In the month of October of that year, a short time after John had taken
up his abode in Trinity College, an event occurred which shook
Billingsfield to its foundations; no less an event than the occupation of
the dwelling known as the "cottage." What the cottage was will appear
hereafter. The arrival of the new tenants occurred in the following
manner.
The Reverend Augustin Ambrose received a letter, which he immediately
showed to his wife, as he showed most of his correspondence; for he was
of the disposition which may be termed wife-consulting. Married men are
generally of two kinds; those who tell their wives everything and those
who tell them nothing. It is evident that the relative merits of the two
systems depend chiefly upon the relative merits of the wives in question.
Mr. Ambrose had no doubt of the advantages of his own method and he
carried it to its furthest expression, for he never did anything whatever
without consulting his better half. On the whole the plan worked well,
for the vicar had learning and his wife had common sense. He therefore
showed the letter to her and she read it, and read it again, and finally
put it away, writing across the envelope in her own large, clear hand the
words--Goddard, Cottage--indicative of the contents.
* * * * *
"MY DEAR SIR--It is now nearly five months since I saw you last. Need I
tell you that the sense of your kindness is still fresh in my memory? You
do not know, indeed you cannot know, what an impression your goodness
made upon me. You showed me that I was acting rightly. It has been so
hard to act rightly. Of course you quite understand what I mean. I cannot
refer to the great sorrow which has overtaken me and my dear innocent
little Nellie. There is no use in referring to it, for I have told you
all. You allowed me to unburden my heart to you during my brief visit,
and ever since that day I have felt very much, I may say infinitely,
relieved.
"I am again about to ask you a favour; I trust indeed that I am not
asking too much, but I know by experience how kind you are and so I am
not afraid to ask this too. Do you remember speaking to me of the little
cottage? The picture you drew of it quite charmed me, and I have
determined to take it, that is, if it is still to be let and if it is not
asking quite too much of you. I mean, if you will take it for me. You
cannot think how grateful I shall be and I enclose a cheque. I am almost
sure you said thirty-six pounds. It was thirty-six, was it not? The
reason I venture to enclose the money is because you are so very kind,
but of course you do not know anything certain about me. But I am sure
you will understand. You said you were sure I could live with my little
girl in Billingsfield for three hundred a year. I find I have a little
more, in fact nearly five hundred. If you tell me that I can have the
cottage, I will come down at once, for town is very dreary and we have
been here all summer except a week at Margate. Let me thank you again,
you have been so very kind, and believe me, my dear sir, very sincerely
yours,
"MARY GODDARD."
* * * * *
"Augustin, my dear, this is very exciting," said Mrs. Ambrose, as she
handed the cheque to her husband for inspection and returned the
letter to its envelope, preparatory to marking it for future reference;
and when, as has been said, she had written upon the outside the
words--Goddard, Cottage, and had put it away she turned upon her husband
with an inquiring manner peculiar to her. Mr. Ambrose was standing before
the window, looking out at the rain and occasionally glancing at the
cheque he still held in his hand.
"Just like a woman to send a cheque to 'bearer' through the post," he
remarked, severely. "However since I have got it, it is all right."
"I don't think it is all right, Augustin," said his wife. "We are taking
a great responsibility in bringing her into the parish. I am quite sure
she is a dissenter or a Romanist or something dreadful, to begin with."
"My dear," answered the vicar, mildly, "you make very uncharitable
suppositions. It seems to me that the most one can say of her is that she
is very unhappy and that she does not write very good English."
"Oh, I have no doubt she is very unhappy. But as you say we must not be
uncharitable. I suppose you will have to write about the cottage."
"I suppose so," said Mr. Ambrose doubtfully. "I cannot send her back the
money, and the cottage is certainly to let."
He deposited the cheque in the drawer of his writing-table and began to
walk up and down the room, glancing up from time to time at his wife who
was lifting one after another the ornaments which stood upon the
chimney-piece, in order to ascertain whether Susan had dusted underneath
them. She had many ways of assuring herself that people did their work
properly.
"No," said she, "you cannot send her back the money. But it is a very
solemn responsibility. I hope we are doing quite right."
"I certainly would not hesitate to return the cheque, my dear, if I
thought any harm would come of Mrs. Goddard's living here. But I don't
think there is any reason to doubt her story."
"Of course not. It was in the _Standard_, so there is no doubt about it.
I only hope no one else reads the papers here."
"They read them in the kitchen," added Mrs. Ambrose presently, "and they
probably take a paper at the Duke's Head. Mr. Boosey is rather a literary
character."
"Nobody will suppose it was that Goddard, my dear," said the vicar in a
reassuring tone of voice.
"No--you had better write about the cottage."
"I will," said the vicar; and he forthwith did. And moreover, with his
usual willingness to give himself trouble for other people, he took a
vast deal of pains to see that the cottage was really habitable. It
turned out to be in very good condition. It was a pretty place enough,
standing ten yards back from the road, beyond the village, just opposite
the gates of the park; a little square house of red brick with a high
pointed roof and a little garden. The walls were overgrown with creepers
which had once been trained with considerable care, but which during the
last two years had thriven in untrimmed luxuriance and now covered the
whole of the side of the house which faced the road. So thickly did they
grow that it was with difficulty that the windows could at first be
opened. The vicar sighed as he entered the darkened rooms. His daughter
had lived in the cottage when she first married the young doctor who had
now gone to London, and the vicar had been, and was, very fond of his
daughter. He had almost despaired of ever seeing her again in
Billingsfield; the only glimpses of her he could obtain were got by going
himself to town, for the doctor was so busy that he always put off the
projected visit to the country and his wife was so fond of him that she
refused to go alone. The vicar sighed as he forced open the windows upon
the lower floor and let the light into the bare and empty rooms which had
once been so bright and full of happiness. He wondered what sort of
person Mrs. Goddard would turn out to be upon nearer acquaintance, and
made vague, unconscious conjectures about her furniture as he stumbled
up the dark stairs to the upper story.
He was not left long in doubt. The arrangements were easily concluded,
for the cottage belonged to the estate in Chancery and the lawyer in
charge was very busy with other matters. The guarantee afforded by the
vicar's personal application, together with the payment of a year's rent
in advance so far facilitated matters that four days after she had
written to Mr. Ambrose the latter informed Mrs. Goddard that she was at
liberty to take possession. The vicar suggested that the Billingsfield
carrier, who drove his cart to London once a week, could bring her
furniture down in two trips and save her a considerable expense; Mrs.
Goddard accepted this advice and in the course of a fortnight was
installed with all her goods in the cottage. Having completed her
arrangements at last, she came to call upon the vicar's wife.
Mrs. Goddard had not changed since she had first visited Billingsfield,
five months earlier, though little Eleanor had grown taller and was if
possible prettier than ever. Something of the character of the lady in
black may have been gathered from the style of her letter to Mr. Ambrose;
that communication had impressed the vicar's wife unfavourably and had
drawn from her husband a somewhat compassionate remark about the bad
English it contained. Nevertheless when Mrs. Goddard came to live in
Billingsfield the Ambroses soon discovered that she was a very
well-educated woman, that she appeared to have read much and to have read
intelligently, and that she was on the whole decidedly interesting. It
was long, however, before Mrs. Ambrose entirely conquered a certain
antipathy she felt for her, and which she explained after her own
fashion. Mrs. Goddard was not a dissenter and she was not a Romanist; on
the contrary she appeared to be a very good churchwoman. She paid her
bills regularly and never gave anybody any trouble. She visited the
vicarage at stated intervals, and the vicarage graciously returned her
visits. The vicar himself even went to the cottage more often than Mrs.
Ambrose thought strictly necessary, for the vicar was strongly prejudiced
in her favour. But Mrs. Ambrose did not share that prejudice. Mrs.
Goddard, she said, was too effusive, talked too much about herself and
her troubles, did not look thoroughly straightforward, probably had
foreign blood. Ay, there was the rub--Mrs. Ambrose suspected that Mrs.
Goddard was not quite English. If she was not, why did she not say so,
and be done with it?
Mrs. Goddard was English, nevertheless, and would have been very much
surprised could she have guessed the secret cause of the slight coldness
she sometimes observed in the manner of the clergyman's wife towards her.
She herself, poor thing, believed it was because she was in trouble, and
considering the nature of the disaster which had befallen her, she was
not surprised. She was rather a weak woman, rather timid, and if she
talked a little too much sometimes it was because she felt embarrassed;
there were times, too, when she was very silent and sad. She had been
very happy and the great catastrophe had overtaken her suddenly, leaving
her absolutely without friends. She wanted to be hidden from the world,
and by one of those strange contrasts often found in weak people she had
suddenly made a very bold resolution and had successfully carried it out.
She had come straight to a man she had never seen, but whom she knew very
well by reputation, and had told him her story and asked him to help her;
and she had not come in vain. The person who advised her to go to the
Reverend Augustin Ambrose knew that there was not a better man to whom
she could apply. She had found what she wanted, a sort of deserted
village where she would never be obliged to meet any one, since there was
absolutely no society; she had found a good man upon whom she felt she
could rely in case of further difficulty; and she had not come upon false
pretences, for she had told her whole story quite frankly. For a woman
who was naturally timid she had done a thing requiring considerable
courage, and she was astonished at her own boldness after she had done
it. But in her peaceful retreat, she reflected that she could not
possibly have left England, as many women in her position would have
done, simply because the idea of exile was intolerable to her; she
reflected also that if she had settled in any place where there was any
sort of society her story would one day have become known, and that if
she had spent years in studying her situation she could not have done
better than in going boldly to the vicar of Billingsfield and explaining
her sad position to him. She had found a haven of rest after many months
of terrible anxiety and she hoped that she might end her days in peace
and in the spot she had chosen. But she was very young--not thirty years
of age yet--and her little girl would soon grow up--and then? Evidently
her dream of peace was likely to be of limited duration; but she resigned
herself to the unpleasant possibilities of the future with a good grace,
in consideration of the advantages she enjoyed in the present.
Mrs. Ambrose was at home when Mrs. Goddard and little Eleanor came to the
vicarage. Indeed Mrs. Ambrose was rarely out in the afternoon, unless
something very unusual called her away. She received her visitor with the
stern hospitality she exercised towards strangers. The strangers she saw
were generally the near relations of the young gentlemen whom her husband
received for educational purposes. She stood in the front drawing-room,
that is to say, in the most impressive chamber of that fortress which is
an Englishman's house. It was a formal room, arranged by a fixed rule and
the order of it was maintained inflexibly; no event could be imagined of
such terrible power as to have caused the displacement of one of those
chairs, of one of those ornaments upon the chimney-piece, of one of those
engravings upon the walls. The walls were papered with one shade of
green, the furniture was covered with material of another shade of green
and the well-spared carpet exhibited still a third variety of the same
colour. Mrs. Ambrose's sense of order did not extend to the simplest
forms of artistic harmony, but when it had an opportunity of impressing
itself upon inanimate objects which were liable to be moved, washed or
dusted, its effects were formidable indeed. She worshipped neatness and
cleanliness; she left the question of taste to others. And now she stood
in the keep of her stronghold, the impersonation of moral rectitude and
of practical housekeeping.
Mrs. Goddard entered rather timidly, followed by little Eleanor whose
ideas had been so much disturbed by the recent change in her existence,
that she had grown unusually silent and her great violet eyes were
unceasingly opened wide to take in the growing wonders of her situation.
Mrs. Goddard was still dressed in black, as when John Short had seen her
five months earlier. There was something a little peculiar in her
mourning, though Mrs. Ambrose would have found it hard to define the
peculiarity. Some people would have said that if she was really a widow
her gown fitted a little too well, her bonnet was a little too small, her
veil a little too short. Mrs. Ambrose supposed that those points were
suggested by the latest fashions in London and summed up the difficulty
by surmising that Mrs. Goddard had foreign blood.
"I should have called before," said the latter, deeply impressed by the
severe appearance of the vicar's wife, "but I have been so busy putting
my things into the cottage--"
"Pray don't think of it," answered Mrs. Ambrose. Then she added after a
pause, "I am very glad to see you." She appeared to have been weighing in
her conscience the question whether she could truthfully say so or not.
But Mrs. Goddard was grateful for the smallest advances.
"Thank you," she said, "you are so very kind. Will you tell Mr. Ambrose
how thankful I am for his kind assistance? Yes, Nellie and I have had
hard work in moving, have not we, dear?" She drew the beautiful child
close to her and gazed lovingly into her eyes. But Nellie was shy; she
hid her face on her mother's shoulder, and then looked doubtfully at Mrs.
Ambrose, and then hid herself again.
"How old is your little girl?" asked Mrs. Ambrose more kindly. She was
fond of children, and actually pitied any child whose mother perhaps had
foreign blood.
"Eleanor--I call her Nellie--is eight years old. She will be nine in
January. She is tall for her age," added Mrs. Goddard with affectionate
pride. As a matter of fact Nellie was small for her years, and Mrs.
Ambrose, who was the most truthful of women, felt that she could not
conscientiously agree in calling hex tall. She changed the subject.
"I am afraid you will find it very quiet in Billingsfield," she said
presently.
"Oh, I am used--that is, I prefer a very quiet place. I want to live very
quietly for some years, indeed I hope for the rest of my life. Besides it
will be so good for Nellie to live in the country--she will grow so
strong."
"She looks very well, I am sure," answered Mrs. Ambrose rather bluntly,
looking at the child's clear complexion and bright eyes. "And have you
always lived in town until now, Mrs. Goddard?" she asked.
"Oh no, not always, but most of the year, perhaps. Indeed I think so."
Mrs. Goddard felt nervous before the searching glance of the elder woman.
Mrs. Ambrose concluded that she was not absolutely straightforward.
"Do you think you can make the cottage comfortable?" asked the vicar's
wife, seeing that the conversation languished.
"Oh, I think so," answered her visitor, glad to change the subject, and
suddenly becoming very voluble as she had previously been very shy. "It
is really a charming little place. Of course it is not very large, but as
we have not got very many belongings that is all the better; and the
garden is small but extremely pretty and wild, and the kitchen is very
convenient; really I quite wonder how the people who built it could have
made it all so comfortable. You see there are one--two--the pantry, the
kitchen and two rooms on the ground floor and plenty of room upstairs for
everybody, and as for the sun! it streams into all the windows at once
from morning till night. And such a pretty view, too, of that old gate
opposite--where does it lead to, Mrs. Ambrose? It is so very pretty."
"It leads to the park and the Hall," answered Mrs. Ambrose.
"Oh--" Mrs. Goddard's tone changed. "But nobody lives there?" she asked
suddenly.
"Oh no--it is in Chancery, you know."
"What--what is that, exactly?" asked Mrs. Goddard, timidly. "Is there a
young heir waiting to grow up--I mean waiting to take possession?"
"No. There is a suit about it. It has been going on for forty years my
husband says, and they cannot decide to whom it belongs."
"I see," answered Mrs. Goddard. "I suppose they will never decide now."
"Probably not for some time."
"It must be a very pretty place. Can one go in, do you think? I am so
fond of trees--what a beautiful garden you have yourself, Mrs. Ambrose."
"Would you like to see it?" asked the vicar's wife, anxious to bring the
visit to a conclusion.
"Oh, thank you--of all things!" exclaimed Mrs. Goddard. "Would not you
like to run about the garden, Nellie?"
The little girl nodded slowly and stared at Mrs. Ambrose.
"My husband is a very good gardener," said the latter, leading the way
out to the hall. "And so was John Short, but he has left us, you know."
"Who was John Short?" asked Mrs. Goddard rather absently, as she watched
Mrs. Ambrose who was wrapping herself in a huge blue waterproof cloak and
tying a sort of worsted hood over her head.
"He was one of the boys Mr. Ambrose prepared for college--such a good
fellow. You may have seen him when you came last June, Mrs. Goddard?"
"Had he very bright blue eyes--a nice face?"
"Yes--that is, it might have been Mr. Angleside--Lord Scatterbeigh's
son--he was here, too."
"Oh," said Mrs. Goddard, "perhaps it was."
"Mamma," asked little Nellie, "what is Laws Catterbay?"
"A peer, darling."
"Like the one at Brighton, mamma, with a band?"
"No, child," answered the mother laughing. "P, double E, R, peer--a rich
gentleman."
"Like poor papa then?" inquired the irrepressible Eleanor.
Mrs. Goddard turned pale and pressed the little girl close to her side,
leaning down to whisper in her ear.
"You must not ask foolish questions, darling--I will tell you by and by."
"Papa was a rich gentleman," objected the child.
Mrs. Goddard looked at Mrs. Ambrose, and the ready tears came into her
eyes. The vicar's wife smiled kindly and took little Nellie by the hand.
"Come, dear," she said in the motherly tone that was natural to her when
she was not receiving visitors. "Come and see the garden and you can play
with Carlo."
"Can't I see Laws Catterbay, too?" asked the little girl rather
wistfully.
"Carlo is a great, big, brown dog," said Mrs. Ambrose, leading the child
out into the garden, while Mrs. Goddard followed close behind. Before
they had gone far they came upon the vicar, arrayed in an old coat, his
hands thrust into a pair of gigantic gardening gloves and a battered old
felt hat upon his head. Mrs. Goddard had felt rather uncomfortable in the
impressive society of Mrs. Ambrose and the sight of the vicar's genial
face was reassuring in the extreme. She was not disappointed, for he
immediately relieved the situation by asking all manner of kindly
questions, interspersed with remarks upon his garden, while Mrs. Ambrose
introduced little Nellie to the acquaintance of Carlo who had not seen so
pretty a little girl for many a day, and capered and wagged his feathery
tail in a manner most unseemly for so clerical a dog.
So it came about that Mrs. Goddard established herself at Billingsfield
and made her first visit to the vicarage. After that the ice was broken
and things went on smoothly enough. Mrs. Ambrose's hints concerning
foreign blood, and her husband's invariable remonstrance to the effect
that she ought to be more charitable, grew more and more rare as time
went on, and finally ceased altogether. Mrs. Goddard became a regular
institution, and ceased to astonish the inhabitants. Mr. Thomas Reid, the
sexton, was heard to remark from time to time that he "didn't hold with
th'm newfangle fashins in dress;" but he was a regular old conservative,
and most people agreed with Mr. Abraham Boosey of the Duke's Head, who
had often been to London, and who said she did "look just A one, slap up,
she did!"
Mrs. Goddard became an institution, and in the course of the first year
of her residence in the cottage it came to be expected that she should
dine at the vicarage at least once a week; and once a week, also, Mr. and
Mrs. Ambrose went up and had tea with her and little Eleanor at the
cottage. It came to pass also that Mrs. Goddard heard a vast deal of talk
about John Short and his successes at Trinity, and she actually developed
a lively interest in his career, and asked for news of him almost as
eagerly as though he had been already a friend of her own. In very quiet
places people easily get into the sympathetic habit of regarding their
neighbours' interests as very closely allied to their own. The constant
talk about John Short, the vicar's sanguine hopes for his brilliant
future, and Mrs. Ambrose's unlimited praise of his moral qualities,
repeated day by day and week by week produced a vivid impression on Mrs.
Goddard's mind. It would have surprised her and even amused her beyond
measure had she had any idea that she herself had for a long time
absorbed the interest of this same John Short, that he had written
hundreds of Greek and Latin verses in her praise, while wholly ignorant
of her name, and that at the very time when without knowing him, she was
constantly mentioning him as though she knew him intimately well, he
himself was looking back to the one glimpse he had had of her, as to a
dream of unspeakable bliss.
It never occurred to Mr. Ambrose's mind to tell John in the occasional
letters he wrote that Mrs. Goddard had settled in Billingsfield. John, he
thought, could take no possible interest in knowing about her, and
moreover, Mrs. Goddard herself was most anxious never to be mentioned
abroad. She had come to Billingsfield to live in complete obscurity, and
the good vicar had promised that as far as he and his wife were concerned
she should have her wish. To tell even John Short, his own beloved pupil,
would be to some extent a breach of faith, and there was assuredly no
earthly reason why John should be told. It might do harm, for of course
the young fellow had made acquaintances at Cambridge; he had probably
read about the Goddard case in the papers, and might talk about it. If he
should happen to come down for a day or two he would probably meet her;
but that could not be avoided. It was not likely that he would come for
some time. The vicar himself intended to go up to Cambridge for a day or
two after Christmas to see him; but the winter flew by and Mr. Ambrose
did not go. Then came Easter, then the summer and the Long vacation. John
wrote that he could not leave his books for a day, but that he hoped to
run down next Christmas. Again he did not come, but there came the news
of his having won another and a more important scholarship; the news also
that he was already regarded as the most promising man in the university,
all of which exceedingly delighted the heart of the Reverend Augustin
Ambrose, and being told with eulogistic comments to Mrs. Goddard, tended
to increase the interest she felt in the existence of John Short, so that
she began to long for a sight of him, without exactly knowing why.
Gradually, too, as she and her little girl passed many peaceful days in
the quiet cottage, the sad woman's face grew less sorrowful. She spoke of
herself more cheerfully and dwelt less upon the subject of her grief. She
had at first been so miserable that she could hardly talk at all without
referring to her unhappy situation though, after her first interview with
Mrs. Ambrose, no one had ever heard her mention any details connected
with her trouble. But now she never approached the subject at all. Her
face lost none of its pathetic beauty, it is true, but it seemed to
express sorrow past rather than present. Meanwhile little Nellie grew
daily more lovely, and absorbed more and more of her mother's attention.