Pages from a Journal with Other Papers

by William Hale White

“Oh, I saw it all, going out without your hat and standing there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper. I wonder what the lightermen thought of you.”

It will already have been noticed that the question what other people thought was always the test which was put in Langborough whenever anything was done or anything happened not in accordance with the usual routine, and Mrs. Cobb struck at her husband’s conscience by referring him to his lightermen. She continued—

“And you know what she is as well as I do, and if she’d been respectable you’d have been rude to her, as you generally are.”

“You bought that last new gown of her, and you never had one as fitted you so well.”

“What’s that got to do with it? You may be sure I knew my place when I went there. Fit? Yes, it did fit; them sort of women, it stands to reason, are just the women to fit you.”

Mr. Cobb was silent. He was a mild man, and he knew by much experience how unprofitable controversy with Mrs. Cobb was. He could not forget Mrs. Fairfax’s stooping figure when she was about to pick up the bill. She caused in all the Langborough males an unaccustomed quivering and warmth, the same in each, physical, perhaps, but salutary, for the monotony of life was relieved thereby and a deference and even a grace were begotten which did not usually distinguish Langborough manners. Not one of Mrs. Fairfax’s admirers, however, could say that she showed any desire for conversation with him, nor could any direct evidence be obtained as to what she thought of things in general. There was, to be sure, the French book, and there were other circumstances already mentioned from which suspicion or certainty (suspicion, as we have seen, passing immediately into certainty in Langborough) of infidelity or disreputable conduct followed, but no corroborating word from her could be adduced. She attended to her business, accepted orders with thanks and smiles, talked about the weather and the accident to the coach, was punctual in her attendance at church, calm and inscrutable as the Sphinx. The attendance at church was, of course, set down to “business considerations,” and was held to be quite consistent with the scepticism and loose morality deducible from the French book and the unground coffee.

In speaking of the male creatures of the town we have left out Dr. Midleton. He was forty-eight years old, and had been rector twenty years. He had obtained high mathematical honours at Cambridge, and became a tutor in a grammar school, but was soon presented by his college with the living of Langborough. He was tall, spare, clean-shaven, grey-eyed, dark-haired, thin-faced, his lips were curved and compressed, and he stooped slightly. He was a widower with no children, and the Rectory was efficiently kept in order by an aged housekeeper. Tractarianism had not arisen in 1839, but he was High Church and an enemy to all kinds of fanaticism, apt to be satirical, even in his sermons, on the right of private judgment to interpret texts as it pleased in ignorance of Hebrew and Greek. He was respected and feared more than any other man in the parish. He had a great library, and had taken up archæology as a hobby. He knew the history of every church in the county, and more about the Langborough records than was known by the town clerk. He was chairman of a Board of Governors charged with the administration of wealthy trust for alms and schools. When he first took office he found that this trust was controlled almost entirely by a man named Jackson, a local solicitor, whose salary as clerk was £400 a year and who had a large private practice. The alms were allotted to serve political purposes, and the headmaster of the school enjoyed a salary of £800 a year for teaching forty boys, of whom twenty were boarders. Mr. Midleton—he was Mr. Midleton then—very soon determined to alter this state of things. Jackson went about sneering at the newcomer who was going to turn the place upside down, and having been accustomed to interfere in the debates in the Board-room, interrupted the Rector at the third or fourth meeting.

“You’ll get yourself in a mess if you do that, Mr. Chairman.”

“Mr. Jackson,” replied the Rector, rising slowly, “it may perhaps save trouble if I remind you now, once for all, that I am chairman and you are the clerk. Mr. Bingham, you were about to speak.”

It was Dr. Midleton who obtained the new Act of Parliament remodelling the trust, whereby a much larger portion of its funds was devoted to education. Jackson died, partly from drink and partly from spite and vexation, and the headmaster was pensioned. The Rector was not popular with the middle class. He was not fond of paying visits, but he never neglected his duty, and by the poor was almost beloved, for he was careless and intimate in his talk with them and generous to real distress. Everybody admired his courage. The cholera in 1831 was very bad in Langborough, and the people were in a panic at the new disease, which was fatal in many cases within six hours after the first attack. The Rector through that dark time was untouched by the contagious dread which overpowered his parishioners, and his presence carried confidence and health. On the worst day, sultry, stifling, with no sun, an indescribable terror crept abroad, and Mr. Cobb, standing at his gate, was overcome by it. In five minutes he had heard of two deaths, and he began to feel what were called “premonitory symptoms.” He carried a brandy flask in his pocket, brandy being then considered a remedy, and he drank freely, but imagined himself worse. He was about to rush indoors and tell Mrs. Cobb to send for the surgeon, when the Rector passed.