The Rev Walter Errol stood in the vestry doorway and watched, as he
had watched for many years, his departing congregation. It was a large
congregation, disproportionately large, considering the size of the
parish. It was drawn mainly from the neighbouring parish of Rushleigh,
which was a big town compared with Moresby. But the incumbent of
Moresby was an eloquent preacher, and the Rushleigh inhabitants found
that the two-mile walk across the fields was well repaid in the
satisfaction of hearing the message they desired to hear presented to
them in a manner which was interesting as well as instructive, and more
effective on this account. A message, whether beautiful or the reverse,
has a greater hold on the imagination when effectively presented.
The flock of the Rev Walter Errol never went away empty. There was
always something in what he said to appeal to each individual member of
the congregation, and so much that was novel and enlightened in his
discourse that the thinker and the scholar found food for speculation,
as well as the careless youth of the parish, who wandered into the
church as a matter of course or from curiosity, and returned again and
again because what they heard there was bright and stimulating and
arresting, and gave them a sense of their own importance and
responsibility in life, as well as a more beautiful conception of life
itself.
The vicar, while he stood at the vestry door, was thinking of many
things. Among other subjects of a greater or less importance, his
thoughts turned upon John Musgrave, his sidesman and very good patron.
He had read the burial service over John Musgrave's parents, and the
marriage service over John Musgrave's sister; he had stood shoulder to
shoulder with him when they were young men together, and later in
middle-age they maintained their friendship, as men who hold joint
memories of their youth and talk together of intimate things. He had
married, John Musgrave had remained a bachelor. Each held the state of
the other a matter for commiseration.
This evening the vicar was thinking of John Musgrave's lonely condition,
and was feeling quite unnecessarily sorry for the man.
"He would have made a good father," he thought.
The one thing he never said of him was, he would make a good husband.
But a good father is, after all, the best that can be said of a man.
While he remained at the vestry door, his sexton and right-hand man
appeared at his side, and stood watching with him the departure of the
flock. Robert looked after the vanishing forms with a slightly
contemptuous glance, as one who failed to understand what they found in
this weekly service to attract them from the fields in summer, and from
their firesides in winter, when clearly there was no obligation for them
to attend. Then he looked up into the face of the vicar, whom he loved
as much as he loved anything in this curious world he adorned, and the
contemptuous incredulity in his eyes deepened.
"Once again, sir," he observed, with a jerk of his head in the direction
of the departing congregation. His manner and tone implied plainer than
words could have, "We'd not be here, you and I, if we weren't paid for
it."
The vicar glanced at his henchman and smiled.
"Once again, Robert," he repeated. "For your sake and mine and theirs,
I hope it will be `once again' often."
Robert grunted. For his own sake he saw no advantage in this increasing
congregation. It was a difficult matter of late to find seating
accommodation for the people. But the vicar liked it, of course; as
well as adding to his prestige, it swelled the offertory. And what
vicar does not enjoy a full collection plate?
Robert looked at the vicar and fidgeted. He wanted to lock up; but the
vicar showed no haste to depart. When a man is looking forward to his
supper he does not care to waste time, and Hannah, when he was late, was
inclined to grumble. Robert, like his vicar, was married, and, unlike
his vicar, he regretted his married state. When a man takes unto
himself a partner he swears away his liberty at the altar as surely as
any criminal who pleads guilty from the dock.
"I reckon Mr Musgrave will be supping with you to-night," he observed
abruptly.
The vicar looked down into the quaint, bearded face, so many inches
lower than his own, and smiled pleasantly.
"Supper?" he said. "I was forgetting, Robert. Yes, you can lock up."
Then he took his soft hat from its peg, and wishing his sexton
good-evening stepped forth into the night.
Robert looked after him thoughtfully before turning the key in the lock.
"Seems to 'ave somethin' on 'is mind," he mused. "Reckon 'is missis is
as aggravating as most."
With which he turned the key in the rusty lock viciously, and
extinguished the lights and left.
The Rev Walter Errol on entering the vicarage drawing-room found John
Musgrave already there, talking with his wife. Mrs Errol, a pretty,
delicate looking woman, who, while she made an excellent wife and
mother, was none the less a dead failure in the parish, according to the
opinion of the local helpers, looked round brightly as her husband
entered the room, and remarked:
"Mr Musgrave has just been telling me that some friends of his--"
"Acquaintances," John Musgrave interposed gravely.
"Some people he knows," Mrs Errol substituted, "have taken the Hall.
I'm so glad. It is such a pity to have a place like that standing
empty."
The vicar looked pleased.
"Who are they, John?" he asked.
Mr Musgrave gazed thoughtfully into the fire. From the concentration
of his look it would seem as though he found there the record of the
family under discussion.
"The man," he said slowly, "is a connection of Charlie Sommers. Belle
wrote to me that they had taken the Hall. She wants me to be civil to
them. The expression is hers. His name is Chadwick. I met him at
Charlie's place last year. He made his money in Ceylon, I understand,
in rubber, or cocoa, or something of that sort. His wife is--modern."
He pursed his lips, and looked up suddenly. "That expression also
emanates from Belle. I don't think I like it very much. There are no
children."
"The result of her modernity, possibly," observed the vicar.
John Musgrave's air was faintly disapproving. He did not appreciate the
levity of some of Walter Errol's remarks.
"I am not much of a judge of women," he added seriously, "but from the
little I saw of her I think she will be--a misfit in Moresby."
Mrs Errol laughed.
"I believe I am going to like her," she said. "I'm a misfit in Moresby
myself."
John Musgrave turned to regard her with a protracted, contemplative
look. She met his serious eyes, and smiled mockingly. Though she liked
this old friend of her husband very well, his pedantry often worried
her; it was, however, she realised, a part of the man's nature, and not
an affectation, which would have made it offensive.
"You are not a misfit in the sense in which she will be," he replied
quietly.
"You are rousing my curiosity to a tremendous pitch," she returned.
"How is it no one here has seen these people? They didn't take the Hall
without viewing it, I suppose?"
"They took it on Charlie's recommendation, I believe," he answered.
"They will use it merely as a country house."
"Oh!" Mrs Errol's tone was slightly disappointed. "That means, I
suppose, that they will live mostly in town?"
"And abroad," he answered. "They travel a lot."
"Well," observed Mrs Errol brightly, "they will probably do something
when they are here to liven the parish a little. We want a few modern
ideas; our ideas in Moresby are covered with lichen. Lichen is
picturesque, but it's a form of decay, after all."
John Musgrave appeared surprised. Here was another person who hungered
for change; it was possibly, he decided, a feminine characteristic.
"Moresby compares, I believe, very favourably with other small places,"
he said.
"I daresay it does." She laughed abruptly. "If it didn't it might be
more gay."
The vicar smiled at her indulgently.
"I've a rebel, you see, John, in my own household. Mary only requires a
kindred spirit to break into open revolt. The coming of Mrs Chadwick
may create an upheaval."
"I doubt whether the advent of Mrs Chadwick will work any great
change," John Musgrave returned in his heavy, serious fashion. "We are
too settled to have the current of our ideas disturbed by a fresh
arrival. She will adapt herself, possibly, to our ways."
Mrs Errol rose with a little shrug of the shoulders, and left the room.
Had John Musgrave, she wondered, ever treated any subject other than
seriously? In anyone else this habit of bringing the weight of the mind
to bear on every trivial matter would have seemed priggish; but it sat
on John Musgrave so naturally that, beyond experiencing a passing
irritation at times, she could not feel severe towards him. He would
have made, in her opinion, an admirable bishop.
The vicar followed her exit with his glance, and then dropped leisurely
into a chair and stretched his feet towards the fire.
"When is Mrs Sommers coming this way again?" he asked, not so much
conversationally as because he liked John Musgrave's sister, and was
always glad when she returned to her childhood's home, which she did at
fitful and infrequent intervals.
The man whom he addressed leaned back in his chair and stared
thoughtfully into the flickering flames. The question recalled his own
lonely fireside, the solitariness of which always struck him more
forcibly while seated beside the cheery vicarage hearth. He missed
Belle more as the years passed.
"She did not say," he answered. "She has many claims upon her time
since Charlie entered Parliament. I wish it were otherwise. I miss
Belle."
"That's only natural," the other answered. "She is so bright."
"Yes." John Musgrave looked directly at the speaker. "She is bright.
She's companionable. I expect that's what Charlie thought."
Walter Errol laughed.
"No doubt," he agreed.
"Yes, she's bright," John Musgrave repeated, as though the realisation
of this fact, striking him for the first time, accounted for what he had
been at a loss to comprehend before. "I expect that's why Charlie
married her."
"My dear fellow," the other said, with a hardly repressed smile, "did it
never occur to you that Charlie might have had a better reason?"
"A better reason?" John Musgrave echoed.
"Yes. Don't you think it possible that he married her for love?"
John Musgrave flushed deeply.
"For love!" he said.
The vicar smiled openly now.
"People do marry for love occasionally," he remarked.
"Do they?... Do they indeed?"
John Musgrave was gazing into the fire again, his expression doubtful,
faintly discomfited--almost, it seemed to the man watching him in
puzzled amusement, shocked.
"Dear me!" he ejaculated softly, and seemed disquieted at the
presentment of this extraordinary idea. "Dear me!" he repeated slowly.
The vicar broke into a hearty laugh.
"Oh, Coelebs, my dear old Coelebs," he said; "it was not without a
sufficient reason you gained that nickname at Oxford. What have you
been doing, to live in the world so long and never to have learned the
biggest and simplest of life's lessons? From the bottom of my heart I
wish it may yet fall to your lot to get some practical experience. Find
some one to fill Belle's place in your home, dear old fellow, and then
you will miss her no longer."
"I wish, Walter," John Musgrave said, frowning heavily, "that you were
given to a greater seriousness in your conversation."
"I wish, John," the other retorted amiably, "that you were inclined
towards a lesser seriousness. As for me, I was never more in earnest in
my life. Fill Belle's place, and then you will be relieved of the
necessity for engaging such a sour-faced person as opened your front
door to me yesterday."
"You mean Eliza?" said John Musgrave, surprised. "She is a most
respectable woman."
"Guaranteed respectability has no need to be so disagreeably assertive
of its claim to recognition," the vicar returned, unmoved. "The lack of
amiability in one's expression suggests an unamiable disposition. A
cheerful heart is the supremest of virtues."
He rose to his feet in response to the agreeable summons of the
supper-gong, and placed a hand affectionately on John Musgrave's
shoulder.
"Adam was the first man to take a bite out of an apple," he said, "but
since he created the precedent for eating the fruit, men have developed
the taste for apples."
"For a clergyman, Walter," his friend returned disapprovingly, "your
conversation is at times highly irreverent."