"Ha! a concerto." Enlightenment swept over the Vicar's face like a tide
of sunlight, and his shoulders shook as with the laughter of gladsome
things. "Beautiful! beautiful! To think of our stubborn Ullbrig soil's
being made to yield a concerto. Had it been a turnip now. But a
concerto! Ullbrig knows nothing of concertos. It would know still less
if you were to explain. Explanations only confuse us--besides being an
unwarrantable violation of our precious rights of ignorance. Tell friend
Jevons you 're at work upon a concerto, and see what he says. He 'll
tell you, yes, his son 's got one." Father Mostyn cast the forefinger
of conviction at him. "Depend upon it, that 's what he 'll tell you.
His son 's got one. A beauty with bells that he gave eighteenpence for.
Meaning one of those nickel-silver mouth-organs such as we can't go to
Hunmouth Fair without bringing back with us--unless we plunge for a
concertina. It 's got to be one or the other, or people might n't think
we 'd been to Hunmouth Fair at all, and that 's a light too glorious to
be hid under a bushel. But it 's all one in name to us whatever we get.
We call it a 'music.' Whether it 's a piano, or a fiddle, or a song, or
a symphonium, or a sonata, or a Jew's harp, or a concertina, or a
sackbut--the definition does n't alter. We call it a 'music.'
'So-and-So 's gotten a grand music.' 'It 's a grand music, yon.' That
's our way."
The little black cat of a kettle, after purring complacently for a while
over the blue flame, suddenly arched its lidded back and spat out across
the table.
"Ha!" Father Mostyn turned gladsomely at the sound. "There 's music for
you. Come; you 're a whiskey man? Say when and fear not."
"If you don't mind, I 'll say it now," said the Spawer, with laughing
apology.
"No?" His Reverence held out the uncorked bottle by the neck,
persuasively tilted. "Think twice, my son, before committing yourself
to hasty judgments." Then seeing the Spawer was not to be moved: "A
glass of sherry, then? Benedictine? Capital! You won't beat
Benedictine for a standard liqueur. Apart from its pleasant effect upon
the palate, it has a valuable corroborant action on the gastric juices,
and tends to the promotion of chyme."
All in speaking he produced the familiar flagon from the sideboard,
poured out a cut-glass thumbful of amber. This act of hospitality
fulfilled, he turned, with no diminished zeal, to the serving of his own
requirements. He sipped warily from an edge of his smoking glass to
verify his expectations of the flavor, nipped his lips for a moment in
judicial degree, and subsided slowly upon the chair in a long breath of
rapture, extending the tumbler towards the Spawer for wassail--"here 's
success to our concerto, and may your days be long in the land with us.
We 're a stiff-necked and obstinate generation, who worship gods of our
own making, and have more than a shrewd idea that the devil 's in music
(we know for certain he 's in the Church); but we bake good pies for all
that, and our nonconformist poultry can't be beaten."
The Spawer laughed. "And our postman?" he asked.
*CHAPTER VII*
"Ha!" Father Mostyn played upon the note momentously, as though he were
throwing open the grand double gates of discussion. "Pamela, you mean!
I knew we should come to that before long. No help for it." He
subpoenaed the Spawer for witness to the wisdom of his conclusions with
a wagged forefinger. "But Pamela 's not Ullbrig. Pamela was n't
fashioned out of our Ullbrig clay. She 's not like the rest of us;
comes of a different class altogether. You can't mistake it. Take note
of her when she laughs--you 're a musical man and you 'll soon see--she
covers the whole diapason. Ullbrig does n't laugh like that. Ullbrig
laughs on one note as though it were a plough furrow. There 's nothing
of cadence about our Ullbrig laughter--that 's a thing only comes with
breed. Notice her eyebrows, too, when she 's speaking, and see how
beautifully flexible they are." The Vicar warmed to the subject with
the enthusiasm of a connoisseur.
"No--there 's nothing of our clay in Pamela's construction. Pam is like
charity; suffereth long and is kind. Envieth not; vaunteth not herself;
is not puffed up. Doth not behave herself unseemly; seeketh not her
own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil. Ullbrig does n't
understand Pam any more than it understands the transit of Venus or the
rings of Saturn. Pam 's above our heads and comprehension. Because she
goes to church on Sunday, and does n't walk with our Ullbrig young men
down Lovers' Lane at nightfall, we say she 's proud. Because she 's too
generous to refuse them a word in broad daylight, when they ask for it,
we say she 's forward. Because she never says unkind things of us all in
turn behind our backs, and won't listen to any, we say she 's
disagreeable. Because she does n't read the post-cards on her way
round, and tell us whether Miss So-and-So ever hears from that Hunmouth
young gentleman or not, we say she keeps a still tongue in her
head--which is our Ullbrig idiom for a guilty conscience. That we had
only a few more Pams--with due gratitude to Blessed Mary for the one we
've got."
"As a postman," said the Spawer, entering into the Vicar's appreciation,
"she 's the most astonishing value I ever saw. The girl seems to have a
soul. Who is she? And where does she come from?"
Father Mostyn's brows converged upon the pipe-bowl in the hollow of his
knee, and his cassock swelled to a long breath of mystery. "Who is she?
and where does she come from? ... Those are the questions. _A priori_,
I 'm afraid there 's nothing to answer them. So far, it seems to have
been Heaven's wise purpose to reveal her as a beautiful mystery; an
incarnate testimony to the teaching of Holy Church--if only Ullbrig knew
the meaning of the word testimony. She came to Ullbrig, in the first
place, with her mother, as quite a little girl, and lodged with friend
Morland at the Post Office. I believe there was some intention on her
mother's part of founding a small preparatory school in combination with
poultry farming at the time. Yes, poor woman, I rather fear that was
her intention. She seemed to think it would yield them both a
livelihood, and give Pamela the benefit of new-laid eggs; but she died
suddenly, the very day after Tankard had agreed to let her the cottage
down Whivvle Lane at four and sixpence a week--being three shillings the
rent of the cottage, and eighteenpence because she was a lady. Ha! that
's the way with us. To try and do you one; do your father one; do your
mother one; do your sister one; do your brother one; but particularly do
one to them that speak softly with you, and his reverence the Vicar.
Him do half a dozen if you can, being an ecclesiast, and so difficult to
do." He wiped the smile off his mouth with one ruminative stroke of his
sleek fingers--you might almost suppose he had palmed it, and slipped it
up his sleeve, so quickly did it come away. "She died suddenly, poor
woman, before I could get to her. Cardiac haemorrhage, commonly, and
not always incorrectly, called a broken heart. No doubt about it. They
sent for me three times, but it happened most grievously that I had
tricycled off to Whivvle that day to inquire into a little matter
concerning the nefarious sale of glebe straw--(I 'm afraid I shall have
to be going there again before so long; the practice shows signs of
revival)--and she was dead when I got back. We buried her round by the
east window, where the grass turns over the slope towards the north
wall. You can just see the top of the stone from the roadway." He
indicated its approximate position with a benedictory cast of the signet
hand. "After paying all funeral expenses, it was found that there
remained a small balance of some thirty pounds odd--evidently the
tail-end of their resources--in virtue whereof, friend Morland's heart
was moved to take Pam to his bosom, and give her a granddaughter's place
in the family circle. Thirty pounds, you see, goes a long way in
Ullbrig, where we grow almost everything for ourselves except beer and
tobacco. One mouth more or less to feed makes hardly any appreciable
difference."
"But were there no relatives?" the Spawer suggested.
Father Mostyn shook his head significantly.
"And you were n't able to trace the mother's movements before she came
to Ullbrig?"
"No further than Hunmouth." His Reverence tried the edge of the
Spawer's interest with a keen eye through drawn lashes, as though it
were a razor he was stropping. "Following up a theory of mine, we traced
her as far as Hunmouth. But for that, if we 'd taken friend Morland's
advice, we should have lost her altogether. As I predicted, we found
she 'd been living for some time in small lodgings there.... There was
some question of music teaching, I believe."
"Music teaching?" The Spawer leaned on the interrogative with all the
weight of commiserative despair.
"I rather gathered so. She gave lessons to the landlady's daughter, I
fancy, in return for the use of the piano, and she had a blind boy
studying with her for a while. His family thought of making him a
church organist, but unfortunately for all parties concerned, the boy's
father failed. Yes, failed rather suddenly, poor man, and cast quite a
gloom over the musical outlook. Then Pamela seems to have acquired
diphtheria from a sewer opening directly under the bedroom window, and
had a narrow squeak for it; and after that her terrified mother fled the
town with her, and brought her into the country. There 's no danger of
sewers in the country, you see. We have n't such things; we know
better."
"And that's what brought them to Ullbrig?" asked the Spawer.
"That's what brought them to Ullbrig. What brought them to Hunmouth is
still a matter for conjecture. I called upon the doctor subsequently
who attended Pam there, but he could give me no information about them,
beyond the fact that his bill had been paid before they left."
"I should have thought, though," said the Spawer, tipping his lips with
golden Benedictine, and sending the bouquet reflectively through his
nostrils, "that she would have left letters--or something of the
sort--behind her, which might have been followed up."
"One would have thought so, naturally. But no; not a single piece of
manuscript among all her possessions."
"That," said the Spawer, "looks awfully much as though they 'd been
purposely destroyed."
Father Mostyn's lips tightened significantly, and he nodded his head
with sagacious indulgence for the tolerable work of a novice.
"Moreover, in such books as belonged to her the flyleaf was invariably
missing. Torn bodily out. Not a doubt about it."
"To remove traces of her identity?"
The Vicar slipped his forefinger into the pipe-bowl and gave the tobacco
a quick, conclusive squeeze. "Unquestionably."
"But for what reason, do you think?"
His Reverence sat back luxuriously in the arm-chair, with fingers
outspread tip to tip over the convex outline of his cassock, and legs
crossed reposefully for the better enjoyment of his own discourse. "In
the first place, she was a lady. Not a doubt about it. No mere
professional man's daughter, brought up amid the varying circumstances
incidental to professional society, and trained to consider her father's
interests in all her actions--(the little professional discipline of
conduct always shows)--but a woman of birth and position. Belonging to
a good old military family, I should say, judging by her bearing, with a
fine, sleek living or two in its gift for the benefit of the younger
branch. Depend upon it. She would come of the elder branch, though,
and I should take her to be an only daughter. There would be no sons.
Unfortunately, a painful indisposition of a lumbaginous nature prevented
my extending her more than the ordinary parochial courtesy at the first,
and she died within a fortnight of her arrival. Otherwise, doubtless
she would have sought to tell me her circumstances in giving the
customary intimation of a desire to benefit by the blessed Sacraments of
the Church--but there 's no mistaking the evidence." He recapitulated
it over his fingers. "She was the daughter of a wealthy military man, a
widower, who had possibly distinguished himself in the Indian service
(most likely a major-general and K.C.B.), living on a beautiful estate
somewhere down south--say Surrey or the Hampshire Downs."
"Could n't you have advertised in some of the southern papers?"
suggested the Spawer.
"Precisely. We advertised for some time, and to some considerable
extent, in such of them as would be likely to come under the General's
notice--but without success. Indeed, none was to be expected. Men of
the General's station in life don't trouble to read advertisements, much
less answer them--and if, in this case, he 's read it, it would n't have
changed his attitude towards a discarded daughter or induced a reply.
Therefore, to continue advertising would have been merely to throw good
money after bad.... Ha! Consequently the next step in our
investigations is to decide what could be responsible for her detachment
from these attractive surroundings, and her subsequent lapse into
penurious neglect. It could n't have been the failure of her father's
fortune. A catastrophe of this sort would n't have cut her off
completely from the family and a few, at least, of her necessarily large
circle of friends. Some of her clerical half-cousins, too, would have
come forward to her assistance, depend upon it. But even supposing the
probabilities to be otherwise, then there would be still less reason for
her voluntary self-excision. Though under these circumstances, one
might understand her never referring to her family connection, it 's
inconceivable to suppose that she should have gone to any particular
trouble to conceal traces of the fact. To have done so would have been
a work of supererogation, besides running counter to all our priestly
experience of the human heart and its workings. No. In the resolute
attempt to cut herself off from her family the priestly eye perceives
the acting hand of pride. Not a doubt about it. Pride did her. The
pride of love. No mistaking it. The headstrong pride of love. Faith
removes mountains, but love climbs over 'em, at all costs. Depend upon
it, she 'd given her heart to some man against the General's will, and
run away and married him. Marriage was the first step in her descent."
"Or do you think..." hazarded the Spawer, with all humility for
intruding his little key into so magnificent a lock of hypothesis, "that
marriage was a missing step altogether, and she tripped for want of it?"
Father Mostyn received the suggestion with magnanimous courtesy--almost
as though it had been a duly expected guest. "I think not. Under
certain conditions of life that would be an admirable hypothesis for
working purposes. But it won't fit the present case. In the first
instance, we must remember that those little idiosyncrasies of morality
occur less frequently in the class of society with which we 're dealing,
and that when they actually occur, the most elaborate precautions are
taken against any leakage of the fact. Moreover, let's look at the
actual evidence. All the woman's linen--the handkerchiefs, the
underclothing, the petticoats, the chemises, and so forth--were
embroidered with the monogram 'M.P.S.,' standing, not a doubt about it,
for Mary Pamela Searle. Some of the child's things, bearing the
identical monogram, showed that they 'd been cut down for her; while one
or two more recent articles--of a much cheaper material--were initialled
simply 'P.S.' in black marking-ink. It 's necessary to remember this.
Now, if we turn from the linen to the books I spoke about and contrast
their different methods of treatment, we shall find strong testimony to
the support of my contention. On the one hand, linen, underclothing,
chemises, petticoats, pocket-handkerchiefs, and so forth, marked plainly
'M.P.S.' and 'P.S.' On the other hand, a Bible, a book of Common Prayer
in padded morocco, evidently the property of a lady; a Shakespeare; a
volume of Torquato Tasso's 'Gerusalemme Liberato,' in levant; an
old-fashioned copy of 'Mother Goose'; and one or two other volumes, all
with the fly-leaf torn out. No mistaking the evidence. Searle was her
rightful married name, and there was no need to suppress it. For all
intents and purposes, it suited her as well as another. Besides, pride
would n't allow her to cast aside the name of her own choosing. Pride
had got too fast hold of her by the elbow, you see, for that. Keep a
sharp look-out for the hand of pride in the case as we go along, and you
won't be likely to lose your way. It will be a sign-post to you. Searle
was the name she 'd given everything up for--her father, her home, her
friends, her family, her position--and it had been bought too dear to
throw aside. It was the other name pride wanted her to get rid of.
That 's why the fly-leaves came out. Depend upon it. They were
gift-books belonging to her unmarried days. The Shakespeare was a
present from her father; Torquato Tasso came most likely from an Italian
governess; some girl-friend gave her the Prayer-book--perhaps as a
souvenir of their first Communion. The Bible would hardly be in the
nature of a gift-book. People of social distinction, brought up in
conformity with the best teachings of Holy Church, and abhorring all
forms of unorthodoxy as they would uncleanliness, don't make presents to
themselves of Bibles. That 's a plebeian practice, savoring
objectionably of free-thinking and dissent. The Bible is not mentioned
or made use of by well-bred people in that odious popular manner. No,
the book would figure in her school-room equipment as part of a
necessary instruction, but no more.
"... Ha!" His hand, on its way to the round table, arrested itself
suddenly in mid-air as though to impose a listening silence. "... There
goes friend Davidson--keeping his promise. I thought it was about his
time. He gave me his sacred word he would n't touch a drop of liquor in
Ullbrig for three months, so now he has to trot off to Shippus instead."
The Spawer listened, but could get not the faintest hint of the
delinquent's passage. "So now," Father Mostyn took up, starting his hand
on again with a descriptive relaxation of its muscles, as though the
culprit had just rounded the corner, and there were nothing further of
him worth listening for, "... we 've got the whole case in the hollow of
our hands. We see that the breach with the family was brought about by
her own act, and that that act was marriage. But it was n't merely
marriage against the General's consent or sanction. Marriages of
disobedience and self-will are nearly always, in our priestly
experience, forgiven at the birth of the first child; more especially,
of course, if it happens to be a son.... Therefore we must find a
stronger divisional factor than a marriage of disobedience. Ha!
undoubtedly. A marriage of derogation. No mistaking it. A marriage of
derogation. She married beneath her. That 's an unpardonable offence
in families of birth and position. We can forgive a daughter for
marrying above her, but we can't forgive a daughter for marrying beneath
her--even when she 's the only daughter we 've got. Moreover, this case
was badly aggravated by the fact that there was no money in it. She fell
in love with some penniless scamp of a fellow, with an irresistible
black moustache and dark eyes--there are plenty of 'em knocking about in
London society, who could n't produce a receipted bill or a banker's
reference to save their lives--got her trousseau together by stealth;
had it all proudly embroidered with the name she was about to take;
kissed her father more affectionately than usual one night ... and the
next morning was up with the lark and miles away." He kept casting the
ingredients one after another into the hypothetical pancheon with a
throw of alternate hands--the right hand for the sin she had committed;
the left hand for the penniless scamp of a fellow; the right hand again
for her trousseau; the left hand for the elopement, and so on, with all
the unction of a _chef_ engaged upon the preparation of some great dish,
and stuck the spoon into it with a fine, conclusive "Ha!"
"After that," said he, interrupting the sentence for a moment to give
two or three reclamatory puffs at his pipe, "the rest 's as plain as
print. She 'd made a bad bargain with her family, and she 'd made a
worse with her husband. Depend upon it. Searle was a gambler--an
improvident, prodigal, reckless rascal--who tapped what money she had
like a cask of wine. As soon as Pamela was born, the wretched woman
began to see where things were drifting. She dared n't suggest
retrenchment to her husband, but she began to practise a few feeble
economies in the house and upon her own person. No more silks and
satins after that. No more embroidered chemises. No more fine linen.
Nothing new for Pamela, where anything could be cut down. Nothing new
for herself, where anything old would do. Cheapen the living here,
cheapen the living there--until at last, thank God! in the fourth year
of his reign, this _monstrum nulla virtute redemptum a vitiis_ takes to
his wife's bed--not having one of his own--and does her the involuntary
kindness of dying in it. So our Blessed Lady leads Pamela and her
mother to Ullbrig by gradual stages, and there, the mother's share in
the work being done, she is permitted to fall asleep. Ha! Friend
Morland"--he approached the tumbler to his lips under cover of the
apostrophe, and sought the ceiling in drinking with a rapturous eye,
"... you never drove a better bargain in your life than when you
acquired a resident daughter of Mary with a premium of thirty pounds.
Look at all the blessings that have been specially bestowed upon you for
her sake. Look at the boots that get worn out in tramping backwards and
forwards to the Post Office since Heaven put into our heads the notion
of buying penny stamps in two ha'penny journeys, and calling round to
let you know we shall be wanting a post-card in the morning. Did our
young men do this before Pam's time? And where do we carry all our
boots and shoes to when they have n't another ha'penny journey in their
soles? Not to Cobbler Roden. Cobbler Roden does n't shelter a daughter
of Mary. Cobbler Roden does n't shelter a daughter of anybody--not even
his own--if he can help it. Not to Cobbler Dingwall. Cobbler Dingwall
does n't shelter a daughter of Mary. Heaven sends down no blessing on
Cobbler Dingwall's work. We find it 's clumsy and does n't last. No, we
don't take 'em to any of these. We take 'em to Shoemaker Morland. That
's where we take 'em. Shoemaker Morland. He 's the man. All the rest
are only cobblers, being under no patronage of Blessed Mary, but friend
Morland 's a shoemaker. Moreover, the Post Office has n't lacked for
lodgers since Pam came to it--there 's the schoolmaster there now. A
strange, un-get-at-able sort of a fellow, to be sure, whom I strongly
suspect of nursing secret aggression against the Church; still a payer
of bills, and in that respect a welcome addition to the Morland
household."
"Friend Morland, then," said the Spawer, "combines the offices of
shoemaker and postmaster-general for Ullbrig?"
Father Mostyn forefingered the statement correctively.
"Those are his offices. But he does n't combine them. He keeps them
scrupulously distinct. One half of him is postmaster-general and the
other is shoemaker. I forget just at the moment which half of him you
've got to go to if you want stamps, but you might just as well try to
get cream from a milk biscuit as buy stamps at the shoemaking side.
Apart from these little peculiarities, however, he 's as inoffensive a
specimen of dissent as any Christian might hope to find. Without a
trained theological eye one might take him any day for a hard-working,
respectable member of the True Body. His humility in spiritual matters
is almost Catholic. You 'd be astonished to find such humility in the
possession of a Non-conformist--until you knew what exalted influence
had brought it about. He repudiates the Nonconformist doctrine that the
Divine copyright of teaching souls goes along with the possession of a
fourpenny Bible. His view on the question is that the Book 'takes
overmuch understanding to try and explain to anybody else.' On this
point, with respect to Pamela, I 'd never had any trouble with him. She
's been born and brought up in the Church; she 'd true Church blood in
her veins. Her mother was a Churchwoman. Her grandfather, like the
gallant old soldier that he was, was a Churchman; a strong officer of
the Church Militant, occupying the family pew every Sunday morning, who
would have died of apoplectic mortification at the thought that any
descendant of his should ever sink so low as to sit on the varnished
schismatical benches of an Ullbrig meeting-house. All which, when I put
it before him, Friend Morland saw in a clear and catholic spirit. It 's
true for a short time he wished to make a compromise--at the instigation
of his wife, undoubtedly--whereby Pamela was to attend church in the
mornings and meeting-house in the evening--a most odious and
unscriptural arrangement, quite incompatible with canonical teaching.
However, special light of grace was poured into his heart from above,
and he perceived the aged General in such a vivid revelation trembling
with martial anger at this act of indignity to one of his flesh and
blood, that he woke up in a great sweat two nights successively, and
came running before breakfast to tell me that the spiritual
responsibility of a general's granddaughter was proving too much for
him, and he 'd be humbly grateful if his Reverence the Vicar would take
the matter on his own shoulders, and bear witness (should any be
required) that he (John William Morland) had in all things done his
utmost to act in conformity with what he thought to be the General's
wishes. So I made him stand up in the hall and recite a proper
_declaratio abjurationis_ before me then and there, gave him his coveted
_ego te absolvo Joannes_, and received Pamela forthwith as spiritual
ward in our most Catholic Church."
"But is she going to consecrate all her days to the carrying of
letters?" asked the Spawer, in a voice of some concern. "_A dieu ne
plaise_."
Father Mostyn knocked the ashes cautiously out of his pipe into a cupped
palm and threw them over the hearth. "There 's the rub. That 's what I
've been wanting to have a little talk with you about. Her bringing up
has been in the nature of a problem--a sort of human equation. We 've
had to try and develop all her latent qualities of birth and breed, and
maintain them in a state of exact equilibrium against the downward
forces of environment. Just the slightest preponderance on one side or
other might have done us. Two things we had to bear constantly in mind
and reconcile, so far as we were able, from day to day." He ticked them
off on his fingers like the heads of a discourse: "First. That she was
a lady; the daughter of a lady; the granddaughter of a lady. Second.
That she was become by adoption a daughter of the soil, dependent on her
own exertions for her subsistence and happiness. At one time, so
difficult did the two things seem to keep in adjustment, I had serious
thoughts of taking her bodily under my own charge and packing her off to
school. But after a while, I came to reflect that it would be an act of
great unwisdom--apart from the fear that it might be making most impious
interference with the designs of Providence. Providence plainly had
brought her, and to send her off again for the purpose of having her
trained exclusively in the accomplishments of a lady would simply have
been contempt of the Divine laws and a deferment of the original
difficulty to some more pressing and inopportune moment. My work, you
see, was here in Ullbrig. His Reverence is tied to the soil like the
rest of us--ploughing, sowing, harrowing, scruffling, hoeing, and
reaping all his days--though, for the matter of that, there 's precious
little ear he gets in return for his spiritual threshing. Moreover,
there 's always the glorious uncertainty of sudden death in the harvest
field; and then what would be likely to happen to a girl thrown on her
own resources at the demise of her only friend and protector? Would she
be better circumstanced to face the world bravely as a child with his
Reverence helping her unostentatiously by her elbow and accustoming her
to it, or as a young lady in fresh bewilderment from boarding-school,
with his Reverence fast asleep in the green place he 's chosen for
himself under the east window? Ha! no mistake about it. His Reverence
has seen too many nursery governesses and mothers' helps and ladies'
companions recruited straight from the school-room, with red eyes and
black serge, to risk Pamela's being among the number. Out in the world
there 's no knowing what might happen or have happened to her. Here in
Ullbrig, you see, she stands on a pedestal to herself, above all our
local temptations. Temptations, in the mundane sense of the word, don't
exist for her. One might as well suppose the possibility of your being
tempted from the true canons of musical art by hearing Friend Barclay
sing through the tap-room window of the Blue Bell, or of his Reverence
the Vicar's being proselytised to Methodism by hearing Deacon Dingwall
Jackson pray the long prayer with his eyes shut. No; our local sins
fall away from Pamela as naturally and unregarded as water off a duck's
back. Such sins as she has are entirely spiritual--little sins of
indiscrimination, we may term them. The sin of generosity--giving too
much of her favor to the schismatical; the sin of toleration--inclining
too leniently towards the tenets of dissent; the sin of
forbearance--making too much allowance for the sins and wickednesses of
others; the sin of equanimity--being too little angered by the assaults
and designs of the unfaithful against Holy Church--all beautiful
qualities of themselves when confined to the temporal side of conduct,
but sinful when thoughtlessly prolongated into the domain of spirituals,
where conduct should subordinate itself to the exact scale of scientific
theology. Spiritual conduct without strict theological control is music
without bars; poetry without metre; a ship without a rudder; free-will;
nonconformity; dissent; infidelity; agnosticism; atheistic darkness.
Ha! but our concern for her future is n't on these counts. The question
that 's bothering us now, as you rightly put it, is: Is she going to
consecrate all her days to the carrying of letters?"
"As a career," commented the Spawer, "I 'm afraid there 's not much to
recommend it. The office of post-girl seems, from what I know about the
subject, peculiar to Ullbrig. There 's precious little chance of
promotion, I should think. She might slip into the telegraph
department, perhaps, but from a place like Ullbrig even that 's
something of a step."
"I was n't so much thinking of the telegraphic department," Father
Mostyn explained, "... though, of course, it had suggested itself to me.
But I 'd been thinking ... it came upon me rather forcibly ... partly
since your arrival ... after our first little talk together ... and I
wondered. Of course, the telegraph department could be held in view as
a reserve. But I 'd rather got the idea..." a certain veil of obscurity
seemed to settle down upon his Reverence at this point, as though a
sea-mist were drifting in among his words. "You see," he said, suddenly
abandoning the attempt at frontal clearance and making a detour to come
round the thickness of his difficulty, "Pamela 's altogether a
remarkable girl. She 's not the least bit like the rest of us. She can
do everything under the sun, except kill chickens. She can't kill
chickens; but she can cook 'em. And she can make Ullbrig pies till you
could swear Mrs. Dixon had done 'em. And she can bake bread--white
bread, as white as snow for Friend Morland's delicate stomach; and brown
bread as brown as shoe-leather and mellow as honey for his Reverence the
Vicar. Three loaves a week without fail, because there 's nobody else
in Ullbrig can make 'em to his satisfaction--and she wanted to have the
paying for 'em herself into the bargain. And she can paper-hang and
paint. She and his Reverence are going to undertake a few matters of
church decoration shortly. And she can milliner and dressmake. If it
was n't for Pamela, Emma Morland would soon lose her reputation as our
leading society _modiste_. Not even the brass plate would save her--if
she polished it three times a day. Ullbrig does n't want brass plates;
Ullbrig wants style. So when Ullbrig goes to Emma Morland for a new
dress and Pamela 's not there, Ullbrig says, 'Oh, it does n't matter
just then, it 'll call again.' Ha! says it 'll call again. But what I
wanted to illustrate ... with regard to telegraphic departments, of
course ... you see ... her remarkable versatility. Not only that..."
the old fog showed signs of settling over him once more, but he shook it
off with a decisive spurt. "She 's inherited music from her mother in a
marked degree. It seems to come naturally to her. I think you 'd be
surprised. What little bit I 've been able to do for her I 've
done--taught her the proper value of notation, the correct observance of
harmonies, clefs, solfeggio, scales, legato, contra punctum, and so
forth. The amazing thing is the way she 's picked it up. Not a bit of
trouble to her, apparently. What I should have done without her at the
organ--she 's our ecclesiastical organist, you know--I dare n't think.
And it occurred to me ... I felt it would be such a pity to let the
chance go by ... if we could only induce you.... You see, she 's not
exactly an ordinary girl. Different from the rest of us altogether....
And I thought if we could only induce you to give her the benefit of a
little musical advice..." He paused inferentially.
"With a view," asked the Spawer, "to what is diabolically called the
profession?"
Father Mostyn caught the note of dissuasive alarm.
"Ha! not exactly the profession..." he said. "I was n't so much meaning
that. But I thought, you see, she 'd appreciate it so much ... and
there 'd be no fear of her abusing your favor in the slightest degree.
Unfortunately ... I 'm afraid you 'd find our piano rather below par ...
the Ullbrig air has a peculiar corrodent action upon the strings.
Tuning 's no good; indeed, it only seems to unsettle 'em. But if ...
sometime when you 're here you would n't mind my asking her in ... just
for a short while?"
"Not the least bit in the world," said the Spawer. "And for as long as
you like."
"Ha!" The fog lifted off Father Mostyn's utterance in sudden
illumination of sunlight, and he rubbed his knees jocosely. "I thought
we should manage it. Capital! capital! We must fix up a sort of a
soiree some night. That 's what we must do. Fix up a sort of soiree
some night and feed you. We won't speak of dining; that 's a word we
leave behind us when we come to Ullbrig. But we 'll feed you, and give
Pamela a chance to display her culinary skill. Of course, we know all
about our little business of last night, so we need n't speak
darkly...."
"The deuce we do!" exclaimed the Spawer, laughing. "And I 've been
thinking all the time we did n't."
Father Mostyn spread his fingers with priestly unction.
"That," said he, "is one of our fatal Ullbrig errors; always to think
that his Reverence does n't know things. No matter how many times we
prove to our cost that he does, we go on acting upon the supposition
that he does n't. It 's a source of endless trouble to us. Of course,
in the present instance, we absolve you. Your tongue was honorably
tied. Pamela told me all about it this morning--she was full of the
music and your goodness, and the desire to tell me what she 'd done
before silence made a hypocrite of her. Indeed, she was horribly
afraid, poor girl, that she was becoming an Ullbrig hypocrite already.
As though there were a grain of hypocrisy in the whole of her nature.
But that 's what we must do. We must rig up a sort of soiree some night
and feed you."
How the soiree and the feeding were going to affect the vital question
of the girl's future did not altogether transpire--though this one
subject carried them henceforth into the small hours, and the Spawer
used no inconsiderable skill to elicit some clear understanding on the
point, and when finally the Spawer slid away from the Vicarage gate
under a deep July skyful of stars, the words floated in mystic meaning
about his ears like the ringing of sanctus bells.
And as far away as the very last gate of all, when the Spawer turned his
head back towards the scene of his evening, he seemed to hear the bells
wafting to him over the corn, as though languid with pursuit:
"... Feed you. Feed you. Feed ... you."
*CHAPTER VIII*
Pam had grown up in the sight of Ullbrig, variously loved and hated for
her self-same virtues; and on a day when the time seemed not yet ripe
(for fear some more enterprising spirit might pluck it green), the men
of Ullbrig and of Whivvle, and of Merensea and of Garthston, and of
Sproutgreen and of Ganlon, and of Hunmouth even, arose, gave a pull to
their waistcoats, and took turns at offering themselves before her on
the matrimonial altar. That, as you may imagine, made Pam more enemies
than ever.
Who the first man was to win the honor of her refusal has not been
established on a sufficiently authoritative basis for publication in
this volume, but after him came a constant stream of postulants. She
could have had any man she liked for the lifting of her little finger;
hardly one of them got married but took the wife he did because he could
n't take Pam. George Cringle, indeed, from Whivvle way, boldly
challenged her to marry him while his own banns were up with the
daughter of the Garthston miller.
"Oh, George," said Pam, when he stopped her by the smock-mill on the
Whivvle road and made his views known to her; too much shocked by his
dreadful duplicity to exult over her sister's downfall as an Ullbrig
girl might have done. "However could you."
"Ah could very well," said George resourcefully, misconstruing the
reproval into an encouraging query about how the thing was to be done.
"An' ah 'll tell y' t' way. Ah 'd send my brother to let 'er know ah 'd
gotten chance o' betterin' mysen, an' wor gannin' to tek it, an' we 'd
'ave me an' you's names called i' Oolbrig Choch. Noo, what div ye say?"
Pam said "No," and preached one of the prettiest open-air sermons you
ever heard. It was on love and marriage; telling how true love was
essential to happiness, and how marriage without love was mere mockery,
and how the man that betrayed the affections of a girl by demeaning her
in the sight of another was not worthy to be called man at all; and how,
if George did n't care for Rose, he ought never to have soiled his lips
with the falsehood of saying he did ("Ay, ah do, bud ah care for you a
deal better," said George); and how he ought to try and make himself
worthy of Rose, and she of him; and how, if he really felt that that was
impossible, he ought to stand forth boldly and proclaim so before it was
too late ("Ah 'm ready, onnytime ye tell me," said George); but how Pam
knew that George was a good fellow at heart ("Ah div n't say there is
n't them 'at's as good," said George, modestly, "if ye know t' place to
look for 'em"); and how, doubtless, he did n't mean any harm ("Ah-sure
ah div n't"); and so on ... much as you 've seen it all put in books
before, but infinitely more beautiful, because Pam's own dear face was
the page, and Pam's lips the printed words; and George stood and watched
her with his own lips reforming every word she said, in a state of
nodding rapture.
"Gan yer ways on," he begged her, when at last she came to a stop. "Ah
can tek as much as ye 've got to gie me."
"I 've finished," said Pam.
"Ay; bud can't ye think o' onnythink else?" he inquired anxiously. "Ah
like to 'ear ye--an' it mud do me some good. Rose could n't talk i'
that fashion, ah 'll a-wander. Nay; Rose could n't talk same as yon.
Not for nuts, she could n't. She 's a fond 'un, wi' nowt to say for
'ersen bud, 'Oh, George! gie ower.' What did ye tell me ah 'ad to
prawclaim?" he asked, with a crafty attempt to lure Pam on again. "Ah
want to mek right sure ah en 't forgotten owt."
Whereupon Pam wrought with her wavering brother a second time...
"Ay; it 's all right what ye 've telt me," he said, in deep-hearted
concurrence, when her words drew to an end once more. "Ah know it is.
Ye 've gotten right pig by t' lug, an' no mistek.... Well? What div ye
say? Mun ah send my brother to tell 'er ah s'll not be there o' Monday
week?"
Pam ground her little heel into the dust for departure, and threw up her
head with a fine show of pitying disdain.
"Some day, George Cringle," she told him in leaving, "you may be sorry
when you think of this."
"Ah can't be na sorrier nor ah am to-day, very well," George admitted
sadly, "... if ye mean 'No.'"
"I do," said Pam, with emphasis.
"Well, then," George decided, "there 's nowt no more for it. Things 'll
'a to gan on as they are."
Which they did.
Any other girl might have been ruined with all this adulation; all these
proposals open and covert; all these craning necks; these obvious
eye-corners--but Pam was only sorry, and sheer pity softened her heart
till many thought she had merely said "No" in order to encourage a
little pressing. And indeed, Pam said "No" so nicely, so lovingly, so
tenderly, so sorrowfully, so sympathetically, and with so little real
negation about the sound of it, that one woke up ultimately with a shock
to realise the word meant what it did. Some even found it difficult to
wake up at all.
"What div ye keep sayin' 'Naw' for?" asked Jevons, with a perplexity
amounting to irritation, when he had asked her to be the mother of two
grown-up daughters and a son, ready-made, and Pam had not seen her way.
"Ah s'll be tekkin' ye at yer wod, an' then 'appen ye 'll wish ye 'd
thought better on. Noo, let 's know what ye mean, an' gie us a plain
answer to a plain question. Will ye 'a me?"
"No..." said Pam again, shaking her head sorrowfully. Not N-O, NO, as it
looks here in print--hard, grim, inexorable, forbidding; but her own
soft "No," stealing out soothingly between her two lips like the caress
of a hand; more as though it were a penitential "Yes" in nun's habit,
veiled and hooded--a sort of monosyllabic Sister of Mercy.
"See-ye! There ye are agen," said Jevons, convicting her of it with his
finger. "Noo, what am ah to mek on ye?"
"Oh, nothing at all, please," Pam begged of him, with solicitous
large-eyed humility through her thick lashes. "Don't bother to try. It
's not as though I was worth it ... or ... or the only one. You 'll be
sure to find plenty of somebody elses ... There are just lots of girls
... older than me too ... who 'd be only too glad to say 'Yes' ... and
be better for you in every way."
"Ay, ah know there is," Jevons assented, with refreshing candor. "Lots
on 'em. Bud ah mud as lief finish wi' you sin' ah 've gotten started o'
ye. T' others 'll 'ave to be looked for, an' ah can't reckon to waste
mah time i' lookin' for nawbody. Work gets behint enough as it is. Noo,
let 's come tiv a understandin'. 'Ave ye gotten onnything agen me?"
"Oh, no, no," said Pam, all her sympathies in alarm at the mere
suggestion, lest it might have been derived from any act or word of
hers. "Indeed I have n't."
"Well," said Jevons himself, stroking down the subject complacently.
"Nor ah div n't see rightly i' what way ye sewd. Ah 'm a widdiwer--if
that 's owt agen a man? Bud if it is, ah s'll want to be telt why. An'
ah 've gotten a family--so it 's no use sayin' ah en't. Bud it 'll be a
caution if there 's owt agen a man o' that score. There 'll be a deal
o' names i' Bible to disqualify for them 'at say there is. An' ah 've
gotten seummut ah can lay my 'ands on at bank onnytime it rains--though
it 'll 'a to rain strangelins 'ard an' all before ah do. Ah 's think ye
weean't say 'at that 's owt agen a man?"
"Not a bit," said Pam conciliatorily. And then, with all the steadfast
resolution of her teens: "I shall never marry," she told him.
Only girls in their teens--taking life very seriously because of
them--ever say that. When they get older they commit themselves to no
such rash statement, lest it might be believed.
Ginger's turn took place in the Post Office itself. He had been waiting
for it for six weeks, so, of course, being fully prepared, it caught him
at a disadvantage when it came. As he slipped into the Post Office his
prayer was for Pam, but after he 'd got inside and remembered what he 'd
sworn to do if it were, he prayed it might be the postmaster, until he
thought he heard him coming, when his heart sank at another opportunity
lost, and he changed the prayer to Pam again. He was still juggling
with it from one to the other, with incredible swiftness and dexterity,
when there was a sudden ruffle of skirts and Pam stood waiting behind
the counter, with her knuckles on the far edge of it, in a delightful
transcription of the postmaster's position.
"Well, Ginger," she said, nodding her beautiful head at him. (Ginger
being also a surname, it was quite safe to call him by it.) "Do you want
a stamp?"
"... Naw, thank ye. At least ... ah 'm not partic'lar. Ay ... if ye
've gotten one to spare..." said Ginger. "Bud ye 've n' occasion to
trouble about it o' mah account. It's naw consequence. Ah 'm not so
sure ah could lick it, evens if ye 'ad to gie me it; my mouth 's that
dry ..."
"Let me get you a glass of milk, then," said Pam promptly, showing for
departure.
"Nay, ye mun't," Ginger forbade her in a burglar's whisper, waking up
suddenly to the alarming course his conduct was taking--as though he had
come so far in a dream. "Milk brings me out i' spots i' naw time, thank
ye ... an' besides, ah can do better wi'out. Wet's comin' back to me
noo, ah think, an' ah s'll not want to use stamp while to-morrer, 'appen
... or day after; if then. 'Appen ah s'll sell stamp to my mother, when
all 's said and done ... thank ye.... Did ye see what ah did wi' penny?
It ought to be i' one o' my 'ands, an' it 's not no longer. Mah wod!"
He commenced to deal nervous dabs at himself here and there as though he
were sparring for battle with an invisible adversary, and one, moreover,
he feared was going to prove the master of him. "Ah en't swallered 'er,
ah 's think. There 's a strange taste o' copper an' all...."
"What 's that on the counter?" asked Pam.
"Ay ... to be sure," said Ginger, with a mighty air of relief, picking
up the penny and putting it in his pocket. "There she is.... Mah wod,
if ah 'd slipped 'er--she mud 'a been finish o' me. Well...." It
suddenly occurred to him that he 'd been a tremendous time in the shop
delaying Government business, and his teeth snapped on the word like the
steel grips of a rat-trap. "Ah 'll wish ye good-night," he said
abruptly, and made a bolt to go.
"Are n't you going to pay me, Ginger?" Pam asked from across the
counter, with the soft simulation of reproach.
"What for?" Ginger stopped to inquire with surprise.
"For the stamp I gave you," said Pam.
"Ay ... noo, see-ye. Ah wor so throng wi' penny ah nivver thought no
more about stamp. Did ye notice what ah did wi' 'er?"
He seemed to be shaking hands with himself in all his pockets, one after
the other.
"In your waistcoat," said Pam. "That 's it.... No; see!"--and as his
hands still waltzed wide of the indicated spot, shot two little fingers
over the counter, stuck straight out like curling-tongs, and into his
waistcoat pocket and out again, with the stamp between them. "There you
are," she said, holding it up before his eyes in smiling triumph as if
it were a tooth she 'd extracted.
"Ay..." said Ginger, divining it dimly; "ye 're welcome tiv it."
That touch of her hand on his waistcoat, and the little waft of warm
hair that went with it, had almost undone him.
"Don't you want it?" asked Pam, scanning him curiously.
"Not if you do, ah don't," said Ginger. "Ah 'll mek ye a present on
it."
"Oh, but..." said Pam, with the tender mouth for a kindness, "it 's
awfully good of you ... but we 've got such lots of them. As many as
ever we want and more. You 'd better take it, Ginger."
"Ay, gie it me, then," said Ginger, holding his waistcoat pocket open,
"'Appen ye weean't mind slippin' it back yessen, an' ye 'll know ah 've
gotten it safe." The little warm waft went over him again, and he shut
his eyes instinctively, as though to the passage of a supreme spirit
whose glory was too great to be looked upon by mortal man. "Diz that
mek us right?" he asked hazily, when the power had gone by, and he awoke
to see Pam looking at him.
"Yes," said Pam, feeling it too mean to ask for the penny again after
Ginger's recent display of generosity. "That makes us all right, Ginger,
thank you."
"Same to you," said Ginger. "Ay, an' many on 'em." Then he knew his
hour was come. "Ah want to know ..." he begged unsteadily, gripping
himself tight to the counter's edge, and speaking in a voice that seemed
to him to boom like great breakers on the shore, and must be audible to
all Ullbrig, let alone the Post Office parlor--though Pam could hardly
hear him, "if ye 'll remind me ... 'at ah've gotten seummut ... to ask
ye?"
"I will if I can only remember," said Pam amiably, slipping a plump
round profile of blue serge on the counter and swinging a leg to and
fro--judging by the motion of her. "When do you want me to remind you,
Ginger?"
"Noo, if ye like," said Ginger.
"This very minute?" asked Pam.
"Nay, bud ah think not," said Ginger, backing suddenly in alarm from the
imminence of his peril. "It 's not tiv a minute or two. Some uvver
day, 'appen, when you 're not busy."
"Oh, but I 'm not busy now," said Pam, stopping her leg for a second at
Ginger's recession, and setting it actively in motion again when she
spoke, as though to stimulate his utterance.
"Ah 'm jealous y' are, though," said Ginger, with a rare show of
diffidence at taking her word.
"Indeed I 'm not," Pam assured him. "I promise you I 'm not, Ginger.
Do you think I 'd say that to you if I were? Now, what is it you want
to ask me?"
"Can ye guess?" Ginger tested her cautiously, with a nervous, twisted
smile--intended to carry suggestion, but looking more as though he 'd
bitten his tongue. Pam thought over him for a moment, and shook her
head.
"I 'm not a bit of good at guessing," she said.
"'Appen ye 'd be cross if ah telt ye," reflected Ginger. "Ay, ah 'd
better let it alone while ah 'm right. Ah mud mek a wuss job on it."
"Oh, Ginger, you aggravating boy," cried Pam, spurring a dear, invisible
heel against the counter to urge him on, and slapping the oilcloth with
her small flat hand till Ginger's ears tingled again in jealous delight.
"... Go on; go on. You must go on. You 'll have to tell me now, or I
'll never be friends with you again--and I shall know you don't care,
either."
"Well, then," Ginger began, pushed reluctantly forward by this direful
threat, "... it 's this." He held on to it as long as he could, taking
breath, and then when he felt he could n't hold on any longer, he
suddenly shut his eyes and let go, saying to himself, "Lord, help me!"
and to Pam, "Will y' 'ave me?"--so quickly and indistinctly that it
sounded like a cat boxed up under the counter, crying "Me-ow."
"Oh, Ginger," Pam apostrophised him mournfully, when she 'd begged his
pardon three times, and he 'd mewed after each one until at the third
she 'd received the inspiration to know what they all meant. "I wish
you 'd asked me anything but that."
"There wor nowt else ah 'd gotten to ask ye," Ginger said gloomily.
"Because..." Pam proceeded gently to explain, "I shall have to say
'No.'"
"Ay, ah thought ye would," Ginger threw in. "Ah know very well ah 'm
not good enough for ye."
"You 're every bit good enough for me," said Pam, with swift tears of
championship in her eyes, drawn there by his masterstroke of humility.
"And you must never say that again, please, even if you don't mean it.
It 's very, very good of you indeed to want me, Ginger. It 's awfully
good of you; and I 'd as soon say 'Yes' to you as to any I 've ever said
'No' to. I 'm sure you 'd do all you could to make me happy...."
"Ay, that ah would," said Ginger, snatching hopefully at the small bone
of encouragement. "Ah 'd try my best. Is it onny use me askin' ye agen
after a while?--say to-morrer or Friday? Ah sewd n't think owt about
trouble."
Pam shook her head regretfully.
"I 'm afraid not," she said. "But you must n't imagine, Ginger, it 's
because I don't care for you, or because I doubt you. It 's myself I
doubt, if I doubt anybody, not you. If I could only be a hundred Pams
instead of just a miserable one, I 'd have said 'Yes' to all those that
asked me. I know I should. You can't think how it troubles me to have
to keep on saying 'No'--but what am I to do? Everybody asks me to marry
them ... at least, a few do ... and as I can only marry one, I 'm
frightened it might be the wrong one. It 's so easy to make a
mistake--unless you 're very, very sure. And I'm not; and I feel I
might end by making both of us unhappy...."
"Ah 'd chance that," said Ginger, with resolution.
"But there ought to be no chance about it, Ginger," Pam reproved him
gently. "Nobody ought ever to marry by chance. People that only marry
by chance can only hope to be happy by chance--and that 's a dreadful
idea."
"Ay, ah see it is," said Ginger hurriedly. "Ah beg yer pardon."
"Well, then," said Pam, "... you understand me, don't you, Ginger?"
"Ah 'm jealous ah do," said Ginger despondently.
"And you 're not angry with me ... for what I 've said to you?"
"Nay, ah 'm not angry wi' ye," said Ginger. "Ah 'm only sorry. Ah
misdoot ah s'll not be i' very good fettle for my supper when time
comes."
"You 'll shake hands, though," said Pam, catching a certain indication
that he was about to depart without.
"Ay, ah sewd like, sin' ye 're good enough to ask me," Ginger
acknowledged eagerly, blundering hold of her fingertips, and dropping
them like hot coals as soon as he felt the desire to linger over them.
"'Appen ye 'll let me ... shek 'ands wi' ye ... noo an' agean," he asked
Pam humbly, turning his coat collar up to go--not that there was any
rain at the time, but that the action seemed somehow, in his conception
of things, to befit the hopeless finality of departure.
"Whenever you like, Ginger," Pam promised him, with moist lashes.
"Thank ye," said Ginger, making for the door. "Ah div n't know ... at
ah s'll trouble ye so offens ... but may'ap it mud save me ... fro'
gannin altagether to bad if ah was ... to shak 'em noo an' agean."
And with a husky farewell he dipped out of the office.
*CHAPTER IX*
So Ginger went over to the great majority of those that loved Pam and
lost her, and in his own hour was as sick a man as ever you might wish
to meet outside the chapters of a mediaeval romance, where gallant
knights are wont to weep like women, and women stand the sight of as
much blood, unmoved, as would turn the average modern man's stomach
three times over. But anything like a complete account of all the
hopeless loves that had Pam for their inspiration would crowd the pages
of this book from cover to cover, and still leave material for a copious
appendix, and any amount of lesser contributory literature. "Pamela
Searle: her Time, Life, Love, and Letters," including several important
and hitherto unpublished meat-bills rendered to Mrs. Gatheredge by
Dingwall Jackson, with a frontispiece. "'Pamela Searle,' being a
barefaced attempt to confound the thinking public as much as possible on
the subject of this fascinating character, and present her to them in an
altogether novel and unreliable light, as a means of catching their
pennies--(truth being worse than useless for the purpose)--with a
vindication of Sheppardman Stevens from sundry charges that have been
customarily laid against him."--"'Ullbrig, Past and Present'--(also
'Rambles Round')--fully illustrated; containing a special chapter on
Pamela and Father Mostyn in the light of recent investigation. Compiled
to serve as a guide-book to the district." "'Pamela Searle, the Ullbrig
Letter-Carrier; or, What can Little Ladies do?' A tale and a lesson.
By Mrs. Griffin (Good Children Series, No. 105.)."
It is no secret that the Garthston parson wanted Pam as badly as he
wanted a new pair of trousers, and would have had her at a moment's
notice if she 'd only asked him, but she never did; and he wore the old
pair to the end. And the Merensea doctor wanted her too--the same that
came in for six thousand pounds when his father died, and married his
housekeeper--but Pam went very sad and soft and sorrowful each time he
asked her (which was generally from his gig, driving some seven miles
out of his way, by Ullbrig, to reach an imaginary patient on the
Merensea side of Whivvle), and said "No," just the same as she said it
to everybody else, with not the least shade of an eyelid's difference
because he happened to be a doctor--which was the girl all over. No
supplicant that ever supplicated of Pam was too mean or too poor, or too
ridiculous or too presuming, in her eyes, ever to be treated with the
slightest breath of contumely. When poor Humpy from Ganlon, whose legs
were so twisted that he could n't tell his right from his left for
certain without a little time to think, asked a Ganlon lass to have him,
she screamed derision at him like a hungry macaw, and ran out at once to
spread the news so that it should overtake him (being but a slow walker,
though he walked his best on this occasion) before he had time to get
home. When he asked Pam to have him, Pam could have cried over him for
pity, to think that because God had seen fit to spoil a man in the
making like this, human love was to be denied him; and though, of
course, she said "No," she said it so beautifully that Humpy could
hardly see his way home for the proud tears of feeling himself a man in
spite of all; and if, after that, there had been any particular thing in
the whole world that twisted legs could have done for a girl, that thing
would have been done for Pam so long as Humpy was alive to do it.
Lastly, two years before the Spawer's arrival, the old schoolmaster grew
tired of teaching and died, and there came a new one in his place; a
younger man, pallid and frail, with the high white student's forehead,
worn smooth and rounded like the lamp globe he 'd studied under; the
weak brown moustache and small chin, and a cough that troubled him when
the wind was east, and took up his lodgment at the Post Office. Every
day he sat four times with Pam at the same table--breakfast, dinner,
tea, and supper. Every morning, when the clock struck ten, he
manoeuvred over his toes for a sight of the roadway through the
school-room window, and if the veins in his forehead swelled and his jaw
muscles contracted:
"Ah knaw 'oo yon 'll be," went the whisper round behind him.
Once he was ill, drawing the breath into his lungs like great anchor
chains dragged through hawse-holes, and Pam nursed him. Dressed the
pillows under his head; laid her cool hand on his hot forehead; gave him
his medicine; sat through the night with him, clasping courage and
comfort and consolation into his burning fingers, wrote letters for him;
read for him. "Noo we s'll be gettin' telt seummut before so long,"
said Ullbrig to itself. "A jug gans to pump adeal o' times, but some
fond lass 'll brek it before she 's done,"--but the schoolmaster
consumed in stillness like the flame of a candle. There were days when
"Good morning, Yes, No, Please, Thank you, and Good-night" would have
covered all that he said to Pam directly--and even then the veins in his
forehead and the tightening muscles about his jaws reproved him
straightway, as though he had already said too much. If, by any chance,
Pam addressed him suddenly, the blood would mount up to his forehead and
the outlines of his face would harden, like a metal cast in the setting,
before he spoke, till it almost looked as though he were debating
whether he should give her any reply. And the reply given, he would
take the first opportunity of turning his back. Indeed, there were
times when he barely waited for the opportunity, but clipped his
sentence in the middle and threw an abrupt word over his shoulder to
complete the sense of it, while Pam stood sorrowfully regarding the two
familiar threadbare tail buttons and the shine about the back of the
overworked morning coat, whose morning knew no noon, wondering if she 'd
said anything to offend him. Once, when he had swung round more
abruptly than usual, giving her the reply so grudgingly that it fell
altogether short of her hearing, as though he had cast a copper to some
wayside mendicant for peace's sake, Pam--who could never bear to leave
anything in doubt that a word might settle--asked him softly if he were
angry with her. The question fetched him suddenly round again, with the
appearance of warding a blow.
"Angry with you?" he repeated. There was the hoarseness of suppressed
emotion about his voice, and his lip trembled.
"You are angry with me now, though," said Pam mournfully, "for asking
you."
And indeed, by the way he had turned upon her and spoken, he seemed like
a man brought to the sudden flash-point of passion by some injudicious
word.
"I am not angry with you," he said, in the same constrained, hoarse
voice, and said no further, but put his shoulders between them again as
though the subject were too unimportant to be discussed.
Then Pam made a discovery.
"He does not like me," she told herself, and without showing that she
held his secret, she set herself in her own quiet, gentle fashion to
verify the fact by observation. He was never a man of many words at any
time, but she saw he was never a man of so few as when he was with her.
He had words for the postmaster; he had words for the postmaster's wife;
he had words for Emma; he had words--stray, detached, pedagogic
schoolroom words, read up aloud from the chalkings on an invisible
blackboard--for the villagers. But for Pam--Pam saw herself--he had
only the constrained, hard words between his teeth like the enforced bit
of a horse, that he champed fretfully in the desire to break away from
her.
No. Pam knew what it was. He liked the postmaster because they could
talk the papers over together, and predict terrible things about the
country to each other; and he liked Emma because Emma was so
straightforward and sensible and earnest looking--even if she was n't
pretty, which perhaps, after all, she was n't--and never said silly
things she did n't mean; and he liked Mrs. Morland because nobody could
help liking her--she was so kind and motherly and sympathetic and
talkative, and so full of allowances for other people. But Pam! ...
Well, he did n't care about Pam because ... oh, because of heaps of
things, perhaps. It was n't any use trying to put them all together.
Because he thought she was a silly, empty-headed gad-about, who cared
for nothing but showing herself around the countryside ... (but that was
n't true a bit; he knew it was n't!) ... and being asked if she 'd have
people....
Pam doubled up one little hand in anguish, and stared at an invisible
something in front of her--that seemed to be a bogey by the startled
look she gave it--with a bitten underlip twisting and struggling like a
red live thing to be free; and a drawn grey cheek--till the great round
tear-drops gathered in her eyes and fell hotly on her knuckles one by
one.
But that was only for a moment.
Then Pam dashed the tears aside and shook her glorious head with
new-found resolve. Pam would be brave; and strong; and steadfast; and
still; and modest; and nobly feminine; and true. And would show him by
her actions that he had done her a wrong in his heart.
Pam was still engaged upon the work of showing him when the Spawer took
up his quarters at Cliff Wrangham.
*CHAPTER X*
On the morning following the Spawer's session at Father Mostyn's, before
James Maskill had yet flung himself round the brewer's corner, his
Reverence threw open the blistered Vicarage door and sallied forth
genially to the Post Office in a pair of well-trodden morocco slippers,
screwing up his lips to inaudible cheery music as he went, and holding
in his left hand a round roll of grey stuff which, judging by wristbands
of a similar texture that showed beyond the crinkled cassock sleeves,
appeared to be a reverend flannel shirt. Jan Willim was chalking their
price on a pair of virgin soles when he heard the insidious slip-slap of
heelless leather take the cobbles like the lipping of an advancing tide,
and he put his head hurriedly round the little clean kitchen door at the
sound of it.
"Noo, 'ere 's 'is Rivrence," he announced, with the loud
double-barrelled whisper intended to do duty as a shout on the one side
and be inaudible on the other, "... an' it 'll be Pam 'e 's after....
Noo, Pam lass!"
"Ha! The very girl I wanted to see," his Reverence told her, as Pam
slipped her frank face deftly behind the counter to receive him, like a
beautiful honest marguerite, fresh plucked and button-holed, with a
friendly upward "Yes-s-s?" prolonged through her ivory petals,
pink-tipped, and' a peep of rosy tongue. "The very girl! How 's
Government this morning, John?" he inquired obliquely of the deferential
shadow brooding by the inner door, where the sound of straining
shoe-leather bespoke the presence of somebody striving to keep silence
on his toes.
"She 's very well, ah think, yer Rivrence, thank ye," responded the
postmaster, stepping forward the necessary six inches to show himself
respectfully before the Vicar in the act of speaking, and retiring when
his words were ended.
"Busy, is she?" asked his Reverence affably, commencing to unroll the
grey bundle of flannel on the counter with a leisurely ordering of his
hands--Pam lending assistant touches here and there.
"Ay, she 's busy," said the postmaster, showing again in the door-frame,
and wiping his fingers on his apron, lest their inactivity might seem
like disrespectful indolence before the Vicar. "Bud it 'll be slack
time wi' 'er an' all before long. Theer 's not so many stamps selt i'
'arvest by a deal, nor so many letters written. Folks is ower throng i'
field."
"Ha! No doubt about it. The harvest field is a fine corrective for
_cacoethees scribendi_," said his Reverence, disposing the shirt on the
counter lengthwise, with limp, outstretched arms, for Pam's inspection,
as though it were some subject on an operating table. "Buttons again,
you see, Pam," he told her, pointing out where they lacked.
"My word, I see!" said Pam, running over the outlines of the article
with a swift, critical eye. "And wristbands and collarbands as well.
You want some new shirts badly. You 've only four now, with the one you
've got on--and that," she said, turning up his cassock sleeves to get a
look at it, "is almost past mending. See how thin it is.... And will
you have pearl buttons, then?" asked Pam, composing the shirt to seemly
folds under soft, caressing fingers, and following every move of her
hands with a fascinating agreement of head, "... or plain white?"
"Ha! Plain white ... by all means," said Father Mostyn. "Large plain
white for his reverence the vicar--as large and as plain and as white as
we can get 'em, that lie flat where they fall, and don't run all over
the floor and try to find the crack in the skirting-board. Pearl
buttons are for the young and flexible (incidentally too, for the
profane), and not for aged parish priests, whose knees are stiffened
with a life of kneeling.... Shirts and pearl buttons must n't let me
forget, though," he admonished himself, drawing the solitary, backless
cane-bottomed chair under him from below, and sitting to the counter
with one hand drumming on its oilcloth and the other gripping a spindle,
"what I really came about."
"No," said Pam, watching his lips.
"We had a visit from our friend of the Cliff End last night."
Pam's eyes were drawn for a moment to sundry faults in the folding of
the shirt, and her fingers busied themselves with their correction.
"Yes," she said, looking up again. "But you did n't have any music? ...
Did you?" she asked, with the sudden eagerness for a coveted opportunity
gone by.
"All in good time--all in good time, dear child," Father Mostyn exhorted
her indulgently. "Last night we made music with our mouths, but the
next night we 're going to make a little with our fingers. Bach!
Scarlatti! Beethoven! Mozart! Schumann! Palestrina! ... And then we
shall have to have you with us."
"Me?" asked Pam, with swift, desirous incredulity.
"You," said Father Mostyn.
Pam plunged her face into her two hands straightway (which was a
characteristic trick of hers at such times), as though the beauty of
this thing were too great to behold. After a moment she let her fingers
slide away into her lap of their own weight and threw back a brave head
with the smile of tears about it, and the little double shake that
remained over to her from the short while ago when her hair had fallen
in sleek, black curtains on either side of her cheeks each time she
stooped.
"Does he know I 'm to be there?" she inquired.
"To be sure he does, dear child."
"But it was your idea ... to ask me," said Pam.
"It was my vicarage," said Father Mostyn.
Pam made pot-hooks with her fingers.
"Yes..." she said, as though the word were only the beginning to a
puzzled objection, but her breath went out in it in lingering, and she
let it stand by itself as an assent. "What did he say?"
"When?"
"When you told him ... I was to be there? Perhaps he did n't say
anything?"--with anxiety. "Did he?"
"And supposing he did n't?"
"Then perhaps it would mean he did n't want me. And perhaps it would
n't ... but it might."
"Ha! Might it? Let 's make our mind easy, dear child. He said lots of
things."
"About me?"
"Certainly. It was you we were discussing."
There was only one question possible to ask after this on the direct
line, and Pam drew up short, confronting it with a sudden air of virtue.
"I don't want to know what they were," she said.
"There 's no earthly reason why you should n't," Father Mostyn told her
suavely, "so far as that goes."
"Is n't there?" asked Pam; and then quickly: "... Of course, I did n't
think there would be. Why should there?"
"Ha! Pam, Pam, Pam!" said his Reverence, raising his hand from the
counter, and wagging a monitory loose forefinger at her. "All the
doctrine of Church Catholic can't drive the first woman out of you
quite, I fear. Curiosity in that little breast of yours is a blackbird
in a linnet's cage, and may break away through the bars."
Pam looked up from her pot-hooks sideways and laughed the soft, musical
confession of guilt.
"All that was said about you last night," his Reverence assured her,
"had to do with your music...."
"But you never told him," said Pam, locking her knuckles with a sudden
alarm against the impending disclosure, and straining them backwards
over her knee.
"To be sure I did."
"Oh!" said Pain, and dipped her face into her basined fingers a second
time. "... That 's dreadful. Now he 'll come to church."
Father Mostyn stroked a severe, judicial chin. "Is that so dreadful?
... to go to church? You would n't have him go to chapel?"
"No, no," said Pam. "Not if he did n't want. But he never went ...
anywhere before. And now he 'll laugh."
"In church? ... I think not."
"When he gets outside."
"Why should he laugh when he gets outside?"
"Because.... Oh!" Pam twisted her fingers. "Because of me."
"And why, pray, because of you?"
"Oh ... because.... Not because you have n't taught me properly,
because you have, and been clever and kind, and more painstaking than I
deserved ... ever. But because ... what must my playing sound like to
him, when he plays so beautifully?"
"Pride, dear child, pride!" Father Mostyn cautioned her with uplifted
finger. "Let 's beware of our pride. The Ullbrig pride that can't bear
the humiliation of being taught."
"I 'm sure I try," said Pam penitentially.
"Let's try harder, then," said his Reverence, with affable resolve.
"Never let 's cease trying to try harder. The laughter you speak of is
most assuredly a miasma; rising from the deadly quagmires of your own
pride. If our playing merits the fate of being laughed at, why should
we wish it to receive any better fate, or fear its receiving its just
deserts. Is n't that a virulent form of Ullbrig hypocrisy?"
"I did n't mean it to be hypocrisy," said Pam sadly. "And I did n't
think it swas till you showed me. Only ... somehow ... I can't help it.
I seem to be growing more and more into a hypocrite every day."
"Ha!" said Father Mostyn, welcoming the admission, "... so long as we
recognise the sin, and the nature and the degree and the locality of it
... and have strength to confess it, dear child, salvation is still
within our clasp. It 's only in sinning without knowing it that the
deadliness lies. And that 's what the Church Catholic is to protect us
from.... Are you listening, John?"
"Ah catch seummut o' what 's bein' said, yer Rivrence," the postmaster
acknowledged cautiously, manifesting a certain diffidence about showing
himself to this appeal, "... bud ah 'm not listenin' if it 's owt 'at
dizz n't consarn me."
"The Catholic Church," Father Mostyn instructed him solemnly, "concerns
all men--even shoemakers--and you would be well advised to catch as much
of what you hear her saying as you can. Truth may come to us some day
by keeping our ears open to her, but be sure she won't come to us
without."
"Ah expeck she weean't," said a depressed voice from the shoemakery.
"Thank ye."
"You 're welcome, John. And now"--Father Mostyn turned to Pam in
lighter vein--"enough of spiritual meats for our soul's digestion, dear
child. Far from laughing at you, as your little momentary lapse from
discipline permitted you to imagine, our Cliff End friend was most
genuinely interested in your musical welfare; inquired diligently
concerning your state of proficiency; whether--"
"Oh!" Pam had been torturing her ten fingers over her knee while the
list proceeded. "Did n't you just tell him I knew nothing at all?" she
begged pathetically.
"Patience, dear child, patience!" Father Mostyn adjured her, with
episcopal calm. "I did better than that. I told him the truth. Ha!
told him the truth. Told him you were willing at heart to learn, but
headstrong, and apt to be careless. Explained where the grave
shortcomings lay."
"... About the thumbs going under?" Pam prompted anxiously.
"Ha! ... and your fatal tendency to depart from the metronomic time as
adjudicated by the old masters. Have no fear, dear daughter. I told him
all your musical offences that I could remember at the moment. He knows
the dreadful worst, and has most kindly promised to lend a helping hand
and assist us to make better of it if the thing can be done."
Pam gulped, with her eyes fixed on Father Mostyn, as though she had been
swallowing one of Fussitter's large-size three-a-penny humbugs.
"Does a helping hand ... mean lessons?" she asked, in a still, small
voice, after the humbug had settled down.
"Not so fast; not so fast," Father Mostyn reproved her. "I feared what
my words might induce. Let 's beware of the fatal trick of jumping at
conclusions. It does not appear at present what a helping hand, in its
strictest interpretation, may mean. You see ... we 've got to remember
... our friend is n't like the common ruck of 'em. No mere
bread-and-cheese musician, dependent on the keyboard for his sustenance,
but a dilettante ... a professional patron of the muse, so to speak, who
is n't solely concerned with its sordid side of pounds, shillings, and
pence. I told him he 'd have to let us feed him the next time he came
to see us. Not dine him ... but feed him. And he seemed to cotton to
the idea. So now, dear child, what are we going to do about it?"
"Oh!" Pam pressed a hand flat to each cheek and fastened a look of
round-eyed, incredulous delight on Father Mostyn's face. "Is it to be a
party?"
"Not altogether a party." Father Mostyn pursed up his lips dubiously
over the word. "Let 's beware of confusions in our terms, dear girl.
Not a party. Nothing set or fixed or formal. Not a dinner. No, no;
not a dinner. A feed. That 's what it 's to be."
"Yes," said Pam, sticking close to the suggestion as though she were
afraid of losing it, and nodding her head many times with an infinity of
understanding. "I know. A feed. What sort of a feed?"
Father Mostyn's judicial eyebrow shot up like the empty end of a
see-saw.
"That 's what we 've got to settle. I rather fancied.... You see--the
weather 's so hot ... we must consider. My idea was ... I thought,
perhaps ... we 'd have something rather cooling. Something, say, in the
nature of a cold spread.... But anything you like, dear child," he
allowed her. "Just think out for yourself--when I 've gone--the very
best you can do for us, and we 'll subscribe to it in success or failure
when the time comes. And now, let 's settle when the time 's to be.
When can we manage it, think you?"
"To-night? ... were you thinking of?" said Pam.
"Ha!" Father Mostyn wagged his hands free of all part in the proposal.
"I was thinking of nothing. But to-night 's a little too precipitate,
dear child. To-morrow night, then, let us say, and I 'll ride up to the
Cliff myself some time this morning, and take the invitation."
So it was arranged, and the post rattled up over the cobbles, and his
Reverence departed, after a genial word with James Maskill.
"Ha! Here comes the joyful-hearted James," he said to the figure of the
postman, that showed hot and angry through the doorway, gripping the
neck of his red-sealed canvas bag as though it were a doomed Christmas
turkey, and waiting sullenly sideways for his Reverence to pass by. "No
need to ask how the joyful-hearted James is. Fit and smiling as ever.
Not even the burden of other people's letters can disturb his
equanimity. Splendid weather for you, James. Don't stand; don't stand.
Come in, and let 's see what you 've got inside your lucky-bag this
morning--anything for the Cliff End at all? Eh, Pam?"
Thereupon James brushed past the reverend cassock buttons with a grunt
like a felled ox, that might have been apology or anathema, or neither,
and brought down the post-bag on the counter like a muffled thud.
"No," said Pam, when she 'd taken it from him with a smiling nod of
recognition and thanks, and run its contents deftly under her fingers.
"There 's nothing for farther than Stamway's this morning."
"And nothing for his Reverence?"
Pam ran over the letters again before his Reverence's eyes, to show him
that she was n't merely making use of the word "No" to save her a little
trouble, and shook her head.
"Ha! Capital! capital!" said his Reverence, preparing to go. "At
least, it means there 's nobody petitioning for new drain-pipes or a
cow-shed roof by this post."
"Ay," pronounced the postman darkly after him, watching the retreating
shoulders with an explosive face like a fog-signal. "Yon sod ought to
'ave 'is dommed neck screwed round an' all."
"Sh! James, James, James!" cried Pam, biting a lip of grieved reproof
at him across the counter, and seeking to melt his hardness with a
sorrowing eye. "How can you bear to say such wicked things?"
"Ah sewd run after 'im an' tell 'im o' me, if ah was you," James taunted
her, free of any anxiety that the challenge might be accepted. "'E
weean't 'a gotten so far."
"You know very well I would n't do it," said Pam.
"Ah know nowt about what ye 'd do," James denied obstinately, shaking
admission away from him like raindrops gathered on the brim of his
cap-shade. "Nor ah don't care."
"You know very well I would n't do that, anyhow," said Pam, with a
trembling lip for the injustice. "And it 's wrong of you to say I
would."
"Ah know ah 'm a bad 'un," said James. "Let's 'a my letters an' away."
"You 're not a bad one," Pam protested, with a more trembling lip than
ever, "but you try to make people think you are. And some of them
believe you."
"They can think what they like. Folks is allus ready to believe owt bad
about a man," said the postman bitterly, "wi'oot 'im tryin'. Ah sewd
'ave seummut to do to mek 'em think t' other road, ah 'll a-wander,
ne'er mind whether ah tried or no. Nobody 's gotten a good wod for me."
"I 've got a good word for you," said Pam.
There was silence over the postman's mouth for a moment, and in that
moment his evil genius prevailed.
"Ye can keep it, then," he said ungraciously, swinging on his heel. "Ah
nivver asked ye for it."
And the silence was not broken again after that. Pam went on sorting
her letters steadily, but every now and then she turned her head to one
side of the counter, and for each stamp on the envelope there were a
couple--big, blurred, swollen, and rain-sodden, with a featureless
resemblance to James Maskill about them--that danced before her eyes.
Only, later in the day, when there was no postmaster to prejudice
matters with his presence, Pam heard James Maskill whistling the
Doxology outside the door with his heel to the brickwork, and she
slipped round and took him prisoner by his coat lapels.
"James..." she said softly, and the Doxology stopped on the sudden, as
dead as the March in Saul. "You did n't ... mean it, did you?"
The postman dropped his eyelids to their thinnest width of obstinacy,
and said nothing. Pam waited, looking persuasively at his great
freckles (so unlike her own), and still holding him up against the
brickwork, as though he were Barclay, in need of it on Saturday night.
"You did n't really ... think I would do such a thing.... Did you now,
James?" she asked him, after a while, trying to gain entrance to his
heart by a soft variation on the original theme.
"There 's some on 'em would," James muttered evasively through his lips,
when it seemed that Pam meant going on looking at him for ever. "...
Ay, in a minute they would."
"But not me," Pam pleaded.
"Ah did n't say you," James answered, after another pause. "Ah said ah
did n't know."
"But you do know, don't you?" Pam urged him. "You know I would n't;
don't you, James?"
The postman changed embarrassed heels against the brickwork.
"'Appen ah do," he said, with his eyes closing.
"Say you do," Pam begged. "Without any 'happen,' James."
There was an awful period of conflict once more, in which James showed a
disposition to clamp both heels against the brickwork together, but this
second time his good genius conquered.
"... Do," he said, with his eyes quite shut; and Pam let go the lapels.
"I knew you did," she said, but without any sting of exultation about
the words--only pride for the man's own victory--and went back to her
work again (which had reference to hard-boiled eggs and chickens) with a
brightened faith in the latent goodness of humanity.
And when James was standing on the cobbles before the Post Office that
night, loosing the knot in his reins prior to departure, Pam slipped out
with a neat little parcel done up in butter paper, and put it into his
hands.
"Ay, bud ye 're ower late," said the postman tersely, with no signs of
the recent softening about him, and sought to press it back upon her.
"Bag 's made up."
"But it is n't for the bag," said Pam, resisting the transfer. "It 's
for you, James."
"What 's it for me for?" demanded the postman, with the old voice of
ire.
"To eat," said Pam. "It 's a chicken pasty I made on purpose for you,
with a savory egg and a sponge sandwich. The egg 's in two halves with
the shell off, and it 's quite hard. You can eat it out of your fingers
if you like. I thought they 'd be nice for your tea."
The postman exchanged the parcel from hand to hand for a while, as
though he were weighing it, slipped it after deliberation under the
seat, gathered the reins, gripped the footboard and splasher, pulled
them down to meet him, treading heavily on the step, till the whole cart
appeared to be standing on its side, and rocked up into place with a
send-off that looked like shooting him over the saddler's chimney. For
James Maskill to thank anybody for anything was an act of weakness so
foreign to his nature that there were few in all the district who could
accuse him of it; and from the present signs Pam did not gather she was
to be among the number.
"Good-by, James," she said wistfully, stepping back from the wheel as he
sat down--for James Maskill's starts were sudden and fearful events, not
unattended with danger to the onlooker, "... and I hope you 'll like
them."
"Kt, Kt!" was all James vouchsafed (and that not to Pam) out of a
threatening corner of his mouth; but as the bay mare leaned forward to
the traces, and Pam gave him up utterly for lost, he turned a quick,
full face upon her. "Good-neet ... an' thank ye," he said. And in a
smothered voice that seemed to issue from under the seat, turning back
again: "Ah 'll try my best."
Then he set his teeth and brought the whip down hissing venomously, as
though desirous to get clear of the sound of his own words and weakness.
The bay mare sprang up into the sky like a winged Pegasus, taking James
Maskill and the trap along with her, and before Pam's eye could catch on
to them again, they were gone in a cloud round the brewer's corner.
*CHAPTER XI*
Then for two days there were six very busy girls in Ullbrig--busier,
indeed, than any other six girls in the world, I think, and their name
was Pam. They cooked things in the little clean kitchen that gave forth
a savor like all the flesh-pots of Egypt; things that turned Jan
Willim's nostrils sideways in his head through trying to smell them from
the shoemakery at work with his head down, and elicited a constant sound
of snuffling outside the Post Office as of pigs that prize their snouts
under the stye door at feed time. They went abroad with baskets, whose
white napkins Ullbrig's fingers itched to lift, and pushed open the
blistered Vicarage door without knocking, and passed in. They were seen
to pay calls at Mrs. Fussitter's, and then Ullbrig sent bonnetless
emissaries after them, with their bare arms wrapped up in harden aprons,
to inquire:
"Ye 've 'ad Pam wi' ye just noo, en't ye? ... Ay, ah thought y' 'ad. Ah
thought ah seed 'er... Ah 's think she 'd nowt to say for 'ersen, 'ad
she?"
You may judge, then, if Pam was busy.
But in the end the things that had to be done were done, and the
appointed hour came to pass, and Pam slipped through the Vicarage door
with the final basket, and did not emerge again, and the shutters were
drawn in both windows.
("Ay ... see ye ... look there! ... If ah did n't think they would,"
said Mrs. Fussitter, when all hope had gone with the second. "They
weean't let onnybody tek a bit o' interest i' them, ah-sure. Ah mud
just as well 'a gotten on wi' my work nor waste time ower them 'at dizz
n't thank ye.")
And lastly, the Spawer rode down from Dixon's when the dusk was falling,
to enjoy the ripe fruits of all this preparation. They heard the sound
of his bell, percolating the stillness from Hesketh's corner like a drop
of cool musical rain, and Pam said: "Here he is," in a whisper, almost
awestruck, and bit her nails between her white teeth with a sudden
enlargement of eye, as though they 'd been lying in wait for a burglar
all this time, and the burglar had come.
And for a moment her heart failed her. She did n't know what to do.
For how was she there? Why was she there? By what right was she there?
What folly or blind presumption had led her to be there? Why had she
ever consented to be there?
Suppose it was all a mistake, after all, and he did n't really expect
her. What would happen then? What should she do if his face dropped
discernibly when she showed herself, and he became cold?
Oh, he would be terrible cold.
And what would he be thinking of if his thoughts made him look like
that? Would he be thinking of the same things as the schoolmaster?
Oh, no, no, no! Would he?
Would he turn his back upon her, and talk over her to Father Mostyn as
though she were a mere wooden palisade? What if she was a lady, as
Father Mostyn found necessary to remind her at times when she did n't
act like one? How was he to know that?
And even if he did know it, what did it matter? If the thing itself was
wrong to start with, how was it bettered because a lady did it?
Besides ... she was n't a lady.
She knew very well she was n't. She was just the post-girl. And he 'd
been most good to her in the past; had shaken hands with her and talked
French for her (that she was trying hard to learn, with Father Mostyn's
assistance, out of an eighteenth century grammar that his father's
father had used), and promised to play to her whenever she wanted.
Oh, yes ... she knew; and was very grateful. But that was different
now. Then (and he knew it, too) she had been trying to get out of his
way. Now she was thrusting herself into it. She was taking advantage
of his own kindness to claim friendship and equality out of it, like the
impudent beggars that make your one favor the plea for asking a dozen.
Friendliness was one thing; friendship was another.
Oh, what should she do? and how should she meet him?
It was a terrible moment.
And then Pam suddenly bethought herself, and dipped her face swiftly
into the font of her two joined hands--as though for baptism by
resolution--and prayed.
It was very silly of her, of course--though, for the matter of that,
lots of people do the same thing when they are in trouble--particularly
girls; and Pam was only a girl, we are to remember.
Perhaps she did n't exactly pray so much as think aloud in her thoughts,
so that God might hear His name and listen to her if He would. Very
quickly and earnestly, and without any stops at all, as though the words
had been in her great heart to start with, and she 'd just turned it
upside down. And no sooner had they turned out than she heard the
Spawer's two feet strike the ground outside like a dotted crochet and a
quaver in a duple bar as he jumped from his bicycle, and heard Father
Mostyn throw open the front door and say "Ha!" and the Spawer give him
back sunny greeting in his familiar voice of smiles (that she seemed to
know almost as well as her own--if not better), and immediately her fear
left her as though it had never been; and she knew he was expecting her
and would be glad to see her, and had come more on her account than on
his own, and would put out his hand as soon as ever he saw her, and
smile friendship; and her appetite for this joyous double feast
returned.
Then she threw up her head and shook it, and slipped out into the hall
(she 'd been standing out of sight in the door-frame during her
momentary disquietude), with her lips a little apart as though for the
quickened breathing of eagerness that has been a-running, and her white
teeth glistening between like the pure milk of human kindness, and her
cheeks aflush with the transparent golden-pink of a ripening peach, and
her head thrown back, and her chin tilted forward, and her two eyes
gazing forth--each under an ineffable half-width of lid; and nobody a
penny wiser about the prayer.
"Ha! Come in; come in," Father Mostyn was saying. "Take stock of our
lamp. Ha! the glory makes you blink. That's better than the
reprehensible Ullbrig habit of carrying lighted candles with us to see
who 's at the front door, and setting our guests on fire while we shake
hands; or inviting 'em into darkness and bidding 'em stand still and
break nothing until we 've got the shutters up and can strike a match.
Tell Archdeaconess Dixon when you get back that his reverence has a
twenty-four candle-power lamp lavishing its glory in the hall--just for
shaking hands and hanging your hat up by--it 'll do her good to know!"
The Spawer, who had already been passing his recognitions to Pam over
Father Mostyn's shoulder, leaned across the bicycle and shook hands with
her to her heart's content in his own happy fashion--a fashion that had
nothing of offensive familiarity about it, nor any chill of reserve, but
was as sunny as you please and honestly affectionate. Had he pulled her
ear or patted her cheek or kissed her, it would have seemed to come
quite naturally to the occasion under the circumstances, without any
suggestion of impropriety. But he did n't do any of these things--nor
did he call her by any name--which Pam noticed. He simply shook the
little brown handful of fingers that had been so busy on his behalf
these two days, and smiled upon her.
"Pam, dear child," his Reverence was saying, "how 's the table getting
on? Ready to sit down to, is she?"
Then he turned to the Spawer.
"You 've brought your appetite with you, Wynne?" he charged him, with
solicitous interrogation.
"All there is of it," the Spawer affirmed pleasantly. "They advised me
to up at the Cliff (if it 's not betraying confidences)." A rendering
of the vernacular less literal, perhaps than elegant. "Noo, ye 'll get
some marma-lade!" had been Miss Bates' reflection on the subject. "...
So I 've been keeping it up to concert pitch all day."
"Come along, then," said Father Mostyn. "Let 's all go and take the
table as we find it. No use waiting for formality's sake. We 'll
manage to get a feed off it somehow."
And spreading out a benedictory semicircle of arm, whose left extremity
was about Pam and whose right fell paternally on the Spawer's shoulder,
he gathered them both before him like a hen coaxing her chickens, and so
urged them invitingly to the feast.
Ah! but that was a feed to remember. The glorious,
never-to-be-forgotten first of many of its kind. The same old room it
was in which the Spawer had sat with Father Mostyn two nights ago, but
you could never have known it without being told. There was no longer
any need to walk like a prisoner in shackles, sliding one foot past the
other for fear of treading on crockery, or balancing outstretched arms
as you went against the dizzy inclination to sit down. All the things
by the side of the wall and the skirting-board (including the cobwebs)
were either gone or unrecognisably reduced; cunningly compressed into
semblances of Chesterfields and ottomans and settees. And all about the
room were traces of Pam's taste and explorative industry; everything
that had a good side to show showed it, and even those that had n't had
been coaxed by Pam's alluring fingers into looking as though they had.
You may guess if the Spawer tried politely to make believe he did n't
notice any change in the room.
But the crowning glory of the place and of all Pam's achievements--it
was the table. Four candles lighted it and a brass lamp, and they were
every one lighted to start with. There was a chicken-pie in a Mother
Hubbard frill, with its crust as brown as a hazel-nut, and just nicely
large enough to feed half a dozen, which is a capital size for three;
and a noble sirloin of beef, fringed with a hoary lock of horse-radish,
and arching its back in lonely majesty on an oval arena of Spode; and
there was a salad, heaped up high under the white and yellow chequer of
sliced eggs, and a rosy tomato comb, in a glorious old oaken bowl as big
as a kettle-drum, china-lined, bound with three broad hoops of silver
and standing on three massive silver claws; and there were some savory
eggs, deliciously embowered in their greenery of mustard and cress, and
a tinned tongue, tissue-papered in white and red, and garnished with
stars and discs and crescents as though it had never known what it was
to sleep in darkness in an air-tight tin under Fussitter's counter; and
some beetroot, brimming in a blood-red lake of vinegar; and whipped
creams, and a trifle pudding, all set out on snowy white damask amid an
arctic glitter of glass and silver and cutlery. Except the cheese,
which was a Camembert, and went by itself on the grained side-cupboard,
where all the tumblers and wine-glasses had been congregated before.
And they sat down to table.