Edgar was delighted. He asked about the ice, what it was, an ornamental piece of water, or the village pond; and told Molly he would go and see her village, and try whether he or she could remember most of the sermon. Phil interfered when he heard this bargain. He shook his head over the rashness of his new friend.
“She has an awful good memory,” he said, “I wouldn’t try against her, Mr. Earnshaw, if I was you. She remembers what people said ages and ages ago, and comes down upon you after you have forgotten all about it. I wouldn’t go in against Moll.”
“But I haven’t such an awfully good memory for sermons,” said Molly, with modest deprecation of the excessive praise, “though I do remember most things pretty well.”
“Molly will win of course; but I shall try my best,” said Edgar. The children suited him best on this day of exhilaration when his heart was so foolishly free. He caught the father and mother looking at him, with significant glances to each other, while this conversation was going on, and was bewildered to think what they could mean. What did they mean? It was altogether bewildering and perplexing. The man who attended him that morning had informed him that he had been told off for his especial service, and had looked somewhat offended when Edgar laughed and declared he required no particular tending. “I ’ad my horders, Sir,” said the man. Everybody seemed to have their orders; and if that curious insanity of thought which had assailed him yesterday, a running riot of imagination, for which he did not feel himself to be responsible—if that came back again, tearing open the doors of his heart, and pouring through them, was it his fault?
The village lay at the park gates; but villages so near London are not like villages in the depths of the country. This was one where there was a number of smaller gentlefolks, tributaries on all great occasions of Tottenham’s; but when they had a chance, very glad to note any deficiency on the part of the man whom they called a nouveau riche, and even a shopkeeper, which was the title of deepest reproach they could think of. Indeed if Mr. Tottenham had not married Lady Mary, I believe he would have had many little pricks and stings from his poor yet well-born neighbours; but a Lady Mary in English village society cannot do wrong. It was a pleasant walk to church, where they all went together, the children walking demurely in honour of Sunday, though Phil’s eye and heart were tempted by the long expanse of white which showed between two lines of green at the right side of the road.
“It is hard enough to bear the big town carriage,” he said confidentially to Edgar, “or one of the farmer’s huge carts.”
“We’ll go and see it after church,” said Edgar in the same tone; and so the little procession moved on. Perhaps Lady Mary was the one who cared for this family progress to church the least. Mr. Tottenham, though he was given over to schemes of the most philosophical description, was the simplest soul alive, doing his duty in this respect with as light a heart as his children. But Lady Mary was very “viewy.” She was an advanced liberal, and read the “Fortnightly,” and smiled at many things that were said out of the pulpit once a week. Sometimes even she would laugh a little at the “duty” of going to church, and hearing old Mr. Burton maunder for half an hour; but all the same she respected her husband’s prejudices, and the traditions of the superior class, which, even when it believes in natural equality, still feels it necessary to set an example to its neighbours. Lady Mary professed sentiments which were inclined towards republicanism and democracy; but nevertheless she knew that she was one of the gods, and had to conduct herself as became that regnant position among men.
“There goes the shopkeeper and his family,” said Mrs. Colonel Witherington from her window, which looked out on the village green. “Girls, it is time to put on your bonnets. A man like that is bred up to be punctual; he comes to church as he goes to the shop, as the hour strikes. There he goes—”
“As ostentatiously humble as ever,” said one of the girls.
“And he has got one of the shopmen with him, mamma,” said Myra, who was the wit of the family. “Not a bad looking draper’s assistant; they always have the shopmen out on Sundays. Poor fellows, it is their only day.”