SELF-BETRAYED.
Of course Mary proved right. In such a small parish as Horton it was
quite impossible that two people could live for many weeks without
meeting each other. The curate might shut himself up for a few days. He
might say he was busy with his sermon; he might say he had a headache;
he might acknowledge that his activity in the parish and all the
institutions he had set up had thrown him into arrears with his reading,
and such intellectual work as is necessary for a man who has to write
two sermons every week. But this could not last for ever. Mary, who was
so simple and so sweet, was not like those powers of darkness whom we
must resist till they flee from us; indeed, Mary was so far different
that when she was resisted she did not flee. She was so clever that she
divined at once that in resisting the charm of her mild society poor Mr.
Asquith had made a confession of his weakness, and it gave her a great
and, it is to be feared, a mischievous amusement to watch how long he
would keep to that. Alas! he could not keep to it very long. He was
obliged to go to the rectory to communicate with his chief, and he could
not help meeting Mary there. He had even to walk with her as far as the
lodge, to carry something that was too heavy for her, and then Mary
behaved very badly to the poor curate. She put on an air of sympathy to
conceal her amusement, and she said, “I am afraid you have not been well
lately, Mr. Asquith. I have not seen you anywhere about.”
“No,” said the curate, with his heart sinking, “I have been--not very
well.”
“I am so sorry,” said the little hypocrite. “I hope you don’t find that
Horton does not suit you: and just when you have got so well into the
work.”
“Oh, it is not that it doesn’t suit me,” the curate said, “quite the
reverse. The air is very pure and sweet.” He gave a side glance at her
as he spoke, and it is to be feared that it was Mary and not the air he
was thinking of when he used these words.
“Poor Sally Williams is longing to see you,” said Mary. “I go often, but
I am not the same good. She likes her pudding, but I can’t talk to her
as you do, Mr. Asquith; and they say,” continued the girl, with a soft
shade of awe coming over her face, “that she has not very long to live.”
“You teach me my duty,” cried the curate, quite overwhelmed. “I have
been very neglectful. I shall certainly not miss another day.”
“And old Mrs. Sims thinks you have forgotten the old people at the
almshouses. She shakes her head and says, ‘Ah, I never thought as he’d
keep it up like that: they never does,’ Mrs. Sims says.”
“Thank you so much for telling me,” said Mr. Asquith; “indeed it was not
inadvertence. I knew that I was neglecting one duty: but I thought,
perhaps, it might be excusable on account of another.”
“Oh, Mr. Asquith!” cried Mary, “I never meant to say you neglected
anything, you must not think so. But ought a person to neglect one duty
on account of another? You said the other day in your sermon----”
“Oh! don’t talk to me about my sermon. It was a poor performance off the
book, when I had no experience; but you are right, we have no warrant to
forget one duty for the sake of another. The part of a true man is to do
all, and not to flinch. The spirit is willing, but oh! the flesh is very
weak.”
I hope the reader will not think badly of Mary if I allow that the
agitation of the curate filled her with a sort of elation and
mischievous triumph for the moment. She had nearly laughed in the face
of his gravity, and if she had done what was in her heart she would have
cried out, “All this bother about a little girl like me!” But she did
not say anything; she did not laugh; and when she looked up into his
face for a moment at the lodge-gate, when he gave the books he was
carrying for her to Mrs. Martingale, the coachman’s wife, to be sent up
to the house, Mary was filled with sudden compunctions, and felt
disposed rather to cry. She waved her hand to him as she went up the
avenue with an April sort of face, half smiling, half weeping, which
gave him a great deal of thought as he turned sadly upon his own way. He
did not know what it meant, poor young man! It looked as if she were
sorry for him, but why should she be sorry for him? Did she see, did she
understand, the cause of his trouble? did she mean to support him with
her sympathy, or to mock him, or to show him how far, far he was out of
her sphere? He thought a great deal more about this than was at all
consistent with the many other things he had to think of, and, alas!
got the books of the lending library entirely into disorder, and forgot
how much money he had received that week from the penny-bank and the
clothing-club. He put down twice as much as they had paid to each
subscriber’s name, and had to make it up from his own poor little purse;
fortunately the entire amount was not considerable, but it was a great
deal too much to be taken out of his poor pocket by Mary’s little
regretful, sympathetic, yet mischievous look.
To tell the truth, Mary’s heart was bounding along the avenue like a
bird, though her feet went soberly enough. It was so light, there was no
keeping it still; it sang little trills of pleasure along the way, and
mounted up towards heaven, and found a new brightness over all the
earth. To think that she who was only Mary should suddenly have become
the princess of a kingdom all her own--to think that she should be all
at once of consequence enough to make a man abandon all his duties! It
was indeed very wrong of a man in Mr. Asquith’s position to abandon any
of his duties for the sake of this little girl: but Mary did not see it
in that light. As she walked by herself up the avenue she laughed loud
out, and then felt dreadfully ashamed of herself, and dried her eyes,
which were full of tears. How foolish it was of him! To say even to
herself that this man, who was the best man she had ever met, was
foolish, was a sort of delightful little sin to Mary, a piece of
profanity--a small wickedness. How dared she say he was foolish? and
yet--oh! how foolish he was. How nice of him to be so silly! Perhaps he
was afraid that she did not care for him, would not have him if he asked
her? No doubt that was what he was afraid of. To think that he knew
Latin and Greek and theology, and all manner of things, and could read
German, yet could not read what was in Mary’s eyes! She sat down by the
roadside, before the house was in sight, not daring to see anybody, glad
to be alone, to have time to think over again what he said and how he
looked, and to say to herself how silly it was!
All this time, as will be seen, Mary had not the faintest enlightenment
as to what it was that Mr. Asquith feared. She never thought of his
poverty, of what it is to be a poor curate or a poor curate’s wife,
without hope of advancement, or money enough to keep the wolf from the
door. She thought only of him, and how glad she would be to do
everything for him--to live in a cottage, and look after her own little
housekeeping, and make him comfortable, more comfortable than ever he
had been in his life, and to help him and work with him. She thought
that to be the first in all the world to one who was the first in all
the world to her, was the fairest fate that earth could give. She had no
doubt on the subject, or fear--for how could she tell, who had never had
above a few shillings in her life, how much two people require to live
upon? or how could she take into consideration other consequences, which
were more serious still?
Mr. Asquith went to see Sally Williams that day, and for many days
after, as long as the poor girl lived, but never again did he meet Mary
there. He did not see her at the almshouses, he encountered her
nowhere--which indeed was a little instinctive coquetry mingled with
modesty on Mary’s part: for she would not, after having exerted herself
to bring him back, allow him to find her in his way, as if that had been
what she wanted. And now it was the curate’s turn to be astonished, and
to feel himself injured. Though he had retired from his daily duties in
order to avoid Mary, he felt himself sadly aggrieved, now that he had
returned to them, to find that Mary avoided him. Instead of
congratulating himself that they were both of accord, and that in this
way his purpose would be the better accomplished, this inconsistent
young man felt sadly disappointed, taken in, cheated, and ill-used. Why
had she spoken to him so, if she had meant to conclude their intercourse
in this way? Mr. Asquith’s annoyance was all the greater from the fact
that Mary did not neglect her little offices of charity in order to
avoid him as he had done in order to avoid her. She was cleverer than he
was, so far as this went, and had her faculties more free. He was always
hearing wherever he went that Miss Mary had just gone. “It is not five
minutes since Miss Mary went. She is that good,” said poor Mrs.
Williams, “now that my poor girl is sinking, she never misses a day.”
“You’re kindly welcome, Mr. Asquith, sir,” said the old woman at the
almshouse. “Take that chair, sir. It’s one as was set for Miss Mary. She
was scarce gone when I see you coming.” Mr. Asquith was fretted beyond
description by these perpetual missings. He could not get them or her
out of his head. Sometimes he was more angry than words can say. He
thought she did it on purpose (which was not far from the truth), in
order to show him how presumptuous he was, and how impossible that she
could ever care for him (which was not the truth at all). And at last
the poor curate was wrought to such a point of exasperation that he
made up his mind, when he did meet her, that he would tell her what she
had done, and how cruelly she had treated him, and then leave the parish
altogether. But he would not go without letting her know. She should be
made aware that what was sport to her was death to him. To have wrung a
man’s heart and spoiled his life might appear to her a small matter, but
the curate was resolved that so far he would have his revenge, since he
could have nothing else, and that she should know what she had done.
They met at last quite accidentally, in the quietest road, where their
interview was certain not to be disturbed by any intruder. At least, it
can scarcely be said that they met; he was jogging wearily, determinedly
along, thinking how he never saw her, and how he must see her, once at
least, before the end of all things, when suddenly the grey frock he
knew so well appeared round the corner of a cross road, and Mary, not
seeing him, went on before him, tranquilly, on her way home. The
curate’s heart stood still. Should he, now that the matter was in his
own hands, put off the crisis? Should he have it out now once for all?
After standing still for that one moment, his heart bounded up into his
throat, wildly beating, and in a long stride or two Mr. Asquith was at
Mary’s side.
And now for the vials of wrath that were to be poured out, the passion
of love and reproach that was to end all their intercourse, and with it
that glimpse of a sweeter life which had come suddenly to the curate in
Horton! But when he came up with her he was breathless, partly from
haste, partly from agitation, and it was Mary who said the first word.
She looked up into his face surprised and smiling, with a sweetness that
went to his very heart. There was no guilty consciousness in her eyes.
She did not look at him as one who had sinned against him, as one who
felt that he had something to reproach her with, but with a look of
pleasure, as if she were quite happy in this unexpected meeting. “Oh,
Mr. Asquith, is it you? What a long time it is since I have seen you!”
she said, in her pleasant voice.
“It is a long time,” said the curate, panting: and then he added, “I
fear I have made you change your hours and your habits, which is more
than I am worth.”
“Change my hours and my----. I haven’t got any hours or habits,” cried
Mary, “and indeed I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, Miss Mary!” he cried. I don’t think he knew her surname at all, or
if he once knew it he had forgotten it, for Mary was the only name he
ever heard given to her. “Oh, Miss Mary!” he cried, “I never meet you
now in any of the cottages wherever I go: and I know how that is. I know
that you have seen what was going on in my presumptuous mind: but there
was no presumption in it, if you only knew. I know very well I am
poor--as poor as--as poor as a church mouse, as people say,--too poor to
ask any woman to share my miserable fortunes. Don’t, don’t for heaven’s
sake be afraid of me! If I can’t help thinking of you, at least I can
help saying it. I gave up my visiting when I saw what was coming: but
you spoke to me yourself on that subject. You said, had a man a right to
neglect his duty for the sake of--for the sake of---- And I knew that
what you said was just. From that day I made up my mind to go on with
all my usual visiting, and to go on seeing you, which was always sweet
though cruel; to go on as if it did not matter, only never to say a
word----”
“And what has made you change your resolution, Mr. Asquith?” said Mary,
very demurely, without raising her eyes.
“Change? I have not changed at all,” he said. And then he stopped short,
with a look of misery and confusion. “What have I done?” he said. “What
have I done? though I did not intend it--it has been too much for me--I
have betrayed myself after all!”
And for a moment he turned his back upon her, as if he would have fled.
“Don’t run away,” said Mary, softly touching his arm with her hand. “Why
shouldn’t you tell me--whatever you wanted to tell me?--if you did
really want to tell me anything,” she said.
“Oh, Mary!” cried the curate, and paused; for the words came so fast
upon him that he did not know which to say first.
“Yes?” said Mary softly, giving him one little sidelong glance: and then
her face crimsoned over, and she drooped her head, but still with a
modest note of interrogation in the turn of her fine little pink ear.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]