When Nellie came home from the vicarage she found
her mother looking very ill. There were dark
rings under her eyes, and her features were drawn
and tear-stained, while the beautiful waves of her
brown hair had lost their habitual neatness and symmetry.
The child noticed these things, with a child’s
quickness, but explained them on the ground that her
mother’s headache was probably much worse.
Mrs. Goddard accepted the explanation and on the following
day Nellie had forgotten all about it; but her mother
remembered it long, and it was many days before she
recovered entirely from the shock of her interview
with the squire. The latter did not come to see
her as usual, but on the morning after his visit he
sent her down a package of books and some orchids from
his hothouses. He thought it best to leave her
to herself for a little while; the very sight of him,
he argued, would be painful to her, and any meeting
with her would be painful to himself. He did not
go out of the house, but spent the whole day in his
library among his books, not indeed reading, but pretending
to himself that he was very busy. Being a strong
and sensible man he did not waste time in bemoaning
his sorrows, but he thought about them long and earnestly.
The more he thought, the more it appeared to him that
Mrs.
Goddard was the person who deserved pity rather
than he himself. His mind dwelt on the terrors
of her position in case her husband should return
and claim his wife and daughter when the twelve years
were over, and he thought with horror of Nellie’s
humiliation, if at the age of twenty she should discover
that her father during all these years had not been
honourably dead and buried, but had been suffering
the punishment of a felon in Portland. That the
only attempt he had ever made to enter the matrimonial
state should have been so singularly unfortunate was
indeed a matter which caused him sincere sorrow; he
had thought too often of being married to Mary Goddard
to be able to give up the idea without a sigh.
But it is due to him to say that in the midst of his
own disappointment he thought much more of her sorrows
than of his own, a state of mind most probably due
to his temperament.
He saw also how impossible it was to console Mrs.
Goddard or even to alleviate the distress of mind
which she must constantly feel. Her destiny was
accomplished in part, and the remainder seemed absolutely
inevitable. No one could prevent her husband from
leaving his prison when his crime was expiated; and
no one could then prevent him from joining his wife
and ending his life under her roof. At least so
it seemed. Endless complications would follow.
Mrs. Goddard would certainly have to leave Billingsfield—no
one could expect the Ambroses or the squire himself
to associate with a convict forger. Mr. Juxon
vaguely wondered whether he should live another nine
years to see the end of all this, and he inwardly
Copyrights
A Tale of a Lonely Parish from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
