Trevlyn Hold: A Novel

by Mrs. Henry Wood

CHAPTER XX

AN INVASION AT THE PARSONAGE

On the lower road, leading from Trevlyn Farm to Barbrook, stood Barbrook Rectory. A pretty house, covered with ivy, standing in the midst of a flourishing garden, and surrounded by green fields. An exceedingly pretty place for its size, that parsonage—it was never styled anything else—but very small. Fortunately the parsons inhabiting it had none of them owned large families, or they would have been at fault for room.

The present occupant was the Reverend John Freeman. Occupant of the parsonage house, but not incumbent of the living. The living, in the gift of a neighbouring cathedral, was held by one of the chapter; and he delegated his charge (beyond an occasional sermon) to a curate. It had been so in the old time when Squire Trevlyn flourished, and it was so still. Whispers were abroad that when the death of this canon should take place—a very old man, both as to years and occupancy of his prebendal stall—changes would be made, and the next incumbent would have to reside on the living. But this has nothing to do with us, and I don't know why I have alluded to it.

Mr. Freeman had been curate of the place for more than twenty years. He succeeded the Reverend Shafto Dean, of whom you have heard. Mr. Dean had remained at Barbrook only a very short time after his sister's marriage to Joe Trevlyn. That event had not tended to allay the irritation existing between Trevlyn Hold and the parsonage, and on some promotion being offered to Mr. Dean he accepted it. The promotion given him was in the West Indies: he would not have chosen a residence there under happier auspices; but he felt sick of the ceaseless contention of Squire Trevlyn. Mr. Dean went out to the West Indies, and died of fever within six months of his arrival. Mr. Freeman had succeeded him at Barbrook, and Mr. Freeman was there still: a married man, without children.

The parsonage household was very modest. One servant only was kept; and if you have the pleasure of making both ends meet at the end of the year upon the moderate sum of one hundred pounds sterling, you will wonder how even that servant could be retained. But a clergyman has advantages in some points over the rest of the world: at least this one had; his house was rent-free, and his garden supplied more vegetables and fruit than his household could consume. Some of the choicer fruit he sold. His superfluous vegetables he gave away; and many and many a cabbage leaf full of gooseberries and currants did the little parish children look out for, and receive. He was a quiet, pleasant little man of fifty, with a fair face and a fat double chin. Never an ill word had he had with any one in the parish since he came into it. His wife was pleasant, too, and talkative; and would as soon be caught by visitors making puddings in the kitchen, or shelling peas for dinner, as sitting in state in the drawing-room.

At the back of the house, detached from it, was a room called the brewhouse, where sundry abnormal duties, quite out of the regular routine of things, were performed. A boiler was in one corner, a large board or table which would put up or let down at will was under the casement, and the floor was paved. On the morning of the day when Mr. Cris Chattaway contrived to separate his dog-cart from its shafts, or to let his new horse do it for him, of which you will hear more presently, this brewhouse was so filled with steam that you could not see across it. A tall, strong, rosy-faced woman, looking about thirty years of age, was standing over a washing-tub; and in the boiler, bubbling and seething, white linen heaved up and down like the waves of a small sea.

You have seen the woman before, though the chances are you have forgotten all about her. It is Molly, who once lived at Trevlyn Farm. Some five years ago she came to an issue with the ruling potentates, Mrs. Ryle and Nora, and the result was a parting. Since then Molly had been living at the parsonage, and had grown to be valued by her master and mistress. She looks taller than ever, but wears pattens to keep her feet from the wet flags.

Molly was rubbing vigorously at her master's surplice—which shared the benefits of the wash with more ignoble things, when the church-clock striking caused her to pause and glance up through the open window. She was counting the strokes.

"Twelve o'clock, as I'm alive! I knew it must have gone eleven, but never thought it was twelve yet! And nothing out but a handful o' coloured things and the flannels! If missis was at home, she'd say I'd been wasting all my morning gossiping."