"I did but chide in jest: the best loves use it
Sometimes; it sets an edge upon affection:
When we invite our best friends to a feast,
'Tis not all sweetmeat that we set before 'em;
There's something sharp and salt, both to whet appetite
And make 'em taste their wine well."
Middleton.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From what has been said of the resources of Thorpe Regis, it will be
easily understood that it did not possess any public vehicle capable of
conveying its inhabitants to dinner-parties or other solemnities. When
such a conveyance became an absolute necessity, there was sent from
Underham a fly which had a remarkable capacity for adapting itself to
different occasions. A pair of white gloves for the driver and a grey
horse presented at once the festive appearance considered desirable for
a wedding, while the lugubrious respectability demanded by an English
funeral was attained by the substitution of black for white, and by a
flowing hat-band which almost enveloped the little driver. Its natural
appearance, divested of any special grandeur, was that of a roomy,
heavily built, and some what battered vehicle, which upon pressure would
hold one or two beyond the conventional four, and carry the Thorpe world
to the evening gayeties of the neighbourhood with no greater amount of
shaking and bumping than habit had led them to consider an almost
indispensable preparation to a dinner with their friends.
On the evening of Mr Bennett's party, the Underham fly might have been
seen drawn up in front of the Vicarage porch, a snug little excrescence
on the south side of the house, and scarcely a dozen yards from the
church. The dinner-hour was half past six, and it was a three quarters
of an hour's drive to Underham, so that the sun was still slanting
brightly upon the old house, green with creepers of long years' growth;
upon the narrow border of sweet, old-fashioned flowers that ran along
the front, edged with box, and separated from the grass-plot by a little
gravel walk; upon the fine young cedar half-way between the house and
the road, the tall tritonias, and the cluster rose that had clambered
until it festooned two ilex-trees with its pure white blossoms. Some
charm of summer made the homeliness beautiful,--the repose of the last
daylight hours, the cheerfulness of children's laughter in the village,
the midges dancing in the quiet air, the shadows on the grass where
pink-tipped daisies folded themselves serenely. Even the wrinkled face
of Job White, the one-eyed driver, had caught something of glow from the
sunshine, as he sat and conversed affably from his box with Faith, the
parlour-maid at the Vicarage, a rosy-faced girl, not disposed, as Job
expressed it, "to turn agin her mate because it warn't pudden." Job
himself was one of the characters of the neighbourhood, a good-humoured
patron of such of the gentry round as he considered respectable, and
intensely conservative in his opinions. He had begun life as a Thorpe
baby, and, although professional exigencies afterwards led to his
settling at Underham, he did not attempt to disguise his contempt for
the new-fangled notions prevalent in that place. One of his
peculiarities led him to decline accepting as correct all time which
could not be proved to agree with the church clock at Thorpe. The
country alteration to what was called railway time which took place some
twenty or five-and-twenty years ago he could not speak of except in
terms of contemptuous bitterness; and, had it been practicable, he would
have insisted upon remaining twenty minutes behind the rest of the world
to the end of his days; but as his calling rendered this an
impossibility, he contented himself with utterly ignoring the station
clock, and obliging all those he drove to accommodate their hours to
those of Thorpe. "He've been up thaes foorty years, and he ain't likely
to be wrong now," was his invariable answer to remonstrances; and
perhaps there could be no stronger testimony to the old west-world
prejudices that, in spite of changes, yet clung about Underham, than the
fact that with these opinions for his guide Job White still drove the
Milman Arms fly.
At the moment when Faith, shading her eyes from the sun, was looking
brightly up with instinctive coquetry, Job was settling in his waistcoat
fob the globular silver watch which he had duly compared with his oracle
in the tower. It was so bulky that it required a peculiar twist of his
body to get it into the pocket at all, and wheft that difficulty was
surmounted it formed an odd sort of protuberance, apt to impress
beholders with a sympathetic sense of discomfort Faith, however,
regarded it with due respect.
"True to a minit," Job said in a tone of contented self-satisfaction.
"Now, Faith, my dear, suppose you wos just to step in and tell Miss
Marion that, without she's pretty sharp, we sha'n't get to Under'm by
half past six, nor nothing like it."
"She's on the stairs now," said Faith, reconnoitring, "and if there
isn't Sarah come out of the kitchen to see her drest! I'm sure it is a
wonder if she can stand there for a minute and not say something sharp.
It wants the patience of a saint to live with Sarah."
"And that doesn't come to everybody as it do to me,--with their name,"
said Job. "She's a woman who isn't tried with a hitch in her tongue,
but she's a neat figure for a cook."
"Well, I'm sure!" said Faith, pouting a little. "I never could see
nothing in Sarah's figure,--but you'd better get down and open the door,
Mr White."
With so great a scarcity of conveyances, combinations were matters of
necessity in Thorpe, and the fly had already driven to the Red House in
order to pick up Mr Mannering. The delay in starting had been caused
at least as much by the Vicar's desire to hear his opinion upon a
certain pamphlet which, when sought for, turned out to be missing, as by
Marion's lingering doubts between the respective merits of two white
muslins; but the truth was that punctuality did not exist at the
Vicarage, and the church bell on Sundays stretched itself indefinitely,
until the Vicar himself looked out from the vestry door and nodded for
it to stop. Mr Mannering, having, on the contrary, a lawyer's respect
for time, had for the last ten minutes been sitting upon thorns, taking
out his watch, and regarding the door with as much uneasiness as a
courteous attention to Mrs Miles's household difficulties would permit.
Anthony had walked into Underham to meet Marmaduke Lee, and Mr
Mannering fell uninterruptedly to Mrs Miles's care, until the Vicar
opened the door and informed him that they were ready, with the really
serious conviction common to unpunctual people that his visitor was the
person for whom they had all been waiting.
They were in the hall and out in the little porch at last: the Vicar
with his broad shoulders and plain face, Mrs Miles coming softly down
to see them off, and pulling out Marion's skirts with a little motherly
anxiety. They were all talking and laughing, and the sun still shone
bravely on Marion's pretty gown and the roses she had twisted into her
dark hair, and the jessamine which clambered to the topmost windows.
Sniff, the Skye terrier, was dancing round the old grey horse, and
barking wildly. Outside, in the little wet lane, brown sweet-breathed
cows were plodding slowly back to their farm, and stopping now and then
to contemplate the green lawn of the Vicarage, until Sniff, catching
sight of an intruding head, became frantic with a new excitement, and,
scrambling to the top of the hedge, was last seen as the fly turned out
of the gate, a ball of flying hair in pursuit of a retreating enemy.
It was through a curious tangle of lanes that Job jolted his load, a
little more unmercifully than usual, lest the time which had been lost
should be laid to the account of the Thorpe clock by unbelievers at
Underham. The hedge-rows were so high that the sun at this hour of the
day shone only upon the tops of the blackthorn and nut bushes which
crowned them, shone with a keen yellow light contrasting strongly with
the dim shadows falling underneath upon the long grass and moss. But
every now and then a break in the hedge, or a gate leading into the
fields, revealed a sweet homelike view,--with no bold glory of form or
colour, but tender with subtle harmonies of tints melting one into the
other, a haze of blue, white smoke curling upwards, straw-thatched
barns, with quiet apple orchards lying round them, where the grass grew
long and cool about the stalks of the old trees, and the young fruit
mellowed through the kindly summer nights. By and by the lanes widened,
they passed an old mill, half hidden by ash-trees, drove between flat
meadows, crossed a bridge, and reached the outskirts of Underham. Mr
Mannering and the Vicar had fallen into a discussion upon a new edition
of Sophocles, and Marion looked out of the window with a happy glow upon
her face, not understanding how the two men should bury themselves in
those old-world interests, when life was rushing on, full of charm, of
pain, of wonderment. After all, it is but a world of new editions.
Sophocles was no further removed from them than the hundred hopes and
fears with which she and Marmaduke beguiled the time until they should
meet again, touch each other's hands, look into each other's eyes. But
Marion had not learnt this yet.
The Bennetts' house stood directly against the road, and the wall along
which for some distance the footpath ran was the wall of their garden;
the Underham boys holding fabulous views of the fruit that ripened on
its innermost side, where green geometrical lines were marked out upon
the warm brick. Mr Bennett was a lawyer, and having no children, he
and his wife had adopted the daughter of a sister of Mrs Bennett's,
treating her in every respect as though she were their own child. Miss
Lovell was smiling up at Anthony when the Vicarage party arrived, and
Mr Chester, who was always a little loud and peremptory in his voice,
was holding forth to Mr Bennett upon a local election.
"I should be the last person in the world to wish to influence anybody,"
he was saying, "but you'll not deny, I suppose, that the other men are a
pair of fools."
"Still, one doesn't altogether like to go against North,--he as good as
belongs to Underham."
"Don't see the value of that," said the Squire, with a little roughness;
and then dinner was announced, and they all trooped down. Anthony sat
between an elderly lady and Miss Lovell, the Bennetts' niece, Marmaduke
had Marion, and Winifred's neighbour was the son of Sir James Milman,
the member. Anthony was always popular in society, so that to secure
him was almost a pledge to the host and hostess that things would go
brightly; moreover, he had but just returned from his travels, and an
added charm of novelty hung about him. Even Mrs Featherly, next to
whom he was sitting, the wife of the rector of Underham, and one of
those excellent women whom people all blamed themselves for disliking,
began to look as if the fault-finding on which she rested as the moral
backbone of her character was yielding to Anthony's pleasantness.
"You have seen a great deal since you left home, Mr Anthony, of one
kind and another, and I hope you will make good use of it," she said
graciously.
"He earned his holiday," said Mr Bennett, nodding his head. "After
such great things at Cambridge, a man can't do better than take a run
and let his brain have a little rest. I'm never for overwork."
"Only I do hope you have written some more beautiful poetry," Miss
Lovell put in on the other side. She was a pretty girl, fair, with a
long soft curl falling on her shoulder, and a voice which had a little
imploring emphasis in it. "And not in Latin this time, or you really
must send us a translation."
There was a good deal said in the same strain, to which Anthony made
laughing disclaimers, liking the incense all the while. He was
conscious of exaggerations, but it is not difficult to forgive
exaggerations which lead along so pleasant a path, and his was a nature
to grow warmly responsive under kindly treatment, so that his
conversation became brighter and more entertaining, until even Mrs
Bennett, who was contentedly eating strawberries, made the effort of
inquiring at what they were laughing.
"Mr Miles is telling us such amusing things," said Miss Lovell, with
unmistakable admiration in her tone.
"Amusing things!" repeated the Squire; "I never hear anything worth
listening to of any sort. Bless you, they talk nineteen to the dozen in
these days, but there's no making head nor tail of it when all's said.
It's speechifying and argufying, and nothing done. That's what made
half the mischief in the Crimea. We sha'n't get anything again like the
old times, when there were no railways, nor confounded telegraphs
pulling up the generals for every step they took, or making them believe
there'd be a pack of men at their heels to pull them out of any holes
they were fools enough to blunder into."
In his youth the Squire had been in the Dragoons, and no one at Underham
was bold enough to question his authority as a military man. Mrs
Bennett only said placidly,--
"Dear me, was it not a little inconvenient?"
"It's a good deal more inconvenient, ma'am, to have a heap of lies
talked by people who don't know what they're talking about. Letters
were letters in those days, and you didn't get pestered by every
tradesman who wants to puff off his twopenny halfpenny foolery. When
they came they had something in them. My mother, now. I've heard my
father say that when news from Spain came in, and the old Highflyer was
so hung about and set at, all the way down from London, that it was
twelve o'clock at night before she got into Thorpe, as soon as my mother
heard the wheels far off on the road, no matter what the weather was,
rain or shine, moon or no moon, she would go out into the hall and put
on her hood and cloak, and away she would trudge across the fields to
the Red Lion to see if there might be a letter from poor Jack. My
father was crippled at the time, and there wasn't one she'd let go in
her stead. Poor old mother!" said the Squire, with an involuntary
softening.
"I remember your mother, Squire," said old Mr Featherly.
"Then you remember as good a woman as ever breathed," said Mr Chester,
strongly again.
"Well, she was, she was. People called her a little high, but no one
found her so when they were in trouble. And a fine woman, too, as
upright as a dart, going straight to her point, whatever it was, with as
pretty an ankle and as clean a heel as any one in the country. Miss
Winifred reminds me of her in many ways."
The Squire had pushed his chair a little back, and was looking at the
glass of port he was fingering on the table with a pleased smile. But
he shook his head at the old clergyman's last remark.
"Winifred's not so tall by half an inch or more as my mother was when
she died."
"She carries her head in the same fashion, though," persisted Mr
Featherly. "And there's something that reminds me."
It was certainly true that Winifred was at this moment holding her head
with a little touch of stateliness. She had heard a good many of the
flattering words which had been poured upon Anthony, and perhaps valued
them at even less than they were worth, and it vexed her to see their
effect upon him. Something in his nature courted the pleasant
popularity and the spoiling. Is it women only who care for such pretty
things? He might have told you that he despised them, but the truth was
that they made a sunshine in which he liked to bask, a delight which was
not without its influence. Winifred, who saw the weakness, was not
merciful: she was a woman, with, perhaps, a grain of jealousy sharpening
her perceptions, and rendering them sufficiently keen to probe the
feminine flatteries which fell so sweetly upon him, and it is probable
that, although a woman who loves--even unconsciously--sets herself,
often unconsciously too, to study the character of the man she loves
with a closeness of purpose, and an almost unerring instinct, swift to
unravel its inmost workings, Winifred did not at this time rightly
understand him. What she condemned as vanity was rather an almost
womanish sensitiveness, to which the sunshine of applause might be said
to have been needful. If it was withdrawn, he might either shrink or
become bitter and morose. Perhaps there are two sides even to faults,
and the people who love us best are sometimes our most severe judges: no
one there thought hardly of Anthony, except Winifred, who would have had
none of these little flaws, and sat, carrying her shapely head a little
scornfully, as Mr Featherly had noticed. Anthony, on his part, was not
long in discovering her displeasure, although unconscious of the cause.
It provoked him, and he would not look in her face when the ladies went
out of the dining-room.
Marion had drawn her into the balcony to pour out some of her hopes and
fears about Marmaduke, and the two were talking eagerly when Ada Lovell
came out, followed by such of the gentlemen as had come up stairs.
"I have been envying your good fortune to Mr Miles," she said, with an
innocent air of admiration. "Of course you can see all his poetry
whenever you like. It must be so delightful."
"Only I never do," said Winifred, standing upright. "I don't care for
poetry unless it is the very best."
Woman like, she felt a pang in her own heart the instant she had sent
forth her shaft. She glanced quickly and almost imploringly at Anthony,
to see how sharply he was hit. If he had looked at her he might have
known that she had flung down her weapons, and was waiting to make
amends. But he would not look. He saw nothing of the involuntary grace
of her attitude, as she stood in the glow of the sweet evening light, a
little shamefaced and sorry, with a tender rosy softness in her face.
He only felt that she had tried to wound him, and was angry with her for
the second time that evening. Ada Lovell, looking up at him with
admiring awe, had no such pricks with which to make him wince, and,
perhaps, it was to be expected that he should devote himself to her for
the remainder of the time. Winifred made no more advances. She stood
leaning against the railing, looking gravely down upon the tall white
lilies that by degrees grew and glimmered out of the dusk, until Mr
Milman joined her. Marion and Marmaduke talked in a low voice at one
end. People came out now and then, declared the dew was falling, and
made a little compromise by sitting round the window, past which the
bats flitted softly. Mr Mannering was telling clever stories, and
making every one laugh. The Squire called his daughter at last. He
disliked being kept waiting, and she went hurriedly, but as she passed
Anthony she made a little pause to say gently,--
"Good-night, Anthony."
"Good-night."
There are some things which rest in our minds with quite a
disproportionate sense of heaviness. Winifred knew that she should see
Anthony the next day, by which time he would have forgotten her offence,
but she seemed to have lost some of the confidence which ordinarily grew
out of such a knowledge, for she could neither forgive herself nor
forget the sound of his cold good-night.