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!
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