"Assuredly," said she, with gathering emphasis. "A young man for whom two such elders had devoted themselves would indeed be culpable if he threw himself away and made their sacrifices vain."Fred wondered a little at this strong language, but only said, "I hope it will not be so with me, Mrs. Garth, since I have some encouragement to believe that I may win Mary. Mr. Garth has told you about that? You were not surprised, I dare say?" Fred ended, innocently referring only to his own love as probably evident enough.
"Not surprised that Mary has given you encouragement?"returned Mrs. Garth, who thought it would be well for Fred to be more alive to the fact that Mary's friends could not possibly have wished this beforehand, whatever the Vincys might suppose.
"Yes, I confess I was surprised."
"She never did give me any--not the least in the world, when Italked to her myself," said Fred, eager to vindicate Mary.
"But when I asked Mr. Farebrother to speak for me, she allowed him to tell me there was a hope."The power of admonition which had begun to stir in Mrs. Garth had not yet discharged itself. It was a little too provoking even for HER self-control that this blooming youngster should flourish on the disappointments of sadder and wiser people--****** a meal of a nightingale and never knowing it--and that all the while his family should suppose that hers was in eager need of this sprig;and her vexation had fermented the more actively because of its total repression towards her husband. Exemplary wives will sometimes find scapegoats in this way. She now said with energetic decision, "You made a great mistake, Fred, in asking Mr. Farebrother to speak for you.""Did I?" said Fred, reddening instantaneously. He was alarmed, but at a loss to know what Mrs. Garth meant, and added, in an apologetic tone, "Mr. Farebrother has always been such a friend of ours; and Mary, I knew, would listen to him gravely;and he took it on himself quite readily.""Yes, young people are usually blind to everything but their own wishes, and seldom imagine how much those wishes cost others," said Mrs. Garth She did not mean to go beyond this salutary general doctrine, and threw her indignation into a needless unwinding of her worsted, knitting her brow at it with a grand air.
"I cannot conceive how it could be any pain to Mr. Farebrother,"said Fred, who nevertheless felt that surprising conceptions were beginning to form themselves.
"Precisely; you cannot conceive," said Mrs. Garth, cutting her words as neatly as possible.
For a moment Fred looked at the horizon with a dismayed anxiety, and then turning with a quick movement said almost sharply--"Do you mean to say, Mrs. Garth, that Mr. Farebrother is in love with Mary?""And if it were so, Fred, I think you are the last person who ought to be surprised," returned Mrs. Garth, laying her knitting down beside her and folding her arms. It was an unwonted sign of emotion in her that she should put her work out of her hands.
In fact her feelings were divided between the satisfaction of giving Fred his discipline and the sense of having gone a little too far.
Fred took his hat and stick and rose quickly.
"Then you think I am standing in his way, and in Mary's too?"he said, in a tone which seemed to demand an answer.
Mrs. Garth could not speak immediately. She had brought herself into the unpleasant position of being called on to say what she really felt, yet what she knew there were strong reasons for concealing.
And to her the consciousness of having exceeded in words was peculiarly mortifying. Besides, Fred had given out unexpected electricity, and he now added, "Mr. Garth seemed pleased that Mary should be attached to me. He could not have known anything of this."Mrs. Garth felt a severe twinge at this mention of her husband, the fear that Caleb might think her in the wrong not being easily endurable.
She answered, wanting to check unintended consequences--"I spoke from inference only. I am not aware that Mary knows anything of the matter."But she hesitated to beg that he would keep entire silence on a subject which she had herself unnecessarily mentioned, not being used to stoop in that way; and while she was hesitating there was already a rush of unintended consequences under the apple-tree where the tea-things stood. Ben, bouncing across the grass with Brownie at his heels, and seeing the kitten dragging the knitting by a lengthening line of wool, shouted and clapped his hands;Brownie barked, the kitten, desperate, jumped on the tea-table and upset the milk, then jumped down again and swept half the cherries with it; and Ben, snatching up the half-knitted sock-top, fitted it over the kitten's head as a new source of madness, while Letty arriving cried out to her mother against this cruelty--it was a history as full of sensation as "This is the house that Jack built."Mrs. Garth was obliged to interfere, the other young ones came up and the tete-a-tete with Fred was ended. He got away as soon as he could, and Mrs. Garth could only imply some retractation of her severity by saying "God bless you" when she shook hands with him.
She was unpleasantly conscious that she had been on the verge of speaking as "one of the foolish women speaketh"--telling first and entreating silence after. But she had not entreated silence, and to prevent Caleb's blame she determined to blame herself and confess all to him that very night. It was curious what an awful tribunal the mild Caleb's was to her, whenever he set it up.
But she meant to point out to him that the revelation might do Fred Vincy a great deal of good.
No doubt it was having a strong effect on him as he walked to Lowick.