The Lawns (I haven't counted how many there are of them, but have
noticed a few yards of grass-plot at the side of the house), said to me
the other day that she believed I was a woman-hater. I had encountered
fifteen of them at her house and was in a desperate mood. I said I was.
I thought I was safe with Mrs Carter. I've met each one of that fifteen
since, and she has in every case stopped to say to me--'Oh, I hear
you're a woman-hater!' They all seemed to be mightily pleased. It put
me in a stupid position. I managed to say something civil to each; but
I have a bone to pick with Mrs Carter! She is always poking her fun at
every one, and wants to know if I don't make an exception in favour of
Jessica.
"Jessica!!
"She and I get on together, however. So we need; for she is an ardent
worker in the parish, and morn and noon and dewy eve are she and I
thrown together. Often, when I think to have an hour to myself for
reading or writing, she comes to my room and sits over the fire with
me, her petticoats carefully lifted, her feet on the fender--I am
tempted to wish her at Jericho; but she is a good sort....
* * * * *
"5_th December_.
"Many thanks for your brilliant suggestion. Very thoughtful of you.
Jessica is not in the least that kind of woman. She might have been
married ten years ago if she had liked. She told me all about it. The
last man who married the sister _meant_ to have Jessica.
"I say, there's a tragedy, Charles! To feel as you do about the woman
you want to marry, and to have to go through it with another!
"She's a splendid manager and organiser, and a devoted worker. She told
me yesterday that if ever she did consent to marry it would have to be
her father's curate; she would neither leave the parish nor her father,
she said. A lot of women would have been embarrassed in saying that,
and I can see the expression of your face as you read it. Spare your
gibes. Jessica is miles above the ordinary tricks and wiles and
falsities of women. You'd know it if you saw her. A stout,
strong-looking young woman in thick boots and short skirts; a
weather-beaten, serviceable being.
"It must have been for her sterling qualities those other men were in
love with Jessica. All the same, dreadful, doubtless, to lose her.
"I note your news of H----. I have cut off all relations with that
place. People there don't know where I am. Have forgotten that I exist,
most likely. Do not trouble to send me any further information.
"Ah, my dear Charles! If I only might do my work for the next world
after a manly fashion, as other men do the work of this! These women
won't let me. They are in everything. They meddle and mar and make
mischief. Half of the Fifteen (can you halve them?) are at loggerheads
with the other half because of words I am reported to have said. They
quarrel with each other, but, heaven help me! they won't quarrel with
me. They make me perpetual presents, they ask me endless questions,
they consult me in difficulties of their own ingenious making and
always cropping up. Half of them have husbands they might go to,
children to occupy their time. One is at least sixty--!
"A girl and her mother have been here to see me to-day. Mother
indignant, girl in floods of tears. Some one of the Fifteen had said
that the girl was 'running after' me. Me, with my thirty-eight years,
my fortune of a hundred and fifty a year! Can't you see my blushes on
the paper as I write it? Had her daughter by look, by word, by deed,
done anything to deserve that cruel slander, the mother wanted to know?
Then, was I not ashamed such things should be said? God knows I am
ashamed, but what can I do? They are always saying such things one of
another. How can I stop it?
"'You must not be so civil to them,' Jessica says.
"I assure her that without positive rudeness I can't be less civil than
I am.
"'Then, be rude to them,' counsels Jessica.
"How can one man, standing alone, immersed in rummage sales, parish
concerts, mothers' meetings, school teas, and other feminine functions,
be rude to Fifteen women at once? Between you and me, I have tried it,
in my desperation, in individual cases, and it has no effect. I have
discovered you can't please a woman better than to bully her.
"'You must marry Jessica,' Mrs Carter says. 'Married to Jessica you
will find yourself a mere man, a very ordinary person.'
"'I should want an extraordinary nerve to do it,' I was on the point of
saying, but remembered in time how she had reported me to the Fifteen.
The pulpit is becoming the only place where I can enjoy the luxury of
free speech. Words spoken in any less public place are brought back to
me distorted past recognition.
"Heigho! I am always grumbling. As a fact, people put themselves out in
the most flattering manner to be kind to me; I suppose I am as
comfortable here as I should be in any place after H----.
"Little Cissy Bust found out that I was fond of flowers. Since then she
pulls off a chrysanthemum every morning from the plant in her mother's
window, and lays it beside my plate. Sweet of the little thing, but I
watch with dismay the blooms lessening on the maternal plant. The
mother is a good sort, in her way, but as I've been working in it all
day I don't care to be bothered with the tittle-tattle of the parish
when I come home at night. She is always bringing me delicacies off her
own table. I have to eat them, because she stops to see me do it....
* * * * *
"19_th December_.
"How many afternoon tea-cloths have I had given me since I came,
Charles? Guess.
"Nine. I haven't the smallest use for one of them. I never get the
chance of having tea at home in the afternoon, being always under the
obligation to eat muffins in this lady's house or that. Jessica came in
through wind and rain one day and said she'd like to have a cup. Here
seemed my opportunity. I showed her the nine and facetiously asked her
to choose; or should I spread them all at once? She always has too much
in hand to stop to jest over trifles; she waved the tea-cloths aside,
and seized her cup off Mrs Bust's tray, and went on talking shop. I
don't want to decry Jessica. She's worth all the rest put together.
While they gabble, she does things. If Mrs Carter (who hates the sight
of her, by the way) and the rest of them would only let us alone!
"So the engagement at H---- is broken off! It must be a blow to poor
Holt, but I never thought him suited to her. Who is, I wonder? What a
madness it was to think that she and I could pull together. Imagine
that little teasing, irresponsible child in such a box as this, bored
to death by these interminable women! For all her naughtiness and her
folly she was wiser than I. But I am wiser now.
"Of course, if you hear of any fresh engagements or new freaks of the
young lady, you will let me know at once.
"Mrs Bust was insolent about that cup of tea. I greatly hope Jessica
did not notice the way she banged the tray down. She said afterwards
that no _single_ lady should come to a _single_ gentleman's rooms,
let alone take a meal with him. If there were other rooms to be had I
would not put up with this creature. My dear Charles, I'm getting to
be, in reality, what I've had the credit for being all along--a
woman-hater.
"I go a good bit to Mrs Carter's. Her house is comfortable, and she is
an amusing creature. Sees jokes, and cheers one up. She teases me about
my beset condition, and tries to get me to _say_ things. She calls me
Job, and the Fifteen my comforters. Neither witty nor appropriate, but
it pleases Mrs Carter. She says the least I can do is to give the nine
donors of the nine tea-cloths tea. I frankly told her of the difficulty
with Bust, who is inexorable on the matter of etiquette. It will be all
right if she comes, Mrs Carter says. She is so set on it, I've had to
give in. I've asked them. They're coming on Thursday.
"Oh, my dear old man, how my head aches!
"Mrs Carter keeps sending me up chickens, jellies, game, and things.
She says I've shrunk three stone since I came. It's love, she says, and
I shan't be all right till I'm married to Jessica.
"What rot women talk!
"Can this be true? She declares to me that the vicar told her in
confidence he would soon be losing his daughter from his house, if not
from his parish.
"You see the inference. There is not another even faintly eligible
bachelor in the whole _charming_ place. (Use your own epithet in place
of the underlined word. I should rather like to hear you do it).
"I said, straight out, she had no business to repeat to me what,
however silly, had been said in her private ear. She was quite
unimpressed. 'In such a place as this what should we do if we did not
repeat things?' she asked.
"She told me, as a huge joke, that her husband had overheard the
servants saying she called me by my Christian name! Carter went to her
for an explanation. No doubt she had chosen to call me 'Job,' or some
nonsense of the kind, when the servants were in the room. She's
delighted, and says Carter was quite annoyed.
"He's about the only Man in the woman-ridden place; after this I shall
be ashamed to look him in the face.
"When Mrs Bust was taking away my supper to-night she requested me not
in future to speak to her daughter as 'Cissy.' It was so very _marked_.
I was not in the mood to receive the rebuff calmly, and she simmered
down. Young girls got such strange ideas in their heads, she said. It
was better not to be _too_ familiar!
"Poor little Cissy, aged sixteen, and her flower on my plate! I've had
a certain pleasure in that unfailing mark of a little girl's goodwill;
but to receive a flower from _Miss Bust_! I shall hurl it into the
coal-box in the morning....
* * * * *
"2_nd January_ 1902.
"You harp a great deal on one string, old man. I know you mean it
kindly, I know you'd like to see things put right for me in that
quarter, but do believe I've had enough. I don't pretend--to you--it
was a pleasant experience. I won't deny it was a nasty knock--but it's
over, and Richard's himself again.
"You ask about the tea. Oh, well, there was no tea. At the last minute
Mrs Bust refused to make tea for Mrs Carter. To the other nine she did
not actively object--safety in numbers, I suppose--but Mrs Carter, it
seems, had asked her during the progress of my last cold if she had
neglected to air the sheets for my room. Such impertinence from any
woman no lady could suffer, Mrs Bust informed me. Into her house Mrs
Carter shall never set foot again. Seeing that I had laid in the cakes
and sweeties and rubbish for the tea she suggested that she herself and
Cissy should be of the company. In that case the most particular, she
assured me, would have nothing to get hold of. I scrupled not to make
plain to her that her plan did not commend itself to me.
"Mrs Carter is delighted, and tells the story, with additions,
everywhere. She asked the nine to her own house and I had to show up.
Carter was to have come home but of course he didn't. Small blame to
him. By the way, he has become positively uncivil to me lately. In my
hearing, the other night, he said something about the clergy 'for ever
smothered with women's petticoats, and with their feet under better
men's tables.' I have liked Carter hitherto, and shall have it out with
him when I get the chance.
"You see, Charles, that girl fooled me thoroughly. I thought she liked
me. You thought it yourself; you said so. I thought she meant me to
know she liked. She is so young, so pretty, so rich in everything the
world holds of value. If I had not fancied encouragement I never should
have made the attempt. To come down such a crusher! Perhaps what you
say is right. She may seem to think kindly of me now, she may even have
spoken to your sister of the episode as you say; but let me put myself
in the same place again and the same thing would happen. I'm not
blaming her. God knows I don't blame her. I blame myself for being a
blind ass. I hope she'll be happy, poor little girl. I want her to be.
With all her irresponsibleness and her outside naughtiness and
frivolity, her carelessness of men's feelings, her nonsense, and her
teasing, pretty ways, I know that she is good at heart, sound, and sane
and sweet. I want her to be happy!
"There is a girl among my Fifteen--she is quite young and has to be
protected against herself. She has haunted me. When I got home she
would be lurking in the dark of the road, when I went out I met her
coming round the corner. Notes in her childish scrawl have fallen on
me, thick as autumn leaves. I have had to see her mother at length.
Mother, for my pains, told me roundly I was not a gentleman. I declare
to you she abused me like a pickpocket, Charles.
"But this silly child had the excuse of youth. There is another of
nearly three times her age to whom I had thought it safe to be civil.
Well, it wasn't. She pursued me even within my own strong-hold, the
pulpit. In a moment's weakness I had owned to her that I liked
violets--pah! I am sick of the scent of them now. On Sunday morning I
found a bunch of them, done up after a well-known fashion, with dried
maiden-hair as a background, laid beside the pulpit cushion. I had good
reason to know from whence it came. I said to her when she waylaid me
on my homeward course that the woman who cleaned the church would have
to be reprimanded. She had let fall a bunch of flowers from her frowsy
dress upon the pulpit desk and had left them there. An unpardonable
piece of negligence.
"'I thought you liked violets?' the foolish old woman said, looking
ashamed; and I told her hardily that I loathed the sight of them and
hoped never to look upon one again.
"This all seems only laughable to you. I can hear you snigger over
it--and me! Laugh at me, but don't hate me as I do myself. A man
nearing forty years of age, not particularly anything--either clever,
or eloquent, or good-looking, or attractive. Don't I know it all? I
can't write of it----
"And yet this one thing more I must tell you before I close.
"As I parted from the sensible, self-respecting, self-contained Jessica
the other day--I protest to you my reliance on her womanly dignity and
sturdy reasonableness has been to me as the shadow of a great rock in a
weary land--I ran against her father, the old vicar. He put his hand on
my shoulder, and looked at me with a kind of playful reproof in the
face.
"'Ah, how long is this shilly-shallying to go on?' he asked.
"... I broke off there to see Mrs Carter. It has hitherto been a relief
to see her. The only laughing I've done since I've been here has been
with her. She did not laugh to-day. She came to me because she had no
other friend, she said. She could not trust the gabbling womankind. Her
husband had changed to her. He had become all at once unreasonable and
unkind. He had told her that he did not trust her. He would no longer
allow her to go to church, he had forbidden her to receive me again in
his house.
"In utter bewilderment I could only ask her why. And then she burst
into tears, and then--then there was another scene.
"Mrs Bust was no doubt listening at the door. At any rate she burst in
upon us. I, for my part, was not sorry, but poor Mrs Carter--! Poor?
Fool, idiot!
"She is forty years of age, her husband is a decent, honourable sort of
fellow who worships her----
"That finishes the Carter friendship.
"If it were not for Jessica--good, matter-of-fact, reliable Jessica,
welcome contrast to these hysterical, half-mad women, who laugh at and
despise her--where should I be, Charles?...
* * * * *
"1_st February_.
"You have been a true friend to me and to her. I shall see you soon
(D.V.), and then no doubt I shall say--nothing. But you will remember
that I am grateful to you to the last drop of my heart's blood--and so
is she.
"Now as for B.... The finish has come; it came to-day. Let us sing and
give thanks with the best member that we have! All the same, the end
has been a shock, and I wish it had come in some other way.
"She came in here at eleven this morning. You know who--Jessica. I
thought she came to talk over last night's concert. It was a failure.
The room was as empty as the church has been of late. Those--women (my
cloth prohibits me from supplying the adjective, Charles. I leave it
with satisfaction in your hands) with their gabble have robbed me of my
last shred of character. I assure you I am regarded as a libertine in
the place--a professional breaker of hearts, a Don Juan bragging of my
conquests! Each of those Fifteen has her own tale to tell of her own
wrongs and of my deceit. They hold indignation meetings in Mrs Carter's
house. I shouldn't care the value of one of their hairpins, but one
does not like to see the church empty; and it is not agreeable, having
gone to the bother of getting up a concert, to sing to empty benches.
It was not, however, to talk over the concert she had come.
"She had come to tell me she thought it would be better for us
thoroughly to understand each other. I said I thought we had done so
from the first. She told me she hoped so, but that we were going to
speak out plainly now. She despised the underhand methods of other
women, she said, and when she wanted to know a thing she went to the
person capable of giving an answer and asked a direct question.
"Then she asked me, 'Did I mean to make her an offer of marriage?'
"In so many words she asked me, and never flinched.
"And I didn't flinch. I was so indignant, so outraged!
"'No!' I said.
"I hope I did not shout the word, but the room seemed to echo with it,
somehow.
"'You mean that?' she asked; and I said that I meant it fervently.
"She got up and went to the door. There she waited, her hands in her
coat-pockets, staring at the door. 'Of course you know that you have
behaved disgracefully?' she said. 'I should never have trusted myself
so much in your society but that I believed you to be an honourable
man. I find you are not. If my father were younger he would punish you
as you deserve. As it is--.'
"As it is, thank goodness, she went. Where's the good of bothering you
with more of her invective?
"And I am going; to make room for another curate--another confirmed
bachelor.
"She did not spare me of course. Among other agreeable things she said
that I was a heartless Brute, and she hoped I should get what I
deserved.
"I shall get a lot more than I deserve, between you and me, Charles.
For, thanks to you and your pegging away, I wrote and asked little Mary
once again if she would have me.
"And a letter has come from her this blessed morning to say that she
will...."
* * * * *
COLSTON AND CO. LTD., PRINTERS, EDINBURGH