A Tale of a Lonely Parish

by F. Marion Crawford

For two days he stayed at home and then he went to see her. To his surprise she received him very quietly, much as she usually did, without betraying any emotion; whereupon he wished that he had not allowed two days to pass without making his usual visit. Mrs. Goddard almost wished so too. She had been so much accustomed to regard the squire as a friend, and she had so long been used to the thought that Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose knew of her past trouble, that the fact of the squire becoming acquainted with her history seemed to her less important, now that it was accomplished, than it seemed to the squire himself. She had long thought of telling him all; she had seriously contemplated doing so when he first came to Billingsfield, and now at last the thing was done. She was glad of it. She was no longer in a false position; he could never again think of marrying her; they could henceforth meet as friends, since he was so magnanimous as to allow their friendship to exist. Her pride had suffered so terribly in the beginning that it was past suffering now. She felt that she was in the position of a suppliant asking only for a quiet resting-place for herself and her daughter, and she was grateful to the people who gave her what she asked, feeling that she had fallen among good Samaritans, whereas in merry England it would have been easy for her to have fallen among priests and Pharisees.

So it came about that in a few days her relations with Mr. Juxon were re-established upon a new basis, but more firmly and satisfactorily than before, seeing that now there was no possibility of mistake. And for a long time it seemed as though matters would go on as before. Neither Mrs. Goddard nor the squire ever referred to the interview on that memorable stormy afternoon, and so far as the squire could judge his life and hers might go on with perfect tranquillity until it should please the powers that be and the governor of Portland to set Mr. Walter Goddard at liberty. Heaven only knew what would happen then, but it was provided that there should be plenty of time to prepare for anything which might ensue. The point upon which Mrs. Goddard had not spoken plainly was that which concerned her probable treatment of her husband after his liberation. She had passed that question over in silence. She had probably never dared to decide. Most probably she would at the last minute seek some safer retreat than Billingsfield and make tip her mind to hide for the rest of her life. But Mr. Juxon had heard of women who had carried charity as far as to receive back their husbands under even worse circumstances; women were soft-hearted creatures, reflected the squire, and capable of anything.

Few people in such a situation could have acted consistently as though nothing had happened. But Mr. Juxon's extremely reticent nature found it easy to bury other people's important secrets at least as deeply as he buried the harmless details of his own honest life. Not a hair of his smooth head was ruffled, not a line of his square manly face was disturbed. He looked and acted precisely as he had looked and acted before. His butler remarked that he ate a little less heartily of late, and that on one evening, as has been recorded, the squire forgot to dress for dinner. But the butler in his day had seen greater eccentricities than these; he had the greatest admiration for Mr. Juxon and was not inclined to cavil at small things. A real gentleman, of the good sort, who dressed for dinner when he was alone, who never took too much wine, who never bullied the servants nor quarrelled unjustly with the bills, was, as the butler expressed it, "not to be sneezed at, on no account." The place was a little dull, but the functionary was well stricken in years and did not like hard work. Mr. Juxon seemed to be conscious that as he never had visitors at the Hall and as there were consequently no "tips," his staff was entitled to an occasional fee, which he presented always with great regularity, and which had the desired effect. He was a generous man as well as a just.

The traffic in roses and orchids and new books continued as usual between the Hall and the cottage, and for many weeks nothing extraordinary occurred. Mrs. Ambrose and Mrs. Goddard met frequently, and the only difference to be observed in the manner of the former was that she mentioned John Short very often, and every time she mentioned him she fixed her grey eyes sternly upon Mrs. Goddard, who however did not notice the scrutiny, or, if she did, was not in the least disturbed by it. For a long time Mrs. Ambrose entertained a feeble intention of addressing Mrs. Goddard directly upon the subject of John's affections, but the longer she put off doing so, the harder it seemed to do it. Mrs. Ambrose had great faith in the sternness of her eye under certain circumstances, and seeing that Mrs. Goddard never winced, she gradually fell into the belief that John had been the more to blame, if there was any blame in the matter. She had indeed succeeded in the first instance, by methods of her own which have been heretofore detailed, in extracting a sort of reluctant admission from her husband; but since that day he had proved obdurate to all entreaty. Once only he had said with considerable impatience that John was a very silly boy, and was much better engaged with his books at college than in running after Mrs. Goddard. That was all, and gradually as the regular and methodical life at the vicarage effaced the memory of the doings at Christmas time, the good Mrs. Ambrose forgot that anything unpleasant had ever occurred. There was no disturbance of the existing relations and everything went on as before for many weeks. The February thaw set in early and the March winds began to blow before February was fairly out. Nat Barker the octogenarian cripple, who had the reputation of being a weather prophet, was understood to have said that the spring was "loike to be forrard t'year," and the minds of the younger inhabitants were considerably relieved. Not that Nat Barker's prophecies were usually fulfilled; no one ever remembered them at the time when they might have been verified. But they were always made at the season when people had nothing to do but to talk about them. Mr. Thomas Reid, the conservative sexton, turned up his nose at them, and said he "wished Nat Barker had to dig a parish depth grave in three hours without a drop of nothin' to wet his pipe with, and if he didden fine that groun' oncommon owdacious Thomas Reid he didden know. They didden know nothin', sir, them parish cripples." Wherewith the worthy sexton took his way with a battered tin can to get his "fours" at the Feathers. He did not patronise the Duke's Head. It was too new-fangled for him, and he suspected his arch enemy, Mr. Abraham Boosey, of putting a rat or two into the old beer to make it "draw," which accounted for its being so "hard." But Mr. Abraham Boosey was the undertaker, and he, Thomas Reid, was the sexton, and it did not do to express these views too loudly, lest perchance Mr. Boosey should, just in his play, construct a coffin or two just too big for the regulation grave, and thereby leave Mr. Reid in the lurch. For the undertaker and the gravedigger are as necessary to each other, as Mr. Reid maintained, as a pair of blackbirds in a hedge.

But the spring was "forrard t'year" and the weather was consequently even more detestable than usual at that season. The roads were heavy. The rain seemed never weary of pouring down and the wind never tired of blowing. The wet and leafless creepers beat against the walls of the cottage, and the chimneys smoked both there and at the vicarage. The rooms were pervaded with a disagreeable smell of damp coal smoke, and the fires struggled desperately to burn against the overwhelming odds of rain and wind which came down the chimneys. Mrs. Goddard never remembered to have been so uncomfortable during the two previous winters she had spent in Billingsfield, and even Nellie grew impatient and petulant. The only bright spot in those long days seemed to be made by the regular visits of Mr. Juxon, by the equally regular bi-weekly appearance of the Ambroses when they came to tea, and by the little dinners at the vicarage. The weather had grown so wet and the roads so bad that on these latter occasions the vicar sent his dogcart with Reynolds and the old mare, Strawberry, to fetch his two guests. Even Mr. Juxon, who always walked when he could, had got into the habit of driving down to the cottage in a strange-looking gig which he had imported from America, and which, among all the many possessions of the squire, alone attracted the unfavourable comment of his butler. He would have preferred to see a good English dogcart, high in the seat and wheels, at the door of the Hall, instead of that outlandish vehicle; but Joseph Ruggles, the groom, explained to him that it was easier to clean than a dogcart, and that when it rained he sat inside with the squire.

On a certain evening in February, towards the end of the month, Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose and Mr. Juxon came to have tea with Mrs. Goddard. Mr. Juxon had at first not been regularly invited to these entertainments. They were perhaps not thought worthy of his grandeur; at all events both the vicar's wife and Mrs. Goddard had asked him very rarely. But as time went on and Mr. Juxon's character developed under the eyes of the little Billingsfield society, it had become apparent to every one that he was a very simple man, making no pretensions whatever to any superiority on account of his station. They grew more and more fond of him, and ended by asking him to their small sociable evenings. On these occasions it generally occurred that the squire and the vicar fell into conversation about classical and literary subjects while the two ladies talked of the little incidents of Billingsfield life, of Tom Judd's wife and of Joe Staines, the choir boy, who was losing his voice, and of similar topics of interest in the very small world in which they lived.

The present evening had not been at all a remarkable one so far as the talk was concerned. The drenching rain, the tendency of the fire to smoke, the general wetness and condensed depravity of the atmosphere had affected the spirits of the little party. They were not gay, and they broke up early. It was not nine o'clock when all had gone, and Mrs. Goddard and little Eleanor were left alone by the side of their drawing-room fire. The child sat upon a footstool and leaned her head against her mother's knee. Mrs. Goddard herself was thoughtful and sad, without precisely knowing why. She generally looked forward with pleasure to meeting the Ambroses, but this evening she had been rather disappointed. The conversation had dragged, and the excellent Mrs. Ambrose had been more than usually prosy. Nellie had complained of a headache and leaned wearily against her mother's knee.

"Tell me a story, mamma—won't you? Like the ones you used to tell me when I was quite a little girl."

"Dear child," said her mother, who was not thinking of story-telling, "I am afraid I have forgotten all the ones I ever knew. Besides, darling, it is time for you to go to bed."

"I don't want to go to bed, mamma. It is such a horrid night. The wind keeps me awake."