Mary Jane Married: Tales of a Village Inn

by George R. Sims

That was the worst blow of all to poor Miss Wilkins. It showed her how unworthy her young man had been of her, having thrown her over to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, and all for money.

She fretted so much that she became quite ill, and wasn’t able to stop in a situation, and so she came home to her father. But that didn’t do her any good, for she moped terribly, and was always brooding, and couldn’t be roused, or persuaded to go out.

I felt very sorry for the poor girl, and I asked her to tea several times; but she only came once, and then she was so miserable that it was more like a funeral feast than a friendly tea-party.

She began to get paler and thinner every day, and Mr. Wilkins grew quite alarmed about her, and the doctor said the only thing for her was to go right away and be among fresh faces and fresh scenes, and then, perhaps, in time she would make an effort and forget her trouble.

I don’t believe myself that a woman ever forgets a trouble of that sort. They may seem to before the world; but it is only put away for a time. It comes back again. But there is no doubt that it comes back less in a new place than in an old one, where there is nothing to take your attention off it.

It was just after the doctor had told Wilkins this that another letter came from Australia, from the daughter there, almost begging her father to come out to them. The doctor said, when he heard of it, “Why not go, Wilkins, and take your daughter with you?” And at last the poor old gentleman made up his mind that he would. Miss Wilkins was eager to go too. She said she should be glad to get away from everything that reminded her of the past. I think Wilkins would still have hesitated, but for the fact that just at the time our clergyman was changed, the Rev. Tommy going away to a seaside place, and a new clergyman coming—quite a young fellow, who looked almost like a boy, and had a lot of new notions that poor Wilkins said were dreadful. He and Wilkins didn’t get on at all from the very first, the old fellow rather resenting what he called the young clergyman’s “new-fangled ways.” And the young clergyman got wild with Wilkins, who, he said, was “an old fossil,” and “behind the age,” and they had words. And then Wilkins in a pet said he should resign, and the young clergyman said he was very glad of it, and he thought it was about time, as Mr. Wilkins had been spoiled, by his predecessor allowing him to have his own way, and was too old now to learn different.

The end of it was that one evening Mr. Wilkins came into our bar-parlour very excited, and said he had given that whipper-snapper a bit of his mind, and resigned his place, and he was going to accept his married daughter’s offer, and go to Australia.

At first, when he said it, his old friends who were present said, “Go on!” But he soon let them know that he was serious. And the next day he went up to London to make arrangements about a passage for himself and his daughter.

It made quite a sensation in the village, as soon as it was known that our old parish clerk was going to Australia. A committee met at our house, and it was determined, in recognition of his long connection with the parish, and the esteem in which he was held by everybody, to give him what Graves, the farrier, called “a good send-off.” There was a lot of talk about how it was to be done, and at last it was determined to get up “a Wilkins Testimonial and Banquet.” It was settled that the banquet was to be at our house, and Harry entered into it heart and soul, because he liked Wilkins very much. There was a lot of dispute as to what the testimonial was to be, and at last it was decided that something that an inscription could be put on was best—something that he could keep and show to everybody and leave behind him as a family heirloom.

Harry suggested a piece of plate, and that was agreed to after some absurd remarks by Graves, who wanted to know what a piece of plate was like; and when it was agreed to be a silver tankard, with an inscription on it, Graves said he thought a plate was something to eat off, and he couldn’t see how anything that you drank out of could be a plate.