This time, being rather pressed by business, Darton had recourse to pen-and-ink, and wrote her as manly and straightforward a proposal as any woman could wish to receive. The reply came promptly:-'DEAR MR. DARTON,--I am as sensible as any woman can be of the goodness that leads you to make me this offer a second time. Better women than I would be proud of the honour, for when I read your nice long speeches on mangold-wurzel, and such like topics, at the Casterbridge Farmers' Club, I do feel it an honour, I assure you.
But my answer is just the same as before. I will not try to explain what, in truth, I cannot explain--my reasons; I will simply say that I must decline to be married to you. With good wishes as in former times, I am, your faithful friend, 'SALLY HALL.'
Darton dropped the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there was just a possibility of sarcasm in it--'nice long speeches on mangold-wurzel' had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, there was the answer, and he had to be content.
He proceeded to seek relief in a business which at this time engrossed much of his attention--that of clearing up a curious mistake just current in the county, that he had been nearly ruined by the recent failure of a local bank. A farmer named Darton had lost heavily, and the similarity of name had probably led to the error. Belief in it was so persistent that it demanded several days of letter-writing to set matters straight, and persuade the world that he was as solvent as ever he had been in his life. He had hardly concluded this worrying task when, to his delight, another letter arrived in the handwriting of Sally.
Darton tore it open; it was very short.
'DEAR MR. DARTON,--We have been so alarmed these last few days by the report that you were ruined by the stoppage of --'s Bank, that, now it is contradicted I hasten, by my mother's wish, to say how truly glad we are to find there is no foundation for the report.
After your kindness to my poor brother's children, I can do no less than write at such a moment. We had a letter from each of them a few days ago.--Your faithful friend, 'SALLY HALL.'
'Mercenary little woman!' said Darton to himself with a smile.
'Then that was the secret of her refusal this time--she thought Iwas ruined.'
Now, such was Darton, that as hours went on he could not help feeling too generously towards Sally to condemn her in this. What did he want in a wife? he asked himself. Love and integrity. What next? Worldly wisdom. And was there really more than worldly wisdom in her refusal to go aboard a sinking ship? She now knew it was otherwise. 'Begad,' he said, 'I'll try her again.'
The fact was he had so set his heart upon Sally, and Sally alone, that nothing was to be allowed to baulk him; and his reasoning was purely formal.
Anniversaries having been unpropitious, he waited on till a bright day late in May--a day when all animate nature was fancying, in its trusting, foolish way, that it was going to bask out of doors for evermore. As he rode through Long-Ash Lane it was scarce recognizable as the track of his two winter journeys. No mistake could be made now, even with his eyes shut. The cuckoo's note was at its best, between April tentativeness and midsummer decrepitude, and the reptiles in the sun behaved as winningly as kittens on a hearth. Though afternoon, and about the same time as on the last occasion, it was broad day and sunshine when he entered Hintock, and the details of the Knap dairy-house were visible far up the road.
He saw Sally in the garden, and was set vibrating. He had first intended to go on to the inn; but 'No,' he said; 'I'll tie my horse to the garden-gate. If all goes well it can soon be taken round:
if not, I mount and ride away'
The tall shade of the horseman darkened the room in which Mrs. Hall sat, and made her start, for he had ridden by a side path to the top of the slope, where riders seldom came. In a few seconds he was in the garden with Sally.
Five--ay, three minutes--did the business at the back of that row of bees. Though spring had come, and heavenly blue consecrated the scene, Darton succeeded not. 'NO,' said Sally firmly. 'I will never, never marry you, Mr. Darton. I would have done it once; but now I never can.'
'But!'--implored Mr. Darton. And with a burst of real eloquence he went on to declare all sorts of things that he would do for her. He would drive her to see her mother every week--take her to London--settle so much money upon her--Heaven knows what he did not promise, suggest, and tempt her with. But it availed nothing. She interposed with a stout negative, which closed the course of his argument like an iron gate across a highway. Darton paused.
'Then,' said he simply, 'you hadn't heard of my supposed failure when you declined last time?'
'I had not,' she said. 'But if I had 'twould have been all the same.'
'And 'tis not because of any soreness from my slighting you years ago?'
'No. That soreness is long past.'
'Ah--then you despise me, Sally?'
'No,' she slowly answered. 'I don't altogether despise you. Idon't think you quite such a hero as I once did--that's all. The truth is, I am happy enough as I am; and I don't mean to marry at all. Now, may _I_ ask a favour, sir?' She spoke with an ineffable charm, which, whenever he thought of it, made him curse his loss of her as long as he lived.
'To any extent.'
'Please do not put this question to me any more. Friends as long as you like, but lovers and married never.'
'I never will,' said Darton. 'Not if I live a hundred years.'
And he never did. That he had worn out his welcome in her heart was only too plain.
When his step-children had grown up, and were placed out in life, all communication between Darton and the Hall family ceased. It was only by chance that, years after, he learnt that Sally, notwithstanding the solicitations her attractions drew down upon her, had refused several offers of marriage, and steadily adhered to her purpose of leading a single life May 1884.