A priest absolve her from the sin! The strange anguish on her compressed lips was visible as Maria Lease turned her face upwards in the starlight. One Most High and merciful Priest was ever there, who could, and would, wash out her sin. But—what of Daniel Ferrar, who had died in his?
“If there is one person whom I would more especially seek in kindness to serve, it is you, Harriet,” she resumed, putting her hand gently on Harriet’s arm—and her fingers accidentally touched the chain that Daniel Ferrar had hung round the girl’s neck in his perfidy. “Revenge!—from me!”
“The very idea of my giving up Louis is absurd,” was Harriet’s rejoinder, as they came out of the withy walk. “Thank you all the same, Maria Lease; and there’s my hand. I see now that you meant kindly: but no one shall set me against my promised husband.”
Maria shook the hand in silence.
“Look here, Maria—don’t go and tell your beautiful scandal to sharp Susan Timmens. Not that I care whether you do or not, except on the score of contention. She would strike up fresh opposition, and it might come to scratching and fighting. My temper has borne enough: one can’t be a lamb always.”
The wedding came off on Easter Tuesday. Harriet wore a bright silk dress, the colour of lilac, with a wreath and veil. When the latter ornaments came home, Miss Timmens nearly fainted. Decent young women in their station of life were married in bonnets, she represented: not in wreaths and veils. But Harriet Roe, reared to French customs, said bonnets could never be admissible for a bride, and she’d sooner go to church in a coal-scuttle. The Batley girls, in trains and straw-hats, were bridesmaids. Miss Timmens wore a new shawl and white gloves; and poor little David Garth—who was to die of fright before that same year came to an end—stood with his hand locked in his mother’s.
And so, in the self-same church where she had sat displaying her graces before the ill-fated Daniel Ferrar, and by the same young clergyman who had preached to her then, Harriet became the wife of Louis Roe, and went away with him to London.
The next move in the chain of events was the death of David Garth in Willow Cottage. It occurred in November, when Tod and I were staying at home, and has been already told of. James Hill escaped without punishment: it was said there was no law to touch him. He protested through thick and thin that he meant no harm to the boy; to do him justice, it was not supposed he had: he was finely repentant for it, and escaped with a reprimand.
Mrs. Hill refused to remain in the cottage. What with her innate tendency to superstition, with the real facts of the case, and with that strange belief—that David’s spirit had appeared to her in the moment of dying; a belief firm and fixed as adamant—she passed into a state of horror of the dwelling. Not another night could she remain in it. The doctor himself, Cole, said she must not. Miss Timmens took her in as a temporary thing; until the furniture could be replaced in their former house, which was not let. Hill made no objection to this. For that matter, he seemed afraid of the new place himself, and was glad to get back to the old one. All his native surliness had left him for the time: he was as a subdued man whose tongue has departed on an excursion. You see, he had feared the law might come down upon him. The coroner’s inquest had brought in a safe verdict: all Hill received was a censure for having locked the boy in alone: but he could not yet feel sure that the affair would not be taken up by the magistrates: and the parish said in his hearing that his punishment ought to be transportation at the very least. Altogether, it subdued him.