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Chronicles of Carlingford
PHOEBE, JUNIOR
MRS OLIPHANT
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS 1
II. THE LEADING MEMBER 9
III. MR. COPPERHEAD'S BALL 16
IV. A COUNTRY PARTY 26
V. SELF-DEVOTION 31
VI. A MORNING CALL 38
VII. SHOPPING 45
VIII. THE DORSETS 52
IX. COMING HOME 59
X. PAPA 67
XI. PHOEBE'S PREPARATIONS 74
XII. GRANGE LANE 81
XIII. THE TOZER FAMILY 88
XIV. STRANGERS 96
XV. A DOMESTIC CRISIS 104
XVI. THE NEW GENTLEMAN 113
XVII. A PUBLIC MEETING 119
XVIII. MR. MAY'S AFFAIRS 127
XIX. THE NEW CHAPLAIN 134
XX. THAT TOZER GIRL! 142
XXI. A NEW FRIEND 148
XXII. A DESPERATE EXPEDIENT 155
XXIII. TIDED OVER 164
XXIV. A VISIT 169
XXV. TEA 177
XXVI. THE HALL 185
XXVII. A PAIR OF NATURAL ENEMIES 192
XXVIII. THE NEW PUPIL 200
XXIX. URSULA'S ENTRÉES 209
XXX. SOCIETY AT THE PARSONAGE 217
XXXI. SOCIETY 224
XXXII. LOVE-MAKING 230
XXXIII. A DISCLOSURE 236
XXXIV. AN EXTRAVAGANCE 244
XXXV. THE MILLIONNAIRE 251
XXXVI. FATHER AND SON 258
XXXVII. A PLEASANT EVENING 267
XXXVIII. AN EXPEDITION 273
XXXIX. A CATASTROPHE 281
XL. THE SINNED-AGAINST 287
XLI. A MORNING'S WORK 298
XLII. A GREAT MENTAL SHOCK 307
XLIII. THE CONFLICT 312
XLIV. PHOEBE'S LAST TRIAL 326
XLV. THE LAST 336
PHOEBE, JUNIOR.
A Last Chronicle of Carlingford.
CHAPTER I.
THE PASTOR'S PROGRESS.
Miss Phoebe Tozer, the only daughter of the chief deacon and leading
member of the Dissenting connection in Carlingford, married, shortly
after his appointment to the charge of Salem Chapel, in that town, the
Reverend Mr. Beecham, one of the most rising young men in the
denomination. The marriage was in many ways satisfactory to the young
lady's family, for Mr. Beecham was himself the son of respectable people
in a good way of business, and not destitute of means; and the position
was one which they had always felt most suitable for their daughter, and
to which she had been almost, it may be said, brought up. It is,
however, scarcely necessary to add that it was not quite so agreeable to
the other leading members of the congregation. I should be very sorry to
say that each family wished that preferment for its own favourite
daughter; for indeed there can be no doubt, as Mrs. Pigeon asserted
vigorously, that a substantial grocer, whose father before him had
established an excellent business, and who had paid for his pew in Salem
as long as any one could recollect, and supported every charity, and
paid up on all occasions when extra expense was necessary, was in every
way a more desirable son-in-law than a poor minister who was always
dependent on pleasing the chapel folks, and might have to turn out any
day. Notwithstanding, however, the evident superiority of the
establishment thus attained by Maria Pigeon, there is a certain
something attached to the position of a clerical caste, even among such
an independent body as the congregation at Salem Chapel, which has its
own especial charms, and neither the young people who had been her
companions nor the old people who had patronized and snubbed her, felt
any satisfaction in seeing Phoebe thus advanced over them to the honours
and glories inalienable from the position of minister's wife. All her
little airs of bridal vanity were considered as so many offensive
manifestations of delight and exultation in her rise in life. Her
_trousseau_, though pronounced by all competent judges not half so
abundant or fine as Maria Pigeon's, still called forth comments which
nobody ventured to indulge in, in respect to the grocer's blooming
bride. A grocer's lady has a right to anything her parents can afford;
but to see a minister's wife swelling herself up, and trying to ape the
quality, filled the town with virtuous indignation. The sight of young
Mrs. Beecham walking about with her card-case in her hand, calling on
the Miss Hemmingses, shaking hands with Mrs. Rider the doctor's wife,
caused unmitigated disgust throughout all the back streets of
Carlingford; and "_that_ Phoebe a-sweeping in as if the chapel belonged
to her," was almost more than the oldest sitter could bear. Phoebe, it
must be added, felt her elevation to the full, and did not spare her
congregation. Sometimes she would have the audacity to walk from the
vestry to the pew, as if she were an office-bearer, instead of coming in
humbly by the door as became a woman. She would sit still ostentatiously
until every one had gone, waiting for her husband. She quite led the
singing, everybody remarked, paying no more attention to the choir than
if it did not exist; and once she had even paused on her way to her
seat, and turned down the gas, which was blazing too high, with an air
of proprietorship that nobody could endure.
"Does Salem belong to them Tozers, I should like to know?" said Mrs.
Brown. "Brown would never be outdone by him in subscriptions you may be
sure, nor Mr. Pigeon neither, if the truth was known. I never gave my
money to build a castle for the Tozers."
Thus the whole congregation expressed itself with more or less
eloquence, and though the attendance never diminished, everybody being
too anxious to see "what they would do next," the feeling could not be
ignored. Phoebe herself, with a courage which developed from the moment
of her marriage, took the initiative.
"It never answers," she said, solemnly, "to marry one of the flock; I
knew it, Henery, and I told you so; and if you would be so infatuated,
and marry me when I told you not, for your own interests--"
"They're all jealous of you, my pet, that's what it is," said Mr.
Beecham, and laughed. He could bear the annoyance in consideration of
that sweet consciousness of its cause which stole over all his being.
Phoebe laughed, too, but not with so delicious a gratification. She felt
that there were people, even in Salem, who might be jealous of him.
"The end of it all is, we must not stay here," she said. "You must find
another sphere for your talents, Henery, and I'm sure it will not be
difficult. If you get put on that deputation that is going down to the
North, suppose you take a few of your best sermons, dear. That can never
do any harm--indeed it's sure to do good, to some poor benighted soul at
least, that perhaps never heard the truth before. And likewise, perhaps,
to some vacant congregation. I have always heard that chapels in the
North were very superior to here. A different class of society, and
better altogether. These Pigeons and Browns, and people are not the sort
of society for you."
"Well, there's truth in that," said Mr. Beecham, pulling up his
shirt-collar. "Certainly it isn't the sort of thing one was accustomed
to." And he lent a serious ear to the suggestion about the sermons. The
consequence was that an invitation followed from a chapel in the North,
where indeed Mrs. Phoebe found herself in much finer society, and grew
rapidly in importance and in ideas. After this favourable start, the
process went on for many years by which a young man from Homerton was
then developed into the influential and highly esteemed pastor of an
important flock. Things may be, and probably are, differently managed
now-a-days. Mr. Beecham had unbounded fluency and an unctuous manner of
treating his subjects. It was eloquence of a kind, though not of an
elevated kind. Never to be at a loss for what you have to say is a
prodigious advantage to all men in all positions, but doubly so to a
popular minister. He had an unbounded wealth of phraseology. Sentences
seemed to melt out of his mouth without any apparent effort, all set in
a certain cadence. He had not, perhaps, much power of thought, but it is
easy to make up for such a secondary want when the gift of expression is
so strong. Mr. Beecham rose, like an actor, from a long and successful
career in the provinces, to what might be called the Surrey side of
congregational eminence in London; and from thence attained his final
apotheosis in a handsome chapel near Regent's Park, built of the whitest
stone, and cushioned with the reddest damask, where a very large
congregation sat in great comfort and listened to his sermons with a
satisfaction no doubt increased by the fact that the cushions were soft
as their own easy-chairs, and that carpets and hot-water pipes kept
everything snug under foot.
It was the most comfortable chapel in the whole connection. The seats
were arranged like those of an amphitheatre, each line on a slightly
higher level than the one in front of it, so that everybody saw
everything that was going on. No dimness or mystery was wanted there;
everything was bright daylight, bright paint, red cushions, comfort and
respectability. It might not be a place very well adapted for saying
your prayers in, but then you could say your prayers at home--and it was
a place admirably adapted for hearing sermons in, which you could not do
at home; and all the arrangements were such that you could hear in the
greatest comfort, not to say luxury. I wonder, for my own part, that the
poor folk about did not seize upon the Crescent Chapel on the cold
Sunday mornings, and make themselves happy in those warm and ruddy pews.
It would be a little amusing to speculate what all the well-dressed
pew-holders would have done had this unexpected answer to the appeal
which Mr. Beecham believed himself to make every Sunday to the world in
general, been literally given. It would have been extremely embarrassing
to the Managing Committee and all the office-bearers, and would have, I
fear, deeply exasperated and offended the occupants of those family
pews; but fortunately this difficulty never did occur. The proletariat
of Marylebone had not the sense or the courage, or the profanity, which
you will, to hit upon this mode of warming themselves. The real
congregation embraced none of the unwashed multitude. Its value in mere
velvet, silk, lace, trinkets, and furs was something amazing, and the
amount these comfortable people represented in the way of income would
have amounted to a most princely revenue. The little Salems and
Bethesdas, with their humble flocks, could not be supposed to belong to
the same species; and the difference was almost equally marked between
such a place of worship as the Crescent Chapel and the parish churches,
which are like the nets in the Gospel, and take in all kinds of fish,
bad and good. The pew-holders in the Crescent Chapel were universally
well off; they subscribed liberally to missionary societies, far more
liberally than the people in St. Paul's close by did to the S. P. G.
They had everything of the best in the chapel, as they had in their
houses. They no more economized on their minister than they did on their
pew-cushions, and they spent an amount of money on their choir which
made the singing-people at St. Paul's gnash their teeth. From all this
it will be seen that the atmosphere of the Crescent Chapel was of a
very distinct and individual kind. It was a warm, luxurious air,
perfumy, breathing of that refinement which is possible to mere wealth.
I do not say there might not be true refinement besides, but the surface
kind, that which you buy from upholsterers and tailors and dressmakers,
which you procure ready made at schools, and which can only be kept up
at a very high cost, abounded and pervaded the place. Badly dressed
people felt themselves out of place in that brilliant sanctuary; a muddy
footprint upon the thick matting in the passages was looked at as a
crime. Clean dry feet issuing out of carriage or cab kept the aisles
unstained, even on the wettest day. We say cab, because many of the
people who went to the Crescent Chapel objected to take out their own
carriages or work their own horses on Sunday; and there were many more
who, though they did not possess carriages, used cabs with a freedom
incompatible with poverty. As a general rule, they were much better off
than the people at St. Paul's, more universally prosperous and
well-to-do. And they were at the same time what you might safely call
well-informed people--people who read the newspapers, and sometimes the
magazines, and knew what was going on. The men were almost all liberal
in politics, and believed in Mr. Gladstone with enthusiasm; the women
often "took an interest" in public movements, especially of a charitable
character. There was less mental stagnation among them probably than
among many of their neighbours. Their life was not profound nor high,
but still it was life after a sort. Such was the flock which had invited
Mr. Beecham to become their pastor when he reached the climax of his
career. They gave him a very good salary, enough to enable him to have a
handsome house in one of the terraces overlooking Regent's Park. It is
not a fashionable quarter, but it is not to be despised in any way. The
rooms were good-sized and lofty, and sometimes have been known to
suffice for very fine people indeed, a fact which the Beechams were well
aware of; and they were not above the amiable weakness of making it
known that their house was in a line with that of Lady Cecilia Burleigh.
This single fact of itself might suffice to mark the incalculable
distance between the Reverend Mr. Beecham of the Crescent Chapel, and
the young man who began life as minister of Salem in Carlingford. And
the development outside was not less remarkable than the development
within.
It is astonishing how our prejudices change from youth to middle age,
even without any remarkable interposition of fortune; I do not say
dissipate, or even dispel, which is much more doubtful--but they
change. When Mr. and Mrs. Beecham commenced life, they had both the
warmest feeling of opposition to the Church and everything churchy. All
the circumstances of their lives had encouraged this feeling. The
dislike of the little for the great, the instinctive opposition of a
lower class towards the higher, intensified that natural essence of
separatism, that determination to be wiser than one's neighbour, which
in the common mind lies at the bottom of all dissent. In saying this we
no more accuse Dissenters in religion than Dissenters in politics, or in
art, or in criticism. The first dissenter in most cases is an original
thinker, to whom his enforced departure from the ways of his fathers is
misery and pain. Generally he has a hard struggle with himself before he
can give up, for the superlative truth which has taken possession of
him, all the habits, the pious traditions of his life. He is the real
Nonconformist--half martyr, half victim, of his convictions. But that
Nonconformity which has come to be the faith in which a large number of
people are trained is a totally different business, and affects a very
different kind of sentiments. Personal and independent conviction has no
more to do with it than it has to do with the ardour of a Breton peasant
trained in deepest zeal of Romanism, or the unbounded certainty of any
other traditionary believer. For this reason we may be allowed to
discuss the changes of feeling which manifested themselves in Mr. and
Mrs. Beecham without anything disrespectful to Nonconformity. Not being
persons of original mind, they were what their training and
circumstances, and a flood of natural influences, made them. They began
life, feeling themselves to be of a hopelessly low social caste, and
believing themselves to be superior to their superiors in that
enlightenment which they had been brought up to believe distinguished
the connection. The first thing which opened their minds to a dawning
doubt whether their enlightenment was, in reality, so much greater than
that of their neighbours, was the social change worked in their position
by their removal from Carlingford. In the great towns of the North,
Dissent attains its highest social elevation, and Chapel people are no
longer to be distinguished from Church people except by the fact that
they go to Chapel instead of Church, a definition so simple as to be
quite overwhelming to the unprepared dissenting intelligence, brought up
in a little Tory borough, still holding for Church and Queen. The
amazing difference which this made in the sentiments of Mrs. Phoebe
Beecham, _née_ Tozer, it is quite impossible to describe. Her sudden
introduction to "circles" which Mrs. Pigeon had never entered, and to
houses at the area-door of which Mr. Brown, the dairyman, would have
humbly waited, would have turned the young woman's head, had she not
felt the overpowering necessity of keeping that organ as steady as
possible, to help her to hold her position in the new world. Phoebe was a
girl of spirit, and though her head went round and round, and everything
felt confused about her, she did manage desperately to hold her own and
to avoid committing herself; but I cannot attempt to tell how much her
social elevation modified her sectarian zeal. Phoebe was only a woman, so
that I am free to assign such motives as having a serious power over
her. Let us hope Mr. Beecham, being a man and a pastor, was moved in a
more lofty, intellectual, and spiritual way.
But however that may be, the pair went conjugally together in this
modification of sentiment, and by the time they reached the lofty
eminence of the Crescent Chapel, were as liberal-minded Nonconformists
as heart could desire. Mr. Beecham indeed had many friends in the Low,
and even some in the Broad Church. He appeared on platforms, to promote
various public movements, along with clergymen of the Church. He spoke
of "our brethren within the pale of the Establishment" always with
respect, sometimes even with enthusiasm. "Depend upon it, my dear Sir,"
he would even say sometimes to a liberal brother, "the Establishment is
not such an unmitigated evil as some people consider it. What should we
do in country parishes where the people are not awakened? They do the
dirty work for us, my dear brother--the dirty work." These sentiments
were shared, but perhaps not warmly, by Mr. Beecham's congregation, some
of whom were hot Voluntaries, and gave their ministers a little trouble.
But the most part took their Nonconformity very quietly, and were
satisfied to know that their chapel was the first in the connection, and
their minister justly esteemed as one of the most eloquent. The
Liberation Society held one meeting at the Crescent Chapel, but it was
not considered a great success. At the best, they were no more than
lukewarm Crescent-Chapelites, not political dissenters. Both minister
and people were Liberal, that was the creed they professed. Some of the
congregations Citywards, and the smaller chapels about Hampstead and
Islington, used the word Latitudinarian instead; but that, as the
Crescent Chapel people said, was a word always applied by the bigoted
and ignorant to those who held in high regard the doctrines of Christian
charity. They were indeed somewhat proud of their tolerance, their
impartiality, their freedom from old prejudices. "That sort of thing
will not do now-a-days," said Mr. Copperhead, who was a great railway
contractor and one of the deacons, and who had himself a son at Oxford.
If there had been any bigotry in the Crescent, Mr. Copperhead would have
had little difficulty in transferring himself over the way to St. Paul's
Church, and it is astonishing what an effect that fact had upon the mind
of Mr. Beecham's flock.
Mr. Beecham's house was situated in Regent's Park, and was constructed
on the ordinary model of such houses. On the ground-floor was a handsome
dining-room, a room which both Mr. and Mrs. Beecham twenty years before
would have considered splendid, but which now they condescended to, as
not so large as they could wish, but still comfortable. The drawing-room
above was larger, a bright and pleasant room, furnished with
considerable "taste." Behind the dining-room, a smaller room was Mr.
Beecham's study, or the library, as it was sometimes called. It was
lined with book-cases containing a very fair collection of books, and
ornamented with portraits (chiefly engravings) of celebrated ministers
and laymen in the connection, with a bust of Mr. Copperhead over the
mantelpiece. This bust had been done by a young sculptor whom he
patronized, for the great man's own house. When it was nearly completed,
however, a flaw was found in the marble, which somewhat detracted from
its perfection. The flaw was in the shoulder of the image, and by no
means serious; but Mr. Copperhead was not the man to pass over any such
defect. After a long and serious consultation over it, which made the
young artist shake in his shoes, a solution was found for the
difficulty.
"Tell you what, Sir," said Mr. Copperhead; "I'll give it to the
minister. It'll look famous in his little study. Works of art don't
often come his way; and you'll get a block of the best, Mr.
Chipstone--the very best, Sir, no expense spared--and begin another for
me."
This arrangement was perfectly satisfactory to all parties, though I
will not say that it was not instrumental in bringing about certain
other combinations which will be fully discussed in this history. The
Beechams were mightily surprised when the huge marble head, almost as
large as a Jupiter, though perhaps not otherwise so imposing, arrived at
the Terrace; but they were also gratified.
"It is quite like receiving us into his own family circle," Mrs. Beecham
said with a glance at her daughter, Phoebe, junior, who, with all her
pink fingers outspread, was standing in adoration before that image of
wealth and fabulous luxury.
"What a grand head it is!" cried the young enthusiast, gazing rapt upon
the complacent marble whisker so delightfully curled and bristling with
realistic force.
"It looks well, I must say, it looks well," said Mr. Beecham himself,
rubbing his hands, "to receive such a token of respect from the leading
member of the flock." And certainly no more perfect representation of a
bell-wether ever adorned any shepherd's sanctuary.