish, against my own judgment, – because then I had ceased to care what became of me. I do care now. I care very much."

"And you think that is justice to me?"

"If you will bandy accusations with me, why did you accept me when I told you that I could not love you? But, indeed, indeed, I would not say a word to displease you, if you would only spare me. We were both wrong; but the wrong must now be put right. You would not wish to take me for your wife when I tell you that my heart is full of affection for another man. Then, when I yielded, I was struggling to cure that as a great evil. Now I welcome it as the sweetest blessing of my life. If I were your sister, what would you have me do?"

He stood silent for a moment, and then the colour rose to his forehead as he answered her. "If you were my sister, my ears would tingle with shame when your name was mentioned in my presence."

The blood rushed also over her face, suffusing her whole countenance, forehead and all, and fire flashed from her eyes, and her lips were parted, and even her nostrils seemed to swell with anger. She looked full into his face for a second, and then she turned and walked speechless away from him. When the handle of the door was in her hand, she turned again to address him. "Mr. Gilmore," she said, "I will never willingly speak to you again." Then the door was opened and closed behind her before a word had escaped from his lips.

He knew that he had insulted her. He knew that he had uttered words so hard, that it might be doubted whether, under any circumstances, they could be justified from a gentleman to a lady. And certainly he had not intended to insult her as he was coming down to the vicarage. As far as any settled purpose had been formed in his mind, he had meant to force her back to her engagement with himself, by showing to her how manifest would be her injustice, and how great her treachery, if she persisted in leaving him. But he knew her character well enough to be aware that any word of insult addressed to her as a woman, would create offence which she herself would be unable to quell. But his anger had got the better of his judgment, and when the suggestion was made to him of a sister of his own, he took the opportunity which was offered to him of hitting her with all his force. She had felt the blow, and had determined that she would never encounter another.

He was left alone, and he must retreat. He waited a while, thinking that perhaps Mrs. Fenwick or the Vicar would come to him; but nobody came. The window of the room was open, and it was easy for him to leave the house by the garden. But as he prepared to do so, his eye caught the writing materials on a side table, and he sat down and addressed a note to Mrs. Fenwick. "Tell Mary," he said, "that in a matter which to me is of life and death, I was forced to speak plainly. Tell her, also, that if she will be my wife, I know well that I shall never have to blush for a deed of hers, – or for a word, – or for a thought. – H. G." Then he went out on to the lawn, and returned home by the path at the back of the church farm.

He had left the vicarage, making another offer for the girl's hand, as it were, with his last gasp. But as he went, he told himself that it was impossible that it should be accepted. Every chance had now gone from him, and he must look his condition in the face as best he could. It had been bad enough with him before, when no hope had ever been held out to him; when the answers of the girl he loved had always been adverse to him; when no one had been told that she was to be his bride. Even then the gnawing sense of disappointment and of failure, – just there, when only he cared for success, – had been more than he could endure without derangement of the outer tranquillity of his life. Even then he had been unable so to live that men should not know that his sorrow had disturbed him. When he had gone to Loring, travelling with a forlorn hope into the neighbourhood of the girl he loved, he had himself been aware that he had lacked strength to control himself in his misfortune. But if his state then had been grievous, what must it be now? It had been told to all the world around him that he had at last won his bride, and he had proceeded, as do jolly thriving bridegrooms, to make his house ready for her reception. Doubting nothing he had mingled her wishes, her tastes, his thoughts of her, with every action of his life. He had prepared jewels for her, and decorated chambers, and laid out pleasure gardens. He was a man, simple in his own habits, and not given to squandering his means; but now, at this one moment of his life, when everything was to be done for the delectation of her who was to be his life's companion, he could afford to let prudence go by the board. True that his pleasure in doing this had been sorely marred by her coldness, by her indifference, even by her self-abnegation; but he had continued to buoy himself up with the idea that all would come right when she should be his wife. Now she had told him that she would never willingly speak to him again, – and he believed her.

He went up to his house, and into his bedroom, and then he sat thinking of it all. And as he thought he heard the voices and the tools of the men at their work; and knew that things were being done which, for him, would never be of avail. He remained there for a couple of hours without moving. Then he got up and gave the housekeeper instructions to pack up his portmanteau, and the groom orders to bring his gig to the door. "He was going away," he said, and his letters were to be addressed to his club in London. That afternoon he drove himself into Salisbury that he might catch the evening express train up, and that night he slept at a hotel in London.