Chapter X: 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.