asked nothing for herself, but for another she would do a great deal.
After a battle with her timidity, she did go to the Hall, and had an
interview with Mr. Estcourt, who valued and admired the dear old lady,
and he readily promised to see what could be done for Mr. Warnacre. All
he desired were the testimonials of that gentleman.
But here precisely arose a difficulty. He could not produce them, and
when inquiry was made into his antecedents, it was discovered that Mr.
Warnacre had been dismissed from the service of the Company. This, Mr.
Estcourt did not tell Auntie, but with many apologies expressed his
regret at being unable to serve her.
Somehow—it is hard to say how—the rumour circulated that Auntie was about
to sell out of the stocks so as to set up Mr. Warnacre in some business
he had in view, in which great profits were certain to be made.
The rumour came to the ears of Mrs. Estcourt, and without ado that good,
somewhat peremptory lady called on Auntie, and happily found her alone.
The Squire’s wife proceeded at once to attack the old lady on the topic.
Was it true that she was about to place her little fortune in the hands
of this brother-in-law? For if Jane meditated doing this, Mrs. Estcourt
said it would be her painful duty to inform Auntie of certain matters
concerning Mr. Warnacre that in kindness had been kept from her.
Auntie coloured and trembled, and raised her bemittened hands in
deprecation of the interference and the revelation. Then she began to
explain:
“Mr. Warnacre really was a surprisingly clever man. He had met with
misfortunes, he had made enemies, who had not scrupled to blacken his
character. It was too sad to see a man of his ability and acquirements
without an opening in which to display his activity.”
“But, my dear Jane, he has been dishonest!”
“O Maria, we are all guilty of doing wrong sometimes, and I am sure we
ought not to be hard on those who have. Even supposing he has made a
mistake, we ought to give him the helping hand, and put him in a position
where he can make amends.”
“My dear Jane,” said Mrs. Estcourt, and she set her lips. “Excuse me if
I speak unpleasant truths. How do you know, how does Mr. Warnacre know,
that what he proposes to undertake will be successful? There is many a
slip between the cup and the lip. With the very best and most honourable
intentions, he may miscarry. Then what will become of you?”
“Oh, my dear Maria, he is certain to succeed. He has shown it me so very
plainly.”
“He may not. Always be prepared for a _not_.”
“But for his sake I must risk something. He was my dear Emily’s husband,
remember that. And he has had such trials and troubles—he has lost her,
and does not know where poor John is.”
“Jane, it won’t do. Excuse my bluntness. Suppose the whole thing fails.
Where would you be? If your little income is gone, then you will
be penniless in your old age. Now that means—” Mrs. Estcourt moved
uncomfortably in her chair. She was going to say a harsh thing, but did
it only because she believed that nothing else could save Auntie. “That
means, Jane, that you will come upon me. I will not see you turned out of
your cottage to starve. When all your income is gone, I shall have to
furnish you with an annuity. Now, mind, I should not object to that, if
the result of an accident, a bad investment, or failure of a bank. But
that you should deliberately and with your eyes open throw this upon me
is not fair; no, it is not fair to me.”
Poor little Auntie crimsoned to her temples. She tried to speak, but
could not. Then she broke down, covered her face with her kerchief and
wept. Mrs. Estcourt held to her point.
“I have promised it him,” sobbed Auntie.
“You may, if you will, give him something. But I insist—I insist for my
own sake as well as for yours—that you do not give him all. Reserve to
yourself so much as you can live on. Say, keep as much as was expended
on yourself when you were sending that boy to school. That alone will
satisfy me.”
At length Mrs. Estcourt carried her point. She extorted a solemn
reluctant promise to that effect from the old lady, and that she would
not go beyond her word Mrs. Estcourt knew very surely.
And well was it for the little Auntie that this interview had taken
place, for within a twelvemonth all she had given to Mr. Warnacre was
gone, and gone without return of interest or principal. With it also Mr.
Warnacre had disappeared. Then she lived on, in the same house, on her
shrunken means, doing good to all around—knitting crossovers for old
women, making mittens for children, warm woollen caps and mufflers that
she sent to the engine-drivers on the line to keep them comfortable on
a winter’s night, busy before Christmas in contriving presents for all
around, forgetful of no birthday, visiting and sitting with the sick and
aged, and although her gifts were never costly, yet they were always
valued highly by the recipients, for the love and kindly thought that was
worked into them. She manufactured little book-markers, with crosses on
them, of perforated card; she did embroidery for the church; she painted
little pin-cushions, and her flower-painting was tasteful. These she was
glad to sell, and Mrs. Estcourt came to her assistance and disposed of an
astonishing number at sixpence each. They were so useful for gentlemen,
would go into a breast pocket, and gentlemen were always wanting pins.
But Auntie would use none of the money thus acquired upon herself; it
was spent in the purchase of material for making her little gifts to the
poor, or for the church.
The parson had his daily service, but the most constant of his
congregation, certainly in the mornings, was Auntie, who never failed.
Mrs. Estcourt brought visitors from the Hall to see her, not such as
were unable to appreciate the goodness and sweetness of the old lady,
but kindly-hearted ladies and gentlemen, and somehow these visitors
afterwards in town, or wherever else they met the Squire, always inquired
after Auntie. They felt they were the better for having seen and spoken
with her.
To some it was a revelation that there were, in this self-seeking and
somewhat coarse world, some highly-refined, unselfish spirits, the
violets of the moral world.
As already said, every one in the place knew her story, but to her face
no one alluded to it. Among the English peasantry there is a wonderful
and beautiful delicacy of feeling such as often puts to shame those who
belong to highly-cultured grades. The utmost done was to ask, “Please,
miss, have you heard anything of Master John?”
Then a quiver would pass over the old face, the lip would tremble, and
the eye fall, and she would shake her head, unable to give the denial in
words.
Often and often did Mrs. Estcourt send to her grapes or peaches or
melons from the conservatories at the Hall, and yet she knew that most
of these good things were at once distributed by the old lady among the
children as they swarmed out of school, or given to some sick body with a
capricious appetite.
The farmers also or their wives sent her poultry, the children picked for
her watercress, the poor women gave her eggs, and then Auntie had no rest
until she had proclaimed to the parson and his wife, to the squiress, to
all she knew, how good and generous these poor bodies had been to her.
And every day she sat at her window painting her pin-cushions or making
the little crosses for book-markers, or setting them up on little card
stands, or illuminating texts, and nodding and smiling to all passers-by
in the road, and to the children as they came to school. Between school
hours in wet weather many a little girl found a refuge in Auntie’s
kitchen, there to eat her dinner and have warm milk or tea.
It was a sad prospect to Auntie when her sight began to fail. Resigned
to the will of Heaven she ever was, but she regretted the inability into
which she would fall of manufacturing comforting articles for the poor.
So years passed.
Nothing was heard of Warnacre, nothing of John. No word of reproach
passed her lips. I believe no resentful thought arose in her mind against
her brother-in-law, and I am sure that both he and John were daily
mentioned in her prayers.
Then, one stormy evening, a knock came at the door, and she heard some
one coughing without. The little maid opened, and a wretched, wet, and
draggled man staggered in. It was Warnacre, returned, but returned
destitute, a wreck in health, and a beggar.
The little maid who had gone to the door at the rap was frightened, and
thought that the man was drunk; she had never seen Mr. Warnacre, and her
exclamations of distress and alarm brought the old lady to the passage.
Warnacre had thrown himself into a chair, the rain had sodden his
battered hat, and his shapeless and napless greatcoat, and ran over the
floor. The man was grey in face, his scanty hair dishevelled, and his
eyes dull and sunk in his head.
A fit of coughing prevented him from speaking.
“Oh, please, miss, what shall we do? It’s a tipsy, it is. Shall I run for
the police?”
“No, Kate, no, the gentleman is ill.” Auntie had not as yet recognised
him, but she brought the light near, and with an exclamation of pain and
surprise cried, “O William! William! you here again?”
“What,” said he, “are you like the rest, ready to turn against me? It is
a bad and selfish world; no one has a hand to hold out for a fellow who
is down on his luck. I’ve walked——”
Again the cough overtook him, and he put a soiled handkerchief to his
mouth.
“I have walked, I suppose, fourteen miles in this cursed weather—haven’t
had anything to eat. I’d turn out my pockets and prove to you I have not
a stiver, but my hands are too cold, and my clothes cling to me with wet.”
“O William! how have you come to this?”
“Ill-health—breakdown—overmuch brain-work. And the world is dishonest;
cursed cheats men are. It is no place for a man of genius and integrity.”
“But what will you do?”
He coughed again, and sank back, looking deadly in his exhaustion.
“It is a shame, my troubling you with questions. Kate, Kate, get hot
water, and bread and meat, and a tumbler, and I will unlock my cellaret.”
Then, as the little maid bustled about fulfilling commands: “O William! I
am so sorry, and why, why did you walk so far?”
“Because I wasn’t going to the workhouse. No, thank you, _I_ am a
gentleman. I thought you would give me food and a shake-down.”
“O William, how good of you to think of me. Oh, this is kind, and like
a brother-in-law. Of course you could not go to the Union. I would have
died of shame to think that you had, and of self-reproach to think you
had not come on to me. But you forgive all that is past. That is dear of
you, William.”
She took him in; of course she did.
She opened to him her heart as well as her home. And there he remained.
He made no movement to leave. Perhaps he perceived that nowhere else
would he be so kindly and forgivingly dealt with. Not one word of
reproach came from her.
Then it became clear that his stay would not be for long, not that he
desired and purposed leaving, but that a hand was pointing sternly to him
to move on, to move on from a world in which he had done no worthy act,
into another in which he would have to account for his worthlessness.
Auntie fought against the conviction that he was dying. She sent for the
best doctors, she provided the most nourishing diet she could procure for
him. Her great sorrow was that her means would not allow her to send him
to Davos or to some other place of cure.
Warnacre was not a pleasant person to have in the house and as a patient.
He grumbled at the wine provided—it came from the grocer, he said; it
was without bouquet, mere made-up stuff. He grumbled at his meat, it
was tough and overdone or underdone. He bragged about the great people
with whom he had dined, whom he had known familiarly; or he whined over
the ingratitude and heartlessness of the world, or murmured against that
Providence which had thwarted him in all he had taken in hand.
Yet, through all, patiently, lovingly, cheerfully, the old maid
ministered to him, bore with his meanness, turned aside his sarcasms,
apologised for his ungraciousness when visited by any from the Hall or
rectory.
She treasured up every imaginary sign of returning health and shut her
eyes to the tokens of decline. At length he was dead, and was laid in the
churchyard, unlamented save by Auntie.
Of his son he professed to know nothing. He had not run across him in his
meanders through the shady world in which he had moved. But in the heart
of Auntie there was still a root of love and expectation that concerned
John.
Above Mr. Warnacre’s grave, Auntie, by stinting herself, was able to
erect a costly monumental stone, on which was represented a broken lily,
the symbol of Warnacre’s stainless life. The inscription recorded his
merits in somewhat fulsome terms that were, however, not unreal and
untrue to Auntie, or she would not have sanctioned them, for over that
wretched creature still hung some of the halo of her first love and
idealisation.
And after that her sight failed, and happily not long after that,
gently, without pain, old Auntie’s eyes closed altogether.
But then Mrs. Estcourt was gone. Her husband had predeceased her, and at
the Hall reigned a nephew, a man of sport, who knew not Auntie.
A year later there appeared a stranger in the place, who after some
inquiries went to the churchyard and asked the sexton to point out to him
where Auntie was buried. There was no headstone, only a green mound. But
there were flowers strewn on it; the poor whom she had loved and to whom
she had ministered had not forgotten her.
The stranger signed to the sexton to leave him. Then he stood, with
folded hands and bowed head, looking at the little heap. He was a young
man, but with a seamed face. Presently the tears came into his eyes
and rolled down his cheeks. “Poor, dear Auntie,” he said in a whisper,
“imposed on, ill-treated—only appreciated by me—and that too late.”
He drew out of his pocket a little cross made of perforated cardboard. It
had been given years before to young John.
Then he went to a monumental stone-cutter and said: “Make me a marble
cross, just like this.”
“And, sir, what shall I cut on it?”
“Only this—AUNTIE.”
BROTHER AUGUSTINE
BROTHER AUGUSTINE
In 1866 I was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Dalton, near Thirsk
in Yorkshire. It was a new parish, cut out of Topcliffe; the church
was not built at the time, but an old barn had been converted into a
school-chapel, and a little red brick house had been erected, intended
eventually to be a schoolmaster’s house, which I was given as parsonage.
It was small—containing one sitting-room only, and three bedrooms
upstairs. When I went to see the place, the outgoing incumbent said to
me, “Would you like to take on Mills?”
“Mills! Who is Mills?”
“I mean Brother Augustine.”
“Brother Augustine!” I echoed; “and who the dickens is Brother Augustine?”
“Well,” replied my friend, “that is not so easy to answer. What he is now
is my valet and sacristan. He is a man who can make your clothes, mend
anything, wait on you, and be most serviceable in church.”
“What! that fellow who sang in the choir through his nose as though there
had been a vibrating metallic tongue in it?”
“The same: very useful, but odd.”
“Where did you pick him up?”
“I advertised for him.”
I took on Brother Augustine or Mr. Mills. Some called him one, some the
other, and rightly, for he had two aspects, very distinct.
When I engaged him he was aged, I suppose, thirty-five, but it was
impossible to say what his age really was: he was one of those men who
look old when twenty, and never alter. He did not tell me his age. He was
as coy as an old maid about that, but he was very ready to tell me his
story, and it was an odd one.
He had been given when quite a little boy by his father, in Colchester,
to the Roman Catholic priest there, who brought him up, and made
him serve him daily at the altar, black his boots, and help the old
housekeeper to make the beds, and dust the rooms, and clean the dishes.
He also brought in the meals.
This went on till, as Mr. Mills said to me, “the dear old priest got so
very old that he was fit for nothing but to be chaplain to a convent, so
he was moved away, and then I had to be put somewhere. So I was put with
Hyams, the tailor.”
How long Mills was with Hyams I do not know, but the swirl of life in
freedom after the even and quiet of a parsonage was more than he could
bear, and he took it into his head to become a monk.
He entered on his novitiate, “And,” said he, “they shaved my head, and I
have been a martyr to neuralgia ever since.”
After a while he was sent to Rome. I cannot now recall what the Order was
into which he had entered.
“I got into trouble there,” said Brother Augustine. “You must know that
I am passionately fond of cats, and I had not had a cat to pat and
coax ever since I had become a monk. Well, one day we were walking in
procession down the long street in Trastevere, when I saw a white cat,
with one paw black and one ear black, sitting in a doorway of a house. I
could not help myself. The sight of that puss was too much for my pent-up
feelings—there was a sort of void in me that only a cat could fill. Well,
I broke out of the procession and ran to the cat to catch it up. But it
was frightened, and made a bolt and was gone. That set all the monks off
laughing to see me after the cat. We had been singing a psalm, and they
could not get on with it. I was put on bread and water for a week, all
because of that cat.”
Brother Augustine was not happy in Rome, and was teased with neuralgia.
After a twelvemonth he was sent back to England, and he had made up his
mind not to take the vows. So on landing at London he gave the slip to
the monk who was sent along with him, and found his way into some sort of
refuge for runaway monks and nuns that had been set up, just as there are
refuges for stray cats and dogs.
There he made acquaintance with Miss Headly Vicars, who was most kind to
him, and of her he spoke with deep regard. By her advice he became a
Scripture reader, or if not by her advice, with her consent.
He remained for some little while drawing a salary and doing some
off-and-on work, very much against his taste, as Scripture reader, for
it was a position for which he was totally unqualified. At last he
became uneasy in his conscience, he felt he was earning money he did not
deserve, and the work was uncongenial. Then he saw an advertisement from
my predecessor at Dalton for a young man to act as man-servant, sing in
the choir—(“Bray, rather,” said I to myself)—and attend to the church.
This was exactly what he wanted. He answered, was accepted; and I found
him at Dalton, and kept him on.
I have said that Mr. Mills, or Brother Augustine, wore two different
aspects.
Usually, about the house and at church he wore a cassock, and a little
black square cap set on the back of his head.
When not engaged about the church, he was generally to be seen seated
cross-legged on the kitchen table, making a suit for me, or mending or
making clothes for himself.
But, when Mr. Mills was dressed to go to Thirsk, the market town, he
was as though he had walked out of a bandbox—dapper, spick and span in
everything; a masher one would call him now, but in 1866 the word was not
invented.
A most disinterested fellow he was. I did not pay him any wage. He had
his food and room with me, and nothing else. If he wanted to go to York
or Ripon, I gave him his fare, and a shilling to spend as he liked. He
never had more whilst with me for two years. His mind was like that of a
child. He was happy over the merest trifles, and upset also by trifles.
A good-hearted fellow with a limited education, very fond of puss, and
devotedly attached to animals. Every one laughed at him, but every one
liked him. He would do anything that I asked him to do, and go anywhere.
I had an old housekeeper, a worthy woman who was a widow, and she and
Mills were always laughing, and, when not laughing, he was singing. The
kitchen was immediately opposite my one sitting-room, and as the door was
generally open, they made a good deal of noise, to which I had to become
accustomed.
One morning Mr. Mills appeared in lavender small-clothes, a black frock
coat, white waistcoat, straw-coloured kid gloves, and a silk hat that
shone as if it had been oiled. In his button-hole he wore a stephanotis.
His face was twinkling with smiles.
He appeared before me flourishing a Malacca cane.
“Why—Brother Augustine! what are you about?” I exclaimed.
“I have walked through the village,” he replied, “and I want to go into
Thirsk.”
“What for?”
“Only to get a rise out of the Daltonians. You should have seen the
round eyes they made as I walked past their houses. And I have just been
into the school to show myself to the mistress and the children. I really
am curious to know to whom they will have married me—for they will all
jump to the conclusion that I have gone into Thirsk to be married.”
My predecessor had been accustomed to have the chorister boys go to the
parsonage after the Litany, which was sung in the afternoon, and have
tea there, and hang about the garden till evensong at half-past six. I
found this a burden more than I could bear, and I announced that I was
regretfully obliged to discontinue the usage.
After having made the announcement, I was breathing free, when Mills came
to me with a blank face.
“They have struck,” he said.
“Struck what?—struck you?” I asked.
“They will not put on their cassocks and surplices and go into the choir
this evening.”
“Well, Mr. Mills, then we will manage without them.”
So we did. One, faithful among the faithless found, did put on his
surplice. A little fellow who could not read. However, we sang the whole
service, psalms, responses, _Magnificat_, _Nunc Dimittis_, hymns, just as
though we had a full choir. I do not think there was any musician in the
congregation that evening, for I do not recall any one being carried out
fainting.
There was one peculiarity about Mills that I could not break him of. He
had learned the Apostles’ Creed in the Roman version, which differed
slightly from our form, and he would always bray forth that “form of
sound words” which he had acquired in his childhood.
In 1868 there was about to be a change in my domestic arrangements—in
fact, I was about to be married—consequently I was forced, much to my
regret, to get rid of Mills.
After a little inquiry and some letter-writing, it was settled that he
should go to Christ Church and become valet to Dr. Pusey, at that time
getting old and infirm.
In the event of sickness, I knew that no one could be a more tender and
devoted nurse than Brother Augustine. There was something feminine in his
delicacy of touch and in his sweetness of manner. And he would give up
his time in the most unselfish manner possible to the doctor. Of that I
was quite confident.
So Brother Augustine departed, with tears in his eyes, and there was
not a person in the parish who was not sorry to lose him. For although
they had laughed at him, all appreciated his goodness and his kindness;
and I am not sure but that what they laughed at most was his absolute
guilelessness, his utter unworldliness, and that, to a Yorkshireman, is
indeed astonishing. I heard next of him as installed at Christ Church,
where he figured in the quad in just the same extraordinary costume as
he had worn with me; and his funny ways, his old-fashioned politeness,
and his simplicity vastly tickled the young students. I believe sundry
tricks were played on him, but I never heard any particulars.
That he was very happy I did learn from himself.
He was given a room near Dr. Pusey’s quarters in Christ Church, that
adjoined or was under another in which one of the men of the college was
lodged.
Now, Brother Augustine had the way of singing the psalms in his
discordant bray every night, and one evening the young fellow who was
near him, unable to endure the noise, went to his door, knocked, and
Brother Augustine appeared at his door half-undressed for bed. The Christ
Church man complained—really he could not work—he was going in for his
examination, and with that singing—he—he was distracted.
“I beg your pardon humbly! I really am most sorry,” said the poor
brother, covered with confusion. “I had no idea—certainly, certainly—you
shall not be troubled again.”
So with a bow he saw his visitor depart, shut his door, and with his
psalm unfinished went to bed.