MR. PUFFIN HUNTS A BUTTERFLY.
The Reverend John Dodd had been more than satisfied with his new curate. At first the long cassock, the flowing robes, and the rather eccentric "make up" of the man had been a daily outrage to the vicar's idea of decency. Mr. Puffin was not the first curate in the vicar's experience who had sought notoriety by a fantastic dress; but Mr. Puffin worked hard in the parish, Mr. Puffin was eloquent, and the vicar felt certain that the Established Church in King's Warren was gaining ground. He was rather gratified than otherwise to hear that Mr. Puffin had begun to waver in his ideas about celibacy. Puffin as an engaged man might be somewhat less divine, but he would be assuredly more human. Dodd himself didn't see why Mr. Puffin should not become the husband of Miss Warrender. Puffin was a clergyman, and a gentleman; and the Reverend John Dodd rubbed his hands as he thought of the inevitable struggle for mastery which would take place between the pair should the marriage ever come off. And after all, more unlikely things than this marriage had happened. Miss Warrender certainly had had her fling, but a girl can't go on having her fling for ever, and the vicar chuckled as he thought of Lucy as the Celibate's wife. Unconsciously perhaps the curate had assumed an air of superiority to his vicar, for as a Celibate he would naturally look down upon him as a being of a coarser clay, a mere earthen pot; but this had only amused his good-natured chief, and the Reverend John Dodd smiled as he thought of the gentle vengeance he might have, when the enamoured Puffin should take him into his confidence.
He sat down to dinner in the best of tempers. When he perceived that he was to be regaled with a veal sweetbread with brown sauce, his eyes were lighted up with a merry twinkle. But he felt that there was something in the wind; he knew that that delectable propitiatory sacrifice was only offered to his critical palate on his birthday, when his wife was in a particularly good temper, or when she had a favour to ask. As he looked at the partner of his earthly joys, it was plainly apparent to him that Mrs. Dodd was ruffled; it was not his birthday, so he had a second helping of the delicacy and made up his mind to yield to the inevitable demand with the best possible grace. But not till they were alone did his wife unbosom herself.
"John," she said, "I've come to the conclusion that Mr. Puffin must leave us; a curate ceases to be of use in a parish the moment he makes himself ridiculous, and Mr. Puffin tells me that he is determined to make a fool of himself. I could have passed over his peculiarities, John," she said, "and his eccentricities in dress; I could even have forgiven his long hair, in consideration of the immense amount of work he manages to get through; but he is about to render himself unsuitable. I approve of ambition in a clergyman; my dear father is an ambitious man, and he has prospered, though not perhaps according to his great deserts; but worldly ambition, the thirst for gold, is unbecoming in a clergyman. To my mind, it is painfully apparent that Mr. Puffin, who ought to be actuated by far higher motives, is prepared to sacrifice himself to Lucy Warrender, who is a most objectionable young person, in order to secure at some future time the presentation to the living of King's Warren."
The vicar laughed.
"I mean to live for the next twenty years, my dear, and if Puffin intends to put up with twenty years of Lucy Warrender for the sake of this living, though it is a fat one, I shall consider that the labourer will have been worthy of his hire."
"Don't be profane, John," said the lady reprovingly.
"To do Puffin justice, I don't think he is mercenary. Lucy has probably turned his head."
"John, Mr. Puffin is not of an inflammable nature."
"All curates are of an inflammable nature, my dear; why you turned my head in your time."
"I trust, Mr. Dodd, that my mental qualities attracted you, and not mere physical beauty."
"Of course, my dear, of course; but you were a monstrous fine woman then, and for the matter of that, you are still, Cecilia," said the vicar, as he helped himself to a third glass of his '47 port.
His wife smiled and smoothed her cap ribbons.
"Don't exceed, John," she said, with a warning gesture, "or Mr. Puffin may not have to wait twenty years for his preferment after all. You must admonish him, John; a man of his principles, his pretended principles, is not suited for married life. He told me himself, that ever since his ordination he has assumed what he calls a priestly garb. I ask you, John, how could he be married in a cassock? How could he go on his honeymoon in it?"
"Well, he could leave it off, my dear."
"But he has declared to me that he never would leave it off. How often has he sneered at ordinary clerical attire, though he has never dared to suggest that you should masquerade in, what he calls, proper ecclesiastical costume."
"There may be reasons, my dear; he may have bandy legs."
"His legs are perfectly indifferent to me, Mr. Dodd. If he wishes to marry, he should dress like other people."
"You should suggest that to Lucy Warrender, my dear."
"If I thought for a moment, Mr. Dodd, that there was a possibility of his being the means of rescuing the girl by his own self-sacrifice, I should not say one word; if he has a taste for martyrdom, it would not be for me to interfere; but I know that Lucy is only wickedly encouraging him for the sake of winning the bet of a new bonnet from her cousin's husband. You must warn and admonish him, John, or he must go. Stacey would have been a far more suitable partner for him."
"Why didn't you suggest it, my dear?"
"It is not my duty to secure a husband for my sister-in-law, Mr. Dodd."
"You thought it was, in the squire's case, Cecilia."
But the vicar's wife let the taunt pass by unnoticed.
"If you don't admonish him, John, I must. It will be a thankless office, for the wretched man seems bent on his own destruction."
"Well, he has chosen a particularly pleasant form of suicide, Cecilia."
"Flippancy, Mr. Dodd, is not becoming in a clergyman," said his wife with a ruffled air, "and it is not good taste for a clergyman to openly express his admiration for his female parishioners to his wife, and so violate the sanctity of his own fireside."
"I'm not going to make or meddle in the matter, Mrs. Dodd," said her husband.
"'Tis a vicar's duty to protect his curate, Mr. Dodd."
"Not when the curate is perfectly well able to take care of himself, my dear. Besides, there is another point of view; Lucy might do worse."
"Well, John," she replied, "I shall say no more. I can only hope that it is not in a spirit of professional jealousy that you allow this poor thoughtless young fellow to rush to his doom." And then she rang for coffee.
Next day the Reverend Barnes Puffin lunched at The Warren. Being a feast day he did full justice to the meal. He was overflowing with good spirits, and as soon as lunch was over he seized the first opportunity of securing a tête-à-tête with the squire's niece. As Miss Warrender took the arm of the clergyman, she cast an amused and meaning glance at Haggard. Little by little the pair wandered away into the secluded rose garden, and the Reverend Barnes Puffin felt that he had got his chance.
"Do you care for parish work, Miss Warrender?" said the Celibate, after a few commonplace phrases.
"To tell you the truth, Mr. Puffin, I don't know; I have never tried."
"It is a great privilege, you know," he said. "Has it never occurred to you, my dear Miss Warrender, that it might be your vocation, your natural aim in life."
"No, I don't think it ever has, Mr. Puffin," she said. "I did know a girl once, one of my school friends, she joined a sisterhood; you know I fancy it was the dress attracted her. She joined a sisterhood, but they made the poor thing wear dreadful thick shoes like a man's, and she had to scrub floors, which spoilt her pretty hands; poor child, they have remained red ever since, and she was glad to marry an army doctor and go to China with him. I suppose red hands don't matter in China," the girl said meditatively. "No, I don't think I should care to scrub floors, Mr. Puffin," and she spread out her taper fingers as though for her own inspection.
The curate admired the fingers, and observed with satisfaction that they were undecorated by a prohibitive ring.
"There are other spheres, dear Miss Warrender, than sisterhoods. Our friend Mrs. Dodd has found a happy and congenial one here in King's Warren."
"But then she is a clergyman's wife, Mr. Puffin, and a privileged person."
"It is a privilege, Miss Warrender, a great privilege. I'm glad it commends itself to you as such."
"Oh, yes; Mrs. Dodd is much to be envied, but then Mrs. Dodd is a very clever woman; she, Mr. Puffin, has caught her hare."
"And having caught him, Miss Warrender, she has accommodated him to her own taste."
"Hers is a master mind, Mr. Puffin."
"It is perhaps as easy, my dear young lady, to rule by love as to rule by fear."
"And much nicer, I should think, Mr. Puffin."
The curate blushed, and then he made an audacious statement.
"Mine is a very accommodating nature, Miss Warrender."
"That's very fortunate for you, Mr. Puffin, for you must have so much to put up with from the poor people."
"I have lately been engaged, Miss Warrender, in a very serious mental struggle. I am afraid I have been arrogant. I am afraid that I have boasted and bragged to my friends and to my parishioners that I was not as other men are, that my whole soul was given up to duty, that I was a Celibate, not merely from vocation but from inclination. But my feelings have undergone a change. At first, dear Miss Warrender, I was overpowered by a sense of what I considered my own degradation, but that feeling has entirely passed away. I confess to you that when I first came here I considered myself on a higher platform to that of most men, and I supposed that in obstinately refraining from the ordinary lot of clergymen, I mean marriage, that I was exercising a considerable degree of self-abnegation, in fact that I was leading a higher life. I now see that all this was a wicked error. The Church enjoins penance, and I have come to the conclusion from my intimate acquaintance with the sufferings of my unfortunate vicar, that instead of making a sacrifice in abstaining from matrimony I was actually guilty of profound and calculating selfishness. I see, too, that a married clergyman in giving up the idea of celibacy secures at least one efficient coadjutor in his parish work. As you know, Miss Warrender, I am in the habit of acting upon my convictions."
"Then of course, Mr. Puffin, you will at once seek to secure the hand of some particularly objectionable person, in order to render the touching martyrdom you speak of the more meritorious?"
"No, Miss Warrender, I shall not look upon that as a bounden duty. My position as a Celibate has many advantages from a professional point of view, for the female portion of my parishioners are enabled to look upon me as one of themselves."
"Oh, I don't quite think that, Mr. Puffin; of course there is something—well, epicene about your dress, but then to some minds, you know, the clerical dress has a great attractiveness. Why the Louis Quatorze abbés, that we see so much of in comic opera, were terribly wicked people, you know, Mr. Puffin, and they clung very tightly to the clerical dress, and so did Tartuffe for the matter of that."
"Dear Miss Warrender, the cleric garb is but a delightful reminiscence of a past time; there is nothing ridiculous in it. You have the same thing in the Blue Coat boy, and there is assuredly nothing ridiculous in a Blue Coat boy."
"Quite the contrary, Mr. Puffin; it is rather romantic than otherwise, but I can't fancy a full-grown man in yellow stockings, and a—hem—undivided skirt. By the way, Mr. Puffin, I can give you a suggestion: if you did really carry out your ideas and marry after all, you might adopt the Blue Coat costume as a sort of sign of your apostacy, a kind of san benito; you would still be retaining the mediæval idea, you see, and be thoroughly distinguishable from Tartuffe and the wicked abbés we were talking about."
"In matters of dress, Miss Warrender, did I become a married man I should naturally defer to the wishes of my wife."
"You don't mean to say that you would dress like other people?"
"Yes, Miss Warrender, I should do so, though it would not be without a pang that I should relinquish what I look upon as the true clerical garb."
"Don't think of it, Mr. Puffin, don't think of it, for an instant. The noble savage in his war-paint, his wampum, his feathers and his scalps, is a dignified object; but dress him in a suit of common clothes and cut his hair and he ceases to be interesting."
"Do you really think, Miss Warrender, that I should lose influence if I adopted the costume of ordinary life, should I enter upon the perilous sea of matrimony?"
"Well, Mr. Puffin, if you dressed like other people and married, I don't see how, to use your own expression, 'the female members of your congregation could continue to look upon you as one of themselves,' because if they did, you see you would be only Mrs. Puffin's sister after all."
"Yes, I am afraid that is the reductio ad absurdum. But we are wandering away, Miss Warrender; it was about my heart, and not about my garments, that I sought to converse with you."
"Oh, Mr. Puffin, I should make the worst of confidants; I never by any chance keep a secret."
"And yet I am ready to trust your discretion, Miss Warrender."
"I confess you rouse my curiosity. Do I know the lady?"
"Yes, Miss Warrender, she is your best friend and your worst enemy."
"Now you intrigue me, Mr. Puffin, for all my acquaintances address me as their dearest Lucy, and as for my enemies—I've guessed it, Mr. Puffin. I never had an enemy till Mr. Sleek's hay making. I suppose Miss Connie Sleek is the bride-elect. Let me congratulate you, Mr. Puffin, but do tell me one thing, it is so interesting—what are Miss Sleek's ideas about the clerical garb?"
"I fear you wilfully misunderstand me, Miss Warrender. My aspirations are higher. I do not think Miss Sleek would ever be the ideal wife for a clergyman."
"You mystify me, Mr. Puffin."
Mr. Puffin possessed a copy of the "Bab Ballads." He remembered two lines in them that gave him that hope which they say springs eternal in the human breast.
"It isn't so much the lover who woos,
As the lover's way of wooing."
He remembered that Mr. Gilbert's successful lover came to the point at once, so, to use a hunting simile, he sat well down in his saddle, and he hardened his heart.
"Dear Miss Warrender," he said, and there was a certain amount of dignity about the man, despite his long hair and his eccentric appearance, "I am only a working clergyman, but I am a gentleman; and I wish you, for both our sakes, to share my lot."
Here Lucy Warrender cast down her pretty eyes and smiled, for she felt that she had won Haggard's new bonnet fairly and honestly.
The parson continued, taking heart of grace from the false little smile upon her lips:
"I'm going to ask you to give up a great deal for the sake of religion, and for my sake, Miss Warrender. I'm going to ask you to give up the world, its frivolous enjoyments and its pleasures, and to tread with me a thorny and toilsome path which leads to higher things. I know my presumption, Miss Warrender. I know that in trying to do good according to my lights I often merely succeed in making myself ridiculous. If I am ridiculous in your eyes, Miss Warrender, you can have but one answer to give me. But my proposition to you is at least disinterested. I know you will believe that. I don't ask you for an answer now, Miss Warrender. I should scorn to snatch a favourable answer from an inexperienced girl."
Lucy gave another little smile.
"Think over what I have said, dear Miss Warrender; if you feel equal to making the sacrifice, so do I. Take time to think it over."
"No, Mr. Puffin. I have been foolish and wicked, perhaps, if I have unknowingly encouraged you; but you have spoken honestly enough to me, and the least you deserve is an honest answer. I am not fit, Mr. Puffin, to be any man's wife—any honest man's wife—least of all a clergyman's."
Lucy felt that she had said a little too much, so she hastened to qualify it.
"I am but a worldly girl. I love pleasure and dissipation; it is my nature—a nature I can never change. Look on me, Mr. Puffin, as wholly unworthy of you. Were you to marry me, Mr. Puffin, you would commit an act that we should both repent. You would degrade yourself to my level; and, God knows, mine is a very low level. Take my answer as it is meant Mr. Puffin, in seriousness, and as irrevocable. Forgive me, Mr. Puffin, and do me one favour. I am utterly bad, Mr. Puffin, but try not to think unkindly of me, for I have no friends; and, as you told me just now, I am my own worst enemy."
Tears were standing in the pretty eyes. Lucy Warrender was not acting now.
The Reverend Barnes Puffin did not press his suit further.
"Good-bye, Miss Warrender," he said, in a choking voice. "But never say you have no friends. We may never meet again. I have merited my rebuff, but I thank you for your forbearance. And if you ever need a friend, you have a faithful one in me."
He pressed her hand and took his leave. As he walked out of the rose garden with a dejected air, it was very evident that his wooing had not prospered. But Lucy Warrender never asked Haggard to pay his lost wager.
The Reverend Barnes Puffin bore his misfortune like a man. He felt that Lucy's determination was final, and that it would be hopeless to try his luck again with her; but she hadn't laughed at him, and that was something. Still, Mr. Puffin felt that it behoved him to leave King's Warren. Just as it is a matter of tradition, an un-written law, that a ministry when beaten on a great political question goes out of office, so it is the custom among curates who have been unsuccessful in their love affairs in the parish, if the parish is aware of the fact, to tender their resignation. The curate sought an interview with the Reverend John Dodd and announced his decision. The vicar did not attempt to combat it. A celibate clergyman has many advantages; but a celibate clergyman who is prepared to renounce his principles ceases to inspire respect among the female portion of his congregation. As a Celibate, rapturous maidens will go on sighing and weeping for him, for while he represents the Unattainable there is something almost saint-like about him; but as a curate who has been refused by a member of his own congregation, the nimbus suddenly disappears from his brow; he ceases to be a modern apostle, and turns out to be an ordinary and unsuccessful fisherman after all. And this is one reason why the modern fisherman always carries a creel. Isaac Walton was contented to bring home the spoils of his art strung upon an osier; but the modern creel conveys an impression of dignity; the natural supposition is that there is something in it, hence its popularity.
So the Reverend Barnes Puffin went back to hard work at the east end of London, and after a time attained the preferment which the archdeacon had prophesied; but he still retains the celibate garb, and in his dreams he sees a glorified Lucy Warrender—fair hair, brown eyes and all—and the lovely vision is quite sufficient for him. He thinks of her as he fondly fancied her, and looks on her as a sort of guardian angel still. Who shall grudge him the fond delusion?