JOHN TINCROFT AT HOME; AND THE SKELETON THERE.
BY not a very large fire, though the day was cold—for it was the end of
the year, and there was a black frost without—and in a room rather too
large for snug comfort, sat John Tincroft, Benedict.
Add nearly or quite twenty years to the day when we first made his
acquaintance as he mounted the Tally-ho coach in Oxford High Street,
and we now find him in middle age—a convenient form of expression, by
the way, embracing, as it does, the life of a man at any epoch from
five-and-thirty to five-and-fifty. We know, however, that John at this
time was not much over forty years old; but he looked older, for he
was partially bald; and what remained of the covering of his scalp
was more than tinged with grey. Moreover, there were lines on his
exposed forehead, and elsewhere on his countenance, which betokened the
encroachments of time.
He was closely shaven, or would have been, had he performed this part
of his toilet duties that morning, which, however, he had not, though
the time of day was near noon; and the stubbly bristles on the lower
half of his face did not improve its hue or the general expression of
his countenance—the first being somewhat sallow, and the second pensive.
Tincroft was clad in dark-coloured garments, of not very modern date,
and, to tell the truth, both rusty and threadbare. But then it was
a winter morning; and had he been dressed in the height of fashion,
there would have been no one to see him, save his wife and the single
maid-servant and a house-boy, who made up the full complement of his
establishment. So what did it signify how he dressed? John would have
argued.
"The full complement of his establishment," we have written; for a few
months before the time at which we take up this thread of our story,
a grave had been opened to receive poor Mrs. Mark Wilson, of whom we
have little to record save that she had ample reason, to the end of
her days, to be grateful for the uniform kindness she had so many long
years received from her daughter's husband.
Our old friend was seated in an easy-chair, which, being covered
with faded chintz, harmonised well enough with the general aspect
of everything else in the apartment, for its entire furnishing was
ancient, and tending to decay. The carpet was well worn and, in
places, threadbare, the dark mahogany chairs were worm-eaten, the very
fire-irons were rusty. There were better and more modern furnished
rooms in Tincroft House, no doubt. But then what did it matter? One
room was as good as another to John; and this was his own room—his
study, or library, or both in one; and as far as he himself was
concerned, he cared very little where he passed his solitary hours, so
that he might have his books in peace and quietness.
John had a good many solitary hours, mostly spent in this shabby
room—the charm of which consisted, to him, in the rows of books
contained in unglazed bookcases which occupied one entire side of it,
and the table in the centre, at which he sometimes sat and wrote. For
our friend was enrolled in the honourable guild of authors, having
written sundry books which, as the reviewers declared, evinced much
labour, a wonderful amount of deep research, and great erudition.
It is to be hoped that Tincroft derived satisfaction from this
favourable opinion, and from the testimony of his publisher that he was
undoubtedly a man of very considerable learning, who had translated a
great many classical works, and written a valuable treatise on Oriental
literature; for it is certain that, beyond this glorification, he had
obtained small profit from the productions of his pen; I am afraid,
indeed, that a five-pound note would have covered all the balances ever
paid over to him by his bookseller in the Row.
John liked his work, however, and the honour he derived from it; and as
he had a moderate income, sufficient for his small wants, independently
of his literary earnings, there is reason to believe that he and
his flattering publisher were mutually well enough pleased with the
arrangement which divided between them, in what proportions the present
deponent sayeth not, the "solid pudding" and the "empty praise."
It was well for John Tincroft that he could find pleasure in his lonely
pursuit; for after his marriage, he gradually relapsed into his old
recluse habits, and was, if there was any difference, more shy and
awkward than we found him on our first acquaintance. The result of
this was that he had made no friends among his neighbours; and the few
of the surrounding gentry who, on his first settling down at Tincroft
House, had called to congratulate him on his success in Chancery, and
to welcome him home, soon seemed to forget all about him, and turned
again to more congenial companionships.
No doubt John's natural shrinking from society partly accounted for
this estrangement, and his studious habits were only too likely to
increase this retiring disposition, for it is rarely found that a
person who, either from choice or necessity, follows a literary
occupation for any length of time, shines much in society, even if
he does not take a morbid dislike to it. There was another element,
however, in Tincroft's case, which more than sufficiently accounted for
this feeling.
Poor John Tincroft! Without intending it, he had so many years ago
placed himself in a position from which, as an honourable man, he saw
no way of retreat open; and he had married a wife who could neither
sympathise with, nor even understand him intellectually, and whose
dulness, if he had not successfully striven against the feeling, might
long since have wearied him.
Too uneducated to be his companion, too feeble-hearted to attempt or
even to desire to improve herself up to his standard, and too fond of
ease to be a stirring housewife and home-sweetener, what was to be
expected of the Sarah of our early narrative but that she should sink
down into self-indulgent indolence of mind and body, now that calls for
exertion were not imperative?
Happily for her soul's welfare, or for anything that might, in the
course of God's providence, occur to rouse her to thoughtfulness, and
resuscitate her interest in the life present, as well as to implant
a corresponding interest in the life to come—happily, too, for her
husband's comfort—Sarah had avoided the rock on which both her parents
had made fatal shipwreck. For I must add to what I just now wrote
relating to the departed Mrs. Mark, that the habit she had acquired
when she was the mistress of High Beech Farm clung to her with terrible
tenacity when she became the guest of Tincroft House. Frightened and
warned by these examples, the daughter steered clear of the vice which
would inevitably have made her home, her husband, and herself miserable.
And Tincroft House, for all I have written, was not a home of misery,
nor even of positive discomfort. It might perhaps have been to you
or to me, reader, under similar circumstances; but John was easily
satisfied; he had never known the true happiness of domestic life, and
he believed he had as much of it as was good for him—as much at any
rate, he might have argued, as falls to the lot of poor mortals in a
general way.
He was, in fact, in a similar position to that of a person who, having
been blind from infancy, is necessarily ignorant of the pleasures and
advantages of eyesight. Moreover, John was really fond of his Sarah,
in spite of her dulness and her frequent transgressions of grammatical
rules, her dropped or superfluous h's, and her many provincialisms, of
which, if we give no examples in the dialogues in which she bears a
part, it is because we think a story is as well and effectually told
without such minute personifications and descriptions as with them. I
daresay all the speakers in Old Testament histories were not alike pure
Hebraists, any more than those in the New discoursed in choice Greek or
Syriac. But we do not find the sacred writers holding up either their
solecisms or their vulgarities to notice. So, if the reader pleases,
Sarah shall still speak with reasonable accuracy.
Yes, John Tincroft was still fond of his wife. I don't doubt that, as
he sometimes sat by her side, the old feeling of admiration came over
him which had formerly reconciled him to the knobby-seated parlour
chair at High Beech Farm; and he forgot (even if he had ever suffered
his mind to dwell upon) the want of congeniality which held them,
husband and wife, intellectually at a distance from each other.
Besides all this, John had perception enough to have found out long
ago, though he had too much delicacy and kindness to have ever told of
his discovery, that, true and faithful as his Sarah was, and had always
been, she was never his lover. Grateful to him the poor little thing
was when he rushed forward to rescue her, at what cost she could not
help knowing, from the worst consequences, or what might have been the
worst consequences, of his own, or say of their joint imprudence. But
even at that time she had sobbed out:
"I don't love you, Mr. Tincroft—not as you ought to be loved, you know."
And John had taken her, hoping and believing that the love would come
in due course. But it had not, and he knew it. A quiet, noiseless
wife she was, timid, submissive, and sometimes even slave-like to the
benefactor who had ransomed her from ill-will and scorn and poverty.
But there the matter ended.
"Poor Sarah!" John sometimes reflected. "She has given me all that is
in her power; and I am better off with that than many a husband is with
the woman who has made stronger and louder professions. And why should
I complain?" And he never did complain.
There was once a time when Sarah probably would have forgotten the
past, except that the memory might have added to her contentment with
her lot. It was when she pressed to her bosom that delicate blossom
of which we have spoken. But the bud was nipped, and bright hopes
then formed to be withered were never renewed. No children's feet
had pattered, no childish voices had sounded through, and broken the
silence of, the rooms and corridors of Tincroft House—none, at least,
that had a legitimate right to be heard there.
No doubt there were times, when Tom Grigson and his Kate, and one
or two, or three, as it happened, of the full nest on the banks of
the Thames, took flight for a few summer days and nights to be near
the seaside, and within reach of sea-breezes. These were royally
entertained at Tincroft House on their way, and cast some gleams of
unwonted hilarity around them. But these passages were comparatively
seldom, and when they were over, the solitary house seemed for a time
more lonely than before.
And so time had worn on with John and Sarah, and there is no need to
dwell longer on their by no means uncommon history. Ah! There are more
ghastly skeletons hidden in many a pleasant-looking home than that
which was supposed to be concealed within the walls of Tincroft House,
where we found John at the beginning of this chapter musing by his
study fireside.
Not many letters in general were delivered by the country
letter-carrier at Tincroft House. John had not many correspondents.
Every quarter, to be sure, Mr. Roundhand, who still managed his
successful client's property, forwarded its interest with praiseworthy
punctuality; and every now and then, John received proof-sheets (if
nothing else) from his publisher in the Row. Besides these, our dear
friend occasionally received a rattling epistle from Tom Grigson. But
beyond these tokens of remembrance, I am not aware that John ever
expected a letter from mortal man or woman.
As to Sarah, we know well enough that it was not likely she would be
troubled, or gratified, with news from either High or Low Beech. And
apart from her relatives there, she had none to bestow many thoughts,
much less many letters, upon her.
No doubt Tincroft House had its share of circulars by post, because
John Tincroft, Esq., of Tincroft House, had found his way into the
County Directory. But I am quite sure that these baits were wasted,
for John was no bargain hunter, even if he had had money to waste on
needless purchases, which he had not. So if it had not been for the
regular arrival of the "Trotbury Weekly Chronicle," the postman's
entrance into the village, so far as Tincroft House was concerned, was
looked for with but a small amount of interest.
But on the winter morning which has brought us back to honest John
Tincroft, the postman, instead of silently passing by the gate, as
was his usual wont, sounded his horn as he arrived at it, and boldly
turning in, traversed the broad gravelled road which led to the front
door, rang the bell, and put a letter into the servant's hand.
"For the missus: it comes from abroad," said the postman, as he
readjusted the leather bag from which he had taken it. And then he
retraced his steps.
The mistress was in the kitchen; she liked being in the kitchen better
than any other part of Tincroft House. Not that she did much when she
was there; for there was not much to do. But just at this time, as it
happened, she had on a linen apron, and her hands were floury, for
needs must that she and John must dine. There is no occasion, however,
to penetrate into the mysteries of Sarah's culinary operations at this
particular time; but there will be no harm in giving a descriptive
sketch of her person as those operations are being carried on.
Mrs. Tincroft, then, was still fair in complexion. Her flaxen hair,
unchanged in hue, though in some measure robbed of its former gloss
and stinted in its luxuriousness of growth, and partially confined by
a broad velvet band, hung in loose ringlets down her neck in the old
fashion. Her morning dress was of some dark, half-mourning material,
and looked, to tell the truth, somewhat carelessly, not to say
ungracefully, put on. She had not shrunken in bulk, as John had; in
fact, time had played its pranks with her as it had with him, only in
a different fashion, for her once slim figure had become more rounded
and expanded. Nevertheless, Sarah was still comely, and her countenance
might even have been pronounced pleasing and attractive, but for an
expression of weariness and vacuity which a physiognomist might have
noted lurking in the corners of the mouth, and the somewhat diminished
lustre of the once bright eyes.
"A letter for you, ma'am," said the handmaiden, as she laid the missive
on the deal kitchen table, near to the lady's elbow.
It was an ordinary-sized letter, not over clean, and it had two or
three broad post-marks on it; and on the top, at one corner, was
written, in a bold hand, "Ship Letter."
"It must be for your master; you had better take it to the study,
Jane," said Mrs. T., barely glancing at it as it lay.
"No, ma'am, there's the 's' plain enough; and Austin said it was for
you."
"Well, you may leave it where it is. I'll see about it presently, when
I've rolled out the pie-crust and wiped my hands. I can't do two things
at once, can I?"
"No, nor yet one, properly," muttered Jane to herself, with a look of
contempt mingled with pity, for Jane liked and despised her mistress
in about equal proportions. She liked her; for her mistress was
good-natured, and liberal in the matter of wages, and also of cast-off
clothes, of which, by the way, she obtained a plentiful store when
Sarah went into mourning for her mother. And, added to these causes of
approbation, the mistress let the maid have her own way in general, and
never scolded her. But these very qualities provoked June's contempt
also.
"She is such a noodle," said Jane, inwardly.
At this present time, Mrs. Tincroft had rather annoyed the girl by
"putting her dainty hands into the flour tub, where they had no
business to be," Jane would have argued.
No wonder, therefore, that when the lady said, rather fretfully, that
she could not do two things at one time, the damsel inwardly retorted,
"No, nor yet one, properly. Call that a pie-crust? Who is going to eat
it, I wonder?"
Of course this was pure envy in Jane; for who doesn't know that Sarah
had made good pie crusts in former times? John knew it, at any rate.
Now, we are not forgetting the letter at Sarah's elbow; nor did she
forget it either; for no sooner had the handmaid departed to "finish
her work upstairs," as she said, than the indifference disappeared, and
gave place to a kind of indolent curiosity to know who in the world
should have taken the trouble to write to her.
In another moment she had hastily wiped her hands and taken up the
letter, and then—but what follows requires a new chapter.
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