Two of them, indeed, were living theirs with plenty of zest, somewhere in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Jael and Hannah Vickary were the daughters of an old sea-captain, Ebenezer Vickary of Torribridge. He and his brother had three or four vessels of their own, trading with the Indies in sugar and molasses, or with the Spanish Main, as it then still was, in logwood and mahogany. The brother died in Cuba of the yellow fever. Soon afterwards Ebenezer gave up the sea, settled down in Tawborough, and died in his time. He left his two daughters enough money to live upon in the quiet style of those days, together with a big dwelling house by the old North Gate. Here Jael and Hannah Vickary lived alone, with an old servant whose years were unknown and unnumbered, and whose wages were six pounds a year. They had a few friends and visitors, faithful women of the Parish Church, chief among whom were the Other Six of "the Seven Old Maids of Tawborough." By a strange coincidence seven female children had been born in Tawborough on August the First 1785, all of whom had risen to be devout handmaidens of the Lord in the work of the Parish Church, shining lights around the central figure of the Vicar, and all of whom had dwindled into a sure spinsterhood. "We are the wise virgins," said Jael Vickary, their leader and spiritual chief, in whom the scorn of all menfolk except the Vicar (who had a meek wife and twelve children) amounted to a prophet's passion. This passion was shared in various degrees by the Other Six, to wit: Miss Lucy Clarke, Miss Fanny Baker, Miss Keturah Crabb, Miss Sarah Tombstone, and last but not least the Heavenly Twins, the Misses Glory and Salvation Clinker. The Twins were the only regular visitors at Northgate House. There were a few others, no relatives among them. Jael and Hannah had indeed an elder brother, John: Ebenezer's only son. He had gone to London as a boy, worked his way up in a wholesale sugar house in the City, and become passing rich. His sisters were kept aware of his existence only by receiving occasional presents and more occasional letters. He never married. Thus it was that his death, if nothing so crude as a self-acknowledged source of financial hope to Miss Jael, would nevertheless have been borne by her with true Christian fortitude.
If alike in a salt and shrewdness of personality unknown to our end of the century, in most ways the two sisters differed as much as two human beings can. Miss Jael was hard, Miss Hannah kindly; Miss Jael stern, Miss Hannah gentle; Miss Jael was feared, Miss Hannah loved. Though Hannah was less than eighteen months her sister's junior, this unbridgeable gulf enabled Miss Jael throughout life to refer to Miss Hannah as "a young woman," and to treat her accordingly. Then, behold, in the year 1822, when both were nearer forty than thirty, the Young Woman brazenly gave ear to the suit of one Edward Lee, an old sea-captain, who had sailed under her father, and was twenty years her senior. Jael mocked (Why did he choose her? asked her heart bitterly); yet stayed on at Northgate House, when Captain Lee came to live there, to bully and bludgeon the dear old man into his grave. This procedure took but five years. The old man died, leaving to his widow two little girls and a boy: Rachel, Martha and Christian.
In the godlier activities of Tawborough life Jael and her widowed sister were leading lights, with the parish church as General Headquarters of their operations. Miss Jael was the vicar's right-hand man. She ran his poor club, his guild, his Dorcas-meeting, effacing completely the meek many-childrened little lady of the Rectory. He thought her a queen among women, a tower set upon a rock.
All this was in the twenties and thirties of the century, ere yet the Church of England had taken her earliest step on the swift steep path to Rome. The same wave of evangelical fervour that had swelled Wesley's great following had strengthened also the Church from which they broke away. This fervour, whether Methodist or Established, did not however go nearly far enough for certain pious souls, especially in the West country, who formed themselves into little bodies for the Worship of God in the strictest and simplest Gospel fashion. "They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayer." They called themselves the Saints, or more modestly the Brethren. Outsiders called them the Plymouth Brethren—they flourished in the great seaport—or more profanely, the Plymouth Rocks. They were drawn from all communions and no communion, if principally from the Established Church; from all classes and conditions, the humbler trades-folk perhaps predominating. In Tawborough they were especially active. From the days of the primitive Druids away through the long story of missionaries and monks, seafaring Protestants and Huguenot exiles, here was a town that took her religion neat. She preferred the good Calvin flavouring, and thus it was that the Plymouth evangel sent up a savoury smell in her nostrils. There were literally hundreds of converts. The Parish Church lost some of its leading members. Arose the cry "The Church in danger!"; and of all who responded, most valiant was the Vicar's right-hand man. She stemmed the tide of deserters with loins girt for battle. Like St. Paul, she breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the new sect. She encouraged the faithful, visited the wavering, anathematized deserters. To crown her efforts she counselled the vicar to summon a great Church Defence Meeting in the Parish Room, to rally and re-affirm the confidence of the faithful. The Vicar agreed. The hour of commencement saw a right goodly and godly assembly foregathered together. On the platform sat a Canon of Exeter, the old Marquess of Exmoor, several county bigwigs, the Mayor and the Churchwardens. Seven o'clock struck, the Vicar was about to open the proceedings, everything was ready—except—except that two honoured places on the platform (in those days a place on a platform was for a woman an honour indeed) were not yet occupied. Miss Vickary and her sister were late. The Vicar hesitated. There was a distinguished company, true: but start the meeting without its guiding spirit—never! Give her five minutes.... Some one handed the Vicar an envelope. He opened it, read through the contents, and fainted then and there.
How the reverend gentleman was brought round from his swoon by the joint endeavours of the Canon, the Marquess, two Churchwardens, nine ladies and a bottle of sal-volatile; how the great Church Defence Meeting fizzled to an inglorious end; and how Jael Vickary and Hannah Lee were baptized in the Taw in the presence of three thousand five hundred spectators, there is no need to relate here. The facts were well enough known to the older generation in the town. Some say that the Vicar made a last despairing effort to retain his apostate right-hand man; that, with tears in his eyes, he went down on his knees before her. If so, as Hannah wickedly said, he was the only man who ever did so, and in any case he achieved nothing. On the contrary The Great Betrayal encouraged wholesale desertions. The Other Six deserted en masse.
Henceforward Jael Vickary's life was occupied with two main things: building up the new sect, and bringing up her sister's family. She filled the vacant post of father with thoroughness and vigour. Her method was the rod, or to be accurate the thorned stick, and a horrible weapon it was. Hannah approved the method in moderation, though she could never have applied it herself. Much of her life, indeed, was spent in protecting her children from her sister. Rachel, the eldest, was best beloved. She was a sweet, gentle child; bright, tender and gay. Martha was quieter, even morose. Christian was a peevish child, weak and ailing from birth. With no husband to help her, and her sister on the scold from morn till night, Hannah Lee's life was not an easy one. She gave her two daughters the best schooling in Devonshire, as schooling for girls went in those days; so that when they grew up they were able to take positions as governesses in the best families of the county. Rachel went to Woolthy Hall to teach Guy, the Lord Tawborough's five year old heir. Martha was employed by the Groves, of Grove House near Exeter, to begin the education of their daughter. The two girls' attainments and appearance explained their good fortune. Rachel in particular was a refined and attractive young woman, with bright eyes, a peerless skin, and a gentle winning expression. Dressed oftenest in a dove-coloured cotton robe, she had a Quakerish charm, simple yet sure.
Hannah was left alone at Tawborough with Jael and young Christian. As the years passed, life turned greyer. When the Devon and Three Counties' Bank collapsed, nearly half the household income disappeared. Jael's imperiousness grew with her years, while her temper soured. Christian was in a decline, dying slowly before his mother's eyes. Then came Martha's marriage. She had fallen in with one Simeon Greeber, a retired chemist, who lived over at Torribridge—the Taw's twin-river's port, and Tawborough's immemorial rival. This Greeber was the local leader of the extreme wing of the Saints, the Close or Exclusive Brethren; a man twice Martha Lee's age, and one who filled her aunt and her mother with a special sense of dislike and mistrust. Against their will she married him, gave up her excellent post with the Grove family, and went to live at Torribridge.
Hannah's consolation was always Rachel, whom she loved most dearly. Then, in its turn, came Rachel's marriage.
At Woolthy Hall the young governess had come into contact with Lord Tawborough's cousin, Mr. Philip Traies, who was a frequent if not welcome guest. He had served in the Navy, but had left the service under doubtful circumstances. He had led a scandalous life and earned a reputation to match it. A clear-cut handsome mouth set in a proud aristocratic face, a fine bearing, a fine speech, and an honoured name, deluded many and were his own undoing. In ill odour with his family and his Maker, he decided to come to terms with the latter. At the age of forty, he joined the Plymouth Brethren. When the Devil turns saint he does a very sharp round-about, and no withered Anglo-Indian colonel who communed with the Saints in his dotage to ensure himself as gay a time in the next world as he had passed in this, ever excelled Mr. Philip Traies in fervour and piety. He worshipped occasionally with the Tawborough Saints, who were duly honoured. Sometimes here, and sometimes at his cousin's, he met Rachel Lee, at this time a girl of twenty-one. He bestowed upon her the favour of eager kindly patronage, as such men will; though if she were beneath him in station, and his equal in manners and good looks, she was far above him in everything else: goodness and purity and wholeness of heart. Quite how it happened nobody knew; but one day Rachel came home from Woolthy Hall, and said to her mother, "I am going to marry Mr. Philip Traies."
Hannah entreated. A "good" match with a bad man had no attraction for her. She pleaded with Rachel. Aunt Jael would not stoop to plead; she gave her niece instead a plain outline of Mr. Philip Traies' past.