August the First, 1855, was the seventieth birthday of Aunt Jael.
Moreover, as the Old Maids of Tawborough were seven, six other ladies
completed their seventieth year on this self-same day, to wit: Miss
Sarah Tombstone, Miss Keturah Crabb, Miss Lucy Clarke, Miss Fanny
Baker, with the Misses Glory and Salvation Clinker. When Aunt Jael
decided on the astonishing plan of a great dinner party to celebrate
the day, by the very nature of things the Other Six figured at the head
of her list of prospective guests.
Who else should be invited? This question was lengthily discussed with
Grandmother, discussed of course in Aunt Jael's way; i. e. she decreed,
Grandmother agreed. The party was to be a representative one, with a
worldly element and a spiritual element, a rich element and a poor
element, a this-world element and a next-world element. There were four
main divisions: first, the Other Six; second The Saints (selected);
third, old friends; and fourth--a grudging fourth--relations.
Of the Saints, Aunt Jael invited Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, the Lord's
instrument for her own spiritual regeneration forty years before;
Brother Brawn and Brother and Mrs. Quappleworthy; and Brother Quick,
he who had once proposed to young Jael Vickary, then the Belle of
Tawborough--though Grandmother always averred that his shot at Aunt
Jael was at best a ricochet.
After much discussion and more prayer, the Lord guided Aunt Jael's mind
to but one solitary Old Friend; a Mr. Royle, churchwarden at the Parish
Church, the only friend dating from Jael Vickary's young unsaved days
with whom she had kept up, if indeed decorous chats in the market when
they chanced to meet might be so considered; for he never came to the
house.
Relations were a simpler problem. There were no close ones except the
elder brother of my Great-Aunt and Grandmother, my unknown Uncle
John, who was too rheumaticky to travel down from London even if Aunt
Jael had had a mind to invite him or he to accept her invitation;
and my mother's sister and Grandmother's only surviving child, Aunt
Martha of Torribridge, with her husband, Uncle Simeon Greeber, whom
I had never seen; there was some feud between Aunt Jael and Uncle
Simeon, dating from before I can remember, sufficiently formidable to
prevent his crossing our threshold for many years, although he lived
but eight miles away. Aunt Martha, however, paid us fairly frequent
visits. She was a pale thin, indeterminate-looking woman, who impressed
me so little that I was often unable to conjure up her face in my
imagination; a vague, tired face, in which Grandmother's gentleness
had run to feebleness. When her husband was unpleasant with her, which
according to Aunt Jael was pretty often, she submitted feebly; when
Aunt Jael spent the whole of one of her afternoon visits to Bear Lawn
abusing her, she listened feebly. For this one occasion, however, Aunt
Jael decided to sacrifice her dislikes to that ancient law by which the
family must be represented at all major festivals and feeds. For some
time, too, Aunt Martha had been insisting, with all the feebleness of
which she was capable, on Mr. Greeber's longing for a reconciliation
with his revered aunt by marriage. So he too was invited. The only
other askable relative was a niece-in-law of my Grandmother's,
the daughter of old Captain Lee's only sister, now a fat widow of
forty-five, Mrs. Paradine Pratt. She lived over at Croyde, on three
hundred pounds a year of her own; was a Congregationalist, and fond of
cats.
The final list thus comprised: Old Maids of Tawborough (including the
hostess), seven; Saints, five; Old Friend, one; Relations, three.
Total with Grandmother and myself, eighteen. Never before had such a
multitude assembled within our doors.
The problems of space and food were next envisaged. The sacred
front-room was to be thrown open; there the guests would be entertained
before and after the meal. Dinner would of course be served in the
back-parlour; by putting the two spare leaves into the table and
tacking a smaller table on at one end, Aunt Jael calculated that there
would be adequate eating-space and breathing-space for all.
"'Twill be a tight fit though. You, child, will have your meal in the
kitchen."
"Then so will I," said my Grandmother.
Aunt Jael was taken aback. She was silent for a moment, casting about
for another unreasonable suggestion with which Grandmother would have
to disagree; the old trick by which she always strove to pretend that
the guilt of cantankerousness was my Grandmother's.
"Glory, of course, will be in her usual stool in the corner."
"Now, sister, don't be foolish--"
"There you go! Disagreeing with everything I say. Whose party is it,
mine or yours?..."
Miriam--Miriam who used the Great One's porridge plate as spittoon--was
our cook at the time. Sister Briggs, humble little Brother Briggs'
humbler little wife, was called in for the day itself as extra hand.
"Proud to do it, I know," said Aunt Jael, "and glad of the meal
she'll get and the pickings she'll carry away." Aunt Jael held with
no nonsense of class-equality, no "all women-are-equal" twaddle.
Spiritually the Briggses ranked far above unsaved emperors, or kings
who broke not bread. Spiritually, but not socially. So while Brother
Brawn and Sister Quappleworthy were summoned to the seats of the mighty
in the parlour, Sister Briggs, their co-heiress in salvation, came to
the scullery to wash-up at the price of her dinner, a silver shilling
and pickings.
Vast preparations went forward: a record Friday's marketing, a record
scrubbing and cleaning, a record bustle and fuss.
The great day dawned. Both armchairs had been removed from the
back-parlour to the front-parlour to increase the table-space in
one and the sitting accommodation in the other. In her familiar
chair, therefore, though in an unfamiliar setting, my Great-Aunt sat
enthroned: robed in her best black silk, crowned with a splendid cap
all of white lace and blue velvet ribbon that I had not seen before,
and armed with that stout sceptre I had seen (and felt) from my youth
up.
The first arrivals were Aunt Martha and her husband. They came over
early from Torribridge, and had arranged to spend the whole day and
stay the night with us. I was curious to see Mr. Greeber, as I had
never seen an uncle before. Aunt Jael's dislike of him whetted my
curiosity, and also of course prejudiced me in his favour. Any such
preconceived sympathy fled from me the moment I set eyes on him. Can
I have foreseen, half-consciously, that this was the creature to be
responsible for the wretchedest moments and the worst emotions of my
life? Anyhow, I remember with photographic accuracy every look, every
gesture, as he minced through the doorway behind Aunt Martha, springing
softly up and down on the ball of the toe, moving quite noiselessly.
He was a thin little man, narrow shouldered, small-made in every limb.
His face was pallid, without a trace of blood showing in the cheeks. He
had a mass of curious honey-coloured hair, that you would have thought
picturesque, if it had crowned the head of a pretty woman or a lovely
boy. Of the same hue was his pointed little beard. His mouth I did not
specially notice till he began speaking, when he moistened his lips
with his tongue between every few words and showed how pale and thin
and absolutely bloodless they were. His eyes changed a good deal. For a
moment, as when they rested on mine and read there my instant dislike,
they answered with a moment's stare of hard cruelty, such as blue eyes
alone can give; most of the time they rolled shiftily about, chiefly
heavenward. His gestures were exaggerated; he bent his head forward,
poked it absurdly to one side, and gave a sickly smile--intended to
be winning--whenever he spoke. With his soft overdone politeness, his
pointed little beard, his gestures, he looked like the traditional
Frenchman of caricature; except for his eyes, which whether for
the moment cruel or pious, had nothing in common with that amiable
creature. He was unhealthy and unpleasant in some undefined way new to
my experience. Aunt Jael had a sound judgment after all.
He advanced to greet her, oozingly.
"Good day, good day, dear Miss Vickary. One rejoices that the Lord has
watched over you these three-score years and ten; one is thankful,
thankful indeed. M'yes. Your kindness, too, in extending one your
invitation--believe me, one will not readily forget it! And you too,
dear Mrs. Lee, one is pleased to see you, to be sure. So this is the
little one! One is well pleased to meet one's little niece."
He chucked me under the chin, saw the expression in my eyes, and never
tried the playful experiment again. It was hate at first sight, and he
knew it.
Aunt Jael's voice sounded gruff--and honest--enough after the unctuous
flow. "Well, good day to 'ee, Simeon Greeber, and make yourself
welcome." (Meaning: "You know I dislike you and always shall. Still,
now that for once in a way you are in my house, I shall try to put up
with you.")
A slight pause, while his eyes wandered piously round the room,
encountering everywhere spears, clubs, tomahawks, idols, charms. "What
interesting objects! Trophies of the Gospel, one may surmise! Why,
surely not, surely not, can that great heathen image in the corner
be the same, the selfsame one, as was brought back by one's dear
late cousin, Immanuel Greeber, Immanuel Greeber of Tiverton, one's
well-loved cousin Immanuel?"
Benamuckee stared impassively. "Yes," said Aunt Jael. "It is the same."
"Ah, what a symbol of folly, what a sign of darkness! The field of
foreign labour is, of course, your own special interest in the Lord's
work, both yours and dear Mrs. Lee's, is it not? That is _well_ known."
"Yes," replied my Grandmother, "as you know, the child here is
dedicated to the Lord's work among the heathen." I puffed inwardly.
"What an honour, ah, what an honour! For oneself, one confesses, the
home field comes nearest to one's heart; to one's earnest, if humble
endeavours. M'yes. There is sad darkness far away, in the heathen
continents and pagan isles, one knows, one knows: but here in England
among one's nominal Christians, there is, alas, greater darkness still.
Ah, these half-believers, these almost-persuaded Christians!--Once one
was one oneself. So one knows. One was a Baptist, as you know, dear
Sisters; one hardened one's heart against the ministrations of the
Saints. Then one blessed day, the scales fell from one's eyes--one saw
the error of one's ways--and one joined the one true flock."
I disliked him curiously as he murmured and whispered away in a soft
treacly flow punctuated only by sticky lip-moistenings and heavenward
sniffs; this miracle-man who never ever used the best beloved pronoun
of all the human race.
His utterance was cut short by new arrivals. Grandmother received them
in the hall, saw to the hat and coat doffing, and ushered them into the
throne-room. I noted the slight variations in my Great-Aunt's manner
as she motioned the different guests to chairs and accepted their
congratulations and good wishes. With Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge she was
regal.
"Thank 'ee, we are old friends, you and I. Yes, thanks be to the Lord.
I'm well enough. And you? How are 'ee?"
"I am burdened this morning," he said, with that kingly glance all
round him to see that all his subjects were attentive, which we knew to
herald some pearl of godly epigram. "Yes, I am burdened this morning."
"Burdened?" echoed Aunt Jael.
"Burdened?" echoed my Grandmother.
"Yes, dear sisters. 'He daily _loadeth_ us with benefits.' Psalm
sixty-eight, nineteen."
This was the old patriarch's immemorial trick: to make some statement
that was certain to provoke query, and then to explain its apparent
paradox by swift quotation from the word of God. A later generation
might think his method crude, his texts subtly irrelevant; but there is
no question that the Saints, including my Grandmother and Great-Aunt,
admired the godly wit and treasured all the texts. So when "the pilgrim
patriarch of Tawborough" came up to me in the corner from which I was
staring at him, I felt a high sense of pleasure and importance.
"Well, well, and how is this little sapling in the Lord's vineyard?"
Paternally, pontifically, he patted my head.
"Well enough, thank 'ee," replied my Grandmother for me, "but not
always a good little handmaiden for Him. She likes better to waste
her time sitting and doing nothing than mending her socks or studying
the Word. She could testify by a happier frame of mind and busier
fingers in the house and by speaking more freely of the things of the
Lord. Would you not urge her, Brother, even at this tender age to do
_something_ for the Master?"
"No, I would not." Query invited, epigram looming ahead.
"Then what would you do?" asked my Grandmother.
"I would recommend her to do '_all things_' for the Master. Titus, two,
nine."
Mr. Royle stumped in, a fat short old man, with a cheerful unsaintly
countenance and a general air of wealth and prosperity that I could
put down to nothing definite except a heavy gold watch chain which
spanned the upper slopes of his enormous stomach. His only rival in
this particular quarter of the body was Mrs. Paradine Pratt. These
two alone, who wandered wearily outside the fold in the darkness of
Congregationalism and the Church of England, had contrived to put on
plenteous flesh. Was there some subtle hostility, I recollect asking
myself, between corpulence and conversion?
The before-dinner conversation was preoccupied and scanty. Brother
Quappleworthy came alone, as Sister Quappleworthy was "not--ah--too
well."
The company repaired to the dining-room. Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge
pronounced the Blessing, and we all sat down to do justice to that
mighty meal. How odd this great assembly seemed in our austere
room, now for once looking reasonably well filled; I could see that
the experience was as odd to most of the guests as it was to me.
Great feasts were not within the ordered course of their spare and
godly lives. There was a certain constraint around the table, quite
unmistakable, marked by loud and sudden silences.
This is how we sat:
Aunt Jael
+---------+
Pentecost Dodderidge| |Mr. Royle
Lucy Clarke | |Fanny Baker
Brother Quick | |Brother Quappleworthy
Aunt Martha | |Keturah Crabb
Uncle Simeon | |Brother Brawn
Salvation | |Sarah Tombstone
Glory | |Mrs. Paradine Pratt
+---------+
Grandmother
Mary
(Note that the masculine element was stronger, both in quality and
quantity, at Aunt Jael's end of the table than at ours. I was put on
the music stool, by my Grandmother's side at the doorway end of the
table, flanked by Glory on the left. Salvation had pleaded for a
place by dear beloved Brother Brawn; Aunt Jael condescended so far
as to place them nearly opposite each other, but Brother Brawn was
too nervous of his exposed right flank to allow his utterances to
be a feast of good things. He could not forget the piece Miss Crabb
had--long ago--bitten out of his beard.)
It was a royal spread. In the old West Country fashion, of course--no
new-fangled foreign nonsense or London messes. First appeared a great
roast goose, a very queen of geese, turning the scale at fifteen pounds
if an ounce. Her entourage included green peas, a vegetable marrow
with white sauce, gravy, and an onion stuffing beyond the power of
my poor pen to praise. Aunt Jael carved the monster, apportioning of
course the choicest tit-bits to herself, the next choicest to Mr. Royle
and Pentecost Dodderidge, the next choicest to Brother Quappleworthy,
and so on; the quality of your portion varying with your position in
Aunt Jael's esteem. Thus I had a rather gristly piece of leg, and
Miss Salvation some scraggy side-issues with that part more politely
imagined in the mind's eye than mentioned on paper. The second course
was a great squab pie, made on Aunt Jael's own recipe: slices of apple
and second-cooked mutton alternately, six layers deep, a sprinkling
of shredded onion, with plenty of salt and Demerara sugar, pepper
and cloves, a covering of delicious pie-crust. The third meat course
(cold) comprised a fine ham and one of Mrs. Cheese's special beef and
ham rolls covered with bread crumbs and as big as a large polony: with
pickled onions (Aunt Jael's) and pickled plums (Grandmother's), to help
them down. For Sweets, which honest folk call pudding, you could choose
between dear little cherry tartlets, made in our best shell-shaped
patty-pans, all crinkled-edged; or stewed raspberries and black
currants with junket and Devonshire cream, this fourfold alternative
being my choice and (to this day) my own private notion of what they
eat in heaven. On, on the banquet rolled: Cheddar cheese, biscuits,
nuts, pomegranates, and home-made apple ginger. In contrast with Aunt
Jael's closeness and our every-day plain living, this sardanapalan
spread was the more sensational. The drinks were sherry, raspberry
vinegar and water.
My Great-Aunt was in a rarely serene mood, enthroned far away at the
head of the table, with white-haired Pentecost on her right hand and
bald-headed Mr. Royle on her left. Salvation chewed enjoyingly; the
fork method of picking your teeth at table struck me, uninstructed as
I was, as somehow unsuitable for an important social gathering. She
remarked in a noisy whisper to Glory that it was just as well we'd
begun at last as she was feeling "turrible leer."[1] Mrs. Paradine
panted as she ate; her damp and diminutive handkerchief was applied
incessantly, often only just in time to prevent a trickling on to her
immense bombazine bosom. I spied Uncle Simeon with a higher quality
of curiosity. He knew I was watching him. In return he began craftily
eyeing me when I was looking elsewhere: I pretended I was unaware of
his scrutiny. In this specially feminine habit I was already an adept;
and I feel sure I deceived Uncle Simeon, who stared his fill. When,
however, I took my turn at staring, and he tried the same pretence, he
failed utterly to deceive me, for I could see his eyelids twitch, while
the faintest flush came to his pallid cheeks.
I cannot pretend to remember much of the conversation, though I could
invent it and be near enough the truth. The awkward silences were still
apparent. My explanation of it is this: that everybody present (for all
but two were Saints) was quite unused to meet together except for godly
discoursings. Though it was the creed they believed (and practised) to
testify of holy things in season and out of season, yet all dimly felt
that today was somehow exceptional, that it was neither necessary nor
suitable to preach to each other over roast goose and squab pie Christ
and Him crucified. Yet what other topics had they? Hence the uneasy
quiet, which the clatter of knives and forks and the orchestration
accompanying Miss Glory's curious methods of absorbing nourishment only
seemed to heighten. What a slobbering and sipping and a spluttering and
a splashing! The liquid mush consisting of tiny morsels of goose-meat
(chopped up by Grandmother) and scraps of soft bread mixed with
stuffing and sauce and soaked in gravy, which she was now administering
to herself with her wooden spoon, offered good scope for her talent;
though being of a greater consistency than her usual goat's milk and
rusks, it did not allow her to display her supreme effects. Even so,
she made herself heard by her far-away hostess. A warning look shot
from the table-head:--"Quieter there, or to the corner yer go!" it said.
For a moment Glory subsided, but this made the general silence only
more obvious and painful. Aunt Jael realized that though good eating
is the object of a dinner, good talk is the condition of a successful
one. She stooped to conquer, broke the last canon of hostship, and as
the great squab pie was placed before her, praised it blatantly. The
success was instantaneous. Echoes of praise rang up the table. "Ay
indeed!--a fine one that!--you're right, Sister Vickary!"--and what
not. Two tributes distinguished themselves, as you might expect.
"There's squab pie _and_ squab pie," said Miss Salvation. "This _is_
squab pie," and, last of all, when every one else had tired of eulogy,
the still small voice: "One wonders if one ever tasted anything one
liked so well."
Tongues were at last set wagging. Different recipes were discussed
and their respective merits compared. Some thought the mutton should
be fresh, others that second-cooked gave the best flavour; some that
moist white sugar cooked better than Demerara, others that you should
use hardly any sugar at all, as a squab pie wasn't a sweet pie after
all, now was it? Some thought it was, however: the idea of cooking
apples without sugar, mutton or no mutton! Then the puff-paste issue
was raised, and here the gentlemen joined in, as this was a question
of taste rather than technique. Gradually the conversation veered
to the wider topic of food in general; and before long every one
present was exchanging tender confidences in that most intimate form
of self-revelation: "one's" favourite things to eat. Even Grandmother
joined in. I alone said nothing, being under strictest orders "to
be seen and not heard." (I felt the restraint keenly, for I was
proud of my own catalogue, viz:--Devonshire cream, whortleberry jam,
mussels, tripe and treacle; then pancakes, potato-pie (the browned
part), sage stuffing, seed-cake, junket, crab, apple-dumpling,
bread-and-butter-pudding, especially the "outside," brawn, cockles, and
black-currant jam.)
I must have been reflecting on my own pets rather than hearkening to
the praise of other people's, for the conversation had changed, and
they were discussing "degrees." One of my favourite psalms, the 121st,
_I will lift up mine eyes to the hills_, was described in the Bible as
"A Song of Degrees," and I had always wondered what they were.
"Degrees, degrees? That means puttin' letters after yer name, does it?
Wull, then"--Salvation fumbled in her reticule, always a veritable
mine of papers, letters, photographs of herself, and other _pièces
d'identité_ (as though she lived under the fear of perpetual arrest)
and produced triumphantly an addressed envelope--"There now!" It was
passed round that all might read this legend:
Miss Salvation Clinker,
Sinner Saved by Grace,
High Street,
Tawborough,
N. Devon.
"What _splendid_ testimony for the postman, zes I, what _splendid_
testimony for the postman!"
"But--" Brother Quappleworthy alone dared a "but," for had not he alone
among the Saints achieved the honour of putting real letters after your
name? He smiled; with maybe a dash of quiet superiority, with just a
seasoning of annoyance, just a nice Christian seasoning, mark you,
nothing more. "But--is that a _real_ degree, sister?"
"Rale degree? 'Course 'tis: S.S.G.--_Sinner Saved by Grace_. None o'
yer cheap truck: S.S.G.!"
"Yes, yes; but like B.A. for instance, dear sister?"
"B.A.? I'm a B.A. too."
"_You_ a B.A.?" echoed voices.
"Yes: Born Again!" shouting.
"Quite so, quite so, please God so are we all. But I am talking of
earthly degrees."
"Are yer? Wull, I'm a-talking uv 'eavenly ones!"
"There's B.B. too," put in little Lucy Clarke, nervously seeking to
pour oil on troubled waters, "two B's arter your name, I think it is,
tho' mebbe I'm wrong."
"Two B's or not two B's!" observed Mr. Royle, and laughed loudly when
he found that no one else did. I wondered why. I doubt if any one
present saw the point except my Great-Aunt and Grandmother and Brother
Quappleworthy. It was many years before I did.
"Good, sir, good," said the latter worldlily, "a quotation from the
works of Shakespeare, if I mistake not."
"Shakespeare!" shrieked Miss Salvation, as though uttering some lewd
word, "I'm surprised at 'ee, 'avin' the chick to mention such a
sinner's name in a Christian 'ouse; an 'eathen play-actin' sinner, now
wallerin' in everlastin' torment for his sins."
"How do _you_ know he is?" asked my Grandmother quietly.
"And 'ow du 'ee know 'e isn't? A Papis' too."
Blessed are the peacemakers, so Lucy Clarke tried again.
"I don't think 'tis B.B. at all after all; 'tis D.D., two D's arter
your name in a manner o' spaikin'."
"Yes, it's D.D.," said Aunt Jael. "All the big preachers in the
Establishment print it after their names; not but what their preaching
is poor enough. Letters after your name don't put either a tongue into
your head or the knowledge of God into your heart. I've no patience
with D.D.'s."
"None," echoed the table.
"Not so," corrected Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge. "It is a great pity there
are so few D.D.'s."
"Surely not!" exclaimed the table, awaiting pearls.
"Yes, we want more _D_own in the _D_ust. Psalm one hundred and
nineteen, verse twenty-five. Then we would also have more 'quickened
according to Thy Word.'"
A pause, forced by the awkward finality of the patriarch's utterance.
"Er--let me see," said Mr. Royle to Brother Quappleworthy, "you are an
M.A. of the University of Oxford, are you not, sir?"
"Yes," was the reply, spoken with just a seasoning of pardonable
pride, just a Christian seasoning, mark you, nothing more. "Yes"
(confidentially) "as a matter of fact I am. I took my degree,
second-class honours, in the classics: 'Greats' as we say--"
"Did yer?" interrogated Salvation (for pride is a deadly sin and a
weed that must be checked, lest it grow apace). "Wull, _I_ took _my_
degree in summat greater, in God's great Scheme o' Salvation, and _I_
passed with first-class honners, glory be! Unuvursity uv Oxvurrd eh? My
schoolin' 'as been in the Unuvursity uv _God_!"
* * * * * * *
After that I recollect nothing clearly till all the guests, save Uncle
Simeon and Aunt Martha, were gone, and late in the evening we sat
talking in the unfamiliar idol-haunted dusk of the front parlour. I
can feel again as I write the heat of that stuffy August night, and
hear Aunt Jael's and Uncle Simeon's voices engaged in the talk that
is stamped indelibly on my mind. I recall the scene most intimately
when the same external circumstances recur. The heavy-laden atmosphere
of a hot August evening, at that still murmurous moment when twilight
is yielding to night--the smell, the touch, the impalpable _feel_ of
the atmosphere--always brings back to me every phase and pulse of my
feelings as I sat listening to the warfare of deep raucous voice and
soft honeyed one. The memory of the senses far transcends the memory of
the mind. Memory in its most intimate possessions is physical.
Though mental too. In this particular instance, quite apart from any
physical aid to memory that atmosphere brings, I remember, verbally,
almost all that was said. It is odd that while for stretches of whole
months I can often fill in but the dimmest background of my early days,
at other times I retain the fullest details of a long and intricate
conversation, with the gestures of the speakers and the very words they
used. The explanation is to be found partly, I think, in the extreme
monotony of my life and the uncommonly vivid impression which any
break in the monotony always made; so that this record tends to be a
stringing-together of the odd and outstanding events rather than an
even and continuous narration of my "early life"; for it was a life of
landmarks. But the chief explanation of the uncanny degree to which I
remember certain particular scenes lies in my nightly "rehearsals."
If there had been any scene or words of special interest in the day's
round--if I had observed a new phenomenon (such as a Madonna or a
gold watch-chain)--if I had heard a new word (like University) or had
new light shed on an old one (like Degrees)--if in short the day had
yielded any new fact or idea, the same night saw it deliberately
stored in my mind; a treasure-house--a lumber-room--which stood open to
all comers. Every night, as soon as I was in bed and my Grandmother had
blown out the candle and closed the door behind her, I began. I thought
my way through the day, from the moment I had risen onwards. Every new
notion or notable event, I recalled, re-lived, and received into the
fellowship of things I knew, felt and remembered; into myself. I had
also weekly, monthly and yearly revisions.
This seventieth birthday of Aunt Jael's was a red-letter day. My
emotions as I lay awake watching with memory's eye that curious dinner
party, with its wealth of new food, new faces, new situations, new
sensations and new talk, were of the same order as those of a playgoer
who lives over in his mind the pleasures of a new and brilliant
drama he has witnessed. New persons and new conversations were my
favourite acquisitions; these were in the strict sense dramatic, and
they approached most nearly the other habit of my inner life--my
visualizings and imaginings--of which indeed they furnished the raw
material. I would only memorize conversations from the point at which
they began to interest me; hence, even when I remember them best, they
begin suddenly, and causelessly.
So it was with the conversation on that memorable evening. I fancy Aunt
Jael and Uncle Simeon had already been talking for some time--probably
on the things of the Lord, which were not new and not dramatic--but I
recall nothing until Uncle Simeon was well set in a review of his life;
his holy, if humble life.
"M'yes, ah yes, the Lord found it good to try one's faith; from the
very day on which one saw the error of one's ways, and the scales fell
from one's eyes, and one closed with God's gracious offer, from that
very day the Lord found it good to extend His hand in chastisement and
to visit one with trials and afflictions. One bowed one's head: but
it was a sore trial for one's faith, one's earnest, if humble, faith.
First one's sister passed away, one's dear sister Rosa. Then came one's
business troubles, one's ill health, one's grave illness. Last of all
one's dear old father went before--"
"Your brother too," interrupted my Great-Aunt. "You don't mention him;
and he was the best of the Greebers, from all accounts."
"Ah, surely not, surely not?" ignoring the main point of the
interruption, "what of Immanuel Greeber, who gave you these glorious
trophies of the field of missionary labour, one's well-loved cousin
Immanuel?"
"There was some mystery about his death," pursued she, ignoring
red-herring missionaries. "They never really knew how he died. Immanuel
told _me_. He went to lie down in his bed one afternoon, saying he felt
sick, and within the hour he was dead."
"Ah, yes," sighed Uncle Simeon, passing his hand over his brow in
anguish, "one had not spoken of him; one could not; one's love was too
tender. Heart-failure, one thought oneself. M'yes." His head m'yessed
sadly to and fro.
"More like something he'd been eating," suggested my Grandmother.
"Too sudden for that," objected Aunt Jael. "No bad food could kill
you so sudden. 'Twas something a deal quicker than bad food; more
mysterious, folk said."
"Poison," said I.
I was staggered at the sound of my own voice. All day I had been mute,
observing so obediently Aunt Jael's "To be seen and not heard" mandate
that she had been almost annoyed. Listening was more remunerative than
talking; it yielded the wealth for my lonely talks with myself. I think
it was that in my interest in this mysterious death I forgot I was not
alone; and so uttered aloud the word "Poison" that leapt absurdly to my
mind.
The effect on Uncle Simeon's face amazed me.
His look of meek head-nodding sorrow gave place to one of such
unmistakable _guilt_ that the most monstrous suspicions seized me; nor
did they disappear when guilt changed to fear, then fear to hate; still
less when hate in its turn gave place to the meek accustomed mask. Mask
it was, for I had seen him deliberately twitch the muscles of his face
back into position. From that moment, and with no other evidence than
a few seconds' change of expression, in which my eyes might have been
deceiving me, I believed him a murderer.
Grandmother and Aunt Jael saw nothing of this. The first was too
short-sighted--the room was nearly dark, and no candle had been
lighted--the second was too busy for the moment rating me for breaking
laws and talking "outrageous nonsense" to keep her eyes on him.
This gave him time to twitch the muscles of his brain and tongue back
into position also.
"Anyway, whatever the sad cause of his earthly death, one may rejoice
that he went to be with the Lord."
"Yes, and that he left all his money to you. Leastways there was no
will found, and you were next of kin. That helped to console you a
little, maybe."
"Miss Vickary!"
"Yes, more than a little, too. It left you enough to close your shop in
Bristol and do nothing ever since."
"Nothing, Miss Vickary, nothing? All one's years of hard, if
humble, toil in the Lord's vineyard, one's ministrations to the
Saints--nothing? And poor Joseph's wealth, it was but a modest sum--"
"So modest no one's ever heard. It's mock poverty yours, and you know
it."
"But one's humble manner of life should show--"
"Folk as are mean aren't always poor."
"Aunt!" pleaded Martha feebly.
"Mean; dear Miss Vickary, may you one day regret that unjust word. Far
be it from one to speak of all that one has given to the gospel work in
Torribridge, of all that one has lent to the Lord. Yet what are worldly
riches? One cares only for the unsearchable riches of Christ. What are
the earthly gifts one may have given away? One has given to many a
greater gift far. Not only the knowledge of Salvation, but a Christian
deed here, a helping hand there--"
"Open sepulchre! Helping hand--like when Rachel and Christian lay
dying, and you forbade Martha to leave Torribridge even for a few hours
to come and help her mother. Let your wife's mother half kill herself,
and her brother and sister crawl into their graves before you'd let her
move. 'Couldn't spare her' from the side of yer 'dear little son'--ugly
little brat, I'm glad you've not brought him here today."
Now there was a spice of righteous protest in the meek voice. "Pray
what has one's poor little son done to be so spoken of? Or one's dear
wife to hear him so spoken of?"
Martha was silently wiping her eyes. Aunt Jael, struggling with temper,
made no reply.
"Or oneself to see one's wife so wounded? One has never forgiven
oneself for not realizing till alas too late how near the end dear
Rachel and dear Christian were; but at the time one's little baby-boy
was ailing, and Martha none too strong. One was selfish, perhaps."
"Ay." Temper rising.
"One failed in one's duty to dear Mrs. Lee, because of one's jealous
care of one's dear child and wife."
"Fiddlesticks! I know some of your goings-on. Poor Martha!"
"Poor Martha? One fails to understand. _If_ Martha had been treated
as poor Rachel's husband treated her; _if_ she had suffered
cruelty--adultery--vileness--sin; _if_ one were hounding her to her
grave as he hounded poor Rachel; _if_ one had killed her and broken her
heart, and then sneered that one could not pay to bury her--"
"The brute," cried Aunt Jael, sidetracked.
His crude attempt to transfer her rising wrath on to the head of
another had succeeded. He knew the quality of the memories he evoked.
"The brute; the cruel, fleshly scoundrel!"
"Hush, Aunt," whispered Aunt Martha, "after all it is the Child's
father."
I coloured violently, and my heart beat fast. The unfamiliar phrase
"Rachel's husband" had conveyed nothing. Now I was throbbing with
excitement, curiosity and shame.
"Well, let her know the truth."
"O Mother, plead with Aunt not to talk so!" Aunt Martha was trying
to stifle the topic on to which her husband had so successfully
emptied the vials of Aunt Jael's wrath. He gave her a "you wait till
afterwards" glance that told me a good deal, concentrated though I was
on this other overshadowing thing.
"I don't know," said my Grandmother, "leave your Aunt be. The child
will have to know it some day; and 'tis the truth." She sighed.
"There you are! If a child has the wickedest beast of a man on earth
for her father, the sooner she knows it the better, so that she may
mend her ways and turn out a bit different herself. She has more than
a spice of his ways about her already. She'd best be told every jot
and tittle of the whole story. No one's too young to hear the truth.
'Tis your task though, Hannah. You tell her, if you think fit. But not
tonight, it's past the child's bed-time. Be off now! To bed!"
I undressed feverishly, that I might be the sooner in bed to go through
all I had heard. I recited hymns rapidly to myself so that I should not
think at all till I could do so properly and at peace.
Grandmother came in for her nightly prayer.
"Grandmother, is it true? My father. Who is he? What did he do? Tell
me, is it true?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Did he do--all those wicked things?"
"Yes, my dear."
"Will you tell me everything?"
"Yes, my dear, if the Lord so wills. Let us approach the throne of
grace and discover His good pleasure."
Down on my knees by her side I watched her as she asked the Almighty
whether He willed that the story of my father and mother should be
told me. Grandmother was always fair. She did not try to influence the
Lord's decision, as Aunt Jael might have done, by giving undue weight
in her supplications to the arguments either for or against.
"Dost Thou will that at this tender age she should learn of these
sorrows, that they may be sanctified to her for Thy name's sake; or
dost Thou ordain that I should wait yet awhile before I speak?"
We waited the Answer. I knew it would be "Yes," I knew it with the
sudden instinct that so often served me. Prayer and intuition were
indeed sharply commingled in my mind. One was your speaking to God, the
other God speaking to you. God is swifter; instinct is swifter than
prayer; answer than question.
"Tell the child now? So be it, Lord; since such is the answer that Thou
hast vouchsafed."
Then she prayed that the story might be richly blessed to me, and that
he whom it chiefly concerned might be given, despite all, contrite
heart and true forgiveness.
When she left me to myself and darkness, I was repeating to myself
the stinging words I had heard. Cruelty, adultery, vileness, sin--the
fleshly scoundrel--he had hounded my mother to her grave, broken her
heart--killed her. _He my father._ I had a father then. It is proof of
the gaps in my many-sided visualizings day after day and night after
night that I had never thought of this, never even wondered whether I
had a father or not.
I did not know how to wait till the morrow. Perhaps they were talking
about it downstairs; I jumped out of bed, crept halfway down the
stairs, and listened. The front-room door was shut, and though I
soon heard that a duologue between Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon was
in progress, I could make out only a few words here and there. My
imagination constructed a conversation connected with myself, and
somehow too at the same time with Torribridge and Aunt Martha and
studies. I did not think much of it at the time, as my ears were hungry
for "father" and "mother" only--"Rachel" and "Rachel's husband."
I went back to bed. Early next day Uncle Simeon and Aunt Martha
returned to Torribridge.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Empty.