PARTED
If anything had been needed to clinch in Pasco Pepperill the sense of
his conduct being irreproachable, the ovation on his return to
Coombe-in-Teignhead would have served this purpose; but nothing was
necessary after that the insurance office had thrown up the ball. The
retirement of the Company from the contest, and the payment of the money
for which his stores were insured, acted on his conscience as much as
would a plenary papal absolution on that of a Roman Catholic.
Previous to this his conscience had given occasional twitches, now it
glowed with conscious sense of righteousness. It was vexed with neither
qualm nor scruple. He held his head higher, boasted louder, strutted
with more consequence, and became impatient and offended at his wife’s
maintaining her distance. He might deceive himself, deceive the world,
but he could not blind her, and this made him angry. He was slighted in
his home, where he had best claims for recognition.
He was, moreover, disappointed that there was so little real enthusiasm
for himself at the back of the demonstration, which was organised rather
in honour of the parish than of himself. The same suspicion attended
him, the same reluctance to deal with him, and the same indifference to
his society.
The demonstration was destined not to pass without leaving some
unpleasant consequences.
At the urgency of Farmer Pooke, Miller Ash, the second churchwarden, had
forced the belfry door and admitted the ringers, and authorised them to
give a peal of welcome to the returning conqueror.
Mr. Fielding was of a mild and kindly disposition, but he was a stickler
in matters of discipline, and he could not suffer this high-handed
conduct to pass unquestioned. Ash was cited before the archdeacon, and
legal proceedings were instituted to establish the sole right of the
incumbent to order when and by whom the bells should be rung. Ash was
dismayed at the prospect of a suit. He attempted to fall back on Pooke,
but found that Pooke was by no means inclined to find money for the
defence.
Mr. Fielding was reluctant to proceed against a parishioner and a
churchwarden, and a man eminently worthy, but he considered that it
would be a neglect of duty not to do so. Twice had he been defied, and
twice had the bells been rung on improper occasions. He was aware that
his action must produce ill-feeling against himself, but he was too
conscientious a man to allow this consideration to weigh with him.
Nothing is easier than for a man in authority to court popularity by
giving way at every point. Mr. Fielding did not desire popularity, and
he did not believe that in discharging a duty he would interfere with
his ministerial influence in the place.
And, in fact, Ash did not so much resent the action of the rector as the
unreliability of Pooke’a man who had urged him to act, and had promised
to take the responsibility on himself for such action; a man whose son
was about to marry his own daughter. Ash was bitter at heart, in the
first line with Pooke, and the second with Pepperill, for having
occasioned this affair. If Pepperill had never insured, never had
allowed his warehouse to be burnt, never had confronted the Company,
this unpleasantness would not have arisen; and only in the third line
did his resentment touch the rector. Moreover, Pooke was discontented
and uncomfortable. He was well aware that he was morally responsible for
the infraction of the belfry, but he would not admit it, lest it should
cost him money. Pooke was a man ready to admit a moral obligation up to
ten-and-six; not a penny beyond. He allowed that the parson was in the
right to stick out for his authority, and if the law gave him command of
the bell-ropes’well, he was justified in trying to obtain it. But it was
Pasco Pepperill who was really to blame. He ought not to have delayed
his return from Exeter. Why did he stick at that city for seven whole
days after he had got what he wanted? Had he come flying home by the
Atmospheric the day he received payment, there would have been no
demonstration. By dawdling in Exeter, he allowed time for the
organisation of a demonstration, and he did not deserve one, Heaven
knew! So Pooke’s self-reproach converted itself into anger against
Pepperill. In the physical world all forces are correlated, and it is so
in the world of feeling. Love becomes hate, and joy turns into grief,
and, as we have seen, compunction glances away from self and converts
itself into a sting aimed at another.
Kitty’s position in the place became one full of discomfort. Not only
was she regarded as guilty of the fire by one body of the inhabitants,
but she had given offence to others by her engagement to the
schoolmaster.
Walter Bramber was not merely a pleasant-looking man, but a good-looking
one as well, and several young and middle-aged women in the place had
set their caps at him.
One of these was the distorted milliner, designed for him by his
landlady, and encouraged by her in hopes of exchanging her condition of
maid without a home for wife in the schoolhouse. This person went about
to all the farmhouses making garments for the farmers’ wives and
daughters, and was able, without allowing it to transpire that she had
aspired to Bramber, to stir up a good deal of ill-feeling against Kitty,
who had been lucky where she had failed.
Another was a good-looking wench with a flaw in her reputation, who had
hoped that the new-comer would be ignorant of her past history, and
would succumb to her charms, and enable her to repair her faulty
character out of the respectability of the position she would acquire.
Another, a damsel of erratic ecclesiasticism, who became a Particular
Baptist or an Anglican Churchwoman, according as desirable young men
attended chapel or church.
The last was a widow on a nice income of her own, some twenty years
Bramber’s senior, who had made up her mind to marry again, and marry a
young man.
Pasco was subjected to passive suspicions, Kate to active hostility. The
art of ingeniously tormenting is one that men are too dull to acquire,
and too clumsy to exercise. It is an art easily exercised and rapidly
perfected by women. In a hundred ways Kate was annoyed by those of her
own sex in Coombe; and these were ways skilfully contrived to excite the
maximum of pain. She endeavoured to keep entirely to herself, but this
was beyond her power. No mosquito curtains have been contrived which a
person can draw about himself as a protection against malignant and
poisonous tongues.
Without malicious interest’on the contrary, with the kindest desire for
Kate’s welfare’Rose Ash interfered and caused her the greatest distress.
Rose had set her mind on matching Kate with Noah; she by no means
approved of the engagement to Walter Bramber. A girl like Kate, enjoying
her friendship, might look higher, do better than throw herself away on
a two-penny-ha’penny schoolmaster, of whose origin nobody knew anything;
and when Rose took an idea into her head, she left no stone unturned
till she had carried it out.
She visited Kate, she assured her that a union with Bramber was out of
the question. There was so strong a feeling against her in the place
that, were she to marry the schoolmaster, it would damage his prospects.
The farmers would withdraw their subscriptions from the school, and the
parents refuse to send their children to be educated there.
“Of course,” said Rose, “I don’t believe you burnt the warehouse, but a
lot of people in the place do. Some say you did it out of spite, because
your uncle wouldn’t let you have the schoolmaster; others say he sent
you back to set the wares alight, being too much of a coward to do it
himself. I know better’but folks won’t listen to me. I don’t see how you
can put the notion out of them but by marrying Noah. He’s related to
nearly everyone in the place, and if you became his wife, you see, all
the relations of Noah would take your part; they’d be bound to do it.
Noah is a good fellow, and he’s terribly in love’got a pain under his
ribs, and walks bent’all along of love. You’d best chuck over the
schoolmaster and stop their mouths with Noah. There’s no other way of
doin’ it.”
“You really think that my engagement to Walter Bramber will injure him?”
“If it goes on, he may as well leave the place. It would be made too hot
to hold him. You see, Kitty, the Coombites ha’ never taken much to
him’he bain’t like Mr. Puddicombe in nothing. But they might get used to
him and put up wi’ him. If you go on holding him to his engagement,
then’what everyone says is’he must go.”
Zerah, moreover, sought to influence her niece. She was a selfish woman,
and now that she had opened her heart to Kitty, she was jealous of
anyone else claiming a share in the girl. Moreover, she could not endure
to live at the Cellars if left there alone with Pasco, of that she was
convinced. She therefore extorted a promise from Kate not to leave her.
Kitty had become more than ever thoughtful, and was nervous and
depressed in spirits. She could not clear herself of this suspicion that
attached to her without incriminating her uncle, and she greatly doubted
whether her word would avail against his. She could not hear anything of
her father, the same mystery enveloped his fate unrelieved. She would
have liked to pour her troubles into the ear of Walter, but her uncle
had forbidden his coming to the house, and she would not go and seek
him, observed, watched by all, and everything she did subject to
misconstruction. Kate’s time was more at her disposal than formerly, as
Jane Redmore came in charing. This was a disadvantage to her, so far
that it allowed her time to brood over her troubles and annoyances.
After Rose had gone, she went on the water side of the house and seated
herself on the parapet above the rippling inflowing tide, with her head
sunk on her bosom.
Presently the tears began to course down her cheeks. She had not been
seated there long before the timid, feeble Jane Redmore came fluttering
out to her, looking over her shoulder as she came. The woman touched
her: “I wouldn’t take on so,” she said. “You ain’t sure Jason Quarm’s
dead, you know. He wasn’t found, and for why?”
Kate looked at the poor woman with tear-filled eyes.
“I can’t say nothin’,” said Mrs. Redmore hastily. “Only’there’it makes
me bad to see you cry, it do, and I reckon there’s no reason.”
Then she slipped back in the same wavering, timid manner to the kitchen,
without another word.
But Kate’s distress of mind was not due solely, as the woman believed,
to her anxiety concerning the fate of her father. She had been debating
in her heart whether she ought to continue her engagement with Bramber,
and, perhaps, never had Kitty felt how truly she was “alone” as now,
when she had satisfied herself that for his sake it were well for her to
release him.
She stood up, when her purpose was formed, and walked quietly, firmly,
to the Rectory. One friend she had there, ever faithful’the parson. He
knew that she was innocent, he alone could appreciate her difficulties,
and he would approve her determination.
She entered the study where he was at work on a sermon. He smiled, and
his face brightened when he saw her, and he signed to a chair.
Kate, direct, clear, and firm in all she said and did, told the rector
of her intention. She informed him of what he knew already, that a body
of feeling was engaged against her, that she was incapable of
establishing her innocence. That, under the circumstances, it was out of
the question her holding Walter Bramber to his promise. She had,
furthermore, passed her word to her aunt not to leave her. Mr. Fielding,
though disappointed, saw that under the circumstances nothing could be
done; and he felt that Kate was acting honourably and in accordance with
her conscience. He knew, therefore, he must not dissuade her from
obedience to that inner voice. He took a more hopeful view than did she,
and this he expressed.
“If things change, then no harm has been done,” said Kate. “I have to
say what is in my mind as made up on things as they are. Will you be so
kind, sir, as to speak to Walter?”
“I see him coming in at the gate,” said Mr. Fielding. “He is with me
about this time every day for a Greek lesson’a bit of New Testament in
the original tongue.”
Kate stood up.
“Yes,” said he. “You go to meet him at the mulberry tree.”
The girl left quietly and composedly, as she had entered, and, crossing
the lawn, came on the young man just as he reached the bench under the
mulberry.
“Walter,” she said, “I want a word with you. Have you a knife?”
“Yes; why?”
“Will you cut this in the mulberry bark? Mr. Fielding will not object’
‘O Tree, defying time, witness bear,
That two’”’
She hesitated, slightly coloured’
“‘That two friends met and parted here.’”
“What do you mean, Kitty?”
“Ask the rector’he will tell you all.”
Then hastily, unable further to control herself, she passed him, and
left the garden.