‘The books destroyed!’ she said, repeating the words, ‘the church burned down, the clergyman dead. Do such things happen? all to overcome a poor woman? If it was in a book one would say how impossible—how absurd—— ’
‘Emily,’ said the Rector, ‘you must forgive me for saying it, but that’s just what your whole story is—impossible and absurd. It has been so from the beginning; people have no right to launch themselves on such a career. You had it always in your power not to take the first step. I blame my father almost more than you—he ought not to have allowed you to do it: but I blame you too. For even a girl of nineteen is old enough to know what’s possible and what’s impossible. You ought not to have allowed yourself to be launched upon such a bad way. After your ridiculous marriage you might have expected everything else that was ridiculous to follow. It is all of a piece. Nobody would believe one word of it from the beginning to the end—if it was, as you say, in a book.’
Lady William listened to this tirade with a curious piteous look, almost like a child’s; a look that was on the verge of tears and yet had a faint appealing smile in it, an appeal against judgment. Oh what a foolish girl that had been, that girl of nineteen, that ought to have known better! and what a good thing for her if she had known better; if she had been able by her own good sense and judgment to overcome those about her: the foolish old father, the false friend who led her into the net. Listening to her brother’s voice so long, long after the event, and looking back upon the thing that was so impossible, the thing which between them these foolish people had done—she could see very well how preposterous it was, and how it could have been resisted. Mab (all these thoughts flew through her mind while the Rector was speaking) would not have done it. But Mab’s mother had done it, and could not even now see what else she could have done among these three people surrounding her, arranging everything for her. And there was a sort of whimsical, ridiculous humour in the idea that all these complications must have followed from that foolish beginning. What could she expect but that the clergyman should die, the church be burned down, and the books destroyed? To the disturbed and disappointed Rector, thoroughly put out, touched in mind and in temper by a contretemps so painful and disconcerting, there was nothing whatever ludicrous in the thought. But to her, whose whole life hung upon it, her child’s fortune, her own good name, everything that was worth thinking of in the world, there was an absurdity which had almost made her laugh in the midst of her despair.
‘I am very sensible of the folly of it now,’ she said, commanding her voice, ‘and I know all the misery that has been involved better than any one can tell me—but it is too late now to think of that. We must think in these dreadful circumstances what is now to be done.’
‘You see, Emily,’ said Mr. Plowden, ‘I never knew the rights of it till the other day. I knew there was something queer and hasty about it, a sort of running away; but you know that till you came back here a widow with your little girl I had heard actually nothing—and, indeed, not very much until you came to the Rectory the other day.’
‘That is quite true; and I am very sorry, James.’
‘I don’t say it to upbraid you, my dear. My father was much more to blame than you were. I would not like to have any of my daughters exposed to such a temptation, even at their age. And Florence is twenty-three. And you were always a spoiled child, getting everything your own way.’ The Rector had gradually worked out his impatience and had gone round the circle to tenderness and indulgence again. He put his hand on her shoulder, and patted it as he might have done a child. ‘My poor girl,’ he said, ‘my poor Emily!’ with the voice of one who brings tidings of death, and a face as long as a day without bread, as the French say.
She looked up at him with a gaze of alarm.
‘James!’ she cried, ‘do you think it is all over with us? Don’t say so, for Heaven’s sake! I’ll find Artémise if I seek her through all the country; I’ll find evidence somehow. Don’t condemn us with that dreadful tone.’
‘Condemn you!’ said Mr. Plowden, ‘never will I condemn you, Emily. Even if you had done something wrong instead of only something very foolish, you may be sure I should have stood by you through thick and thin. No, my poor dear, you shall get no condemnation from me; and Jane, I am sure, has far too much sense and too good a heart——’