John Caldigate Part 75

'Poor, dear old d.i.c.k. I must look after d.i.c.k. What about Julia?'

'Spretae injuria formae!' said Mr. Bromley. 'What were you to expect?'

'I'll forgive her. And Mr. Smirkie? I don't think Smirkie ever looked on me with favourable eyes.'

Then the clergyman was forced to own that Smirkie too had been among those who had believed the woman's story. 'But you have to remember how natural it is that a man should think a verdict to be right. In our country a wrong verdict is an uncommon occurrence. It requires close personal acquaintance and much personal confidence to justify a man in supposing that twelve jurymen should come to an erroneous decision. I thought that they were wrong. But still I knew that I could hardly defend my opinion before the outside world.'

'It is all true,' said Caldigate; 'and I have made up my mind that I will be angry with no one who will begin to believe me innocent from this day.'

His mind, however, was considerably exercised in regard to the Boltons, as to whom he feared that they would not even yet allow themselves to be convinced. For his wife's happiness their conversion was of infinitely more importance than that of all the outside world beyond. When the gloom of the evening had come, she too came out and walked with him about the garden and grounds with the professed object of showing him whatever little changes might have been made. But the conversation soon fell back upon the last great incident of their joint lives.

'But your mother cannot refuse to believe what everybody now declares to be true,' he argued.

'Mamma is so strong in her feelings.'

'She must know they would not have let me out of prison in opposition to the verdict until they were very sure of what they were doing.'

Then she told him all that had occurred between her and her mother since the trial,--how her mother had come out to Folking and had implored her to return to Chesterton, and had then taken herself away in dudgeon because she had not prevailed. 'But nothing would have made me leave the place,' she said, 'after what they tried to do when I was there before.

Except to go to church, I have not once been outside the gate.'

'Your brothers will come round, I suppose. Robert has been very angry with me, I know. But he is a man of the world and a man of sense.'

'We must take it as it will come, John. Of course it would be very much to me to have my father and mother restored to me. It would be very much to know that my brothers were again my friends. But when I remember how I prayed yesterday but for one thing, and that now, to-day, that one thing has come to me;--how I have got that which, when I waked this morning, seemed to me to be all the world to me, the want of which made my heart so sick that even my baby could not make me glad, I feel that nothing ought now to make me unhappy. I have got you, John, and everything else is nothing.' As he stooped in the dark to kiss her again among the rose-bushes, he felt that it was almost worth his while to have been in prison.

After dinner there came a message to them across the ferry from Mr.

Holt. Would they be so good as to walk down to the edge of the great dike, opposite to Twopenny Farm, at nine o'clock? As a part of the message, Mr. Holt sent word that at that hour the moon would be rising.

Of course they went down to the dike,--Mr. Caldigate, John Caldigate, and Hester there, outside Mr. Holt's farmyard, just far enough to avoid danger to the hay-ricks and corn-stacks there was blazing an enormous bonfire. All the rotten timber about the place and two or three tar-barrels had been got together, and there were collected all the inhabitants of the two parishes. The figures of the boys and girls and of the slow rustics with their wives could be seen moving about indistinctly across the water by the fluttering flame of the bonfire.

And their own figures, too, were observed in the moonlight, and John Caldigate was welcomed back to his home by a loud cheer from all his neighbours.

'I did not see much of it myself,' Mr. Holt said afterwards, 'because me and my missus was busy among the stacks all the time, looking after the sparks. The bonfire might a' been too big, you know.'

Chapter LXIII

How Mrs. Bolton Was Quite Conquered

Nearly a week pa.s.sed over their heads at Puritan Grange before anything further was either done or said, or even written, as to the return of John Caldigate to his own home and to his own wife. In the meantime, both Mrs. Robert and Mrs. Daniel had gone out to Folking and made visits of ceremony,--visits which were intended to signify their acknowledgment that Mrs. John Caldigate was Mrs. John Caldigate. With Mrs. Daniel the matter was quite ceremonious and short. Mrs. Robert suggested something as to a visit into Cambridge, saying that her husband would be delighted if Hester and Mr. Caldigate would come and dine and sleep. Hester immediately felt that something had been gained, but she declined the proposed visit for the present. 'We have both of us,' she said, 'gone through so much, that we are not quite fit to go out anywhere yet.' Mrs.

Robert had hardly expected them to come, but she had observed her husband's behests. So far there had been a family reconciliation during the first few days after the prisoner's release; but no sign came from Mrs. Bolton; and Mr. Bolton, though he had given his orders, was not at first urgent in requiring obedience to them. Then she received a letter from Hester.

'DEAREST, DEAREST MAMMA,--Of course you know that my darling husband has come back to me. All I want now to make me quite happy is to have you once again as my own, own mother. Will you not send me a line to say that it shall all be as though these last long dreary months had never been;--so that I may go to you and show you my baby once again? And, dear mamma, say one word to me to let me know that you know that he is my husband. Tell papa to say so also.--Your most affectionate daughter,

'HESTER CALDIGATE.'

Mrs. Bolton found this letter on the breakfast-table lying, as was usual with her letters, close to her plate, and she read it without saying a word to her husband. Then she put it in her pocket, and still did not say a word. Before the middle of the day she had almost made up her mind that she would keep the letter entirely to herself. It was well, she thought, that he had not seen it, and no good could be done by showing it to him. But he had been in the breakfast-parlour before her, had seen the envelope, and had recognised the handwriting. They were sitting together after lunch, and she was just about to open the book of sermons with which, at that time, she was regaling him, when he stopped her with a question. 'What did Hester say in her letter?'

Even those who intend to be truthful are sometimes surprised into a lie.

'What letter?' she said. But she remembered herself at once, and knew that she could not afford to be detected in a falsehood. 'That note from Hester? Yes;--I had a note this morning.'

'I know you had a note. What does she say?'

'She tells me that he--he has come back.'

'And what else? She was well aware that we knew that without her telling us.'

'She wants to come here.'

'Bid her come.'

'Of course she shall come.'

'And him.' To this she made no answer, except with the muscles of her face, which involuntarily showed her antagonism to the order she had received. 'Bid her bring her husband with her,' said the banker.

'He would not come,--though I were to ask him.'

'Then let it be on his own head.'

'I will not ask him,' she said at last, looking away across the room at the blank wall. 'I will not belie my own heart. I do not want to see him here. He has so far got the better of me; but I will not put my neck beneath his feet for him to tread on me.'

Then there was a pause;--not that he intended to allow her disobedience to pa.s.s, but that he was driven to bethink himself how he might best oppose her. 'Woman,' he said, 'you can neither forgive nor forget.'

'He has got my child from me,--my only child.'

'Does he persecute your child? Is she not happy in his love? Even if he have trespa.s.sed against you, who are you that you should not forgive a trespa.s.s? I say that he shall be asked to come here, that men may know that in her own father's house she is regarded as his true and honest wife.'

'Men!' she murmured. 'That men may know!' But she did not again tell him that she would not obey his command.

She sat all the remainder of the day alone in her room, hardly touching the work which she had beside her, not opening the book which lay by her hand on the table. She was thinking of the letter which she knew that she must write, but she did not rise to get pen and ink, nor did she even propose to herself that the letter should be written then. Not a word was said about it all the evening. On the next morning the banker p.r.o.nounced his intention of going into town, but before he started he referred to the order he had given. 'Have you written to Hester?' he asked. She merely shook her head. 'Then write to-day.' So saying, he tottered down the steps with his stick and got into the fly.

About noon she did get her paper and ink, and very slowly wrote her letter. Though her heart was, in truth, yearning towards her daughter,--though at that moment she could have made any possible sacrifice for her child had her child been apart from the man she hated,--she could not in her sullenness force her words into a form of affection.

'DEAR HESTER,' she said. 'Of course I shall be glad to see you and your boy. On what day would it suit you to come, and how long would you like to stay? I fear you will find me and your father but dull companions after the life you are now used to. If Mr. Caldigate would like to come with you, your father bids me say that he will be glad to see him.--Your loving mother,

'MARY BOLTON.'

She endeavoured, in writing her letter, to obey the commands that had been left with her, but she could not go nearer to it than this. She could not so far belie her heart as to tell her daughter that she herself would be glad to see the man. Then it took her long to write the address. She did write it at last;

Mrs. JOHN CALDIGATE, FOLKING.