The Vicar of Bullhampton

by Anthony Trollope

Then they went up stairs. Who does not know the questions that were asked and that were answered? On this occasion they were asked and answered with matter-of-fact useful earnestness. The papers on the walls were perhaps old and ugly; but she did not mind it if they were so. If he liked to have the rooms new papered, of course it would be nice. Would she like new furniture? Did she object to the old-fashioned four-post bedsteads? Had she any special taste about hangings and colours? Of course she had, but she could not bring herself to indulge them by giving orders as to this or that. She praised everything; was satisfied with everything; was interested in everything; but would propose no changes. What right had she, seeing that she was to give him so little, to ask him to do this or that for her? She meant on this occasion to do all that she could for his happiness, but had she ordered new furniture for the whole house, begged that every room might be fresh papered, and pointed out that the panelling was old and must be altered, and the entire edifice re-painted inside and out, he would have been a happier man. "I hope you will find it comfortable," he said, in a tone of voice that was beyond measure lugubrious.

"I am sure that I shall," she replied. "What more can any woman want than there is here? And then there are so many comforts to which I have never been used."

This passed between them as they stood on the steps of the house, looking down upon green paddocks in front of the house; "I think we will come and see the gardens another day," he said.

"Whenever you like," she answered. "Perhaps if we stay now we shall be keeping them waiting." Then, as they returned by the road, she remembered an account that Janet Fenwick had given her of a certain visit which Janet had made to the vicarage as Miss Balfour, and of all the joys of that inspection. But what right had she, Mary Lowther, to suppose that she could have any of the same pleasure? Janet Balfour, in her first visit to the vicarage, had been to see the home in which she was to live with the man to whom her whole heart had been given without reserve.

CHAPTER LI.

THE GRINDER AND HIS COMRADE.

As the day drew near for the final examination at Heytesbury of the suspected murderers,—the day on which it was expected that either all the three prisoners, or at least two of them, would be committed to take their trial at the summer assizes, the Vicar became anxious as to the appearance of Carry Brattle in the Court. At first he entertained an idea that he would go over to Salisbury and fetch her; but his wife declared that this was imprudent and Quixotic,—and that he shouldn't do it. Fenwick's argument in support of his own idea amounted to little more than this,—that he would go for the girl because the Marquis of Trowbridge would be sure to condemn him for taking such a step. "It is intolerable to me," he said, "that I should be impeded in my free action by the interference and accusations of such an ass as that." But the question was one on which his wife felt herself to be so strong that she would not yield, either to his logic or to his anger. "It can't be fit for you to go about and fetch witnesses; and it won't make it more fit because she is a pretty young woman who has lost her character." "Honi soit qui mal y pense," said the Vicar. But his wife was resolute, and he gave up the plan. He wrote, however, to the constable at Salisbury, begging the man to look to the young woman's comfort, and offering to pay for any special privilege or accommodation that might be accorded to her. This occurred on the Saturday before the day on which Mary Lowther was taken up to look at her new home.

The Sunday passed by, with more or less of conversation respecting the murder; and so also the Monday morning. The Vicar had himself been summoned to give his evidence as to having found Sam Brattle in his own garden, in company with another man with whom he had wrestled, and whom he was able to substantiate as the Grinder; and, indeed, the terrible bruise made by the Vicar's life-preserver on the Grinder's back, would be proved by evidence from Lavington. On the Monday evening he was sitting, after dinner, with Gilmore, who had dined at the vicarage, when he was told that a constable from Salisbury wished to see him. The constable was called into the room, and soon told his story. He had gone up to Trotter's Buildings that day after dinner, and was told that the bird had flown. She had gone out that morning, and Mrs. Stiggs knew nothing of her departure. When they examined the room in which she slept, they found that she had taken what little money she possessed and her best clothes. She had changed her frock and put on a pair of strong boots, and taken her cloak with her. Mrs. Stiggs acknowledged that had she seen the girl going forth thus provided, her suspicions would have been aroused; but Carry had managed to leave the house without being observed. Then the constable went on to say that Mrs. Stiggs had told him that she had been sure that Carry would go. "I've been a waiting for it all along," she had said; "but when there came the law rumpus atop of the other, I knew as how she'd hop the twig." And now Carry Brattle had hopped the twig, and no one knew whither she had gone. There was much sorrow at the vicarage; for Mrs. Fenwick, though she had been obliged to restrain her husband's impetuosity in the matter, had nevertheless wished well for the poor girl;—and who could not believe aught of her now but that she would return to misery and degradation? When the constable was interrogated as to the need for her attendance on the morrow, he declared that nothing could now be done towards finding her and bringing her to Heytesbury in time for the magistrates' session. He supposed there would be another remand, and that then she, too, would be—wanted.

But there had been so many remands that on the Tuesday the magistrates were determined to commit the men, and did commit two of them. Against Sam there was no tittle of evidence, except as to that fact that he had been seen with these men in Mr. Fenwick's garden; and it was at once proposed to put him into the witness-box, instead of proceeding against him as one of the murderers. As a witness he was adjudged to have behaved badly; but the assumed independence of his demeanour was probably the worst of his misbehaviour. He would tell them nothing of the circumstances of the murder, except that having previously become acquainted with the two men, Burrows and Acorn, and having, as he thought, a spite against the Vicar at the time, he had determined to make free with some of the vicarage fruit. He had, he said, met the men in the village that afternoon, and had no knowledge of their business there. He had known Acorn more intimately than the other man, and confessed at last that his acquaintance with that man had arisen from a belief that Acorn was about to marry his sister. He acknowledged that he knew that Burrows had been a convicted thief, and that Acorn had been punished for horse stealing. When he was asked how it had come to pass that he was desirous of seeing his sister married to a horse-stealer, he declined to answer, and, looking round the Court, said that he hoped there was no man there who would be coward enough to say anything against his sister. They who heard him declared that there was more of a threat than a request expressed in his words and manner.