CARES OF A CURATE
"November 6th, 1901.
"... You were with me much down at H—— in the spring, and saw many of the ins and outs of a certain affair then going on in which I was personally interested, and which took up a large portion of my time; and I think I owe it to you, Charles, to let you know how to all that foolishness there came a finish. This 'excellent bachelor' is not to be spoilt by matrimony. She wouldn't have me. And so on, and so on. I spare you all particulars, and you see that I am alive to tell the tale. It made things a little difficult at H——. I got away as soon as I could and met with another curacy in this place, and I write to you on the evening of my arrival. It looks a cheerful, pretty little spot, but I haven't shaken down yet, and thoughts of H——, and of last May when you were with me, keep turning up in my mind to-night.
"My vicar seems all right. I thought it very decent of him to meet me himself at the station. He apologised for having insisted on an answer to his written question—was I a confirmed bachelor? The ladies of the parish were in favour of a celibate curate, he said, and he himself did not want to be bothered by a man who would be getting married directly, and going away. I told him there would not be any fear of misdemeanour of that kind with me.
"He brought me on here—well no, he didn't, that was what I wished him to do. He took me to the vicarage and gave me tea. His daughter gave it, rather. You'd like the daughter. Not very young, and not pretending to be; filled with good sense, a practical, companionable sort of body. She, too, was good enough to approve my estate of confirmed bachelorhood. She said they had found things work so much pleasanter on these lines. The last three of her father's curates had been devoted to the single life. I asked, for the sake of conversation, what had become of them, and she told me, without the change of a muscle of her face, that they had married. The vicar awoke to the subject of our conversation here, and said that they had married his three other daughters.
"'Jessica is the only one left me now,' he said.
"'Jessica must always be left or what will become of you?' the sensible young woman said.
"A great many women would have felt it a little awkward, but she was quite unembarrassed. She very kindly put on her hat to show me the way to my rooms. Even came in, and sat talking for an hour. She said quite naturally that the best thing a woman got out of advancing years was the possibility of making of a man a friend. She is thirty-five, and isn't ashamed of the fact. Altogether a refreshing woman.
"My rooms are not like those at H——. Do you remember that evening in May when your sister had been on the river with the Hysopps, and she and Tom and the mother came in, and they brought Mary? The moon was on the water, and we would not have in the lamps, but sat and talked in that light. Well, there's no river here, and the moon doesn't shine, and there are one or two other things missing! But Mrs Bust, my landlady—what a name!—appears a decent sort, and to judge by my supper to-night, an excellent cook.
"By the way, every available jug and jar and glass is filled with chrysanthemums. No less than seven ladies, whose names she gave me, had brought up bunches during the day, Mrs Bust said.
"This really looks extremely kind of the people. I thought it such a pretty way of welcoming a stranger....
"26th November.
"I'm not in the least offended. Why should I be? I know, as you say, that lookers-on see most of the game, and I am sure that you are perfectly genuine in your advice. But I have had enough, thank you. It will last me my life. Besides, you are mistaken—she wouldn't. A girl like that with four hundred a year—I always knew the money was a bar—why should she? I've got no illusions about myself, as a rule. I was a fool ever to think it possible. Thank you—but don't say any more about it. I ask it as a favour. I have rolled a stone against that door, you understand. 'Want but a few things and complain of nothing' shall be my motto; and although at a certain time of my life I wanted a good deal, at least I won't complain.
"If only there were fewer women in the world! Fewer in B——, perhaps, would answer my purpose. The fact of my being a confirmed bachelor makes them feel safe with me, I suppose, but the fact is I can't stir for them, Charles; I stifle with them. I wish you'd run down and take some of the pressure off. I wish a few other good fellows would come and rescue me. Her mother said that Mary (the forbidden topic!) was not suited for a clergyman's wife, that she hated useful work. Perhaps that was why I liked her so much. She never bored me. These women—!
"They are as kind as angels. I'm going to run my pen through the above.
"I've got in a piano—you know my weakness for strumming? My landlady's daughter shares that weakness. I hear the piano begin before I reach the garden gate, I hear it shut with a bang as I come in at the door. Waltzes, played very quick, and galops with the loud pedal down and an impromptu bass. Her mother suggested to me that Cissy should come in and play to me in the evenings sometimes. I did not exactly jump at the offer, and Mrs Bust, to remove a possible objection in my mind, explained that of course she had not intended to leave her daughteralonewith me; she herself could bring her sewing and chaperon her, she said.
"I am beginning to dread my meals because this good woman waits on me. I have begged to be allowed to pour out my own glass of beer and to reach my own salt-cellar. No use.
"Mrs Carter, an influential parishioner, living at a nice place called The Lawns (I haven't counted how many there are of them, but have noticed a few yards of grass-plot at the side of the house), said to me the other day that she believed I was a woman-hater. I had encountered fifteen of them at her house and was in a desperate mood. I said I was. I thought I was safe with Mrs Carter. I've met each one of that fifteen since, and she has in every case stopped to say to me—'Oh, I hear you're a woman-hater!' They all seemed to be mightily pleased. It put me in a stupid position. I managed to say something civil to each; but I have a bone to pick with Mrs Carter! She is always poking her fun at every one, and wants to know if I don't make an exception in favour of Jessica.
"Jessica!!
"She and I get on together, however. So we need; for she is an ardent worker in the parish, and morn and noon and dewy eve are she and I thrown together. Often, when I think to have an hour to myself for reading or writing, she comes to my room and sits over the fire with me, her petticoats carefully lifted, her feet on the fender—I am tempted to wish her at Jericho; but she is a good sort....
"5th December.
"Many thanks for your brilliant suggestion. Very thoughtful of you. Jessica is not in the least that kind of woman. She might have been married ten years ago if she had liked. She told me all about it. The last man who married the sistermeantto have Jessica.
"I say, there's a tragedy, Charles! To feel as you do about the woman you want to marry, and to have to go through it with another!
"She's a splendid manager and organiser, and a devoted worker. She told me yesterday that if ever she did consent to marry it would have to be her father's curate; she would neither leave the parish nor her father, she said. A lot of women would have been embarrassed in saying that, and I can see the expression of your face as you read it. Spare your gibes. Jessica is miles above the ordinary tricks and wiles and falsities of women. You'd know it if you saw her. A stout, strong-looking young woman in thick boots and short skirts; a weather-beaten, serviceable being.
"It must have been for her sterling qualities those other men were in love with Jessica. All the same, dreadful, doubtless, to lose her.
"I note your news of H——. I have cut off all relations with that place. People there don't know where I am. Have forgotten that I exist, most likely. Do not trouble to send me any further information.
"Ah, my dear Charles! If I only might do my work for the next world after a manly fashion, as other men do the work of this! These women won't let me. They are in everything. They meddle and mar and make mischief. Half of the Fifteen (can you halve them?) are at loggerheads with the other half because of words I am reported to have said. They quarrel with each other, but, heaven help me! they won't quarrel with me. They make me perpetual presents, they ask me endless questions, they consult me in difficulties of their own ingenious making and always cropping up. Half of them have husbands they might go to, children to occupy their time. One is at least sixty—!
"A girl and her mother have been here to see me to-day. Mother indignant, girl in floods of tears. Some one of the Fifteen had said that the girl was 'running after' me. Me, with my thirty-eight years, my fortune of a hundred and fifty a year! Can't you see my blushes on the paper as I write it? Had her daughter by look, by word, by deed, done anything to deserve that cruel slander, the mother wanted to know? Then, was I not ashamed such things should be said? God knows I am ashamed, but what can I do? They are always saying such things one of another. How can I stop it?
"'You must not be so civil to them,' Jessica says.
"I assure her that without positive rudeness I can't be less civil than I am.
"'Then, be rude to them,' counsels Jessica.
"How can one man, standing alone, immersed in rummage sales, parish concerts, mothers' meetings, school teas, and other feminine functions, be rude to Fifteen women at once? Between you and me, I have tried it, in my desperation, in individual cases, and it has no effect. I have discovered you can't please a woman better than to bully her.
"'You must marry Jessica,' Mrs Carter says. 'Married to Jessica you will find yourself a mere man, a very ordinary person.'
"'I should want an extraordinary nerve to do it,' I was on the point of saying, but remembered in time how she had reported me to the Fifteen. The pulpit is becoming the only place where I can enjoy the luxury of free speech. Words spoken in any less public place are brought back to me distorted past recognition.
"Heigho! I am always grumbling. As a fact, people put themselves out in the most flattering manner to be kind to me; I suppose I am as comfortable here as I should be in any place after H——.
"Little Cissy Bust found out that I was fond of flowers. Since then she pulls off a chrysanthemum every morning from the plant in her mother's window, and lays it beside my plate. Sweet of the little thing, but I watch with dismay the blooms lessening on the maternal plant. The mother is a good sort, in her way, but as I've been working in it all day I don't care to be bothered with the tittle-tattle of the parish when I come home at night. She is always bringing me delicacies off her own table. I have to eat them, because she stops to see me do it....
"19th December.
"How many afternoon tea-cloths have I had given me since I came, Charles? Guess.
"Nine. I haven't the smallest use for one of them. I never get the chance of having tea at home in the afternoon, being always under the obligation to eat muffins in this lady's house or that. Jessica came in through wind and rain one day and said she'd like to have a cup. Here seemed my opportunity. I showed her the nine and facetiously asked her to choose; or should I spread them all at once? She always has too much in hand to stop to jest over trifles; she waved the tea-cloths aside, and seized her cup off Mrs Bust's tray, and went on talking shop. I don't want to decry Jessica. She's worth all the rest put together. While they gabble, she does things. If Mrs Carter (who hates the sight of her, by the way) and the rest of them would only let us alone!
"So the engagement at H—— is broken off! It must be a blow to poor Holt, but I never thought him suited to her. Who is, I wonder? What a madness it was to think that she and I could pull together. Imagine that little teasing, irresponsible child in such a box as this, bored to death by these interminable women! For all her naughtiness and her folly she was wiser than I. But I am wiser now.
"Of course, if you hear of any fresh engagements or new freaks of the young lady, you will let me know at once.
"Mrs Bust was insolent about that cup of tea. I greatly hope Jessica did not notice the way she banged the tray down. She said afterwards that nosinglelady should come to asinglegentleman's rooms, let alone take a meal with him. If there were other rooms to be had I would not put up with this creature. My dear Charles, I'm getting to be, in reality, what I've had the credit for being all along—a woman-hater.
"I go a good bit to Mrs Carter's. Her house is comfortable, and she is an amusing creature. Sees jokes, and cheers one up. She teases me about my beset condition, and tries to get me tosaythings. She calls me Job, and the Fifteen my comforters. Neither witty nor appropriate, but it pleases Mrs Carter. She says the least I can do is to give the nine donors of the nine tea-cloths tea. I frankly told her of the difficulty with Bust, who is inexorable on the matter of etiquette. It will be all right if she comes, Mrs Carter says. She is so set on it, I've had to give in. I've asked them. They're coming on Thursday.
"Oh, my dear old man, how my head aches!
"Mrs Carter keeps sending me up chickens, jellies, game, and things. She says I've shrunk three stone since I came. It's love, she says, and I shan't be all right till I'm married to Jessica.
"What rot women talk!
"Can this be true? She declares to me that the vicar told her in confidence he would soon be losing his daughter from his house, if not from his parish.
"You see the inference. There is not another even faintly eligible bachelor in the wholecharmingplace. (Use your own epithet in place of the underlined word. I should rather like to hear you do it).
"I said, straight out, she had no business to repeat to me what, however silly, had been said in her private ear. She was quite unimpressed. 'In such a place as this what should we do if we did not repeat things?' she asked.
"She told me, as a huge joke, that her husband had overheard the servants saying she called me by my Christian name! Carter went to her for an explanation. No doubt she had chosen to call me 'Job,' or some nonsense of the kind, when the servants were in the room. She's delighted, and says Carter was quite annoyed.
"He's about the only Man in the woman-ridden place; after this I shall be ashamed to look him in the face.
"When Mrs Bust was taking away my supper to-night she requested me not in future to speak to her daughter as 'Cissy.' It was so verymarked. I was not in the mood to receive the rebuff calmly, and she simmered down. Young girls got such strange ideas in their heads, she said. It was better not to betoofamiliar!
"Poor little Cissy, aged sixteen, and her flower on my plate! I've had a certain pleasure in that unfailing mark of a little girl's goodwill; but to receive a flower fromMiss Bust! I shall hurl it into the coal-box in the morning....
"2nd January1902.
"You harp a great deal on one string, old man. I know you mean it kindly, I know you'd like to see things put right for me in that quarter, but do believe I've had enough. I don't pretend—to you—it was a pleasant experience. I won't deny it was a nasty knock—but it's over, and Richard's himself again.
"You ask about the tea. Oh, well, there was no tea. At the last minute Mrs Bust refused to make tea for Mrs Carter. To the other nine she did not actively object—safety in numbers, I suppose—but Mrs Carter, it seems, had asked her during the progress of my last cold if she had neglected to air the sheets for my room. Such impertinence from any woman no lady could suffer, Mrs Bust informed me. Into her house Mrs Carter shall never set foot again. Seeing that I had laid in the cakes and sweeties and rubbish for the tea she suggested that she herself and Cissy should be of the company. In that case the most particular, she assured me, would have nothing to get hold of. I scrupled not to make plain to her that her plan did not commend itself to me.
"Mrs Carter is delighted, and tells the story, with additions, everywhere. She asked the nine to her own house and I had to show up. Carter was to have come home but of course he didn't. Small blame to him. By the way, he has become positively uncivil to me lately. In my hearing, the other night, he said something about the clergy 'for ever smothered with women's petticoats, and with their feet under better men's tables.' I have liked Carter hitherto, and shall have it out with him when I get the chance.
"You see, Charles, that girl fooled me thoroughly. I thought she liked me. You thought it yourself; you said so. I thought she meant me to know she liked. She is so young, so pretty, so rich in everything the world holds of value. If I had not fancied encouragement I never should have made the attempt. To come down such a crusher! Perhaps what you say is right. She may seem to think kindly of me now, she may even have spoken to your sister of the episode as you say; but let me put myself in the same place again and the same thing would happen. I'm not blaming her. God knows I don't blame her. I blame myself for being a blind ass. I hope she'll be happy, poor little girl. I want her to be. With all her irresponsibleness and her outside naughtiness and frivolity, her carelessness of men's feelings, her nonsense, and her teasing, pretty ways, I know that she is good at heart, sound, and sane and sweet. I want her to be happy!
"There is a girl among my Fifteen—she is quite young and has to be protected against herself. She has haunted me. When I got home she would be lurking in the dark of the road, when I went out I met her coming round the corner. Notes in her childish scrawl have fallen on me, thick as autumn leaves. I have had to see her mother at length. Mother, for my pains, told me roundly I was not a gentleman. I declare to you she abused me like a pickpocket, Charles.
"But this silly child had the excuse of youth. There is another of nearly three times her age to whom I had thought it safe to be civil. Well, it wasn't. She pursued me even within my own strong-hold, the pulpit. In a moment's weakness I had owned to her that I liked violets—pah! I am sick of the scent of them now. On Sunday morning I found a bunch of them, done up after a well-known fashion, with dried maiden-hair as a background, laid beside the pulpit cushion. I had good reason to know from whence it came. I said to her when she waylaid me on my homeward course that the woman who cleaned the church would have to be reprimanded. She had let fall a bunch of flowers from her frowsy dress upon the pulpit desk and had left them there. An unpardonable piece of negligence.
"'I thought you liked violets?' the foolish old woman said, looking ashamed; and I told her hardily that I loathed the sight of them and hoped never to look upon one again.
"This all seems only laughable to you. I can hear you snigger over it—and me! Laugh at me, but don't hate me as I do myself. A man nearing forty years of age, not particularly anything—either clever, or eloquent, or good-looking, or attractive. Don't I know it all? I can't write of it——
"And yet this one thing more I must tell you before I close.
"As I parted from the sensible, self-respecting, self-contained Jessica the other day—I protest to you my reliance on her womanly dignity and sturdy reasonableness has been to me as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land—I ran against her father, the old vicar. He put his hand on my shoulder, and looked at me with a kind of playful reproof in the face.
"'Ah, how long is this shilly-shallying to go on?' he asked.
"... I broke off there to see Mrs Carter. It has hitherto been a relief to see her. The only laughing I've done since I've been here has been with her. She did not laugh to-day. She came to me because she had no other friend, she said. She could not trust the gabbling womankind. Her husband had changed to her. He had become all at once unreasonable and unkind. He had told her that he did not trust her. He would no longer allow her to go to church, he had forbidden her to receive me again in his house.
"In utter bewilderment I could only ask her why. And then she burst into tears, and then—then there was another scene.
"Mrs Bust was no doubt listening at the door. At any rate she burst in upon us. I, for my part, was not sorry, but poor Mrs Carter—! Poor? Fool, idiot!
"She is forty years of age, her husband is a decent, honourable sort of fellow who worships her——
"That finishes the Carter friendship.
"If it were not for Jessica—good, matter-of-fact, reliable Jessica, welcome contrast to these hysterical, half-mad women, who laugh at and despise her—where should I be, Charles?...
"1st February.
"You have been a true friend to me and to her. I shall see you soon (D.V.), and then no doubt I shall say—nothing. But you will remember that I am grateful to you to the last drop of my heart's blood—and so is she.
"Now as for B.... The finish has come; it came to-day. Let us sing and give thanks with the best member that we have! All the same, the end has been a shock, and I wish it had come in some other way.
"She came in here at eleven this morning. You know who—Jessica. I thought she came to talk over last night's concert. It was a failure. The room was as empty as the church has been of late. Those—women (my cloth prohibits me from supplying the adjective, Charles. I leave it with satisfaction in your hands) with their gabble have robbed me of my last shred of character. I assure you I am regarded as a libertine in the place—a professional breaker of hearts, a Don Juan bragging of my conquests! Each of those Fifteen has her own tale to tell of her own wrongs and of my deceit. They hold indignation meetings in Mrs Carter's house. I shouldn't care the value of one of their hairpins, but one does not like to see the church empty; and it is not agreeable, having gone to the bother of getting up a concert, to sing to empty benches. It was not, however, to talk over the concert she had come.
"She had come to tell me she thought it would be better for us thoroughly to understand each other. I said I thought we had done so from the first. She told me she hoped so, but that we were going to speak out plainly now. She despised the underhand methods of other women, she said, and when she wanted to know a thing she went to the person capable of giving an answer and asked a direct question.
"Then she asked me, 'Did I mean to make her an offer of marriage?'
"In so many words she asked me, and never flinched.
"And I didn't flinch. I was so indignant, so outraged!
"'No!' I said.
"I hope I did not shout the word, but the room seemed to echo with it, somehow.
"'You mean that?' she asked; and I said that I meant it fervently.
"She got up and went to the door. There she waited, her hands in her coat-pockets, staring at the door. 'Of course you know that you have behaved disgracefully?' she said. 'I should never have trusted myself so much in your society but that I believed you to be an honourable man. I find you are not. If my father were younger he would punish you as you deserve. As it is—.'
"As it is, thank goodness, she went. Where's the good of bothering you with more of her invective?
"And I am going; to make room for another curate—another confirmed bachelor.
"She did not spare me of course. Among other agreeable things she said that I was a heartless Brute, and she hoped I should get what I deserved.
"I shall get a lot more than I deserve, between you and me, Charles. For, thanks to you and your pegging away, I wrote and asked little Mary once again if she would have me.
"And a letter has come from her this blessed morning to say that she will...."
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