Trimblerigg

by Laurence Housman

In this large and tolerant atmosphere, where modernism was beginning to lift its head, Mr. Trimblerigg stood all alone. It was a challenge that delighted him. He had no illusions as to the lack of a future outlook afforded by adherence to the strict tenets of True Belief: but he had the sense to realize that what a student believes, or thinks he believes, in his teens under the unavoidable influence of the parental upbringing, matters nothing to his future career. Only when he comes to man’s estate, and the full and free possession of his faculties do his opinions and pronouncements begin to measure his qualification for advancement. In the meantime he could sharpen his wits, acquire knowledge, and develop his resources for dialectic and for oratory just as well by maintaining the improbable side of the argument as the probable; what better test indeed for his powers? Convictions could come later, what he wanted now was training; and though as yet unconvinced himself, he might on the way convince others, if only a few, even of the truth of tenets which he meant presently to discard.

There were three hundred students at the college, fifty of them women, and he himself the only ‘True Believer,’ with the additional drawback that in most of the points distinguishing his branch of the Free Church body from others he did not truly believe. Yet he never doubted that in free debate he could profess a belief that would sound plausible, and put up at least an attractive fight even though eventual defeat awaited him.

But though his calculating mind gave a silver lining to the cloud which hung over him, it was, I maintain, an act of courage when he stepped so buoyantly into the arena to face a three-years’ process of defeat, and by defeat to learn the ways of victory. And though presently the buffetings which he had to endure were tremendous, he was able in letters, and in conversation when he went home, to convey to his uncle the impression that True Belief was not only holding its own, but winning its way in the strongholds of infidelity. Had he not already made converts, for proof? Three of the students, two male, one female, had become True Believers.

One day he brought them over and exhibited them to his uncle, and when his uncle had examined them thoroughly in their new-found faith his trust in Mr. Trimblerigg became almost complete. But still not quite. Uncle Phineas was a cautious character, and not for nothing had caution, assisted by revelation, been his companion for eighty-four years.

It was at this time that he re-made his will, re-made it in a curious way and let the family know of it. He executed two wills on the same day with the same witnesses; and laying both by, waited for time to decide which of the two should survive him.

‘I have great hopes of you, Jonathan,’ he said. ‘I’m watching you, often when you don’t think; and when I’m not quite clear in my own mind the Book tells me.’

That was Uncle Phineas’s strong point in his reading of character: the Book could not lead him astray. It was upon that point that Mr. Trimblerigg felt himself most vulnerable. He might trace and traverse to stand in his uncle’s good graces, he might abundantly deserve his confidence and all that should go with it or follow from it after his death; but nothing that he could do would prevent the Book opening in the wrong place at the last critical moment, or prevent Phineas from believing that whatever it then told him was true.

And so though Mr. Trimblerigg did in those three years by all his contemporary acts if not by his calculations, deserve that his uncle should think well of him, he could never be quite sure.

During his second year he heard from Davidina that she had fallen out of her uncle’s favour,—an event which, having the two wills in mind he did not disapprove; but when he heard later that a hitherto unconsidered great-niece had appeared upon the scene and was keeping house for his uncle, his mind grew troubled. This was a cousin whom he had never seen, named Caroline; the circumstance that she had lately become an orphan made her available as a house-companion for one who, needing an arm to lean on, did not yet require a nurse. She was older than Jonathan by three years, and had managed from her mother’s side to be of fair complexion.

Davidina nicknamed her ‘the dream-cow’; and when Mr. Trimblerigg saw her for the first time on his return home during vacation he had to admit that the name suited. She was a large creamy creature, slightly mottled with edges of pink; vague, equable, good-tempered, taking things as they came; rather stupid to talk to, but not uncomely to look upon.