A SURPRISE
So Arthur Blathwayte was made Dean of Lowchester, and at once began his
preparations for vacating Restham Rectory; while his promotion
gradually subsided from a nine days' wonder into an ordinary and
commonplace event.
But there was still a greater surprise in store for me and for Restham.
Annabel came into the library one morning with the ominous words: "I've
got something to say to you, Reggie."
I looked up from the letter I was writing, and wondered indifferently
what fresh vexation was in store. Nothing had any longer the power to
vex me very much: but I could guess from Annabel's expression that
something was coming which would vex me as much as it was able.
"Well, what is it?" I asked.
Annabel remained standing opposite to me on the other side of the
writing-table.
"I expect it will surprise you a good deal, Reggie."
"Well, out with it. Has Blathwayte been offered another Deanery, or
has the cook given notice? And don't you think you'd better sit down?"
Annabel sat down on the most uncomfortable chair within reach. "Mr.
Blathwayte has asked me to marry him, and I've accepted," she blurted
out.
She was right. It did surprise me more than I had thought I could ever
be surprised again. It fairly took my breath away.
"Good Heavens, Annabel!" I gasped, when my breath returned to me.
"This is astounding news indeed."
The murder being out, Annabel was herself again, and went on explaining
with her accustomed volubility: "I was surprised myself, Reggie, when
Arthur (I shall call him Arthur now) proposed to me, as I had given up
the idea of marrying years ago. Just at first the notion seemed to me
ridiculous. But after I'd thought it over for a bit, I saw how
necessary it was for anybody as important as a Dean to have a wife at
his elbow to tell him what to do, and what not to do. It didn't matter
while he was only Rector of a small village like this, though even here
he rarely acted without my advice: but I don't see how he could
possibly manage to be Dean of Lowchester all by himself, do you?"
I admitted the difficulties of undertaking such a situation
single-handed, and my sister continued: "Although I have the greatest
respect--I think I may say the deepest affection--for Mr. Bl----Arthur
(I find it a little difficult to remember to say Arthur at present, but
I shall soon get into the way), I cannot blind my eyes to the fact that
he is inclined to have ritualistic tendencies, and a cathedral, I
consider, is just the place to encourage that sort of thing, what with
the anthems and daily services, and goodness knows what! So different
from the quiet routine of a mere parish church. But, you see, if I was
there, he couldn't give himself over altogether to ritualism."
I did see that--clearly--in spite of my dazed condition.
"I should be dreadfully vexed," Annabel went on, as I was still more or
less speechless with amazement, "if after having got such a splendid
appointment, Mr. Blathwayte, I mean Arthur, spoilt it all by ritualism
or any folly of that kind. It would be such a dreadful pity! I have
often noticed that people wait for a thing for years, and then when
they get it at last, they do something that makes you wish they had
never had it at all. And I should blame myself if Arthur did anything
of that kind."
I winced. I had waited for forty-three years for the happiness that
comes to most men in their twenties, and then somebody had done
something that made me wish I had never had it at all: but I was as yet
far from seeing that that somebody was myself.
"And then, of course," continued Annabel, with a change in her voice,
"there is you."
"Yes, there is me," I replied grimly. I wondered how Annabel was going
to explain me away.
"At first I felt I really couldn't leave you--especially now you are
quite alone; and that I must refuse Mr. Blath--Arthur, in consequence.
But on thinking the matter over and looking at it sensibly, I
remembered that a man must leave his father and mother and cleave to
his wife, which of course includes a woman and her brother. And, when
all's said and done, you married, so why shouldn't I?"
By this time I had recovered my speech, and also my better feelings.
At the first shock the idea of Annabel's marriage was revolting to me:
I do not attempt to deny it: and the thought of her leaving me seemed
Fate's final blow. But as I pulled myself together I realised that the
selfishness of sorrow was swallowing me up, and I determined to escape
from it before it was too late.
Much is said on behalf of the sweetening uses of adversity; but, for my
part, when people talk about the discipline of suffering, I always want
to substitute the word "temptation" for "discipline," as I know few
greater temptations to selfishness than bodily sickness and mental
anguish. I cannot believe that either sickness or sorrow in itself
makes men better: but if men grow better in spite of sickness and
sorrow, then they are conquerors indeed. When we are told that the
Captain of our Salvation was made "perfect through suffering," I do not
think it is a proof of the beauty of suffering, but of the Divinity of
Christ. Even that crowning temptation was powerless to hurt Him. And
if He could be perfect in spite of the things He suffered, so can we,
provided that we abide in Him and He in us.
But I was not abiding in Him just then. I had gone out into the far
country, because the one restriction of the Father's House was too hard
for me: that restriction which I had persistently set aside: "If ye
forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses."
Still there was enough Grace left in me to enable me to struggle,
however vainly, against the wave of selfishness which was overwhelming
my tortured soul, and I struggled. "You are quite right, Annabel, in
saying and thinking that you have as much right to marry as I had; and
it would be abominable selfishness on my part to say a word to dissuade
you from any course which tended to your happiness."
Here Annabel's sense of justice interrupted me. "Still, Reggie, I did
say no end of words to try to dissuade you: there's no shutting your
eyes to that fact; and therefore you have a perfect right to say
anything you like to dissuade me. But I think I can honestly say that
when I tried to prevent you from marrying Fay, I was thinking of your
happiness rather than of my own."
"I'd take my oath on that," I said warmly.
"And of course I'd no idea that things would turn out as they have,"
Annabel continued, "or else I should have tried to dissuade you much
more strongly than I did. It would have been my duty to do so. Just
as it would be your duty to do anything you could to prevent me from
marrying Mr. Blath--Arthur, if you thought there was any probability of
his running off to Australia and going on to the stage."
I was again able to take my oath that I apprehended no such dangers.
"But do you love him?" I added. "That is the main thing."
"Well, I should hardly like to apply such a term as 'love' to the
feelings of a woman of my age, but I must admit that I am sincerely
attached to Arthur, and have the greatest respect for his character.
And I must also admit that the lot he asks me to share presents the
greatest attractions to me. I don't wish to appear conceited, but I do
think that I am rather wasted on a small place like this, just as
Arthur is. I mean there is more work in me than Restham requires."
"You mean that, like Mrs. Figshaw's daughter, you also want a 'scoop'?"
"A _scope_, Reggie: that is what I do mean. I love arranging things,
and I've arranged and planned and organised here till there's nothing
left to plan or arrange or organise. And we shan't be far off--only
about an hour's ride in the car; so that you can always come over and
consult me about anything, and I can come over here constantly and keep
my eye on your servants. I really don't see that with me within an
hour's motor-ride they can go very far wrong."
"Nor do I. Moreover, Ponty's eye is almost as all-seeing as yours."
"Of course," added Annabel thoughtfully, "Mr. Blathwayte, I mean
Arthur, is five years younger than I am: but if he doesn't mind that, I
don't see why you should."
"I don't," I hastened to assure her: "that is nobody's business but his
and yours. And the experience of life has taught me that there are
distinct disadvantages to a woman in having a husband older than
herself. But, Annabel," I added, getting up from my seat and going
across to where she sat and laying my hand on her shoulder, "although I
am naturally surprised at what you have told me, and am very sorry to
lose you, I am very glad as well: for I am sure it would be impossible
for any woman to have a better husband than old Arthur. I hope you
will be very happy, and, what is more, I am sure you will."
"Thank you, Reggie: and as for leaving you I feel I can do it more
easily now than I could before you were married. I'm nothing like so
necessary to you now as I was then."
I hastened to disclaim this accusation; but underneath my disclaimer I
was haunted by a lurking consciousness that Annabel's common sense had,
as usual, hit the mark. She was not as necessary to my happiness as
she had been before my marriage: nobody was, except Fay, and I feared
that she was lost to me for ever.
I cannot deny that Annabel's engagement was a tremendous surprise to
me: but as I became accustomed to the surprise, I was shocked to find
hidden beneath it an unholy little mixture of relief. I hated myself
for the knowledge, and violently battled against it, but all the same I
could not help knowing that Restham Manor without Annabel would be a
much more easy and restful abode than it had ever been before. And at
the very back of my mind--so far back that I was scarcely conscious of
it--there sprang up a tiny and indefinite hope that--with Annabel
gone--Fay might come back to me once more. But not with Frank: even
though it might be possible for me sometime to forgive my wife, it
could never be possible for me to forgive her brother: of that I felt
certain: He had injured me far too deeply. But though the possibility
of Fay's return crept into the realm of practical politics, I was too
proud to ask her to come back to me. She had left me of her own free
will, and she should come back to me of her own free will or not at
all. And this was not entirely selfish pride on my part, though
doubtless to a great extent it was. Much as I loved my wife, much as I
longed for her, I did not wish her to return until she felt she could
be happy with me. Once again--as before I proposed to her--I was not
willing to purchase my own happiness at the cost of Fay's.
Of course the marriage of Annabel to Blathwayte was a nine days' wonder
in Restham--a wonder which I shared with my humbler neighbours.
However devoted to his sisters a man may be, the fact that other men
want to marry them never fails to appeal to his sense of humour: and
the appeal is by no means minimised if the sister happens to have
attained to her fiftieth year. In spite of all the sorrow through
which I had passed and was still passing, I was still sufficiently a
boy at heart to laugh at the idea of good old Arthur's marrying Annabel.
I did not--I could not--believe that the attachment dated from
Blathwayte's youthful days, since the difference between twenty-five
and thirty is much greater than that between forty-four and forty-nine.
My explanation of the phenomenon was that he was suddenly faced with
the prospect of doing without Annabel, and found he couldn't stand it;
and so--necessity being the mother of invention--it occurred to him to
marry her instead. I think she had become as much an integral part of
his scheme of things as the sun or the moon or the General Post Office;
and although one might not spontaneously think of marrying the sun or
the moon or the General Post Office, it is conceivable that one might
even go to that length rather than do without them altogether.
But so inconsistent is human nature, although my higher self struggled
against any selfish desire to keep Annabel at Restham, and my lower
self was secretly relieved at the prospect of her departure, I was
nevertheless hurt that she should wish to leave me. Once again I was
brought face to face with the old problem, how is it that the people
always behave so much better to other people than other people ever
behave to them? To which I believe the real answer is that we all
expect so much more of each other than we are prepared to give in
return.
My unholy relief at the transference of Annabel's beneficent yoke from
my shoulders to Arthur's was shared to the fullest extent by Ponty, and
in her case it assumed no secret or surreptitious form.
"It'll be a good thing for Miss Annabel to have a house and a husband
of her own at last," she remarked, "to order about as she pleases; and
leave you and me to do what we like at the Manor, Master Reggie."
"But you seem to forget that she is taking a vow of obedience to her
husband," I suggested, "which she certainly never took with regard to
you and me."
Ponty shook her old head. "Vows or no vows, Miss Annabel will always
wear the breeches."
"Which in this case happens to be gaiters as well," I added: "but I've
no doubt that she will wear them all, with the apron thrown in."
"I shan't so much mind Miss Annabel having everything her own way at
the Deanery, Master Reggie, because when all's said and done it's the
course of nature for a woman to rule her own husband; but no woman was
ever intended to rule her brother, and particularly her brother's wife,
and it's against nature that she should. And what's against nature
always ends in trouble sooner or later, mark my words! There was a man
at Poppenhall when I was a girl who suddenly took it into his head to
leave off eating meat, and lived instead upon nuts. He said there was
a lot of nourishment in a nut, which it stands to reason there couldn't
be, it all being made of what you might call wood, and indigestible at
that. But anyway, he hadn't lived on nuts for more than a year when
he, fell off a rick he was thatching and broke his neck. Which was
nothing but a judgment upon him for going against nature. And for
months before he died, you could hear the nuts rattling inside him,
like a baby's rattle."
"A terrible fate!" I said gravely. "But I may add for your comfort
that if it is natural, as you say, for every woman to rule her own
husband, there is no fear of Miss Annabel's going against nature: and I
am sure that the Dean will make her an excellent husband."
"None better: he's one in a thousand is Mr. Blathwayte, and always has
been. And Miss Annabel won't make a bad wife either, for them as like
those masterful, managing sort of wives. She'll always have her house
kept beautiful; and she'll be Dean of Lowchester and Chapter too, if
they don't take care."
"But she'll be a very good Dean and Chapter, Ponty."
"Yes, Master Reggie, you have the right of it there. Whatever Miss
Annabel sets herself to do, she'll do well: no manner of doubt on that
point. She's always from a child been one to do her duty: I will say
that for her. It's only when she sets about doing other people's duty
that she begins to get troublesome."
"The Dean and Chapter may possibly find it troublesome when she begins
to do their duty," I suggested.
"That's their business and not mine, Master Reggie. Miss Annabel has
been my business for close on fifty years, and I'm glad to hand her on
to somebody else. Not that I'm not fond of her, for I am, and have
been ever since I took her on from the monthly nurse forty-nine years
ago: but she was a handful from a baby, though always a fine child,
with a skin as fair as a lily, and hair that curled quite easy and kept
in curl, though I can't pretend as it ever curled natural, because it
didn't. But I'd no trouble in curling it as some folks have. I
remember a woman at Poppenhall, whose children's hair was as straight
as never was, though she put it in curling-papers every night of their
lives, feeling she didn't like to be bested by her own children's hair,
as you might say. But instead of taking the curl any better, it all
came off, the curling-papers having stopped the natural growth; and
those children's heads were as bare as billiard-balls. I suppose it
was a judgment on her for going against nature."
"But you went against nature in curling Miss Annabel's hair, and yet no
judgment seems to have fallen upon you," said I, as I thought
pertinently.
"That was quite different, Master Reggie." Like the rest of her kind,
Ponty recognised the incalculable difference between her own case and
the case of everybody else. "Although Miss Annabel's hair didn't curl
what you might call naturally, like yours, it was very easy to curl,
and it kept in something beautiful: and it seemed very hard for your
poor mamma to have a boy whose curls had to be cut off and a girl who
hadn't any. And then her ladyship's children were her ladyship's
children, and not like ordinary common folk." Ponty's logic always
roused my wonder and admiration.
While she was speaking, my wandering gaze fell upon two portraits hung
on the nursery wall: a fat little girl with pink cheeks and blue eyes,
and stiff curls like great yellow sausages, who was dressed in a white
frock and a blue sash; and a thin, little, dark-eyed boy with pale
cheeks and terrible brown ringlets, and who was disfigured still
further by a green velvet suit and a ghastly lace collar. These
caricatures were supposed to reproduce Annabel and myself in early
youth; and in Ponty's eyes they represented the perfection of personal
beauty as depicted by the highest form of human art.
But while I smiled--as I had often smiled before--at the hideousness of
these pictures, a great wave of envy of the children whom they
represented swept over me; an overwhelming longing to be once more the
sheltered little boy in the frightful green suit, whose world was
Annabel and whose Heaven was Ponty and his mother. Happy little boy,
upon whose wrath the sun never went down, and who knew no sorrow so
great that his mother could not cure it! I would gladly have changed
places with him, even though the change involved the handicaps of long
brown curls and a large lace collar.