IN THE FILBERT ALLEY.
"AND this is all you have to say to me, Sarah?"
"It is all I mean to say about the miserable affair, Walter. If you
like to believe me, you can; and if you won't believe me, you may leave
it alone."
"And you won't make any confession or apology?"
"What have I got to confess, Walter? And what apology do you expect me
to make, I should like to know?"
"Didn't you encourage that college man to come to see you? Didn't you
have games with him here in this very garden, and this very walk, and
in that very summer-house?" asked poor Walter Wilson, bitterly.
"If you think I did, sir," retorted his cousin, passionately, "it is
time we parted."
"Parted, Sarah?"
"Yes, parted for ever. If you choose to believe others before me, it
shows you haven't much love for me left."
"You don't mean what you say, I am sure, Sarah," exclaimed the
bewildered lover.
"Yes, I do; and a good deal more, if I choose to say it. And I will
say it," passionately responded the young lady, who, though equally
agitated and troubled, was not going to show it, as she afterwards
declared. "Yes, I will say it; and I say that you have used me very
badly, Walter Wilson, to be hearing all the ill-natured, spiteful, mean
stories Elizabeth has been all along stuffing you up with. Here you
have been days and days in this very place, and never coming near me—"
"I have been at my father's house, my old home," put in Walter.
"Yes, you have, I know; and you have been listening to all their wicked
inventions about me."
"I had a right to know what father and mother had got to say, let alone
Elizabeth and the rest," pleaded the young man, thus put upon his
defence.
"No, you hadn't when it was about me; you know you hadn't. I was the
first you ought to have come to, and would have come to if you hadn't
been tired of me, and wanted to get rid of me. But I know what it is,
that Mary Burgess—"
Walter started from Sarah's side—they had been walking in the old
lovers' walk side by side, but not arm-in-arm, or arm-encircled—and
paced several steps rapidly forward. Then he turned, but did not
retrace his steps.
"Have you anything more to say?" he asked, hoarsely.
"Yes, I have, and I will say it. Wasn't it mean of you to be making up
to another, and all the while—" She almost broke down here, for her
voice faltered, but she presently rallied again and went on, scarcely
knowing what she said, or how she said it, "And wasn't it mean of that
Mary Burgess—"
"Silence!" shouted Walter, as much beside himself, as Sarah was beside
herself. "If you knew as much of that—that young person as I do, you
would be sorry for ever having had a hard thought of her. She is as
much above me, to say nothing of other things that you don't know of—"
"As I am below you, you mean. Well, I always did hear it said of you
that you would be sure to rise in the world, Walter Wilson, so no
wonder you are looking above you," cried Sarah, with an attempt at
witticism which was a lamentable failure, for she burst into a flood of
hysterical tears.
Walter walked further away, partly perhaps to avoid seeing this sudden
distress, and partly to recover himself. When he presently returned to
where the damsel was yet standing, only the traces of tears remained.
"Let us talk over the matter coolly," he said, "and understand one
another."
"Yes, it is all very well for you to say 'talk it over coolly' after
going about taking away my character."
"Which I have not done," said Walter.
"You have, and you know it—writing to Mr. Rubric, and all, to find out
what he had got to say against me. You can't deny that you did."
"I do not intend to deny it, Sarah. I told you just now that I wrote to
him two months ago."
"And wasn't that mean?"
I shall write down no more of this lovers' quarrel, which began in this
wise.
During the interval which has been occupied by several of our preceding
chapters, and while our friend Tincroft was pursuing his investigations
in Sussex, and afterwards quietly settling himself down at Queen's,
poor Walter was fretting and fuming under the smart of wounded love,
and nursing his wrath against the unhappy damsel, who was as yet
unconscious that she had given such grievous offence to her lover. This
wrath increased in strength as week after week passed without a reply
from Mr. Rubric to the letter which, as our readers are aware, that
gentleman had not received.
"I won't write to her again till these stories have been properly
contradicted and cleared up," said he to himself.
And the blank silence on his part was met by a corresponding
determination on that of his betrothed, who said within herself, as
weeks slipped by and no letter reached High Beech Farm—for her at
least, "So, my gentleman is in the sulks, is he? I shall wait till he
is out of them, then; for I am not going to write to him again till he
has written to me."
Poor Sarah had, in fact, enough to think about and to do without
writing love-letters. The busy harvest-time gave her abundant
employment as a farmer's daughter; and the culminating ruin which hung
over her home occupied more and more of her thoughts, as she more
clearly saw that that ruin could not be much longer staved off. While
good average crops, as we have seen, were being gathered in all the
country round, Mark Wilson's farm presented as miserable a specimen
of bad husbandry and neglect as could have been met with in a day's
march. Poor lean crops overrun with weeds were the rule from one end of
the arable land to the other; and Sarah well knew—for who could help
knowing?—that the small amount of money the corn would bring in, when
thrashed, would not be a tithe that was wanted to clear her father from
his accumulated and constantly accumulating difficulties.
And as to Mark, he was becoming more and more infatuated in his vicious
course; and it was openly talked about now that at Christmas time
the squire would distrain for his rent, and that at Ladytide, when
the lease was out, Mark Wilson would have to turn out of High Beech,
beggared by his own folly and sin.
No wonder, then, that seeing all this before her, Sarah had but little
mind for thinking on anything besides.
Walter might have reflected on all this; but he did not. He must have
known how near his uncle's ruinous course was drawing to an end; but
his knowledge made but little difference to his state of feeling at
that time. There is a form of arrogant egotism not unfrequently to be
witnessed. Do we not know that there are persons who, though in some
respects estimable, set themselves and their own fancied demands upon
others, as above all other considerations, small or large?
"Oh yes," says one; "I knew your son was seriously ill, and you feared
he would not recover; but that was no reason why I shouldn't have been
attended to directly I wrote to you."
"To be sure," says another, "I daresay you were overwhelmed with family
cares at that time, and didn't know which way to turn to make the most
of the little time on your hands at that juncture; but I'll never
forgive you, if you don't write a humble apology for neglecting to walk
three miles out and home, and waste half a day, when I invited you, and
indeed made a point of requesting you to come to my house."
I am afraid there was a little too much of this exacting spirit in
Walter Wilson at all times, and especially at the time to which our
history has brought us. It need scarcely be added that in indulging
such a disposition, a man becomes his own worst enemy and tormentor.
"I won't write another line to her till she writes again to me, or not
till I have heard from Mr. Rubric," said Walter, and he stuck to his
determination.
Meanwhile, if Sarah and Mr. Rubric did not write, others did. To be
sure, there was nothing new to be told about Sarah's "goings on;" but
the old stories could be repeated. And besides this, every letter from
his home now teemed with prognostications, ripened into certainties of
"Uncle Mark's" speedy downfall, as well as details of his "shameful,
disgraceful doings." And in the more recent ones, Walter was informed
that "father has pretty near as good as got Squire Grigson's promise of
High Beech Farm when uncle is turned out."
"I can't bear this any longer," said Walter one day to his two
counsellors, as they sat together. "I shall go home and see all about
it."
"I should if I were you, Walter," responded Ralph. "Don't you think so
too, Mary?"
Mary was not quite sure. "You have not written to your cousin since you
received her last letter—the one you gave us to read," she said.
"No, Miss Burgess, I haven't," replied Walter, bluntly.
"And that letter came nearly two months ago."
"Yes, I daresay it was as long ago as that. It seems to me a good bit
longer," quoth he.
"Don't you think you ought to have answered it?" she asked,
insinuatingly.
"I don't. What could I say, after reading that and Elizabeth's?
Besides, I have been waiting to hear from Mr. Rubric; and he hasn't
written."
"Which seems odd and suspicious, as if he had nothing pleasant to tell
you, and doesn't want to make further mischief," added Ralph.
"I do not see that that follows," rejoined May. "He may be away
from home, or ill, or may have mislaid your letter, or altogether
forgotten it. I should rather think either of these things than what
Ralph says, if I were you, Walter. And then as to what you could, or
could not, write to your cousin, would it not have been a good plan
to have told her what has been on your mind, and asked her to tell
you faithfully whether she wishes to break off the connection? I am a
poor, inexperienced hand in these affairs," added the invalid, with a
pleasant smile, which had no unhappiness or regret in it; "but I fancy
that in love, as in everything also, open straightforwardness is the
best plan to adopt."
"Just so, and as it is never too late to mend, that's the plan I mean
to adopt now. Not in writing—I don't meant that, for letters may get
twisted about any way and every way, so as to read crooked. No, I'll go
and see into it all myself, offhand. We are not quite so busy now, you
know, Ralph, and I can be spared for a week or two, eh?"
"My dear fellow, you needn't ask that question. Go, by all means; I'll
work for us both till you come back," said Ralph, heartily.
And so it was decided that Walter should start early in the next week,
which he did, the last words of his friend Miss Burgess, as she bade
him good-bye, being, "Speak kindly to your cousin, Walter, and don't
suffer yourself to be set against her by anything you hear behind her
back; but go and see her at once, and get her explanation of all that
has happened; and be sure you think kindly of her, and be kind to her.
Remember she is a woman, and is young, and is to be your wife some day."
And Walter, perhaps, meant to do and be all this; but when he arrived
at his home, late one evening—too late to go up to High Beech then—he
suffered to be poured into his ears a great deal more than I should
think proper to write. And after this he was the more easily persuaded
by his sister to put off seeing Sarah till he had examined certain
witnesses whom she had taken care to subpœna, and had heard what they
had got to say. This took up two or three days. And then he might as
well go and see Mr. Rubric, who by this time had returned from his
foreign tour, and of whose long absence from his parish Walter was now,
for the first time, made aware.
Now, Mr. Rubric was a good, kind-hearted sort of gentleman, and
the perusal of Walter's letter, which he had received only a few
days before, after its long wanderings, had thrown him into grave
perplexity, for he was as conscientious as he was good-natured; and
this unexpected visit from the young man increased that feeling. He
would gladly have assured Walter that there was nothing in what he
had heard to give him any alarm, as Sarah's affianced; but he felt it
impossible to do this, for though he had seen little, he had heard much
that was calculated, as he believed, to throw great doubts on that
young woman's propriety of conduct, to say the least of it; and he had
seen enough, as he thought, to confirm these reports.
We have seen how seriously he looked upon the visits of John Tincroft
to High Beech, and he could not help concluding—that is to say, he did
conclude—that if John had not been encouraged, he would not have made
such frequent calls, nor stayed so long when he did call, at the farm.
In short, in good Mr. Rubric's opinion, Sarah was a determined coquette
and a flirt; and though he would not, on any account, have placed an
obstacle in the way of her marriage with her cousin (for he looked upon
such engagements as almost indelibly sacred), he sincerely pitied the
man who should be tied for life to such a vain, feather-brained piece
of womanhood.
In all this, and arguing upon false premises, the good rector was much
too severe and sweeping in his private judgment of the case, though he
was desirous to shield, as far as lay in his power, both the farmer's
daughter and the young man from Oxford from the grave charges brought
against them by Walter's sister and family in general.
Waller soon perceived Mr. Rubric's embarrassment, and drew from it the
very worst auguries.
"Don't say any more, sir," he said huskily. "I see what you mean, sir,
and I am much obliged to you for not deceiving me."
"Nay, but my good Walter, do not think worse of the matter than there
is occasion for. I trust and believe that your cousin is heart-whole;
and I am sure she has been, and I trust she is, strongly attached to
you; and that if there has been a little undue familiarity, and I don't
say that this has been the case, but if there should have been, and
if female vanity (she is but young, you know, your cousin, I mean)
has been somewhat excited and flattered, I do hope, now the cause is
removed, she will come round again all right."
The excellent divine floundered through this long sentence, which he
had made all the more complicated by not knowing how he should end it
when he began. Presently he went on—
"I am an elderly man, Mr. Wilson, and have some notions I daresay
at variance with the greater liberty allowed to young people in the
present day in matters of this sort; and besides, my profession as
a clergyman makes it essential that I should give no countenance to
things which may be lawful but not expedient. I hope you understand me,
my dear young friend."
Walter was not at all sure that he did understand all that his clerical
friend and former religious instructor had been giving words to, but he
understood some parts of it too well. There was nothing more to be made
of it, at any rate; and without stopping to mark, much less to inwardly
digest, an exhortation which followed regarding the exorcise of
charity, the chief of the three heavenly trances, the impetuous young
man thanked the rector and hastened away, half determined to return to
the far-off field of his business labours, without even an interview
with his cousin.
On second thoughts, however, he decided that this course would be
cowardly; and then some yearning towards the old and happy days of
early love prompted him to the following course. He would go and see
his cousin, would lay before her very plainly her misdeeds, and would
then, if she seemed penitent, offer her his forgiveness (he intended
to be very magnanimous, you see) on condition that she made full
confession of all that she had been charged with, and humbly sued for
his mercy.
The visit to High Beech was accordingly paid, but not till after the
lapse of another day or two, which he required for setting all his
arguments and reproaches and reproofs in due methodical order. Then
he took the road he had so often, under happier circumstances, and at
other times, taken. Almost as a matter of course, his uncle Mark was
not about home; and Walter so timed the visit that, almost as a matter
of course also (it being afternoon), his aunt was having her diurnal
"lay down."
The first greeting with his cousin was short and incisive on both
sides, for Sarah had her grounds of resentment in the fact, which had
come to her knowledge, that her lover had been a week almost within
sight of her home without deigning to see her, or even to send a
message.
"We had better go into the garden and say what we have to say,
Sarah; we shall be more out of hearing there," said Walter, and,
without knowing what she did, the poor girl obeyed the imperious and
dictatorial invitation.
Then Walter commenced his attack. For a time Sarah heard what he urged
with a flushed cheek and a heaving bosom, but in silence. At length she
said—
"And that is what you have got to tell me; and that is your love for
me, is it, Walter?"
And then, having recovered her thoughts, she found words for them,
as volubly at least as Walter had found words for his. A small part
of the dialogue has already been given at the commencement of this
chapter, and the two misguided and mistaken young persons were still
in the flushed and fevered excitement of their lovers' quarrel, when,
just as they emerged into the open garden, heavy, stumbling footsteps
approached, unnoticed by them, however, till the thick and uncertain
voice of Mark Wilson fell upon their ears in some such words as these—
"Ho! Ho! Master Walter; so you are turned up, are you? Now, let me tell
you, you are come where you are not wanted, not a bit of it. It'll be
time enough for you to be poking about these premises when your father
has got the farm; and the sooner you make yourself scarce now the
better. And you, girl, had better go indoors and see to your mother,
and your proper work."
"Father, father!" cried the agitated girl, very softly, for if she felt
angry with her lover, and reproachfully towards him, her heart was not
so untrue to him as he thought it to be.
"And you needn't think, Master Walter, that Sarah is anything to you
any more, or you to her," the insensate man went on, without heeding
his daughter's agonised look. "We've a better match in store, and a
better husband, too, haven't we, girl? You've heard of Master Tincroft,
I daresay, nephew; and if you haven't, you may hear of him now. A true
gentleman, and none of your low-bred sort, like you; and coming into
a fortune, too, when he gets his rights. There, what do you think of
that?"
Until the sot came to this pause it was next to impossible for either
the daughter or nephew to say a word to any effect. Now, however, the
voice of Sarah rang through the air, in a long wailing cry—
"Oh, father, father! What have you done? What have you said?"
"Nothing but the truth, and I am obliged to him for saying it, if
for nothing else," said Walter, bitterly. "There is no need for more
words," he added, "except to say that I won't trespass on forbidden
grounds any longer. Good-bye, Sarah. It is all over between us two now."
And the young man walked rapidly away.
"Stop him, stop him, father!" shrieked the unhappy girl. "Oh, father,
father! You don't know what you have done! Walter—dear Walter!"
But Walter was gone.
The next day, when Sarah, unable to leave her bed, after the fearful
hysterical fit in which she had on the previous evening been found
by the sympathising servant-of-all-work, was trying to recall the
particulars of that last meeting and parting, a packet was placed in
her hands by her attendant. Tremblingly she opened it. It was as she
thought. It contained all the little love-gifts she had in days gone
by made over to her cousin Walter, and all the letters she had ever
written to him. There was no other writing; not a scrap from him to
soften the terrible blow. Yes, it was all over between the two.
"Darling, darling, don't take on so, don't 'ee then?" sobbed Meg, the
handmaiden, when Sarah once and again gave way to paroxysms of grief.
"Oh, deary, deary me; what is to be done? And didn't I think how it
would turn out? But don't 'ee fret so, darling! It'll all come round
again, it will, if you only keep up a good heart."
But Sarah knew better than this.
That same day Walter left his home, and travelled, with as hot speed as
he could, to rejoin his friend Ralph.
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