‘And yet he wants to see the world; there’s no accounting for men’s depravity. Do you mean to let him go?’
Mrs. Aikin laughed. ‘I ain’t a good one to deceive,’ she said; ‘this morning I was all in a way, but now I’ve had time to think. You know yourself, ma’am, that to say “No” is the way to make a boy more determined than ever. Seemingly I’m a giving in, but I don’t mean to take no steps one way or other. I’ll let things take their course. And now that Jane and him understands one another, and the summer trade’s so brisk, who can say? Maybe it’ll go out of his head if he ain’t opposed. I’ve give my consent—so far as words goes—but I tell him as there’s no hurry. We can wait.’
She laughed again in thorough satisfaction with her own tactics. And Mrs. Mowbray, with a different sentiment, echoed the laugh. ‘Yes, we can wait,’ the old lady said; ‘my poor little Jane!’ That was all, but it made Mrs. Aikin angry, she could not tell why.
Mr. Peters at this period kept putting himself perpetually in Mrs. Mowbray’s way. He went past her house for his walk, he came back again past the Thatched Cottage. She could scarcely go out in the evening that he did not turn up in her path: and for some days the old lady was cruel enough to say nothing to him. At last one evening she called the poor schoolmaster to her. ‘You must make up your mind to it like a man,’ she said, ‘Jane is going to marry her cousin. It is all settled. The mother told me, like a fool.’
‘All settled!’ Poor Mr. Peters grew so pale that she thought he was going to faint. ‘I saw him,’ he gasped, ‘only yesterday, with——’
‘Never mind, yes; that’s quite true,’ said the old lady. ‘That woman has settled it like a fool. They are going to throw the girl away among them. But we cannot do anything. You must make up your mind to it like a man.’
The schoolmaster’s stiffness and embarrassment all melted away under the influence of strong feeling. He took off his hat unconsciously, showing a face that was like ashes. ‘Then God bless her,’ he said, ‘and turn away the evil. If she is happy, what does it matter about me!’
‘She will never be happy,’ said the old lady, ‘never, with that lout; and the thing for us to do is to wait. I tell you, what you’ve got to do is to wait. After all, the devil seldom gets things all his own way.’
Mr. Peters put on his hat again, and went away with a heavy heart. He did not go near the Barley Mow. He went home to his room, and sat there very desolate, reading poetry. He could bear it, he thought; but how could she bear it when she came to hear of Ellen Turner and those meetings in the lane?
At present however nothing was known of Ellen Turner at the Barley Mow. The very next Sunday after that the women had forgotten all the dangers of John’s perversity, and remembered only the fact of the engagement, and that all doubt was over on the point which they thought so essential to their happiness. Mrs. Aikin had a new bonnet on, resplendent in red ribbons, and the happiness in Jane’s face was better than any new bonnet. As it happened, there was a solo in the anthem that day which John sang standing up in his white surplice, and rolling out Handel’s great notes so that they filled the church. He had a beautiful voice, and while he sang poor Jane’s face was a sight to see: her countenance glowed with a kind of soft rapture. She clasped her hands unawares with the prayer-book held open in them, her eyes were raised, her lips apart, her nostrils slightly dilated. She had the look of a votary making a special offering. Poor simple Jane! There was no consciousness in her mind of any elevation above the rest, as she lifted that ineffable look, and praised God in a subdued ecstasy, offering to Him the voice of her beloved. For the moment Jane was as the prophets, as the poets, raised up above everything surrounding her, triumphing even over the doubt that was too ready to invade her mind at other times. She was but a country girl, the maid of the inn, occupying the most unelevated and most unelevating of positions, but yet no lady of romance could have stood on a higher altitude, for the time.