In a Quiet Village

by S. Baring-Gould

She opened to him her heart as well as her home. And there he remained. He made no movement to leave. Perhaps he perceived that nowhere else would he be so kindly and forgivingly dealt with. Not one word of reproach came from her.

Then it became clear that his stay would not be for long, not that he desired and purposed leaving, but that a hand was pointing sternly to him to move on, to move on from a world in which he had done no worthy act, into another in which he would have to account for his worthlessness.

Auntie fought against the conviction that he was dying. She sent for the best doctors, she provided the most nourishing diet she could procure for him. Her great sorrow was that her means would not allow her to send him to Davos or to some other place of cure.

Warnacre was not a pleasant person to have in the house and as a patient. He grumbled at the wine provided—it came from the grocer, he said; it was without bouquet, mere made-up stuff. He grumbled at his meat, it was tough and overdone or underdone. He bragged about the great people with whom he had dined, whom he had known familiarly; or he whined over the ingratitude and heartlessness of the world, or murmured against that Providence which had thwarted him in all he had taken in hand.

Yet, through all, patiently, lovingly, cheerfully, the old maid ministered to him, bore with his meanness, turned aside his sarcasms, apologised for his ungraciousness when visited by any from the Hall or rectory.

She treasured up every imaginary sign of returning health and shut her eyes to the tokens of decline. At length he was dead, and was laid in the churchyard, unlamented save by Auntie.

Of his son he professed to know nothing. He had not run across him in his meanders through the shady world in which he had moved. But in the heart of Auntie there was still a root of love and expectation that concerned John.

Above Mr. Warnacre’s grave, Auntie, by stinting herself, was able to erect a costly monumental stone, on which was represented a broken lily, the symbol of Warnacre’s stainless life. The inscription recorded his merits in somewhat fulsome terms that were, however, not unreal and untrue to Auntie, or she would not have sanctioned them, for over that wretched creature still hung some of the halo of her first love and idealisation.

And after that her sight failed, and happily not long after that, gently, without pain, old Auntie’s eyes closed altogether.

But then Mrs. Estcourt was gone. Her husband had predeceased her, and at the Hall reigned a nephew, a man of sport, who knew not Auntie.