THE PARSON'S WIFE
It is pleasant, on a sunny day to walk through a field of wheat when the
footpath is bordered on either side by the ripening crop, without the
intervention of hedge or fence. Such a footpath, narrow, but well kept,
leads from a certain country churchyard to the highway road, and passes on
the way a wicket gate in a thick evergreen shrubbery which surrounds the
vicarage lawn and gardens. This afternoon the wheat stands still and
upright, without a motion, in the burning sunshine, for the sun, though he
has sloped a little from his highest meridian altitude, pours an even
fiercer beam than at the exact hour of noon. The shadeless field is
exposed to the full glare of the brilliant light. There are no trees in
the field itself, the hedges are cut low and trimmed to the smallest
proportions, and are devoid of timber; and, as the ground is high and
close to the hills, all the trees in sight are beneath, and can be
overlooked. Whether in sunshine or storm there is no shelter--no medium;
the wind rushes over with its utmost fury, or the heat rests on it
undisturbed by the faintest current. Yet, sultry as it is, the footpath is
a pleasant one to follow.
The wheat ears, all but ripe--to the ordinary eye they are ripe, but the
farmer is not quite satisfied--rise to the waist or higher, and tempt the
hand to pluck them. Butterflies flutter over the surface, now descending
to some flower hidden beneath, now resuming their joyous journey. There is
a rich ripe feeling in the very atmosphere, the earth is yielding her
wealth, and a delicate aroma rises from her generous gifts. Far as the eye
can see, the rolling plains and slopes present various tints of
yellow--wheat in different stages of ripeness, or of different kinds; oats
and barley--till the hedges and woods of the vale conceal the farther
landscape on the one hand and the ridge of the hills upon the other.
Nothing conveys so strong an impression of substantial wealth as the view
of wheat-fields. A diamond ornament in a window may be ticketed as worth
so many hundreds of pounds; but the glittering gem, and the sum it
represents, seem rather abstract than real. But the wheat, the golden
wheat, is a great fact that seizes hold of the mind; the idea comes of
itself that it represents solid wealth.
The tiles of the vicarage roof--all of the house visible above the
shrubbery--look so hot and dry in the glaring sunshine that it does not
seem possible for vegetation to exist upon them; yet they are tinted with
lichen. The shrubbery has an inviting coolness about it--the thick
evergreens, the hollies on which the berries are now green, the cedars and
ornamental trees planted so close together that the passer-by cannot see
through, must surely afford a grateful shade--a contrast with the heat of
the wheat-field and the dust of the highway below. Just without the wicket
gate a goat standing upon his hind legs, his fore legs placed against the
palings, is industriously nibbling the tenderest leaves of the shrubs and
trees which he can reach. Thus extended to his full length he can reach
considerably higher than might be supposed, and is capable of much
destruction. Doubtless he has got out of bounds.
Inside the enclosure the reverend gentleman himself reclines in an
arm-chair of cane-work placed under the shade of the verandah, just
without the glass door or window opening from the drawing-room upon the
lawn. His head has fallen back and a little to one side, and an open book
lies on his knee; his soft felt hat is bent and crumpled; he has yielded
to the heat and is slumbering. The blinds are partly down the window, but
a glimpse can be obtained of a luxurious carpet, of tables in valuable
woods and inlaid, of a fine piano, of china, and the thousand and one
nicknacks of highly civilised life. The reverend gentleman's suit of
black, however, is not new; it is, on the contrary, decidedly rusty, and
the sole of one of his boots, which is visible, is much worn. Over his
head the roses twine round the pillars of the verandah, and there is a
_parterre_ of brilliant flowers not far from his feet.
His wife sits, a few yards distant, under a weeping ash, whose
well-trained boughs make a perfect tent, and shield her from the sun. She
has a small table before her, and writing materials, and is making notes
with the utmost despatch from some paper or journal. She is no longer
young, and there are marks of much care and trouble on her forehead; but
she has still a pleasing expression upon her features, her hands are
exquisitely white, and her figure, once really good, retains some of the
outline that rendered it beautiful. Wherever you saw her you would say,
That is a lady. But her dress, tasteful though it be, is made of the
cheapest material, and looks, indeed, as if it had been carefully folded
away last summer, and was now brought out to do duty a second time.
The slow rumble of waggon wheels goes down the road, close to the lawn,
but concealed by the trees, against whose boughs the sheaves of the load
rustle as they go past. Wealth rolling by upon the waggon, wealth in the
well-kept garden, in the smart lawn, in the roses, the bright flowers, the
substantial well-furnished house, the luxurious carpet, and the china;
wealth, too, all around in the vast expanse of ripening wheat. He has
nothing to do but to slumber in the cane chair and receive his tithe of
the harvest. She has nothing to do but to sit under the shadow of the
weeping ash and dream dreams, or write verses. Such, at least, might be
the first impression.
The publication from which she is so earnestly making notes is occupied
with the management of bees, and she is so busy because the paper is only
borrowed, and has to be returned. Most of the papers and books that come
to the vicarage have to be hastily read for the same reason. Mrs. F---- is
doing her very best and hardest to increase the Rev. F----'s income--she
has tried to do so for some years, and despite repeated failures is
bravely, perhaps a little wearily, still trying. There is not much left
for her to experiment with. The goat surreptitiously nibbling the valuable
shrubs outside the palings is a member of a flock that once seemed to
promise fair. Goats at one time (she was persuaded) were the means of
ready wealth--they could live anywhere, on anything (the shrubs to wit),
and yielded such rich milk; it far surpassed that of the shorthorn; there
was the analysis to prove it! Such milk must of course be worth money,
beside which there were the kids, and the cheese and butter.
Alas! the goats quickly obtained so evil a reputation, worse than that of
the rabbits for biting off the shooting vegetation, that no one would have
them on the land. The milk was all the analysis declared it, but in that
outlying village, which did not contain two houses above the quality of a
farmstead, there was no one to buy it. There was a prejudice against the
butter which could not be got over; and the cheese--well, the cheese
resembled a tablet of dark soap. Hodge would not eat it at a gift; he
smelt it, picked a morsel off on the tip of his clasp knife, and threw it
aside in contempt. One by one the goats were got rid of, and now but two
or three remained; she could not make up her mind to part with all, for
living creatures, however greatly they have disappointed, always enlist
the sympathies of women.
Poultry was the next grand discovery--they ate their heads off, refused to
lay eggs, and, when by frequent purchase they became numerous and promised
to pay, quietly died by the score, seized with an epidemic. She learnt in
visiting the cottagers how profitable their allotment gardens were to
them, and naturally proceeded to argue that a larger piece of ground would
yield proportionately larger profit if cultivated on the same principle.
If the cottagers could pay a rent for an acre which, in the aggregate, was
three times that given by the ordinary farmer, and could even then make a
good thing of it, surely intelligence and skill might do the same on a
more extended scale. How very foolish the farmers were! they might raise
at least four times the produce they did, and they might pay three times
the rent. As the vicar had some hundred and fifty acres of glebe let at
the usual agricultural rent, if the tenants could be persuaded or
instructed to farm on the cottager's system, what an immense increase it
would be to his income! The tenants, however, did not see it. They
shrugged their shoulders, and made no movement The energetic lady resolved
to set an example, and to prove to them that they were wrong.
She rented an acre of arable land (at the side of the field), giving the
tenant a fair price for it. First it had to be enclosed so as to be parted
off from the open field. The cost of the palings made the vicar wince; his
lady set it duly down to debit. She planted one-half potatoes, as they
paid thirty pounds per acre, and on the rest put in hundreds of currant
bushes, set a strawberry bed and an asparagus bed, on the principle that
luxuries of that kind fetch a high price and occupy no more space than
cabbages. As the acre was cultivated entirely by the spade, the cost of
the labour expended upon it ran up the figures on the debit side to an
amount which rather startled her. But the most dispiriting part of the
commencement was the length of time to wait before a crop came. According
to her calculations that represented so much idle capital sunk, instead of
being rapidly turned over. However, she consoled herself with the pig-sty,
in which were half a dozen animals, whose feeding she often personally
superintended.
The potatoes failed, and did not pay for the digging; the currant bushes
were blighted; the strawberries were eaten by snails, and, of course, no
asparagus could be cut for three years; a little item, this last, quite
overlooked. The pigs returned exactly the sum spent upon them; there was
neither profit nor loss, and there did not appear any chance of making a
fortune out of pork. The lady had to abandon the experiment quite
disheartened, and found that, after all her care and energy, her books
showed a loss of fifteen pounds. It was wonderful it was not more; labour
was so expensive, and no doubt she was cheated right and left.
She next tried to utilise her natural abilities, and to turn her
accomplishments to account. She painted; she illuminated texts; she
undertook difficult needlework of various kinds, in answer to
advertisements which promised ample remuneration for a few hours' labour.
Fifteen hours' hard work she found was worth just threepence, and the
materials cost one shilling: consequently she laboriously worked herself
poorer by ninepence.
Finally, she was studying bees, which really seemed to hold out some
prospect of success. Yonder were the hills where they could find thyme in
abundance; the fields around supplied clover; and the meadows below were
full of flowers. So that hot summer day, under the weeping ash, she was
deep in the study of the 'Ligurian queen,' the 'super' system, the
mysteries of 'driving,' and making sketches of patent hives. Looking up
from her sketch she saw that her husband had fallen asleep, and stayed to
gaze at him thoughtfully.
He looked worn, and older than he really was; as if rest or change would
do him good; as if he required luxuries and petting. She sighed, and
wondered whether the bees would enable her to buy him such things, for
though the house was well furnished and apparently surrounded with wealth,
they were extremely poor. Yet she did not care for money for their own
household use so much as to give him the weight in parish affairs he so
sadly needed. She felt that he was pushed aside, treated as a cipher, and
that he had little of the influence that properly belonged to him. Her two
daughters, their only children, were comfortably, though not grandly,
married and settled; there was no family anxiety. But the work, the
parish, the people, all seemed to have slipped out of her husband's hands.
She could not but acknowledge that he was too quiet and yielding, that he
lacked the brazen voice, the personal force that imposes upon men. But
surely his good intentions, his way of life, his gentle kindness should
carry sway. Instead of which the parish seemed to have quite left the
Church, and the parson was outside the real modern life of the village. No
matter what he did, even if popular, it soon seemed to pass out of his
hands.
There was the school, for instance. He could indeed go across and visit
it, but he had no control, no more than the veriest stranger that strolled
along the road. He had always been anxious for a good school, and had done
the best he could with means so limited before the new Acts came into
operation. When they were passed he was the first to endeavour to carry
them out and to save the village the cost and the possible quarrelling of
a school board. He went through all the preliminary work, and reconciled,
as far as possible, the jarring interests that came into play. The two
largest landlords of the place were unfortunately not on good terms.
Whatever the one did the other was jealous of, so that when one promised
the necessary land for the school, and it was accepted, the other withdrew
his patronage, and declined to subscribe. With great efforts the vicar,
nevertheless, got the school erected, and to all appearance the difficulty
was surmounted.
But when the Government inspection took place it was found that, though
not nearly filled with scholars, there was not sufficient cubic space to
include the children of a distant outlying hamlet, which the vicar had
hoped to manage by a dame school. These poor children, ill fed and young,
could hardly stand walking to and from the village school--a matter of
some five miles daily, and which in winter and wet weather was, in itself,
a day's work for their weary little limbs. As the vicar could not raise
money enough to pay a certificated teacher at the proposed branch or dame
school, the scheme had to be abandoned. Then, according to red tape, it
was necessary to enlarge the village school to accommodate these few
children, and this notwithstanding that the building was never full. The
enlargement necessitated a great additional expenditure The ratepayers
did, indeed, after much bickering and much persuasion, in the end pay off
the deficiency; but in the meantime, the village had been brought to the
verge of a school board.
Religious differences came to the front--there was, in fact, a trial of
force between the denominations. Till then for many years these
differences had slumbered and been almost forgotten; they were now brought
into collision, and the social quiet of the place was upset. A council of
the chief farmers and some others was ultimately formed, and, as a matter
of fact, really did represent the inhabitants fairly well. But while it
represented the parish, it left the vicar quite outside. He had a voice,
but nothing more. He was not the centre--the controlling spirit.
He bore it meekly enough, so far as he was personally concerned; but he
grieved about it in connection with his deep religious feelings and his
Church. The Church was not in the front of all, as it should be. It was
hard after all his labour; the rebuffs, the bitter remarks, the sneers of
those who had divergent views, and, perhaps worse than all, the cold
indifference and apathy of those who wished things to remain in the old
state, ignoring the fact that the law would not suffer it. There were many
other things besides the school, but they all went the same way. The
modern institution was introduced, championed by the Church, worked for by
the Church, but when at last it was successful, somehow or other it seemed
to have severed itself from the Church altogether. The vicar walked about
the village, and felt that, though nominally in it, he was really out of
it.
His wife saw it too, still more clearly than he did. She saw that he had
none of the gift of getting money out of people. Some men seem only to
have to come in contact with others to at once receive the fruits of their
dormant benevolent feelings. The rich man writes his cheque for 100_l_.,
the middle-class well-to-do sends his bank notes for 20_l_., the
comfortable middle-class man his sovereigns. A testimonial is got up, an
address engrossed on vellum, speeches are made, and a purse handed over
containing a draft for so many hundreds, 'in recognition, not in reward,
of your long continued and successful ministrations.' The art of causing
the purse-strings to open is an art that is not so well understood,
perhaps, among the orthodox as by the unorthodox. The Rev. F---- either
could not, or would not, or did not know how to ask, and he did not
receive.
Just at present his finances were especially low. The tenants who farmed
the glebe land threatened to quit unless their rents were materially
reduced, and unless a considerable sum was expended upon improvements. To
some very rich men the reduction of rents has made a sensible difference;
to the Rev. F---- it meant serious privations. But he had no choice; he
had to be satisfied with that or nothing. Then the vicarage house, though
substantial and pleasant to look at, was not in a good state within. The
rain came through in more places than one, and the ancient woodwork of the
roof was rotten. He had already done considerable repairing, and knew that
he must soon do more. The nominal income of the living was but moderate;
but when the reductions were all made, nothing but a cheese-paring seemed
left. From this his subscriptions to certain ecclesiastical institutions
had to be deducted.
Lastly, he had received a hint that a curate ought to be kept now that his
increasing age rendered him less active than before. There was less hope
now than ever of anything being done for him in the parish. The landowners
complained of rent reductions, of farms idle on their hands, and of
increasing expenses. The farmers grumbled about the inclement seasons,
their continual losses, and the falling markets. It was not a time when
the churlish are almost generous, having such overflowing pockets. There
was no testimonial, no address on vellum, no purse with banker's draft for
the enfeebled servant of the Church slumbering in the cane chair in the
verandah.
Yet the house was exquisitely kept, marvellously kept considering the
class of servants they were obliged to put up with. The garden was bright
and beautiful with flowers, the lawn smooth; there was an air of
refinement everywhere. So the clergyman slept, and the wife turned again
to her sketch of the patent hive, hoping that the golden honey might at
last bring some metallic gold. The waggon rumbled down the road, and
Hodge, lying at full length on the top of the load, could just see over
the lowest part of the shrubbery, and thought to himself what a jolly life
that parson led, sleeping the hot hours away in the shade.