Catharine went home, or rather to the Terrace, soon afterwards, and found that there was no intention of removing to the High Street, although, notwithstanding their three months’ probation in the realms of respectability, Mrs. Colston had not called, and Mrs. Furze was beginning to despair. The separation from the chapel was nearly complete. It had been done by degrees. On wet days Mrs. Furze went to church because it was a little nearer, and Mr. Furze went to chapel; then Mrs. Furze went on fine days, and, after a little interval, Mr. Furze went on a fine day. A fund had been set going to “restore” the church: the heavy roof was to be removed, and a much lighter and handsomer roof covered with slate was to be substituted; the stonework of many of the windows, which the rector declared had begun to show “signs of incipient decay,” was to be cut out and replaced with new, so as to make, to use the builder’s words, “a good job of it,” and a memorial window was to be put in near the great west window with its stained glass, the Honourable Mr. Eaton having determined upon this mode of commemorating the services of his nephew, Lieutenant Eaton, who had died of dysentery in India, brought on by inattention to tropical rules of eating and drinking, particularly the latter. Oliver Cromwell, it was said, had stabled his horses in the church. This, however, is doubtful, for the quantity of stable accommodation he must have required throughout the country, to judge from vergers and guidebooks, must have been much larger than his armies would have needed, if they had been entirely composed of cavalry; and the evidence is not strong that his horses were so ubiquitous. It was further affirmed that, during the Cromwellian occupation, the west window was mutilated; but there was also a tradition that, in the days of George the Third, there were complaints of dinginess and want of light, and that part of the stained glass was removed and sold. Anyhow, there was stained glass in the Honourable Mr. Eaton’s mansion wonderfully like that at Eastthorpe. It was now proposed to put new stained glass in the defective lights. Some of the more advanced of the parishioners, including the parson and the builder, thought the old glass had better all come out, “the only way to make a good job of it”; but at an archidiaconal visitation the archdeacon protested, and he was allowed to have his own way. Then there was the warming, and this was a great difficulty, because no natural exit for the pipe could be found. At last it was settled to have three stoves, one at the west end of the nave, and one in each transept. With regard to the one in the nave there was no help for it but to bore a hole through the wall. The builder undertook “to give the pipe outside a touch of the Gothic, so that it wouldn’t look bad,” and as for the other stoves, there were two windows just handy. By cutting out the head of Matthew in one and that of Mark in another, the thing was done, and, as Mrs. Colston observed, “the general confused effect remained the same.” There were one or two other improvements, such as pointing all over outside, also strongly recommended by the builder, and the shifting some of the tombs, and repairing the tracery, so that altogether the sum to be raised was considerable. Mrs. Colston was one of the collectors, and Mrs. Furze called on her after two months’ residence in the Terrace, and intimated her wish to subscribe. Mrs. Colston took the money very affably, but still she did not return the visit.
Meanwhile Mrs. Furze was doing everything she could to make herself genteel. The Terrace contained about a dozen houses; the two in the centre were higher than the rest, and above them, flanked by a large scroll at either end, were the words “THE TERRACE,” moulded out of the stucco; up to each door was a flight of stone steps; before each front window on the dining-room floor and the floor above was a balcony protected by cast-iron filigree work, and between each house and the road was a little piece of garden surrounded by dwarf wall and arrow-head railings. Mrs. Furze’s old furniture had, nearly all, been discarded or sold, and two new carpets had been bought. The one in the dining-room was yellow and chocolate, and the one upstairs in the drawing-room was a lovely rose-pattern, with large full-blown roses nine inches in diameter in blue vases. The heavy chairs had disappeared, and nice light elegant chairs were bought, insufficient, however, for heavy weights, for one of Mr. Furze’s affluent customers being brought to the Terrace as a special mark of respect, and sitting down with a flop, as was his wont, smashed the work of art like card-board and went down on the door with a curse, vowing inwardly never again to set foot in Furze’s Folly, as he called it. The pictures, too, were all renewed. The “Virgin Mary” and “George the Fourth” went upstairs to the spare bedroom, and some new oleographs, “a rising art,” Mrs. Furze was assured, took their places. They had very large margins, gilt frames, and professed to represent sunsets, sunrises, and full moons, at Tintern, Como, and other places not named, which Mrs. Furze, in answer to inquiries, always called “the Continent.”
Mr. Furze had had a longish walk one morning, and was rather tired. When he came home to dinner he found the house upset by one of its periodical cleanings, and consequently dinner was served upstairs, and not in the half-underground breakfast-room, as it was called, which was the real living-room of the family. Mr. Furze, being late and weary, prolonged his stay at home till nearly four o’clock, and, notwithstanding a rebuke from Mrs. Furze, insisted on smoking his pipe in the dining-room. Presently he took off his coat and put his feet on a chair, Sunday fashion.
“My dear,” said his wife. “I don’t want to interfere with your comfort, but don’t you think you might give up that practice of sitting in your shirt-sleeves now we have moved?”
“Why because we’ve moved?” interposed Catharine.
“Catharine, I did not address you; you have no tact, you do not understand.”
“Coat doesn’t smell so much of smoke,” replied Mr. Furze, giving, of course, any reason but the true reason.
“My dear if that is the reason, put on another coat, or, better still, buy a proper coat and a smoking-cap. Nothing could be more appropriate than some of those caps we saw at the restoration bazaar.”
“Really, mother, would you like to see father in a velvet jacket and one of those red-tasselled things on his head? I prefer the shirt-sleeves.”
“No doubt you do; you are a Furze, every inch of you.”
There is no saying to what a height the quarrel would have risen if a double knock had not been heard. A charwoman was in the passage with a pail of water and answered the door at once, before she could be cautioned. In an instant she appeared, apron tucked up.
“Mrs. Colston, mum,” and in Mrs. Colston walked.
Mrs. Furze made a dash at her husband’s clay pipe, forgetting that its destruction would not make matters better; but she only succeeded in upsetting the chair on which his legs rested, and in the confusion he slipped to the ground.
“Oh, Mrs. Colston, I am so sorry you have taken us by surprise; our house is being cleaned; pray walk upstairs—but oh dear, now I recollect the drawing-room is also turned out; whatwillyou do, and the smell of the smoke, too!”
“Pray do not disconcert yourself,” replied the brewer’s wife, patronisingly; “I do not mind the smoke, at least for a few minutes.”
Mrs. Colston herself had objected strongly to calling on Mrs. Furze, but Mr. Colston had urged it as a matter of policy, with a view to Mr. Furze’s contributions to Church revenues.
“I have come purely on a matter of business, Mrs. Furze, and will not detain you.”
Mr. Furze had retreated into a dark corner, and was putting on his waistcoat with his back to his distinguished guest. Catharine sat at the window quite immovable. Suddenly Mrs. Furze bethought herself she ought to introduce her husband and daughter.
“My husband and daughter, Mrs. Colston.”
Mr. Furze turned half round, put his other arm into his waistcoat, and bowed. He had, of course, spoken to her scores of times in his shop, but he was not supposed to have seen her till that minute. Catharine rose, bowed, and sat down again.
“Take a chair, Mrs. Colston, take a chair,” said Mr. Furze, although he had again turned towards the curtain, and was struggling with his coat. Mrs. Furze, annoyed that her husband had anticipated her, pulled the easy-chair forward.
“I am afraid I deprived you of your seat,” said the lady, alluding, as Mrs. Furze had not the slightest doubt, to his tumble.
“Not a bit, ma’am, not a bit,” and he moved towards Catharine, feeling very uncomfortable, and not knowing what to do with his hands and legs.
“We are so much obliged to you, Mrs. Furze, for your subscription to the restoration fund, we find that a new pulpit is much required; the old pulpit, you will remember, is much decayed in parts, and will be out of harmony with the building when it is renovated. Young Mr. Cawston, who is being trained as an architect—the builder’s son, you know—has prepared a design which is charming, and the ladies wish to make the new pulpit a present solely from themselves.” The smoke got into Mrs. Colston’s throat, and she coughed. “We want you, therefore, to help us.”
“With the greatest pleasure.”
“Then how much shall I say? Five pounds?”
“Would you allow me just to look at the subscription list?” interposed Mr. Furze, humbly; but before it could be handed to him Mrs. Furze had settled the matter.
“Five pounds—oh yes, certainly, Mrs. Colston. Mr. Cawston is, I believe, a young man of talent?”
“Undoubtedly, and he deserves encouragement. It must be most gratifying to his father to see his son endeavouring to raise himself from a comparatively humble occupation and surroundings into something demanding ability and education, from a mere trade into a profession.”
Catharine shifted uneasily, raised her eyes, and looked straight at Mrs. Colston but said nothing.
Meanwhile Mr. Furze was perusing the list with both elbows on his knees. The difficulty with his hands and legs increased. He was conscious to a most remarkable degree that he had them, and yet they seemed quite foreign members of his body which he could not control.
“Well, ma’am, I think I must be going. I’ll bid you good-bye.”
“I have finished my errand, Mr. Furze, and I must be going too.”
“Oh, pray, do not go yet,” said Mrs. Furze, hoping, in the absence of her husband, to establish some further intimacy. Mr. Furze shook Mrs. Colston’s hand with its lemon-coloured glove and departed. Catharine noticed that Mrs. Colston looked at the glove—for the ironmonger had left a mark on it—and that she wiped it with her pocket-handkerchief.
“I wish to ask,” said Mrs. Furze, in her mad anxiety to secure Mrs. Colston, “if you do not think a new altar-cloth would be acceptable. I should be so happy—I will not say to give one myself, but to undertake the responsibility, and to contribute my share. The old altar-cloth will look rather out of place.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Furze; I am sure I can answer at once. It will be most acceptable. You will not, I presume, object to adopting the design of the committee! We will send you a correct pattern. We have thought about the matter for some time, but had at last determined to wait indefinitely on the ground of the expense.”
The expense! Poor Mrs. Furze had made her proposal on the spur of the moment. She, in her ignorance, had not thought an altar-cloth a very costly affair, and now she remembered that she had no friends who were not Dissenters. Moreover, to be on the committee was the object of her ambition, and it was clear that not only had nobody thought of putting her on it, but that she was to pay and take its directions.
“I believe,” continued Mrs. Colston, “that the altar-cloth which we had provisionally adopted can be had in London for £20.”
A ring at the front bell during this interesting conversation had not been noticed. The charwoman, still busy with broom and pail outside, knocked at the door with a knock which might have been given with the broom-handle and announced another visitor.
“Mrs. Bellamy, mum.”
Catharine leaped up, rushed to meet her friend, caught her round the neck, and kissed her eagerly.
“Well, Miss Catharine, glad to see you looking so well; still kept the colour of Chapel Farm. This is the first time I’ve seen you in your new house, Mrs. Furze. I had to come over to Eastthorpe along with Bellamy, and I said Imustgo and see my Catharine, though—and her mother—though theydolive in the Terrace, but I couldn’t get Bellamy to come—no, he said the Terrace warn’t for him; he’d go and smoke a pipe and have something to drink at your old shop, or rather your new shop, but it’s in the old place in the High Street—leastways if you keep any baccy and whiskey there now—and he’d call for me with the gig, and I said as I knew my Catharine—her mother—would give me a cup of tea; and, Miss Catharine, you remember that big white hog as you used to look at always when you went out into the meadow?—well, he’s killed, and I know Mr. Furze likes a bit of good, honest, country pork—none of your nasty town-fed stuff—you never know what hogs eat in towns—so Bellamy has a leg about fourteen pounds in the gig, but I thought I’d bring you about two or three pounds of the sausages myself in my basket here,” and Mrs. Bellamy pointed to a basket she had on her arm. She paused and became aware that there was a stranger sitting near the fireplace. “But you’ve got a visitor here; p’r’aps I shall be in the way.”
“In the way!” said Catharine. “Never, never; give me your basket and your bonnet; or stay, Mrs. Bellamy, I will go upstairs with you, and you shall take off your things.”
And so, before Mrs. Furze had spoken a syllable, Catharine and Mrs. Bellamy marched out of the room.
“Who is that—that person?” said Mrs. Colston. “I fancy I have seen her before. She seems on intimate terms with your daughter.”
“She is a farmer’s wife, of humble origin, at whose house my daughter—lodged—for the benefit of her health.”
“I must bid you good-day, Mrs. Furze. If you will kindly send a cheque for the five pounds to me, the receipt shall be returned to you in due course, and the drawing of the altar-cloth shall follow. I can assure you of the committee’s thanks.”
Mrs. Furze recollected she ought to ring the bell, but she also recollected the servant could not appear in proper costume. Accordingly she opened the dining-room door herself.
“Let me move that ere pail, mum, or you’ll tumble over it,” said the charwoman to Mrs. Colston, “and p’r’aps you won’t mind steppin’ on this side of the passage, ’cause that side’s all wet. ’Ere, Mrs. Furze, don’t you come no further, I’ll open the front door”; and this she did.
Mrs. Furze felt rather unwell, and went to her bedroom, where she sat down, and, putting her face on the bedclothes, gave way to a long fit of hysterical sobbing. She would not come down to tea, and excused herself on the ground of sickness. Catharine went up to her mother and inquired what was the matter, but was repulsed.
“Nothing is the matter—at least, nothing you can understand. I am very unwell; I am better alone; go down to Mrs. Bellamy.”
“But, mother, it will do you good to be downstairs. Mrs. Bellamy will be so glad to see you, and she was so kind to me; it will be odd if you don’t come.”
“Goaway, I tell you; I am best by myself; I can endure in solitude; you cannot comprehend these nervous attacks, happily for you; goaway, and enjoy yourself with Mrs. Bellamy and your sausages.”
Catharine had had some experience of these nervous attacks, and left her mother to herself. Mrs. Bellamy and Catharine consequently had tea alone, Mr. Furze remaining at his shop that afternoon, as he had been late in arrival.
“Sorry mother’s so poorly, Catharine. Well, how do you like the Terrace?”
“I hate it. I detest every atom of the filthy, stuck-up, stuccoed hovel. I hate—” Catharine was very excited, and it is not easy to tell what she might have said if Mrs. Bellamy had not interrupted her.
“Now, Miss Catharine, don’t say that; it’s a bad thing to hate what we must put up with. You never heard, did you, as Bellamy had a sister a good bit older than myself? Shewasa tartar, and no mistake. She lived with Bellamy and kept house for him, and when we married, Bellamy said she must stay with us. She used to put on him as you never saw, but he, somehow, seemed never to mind it; some men don’t feel such things, and some do, but most on ’em don’t when it’s a woman, but I think a woman’s worse. Well, what was I saying?—she put on me just in the same way and come between me and the servant-girl and the men, and when I told them to go and do one thing, went and told them to do another, and I was young, and I thought when I was married I was going to be mistress, and she called me ‘a chit’ to her brother, and I mind one day I went upstairs and fell on my knees and cried till I thought my heart would break, and I said, ‘O my God, when will it please Thee to take that woman to Thyself!’ Now to wish anybody dead is bad enough, but to ask the Lord to take ’em is awful; but then it was so hard to bear ’cause I couldn’t say nothing about it, and I’m one of them as can’t keep myself bottled up like ginger-beer. You don’t remember old Jacob? He had been at Chapel Farm in Bellamy’s father’s time, and always looked on Bellamy as his boy, and used to be very free with him, notwithstanding he was the best creature as ever lived. He took a liking to me, and I needn’t say that, liking of me, he didn’t like Bellamy’s sister. Well, I came down, and I went out of doors to get a bit of fresh air—for I’m always better out of doors—and I went up by the cart-shed, and being faint a bit, sat down on the waggon shafts. Old Jacob, he came by; I can see him now; it was just about Michaelmas time, a-getting dark after tea, though I hadn’t had any, and he said to me, ‘Hullo, missus, what are here for? and you’ve been a-cryin’,’ for I had my face toward the sky and was looking at it. I never spoke. ‘I know what’s the matter with you,’ says he; ‘do you think I don’t? Now if you go on chafing of yourself, you’ll worrit yourself into your grave, that’s all. Last week there was something the matter with that there dog, and she howled night after night, and I never slept a wink. The first morning after she’d been a-yelping I was in a temper, and had half a mind to kill her. I felt as if she’d got a spite against me; but it come to me as she’d got no spite againstme, and then all my worriting went away. I don’t say as I slept much till she was better, but I didn’tworrit. Now Bellamy’s sister don’t mean nothing against you. That’s the way God-a-mighty made her.’ I’ve never forgot what Jacob said, and I know it made a difference, but the Lord took her not long afterwards.”
“But I don’t see what that has to do with me. It isn’t the same thing.”
“Yes, that’s just what Bellamy says. He says I always go on with anything that comes into my head; but then it has nothing to do with anything he is saying, and maybe that’s true, for one thing seems always to draw me on to another, and so I go round like, and I don’t know myself where I am when I’ve finished. A little more tea, my dear, if you please. And yet,” continued Mrs. Bellamy, when she had finished half of her third cup, “what I meant to say really has to do with you. It’s all the same. You wouldn’t hate the Terrace so much if you knew that nobody meant to spite you, as Jacob says. Suppose your father was driven to the Terrace and couldn’t help it, and there wasn’t another house for him, you wouldn’t hate it so much then. It isn’t the Terrace altogether. Now, Miss Catharine, you won’t mind my speaking out to you. You know you are my girl,” and Mrs. Bellamy turned and kissed her; “you mustn’t, you really mustn’t. I’ve seen what was coming for a long time. Your mother and you ain’t alike, but you mustn’t rebel. I’m a silly old fool, and I know I haven’t got a head, and what is in it is all mixed up somehow, but you’ll be ever so much better if you leave your mother out of it, and don’t, as I’ve told you before, go on dreaming she came here because you didn’t want to come, or that she set herself up on purpose against you. And then you can always run over to Chapel Farm just whenever you like, my pet, and there’s your own room always waiting for you.”
An hour afterwards, when Mrs. Bellamy had left, Mr. Furze came home. Mrs. Furze was still upstairs, but consented to be coaxed down to supper. She passed the drawing-room; the door was wide open, and she reflected bitterly upon the new carpet, the oleographs, and the schemes erected thereon. To think on what she had spent and what she had done, and then that Mrs. Colston should be received by a charwoman with a pail, should be shown into the room downstairs, and find it like a public-house bar! If Mr. Furze had been there alone it would not so much have mattered, but the presence of wife and daughter sanctioned the vulgarity, not to say indecency. Mrs. Colston would naturally conclude they were accustomed to that sort of thing—that the pipe, Mrs. Bellamy and the sausages, the absence of Mr. Furze’s coat and waistcoat, were the “atmosphere,” as Mrs. Furze put it, in which they lived.
“That’s right; glad to see you are able to come down,” said Mr. Furze.
“I must say that Catharine is partly the cause of my suffering. When Mrs. Colston called here Catharine sat like a statue and said not a word, but when her friend Mrs. Bellamy came she precipitated herself—yes, I say precipitated herself—into her arms. I’ve nothing to say against Mrs. Bellamy, but Catharine knows perfectly well that Mrs. Colston’s intimacy is desired, andthat’sthe way she chose to behave. Mrs. Bellamy was the last person I should have wished to see here this afternoon; an uneducated woman, a woman whom we could not pretend to know if we moved in Mrs. Colston’s circle; and what we have done was all done for my child’s benefit. She, I presume, would prefer decent society to that of peasants.”
Catharine stopped eating.
“Mrs. Bellamy was the last personIshould have wished to see here.”
“I don’t know quite what you mean, but it is probably something disobedient and cruel,” and Mrs. Furze became slightly hysterical again.
Catharine made no offer of any sympathy, but, leaving her supper unfinished, rose without saying good-night, and appeared no more that evening.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Furze to her husband the next night when they were alone, “I think Catharine would be much better if she were sent away from home for a time. Her education is very imperfect, and there are establishments where young ladies are taken at her age and finished. It would do her a world of good.”
Mr. Furze was not quite sure about the finishing. It savoured of a region outside the modest enclosure within which he was born and brought up.
“The expense, I am afraid, will be great, and I cannot afford it just now. There is no denying that business is no better; in fact, it is not so good as it was, notwithstanding the alterations.”
“You cannot expect it to recover at once. Something must be done to put Catharine on a level with the young women in her position, and my notion is that everything which will help to introduce us into society will help you. Why does Mrs. Butcher go out so much? It is because she knows it is a good investment.”
“An ironmonger is not a doctor.”
“Who said he was?” replied Mrs. Furze, triumphant in the consciousness of mental superiority. “Furze,” she once said to him, when it was proposed to elect him a guardian of the poor, “take my advice and refuse. Yourforteis not argument: you will never held your own in debate.”
“I know an ironmonger is not a doctor,” she continued. “Iof all people have reason to know it; but what I do say is, that the more we mix with superior people, the more likely you are to succeed, and that if you bury yourself in these days you will fail.”
The italicised “I” was an allusion to a fiction that once Mrs. Furze might have married a doctor if she had liked, and thereby have secured the pre-eminence which the wife of a drug-dispenser assumes in a country town. The grades in Eastthorpe were very marked, and no caste distinctions could have been more rigid. The county folk near were by themselves. They associated with none of the townsfolk, save with the rector, and even in that relationship there was a slight tinge of ex-officiosity. Next to the rector were the lawyer and the banker and the two maiden banker ladies in the Abbey Close. Looked at from a distance these might be supposed to stand level, but, on nearer approach, a difference was discernible. The banker and the ladies, although they visited the lawyer, were a shade beyond him. Then came the brewer. The days had not arrived when brewing—at least, on the large scale—is considered to be more respectable than a learned profession, and Mrs. Colston, notwithstanding her wealth, was incessantly forced by the lawyer’s wife to confess subordination. The brewer kept three or four horses for pleasure, and the lawyer kept only one; but “Colston’s Entire” was on a dozen boards in the town, and he supplied private families and sent in bills. The position of Mrs. Butcher was perhaps the most curious. She visited the rector, banker, lawyer, and brewer, and was always well received, for she was clever, smart, young, and well behaved. She had established her position solely by her wits. She did not spend a quarter as much as Mrs. Colston, but she always looked better. She was well shaped, to begin with, and the fit of her garments was perfect. Not a wrinkle was to be seen in gown, gloves, or shoes. Mrs. Colston’s fashion was that imposed on her by the dressmaker, but Ms. Butcher always had a style peculiarly her own. She knew the secret that a woman’s attractiveness, so far as it is a matter of clothes, depends far more upon the manner in which they are made and worn than upon costliness. It was always thought that she ruled her husband and had just a spice of contempt for him. She gained thereby in Eastthorpe, at least with the men, for her superiority to him gave her an air which was slightly detached, free, and fascinating. She always drove when she went out with him, and it was really a sight worth seeing she bolt upright with her hands well down, her pretty figure showing to the best advantage the neat turn-out—for she was very particular on this point and understood horses thoroughly—and Butcher, leaning back, submissive but satisfied. She had made friends with the women too. She was much too shrewd to incur their hostility by openly courting the admiration of their husbands. She knew they did admire her, and that was enough. She was most deferential to Mrs. Colston, so much so that the brewer’s wife openly expressed the opinion that she was evidently well bred, and wondered how Butcher managed to secure her. Furthermore she was useful, for her opinion, when anything had to be done, was always the one to be followed, and without her the church restoration would never have been such a success. Eastthorpe, like Mrs. Colston, often marvelled that Butcher should have been so fortunate. It mostly knew everything about the antecedents of everybody in the town, but Mrs. Butcher’s were not so well known. She came from Cornwall, she always said, and Cornwall was a long way off in those days. Her maiden name was Treherne, and Mrs. Colston had been told that Treherne was good Cornish. Moreover, soon after the marriage she found on the table, when she called on Mrs. Butcher, a letter which she could not help partly reading, for it lay wide open. All scruples were at once removed. It had a crest at the top, was dated from Helston, addressed Mrs. Butcher by a nickname, and was written in a most aristocratic hand—so Mrs. Colston averred to her intimate friends. She could not finish the perusal before Mrs. Butcher came into the room; but she had read enough, and the doctor’s elect was admitted at once without reservation. Eastthorpe was slightly mistaken, but Mrs. Butcher’s history cannot be told here.
So much by way of digression on Eastthorpe society. Mrs. Furze carried her point as usual. As for Catharine, she did not object, for there was nothing in Eastthorpe attractive to her. The Limes, Abchurch, was the “establishment” chosen. It was kept by the Misses Ponsonby, Abchurch being a large village five miles farther eastward. It was a peculiar institution. It was a school for girls, but not for little girls, and it was also an educational home for young ladies up to one- or two-and-twenty whose training had been neglected or had to be completed beyond the usual limits. It was widely-known, and, as its purpose was special, it had little or no competition, and consequently flourished. Many parents who had become wealthy, and who hardily knew the manners and customs of the class to which they aspired, sent their daughters to the Limes. The Misses Ponsonby—Mrs Ponsonby and Miss Adela Ponsonby—were of Irish extraction, and had some dim connection with the family of that name. They also preserved in their Calvinistic evangelicalism a trace of the Cromwellian Ponsonby, the founder of the race. There was a difference of two years in the age of the two ladies, but no perceptible difference in their characters. The same necessity to conceal or suppress all individuality on subjects disputable in their own sect had been imposed on each. Both had the same “views” on all matters religious and social, and both of them confessed that on many points their “views” were “strict”—whatever that singular phrase may have meant. Nevertheless, they displayed remarkable tact in reconciling parents with the defects and peculiarities of their children. There were always girls in the school of varying degrees of intelligence, from absolute stupidity to brilliancy, but the report at the end of the term was so fashioned that the father and mother of the idiot were not offended, and the idiocy was so handled that it appeared to have some advantages. If Miss Carter had been altogether unable to master the French verbs, or to draw the model vase until the teacher had put in nearly the whole of the outline, there was a most happy counterpoise, as a rule, in her moral conduct. In these days of effusive expression, when everybody thinks it his duty to deliver himself of everything in him—doubts, fears, passions—no matter whether he does harm thereby or good, the Misses Ponsonby would be considered intolerably dull and limited. They did not walk about without their clothes—figuratively speaking—it was not then the fashion. They were, on the contrary, heavily draped from head to foot, but underneath the whalebone and padding, strange to say, were real live women’s hearts. They knew what it was to hope and despair; they knew what it was to reflect that with each of them life might and ought to have been different; they even knew what it was sometimes to envy the beggar-women on the doorstep of the Limes who asked for a penny and clasped a child to her breast. We mistake our ancestors who read Pope and theSpectator. They were very much like ourselves essentially, but they did not believe that there was nothing in us which should be smothered or strangled. Perhaps some day we shall go back to them, and find that the “Rape of the Lock” is better worth reading and really more helpful than magazine metaphysics. Anyhow, it is certain that the training which the Misses Ponsonby had received, although it may have made them starched, prim, and even uninteresting, had an effect upon their character not altogether unwholesome, and prevented any public crying for the moon, or any public charge of injustice against its Maker because it is unattainable.
The number of girls was limited to thirty. The house was tall, four-square, built of white brick about the year 1780, had a row of little pillars running along the roof at the top, and a Grecian portico. It was odd that there should be such a house in Abchurch, but there it was. It was erected by a Spitalfields silk manufacturer, whose family belonged to those parts. He thought to live in it after his retirement, but he came there to die. The studies of the pupils were superintended by the Misses Ponsonby and sundry teachers, all female, except the drawing-master and the music-master. The course embraced the usual branches of a superior English education, French, Italian, deportment, and the use of the globes, but, as the Misses Ponsonby truly stated in their prospectus, their sole aim was not the inculcation of knowledge, but such instruction as would enable the young ladies committed to their charge to move with ease in the best society, and, above everything, the impression of correct principles in morality and religion. In this impression much assistance was given by the Reverend Theophilus Cardew, the rector of the church in the village. The patronage was in the hands of the Simeonite trustees, and had been bought by them in the first fervour of the movement.
The thirty pupils occupied fifteen bedrooms, although each had a separate bed, and to Catharine was allotted Miss Julia Arden, a young woman with a pretty, pale face, and black hair worn in ringlets. Her head was not firmly fixed on her shoulders, and was always in motion, as if she had some difficulty in balancing it, the reason being, not any physical defect, but a wandering imagination, which never permitted her to look at any one thing steadily for an instant. Nine-tenths of what she said was nonsense, but her very shallowness gave occasionally a certain value and reality to her talk, for the simple reason that she was incapable of the effort necessary to conceal what she thought for the moment. In her studies she made not the slightest progress, for her memory was shocking. She confounded all she was taught, and never could recollect whether the verb was conjugated and the noun declined, or whether it was the other way round, to use one of her favourite expressions, so that her preceptors were compelled to fall back, more exclusively than with her schoolfellows, on her moral conduct, which was outwardly respectable enough, but by the occupant of the other bed might perhaps have been reported on in terms not quite so satisfactory as those in the quarterly form signed by Miss Ponsonby.
Catharine’s mother came with her on a Saturday afternoon, but left in the evening. At half-past eight there were prayers. The girls filed into the drawing-room, sat round in a ring, of which the Misses Ponsonby formed a part, but with a break of about two feet right and left, the servants sitting outside near the door: a chapter was read, a prayer also read, and then, after a suitable pause, the servants rose from their knees, the pupils rose next, and the Misses Ponsonby last; the time which each division, servants, pupils, and Ponsonbys, remained kneeling being graduated exactly in proportion to rank. A procession to the supper-room was then formed. Catharine found herself at table next to Miss Arden, with a spotless napkin before her, with silver forks and spoons, and a delicately served meal of stewed fruits, milk-puddings, bread-and-butter, and cold water. Everything was good, sweet, and beautifully clean, and there was enough. At half-past nine, in accordance with the usual practice, one of the girls read from a selected book. On Saturday a book, not exactly religious, but related to religion as nearly as possible as Saturday is related to Sunday, was invariably selected. On this particular Saturday it was Clarke’s “Travels in Palestine.” Precisely as the chock struck ten the volume was closed and the pupils went to bed.
“I am sure I shall like you,” observed Miss Arden, as they were undressing. “The girl who was here before was a brute, so dull and so vulgar. I hope you will like me.”
“I hope so too.”
“It’s dreadful here: so different to my mother’s house in Devonshire. We have a large place there near Torquay—do you know Torquay? And I have a horse of my own, on which I tear about during the holidays, and there are boats and sailing matches, and my brothers have so many friends, and I have all sorts of little affairs. I suppose you’ve had your affairs. Of course you won’t say. We never see a man here, except Mr. Cardew. Oh, isn’t he handsome? He’s only a parson, but he’s such a dear; you’ll see him to-morrow. I can’t make him out: he’s lovely, but he’s queer, so solemn at times, like an owl in daylight. I’m sure he’s well brought up. I wonder why he went into the church: he ought to have been a gentleman.”
“But is he not a gentleman?
“Oh, yes, of course he’s a gentleman, but you know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.”
“There, now, you are one of those horrid creatures, I know you are, who neverwillunderstand, and do it on purpose. It is so aggravating.”
“Well, but you said he was not a gentleman, and yet that he was a gentleman.”
“Youareprovoking. I say he is a gentleman—but don’t some gentlemen keep a carriage?—and his father is in business. Isn’t that plain? You know all about it as well as I do.”
“I still do not quite comprehend.”
Catharine took a little pleasure in forcing people to be definite, and Miss Arden invariably fell back on “you understand” whenever she herself did not understand. In fact, in exact proportion to her own inability to make herself clear to herself, did she always insist that she was clear to other people.
“I cannot help it if you don’t comprehend. He’s lovely, and I adore him.”
Next morning, being Sunday, the Limes was, if possible, still more irreproachable; the noise of the household was more subdued; the passions appeared more utterly extinguished, and any indifferent observer would have said that from the Misses Ponsonby down to the scullery-maid, a big jug had been emptied on every spark of illegal fire, and blood was toast and water. Alas! it was not so. The boots were cleaned overnight to avoid Sunday labour, but when the milkman came, a handsome young fellow, anybody with ears near the window overhead might have detected a scuffling at the back door with some laughter and something like “Oh, don’t!” and might have noticed that Elizabeth afterwards looked a little rumpled and adjusted her cap. Nor was she singular, for many of the young women who were supposed to be studying a brief abstract of the history of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, in parallel columns, as arranged by the Misses Ponsonby, were indulging in the naughtiest thoughts and using naughty words as they sat in their bedrooms before the time for departure to church. At a quarter-past ten the girls assembled in the dining-room, and were duly marshalled. They did not, however, walk two-and-two like ordinary schools. In the first place, many of them were not children, and, in the second place, the Misses Ponsonby held that even walking to church was a thing to be taught, and they desired to turn out their pupils so that they might distinguish themselves in this art also as well-bred people. It was one of the points on which the Misses Ponsonby grew even eloquent. How, they said, are girls to learn to carry themselves properly if they march in couples? They will not do it when they leave the Limes, and will be utterly at fault. There is no day in the week on which more general notice is taken than on Sunday; there is no day on which differences are more apparent. The pupils therefore walked irregularly, the irregularity being prescribed. The entering the church; the leaving the pews; the loitering and salutations in the churchyard; the show, superior saunter homewards were all the result of lecture, study, and even of practice on week-days. “Deliberation, ease,” said Miss Ponsonby, “are the key to this, as they are to so much in our behaviour, and surely on the Sabbath we ought more than on any other day to avoid indecorous hurry and vulgarity.”
Catharine’s curiosity, after what Miss Arden had said, was a little excited to know what kind of a man Mr. Cardew might be, and she imagined him a young dandy. She saw a man about thirty-five with dark brown hair, eyes set rather deeply in his head, a little too close together, a delicate, thin, very slightly aquiline nose, and a mouth with curved lips, which were, however, compressed as if with determination or downright resolution. There was not a trace of dandyism in him, and he reminded her immediately of a portrait she had seen of Edward Irving in a shop at Eastthorpe.
He stood straight up in the pulpit reading from a little Testament he held in his hand, and when he had given out his text he put the Testament down and preached without notes. His subject was a passage in the life of Jesus taken from Luke xviii. 18—
18.And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?19.And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou Me good? None is good, save one, that is God.20.Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and mother.21.And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.22.Now when Jesus heard these things, He said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me.
18.And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
19.And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou Me good? None is good, save one, that is God.
20.Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and mother.
21.And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up.
22.Now when Jesus heard these things, He said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me.
Mr Cardew did not approach this theme circuitously or indifferently, but seemed in haste to be on close terms with it, as if it had dwelt with him and he was eager to deliver his message.
“I beseech you,” he began, “endeavour to make this scene real to you. A rich man, an official, comes to Jesus, calls Him Teacher—for so the word is in the Greek—and asks Him what is to be done to inherit eternal life. How strange it is that such a question should be so put! how rare are the occasions on which two people approach one another so nearly! Most of us pass days, weeks, months, years in intercourse with one another, and nothing which even remotely concerns the soul is ever mentioned. Is it that we do not care? Mainly that, and partly because we foolishly hang back from any conversation on what it is most important we should reveal, so that others may help us. Whenever you feel any promptings to speak of the soul or to make any inquiries on its behalf, remember it is a sacred duty not to suppress them.
“This ruler was happy in being able to find a single authority to whom he could appeal for an answer. If anybody wishes for such an answer now, he can find no oracle sole and decisive. The voices of the Church, the sects, the philosophers are clamorous but discordant, and we are bewildered. And yet, as I have told you over and over again in this pulpit, it is absolutely necessary that you should have one and one only supreme guide. To say nothing of eternal salvation, we must, in the conduct of life, shape our behaviour by some one standard, or the result is chaos. We must have some one method or principle which is to settle beforehand how we are to do this or that, and the method or principle should be Christ. Leaving out of sight altogether His divinity, there is no temper, no manner so effectual, so happy as His for handling all human experience. Oh, what a privilege it is to meet with anybody who is controlled into unity, whose actions are all directed by one consistent force!
“Jesus, as if to draw from this ruler all that he himself believed, tells him to keep the Law. The Law, however, is insufficient, and it is noteworthy that the ruler felt it to be so. To begin with, it is largely negative: there are three negatives in this twentieth verse for one affirmative, and negations cannot redeem us. The law is also external. As a proof that it is ineffectual, I ask, Have you everrejoicedin it? Have you ever been kindled by it? Have all its precepts ever moved you like one single item in the story of the love of Jesus? Is the man attractive to you who has kept the law and done nothing more? Would not the poor woman who anointed our Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair be more welcome to you than the holy people who had simply never transgressed?
“We are struck with the magnitude of the demand made by Jesus on this ruler. To obtain eternal life he was to sell all he had, give up house, friends, position, respectability, and lead a vagrant life in Palestine with this poor carpenter’s son. Alas! eternal life is not to be bought on lower terms. Beware of the damnable doctrine that it is easy to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is to be obtained only by the sacrifice ofallthat stands in the way, and it is to be observed that in this, as in other things, men will take the first, the second, the third—nay, even the ninety-ninth step, but the hundredth and last they will not take. Do you really wish to save your soul? Then the surrender must be absolute. What! you will say, am I to sell everything? If Christ comes to you—yes. Sell not only your property, but your very self. Part with all your preferences, your loves, your thoughts, your very soul, if only you can gain Him, and be sure too that He will come to you in a shape in which it will not be easy to recognise Him. What a bargain, though, this ruler would have made! He would have given up his dull mansion in Jerusalem, Jerusalem society, which cared nothing forhim, though it doubtless called on him, made much of him, and even professed undying friendship with him; he would have given this up, nothing but this, and he would have gained those walks with Jesus across the fields, and would have heard Him say, ‘Consider the lilies!’ ‘Oh, yes, we would have done it at once!’ we cry. I think not, for Christ is with us even now.’
Curiously enough, the conclusion was a piece of the most commonplace orthodoxy, lugged in, Heaven knows how, and delivered monotonously, in strong contrast to the former part of the discourse.—M. R.
* * * * *
These notes, made by one who was present, are the mere ashes, cold and grey, of what was once a fire. Mr. Cardew was really eloquent, and consequently a large part of the effect of what he said is not to be reproduced. It is a pity that no record is possible of a great speaker. The writer of this history remembers when it was his privilege to listen continually to a man whose power over his audience was so great that he could sway them unanimously by a passion which was sufficient for any heroic deed. The noblest resolutions were formed under that burning oratory, and were kept, too, for the voice of the dead preacher still vibrates in the ears of those who heard him. And yet, except in their hearts, no trace abides, and when they are dead he will be forgotten, excepting in so far as that which has once lived can never die.
Whether it was the preacher’s personality, or what he said, Catharine could hardly distinguish, but she was profoundly moved. Such speaking was altogether new to her; the world in which Mr. Cardew moved was one which she had never entered, and yet it seemed to her as if something necessary and familiar to her, but long lost, had been restored. She began now to look forward to Sunday with intense expectation; a new motive for life was supplied to her, and a new force urged her through each day. It was with her as we can imagine it to be with some bud long folded in darkness which, silently in the dewy May night, loosens its leaves, and, as the sun rises, bares itself to the depths of its cup to the blue sky and the light.
The Misses Ponsonby speedily came to a conclusion about Catharine, and she was forthwith labelled as a young lady of natural ability, whose education had been neglected, a type perfectly familiar, recurring every quarter, and one with which they were perfectly well able to deal. All the examples they had had before were ticketed in exactly the same terms, and, so classed, there was an end of further distinction. The means taken with Catharine were those which had been taken since the school began, and special attention was devoted to the branches in which she was most deficient, and which she disliked. Her history was deplorable, and her first task, therefore, was what were called dates. A table had been prepared of the kings and queens of England—when they came to the throne, and when they died; and another table gave the years of all the battles. A third table gave the relationship of the kings and queens to each other, and the reasons for succession. All this had to be learned by heart. In languages, also, Catharine was singularly defective. Her French was intolerable and most inaccurate, and of Italian she knew nothing. Her dancing and deportment were so “provincial,” as Miss Adela Ponsonby happily put it, that it was thought better that the dancing and deportment teacher should give her a few private lessons before putting her in a class, and she was consequently instructed alone in the rudiments of the art of entering and leaving a room with propriety, of sitting with propriety on a sofa when conversing, of reading a book in a drawing-room, of acknowledging an introduction, of sitting down to a meal and rising therefrom, and in the use of the pocket-handkerchief. She had particularly shocked the Misses Ponsonby on this latter point, as she was in the habit of blowing her nose energetically, “snorting,” as one of the young ladies said colloquially, but with truth, and the deportment mistress had some difficulty in reducing them to the whisper, which was all that was permitted in the Ponsonby establishment, even in cases of severe cold. On the other hand, in one or two departments she was far ahead of the other girls, particularly in arithmetic and geometry.
It was the practice on Monday morning for the girls to be questioned on the sermons of the preceding Sunday, and a very solemn business it was. The whole school was assembled in the big schoolroom, and Mr. Cardew, both the Misses Ponsonby being present, examinedviva voce. One Monday morning, after Catharine had been a month at the school, Mr. Cardew came as usual. He had been preaching the Sunday before on a favourite theme, and his text had been, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin,” and the examination at the beginning was in the biography of St. Paul, as this had formed a part of his discourse. No fault was to be found with the answers on this portion of the subject, but presently the class was in some difficulty.
“Can anybody tell me what meaning was assigned to the phrase, ‘The body of this death’?”
No reply.
“Come, you took notes, and one or two interpretations were discarded for that which seemed to be more in accordance with the mind of St. Paul. Miss Arden”—Miss Arden was sitting nearest to Mr. Cardew—“cannot you say?”
Miss Arden shook her ringlets, smiled, and turned a little red, as if she had been complimented by Mr. Cardew’s inquiries after the body of death, and, glancing at her paper, replied—“The death of this body.”
“Pardon me, that was one of the interpretations rejected.”
“This body of death,” said Catharine.
“Quite so.”
Mr. Cardew turned hastily round to the new pupil, whom he had not noticed before, and looked at her steadily for a moment.
“Can you proceed a little and explain what that means?”
Catharine’s voice trembled, but she managed to read from her paper: “It is strikingly after the manner of St. Paul. He opposes the two pictures in him by the strongest words at his command—death and life. Oneisdeath, the otherislife, and he prays to be delivered from death; not the death of the body, but from death-in-life.”
“Thank you; that is very nearly what I intended.”
Mr. Cardew took tea at the Limes about once a fortnight with Mrs. Cardew. The meal was served in the Misses Ponsonby’s private room, and the girls were invited in turn. About a fortnight after the examination on St. Paul’s theory of human nature, Mr. and Mrs. Cardew came as usual, and Catharine was one of the selected guests. The company sat round the table, and Mrs. Cardew was placed between her husband and Miss Furze. The rector’s wife was a fair-haired lady, with quiet, grey eyes, and regular, but not strikingly beautiful, features. Yet they were attractive, because they were harmonious, and betokened a certain inward agreement. It was a sane, sensible face, but a careless critic might have thought that it betokened an incapability of emotion, especially as Mrs. Cardew had a habit of sitting back in her chair, and generally let the conversation take its own course until it came very chose to her. She had a sober mode of statement and criticism, which was never brilliant and never stupid. It ought to have been most serviceable to her husband, because it might have corrected the exaggeration into which his impulse, talent, and power of pictorial representation were so apt to fall. She had been brought up as an Evangelical, but she had passed through no religious experiences whatever, and religion, in the sense in which Evangelicalism in the Church of England of that day understood it, was quite unintelligible to her. Had she been born a few years later she would have taken to science, and would have done well at it, but at that time there was no outlet for any womanly faculty, much larger in quantity than we are apt to suppose, which has an appetite for exact facts.
Mr. Cardew would have been called a prig by those who did not know him well. He had a trick of starting subjects suddenly, and he very often made his friends very uncomfortable by the precipitate introduction, without any warning, of remarks upon serious matters. Once even, shocking to say, he quite unexpectedly at a tea-party made an observation about God. Really, however, he was not a prig. He was very sincere. He lived in a world of his own, in which certain figures moved which were as familiar to him as common life, and he consequently talked about them. He leaned in front of his wife and said to Catharine—
“Have you read much, Miss Furze?”
“No, very little.”
“Indeed! I should have thought you were a reader. What have you read lately? any stories?”
“Yes, I have read ‘Rasselas.’”
“‘Rasselas’! Have you really? Now tell me what you think of it.”
“Oh! I cannot tell you all.”
“No; it is not fair to put the question in that way. It is necessary to have some training in order to give a proper account of the scope and purpose of a book. Can you select any one part which struck you, and tell me why it struck you?”
“The part about the astronomer. I thought all that is said about the dreadful effects of uncontrolled imagination was so wonderful.”
“Don’t you think those effects are exaggerated?”
She lost herself for a moment, as we have already seen she was in the habit of doing, or rather, she did not lose herself, but everything excepting herself, and she spoke as if nobody but herself were present.
“Not in the least exaggerated. What a horror to pass days in dreaming about one particular thing, and to have no power to wake!”
Her head had fallen a little forward; she suddenly straightened herself; the blood rose in her face, and she looked very confused.
“I should like to preach about Dr. Johnson,” said Mr. Cardew.
“Really, Mr. Cardew,” interposed the elder Miss Ponsonby, “Dr. Johnson is scarcely a sacred subject.”
“I beg your pardon; I do not mean preaching on the Sabbath. I should like to lecture about him. It is a curious thing, Miss Ponsonby, that although Johnson was such a devout Christian, yet in his troubles his remedy is generally nothing but that of the Stoics—courage and patience.”
Nobody answered, and an awkward pause followed. Catharine had not recovered from the shock of self-revelation, and the Misses Ponsonby were uneasy, not because the conversation had taken such an unusual turn, but because a pupil had contributed. Mrs. Cardew, distressed at her husband’s embarrassment, ventured to come to the rescue.
“I think Dr Johnson quite right: when I am in pain, and nothing does me any good, I never have anything to say to myself, excepting that I must just be quiet, wait and bear it.”
This very plain piece of pagan common sense made matters worse. Mr. Cardew seemed vexed that his wife had spoken, and there was once more silence for quite half a minute. Miss Adela Ponsonby then rang the bell, and Catharine, in accordance with rule, left the room.
“Rather a remarkable young woman,” carelessly observed the rector.
“Decidedly!” said both the Misses Ponsonby, in perfect unison.
“She has been much neglected,” continued Miss Ponsonby. “Her manners leave much to be desired. She has evidently not been accustomed to the forms of good society, or to express herself in accordance with the usual practice. We have endeavoured to impress upon her that, not only is much care necessary in the choice of topics of conversation, but in the mode of dealing with them. I thought it better not to encourage any further remarks from her, or I should have pointed out that, if what you say of Dr. Johnson is correct, as I have no doubt it is, considering the party in the church to which he belonged, it only shows that he was unacquainted experimentally with the consolations of religion.”
“Isn’t Mr. Cardew a dear?” asked Miss Arden, when she and Catharine were together.
“I hardly understand what you mean, and I have not known Mr. Cardew long enough to give any opinion upon him.”
“How exasperating you are again! Youdoknow what I mean; but you always pretend never to know what anybody means.”
“I donotknow what you mean.”
“Why, isn’t he handsome; couldn’t you doat on him, and fall in love with him?”
“But he’s married.”
“You fearful Catharine! of course he’s married; you do take things so seriously.”
“Well, I’m more in the dark than ever.”
“There you shall stick,” replied Miss Arden, lightly shaking her curls and laughing. “Married!—yes, but they don’t care for one another a straw.”
“Have they ever told you so?”
“How very ridiculous! Cannot you see for yourself?”
“I am not sure: it is very difficult to know whether people really love one another, and often equally difficult to know if they dislike one another.”
“What a philosopher you are! I’ll tell you one thing, though: I believe he has just a little liking for me. Not for his life dare he show it. Oh, my goodness, wouldn’t the fat be in the fire! Wouldn’t there be a flare-up! What would the Ponsonbys do? Polite letter to papa announcing that my education was complete! That’s what they did when Julia Jackson got in a mess. They couldn’t have a scandal: so her education was complete, and home she went. Now the first time we are out for a walk and he passes us and bows, you watch.”
Miss Julia Arden went to sleep directly she went to bed, but Catharine, contrary to her usual custom, lay awake till she heard twelve o’clock strike from St. Mary, Abchurch. She started, and thought that she alone, perhaps, of all the people who lay within reach of those chimes had heard them. Why did she not go to sleep? She was unused to wakefulness, and its novelty surprised her with all sorts of vague terrors. She turned from side to side anxiously while midnight sounded, but she was young, and in ten minutes afterwards she was dreaming. She was mistaken in supposing that she was the only person awake in Abchurch that night. Mrs. Cardew heard the chimes, and over her their soothing melody had no power. When she and her husband left the Limes he broke out at once, with all the eagerness with which a man begins when he has been repeating to himself for some time every word of his grievance—
“I don’t know how it is, Jane, but whenever I say anything I feel you are just the one person on whom it seems to make an impression. You have a trick of repetition, and you manage to turn everything into a platitude. If you cannot do better than that, you might be silent.”
He was right so far, that it is possible by just a touch to convert the noblest sentiment into commonplace. No more than a touch is necessary. The parabolic mirror will reflect the star to a perfect focus. The elliptical mirror, varying from the parabola by less than the breadth of a hair, throws an image which is useless. But Mr. Cardew was far more wrong than he was right. He did not take into account that what his wife said and what she felt might not be the same; that persons, who have no great command over language, are obliged to make one word do duty for a dozen, and that, if his wife was defective at one point, there were in her whole regions of unexplored excellence, of faculties never encouraged, and an affection to which he offered no response. He had not learned the art of being happy with her: he did not know that happiness is an art: he rather did everything he could do to make the relationship intolerable. He demanded payment in coin stamped from his own mint, and if bullion and jewels had been poured before him he would have taken no heed of them.
She said nothing. She never answered him when he was angry with her. It was growing dark as they went home, and the tears came into her eyes and the ball rose in her throat, and her lips quivered. She went back—does a woman ever forget them?—to the hours of passionate protestation before marriage, to the walks together when he caught up her poor phrases and refined them, and helped her to see herself, and tried also to learn what few things she had to teach. It was all the worse because she still loved him so dearly, and felt that behind the veil was the same face, but she could not tear the veil away. Perhaps, as they grew older, matters might become worse, and they might have to travel together estranged down the long, weary path to death. Death! She did not desire to leave him, but she would have lain down in peace to die that moment if he could be made to see her afterwards as she knew she was—at least in her love for him. But then she thought what suffering the remembrance of herself would cost him, and she wished to live. He felt that she moved her hand to her pocket, and he knew why it went there. He pitied her, but he pitied himself more, and though her tears wrought on him sufficiently to prevent any further cruelty, he did not repent.
Mrs. Cardew met Catharine two or three times accidentally within the next fortnight. There were Dorcas meetings and meetings of all kinds at which the young women at the Limes were expected to assist. One afternoon, after tea, the room being hot, two or three of the company had gone out into the garden to work. Catharine and Mrs. Cardew sat by themselves at one corner, where the ground rose a little, and a seat had been placed under a large ash tree. From that point St. Mary’s spire was visible, about half a mile away in the west, rising boldly, confidently, one might say, into the sky, as if it dared to claim that it too, although on earth and finite, could match itself against the infinite heaven above. On this particular evening the spire was specially obvious and attractive, for it divided the sunset clouds, standing out black against the long, narrow interspaces of tender green which lay between. It was one of those evenings which invite confidence, when people cannot help drawing nearer than usual to one another.
“Is it not beautiful, Miss Furze?”
“Beautiful; the spire makes it so lovely.”
“I wonder why.”
“I am sure I do not know; but it is so.”
“Catharine—you will not mind my calling you by your Christian name—you can explain it if you like.”
Catharine smiled. “It is very kind of you, Mrs. Cardew, to call me Catharine, but I have no explanation. I could not give one to save my life, unless it is the contrast.”
“You cannot think how I wish I had the power of saying what I think and feel. I cannot express myself properly—so my husband says.”
“I sympathise with you. I am so foolish at times. Mr. Cardew, I should think, never felt the difficulty.”
“No, and he makes so much of it. He says I do not properly enjoy a thing if I cannot in some measure describe my enjoyment—articulate it, to use his own words.”
He had inwardly taunted her, even when she was suffering, and had said to himself that her trouble must be insignificant, for there was no colour nor vivacity in her description of it. She did not properly even understand his own shortcomings. He could pardon her criticism, so he imagined, if she could be pungent. Mistaken mortal! it was her patient heroism which made her dumb to him about her sorrows and his faults. A very limited vocabulary is all that is necessary on such topics.
“I am just the same.”
“Oh, no, you are not; Mr. Cardew says you are not.”
“Mr. Cardew?—he has not noticed anything in me, I am certain, and if he has, why nobody could be less able to talk to him than I am.”
Catharine knew nothing of what had passed between husband and wife—one scene amongst many—and consequently could not understand the peculiar earnestness, somewhat unusual with her, with which Mrs. Cardew dwelt upon this subject. We lead our lives apart in close company, with private hopes and fears unknown to anybody but ourselves, and when we go abroad we often appear inexplicable and absurd, simply because our friends have not the proper key.
“Do you think, Catharine—you know that, though I am older than you and married, I feel we are friends.” Here Mrs. Cardew took Catharine’s hand in hers. “Do you think I could learn how to talk? What I mean is, could I be taught how to say what is appropriate? Idofeel something when Mr. Cardew reads Milton to me. It is only the words I want—words such as you have.”
“Oh, Mrs. Cardew!”—Catharine came closer to her, and Mrs. Cardew’s arm crept round her waist—“I tell you again I have not so many words as you suppose. I believe, though, that if people take pains they can find them.”
“Couldn’t you help me?”
“I? Oh, no! Mr. Cardew could. I never heard anybody express himself as he does.”
“Mr. Cardew is a minister, and perhaps I should find it easier with you. Suppose I bring the ‘Paradise Lost’ out into the garden when we next meet, and I will read, and you shall help me to comment on it.”
Catharine’s heart went out towards her, and it was agreed that “Paradise Lost” should be brought, and that Mrs. Cardew would endeavour to make herself “articulate” thereon. The party broke up, and Catharine’s reflections were not of the simplest order. Rather let us say her emotions, for her heart was busier than her head. Mrs. Cardew had deeply touched her. She never could stand unmoved the eyes of her dog when the poor beast came and laid her nose on her lap and looked up at her, and nobody could have persuaded her of the truth of Mr. Cardew’s doctrine that the reason why a dog can only bark is that his thoughts are nothing but barks. Mrs. Cardew’s appeal, therefore, was of a kind to stir her sympathy; but—had she not heard that Mr. Cardew had observed and praised her? It was nothing—ridiculously nothing; it was his duty to praise and blame the pupils at the Limes; he had complimented Miss Toogood on her Bible history the other day, and on her satisfactory account of the scheme of redemption. He had done it publicly, and he had pointed out the failings of the other pupils, she, Catharine herself, being included. He had reminded her that she had not taken into account the one vital point, that as we are the Almighty Maker’s creatures, His absolutely, we have no ground of complaint against Him in whatever way He may be pleased to make us. Nevertheless, just those two or three words Mrs. Cardew reported were like yeast, and her whole brain was in a ferment.
The Milton was produced next week. Since Catharine had been at the Limes she had read some of it, incited by Mr. Cardew, for he was an enthusiast for Milton. Mrs. Cardew was a bad reader; she had no emphasis, no light and shade, and she missed altogether the rhythm of the verse. To Catharine, on the other hand, knowing nothing of metre, the proper cadence came easily. They finished the first six hundred lines of the first book.
“You have not said anything, Catharine.”
“No; but what have you to say?”
“It is very fine; but there I stick; I cannot say any more; I want to say more; that is where I always am. I cannotunderstand why I cannot go on as some people do; I just stop there with ‘very fine.’”
“Cannot you pick out some passage which particularly struck you?”
“That is very true, is it not, that the mind can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven?”
“Most true; but did you not notice the description of the music?”
Catharine was fond of music, but only as an expression of her own feelings. For music as music—for a melody of Mozart, for example—that is to say, for pure art, which is simply beauty, superior to our personality, she did not care. She liked Handel, and there was a choral society in Eastthorpe which occasionally performed the “Messiah.”
“Don’t you remember what Mr. Cardew said about it—it was remarkable that Milton should have given to music the power to chase doubt from the mind, doubt generally, and yet music is not argument?”
“Oh, yes, I recollect, but I do not quite comprehend him, and I told him I did not see how music could make me sure of a thing if there was not a reason for it.”
“What did he say then?”
“Nothing.”
Mr. Cardew called that evening to take his wife home. He was told that she was in the garden with Miss Furze, and thither he at once went.
“Milton!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing with Milton here?”
“Miss Furze and I were reading the first book of the ‘Paradise Lost’ together.”
Mrs. Cardew looked at her husband inquiringly, and with a timid smile, hoping he would show himself pleased. His brow, however, slightly wrinkled itself with displeasure. He had told her to read Milton, had said, “Fancy an Englishwoman with any pretensions to education not knowing Milton!” and now, when she was doing exactly what she was directed to do, he was vexed. He was annoyed to find he was precisely obeyed, and perhaps would have been in a better temper if he had been contradicted and resisted. Mrs. Cardew turned her head away. What was she to do with him? Every one of her efforts to find the door had failed.
“What has struck you particularly in that book, Miss Furze?”
Catharine was about to say something, but she caught sight of Mrs. Cardew, and was arrested. At last she spoke, but what she said was not what she at first had intended to say.