Miss Eudoxia was now the queen of the little household, and the
sceptre she bore was an iron one to all except her niece. John—that
easy, good–natured parson, who, coming in from the garden or parish,
any summer forenoon, would halt in the long low kitchen, if a nice
crabbed question presented itself, take his seat outright upon the
corner of the ancient dresser, and then and there discuss some moot
point in the classics, or tie and untie over again some fluffy knot
historical (which after all is but a pucker in the tatters of a
scarecrow); and all the while he would appeal to the fat cook or the
other maid—for the house only kept two servants; and all the while
Miss Amy, _διαφυλάττουσα θέσιν_ would poke in little pike–points of
impudence and ignorance—John, I must confess at last, was threatened
so with dishclouts, pepper, and even rolling–pins, that the cook began
to forget the name of Plato (which had struck her), and the housemaid
could not justly tell what Tibullus says of Pales.
“John, you are so lamentably deficient in moral dignity! And the mutton
not put down yet, and the kidney–beans getting ropy! If you must sit
there, you might as well begin to slice the cucumber. I dare say youʼd
do that even”.
“To be sure, Doxy; so I will. I sharpened my knife this morning”.
“Doxy, indeed! And before the servants! I am sure Johanna must
have heard you, though she makes such a rattle in there with the
rolling–pin, like a doctorʼs pestle and mortar. She always does when
I come out, to pretend she is so busy; and most likely she has been
listening for half an hour, and laughing at your flummery. What do
I care about Acharnius?—now donʼt tell me any jokes, if you please,
brother John; with butter on both your legs, too! Oh, if I could only
put you in a passion! I might have some hopes of you then. But I should
like to see the woman that could; you have so little self–respect”.
“Eudoxia, that is the very converse of Senecaʼs proposition”.
“Then Seneca didnʼt know how to converse, and I wonʼt be flouted with
him. Seneca to me, indeed, or any other heathen! Let me tell you one
thing, John Rosedew”—Miss Eudoxia now was wrathful, not nettlesome
only, but spinous; perhaps it would be rude to hint that in this
latter word may lurk the true etymon of “spinster”—“let me tell you
one thing, and perhaps youʼll try to remember it; for, with all your
wonderful memory, you never can tell to–morrow what I said to–day”.
“Surely not, dear Doxy, because you talk so much. It is related of that
same Seneca that he could repeat——”
“Fiddlesticks. Now you want to turn off the home–truth you feel to be
coming. But you shall have it, John Rosedew, and briefly, it is this:
Although you do sit on the dresser, your taste is too eclectic. You are
a very learned man, but your learning gilds foul idols. You spend all
your time in pagans’ company, while the epistles and gospels have too
little style for _you_”.
“Oh, Aunt Eudoxia, how dare you talk to my papa like that, my own
daddy, and me to hear you? And just now you flew into a pet because
you fancied Johanna heard him call you ‘Doxy’. I am astonished at it,
Aunt Doxy; and it is not true, not a word of it. Come with me, father,
dearest, and we wonʼt say a word to her all the afternoon”.
Even young Amy saw that her father was hit very hard. There was so much
truth in the accusation, so much spiteful truth—among thy beauties,
_nuda veritas_, a smooth skin is not one—that poor John felt as if
Aristophanes were sewn up henceforth in a pig–sack. He slunk away
quietly to his room, and tried to suck some roots Hebraic, whence he
got no satisfaction. He never could have become a great theological
scholar. After all, a man must do what God has shaped his mind for.
So in a week John Rosedew got back to his native element; but sister
Doxyʼs rough thrust made the dresser for many a month like the bottom
of a pincushion, when the pins are long, and the bran has leaked out at
the corner.
Now Miss Eudoxia Rosedew was always very sorry when she had indulged
too much in the pleasure of hurting others. It was not in her nature
to harm any living creature; but she could not understand that hurt is
the feminine of harm—the feminine frequentative, if I may suggest that
anomaly. She had a warm, impulsive heart, and sided almost always with
the weaker party. Convinced profoundly, as she was, of her brotherʼs
great ability, she believed, whenever a question arose, that the
strength was all on his side, and so she went “dead against him”. One
thing, and the most material one, she entirely overlooked, as a sister
is apt to do: to wit, the breadth and modesty of her brotherʼs nature.
One thing, I say, for the two are one, so closely are they united.
It is a goodly sight to see John Rosedew and his sister upon their way
to church. She supporting the family dignity, with a maid behind her
to carry the books—that it may please thee to defend us with a real
footman!—just touching Johnʼs arm with the tips of her glove, because
he rolls so shockingly, and even his Sunday coat may be greasy; then,
if a little girl comes by, “Lady Eudoxia”—as the village, half in joke,
and half in earnest, has already dubbed her—Lady Eudoxia never looks at
her (they are so self–important now, even those brats of children!),
but she knows by instinct whether that little girl has curtseyed. If
she has, it is nicely acknowledged; but if she has not, what a chill
runs down the ladyʼs rigid spine!
“John, did you see that”?
“See what, Doxy?—Three sugar–plums, my little dear, and a few of our
cough–lozenges. I heard you cough last Sunday; and you may suck them in
the sermon time, because they donʼt smell of peppermint, and they are
quite as nice as liquorice. How is your mammy, my darling”?
“Well, John—well, Mr. Rosedew!—If you have no more sense of
propriety—and so near the house of God——”
And Miss Eudoxia walks on in front, while the girl who failed to
curtsey has thrust one brown hand long ago into the parsonʼs ample
palm, and with the other is stoking that voracious engine whose
vernacular name is “mouth”. Amy, of course, is at the school, where
this little girl ought by rights to have been, only for her cough,
which would come on so dreadfully when the words were hard to
spell; and, when they meet Amy by the gate (the double gate of the
churchyard—both sides only opened for funerals), how smooth, and rich,
and calm she looks—calm, yet with a heart of triumph, as her own class
clusters round her, and wonʼt even glimpse at the boys—not even the
very smallest boy—one of whom has the cheek to whistle, and pretends
that he meant the “Old Hundredth”.
But, in spite of all this Eudoxian grandeur, there was not a poor
man in Nowelhurst—no, nor even a woman—who did not feel, in earnest
heart, faith and good–will towards her. For the worldly nonsense was
cast aside when she stood in the presence of trouble, and her native
kindness and vigour shone forth, till the face of grief was brightened.
Then she forgot her titled grandmother—so often quoted and such a bore,
the Countess of Driddledrum and Dromore—and glowed and melted, as all
must do who are made of good carbon and water. So let her walk into
the village church with the pride which she is proud of, her tall and
comely figure shown through the scarf of lavender crape, her dark silk
dress on the burial flags, wiping dust from the memory of John Stiles
and his dear wife Susan. And oh, Johanna, thou goodly fat cook–maid,
dishing up prayer–books, and Guides to the Altar, and thy gloves on
the top ostentatiously—gloves whose fingers are to thine as vermicelli
to sausages: Johanna, spoil not our procession by loitering under the
hollow oak to wink at thy sweetheart, Jem Pottles. Neither do thou, oh
hollow oak, look down upon us, and tell of the tree only one generation
before thee. Under thy branches, the Arab himself had better not talk
of lineage. Some acorn spat forth, half–crunched and bedribbled, by the
deer or the swine of the forest, and in danger perhaps of being chewed
afterwards by the ancestors of royalty—our family–trees are young
fungus to thee, and our roots of nobility pignuts.