Chapter Seven.
Sunday was rather a gay day at the Vicarage. The Hardlands party were in the habit of spending a good deal of time there, Winifred, indeed, remaining for the early dinner, so as to be in her place in the school before the afternoon service; and there were further elements of friendliness in the two Mr Mannerings, who would drop in for a chat with the Vicar when his work was over.
On this particular Sunday, the people of Thorpe had undergone one of those disturbances of routine which they were uncertain whether to resent as an injury or to hail as a welcome variety. One of the neighbouring clergy had been taken ill suddenly the day before, and Mr Miles had ridden over to supply his place, while Mr and Mrs Featherly were jolted from Underham by Job White to undertake the services at Thorpe. Lest it should be supposed that the plural number has been used unadvisedly, it must be explained that many persons who had fair means of forming an opinion held it to be no less than a moral impossibility that the rector of Underham should accomplish any act in his ministerial or private life without his wife’s support, and believed that if her head, crowned with marabouts, were withdrawn from the seat immediately below the pulpit, the sermon would collapse in some fatal and irretrievable manner. The influence, whatever it was, was in no way connected with criticism, since Mrs Featherly, as the rector’s wife, considered herself released from the necessity of seeking benefit from any preaching whatever, and it probably depended upon that subtile link of habit by which all persons are in some degree bound, and which, in her own case, led her almost mechanically to count the heads of the congregation, and to store in her memory, with unerring acuteness, the names of those offenders who should have been and were not present.
So powerful in her, indeed, was this almost instinct, that as they drove painfully between the high hedges of the lanes, Mrs Featherly, with her head out of the window, reckoned the members of the different families they passed, and kept up a running commentary upon their numbers.
“I am convinced I have seen that woman in the red shawl at Underham. I believe her to be the farmer’s wife who supplies Langford’s dairy, and if so, I should like to know where her husband is? And there are the Crockers, and the daughter who is home from service not with them. Really, Mr Featherly, you ought to make a point of giving Mr Miles a hint. When people once take to neglecting their parish church I have the worst possible opinion of them.”
The consciousness of so much wrong-doing imparted quite a judicial severity to Mrs Featherly’s countenance, as she descended heavily at the Vicarage porch, just as the bells were chiming merrily and the people clustering in knots outside the church. There had been rain in the early morning, and large clouds were still coming up, but the sun was shining after the shower, and the wet on grass and roof only gave a touch of additional brightness. The boys who were too big to go to school lounged up in little companies, too shamefaced to venture alone, and putting on an appearance of great boldness and explosive mirth, to cover their actual bashfulness. The girls generally tossed their heads, walking on demurely without taking any notice of their contemporaries, but a ruddy-cheeked young farmer or two, who had come from the outskirts of the village, received such smiling glances from the same damsels as to bring down an occasional sharp remark from one of the elder women.
“You’ll a lost yere eyes as well as yere bonnet before iver you gets into choorch, Emma,” said one of these matrons, with a satirical look at the red rose that crowned its wearer’s last effort at millinery.
Emma, who was blue-eyed and literal-minded, gave an anxious pull to assure herself of the safety of the structure, before she answered good-humouredly,—
“You see, Mrs Anders, Susan gits a new shape for me into Under’m now and then, and I’m sure, if Polly wanted wan—”
“My Polly!” began Mrs Andrews, in so high a staccato of indignation that her husband, who was standing nearer the porch, looked round and said, in a deprecating tone,—
“Stiddy, missus, stiddy. Hyur’s the new parson coming oop to t’ choorch.”
“Ees, fay, so it be,” said another man. “Hers so smarl us can sceerce see un.”
“I can find him a tex for his sermond,” retorted Mrs Andrews, lowering her voice a little, but looking at Emma with wrathful contempt, ”‘The pompses and vanities of this wicked wordel.’ That’s a tex as might agree with some as is not so far off at this minit, and doan’t know how to be’ave themselves afor their betters.”
“That bain’t no tex, though,” said old Araunah Stokes, slowly shaking his head. “That’s noa moor than watt godfaythers and godmoothers have got to doo in t’ catechiz. Noa, noa, thicky thyur bain’t noan of the Scripter texes.”
“And I’d be glad to know, Mr Stokes,” replied the irate Mrs Andrews, unfolding her prayer-book from its pocket-handkerchief as if with the intention of appealing to written authority, “I’d be glad to know whether Scripter and the catechiz bain’t wan? P’raps you’ll be holding next as the Ten Commandmints bain’t in the Bible, becos they’m put down in the catechiz?—nor the Blief, nor my dooty towaeds my nayber as I was bound to say wann I wor a little maaed, till it slipped aff my tongue so faest as pays owt of a barrel, nayther? If any wan have a right to spake abeowt the catechiz, it’s me, though you doo caest it up to me, Mr Stokes, as I doan’t know texes when I see ’em.”
“Cloack’s strook, fayther,” said Jeremiah Stokes, interposing feebly in the character of peacemaker. Old Araunah, however, only hobbled off to where two or three other old men were standing, looking apathetically into a little newly dug child’s grave.
“Cloack’s strook, as you say, lad, but a woman’s tongue ’ull diffen cloacks and bells, and arl t’ rest o’ um. Ees, yer moother gived me a bet o’ ’sperience that way. An’ so that’s fur little Rose Tucker’s little un? Whay, I minds her moother wann her warn’t noa begger, and us wor—”
But here an unexpected interruption occurred. Mr Featherly, unconscious of the ordinary arrangements by which the Vicar caused the ringers to accommodate themselves to his own erratic time, had, punctually as the clock struck, appeared in the reading-desk. The ringers, unprepared for such a movement, did not even cast a look in that direction, and, engaged in cheerful conversation, only became aware when the exhortation had been with some difficulty concluded, that the service had actually begun. The consequence was a sudden stoppage of the bells, instead of the ordinary change for three minutes to a single toll, which gave time for the loiterers in the churchyard to present themselves; and it was not until one of the ringers had come out and related what had happened, that the men were able to persuade themselves that the single bell was not yet to be rung. Mrs Featherly was terribly scandalised by the unseemly stamping and scuffling that followed, and the male part of the congregation, naturally incensed at being placed so unexpectedly in the wrong, looked a little hot and sulky throughout the remainder of the service.
A larger number than usual turned into the Vicarage garden afterwards. Frank Orde, the Squire’s nephew, had arrived the day before, and old Mr Wood, of the Grange, had walked over to the Red House, not, certainly, with the expectation of finding Mrs Featherly installed at Thorpe, nor with any satisfaction at the fact.
“Why on earth didn’t you get rid of the woman?” he growled sharply, under his breath. “She says as many disagreeable things as if she were a relation.”
“Charles manages her admirably,” said Mr Robert, laughing. “His excessive politeness is just what she cannot meet with her usual weapons. Not that I believe there’s harm in her, except when compassion for Featherly is too strong for one’s justice.”
“Compassion! If a man cuts his throat it’s his own doing,” said Mr Wood. “There! the very dogs have more sense.”
Sniff, indeed, showed a rooted dislike to Mrs Featherly, a feeling which was fully returned; on this occasion, however, she so far unbent as to call him in a gracious tone, “Dog, dog,” an indignity which Sniff as naturally resented, as we should resent being addressed in the abstract as “man,” and marked his displeasure by turning a deaf ear to her endearments.
“And there, the Squire is falling foul of Anthony again,” said Mr Robert, hurrying on with a good-humoured design to act as peacemaker.
“Red’s red, I suppose,” Mr Chester was loudly asserting, “without a chimney-sweep standing up beside it. Give me a good old-fashioned garden, with rose de Meaux and gilliflowers, and that sort. I hate that talk about contrasts and backgrounds and rubbish.”
“Never mind these young fellows, Squire,” said Mr Robert, interposing before Anthony had time to answer. “There are a certain set of theories they are bound to run through before they settle into good sound stuff like you and me.”
The Squire, who was easily propitiated, but unwilling to allow it, walked away with a grunt.
Since this last home-coming of Anthony’s, it seemed as if there were always some little contest springing up between the Squire and him; the things were almost too trivial to deserve notice, but there was a pervading spirit of antagonism Anthony probably enjoyed it, for he provoked it at least as much as Mr Chester, though there were times, as on this occasion, when his opponent’s bristles rubbed a sore spot, and when the sense of restraint was galling. He drew Winifred on one side, and she went willingly, for there had been a little shadow between them ever since the dinner at the Bennetts’, and she accused herself of having been in fault, and longed to hold out her little olive-branch. There was a sweet hush and serenity in the day itself. The homely garden, which vexed Mr Robert by its disorder, was fresh and fragrant, daisies held open their rosy-tipped cups, soft little wafts of air just rustled the lighter branches, and made tremulous shadows on the grass: she was glad to move away from the others, and to stroll along a broad path bordered with stiff hollyhocks, which led towards a mulberry-tree standing in its own square of turf.
It is one of the privileges of old friendship—at least to us taciturn island folk—that there may be silence between two people without any feeling of awkwardness marring its pleasantness. Under its influence Anthony’s wrath subsided quickly, but there was still a touch of irritation in the voice in which he said at last,—
“Your father finds fault with everything I do.”
“He doesn’t mean it,—or he doesn’t mean it seriously,” said Winifred, correcting herself. “He has been accustomed so long to us girls, that he can’t understand anything that seems like contradiction.”
“I never contradict him.”
“O no, you only disagree. Only the two things are so dreadfully alike, Anthony, that no wonder he is puzzled,” said Winifred, with a quick look of fun.
“Living with you ought to have broken him in to difference of opinion.”
“O, I can’t afford to waste my contradictions on papa. I keep them for my friends.”
They glanced at each other and laughed, and walked on again silently side by side. Both were too easy in their companionship to be thinking about love, but they were very happy and contented to be together. Her influence tightened its hold upon his heart all imperceptibly, like so many threads which did not let themselves be known for fetters. There is a peril in those little threads, woven by habit, by proximity, by opportunities,—not a peril of their breaking, but of their untried strength being all unguessed, of some blast of passion, some storm of resentment, even some petty gust of pique, seeming for the moment to sweep them off, and free the heart of them forever,—until, as the rush dies away and the calm comes back, too late, perhaps, we learn that not a thread has snapt, that the work has been a work of desolation, that the small cords bind us still, like unyielding links of iron, and that the freedom we fancied we had gained is no more than a double bondage. Winifred said presently, in a questioning tone,—
“Anthony, I cannot make out what is the matter with Marion.”
“She is uneasy about Marmaduke. She has persuaded my father to write to old Tregennas. It’s the last thing I would have done myself; however, it’s his business, not mine.”
“I should long so much more for everything to go smoothly with them, if I felt more sure about Marmaduke. I wish you would tell me if you really like him,” said Winifred eagerly, “or whether it is the having been old playfellows that prejudices you towards him.”
“Of course I like him,” said Anthony, a little indignantly. “He’s the best fellow in the world. Talk of prejudices, you women keep fresh relays which come in every week, and last about as long. Here’s a poor fellow eating his heart out over work which he detests, and just because he’s down in the world, you must all set your faces against him. I wish there were a better chance of things coming right than I see at present.”
The speech ended more mildly than it began, for Anthony was suddenly struck with the golden threads which the sunshine brought out in Winifred’s hair. They were standing at this moment close to the mulberry-tree. And then he rushed off to point out to her the spot which David Stephens had intended to appropriate for the chapel. But he returned presently to the subject.
“I wonder you do not feel more for him. It must be horribly hard to know so much is against one. I’m not sure that I could stand it myself.”
“I don’t know that you could,” said Winifred, composedly.
“What makes you say so? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Winifred, just come from church, and going to teach those wretched little victims, with uncharitableness written on every hair of your head. Poor Marmaduke! Well, he gets on with your father better than I do.”
“I don’t know that, really. Only you and papa have each your own hobby-horses, and instead of trotting comfortably along, you must go full tilt at each other. I am sure he was very proud when he heard you had won the Chancellor’s medal. How nice it was of you, Anthony!”
“You could not have cared much about it.”
“Why not?” asked Winifred, who knew what was coming.
“You do not care for any poetry but the very best, you know.”
“That need not stand in the way,” said Winifred, smiling, and holding out her olive-branch magnanimously, “and besides—”
“Well?”
“I was rather cross that night, Anthony.”
“At what?”
“O, I don’t know! How can one know what makes one cross? I think Mr Milman bored me. Were you bored, too?”
“I don’t believe I was. That Miss Lovell is pleasant enough.”
“Do you think so? She worries me by drawling the last word of every sentence, and it is all so very commonplace.”
“Well, perhaps it is commonplace, but one doesn’t expect to find anything else.”
“If you like it, there is nothing to be said against it,” said Winifred carelessly, still playing with the mulberry leaves. “Shall we go back? There is something I want to tell Bessie.”
“Wait a moment,” said Anthony, not thinking much of what had been said. “Tell me, why did you say just now that you did not think I could stand being down in the world?”
Winifred was silent.
“Tell me,” he urged, trying to look in her face. “I don’t mean to go down. My belief is that circumstances are much more under our own control than we allow. Still, I should like to know why you made the assertion.”
“I suppose it is owing to that very belief you have just stated, and to your having such terrible faith in your own powers,” said Winifred, speaking with a kind of sweet strength. “You think you are sure to get what you aim at because it is good and great. I have an idea that, the higher one aims, the less one will be satisfied with what is reached, and then it is called failure, and that seems to discourage some people utterly.”
“And you think I should be discouraged?” said Anthony. “It is better not to dream about failures. They generally belong to half-heartedness, so far as I can see.”
“Not all,” said Winifred softly.
They did not speak again, and she walked along the grass that bordered the path, smelling a dewy cabbage rose which he had given her, and humming under her breath one of the old version psalms. Sometimes, in the midst of all our familiar knowledge of another, there is a sudden impression cut deep into our memory. We can give no definite reason for it, but it is there, and there forever. Anthony and Winifred had walked a hundred times as they were walking then: no change had come over the old Vicarage, which stood up to their left with fluttering shadows on the grey stones, and house-martins flashing in and out under the eaves; no new charm belonged, to the bright freshness of the garden, the quiet of the day, nor indeed was he conscious of any peculiar force about the little picture which should so impress it on his mind, and yet—he never afterwards forgot it, it never faded into dull outline, or lost its delicacy of colour; there always, not to be cast out, grew into life the quaint trim hollyhocks, the busy martins, the daisies in the grass, and brown-haired Winifred walking along with a quiet grace, singing the old psalm tune, and laying the cool rose against her cheek.