DR. HARFORD.
The current of events forced upon Rachel a delay of three or four
days in answering her letter, or rather forced upon her that delay in
learning whether or no she might answer it; and this was felt by her
to be a grievous evil. It had been arranged that she should not write
until such writing should have received what might almost be called
a parochial sanction, and no idea of acting in opposition to that
arrangement ever occurred to her; but the more she thought of it
the more she was vexed; and the more she thought of it the more she
learned to doubt whether or no her mother was placing her in safe
tutelage. During these few weeks a great change came upon the girl's
character. When first Mrs. Prime had brought home tidings that Miss
Pucker had seen her walking and talking with the young man from the
brewery, angry as she had been with her sister, and disgusted as she
had been with Miss Pucker, she had acknowledged to herself that such
talking and walking were very dangerous, if not very improper, and
she had half resolved that there should be no more of them. And when
Mrs. Prime had seen her standing at the stile, and had brought home
that second report, Rachel, knowing what had occurred at that stile,
had then felt sure that she was in danger. At that time, though she
had thought much of Luke Rowan, she had not thought of him as a man
who could possibly be her husband. She had thought of him as having
no right to call her Rachel, because he could not possibly become
so. There had been great danger;--there had been conduct which she
believed to be improper though she could not tell herself that she
had been guilty. In her outlook into the world nothing so beautiful
had promised itself to her as having such a man to love her as Luke
Rowan. Though her mother was not herself ascetic,--liking tea and
buttered toast dearly, and liking also little soft laughter with
her child,--she had preached ascetisms till Rachel had learned to
think that the world was all either ascetic or reprobate. The Dorcas
meetings had become distasteful to her because the women were vulgar;
but yet she had half believed herself to be wrong in avoiding the
work and the vulgarity together. Idle she had never been. Since a
needle had come easy to her hand, and the economies of a household
had been made intelligible to her, she had earned her bread and
assisted in works of charity. She had read no love stories, and been
taught to expect no lover. She was not prepared to deny,--did not
deny even to herself,--that it was wrong that she should even like to
talk to Luke Rowan.
Then came the ball; or, rather, first came the little evening party,
which afterwards grew to be a ball. She had been very desirous of
going, not for the sake of any pleasure that she promised herself;
not for the sake of such pleasure as girls do promise themselves at
such gatherings; but because her female pride told her that it was
well for her to claim the right of meeting this young man,--well for
her to declare that nothing had passed between them which should make
her afraid to meet him. That some other hopes had crept in as the
evening had come nigh at hand,--hopes of which she had been made
aware only by her efforts in repressing them,--may not be denied. She
had been accused because of him; and she would show that no such
accusation had daunted her. But would he,--would he give occasion for
further accusation? She believed he would not; nay, she was sure; at
any rate she hoped he would not. She told herself that such was her
hope; but had he not noticed her she would have been wretched.
We know now in what manner he had noticed her, and we know also
whether she had been wretched. She had certainly fled from him. When
she left the brewery-house, inducing Mrs. Cornbury to bring her away,
she did so in order that she might escape from him. But she ran from
him as one runs from some great joy in order that the mind may revel
over it in peace. Then, little as she knew it, her love had been
given. Her heart was his. She had placed him upon her pinnacle,
and was prepared to worship him. She was ready to dress herself in
his eyes, to believe that to be good which he thought good, and to
repudiate that which he repudiated. When she bowed her head over his
breast a day or two afterwards, she could have spoken to him with the
full words of passionate love had not maiden fear repressed her.
But she had not even bowed her head for him, she had not acknowledged
to herself that such love was possible to her, till her mother had
consented. That her mother's consent had been wavering, doubtful,
expressed without intention of such expression,--so expressed that
Mrs. Ray hardly knew that she had expressed it,--was not understood
by Rachel. Her mother had consented, and, that consent having been
given, Rachel was not now disposed to allow of any steps backwards.
She seemed to have learned her rights, or to have assumed that she
had rights. Hitherto her obedience to her mother had been pure and
simple, although, from the greater force of her character, she had
in many things been her mother's leader. But now, though she was
ill inclined to rebel, though in this matter of the letter she had
obeyed, she was beginning to feel that obedience might become a
hardship. She did not say to herself, "They have let me love him, and
now they must not put out their hands to hold back my love;" but the
current of her feelings ran as though such unspoken words had passed
across her mind. She had her rights; and though she did not presume
that she could insist on them in opposition to her mother or her
mother's advisers, she knew that she would be wronged if those
rights were withheld from her. The chief of those rights was the
possession of her lover. If he was taken from her she would be as one
imprisoned unjustly,--as one robbed by those who should have been
his friends,--as one injured, wounded, stricken in the dark, and
treacherously mutilated by hands that should have protected him.
During these days she was silent, and sat with that look upon her
brow which her mother feared.
"I could not make Mr. Comfort come any sooner, Rachel," said Mrs.
Ray.
"No, mamma."
"I can see how impatient you are."
"I don't know that I'm impatient. I'm sure that I haven't said
anything."
"If you said anything I shouldn't mind it so much; but I can't bear
to see you with that unhappy look. I'm sure I only wish to do what's
best. You can't think it right that you should be writing letters to
a gentleman without being sure that it is proper."
"Oh, mamma, don't talk about it!"
"You don't like me to ask your sister; and I'm sure it's natural I
should want to ask somebody. He's nearly seventy years old, and he
has known you ever since you were born. And then he's a clergyman,
and therefore he'll be sure to know what's right. Not that I should
have liked to have said a word about it to Mr. Prong, because there's
a difference when they come from one doesn't know where."
"Pray, mamma, don't. I haven't made any objection to Mr. Comfort. It
isn't nice to be talked over in that way by anybody, that's all."
"But what was I to do? I'm sure I liked the young man very much. I
never knew a young man who took his tea so pleasant. And as for his
manners and his way of talking, I had it in my heart to fall in love
with him myself. I had indeed. As far as that goes, he's just the
young man that I could make a son of."
"Dear mamma! my own dearest mamma!" and Rachel, jumping up, threw
herself upon her mother's neck. "Stop there. You shan't say another
word."
"I'm sure I didn't mean to say anything unpleasant."
"No, you did not; and I won't be impatient."
"Only I can't bear that look. And you know what his mother said,--and
Mrs. Tappitt. Not that I care about Mrs. Tappitt; only a person's
mother is his mother, and he shouldn't have called her a goose."
It must be acknowledged that Rachel's position was not comfortable;
and it certainly would not have been improved had she known how many
people in Baslehurst were talking about her and Rowan. That Rowan was
gone everybody knew; that he had made love to Rachel everybody said;
that he never meant to come back any more most professed to believe.
Tappitt's tongue was loud in proclaiming his iniquities; and her
follies and injuries Mrs. Tappitt whispered into the ears of all her
female acquaintances.
"I'm sorry for her," Miss Harford said, mildly. Mrs. Tappitt was
calling at the rectory, and had made her way in. Mr. Tappitt was
an upholder of the old rector, and there was a fellow-townsman's
friendship between them.
"Oh yes;--very sorry for her," said Mrs. Tappitt.
"Very sorry indeed," said Augusta, who was with her mother.
"She always seemed to me a pretty, quiet, well-behaved girl," said
Miss Harford.
"Still waters run deepest, you know, Miss Harford," said Mrs.
Tappitt. "I should never have imagined it of her;--never. But she
certainly met him half-way."
"But we all thought he was respectable, you know," said Miss Harford.
Miss Harford was thoroughly good-natured; and though she had never
gone half-way herself, and had perhaps lost her chance from having
been unable to go any part of the way, she was not disposed to
condemn a girl for having been willing to be admired by such a one as
Luke Rowan.
"Well;--yes; at first we did. He had the name of money, you know, and
that goes so far with some girls. We were on our guard,"--and she
looked proudly round on Augusta,--"till we should hear what the young
man really was. He has thrown off his sheep's clothing now with a
vengeance. Mr. Tappitt feels quite ashamed that he should have
introduced him to any of the people here; he does indeed."
"That may be her misfortune, and not her fault," said Miss Harford,
who in defending Rachel was well enough inclined to give up Luke.
Indeed, Baslehurst was beginning to have a settled mind that Luke was
a wolf.
"Oh, quite so," said Mrs. Tappitt. "The poor girl has been very
unfortunate no doubt."
After that she took her leave of the rectory.
On that evening Mr. Comfort dined with Dr. Harford, as did also
Butler Cornbury and his wife, and one or two others. The chances of
the election formed, of course, the chief subject of conversation
both in the drawing-room and at the dinner-table; but in talking of
the election they came to talk of Mr. Tappitt, and in talking of
Tappitt they came to talk of Luke Rowan.
It has already been said that Dr. Harford had been rector of
Baslehurst for many years at the period to which this story refers.
He had nearly completed half a century of work in that capacity, and
had certainly been neither an idle nor an inefficient clergyman. But,
now in his old age, he was discontented and disgusted by the changes
which had come upon him; and though some bodily strength for further
service still remained to him, he had no longer any aptitude for
useful work. A man cannot change as men change. Individual men are
like the separate links of a rotatory chain. The chain goes on with
continuous easy motion as though every part of it were capable of
adapting itself to a curve, but not the less is each link as stiff
and sturdy as any other piece of wrought iron. Dr. Harford had in his
time been an active, popular man,--a man possessing even some liberal
tendencies in politics, though a country rector of nearly half a
century's standing. In his parish he had been more than a clergyman.
He had been a magistrate, and a moving man in municipal affairs. He
had been a politician, and though now for many years he had supported
the Conservative candidate, he had been loudly in favour of the
Reform Bill when Baslehurst was a close borough in the possession of
a great duke, who held property hard by. But liberal politics had
gone on and had left Dr. Harford high and dry on the standing-ground
which he had chosen for himself in the early days of his manhood. And
then had come that pestilent act of the legislature under which his
parish had been divided. Not that the Act of Parliament itself had
been violently condemned by the doctor on its becoming law. I doubt
whether he had then thought much of it.
But when men calling themselves Commissioners came actually upon
him and his, and separated off from him a district of his own town,
taking it away altogether from his authority, and giving it over to
such inexperienced hands as chance might send thither,--then Dr.
Harford became a violent Tory. And my readers must not conceive that
this was a question touching his pocket. One might presume that his
pocket would be in some degree benefited, seeing that he was saved
from the necessity of supplying the spiritual wants of a certain
portion of his parish. No shilling was taken from his own income,
which, indeed, was by no means excessive. His whole parish gave him
barely six hundred a year, out of which he had kept always one, and
latterly two curates. It was no question of money in any degree.
Sooner than be invaded and mutilated he would have submitted to an
order calling upon him to find a third curate,--could any power
have given such order. His parish had been invaded and his clerical
authority mutilated. He was no longer _totus teres atque rotundus_.
The beauty of his life was over, and the contentment of his mind
was gone. He knew that it was only left for him to die, spending
such days as remained to him in vague prophecies of evil against his
devoted country,--a country which had allowed its ancient parochial
landmarks to be moved, and its ecclesiastical fastnesses to be
invaded!
But perhaps hatred of Mr. Prong was the strongest passion of Dr.
Harford's heart at the present moment. He had ever hated the
dissenting ministers by whom he was surrounded. In Devonshire dissent
has waxed strong for many years, and the pastors of the dissenting
flocks have been thorns in the side of the Church of England
clergymen. Dr. Harford had undergone his full share of suffering
from such thorns. But they had caused him no more than a pleasant
irritation in comparison with what he endured from the presence of
Mr. Prong in Baslehurst. He would sooner have entertained all the
dissenting ministers of the South Hams together than have put his
legs under the same mahogany with Mr. Prong. Mr. Prong was to him the
evil thing! Anathema! He believed all bad things of Mr. Prong with
an absolute faith, but without any ground on which such faith should
have been formed. He thought that Mr. Prong drank spirits; that
he robbed his parishioners;--Dr. Harford would sooner have lost
his tongue than have used such a word with reference to those who
attended Mr. Prong's chapel;--that he had left a deserted wife on
some parish; that he was probably not in truth ordained. There was
nothing which Dr. Harford could not believe of Mr. Prong. Now all
this was, to say the least of it, a pity, for it disfigured the close
of a useful and conscientious life.
Dr. Harford of course intended to vote for Mr. Cornbury, but he
would not join loudly in condemnation of Mr. Tappitt. Tappitt had
stood stanchly by him in all parochial contests regarding the new
district. Tappitt opposed the Prong faction at all points. Tappitt as
churchwarden had been submissive to the doctor. Church of England
principles had always been held at the brewery, and Bungall had been
ever in favour with Dr. Harford's predecessor.
"He calls himself a Liberal, and always has done," said the doctor.
"You can't expect that he should desert his own party."
"But a Jew!" said old Mr. Comfort.
"Well; why not a Jew?" said the doctor. Whereupon Mr. Comfort, and
Butler Cornbury, and Dr. Harford's own curate, young Mr. Calclough,
and Captain Byng, an old bachelor, who lived in Baslehurst, all
stared at him; as Dr. Harford had intended that they should. "Upon
my word," said he, "I don't see the use for caring for that kind of
thing any longer; I don't indeed. In the way we are going on now, and
for the sort of thing we do, I don't see why Jews shouldn't serve
us as well in Parliament as Christians. If I am to have my brains
knocked out, I'd sooner have it done by a declared enemy than by one
who calls himself my friend."
"But our brains are not knocked out yet," said Butler Cornbury.
"I don't know anything about yours, but mine are."
"I don't think the world's coming to an end yet," said the captain.
"Nor do I. I said nothing about the world coming to an end. But if
you saw a part of your ship put under the command of a landlubber,
who didn't know one side of the vessel from the other, you'd think
the world had better come to an end than be carried on in that way."
"It's not the same thing, you know," said the captain. "You couldn't
divide a ship."
"Oh, well; you'll see."
"I don't think any Christian should vote for a Jew," said the curate.
"A verdict has gone out against them, and what is man that he should
reverse it?"
"Are you quite sure that you are reversing it by putting them into
Parliament?" said Dr. Harford. "May not that be a carrying on of the
curse?"
"There's consolation in that idea for Butler if he loses his
election," said Mr. Comfort.
"Parliament isn't what it was," said the doctor. "There's no doubt
about that."
"And who is to blame?" said Mr. Comfort, who had never supported the
Reform Bill as his neighbour had done.
"I say nothing about blame. It's natural that things should get worse
as they grow older."
"Dr. Harford thinks Parliament is worn out," said Butler Cornbury.
"And what if I do think so? Have not other things as great fallen
and gone into decay? Did not the Roman senate wear out, as you call
it? And as for these Jews, of whom you are speaking, what was the
curse upon them but the wearing out of their grace and wisdom? I am
inclined to think that we are wearing out; only I wish the garment
could have lasted my time without showing so many thin places."
"Now I believe just the contrary," said the captain. "I don't think
we have come to our full growth yet."
"Could we lick the French as we did at Trafalgar and Waterloo?" said
the doctor.
The captain thought a while before he answered, and then spoke with
much solemnity. "Yes," said he, "I think we could. And I hope the
time will soon come when we may."
"We shan't do it if we send Jews to Parliament," said Mr. Comfort.
"I must say I think Tappitt wrong," said young Cornbury. "Of course,
near as the thing is going, I'm sorry to lose his vote; but I'm not
speaking because of that. He has always pretended to hold on to the
Church party here, and the Church party has held on to him. His beer
is none of the best, and I think he'd have been wise to stick to his
old friends."
"I don't see the argument about the beer," said the doctor.
"He shouldn't provoke his neighbours to look at his faults."
"But the Jew's friends would find out that the beer is bad as well as
yours."
"The truth is," said Cornbury, "that Tappitt thinks he has a personal
grievance against me. He's as cross as a bear with a sore head at the
present moment, because this young fellow who was to have been his
partner has turned against him. There's some love affair, and my wife
has been there and made a mess of it. It's hard upon me, for I don't
know that I ever saw the young man in my life."
"I believe that fellow is a scamp," said the doctor.
"I hope not," said Mr. Comfort, thinking of Rachel and her hopes.
"We all hope he isn't, of course," said the doctor. "But we can't
prevent men being scamps by hoping. There are other scamps in
this town in whom, if my hoping would do any good, a very great
change would be made."--Everybody present knew that the doctor
alluded especially to Mr. Prong, whose condition, however, if the
doctor's hopes could have been carried out, would not have been
enviable.--"But I fear this fellow Rowan is a scamp, and I think he
has treated Tappitt badly. Tappitt told me all about it only this
morning."
"Audi alteram partem," said Mr. Comfort.
"The scamp's party you mean," said the doctor. "I haven't the means
of doing that. If in this world we suspend our judgment till we've
heard all that can be said on both sides of every question, we should
never come to any judgment at all. I hear that he's in debt; I
believe he behaved very badly to Tappitt himself, so that Tappitt
was forced to use personal violence to defend himself; and he has
certainly threatened to open a new brewery here. Now that's bad, as
coming from a young man related to the old firm."
"I think he should leave the brewery alone," said Mr. Comfort.
"Of course he should," said the doctor. "And I hear, moreover, that
he is playing a wicked game with a girl in your parish."
"I don't know about a wicked game," said the other. "It won't be a
wicked game if he marries her."
Then Rachel's chances of matrimonial success were discussed with
a degree of vigour which must have been felt by her to be highly
complimentary, had she been aware of it. But I grieve to say that
public opinion, as expressed in Dr. Harford's dining-room, went
against Luke Rowan. Mr. Tappitt was not a great man, either as a
citizen or as a brewer: he was not one to whom Baslehurst would even
rejoice to raise a monument; but such as he was he had been known for
many years. No one in that room loved or felt for him anything like
real friendship; but the old familiarity of the place was in his
favour, and his form was known of old upon the High Street. He was
not a drunkard, he lived becomingly with his wife, he had paid his
way, and was a fellow-townsman. What was it to Dr. Harford, or
even to Mr. Comfort, that he brewed bad beer? No man was compelled
to drink it. Why should not a man employ himself, openly and
legitimately, in the brewing of bad beer, if the demand for bad beer
were so great as to enable him to live by the occupation? On the
other hand, Luke Rowan was personally known to none of them; and they
were jealous that a change should come among them with any view of
teaching them a lesson or improving their condition. They believed,
or thought they believed, that Mr. Tappitt had been ill-treated in
his counting-house. It was grievous to them that a man with a wife
and three daughters should have been threatened by a young unmarried
man,--by a man whose shoulders were laden with no family burden.
Whether Rowan's propositions had been in truth good or evil, just
or unjust, they had not inquired, and would not probably have
ascertained had they done so. But they judged the man and condemned
him. Mr. Comfort was brought round to condemn him as thoroughly
as did Dr. Harford,--not reflecting, as he did so, how fatal his
condemnation might be to the happiness of poor Rachel Ray.
"The fact is, Butler," said the doctor, when Mr. Comfort had left
them, and gone to the drawing-room;--"the fact is, your wife has not
played her cards at the brewery as well as she usually does play
them. She has been taking this young fellow's part; and after that I
don't know how she was to expect that Tappitt would stand by you."
"No general can succeed always," said Cornbury, laughing.
"Well; some generals do. But I must confess your wife is generally
very successful. Come; we'll go up-stairs; and don't you tell her
that I've been finding fault. She's as good as gold, and I can't
afford to quarrel with her; but I think she has tripped here."
When the old doctor and Butler Cornbury reached the drawing-room the
names of Rowan and Tappitt had not been as yet banished from the
conversation; but to them had been added some others. Rachel's name
had been again mentioned, as had also that of Rachel's sister.
"Papa, who do you think is going to be married?" said Miss Harford.
"Not you, my dear, is it?" said the doctor.
"Mr. Prong is going to be married to Mrs. Prime," said Miss Harford,
showing by the solemnity of her voice that she regarded the subject
as one which should by its nature repress any further joke.
Nor was Dr. Harford inclined to joke when he heard such tidings as
these. "Mr. Prong!" said he. "Nonsense; who told you?"
"Well, it was Baker told me." Mrs. Baker was the housekeeper at the
Baslehurst rectory, and had been so for the last thirty years. "She
learned it at Drabbit's in the High Street, where Mrs. Prime had been
living since she left her mother's cottage."
"If that's true, Comfort," said the doctor, "I congratulate you on
your parishioner."
"Mrs. Prime is no parishioner of mine," said the vicar of Cawston.
"If it's true, I'm very sorry for her mother,--very sorry."
"I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Cornbury.
"Poor, wretched, unfortunate woman!" said the doctor. "Her little bit
of money is all in her own hands; is it not?"
"I believe it is," said Mr. Comfort.
"Ah, yes; I dare say it's true," said the vicar. "She's been running
after him ever since he's been here. I don't doubt it's true. Poor
creature!--poor creature! Poor thing!" And the doctor absolutely
sighed as he thought of the misery in store for Mr. Prong's future
bride. "It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good," he said after
a while. "He'll go off, no doubt, when he has got the money in his
hand, and we shall be rid of him. Poor thing;--poor thing!"
Before the evening was over Mrs. Cornbury and her father had again
discussed the question of Rachel's possible engagement with Luke
Rowan. Mr. Comfort had declared his conviction that it would be
dangerous to encourage any such hopes; whereas his daughter protested
that she would not see Rachel thrown over if she could help it.
"Don't condemn him yet, papa," she said.
"I don't condemn him at all, my dear; but I hardly think we shall
see him back at Baslehurst. And he shouldn't have gone away without
paying his debts, Patty!"