MR. PUFFIN HUNTS A BUTTERFLY.
The Reverend John Dodd had been more than satisfied with his new curate.
At first the long cassock, the flowing robes, and the rather eccentric
"make up" of the man had been a daily outrage to the vicar's idea of
decency. Mr. Puffin was not the first curate in the vicar's experience
who had sought notoriety by a fantastic dress; but Mr. Puffin worked
hard in the parish, Mr. Puffin was eloquent, and the vicar felt certain
that the Established Church in King's Warren was gaining ground. He was
rather gratified than otherwise to hear that Mr. Puffin had begun to
waver in his ideas about celibacy. Puffin as an engaged man might be
somewhat less divine, but he would be assuredly more human. Dodd himself
didn't see why Mr. Puffin should not become the husband of Miss
Warrender. Puffin was a clergyman, and a gentleman; and the Reverend
John Dodd rubbed his hands as he thought of the inevitable struggle for
mastery which would take place between the pair should the marriage ever
come off. And after all, more unlikely things than this marriage had
happened. Miss Warrender certainly had had her fling, but a girl can't
go on having her fling for ever, and the vicar chuckled as he thought of
Lucy as the Celibate's wife. Unconsciously perhaps the curate had
assumed an air of superiority to his vicar, for as a Celibate he would
naturally look down upon him as a being of a coarser clay, a mere
earthen pot; but this had only amused his good-natured chief, and the
Reverend John Dodd smiled as he thought of the gentle vengeance he might
have, when the enamoured Puffin should take him into his confidence.
He sat down to dinner in the best of tempers. When he perceived that he
was to be regaled with a veal sweetbread with brown sauce, his eyes were
lighted up with a merry twinkle. But he felt that there was something in
the wind; he knew that that delectable propitiatory sacrifice was only
offered to his critical palate on his birthday, when his wife was in a
particularly good temper, or when she had a favour to ask. As he looked
at the partner of his earthly joys, it was plainly apparent to him that
Mrs. Dodd was ruffled; it was not his birthday, so he had a second
helping of the delicacy and made up his mind to yield to the inevitable
demand with the best possible grace. But not till they were alone did
his wife unbosom herself.
"John," she said, "I've come to the conclusion that Mr. Puffin must
leave us; a curate ceases to be of use in a parish the moment he makes
himself ridiculous, and Mr. Puffin tells me that he is determined to
make a fool of himself. I could have passed over his peculiarities,
John," she said, "and his eccentricities in dress; I could even have
forgiven his long hair, in consideration of the immense amount of work
he manages to get through; but he is about to render himself unsuitable.
I approve of ambition in a clergyman; my dear father is an ambitious
man, and he has prospered, though not perhaps according to his great
deserts; but worldly ambition, the thirst for gold, is unbecoming in a
clergyman. To my mind, it is painfully apparent that Mr. Puffin, who
ought to be actuated by far higher motives, is prepared to sacrifice
himself to Lucy Warrender, who is a most objectionable young person, in
order to secure at some future time the presentation to the living of
King's Warren."
The vicar laughed.
"I mean to live for the next twenty years, my dear, and if Puffin
intends to put up with twenty years of Lucy Warrender for the sake of
this living, though it is a fat one, I shall consider that the labourer
will have been worthy of his hire."
"Don't be profane, John," said the lady reprovingly.
"To do Puffin justice, I don't think he is mercenary. Lucy has probably
turned his head."
"John, Mr. Puffin is not of an inflammable nature."
"All curates are of an inflammable nature, my dear; why you turned my
head in your time."
"I trust, Mr. Dodd, that my mental qualities attracted you, and not mere
physical beauty."
"Of course, my dear, of course; but you were a monstrous fine woman
then, and for the matter of that, you are still, Cecilia," said the
vicar, as he helped himself to a third glass of his '47 port.
His wife smiled and smoothed her cap ribbons.
"Don't exceed, John," she said, with a warning gesture, "or Mr. Puffin
may not have to wait twenty years for his preferment after all. You must
admonish him, John; a man of his principles, his pretended principles,
is not suited for married life. He told me himself, that ever since his
ordination he has assumed what he calls a priestly garb. I ask you,
John, how could he be married in a cassock? How could he go on his
honeymoon in it?"
"Well, he could leave it off, my dear."
"But he has declared to me that he never would leave it off. How often
has he sneered at ordinary clerical attire, though he has never dared to
suggest that you should masquerade in, what he calls, proper
ecclesiastical costume."
"There may be reasons, my dear; he may have bandy legs."
"His legs are perfectly indifferent to me, Mr. Dodd. If he wishes to
marry, he should dress like other people."
"You should suggest that to Lucy Warrender, my dear."
"If I thought for a moment, Mr. Dodd, that there was a possibility of
his being the means of rescuing the girl by his own self-sacrifice, I
should not say one word; if he has a taste for martyrdom, it would not
be for me to interfere; but I know that Lucy is only wickedly
encouraging him for the sake of winning the bet of a new bonnet from her
cousin's husband. You must warn and admonish him, John, or he must go.
Stacey would have been a far more suitable partner for him."
"Why didn't you suggest it, my dear?"
"It is not my duty to secure a husband for my sister-in-law, Mr. Dodd."
"You thought it was, in the squire's case, Cecilia."
But the vicar's wife let the taunt pass by unnoticed.
"If you don't admonish him, John, I must. It will be a thankless office,
for the wretched man seems bent on his own destruction."
"Well, he has chosen a particularly pleasant form of suicide, Cecilia."
"Flippancy, Mr. Dodd, is not becoming in a clergyman," said his wife
with a ruffled air, "and it is not good taste for a clergyman to openly
express his admiration for his female parishioners to his wife, and so
violate the sanctity of his own fireside."
"I'm not going to make or meddle in the matter, Mrs. Dodd," said her
husband.
"'Tis a vicar's duty to protect his curate, Mr. Dodd."
"Not when the curate is perfectly well able to take care of himself, my
dear. Besides, there is another point of view; Lucy might do worse."
"Well, John," she replied, "I shall say no more. I can only hope that it
is not in a spirit of professional jealousy that you allow this poor
thoughtless young fellow to rush to his doom." And then she rang for
coffee.
Next day the Reverend Barnes Puffin lunched at The Warren. Being a feast
day he did full justice to the meal. He was overflowing with good
spirits, and as soon as lunch was over he seized the first opportunity
of securing a _tête-à-tête_ with the squire's niece. As Miss Warrender
took the arm of the clergyman, she cast an amused and meaning glance at
Haggard. Little by little the pair wandered away into the secluded rose
garden, and the Reverend Barnes Puffin felt that he had got his chance.
"Do you care for parish work, Miss Warrender?" said the Celibate, after
a few commonplace phrases.
"To tell you the truth, Mr. Puffin, I don't know; I have never tried."
"It is a great privilege, you know," he said. "Has it never occurred to
you, my dear Miss Warrender, that it might be your vocation, your
natural aim in life."
"No, I don't think it ever has, Mr. Puffin," she said. "I did know a
girl once, one of my school friends, she joined a sisterhood; you know I
fancy it was the dress attracted her. She joined a sisterhood, but they
made the poor thing wear dreadful thick shoes like a man's, and she had
to scrub floors, which spoilt her pretty hands; poor child, they have
remained red ever since, and she was glad to marry an army doctor and go
to China with him. I suppose red hands don't matter in China," the girl
said meditatively. "No, I don't think I should care to scrub floors, Mr.
Puffin," and she spread out her taper fingers as though for her own
inspection.
The curate admired the fingers, and observed with satisfaction that they
were undecorated by a prohibitive ring.
"There are other spheres, dear Miss Warrender, than sisterhoods. Our
friend Mrs. Dodd has found a happy and congenial one here in King's
Warren."
"But then she is a clergyman's wife, Mr. Puffin, and a privileged
person."
"It is a privilege, Miss Warrender, a great privilege. I'm glad it
commends itself to you as such."
"Oh, yes; Mrs. Dodd is much to be envied, but then Mrs. Dodd is a very
clever woman; she, Mr. Puffin, has caught her hare."
"And having caught him, Miss Warrender, she has accommodated him to her
own taste."
"Hers is a master mind, Mr. Puffin."
"It is perhaps as easy, my dear young lady, to rule by love as to rule
by fear."
"And much nicer, I should think, Mr. Puffin."
The curate blushed, and then he made an audacious statement.
"Mine is a very accommodating nature, Miss Warrender."
"That's very fortunate for you, Mr. Puffin, for you must have so much
to put up with from the poor people."
"I have lately been engaged, Miss Warrender, in a very serious mental
struggle. I am afraid I have been arrogant. I am afraid that I have
boasted and bragged to my friends and to my parishioners that I was not
as other men are, that my whole soul was given up to duty, that I was a
Celibate, not merely from vocation but from inclination. But my feelings
have undergone a change. At first, dear Miss Warrender, I was
overpowered by a sense of what I considered my own degradation, but that
feeling has entirely passed away. I confess to you that when I first
came here I considered myself on a higher platform to that of most men,
and I supposed that in obstinately refraining from the ordinary lot of
clergymen, I mean marriage, that I was exercising a considerable degree
of self-abnegation, in fact that I was leading a higher life. I now see
that all this was a wicked error. The Church enjoins penance, and I
have come to the conclusion from my intimate acquaintance with the
sufferings of my unfortunate vicar, that instead of making a sacrifice
in abstaining from matrimony I was actually guilty of profound and
calculating selfishness. I see, too, that a married clergyman in giving
up the idea of celibacy secures at least one efficient coadjutor in his
parish work. As you know, Miss Warrender, I am in the habit of acting
upon my convictions."
"Then of course, Mr. Puffin, you will at once seek to secure the hand of
some particularly objectionable person, in order to render the touching
martyrdom you speak of the more meritorious?"
"No, Miss Warrender, I shall not look upon that as a bounden duty. My
position as a Celibate has many advantages from a professional point of
view, for the female portion of my parishioners are enabled to look upon
me as one of themselves."
"Oh, I don't quite think that, Mr. Puffin; of course there is
something--well, epicene about your dress, but then to some minds, you
know, the clerical dress has a great attractiveness. Why the Louis
Quatorze abbés, that we see so much of in comic opera, were terribly
wicked people, you know, Mr. Puffin, and _they_ clung very tightly to
the clerical dress, and so did Tartuffe for the matter of that."
"Dear Miss Warrender, the cleric garb is but a delightful reminiscence
of a past time; there is nothing ridiculous in it. You have the same
thing in the Blue Coat boy, and there is assuredly nothing ridiculous in
a Blue Coat boy."
"Quite the contrary, Mr. Puffin; it is rather romantic than otherwise,
but I can't fancy a full-grown man in yellow stockings, and
a--hem--undivided skirt. By the way, Mr. Puffin, I can give you a
suggestion: if you did really carry out your ideas and marry after all,
you might adopt the Blue Coat costume as a sort of sign of your
apostacy, a kind of _san benito_; you would still be retaining the
mediæval idea, you see, and be thoroughly distinguishable from Tartuffe
and the wicked abbés we were talking about."
"In matters of dress, Miss Warrender, did I become a married man I
should naturally defer to the wishes of my wife."
"You don't mean to say that you would dress like other people?"
"Yes, Miss Warrender, I should do so, though it would not be without a
pang that I should relinquish what I look upon as the true clerical
garb."
"Don't think of it, Mr. Puffin, don't think of it, for an instant. The
noble savage in his war-paint, his wampum, his feathers and his scalps,
is a dignified object; but dress him in a suit of common clothes and cut
his hair and he ceases to be interesting."
"Do you really think, Miss Warrender, that I should lose influence if I
adopted the costume of ordinary life, should I enter upon the perilous
sea of matrimony?"
"Well, Mr. Puffin, if you dressed like other people and married, I don't
see how, to use your own expression, 'the female members of your
congregation could continue to look upon you as one of themselves,'
because if they did, you see you would be only Mrs. Puffin's sister
after all."
"Yes, I am afraid that is the _reductio ad absurdum_. But we are
wandering away, Miss Warrender; it was about my heart, and not about my
garments, that I sought to converse with you."
"Oh, Mr. Puffin, I should make the worst of confidants; I never by any
chance keep a secret."
"And yet I am ready to trust your discretion, Miss Warrender."
"I confess you rouse my curiosity. Do I know the lady?"
"Yes, Miss Warrender, she is your best friend and your worst enemy."
"Now you intrigue me, Mr. Puffin, for all my acquaintances address me as
their dearest Lucy, and as for my enemies--I've guessed it, Mr. Puffin.
I never had an enemy till Mr. Sleek's hay making. I suppose Miss Connie
Sleek is the bride-elect. Let me congratulate you, Mr. Puffin, but do
tell me one thing, it is so interesting--what are Miss Sleek's ideas
about the clerical garb?"
"I fear you wilfully misunderstand me, Miss Warrender. My aspirations
are higher. I do not think Miss Sleek would ever be the ideal wife for a
clergyman."
"You mystify me, Mr. Puffin."
Mr. Puffin possessed a copy of the "Bab Ballads." He remembered two
lines in them that gave him that hope which they say springs eternal in
the human breast.
"It isn't so much the lover who woos,
As the lover's way of wooing."
He remembered that Mr. Gilbert's successful lover came to the point at
once, so, to use a hunting simile, he sat well down in his saddle, and
he hardened his heart.
"Dear Miss Warrender," he said, and there was a certain amount of
dignity about the man, despite his long hair and his eccentric
appearance, "I am only a working clergyman, but I am a gentleman; and I
wish you, for both our sakes, to share my lot."
Here Lucy Warrender cast down her pretty eyes and smiled, for she felt
that she had won Haggard's new bonnet fairly and honestly.
The parson continued, taking heart of grace from the false little smile
upon her lips:
"I'm going to ask you to give up a great deal for the sake of religion,
and for my sake, Miss Warrender. I'm going to ask you to give up the
world, its frivolous enjoyments and its pleasures, and to tread with me
a thorny and toilsome path which leads to higher things. I know my
presumption, Miss Warrender. I know that in trying to do good according
to my lights I often merely succeed in making myself ridiculous. If I am
ridiculous in your eyes, Miss Warrender, you can have but one answer to
give me. But my proposition to you is at least disinterested. I know you
will believe that. I don't ask you for an answer now, Miss Warrender. I
should scorn to snatch a favourable answer from an inexperienced girl."
Lucy gave another little smile.
"Think over what I have said, dear Miss Warrender; if you feel equal to
making the sacrifice, so do I. Take time to think it over."
"No, Mr. Puffin. I have been foolish and wicked, perhaps, if I have
unknowingly encouraged you; but you have spoken honestly enough to me,
and the least you deserve is an honest answer. I am not fit, Mr.
Puffin, to be any man's wife--any honest man's wife--least of all a
clergyman's."
Lucy felt that she had said a little too much, so she hastened to
qualify it.
"I am but a worldly girl. I love pleasure and dissipation; it is my
nature--a nature I can never change. Look on me, Mr. Puffin, as wholly
unworthy of you. Were you to marry me, Mr. Puffin, you would commit an
act that we should both repent. You would degrade yourself to my level;
and, God knows, mine is a very low level. Take my answer as it is meant
Mr. Puffin, in seriousness, and as irrevocable. Forgive me, Mr. Puffin,
and do me one favour. I am utterly bad, Mr. Puffin, but try not to think
unkindly of me, for I have no friends; and, as you told me just now, I
am my own worst enemy."
Tears were standing in the pretty eyes. Lucy Warrender was not acting
now.
The Reverend Barnes Puffin did not press his suit further.
"Good-bye, Miss Warrender," he said, in a choking voice. "But never say
you have no friends. We may never meet again. I have merited my rebuff,
but I thank you for your forbearance. And if you ever need a friend, you
have a faithful one in me."
He pressed her hand and took his leave. As he walked out of the rose
garden with a dejected air, it was very evident that his wooing had not
prospered. But Lucy Warrender never asked Haggard to pay his lost wager.
The Reverend Barnes Puffin bore his misfortune like a man. He felt that
Lucy's determination was final, and that it would be hopeless to try his
luck again with her; but she hadn't laughed at him, and that was
something. Still, Mr. Puffin felt that it behoved him to leave King's
Warren. Just as it is a matter of tradition, an un-written law, that a
ministry when beaten on a great political question goes out of office,
so it is the custom among curates who have been unsuccessful in their
love affairs in the parish, _if the parish is aware of the fact_, to
tender their resignation. The curate sought an interview with the
Reverend John Dodd and announced his decision. The vicar did not attempt
to combat it. A celibate clergyman has many advantages; but a celibate
clergyman who is prepared to renounce his principles ceases to inspire
respect among the female portion of his congregation. As a Celibate,
rapturous maidens will go on sighing and weeping for him, for while he
represents the Unattainable there is something almost saint-like about
him; but as a curate who has been refused by a member of his own
congregation, the nimbus suddenly disappears from his brow; he ceases to
be a modern apostle, and turns out to be an ordinary and unsuccessful
fisherman after all. And this is one reason why the modern fisherman
always carries a creel. Isaac Walton was contented to bring home the
spoils of his art strung upon an osier; but the modern creel conveys an
impression of dignity; the natural supposition is that there is
something in it, hence its popularity.
So the Reverend Barnes Puffin went back to hard work at the east end of
London, and after a time attained the preferment which the archdeacon
had prophesied; but he still retains the celibate garb, and in his
dreams he sees a glorified Lucy Warrender--fair hair, brown eyes and
all--and the lovely vision is quite sufficient for him. He thinks of her
as he fondly fancied her, and looks on her as a sort of guardian angel
still. Who shall grudge him the fond delusion?