MISS APHRA'S CURATE
We had scarcely started our tea, and hunger was still keen upon Elsie,
when there came a noise of calling, quite different from the howling of
mad folk, or the mocking laughter or ugly whine of Jeremy. Miss Orrin
poured out tea with a kind of grim _aplomb_. If I had been afraid that
she meant to poison us--or at least Elsie, I was soon undeceived. The
amount of tea that she poured down her own throat was astonishing in
the extreme. There were, however, certainly several sorts of cake that
she would not allow her master, Mr. Stennis, to touch, on pretext of
indigestion, but which she pressed upon us. And it was all that I
could do, by kicking her shins beneath the table, to keep Elsie from
accepting.
I managed it all right, though. They might have been as harmless as my
father's acid drops. But after all there was only one Elsie, and I was
not going to run any risks.
There was a distant sound of calling across the moat, and at the noise,
Mr. Stennis frowned, an ugly look coming over his face, while on the
contrary the sound had a still more extraordinary effect upon Miss
Orrin. Her eyes gleamed more softly, losing for a moment their
iron-gray expression. Her hands went up instinctively to the thin
little corkscrew curls which bobbed at either side of her face.
In ten seconds the fierce, angular old maid looked ten years younger.
Love, vanity, self-consciousness--ye are wondrous things.
"If it's that interfering curate from Over Breckonton, I'll throw him
into the moat! I'll have the dogs on him," growled Mr. Stennis,
"always poking his nose in when he is least wanted!"
Then he turned to his housekeeper, and detecting her busy fingers, he
said with a sneer--
"What, prinking again! I see. Only the beneficed clergy have any
chance with you, Miss Aphra!"
"Beneficed!" she cried. "Ah! poor lad, I wish he were! If I had my
will it would not all go to that lazy vicar, who never does a ha'pworth
of good, but rides to hounds and preaches his father's sermons, because
he cannot make one for himself."
"Ha!" cried the old man, "be off with you, young ones. Miss Orrin is
going to receive spiritual direction and absolution."
The tall old woman started up, her right hand upon the bread knife, as
if she could have killed her master with it on the spot.
"Well would it be for you, Hobby Stennis, if you did the like!" she
said, restraining herself with difficulty. "But there's Mr.
Ablethorpe, and he must not be kept waiting!"
"Of course not, Miss Orrin," said Mr. Stennis sneeringly. "It were a
pity indeed that he should--and he come so far to administer spiritual
consolation to conscious sinners!"
Then the old woman was roused to fury.
"Sinner am I?" she said, going up and bending her body till her face
came within an inch of two of that of the old man, who was seated,
pretending to go on with his tea. "Sinner am I? Well, I do not deny
it. But at least, if sinner I be, it is that I may find a home and a
livelihood for those three poor things, whom God hath bereft of their
reason! But as for you--for what do you sin--sin till the sand of the
sea could hardly tell the multitude of your crimes, poured from the
hand like water, a grain for a sin? For money--yes, for dirty gold!
For money which you dare not spend, and for gear which you dare not
show! Answer me that! And if sinner I be--I have never heard or read
that the Gospel is not for sinners! Do I not need it the more, Hobby
Stennis? And the young man is a good young man, and speaks to me of
high things--such as I need much, and you more!"
"Have your shown him your Mumbo-Jumbo worship in the barn? Or your
sisters, kneeling before the little coffins--all that flummery? You
ought to be ashamed--you, Aphra Orrin, you, a woman of sense, and able
to know better!"
"And if I told Mr. Ablethorpe all, he would understand," retorted the
old maid. "He would understand that those who cannot know God must be
content with such a God as they can understand!"
Mr. Stennis laughed, but there was a false ring in his laughter.
"Aye," he said, "doubtless there are a great many things which the good
young man, Mr. Ablethorpe, cannot understand. Did you ever, by chance,
try to teach him a little gardening?"
"No, and well for you, Hobby Stennis!" cried the woman, still
threateningly.
"Well or ill," said the old man, "I go to see these bairns across the
bridge and safe on their way home. Then to my weaving! Where is
Jeremy?"
"How should I know were Jeremy is--on some of your errands, doubtless!"
she cried. "Come, I will let down the drawbridge myself. Also I shall
see to it that you offer no indignity to the one honest man who deigns
to enter your house."
This quarrel between the two most sane inhabitants of Deep Moat Grange
let me deeper into the secrets of that evil dwelling than anything
else. At least, so I thought at the time. But I found afterwards that
all I thought I knew had but lain on the surface. I had conceited to
find Shallow Moat Grange, and lo! the name was no misnomer. The moat
was Deep, indeed.
All the same, it was like coming out of a heated room, with many people
therein, into the silence and chill of the winter stars, to get one's
head outside that abominable house of the Grange. How good to pass by
the lily clumps, and feel one's feet on green grass again! It seemed
to me that even the dull and sullen moat could be crossed, if you only
took it determinedly enough. We had seen Jeremy come over and return,
and so surely could we, fleeing (if need were) for our lives.
But there was no need at present. Miss Orrin had thrown a white shawl
about her head and shoulders, and drawn a pair of tight silk lacy
"mits" over her bony wrists. She made straight for the drawbridge,
walking at least ten yards in front of us--apparently that she might
get the first word with the fine young man in clerical attire who stood
waiting on the further bank.
"I am sorry to have kept you, sir," she said, in a voice which I could
not have believed to be hers, had I not seen her lips moving as we
arrived; "I will let down the bridge in a moment. Mr. Stennis has been
entertaining some relatives of his own, and did not wish to be
disturbed."
"I hope that I am not intruding!" called out the young man from the
farther bank. "I can easily look in again. It will not be the least
trouble, I assure you!"
"Not for the world," cried the old woman hastily; "in a moment the
bridge will be down."
And she rushed to the little wheelhouse, to let go the chain with a
relieving motion of her foot. And immediately the ponderous affair
came clanking to the ground, locking into the pawls at the other side
with the pleasant _sloop_ of well-oiled machinery.
Then it was our turn to be introduced. Mr. Ablethorpe came across the
wood with the firm tread of an athlete. He held out his hand first to
Miss Orrin, who bowed over it, as if she would have loved to raise it
reverently to her lips.
Then he shook hands with Mr. Stennis, who took the matter cavalierly
enough, immediately turning on his heel and going off in the direction
of his weaving-room, which had an additional entrance from the front.
The young curate was apparently well enough accustomed to such
treatment, and thought nothing of it, but Miss Orrin bit her thin lips
and looked daggers at the bowed head of the old weaver-farmer as he
trudged away.
"Halloo, Joseph Yarrow," said Mr. Ablethorpe lightly, as he ruffled my
head with his hand. (I understood well enough to take off my cap to a
clergyman.) "Joe Yarrow, I know your father. And I think--yes, I
think--" (he put a lot of accent on the _think_) "Master Joseph, you
ought to be at school. Shall I tell your father, Joseph? If I did, I
make no doubt that he would give you a coat of a few colours, mainly
black and blue. Ha! ha!"
But he had that light way with him, which made us quite sure that he
would do nothing half so mean as to tell either my father or Mr.
Mustard the schoolmaster.
"And who is this young lady?" he said, looking at Elsie, who was tall,
and when taken short like that had a kind of "distant" look which made
people think she was haughty. But she looked very nice that way--what
people call pretty and "chic" (whatever that may be). I could see that
Mr. Ablethorpe was interested in her directly. I could have knocked
his head off! Cheek, indeed!
"She lives with a poor working woman," said Miss Orrin, who had no
doubt noticed the interest as well as I, "one named Nance Edgar, not
very far out of Breckonside village. But not in your parish, Mr.
Ablethorpe. Will you come this way, Mr. Ablethorpe? There is tea
ready for you."
But Mr Ablethorpe had his own time of doing things, and with such a
girl as Elsie in front of him, he was not in a hurry.
"Lives with a poor woman, does she?--Nancy--Nancy--what name did you
say?" he went on in the tone in which people ask for additional
information.
But I was not going to stand this--from Miss Orrin or any one, about my
Elsie.
"This is Miss Elsie Stennis," I said, with what of dignity I could
compass with my inches, "the only grand daughter of Mr Stennis, the
owner of this property."
"But how?" said the young man, looking, as I thought, a little
reproachfully at Miss Orrin; "I was not seriously aware that Mr.
Stennis had any relatives alive."
"This girl has been represented as the child of his daughter Isabella,"
said Miss Orrin, "but Mr. Stennis, doubtless for excellent reasons, has
never acknowledged her as such!"
"But the church records and the registrar have, though," said I. "You
can speak to old Mr. Askew, if you like--he knows!"
"You can go now," said Miss Orrin, with dignity, cutting me short, "and
remember that you are not to return till you have received an
invitation. Mr. Stennis will overlook your conduct on this occasion,
in consideration of your youth and ignorance. But you will know better
the next time, and no such excuse will be accepted."
As Mr. Ablethorpe passed me he nodded his blonde curly head at me,
twinkled his eye, and said: "Tell your father that I am going to look
him up one of these days. I want a subscription for our Organ Fund,
but I won't say anything about where I found you--I promise you that."
He looked at Elsie, too, as if he had meant to say something jokingly
to her also, but thought better of it. Then he lifted his hat and
passed away across the green lawn side by side with Miss Orrin. They
wove their way among the clumps of lilies till they were lost to view,
and I could see that they were talking earnestly together.
And from the barn, very lonesome across the black water of the moat,
came the indignant hooting of the mad sisters still shut up behind the
barred door, with the black altar and the little coffins.