The Rector of Summerhayes was the Miss Harwoods’ brother, much younger
however, unmarried, and rather a fine man in his way. He had a little
dinner, as it happened, the same evening. His table only held six, Mr
Harwood said. The rectory was an old-fashioned house, and the
dining-room would have quite admitted a table which could dine
twenty—but such were not the Rector’s inclinations. There are enough men
in the neighbourhood of Summerhayes to make it very possible to vary
your parties pleasantly when you have a table that only holds six,
whereas with a large number you can only have the same people over and
over again; and Mr Harwood did not like to be bored. He had a friend
with him from town, as he always had on such occasions. He had his
curate, and young Chesterfield from Dalton, and Major Aldborough, and Dr
Gossett; rather a village party—as he explained to Mr Temple, the
stranger—but not bad company. The dinner was a very good one, like all
the Rector’s little dinners, and was consumed with that judicious
reticence in the way of talk, and wise suspension of wit, which is only
practicable in a party composed of men. By means of this sensible
quietness, the dinner was done full justice to, and the company expanded
into full force over their wine. Then the conversation became animated.
The Rector, it is true, indulged in ten minutes’ parish talk with the
Doctor, while Mr Temple and Major Aldborough opened the first parallel
of a political duel, and young Chesterfield discoursed on the last Meet
to poor Mr Spencer, who, reduced into curate-hood and economy, still
felt his mouth water over such forbidden pleasures. Then Mr Harwood
himself introduced the subject which at that time reigned paramount over
all other subjects at Summerhayes.
“So Tom Summerhayes is going to marry little Mrs Clifford,” said the
Rector; “hadn’t you heard of it? Yes, these grapes are from Fontanel.
She has a capital gardener, and her conservatories are the finest in the
county. A very pleasant little house altogether, though there are some
particulars about her table which one feels to be feeble. Her dinners
are always a little defective since poor Clifford’s death—too mild, you
know—too sweet—want the severer taste of a man.”
“Mrs Clifford—a pretty little woman with brown eyes?” said Mr Temple.
“I’ve met her somewhere. So she gives dinners, does she? When I saw her
she was in the recluse line. I suppose that didn’t last.”
“It lasted quite long enough,” said Dr Gossett; “nothing could be more
proper, or more ladylike, or more satisfactory in every way. If I had a
wife and were unluckily to die, I should wish her just to wear her weeds
and so forth like Mrs Clifford—a charming woman; what should we do
without her in the parish? but as for Tom Summerhayes——”
“He’s an ass,” growled the Major. “What’s he got to do burdening himself
with other people’s children. Why, there’s five of ’em, sir! They’ll
hate him like poison—they’ll think he’s in no end of conspiracies to
shut them out of their fortune. By Jove! if he knew as much about other
people’s children as I do. I’ve had two families consigned to me from
India—as if I were a reformatory, or a schoolmaster, by Jove! _She’s_
all very well, as women go; but I wouldn’t marry that family—no, not for
_twenty_-five thousand a-year.”
“I confess I think it’s a pity,” said Mr Spencer, playing with the
Fontanel grapes. The Curate perhaps was thinking in his heart that such
delicate little souvenirs might have gone quite as appropriately to his
own little _ménage_ as to the Rector’s, who lacked for nothing. “It’s
like going into life at second hand, you know. I shouldn’t like it, for
my part. The children are a drawback, to be sure; but that’s not the
greatest, to my mind; they are nice enough children.”
“Delightful children!” cried the Doctor, “little bricks! plucky little
things! I don’t care for babies, though they’re partly my business. A
family ready made would just suit me.”
“Well, it ain’t much in my line to say what a fellow ought or oughtn’t
to do,” said young Chesterfield. “I’m not a marrying man myself. I don’t
pretend to understand that sort of thing, you know. But Summerhayes
ain’t a spoon, as everybody will allow. He knows what he’s doing. Last
time I was at Fontanel, I couldn’t make out for the life of me what Mrs
Clifford wanted with that new set of stables. She said they were
preparing against Charley’s growing up. I thought somehow Summerhayes
must have a hand in it, and it’s plain enough now.”
“Well, he has done a great deal for her,” said the Rector; “he’s been a
sort of unpaid steward at Fontanel. I daresay she didn’t know how to
reward him otherwise. I believe that’s the handiest way of making it up
to a man in a lady’s fancy. It’s a dangerous kind of business to go on
long; but I don’t know that there’s anything to find fault with. She’s
pretty and he’s not young;—well, not exactly a young fellow, I mean,”
said the Rector, with a half apology. “I daresay they’ll do very well
together. If poor Clifford had only made a sensible will—but for that
nobody would have had any right to talk.”
“And what was poor Clifford’s will?” asked the stranger, with a polite
yawn; “men don’t generally study their wife’s convenience in a second
marriage, in that document; has the defunct been harder upon this lively
lady than most husbands, or what’s wrong about his will?”
“Deuced fool, sir,” cried the Major; “left her every farthing he had in
the world, without settling a penny on those deuced children, or binding
her up anyhow; left her at thirty or so, I suppose, with every penny he
had in her hands. Never heard of such an ass. Of course that’s what
Summerhayes means, but I can tell him it won’t be a bed of roses.
They’ll hate him like poison, these brats will—they’ll make parties
against him—they’ll serve him so that he’ll be sick of his life. I know
the whole business. He’s well enough off now, with his old father’s
savings, and the manor-house, and nothing to do; but he’ll be a wretched
man, mark my words, if he marries Fontanel with five children in it.
It’s the maddest thing he ever did in his life.”
“The poor lady doesn’t seem to count for much,” said Mr Temple. “She’s a
pretty nobody, I suppose.”
Upon which vehement disclaimers rose from all the _convives_. “No, she
was a charming woman,” Gossett said. “A dear, kind-hearted, good little
soul,” said the Rector. “Very well as women go,” the Major admitted;
while the two young men added warmer, but equally vague commendations.
“Yet none of you imagine she is being married for herself,” said the
solitary individual who did not belong to Summerhayes, with a little
laugh at the perturbation he had caused. But nobody saw the fun of it:
they went on with the discussion, ignoring Mr Temple.
“When a woman is in Mrs Clifford’s position,” said the Doctor, “it is
nonsense to talk of her _being_ married. She is active, she is no longer
passive in such a business. She’s richer, she’s _gooder_, she’s
handsomer, she’s better off every way than Tom Summerhayes. How she ever
came to fancy him is the wonder to me.”
“Deuced nonsense,” said the Major; “why didn’t he marry off his sisters
and set up snug for himself? He’s old enough to know better, that fellow
is. There’s young Chesterfield there, he’s at the time of life to make a
fool of himself; but Summerhayes must be, let me see——”
“Don’t let us go into chronology,” said the Rector. “Poor little Mary, I
hope she’ll be happy all the same. I married her to poor Clifford, and I
daresay I’ll have this little business to do as well. I wish she had a
brother, or an uncle, or some one to take that piece of duty off my
hands. I think I will have one of my attacks, and go off to Malvern, and
leave it, Spencer, to you.”
“I wish she had an uncle or a brother for more than that,” said the
Doctor; “it ought to be seen to—the settlement and all that should be
looked well into. I hope she’ll have her wits about her. Not that I mean
to ascribe any mean motives to Tom Summerhayes; but still when there’s
five children to be considered——”
“They’ll kill him, sir,” said the Major, with energy. “He’ll not enjoy
her money for long, mark my words; they’ll kill him in a year. I have
only got this to say, sir,” continued the warrior, turning round upon Mr
Temple, who had ventured a remark not bearing on the present subject to
the Curate, “if this income-tax is going to be kept up without any
compensation, I’ll emigrate—it’s the only thing that remains for honest
Englishmen. After a life spent in the service of my country, I’ll be
driven to a colony, sir, in my old age. It’s more than the country can
bear, and what’s better, it’s more than the country _will_ bear. We’ll
have a revolution, by Jove! that’s what will come of all this taxing and
paying; it’s not to be borne, sir, in a land that calls itself free.”
Whereupon politics came into possession of the elders of the party, and
young Chesterfield resumed that tantalising account of the Meet which
made the poor Curate sigh.
Poor Mrs Clifford! she had but scant sympathy in those innumerable
discussions, male and female, of which she was at present the subject,
all in and about Summerhayes.