CHAPTER XILAYING THE GHOSTS
Her eyesHad such a star of morning in their blueThat all neglected places ...Broke into music.—Tennyson(Aylmer’s Field).
Her eyesHad such a star of morning in their blueThat all neglected places ...Broke into music.—Tennyson(Aylmer’s Field).
Her eyesHad such a star of morning in their blueThat all neglected places ...Broke into music.—Tennyson(Aylmer’s Field).
Her eyes
Had such a star of morning in their blue
That all neglected places ...
Broke into music.
—Tennyson(Aylmer’s Field).
Out of the warm library into the deserted, echoing round-vaulted hall, on the walls of which broad sheets of tapestry hung, dimly splendid, between fluted pilasters of marble. It seemed to Ellinor, when the swing door had fallen behind her with its soft thud, as if they had left the nave of some church; left a home-like refuge filled with living presences, benign spirits and warm incense; to enter the coldness of a crypt that spoke but of the tomb.
She shivered, and the gay smile faded on her lips. Their footsteps fell forlorn upon the stone floor. David now seemed to drift apart from her, to move unsubstantial in these forsaken haunts of grandeur. But it was her nature to re-act against such impressions. Her alert eye noted the moth in the tapestry, the rust on the armour, the dust lying thick on the white marble heads and limbs of statues that kept spectre company in the semi-darkness.
“Oh,” she cried suddenly, “what red fires we shall have on these cold hearths! How the village maids shall rub and scrub! How God’s good sunshine shall come pouring in through those dull windows! How rosy this Venus shall shine under the glow of the stained glass!”
He turned to her, as if called by the sound of theyoung voice back from the habitual grey dream that his own silent home had come to be for him.
“See, cousin David, poor Diana too! She has not felt on her breast a breath of sweet woodland air, I verily believe, since—since I left the place myself these ten years. She shall spring,” added Ellinor, after a moment’s abstraction, “from a grove of palms. And when the wind blows free, the shadow of the leaves shall fall to and fro upon her and cheat her forest heart. At least”—catching herself up as she noted his eye fixed upon her with a strange look—“at least, Sir David, if you will so permit.”
He still looked at her musingly. In reality he was going over the mere sound of her words in his mind, as a man might recall the sweetness of a strain of music.
“You shall have a free hand,” he said. “And, once more, what you do shall be well done.”
An odd sense of emotion took hold of her, she knew not why. More to conceal it than from any set intent, she moved forward and turned the handle of the door that, on the other side of the hall, led to the suite of drawing-rooms. He followed close and they looked in together. The vast abandoned apartment was full of a musty darkness.
“Heavens!” she cried, “do they never open a window?”
Narrow slits of light darting in from the divisions in the shutters cut through the heavy air and revealed, when their eyes had grown accustomed to this deeper gloom, the shapeless, huddled rows of linen-covered furniture.
“Ghosts—ghosts!” said David under his breath.
With quick hands she unbarred a shutter and, her impetuous strength making little of rusty resistance, flung open the casement before he had had time to divine her intention. He halted on his way to help her, arrested by the gush of blinding light and the blast of wild wind, that seemed to leap at his throat.
“Oh,” she exclaimed, standing in the full ray and breathing in—so it seemed to him—both the elements. “Oh, the warm light, the sweet air!”
A line of Shakespeare awoke in some corner of his memory: “A thing of fire and air.” ... How vividly it seemed to fit her then!
Without, the changeful day had turned to wind and sun. She stood in the very shaft of the light, in the flood of the breeze; he stood watching her from within, in the gloom and the stagnation. Her black gown fluttered and turned flame at the edges; alternately clung to, and waved away from her straight limbs, now revealing, now throwing into shadow the curves of a foot that, in its sandal, pressed the ground as lithely as ever a Diana’s arrested on the spring. The fresh airs engulfed themselves under her kerchief into her white bosom. It was as if he could watch them playing around her throat, even as if he could see them fluttering and flattering her hair.... Her hair! The sun’s sparkles had got into it! Now it rose, nimbus-like; now it danced, a spray of fire, back from her forehead; now again, under the flying touches, it fell back and rippled like a cornfield in the breeze.
This radiant creature! The more Sir David looked, the further apart he felt his fate from hers. She seemed to belong all to the dancing wind and the glad sun-light. From such an one as he, from his melancholy, his gloom, his fading life, she seemed as much cut off as ever the unattainable stars from his wondering night watch.
Thus they stood for the space of a minute. Then Ellinor turned. Light and freshness now filled the great room. The keen breath of the woods gaily drove into corners and chased away the mouldy vapours, the vague, shut-up breath of the old brocades, of the crumbling potpourris, of the sandal-wood and Indian rose; even as the light of Heaven drove the shadows back under thecabinets and behind the pillars, and awoke to life the gold moulding and the fleur-de-lis on the white walls, the delicate wreaths and tracery on the trellised ceilings.
“See, cousin David, the ghosts are gone!”
But the man had withdrawn to the shadow. There was now no answering light in his eye. He had now no phrase, tardy in coming, yet quick in the sympathy of her thought, such as had before delighted her. What had come to him? She gave a little laugh; the vigour, the freedom from without had got so keenly into her veins that she was as though intoxicated.
“I vow,” she cried, “you are like a ghost yourself! Why, you look like a dim knight from the tapestry yonder in the hall, wandering ...”
She broke off. The words were barely out of her mouth before she had read upon his countenance that they had struck some chord which it should have been all her care to leave silent. It was not so much that his pale face had grown paler or his deep eye more brooding, it was more as if something that had been for a while restored to life had once more settled into death; as if an open door had been closed upon her.
“A ghost, indeed,” he said at last, after a silence, during which she thought the sunshine faded and the wind ceased to sing. “A ghost among ghosts!”
“David!” she cried and quickly came close to him in the shadow. The light passed from her face as the sun sparkled away from her hair: a pale woman in a black dress, she was now nothing more!
Imagination, that plant which wreathes with flowers the open life of man, grows to mere clinging, unwholesome luxuriance of stem and leaf in dark, secluded existences. Sir David’s fanciful mind, disordered by too long solitude, had become incapable of viewing in just perspective the small events and transient pictures of that every day world to which he had so persistently made himself a stranger.
The sudden difference in Ellinor’s appearance, following as it did upon a deeply melancholy impression, struck him as an evil portent.—This, then, was what would happen to her youth and brightness, were fate to link her life with one so unfortunate as he!
She stretched out her hand to touch him. The riddle of his attitude baffled her.
“David!” she repeated, pleadingly. He drew gently back from her touch.
“Cousin,” he said, and she heard a vibration as of some dark trouble in his voice, “keep to what sunshine this old house will admit. But in God’s name do not seek to explore its shadows.”
“But do you not see,” she cried, pointing to the open window, “that all shadows give way before my hand?”
He made no answer, unless a long look, inscrutable to her, but yet that seemed to search into her very soul, could be deemed an answer.
“Come,” she went on resolutely. “Let us go through this dim house of yours together, and see what can be done. Ghosts!” she repeated, “the ghosts of Bindon are rust and dust and emptiness and silence and neglect. God’s light, dear cousin, and the wood airs, the birds’ songs, soap and water, stout hearts and true, and good company—give me but these and I’ll warrant you I’ll lay your ghosts.”
Into his earnest gaze came a sort of tender indulgence, as for the prattle of a child.
“Come then,” said he, simply.
But she felt that now it was to humour her, and not because she had reached the seat of his melancholy.
However, with heart and spirit as determined as her step, she drew him with her through the long, desolate rooms, leaving everywhere light and freshness where she had found darkness and oppression. Then through the ball-room, where the silence and the weighted atmosphere, the shrouded splendour and the faded brilliancy made doubly sad a space designed all for mirth and music.This feeling struck her in spite of her resolution; and when, before passing out into the hall again, David paused to look back and said, as if to himself: “Sometimes darkness is best; at least it hides the void,” she had this time no answer for him.
Slowly they ascended the great oaken stairs that creaked beneath their tread as if too long unused to human steps. Slowly they paced the length of the picture gallery, just illumined enough through drawn blinds to show the little clouds of dust set astir by their feet and to draw the pale faces of pictured ancestors from the gloom of their canvas backgrounds. The shadowed eyes, divined rather than seen in the delusive light, seemed to follow Ellinor with wistful questioning: “What will this child of ours do for our sorrowful house?”
Slowly and silently they progressed through the long suites of empty guest-chambers, where four-posters stood like catafalques and unsuspected mirrors threw back at them sudden phantom-like images of their own passing countenances. At length Ellinor paused irresolute; then she arrested David as he once more mechanically advanced to unbar a shutter.
“Nay,” she said, “the rest shall sleep a few days more. I have seen enough of the enchanted castle.” She tried to laugh. “Not, mind you, that I doubt being able to break its spell!” she added. But her laugh rang muffled, even to herself, in an air that seemed too heavy to hold it. She caught David by the sleeve, and dragged him into the comparative cheerfulness of a corridor lit at either end by a blessed gleam of blue sky.
They had reached once more the keep wing of the house. There was stone beneath their feet, stone above their heads, stone walls, ochre-washed on either side.
“Ah,” cried she, a sudden wave of memory breaking over her, called up by the vision through the deep hewn windows. “How well I recollect! I used to play here. This is the old nursery.”
She flung open a narrow door; the long, low-ceiledroom within was flooded with whitest light, for its barred windows boasted no shutters. The shadows of the tall trees outside danced like waters on the walls. Cobwebs hung in festoons even in the yawning grate. Two little beds stood covered with a patchwork quilt; a headless rocking-horse was in one corner, a tiny wooden chair in another. An empty nursery! As sad to look on as an empty nest! Ellinor’s eyes brightened with tears; a hot tide of passion, sprung of an inexplicable mixture of feeling, rushed from her heart to her lips. She turned almost fiercely on David, who had remained in the doorway.
“Oh, why have you wasted your life?” she cried. “Why have you turned your back on all the good things God gives man? Why is your home desolate, your hearth vacant, your heart solitary? David, David, this house should never have been empty thus; there should be children round your knee! What have you done with your life?”
The tears brimmed over and ran down her cheeks. Then her strange passion fell away from her, and she stood ashamed. He had started first and put up his hand as if to thrust back her words. There was a long silence. When he broke it, it was as one who speaks upon the second thought, with the cold control that follows an unadmitted emotion.
“For me such things will never be.”
“Why, why?” The cry seemed forced from her.
He waved his hand with the gesture of the most complete renunciation.
“Never,” he repeated.
The word, she felt, was final. She gazed at him almost angrily; then tears, caused now by mortification and confusion, rose irresistibly again. To conceal them she turned to the window, pulled open the queer little casement and, leaning on her elbows, looked out in silence.
Below her lay the Herb-Garden, with its variegated autumn burden of berries, red or purple or sinisterorange; its groups of fantastically shaped leaves, turning to tints not usually known in this sober clime; here a patch, violet, nearly black; and there a streak of tropical scarlet; elsewhere again mauve, verdigris-green—colours, indeed, that village folk said, “no Christian plants ought to produce.” The scents of them, as pungent yet different in decay as ever in their blossom time, rose to her nostrils mixed sweet and bitter, over-dulcet, poisonous or aromatic-wholesome.
The sight and the smell were full of subtle reminiscence. She felt her throbbing heart calm down, her hot cheeks grow cool. In some mysterious way, now as in her childhood, the Herb-Garden seemed to draw her and to speak to her; to promise and withhold some fairy secret, she knew not whether for joy or sorrow, but yet incomparably sweet. As she gazed forth she noticed the quaint figure of her father come into view from behind a clump of bushes. He was attended by Barnaby, who, under the direction of his master’s gesture, culled leaves and flowers. Circling round the pair, Belphegor, the black cat, could be seen gravely watching the proceedings. There was something peaceful and world-detached in the silent scene, and it brought back some of that sense of rest and home-return which she had found so blessed the previous night.
All at once she felt close to her the shadowing presence of her cousin, and the next moment his touch upon her shoulder sent her blood leaping.
“For five years,” said David, “your father has been looking for a certain plant. He says, Ellinor, that it is the ‘True-Grace,’ theEuphrosinumof the ancients, called by the primitive simplers at home, ‘Star-of-Comfort.’ And its properties, as he believes, are to bring gladness to the sore heart and the drooping spirit. But all traces of it have been lost. If it still blooms, it blooms somewhere unknown. Never an autumn passes but your father plants fresh seeds, seeds that reach him from allparts of the world ... with fresh hope.” He stopped significantly.
She turned to him with wide eyes; he looked back at her. Both his glance and voice were full of kindness.
“That would be a precious plant, would it not?” he went on. “‘True-Grace’ ... ‘Star-of-Comfort.’ Is there such a thing in this world? To your father its discovery is what the quest of the Powder of Projection, of the Elixir of Life was to the alchemist of old; of Eldorado to the merchant-adventurer, of Truth to the philosopher—does it exist? Will he ever find it?” Then he added: “Who knows ... perhaps you will have brought him luck.”
And when he had said this his dark face was lit by his rare smile.
“What is it that could comfort you?” she cried, clasping her hands.
His very gentleness brought her some comprehension of a sadness illimitable as when the mists rise dimly above vast seas and fall again. His face set into gravity once more, his gaze wandered from her face out through the little window to the far-off amethyst hills on the horizon.
“To be able to forget ... perhaps,” he answered, as if in a dream.
CHAPTER XIIA KINDLY EPICURE
——The easy manWho sits at his own door; and, like the pearThat overhangs his head from the green wall,Feeds in the sunshine ...—Wordsworth(Reflective Poems).
——The easy manWho sits at his own door; and, like the pearThat overhangs his head from the green wall,Feeds in the sunshine ...—Wordsworth(Reflective Poems).
——The easy manWho sits at his own door; and, like the pearThat overhangs his head from the green wall,Feeds in the sunshine ...—Wordsworth(Reflective Poems).
——The easy man
Who sits at his own door; and, like the pear
That overhangs his head from the green wall,
Feeds in the sunshine ...
—Wordsworth(Reflective Poems).
The fruit in the rectory garden, the pears from the rector’s own tree, had all been culled; Madam Tutterville had seen to that. And where she ruled, if there was always abundance of the choicest description, there was no waste.
The rector liked fruit to his breakfast. He belonged to a generation who made breakfast an important meal; an occasion for the feast of wit as well as of palate; for the consorting of choice souls, the first freshness upon them and the dew still sparkling upon the laurel that binds the poet’s brow. The breakfast hour is one when the mellow beam of good repose shines still in the eye, mitigating the sarcasm of the man of humour, enhancing the charm of the man of elegant parts, ripening the wits of the learned. That hour (not unduly early, mind you) when the morning has already gained warmth but not lost crispness; when with pleasure and profit a party of cultured gentlemen can meet, bloom as of peach on well-shaven cheek—rasés à velour, as the French barber of those days quaintly had it—silk stocking precisely drawn over re-invigorated muscle; and, thus meeting, exchange the good things of the mutual mind with critical sobriety, while discussing in similar manner the good things of bodily refreshment.
They were good days when social convention countenanced such hours of elegant leisure! Good times werethey that still cherished the delicately dallying scholar, the epicure in life and in learning; that admired the man who knew how to sip and relish, and to whom essential quality was of overpoweringly vaster importance than quantity. A good age, when hurry was looked upon almost as an ungentlemanly vice and the anxious mind of business was held incompatible with culture!
Of such was the reverend Horatio Tutterville, D.D., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, Rector of Bindon. And to him the breakfast hour was still sacred: an hour of serene enjoyment to which he daily looked forward as the great prize of life, and which prepared him for a day of duties performed with admirable deliberation.
True, the fates had so marshalled his existence that but few were the congenial friends who could now and again come and share these pleasant moments under the flickering shades of the pear-tree, or in the cosy parsonage dining-room; sit at those tables—both round! —which it was at once Madam Sophia’s pride and privilege to supply with an exquisite and varied fare.
But little recked he of that; choice spirits there were still with whom he could consort at any time; spirits as rare as any who in Oxford Common-Room, in Town, or in Cathedral precincts ever had communed with him. Aye, and rarer! Spirits, moreover, ready at all hours of the night or day, and always in gracious mood, to yield their hoarded wisdom or sweetness to the lingering appreciation of his palate.
The choice of his morning’s companion always was with Dr. Tutterville one of solicitude and discrimination. A Virgil, or some other subtle singer of like brilliance, on mornings when the sun was very hot and the sky of Italian blue between the high garden walls; when the bees were extra busy over the fragrant thyme beds, and when some fresh cream cheese and honey and whitest flour of wheat were most tempting on the fair cloth. “Rare Ben Jonson,” perhaps, on a stormy autumn day, when the wood fire roared up the chimney and a fineold hearty English breakfast of the game pie or boar-head order could be fitly topped up by a short, but nobly creaming beaker of Audit ale.
Like so many men who have read sedulously in their student days the reverend Horatio, now in his dignified leisure, read little, but with nicest discrimination; and in that little found an inexhaustible fund of unalloyed contentment. He would also quote felicitously from his daily reading as a man might from the conversation of a valued friend.
It is indeed not every one who ever learns the art of book-enjoyment. Your true reader must be no devourer of books. To him the thought committed to the immortality of print, crystallised to its shapeliest form, polished to its best lustre, is one which demands and repays lingering communion. If books are worth reading at all, they should be allowed to speak their full meaning; they should be hearkened to with deference. And it was always in pages that compelled such honourable attention that Dr. Tutterville sought that intellectual companionship which made his country seclusion not only tolerable, but blissfully serene.
Madam Tutterville, whether from convenience to herself, or (we had rather believe), from shrewd conception of the proprieties and wifely respect for the moods of her lord, never shared the forenoon repast. Indeed, she had generally accomplished much business in household or village before the learned divine emerged from that sanctuary where the mysteries of his careful toilet and of his early meditation were conducted in privacy and decorum.
But it was on rare occasions indeed that she could not snatch five minutes out of her multifarious occupations for the pure pleasure of watching her Horatio’s complacency as he sipped her coffee and his book.
Happy man, whose own capacity for enjoyment could so gratify another’s!
On this particular morning—a week after the exciting day of Ellinor Marvel’s return—Madam Tutterville, having duly examined the weather-glass, scanned the sky and personally tested the warmth of the air, deemed that for perhaps the last time that year she might safely set her rector’s breakfast in the garden.
For it was one of those days which a reluctant summer drops into the lap of autumn; a day of still airs and high vaulted skies, faintly but exquisitely blue; when, red and yellow, the leaves cling trembling to the bough from which there is not a puff of wind to detach them—and if they fall, fall gently as with a little sigh.
On such a day the frost, that over-night has laid light, white fingers everywhere, would be unguessed at but for the delicate tart purity of the air, which the sunshine, however it may warm it, cannot eliminate. A day in which you might be cheated into thoughts of spring, were it not for the pathos of the rustling leaf, the solitary monthly rose, the boughs that let in so much more heaven between them, and the lonely eaves where swallow broods are rioting no longer.
Madam Tutterville, as we have said, knew her parson’s tastes to a shade.
The round green table and rustic chair were therefore set between that edge of sunshine and shadow that spelt comfort. In her devoted soul the autumnal poetry was translated into housewife practicality: into broiled partridge still fizzling under the silver cover, a comb of heather-honey, a purple bunch of grapes invitingly stretched on their own changing leaves.
An hour later the good soul came forth again into the garden to enjoy her reward. A covered basket on her arm, that same plump, white member tightly folded with its comrade over the crisp muslin kerchief and the capacious bosom; the Swiss straw-hat, tied with a black ribband under the chin, shading, but not concealing the lace cap of fine Mechlin, the curls, and the rosy smilingcountenance.... No unpleasing spectacle for any reasonable husband’s eye! So thought the parson. As her shadow fell across the patch of sunshine in front of him, he looked up and smiled from the pages of his book.
The companion of the morning was the Olympian who has immortalised in beauty almost every theme and mood of the human mind. It had struck the divine, whilst inquiringly surveying his shelves, that the noble figure of Prospero would be evoked with singular fitness on this placid October morn. The volume—propped against the glistening decanter of water—was one Baskerville’s edition of Shakespeare and opened at Act IV. of the Tempest.
The rector, brought back from the green sward of the wizard’s cell to his actual surroundings, smilingly looked his inquiry as his spouse stood in patience before him.
“Ah, my delicate Ariel!” said he, with the most benevolent sarcasm.
Nor, as Madam Tutterville gazed down upon him, was she behind him in conjugal complacency. Nay, as her eyes wandered over the handsome countenance with the classic firm roundness of outline, which might have graced a Roman medal, her heart swelled within her with a tender pride.
“What a man is my Horatio!” she thought, not without emphasis on the word “my.” For well she knew how much her care had contributed to that same rich outline.
Everything about this excellent man was ample. Ample the wave of hair that rose in a crest from an expansive brow and still sported a cloud of scented powder after the fashion of his younger years. Ample the curve of his high nose; ample the chin and nobly proportioned. Ample the chest that gently swelled from under the snowy ruffles to that fine display of broadcloth waistcoatwhere dangled the golden seals and the watch that methodically marked the flight of the rector’s golden moments. But the rector’s legs had so far resisted the encroachment of general amplitude. There the only curve, one in which he took an innocent pride, was a fine line that, under the meshes of well-drawn silk hose, led from knee to heel with clean and elegant finality.
No wonder that Madam Tutterville’s breast should heave with the glory of possession.
Her smile broadened, as she glanced from the well-picked partridge bones to the plump fingers that now toyed with the grapes. She noted also the reticent smile that hovered on the divine’s lips, as if in sympathetic answer to her own. Yet, though she beamed to see her lord so content, the true inwardness of this same content escaped her—naturally enough. What could Madam Sophia know of that thousandth new elusive beauty he had even now discovered in Prospero’s green and yellow island? How could she guess that it had broken upon his mental palate with a flavour cognate to that of the luscious grapes she had provided? What could she know of the spice of genial sarcasm that likened one of her own vast proportions to the ministering sprite of the amiable wizard—and yet saw a delightful modern fitness in the comparison? Far indeed was she from realising the endless amusement her conversation afforded to a mind as accurate on one side as it was humourous on the other.
Sermo index animi.If speech be the mirror of the mind, Doctor Tutterville’s mind revealed itself as elegant, balanced, and polished. Nothing more orderly, more concise, more jealously chosen than his word and enunciation. Nothing, in short, could have been in more absolute contrast to the hurling ambitious volubility of his consort.
“Well, Doctor Tutterville,” said madam, “did the bird like you well!”
“The bird? Excellent well, Sophia. But first, or last, your fine Egyptian cookery shall have the fame!”
“Ah,” said the lady, beaming, “Proverbs!—Yes. I must say that for Solomon, he knew how to value a wife.”
“No one was ever better qualified, my dear,” said the parson kindly.
It was characteristic of the lady that, however unknown the source of her husband’s illustrations, however unintelligible his allusions, sooner would she have perished than own it even to herself. And as he, in his original enjoyment of her happy shots, was careful never to correct her, the conversation of the admirable couple proceeded with unchecked briskness on one side and ungrudging appreciation on the other.
Doctor Tutterville drew his chair back from the table, crossed his legs and prepared to enjoy himself, nothing being better for the digestion than quiet laughter. Madam deposited her basket, and selecting a snowy churchwarden pipe from the box that reposed upon the bench by the side of the pear-tree, proceeded to fill it with Bristol tobacco out of a brass pot. Very lightly did she stuff the bowl: for the Rector took his tobacco as he took his other pleasures—a few light whiffs, the best of the herb! “Once the freshness and fragrance gone,” he was wont to say, “you might as well drink wine after you had ceased to possess its flavour.”
“Well, my love?” said he, as he took the brittle stem between his fore and second finger.
“Well, Horatio,” said she, comfortably subsiding on the bench. “I have been to Bindon, and, oh, my dear Doctor, what a change has come over the place!”
“I remarked the improvement,” said the parson, “both in sweetness and in light upon my visit three days ago. That daughter of brother Rickart’s seems a capable young woman.”
“Bring up a child,” quoth Madam Sophia, complacently. “I flatter myself she does credit to my earlytraining. You have not forgotten, Doctor, that ’twas I who (as the scripture bids us) directed that young idea how to shoot. I vow,” cried she, “I could not be setting about things better myself. But, oh, Horatio, how are the mighty humbled!... I refer to Margery Nutmeg.”
“Mrs. Nutmeg’s manners are always so much too humble for my liking,” said the divine, “that I presume you allude thus rhetorically to her circumstances.”
“Certainly, my dear Doctor—ex cathedrum, as you would say.”
“I never should, my dear. But let it pass.”
“You know what a thorn in the spirits these goings on of hers have been to me and you will therefore lift up your voice and rejoice, I feel sure, when I tell you that my dear niece has now all the keys in her possession. Margery has found her mistress again.”
The divine laid down his pipe and the benign amusement of his expression gave way to a look of gravity.
“No doubt,” he said, after a pause, “you good ladies know what you are doing. But personally, I should prefer not to retain Mrs. Nutmeg on the premises if it was my business to thwart her.”
But madam, strong in a sense of victory over the dreaded enemy, scouted the suggestion.
“That excellent girl, Ellinor, was actually having the meat weighed and apportioned,” she announced triumphantly, “at the very moment of my arrival this morning. So Mistress Margery’s retail business hath come to an end. A sheep killed every week, Horatio, and pork in the servants’ hall! The woman was an absolute Salomite! How often did I not remind her of Paul’s warning! ‘Serve ye your masters with flesh in fear and trembling.’”
The gentle merriment that Madam Tutterville was happily wont to take as a token of approval in her lord, here shook his goodly form.
“But my voice was as that of the pelican in the wilderness. Well, all her sweet smiles and curtseys this morning would not take me in. She knows her day is over—though she hides her rage.”
“Malevolus animus abditos dentes habet,” murmured the parson.
“Indeed, my dear Doctor,” plunged the lady, “you never said a truer word. But what could she expect?”
“And have you forgiven your brother for so incontinently presuming to quote the scriptures against you the other day?”
“Why, Doctor, you know I never bear malice. And, dear sir, if you had but seen him, I vow you’d scarcely know him. He hath a new dressing-gown and that dear, excellent girl has actually prevailed on him to trim his beard!”
“I hope,” said the parson, “the young lady will leave something of my old friend. From the days of Samson I mistrust woman when she begins to wield her scissors upon man. And have Simon’s other peculiarities departed from him with his patriarchal beard and ancient garments?”
“Indeed, my dear Doctor, he was quite a lamb. I have promised him a volume of your sermons, that which refers to the keeping of the first, second, and third commandments, that he may see for himself how reprehensible are his dealings with magic and such things. ‘Take a lesson’ (I cried to him) ‘of my Horatio’!”
She was proceeding with ever increasing, ever more tripping volubility and unction—“Model your life ever upon the Decameron, and you will never be far wrong!” But here a Homeric burst of merriment interrupted the flow of her eloquence.
The reverend Horatio lay back in his chair, while the quiet garden close rang to the unwonted sound of sonorous laughter. When at length, with catching breath and streaming eyes, he found strength wherewith to speak:
“Perdition, catch my soul, most excellent wretch, but I do love thee!” quoted he, and was promptly off again with such whole-hearted and jovial appreciation that, feeling she must indeed have pointed her moral with telling appositeness, his lady’s countenance became suffused with crimson and was also irradiated by her peculiarly infantile smile of conscious delight. She pursed her lips to prevent herself from spoiling the situation by another word.
“And what did brother Simon reply?” asked the rector, as soon as he became able to articulate.
“Oh,” said she proudly, “you will be gratified, Horatio: he looked very grave and seemed much impressed; said he could not promise, but that he would think it over; he would watch and see how you got on.”
Loud rang the parson’s laugh again.
“Meanwhile,” shrieked Madam Sophia, triumphantly, “he said he would prefer to study the question in the original Italian—whatever he may have meant by that. I cannot but feel there is promise.”
“Extraordinary, extraordinary!” said Horatio Tutterville. “And David?” he asked presently. “Are you going to enrol him as a follower of Boccacio?”
“My dear Doctor,” smiled the lady, “I flatter myself that I can follow you in the vernal tongue as well as anyone—but when it comes to Hebrew, I plead the privileges of my sex! This much I understand, however: you refer to David. Well, he also is putting off the old man. Doctor,” she clasped her hands and drew her large countenance wreathed in smiles of mystery, close to his ear to whisper: “This will end in marriage bells! Mark my words.”
“Thus the prophetess!” replied the rector, with the scoff of the true man for the match-making feminine. “Alas, my poor Sophia, there’s no marrying stuff in David!”
He wiped his eyes, and rose.
“Well,” he said, “after the bee has sipped he must to work.”
“You will find,” said she, “a fire in your study, your books as you left them last night and a bunch of our last roses where you love to see them.”
Sedately the reverend Horatio moved towards the peaceful precincts, where awaited him the pages of his next Advent sermons—and perhaps also the manuscripts of those delicate commentaries on Tibullus, long promised to his Oxford publisher.