Then came the day's third notion. Cupboard, cupboard!—rifle it! Open, look, steal! This massive piece of oak excelled the physic cupboard in mystery, while equalling it in Aunt Jael's affections. Its contents were largely unknown: I knew it housed a jar of ginger, and in benignant mood Aunt Jael would make it yield a box of Smyrna figs, from which she doled me one or two for senna's sake—as dainty supplement or shy substitute. Like the door of the room itself, the door of the rich cupboard stood always key in lock. Once before I had reached this point of handling the key; today, the day of many sins, I took the one step further, and opened to my gaze a new world of jars, pots, boxes and bags. I opened my campaign on a jar of French plums, the jar massive stone and broad-necked, the plums large black and luscious. I had eaten perhaps my sixth (one of my unlucky numbers), when—a sound—and I half dropped the jar in fright. The door, there was a noise at the door; the handle turned, it was opening. An opening door is the thief's nightmare; I dared not get up from my knees. The noiseceased; I peered through the darkness. Then the atoms ofseenatmosphere that sometimes fill a half-darkened room played me a cruel trick. They shaped into a great leering face—half Aunt Jael, half Benamuckee;—it peered round the door, it mocked, it sneered. I was petrified with fear, and for something to hold clutched fiercely at the stone jar. Was the face real? Look, it was fading away. Then, without any manner of doubt, the door softly shut. So the face was real, and I knew its owner.
What new tortures would she find to meet the score I was running up? Why had she withdrawn? Ah, she had gone for the ship's rope, was coming back to give me the last flogging of all, the one that would kill me. A few minutes passed. As in the Papist chapel, and again during my idol-worship, I waited for a great something to happen. Nothing happened. I attended a sign. No sign came.
I must venture forth; sooner or later I had to face the music. I had no stomach left for plums. I put the jar back, locked the cupboard door, and stole softly out into the hall. Far away along the passage I could see Mrs. Cheese bustling about in the kitchen; it must be supper-time. She was still in the house therefore; she had ignored her notice and survived themêléein which I had seen her last. I turned the key softly behind me, then stole to the house front-door, which I noisily opened and shut, to pretend I had just come in.
I walked straight into the dining-room.
Aunt Jaelsmiled. I had foreseen many things, but not this. She said nothing. This proved that the face at the door was hers. A grim smile.
"At last!" said my Grandmother. "It was wrong to run away and scare us like this. I'll talk to you afterwards upstairs. Have your supper now, as you've had no tea. Then to bed."
I ate. Aunt Jael sat and smiled. A grim smile.
Upstairs in my bedroom Grandmother asked me where I had been. "I walked about the town" satisfied her. She rebuked my initial sin in encouraging Mrs. Cheese, my second in insulting Aunt Jael, my third in running away; she anointed my sores, first on the ear, second on the calf, third on theshoulder where the first ruffianly stroke had fallen; she prayed with me, and said good-night.
* * * * * * *
Alone in bed I went over the day's events: from porridge pan to plums, from lumps to Aunt Jael's smile. Suddenly, causelessly in the way one finds in a dream lost objects whose hiding place is long forgotten—I saw the stone cover of the plum jar lying in the middle of the front-room carpet. Remembrance followed vision, and I knew I had hastily put the jar away without it. At all events the cover must be restored; if by any wild chance the face at the door had not been Aunt Jael's this tell-tale object would anyhow give me away if she should find it; if the facewerehers the cover would be fine "evidence."
I got up. I always lay awake till after midnight; Aunt Jael and Grandmother were long ago in bed. The day's horrible excitements had made me more cowardly than usual. The darkness frightened me, the creaking stairs frightened me, my conscience frightened me. Shapes loomed everywhere. The pillar at the foot of the banisters towered down on me like some avenging ghost. At last I reached the front-room door; I turned the key slowly and carefully; it clanged unpiteously in the silence. I peeped in. The moonlight piercing through the drawn blind lit up ghoulishly the god's evil face. I stared a moment; his featuresmoved; and I fled in frantic terror.
Though the object I sought was but a couple of yards away, I could not for all the world have dared a single step nearer. I shut the door and, praying fervently all the way, crept up to bed again. I would go and pick up the cover of the jar first thing in the morning; Aunt Jael never went in till after breakfast; the daylight I could dare.
All night I did not sleep. Conscience busy with the day past and fear anxious for the day ahead gave me quite enough to think about, and I was feverish and overwrought. As soon after daylight as I dared I set forth downstairs. It was early enough for me to retrieve the tell-tale object before Aunt Jael was astir and light enough for me to brave Lord Benamuckee. At the foot of the stairs I met Aunt Jael, fully dressed, nearly two hours before ordinary time; smiling.
"Good morning, child. You're up betimes."
I did not dare atu quoque, but uttered a feeble tale about helping Mrs. Cheese to clean the boots, Friday being her busiest day.
Aunt Jael, by a singular coincidence, had risen in the same helping spirit, and the two of us burst upon the astonished Mrs. Cheese in the midst of her first matutinal movements. Though I was by now quite certain that the face at the door had been Aunt Jael's, this did not prevent my wishing to restore the jar-cover to its place. It was preparing for the best, so to speak, on the faint off-chance that I was deluded. Meanwhile her smile prepared me for the worst. It was more complex than a blow, for it portended blows to come and added to their evil charm by heralding them afar off. Aunt Jael's floggings had at least this merit, that as a rule they came suddenly; the stick was across my back before I knew where I was.
I walked out of the kitchen, straight through to the front room door. Before touching the handle, I took a glance down the length of the hall. Yes, there she stood at the kitchen door, watching me like a hawk. At breakfast, hope pointed out one more chance. I would gobble down my food, and essay a dash for my objective just as I was leaving for school. I ate as fast as I could; she at once ate faster. I got up, she got up too. There was no chance, and she even saw me to the house-door as I set out for school. In the gamewe were playing, no word was spoken. Her weapon was her smile, which was the proof too that she was winning.
On my way to school, as I thought now of this latest menace, now of yesterday's deeds, I admitted that here at last was a case when Ideservedpunishment. "I hate you"—entering a House of Sin, and approving it almost—breach of the third commandment—common theft—a white lie to Grandmother as to where I had been—what an awful record for one day! Truly I was a queen of sinners. Perhaps God saw fit to humble me in the exaltation of my sin by scorning direct vengeance Himself (three times I had waited for the sign), and had chosen as the vehicle of His vengeance Aunt Jael, my every-day inglamorous tyrant. In any case vengeance was certain; the sultry thunder-weather of the new day seemed to announce it.
Soon after I got to school, it began to grow dark, then very dark. It was one of those rare occasions when the pitch-black of utter darkness falls in the day-time; I only remember one other in nearly fifty years. Miss Glory wondered; Miss Salvation exclaimed; we children cowered. I alone had an inkling of what the portent really betokened. It was the Sign. Now that I felt certain once again that the moment of my doom was at hand, all the exquisite extreme fear of yesterday came back.
It was swiftly too dark to read. Panic set in. All the children, from both classes, clustered round Glory. She, not Salvation, was the refuge and strength which instinct pointed out on this Last Day. The situation was worthy of her prophet's soul: to her was assigned the awful honour of ushering in Eternity, and announcing the sure signs of the beginning of the end. She stood up, gaunt, prophetic, towering far above the children who clustered round her, waved one hand towards the heavens, and chanted forth:
"The End, little children, is here! Fear not! Repent! 'And the fourth angel sounded and the third part o' the sun was smitten, and the third part o' the moon and the third part o' the stars; so as the third part o' them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part uv it, and the night likewise.' The End is here! The bottomless pit is opened, then cometh forth smoke out o' the pit, and the sun and theair are darkened. Out o' the smoke come great locusts upon the earth, great locusts—" Some of the children shrieked.
Now at one stride came utter darkness. Salvation fell on her knees in a corner apart, yelling and howling to the Lord to save her. "O Lord, Lord, remember us as is chosen, remember, Lord. Smite the ungodly, Lord, smite 'em all, but spare the righteous, spare the righteous! Strike the goats with thy angur, but zave the pore sheep; smite the zinners, but zave Thy own Zaints! Oh, aw, ow! Zave, Lord, zave!"
While this pitiable object yelled away, and the children cried, Miss Glory's solemn voice chanted on, awaiting God's stroke. I the Papist, the idolater, the liar, the thief—this visitation was forme. And if it was the end of the whole world too, as I believed, I was the cause, and I should be the first victim.
"Plagues, locusts, scorpions, the pit, the great tribulation! Life is death, me children:'tis one long prercession o' death beds. Listen, hearken. First the darkness, now 'tis the thunders and lightin's that is at hand. Watch, oh, my children, watch; pray and fear not. 'Tis the end o' the Worrld, I tell 'ee, the end o' the Worrld." And all the children clutched at her in a frightened desperate ring, so that they should all go to heaven or hell together. I could just distinguish the group a few feet away; it looked in the darkness like a swarm of giant insects. Miss Salvation was pleading and howling away for a heaven to herself, and hell for all folk else. Still I waited; the slowness of God's stroke was half its terror. It was too hard to bear.
Then, far more suddenly than it came, the darkness lifted. With returning light came confidence. I breathed freely. Once again respite. Fear, prime instigator of goodness, lost his hold as the shadows faded. I began toexpectescape; to think, after so many favours, that I was privileged, and could take the risk of wrongdoing. I was a chartered libertine.
When I got back to Bear Lawn before dinner, no sign of Aunt Jael. There was still a chance then to put things right if it was not too late. I stole into the front room. There, in the middle of the floor, just as I had seemed to seeit in bed, lay the stone jar-cover. Good fortune once again. After all Aunt Jael could know nothing. Those smiles were innocent; their menace must have been born of my disordered mind. Anyway, here was yet another stroke of luck. But, alas, these perpetual escapes emboldened me. Fear is the guardian of virtue, safety the guide to sin. God's repeated forgivenesses for my sins inspired in me security rather than gratitude: a feeling that I could sin safely.
So why not another French plum? Only just one,—or two. Before fixing the cover on the jar, it was natural enough just to taste. I knelt down to open the cupboard. I tilted the heavy jar to look down into it and make my choice. In a second I dropped it with a wild frenzied shriek, wrung from the depths of my heart. Staring at me from inside the jar, painted there in great letters of shining fire, lay the Sign:
THOU GOD SEEST ME.
The King of Terrors had got hold of me, and I shrieked and shrieked again. I writhed on the floor like a wild thing, clasping now my side, now my knees and again my forehead in all the pitiful gestures of terror. I cut my hand against the broken fragments of the jar that lay scattered on the floor. I licked at the blood. Now the air seemed filled with those awful letters, in blood-red capitals everywhere. I shut my eyes: against the blackness the letters stood forth more bright and terrible than ever: THOU GOD SEEST ME. He saw, the Almighty saw. God had given me rope and I had hanged myself. It had needed this miracle to bring me to a sense of my sins: this Sign whereby the Lord God wrote with His own finger in letters of fire in the plum-jar; the earthen vessel of my sin. This was but the beginning of terrors. "Tis the End o' the World, I tell 'ee, the End o' the World," rang my brain. I waited the next sign: a stealthy sound—the door, the door!—then again that face, leering, mocking, horrible. It was Aunt Jael—no, it was Benamuckee—it changed again, it was the Devil himself! I fainted away.
In the "mental illness" that followed I came near to losing my life and nearer still to losing my reason. For many days I was unconscious, and then for long weeks I lay in bed under my Grandmother's loving care. In my delirium I must havetold her everything. Sometimes I can recall that fevered time; it comes back to me in the swift evanescent way that one remembers a dream long afterwards, and it is one long hideous nightmare. I live again those dark delirious days when I knew myself for a lost soul flying in terror from God, the Devil, the Pope, Aunt Jael, Benamuckee and Eternity, who menaced me in turn with their various and particular terrors, in all the formless frightfulness of dreams. The pursuit was everlasting. An evil black shadow prowled close at my heels with pitiless, unbroken stride. The face, which kept forcing me against my will to turn round to look at it as I ran, changed from time to time. First I thought my pursuer was Aunt Jael, brandishing a huge stick studded with thorns and spikes of inhuman size. As I looked, hate of the coarse old face rose within me: then the face changed, I thought, into God's; stern, just and terrible, seeking me out to stifle the wicked hate in my heart. Now again it was the Pope, horned and horrible, seeking to avenge my sacrilege in his temple, and now Benamuckee, hastening to devour me for having repented of my idolatry and deserted his shrine. I ran, it seemed, for ever. I had no strength left, and fear alone worked my weary limbs. Now the face was formless: a black shapeless mass without limbs or features was pursuing me. He was the grimmest of them all, and followed for ever and ever. I knew the formless face; it was the last worst terror, Eternity Himself! Sometimes, as my Grandmother told me long afterwards, I shrieked in my delirium till my voice failed me and I could shriek no more.
Perhaps it was at such moments that the dream changed. I thought that I was God, with all the labour and responsibility of creation upon my soul. Every clod of earth that went to make the world I had to go and fetch from some far-away corner in utmost Space; I staggered with them, in it seemed a million journeys, to the central place where with infinite labour I had to piece them all together one by one. When I came to making the first man, my conscience—God's conscience—smote me: "Think and ponder well: if you fashion but one man, it is you who must bear the guilt for all the awful sorrows and wretchedness of the millions of men who will come after, it is you who will be responsible for all the agonyof eternal life you are conferring upon a new race." I shut my ears to the voice (Who is God's conscience?—the Devil?), hardened my heart, and created mankind. Then as I beheld his fall, and all the unhurrying centuries of woe and pain and cruelty and sorrow that followed, and knew that every one of those creatures I had called forth was damned into everlastingness without hope of happiness or death; suddenly on me too, on me the Lord God, there fell the terror of the Everlasting. All the fear I knew so well as Mary Lee was now a hundred times intensified when I was God. I too, the Almighty, was a victim on the wheel of Space and Time; and as my brain pictured the awful horrible loneliness that would face me for ever watching the birth and death of all the stars and half-a-million worlds, and knowing there was no escape, I made a wild despairing attempt to fling myself headlong over the edge of Space and commit soul-murder if I could. I flung myself over what seemed to be the margin of the universe; I was falling, falling—then arms restored me;—and Grandmother saved me just in time, and put poor delirious brain-sick little God back into bed.
I was in bed for many weeks; it was three or four months before I went back to school. The permanent effect of my illness was an increased nervousness I have never shaken off. To this day, whenever a door opens suddenly without warning, my heart stands still, and try as I may not to see it, the vision of a cruel mocking face comes back. The most immediate effect was that I became a "better" child. My Grandmother's daily gentleness and sacrifice during those long long days, made me resolve to be more like her; and I prayed God fervently to make me so. I saw too, for all Aunt Jael's provocations and harsh treatment, that I had been wrong and wicked. I numbered my sins one by one and repented of each and all. A miracle had been wrought to save me: the finger of the Almighty had sketched in letters of flame the reminder thatHE SAW ME. He had intervened miraculously and directly, to secure my spiritual state. I determined to be worthy of this signal proof of God's special favour. By a sacrifice not easy to exaggerate I managed to see that Aunt Jael might have been God's "instrument" throughout: perhaps the idea was morepossible since now, during my recovery, she treated me far better than at any time before: kept a sharp hold on her tongue, indulged in no recriminations or abuse, and bought me a bottle of barley-sugar. I saw nothing more of that curious mocking smile that had helped to haunt me into delirium. Once or twice I thought she had a guilty look, especially once when Grandmother made some reference to the plum-jar. Was it possible? Never. For if so,how? No; it was the Lord's doing.
Mrs. Cheese had left. I gathered from Grandmother that there had been a stormy scene, Mrs. Cheese accusing Aunt Jael of directly and deliberately causing my illness, and Aunt Jael ordering Mrs. Cheese out of the house then and there. She refused to go till she had helped my Grandmother to see me through the worst days.
In the stead of Mrs. Cheese arose a dim unapostolic succession of fickle and fleeting bondswomen. Most of them were Saints. All of them quarrelled with Aunt Jael. Their average sojourn with us was perhaps ten months, which in those stable and old-fashioned days would equal (say) two weeks in this era of quick-change kitchen-maids and kaleidoscopic cooks.
There was Prudence, rightly so-called, for although she skimmed each morning the milk the dairyman had left overnight, she cautiously concealed her jugful of cream in the remotest corner of the least-used scullery cupboard. Aunt Jael, however, was on the watch. She thought the milk woefully thin, and Prudence's explanations still thinner. Then one morning she found the prudent one busy at early dawn, spoon in hand, her little jug half-full; caught in the very act.
There were Charlotte, Annie, Miriam, Ethel, May, Jane, Sarah, Bessie, Ann, Mary, the Elizas (two), Kate, Keturah, Deborah, Selina, and Sukie: I am not sure of their strict order of precedence. Nor do I remember their life with us half so well as the manner of their leaving it. The climax came variously. Charlotte told me what I now know to have been dirty stories. Annie told Aunt Jael herself a very dirty story indeed—precisely what she thought of her (Aunt Jael); Miriam spat in her (Aunt Jael's) porridge,Kate when attacked with a shovel hit back with a floury rolling-pin, Bessie stole a shilling, Ann (Anglican) giggled during prayers, Jane—or may be this was Sarah—brought unsaved "followers" into the house, Selina did no work; one of the Elizas swore and the other was a Baptist. May and Keturah were fetched away by indignant parents. Deborah disappeared. One only died a natural death—Mary, my namesake, who left us to get married.
"Yes," said Miss Glory shaking her head gravely one Tuesday afternoon. "I fear 'tis true. Satan hisself is coming to this town."
"Oh," said Aunt Jael, "I should have thought he was here already."
"The ole Devil hisself," continued Glory, staring far into space and ignoring Aunt Jael.
"Now what do you think you mean?" snapped my Great-Aunt.
"She means the ole Devil hisself, which is what she said," interposed Salvation, hoping to raise ill feeling.
"Peace, sister! All I means is this 'ere. God A'mighty meant us to travel on our two legs or by the four legs of four-footed beasts. 'Tis only the Devil as can want to go any other way. We know 'ausses, an' donkeys, and mules too for the matter o' that, but when it comes to carriages and truck loads o' folk being pulled along as quick as a flash of lightning by an ole artifishul animal belchin' up steam and fire, like the n'orrible pit it is, 'tis some'at a thought too queer for an ole Christian woman like myself and for God A'mighty too I should think. No wonder there are orwis actsodents—act o' God,Icalls 'un. I've heard tell of these 'ere railway trains in vorrin parts, but I never did think we should see 'un in North Devun. But 'tis true I fear; Salvation went across the bridge to see with 'er own two eyes, and saw a pair o' lines as the wicked thing runs along on, and bills and notices all braggin' about it. There didn't used to be no sich things, and there didn't ought to be now; 'tis all the Devil's works and there'll be a judgment on them as 'elps 'em, a swift an' n'orrible judgment, you mark my words."
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried my Aunt. "'Ee may both like to know that I sold that field o' mine, down beyond the meadow, to this railway company. There! Got a middlinggood price for it too, as all the Meeting will soon learn from yer two wagging tongues. Judgment indeed! Poor ignorant old fool. 'Tis a sensible invention, and the Lord permits it. Be you daft? 'Ee just show me a scripture that's against railway trains!"
"An' 'ee just show me one that'sfor'un!" cried Salvation.
"I'm sorry, Jael," said Glory, ignoring her sister as always, "but I assure 'ee I didn't know when I spake they solemn words. 'Tis a very seldom thing for me to speak out, but I feels deep. Even if 'tissen the spirit of Satan that's moving in these 'ere railway trains, what's thegoodof 'un anyway? Will the worrld be any happier, will there be a single sinner the more as repenteth? Will there be less poor folk in the worrld and less souls going to 'Ell? You wake up in a hundred years and see if these 'ere railway trains 'ave brought the kingdom 'o God on earth! There's no two ways about it, the worrld is getting wickeder, and these new invenshuns a sign. Things bain't what they used to be, and they'm gettin' worse."
"That field, Sister Jael," added Salvation, with gleaming teeth, "that field you sold was a field of blood. Alcedama! There'll be a judgment, a n'orrible judgment, you mark my words."
* * * * * * *
A few weeks later Aunt Jael heaped coals of fire by asking the Sisters to accompany us to the official ceremony of the Devil's arrival in Tawborough. All, I suppose, who had sold land to the Company were invited to this function. Aunt Jael had a white ticket giving right of admission to the uncovered platform at which the Devil would draw up—"the Company's railway station" as the ticket grandly called it. It was a preliminary trip from Crediton to Tawborough, before the general opening for traffic: a kind of dress rehearsal.
The day, July 12th, 1854, stands clear in my memory. It was the chief purely secular event of my childhood, the only time before I was a grown woman that I went to any assembling together of people other than the Lord's. I marvelled to see how numerous they were, and I remember the dim suspicionthat haunted me throughout the day, and never completely left me afterwards, that perhaps, despite Brother Brawn, not quiteallof them were being 'urld to 'Ell. They did not seem aware of it, and the moments when I did not doubt their fate were filled with pity.
The day was to be treated as a holiday. Glory was persuaded by Aunt Jael to announce that there would be no school. I was up betimes, wakened by the bells of the parish church, which rang a merry peal, and by the firing of guns. It was one of those fresh glorious summer mornings which promise delight, and do not leave the memory. Soon after breakfast the Clinkers arrived in a carriage. Glory with brand new bacon-rind strings to her bonnet, Salvation ominously cheerful, confident of some awful disaster. Grandmother, Aunt Jael and I were ready waiting, and the five of us drove to the scene of action. I felt elated and important, perched up on the box, as we drove slowly along streets thronged with crowds in their Sunday best. Every one appeared in high spirits; I conjectured that those who shared Miss Glory's gloomy views must all have stayed at home. The crowds became denser as we approached the railway station, a kind of long wooden platform with a high covering. It looked like a very odd top-heavy sort of shed. A few feet below the platform and close beside it ran two parallel metal lines on which the Thing would arrive. A high triumphal arch covered with green-stuff and laurel leaves and bedecked with flags, the first I had ever seen, English, French and Turkish ("Our Allies": There was a war, said some one), spanned the line. The platform was crowded with people, and very gay and worldly they looked. Our little company of Saints tried to cling together, and I held tight to my Grandmother's hand, but the crowd was too close all round for us to look as separate as we tried to feel. Quite near was a body of gentlemen dressed in ermine and rich surprising costumes and furs and wigs and cocked hats, and holding mysterious gold and silver weapons. Some, said my Grandmother, were the Mayor and Corporation, others were Oddfellows and Freemasons. I had not the least idea what these words might mean, and was too busy staring to ask which were which. My heart was filled with envy ofthose portly gentlemen and their gorgeous robes; a hankering envy as real as any sentiment I have ever felt.
As the time of arrival drew near the excitement and jostling on the platform increased. One lady fainted; "A jidgment," commented Miss Salvation.
I overheard some saying the train would never arrive, others that It would be hours or even days late; others again that It would arrive to time and confound all doubters. Excitement rose to a pitch of frenzy when two galloping horsemen drew up at the platform and announced that within five minutes It would be here. Only half of It however would arrive, as the back portion had somehow got detached and left behind at Umberleigh: "The Devil losing his tail," said Miss Salvation. When about two minutes later a tall gentleman near us shouted excitedly that he sighted It afar off, there was such a tiptoeing and straining and squashing and peering that I could have cried with vexation at being so small. My Grandmother lifted me for a moment, and I had a perfect view of the monstrous beast as it drew near. The first carriage was belching fire and smoke from a funnel—just as Glory had said—and the carriages behind it, brown scaly looking things, were like the links in a hell-dragon's tail. The fear seized me for a swift moment that perhaps after all she was right. Then the people broke into deafening cheers and hurrahs, and waved handkerchiefs and funny little flags. Aunt Jael and Grandmother stood impassive, but excited a little in spite of themselves. Glory and Salvation set their mouths, and determined to hold out. As the great engine puffed past us I was trembling with excitement. It was the purest magic.
When the Thing stopped we were about in the middle of its length, opposite the second carriage, or link of the tail. We were all pressed back to make room for the great people who were emerging. The majority were gentlemen, a few grandly and mysteriously dressed like ours, more Corporations and Oddfellows and Freemasons I supposed, but most of them, including some very angry-looking gentlemen, whispered to be His Worship the Mayor of Exeter and the Aldermen of that ancient city, in plain clothes. Alas, all theirtoggery had been left behind in the back half of the train which had been shed at Umberleigh.
A very stylish gentleman dressed in black came forward in front of everybody else: Chairman of the Company, I heard whispered—whatever that might mean. He shook hands with several of our dressed-up gentlemen, and then one of the latter, a fat man with a wig and white curls, read to the stylish gentleman from a long roll of paper a very long and very dry speech congratulating him on bringing the railway train to Tawborough and describing his person in very flattering terms. The stylish gentleman made a speech (without roll of paper) in response; it was much shorter, but about as dry.
Then some of the dressed-up members of our side came forward in a body and poured out corn and oil and wine, very solemnly. When the wine had been spilled, a solemn man dressed like a high priest (the Provincial Grand Chaplain of the Order of Freemasons, I discover forty years later from the files of a local paper) lifted up his hands and prayed over the Oblation. So people who were not Saints prayed!
The next thing I remember was our dressed-up people and the visitors moving off the platform to form themselves into a procession to march round the town, and all the rest of us repairing to witness it. In the stampede that ensued Aunt Jael tripped over a beam that was lying on the platform, and went flying.
"A jidgment," began Salvation, triumphant at last; when she tripped on the beam and went flying too—whichwasa "jidgment."
We were only just in time to get a good view of the procession, as it took Aunt Jael and Miss Salvation some time to limp along. All the Mayors and Oddfellows and Corporations and Freemasons were there, carrying symbols and rods and devices; there were soldiers, Mounted Rifles and officers gay with swords; shipwrights in white trousers, and clergymen in black; uninteresting looking people in ordinary clothes who had no more right to be there, I thought, than I had; and at least four bands of music. The glamour of martial music and brilliant costumes raised me to a pitchof ecstasy and envy; from that moment blare and pomp filled a great place in my hankerings and hopes.
After the procession we took a walk round the streets, which were crowded with people from all North Devon. There were flags at nearly every window. A great triumphal arch was erected in the middle of the bridge inscribed "Success to the North Devon Railway." The High Street was one series of festoons, from upper storey windows of one side to upper storey windows of the other. One said "God Save the Queen," another "Prosperity to our Town," and another which puzzled me a good deal, hanging from the windows of what I now know to have been the local newspaper office, declared in huge red bunting capitals
THE PRESS,THE RAILROAD OF CIVILIZATION.
We got home to dinner tired and excited. Glory and Salvation left to attend a Tea in the North Walk given by the tradespeople to six hundred poor people, amongst whom the Clinkers had hastened to number themselves.
"It may be the Lord's way after all," said Miss Glory. "God moves in a mysterious way."
Aunt Jael and Grandmother had been asked to take tickets (not gratis) to a great banquet in the Corn Market, but whether for economy's or godliness' sake, decided not to go. I gather from the old local paper before me that they did not miss much; for despite the giant "railway cake," a wonderful affair covered with viaducts and trains and bridges all made of icing sugar, and despite the vicar who ably "performed the devotions of the table," the dinner is candidly described as "poor" and the caterer roundly trounced for her failure.
Soon the railway passed into the realm of ordinary accepted things. The Meeting was at first a little exercised about its attitude. A few, including Brother Brawn, agreed with Glory and Salvation that it was the Devil's works. The majority, including my Grandmother, took the pious and common-sense view that since the Lord permitted the thing it must be His Will, and prayed that he would bless and sanctify it to His own use and glory.
August the First, 1855, was the seventieth birthday of Aunt Jael.
Moreover, as the Old Maids of Tawborough were seven, six other ladies completed their seventieth year on this self-same day, to wit: Miss Sarah Tombstone, Miss Keturah Crabb, Miss Lucy Clarke, Miss Fanny Baker, with the Misses Glory and Salvation Clinker. When Aunt Jael decided on the astonishing plan of a great dinner party to celebrate the day, by the very nature of things the Other Six figured at the head of her list of prospective guests.
Who else should be invited? This question was lengthily discussed with Grandmother, discussed of course in Aunt Jael's way; i. e. she decreed, Grandmother agreed. The party was to be a representative one, with a worldly element and a spiritual element, a rich element and a poor element, a this-world element and a next-world element. There were four main divisions: first, the Other Six; second The Saints (selected); third, old friends; and fourth—a grudging fourth—relations.
Of the Saints, Aunt Jael invited Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge, the Lord's instrument for her own spiritual regeneration forty years before; Brother Brawn and Brother and Mrs. Quappleworthy; and Brother Quick, he who had once proposed to young Jael Vickary, then the Belle of Tawborough—though Grandmother always averred that his shot at Aunt Jael was at best a ricochet.
After much discussion and more prayer, the Lord guided Aunt Jael's mind to but one solitary Old Friend; a Mr. Royle, churchwarden at the Parish Church, the only friend dating from Jael Vickary's young unsaved days with whom she had kept up, if indeed decorous chats in the market when they chanced to meet might be so considered; for he never came to the house.
Relations were a simpler problem. There were no close ones except the elder brother of my Great-Aunt andGrandmother, my unknown Uncle John, who was too rheumaticky to travel down from London even if Aunt Jael had had a mind to invite him or he to accept her invitation; and my mother's sister and Grandmother's only surviving child, Aunt Martha of Torribridge, with her husband, Uncle Simeon Greeber, whom I had never seen; there was some feud between Aunt Jael and Uncle Simeon, dating from before I can remember, sufficiently formidable to prevent his crossing our threshold for many years, although he lived but eight miles away. Aunt Martha, however, paid us fairly frequent visits. She was a pale thin, indeterminate-looking woman, who impressed me so little that I was often unable to conjure up her face in my imagination; a vague, tired face, in which Grandmother's gentleness had run to feebleness. When her husband was unpleasant with her, which according to Aunt Jael was pretty often, she submitted feebly; when Aunt Jael spent the whole of one of her afternoon visits to Bear Lawn abusing her, she listened feebly. For this one occasion, however, Aunt Jael decided to sacrifice her dislikes to that ancient law by which the family must be represented at all major festivals and feeds. For some time, too, Aunt Martha had been insisting, with all the feebleness of which she was capable, on Mr. Greeber's longing for a reconciliation with his revered aunt by marriage. So he too was invited. The only other askable relative was a niece-in-law of my Grandmother's, the daughter of old Captain Lee's only sister, now a fat widow of forty-five, Mrs. Paradine Pratt. She lived over at Croyde, on three hundred pounds a year of her own; was a Congregationalist, and fond of cats.
The final list thus comprised: Old Maids of Tawborough (including the hostess), seven; Saints, five; Old Friend, one; Relations, three. Total with Grandmother and myself, eighteen. Never before had such a multitude assembled within our doors.
The problems of space and food were next envisaged. The sacred front-room was to be thrown open; there the guests would be entertained before and after the meal. Dinner would of course be served in the back-parlour; by putting the two spare leaves into the table and tacking a smaller table on at one end, Aunt Jael calculated that there would be adequate eating-space and breathing-space for all.
"'Twill be a tight fit though. You, child, will have your meal in the kitchen."
"Then so will I," said my Grandmother.
Aunt Jael was taken aback. She was silent for a moment, casting about for another unreasonable suggestion with which Grandmother would have to disagree; the old trick by which she always strove to pretend that the guilt of cantankerousness was my Grandmother's.
"Glory, of course, will be in her usual stool in the corner."
"Now, sister, don't be foolish—"
"There you go! Disagreeing with everything I say. Whose party is it, mine or yours?..."
Miriam—Miriam who used the Great One's porridge plate as spittoon—was our cook at the time. Sister Briggs, humble little Brother Briggs' humbler little wife, was called in for the day itself as extra hand. "Proud to do it, I know," said Aunt Jael, "and glad of the meal she'll get and the pickings she'll carry away." Aunt Jael held with no nonsense of class-equality, no "all women-are-equal" twaddle. Spiritually the Briggses ranked far above unsaved emperors, or kings who broke not bread. Spiritually, but not socially. So while Brother Brawn and Sister Quappleworthy were summoned to the seats of the mighty in the parlour, Sister Briggs, their co-heiress in salvation, came to the scullery to wash-up at the price of her dinner, a silver shilling and pickings.
Vast preparations went forward: a record Friday's marketing, a record scrubbing and cleaning, a record bustle and fuss.
The great day dawned. Both armchairs had been removed from the back-parlour to the front-parlour to increase the table-space in one and the sitting accommodation in the other. In her familiar chair, therefore, though in an unfamiliar setting, my Great-Aunt sat enthroned: robed in her best black silk, crowned with a splendid cap all of white lace and blue velvet ribbon that I had not seen before, and armed with that stout sceptre I had seen (and felt) from my youth up.
The first arrivals were Aunt Martha and her husband. They came over early from Torribridge, and had arranged to spend the whole day and stay the night with us. I was curious to see Mr. Greeber, as I had never seen an uncle before. Aunt Jael's dislike of him whetted my curiosity, and also of courseprejudiced me in his favour. Any such preconceived sympathy fled from me the moment I set eyes on him. Can I have foreseen, half-consciously, that this was the creature to be responsible for the wretchedest moments and the worst emotions of my life? Anyhow, I remember with photographic accuracy every look, every gesture, as he minced through the doorway behind Aunt Martha, springing softly up and down on the ball of the toe, moving quite noiselessly. He was a thin little man, narrow shouldered, small-made in every limb. His face was pallid, without a trace of blood showing in the cheeks. He had a mass of curious honey-coloured hair, that you would have thought picturesque, if it had crowned the head of a pretty woman or a lovely boy. Of the same hue was his pointed little beard. His mouth I did not specially notice till he began speaking, when he moistened his lips with his tongue between every few words and showed how pale and thin and absolutely bloodless they were. His eyes changed a good deal. For a moment, as when they rested on mine and read there my instant dislike, they answered with a moment's stare of hard cruelty, such as blue eyes alone can give; most of the time they rolled shiftily about, chiefly heavenward. His gestures were exaggerated; he bent his head forward, poked it absurdly to one side, and gave a sickly smile—intended to be winning—whenever he spoke. With his soft overdone politeness, his pointed little beard, his gestures, he looked like the traditional Frenchman of caricature; except for his eyes, which whether for the moment cruel or pious, had nothing in common with that amiable creature. He was unhealthy and unpleasant in some undefined way new to my experience. Aunt Jael had a sound judgment after all.
He advanced to greet her, oozingly.
"Good day, good day, dear Miss Vickary. One rejoices that the Lord has watched over you these three-score years and ten; one is thankful, thankful indeed. M'yes. Your kindness, too, in extending one your invitation—believe me, one will not readily forget it! And you too, dear Mrs. Lee, one is pleased to see you, to be sure. So this is the little one! One is well pleased to meet one's little niece."
He chucked me under the chin, saw the expression in myeyes, and never tried the playful experiment again. It was hate at first sight, and he knew it.
Aunt Jael's voice sounded gruff—and honest—enough after the unctuous flow. "Well, good day to 'ee, Simeon Greeber, and make yourself welcome." (Meaning: "You know I dislike you and always shall. Still, now that for once in a way you are in my house, I shall try to put up with you.")
A slight pause, while his eyes wandered piously round the room, encountering everywhere spears, clubs, tomahawks, idols, charms. "What interesting objects! Trophies of the Gospel, one may surmise! Why, surely not, surely not, can that great heathen image in the corner be the same, the selfsame one, as was brought back by one's dear late cousin, Immanuel Greeber, Immanuel Greeber of Tiverton, one's well-loved cousin Immanuel?"
Benamuckee stared impassively. "Yes," said Aunt Jael. "It is the same."
"Ah, what a symbol of folly, what a sign of darkness! The field of foreign labour is, of course, your own special interest in the Lord's work, both yours and dear Mrs. Lee's, is it not? That iswellknown."
"Yes," replied my Grandmother, "as you know, the child here is dedicated to the Lord's work among the heathen." I puffed inwardly.
"What an honour, ah, what an honour! For oneself, one confesses, the home field comes nearest to one's heart; to one's earnest, if humble endeavours. M'yes. There is sad darkness far away, in the heathen continents and pagan isles, one knows, one knows: but here in England among one's nominal Christians, there is, alas, greater darkness still. Ah, these half-believers, these almost-persuaded Christians!—Once one was one oneself. So one knows. One was a Baptist, as you know, dear Sisters; one hardened one's heart against the ministrations of the Saints. Then one blessed day, the scales fell from one's eyes—one saw the error of one's ways—and one joined the one true flock."
I disliked him curiously as he murmured and whispered away in a soft treacly flow punctuated only by sticky lip-moistenings and heavenward sniffs; this miracle-man whonever ever used the best beloved pronoun of all the human race.
His utterance was cut short by new arrivals. Grandmother received them in the hall, saw to the hat and coat doffing, and ushered them into the throne-room. I noted the slight variations in my Great-Aunt's manner as she motioned the different guests to chairs and accepted their congratulations and good wishes. With Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge she was regal.
"Thank 'ee, we are old friends, you and I. Yes, thanks be to the Lord. I'm well enough. And you? How are 'ee?"
"I am burdened this morning," he said, with that kingly glance all round him to see that all his subjects were attentive, which we knew to herald some pearl of godly epigram. "Yes, I am burdened this morning."
"Burdened?" echoed Aunt Jael.
"Burdened?" echoed my Grandmother.
"Yes, dear sisters. 'He dailyloadethus with benefits.' Psalm sixty-eight, nineteen."
This was the old patriarch's immemorial trick: to make some statement that was certain to provoke query, and then to explain its apparent paradox by swift quotation from the word of God. A later generation might think his method crude, his texts subtly irrelevant; but there is no question that the Saints, including my Grandmother and Great-Aunt, admired the godly wit and treasured all the texts. So when "the pilgrim patriarch of Tawborough" came up to me in the corner from which I was staring at him, I felt a high sense of pleasure and importance.
"Well, well, and how is this little sapling in the Lord's vineyard?" Paternally, pontifically, he patted my head.
"Well enough, thank 'ee," replied my Grandmother for me, "but not always a good little handmaiden for Him. She likes better to waste her time sitting and doing nothing than mending her socks or studying the Word. She could testify by a happier frame of mind and busier fingers in the house and by speaking more freely of the things of the Lord. Would you not urge her, Brother, even at this tender age to dosomethingfor the Master?"
"No, I would not." Query invited, epigram looming ahead.
"Then what would you do?" asked my Grandmother.
"I would recommend her to do 'all things' for the Master. Titus, two, nine."
Mr. Royle stumped in, a fat short old man, with a cheerful unsaintly countenance and a general air of wealth and prosperity that I could put down to nothing definite except a heavy gold watch chain which spanned the upper slopes of his enormous stomach. His only rival in this particular quarter of the body was Mrs. Paradine Pratt. These two alone, who wandered wearily outside the fold in the darkness of Congregationalism and the Church of England, had contrived to put on plenteous flesh. Was there some subtle hostility, I recollect asking myself, between corpulence and conversion?
The before-dinner conversation was preoccupied and scanty. Brother Quappleworthy came alone, as Sister Quappleworthy was "not—ah—too well."
The company repaired to the dining-room. Mr. Pentecost Dodderidge pronounced the Blessing, and we all sat down to do justice to that mighty meal. How odd this great assembly seemed in our austere room, now for once looking reasonably well filled; I could see that the experience was as odd to most of the guests as it was to me. Great feasts were not within the ordered course of their spare and godly lives. There was a certain constraint around the table, quite unmistakable, marked by loud and sudden silences.
This is how we sat: