CHAPTER XL.
TROTTER'S BUILDINGS
In the back room up-stairs of Mr. Stiggs's house in Trotter's Buildings the Vicar did find Carry Brattle, and he found also that since her coming thither on the preceding evening, – for only on the preceding evening had she been turned away from the Three Honest Men, – one of Mrs. Stiggs's children had been on the look-out in the lane.
"I thought that you would come to me, sir," said Carry Brattle.
"Of course I should come. Did I not promise that I would come? And where is your brother?"
But Sam had left her as soon as he had placed her in Mrs. Stiggs's house, and Carry could not say whither he had gone. He had brought her to Salisbury, and had remained with her two days at the Three Honest Men, during which time the remainder of their four pounds had been spent; and then there had been a row. Some visitors to the house recognised poor Carry, or knew something of her tale, and evil words were spoken. There had been a fight and Sam had thrashed some man, – or some half-dozen men, if all that Carry said was true. She had fled from the house in sad tears, and after a while her brother had joined her, – bloody, with his lip cut and a black eye. It seemed that he had had some previous knowledge of this woman who lived in Trotter's Buildings, – had known her or her husband, – and there he had found shelter for his sister, having explained that a clergyman would call for her and pay for her modest wants, and then take her away. She supposed that Sam had gone back to London; but he had been so bruised and mauled in the fight that he had determined that Mr. Fenwick should not see him. This was the story as Carry told it; and Mr. Fenwick did not for a moment doubt its truth.
"And now, Carry," said he, "what is it that you would do?"
She looked up into his face, and yet not wholly into his face, – as though she were afraid to raise her eyes so high, – and was silent. His were intently fixed upon her, as he stood over her, and he thought that he had never seen a sight more sad to look at. And yet she was very pretty, – prettier, perhaps, than she had been in the days when she would come up the aisle of his church, to take her place among the singers, with red cheeks and bright flowing clusters of hair. She was pale now, and he could see that her cheeks were rough, – from paint, perhaps, and late hours, and an ill-life; but the girl had become a woman, and the lines of her countenance were fixed, and were very lovely, and there was a pleading eloquence about her mouth for which there had been no need in her happy days at Bullhampton. He had asked her what she would do! But had she not come there, at her brother's instigation, that he might tell her what she should do? Had he not promised that he would find her a home if she would leave her evil ways? How was it possible that she should have a plan for her future life? She answered him not a word; but tried to look into his face and failed.
Nor had he any formed plan. That idea, indeed, of going to Startup had come across his brain, – of going to Startup, and of asking assistance from the prosperous elder brother. But so diffident was he of success that he hardly dared to mention it to the poor girl.
"It is hard to say what you should do," he said.
"Very hard, sir."
His heart was so tender towards her that he could not bring himself to propose to her the cold and unpleasant safety of a Reformatory. He knew, as a clergyman and as a man of common sense, that to place her in such an establishment would, in truth, be the greatest kindness that he could do her. But he could not do it. He satisfied his own conscience by telling himself that he knew that she would accept no such refuge. He thought that he had half promised not to ask her to go to any such place. At any rate, he had not meant that when he had made his rash promise to her brother; and though that promise was rash, he was not the less bound to keep it. She was very pretty, and still soft, and he had loved her well. Was it a fault in him that he was tender to her because of her prettiness, and because he had loved her as a child? We must own that it was a fault. The crooked places of the world, if they are to be made straight at all, must be made straight after a sterner and a juster fashion.
"Perhaps you could stay here for a day or two?" he said.
"Only that I've got no money."
"I will see to that, – for a few days, you know. And I was thinking that I would go to your brother George."
"My brother George?"
"Yes; – why not? Was he not always good to you?"
"He was never bad, sir; only – "
"Only what?"
"I've been so bad, sir, that I don't think he'd speak to me, or notice me, or do anything for me. And he has got a wife, too."
"But a woman doesn't always become hard-hearted as soon as she is married. There must be some of them that will take pity on you, Carry." She only shook her head. "I shall tell him that it is his duty, and if he be an honest, God-fearing man, he will do it."
"And should I have to go there?"
"If he will take you – certainly. What better could you wish? Your father is hard, and though he loves you still, he cannot bring himself to forget."
"How can any of them forget, Mr. Fenwick?"
"I will go out at once to Startup, and as I return through Salisbury I will let you know what your brother says." She again shook her head. "At any rate, we must try, Carry. When things are difficult, they cannot be mended by people sitting down and crying. I will ask your brother; and if he refuses, I will endeavour to think of something else. Next to your father and mother, he is certainly the first that should be asked to look to you." Then he said much to her as to her condition, preached to her the little sermon with which he had come prepared; was as stern to her as his nature and love would allow, – though, indeed, his words were tender enough. He strove to make her understand that she could have no escape from the dirt and vileness and depth of misery into which she had fallen, without the penalty of a hard, laborious life, in which she must submit to be regarded as one whose place in the world was very low. He asked her whether she did not hate the disgrace and the ignominy and the vile wickedness of her late condition. "Yes, indeed, sir," she answered, with her eyes still only half-raised towards him. What other answer could she make? He would fain have drawn from her some deep and passionate expression of repentance, some fervid promise of future rectitude, some eager offer to bear all other hardships, so that she might be saved from a renewal of the past misery. But he knew that no such eloquence, no such energy, no such ecstacy, would be forthcoming. And he knew, also, that humble, contrite, and wretched as was the girl now, the nature within her bosom was not changed. Were he to place her in a reformatory, she would not stay there. Were he to make arrangements with Mrs. Stiggs, who in her way seemed to be a decent, hard-working woman, – to make arrangements for her board and lodging, with some collateral regulations as to occupation, needle-work, and the like, – she would not adhere to them. The change from a life of fevered, though most miserable, excitement, to one of dull, pleasureless, and utterly uninteresting propriety, is one that can hardly be made without the assistance of binding control. Could she have been sent to the mill, and made subject to her mother's softness as well as to her mother's care, there might have been room for confident hope. And then, too, – but let not the reader read this amiss, – because she was pretty and might be made bright again, and because he was young, and because he loved her, he longed, were it possible, to make her paths pleasant for her. Her fall, her first fall had been piteous to him, rather than odious. He, too, would have liked to get hold of the man and to have left him without a sound limb within his skin, – to have left him pretty nearly without a skin at all; but that work had fallen into the miller's hands, who had done it fairly well. And, moreover, it would hardly have fitted the Vicar. But, as regarded Carry herself, when he thought of her in his solitary rambles, he would build little castles in the air on her behalf, in which her life should be anything but one of sackcloth and ashes. He would find for her some loving husband, who should know and should have forgiven the sin which had hardly been a sin, and she should be a loving wife with loving children. Perhaps, too, he would add to this, as he built his castles, the sweet smiles of affectionate gratitude with which he himself would be received when he visited her happy hearth. But he knew that these were castles in the air, and he endeavoured to throw them all behind him as he preached his sermon. Nevertheless, he was very tender with her, and treated her not at all as he would have done an ugly young parishioner who had turned thief upon his hands.
"And now, Carry," he said, as he left her, "I will get a gig in the town, and will drive over to your brother. We can but try it. I am clear as to this, that the best thing for you will be to be among your own people."
"I suppose it would, sir; but I don't think she'll ever be brought to have me."
"We will try, at any rate. And if she will have you, you must remember that you must not eat the bread of idleness. You must be prepared to work for your living."
"I don't want to be idle, sir." Then he took her by the hand, and pressed it, and bade God bless her, and gave her a little money in order that she might make some first payment to Mrs. Stiggs. "I'm sure I don't know why you should do all this for the likes of me, sir," said the girl, bursting into tears. The Vicar did not tell her that he did it because she was gracious in his eyes, and perhaps was not aware of the fact himself.
He went to the Dragon of Wantley, and there procured a gig. He had a contest in the inn-yard before they would let him have the gig without a man to drive him; but he managed it at last, fearing that the driver might learn something of his errand. He had never been at Startup Farm before; and knew very little of the man he was going to see on so very delicate a mission; but he did know that George Brattle was prosperous, and that in early life he had been a good son. His last interview with the farmer had had reference to the matter of bail required for Sam, and on that occasion the brother had, with some persuasion, done as he was asked. George Brattle had contrived to win for himself a wife from the Fordingbridge side of the country, who had had a little money; and as he, too, had carried away from the mill a little money in his father's prosperous days, he had done very well. He paid his rent to the day, owed no man anything, and went to church every other Sunday, eschewing the bad example set to him by his father in matters of religion. He was hard-fisted, ignorant, and self-confident, knowing much about corn and the grinding of it, knowing something of sheep and the shearing of them, knowing also how to get the worth of his ten or eleven shillings a week out of the bones of the rural labourers; – but knowing very little else. Of all this Fenwick was aware; and, in spite of that church-going twice a month, rated the son as inferior to the father; for about the old miller there was a stubborn constancy which almost amounted to heroism. With such a man as was this George Brattle, how was he to preach a doctrine of true human charity with any chance of success? But the man was one who was pervious to ideas of duty, and might be probably pervious to feelings of family respect. And he had been good to his father and mother, regarding with something of true veneration the nest from which he had sprung. The Vicar did not like the task before him, dreading the disappointment which failure would produce; but he was not the man to shrink from any work which he had resolved to undertake, and drove gallantly into the farmyard, though he saw both the farmer and his wife standing at the back-door of the house.
CHAPTER XLI.
STARTUP FARM
Farmer Brattle, who was a stout man about thirty-eight years of age but looking as though he were nearly ten years older, came up to the Vicar, touching his hat, and then putting his hand out in greeting.
"This be a pleasure something like, Muster Fenwick, to see thee here at Startup. This be my wife. Molly, thou has never seen Muster Fenwick from Bull'umpton. This be our Vicar, as mother and Fanny says is the pick of all the parsons in Wiltshire."
Then Mr. Fenwick got down, and walked into the spacious kitchen, where he was cordially welcomed by the stout mistress of Startup Farm.
He was very anxious to begin his story to the brother alone. Indeed, as to that, his mind was quite made up; but Mrs. Brattle, who within the doors of that house held a position at any rate equal to that of her husband, did not seem disposed to give him the opportunity. She understood well enough that Mr. Fenwick had not come over from Bullhampton to shake hands with her husband, and to say a few civil words. He must have business, and that business must be about the Brattle family. Old Brattle was supposed to be in money difficulties, and was not this an embassy in search of money? Now Mrs. George Brattle, who had been born a Huggins, was very desirous that none of the Huggins money should be sent into the parish of Bullhampton. When, therefore, Mr. Fenwick asked the farmer to step out with him for a moment, Mrs. George Brattle looked very grave, and took her husband apart and whispered a word of caution into his ear.
"It's about the mill, George; and don't you do nothing till you've spoke to me."
Then there came a solid look, almost of grief, upon George's face. There had been a word or two before this between him and the wife of his bosom as to the affairs of the mill.
"I've just been seeing somebody at Salisbury," began the Vicar, abruptly, as soon as they had crossed from the yard behind the house into the enclosure around the ricks.
"Some one at Salisbury, Muster Fenwick? Is it any one as I knows?"
"One that you did know well, Mr. Brattle. I've seen your sister Carry." Again there came upon the farmer's face that heavy look, which was almost a look of grief; but he did not at once utter a word. "Poor young thing!" continued the Vicar. "Poor, dear, unfortunate girl!"
"She brought it on herself, and on all of us," said the farmer.
"Yes, indeed, my friend. The light, unguarded folly of a moment has ruined her, and brought dreadful sorrow upon you all. But something should be done for her; – eh?"
Still the brother said nothing.
"You will help, I'm sure, to rescue her from the infamy into which she must fall if none help her?"
"If there's money wanted to get her into any of them places – ," begun the farmer.
"It isn't that; – it isn't that, at any rate, as yet."
"What be it, then?"
"The personal countenance and friendship of some friend that loves her. You love your sister, Mr. Brattle?"
"I don't know as I does, Muster Fenwick."
"You used to, and you must still pity her."
"She's been and well-nigh broke the hearts of all on us. There wasn't one of us as wasn't respectable, till she come up; – and now there's Sam. But a boy as is bad ain't never so bad as a girl."
It must be understood that in the expression of this opinion Mr. Brattle was alluding, not to the personal wickedness of the wicked of the two sexes, but to the effect of their wickedness on those belonging to them.
"And therefore more should be done to help a girl."
"I'll stand the money, Muster Fenwick, – if it ain't much."
"What is wanted is a home in your own house."
"Here – at Startup?"
"Yes; here, at Startup. Your father will not take her."
"Neither won't I. But it ain't me in such a matter as this. You ask my missus, and see what she'll say. Besides, Muster Fenwick, it's clean out of all reason."
"Out of all reason to help a sister?"
"So it be. Sister, indeed! Why did she go and make – . I won't say what she's made of herself. Ain't she brought trouble and sorrow enough upon us? Have her here! Why, I'm that angry with her, I shouldn't be keeping my hands off her. Why didn't she keep herself to herself, and not disgrace the whole family?"
Nevertheless, in spite of these strong expressions of opinion, Mr. Fenwick, by the dint of the bitter words which he spoke in reference to the brother's duty as a Christian, did get leave from the farmer to make the proposition to Mrs. George Brattle, – such permission as would have bound the brother to accept Carry, providing that Mrs. George would also consent to accept her. But even this permission was accompanied by an assurance that it would not have been given had he not felt perfectly convinced that his wife would not listen for a moment to the scheme. He spoke of his wife almost with awe, when Mr. Fenwick left him to make this second attack. "She has never had nothing to say to none sich as that," said the farmer, shaking his head, as he alluded both to his wife and to his sister; "and I ain't sure as she'll be first-rate civil to any one as mentions sich in her hearing."
But Mr. Fenwick persevered, in spite even of this caution. When the Vicar re-entered the house, Mrs. George Brattle had retired to her parlour, and the kitchen was in the hands of the maid-servant. He followed the lady, however, and found that she had been at the trouble, since he had seen her last, of putting on a clean cap on his behalf. He began at once, jumping again into the middle of things by a reference to her husband.
"Mrs. Brattle," he said, "your husband and I have been talking about his poor sister Carry."
"The least said the soonest mended about that one, I'm afeared," said the dame.
"Indeed, I agree with you. Were she once placed in safe and kind hands, the less then said the better. She has left the life she was leading – "
"They never leaves it," said the dame.
"It is so seldom that an opportunity is given them. Poor Carry is at the present moment most anxious to be placed somewhere out of danger."
"Mr. Fenwick, if you ask me, I'd rather not talk about her; – I would indeed. She's been and brought a slur upon us all, the vile thing! If you ask me, Mr. Fenwick, there ain't nothing too bad for her."
Fenwick, who, on the other hand, thought that there could be hardly anything too good for his poor penitent, was beginning to be angry with the woman. Of course, he made in his own mind those comparisons which are common to us all on such occasions. What was the great virtue of this fat, well-fed, selfish, ignorant woman before him, that she should turn up her nose at a sister who had been unfortunate? Was it not an abominable case of the Pharisee thanking the Lord that he was not such a one as the Publican; – whereas the Publican was in a fair way to heaven?
"Surely you would have her saved, if it be possible to save her?" said the Vicar.
"I don't know about saving. If such as them is to be made all's one as others as have always been decent, I'm sure I don't know who it is as isn't to be saved."
"Have you never read of Mary Magdalen, Mrs. Brattle?"
"Yes, I have, Mr. Fenwick. Perhaps she hadn't got no father, nor brothers, and sisters, and sisters-in-law, as would be pretty well broken-hearted when her vileness would be cast up again' 'em. Perhaps she hadn't got no decent house over her head afore she begun. I don't know how that was."
"Our Saviour's tender mercy, then, would not have been wide enough for such sin as that." This the Vicar said with intended irony; but irony was thrown away on Mrs. George Brattle.
"Them days and ours isn't the same, Mr. Fenwick, and you can't make 'em the same. And Our Saviour isn't here now to say who is to be a Mary Magdalen and who isn't. As for Carry Brattle, she has made her bed and she must lie upon it. We shan't interfere."
Fenwick was determined, however, that he would make his proposition. It was almost certain now that he could do no good to Carry by making it; but he felt that it would be a pleasure to him to make this self-righteous woman know what he conceived to be her duty in the matter. "My idea was this – that you should take her in here, and endeavour to preserve her from future evil courses."
"Take her in here?" shrieked the woman.
"Yes; here. Who is nearer to her than a brother?"
"Not if I know it, Mr. Fenwick; and if that is what you have been saying to Brattle, I must tell you that you've come on a very bad errand. People, Mr. Fenwick, knows how to manage things such as that for themselves in their own houses. Strangers don't usually talk about such things, Mr. Fenwick. Perhaps, Mr. Fenwick, you didn't know as how we have got girls of our own coming up. Have her in here – at Startup? I think I see her here!"
"But, Mrs. Brattle – "
"Don't Mrs. Brattle me, Mr. Fenwick, for I won't be so treated. And I must tell you that I don't think it over decent of you, – a clergyman, and a young man, too, in a way, – to come talking of such a one in a house like this."
"Would you have her starve, or die in a ditch?"
"There ain't no question of starving. Such as her don't starve. As long as it lasts, they've the best of eating and drinking, – only too much of it. There's prisons; let 'em go there if they means repentance. But they never does, – never, till there ain't nobody to notice 'em any longer; and by that time they're mostly thieves and pickpockets."
"And you would do nothing to save your own husband's sister from such a fate?"
"What business had she to be sister to any honest man? Think of what she's been and done to my children, who wouldn't else have had nobody to be ashamed of. There never wasn't one of the Hugginses who didn't behave herself; – that is of the women," added Mrs. George, remembering the misdeeds of a certain drunken uncle of her own, who had come to great trouble in a matter of horseflesh. "And now, Mr. Fenwick, let me beg that there mayn't be another word about her. I don't know nothing of such women, nor what is their ways, and I don't want. I never didn't speak a word to such a one in my life, and I certainly won't begin under my own roof. People knows well enough what's good for them to do and what isn't without being dictated to by a clergyman. You'll excuse me, Mr. Fenwick; but I'll just make bold to say as much as that. Good morning, Mr. Fenwick."
In the yard, standing close by the gig, he met the farmer again.
"You didn't find she'd be of your way of thinking, Muster Fenwick?"
"Not exactly, Mr. Brattle."
"I know'd she wouldn't. The truth is, Muster Fenwick, that young women as goes astray after that fashion is just like any sick animal, as all the animals as ain't comes and sets upon immediately. It's just as well, too. They knows it beforehand, and it keeps 'em straight."
"It didn't keep poor Carry straight."
"And, by the same token, she must suffer, and so must we all. But, Muster Fenwick, as far as ten or fifteen pounds goes, if it can be of use – "
But the Vicar, in his indignation, repudiated the offer of money, and drove himself back to Salisbury with his heart full of sorrow at the hardness of the world. What this woman had been saying to him was only what the world had said to her, – the world that knows so much better how to treat an erring sinner than did Our Saviour when on earth.
He went with his sad news to Mrs. Stiggs's house, and then made terms for Carry's board and lodging, at any rate, for a fortnight. And he said much to the girl as to the disposition of her time. He would send her books, and she was to be diligent in needle-work on behalf of the Stiggs family. And then he begged her to go to the daily service in the cathedral, – not so much because he thought that the public worship was necessary for her, as that thus she would be provided with a salutary employment for a portion of her day. Carry, as she bade him farewell, said very little. Yes; she would stay with Mrs. Stiggs. That was all that she did say.