“When did you hear all this?”
“All within an hour after breakfast. I have been entirely occupied this afternoon in directing Tom what to do, and I must be off to see that he has carried out my instructions. What a coil it is! and yet I rather like it.”
Catharine reflected that her father did not seem to like it at dinner-time, and went through the familiar operation of putting two and two together. She accompanied him to the front gate, and as he passed out she said—
“You have not given Tom notice?”
“No, my dear, not yet. It would be a little inconvenient at present. I could do without him easily, even now; but perhaps it will be better to wait. Besides, he is a little more teachable after the talking-to I have given him.”
Mr. Furze signed his letters. He did not observe that many others, of which he had not thought, remained to be written, and when Tom brought them the next day he made no remark. The assumption was that he had noticed the day before what remained to be done, saw that it was not urgent, and consented to the delay. The curious thing was that he assumed it to himself. It is a tact—not incredible to those who know that nobody, not the most accomplished master in flattery, can humbug us so completely as we can and do humbug ourselves—that Mr. Furze, ten minutes after the letters were posted, was perfectly convinced that he had foreseen the necessity of each one—that he had personally and thoroughly controlled the whole day’s operations, and that Tom had performed the duties of a merely menial clerk. As he went home he thought over Catharine’s attitude with regard to Tom. She, in reality, had been anxious to protect her father; but such a motive he could not be expected to suggest to himself. A horrid notion came into his head. She might be fond of Tom! Did she not once save his life? Had she not, even when a child, pleaded that something ought to be done for him? Had she not affirmed that he was indispensable? Had she not inquired again about him that very day? Had she not openly expressed her contempt for that most eligible person, Mr. Colston? He determined to watch most strictly, and again he resolved to dismiss his assistant. A trifling increase in his attention to small matters should enable him to do this within a month or two. It would be as well for Mrs. Furze to watch too. After supper Catharine went to bed early, and her father hung out the white flag, to which friendly response was given directly the subject of his communications was apparent. It became a basis of almost instantaneous reconciliation, and Mrs. Furze, mindful of the repulse of the brewer’s son and the ruin of her own scheme thereon built, hated Tom more than ever. It was Tom, then, who had prevented admission into Eastthorpe society.
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Tom Catchpole had never had any schooling. What he had learned he had learned by himself, and the books he had read were but few, and chosen rather by chance. He had never had the advantage of the common introduction to the world of ideas which is given, in a measure, to all boys who are systematically taught by teachers, and consequently, not knowing the relative value of what came before him, his perspective and proportion were incorrect. His mind, too, was essentially plain. He was perfect in his loyalty to duty; he was, as we have seen, very good in business matters, had a clear head, and could give shrewd advice upon any solid, matter-of-fact difficulty, but the spiritual world was non-existent for him. He attended chapel regularly, for he was a Dissenter, but his reasons for going, so far as he had any, were very simple. There was a great God in heaven, against whom he had sinned and was perpetually sinning. To save himself from the consequences of his transgressions certain means were provided and he was bound to use them. On Monday morning chapel and all thoughts connected with it entirely disappeared, but he said his prayers twice a day with great regularity. There are very few, however, of God’s creatures to whom the supernatural does not in some way present itself, and no man lives by bread alone. To Tom, Catharine was miracle, soul, inspiration, religion, enthusiasm, patriotism, immortality, the fact, essentially identical, whatever we like to call it, which is not bread and yet is life. He never dared to say anything to her. He felt that she lived in a world beyond him, and he did not know what kind of a world it was. He knew that she thought about things which were strange to him, and that she was anxious upon subjects which never troubled him. She was often greatly depressed when there was no cause for depression so far as he could see, and he could not comprehend why a person should be ill when there was nothing the matter. If he felt unwell—a rare event with him—he always took two antibilous pills before going to bed, and was all right the next morning. He wished he himself could be ill without a reason, and then perhaps he would be able to understand Catharine better. Her elation and excitement were equally unintelligible. He once saw her sitting in her father’s counting-house with a book. She was not a great reader—nobody in Eastthorpe read books, and there were not many to read—but she was so absorbed in this particular book that she did not lift her eyes from it when he came in, and it was not until her father had spoken twice to her, and had told her that he was expecting somebody, that she moved. She then ran upstairs into a storeroom, and was there for half an hour in the cold. The book was left open when she went away, and Tom looked at it. It was a collection of poems by all kinds of people, and the one over which she had been poring was about a man who had shot an albatross. Tom studied it, but could make nothing of it, and yet this was what had so much interested her! “O God!” he said to himself passionately, “if I could, if I did but know! She cares not a pin for me; this is what she cares for.” Poor Tom! he did not pride himself on the absence of a sense in him, but knew and acknowledged to himself that he was defective. It is quite possible to be aware of a spiritual insensibility which there is no power to overcome—of the existence of a universe in which other favoured souls are able to live, one which they can report, and yet its doors are closed to us, or, if sitting outside we catch a glimpse of what is within, we have no power to utter a single sufficient word to acquaint anybody with what we have seen: Catharine respected Tom greatly, for she understood well enough what her father owed to him, but she could not love him. One penetrating word from Mr. Cardew thrilled every fibre in her, no matter what the subject might be. Tom, in every mood and on every topic, was uninteresting and ordinary. To tell the truth, plain, common probity taken by itself was not attractive to her. Horses, dogs, cows, the fields were more stimulant than perfect integrity, for she was young and did not know how precious it was; but, after all, the reason of reasons why she did not love Tom was that she did not love him.
It was announced one day by small handbills in the shop windows that a sermon was to be preached by Mr. Cardew, of Abchurch, in Eastthorpe, on behalf of the County Infirmary, and Catharine went to hear him. It was in the evening, and she was purposely late. She did no go to her mother’s pew, but sat down close to the door. To her surprise she saw Tom not far off. He was on his way to his chapel when he noticed Catharine alone, walking towards the church, and he had followed her. Mr. Cardew took for his text the parable of the prodigal son. He began by saying that this parable had been taken to be an exhibition of God’s love for man. It seemed rather intended to set forth, not the magnificence of the Divine nature, but of human nature—of that nature which God assumed. The determination on the part of the younger son to arise, to go to his father, and above everything to say to him simply, “Father, I have sinned,” was as great as God is great: it was God—God moving in us; in a sense it was far more truly God—far greater than the force which binds the planets into a system. But the splendour of human nature—do not suppose any heresy here; it is Bible truth, the very gospel—is shown in the father as well as in the son.
“When he was yet a great way off.” We are as good as told then, that day after day the father had been watching. How small were the probabilities that at any particular hour the son would return, and yet every hour the father’s eyes were on that long, dusty road! When at last he saw what he was dying to see, what did he say? Was there a word of rebuke? He stopped his boy’s mouth with kisses and cried for the best robe and the ring and the shoes, and proclaimed a feast—the ring, mark you, a sign of honour!