Another small factor which caused Howard some discomfort was the
conversation of the Vicar. This, at the first sight of Windlow, had
been one of the salient features of the scene. It had been amusing to
see the current of a human mind running so frankly open to inspection;
and, moreover, the Vicar's constantly expressed deference for the
exalted quality of Howard's mind and intellectual outfit, though it had
not been seriously regarded, had at least an emollient effect. But it
is one thing to sit and look on at a play and to be entertained by the
comic relief of some voluble character, and quite another to encounter
that volubility at full pressure in private life. There was a certain
charm at first in the Vicar's inconsequence and volatility; but in
daily intercourse the good man's lack of proportion, his indiscriminate
interest in things in general, proved decidedly fatiguing. Given a
crisis, and the Vicar's view was interesting, because it was, as a
rule, exactly the view which the average man would be likely to take,
melodramatic, sentimental, commonplace, with this difference, that
whereas the average man is tongue-tied and has no faculty of
expression, the Vicar had an extraordinarily rich and emphatic
vocabulary; and it was thus an artistic presentment of the ordinary
standpoint. But in daily life the Vicar talked with impregnable
continuity about any subject in which he happened to be interested. He
listened to no comment; he demanded no criticism. If he conversed about
his parishioners or his fellow-parsons or his country neighbours, it
was not uninteresting; but when it was genealogy or folklore or
prehistoric remains, it was merely a tissue of scraps, clawed out of
books and imperfectly remembered. Howard found himself respecting the
Vicar more and more; he was so kindly, so unworldly, so full of
perfectly guileless satisfaction: he was conscious too of his own
irrepressibility. He said to Howard one day, as they were walking
together, "Do you know, Howard, I often think how many blessings you
have brought us--I assure you, quiet and modest as you are, you are
felt, your influence permeates to the very ends of the parish; I cannot
exactly say what it is, but there's a sense of something that has to be
dealt with, to be reckoned with, a mind of force and energy in the
background; your approval is valued, your disapproval is feared. There
is a consciousness, not perhaps expressed or even actually realised, of
condescension, of gratification at one from so different a sphere
coming among us, sharing our problems, offering us, however
unobtrusively, sympathy and fellow-feeling. It's very human, very
human," said the Vicar, "and that's a large word! But among all the
blessings which I say you have brought us, of course my dear girl's
happiness must come first in my regard; and there I hardly know how to
express what a marvellous difference you have made! And then I feel
that I, too, have come in for some crumbs from the feast, like the dogs
under the table mentioned so eloquently in Scripture--sustenance
unregarded and unvalued, no doubt, by yourself--cast out inevitably and
naturally as light from the sun! It is not only the actual dicta," said
the Vicar, "though these alone are deeply treasured; it's the method of
thought, the reserve, the refinement, which I find insensibly affecting
my own mental processes. Before I was a mere collector of details. Now
I find myself saying, 'What is the aim of all this? What is the
synthesis? Where does it come in? Where does it tend to?' I have not as
yet found any very definite answer to these self-questionings, but the
new spirit, the synthetic spirit, is there; and I find myself too
concentrating my expression; I have become conscious in your presence
of a certain diffuseness of talk--I used, I think, to indulge much in
synonyms and parallel clauses--a characteristic, I have seen it said,
of our immortal Shakespeare himself--but I have found myself lately
considering the aim, the effect, the form of my utterances, and have
practised--mainly in my sermons--a certain economy of language, which I
hope has been perceptible to other minds besides my own."
"I always think your sermons very good," said Howard, quite sincerely;
"they seem to me arrows deliberately aimed at a definite target--they
have the grace of congruity, as the articles say."
"You are very good," said the Vicar. "I am really overwhelmed; but I
must admit that your presence--the mere chance of your presence--has
made me exercise an unwonted caution, and indeed introduce now and then
an idea which is perhaps rather above the comprehension of my flock!"
"But may I go back for one moment?" said Howard. "You will forgive my
asking this--but what you said just now about Maud interested me very
much, and of course pleased me enormously. I would do anything I could
to make her happy in any way--I wish you would tell me how and in what
you think her more content. I want to learn all I can about her earlier
days--you must remember that all that is unknown to me. Won't you
exercise your powers of analysis for my benefit?"
"You are very kind," said the Vicar in high delight; "let me see, let
me see! Well, dear Maud as a girl had always a very high and anxious
sense of responsibility and duty. She conceived of herself--perhaps
owing to some chance expressions of my own--as bound as far as possible
to fill the place of her dear mother--a gap, of course, that it was
impossible to fill,--my own pursuits are, you will realise, mere
distractions, or, to be frank, were originally so designed, to combat
my sense of loss. But I am personally not a man who makes a morbid
demand for sympathy--I have little use for sympathy. I face my troubles
alone; I suffer alone," said the Vicar with an incredible relish. "And
then Jack is an independent boy, and has no taste for being dominated.
So that I fear that dear Maud's most touching efforts hardly fell on
very responsive soil. She felt, I think, the failure of her efforts;
and kind as Cousin Anne is, there is, I think, a certain vagueness of
outline about her mind. I would not call her a fatalist, but she has
little conception of the possibility of moulding character;--it's a
rich mind, but perhaps an indecisive mind? Maud needed a vocation--she
needed an aim. And then, too, you have perhaps observed--or possibly,"
said the Vicar gleefully, "she has effaced that characteristic out of
deference to your own great power of amiable toleration--but she had a
certain incisiveness of speech which had some power to wound? I will
give you a small instance. Gibbs, the schoolmaster, is a very worthy
man, but he has a certain flightiness of manner and disposition. Dear
Maud, talking about him one day at our luncheon-table, said that one
read in books how some people had to struggle with some underlying
beast in their constitution, the voracious man, let us say, with the
pig-like element, the cruel man with the tiger-like quality. 'Mr.
Gibbs,' she said, 'seems to me to be struggling not with a beast, but
with a bird.' She went on very amusingly to say that he reminded her of
a wagtail, tripping along with very short steps, and only saved by
adroitness from overbalancing. It was a clever description of poor
Gibbs--but I felt it somehow to be indiscreet. Well, you know, poor
Gibbs came to me a few days later--you realise how gossip spreads in
these places--and said that he was hurt in his mind to think that Miss
Maud should call him a water-wagtail. Servants' tattle, I suppose. I
was considerably annoyed at this, and Maud insisted on going to
apologise to Gibbs, which was a matter of some delicacy, because she
could not deny that she had applied the soubriquet--or is it
sobriquet?--to him. That is just a minute instance of the sort of thing
I mean."
"I confess," said Howard, "that I do recognise Maud's touch--she has a
strong sense of humour."
"A somewhat dangerous thing," said Mr. Sandys. "I have a very strong
sense of humour myself, or rather what might be called risibility. No
one enjoys a witty story or a laughable incident more than I do. But I
keep it in check. The indulgence of humour is a risky thing; not very
consistent with the pastoral office. But that is a small point; and
what I am leading up to is this, that dear Maud's restlessness, and
even morbidity, has entirely disappeared; and this, my dear Howard, I
attribute entirely to your kind influence and discretion, of which we
are all so conscious, and to the consciousness of which it is so
pleasant to be able to give leisurely expression."
But the Vicar was not always so fruitful a talker as this. The
difficulty with him was to shift the points. There were long walks in
Mr. Sandys' company which were really of an almost nightmare quality.
He had a way of getting into a genealogical mess, in which he used to
say that it cleared the air to be able to state the difficulties.
Howard used to grumble a little over this to Mrs. Graves. "Yes," she
said, "if Frank were not so really unselfish a man, he would be a bore
of purest ray serene; but his humanity breaks through. I made a compact
with him long ago, and told him plainly that there were certain
subjects he must not talk to me about. I suppose you couldn't do that?"
"No," said Howard, "I can't do that. It's my greatest weakness, I
believe, that I can't say a good-natured decisive thing, until I am
really brought to bay--and then I say much more than I need, and not at
all good-naturedly. I must get what fun out of Frank I can. There's a
good deal sprinkled about; and one comfort is that Maud understands."
"Yes," said Mrs. Graves, "she understands! I know no one who sees
weaknesses in so absolutely clear a light as Maud, and who can at the
same time so wholly neglect them in the light of love."
"That's good news for me," said Howard, "and it is absolutely true."