ANASTATIA'S COURTSHIP.
The Reverend John Dodd drew back one morning from the breakfast-table
with the air of a giant refreshed; his wife stared at him over the
silver breakfast-kettle as she had stared at him for the last twenty
years. For the last twenty years Mrs. Dodd had wondered at the
plenteousness of her husband's breakfasts; she was astonished twenty
years ago, and she still stared, an awed woman to the present day.
"John," she said, in a severe tone, "it is my duty." Whenever Mrs. Dodd
differed from her husband she nailed her colours to the mast; she said
it was her duty, and she invariably carried her point. "It's dogged as
does it," is not only the maxim of agricultural labourers in remote
country districts. It is the secret of success in every married lady's
life; it is the talisman confided to the young wife by her more
experienced mother, if she have one, if not her aunt tells her the
secret, and it comes to the same thing.
"Well, my dear, if you look upon it in that light there is no more to be
said," acquiesced the husband.
"It is my duty, and yours too, John; above all it is Anastatia's. What
can cement the natural alliance between the squire and the vicar of the
parish, more strongly than the former's union with that vicar's sister?
Besides, I have another reason. It is our bounden duty, Jack," here the
vicar's wife relapsed into familiarity, as she always did when she meant
to carry her point, "our bounden duty to rescue the squire from that
designing woman."
"Good gracious, Cecilia, who is Anastatia's rival?"
"You may not have seen it, John, but I have observed it ever since the
girls have been away. Miss Hood means to marry the old man!" This latter
sentence was uttered in a sepulchral whisper.
"Nonsense, Cecilia, you're joking."
"Do I ever talk nonsense or joke, Mr. Dodd?" answered the wife in a
judicial tone.
"Well, my dear," apologetically rejoined the vicar, "I don't think I
ever remember your doing the latter," and he felt much as an unfortunate
man would feel who had dared to accuse the Lord Chancellor himself of
joking and talking nonsense.
"There can't be a doubt of it. Ever since those girls have gone Miss
Hood has called here in The Warren brougham, never on foot or in the
pony chair."
"But, my dear, the weather has been wet and cold."
"'Tis not the weather, John, it is that woman's arrogance, her way of
preparing the minds of the neighbourhood for the catastrophe."
"Diggory Warrender, my dear, is no more thinking of marrying again than
I am," said the vicar.
"The thought of marrying again, Mr. Dodd," retorted his wife severely,
"is constantly occurring to the mind of every married man."
"I assure you it never occurred to mine, my dear."
"John, you're ungrateful," replied his wife, and burst into tears.
"If my thinking of marrying again, my dear, will prove my gratitude to
you, I will consider the matter at once," said the vicar of King's
Warren, with a dreary smile.
But Canon Drivel's daughter did not deign to answer, she merely rang for
prayers. In filed the servants, the two grim housemaids and the parlour
maid of portentous plainness, for Mrs. Dodd made it a rule in her
austere household that the abigails should be unattractive. Mrs. Dodd
opened the book--her father, the Canon's, well-known book of Family
Prayers. Although it was the second Thursday in the month she turned to
the portion appointed for the first Wednesday. Alas! her copy of the
Canon's work opened almost mechanically at the first Wednesday in the
month, for in that Wednesday's selection there was a phrase which was
very dear to Mrs. Dodd; it was the following: "And if there be one among
us whose heart is yet hard," &c., &c. This was Mrs. Dodd's _ultima
ratio_, the last drop that invariably wore away any resistance on the
part of the man who, to her mind, was stony-hearted. When the Reverend
John Dodd heard the commencement of that prayer he trembled in his
inmost soul; when his wife reached the favourite passage she dwelt on
the words with unction; and as the servants filed out of the room he,
who had once been "Handsome Jack Dodd," felt himself a slave.
"I had better speak to Anastatia," said Mrs. Dodd.
"Do as you please, my dear," replied the vicar, "but I don't see how
she's to propose to old Warrender, all the same."
"Men don't understand these things," sententiously remarked his wife, as
she gave a vicious shake to the missionary box, which was always on the
sideboard. Missionary boxes are not seen so often now as they used to
be, but this old-fashioned engine of torture was clung to by the
vicaress. Rosy-cheeked children had received many a bright sixpence from
the vicar, their faces wreathed in smiles; the smiles had faded when
Cecilia Dodd had proved to them, by chapter and verse, that the proper
place for the bright silver was the drab sarcophagus on the sideboard.
Even the vicar's friends, at the termination of their rubber for
threepenny points, dreaded the appearance of the box; they invariably
contributed, the more daring among them sighing as they did so.
Anastatia Dodd, on the particular morning in question, had not appeared
at breakfast. The fragile little lady was suffering from a cold in her
head. She was in bed, perusing in undisturbed comfort a harmless novel.
But the novel disappeared under the clothes with amazing celerity as the
voice of her sister-in-law demanded admission. The mistress of the house
affectionately inquired if she felt equal to a short conversation. In
some trepidation Anastatia signified her acquiescence. Her sister-in-law
pointed out to her that old Mr. Warrender had been very attentive
lately. Anastatia innocently answered that "He was a dear old man."
"Oh, my dear, I am so glad, so very glad, to hear you say so," said Mrs.
Dodd.
"But why glad, Cecilia?"
"My love, your brother and I thought it _was_ so, and that you
encouraged him. Has he spoken to you yet? He has said nothing to John."
"Spoken, Cecilia, to me; about what?"
"This is affectation, dear; you can't pretend to be blind to what is
apparent to all of us."
"Oh, Cecilia, how can you?" sobbed the vicar's sister, blushing to her
ears and burying her face in her pillows.
For forty years Anastatia Dodd had lived in maiden meditation fancy
free. True, she had taken a lively interest in all her brother's
curates, but it was always a professional interest and purely Platonic.
But now she blushed, blushed as she had never blushed before.
What woman is displeased at hearing that she has an admirer? Who among
us would fail to believe what we have, perhaps, secretly wished for in
our heart of hearts?
That arch Machiavel, the vicar's wife, did not leave her sister-in-law
till she was thoroughly convinced that Diggory Warrender was only
waiting a favourable opportunity to make her a formal offer of his hand
and heart.
All this was sufficiently exciting to poor Miss Dodd, but what was her
horror, her horror mingled with astonishment, when she heard that, like
the heroines in the story books, she too had a detested rival. Till now
Anastatia Dodd had not known what it was to detest anybody, but her
sister-in-law pointed out to her that detestation was her duty; that
Miss Hood was but a ravening and roaring lion seeking to devour the old
squire, and then to pick his bones. Unconsciously, as she stood by her
sister-in-law's bed, Cecilia Dodd assumed the awful pose, the statuesque
attitude, of the Judith at the bedside of Holofernes of her former days;
her hand, as it grasped the brass ball at the foot of the bed, seemed to
be clutching the head of her victim. Poor Anastatia, as a hare nestles
in its form, had almost shrunk beneath the bed-clothes.
"It is your duty, my dear," said Judith, "to rescue this man from the
hands of the harpy at The Warren. He has evidently loved you for years,
Anastatia; _it is your duty_; and your brother feels deeply in the
matter, more deeply than I do, my dear; we are but weak women, he is a
clergyman, and, I regret to add, a man of the world. You must, of
course, give Mr. Warrender every encouragement. And do not forget that
your brother is the head of the family, the master of this house, a
clergyman, and a man of the world. _He_ will not see you wronged."
The vicar's wife left the room and her trembling victim. The voice of
duty called her to the kitchen, where her cook patiently awaited her
inevitable, and always painful, audience.
In the meanwhile, Squire Warrender and Miss Hood pursued the even tenour
of their ways at The Warren; frequent letters from his daughter,
describing the delights of their foreign tour, cheered the old man. All
unconsciously, the squire sent his hares and his pheasants to the
vicar's wife, his peaches and his flowers to her sister-in-law. In his
cracked old voice, he still paid his Grandisonian compliments to the two
ladies. He was somewhat surprised perhaps to notice that Miss Dodd was
by degrees abandoning her semi-religious garb; and that his visits to
the two ladies invariably procured him the pleasure of _tête-à-tête_
interviews with the spinster. He noticed too that the vicar's sister now
shook hands with him with an unwonted pressure. One afternoon he
actually came home with a button-hole, a white passion flower, which the
trembling fingers of Miss Dodd had placed in his coat.
"'Pon my word," he said to Miss Hood, wearing this decoration as they
took their habitual cup of tea together, "I really think that Stacey
Dodd gets younger every day."
Miss Hood pricked up her ears. Was the hale old gentleman going to make
a fool of himself after all?
Old Mrs. Wurzel and the buxom Miss Grains sat in the little room at the
vicarage, which was known to everybody as Mrs. Dodd's own room. The
vicar's wife sat before a huge book, in front of her were little piles
of copper money. She and her two visitors, and, of course, the vicar
_ex-officio_, formed the committee of the village coal club. After much
counting and recounting of the coppers, the total was pronounced
correct, and the real work for which the ladies had met was over. The
window of the room commanded a view of the lovely old-fashioned garden,
which had been the care and pride of many successive vicars of King's
Warren. The close-shaven lawn had the inevitable sun dial in its centre.
The garden was not at its best, for the trees had not yet commenced to
bud, but it was a fine clear day, and the trim little figure of the
vicar's sister was seen briskly pacing up and down the well-kept walks.
"I don't think your sister-in-law seems to care so much for parish work
as once she did, Mrs. Dodd," remarked the old lady to the vicar's wife.
"No, poor thing, I fear she has anxieties of her own just now, she seeks
solitude a good deal."
"Is there any attachment, dear Mrs. Dodd?" said Mrs. Wurzel with
interest.
"Oh, Mrs. Dodd, not an unrequited attachment?" burst forth the brewer's
daughter. For that strapping young woman was romantic, and though the
course of her own love ran smoothly enough, still she felt a sentimental
interest in the woes of others, real or supposed. Her fat red cheeks
would quiver with emotion, and be wet with briny tears, over the sorrows
of Mr. Trollope's heroines. Fat people are always sentimental, though
they may not seem so, and beneath Miss Grains' tightly-laced corset beat
a sympathetic heart. "An unrequited attachment," she repeated, "is so
very, very sad."
The vicar's wife answered her reprovingly, "You must not think, Miss
Grains, that Mr. Dodd would allow his sister to form such a disgraceful
thing as an unrequited attachment."
"Oh, but dear Mrs. Dodd, suppose she couldn't help it," said the artless
maiden with a blush and a little sigh.
"No well-brought-up girl would allow herself to do so, my dear, she
would have far too much self-respect."
The brewer's daughter blushed deeply, as she thought of the many heroes,
real and imaginary, from Marmion down to the last curate but two, for
each of whom she herself had felt an unrequited passion, or a more than
secret liking. But these hidden passions were before young farmer
Wurzel, in his blue tie and white hat, had proposed to her.
"Well, at all events, Miss Dodd is hardly a girl," she said defiantly.
"Miss Grains," retorted the vicar's wife, "every unmarried woman, even
though not in the first bloom of youth, is a 'girl' till she marries.
Certainly Stacey Dodd is a 'girl'; and I have known cases, Miss Grains,
in my experience, where flighty young ladies, though they may have been
temporarily engaged, have remained 'girls' to the end of the chapter."
To this gruesome suggestion Miss Grains made no reply.
Old Mrs. Wurzel turned confidentially to the vicar's wife and said, "Is
her engagement generally known?"
"Perhaps," replied the president of the coal club, "it would be
premature to speak of it as an engagement, but it is talked of all over
the village. I believe there has been an attachment for some years, the
gentleman's attentions are very marked. In fact, I don't think I am
betraying her confidence, when I say that the whole village seems to be
aware of it. Of course, I mention no names. I should scorn to attempt to
precipitate matters. It is a suitable match, I am happy to say, for both
parties, but there is an obstacle, my dear; adverse interests are in the
field. My sister-in-law is somewhat of a prude. I too was a prude, and I
can understand her feelings."
Here Mrs. Wurzel peered at the vicaress with unfeigned surprise.
"It's not quite fair, you know, to Stacey," said Mrs. Dodd.
How was she to tell them, without mentioning his name, that the man who
did not come to the point was the old squire himself, and yet she was
anxious to do so?
At this moment the austere parlour maid entered the room. "Squire
Warrender is in the drawing-room, madam," she announced. Never in her
life had the vicar's wife been guilty of profanity till now, but the
opportunity was too golden to be missed.
"Talk of the devil," she said. The four words spoke volumes. Her
visitors took their leave, to spread the report over the village and
parish of King's Warren.
Mrs. Dodd was a woman who, as we know, did her duty according to her
lights. She was determined at all hazards to do her duty now, without
flinching, to her sister-in-law, for she had already burnt her ships,
and she entered the drawing-room with the deliberate intention of
bringing the old squire to the point.
The unsuspecting squire asked for the vicar, after shaking hands with
the vicar's wife, and on being informed that his old friend was from
home he innocently hoped that the vicar's sister was quite well.
"Ah," said Mrs. Dodd with a sigh, "we're a little concerned about
Stacey."
"You should let Pestle see her," replied the sympathizing squire.
Now Dr. Pestle was the parish doctor, and he deservedly enjoyed the
confidence of every soul in King's Warren.
"I fear, squire, hers is not a bodily affection," said Mrs. Dodd with a
deep sigh.
"Good Gad! you don't mean to say her mind's giving way?" anxiously
demanded the prosaic squire.
"Oh no, we fancy it's an affection of the heart."
"Impossible! at her age. Why she's fifty," emphatically asserted the old
gentleman.
"Not fifty, Mr. Warrender; Stacey Dodd is but forty-one."
"You don't say so. I should never have thought it."
The opening of the engagement had egregiously failed. At present the
campaign seemed most unpromising. When a gentleman of mature years looks
upon a lady as fifty, he can hardly be suspected of designs upon her
virgin heart, or of a wish to destroy her peace of mind. Beaten in her
attack on the outposts, Mrs. Dodd changed her strategy with that
multiplicity of resource that always distinguishes the greatest
generals--she determined at once to carry the war into the enemy's
country.
"You must miss the girls very much, squire," she said as she took up a
little painted hand-screen, to protect her complexion, on which she
lavished much anxious care, from the fierce blaze of the fire. "Yes,"
she continued, "you must feel it very dull at The Warren now. Quite
lonely, I fear."
"No," answered the squire cheerfully, "I have Miss Hood, you know, and
we play bezique or backgammon of an evening."
"Ah," replied Mrs. Dodd severely, and horrible visions of those
dangerous evenings flashed through the mind of the indignant woman. In
her mind's eye she fancied the squire sitting at the backgammon board
gazing at Miss Hood's shapely arm and hand, for though Miss Hood was the
same age as her sister-in-law, she still had a very shapely arm and
hand.
"Yes," said the squire, "and she reads me the girls' letters; they are a
great consolation, for Georgie seems so thoroughly happy."
What more dangerous occupation for a hale old gentleman than to sit and
listen by the hour to the written raptures of his daughter on the
subject of married bliss, read to him by a lady of prepossessing
appearance, by his own fireside, and after having partaken of at least
three glasses of old port?
"I suppose," said the vicar's wife with assumed carelessness, "that Miss
Hood will be leaving you soon?"
The squire's eye twinkled with suppressed merriment.
"Oh no," he said in a determined tone, "I couldn't afford to lose Miss
Hood. For Lucy's sake," he added maliciously.
The lady fanned herself. There are limits to the endurance of
long-suffering woman. Mrs. Dodd felt that she was being trampled on. The
sensation was new to her, and unpleasant.
"You appear to cling to her, squire," she said.
"Naturally, naturally," answered the squire, "so do the girls. She has
been more than a mother to them."
"Why not make her so in reality?" retorted the exasperated woman, losing
her head. Here the fanning became more furious.
"The fact is, Mrs. Dodd," said the squire, "I have been screwing myself
up to that point for the last dozen years, but I am close on the age of
the patriarchs, and I don't think she'd have me. If you are of a
different opinion, Mrs. Dodd, I will reconsider the matter; of course it
would be most appropriate. There's no fool like an old fool, I suppose."
Was the seemingly innocent squire referring to himself, or had this
abominable old gentleman the temerity to allude to the wife of the
vicar of King's Warren as "an old fool?" Who shall say?
"Do you seriously advise it?" went on her tormentor; "do you think I may
dare to hope?"
But the vicar's wife answered him never a word.
He rose to go and shook hands with her in his usual hearty manner. By no
outward sign did Mrs. Dodd manifest her indignation, but when the squire
had left the room she sank into her chair and burst into tears.
"The serpent!" she ejaculated as she pressed her handkerchief to her
streaming eyes.
Not one word did Mrs. Dodd utter for many days to her husband of her
momentous conversation with the squire. In a statuesque attitude, she
sat, like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, or Patience on a monument
smiling at grief.
And then she thought with horror of the confidence she had made to old
Mrs. Wurzel and the brewer's daughter, not an hour before. _On a tiré le
vin, il faut payer la bouteille._