On a certain May afternoon, when the air was so soft and the sun so
brilliant that Mrs. Vrater, the wife of the Canon in residence at
Gleicester, was inclined to think the world more pleasant than it
should be, she was surprised by an invitation which promptly restored
the due equilibrium. In her own words, it took her breath away.
Despite some slight forewarnings, or things which should have served
as such, she could hardly believe her eyes. Yet there it was before
her in black and white, and Italian penmanship; and, being a woman of
character, instead of sitting down and giving way to her natural
indignation, she--no, she did not accept the fact; on the contrary,
she put on her best bonnet and mantle, and contrived during this
simple operation to efface from her mind all consciousness of the
existence of the invitation. Thus prepared she left the residence by
the back door, and, walking quietly round the Abbot's Square, called
at the Deanery. Mrs. Anson was at home. So was the Dean.
"My dear Mrs. Anson the most ridiculous thing!" began the visitor;
"really you ought to know of it, though contradiction is quite
unnecessary. It carries its own refutation with it. Have you heard
what is the absurd report which is abroad in the city?"
"No," answered the Dean's wife, who was sitting in front of a pile of
cards and envelopes. Her curiosity was aroused. But the Dean had a
miserable foreboding of what was to come, and writhed upon his seat.
"It is asserted that you are going to give a dance at the Deanery! Ha!
ha! ha! I knew that it would amuse you. Fancy a ball at the Deanery of
all places!" And Mrs. Vrater laughed with so fair a show of airy
enjoyment that the Dean plunged his head into a newspaper, and wished
he possessed the self-deceptive powers of the ostrich. This was
terrible! What could have induced him to give his consent? As for Mrs.
Anson, she dropped the envelope she was folding, and prepared for
battle.
"Dear Mrs. Vrater, why should you think it so absurd?" she asked,
smiling sweetly, but with color a little heightened.
"At the Deanery? Why, your position, dear Mrs. Anson, and--and--how
can you ask? It would have been quite a Church scandal. You would be
having the Praecentor hunting next. _He_ would not stick at it," with
vicious emphasis. "But I knew that you never dreamt of such a thing."
"Then I fear that you are not among the prophets, for we really
propose to venture upon it. As for a Church scandal, Mrs. Vrater, the
Dean is the best judge of that."
Whereat the Dean groaned, poor man. Mrs. Vrater regarded him, he
regarded himself, as a renegade; but he showed none of a renegade's
enthusiasm on his new side.
"You do intend to have a dance!" cried the Canon's wife, with
well-affected surprise, considering the circumstances.
"We do indeed. Just a quiet evening for the young people, though we
shall hope to see you, dear Mrs. Vrater. Times are changed since we
were young," she added sweetly, "and we cannot stand still, however
much we may try."
If Mrs. Vrater had a weakness, it was a love for a style of dress
which, though severe, was in a degree youthful. Her bonnet while Mrs.
Anson spoke seemed to attract and fix that lady's eye. It must be
confessed that at Mrs. Vrater's age it was a youthful bonnet. However,
she did not appear to heed this, but rose and took her departure with
a shocked expression of countenance. She had given the poor Dean, her
recreant ally, a very wretched ten minutes; otherwise she had not been
successful. When Greek meets Greek neither is wont to get much
satisfaction. She said no more there; but she hastened to pay some
other friendly calls.
The manner in which the Dean came to give his consent must be told at
some length. There is a small house in a quiet corner of the Abbot's
Square at Gleicester, which stands back a few yards from the general
line of frontage. It is not alone in this respect. The Deanery on the
opposite side of the Square, and the Praecentor's house--we beg his
pardon, the Praecentory--in the far corner also shrink from the public
gaze. But then there is, and very properly, the retirement of
exclusiveness. In the small house in question such self-effacement
must have a different origin; perhaps in the modesty of conscious
insignificance, along with a due sense of the important neighborhood
in which No. 13 blooms like a violet almost unseen. For Abbot's
Square is virtually the Close of Gleicester--at any rate, there is no
other--while No. 13 is little more than a two-storied cottage with a
tiled roof, and outside shutters painted green, and a green door with
a brass knocker. The path from the wicket-gate to the unpretending
porch has been known to be gay with patterns now rather indistinct,
composed of the humble oyster-shell; and the occupants have varied
from a bachelor organist, or an artist painting the mediaeval, to the
Dean's favorite verger.
Such was the little house in the Abbot's Square; but Gleicester,
sleepy old Gleicester, arose one morning to find a rare tit-bit
of news served up with its breakfast. Mr. and the Hon. Mrs.
Curzon-Bowlby, a fashionable couple bent on retrenchment, had taken
No. 13 for the summer. They brought with them a letter of introduction
from the Marquis of Gleicester, and owing to that, and something
perhaps to the three letters which distinguished Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's
card from the pasteboards of the common throng, they were received by
the Deanery people with enthusiasm, at the residence with open arms.
The most select of coteries threw wide its doors to the tenants of No.
13. The Dean might be seen of a morning strolling in the little
garden, and his wife's carriage of an afternoon taking up and setting
down in front of the green shutters. The Archdeacon and the Praecentor,
nay, the very minor canons followed the Dean's lead. And Gleicester,
seeing these things, opened its eyes--its mouth was always open--and
awoke to the fact that the little house had risen in the world to a
very giddy height indeed.
But the position which under these unforeseen circumstances No. 13
might assume was hardly to be understood by the lay portion of the
city. The Abbot's Square and its doings were subjects of great
interest to them, as to people well brought up they would be; but with
a few exceptions, such as Sir Titus Wort, the brewer, and General
Jones, C. B., and Dr. Tobin. These people gazed on that Olympus from
afar. Possibly they called there and were called upon in return; but
that was all. Their knowledge of the inner politics of the Square was
not intimate.
They knew that the Dean's wife (Regina Jones) was a pleasant and
pleasure-loving lady; but they had no idea that she was the leader of
an organized party of pleasure, whose tenets were water-parties and
lawn-tennis, who pinned their faith to the clerical quadrille (only
square dances as yet), who supported the Praecentor, the author of that
secular but charming song, "Love me to-day," and who upheld
theatricals, and threatened to patronize the City Theatre itself; a
party who drove their opponents, headed by the Dean and Mrs. Vrater,
and that grim clergyman the Archdeacon, to the verge of distraction;
who were dubbed by the minor canons "the Epicureans," and finally
whose heart and soul, even as Mrs. Dean was their head and front, was
to be discovered in Canon Vrater.
The Canon deserves to be more particularly described. He was a man of
handsome presence and mature age, pink-faced and white-haired, young
for his years, and connected, though not so closely as Mrs.
Curzon-Bowlby, with the nobility. Perfectly adapted to shine in
society, he prided himself with good reason upon his polished manners,
which united in a very just degree the most gracious suavity with the
blandest dignity. They were so fine, indeed, as to be almost unfit for
home use. He made it a rule never to differ from a woman, his wife
(and antipodes) excepted, and seldom with a man. As he also invariably
granted a request if the petitioner were well dressed and the matter
_in future_, he was surely not to be blamed if his performances failed
to keep pace with his promises. In fine, a most pleasant, agreeable
gentleman, whom it was impossible to dislike to his face.
Yet I think the Archdeacon, a "new man," to whom the aristocratic
Canon's popularity was wormwood, did dislike him. Certainly the Dean
did not; he was a liberal-minded man in the main, but he had some
old-fashioned ideas, and a great sense of his own position and its
proprieties, and so perforce he found himself arrayed against his
wife's party along with Mrs. Vrater and the Archdeacon.
Such was the state of things in the Abbot's Square when No. 13
received its new tenants. Now the Epicureans and now their opponents
would gain some slight advantage. The vergers and beadles arrayed
themselves upon one side or the other, and by the solemnity or levity
of their carriage, the twinkle in the eye or the far-off, absent gaze,
made known their views. The first lay clerk, a man qualified to talk
with his enemies in the gate, gave monthly dances; the leading tenor
assisted at scientific demonstrations.
But of what weight were such adherents beside the new-comers at No.
13? Which party would they join? If appearances might be trusted there
could be little doubt. Mr. Curzon-Bowlby was a tall, long-faced man,
with a dark beard and moustache. His appearance was genteel, not to
say aristocratic--but fatuous. He walked with an upright carriage and
dressed correctly--indeed, with taste: beyond that, being a man of few
words, he seemed a man of no character. His wife was unlike him in
everything, save that she too dressed to perfection. A lively little
blonde, blue-eyed and bewitching, with a lovely pink-and-white
complexion, and a thick fringe of fair hair, she positively
effervesced with life and innocent gayety. She sparkled and bubbled
like champagne; she flitted to and fro all day long like a butterfly
in the sunshine. She charmed the Dean: the Canon declared her
perfection. And though she was hardly the person (_minus_ the three
letters before mentioned) to fascinate his wife, she disarmed even
Mrs. Vrater. And yet, whether the little woman of the world had, with
all her apparent impulsiveness, a great store of tact, or that she was
slow to comprehend the position, and was puzzled at finding the Dean
arrayed against his wife, and Mrs. Vrater opposed to the Canon, she
certainly dallied with her choice. Upon being invited to attend the
science classes at the residence, she faltered and hesitated, and
rather pleaded for time than declined. Mrs. Vrater, excellent woman,
was pleasantly surprised; and determining to try again, went home with
a light heart and good courage.
But this was before the little lady learned that the clerical
quadrille--the party of progress, as has been hinted, wisely ignored
the existence of round dances--was the burning question of the time.
"Good gracious! Mrs. Anson," she cried, clapping her little hands, and
her blue eyes wide with amazement over this discovery, "do you mean to
say that none of your clergy dance? that they never dance at all?"
The Dean's wife shook her head, and shrugged her shoulders
contemptuously. She was a little out of temper this afternoon. Why was
she not the wife of a cavalry colonel?
"Not even the Canon? Oh, I am sure Canon Vrater does.--Now, don't
you?"
For the Canon, too, was in the little drawing-room. Small as the house
was, our impoverished fashionables had not furnished all of it; but
this room was a triumph of taste, in a quiet and inexpensive way. A
man and a maid whom they brought to Gleicester with them made up the
household. So there was an empty room or two.
"No, Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby," he said; "if I danced I should be tripping
indeed, in Gleicester opinion."
"You don't! well, I am surprised. Now confess, Canon, when did you
dance last? So long ago that you have forgotten the steps? Years and
years ago?" The old gentleman reddened, and fidgeted a little. "Canon,
did you ever"--the little woman glanced roguishly round the room, and
brought out the last word with a tragic accent positively fascinating,
"did you ever--waltz?"
"Well," he answered guardedly, with an eye to his friend Mrs. Anson,
who was mightily amused, "I have waltzed."
"Something like this, was it not?" She went to the piano and played a
few bars of a dreamy, old-fashioned German dance; played it as it
should be played. The Canon's wholesome pink face grew pinker, and he
began to sway a little as he sat.
She turned swiftly round upon the music-stool. "Don't you feel at
times a desire to do something naughty, Canon--just because it is
naughty?"
He nodded.
"And don't you think," continued the fair casuist, with a delicious
air of wisdom, "that when it is not very naughty, only a little bad,
you know, you should sometimes indulge yourself, as a sort of
safety-valve?"
He smiled, of course, a gentle dissent. But at the same time he
muttered something which sounded like "desipere in loco."
"Mrs. Anson, you play a waltz, I know?"
She acknowledged the impeachment with none of the Canon's modesty.
"You are so kind, I am sure you will oblige me for five minutes. The
Canon is going to try his steps with me in the next room. How lucky it
is empty, and quite a good floor, I declare.--Now, Canon Vrater, you
are far too gallant to refuse?"
He laughed, but Mrs. Anson entered thoroughly into the fun, took off
her gloves, and sitting down at the piano played the same dreamy air.
In vain the old gentleman pleasantly protested; he was swept away, so
to speak, by the little woman's vivacity. How it came about, whether
there was some magic in the air, or in Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's eyes, the
Canon was never able to make quite clear to himself, and far less to
Mrs. Vrater, but in two minutes he was revolving round the room in
stately measure, an expression of anxious enjoyment on his handsome
old face as he carefully counted his steps, such as would have
diverted the eye of the charmed bystander even from the arch mischief
that rippled over his fair partner's features. Had there been any
bystander to witness the scene, that is.
"Hem!"
It was very loud and full of meaning, and came from the open
window. The Canon's arm fell from the lady's waist as if she had
suddenly turned into the spiky maiden of Nuremberg. Mrs. Dean stopped
playing with equal suddenness, and an exclamation of annoyance. Mrs.
Curzon-Bowlby, thus deserted in the middle of the room, dropped the
prettiest of "cheeses," and broke into a merry peal of unaffected
laughter. It was the Dean. Coming up the oyster-shell path, there
was no choice for him but to witness the _denouement_ through the
green-shuttered window. He was shocked; perhaps of the four he was the
most embarrassed, though the Canon looked, for him, very foolish. But
nothing could stand against Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's gayety. She laughed
so long, so innocently, and with such pure enjoyment of the situation,
that one by one they joined her. The Dean attempted to be a little
sarcastic, but the laugh took all sting from his satire; and the
Canon, when he had once recovered his presence of mind, and his
breath, parried the raillery with his usual polished ease.
So Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's freak ended in no more serious result than her
own conversion into the staunchest of Epicureans, a very goddess of
pleasure; and in familiarizing the Dean's mind with the idea of the
Terpischorean innovation, until the proposition of a dance at the
Deanery--yes, at the Deanery itself--was mooted to his decanal ears.
Of course he rejected it, but still he survived the shock, and the
project had been brought within the range of practical politics. Its
novelty faded from his mind, and its impropriety ceased to strike him.
He had never told Mrs. Vrater of her husband's afternoon waltz, and
this reticence divided them. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby exerted all her wiles;
she gave him no peace. The plan was mooted again and again; he
wavered, remonstrated, argued, and finally (thanks chiefly to No. 13),
in a moment of good-natured weakness, when the fear of Mrs. Vrater was
not before his eyes, succumbed. Be sure his wife and her allies left
him no _locos p[oe]nitentice_. Never was triumph greater. Within the
week the minor canons had their invitations stuck in their mirrors,
and rejoiced in their liberty. And Mrs. Vrater made a certain call
upon Mrs. Anson, of which the reader knows.
But Mrs. Dean's pleasure was not unclouded. There were spots upon the
sun. The Dean was not always so tractable, and the Deanery house was
not large, and the garden positively small. True, a gateway and a
descent of two or three steps led from the latter into the picturesque
cloisters, which had lately been cleaned and repaired, and the sight
of this suggested a brilliant idea to flighty Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby. She
lost no time in communicating it to Mrs. Anson, who received it at
first with some doubt. Her friend, however, painted it in such
pleasant hues, and set it in so many brilliant lights, that later she
too became enamored of the project, and boldly proceeded to carry it
into execution.
The Dean stumbled upon this magnificent plan; in so many words,
stumbled upon it, in a rather unfortunate way. He was taking his
wonted morning stroll in the garden two or three days before the 24th,
the date fixed for the now famous dance. His thoughts were not upon it
at the moment: it was a bright sunny day, and the balmy life-inspiring
air had expelled the regret which it must be confessed was the Dean's
normal frame of mind as to his ill-considered acquiescence. He was not
thinking of what the Bishop would say, or what the city would say, or,
worst of all, what Mrs. Vrater had said. He turned a corner of the
summerhouse a few yards from the steps which we have mentioned as
leading to the cloisters, and as he did so with the free gait of a man
walking in his own garden--bump!--he brought his right knee violently
against the edge of some object, a packing-case, a half-opened
packing-case which was lying there, where, so far as the Dean could
see, it had no earthly business. The packing-case edge was sharp, the
blow a forcible one. For a moment the Dean hopped about, moaning to
himself and embracing his shin. The spring air lost all its virtue on
the instant, and his regret for his moral weakness returned with added
and local poignancy. For he had not a doubt that the offending box had
something to do with the 24th. As he tenderly rubbed his leg he
regarded the box with no friendly eyes. To schoolboys and policemen,
and the tag-rag and bobtail, a sharp blow on the shin may not be much;
but stout and dignified clerics above the rank of a ritualistic vicar
are, to say the least of it, not accustomed to the thing at all.
"What the--ahem--what in heaven's name may this be?" he exclaimed with
irritation. Resentment adding vigor to his curiosity, he gingerly
removed the covering from the case, which appeared to be full of
parti-colored paper globes of all shapes and sizes. They were
symmetrically arranged; they might have been tiny fire-balloons. But
the Dean's mind reverted to infernal machines, the smart of his shin
suggesting his line of thought. He put on his glasses in some
trepidation, and looking more closely made out the objects to
be--Chinese lanterns.
The sound of a hasty step upon the gravel made him turn. It was Mrs.
Anson, looking a little perturbed--by her hurry, perhaps. Her husband
lifted one of the lanterns from the case with the end of his stick,
and contemplated it with a good deal of contempt.
"My dear," he said, "what in the name of goodness are these foolish
things for?"
"Well, you know the house is not very large," she began, "and the
supper will occupy the dining-room and breakfast-room--it would be a
pity to cramp the supper, my dear, when we have such beautiful plate,
and so few chances of showing it--and conservatory we have none
so----"
"Yes, yes, my dear, true," broke in the Dean impatiently; "but what of
these? what of these?" He raised the poor lantern anew.
"Well, we thought it would be nice to--to light the cloisters with
these lanterns, and so form a conservatory of a kind. Now that the
cloisters are cleaned and restored they will look so pretty, and the
people can walk there between the dances. I thought it would be an
excellent arrangement, and--and save us pulling your study about."
There was an awful pause. The lantern, held at arm's length on the
ferrule of the Dean's stick, shook like an aspen leaf.
"You thought--it would be nice--to light the cloisters--with Chinese
lanterns! The cloisters of Gleicester Cathedral, Mrs. Anson! Good
heavens!"
No mere words can express the tone of amazed disapprobation, of
horror, disgust, and wrath combined, in which the Dean, whose face was
purple with the same emotions, spoke these words. He dashed the
lantern to the ground, and set one foot upon it in a manner not
unworthy of St. George--the Chinese lantern being a natural symbol of
the dragon.
"It would be rank sacrilege; sacrilege, Mrs. Anson. Never let me hear
of it again. I am shocked that you should have proposed such a thing;
and I see now what I feared before, that I was very wrong in giving my
consent to a frivolity unbecoming our position. You cannot touch pitch
and not be defiled. But I never dreamt it would come to this. Let me
hear no more of it, I beg."
The Dean, as he walked away after these decisive words, felt very
sore--and not only about the knee, to do him justice. He repeated over
and over again to himself the proverb about touching pitch. Until the
last few days, no one had cherished his position more highly. And now
his very wife was so far demoralized as to have suggested things
dreadful to him and subversive of it. He had given way to the Canon
and that little witch at No. 13, and this was the first result. What a
peck of troubles, he said to himself, this wretched dance was bringing
upon him! He was sick of it, sick to death of it, he told himself. So
sick, indeed, that when he was out of his wife's hearing he groaned
aloud with a great sense of self-pity, and almost brought himself in
his disgust to believe that Mrs. Vrater would have been a more fit and
sympathetic helpmeet for him.
And Mrs. Dean was bitterly disappointed. She had set her heart upon
the cloisters scheme, and in most things she had been wont to enjoy
her own way. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby had depicted it in such gorgeous hues,
and portrayed so movingly the guests' admiration and surprise--and
envy. Oaklea Castle, the seat of the Marquis of Gleicester, with its
spacious and costly conservatories and fineries, could present no
more picturesque or charming scene than would be afforded by the
many-arched cloisters brilliantly lighted and decorated, and filled
with handsome dresses and pretty faces still aglow with the music's
enthusiasm. Mrs. Anson had pictured it all. But she was a wise woman,
and a comparatively old married woman, and she recognized that the
matter was not one for argument. Not even to the Canon, her ally, did
she confide her chagrin, being after her husband's outburst a little
dubious of the light in which the project might present itself to him.
Only into Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby's bosom did she pour her sorrow without
reserve. That lady made a delicious _moue_ after her fashion on
hearing of the Dean's indignation, but she seemed almost as
disappointed as Mrs. Anson herself. "And he actually forbade you,
dear?" she asked, with her blue eyes full of pity and wondering
surprise.
"Well, he told me never to let him hear of it again."
"Oh!" answered the little woman thoughtfully, and was silent for a
time. When she recovered herself she changed the subject, and soon
coaxed and petted her friend into a good humor.
Still this was a large spot on the sun of Mrs. Anson's triumph. And
yet another, a mere speck indeed in comparison, and very endurable,
appeared at the last moment, the very day before the 24th. The Dean
was summoned to London; was summoned so privately, so peremptorily,
and so importantly, that the thought of what might come of the journey
(there was a new bishopric in act of being formed) almost reconciled
his wife to his absence; and this the more when she had effectually
disposed of his suggestion that the party should be indefinitely
postponed. The Dean was not persistent in pushing his proposal; the
harm, he felt, was already done. And besides, being himself away, he
would now be freed from some personal embarrassment. It must go on; if
he went up it would signify little. So he started for London very
cheerfully, all Gleicester knowing of his errand, and the porters at
the station spying a phantom apron at his girdle.
When the evening, marked in the minor canons' rubric with so red a
letter, arrived, the excitement in the Abbot's Square rose to a great
height.
Vague rumors of some surprise in store for the guests, which should
surpass the novelty of the dance, were abroad. Strange workmen of
reticent manners had passed in and out, and mysterious packages and
bundles, as self-contained as their bearers, had been seen to enter
the Deanery gates. A jealous awning, which altered the normal
appearance of the garden as seen from the second-floor windows of the
Square, hid the exact nature of the alteration, and served only to
whet the keen curiosity of the Gleicester public. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby,
from No. 13, ran to and fro, smiling with a charming air of
effervescent reserve, which raised Mrs. Anson's older friends to an
aggravated pitch of curiosity. The Square knew not what to expect.
Conjecture was--in more senses than one, as the event proved--abroad.
For no one had in the least foreseen the spectacle that met their eyes
upon their arrival. Certainly not the Bishop, though he betrayed no
surprise; good cheery man, he was every inch a bishop, and therefore
by tradition a great-hearted, liberal-minded gentleman. Certainly not
Sir Titus Wort, nor General Jones, much less the Archdeacon. No, nor
even the minor canons; their anticipations, keen as long abstinence
from such enjoyments could make them, had yet fallen far short of the
scene presented to their gaze upon entering the Deanery garden.
Even Canon Vrater--at home, it was rumored, in courts; he had
certainly once lunched at Windsor--stood in almost speechless wonder
by the garden steps.
"It is very beautiful!" he said simply, gazing with all his eyes down
the arched vista formed by the tree-like pillars of the cloisters; the
brilliant light of many lanterns picked out every leaf of their
delicate carving and fretted broidery, and made of their fair
whiteness a glittering background for the dark-hued dresses of the
promenaders beneath. It was indeed more like fairy-land than a part of
the cathedral precincts. Those who traversed it every day looked round
and wondered where they were.
"It is very beautiful!" That was all. And he said it so gravely that
Mrs. Anson's spirits, elevated by the open admiration of the bulk of
her guests, would have fallen rapidly had she not at that moment met
the arch glance of Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby. That lady, a very mistress of
the revels, was flitting here and there and everywhere, witching the
world of Gleicester with noble womanhood.
Nor was the sight less of a surprise to the Canon's wife. But Mrs.
Vrater, as was to be expected, had more to say upon the subject. She
had taken possession of the youngest and most timid of the minor
canons, and even he was lifted a little above himself by the scene and
a chance smile shot in his direction by the mistress of No. 13. Still
he was not sufficiently intoxicated to venture to disagree with the
resident Canon's lady.
"I never thought I should live to see this or anything like it!" she
said, with a groan of grimmest disapprobation.
"No, indeed," he assented, "nor did I." But it is doubtful if he meant
quite the same thing as the lady.
"This will not be the end of it, Mr. Smallgunn," said Cassandra,
nodding her head in so gloomy a manner that it recalled nothing so
much as a hearse-plume.
"Not a bit of it," he answered briskly. But again it is a matter of
some uncertainty whether the two wits--supposing that so irreverent an
expression may be applied to Mrs. Vrater's wit--jumped together. He
not improbably in his mind's eye saw a succession of such evenings
strewn like flowers in the minor canons' path; and this was not at all
Mrs. Vrater's view. She felt that there was a lack of sympathy between
them, and left him for the Archdeacon, with whom she conferred in a
corner, glowering the while at the triumphant Epicureans, who strutted
up and down the carpeted cloisters, and flirted their fans, and spread
their feathers like peacocks in the sunshine.
And there were moments when Mrs. Dean felt as proud as a peacock; but
then there were other times when she felt quite the reverse. True, she
fully intended strenuously to perform, so far as in her lay, her
husband's order, "never to let him hear of it again," quite heartily
and sincerely; that amount of justice must be done her; she intended
to obey him in this, only she doubted of her success. And being in the
main a good woman, with some amount of love and reverence for her
husband, there were moments in the evening when she turned quite cold
with fear, and wondered who or what on earth could have induced her to
do it. But her guests saw nothing of this; nor did it occur to them,
whatever might be their private views, that their hostess had the
smallest doubt of the propriety of her picturesque arrangement--her
guests generally, that is. There was one exception--the gay, laughing,
sail-with-the-wind little lady from No. 13.
But she did not form one of the group around Mrs. Anson during the
last dance before supper. It was a waltz, and it had but just
commenced, the rhythmical strains had but just penetrated to their
nook within the cloisters, when suddenly, with some degree of
abruptness, the music stopped. They, not knowing their hostess's train
of thought, were surprised to see her turn pale and half rise. She
paused in the middle of a sentence, and could not disguise the fact
that she was listening. The others became silent also, and listened as
people will. The dancing had ceased, and there was some commotion in
the house, that was clear. There were loud voices, and the sound of
hurrying to and fro, and of people calling and answering; and finally,
while they were yet looking at one another with eyes half fearful,
half assuring, there came quite a rush of people from the house in the
direction of the cloisters. Mrs. Anson rose, as did the others. She
alone had no doubt of what it meant. The Dean had come back--the Dean
had come back! The matter could not be disguised; she was caught
literally _flagrante delicto_, the cloisters one blaze of light from
end to end. How would he take it? She peered at the approaching group
to try and distinguish his burly form and mark the aspect of his face.
But though it was hardly dark in the little strip of garden which
separated them from the house, she could not see him; and as they came
nearer she could hear several voices, if it was not her imagination
playing her tricks, naming him in tones of condolence and pity. Then
another and, as she was afterwards thankful to remember, a far more
painful idea came into her mind, and she stepped forward with a
buzzing in her ears.
"What is it, James? The Dean?" with a catch in her voice.
"Well, ma'am, yes. I'm very sorry, ma'am. There's been a----"
"An accident? Speak, quick! what is it?" she cried, her hand to her
side.
"No, ma'am, but a burglary; and the Dean, who has just come, says----"
"The Dean, James, will speak for himself," said her husband, who had
followed the group at a more leisurely pace, taking in the aspect of
affairs as he came. He had heard the latter part of her words, and
been softened, perhaps, by the look upon her face. "You have plenty of
light here, my dear," with a glance at the illumination, in which
annoyance and contempt were finely mingled; "but I fear that will not
enable our guests to eat their supper in the absence of plate. Every
spoon and fork has been stolen; a feat rendered, I expect, much more
easy by this injudicious plan of yours."
Which was all the public punishment she received at his hands. But his
news was sufficient. Mrs. Dean remembered her magnificent silver-gilt
epergne and salver to match--never more to be anything but a memory to
her--and fainted.
Mrs. Vrater, too, remembered that epergne. It was the finest piece in
the Dean's collection, and the Dean's plate was famous through the
county. She remembered it, and felt that her triumph could hardly have
been more complete; the shafts of Nemesis could hardly have been
driven into a more fitting crevice in her adversary's armor. This was
what had come of the clergy dancing, of the Dean's weakness, and Mrs.
Anson's secular frivolity and friendships! Mrs. Vrater looked round,
her with a great sense of the wisdom of Providence, and ejaculated,
"This is precisely what I foresaw!"
"Then it is a pity you did not inform the police," answered her
husband, tartly.
But his lady shook her head. In the triumph of the moment she could
afford to leave such a gibe unanswered. The Archdeacon was condoling
with the Dean in terms almost cordial, and certainly sincere; but Mrs.
Vrater was made of sterner stuff, and was not one to lose the
sweetness of victory by indulging a foolish sympathy for the
vanquished. She would annihilate all her enemies at one blow, and
looked round upon the excited group surrounding Mrs. Anson to see that
no one of that lady's faction was lacking to her triumph.
What was this? Surely she was here! The prime mover, the instigator of
this folly, should have been in closest attendance upon her dear
friend? But no.
"Where is Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby?" Mrs. Vrater asked rather sharply, what
with surprise, and what with some pardonable disappointment.
"I believe," said the Dean, turning from his wife, who was slowly
reviving--"I believe that the Hon. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby is in the
Mediterranean."
"In the Mediterranean? why, she was here an hour ago." The man's head
was turned by the loss of his cherished plate.
"No, not Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby, as I learned before I left London. Some
one so calling herself was, though she too is probably far away in the
up train by this time, and her plunder with her. To her and her
confederates we are indebted for this loss." The Dean may be excused
if he spoke a little bitterly.
"Good Lord!" cried the Canon, dropping the glass of water he was
holding.
"I felt sure of it!" cried his wife, in a tone of deep conviction.
As the party entered the house, which was in huge disorder, full of
guests collecting their wraps and calling for their carriages, of
imperative policemen and frightened servants, the Dean drew back. He
returned alone to the cloisters, and very carefully with his own hands
extinguished all the lamps. As the faint moonlight regained its lost
ascendency, falling in a silver sheet pale and pure upon the central
grass-plot, and dimly playing round the carven pillars, the Dean
closed the gate and heaved a sigh of relief.
And so ended the Dean's ball, the triumph as brief as disastrous of
the Gleicester Epicureans. The dreams of the minor canons have not
become facts. They may play lawn-tennis, may attend water-parties and
amateur theatricals--nay, may play cards for such stakes as they can
afford, but the dance is tabooed. The Dean is Dean still, and is still
looking hopefully--what Dean is not?--to the immediate future to make
him a bishop. And Mrs. Dean is still Mrs. Dean, but not quite the Mrs.
Dean she was. As for No. 13, its day of prosperity also closed with
that night. It relapsed into its old condition of modest
insignificance, nor ever recalled the fact that a reverend canon had
waltzed within its walls. The green shutters and oyster-shells are no
longer considered an anomaly, for they adorn the residence of a master
mason.
One more episode of that evening remains to be told. The Canon and his
wife walked home together, and if he said little she left little to be
said. Upon entering the dining-room the Canon sat down wearily. The
servant, surprised to see them return so early, brought in the lamp.
The Canon looked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
"Mary," he said, "where is--don't be alarmed, my dear; Mary has no
doubt put it upstairs for safety--where is my great silver tankard?
Ah, yes; and the goblets, too, where are they?"
"If you please, ma'am," said Mary glibly, answering rather Mrs.
Vrater's agonized look than the Canon's question--"if you please,
ma'am, the Hon. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby called after you left, and said
she'd run in to borrow them for the Deanery claret-cup, as they'd be
short of silver."
THE PROFESSOR AND THE
HARPY.
Mother Church, who in bygone ages sheltered all the learning of the
land beneath her broad wings, and who, even after this monopoly had
passed away from her, continued to provide for learners and learned in
a munificent fashion, has in these latter times been sadly shorn of
wealth and patronage by the relentless march of progress and the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners. Yet there is balm in Gilead. Here and
there a sinecure has been suffered to remain for the benefit of those
whose work is not altogether of the tangible kind so dear to the
nineteenth century; here and there a Reverend Jack Horner, putting his
thumb into the diminished pie of Church preferment, can pull out a
plum, and, sitting down under the shadow of some gray cathedral tower,
can draw soothing deductions after the manner of his juvenile
prototype. A bishopric may no longer be a post of dignified ease,
archdeacons may be men doomed to perpetual hurry and worry, wealthy
pluralists may have become an extinct class, but a Canon of Lichbury
Cathedral is still a personage whose comfortable dwelling and
comfortable income are rather the acknowledgment of past distinction
than the equivalent of any present labor. Not, of course, that the
Dean and Chapter of Lichbury are a body of worn-out pensioners. It is
by no means in that light that they are accustomed to regard
themselves; nor, indeed, are they so regarded by any, except the
ignorant and irreverent. If repose and competence have been bestowed
upon them, it is not only because they have already enriched the world
with the results of literary research, but that they may have more
leisure to continue doing so. Some of them have achieved renown as
authors of theological treatises, others are deeply versed in
classical lore; while some, like Canon Stanwick, hold university
professorships.
The latter divine was understood to owe his canonry (which had been
conferred upon him at a comparatively early age) to that celebrated
work, "The Life and Times of the Emperor Julian," in which an
interesting character and an interesting period of history had been so
exhaustively and impartially treated of as to leave no room for
further exploration of the same ground. Whether, as his admirers
declared, the Professor had surpassed Gibbon as triumphantly in the
handling of his subject as Gibbon surpassed Voltaire and other earlier
writers, and whether in the course of his well-weighed observations he
had made out as good a case for the church which he represented as was
possible and desirable, are questions which need not be discussed
here. One consequence, at all events, of his accomplished task had
been to place him in the front rank of living historians, and another
had been his appointment to a vacant stall in Lichbury Cathedral.
This last reward of merit should have been especially grateful to him,
for he was a bachelor of retired habits, whose life had been spent
among his books, and to whom life had little left to offer in the way
of attractions save increased opportunities for study; and, in fact,
he was, as a general thing, very well satisfied with his lot.
Nevertheless, as he paced up and down his smooth lawn one morning in
August, he was in a less contented frame of mind than usual. The
whispering of the summer breeze in the old elms, the cawing of the
rooks, the occasional deliberate ding-dong of the cathedral clock far
overhead, checking off the slumberous quarters and half-hours--all
these familiar sounds had failed to produce upon him that sense of
calm which is so conducive of thought; he had been compelled to lay
aside the opening chapter of his new work, "The Rise of the Papacy,"
and to take to walking to and fro in the garden, with his hands behind
his back and his gray head sunk beneath shoulders which were somewhat
prematurely bowed.
The truth was that the Professor, like other professors, had once been
young, and that the days of his youth had been vividly and
unexpectedly brought back to him the night before. This is always a
disturbing thing to happen to a man; and what made it particularly so
in Canon Stanwick's case was that his youth had been marked by a
trouble which he had taken terribly to heart at the time of its
occurrence. To be jilted is no such rare experience, and to get over
it with great rapidity is the ordinary lot of the jilted one; but some
few strangely constituted mortals there are who never get over it, and
of these Canon Stanwick happened to be one. Certainly, at the age of
fifty-five he had long ceased to think with any bitterness of the
shallow-hearted Julia to whom he had become engaged immediately after
taking orders, and who had thrown him over in favor of a man of much
greater wealth and higher position; he had, indeed, ceased to think
about her at all. But not the less was it her conduct which had shaped
the course of his life. By it he had been driven into deep study, into
an Oxford professorship, and finally into a canonry; by it also he had
been driven out of society, and especially out of female society, for
which the treachery of one member of the sex had imbued him with a
strong repugnance. At Oxford, where he had resided up to the time
of his recent preferment, the ladies had quite given him up. It had
been understood there that he did not care for the relaxation of
dinner-parties and tea-parties; and it was a somewhat singular
coincidence that, having from a sense of duty consented to break
through his long-standing rule and dine with the Dean of Lichbury, he
should have found himself seated opposite to his old love, whom, by
another odd coincidence, he had wooed, won, and lost in that very
neighborhood so long before.
This chance meeting had upset the worthy man a good deal. In the
gray-haired but vivacious Mrs. Annesley who had claimed acquaintance
with him across the table, he had scarcely recognized the heroine of
his buried romance, nor had he either the wish or the power to
resuscitate the tender feelings with which he had once regarded her;
but the sight of her had stirred up old memories within him, and these
had haunted him through the night, had prevented the Papacy from
rising satisfactorily in the morning, and finally, as aforesaid, had
sent him out into the open air, a prey to vague regrets.
So that elderly lady was Julia Annesley! And she had grown-up sons and
daughters, about whom she talked a great deal; and her husband was
dead--the husband for whom she had never cared, and whom she made
little pretence of regretting. To all appearance, she regretted
nothing. Why should she, when she had all that a woman could wish to
have? Perhaps, thought the Professor, it might be a better thing to be
the father of sons and daughters, when one was growing old, than to be
the author of an unrivalled monograph on the merits and demerits of
Julian the Apostate. To be sure, there was no reason why one shouldn't
be both. And then he fell to wondering whether that ambition which had
been the chief cause of Julia's infidelity could have been satisfied
with such fame and social standing as an historian, a professor, and a
canon may lay claim to. Only, if he had married Julia, he would
probably have begun and ended as a country parson. He smiled at
himself for indulging in such nonsensical fancies at his time of life;
but he went on dreaming all the same until he was startled by the
opening of a gate which connected his house with the Precincts.
Somebody strode with a brisk, ringing step up the brick pathway to the
front door, singing loudly,--
"I loved her, _and_ she might have been
The happiest _in_ the land;
But she fancied a foreigner who played the clarinet
In the middle of a Ger-man band."
Then came a vigorous pull at the bell, followed by subdued whistling
of the air of this apposite but vulgar ditty. It was not after so
indecorous a fashion that the Professor's visitors were wont to
approach him, and he could not resist the temptation to steal softly
across the turf past the library windows and see who might be the
author of all this disturbance. His curiosity was rewarded by a
full-length view of a handsome, merry-looking young fellow in undress
cavalry uniform, who himself happened to be peeping round the corner
at that moment, and who at once advanced, saying: "Oh, how do you do?
Canon Stanwick isn't it? My mother asked me to leave this note for you
as I passed--Mrs. Annesley, you know. She says you and she are old
friends."
"I am much obliged to you, sir," said the Professor in his grave
voice, taking the note. "Pray come in."
"Can't, thanks," answered the other; "I must be off to barracks. See
you this afternoon on the cricket-ground though, I hope. We've got a
great match on--garrison against the county. We shall be awfully
licked of course; but everybody will be up there, and it's something
to do. Very glad to see you if you'll come to our tent. You'll find my
mother there; the note's to tell you all about it. Good-bye for the
present."
And with that this unceremonious young man clanked away, leaving the
Professor, who had not looked on at a cricket match for a matter of
thirty years, much amused. The note ran as follows:
Deanery, Lichbury: Thursday.
"Dear Canon Stanwick,--I hope, if you are disengaged this afternoon,
you will join our party on the cricket-ground, and give me the
opportunity, which I sought in vain last night, of having a little
talk with you. I am obliged to leave to-morrow morning, and I am so
very anxious to have a few words with you before I go _about my son_,
who is quartered here. Do come, and
"Believe me most sincerely yours,
"Julia Annesley."
"Oh, by all means," said the Professor, who had a solitary man's habit
of thinking aloud. "I shall feel rather like a fish out of water among
all those people; but never mind, I'll go. Only I can't think why you
should want to talk to me about your son."
Perhaps the Professor was still a little in the dark as to this point,
even after a long interview with Mrs. Annesley; though he certainly
could not complain of any want of candor upon the lady's part. The
Lichbury cricket-ground is justly celebrated both for its extent and
for the beauty of its situation, and the numerous matches of which it
is the scene during the summer season are always well attended. The
Professor made his way through a double line of carriages and drags,
feeling and looking very much like a man who has suddenly emerged from
a dark room upon a crowded thoroughfare. The confused din raised by a
large concourse of people, mingled with the strains of the military
band which was in attendance, and the shouts of eager partisans of
garrison or county, bewildered him; and it was only after repeated
inquiries that he succeeded in reaching the entrance of the cavalry
tent, where he stood for a minute blinking in the sunshine, and trying
with shortsighted eyes to distinguish among the assemblage of gayly
dressed ladies seated there the one of whom he was in search. But if
he did not see her, she very soon saw him, and came forward, holding
out a tiny pair of beautifully gloved hands.
"_How_ good of you to come!" she exclaimed. "Suppose we take a turn
round the ground; then we can talk quietly."
She was a bright, alert little woman, her gray hair, which was drawn
straight up from her forehead, contrasting oddly with her still
youthful complexion, and giving her somewhat of the appearance of an
eighteenth-century _marquise_. The Professor was not quite sure
whether he ought to offer her his arm or not, but finally deciding
that this was unnecessary, made a grab at his shapeless felt hat, and
muttered, "Delighted, I'm sure." He was a little embarrassed in the
presence of his former love, whose first words showed that she, for
her part, had no such foolish feeling.
"Is it not strange that we should meet again at Lichbury after all
these years?" she began. "I have often thought of you, and often felt
sorry." She paused and sighed. "One does not expect men to take things
so seriously--generally, you know, it is the men who forget, and the
women who suffer; but I suppose you are different. And I have spoilt
your life!"
The Professor smiled. He was thinking that most people would hardly
describe his life as having been a spoilt one; he was thinking, too,
that the Julia who had caused him so much mental anguish in years gone
by was quite another person from the complacent little lady who was
trying to make apologies for her. He rather wished she would drop the
subject; but he said nothing, and Mrs. Annesley resumed:
"You ought to hate me--I quite feel that; but doesn't some clever
person say somewhere that we never hate those who have injured us,
only those whom we have injured? I have injured you dreadfully; but
for all that, I want to make friends--and to ask a favor of you into
the bargain." She concluded her sentence with a little laugh and a
side glance from eyes which had done much execution in their day.
"I am sure I shall be very glad if I can serve you in any way," said
the Professor simply; "and I think we may very well agree to let
bygones be bygones. It was something about your son, you said?"
"Ah, yes, poor fellow!" sighed Mrs. Annesley; "I can't tell you how
anxious and distressed I am about him. He is quartered here with his
regiment, the 27th Lancers, and he absolutely refuses to leave the
service, though, as of course you know, he succeeded to a very large
property when he came of age."
"He is still very young," remarked the Professor. "I should think
another year or two of soldiering would do him no harm."
"But it is absurd for a man with three large country houses to live in
barracks. I want him to marry and settle down. I want him--only this
is strictly between ourselves--to marry Violet Cecil. She is such a
charming girl, and so pretty--don't you think so?"
"Is she?" asked the Professor. "I scarcely know her."
"But you and Mr. Cecil were always such great friends, I thought."
"We had not met for many years until I came down here, and I have only
seen Miss Cecil once. I did not notice her particularly."
"How funny of you! But I remember that you were never very observant.
Well, I was going to tell you about poor Bob--oh! there he is. I
should like so much to introduce him to you."
"He introduced himself to me this morning," observed the Professor,
smiling.
"Oh, did he? Well, I could not introduce him _now_, at any rate," said
Mrs. Annesley, meaningly.
The Professor adjusted his glasses, and following the direction of her
gaze, made out his visitor of the morning, who had exchanged his
uniform for a suit of cricketing flannels, and who was pacing along by
the side of a tall, fine-looking woman with dark hair. The young man
wore a downcast look, and his evident unwillingness to raise his eyes
seemed to show that he was conscious of his mother's vicinity.
"Oh, I see!" said the Professor, with a perspicacity which did him
credit.
"Yes; isn't it dreadful? What any man can find to admire in such a
woman I can't conceive."
"She is handsome and--very well dressed," hazarded the Professor,
after another survey of the lady's retreating form.
"Well dressed!" ejaculated Mrs. Annesley, throwing up her hands. "If
you can say that, you would say anything. Pale blue satin and
imitation lace--good gracious! But of course you don't understand
these things."
"Certainly," the Professor agreed, "I am no judge of such matters. But
who is this lady?"
"Ah, who indeed? That is exactly what nobody knows. She is a Mrs.
Harrington--at least, that is what she calls herself; and I believe
she is one of those dreadful harpies who follow regiments about all
over the world and ruin poor young men--or rather, rich young men. She
is not exactly disreputable, I am told; I only wish she were!--No, I
didn't mean that--I forgot you were a clergyman. I beg your pardon,
I'm sure."
"Don't mind me," said the Professor. "And so you are afraid that she
will marry your son?"
"I can't bear to say so; but it does look terribly like it, and I am
so powerless. I have no influence over Bob, and it is impossible for
me to remain down here; I have all my other children to look after,
you know. Of course it would never do to breathe a word to the Cecils;
otherwise they might be able to save him, for I am sure he is really
fond of Violet. It struck me that perhaps you might give me a helping
hand."
"I will most gladly, if I can," replied the Professor; "but I confess
I don't at present see what I can do."
"I am sure you could influence him in a quiet way; and then you might
try to throw him as much as possible with the Cecils. You will have
plenty of opportunities of doing that, if you look for them. And
perhaps you would be very kind and write me a line every now and then
to tell me how matters are going."
The Professor shook his head and said he feared Mrs. Annesley was
leaning upon a broken reed. Nevertheless, he promised to do his best;
and promises with him always meant a good deal. For the sake of old
days he was willing to do Mrs. Annesley a kindness; for the young
man's own sake he would gladly have disappointed the harpy; finally,
he thought he would be rendering no small service to his friend Cecil,
if he could bring about a marriage between the daughter of that not
very wealthy country gentleman and one of the richest bachelors in
England. The only question was how to set about achieving so desirable
a result. He debated this problem for some time after Mrs. Annesley
had been called away from his side by other acquaintances, and he was
still standing with his hands behind his back, frowning meditatively,
when Mr. Cecil, a fresh-colored squire, who lived within a few miles
of Lichbury, caught sight of him and greeted him warmly.
"Hollo, Stanwick! who'd have thought of seeing you on the
cricket-ground? This is an unexpected honor for the club."
"I didn't come here to look at the cricket; I came to see a very old
friend of yours and mine--Mrs. Annesley," the Professor explained.
"Ah, to be sure! How time does go on! Do you remember what a pretty
girl she was, and how desperately in love we all were with her? You
were as hard hit as any of us, if I recollect rightly. In fact, I
believe she was engaged to you in a sort of a way, wasn't she?"
"In a sort of a way--yes."
"And then she threw you over because she wanted to be rich and
fashionable and all that. Well, well! she has had her reward. Have you
seen her often since those days?"
"Never until yesterday."
"You don't say so! You can hardly have recognized one another, did
you? Both you and she have got on in life and got on in the world
since you parted. Julia is a leader of society, and mixes freely with
duchesses, which satisfies her soul; and you are one of the
celebrities of the day. It now only remains for me to get a prize for
my pig, and then we shall all three have reached the highest
distinctions attainable in our respective walks in life."
"Yes, yes," murmured the Professor dreamily; and presently he quoted
in an undertone, "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!"
"I'll be hanged if anybody shall call my pig a shadow!" returned Mr.
Cecil, laughing, as he walked away. And then the Professor strolled
slowly back to the quiet Precincts and "The Rise of the Papacy."