She was a tall girl, beautiful, with a small pale face, and straw-coloured hair, hair which would not stay up; wherever she went she scattered hairpins. She was still in mourning for her mother’s death, and her long black dress fitted her badly, hindering her impatient movements, and giving her the look of a converted savage dressed in a missionary’s night-gown.
“Father is feeding the birds. He never forgets them, and here am I grudging them the crumb of the loaf. But housekeeping would have made Saint Francis uncharitable, though Saint Francis would not have said he wanted a bird for his hat.”
The marmalade, the cruet, the silver toast rack, all were put away into the mahogany sideboard, the tablecloth was brushed, and holding the little wooden tray full of crumbs, she went out into the hall, where her father still stood at the open door, and then leaning over his shoulder she shook the crumbs out on to the snow, and, scared by her sudden gesture, the birds flew off.
“Oh, Anne, how stupid and inconsiderate you are!” exclaimed her father, angrily. “How little imagination you have. Don’t you understand that when you wave anything suddenly like that you frighten them? There was such a fine missel-thrush too. He is not regular, and though the other birds will soon come back, he will be discouraged. It is most vexing.” Now that Mr. Dunnock had lost his congregation (a far larger one than had ever attended a Communion service at Dry Coulter Church), he shut the door, shaking his head irritably, then he put his beard in his mouth, as if that were the best way to stifle his anger, and went into his study.
The book he took up fell from his hands before he had turned the second or third page, for he had not the intellect nor the determination to be a scholar. A beautiful word always set his mind chasing a beautiful picture; his thoughts clouded over with dreams, and he remained lost in meditation. When he came to himself it was to sink on to his knees in prayer, for he was a shy man, unable to express himself to men, and for that reason much given to communing with God.
For twenty years he had been a poor curate at a church in the shadow of Ely Cathedral, but he had not been popular: he was indifferent to the things which were important to his fellow clergy, and his mystical love of ritual had found no sympathizers, until at last the Bishop took pity on him, and gave him a small living in a district in the fens. His growing uncertainty of temper, combined with a sort of hopeless oddity, had begun to make him a nuisance, and some provision had to be made.
At Ely the Church is taken seriously: it is a great power, and on taking up his new position, Mr. Dunnock was shocked to find it completely disregarded, for the inhabitants of Dry Coulter are Nonconformists. Even with the few who belonged to the church, he was not a success. His sermons were incomprehensible, yet they might have passed unnoticed if he had not affected a cassock and a biretta, if he had not placed a crucifix on the Communion table and called a blessing on the houses of the sick before he entered them. As vicar Mr. Dunnock was a failure, and within less than a year he was regarded with far greater contempt than is usually extended to the clergy. Yet he was not a disappointed man, for he had never been ambitious of success, and had never imagined that he might be popular. He knew that it was too late in his life for him to make any effort; he was disinclined to exert himself with his parishioners, and avoiding them as far as he could, he was not unhappy. He had grown lazy, too, and now that it was in his power, he neglected to hold the innumerable little services which as a curate he had longed to celebrate.
If his wife had lived he might perhaps have exerted himself, but he knew that Anne did not share his emotions, and soon the special days were passed over, and Mr. Dunnock remained sunk in melancholy. Sometimes his conscience pricked him; then he shut himself up in his room and remained for hours in prayer.
“Damn the missel-thrush!” thought his daughter. “But father is always irritable on Mondays; I have noticed it before. Life indeed would be intolerable if it were not for the house. I have everything to make me unhappy, but I love this house. Dear old Noah’s ark.”
She went upstairs, where Maggie was waiting for her to help in making the beds. Maggie Pattle was a girl of seventeen, who lived out with her mother, and let herself into the vicarage early every morning, for she was the only servant and came in by the day. Shorter than Anne, she was fully twice as broad, a well-nourished girl, who would eat a pound of sausages or of bacon at a sitting, washing it down with vinegar, and her red cheeks shone with health.