The girls went round by the rectory on their way home. It was a large
red brick house, taller almost than the church, which was a very old
church, credibly dating from the thirteenth century, with a Norman arch
to the chancel, which tourists came to see. The rectory was of the days
of Anne, three stories high, with many twinkling windows in framework
of white, and a great deal of ivy and some livelier climbing plants
covering the walls, with the old mellow red bricks looking through
the interstices of all this greenery. The two Miss Warrenders did not
stop to knock or ring, but opened the door from the outside, and went
straight through the house, across the hall and a passage at the other
end, to the garden beyond, where Mrs. Wilberforce sat under some great
limes, with her little tea-table beside her. She was alone; that is, as
near alone as she ever was, with only two of the little ones playing at
her feet, and the little Skye comfortably disposed on the cushions of
a low wicker-work chair. The two sisters kissed her, and disturbed the
children's game to kiss them, and displaced the little Skye, who did
not like it at all. Mrs. Wilberforce was a little roundabout woman, with
fair hair and a permanent pucker in her forehead. She was very well
off,--she and all her belongings; the living was good, the parish small,
the work not overpowering: but she never was able to shake off a visionary
anxiety, the burden of some ancestral trouble, or the premonition of
something to come. She was always afraid that something was going to
happen: her husband to break down from overwork (which for clergymen, as
for most other people in this generation, is the fashionable complaint),
the parish to be invaded with dissent and socialism, the country to go
to destruction. This latter, as being the greatest, and at the same time
the most distant, a thing even which might happen without disturbing
one's individual comfort, was most certain; and she waited till it
should happen, with always an anxious outlook for the first symptoms.
She received Minnie and Chatty, who were her nearest neighbours, and
whom she saw almost daily, with a tone of interest and attachment beyond
the ordinary, as she had done ever since their father's death. Indeed,
they had found this everywhere, a sort of natural compensation for
their "great loss." They were surrounded by the respect and reawakened
interest of all the people who were so familiar with them. A bereaved
family have always this little advantage after a death.
"How are you, dears," Mrs. Wilberforce said, "and how is your dear
mother?" Ordinarily Mrs. Warrender was spoken of as their mother, _tout
court_, without any endearing adjective.
"Mamma is quite wonderful," said Minnie. "She thinks of everything and
looks after everything almost as if--nothing had ever happened."
"She keeps up on our account," said Chatty, "and for Theo's sake. It
is so important, you know, to keep home a little bright--oh, I mean as
little miserable as possible for him."
"Bright, poor child!" said Mrs. Wilberforce pathetically. "You have not
realised as yet what it is. When the excitement is all over, and you
have settled down in your mourning, then is the time when you will feel
it. I always tell people the first six weeks is nothing; you are so
supported by the excitement. But afterwards, when everything falls into
the old routine. I suppose, however, you are going away."
"Mamma said something about it: but we all preferred, you know----"
"You had much better go away. I told you so the moment I heard it. And
as Theo has all the summer to himself before he requires to go back
to Oxford, what is there to stop you?" Mrs. Wilberforce took great
pleasure in settling other people's plans for them, and deciding what
they were to do.
"That wasn't what we came to talk about," said the elder Miss Warrender,
who was quite able to hold her own. "Mrs. Wilberforce, we have just come
from old Mrs. Bagley's at the shop, and there we made quite a painful
discovery. We said what we could, but perhaps it would be well if you
would interfere. I think, indeed, you ought to interfere with authority,
or even, perhaps, the rector."
"What is it? I always thought that old body had a turn for Dissent. She
will have got one of those people from Highcombe to come out and hold a
meeting: that is how they always begin."
"Oh no,--a great deal worse than that."
"Minnie means worse in our way of thinking," the younger sister explained.
"I don't know anything worse," said the clergyman's wife, "than the
bringing in of Dissent to a united parish such as ours has been. But I
know it will come. I am always expecting to hear of it every day; things
go so fast nowadays. What with radicalism, and the poor people all having
votes, and what you call progress, one never knows what to expect, except
the worst. I always look for the worst. Well, what is it then, if it
isn't Dissent?"
Then Miss Warrender gave an account of the real state of affairs. "The
letter was there on the table, dated the Elms, Underwood, Highcombe, as
if--as if it was a county family; just as we put it ourselves on our
paper."
"But far finer than ours,--gilt, and paper so polished and shining, and
a quarter of an inch thick. Oh, much finer than ours!"
"Ours, of course, will be black-edged for a long, long time to come;
there could not be any comparison," said Minnie, with a sigh. "But think
of the assurance of such people! I am so glad to have found you alone,
for we couldn't have talked about it before the rector. And I believe if
we hadn't gone there just at the right moment she would have accepted.
I told her mamma would never employ her again."
"I never had very much opinion of that little thing," said Mrs.
Wilberforce. "She is a great deal too fine. If her grandmother was a
sensible person, she would have put a stop to all those feathers and
flowers and things."
"Still," said Minnie, with some severity, "a young woman who is a
dressmaker and gets the fashion-books, and is perhaps in the way of
temptation, may wear a feather in her hat; but that is not to say that
she should encourage immorality, and make for anybody who asks her:
especially considering the way we have all taken her up."
"Who is it that encourages immorality?" said a different voice, over
Mrs. Wilberforce's head,--quite a different voice; a man's voice, for
one thing, which always changes the atmosphere a little. It was the
rector himself, who came across the lawn in the ease of a shooting-coat,
with his hands in his pockets. He wore a long coat when he went out in
the parish, but at home there can be no doubt that he liked to be at his
ease. He was a man who was too easy in general, and might, perhaps, if
his wife had not scented harm from the beginning, have compromised
himself by calling at the Elms.
"Oh, please!" cried Minnie, with a blush. "Mrs. Wilberforce will tell
you. We really have not time to stay any longer. Not any tea, thank you.
We must be running away."
"There is nothing to be so sensitive about," said the clergyman's wife.
"Of course Herbert knows that you must know: you are not babies. It is
Lizzie Hampson, the dressmaker, who has been asked to go and work at the
Elms."
"Oh!" said the rector. He showed himself wonderfully reasonable,--more
reasonable than any one could have expected. "I wouldn't let her go
there if I was you. It's not a fit place for a girl."
"We are perfectly well aware of that," said Mrs. Wilberforce. "I warned
you from the beginning. But the thing is, who is to prevent her from
going? Minnie has told her plainly, it appears, and I will speak to
her, and as her clergyman I should say it was your duty to say a
word; but whether we shall succeed, that is a different matter. These
creatures seem to have a sort of real attraction for everything that is
wrong."
"We all have that, I'm afraid, my dear."
"But not all in that way. There may be a bias, but it doesn't take
the same form. Do sit down, girls, and take your tea, like reasonable
creatures. She shall never enter the rectory, of course, if--and if
you are sure Mrs. Warrender will do the same. But you know she is very
indulgent,--more indulgent than I should be in her place. There was that
story, you know, about Fanny, the laundry-maid. I don't think we shall
do much if your dear mother relents, and says the girl is penitent as
soon as she cries. She ought to know girls better than that. A little
thing makes them cry: but penitence,--that is getting rarer and rarer
every day."
"There would be no need for penitence in this case. The girl is a very
respectable girl. Don't let her go there, that's all: and give me a cup
of tea."
"Isn't that like a man!" said Mrs. Wilberforce. "Don't let her go there,
and give him a cup of tea!--the one just as easy as the other. I am
sure I tell you often enough, Herbert, what with all that is done for
them and said about them, the poor people are getting more and more
unmanageable every day."
"Our family has always been Liberal," said Minnie. "I think the poor
people have their rights just as we have. They ought to be educated, and
all that."
"Very well," said the other lady; "when you have educated them up to
thinking themselves as good--oh, what am I saying? far better--than
their betters, you'll see what will come of it. I for one am quite
prepared. I pity the people who deceive themselves. Herbert chooses to
laugh, but I can't laugh; it is much too serious for that."
"There will be peace in our days," said the rector, "and after all,
Fanny, we can't have a revolution coming because Lizzie Hampson----"
"Lizzie Hampson," said his wife solemnly, "is a sign of the times. She
may be nothing in herself,--none of them are anything in themselves,--but
I call her a sign of the times."
"What a grand name for a little girl!" he said, with a laugh. But he
added seriously, "I wish that house belonged to Theo, or some one we
could bring influence to bear upon; but what does a city man care? I
wish we could do as the Americans do, and put rollers under it, and cart
it away out of the parish."
"Can the Americans do that?"
"They say so. They can do every sort of wonderful thing, I believe."
"And that is what we are coming to!" said Mrs. Wilberforce, with an air
of indignant severity, as if this had been the most dreadful accusation
in the world.
"I suppose," said the rector, strolling with the young ladies to the
gate, "that Theo holds by the family politics? I wonder whether he has
given any attention to public questions. At his age a young fellow
either does--or he does not," he added, with a laugh. "Oxford often
makes a change."
"We don't approve of ladies taking any part in politics," said Minnie,
"and I am sure I have never mentioned the subject to Theo."
"But you know, Minnie, mamma said that Theo was--well, I don't remember
what she said he was, but certainly not the same as he was brought up."
"Then let us hope he has become a Conservative. Landholders should be
and clergy must," said the rector, with a sigh. Then he remembered that
this was not a style of conversation likely to commend itself to the two
girls. "I hope we shall see you back next Sunday at the Sunday school,"
he said. "Of course I would not hurry you, if you found it too much;
but a little work in moderation I have always thought was the very
best thing for a grief like yours. Dear Mrs. Warrender, too," he added
softly. He had not been in the habit of calling her dear Mrs. Warrender;
but it seemed a term that was appropriate where there had been a death.
"I hope she does not quite shut herself up."
"Mamma has been with Lady Markland several times," said Minnie, with a
mixture of disapproval and satisfaction. "Naturally, we have been so
much thrown together since----"
"To be sure. What a sad thing!--twice in one house, within a week, was
it not, the two deaths?"
"Just a week," said Chatty, who loved to be exact.
"But you know Lord Markland was no relation," added Minnie, too
conscientious to take to herself the credit of a grief which was not
hers. "It was not as if we felt it in that way."
"It was a dreadful thing to happen in one's house, all the same. And
Theo, I hear, goes a great deal to Markland. Oh, it is quite natural.
He had so much to do for her from the first. And I hear she is a very
attractive sort of woman, though I don't know much of her, for my own
part."
"Attractive? Well, perhaps she may be attractive, to some people," said
Minnie; "but when a woman has been married so long as she has, one never
thinks--and her attractiveness has nothing to do with Theo," she added,
with some severity.
"Oh no, I suppose not," said the rector. "Tell him I hope we shall soon
see him here, for I expect his friend Dick Cavendish in the end of the
week. You remember Cavendish? He told me he had met you at Oxford."
"Oh yes," said Chatty quickly. Minnie, who was not accustomed to be
forestalled in speech, trod upon this little exclamation, as it were,
and spoilt its effect. "Cavendish! I am not sure. I think I do recollect
the name," she said.
And then they shook hands with the rector across the gate, and went upon
their way. But it was not for the first moment quite a peaceful way.
"You were dreadfully ready to say you remembered Mr. Cavendish," said
the elder sister. "What do you know of Mr. Cavendish? If I were you, I
would not speak so fast, as if Mr. Cavendish were of such importance."
"Oh no, he is of no importance; only I do recollect him quite well. He
gave us tea. He was very----"
"He was exactly like other young men," said Miss Warrender. And then
they proceeded in silence, Chatty having no desire to contest the
statement. She did not know very much about young men. Their way lay
across the end of the village street, beyond which the trees of the
Warren overshadowed everything. There was only a fence on that side of
the grounds, and to look through it was like looking into the outskirts
of a forest. The rabbits ran about by hundreds among the roots of the
trees. The birds sang as if in their own kingdom and secure possessions.
To this gentle savagery and dominion of nature the Miss Warrenders were
accustomed; and in the freshness of the early summer it was sweet. They
went on without speaking, for some time, and then it seemed wise to the
younger sister to forestall further remark by the introduction of a new
subject, which, however, was not a usual proceeding on Chatty's part.
"Minnie," she said, "do you know what the rector meant when he spoke of
Lady Markland, that she was an attractive woman? You took him up rather
sharply."
"No, I didn't," said Minnie, with that ease which is noticed among near
relations. "I said she was rather old for that."
"She is scarcely any older than you. I know that from the Peerage. I
looked her up."
"So did I," said Miss Warrender. "That does not make her a day younger
or more attractive. She is four years older than Theo: therefore she is
as if she were not to him. Four years is a dreadful difference when it
is on the wrong side."
Chatty was ridiculously simple for a person of three-and-twenty. She
said, "I cannot think what that has to do with it. The rector is really
very silly at times in what he says."
"I don't see that he is silly. What he means is that Lady Markland will
take advantage of Theo, and he will fall in love with her. I should say,
for my part, that it is very likely. I have seen a great many things
of the kind, though you never open your eyes. He is always going to
Markland to see what he can do, if there is anything she wants. He is
almost sure to fall in love with her."
"Minnie, a married woman!"
"Oh, you little simpleton! She is not a married woman, she is a widow; and
she is left extremely well off and with everything in her hands,--that
is to say, she would be very well off if there was any money. A widow is
in the best position of any woman. She can do what she likes, and nobody
has any right to object."
"Oh, Minnie!" protested the younger sister again.
"You can ask mamma, if you don't believe me. But of course she would not
have anything to say to Theo," Miss Warrender said.