THE FATTED CALF.
[Illustration]
Mrs. Brattle, when she heard her daughter's voice, was so confounded,
dismayed, and frightened, that for awhile she could give no direction
as to what should be done. She had screamed at first, having some dim
idea in her mind that the form she saw was not of living flesh and
blood. And Carry herself had been hardly more composed or mistress of
herself than her mother. She had strayed thither, never having quite
made up her mind to any settled purpose. From the spot in which she
had hidden herself under the bridge when the policeman passed her she
had started when the evening sun was setting, and had wandered on
slowly till the old familiar landmarks of the parish were reached.
And then she came to the river, and looking across could just see
the eaves of the mill through the willows by the last gloaming of
the sunlight. Then she stood and paused, and every now and again had
crept on a few feet as her courage came to her, and at last, by the
well known little path, she had crept down behind the mill, crossing
the stream by the board which had once been so accustomed to her
feet, and had made her way into the garden and had heard her mother
and sister as they talked together at the open window. Any idea which
she had hitherto entertained of not making herself known to them at
the mill,--of not making herself known at any rate to her mother and
sister,--left her at once at that moment. There had been upon her
a waking dream, a horrid dream, that the waters of the mill-stream
might flow over her head, and hide her wickedness and her misery
from the eyes of men; and she had stood and shuddered as she saw the
river; but she had never really thought that her own strength would
suffice for that termination to her sorrows. It was more probable
that she would be doomed to lie during the night beneath a hedge, and
then perish of the morning cold! But now, as she heard the voices at
the window, there could be no choice for her but that she should make
herself known,--not though her father should kill her.
Even Fanny was driven beyond the strength of her composure by the
strangeness of this advent. "Carry! Carry!" she exclaimed over and
over again, not aloud,--and indeed her voice was never loud,--but
with bated wonder. The two sisters held each other by the hand, and
Carry's other hand still grasped her mother's arm. "Oh, mother, I am
so tired," said the girl. "Oh, mother, I think that I shall die."
"My child;--my poor child. What shall we do, Fan?"
"Bring her in, of course," said Fanny.
"But your father--"
"We couldn't turn her away from the very window, and she like that,
mother."
"Don't turn me away, Fanny. Dear Fanny, do not turn me away," said
Carry, striving to take her sister by the other hand.
"No, Carry, we will not," said Fanny, trying to settle her mind to
some plan of action. Any idea of keeping the thing long secret from
her father she knew that she could not entertain; but for this night
she resolved at last that shelter should be given to the discarded
daughter without the father's knowledge. But even in doing this there
would be difficulty. Carry must be brought in through the window, as
any disturbance at the front of the house would arouse the miller.
And then Mrs. Brattle must be made to go to her own room, or her
absence would create suspicion and confusion. Fanny, too, had
terrible doubts as to her mother's powers of going to her bed and
lying there without revealing to her husband that some cause of great
excitement had arisen. And then it might be that the miller would
come to his daughter's room, and insist that the outcast should be
made an outcast again, even in the middle of the night. He was a man
so stern, so obstinate, so unforgiving, so masterful, that Fanny,
though she would face any danger as regarded herself, knew that
terrible things might happen. It seemed to her that Carry was very
weak. If their father came to them in his wrath, might she not die in
her despair? Nevertheless it was necessary that something should be
done. "We must let her get in at the window, mother," she said. "It
won't do, nohow, to unbar the door."
"But what if he was to kill her outright! Oh, Carry; oh, my child. I
dunna know as she can get in along of her weakness." But Carry was
not so tired as that. She had been in and out of that window scores
of times; and now, when she heard that the permission was accorded
to her, she was not long before she was in her mother's arms. "My
own Carry, my own bairn;--my girl, my darling." And the poor mother
satisfied the longings of her heart with infinite caresses.
Fanny in the meantime had crept out to the kitchen, and now returned
with food in a plate and cold tea. "My girl," she said, "you must eat
a bit, and then we will have you to bed. When the morn comes, we must
think about it."
"Fanny, you was always the best that there ever was," said Carry,
speaking from her mother's bosom.
"And now, mother," continued Fanny, "you must creep off. Indeed you
must, or of course father'll wake up. And mother, don't say a word
to-morrow when he rises. I'll go to him in the mill myself. That'll
be best." Then, with longings that could hardly be repressed, with
warm, thick, clinging kisses, with a hot, rapid, repeated assurance
that everything,--everything had been forgiven, that her own Carry
was once more her own, own Carry, the poor mother allowed herself
to be banished. There seemed to her to be such a world of cruelty
in the fact that Fanny might remain for the whole of that night
with the dear one who had returned to them, while she must be sent
away,--perhaps not to see her again if the storm in the morning
should rise too loudly! Fanny, with great craft, accompanied her
mother to her room, so that if the old man should speak she might
be there to answer;--but the miller slept soundly after his day of
labour, and never stirred.
"What will he do to me, Fan?" the wanderer asked as soon as her
sister returned.
"Don't think of it now, my pet," said Fanny, softened almost as her
mother was softened by the sight of her sister.
"Will he kill me, Fan?"
"No, dear; he will not lay a hand upon you. It is his words that are
so rough! Carry, Carry, will you be good?"
"I will, dear; indeed I will. I have not been bad since Mr. Fenwick
came."
"My sister,--if you will be good, I will never leave you. My heart's
darling, my beauty, my pretty one! Carry, you shall be the same to
me as always, if you'll be good. I'll never cast it up again you, if
you'll be good." Then she, too, filled herself full, and satisfied
the hungry craving of her love with the warmth of her caresses. "But
thee'll be famished, lass. I'll see thee eat a bit, and then I'll put
thee comfortable to bed."
Poor Carry Brattle was famished, and ate the bread and bacon which
were set before her, and drank the cold tea, with an appetite which
was perhaps unbecoming the romance of her position. Her sister stood
over her, cutting a slice now and then from the loaf, telling her
that she had taken nothing, smoothing her hair, and wishing for her
sake that the fire were better. "I'm afeard of father, Fan,--awfully;
but for all that, it's the sweetest meal as I've had since I left the
mill." Then Fanny was on her knees beside the returned profligate,
covering even the dear one's garments with her kisses.
It was late before Fanny laid herself down by her sister's side that
night. "Carry," she whispered when her sister was undressed, "will
you kneel here and say your prayers as you used to?" Carry, without a
word, did as she was bidden, and hid her face upon her hands in her
sister's lap. No word was spoken out loud, but Fanny was satisfied
that her sister had been in earnest. "Now sleep, my darling;--and
when I've just tidied your things for the morning, I will be with
you." The wanderer again obeyed, and in a few moments the work of the
past two days befriended her, and she was asleep. Then the sister
went to her task with the soiled frock and the soiled shoes, and
looked up things clean and decent for the morrow. It would be at any
rate well that Carry should appear before her father without the
stain of the road upon her.
As the lost one lay asleep there, with her soft ringlets all loose
upon the pillow, still beautiful, still soft, lovely though an
outcast from the dearest rights of womanhood, with so much of
innocence on her brow, with so much left of the grace of childhood
though the glory of the flower had been destroyed by the unworthy
hand that had ravished its sweetness, Fanny, sitting in the corner
of the room over her work, with her eye from moment to moment turned
upon the sleeper, could not keep her mind from wandering away in
thoughts on the strange destiny of woman. She knew that there had
been moments in her life in which her great love for her sister had
been tinged with envy. No young lad had ever waited in the dusk to
hear the sound of her footfall; no half-impudent but half-bashful
glances had ever been thrown after her as she went through the
village on her business. To be a homely, household thing, useful
indeed in this world, and with high hopes for the future,--but still
to be a drudge; that had been her destiny. There was never a woman
to whom the idea of being loved was not the sweetest thought that
her mind could produce. Fate had made her plain, and no man had
loved her. The same chance had made Carry pretty,--the belle of the
village, the acknowledged beauty of Bullhampton. And there she lay,
a thing said to be so foul that even a father could not endure to
have her name mentioned in his ears! And yet, how small had been
her fault compared with other crimes for which men and women are
forgiven speedily, even if it has been held that pardon has ever been
required.
She came over, and knelt down and kissed her sister on her brow; and
as she did so she swore to herself that by her, even in the inmost
recesses of her bosom, Carry should never be held to be evil, to be a
castaway, to be one of whom, as her sister, it would behove her to be
ashamed. She had told Carry that she would "never cast it up against
her." She now resolved that there should be no such casting up even
in her own judgment. Had she, too, been fair, might not she also have
fallen?
At five o'clock on the following morning the miller went out from the
house to his mill, according to his daily practice. Fanny heard his
heavy step, heard the bar withdrawn, heard the shutters removed from
the kitchen window, and knew that her father was as yet in ignorance
of the inmate who had been harboured. Fanny at once arose from her
bed, careful not to disturb her companion. She had thought it all
out, whether she would have Carry ready dressed for an escape, should
it be that her father would demand imperiously that she should be
sent adrift from the mill, or whether it might not be better that she
should be able to plead at the first moment that her sister was in
bed, tired, asleep,--at any rate undressed,--and that some little
time must be allowed. Might it not be that even in that hour her
father's heart might be softened? But she must lose no time in going
to him. The hired man who now tended the mill with her father came
always at six, and that which she had to say to him must be said with
no ear to hear her but his own. It would have been impossible even
for her to remind him of his daughter before a stranger. She slipped
her clothes on, therefore, and within ten minutes of her father's
departure followed him into the mill.
The old man had gone aloft, and she heard his slow, heavy feet as he
was moving the sacks which were above her head. She considered for a
moment, and thinking it better that she should not herself ascend the
little ladder,--knowing that it might be well that she should have
the power of instant retreat to the house,--she called to him from
below. "What's wanted now?" demanded the old man as soon as he heard
her. "Father, I must speak to you," she said. "Father, you must come
down to me." Then he came down slowly, without a word, and stood
before her waiting to hear her tidings. "Father," she said, "there is
some one in the house, and I have come to tell you."
"Sam has come, then?" said he; and she could see that there was a
sparkle of joy in his eye as he spoke. Oh, if she could only make the
return of that other child as grateful to him as would have been the
return of his son!
"No, father; it isn't Sam."
"Who be it, then?" The tone of his voice, and the colour and bearing
of his face were changed as he asked the question. She saw at once
that he had guessed the truth. "It isn't--it isn't--?"
"Yes, father; it is Carry." As she spoke she came close to him,
and strove to take his hand; but he thrust both his hands into his
pockets and turned himself half away from her. "Father, she is our
flesh and blood; you will not turn against her now that she has come
back to us, and is sorry for her faults."
"She is a--" But his other daughter had stopped his mouth with her
hand before the word had been uttered.
"Father, who among us has not done wrong at times?"
"She has disgraced my gray hairs, and made me a reproach and a shame.
I will not see her. Bid her begone. I will not speak to her or look
at her. How came she there? When did she come?"
Then Fanny told her father the whole story,--everything as it
occurred, and did not forget to add her own conviction that Carry's
life had been decent in all respects since the Vicar had found a home
for her in Salisbury. "You would not have it go on like that, father.
She is naught to our parson."
"I will pay. As long as there is a shilling left, I will pay for her.
She shall not live on the charity of any man, whether parson or no
parson. But I will not see her. While she be here you may just send
me my vittels to the mill. If she be not gone afore night, I will
sleep here among the sacks."
She stayed with him till the labourer came, and then she returned to
the house, having failed as yet to touch his heart. She went back and
told her story to her mother, and then a part of it to Carry who was
still in bed. Indeed, she had found her mother by Carry's bedside,
and had to wait till she could separate them before she could tell
any story to either. "What does he say of me, Fan?" asked the poor
sinner. "Does he say that I must go? Will he never speak to me again?
I will just throw myself into the mill-race and have done with it."
Her sister bade her to rise and dress herself, but to remain where
she was. It could not be expected, she said, but that their father
would be hard to persuade. "I know that he will kill me when he sees
me," said Carry.
At eight o'clock Fanny took the old man his breakfast to the mill,
while Mrs. Brattle waited on Carry, as though she had deserved all
the good things which a mother could do for a child. The miller sat
upon a sack at the back of the building, while the hired man took his
meal of bread and cheese in the front, and Fanny remained close at
his elbow. While the old man was eating she said nothing to him. He
was very slow, and sat with his eyes fixed upon the morsel of sky
which was visible through the small aperture, thinking evidently of
anything but the food that he was swallowing. Presently he returned
the empty bowl and plate to his daughter, as though he were about at
once to resume his work. Hitherto he had not uttered a single word
since she had come to him.
"Father," she said, "think of it. Is it not good to have mercy and to
forgive? Would you drive your girl out again upon the streets?"
The miller still did not speak, but turned his face round upon his
daughter with a gaze of such agony that she threw herself on the sack
beside him, and clung to him with her arms round his neck.
"If she were such as thee, Fan," he said. "Oh, if she were such as
thee!" Then again he turned away his face that she might not see the
tear that was forcing itself into the corner of his eye.
She remained with him an hour before he moved. His companion in the
mill did not come near them, knowing, as the poor do know on such
occasions, there was something going on which would lead them to
prefer that he should be absent. The words that were said between
them were not very many; but at the end of the hour Fanny returned to
the house.
"Carry," she said, "father is coming in."
"If he looks at me, it will kill me," said Carry.
Mrs. Brattle was so lost in her hopes and fears that she knew not
what to do, or how to bestow herself. A minute had hardly passed
when the miller's step was heard, and Carry knew that she was in the
presence of her father. She had been sitting, but now she rose, and
went to him and knelt at his feet.
"Father," she said, "if I may bide with you,--if I may bide with
you--." But her voice was lost in sobbing, and she could make no
promise as to her future conduct.
[Illustration: "If I may bide with you,--if I may bide
with you."]
"She may stay with us," the father said, turning to his eldest
daughter; "but I shall never be able to show my face again about the
parish."
He had uttered no words of forgiveness to his daughter, nor had he
bestowed upon her any kiss. Fanny had raised her when she was on the
ground at his feet, and had made her seat herself apart.
"In all the whole warld," he said, looking round upon his wife and
his elder child, raising his hand as he uttered the words, and
speaking with an emphasis that was terrible to the hearers, "there
is no thing so vile as a harlot." All the dreaded fierceness of his
manner had then come back to him, and neither of them had dared to
answer him. After that he at once went back to the mill, and to Fanny
who followed him he vouchsafed to repeat the permission that his
daughter should be allowed to remain beneath his roof.
Between twelve and one she again went to fetch him to his dinner. At
first he declared that he would not come, that he was busy, and that
he would eat a morsel, where he was, in the mill. But Fanny argued
the matter with him.
"Is it always to be so, father?"
"I do not know. What matters it, so as I have strength to do a turn
of work?"
"It must not be that her presence should drive you from the house.
Think of mother, and what she will suffer. Father, you must come."
Then he allowed himself to be led into the house, and he sat in his
accustomed chair, and ate his dinner in gloomy silence. But after
dinner he would not smoke.
"I tell 'ee, lass, I do not want the pipe to-day. Now't has got
itself done. D'ye think as grist 'll grind itself without hands?"
When Carry said that it would be better than this that she should go
again, Fanny told her to remember that evil things could not be cured
in a day. With the mother that afternoon was, on the whole, a happy
time, for she sat with her lost child's hand within her own. Late in
the evening, when the miller returned to his rest, Carry moved about
the house softly, resuming some old task to which in former days she
had been accustomed; and as she did so the miller's eyes would wander
round the room after her; but he did not speak to her on that day,
nor did he pronounce her name.
Two other circumstances which bear upon our story occurred at the
mill that afternoon. After their tea, at which the miller did not
make his appearance, Fanny Brattle put on her bonnet and ran across
the fields to the vicarage. After all the trouble that Mr. Fenwick
had taken, it was, she thought, necessary that he should be told what
had happened.
"That is the best news," said he, "that I have heard this many a
day."
"I knew that you would be glad to hear that the poor child has found
her home again." Then Fanny told the whole story,--how Carry had
escaped from Salisbury, being driven to do so by fear of the law
proceedings at which she had been summoned to attend, how her father
had sworn that he would not yield, and how at length he had yielded.
When Fanny told the Vicar and Mrs. Fenwick that the old man had as
yet not spoken to his daughter, they both desired her to be of good
cheer.
"That will come, Fanny," said Mrs. Fenwick, "if she once be allowed
to sit at table with him."
"Of course it will come," said the Vicar. "In a week or two you will
find that she is his favourite."
"She was the favourite with us all, sir, once," said Fanny, "and may
God send that it shall be so again. A winsome thing like her is made
to be loved. You'll come and see her, Mr. Fenwick, some day?" Mr.
Fenwick promised that he would, and Fanny returned to the mill.
The other circumstance was the arrival of Constable Toffy at the mill
during Fanny's absence. In the course of the day news had travelled
into the village that Carry Brattle was again at the mill;--and
Constable Toffy, who in regard to the Brattle family, was somewhat
discomfited by the transactions of the previous day at Heytesbury,
heard the news. He was aware,--being in that respect more capable
than Lord Trowbridge of receiving enlightenment,--that the result
of all the inquiries made, in regard to the murder, did, in truth,
contain no tittle of evidence against Sam. As constables go,
Constable Toffy was a good man, and he would be wronged if it were to
be said of him that he regretted Sam's escape; but his nature was as
is the nature of constables, and he could not rid himself of that
feeling of disappointment which always attends baffled efforts. And
though he saw that there was no evidence against Sam, he did not,
therefore, necessarily think that the young man was innocent. It may
be doubted whether, to the normal policeman's mind, any man is ever
altogether absolved of any crime with which that man's name has
been once connected. He felt, therefore, somewhat sore against the
Brattles;--and then there was the fact that Carry Brattle, who had
been regularly "subpoenaed," had kept herself out of the way,--most
flagitiously, illegally and damnably. She had run off from Salisbury,
just as though she were a free person to do as she pleased with
herself, and not subject to police orders! When, therefore, he heard
that Carry was at the mill,--she having made herself liable to some
terribly heavy fine by her contumacy,--it was manifestly his duty to
see after her and let her know that she was wanted.
At the mill he saw only the miller himself, and his visit was not
altogether satisfactory. Old Brattle, who understood very little of
the case, but who did understand that his own son had been made clear
in reference to that accusation, had no idea that his daughter had
any concern with that matter, other than what had fallen to her lot
in reference to her brother. When, therefore, Toffy inquired after
Caroline Brattle, and desired to know whether she was at the mill,
and also was anxious to be informed why she had not attended at
Heytesbury in accordance with the requirements of the law, the miller
turned upon him and declared that if anybody said a word against Sam
Brattle in reference to the murder,--the magistrates having settled
that matter,--he, Jacob Brattle, old as he was, would "see it out"
with that malignant slanderer. Constable Toffy did his best to make
the matter clear to the miller, but failed utterly. Had he a warrant
to search for anybody? Toffy had no warrant. Toffy only desired to
know whether Caroline Brattle was or was not beneath her father's
roof. The old miller, declaring to himself that, though his child had
shamed him, he would not deny her now that she was again one of the
family, acknowledged so much, but refused the constable admittance to
the house.
"But, Mr. Brattle," said the constable, "she was subpoenaed."
"I know now't o' that," answered the miller, not deigning to turn his
face round to his antagonist.
"But you know, Mr. Brattle, the law must have its course."
"No, I don't. And it ain't law as you should come here a hindering o'
me; and it ain't law as you should walk that unfortunate young woman
off with you to prison."
"But she's wanted, Mr. Brattle;--not in the way of going to prison,
but before the magistrates."
"There's a deal of things is wanted as ain't to be had. Anyways, you
ain't no call to my house now, and as them as is there is in trouble,
I'll ax you to be so kind as--as just to leave us alone."
Toffy, pretending that he was satisfied with the information
received, and merely adding that Caroline Brattle must certainly,
at some future time, be made to appear before the magistrates at
Heytesbury, took his departure with more good-humour than the miller
deserved from him, and returned to the village.