WEALTHY MISS PRITCHETT AND POOR GUSSIE DAVIES ENTER THE VICARAGE GARDEN
"Todgers," Mr. Stephens remarked to Lucy, as they went down into the
garden after lunch on Saturday, "could do it when it chose."
The last preparations for the garden party were being made. The big
marquee was erected, the tennis lawns were newly marked, there was a
small stand for the string band.
Waiters, looking oddly out of their element in the brilliant sunshine,
which showed dress-coats, serviceable enough at night, tinged with a
metallic green like a magpie's wing, were moving about with baskets of
strawberries and zinc boxes of ice.
The old-fashioned garden, an oasis in the wilderness of brick all
around, was brilliant with sunflowers, stocks, and geraniums; the lawns
were fresh and green. The curate was in tennis flannels and an Oxford
blazer, and Lucy meditated upon the influence of clothes, as her
betters had done before her. Stephens seemed to have put off his
priesthood with his tippet and cassock, and the jaunty cap covered a
head which seemed as if it had never worn a berretta. Lucy found, to her
own surprise, that she liked the man less so. It was a total inversion
of her ordinary ideas. She began to think that a priest should be robed
always.
Miss Cass, the housekeeper, in a new cap, came up to them. Lucy had
talked to the woman for more than an hour on Friday afternoon, and the
prejudice caused by her appearance was removed.
"I hope everything is satisfactory, Miss," she said. "It all seems to be
going on well. The men from Whiteley's know their business."
"It all seems splendid, Miss Cass," Lucy said. "I'm sure it couldn't be
better. Have the band people come?"
"Yes, Miss, and the piano-entertainer too. They're having some
refreshment in the library. His Reverence is telling them funny stories,
Miss."
She hurried away to superintend further arrangements.
"The vicar is always so fine," the young man said, with a delighted
enthusiasm in his chief that was always pleasant for Lucy to hear. "He
gets on with men so well; such a lot of parsons don't. There's nothing
effeminate about the vicar. He's a man's man. I'll bet every one of
those fellows in there will go away feeling they've made a friend, and
that parsons aren't such scalawags after all."
A burst of laughter came from the door leading into the garden, as if to
confirm his words, and Father Blantyre descended the steps with a little
knot of men dressed in something between livery and uniform, carrying
oddly shaped cases of black waterproof in their hands.
Laughing and joking, the men made their way towards the music stands.
The vicar came up to Lucy. "How will it do?" he said. "It seems all
right. Just walk round with me, my dear, and I'll give ye a few tips how
to play hostess in Hornham."
They strolled away together. "Now, ye'll be careful, won't ye,
mavourneen?" he said rather anxiously. "The folk coming this afternoon
require more management and tact than any I've ever met. They'll all
have what they think is the high society manner--and ye mustn't laugh at
um, poor dears. I love 'em all, and I won't have you making fun of
them. I like them better in church than in society, I'm quite free to
admit to you, and their souls are more interesting than their bodies!
Perhaps half a dozen people here this afternoon will be what you'd call
gentlefolk--the doctor, Dr. Hibbert, and a few others. The rest of them
will be fearfully genteel. The young gentlemen will be back early from
the city, and they'll come in flannels and wear public-school ribbons
round their hats, roses in their button-holes and crimson silk
cummerbunds!"
"Good heavens!" Lucy said.
"Yes, and they'll all want to flirt with ye, in a very superfine, polite
sort of way, and mind ye let um! They'll ask if they might 'assist you
to a little claret cup,' and say all sorts of strange things. But
they're good enough at heart, only they will be so polite!"
"And the women?"
Father Blantyre shrugged his shoulders. "You'll find them rather
difficult," he said. "You bet they see your name in the papers--they all
read the 'Fashionable Intelligence'--confound um!--and the attitude will
be a little hostile. But be civil for my sake, dear. I hate all this
just as much as you do. I can get in touch with them spiritually, but
socially I find it hard. But I think it's the right thing to do, to
entertain them all once or twice a year, and they do enjoy themselves!
And I owe them a deep, deep debt of gratitude for their loyalty during
this trying week. I have had dozens and dozens of letters and calls.
Every one has rallied to the church in a wonderful and touching way
since the Sunday affair. God bless them all!"
Lucy squeezed his arm with sympathy. In an hour, the guests began to
arrive.
Lucy and her brother met them by the garden door of the house. It was a
gay scene enough. A brilliant flood of afternoon sunshine irradiated
everything; the women were well and fashionably dressed, the band
played, and every one seemed happy.
Lucy found it much easier than she expected. The guests were suburban,
of course, and not of the "classic suburbs" at that. But, she reflected,
there was hardly a man there who had not better manners than Lord
Rollington or General Pompe. And if they wore Carthusian or Zingari
ribbons, that meant no more than that they were blessed with a
colour-sense; while a slight admixture of "i" in the pronunciation of
the first vowel was certainly preferable to the admixture of looseness
and innuendo that she was sometimes forced to hear in much more exalted
circles. So she received tea and strawberries at the hands of gallant
and debonair young gentlemen engaged in the minor walks of commerce; she
chatted merrily with fluffy young ladies who, when they had gotten over
their first distrust of a girl who went to the drawing-room and stayed
with lords, finding that she wasn't the "nasty, stuck-up thing" they
expected, were somewhat effusively affectionate. She talked gravely
about the "dear vicar and those dreadful men" to ample matrons who for a
moment had forgotten the cares of a small suburban villa and a smaller
income, in the luxury of fashion, the latest waltz tunes, the champagne
cup, and a real social event. Indeed, everything went "with a snap," as
one young gentleman remarked to Lucy. She became popular almost at once,
and was surrounded by assiduous young bloods of the city "meccas."
Father Blantyre, as he went about from group to group, was in a state of
extreme happiness, despite his somewhat gloomy anticipations. It was an
hour of triumph for him. His people, for whom he prayed and laboured and
gave his life and fortune, were one and all engaged to show him how
they would stand by him in the anticipated trouble. Everywhere he was
greeted with real warmth and affection, and before long the quick Celtic
temperament was bringing a mist before the merry grey eyes and a riot
and tumult of thankfulness within.
On all sides, he heard praises of his sister. "The pretty dear," one
good lady, the wife of a cashier in a small Mincing Lane firm, said to
him. "I had quite a long talk with her, Father Blantyre. And a sweet
girl she is. We're not in the way of meeting with society folk, though
we read of all the gay goings-on in the _Mail_; but I said to Pa, 'Pa,'
I said, 'if all the society girls are like that, then there's nothing
much the matter with the aristocracy, and _Modern Society_ is a
catchpenny rag.' And Pa quite agreed. He was as much struck by her as I
was."
And so on. Every one seemed pleased with Lucy. The guests began to
arrive less and less frequently, until at length the gardens were
crowded and no one else appeared to be coming. All the various games and
entertainments were in full swing, and Lucy was about to accept the
invitation of a tall boy in a frock coat and a silk hat to sit down and
watch a set of tennis with him, when there was a slight stir and
commotion at the garden door of the house.
Miss Cass came hurriedly down the steps, as a sort of advance guard for
two ladies who were ushered into the garden by a waiter. The housekeeper
dived into the crowd and found the vicar, who turned and went with her
at once to meet the late-comers.
"There's Miss Pritchett and Gussie Davies," said the young man to Lucy
in rather an awed voice, and then, as if to banish some unwelcome
impression, relieved his feelings by the enigmatic remark of "Pip, pip,"
which made Lucy stare at him, wondering what on earth he meant.
She noticed that nearly every one at this end of the garden was
watching, more or less openly, the meeting between the vicar and his
guests. She did not quite understand why, but guessed that some local
magnate had arrived, and looked with the rest.
The elder of the two women was expensively dressed in mauve silk, and
wore a small bonnet with a white aigrette over a coffee-coloured fringe
of hair that suggested art. Her face was plump and pompous, a
parrot-like nose curved over pursy lips that wore an expression of
arrogant ill-temper, and the small eyes glanced rapidly hither and
thither. In one white-gloved hand, the lady held a long-handled
lorgnette of tortoise-shell and gold. Every now and then she raised
these glasses and surveyed the scene before her, in exactly the manner
in which countesses and duchesses do upon the stage.
Her companion was young, a large, blonde girl, not ill-looking, but
without character or decision in her face or walk. She was dressed very
simply.
Lucy turned to her companion. "Do you know them, then?" she said.
"Rather," he replied. "I should think I did. That's Miss Pritchett, old
Joseph Pritchett's daughter, old Joseph, the brewer. He left her all his
money, she's tons of stuff--awfully wealthy, I mean, Miss Blantyre."
"Does she live here, then?"
"Oh, yes. In spite of all her money she's always been an unappropriated
blessing. She's part of Hornham, drives a pair in a landau. The girl is
Gussie Davies, her companion. She's not half a bad sort. All the Hornham
boys know Gussie. Nothing the matter with Gussie Davis! The old cat sits
on her fearfully, though. She can't call her soul her own. It's bally
awful, sometimes, Gussie says."
Lucy gasped. These revelations were startling indeed. She was moving in
the queerest possible set of people. She hadn't realised that such folk
existed. It took her breath away, like the first plunge into a bath of
cold water.
The artless youth prattled on, and Lucy gathered that the lady with
the false front was a sort of female _arbiter elegantarium_
to Hornham, indubitably the richest person there, a leading light.
She saw her brother talking to the woman in an eager way. He seemed
afraid of her,--as, indeed, the poor man was, under the present
circumstances,--and Lucy resented it. With a quick feminine eye, she saw
that Miss Pritchett was assuming an air of tolerance, of patronage even,
to the vicar.
At last, Bernard caught sight of her. His face became relieved at once
and he led the spinster to the place where she was sitting.
Every instinct of the girl rose up in dislike and rebellion as the woman
drew near. She had felt nothing of the sort with the other people. In
this case, it was quite different. She prepared to repel cavalry, to use
the language of the military text-books.
On the surface, the incident was simple and commonplace enough. A
well-bred girl felt a repulsion for an obviously unpleasant and
patronising woman of inferior social rank. That was all. It is a trite
and well-worn aphorism that no event is trivial, yet it is
extraordinarily true. Who could have said that this casual meeting was
to be fraught with storm and danger for the Church in England; that out
of a hostile handshake between two women a mighty scandal and tumult was
to rise?
Miss Pritchett came up to Lucy, and Father Blantyre introduced her.
Then, with an apologetic murmur, he hurried away to another part of the
garden.
"Won't you sit down?" Lucy said, looking at the chair that had been left
vacant by her late companion.
"Thank you, Miss Blantyre, but I've been sitting in my carriage. I
should prefer to stand, if it's the same to you," said Miss Pritchett.
Lucy rose. "Perhaps you would like to walk round the grounds?" she
asked.
"Probably I know the grounds better than you," the elder woman answered
with a patronage which was bordering on the purely ludicrous. "This
residence was one of my dear father's houses, as were many of the
Hornham houses. When the vicar acquired the property, the brewery
trustees sold it to him, though I think it far from suitable for a
parish clergyman."
"Well, yes," Lucy answered. "It certainly is a dingy, gloomy old place,
but what else can you expect down here?"
Miss Pritchett flushed and tossed her head till the aigrette in her
smart little bonnet shook like a leaf.
"One is liable to be misunderstood," she said. "Your brother's small
private means enable him to live in a house which the next vicar or any
ordinary clergyman could hardly hope for."
"It _is_ very good of Bernard to come down here and spend his life in
such an impossible place," Lucy said. She was thoroughly angry now and
quite determined to give the woman a lesson. Her impertinence was
insufferable. To hear this creature speak of Bernard's income of three
thousand a year--every penny of which he gave away or spent for good--in
this way was unendurable.
Miss Pritchett grew redder than ever. She was utterly incapable of
bearing rebuff or contradiction. Her local eminence was unquestioned.
She had never moved from Hornham, where her wealth and large interests
secured for her that slavish subserviency that a vain and petty spirit
loves. For months past, she had been gradually gathering up cause for
quarrel and bitterness with the clergy of St. Elwyn's. She had found
that once within the portals of the church she was just as anyone else.
She could not lord it over the priests as she wished to do. For once,
she was beginning to find that her money was powerless, there was no
"high seat in the synagogue" that it could buy.
"The place has been good enough for _me_," she said angrily, never
doubting that this was final.
"Ah, yes," Lucy answered. "That, Miss Pritchett, I can quite
understand." The Hornham celebrity was a stupid woman. Her brain was as
empty as a hen's, and she was not adroit enough to seize upon the real
meaning of this remark. She had an uneasy suspicion that it was
offensive, and that was all.
"What you may mean by 'impossible' I am not aware," she continued. "I
speak plain English myself. But those that don't know of a place didn't
ought to speak unfavourable of it. As for your brother, I've always said
that he was a worthy person and acted as well as he might, until late
months, when I've felt it my duty to say a word or two in season as to
some of the church matters."
"I hope he profited, Miss Pritchett."
"I fear that he did not receive my words as he should, coming from a
lady of standing in the place--and him only here three years. I'm
beginning to think that there's something in the popular agitation. Upon
my word! Priests do take a good deal on themselves nowadays. It wouldn't
have been allowed when I was a girl."
"Things have altered very much for the better during the last fifty
years," Lucy said pointedly.
This the lady did immediately apprehend. She lifted the lorgnette and
stared at her companion in speechless anger. The movement was meant to
be crushing. It was thus, Miss Pritchett knew from her reading, that
women of the aristocracy crushed inferiors.
It was too much for Lucy. She endeavoured to control her feelings, but
they were irresistible. She had not seen anything so funny as this
vulgar and pompous old thing for years. A smile broadened out upon her
face, and then, without further ado, she burst out into peal after peal
of laughter.
The flush on Miss Pritchett's face died away. It grew perfectly white
with passion.
She turned round. Her companion had been walking some three yards behind
them in a listless and dejected fashion, looking with greedy eyes at the
allurements on every side, and answering the furtive greetings of
various male friends with a pantomime, expressive of contempt,
irritation, and hopeless bondage in equal parts.
Miss Pritchett stepped up to her, and caught hold of her arm. Her
fingers went so deep into the flesh that the girl gasped and gave a
half-smothered cry.
"Take me to the carriage," Miss Pritchett said. "Let me leave this place
of Popery and light women!"
The obedient Gussie Davies turned and, in a moment or two, both women
had disappeared.
Lucy sought her brother. She found him eating a large pink ice in
company with a florid, good-humoured matron in maroon, with an avalanche
of lace falling from the edges of her parasol. "Hallo, dear!" he said.
"Let me introduce you to Mrs. Stiffe, Dr. Hibbert's sister. And where's
Miss Pritchett?"
"She's gone," Lucy answered. "And, I'm very much afraid, in a towering
rage. But really she was so insolent that I could _not_ stand it. I
would do most things for you, Ber, but, really, that woman!"
"Well, it can't be helped, I suppose," the vicar said with humorous
resignation. "It was bound to come sooner or later, and I'm selfish
enough to be glad it's you've given me lady the _congé_ and not me. Mrs.
Stiffe here knows her, don't you, Mrs. Stiffe?"
"I do, Mr. Blantyre," the stout lady said. "I've met the woman several
times when I've been staying down here with my brother. A fearful old
cat _I_ call her! I wonder that you put up with her so long!"
"Policy, Mrs. Stiffe--ye know we're all Jesuits here, the local paper
says so in yesterday's issue--policy! You see, when I first came here
Miss Pritchett came to church. She's a leading person here and I made no
doubt others would follow her. Indeed, they did, too! and when they saw
what the Catholic Church really was they stayed with us. And then,
again, Miss Pritchett was always ready to give us a cheque for any good
work, and we want all the money we can get! Oh, there's a lot of good in
Miss Pritchett!"
"I fail to see it on a short acquaintance," Lucy remarked; "if she gave
generously, it was only to flatter her vanity. I'm sure of that."
"It's a great mistake to attribute unworthy motives to worthy deeds,"
the vicar said. "We've no right to do it, and it's only giving ourselves
away when we do, after all!"
"Oh, it's all very well, Vicar," said good Mrs. Stiffe; "we know you
never say anything against any one. But if Miss Pritchett is such an
angel, what's the reason of her behaviour now? My brother told me that
things were getting very strained."
"Ah, that's a different matter entirely," Blantyre said. "She began to
interfere in important things. And, of course, we couldn't have that.
I'd have let her manage the soup-kitchens and boss the ladies' guilds
till the sky fell. But she wanted to do more than that. Poor dear King
offended her in some way--he's not what ye'd call a ladies' man--and she
wrote to me to send him away at once! And there were other incidents.
I've been doing my best to meet her views and to keep in with her, but
it's been very difficult and I felt the storm would burst soon. I wanted
to keep her in the Faith for her own silly sake! She's not a very
strong-minded person beneath her manner, and she's just the sort of
woman some spiritualistic quack or Christian Science gentleman would get
hold of and ruin her health and happiness. I did hope she'd find peace
in the Church. Well, it can't be helped," he ended with a rather sad
smile, for his heart was tender for all his flock and he saw far down
into the human soul and loved it. Then he changed suddenly. "What am I
doing!" he cried, "talking parochial politics at a garden party! Shame
on me! Come on, Mrs. Stiffe, come on, Lucy, Mr. Chaff, the
piano-entertainer, is going to give his happy half-hour at Earl's
Court."
They went merrily away with him. As they approached the rows of chairs
in front of the piano, he turned suddenly to his sister.
"Why didn't ye knock her down?" he said suddenly, with an exaggerated
brogue and real comic force. Both ladies burst out laughing.
"You ought to have been on the music-hall stage, Vicar," Mrs. Stiffe
said, "you're wasted in Hornham."
"So I've been told," he said. "I shall think seriously of it. It's a
pity to waste a talent."