_PARTED_
"And trust me not at all or all in all."--TENNYSON.
John had never walked so fast in his life. Almost before Mr. Bland
had politely lifted off the kettle and filled the teapot under Mrs.
Randal's directions, he was half-way up the narrow muddy lane that
led to Alfrick's farm. There he found Mrs. Alfrick, with a worried
countenance and every sign of a recent fit of crying, leaning over
the garden gate.
"Well! So you've got the child back! Where did Mr. Bland pick her
up, I wonder?" she began at once. "And I hope you don't bear no more
malice, John!"
"How did you know?" said John gruffly; but he went on without waiting
for her answer. "Look here, don't talk about me bearing malice, Mrs.
Alfrick, but just tell me the truth about this affair, for I mean to
know it. You ain't going to deny that you took Lily to the fair--and
Mary--she had no more to do with it than my mother herself."
"If you know so much, what's the good of asking?" said Mrs. Alfrick,
with a slightly hysterical laugh. "Well, you'd have been made of
stone yourself, John Randal, if you'd resisted that child's face when
she said she wanted to go. Yes, it was me as took her, and thinking
no harm, you may be sure, in giving her a bit of amusement like my
own children. But if I'd known all this row and fuss was to come of
it, I'd have locked Miss Lily in the house sooner than take her with
me. Why, there was my Lizzie, she nearly got lost too--and
Polly--nothing would satisfy her but racing after us to fetch that
precious child back--and so naturally you took it into your stupid
head it was her that lost her, while all the time it was nobody's
fault but the child's own. If she'd kept by me, she'd have been safe
enough. I'll never be bothered with her again, that's positive.
What did become of her, after all?"
"That doesn't matter," said John. "Some people stole her and took
her off to Moreton, and Mr. Bland found her at the station."
"Well, that was queer." Mrs. Alfrick would have asked a great many
more questions, but another subject was occupying her mind, as well
as John's. Standing outside the gate, he was looking up over the low
garden wall at the front of the house, his eyes wandering wistfully
from window to window. If only Mary would look out at one of them!
The woman at the gate, though foolish, selfish, spiteful and
small-minded, was not altogether bad and barbarous. She was now
really sorry for the misunderstanding between John Randal and her
stepdaughter, and not altogether because its consequences seemed
likely to fall upon herself, and had already brought her a scolding
from her husband. There is a corner of romance, of sympathy with
true love, in most women's hearts, and Mrs. Alfrick's heart was not
without it. She had always abused John, but she could not help
respecting him; she had always complained of Mary, but she valued her
none the less for that.
"Polly ain't in," she said, "so it's no use you looking for her. She
went down to the Vicarage half-an-hour ago."
"To the Vicarage! What has she gone there for?"
"Mrs. Elwood's staying there, you know. Years ago she told Polly if
ever she wanted to go out to service she was to let her know."
John flushed angrily. "She's not going to service," he said.
"She says she is. Her father's angry, of course; him and me, we
neither of us can spare her very well. It's worse than the thought
of her getting married, 'cause no one knew how long you and her would
be about that. But I wonder at you looking so surprised, John.
Didn't you understand as it was all over between you and Polly? She
told us so, and she said she couldn't abide to stop in this village
to be pointed at by all the boys and girls, and so she was going down
straight to the Vicarage, and she'd get the Vicar to write to his
sister by this very post if she was gone--but the children saw her
yesterday, so I expect she's found her there still."
John stood like a stone. The colour faded from his brown face and
left it very pale. There was certainly a little gratified malice in
Mrs. Alfrick's eyes as she watched him, mingled as it might be with
pity and regret.
"Anyone might make a mistake," said John. "And she needn't have
taken it up like that altogether."
He turned round and walked away, without a word of thanks or farewell.
"He is a lout, that John Randal," reflected Mrs. Alfrick as she
leaned on the gate and looked after him. "I'm not going to waste
sorrow on Polly, for I do think she's got the best of it. She won't
be tied down for life to this deadly dull place, nor married to the
grumpiest fellow in it, barring her father. My word, girls needn't
be in a hurry to get married; they little know all they're giving up.
Same time, I hope John'll bring her round, for she'd be a serious
loss to us all, Polly would, and to me in particular."
John walked as far as the Vicarage gate without meeting Mary, and
then, for half-an-hour or more, he walked restlessly up and down
under the churchyard wall. One or two people passed and stared at
the industrious young blacksmith idling there; but after all, it was
the second day of Carsham Fair, and the country had not yet settled
down again to work. They asked him no questions, for John was not in
the habit of giving an account to his neighbours of what he chose to
do.
He was standing at last half hidden above the gate, in the shadow of
the Vicar's trees, when he heard a step in the drive, then the quick
opening and shutting of the gate, and Mary came out into the road.
She did not look in his direction, but walked off quickly towards the
village. In a moment John had overtaken her.
"Will you please to stop; I want to speak to you," he said, in a
voice half choked with excitement.
Mary stood still. She lifted her eyes for a moment, then let them
fall, but John could see that they were tired and swollen with
crying, and that her face, generally so happy and healthy with all
its quietness, looked pale and worn, as if she had gone through some
great grief. There was no softening in that glance at John, and no
change of colour. It was sorrowful, but it was also hard; it checked
the young man's impulse to draw her close to him and make up their
quarrel on the spot.
"What's this I hear about service, Polly?" he said, with a timidity
quite strange to his character.
"Oh! that don't signify to any one but myself," the girl answered
coldly. "I thought you had got some news about Lily, perhaps."
"So I have. She's found:" and John hurriedly poured out the story.
He was so puzzled by Mary's manner to himself that it was almost a
relief to stand there and talk on some other subject.
"Well! I'm glad to hear it," said Mary, when he paused, and she
began to walk on.
"What are you in such a hurry about?" murmured John, his shyness
returning.
"What's the use of standing here?" Mary retorted.
"Look here," said John desperately, "come with me a bit the other
way. I want to know the meaning of all this, please."
"All what?" said the girl; but she made no objection to turning round
with him and walking the other way. He did not speak for a few
yards, walking beside her with his head bent and his hands in his
pockets. He stopped at the corner stile of the churchyard, went up
and leaned upon it. Once more the grass looked brightly green, a
yellow light was shining from the west; but there were no children's
voices to break the stillness now, and the shadow of the great yews
was gloomy.
"Mary," John said, "it was in this place you promised to marry me.
You was sitting on this stile--perhaps you don't remember?"
"Yours is a long memory, and mine a short one," Mary answered, after
a minute of silence, while a little shivering wind rustled the upper
branches of the yews. "It seems you have forgotten what happened
yesterday."
"No, I've not forgotten. Nothing of the kind."
"You've found the child," Mary went on relentlessly, "and now you
begin to see you were a bit hard on me. She's told you, I suppose,
that however she got to the fair, it was no doing of mine."
"But why on earth didn't you tell me so yesterday?" cried John. He
seized both her hands, but she drew them away from him instantly.
"None of that, if you please. You forget we've done with each other.
And you forget how I tried to tell you and you wouldn't listen to a
word. No, you'd never trust me again. No, you were sorry you ever
did trust me. No, I'd deceived you and broke your heart."
"Mary, you're breaking it now," he said. "I was mad just then; I
didn't know what I was saying. There, can't you forgive me? Let
bygones be bygones. I'll never be happy without you."
"Oh yes, you will," Mary said. She stopped a moment and then went on
hurriedly--"I never minded what my stepmother said, because I knew it
was half of it spite, but many's the time she's mocked at me and said
you thought ever so much more of that child than of me. I never
believed it, I never troubled about such nonsense, not till
yesterday."
"And you believed it then, did you?" said John, half to himself.
"Many's the time," Mary went on, "as I've stood up for you in the
village, when people said you were just silly over that child and
spoilt her down to the ground. I told them it was only natural you
should think a lot of the little thing, when you'd saved her life,
one may say, and she had no friends in the world but you and Mrs.
Randal. Of course you couldn't help making a fuss of her--and you
know as well as anybody that I've tried to help you with her, and
behaved to her as kind as I could. I'm not saying this to praise
myself, but just to put you in mind. It wasn't likely I should
expect that losing Lily would take away your trust in me. Love and
trust goes together, to my mind, John. You'd ought to have known for
certain, whatever people said, as I had nothing to do with Lily's
going to the fair. You ought as soon to have doubted yourself as me.
But it seemed as if the losing of the child took away your senses;
you had no thought nor understanding left for me. No love and no
trust neither--and if you think I'm the girl to marry without them,
and knowing all the time as something may come between us any
day--that poor child or anything else as takes your fancy--why,
you're mistaken, that's all. You say you were mad yesterday. I was
in my right senses, and when I said it should be the last time, I
meant it. So now you know."
Mary made this long speech in a low monotonous voice, without a break
in it or any sign of feeling. Her face was white, and once her eyes
swam with tears, but John's own were hidden on his arm against the
stile, and he saw nothing.
He said nothing either. To have lost Mary, the one love of his life,
his idea of all that was good and noble and sweet in a woman, whose
promise had given such brightness to his future--it was a trouble
indeed, like nothing he had ever known. If Mary only knew it,
nothing in the whole world, not even the helpless little lost child,
who had wound herself round his heart by the fact of her
helplessness, was half such a treasure as she. He felt as if half
his life was torn away--and all through his own fault. He realised
that clearly enough, and could not defend himself, being truthful and
modest by nature, against the things that Mary had said. But he did
think in his heart, as he leaned there on the stile, that Mary ought
to understand and forgive him. He would have forgiven her, he
thought, if she had lost her temper, and had been unjust to him. The
truth was, that her extreme pride, and the coldness which belonged to
it, stood in the way of their happiness quite as much as his own
anger and thoughtless injustice had done.
He said nothing, being at no time so quick of thought and speech as
Mary, and presently he heard her speaking again. She was very quiet,
and full of good sense; she reproached him no more. She told him, in
a voice that sounded hard and unfeeling to the poor fellow's ears,
that the Vicar and his sister, Mrs. Elwood, had been very kind; she
had talked things over with them; they quite understood her wish to
be away from Markwood, and Mrs. Elwood knew of a situation under the
matron of a large orphanage, to take charge of clothes and linen,
which seemed to be just the kind of thing she was fit for.
"She's going to write about it to-day," said Mary.
John stood upright suddenly; he was a little angry with her now.
"All right. I wish you well, I'm sure," he said. "You'll be wanting
to get home--don't let me hinder you, please. I'm going the other
way."
Mary's eyes widened with astonishment, and her pale cheeks flushed
suddenly.
"Very well. Good evening," she said. "I'm sorry I've detained you
so long;" and without even another look or shaking hands they parted.
Mary walked back through the village with her head very high.
It was an hour later before John got home. Mr. Bland was gone; his
mother had put Lily to bed, and was sitting by the fire, watching her
kettle and waiting for him. She looked sadly at his face and asked
no questions. But presently she said, "John, dear, do you know what
Mr. Bland says? He says you ought to try all you can to find Lily's
parents."
John made no answer at all, but stared gloomily into the fire. In
his heart he wished Mr. Bland would mind his own business, for why
should he lose everything? Dark, selfish, miserable thoughts, like
flocks of evil birds, seemed to hover over him and shut out heaven.