But William Goddard had thoughts of marriage, and although he fancied he managed very skilfully to hide his designs, they were plain enough to Mrs. Farraday long before he did more than offer what might pass for considerate courtesies to Mrs. Crawford.
It was not without pain that Mrs. Crawford found she had no longer any need of Mrs. Farraday. But the pain was more than compensated for by the invigorating knowledge that she who had been a helpless invalid was now able to look after her own house. It is doubtful if she would ever have been able to suggest the idea of her companion's leaving. But the other woman began by seeing that she was not wanted, and ended by feeling that she was in the way. Accordingly, she anticipated what she perceived to be inevitable, and dismissed herself. She was sincerely attached to the amiable woman with whom she had lived so long, and whom no one could know well without loving dearly. But she felt it would be an injustice for her to tarry longer; and besides, she had duties of her own to look after in Rochester, for her brother living there had just lost his wife, and had asked her to come to him and keep house for him and look after his little children.
"If ever you have any need of me, you know where to send; and although I suppose I must consider myself as belonging to my brother, I will come to you for all the time I can. I hope and trust and pray that your health may never make you want any one in the house such as I have been. Who knows but you may soon find a more suitable companion than I could ever make."
The other blushed like a girl, and said:
"You are very, very kind, and you must come to see me often. Rochester is not so far away."
"No, not so far. I will come, you may be sure."
They embraced and kissed and wept; and so these two good women parted with mutual love and respect.
By this time William Goddard's attentions had become unmistakable. Mrs. Crawford could not deny that something was going on between her and her hero, her rescuer, the quiet-mannered, low-voiced, kind-hearted man who lived next door.
Mrs. Crawford was as simple as a child. She had not married her first husband for love. She married him because he had asked her and had treated her with respectful admiration and with a kind of rough gallantry, and, above all, because her father had told her that if she did marry Thomas Crawford it would relieve him of dire distress and put him on the high road to fortune. But, alas! for him, although he was somewhat relieved by Crawford on his marriage with Ellen, he never touched fortune. There was nothing like buying the girl on Crawford's side or compulsion on the father's. The girl was heart-whole and fancy-free, and would have laid down her life for her father.
She had never, in the romantic sense of the phrase, loved her husband; but from the day she was married until he died he was the first of all men in her consideration and esteem. She did her duty by him to the utmost of her power without having any irksome feeling of duty. He was a good, kind, indulgent husband--a man who, although hard in business, was amiable and good-natured at home, and who had aroused her enthusiastic gratitude, not by what he gave her, but by the services he had willingly rendered her father.