BY J. E. BUCKROSE
Because of Jane
A Bachelor’s Comedy
The Browns
Gay Morning
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK
=THE POCKET BOOKS=
=A BACHELOR’S=
=COMEDY=
_By_ J. E. BUCKROSE
Author of
“Down Our Street,” “Love In a Little Town,” etc.
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1912
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
_Dramatic rights reserved by the Author_
A BACHELOR’S COMEDY
A BACHELOR’S COMEDY
CHAPTER I
THIS was no comedy to those most concerned, of course, for comedy is
like happiness—directly a person knows he is in it, he is out of it.
Tragedy, on the other hand, can only touch those who do not take
themselves seriously enough.
No man, however, could take himself more seriously than did the Reverend
Andrew Deane as he travelled down alone in a third-class railway
carriage to his new living of Gaythorpe-on-the-Marsh.
When the train neared Millsby, the station for Gaythorpe, he rose
hastily and peered at the piece of looking-glass provided for
self-conscious travellers. Yes, his worst fears were altogether
justified. His hair curled in a stiff bush above his forehead, in spite
of brilliantine applied at the very last moment before leaving his
London lodgings. Why—he demanded desperately of himself—why had he not
brought a bottle in his pocket?
For he considered curls not only undignified but unclerical. His
sensitiveness on the subject had started at the age of six, when he
still wore them rather long and other little boys called him “Annie”! He
fought the other little boys and induced his mother to have his hair
cut, but the wound remained and rankled.
“Pshaw! Most annoying!” he said, passing his hand over his offending
head. Then he sat down and blew his nose nervously as the train glided
into Millsby station.
“Morning, Mr. Deane. I suppose you are the Reverend Deane?” said a fat
gentleman with black hair and a red face, approaching the carriage door.
“Yes. Thank you. How-do-you-do?” said Andy, rather jerkily.
“My name’s Thorpe,” said the fat man, with colossal repose. “I’m the
churchwarden. Glad to welcome you to your new parish, though it’s only
for a few hours.”
“You are very kind,” responded Andy, feeling sure that the porter, the
stationmaster and three stragglers were listening, and anxious to be as
like his late senior curate—who was tall, lean, and immensely
impressive—as possible.
“I expect you’re going to see what you want in the way of furniture for
the Vicarage?” said Mr. Thorpe, moving ponderously towards the gate.
“Yes,” said Andy breathlessly.
It is rather a breathless thing, of course, to stand finally on the
summit of one’s desires.
“Cart’s waiting. No luggage this time, I s’pose?” said Mr. Thorpe, who
economised words. “Come this way, then.” And to the stationmaster, who
stepped forward, thin and alert: “This is the Reverend Deane, our new
Vicar.”
Again the parson shook hands, but that was nothing; because an eternal
handshaking is as essential a part of a clergyman’s life as putting on
his trousers: it was the absence of the Andrew that went home to him.
All his life he had been dogged by an undignified “Andy,” which was even
more unclerical than the curls. Now he meant to drop it for ever. No one
here had known him before at school or college—no one here was
acquainted with the aunt by marriage and the cousins who had been his
family since the age of sixteen—he would drop the boyish “Andy” into
the limbo of the past.
From all this it will be gathered, and rightly, that the Reverend Andrew
Deane had obtained a living almost as soon as it was legally possible,
and that he had a boyish air which made every one treat him like a boy.
“There’s a good strawberry bed in the Vicarage garden,” said Mr. Thorpe,
as he settled himself in the cart. “Gee-up, mare!”
Then he seemed to think he had said all there was to say, and they
jogged on silently through the quiet lanes.
After the hurry and bustle of the growing years, and the time at
college, and the London curacy, Andy seemed, as he sat there, to have
come out into some quiet place where he could look round and listen. He
felt, unconsciously, as a man does who has stood on a country road to
watch a noisy procession pass: the last straggler vanishes in the cloud
of dust behind it—the clash of music and shouting dies away—and a lark
that has sung unnoticed all the time, goes on singing.
This is the voice of peace grown audible at last, and those are very
happy who hear it.
“H-hem,” said Mr. Thorpe, rousing himself at a sharp corner. “Funny you
should be a bachelor. We seem in for unmarried parsons.”
“In the present day there are many——” began Andy. But when Mr. Thorpe
started a speech he had a sort of steam-roller habit of finishing it.
“I was looking at the church-books the other day—they only go back to
1687—and the first vicar whose name stands there was a bachelor. He was
there fifty years. He signed himself Will Ford, though he’s called
Gulielmus now on his grave by the churchyard path. Gee-up, mare!”
But in that minute Andy saw it all, and across the centuries he greeted
a brother.
“That’s the church,” said Mr. Thorpe, pulling up on the crest of a
little hill and pointing with his whip towards a square tower with the
roofs of a village clustering near; a flight of rooks trailed across
blue sky and grey-white clouds.
Andy drew a long breath.
“It’s—it’s extraordinarily peaceful,” he said.
“Not so peaceful as you’d——However, best find out for yourself,” said
Mr. Thorpe.
So they jogged on again, cop, cop, cop in a sunny silence, until they
neared the Vicarage, when the churchwarden added—
“Mr. and Mrs. Stamford are away, else they’d have asked you to lunch, of
course, as they gave you the living. I thought you’d maybe look round
the Vicarage, and then come up to my house for a meal. Mrs. Thorpe has a
cold fowl waiting for you when you’re ready for it.”
“Thank you. It’s awfully good——”
“And I’d have stopped to show you round myself,” said Mr. Thorpe,
rolling on, as it were, over Andy’s acknowledgments, “but I have to see
a man about some pigs. However, young Sam Petch’ll be there. He was odd
man to the old Vicar.”
“Do you advise me to retain his services?” inquired Andy, with the
responsible dignity of a vicar and a householder.
“Um,” said Mr. Thorpe. “I don’t know. The poor old Vicar grew very
feeble towards the end, and let things go. And those Petches are none of
’em models. They don’t seem to know when they’re speaking the truth and
when they aren’t. And young Sam drinks a bit too. No, I can’t really
advise you to keep him on.”
“I shall certainly not do so after what you tell me,” said the new
Vicar, sitting very erect. “I have the strongest feelings about the
households of the clergy—they should be above reproach.”
“Y-yes,” said Mr. Thorpe. Then, relieved, “And, of course, the Petches
have William to fall back on.”
“If there is any one responsible that settles——” began Andy, when the
mare shied violently at a man on the road, and he had to devote his
attention to his new hat.
“It’s the man who’s waiting to see me about the pigs,” said Mr. Thorpe
calmly, indicating a red-faced, angry-looking person on the roadside.
“He looks as if he was tired of waiting. Should you mind walking across
the churchyard instead of driving round to the Vicarage gate?”
“Of course,” cried Andy, jumping down; and followed by Mr. Thorpe’s
hearty “Mind you come up for a meal as soon as you’re ready,” he went
through the churchyard gate.
It clicked loosely behind him, easy with the passing of the generations,
and as he walked down the path a great many of these thoughts which are
common to all generous youth passed through his mind; for there is, in
every one of us, such a glorious wish to do something for the world when
we are young, though we can no more talk about it, then, than Andy could
have done as he looked at the gravestone of that Gulielmus who in life
had been plain Will Ford.
Even to his own soul, Andy did not say those things; he only remarked to
himself that he would be always, as it were, Gulielmus. The abbreviation
should not intrude. The Reverend Andrew Deane he was, and the Reverend
Andrew Deane he would remain.
Thus reflecting he reached the little gate leading into the Vicarage
garden, and a tall, middle-aged man stood there, cap in hand. Honesty
was in his blue eyes—respectful candour in his pleasant voice.
“Mr. Thorpe wished me to show you round, sir,” he said.
“Ah! Good-day. Where is the lad?”
“The lad?” said the man, a little surprised. “Oh, he’s got a place at
Millsby, sir.”
“Good. That’s excellent,” said Andy, much relieved at not being obliged
to start with a dismissal. “Now for the house.”
“Peas here,” said the man, passing a plot of ground, “and beans there. I
bought the seed and sowed them on my own responsibility. ‘Whoever’s
coming,’ says I to myself, ‘old or young, he’ll want peas and beans.’”
The words flowed in that delightful easy way which is of all human
sounds the most comfortable, running into the heart like a cordial.
“Most thoughtful of you,” said Andy warmly.
And his fellow-curates in London had talked of the apathy of village
people! He would tell them about this when he saw them. What working-man
of their flock would buy peas and beans and sow them for love of the
Church?
“I put a row of potatoes in too,” continued the man. “Says I to my wife,
‘Married _or_ single, he’ll want potatoes.’”
“You’re married, then?” said Andy, as they reached the house door,
wishful to show interest in the domestic concerns of this ardent
churchman.
“Yes,” replied the man. “My wife can’t get about much, I’m sorry to say.
Legs given way. But”—he gave a queer side look at Andy—“it isn’t that
she’s lost power, so to speak: the power’s only moved from her legs into
her tongue.”
Andy smiled back—and when two men enjoy together the immemorial joke
about a woman’s tongue it is as good as a sign of freemasonry—then he
said solemnly, “Very sad for you both, I am sure.”
“Yes,” said the man, immediately solemn too. “I’m sure I don’t know what
we would do if it wasn’t for William.”
“William!” repeated Andy. “Why—what is your name?”
“Samuel Petch,” said the man.
“Then it will be _young_ Sam Petch who has taken a situation at
Millsby?” demanded Andy.
“_I’m_ young Sam Petch. Father’s old Sam Petch. He’s eighty-one.”
“Oh!” said Andy.
And almost in silence he went over the Vicarage escorted by his pleasant
and obliging guide, who said at every turn, “We ought to trim
honeysuckle; I only waited until you came,” or “I put a few newspapers
down here, because the sun seemed to be fading the paint.”
Andy tramped up and down stairs, and peered into cellars, and found no
words in which to inform young Sam Petch that his services were not
required.
How was it possible in face of that trustful confidence to say abruptly,
“You are mistaken. You may remove your peas, beans, and potatoes, or I
will pay for them. Even your wife’s legs are nothing to me, though I
deplore them. You must depart”? Andy could not do it.
At last Sam Petch went back to lock up the opened rooms while the new
Vicar stood alone at his own front door. It was rather a dignified door,
with pillars where roses grew and five steps leading into the garden,
and Andy’s heart swelled with a proud sense of possession. Here he would
stand welcoming in the senior curate who had treated him like a rather
stupid schoolboy. Here the aunt and cousins who could not remember that
he was a man and a clergyman would take on a proper attitude of respect.
Here the lady lay-helper who had so condescended to him in the London
parish would be received, kindly, but—He held out a hand and rehearsed
the greeting. The bland and prosperous Vicar on his own threshold. Quite
equal to dealing with anything.
“A-hem!” coughed Sam Petch behind him.
“Ah—that you, Sam?” said Andy, turning very red and drawing in his
hand. “We—er—we had better be moving on. I was just—er—exercising my
arm.”
“Exercise splendid thing, sir,” said Sam, tactfully looking away. And
while they walked down the road Andy said to himself that a man
accustomed for two years to dealing with sharp Cockneys would find the
simple villager a very easy problem. All he had to do was to wait until
they reached the cottage at the next turning and then say, firmly but
kindly, that he did not need Mr. Petch’s services.
The turning was two hundred yards away—one hundred and fifty——
“Here’s my poor wife at the gate,” said Sam. “Looked after the old Vicar
like a mother, she did, until her legs went. It’s one of her bad days,
but she was bent on saying a word of welcome to you as you went past.”
And of course Andy had to put it off a little longer while he took Mrs.
Petch’s hand and bade her “Good morning.”
She placed her other hand on her heart, and began to speak quickly in a
thin, high voice with a gasp in it.
“I’m done up, sir—waiting here so long for you—will you step in?”
So, of course, Andy went through the little garden in the wake of Mrs.
Petch’s dragging footsteps.
“It’s such a comfort,” said Mrs. Petch, sitting limply, “to feel we’re
settled again. Unsettledness is what tries the female nerves worse than
anything, as you’ll no doubt find out some day, sir.”
Andy passed his hand across his brow. It was very difficult. But it was
now or never. He rushed blindly at the fence with an incoherent—
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Petch, but I have—that is to
say—your husband’s services will not be required.”
He mopped his brow, forgetful of all clerical dignity, while Mr. and
Mrs. Petch looked at him and said nothing, and he felt as if red-hot
worms were crawling about his unprotected person. Still they said
nothing; and that was what made it so awful. At last a parrot screeched
in the stillness.
“You—you have a relative to—er—fall back upon,” said poor Andy.
Mrs. Petch took a drink of water and passed a handkerchief across her
eyes, then she asked faintly—
“What relative?”
“One named—er—William,” said Andy. “I understand——”
“T-that’s William!” interrupted Mrs. Petch, pointing to the parrot; then
she laughed hysterically and burst into tears. “We get five shillings a
week from an old mistress of mine as long as the parrot lives. And for
that my poor husband is to lose his place. Oh, it’s hard—it’s cruel
hard.”
Andy stood up, rather upset, but determined now to go through with it.
“Look here,” he said. “That’s not the only reason. I gather that your
husband is addicted to drink.” Andy paused and elevated his chin. “A
clergyman’s household must be above reproach.”
“It’s not true,” said Mrs. Petch eagerly. “He’s always so much livelier
than the other men at Gaythorpe that when he gets a glass and is a bit
livelier still, they think he’s drunk.”
“Give me a chance, sir,” said Sam Petch, in a low tone, speaking at
last.
And of all the winged words in any language which he could have chosen
to shoot straight at Andy’s heart, those were most sure to hit the core
of it.
A chance!
Oh, Andy’s young soul had been wrung during those two years in London by
the sight of thousands who had never had a chance, or who had missed it,
or had wilfully wasted it. The ragged horde of them with haggard eyes
and dirty soft hands seemed to press about him in the flowery silence of
the cottage doorway.
“All right,” he said, drawing a long breath. “I’ll give you a chance.”
“You shan’t have cause to regret it, sir,” said Sam Petch quietly, with
a simple manliness that pleased Andy.
All the same, on leaving the cottage, he felt bound to pause at the door
in order to deliver a further warning.
“I must ask you to adhere to the strict truth in all our dealings
together,” he remarked austerely.
“He always does,” said Mrs. Petch, before her husband could reply.
“I shall be glad to find it so,” said Andy.
“Only,” added Sam Petch, scratching his head, “it’s so hard to tell the
difference. A lie—well, often it isn’t exactly a lie——”
“What else can it be?” demanded Andy.
“A lie——” repeated Sam. “Well, it’s often”—he searched the ceiling
and derived inspiration from a string of onions—“it’s often the truth
the other way out.”
“The difference between truth and falsehood is always perfectly clear
and distinct,” said Andy, opening the door. And, really, he was still
young enough to think so.
Sam Petch accompanied him with a sort of subdued dignity to the
Thorpes’, and there said farewell.
“You may rely on me, sir,” he said.
Andy held out his hand impulsively.
“I think I may, Petch.”
Then the churchwarden’s wife came hospitably forward and shook hands
with the new Vicar. She was as fat as Mr. Thorpe, but with a different
sort of fatness; for while he seemed to be made of something very solid,
like wood, she shook and wobbled to such an extent that Andy, following
her down two steps into a cool room, held his breath involuntarily for
fear she should crack.
“Mr. Thorpe’s out still,” she said, panting slightly. “But my nephew
will take you to wash your hands. Wa-alter!”
A fat youth with round cheeks that swelled up under his eyes came
reluctantly through the French window, followed by a friend.
“They’re holidaying,” said Mrs. Thorpe. “Now you go and have a wash, and
then come down and help yourself. I shall be somewhere about when you’ve
finished your meal.”
The fat boy escorted the guest upstairs, and left him in the spotless
stuffiness of the spare-bedroom, where everything smelt of camphor and
lavender. When Andy came down he was almost dismayed to see the banquet
which had been prepared for him. Cold fowls. A whole ham. A huge trifle.
A dish of tarts and cheesecakes. A cream cheese. It was stupendous. And
Mrs. Thorpe’s fowls and cheeses and hams were all bigger, tarts more
full of jam, cheesecakes more overflowing with yellow richness, than any
in the whole shire.
Mrs. Thorpe had never been an uncharitable woman, and in speaking of a
mean relative the most scornful thing she could say was, “You could eat
one of her cheesecakes in a mouthful. Now you know the sort of woman!”
Andy sat down, realising that he was very hungry, and he was rather
consoled to find that some one had obviously been lunching before him.
He would scarcely have dared to mar the exquisite proportions of the
trifle or to disturb the elegant decoration of the fowls. The previous
luncher had even spilt fragments on the shining tablecloth.
He glanced at his watch, and began to eat hastily, finding his time was
growing short, and as he was finishing Mrs. Thorpe came in. She paused
at the door, gave a little grunt of astonishment which she changed into
a cough, and said heartily—
“Well, I am glad you’ve enjoyed your lunch. Mary”—she shouted down a
long stone passage—“bring in the coffee.”
Mary—and this was a queer thing—Mary also paused in the doorway with a
grunt of astonishment which she turned into a cough; but Andy did not
notice this, and after drinking his coffee he climbed into Mr. Thorpe’s
cart, and was driven to the station, feeling as only a man can feel who
gets what he wants from life before he loses his illusions.
The groom eyed him curiously as he sat looking straight ahead with the
light of youth and hopeful candour shining in his eyes—but the groom’s
gaze was upon his slack waistcoat, not upon his face.
_And in a corner of the Thorpes’ orchard fat Walter and his friend were
still munching the last remnants of a stolen feast._
The cart arrived so early at the railway station that Andy had nearly
half an hour to wait, and as one country person after another came upon
the platform, and joined a group, an obvious whisper went round,
followed by a furtive inspection of the black-coated stranger.
Andy straightened his shoulders, and unconsciously endeavoured to assume
an expression of benevolent dignity. Naturally, they were interested in
the new Vicar of Gaythorpe. It would have surprised Andy very much at
the moment to have met any one who was not interested in that gentleman,
and he felt a little glow, in passing one of the groups, to hear a woman
say—
“He’s so slight and thin. You’d wonder where he _could_ put it.”
“H-hush!” warned the rest.
Andy smiled inwardly and settled his collar. Of course they referred to
his brain. Well, it was rather a wonderful thing to have a living
presented to one at twenty-five by a man who had only chanced to hear a
single sermon. He thought it all over again. The old friend of his Vicar
attending morning service—the interview three days later—the
astonishing offer of a living that was a rich one, as livings go in
these days.
“Of course,” said Andy to himself, stepping into the railway carriage,
“I _was_ rather trenchant that morning.”
He glanced out of the window as the train slipped away through the
spring afternoon, and congratulated himself on the impression he seemed
to have made on his new neighbours. They would be eager to see him
again. Ridiculous for the London clergy to talk of apathy in the face of
such interest as he had seen at Millsby station. The parishioners were
already discussing the mental qualifications of the new Vicar with a
keenness that was perfectly delightful.
_And in the next compartment three women bent together, discussing a
wonder._
“_Was it six cheesecakes that Thorpe’s groom said?_”
“_And eight tarts! And you know Mrs. Thorpe’s tarts._”
“_Besides ham and fowl and half one of her great trifles._”
“_He must have got some complaint._”
“_Oh, I hear them London curates is half starved. P’raps he’d never seen
a meal like that before, and he couldn’t stop._”
“_But you’d think he’d burst!_”
“_That’s just it. That’s just where the wonder comes in. Cool and thin
as a lath after it all._”
“_I shall go to hear him preach._”
“_So shall I. Good as the Sword-Eating Man at Bardswell Fair. Ha-ha!_”
Poor Andy!