ANDY sat in his study, endeavouring to prepare a Sunday-morning sermon
that should justify the high opinion of his preaching which had led Mr.
Stamford to present him to the living of Gaythorpe.
A light rain fell outside and a scent of the honeysuckle—it being now
June—came through the open window; but Andy was not yet aware that
every wayside flower preaches the finest sermon man can preach to man,
and says, more convincingly than any parson ever could, ‘God so loved
the world.’
The new Vicar, therefore, had taken in turn such topics as the Origin of
Evil and the Reason for Free Will, handling them with a courage
perfectly remarkable when you consider how the saints of all ages have
hesitated afraid before them. This morning, however, having settled
these questions, he cast about him for something else which should be at
once striking and profound, and it was some time before he noticed a
gradually increasing noise in the other part of the house.
Even when he did become aware of it he brushed it aside from his mind
and went peacefully on, reconciling the doctrine of evolution with the
second chapter of Genesis. At last, however, the study door was burst
open in a manner that even a poet could not ignore, and Mrs. Jebb
paused, inarticulate with some unknown emotion, upon the threshold.
“_Not_ the boiler burst again?” exclaimed Andy, who had already learned
some of the trials of a housekeeper.
Mrs. Jebb swallowed, blinked, and demanded—
“Did you give that—female—permission to clean my furniture?”
It was a long way from the dawn of the world to Mrs. Simpson’s
sideboard, and for the moment Andy felt nonplussed; then he remembered.
“Oh, she’s turned up to polish it, poor woman, has she?” he said, with
an air of relief. “I told her she could. It’s all right.”
Mrs. Jebb fluttered forward, wavering a little like a butterfly that has
imbibed too much nectar, and she alighted with one trembling hand upon
the writing-table edge.
“It is not all right,” she said. “It is all very, very wrong, Mr. Deane.
Poor, I am, reduced to domestic service, I may be—but I will retire to
the workhouse before I will allow a female from outside to polish
furniture in this house while I remain your lady-cook-housekeeper.”
“Really, Mrs. Jebb—I’m sure I never——” began Andy.
“What will the parish say?” went on Mrs. Jebb, growing still more
agitated as she saw Andy’s concerned face. “What will the world say?
Naturally that I’m not fit to be your housekeeper, if Mrs. Simpson has
to come with dusters and furniture polish and an—an infant, to clean
the Vicar’s dining-room sideboard.”
A dragging sound as of something being pulled reluctantly along, a bump,
a yell, and Mrs. Simpson’s voice in the rear, shrill with motherly
indignation.
“How dare you call this dear child names?” she cried, replying to the
limitless opprobrium which lay behind the word ‘infant’ rather than to
the term itself.
“Come, come,” said Andy, rising. “He is an infant all right, aren’t you,
Jimmy? Not twenty-one yet, ha-ha! There is nothing unpleasant in the
word ‘infant.’”
He smiled ingratiatingly from one angry face to the other, trying to
carry it off easily, but in truth as frightened as a decent young man
always is when he stands between two quarrelling women.
“There’s a way,” replied Mrs. Simpson slowly, glaring with her prominent
light-blue eyes at Mrs. Jebb—“there’s a way of saying ‘woman’ that
implies things I wouldn’t sully my lips by uttering. And yet ‘woman’
isn’t a bad word.”
“It all comes to this,” panted Mrs. Jebb. “Is Mrs. Simpson to walk in
without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave and start polishing your
sideboard, or is she not?”
“It’s _her_ sideboard,” said Andy weakly. “But I’m sure you’ll look
after it all right, if Mrs. Simpson doesn’t mind.”
“Why should she mind? And if it’s hers, why doesn’t she take it away?
Dozens of times I’ve said that the hideous thing completely ruins your
dining-room, and I’m sure——”
“Now,” interposed Mrs. Simpson, who grew, quiet as her opponent grew
noisy, “_now_ I shall say what I’d meant to keep to myself, because Mrs.
Jebb has her living to earn, poor thing, and I wouldn’t do her an
injury. That sideboard in its present state, Mr. Deane, is a disgrace.
So is your beautiful table. So is all the furniture.”
“It only wants dusting. We’ve not had time this morning,” quavered Mrs.
Jebb, retreating before this onslaught.
“It wants what you’ll never give it,” said Mrs. Simpson, hauling Jimmy
away, and looking back for a last shot. “It wants elbow-grease.”
“Look here,” said Andy, pulling himself together.
“I—er—really—discord in a clergyman’s house is what I greatly
dislike. Mrs. Jebb, I told Mrs. Simpson she could come and clean her
sideboard. Mrs. Simpson, you must put yourself in Mrs. Jebb’s place and
consider if your feelings might not have been hurt under similar
circumstances. This really won’t do.”
He threw his head back, settled his chin in his collar, and looked as
nearly like the senior curate before a refractory Bible Class as nature
permitted.
Mrs. Simpson paused.
“I came peacefully enough,” she said, “and I was going to tell Mrs.
Jebb, only she went off at such a tangent, that I did ring five times.
But I couldn’t make any one hear, so I walked into the hall. Then I saw
the dining-room door open, and nobody there, so I went in _there_ and
started polishing. I’ll own it may have looked funny, but she shouldn’t
have spoken as she did.”
“There! That makes all the difference. Doesn’t it, Mrs. Jebb?” said Andy
eagerly, forgetting to be dignified. “I say, shake hands and make it up.
Jimmy, shake hands with Mrs. Jebb to start with.”
“Won’t. Hate her. She’s got yeller teef like old Towzer.”
“Hush, hush,” said Mrs. Simpson, changing all in a minute from the
fighting woman to the careful mother. “Jimmy mustn’t talk like that.
Jimmy must beg the lady’s pardon.”
“Won’t,” said that gentleman truculently.
“Jimmy must do as he’s told,” said Mrs. Simpson, then, grasping the
pudgy little hand firmly, she held it out to the housekeeper.
“I’m sure I’ve no wish——” began Mrs. Jebb, with trembling stateliness,
when Andy cast aside the mantle of the senior curate, grabbed Mrs.
Jebb’s hand in his own, and pushed the bony fingers of his
lady-cook-housekeeper towards Jimmy.
“I say,” he exclaimed boyishly, “you can’t refuse to shake hands with a
little chap like that!”
Mrs. Jebb felt the touch of the firm, young fingers on her wrist,
weakened, advanced a step, finally ‘eye-cornered’ Andy with a tremulous
smile and waggled once the fat hand of Master Simpson.
“I’m sure,” she said, “I’ve no wish to be un-neighbourly, Mrs. Simpson.
It was just seeing you there on your knees rubbing the sideboard front
when I never expected to see anything but the cat or Mr. Deane. I ought
to be able to enter into a widow’s feelings if anybody ever could. With
Mr. Jebb I was not merely a wife, I was an obsession.”
“With all my wordly goods I thee endow, of course,” quoted Mrs. Simpson
vaguely, in whose mind the words possession and obsession had somehow
run together and produced a blurred impression of Mrs. Jebb’s meaning.
But she saw Andy was anxious for peace, and gratitude for the sideboard
gradually overcoming her anger, she wished to do her part.
“Two widows living near together should be on good terms,” said Mrs.
Jebb, her annoyance also cooling, while prudence dictated a course
obviously pleasing to Andy. “Will you step into my room and have a cup
of tea? I am no breakfast-eater, and generally take one at eleven.
And”—she concluded the amend generously, “Jimmy shall have a biscuit
with pink sugar on the top.”
That settled it; for Jimmy was so fond of eating that he would have
accompanied the sweep—his idea of the embodiment of evil—to search for
biscuits with pink sugar on them.
So the baize door of the study banged in the rear of an amicable trio
while Andy sat down and mopped his brow. It was difficult to catch
evolution by the tail after that—he seemed to have gone so far from it.
But he knitted his brow, shook his fountain-pen, and started on the
quest.
One thought, however, would creep in and out of the books of reference
and between the written words—it was not so easy as it looked, to live
in a place where everybody was so inextricably mixed up with everybody
else. And later in the day he was to have another striking proof of this
queer inter-independence of which a townsman knows so little. For when
he walked past the Petches’ cottage he beheld the Attertons’ landau,
drawn by a sleek and fat pair of horses and driven by a sleek and fat
coachman, standing in front of the little gate. Elizabeth Atterton and
an ample lady in grey occupied the carriage, and they were inspecting a
parrot in a cage, which Mrs. Petch rested on the step.
“I trust,” said Mrs. Atterton, “that William is in good health. He
looks”—she paused— “he looks far from well, Emma.”
“Moulting, ’m,” said Mrs. Petch. “That’s all.”
“But this is not the season for moulting,” objected Elizabeth.
“Ah,” said Mrs. Petch, with an easy smile, “but William always was
different to other birds. Scores and hundreds of times I’ve heard my
poor mistress say so.”
“Well, it was a remark my poor aunt often made,” said Mrs. Atterton,
eyeing the dejected attitude and naked chest of the parrot doubtfully.
“I’m sure you give him every attention. You would, of course, when your
annuity dies with him. My poor aunt no doubt felt that.” She paused
again, and added in answer to Mrs. Petch’s look of wounded innocence,
“Of course, you would in any case. I do not forget what a devoted maid
you were to poor Aunt Arabella.”
“She trusted me with William,” said Mrs. Petch simply, applying the
corner of her apron to her eye.
“I know. I was not reflecting on you in any way, of course, Emma,” said
Mrs. Atterton kindly. “Only, I promised to see after William sometimes,
and I like to do it. Poor William! Of course, one can’t expect him to
live for ever.”
“Parrots sometimes live to be a hundred,” said Mrs. Petch quickly. “Sam
read that in the paper only the other day, ’m.”
“Well, we’ll hope William may,” said Mrs. Atterton comfortably. “I never
liked him, even in his best days, but I don’t want him to die.”
There was a reposeful kindness about Mrs. Atterton that seemed exactly
like that of her daughter Elizabeth—and yet, in its essence it was
altogether different.
“Good afternoon, sir,” said Mrs. Petch, long before Andy reached the
group. She greeted him with such alacrity, indeed, that an enemy might
have thought she welcomed the interruption to the interview with
William.
“Oh, mamma, here is Mr. Deane. Mr. Deane, you haven’t met my mother?”
said Elizabeth, who was, for some foolish and obscure reason, a little
nervous.
“No—er—I am very glad—that is—I am sorry—at least, I mean to say I
am delighted to meet you now,” said Andy, who, for some equally foolish
and obscure reason, was nervous too.
Mrs. Atterton beamed placidly on him.
“Sorry I did not see you when you called, Mr. Deane, but it was one of
my bad days. My back——” She paused, as if that explained all, and Andy
filled in the blank with a sympathetic—
“Of course. I’m afraid you are a great sufferer.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Atterton pleasantly, “it is not that I have any great
pain, but I collapse. Don’t I, Elizabeth?”
“Mamma is so patient,” said Elizabeth, with loving sincerity. “She hates
to make us feel——”
“Come, come, come! Bring that cup of tea! Bring that cup of tea!”
interrupted William, croaking hideously.
“Poor Aunt Arabella! Couldn’t you fancy you heard her voice from the
grave?” murmured Mrs. Atterton, shedding an easy tear.
“William belonged to my great-aunt, Mr. Deane,” explained Elizabeth.
Then it swept over Andy again with renewed force, how everybody here was
connected in some way with everybody else. He had always known in a
general way, of course, as we all do, that if you slip on a banana skin
and use expressions better left unemployed you may influence some one
for evil in central China—but he had never before come near enough to
the principle to be able to see the working of it with the naked eye.
“I thought when I first came to Gaythorpe that William was a person,”
said Andy, noticing the pink nails of Elizabeth’s ungloved hand upon the
carriage door.
“Well, poor Aunt Arabella always did say he had an immortal soul—and
you never know,” said Mrs. Atterton, willing to give everything created
the benefit of the doubt.
Then the fat coachman, who was tired of waiting, made one of his fat
charges stamp idly on the ground in a perfunctory manner, and Mrs.
Atterton said the horses were growing restive and it was time to go.
“So glad we are to see you on Thursday evening,” she said, over her
shoulder. “Good-bye, Mr. Deane. Good afternoon, Emma. Let me know how
William is, please.”
The farewells of Andy and Elizabeth were somehow merged in the
salutations of Mrs. Atterton, and the responses of Mrs. Petch, but they
looked at each other just as the carriage went off with a direct glance
which held more than either of them could yet understand of young hope
and joy and question.
“What was it?” that look said. They didn’t know—they didn’t know—only
something glorious!
Andy stood staring after the carriage until at last Mrs. Petch’s voice
from behind penetrated his understanding.
“Cars are all very well,” she said, “but there _is_ a something about a
carriage and pair—however, they _own_ motor-cars—it isn’t that.”
Andy understood that the wealth and standing of the Atterton family were
being defended, and replied at once—
“Of course. All the same, I can’t understand when you have a
Limousine——”
“Mrs. Atterton’s back won’t stand motor-cars,” said Mrs. Petch gravely,
but if so perfectly behaved a gardener’s wife could have ever winked,
Andy would have said she winked then. However, he felt the light must
have dazzled his eyes.
“Quite so,” he said. “It is a great affliction.”
“Yes, sir. It is, indeed,” responded Mrs. Petch at once. “Everything in
life, as you may say, and yet a back to spoil it all.”
“There’s always—er—something,” said Andy, feeling he ought to improve
the occasion.
“There is, indeed,” sighed Mrs. Petch, with a sort of serious
cheerfulness. “No rose without a thorn in this world, sir, and we can’t
expect any different. We should never want to go to another if we’d
everything we wanted here.”
“Nice, right-thinking woman!” reflected Andy, as he went up the road.
He was on his way to visit a woman called old Mrs. Werrit, an obscure
connection of the Werrit family who had drifted near them again in her
extreme old age, and Andy had been told that day that she was dying. But
he was ready enough to help any old person to die, just as he was ready
to help any young one to live, and he went up some crooked stairs to the
bedroom, full of confidence in himself and his office.
For some time the old woman said nothing in response to his remarks, and
allowed a daughter of Mrs. Will Werrit’s to answer for her. Maggie
Werrit felt rather glad that her aged relative was not in a talkative
mood because she lacked that polish which the best boarding-school in
Bardwell had imparted to the latest generation of the family, and the
new Vicar would look down on them all if he heard one of them talk about
‘ankerchers.’
“I hope you don’t suffer much?” said Andy, sitting down beside the bed.
Then Mrs. Werrit opened her eyes, and he was surprised to find how full
of life they were in that sunken, dull old face.
“I did suffer,” she said, “but that’s over now,” and she shut her eyes
again.
Andy took out his little book and prepared to read, when Mrs. Werrit
looked at him once more.
“The others are all gone first,” she said. “Every one of us six but me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Andy, very gently.
“You needn’t be,” said old Mrs. Werrit. “It doesn’t matter now.” She
paused, and added after a moment, “You’ll find out—all that matters at
the very end—is how near you’ve gotten to God in your life.”
Then she closed her eyes again, and Andy shut his little book and put it
in his pocket without a word, and crept reverently down the crooked
stairs as if he were leaving the presence of some one very great.
When he was far down the village street, and too far from the little
house to go back again, he realised that, for the first time in his
professional career, he had failed in his ministration to the aged poor.
He fingered his little book, feeling inclined to go back again, and all
the way home something within him smarted and burned underneath his
wandering thoughts.
Youth knows nothing more unpleasant than those secret growing pains of
the soul of which it does not understand the meaning.
Perhaps it was these—or it might have been the dull evening after a day
of clouds and storms—anyway, Andy felt driven forth after supper to
tramp restlessly up and down the garden path by the churchyard hedge.
Had he chosen the right life? Was he fitted for a country parson?
New and perplexing doubts of himself began to assail him for the first
time as he tramped up and down, casting a glance at Brother Gulielmus
every now and then over the churchyard hedge.
Had he tramped up and down here too? For the garden dated back to that
time, though the house was modern. Had he wondered and felt restless
too?
But gradually the regular motion quieted Andy’s nerves, and he began to
notice how the crimson rambler had grown, and to feel the freshness of
the dew-laden air.
Then, quite suddenly, for no reason at all, he remembered with wonderful
vividness how Elizabeth’s hand had looked upon the door of the carriage.
His mental picture of her face was indistinct, but her hand seemed
painted on the summer darkness, and he felt an intense longing to take
it in his own.
That was all he wanted—so exquisite a thing is the first beginning of
young love.
“Mr. Deane! Mr. Deane! Will you have eggs and bacon for breakfast, or
the rest of the cold ham?” shrilled Mrs. Jebb from the doorstep.
“Oh, just as you like. I’ve told you so before,” said Andy.
“But I _like_ to consult your tastes,” said Mrs. Jebb pathetically.
“Eggs and bacon, then,” said Andy.
“It’s damp under foot,” said Mrs. Jebb. Then something in the woman’s
voice and look as she tried to keep him there for company struck home to
Andy’s perceptions, and he suddenly realised that she might be dull and
lonely too.
“I say—it’s awfully good of you to bother about my tastes like that.
You mustn’t think I don’t appreciate it,” he said eagerly. “Those
gooseberry dumplings we’ve been having are fine.”
“Now Mr. Jebb couldn’t assimilate boiled paste at any price,” began Mrs.
Jebb, delighted.
So Andy listened to her for quarter of an hour and then went back to the
path by the churchyard hedge and that dream which Mrs. Jebb had
interrupted.
Or perhaps it was scarcely a dream as yet—only the indescribably
delicate stuff of which dreams are made.
Gradually, however, the quietness of all about Andy seemed to fit in
with his misty memories of Elizabeth. Tenderness. Sweetness. Repose.
Why—those meant Elizabeth—they were but other names for her.
Words gathered in his mind, singing of themselves about her sweetness.
The nightingale in a little wood half a mile away was no more singing to
his mate than Andy there, beneath the churchyard hedge.
Only, the nightingale’s song was lovely for every one, and Andy’s could
never be lovely for any one but Elizabeth.
He pictured them, hand in hand, there in the garden together, watching
the village as it went to sleep.
“Let us watch the quiet village
Till each little casement glows
For there’s something in the sight, Love,
That is like a heart’s repose.
Let us watch the starlight glimmer
Through the windless evening air,
For there’s something in your eyes, Love,
That is like a star at prayer.
Let us watch——”
“Beg pardon, sir. Didn’t see you. Churchyard’s chortesh way home for
me,” said Sam Petch, blundering through the gate in the hedge.
“Beautiful night, sir.”
Sam was not uproariously drunk, but he was affably so, and took no
notice of Andy’s frigid—
“I will speak with you in the morning, Petch. Go home at once.”
“Sho I will, sir. Sho I will,” said Sam heartily. “An’thing to oblige.
Good-night, sir.” He paused, then looked back and said pleasantly, “Had
a bit o’ bad luck on my way home, sir. Wife sent me for sixpennoth o’
brandy for her spasms, and I’ve broke the bottle. I suppose you haven’t
a drop you could——”
“No,” said Andy sternly. “Go home.”
“Of course, sir. _Of_ course. No offence taken and none meant,” said
Sam, moving off. He paused again and added solemnly, “It’s a great
relief to me, after the way our poor late Vicar went on, to find you
don’t keep no spirits in the house, sir. A great relief it is.
Good-night.”