THE NEW VICAR
The Prescotts came over to the Abbey on the next afternoon. They were to
stay there for two nights, and everything was to be settled for
Prescott's induction to the living at an early date.
Both of them were in the highest spirits. "What a lark it all is!" said
the Vicar-elect of Abington, grinning all over his face as Caroline met
them at the door. His wife was as excited and happy as he was, but when
Caroline took her up to her room, she took hold of both her hands, and
the tears came into her eyes, as she said: "Oh, my dear, if you only
knew what all this means to us! This lovely, peaceful country, after the
crowds and the dirt! It's the dirt I hate so much. You can't get away
from that. Gerry hates it too, though he won't admit it."
Grafton had arranged that they should inspect the Vicarage immediately
upon their arrival. The Vicar had expressed some surprise at the
suddenness with which everything had been arranged. He let it be
understood that it would have been more in keeping with the respect due
to his holy office if he had been consulted about the new appointment.
But at this time he was more careful than usual to escape all suspicion
of dispute, having his eye fixed upon the illuminated address and the
silver, or at least heavily-plated, salver or tea-service of the
presentation, of which, however, he had as yet gained no hint, although
the time for his departure was getting close.
The four of them walked up to the Vicarage together, after a preliminary
inspection of the church, with which Prescott expressed himself
delighted.
"Ours is a horrid gloomy thing," he said, "and you can't always feel you
are getting quite away in it. This is just right. I like it's being
here, right away from the village."
Their progress up the village street aroused notice, for it was some
weeks since it had been known that the Vicar was giving up, and so far
there had been no sign of his successor. If this was to be the new
Vicar, it was generally agreed by those who saw him, on his way to and
from the Vicarage, that he would do very well. The children were coming
from school when they returned, and he and Caroline, who were walking
behind the others, found themselves involved in a laughing group of
them, and went down to the end of the street with a small boy holding
one of Prescott's hands and a small girl the other, while the rest
circled round them and gave shrill and hilarious answers to the absurd
questions asked of them by this remarkable but none the less
entertaining new kind of clergyman.
The Vicar and Mrs. Mercer received them according as their different
temperaments dictated. The Vicar was important and patronising with
Prescott, and his wife sympathetic with Viola.
"I'm sure you will like the house," she said. "We have had some very
happy times here, and are sorry to be giving it up, although we have a
very nice one to go to. We will do all we can to make it easy for you to
come in."
Caroline put her arm into hers. She felt very sorry for this poor little
lady, who had made such a brave show in a situation that to her must
have been full of distress. Caroline did not know that her father had
actually asked the Vicar to leave, but it had been made so plain all
around that there was nothing but satisfaction felt at his departure.
People liked Mrs. Mercer, whenever they had a chance of judging of her
apart from her husband, but she had suffered from her very loyalty to
him, and must have been saddened at leaving her home of many years with
few to regret her.
She responded to Caroline's' touch with a little pressure of her arm,
and smiled up at her. "It's horrid going away from you, dear," she said.
"I shall be quite jealous thinking of Mrs. Prescott in my place here."
They went over the house and garden and outbuildings together, the Vicar
talking most of the time, and Prescott's face gradually lengthening as
he did so. For his talk was mostly of 'fixtures' and of 'taking over,'
and apparently it had not hitherto struck the Vicar-elect that to be
presented to a living involved details of this sort. He did not,
however, say anything as to any difficulty he might find in providing
money that had mounted up to a considerable sum when the Vicar had
indicated all the expensive articles that he had put in, and all the
other expensive articles that it wouldn't be worth while to take out. He
looked a little less frightened when they had come back to the
drawing-room and his wife said boldly: "I don't think we shall want
anything that we're not obliged to take, Mr. Mercer. We shan't be able
to live in more than a few rooms for some time, because we haven't got
any money for furnishing."
The Vicar blinked. It seemed almost indecent to acknowledge a lack of
money in this fashion, especially to a man who had 'private means.' He
turned to Prescott. "I don't think you will find it practicable to live
in a few rooms here," he said. "Your parishioners expect more of you in
the country than they do in a town. You have to keep up your position
before them."
Viola's interposition had lifted a weight from her husband's mind. Of
course she would undertake all that sort of thing. It wasn't for him to
bother himself about it. They would be quite happy living in two rooms
together, with the furniture that they already had; and, with the
enormous income of L500 a year that would now be at their disposal, they
would be able to get whatever they wanted to furnish the rest. Nor was
he at all subdued by the Vicar's speech.
"Oh, we are not going to be bothered about keeping up a position," he
said. "I expect I shall have plenty of parishioners a good deal poorer
than I am."
With the casting off of the burden which had begun to oppress him, he
emerged into a condition of extremely high spirits again. He drew
comparisons between the state in which he would live and that in which
the Mercers had lived. He chaffed the Vicar, and treated him generally
as if he were rather a comic character. He showed himself extremely
irresponsible with regard to all questions of management, both domestic
and official, and told Mrs. Mercer that if she hadn't taken all that
sort of thing off her husband's hands it must have been because she was
not fit to be a clergyman's wife. He received in a spirit of levity a
list of fixtures which the Vicar had typed out for him, services in the
church, meetings for this and that in the schoolroom and elsewhere, an
itinerary of visiting for three afternoons in the week.
"You _have_ been a busy little bee," he said. "I expect you've kept them
all in order too. I'm afraid I shan't be able to do that. But it all
looks splendid on paper. I wish I could afford a typewriter. But what's
this word 'agout'? Oh, I see, it's meant for 'about.' Thanks very much.
I'll put it in my pocket."
When they had taken themselves off the Vicar went into his study, with
his mouth set and the cloud on his Olympian brow that his wife had
become so used to after interviews of this sort. She followed him in,
however, and sat herself down in the high chair by the fireplace to go
through with it.
"Upon my word!" he began. "It's a positive _insult_ for Grafton to put a
man like that in to succeed me. And unless I am very much mistaken, it's
meant as such."
"The Bishop chose him, you know, Albert," she said quietly. "Mr. Grafton
told us that he had asked him to recommend him somebody."
"The Bishop can't know what an impossible sort of creature he is," he
said. "I am not at all sure that it isn't my duty to tell him. In all my
life I've never seen anybody so absolutely unfitted to take charge of a
parish. The idea of his having the audacity to tell me that he didn't
believe in regimenting people. That was a hit at me and my work, of
course. All that I have done here for years past is to be thrown away,
and the parish turned into a bear garden, for a young idiot like that to
disport himself in."
"He is evidently very gay and lively by nature," she said, "and of
course he is pleased at coming here. I think that half of what he said
was only meant in fun, and evidently he relies a great deal upon her for
all the business side of his work."
"She is no better than he is," snapped the Vicar. "Fancy a woman like
that going about among the people, and them knowing the way in which
they are going to live here. If she _does_ go about among the people!
But I should think it's more likely that they will both spend most of
their time at the Abbey, sponging on the Graftons, and trying to get in
with all the big houses around. You can see they are nobodies--not a
shilling to bless themselves with. No doubt it is a great thing for them
to get into a neighbourhood like this, and they'll make the most of it."
He went on for some time in this fashion, but his wife did not answer
him, and when he had run himself down a little and looked at her, he saw
that she was softly crying.
He came to a stop in front of her and said awkwardly, "What's the
matter? It's dreadful to think of things going to rack and ruin in a
place where we've worked so hard and done so much; but _we_ shall be out
of it at any rate. Don't upset yourself, Gertrude."
She dried her eyes. "I was thinking how happy they both were," she said.
"We were pleased too when we first came here and looked forward to
living in this nice house."
He resumed his pacing of the room. "So we shall be where we are going,"
he said, "and we are looking forward to a life of useful active service,
and not to the ramshackle unuseful life that those two are going to
live."
"They have left a great many friends behind them where they have been
living," she said, "and they will make a great many friends here. We
shall leave hardly a single friend, after fifteen years, and if we make
new ones where we are going to, I'm afraid we shan't keep them. Oh, why
can't you think more kindly of people, Albert? We see everybody around
us making friends and helping each other, and we are left out of it all.
The people we have quarrelled with can't all of them always be in the
wrong, and we always in the right."
"Oh, come now, my dear," he said authoritatively. "We have had that all
out, and I have admitted to you that I have perhaps been a little too
rigid in exacting respect for my office. The fact is, Gertrude, that you
are upset at giving up your home of so many years, and I can make
excuses for that. Let us begin our new life with cheerful hearts, and
leave the past behind us."
"We shall take it all with us," she said, "if you can't learn the
Christian charity that you preach about. My heart went out to those two
young people. I know that they are good and loving; you can see it in
their faces--loving towards each other and full of love towards the
people they live amongst. I am sure they will do more with that spirit
than we have ever been able to do."
"I can make excuses for you, Gertrude, as I said just now, but in
accusing me to my face of a lack of Christian charity, you are saying a
very serious thing."
"I know," she said. "And lately I have begun to see that it is a very
serious thing. You can't see goodness where it is plain to be seen. I
don't believe you will find anywhere a sweeter, truer character than
Caroline Grafton's. There isn't a soul in the place who knows her who
doesn't almost worship her; but she has offended you in some little way
and you can never say a good word for her. And I think the happiness of
that young couple ought to make anybody feel better who sees it, but it
only makes you gird at them. It has been so often like that. How many
times have you come back into this room after seeing people off with a
smile on your face, to cover them with contempt and anger? I know we
shall never be happy wherever we go, if you can't see how wrong you are;
and we shall never have any friends--not to keep them. We shall be
lonely all our lives."
She saved him the trouble of replying to this unwonted attack by going
out of the room, once more in tears. He walked up and down for some time
after she had left, with a frown upon his face, and once he went to the
door, and hesitated, as if he would follow her. But he thought
better--or worse--of it, and came back into the room and sat himself
down at his writing-table after the manner of a man exasperated beyond
all bearing.
It was not his wife, however, who had exasperated him, for he was nice
to her when they met again later on, and talked pleasantly about the new
home they were going to; so that she began to think that she had been
rather hard on him.
Caroline found her father alone just before they went up to dress for
dinner, and said: "Dad, darling, you've got heaps of money. Couldn't you
buy all those things Lord Salisbury wants to leave behind, and make
them a present of them? Poor dears, they'll have hardly anything. They
have been laughing about it, and I don't think he minds. But of course
she would like to have a pretty house. She was brought up in one. She
has been telling me about it."
"He's been telling _me_ about it too," said Grafton laughing. "You know,
I'm not at all certain, Cara, that we shan't have trouble with that pair
of lunatics. Nobody can help liking them, but as a Vicar and Vicaress of
a respectable country parish I don't quite see them."
"Oh, I do," she said. "He is just one big loving heart, and he hasn't
time to think about all the little things that most of us make such a
fuss about. And she has thrown herself into it all because she loves
him. But she's just like anybody else, and she'll keep him in order."
"Do you know the story of their marriage?" he asked her.
"She told me that the fathers of both of them had lost all their money
before they died, and that their relations on both sides had been very
much against their marriage."
"Their fathers were partners in business, and a third partner let them
in horribly, and bolted. Before they had time to pull things together
both of them died, within a month of one another. Their mothers were
both dead too, and they are both only children. It's an extraordinary
series of coincidences. The relations on each side accused the other of
rank carelessness, and there must have been great carelessness
somewhere, though they haven't discovered yet where it was. I dare say
they were both happy-go-lucky gentlemen, if they were anything like
their offspring, and one was as bad as the other. So both those young
people being in the same box they thought the best thing they could do
would be to get married."
"She was in a furniture shop for a year after her father died."
"Yes; till he'd managed to save twenty pounds out of his screw to get
something to start on. An old aunt of his came round by that time, but
he wouldn't take a bob off her. Well, I dare say they've been as happy
as most people on his hundred and fifty a year."
"Isn't it wonderful? But they'll be much better off now. You will buy
those things for them, won't you, darling?"
"No, Cara, I won't."
"Dad, darling! Why not?"
"I've told you, haven't I?"
She thought for a moment, and then kissed him. "Yes, I see," she said.
"You're a clear-sighted old Daddy. I expect you've been itching to do it
all the time."
"Well, I have, to tell you the truth," he said. "I should have liked to
tell Mercer to make up his beastly bill and send it in to me. But I saw
it wouldn't do. They wouldn't like to be dependent on us, and they
wouldn't like to say no. I'll tell you what I've had to do, though, and
it's a good thing that I've had a lucky stroke lately that will cover
it. I've had to promise the Bishop to endow the blooming living up to
the tune I was ready to pay Prescott. He wouldn't have taken it
otherwise."
In her happy state of never having had occasion to consider money, she
did not realise the magnitude of this obligation. "You're a little
patron of the Church, darling," she said, "and they'll put you in all
the papers."
"That's what I'm afraid of," he said. "I've told the old boy to keep it
dark."
The Graftons happened to be in London for the week in which the Vicar
took his departure. He had found out that there was no proposal on foot
to present him with a testimonial, nor even to give him a farewell tea.
He suffered acute annoyance over these omissions, but almost for the
first time in his life kept it to himself, and pleased his wife by
proposing that they should give a farewell tea themselves, to the more
regular of the churchgoing parishioners. This spontaneous exhibition of
liberality, coupled with the absence of any serious outbreak of
censorious speech during their last weeks at Abington, led her to
suppose that he also had taken to heart what had become so plain to her,
and gave hope of a less stormy life in the future. But, although there
may have been some faint reason for this hope, the tea-party had
suggested itself as the only opportunity for delivering a speech that he
had been preparing for some weeks past. If there was nobody who had the
common decency, at the end of fifteen years' pastorate, to sum up the
work that had been done in it, and to congratulate him upon it, he would
do so himself. He had kept records of all services, classes, meetings,
visits, and journeys during the whole of the time, and put together they
amounted to quite a respectable total. They would see that the life of a
devoted parish priest even in a country parish was not the easy thing
that 'perhaps some of you here are inclined to think.' When he had added
up his totals the bright idea struck him of dividing his income into
them, and showing what an absurd rate of pay the devoted parish priest
received for his self-sacrificing labours. But when the sum had been
done he found it worked out at about six and sixpence an item, and he
couldn't honestly make it less, even by omitting to reckon in the
rentable value of the Vicarage. Counting that in, it came to about
half-a-guinea, and however cheap his sermons might be at that price, he
thought it would hardly do to give the idea that he had been paid ten
and fivepence every time he had done one of his parishioners the honour
of paying him or her a call. So he gave up the idea with some regret,
because, of course, you couldn't really look at it in that way, and the
figures were sufficiently startling if looked at in some other.
Eventually the idea of the tea-party was given up too. Regular
churchgoers were found to be few in number, when the question came to be
considered in detail, and of no great importance in the community. The
farmers were hay-making, and without a stiffening of substantial people
the affair would come down to a mere offering of a meal to a score or so
of people who would rather enjoy it, which scarcely seemed worth while.
So the Vicar cast the dust of Abington from off his feet with no formal
leave-taking at all, and, remembering the thirteen thousand odd
engagements which he had carried out, felt some of the satisfaction of
martyrdom as he stepped into the train.
The Prescotts moved in. They refused to stay at the Abbey more than a
single night, and would not have stayed one if their furniture had
arrived on the same day as they did. For they would not have missed the
fun of a move for anything.
It was not much of a move. The contents of their two rooms in Bermondsey
made more of a show than might have been expected. Viola had a pretty
taste in furniture and decoration, and the year she had spent before her
marriage in helping to furnish for other people had shown her the right
way to set about it. They had managed to scrape together a little money
and made it go a very long way. Moreover, everybody helped her. Caroline
and she made curtains. Odd things not wanted at the Abbey found their
way to the Vicarage and were accepted as the gifts of friends. Mr.
Williams came over from Feltham and carpentered gaily. Maurice Bradby
was the handy man about the place. Everybody who came to see these new,
funny, delightful people got caught up in the prevailing excitement and
did something, if it was only to advise somebody else.
Only the new Vicar did nothing towards the installation of his home,
except appreciate it enormously. He was out all day among his
parishioners, whom he found the nicest sort of people he had ever met.