"Nothing is so incapacitating as self-love."
Red Riff Farm stands near the lane, between the village and the high
road, presenting its back to all comers with British sang-froid. To
approach it you must go up the wide path between the barn and the
dovecote on one side, and on the other the long, low _laiterie_ standing
above its wall, just able to look at itself in the pool, where the ducks
are breaking up its reflection. When you pass through the narrow iron
gateway in the high wall which protects the garden on the north side,
the old Jacobean house rises up above you, all built of dim rose-red and
dim blue brick, looking benignly out across the meadows over its small
enclosed garden which had once been the orchard, in which some of the
ancient bent apple trees are still like old pensioners permitted to
remain.
When Annette first passed through that gateway, the beautiful dim old
building with its latticed windows peered at her through a network of
apple blossom. But now the apple trees have long since dropped their
petals, and you can see the house clearly, with its wavering tiled
string courses, and its three rounded gables, and the vine flung half
across it.
The low, square oak door studded with nails stands wide open, showing a
glimpse of a small panelled hall with a carved black staircase coming
down into it.
We need not peer in through the window at the Shakespeare Calendar on
Aunt Maria's study table to see what time of year it is, for everything
tells us: the masses of white pinks crowding up to the threshold and
laying their sweet heads against the stone edging of their domain, the
yellow lichen in flower on the roof, the serried ranks of Sweet William
full out. It is certainly early June. And the black-faced sheep moving
sedately in the long meadows in front of the house confirm us in our
opinion, for they have shed their becoming woollen overalls and are
straddling about, hideous to behold, in their summer tights. Only the
lambs, now large and sedate, keep their pretty February coats, though by
some unaccountable fatality they have all, poor dears, lost their tails.
Lowshire is a sedate place. I have never seen those solemn Lowshire
lambs jump about as they do in Hampshire. A Hampshire lamb among his
contemporaries with the juice of the young grass in him! Hi! Friskings
and caperings! That is a sight to make an old ram young. But the
Lowshire lambs seem ever to see the shadow of the blue-coated butcher in
the sunshine. They move in decorous bands as if they were going to
church, hastening suddenly all together as if they were late.
Lowshire is a sedate place. The farm lads still in their teens move as
slowly as the creeping rivers, much slower than the barges. The boys
early leave off scurrying in shouting bands down the lanes in the dusk.
The little girls peep demurely over the garden gates, and walk slowly
indoors, if spoken to.
We have ascertained that it is early June, and we need no watch to tell
us what o'clock it is. It is milking-time, the hour when good little
boys "whom mother can trust" are to be seen hurrying in an important
manner with milk-cans. Half-past four it must be, for the red cows,
sweet-breathed and soft-paced, have passed up the lane half an hour ago,
looking gently to right and left with lustrous, nunlike eyes, now and
then putting out a large red tongue to lick at the hedgerow. Sometimes,
as to-day, the bull precedes them, hustling along, surly, _affaire_,
making a low, continuous grunting which is not anger, for he is kind as
bulls go, so much as "orkardness," the desire of the egotist to make his
discontentment public, and his disillusionment with his pasture and all
his gentle-tempered wives.
Annette came down the carved staircase, and stood a moment in the
doorway in a pale lilac gown (the same that you will remember the Miss
Blinketts saw half an hour later).
Her ear caught the sound of a manly voice mingled with Aunt Maria's
dignified tones, and the somewhat agitated accompaniment of the clink of
tea-things. Aunt Harriet was evidently more acutely undecided than usual
which cup to fill first, and was rattling them in the way that always
irritated Aunt Maria, though she made heroic efforts to dissimulate it.
Annette came to the conclusion that she should probably be late for
choir practice if she went into the drawing-room. So she walked
noiselessly across the hall and slipped through the garden. A dogcart
was standing horseless in the courtyard, and the delighted female
laughter which proceeded from the servants' hall showed that a male
element in the shape of a groom had been added to the little band of
women-servants.
What a fortunate occurrence that there should be a caller!--for on this
particular afternoon Aunt Maria had reached a difficult place in her new
book, the hero having thrown over his lady-love because she, foolish
modernist that she was, toying with her life's happiness, would not
promise to leave off smoking. The depressed authoress needed a change of
thought. And it would be pleasant for the whole household if Aunt
Harriet's mind could be diverted from the fact that her new air-cushion
leaked; not the old black one, that would not have mattered so much, but
the new round red society one which she used when there were visitors
in the house. Aunt Harriet's mind had brooded all day over the
air-cushion as mournfully as a hart's tongue over a well.
Annette hoped it was a cheerful caller. Perhaps it was Canon Wetherby
from Riebenbridge, an amiable widower, and almost as great an admirer of
Aunt Maria's works as of his own stock of anecdotes.
In the meanwhile if she, Annette, missed her own lawful tea at home, to
which of the little colony of neighbours in the village should she go
for a cup, on her way to the church, where choir practice was held?
To the Dower House? Old Lady Louisa Manvers had ceased to come
downstairs at all, and her daughter Janey, a few years older than
herself, poor downtrodden Janey, would be only too glad to see her. But
then her imbecile brother Harry, with his endless copy-book remarks,
would be certain to be having tea with her, and Lady Louisa's trained
nurse, whom Annette particularly disliked. No, she would not go to the
Dower House this afternoon. She might go to tea with the Miss Blinketts,
who were always kind to her, and whose cottage lay between her and the
church.
The two Miss Blinketts were about the same age as the Miss Nevills, and
regarded them with deep admiration, not unmixed with awe, coupled with
an evident hope that a pleasant intercourse might presently be
established between The Hermitage and Red Riff Farm. They were indeed
quite excited at the advent among them of one so gifted as the author of
_Crooks and Coronets_, who they perceived from her books took a very
high view of the responsibility created by genius.
Annette liked the Miss Blinketts, and her knowledge of Aunt Maria's
character had led her to hope that this enthusiastic deference might
prove acceptable to a wearied authoress in her hours of relaxation. But
she soon found that the Miss Nevills with all the prestige of London and
a literary _milieu_ resting upon them were indignant at the idea that
they could care to associate with "a couple of provincial old maids."
Their almost ferocious attitude towards the amiable Miss Blinketts had
been a great shock to Annette, who neither at that nor at any later time
learned to make the social distinctions which occupied so much of her
two aunts' time. The Miss Nevills' acceptance of a certain offering of
ferns peeping through the meshes of a string bag brought by the Miss
Blinketts, had been so frigid, so patrician, that it had made Annette
more friendly than she would naturally have been. She had welcomed the
ferns with enthusiasm, and before she had realized it, had become the
object of a sentimental love and argus-eyed interest on the part of the
inmates of The Hermitage which threatened to have its embarrassing
moments.
No, now she came to think of it, she would not go to tea with the Miss
Blinketts this afternoon.
Of course, she might go to the Vicarage. Miss Black, the Vicar's sister
who kept house for him, had often asked her to do so before choir
practice. But Annette had vaguely felt of late that Miss Black, who had
been very cordial to her on her arrival and was still extremely polite,
did not regard her with as much favour as at first: in fact, that as Mr.
Black formed a high and ever higher opinion of her, that of his sister
was steadily lowered to keep the balance even.
Annette knew what was the matter with Mr. Black, though that gentleman
had not yet discovered what it was that was affecting his usually placid
temper and causing him on his parochial rounds so frequently to take the
short cut past Red Riff Farm.
She had just decided, without emotion but with distinct regret, that she
must do without tea this afternoon, when a firm step came along the lane
behind her, and Mr. Black overtook her. For once he had taken that short
cut to some purpose, though his face, fixed in a dignified
preoccupation, gave no hint that he felt Fortune had favoured him at
last.
The Miss Blinketts had heard it affirmed "by one who knew a wide sweep
of clergy and was therefore competent to form an opinion," that Mr.
Black was the handsomest vicar in the diocese. But possibly that was not
high praise, for the clergy had evidently deteriorated in appearance
since the ancient Blinkett, that type of aristocratic beauty, had been
laid to rest under the twisted yew in the Riff churchyard.
But, anyhow, Mr. Black was sufficiently good-looking to be called
handsome in a countryside where young unmarried men were rare as water
ousels. He was tall and erect, and being rather clumsily built, showed
to great advantage in a surplice. In a procession of clergy you would
probably have picked out Mr. Black at once as its most impressive
figure. He was what the Miss Blinketts called "stately." When you looked
closely at him you saw that his nose was a size too large, that his head
and ears and hands and feet were all a size too large for him. But the
general impression was pleasant, partly because he always looked as if
he had that moment emerged as speckless as his surplices from Mrs.
Nicholls' washtub.
It was an open secret that Mrs. Nicholls thought but little of Miss
Black, "who wasn't so to call a lady, and washed her flannels at home."
But she had a profound admiration for the Vicar, though I fear if the
truth were known it was partly because he "set off a surplice so as
never was."
Mr. Black allowed his thoughtful expression to lighten to a grave smile
as he walked on beside Annette, determined that on this occasion he
would not be commonplace or didactic, as he feared he had been after the
boot and shoe club. He was under the illusion, because he had so often
said so, that he seldom took the trouble to do himself justice socially.
It might be as well to begin now.
"Are you on your way to choir practice?"
"What a question! Of course I am."
"Have you had tea?"
"No."
"Neither have I. Do come to the Vicarage first, and Angela will give us
some." "Angela" was Miss Black.
Annette could not find any reason for refusing.
"Thank you. I will come with pleasure."
"I would rather go without any meal than tea."
Mr. Black felt as he said it that this sentiment was _for him_
inadequate, but he was relieved that Annette did not appear to find it
so. She smiled and said--
"It certainly is the pleasantest meal in the day."
At this moment, the Miss Blinketts and I saw, as I have already told
you, the legs of the Vicar pass up the lane outlined against a lilac
skirt. We watched them pass in silence, and then Miss Blinkett said
solemnly--
"If anything should come of that, if he should eventually make up his
mind to marry, I consider Annette would be in every way a worthy
choice."
"Papa was always against a celibate clergy," said Miss Amy, as if that
settled the question.
Annette and her possible future had nearly reached the Vicarage when a
dogcart passed them which she recognized as the one she had seen at Red
Riff. The man in it waved his hand to Mr. Black.
"That was Mr. Reginald Stirling, the novelist," Mr. Black volunteered.
"The man who wrote _The Magnet_?"
"Yes. He has rented Noyes Court from Lady Louisa. I hear he never
attends divine service at Noyes, but I am glad to say he has been to
Riff several times lately. I am afraid Bartlett's sermons are not
calculated to attract an educated man."
Mr. Black was human, and he was aware that he was a good preacher.
"I have often heard of him from Mrs. Stoddart," said Annette, with
evident interest. "I supposed he lived in Lowshire because some of the
scenes in _The Magnet_ are laid in this country."
"Are they? I had not noticed it," said Mr. Black frigidly.
He had often wished he could interest Annette in conversation, often
wondered why he seemed unable to do so. Was it really because he did not
take enough trouble, as he sometimes accused himself? But now that she
was momentarily interested he stopped short at once, as at the entrance
of a blind alley. What he really wanted was to talk, not about Mr.
Stirling but about himself, to tell her how he found good in every one,
how attracted he was to the ignorant and the simple. No. He did not
exactly desire to tell her these things, but to coerce the conversation
into channels which would show indubitably that he was the kind of man
who could discover the good latent in every one, the kind of man who
fostered the feeble aspirations of the young and the ignorant, who
entered with wide-minded sympathy into the difficulties of stupid
people, who was better read and more humorous than any of his clerical
brethren in Lowshire, to whom little children and dogs turned
intuitively as to a friend.
Now, it is not an easy thing to enter lightly into conversation if you
bring with you into it so many impedimenta. There was obviously no place
for all this heavy baggage in the discussion of Mr. Stirling's novels.
So that eminent writer was dismissed at once, and the subject was
hitched, not without a jolt, on to the effect of the Lowshire scenery on
Mr. Black. It transpired that Mr. Black was the kind of man who went for
inspiration to the heathery moor, and who found that the problems of
life are apt to unravel themselves under a wide expanse of sky.
Annette listened dutifully and politely till the Vicarage door was
reached.
It seemed doubtful afterwards, when he reviewed what he had said,
whether he had attained to any really prominent conversational peaks
during that circumscribed parley.
He felt with sudden exasperation that he needed time, scope,
opportunity, lots of opportunity, so that if he missed one there would
be plenty more, and above all absence of interruption. He never got a
chance of _really_ talking to her.