WHEN he had bidden farewell to the Warings in his porch and watched them
curiously till a clump of firs hid them from him, Mr. Fellowes went back
to his study with a very curious assortment of expressions on his face;
there was a good deal of amusement there, a decided touch of sadness,
much doubt, and some dismay.
He had, however, little time to reduce this confusion to order; an
impatient tap at the door was followed by the entrance of a bright eager
little woman, in a long trailing garment of a curious combination of
heliotrope and pale yellow.
“John, are you ready for me? May I hear all of it?” she demanded,
putting her little hand on his big ones.
“I feel in rather a yeasty condition at this minute, but I’ll subside
shortly, no doubt. Will you be able to hold out a little longer?”
“Haven’t I borne it for two mortal hours and twenty minutes? Were they
talking all the time? I was in an awful fright it was something I
mustn’t hear. Two scientists in trouble about their souls, perhaps?”
“Fortunately I can divulge all I know, but you needn’t be flippant. It’s
all very funny, but it’s just as woefully sad. What on earth are you
at?”
“Pinning up my skirts, the fire would ruin this colour in a night. Do
you like my gown?”
“I do, but whether the parish will, is another question.”
“Oh, never mind the parish, I’ll teach it; you have no idea how easy it
is to get round people if you know the track. Is that yeast risen high
enough or has it gone sad? Remember I have held out a frightful time.”
“Hold out another five minutes while I write a note, I must catch this
post.”
When Mr. Fellowes brought his little seventeen-years old wife home to
the respectable parish of Waring, just four years before this time, it
was the generally received opinion of most competent judges that he had
a good deal to answer for.
To begin with, she was American, that fact in itself was quite without
precedent. The entire clerical annals of the diocese did not furnish a
like example. This, to any right-minded judgment, was as much as an
insult to the parishioners, who were in consequence put to much trouble
and inconvenience in rubbing up their imaginations to tackle the case,
having no previous experience to go upon.
A deceased Colonel, of whom they knew a great deal too much, and a
living peer, of whom on the contrary, they knew a great deal too little,
both inhabitants of the county, had indeed married Americans, the
results in the one case being disastrous; of the other they possessed no
proven data, but they were at least at liberty to draw their own
conclusions.
But for a parson to do this thing! It was unheard-of, and partook of the
nature of a scandal.
Then Mrs. Fellowes was pretty and gay, and it must be confessed _chic_.
They could have put up with the prettiness and even the brightness,—they
were used to certain varieties of both these things in their own
girls,—but the _chicness_!—that was the quality their souls struck
against, it seemed expressly to have been sent by Satan himself “to
buffet them withal”. And the girl’s dress for a clergyman’s wife, was
simply audacious! And yet when a large and representative female
conclave had met and dissected her “things” over half a dozen teas, they
were forced to the conclusion that she had not a complex or expensive
article in her whole wardrobe.
“So much the worse,” Lady Mary, the leader of the parish _ton_,
remarked, and with some reason too, “it shows that it is not the clothes
that stamp the girl, it is the girl who stamps the clothes. There is
something fundamentally wrong there.”
This being put in the form of an axiom spread widely, and carried much
weight.
This was four years ago, however, and things had changed a good deal.
Mrs. Fellowes’ husband was no fool, he knew what he was about when he
brought home, as the finish to the one long holiday of his life, the
little New England girl to be his helpmate.