"My dear," said Mrs. Furze to her husband the next night when they were
alone, "I think Catharine would be much better if she were sent away from
home for a time. Her education is very imperfect, and there are
establishments where young ladies are taken at her age and finished. It
would do her a world of good."
Mr. Furze was not quite sure about the finishing. It savoured of a
region outside the modest enclosure within which he was born and brought
up.
"The expense, I am afraid, will be great, and I cannot afford it just
now. There is no denying that business is no better; in fact, it is not
so good as it was, notwithstanding the alterations."
"You cannot expect it to recover at once. Something must be done to put
Catharine on a level with the young women in her position, and my notion
is that everything which will help to introduce us into society will help
you. Why does Mrs. Butcher go out so much? It is because she knows it
is a good investment."
"An ironmonger is not a doctor."
"Who said he was?" replied Mrs. Furze, triumphant in the consciousness of
mental superiority. "Furze," she once said to him, when it was proposed
to elect him a guardian of the poor, "take my advice and refuse. Your
_forte_ is not argument: you will never held your own in debate."
"I know an ironmonger is not a doctor," she continued. "_I_ of all
people have reason to know it; but what I do say is, that the more we mix
with superior people, the more likely you are to succeed, and that if you
bury yourself in these days you will fail."
The italicised "I" was an allusion to a fiction that once Mrs. Furze
might have married a doctor if she had liked, and thereby have secured
the pre-eminence which the wife of a drug-dispenser assumes in a country
town. The grades in Eastthorpe were very marked, and no caste
distinctions could have been more rigid. The county folk near were by
themselves. They associated with none of the townsfolk, save with the
rector, and even in that relationship there was a slight tinge of
ex-officiosity. Next to the rector were the lawyer and the banker and
the two maiden banker ladies in the Abbey Close. Looked at from a
distance these might be supposed to stand level, but, on nearer approach,
a difference was discernible. The banker and the ladies, although they
visited the lawyer, were a shade beyond him. Then came the brewer. The
days had not arrived when brewing--at least, on the large scale--is
considered to be more respectable than a learned profession, and Mrs.
Colston, notwithstanding her wealth, was incessantly forced by the
lawyer's wife to confess subordination. The brewer kept three or four
horses for pleasure, and the lawyer kept only one; but "Colston's Entire"
was on a dozen boards in the town, and he supplied private families and
sent in bills. The position of Mrs. Butcher was perhaps the most
curious. She visited the rector, banker, lawyer, and brewer, and was
always well received, for she was clever, smart, young, and well behaved.
She had established her position solely by her wits. She did not spend a
quarter as much as Mrs. Colston, but she always looked better. She was
well shaped, to begin with, and the fit of her garments was perfect. Not
a wrinkle was to be seen in gown, gloves, or shoes. Mrs. Colston's
fashion was that imposed on her by the dressmaker, but Ms. Butcher always
had a style peculiarly her own. She knew the secret that a woman's
attractiveness, so far as it is a matter of clothes, depends far more
upon the manner in which they are made and worn than upon costliness. It
was always thought that she ruled her husband and had just a spice of
contempt for him. She gained thereby in Eastthorpe, at least with the
men, for her superiority to him gave her an air which was slightly
detached, free, and fascinating. She always drove when she went out with
him, and it was really a sight worth seeing she bolt upright with her
hands well down, her pretty figure showing to the best advantage the neat
turn-out--for she was very particular on this point and understood horses
thoroughly--and Butcher, leaning back, submissive but satisfied. She had
made friends with the women too. She was much too shrewd to incur their
hostility by openly courting the admiration of their husbands. She knew
they did admire her, and that was enough. She was most deferential to
Mrs. Colston, so much so that the brewer's wife openly expressed the
opinion that she was evidently well bred, and wondered how Butcher
managed to secure her. Furthermore she was useful, for her opinion, when
anything had to be done, was always the one to be followed, and without
her the church restoration would never have been such a success.
Eastthorpe, like Mrs. Colston, often marvelled that Butcher should have
been so fortunate. It mostly knew everything about the antecedents of
everybody in the town, but Mrs. Butcher's were not so well known. She
came from Cornwall, she always said, and Cornwall was a long way off in
those days. Her maiden name was Treherne, and Mrs. Colston had been told
that Treherne was good Cornish. Moreover, soon after the marriage she
found on the table, when she called on Mrs. Butcher, a letter which she
could not help partly reading, for it lay wide open. All scruples were
at once removed. It had a crest at the top, was dated from Helston,
addressed Mrs. Butcher by a nickname, and was written in a most
aristocratic hand--so Mrs. Colston averred to her intimate friends. She
could not finish the perusal before Mrs. Butcher came into the room; but
she had read enough, and the doctor's elect was admitted at once without
reservation. Eastthorpe was slightly mistaken, but Mrs. Butcher's
history cannot be told here.
So much by way of digression on Eastthorpe society. Mrs. Furze carried
her point as usual. As for Catharine, she did not object, for there was
nothing in Eastthorpe attractive to her. The Limes, Abchurch, was the
"establishment" chosen. It was kept by the Misses Ponsonby, Abchurch
being a large village five miles farther eastward. It was a peculiar
institution. It was a school for girls, but not for little girls, and it
was also an educational home for young ladies up to one- or
two-and-twenty whose training had been neglected or had to be completed
beyond the usual limits. It was widely-known, and, as its purpose was
special, it had little or no competition, and consequently flourished.
Many parents who had become wealthy, and who hardily knew the manners and
customs of the class to which they aspired, sent their daughters to the
Limes. The Misses Ponsonby--Mrs Ponsonby and Miss Adela Ponsonby--were
of Irish extraction, and had some dim connection with the family of that
name. They also preserved in their Calvinistic evangelicalism a trace of
the Cromwellian Ponsonby, the founder of the race. There was a
difference of two years in the age of the two ladies, but no perceptible
difference in their characters. The same necessity to conceal or
suppress all individuality on subjects disputable in their own sect had
been imposed on each. Both had the same "views" on all matters religious
and social, and both of them confessed that on many points their "views"
were "strict"--whatever that singular phrase may have meant.
Nevertheless, they displayed remarkable tact in reconciling parents with
the defects and peculiarities of their children. There were always girls
in the school of varying degrees of intelligence, from absolute stupidity
to brilliancy, but the report at the end of the term was so fashioned
that the father and mother of the idiot were not offended, and the idiocy
was so handled that it appeared to have some advantages. If Miss Carter
had been altogether unable to master the French verbs, or to draw the
model vase until the teacher had put in nearly the whole of the outline,
there was a most happy counterpoise, as a rule, in her moral conduct. In
these days of effusive expression, when everybody thinks it his duty to
deliver himself of everything in him--doubts, fears, passions--no matter
whether he does harm thereby or good, the Misses Ponsonby would be
considered intolerably dull and limited. They did not walk about without
their clothes--figuratively speaking--it was not then the fashion. They
were, on the contrary, heavily draped from head to foot, but underneath
the whalebone and padding, strange to say, were real live women's hearts.
They knew what it was to hope and despair; they knew what it was to
reflect that with each of them life might and ought to have been
different; they even knew what it was sometimes to envy the beggar-women
on the doorstep of the Limes who asked for a penny and clasped a child to
her breast. We mistake our ancestors who read Pope and the _Spectator_.
They were very much like ourselves essentially, but they did not believe
that there was nothing in us which should be smothered or strangled.
Perhaps some day we shall go back to them, and find that the "Rape of the
Lock" is better worth reading and really more helpful than magazine
metaphysics. Anyhow, it is certain that the training which the Misses
Ponsonby had received, although it may have made them starched, prim, and
even uninteresting, had an effect upon their character not altogether
unwholesome, and prevented any public crying for the moon, or any public
charge of injustice against its Maker because it is unattainable.
The number of girls was limited to thirty. The house was tall,
four-square, built of white brick about the year 1780, had a row of
little pillars running along the roof at the top, and a Grecian portico.
It was odd that there should be such a house in Abchurch, but there it
was. It was erected by a Spitalfields silk manufacturer, whose family
belonged to those parts. He thought to live in it after his retirement,
but he came there to die. The studies of the pupils were superintended
by the Misses Ponsonby and sundry teachers, all female, except the
drawing-master and the music-master. The course embraced the usual
branches of a superior English education, French, Italian, deportment,
and the use of the globes, but, as the Misses Ponsonby truly stated in
their prospectus, their sole aim was not the inculcation of knowledge,
but such instruction as would enable the young ladies committed to their
charge to move with ease in the best society, and, above everything, the
impression of correct principles in morality and religion. In this
impression much assistance was given by the Reverend Theophilus Cardew,
the rector of the church in the village. The patronage was in the hands
of the Simeonite trustees, and had been bought by them in the first
fervour of the movement.
The thirty pupils occupied fifteen bedrooms, although each had a separate
bed, and to Catharine was allotted Miss Julia Arden, a young woman with a
pretty, pale face, and black hair worn in ringlets. Her head was not
firmly fixed on her shoulders, and was always in motion, as if she had
some difficulty in balancing it, the reason being, not any physical
defect, but a wandering imagination, which never permitted her to look at
any one thing steadily for an instant. Nine-tenths of what she said was
nonsense, but her very shallowness gave occasionally a certain value and
reality to her talk, for the simple reason that she was incapable of the
effort necessary to conceal what she thought for the moment. In her
studies she made not the slightest progress, for her memory was shocking.
She confounded all she was taught, and never could recollect whether the
verb was conjugated and the noun declined, or whether it was the other
way round, to use one of her favourite expressions, so that her
preceptors were compelled to fall back, more exclusively than with her
schoolfellows, on her moral conduct, which was outwardly respectable
enough, but by the occupant of the other bed might perhaps have been
reported on in terms not quite so satisfactory as those in the quarterly
form signed by Miss Ponsonby.
Catharine's mother came with her on a Saturday afternoon, but left in the
evening. At half-past eight there were prayers. The girls filed into
the drawing-room, sat round in a ring, of which the Misses Ponsonby
formed a part, but with a break of about two feet right and left, the
servants sitting outside near the door: a chapter was read, a prayer also
read, and then, after a suitable pause, the servants rose from their
knees, the pupils rose next, and the Misses Ponsonby last; the time which
each division, servants, pupils, and Ponsonbys, remained kneeling being
graduated exactly in proportion to rank. A procession to the supper-room
was then formed. Catharine found herself at table next to Miss Arden,
with a spotless napkin before her, with silver forks and spoons, and a
delicately served meal of stewed fruits, milk-puddings, bread-and-butter,
and cold water. Everything was good, sweet, and beautifully clean, and
there was enough. At half-past nine, in accordance with the usual
practice, one of the girls read from a selected book. On Saturday a
book, not exactly religious, but related to religion as nearly as
possible as Saturday is related to Sunday, was invariably selected. On
this particular Saturday it was Clarke's "Travels in Palestine."
Precisely as the chock struck ten the volume was closed and the pupils
went to bed.
"I am sure I shall like you," observed Miss Arden, as they were
undressing. "The girl who was here before was a brute, so dull and so
vulgar. I hope you will like me."
"I hope so too."
"It's dreadful here: so different to my mother's house in Devonshire. We
have a large place there near Torquay--do you know Torquay? And I have a
horse of my own, on which I tear about during the holidays, and there are
boats and sailing matches, and my brothers have so many friends, and I
have all sorts of little affairs. I suppose you've had your affairs. Of
course you won't say. We never see a man here, except Mr. Cardew. Oh,
isn't he handsome? He's only a parson, but he's such a dear; you'll see
him to-morrow. I can't make him out: he's lovely, but he's queer, so
solemn at times, like an owl in daylight. I'm sure he's well brought up.
I wonder why he went into the church: he ought to have been a gentleman."
"But is he not a gentleman?
"Oh, yes, of course he's a gentleman, but you know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
"There, now, you are one of those horrid creatures, I know you are, who
never _will_ understand, and do it on purpose. It is so aggravating."
"Well, but you said he was not a gentleman, and yet that he was a
gentleman."
"You _are_ provoking. I say he is a gentleman--but don't some gentlemen
keep a carriage?--and his father is in business. Isn't that plain? You
know all about it as well as I do."
"I still do not quite comprehend."
Catharine took a little pleasure in forcing people to be definite, and
Miss Arden invariably fell back on "you understand" whenever she herself
did not understand. In fact, in exact proportion to her own inability to
make herself clear to herself, did she always insist that she was clear
to other people.
"I cannot help it if you don't comprehend. He's lovely, and I adore
him."
Next morning, being Sunday, the Limes was, if possible, still more
irreproachable; the noise of the household was more subdued; the passions
appeared more utterly extinguished, and any indifferent observer would
have said that from the Misses Ponsonby down to the scullery-maid, a big
jug had been emptied on every spark of illegal fire, and blood was toast
and water. Alas! it was not so. The boots were cleaned overnight to
avoid Sunday labour, but when the milkman came, a handsome young fellow,
anybody with ears near the window overhead might have detected a
scuffling at the back door with some laughter and something like "Oh,
don't!" and might have noticed that Elizabeth afterwards looked a little
rumpled and adjusted her cap. Nor was she singular, for many of the
young women who were supposed to be studying a brief abstract of the
history of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, in parallel columns, as
arranged by the Misses Ponsonby, were indulging in the naughtiest
thoughts and using naughty words as they sat in their bedrooms before the
time for departure to church. At a quarter-past ten the girls assembled
in the dining-room, and were duly marshalled. They did not, however,
walk two-and-two like ordinary schools. In the first place, many of them
were not children, and, in the second place, the Misses Ponsonby held
that even walking to church was a thing to be taught, and they desired to
turn out their pupils so that they might distinguish themselves in this
art also as well-bred people. It was one of the points on which the
Misses Ponsonby grew even eloquent. How, they said, are girls to learn
to carry themselves properly if they march in couples? They will not do
it when they leave the Limes, and will be utterly at fault. There is no
day in the week on which more general notice is taken than on Sunday;
there is no day on which differences are more apparent. The pupils
therefore walked irregularly, the irregularity being prescribed. The
entering the church; the leaving the pews; the loitering and salutations
in the churchyard; the show, superior saunter homewards were all the
result of lecture, study, and even of practice on week-days.
"Deliberation, ease," said Miss Ponsonby, "are the key to this, as they
are to so much in our behaviour, and surely on the Sabbath we ought more
than on any other day to avoid indecorous hurry and vulgarity."
Catharine's curiosity, after what Miss Arden had said, was a little
excited to know what kind of a man Mr. Cardew might be, and she imagined
him a young dandy. She saw a man about thirty-five with dark brown hair,
eyes set rather deeply in his head, a little too close together, a
delicate, thin, very slightly aquiline nose, and a mouth with curved
lips, which were, however, compressed as if with determination or
downright resolution. There was not a trace of dandyism in him, and he
reminded her immediately of a portrait she had seen of Edward Irving in a
shop at Eastthorpe.
He stood straight up in the pulpit reading from a little Testament he
held in his hand, and when he had given out his text he put the Testament
down and preached without notes. His subject was a passage in the life
of Jesus taken from Luke xviii. 18--
18. _And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, Good Master, what shall I
do to inherit eternal life_?
19. _And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou Me good? None is
good, save one, that is God_.
20. _Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not
kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and
mother_.
21. _And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up_.
22. _Now when Jesus heard these things, He said unto him, Yet lackest
thou one thing: sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me_.
Mr Cardew did not approach this theme circuitously or indifferently, but
seemed in haste to be on close terms with it, as if it had dwelt with him
and he was eager to deliver his message.
"I beseech you," he began, "endeavour to make this scene real to you. A
rich man, an official, comes to Jesus, calls Him Teacher--for so the word
is in the Greek--and asks Him what is to be done to inherit eternal life.
How strange it is that such a question should be so put! how rare are the
occasions on which two people approach one another so nearly! Most of us
pass days, weeks, months, years in intercourse with one another, and
nothing which even remotely concerns the soul is ever mentioned. Is it
that we do not care? Mainly that, and partly because we foolishly hang
back from any conversation on what it is most important we should reveal,
so that others may help us. Whenever you feel any promptings to speak of
the soul or to make any inquiries on its behalf, remember it is a sacred
duty not to suppress them.
"This ruler was happy in being able to find a single authority to whom he
could appeal for an answer. If anybody wishes for such an answer now, he
can find no oracle sole and decisive. The voices of the Church, the
sects, the philosophers are clamorous but discordant, and we are
bewildered. And yet, as I have told you over and over again in this
pulpit, it is absolutely necessary that you should have one and one only
supreme guide. To say nothing of eternal salvation, we must, in the
conduct of life, shape our behaviour by some one standard, or the result
is chaos. We must have some one method or principle which is to settle
beforehand how we are to do this or that, and the method or principle
should be Christ. Leaving out of sight altogether His divinity, there is
no temper, no manner so effectual, so happy as His for handling all human
experience. Oh, what a privilege it is to meet with anybody who is
controlled into unity, whose actions are all directed by one consistent
force!
"Jesus, as if to draw from this ruler all that he himself believed, tells
him to keep the Law. The Law, however, is insufficient, and it is
noteworthy that the ruler felt it to be so. To begin with, it is largely
negative: there are three negatives in this twentieth verse for one
affirmative, and negations cannot redeem us. The law is also external.
As a proof that it is ineffectual, I ask, Have you ever _rejoiced_ in it?
Have you ever been kindled by it? Have all its precepts ever moved you
like one single item in the story of the love of Jesus? Is the man
attractive to you who has kept the law and done nothing more? Would not
the poor woman who anointed our Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair
be more welcome to you than the holy people who had simply never
transgressed?
"We are struck with the magnitude of the demand made by Jesus on this
ruler. To obtain eternal life he was to sell all he had, give up house,
friends, position, respectability, and lead a vagrant life in Palestine
with this poor carpenter's son. Alas! eternal life is not to be bought
on lower terms. Beware of the damnable doctrine that it is easy to enter
the kingdom of heaven. It is to be obtained only by the sacrifice of
_all_ that stands in the way, and it is to be observed that in this, as
in other things, men will take the first, the second, the third--nay,
even the ninety-ninth step, but the hundredth and last they will not
take. Do you really wish to save your soul? Then the surrender must be
absolute. What! you will say, am I to sell everything? If Christ comes
to you--yes. Sell not only your property, but your very self. Part with
all your preferences, your loves, your thoughts, your very soul, if only
you can gain Him, and be sure too that He will come to you in a shape in
which it will not be easy to recognise Him. What a bargain, though, this
ruler would have made! He would have given up his dull mansion in
Jerusalem, Jerusalem society, which cared nothing for _him_, though it
doubtless called on him, made much of him, and even professed undying
friendship with him; he would have given this up, nothing but this, and
he would have gained those walks with Jesus across the fields, and would
have heard Him say, 'Consider the lilies!' 'Oh, yes, we would have done
it at once!' we cry. I think not, for Christ is with us even now.'
Curiously enough, the conclusion was a piece of the most commonplace
orthodoxy, lugged in, Heaven knows how, and delivered monotonously, in
strong contrast to the former part of the discourse.--M. R.
* * * * *
These notes, made by one who was present, are the mere ashes, cold and
grey, of what was once a fire. Mr. Cardew was really eloquent, and
consequently a large part of the effect of what he said is not to be
reproduced. It is a pity that no record is possible of a great speaker.
The writer of this history remembers when it was his privilege to listen
continually to a man whose power over his audience was so great that he
could sway them unanimously by a passion which was sufficient for any
heroic deed. The noblest resolutions were formed under that burning
oratory, and were kept, too, for the voice of the dead preacher still
vibrates in the ears of those who heard him. And yet, except in their
hearts, no trace abides, and when they are dead he will be forgotten,
excepting in so far as that which has once lived can never die.
Whether it was the preacher's personality, or what he said, Catharine
could hardly distinguish, but she was profoundly moved. Such speaking
was altogether new to her; the world in which Mr. Cardew moved was one
which she had never entered, and yet it seemed to her as if something
necessary and familiar to her, but long lost, had been restored. She
began now to look forward to Sunday with intense expectation; a new
motive for life was supplied to her, and a new force urged her through
each day. It was with her as we can imagine it to be with some bud long
folded in darkness which, silently in the dewy May night, loosens its
leaves, and, as the sun rises, bares itself to the depths of its cup to
the blue sky and the light.