VI

The Rectory was a red house standing in a garden, which its inhabitants,

one and all, energetically declared not to be damp; from which the

stranger might gather that they were not so certain on the subject as it

would be well to be. Its doors were quite level with the ground, so that

you walked in, without the interval even of a step to raise you above

the drippings of the rain: and as the drawing-room windows also opened

down to the ground, it was rather a trying business in wet weather, and

kept both the housemaid and the family much on the alert. The two girls

went in through the open window, for the afternoon was quite bright and

fair, and no fear of rain: but they found nobody in the drawing-room,

which was low and rather dark, notwithstanding those two good-sized

French windows, which somehow seemed to keep the light within

themselves, and did not distribute it to the further side of the

drab-coloured wall; this, unornamented with pictures or any variety,

afforded a dingy background for the somewhat dingy couches and

easy-chairs, which were covered with brownish chintz, intended to keep

clean, or in franker language, ‘not to show the dirt’ for as long a

period as possible. Chintzes and wall papers, and even dresses, which

were calculated not to show the dirt, were very popular at the time Mrs.

Plowden married, as means of economy, and her daughters had been brought

up in that tenet of faith. Accordingly everything in the room was more

or less of this dingy drab complexion, which was not exhilarating to the

spirits. There were signs that the room had been recently occupied by

the untidiness of the loose cover of one of the sofas, which bore

evident signs that some one had been lying there, and had jumped up

hastily, and apparently fled, since the old novel he or she had been

reading lay open on its face on the floor, and the antimacassars with

which the sofa had been adorned were huddled up in limp bundles, and lay

here and there where restless shoulders or limbs had left them.

Florence gave her cousin a look as she picked up the book and spread out

the forlorn adornments on the arm and back of the sofa. ‘They were put

on quite fresh two days ago, and look at them!’ said poor Florry; they

were chiefly in crochet, and the work of her own hands.

‘He has been here,’ she said, ‘and papa has called him to see if he was

at work. Papa might just as well let it alone, for he is never at work;

but that is what they will not learn,’ said Florence, impatient of the

blindness of her parents. ‘We,’ she added, ‘have to put the room tidy

after him a dozen times a day; but I prefer him to be in the

drawing-room, for at least he can’t smoke here----’

‘If he is out,’ said Mab, ‘let us go, Florry: we have lost half the

afternoon already.’

‘I don’t believe he is out--he is being “jawed,” as he calls it, in

papa’s study: don’t you hear them? Papa is at it hot! and what good will

it do? He will only say the same thing over and over--I could say it all

myself off by heart, everything papa says--and, of course, so could Jim,

and what good can that do? Come and stop it, Mab. Jim will be so

thankful to you: and poor papa won’t be sorry either,’ Florence said,

with a more sympathetic perception, ‘for he knows it’s useless; but when

he once begins he can’t stop himself.’

‘Oh,’ said Mab, ‘I can’t go and disturb Uncle James.’

‘When he’ll be so thankful to be disturbed!’ said Florry, ‘and you much

better than me, for you will have the air of not knowing what it all

means. No; don’t go to the study door. Go round by the garden, to the

window where he can see you coming. Walk slowly, and make a little noise

to attract their attention, so that you may not take them unawares. You

might ring, or whistle, or something--or call to Dash--and then papa

would see you, and have time to make up a face.’

These domestic diplomacies were unknown to Mab, but she took to them

with the natural instinct of femininity. There was a certain element of

fun, too, in stopping what she still called ‘a scolding,’ and in getting

the culprit off--even though the culprit did not commend himself very

warmly to her partiality. She carried out the programme accordingly,

while Florence waited just out of sight of the study window. It was not

a French window like those in the drawing-room, and it looked out upon

the dullest portion of the surroundings--a bit of grass where the water

lay treacherous during the long winter months in the slight concave of

the ground, with shrubs cruelly green and unchanging around it, and a

dead wall which they only partially veiled behind. Mab began to call

Dash loudly as she walked round the corner to this sanctuary, scattering

the gravel with her feet.

The scene that might have been seen inside the Rector’s window at that

moment was this: a tall youth seated on a chair presenting nothing more

responsive than the crown of his head, supported on his hands, to his

father’s remarks, and saying never a word; while the Rector, who had

risen from his own seat at his writing-table in his impatience, stood

pouring out the vials of his wrath. He was putting before Jim all the

enormities of which he had been guilty--his debts, the expense he had

been to his parents, the disappointment, the disgrace. When, however,

Mr. Plowden held up his hands to heaven and earth in grief and

disappointment that it should be ‘_my_ son’ who had been sent down by

his college, it is to be feared that Jim was making angry comments in

his mind to the effect that all his father cared for was that--‘not me,

or anything about me.’ He knew the circumstances very well--far better

than his father could tell him; and was it likely his conscience would

be more tender for being dragged over the same ground again and again?

When the Rector cried, ‘What is the use of talking to an impenitent cub

like you?’ his son felt deeply inclined to reply, ‘There is none.’ He

had, indeed, been wound up to the pitch of saying, ‘Why do you go on

like that when you’re so sure it will make no difference?’--a profoundly

sensible utterance, but one, perhaps, which it does still less good to

say.

When ‘Dash, Dash! come here, old fellow--get ready to come out for a

walk,’ sounded into the study, that home of anything but retired

leisure, the Rector came to a sudden stop. ‘There’s some confounded

visitor or other,’ he said in vexation, but not without relief.

‘It isn’t a visitor, it’s Mab.’

‘Don’t contradict me, sir! Who is she but a visitor, a silly girl

breaking in where your mother herself---- Don’t think I’ve done with you

because I’m interrupted. Don’t let me see you stir from your book till

dinner. Try whether you can’t do something like your simple duty, for

once in a way, just for the variety of the thing! Eh!--yes, my dear, you

can come in if you really want to, if you have anything to say to me,

but you know I’m always busy.’

‘Open the window, please, uncle,’ said Mab. ‘Is Jim there? We want him

to come out with us, out on the river. The weeds are coming up already

in the backwater, and we don’t want to risk going over the weir. It

would be a wetting, and it might be a drowning, don’t you know: and we

want Jim.’

The weeds and the weir were the invention of the moment, and Mab felt

rather proud of her skill; for of course the most obstinate of

backwaters is not choked with weeds in March, and the girls, who were

used to the river, were not so foolish at that season as to approach the

weir. The Rector looked out upon his niece, of whom he was proud, with a

look of helplessness; for even from his sister he had kept the secret

(knowing nothing of Florry’s indiscretions) of the sad state of affairs

with Jim.

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘it is quite true that Jim is here: but he’s busy,

almost as busy as I am, reading up, don’t you know, for his examination.

You really must not tempt him to-day. I am sure you know the river so

well, you will take care not to go near the weir.’

‘But, Uncle James, it is getting near four o’clock, we shan’t be more

than an hour. Don’t you think he will get on much better with his work

when he comes back?’

Jim had gradually expanded himself while this conversation was going on;

his father’s back being turned he actually, not metaphorically, kicked

up his heels a little in secret demonstration of his joy. Then he rose,

and appeared exceedingly composed and respectful behind his father, who

was leaning out of the open window. ‘Since it is a question of the

girls’ comfort, sir,’ said Jim, ‘an hour won’t make very much

difference. I can get up that Sophocles just as well after dinner as

now.’

‘I don’t put much faith in you after dinner,’ said the Rector, without

turning his head.

‘Oh, but why shouldn’t you, uncle?’ said Mab, ‘I’ll answer for him! Of

course he’ll work! Why there’s nothing to do after dinner. Uncle says

you may come, Jim.’

‘I don’t say anything of the kind,’ said Mr. Plowden. But his eyes went

from Mab outside to Jim within. They were both of them so young, and

surely if there could be anything innocent in this world it would be an

hour on the river with your sister and your cousin, both interested in

keeping a boy straight. What was Sophocles after all (in which Jim took

so little interest) in comparison with a more healthy rule of habit and

purified nature? If only he would but be good, what would it matter

about Sophocles? The Rector sighed with perplexity and impatience. It

was all very well to attempt to keep Jim back, to say he was busy. Would

all that keep him at his book a moment longer than his father’s eye was

on him? And if Jim escaped and stole out by himself, how could it be

known whether his companions would be as innocent as Mab and Florry? Was

it not even a good point in the boy, showing at bottom some traces of

early innocence, that it was with Florry and Mab that he wished to go?

Mr. Plowden turned in from the window and looked at his boy. He was the

only boy of the house, and no doubt he had been petted and spoiled, and

taught to think that everything was to give way to him. The Rector

looked at him with that longing of disappointed love, the father’s

dreadful sense of impotence, the intolerable feeling that a touch given

somewhere somehow, at the right moment, might bring all right if he only

could tell when and how to give it. What did it matter that all his

plans and arrangements should be put out the moment he had made them, if

the right effect could be produced anyhow? Perhaps this little girl,

with her childish innocent mind--who could tell? And at least how

innocent it all was, the boy and the two girls! They would bring no harm

to him, and perhaps--who could tell?

‘You will come home straight, Jim, and get to work again as soon as you

return?’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Jim, opening large eyes, as if he had never

departed from his word in his life. ‘Of course, when I say it I will do

it. If you would but learn that it is the best thing to trust a fellow,’

he said, looking at the Rector with a grieved disappointment which quite

outdid Mr. Plowden’s sentiments of the same kind. The poor Rector could

not restrain a laugh as the young man hurried out of the room, leaving

Sophocles just ready to topple over, on the very edge of the table; but

it was not a cheerful laugh: though, perhaps, there was the chance that

little Mab, if she had only been a little prettier---- Prettiness,

however, as he knew, is not the only thing that matters in things of

this kind.

‘You little brick!’ cried Jim, as they hurried along. ‘I owe you one for

that. What put it into your little head to come and get me off to-day?

for I was at the end of my patience, and could not think of any excuse

to get away.’

‘What should you have done, Jim, if I had not come? read your Greek?’

‘Not if I know it,’ said Jim. ‘I should just have cut and run, excuse or

no excuse. A fellow can’t be shut up all the afternoon, and the sun

shining. It’s cruelty to animals. The old Pater has forgotten that he

was ever young.’

‘But you will keep your promise, Jim, and go back and learn up your

Greek?’

‘Oh, we’ll see about that. Let’s get our pull first. Oh, there’s Flo! I

thought you and I were going alone.’

‘It was Florry who wanted you to come,’ said Mab, with the frankness of

extreme youth, ‘not me. I like to do the pulling myself.’

‘You shall if you like,’ he said. ‘I’m not fond of trouble. And it’s not

much fun you know, after all, to go out with your sister and your

cousin. It’s too much bread and butter. If I’d known that Flo was in it

I shouldn’t have come.’

‘You can go back if you please--to your Greek.’

‘Oh, catch me,’ said the young man.

‘But you will when we come back, Jim?’

‘Perhaps I shall; not if you bully me. So I warn you. I should do my

work all right and make up lost time if I wasn’t bullied for ever and

ever. Every one is at me. You heard what papa said. He ought to know how

a man feels and shut up. But it’s being so much among women, I suppose,

makes a clergyman like that. If he wasn’t a clergyman he wouldn’t nag,

he’d leave that to the women, and then I should feel that there was some

one who understood. But how do you suppose a fellow is to do anything

when from morning to night he hears nothing but “Are you going to your

work, Jim? When do you begin your work? How are you getting on with your

work?” and so forth. If I don’t pass it will be the family’s fault, it

will not be mine. Mab, do you row stroke or bow?’

Mab jumped into the boat and took her place, without otherwise answering

his question; but when they had floated out amid the reflections of the

still river, she found that little tongue, which was not always under

proper control.

‘I like pulling,’ she said, ‘very much. I’d rather a great deal have an

oar myself than sit still and let other people row me; and I like to

bring mother out or--Aunt Jane.’ She was about to say _even_ Aunt Jane,

but happily remembered that Aunt Jane was the mother of both her

companions. ‘But,’ said Mab, with a long, slow stroke, to which

Florence, very anxious to hear what was passing, kept time very badly,

‘one thing I do hate is to pull an idle man.’

‘By Jove!’ burst from the lips of Jim. He had been listening very calmly

up to the last two or three words, amused to hear little Mab’s statement

of what she liked and didn’t like, but quite sure that she could say

nothing that was derogatory to himself. ‘I say, you little cat, why did

you ask me to come out if you meant next moment to give me a scratch

like this?’

‘I told you it was Florry who wanted you and not me.’

‘You might be civil at least,’ said Jim, who had actually reddened under

this assault. ‘What did you come and butter up my father for, to let me

go?’

‘That was different,’ said Mab. ‘When it is against the old people, of

course you are my own side; and then it was fun carrying you off as if

you were something one had captured; and you looked so silly with uncle

holding forth.’ She broke into a laugh, while Jim grew redder and

redder. ‘But one thing I will never hold with,’ said Mab, ‘is that

girls, who are not nearly so strong, should take and row a big heavy

man.’

‘Not so heavy,’ cried Florence, pushing her head forward, neglecting her

stroke entirely, and putting the boat out of trim. ‘Oh, Mab, why should

you reproach him too? He’s no heavier than I am.’

‘Shut up, Flo,’ cried Jim indignantly, ‘I’m close upon eleven stone, and

that’s the least a man should be of my size.’

‘Well,’ said Mab (‘I’ll pull you round, Florry, if you don’t mind)--that

is what I say; girls may do for themselves as much as they please, but

to drag about a great heavy man, whether it is pulling in a boat or

driving in a dog-cart, or whatever it is, is what I don’t like. It is

not what ought to be.’

‘You are so old-fashioned, Mab,’ said Florence anxiously from behind.

‘You and Aunt Emily, you have the old antiquated ways of thinking about

women, that men should take care of them, and work for them, and all

that, when perhaps it is the women that are most able to work, and take

care of others too.’

‘I have no antiquated ways,’ said Mab. ‘I have no ways at all. I don’t

think about women any more than about--other people. Mother and I have

not got many men to take care of us, have we? But I say, it isn’t our

place to pull a heavy man. He should do that for us. I prefer to pull

myself. Do, do, Florry, keep time! And I don’t want your help, Jim. I am

not talking of to-day; I am talking of things in general. It isn’t nice;

it doesn’t look well; it’s not the right thing. I don’t want to have any

man working for me; I’d much rather do it for myself. But he is the

biggest and the strongest, and we oughtn’t to be doing things for him.

That’s my opinion, without any reference to to-day.’

‘You are not very civil,’ said Jim. ‘Why didn’t you leave me at my

Greek, Miss Mab? I might have done a lot, and been free after dinner.

Now, instead of father’s jawing, which I’m used to, I have yours, which

I’m not used to, and a slave in the evening as well. Hold hard a moment,

till I shake off my coat and my boots, and I’ll swim ashore.’

‘Oh, Jim! it will be your death,’ said the frightened Florence, starting

from her seat, and once more putting the boat dreadfully out of trim.

‘Be quiet, sit down!’ cried Mab, ‘or we shall have an accident. Do you

hear? Jim is not going to do anything so silly. I was not speaking of

him; I was only making a general remark. You can sit there and welcome

so long as you steer against me, Jim: for I am pulling the boat round,

can’t you see, and Florry is not the least good.’

‘Girls never are,’ said Jim; ‘the least little thing puts them out.’

‘You see, Florry:’ said Mab, ‘it was on his account you were exciting

yourself and behaving like one of the cockneys on Bank Holiday, and he

doesn’t mind. Let him alone. How far can we go to get back in daylight,

Jim?’

Florence once more put in her word. ‘We can go as far as the island,’

she said.

‘Coming back to-morrow morning?’ said Jim. ‘How should she know? Going

up you can go as far as the lock, and going down you can go as far as

the lock, but not a step more.’

‘That’s like an oracle,’ said Mab.

‘Well, so I am. If I don’t know anything else, I know the river. I know

it every step up to Oxford and down to London. I’m as good as the Thames

Conservancy man. They’d better put me on if they want to look after all

the backwaters and keep the riparians in order. That’s what I could do.

I may not be a dab at Sophocles, but there isn’t a man knows the river

better. You ask any man that knows me, either at Oxford or here.’

‘Then why does not Uncle James try to get you an appointment on the

river? It would be better than going out to the colonies.’

‘Oh, they don’t think so here. In the colonies nobody knows you. You may

go about in a flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and a revolver in your

belt; but if you stay at home they want some work for you that you can

do in a black coat and top hat.’

‘Couldn’t you take care of the riparians and the backwaters in a top

hat, if you liked?’

‘Oh, they like a naval man,’ said Jim; ‘their uniform gives them a

little dignity, don’t you know, whereas I’m nobody.’

‘But it is the same in everything. You can’t be somebody all at once.

You must begin low down,’ said Mab, bending her little person over her

oar with that slow, steady stroke which confused Florence. Florry was

choppy and irregular--one time slow, the next fast; never able to hit

the time which Mab gave her with such steady composure. ‘The way to do,’

said Mab, ‘is to put everything else out of your head, as long as you

are able to, and think of nothing but that. You should never mind what

you like, or what you want, but just set your thoughts on what you are

doing. Look at Florry; she wants to hear what we’re saying, and she

wants to defend you, Jim, that I mayn’t say anything unpleasant; and the

consequence is that if you were not steering against me with all your

might, I should pull the boat round and round.’

‘Florry is only a girl, and a bad specimen,’ said Jim. ‘You should have

let me pull, and then you’d have seen something like pulling.’

‘I am only a girl myself,’ said Mab.

‘But, then, you’re a good specimen,’ said the young man, with a laugh.

‘You keep your eyes in the boat.’

‘Which is what you don’t do, Jim!’

‘How do you know, you little thing, lecturing people older than

yourself? I may not with Sophocles--but I do with other things.’

‘Which other things?’ said Mab.

But Jim made no reply; and here Florry interposed again with strokes

shorter and more irregular than ever, to talk over her cousin’s

shoulder, and ask, though they were not half-way to the island, or even

to the lock for that matter, whether it would be better to turn back and

go home. They lay for a moment in midstream. Mab pausing on her steady

oar to remonstrate, making a picture in the water, the boat floating as

a bird floats in mid air, between the sky and the river, which reflected

every line of cloud and stretch of blue. Some cows at the water’s edge

stood double, feeding, on the very brink, and the trees still bare, but

all downy with life, pushing out a greenness here and there, seemed to

stretch out of the water in reflection to meet the others on the bank.

Watcham lay glorified, one white house above the rest lighting up all

the river with its white shadow in the stream. The boat lay like a thing

enchanted with the three figures shining in afternoon light, above and

below.