Chapter IX: Parted

"And trust me not at all or all in all."--TENNYSON.

John had never walked so fast in his life. Almost before Mr. Bland had politely lifted off the kettle and filled the teapot under Mrs. Randal's directions, he was half-way up the narrow muddy lane that led to Alfrick's farm. There he found Mrs. Alfrick, with a worried countenance and every sign of a recent fit of crying, leaning over the garden gate.

"Well! So you've got the child back! Where did Mr. Bland pick her up, I wonder?" she began at once. "And I hope you don't bear no more malice, John!"

"How did you know?" said John gruffly; but he went on without waiting for her answer. "Look here, don't talk about me bearing malice, Mrs. Alfrick, but just tell me the truth about this affair, for I mean to know it. You ain't going to deny that you took Lily to the fair--and Mary--she had no more to do with it than my mother herself."

"If you know so much, what's the good of asking?" said Mrs. Alfrick, with a slightly hysterical laugh. "Well, you'd have been made of stone yourself, John Randal, if you'd resisted that child's face when she said she wanted to go. Yes, it was me as took her, and thinking no harm, you may be sure, in giving her a bit of amusement like my own children. But if I'd known all this row and fuss was to come of it, I'd have locked Miss Lily in the house sooner than take her with me. Why, there was my Lizzie, she nearly got lost too--and Polly--nothing would satisfy her but racing after us to fetch that precious child back--and so naturally you took it into your stupid head it was her that lost her, while all the time it was nobody's fault but the child's own. If she'd kept by me, she'd have been safe enough. I'll never be bothered with her again, that's positive. What did become of her, after all?"

"That doesn't matter," said John. "Some people stole her and took her off to Moreton, and Mr. Bland found her at the station."

"Well, that was queer." Mrs. Alfrick would have asked a great many more questions, but another subject was occupying her mind, as well as John's. Standing outside the gate, he was looking up over the low garden wall at the front of the house, his eyes wandering wistfully from window to window. If only Mary would look out at one of them!

The woman at the gate, though foolish, selfish, spiteful and small-minded, was not altogether bad and barbarous. She was now really sorry for the misunderstanding between John Randal and her stepdaughter, and not altogether because its consequences seemed likely to fall upon herself, and had already brought her a scolding from her husband. There is a corner of romance, of sympathy with true love, in most women's hearts, and Mrs. Alfrick's heart was not without it. She had always abused John, but she could not help respecting him; she had always complained of Mary, but she valued her none the less for that.

"Polly ain't in," she said, "so it's no use you looking for her. She went down to the Vicarage half-an-hour ago."

"To the Vicarage! What has she gone there for?"

"Mrs. Elwood's staying there, you know. Years ago she told Polly if ever she wanted to go out to service she was to let her know."

John flushed angrily. "She's not going to service," he said.

"She says she is. Her father's angry, of course; him and me, we neither of us can spare her very well. It's worse than the thought of her getting married, 'cause no one knew how long you and her would be about that. But I wonder at you looking so surprised, John. Didn't you understand as it was all over between you and Polly? She told us so, and she said she couldn't abide to stop in this village to be pointed at by all the boys and girls, and so she was going down straight to the Vicarage, and she'd get the Vicar to write to his sister by this very post if she was gone--but the children saw her yesterday, so I expect she's found her there still."

John stood like a stone. The colour faded from his brown face and left it very pale. There was certainly a little gratified malice in Mrs. Alfrick's eyes as she watched him, mingled as it might be with pity and regret.

"Anyone might make a mistake," said John. "And she needn't have taken it up like that altogether."

He turned round and walked away, without a word of thanks or farewell.

"He is a lout, that John Randal," reflected Mrs. Alfrick as she leaned on the gate and looked after him. "I'm not going to waste sorrow on Polly, for I do think she's got the best of it. She won't be tied down for life to this deadly dull place, nor married to the grumpiest fellow in it, barring her father. My word, girls needn't be in a hurry to get married; they little know all they're giving up. Same time, I hope John'll bring her round, for she'd be a serious loss to us all, Polly would, and to me in particular."

John walked as far as the Vicarage gate without meeting Mary, and then, for half-an-hour or more, he walked restlessly up and down under the churchyard wall. One or two people passed and stared at the industrious young blacksmith idling there; but after all, it was the second day of Carsham Fair, and the country had not yet settled down again to work. They asked him no questions, for John was not in the habit of giving an account to his neighbours of what he chose to do.

He was standing at last half hidden above the gate, in the shadow of the Vicar's trees, when he heard a step in the drive, then the quick opening and shutting of the gate, and Mary came out into the road. She did not look in his direction, but walked off quickly towards the village. In a moment John had overtaken her.

"Will you please to stop; I want to speak to you," he said, in a voice half choked with excitement.

Mary stood still. She lifted her eyes for a moment, then let them fall, but John could see that they were tired and swollen with crying, and that her face, generally so happy and healthy with all its quietness, looked pale and worn, as if she had gone through some great grief. There was no softening in that glance at John, and no change of colour. It was sorrowful, but it was also hard; it checked the young man's impulse to draw her close to him and make up their quarrel on the spot.

"What's this I hear about service, Polly?" he said, with a timidity quite strange to his character.

"Oh! that don't signify to any one but myself," the girl answered coldly. "I thought you had got some news about Lily, perhaps."

"So I have. She's found:" and John hurriedly poured out the story. He was so puzzled by Mary's manner to himself that it was almost a relief to stand there and talk on some other subject.

"Well! I'm glad to hear it," said Mary, when he paused, and she began to walk on.

"What are you in such a hurry about?" murmured John, his shyness returning.

"What's the use of standing here?" Mary retorted.

"Look here," said John desperately, "come with me a bit the other way. I want to know the meaning of all this, please."

"All what?" said the girl; but she made no objection to turning round with him and walking the other way. He did not speak for a few yards, walking beside her with his head bent and his hands in his pockets. He stopped at the corner stile of the churchyard, went up and leaned upon it. Once more the grass looked brightly green, a yellow light was shining from the west; but there were no children's voices to break the stillness now, and the shadow of the great yews was gloomy.

"Mary," John said, "it was in this place you promised to marry me. You was sitting on this stile--perhaps you don't remember?"

"Yours is a long memory, and mine a short one," Mary answered, after a minute of silence, while a little shivering wind rustled the upper branches of the yews. "It seems you have forgotten what happened yesterday."

"No, I've not forgotten. Nothing of the kind."

"You've found the child," Mary went on relentlessly, "and now you begin to see you were a bit hard on me. She's told you, I suppose, that however she got to the fair, it was no doing of mine."

"But why on earth didn't you tell me so yesterday?" cried John. He seized both her hands, but she drew them away from him instantly.

"None of that, if you please. You forget we've done with each other. And you forget how I tried to tell you and you wouldn't listen to a word. No, you'd never trust me again. No, you were sorry you ever did trust me. No, I'd deceived you and broke your heart."

"Mary, you're breaking it now," he said. "I was mad just then; I didn't know what I was saying. There, can't you forgive me? Let bygones be bygones. I'll never be happy without you."

"Oh yes, you will," Mary said. She stopped a moment and then went on hurriedly--"I never minded what my stepmother said, because I knew it was half of it spite, but many's the time she's mocked at me and said you thought ever so much more of that child than of me. I never believed it, I never troubled about such nonsense, not till yesterday."

"And you believed it then, did you?" said John, half to himself.

"Many's the time," Mary went on, "as I've stood up for you in the village, when people said you were just silly over that child and spoilt her down to the ground. I told them it was only natural you should think a lot of the little thing, when you'd saved her life, one may say, and she had no friends in the world but you and Mrs. Randal. Of course you couldn't help making a fuss of her--and you know as well as anybody that I've tried to help you with her, and behaved to her as kind as I could. I'm not saying this to praise myself, but just to put you in mind. It wasn't likely I should expect that losing Lily would take away your trust in me. Love and trust goes together, to my mind, John. You'd ought to have known for certain, whatever people said, as I had nothing to do with Lily's going to the fair. You ought as soon to have doubted yourself as me. But it seemed as if the losing of the child took away your senses; you had no thought nor understanding left for me. No love and no trust neither--and if you think I'm the girl to marry without them, and knowing all the time as something may come between us any day--that poor child or anything else as takes your fancy--why, you're mistaken, that's all. You say you were mad yesterday. I was in my right senses, and when I said it should be the last time, I meant it. So now you know."

Mary made this long speech in a low monotonous voice, without a break in it or any sign of feeling. Her face was white, and once her eyes swam with tears, but John's own were hidden on his arm against the stile, and he saw nothing.

He said nothing either. To have lost Mary, the one love of his life, his idea of all that was good and noble and sweet in a woman, whose promise had given such brightness to his future--it was a trouble indeed, like nothing he had ever known. If Mary only knew it, nothing in the whole world, not even the helpless little lost child, who had wound herself round his heart by the fact of her helplessness, was half such a treasure as she. He felt as if half his life was torn away--and all through his own fault. He realised that clearly enough, and could not defend himself, being truthful and modest by nature, against the things that Mary had said. But he did think in his heart, as he leaned there on the stile, that Mary ought to understand and forgive him. He would have forgiven her, he thought, if she had lost her temper, and had been unjust to him. The truth was, that her extreme pride, and the coldness which belonged to it, stood in the way of their happiness quite as much as his own anger and thoughtless injustice had done.

He said nothing, being at no time so quick of thought and speech as Mary, and presently he heard her speaking again. She was very quiet, and full of good sense; she reproached him no more. She told him, in a voice that sounded hard and unfeeling to the poor fellow's ears, that the Vicar and his sister, Mrs. Elwood, had been very kind; she had talked things over with them; they quite understood her wish to be away from Markwood, and Mrs. Elwood knew of a situation under the matron of a large orphanage, to take charge of clothes and linen, which seemed to be just the kind of thing she was fit for.

"She's going to write about it to-day," said Mary.

John stood upright suddenly; he was a little angry with her now.

"All right. I wish you well, I'm sure," he said. "You'll be wanting to get home--don't let me hinder you, please. I'm going the other way."

Mary's eyes widened with astonishment, and her pale cheeks flushed suddenly.

"Very well. Good evening," she said. "I'm sorry I've detained you so long;" and without even another look or shaking hands they parted.

Mary walked back through the village with her head very high.

It was an hour later before John got home. Mr. Bland was gone; his mother had put Lily to bed, and was sitting by the fire, watching her kettle and waiting for him. She looked sadly at his face and asked no questions. But presently she said, "John, dear, do you know what Mr. Bland says? He says you ought to try all you can to find Lily's parents."

John made no answer at all, but stared gloomily into the fire. In his heart he wished Mr. Bland would mind his own business, for why should he lose everything? Dark, selfish, miserable thoughts, like flocks of evil birds, seemed to hover over him and shut out heaven.