‘DOWER’D WITH OUR CURSE, AND STRANGER’D WITH OUR OATH.’
THERE was no pleasanter house in Little Yafford or its neighbourhood to visit on a Sunday evening than the shabby old Vicarage, in which Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer had lived happily for the last twenty years. It was an old house—and had never been a grand house even in its best days; indeed, there was a legend in Little Yafford that it had once belonged to a farm, and there was a certain homely substantiality and solidity about it which favoured that idea. Severe critics declared that there was not a single good room in the house, and it must be admitted that all the rooms were low, and that the chimneys projected into them in a way which modern architecture disallows, leaving a deep recess on each side to be filled up with books, old china or such miscellaneous goods as Mrs. Piper, of the Park, denounced comprehensively as rubbish. The windows were casements, with leaden lattices, and admitted as little light as was consistent with their obvious functions. Heavy beams supported the low ceilings, big old grates devoured incalculable quantities of fuel, but happily coals—pronounced for the most part as a dissyllable—co-als—were cheap at Little Yafford.
The furniture was in keeping with the house, for it was all ancient and shabby, and had a wonderful individuality about it, which, in Clement Dulcimer’s opinion, quite atoned for its shabbiness. Almost all those old chairs and tables, and sofas, and brass-mounted sideboards, and Indian cabinets, and Queen Anne whatnots, had come to the Vicar by inheritance, and it was to him as if he saw the friendly faces of dead and gone kindred smiling at him from the three-cornered bureau, or the Japanese escritoire, or the walnut-wood chest of drawers. He even got into the way of calling the furniture after the testators who had left it to him, and would tell his wife to fetch him the packet of sermon-paper out of Aunt Tabitha, or that he had left his spectacles on Uncle Joseph.
The dining-room on this autumnal Sunday evening had a look of homely comfort which was cheering to a heart not given wholly over to spiritual things. It was a long low room, with three square casements on the southern side, and a wide old fireplace, bordered with blue and white Dutch tiles, at the end. On each side of the fireplace was the deep recess before mentioned, filled with old oak shelves, on which were ranged the odds and ends of porcelain and delf which had, as it were, dropped from various branches of the family tree into Clement Dulcimer’s lap. Aunt Tabitha’s Swansea tea set, with its sprawling red roses on a cream-coloured ground; uncle Timothy’s quaint Lowestoft jugs; cousin Simeon’s Bow punchbowl; grandmamma’s Oriental dessert-plates; a Chelsea shepherdess minus an arm, a Chelsea shepherd piping to a headless sheep. There was a good deal of rubbish, no doubt, as Mrs. Piper declared, amidst that heterogeneous collection; but there was a great deal more value in those cups and plates than Clement Dulcimer suspected, or he would have been sorely tempted to exchange them for books.
At the end of the room facing the fireplace stood that fine old sideboard of the Chippendale period, familiarly known as Uncle Joseph. Facing the windows there was a curtained archway communicating with the library.
To-night a big fire burned in the capacious grate, a log of the old poplar that was blown down in the last high wind blazing merrily at the top of the coals, as if the stout old tree felt glad to make so jovial an end. The supper table shone and glittered with old silver and heavy diamond-cut glass, with here and there a tall-stemmed beaker, or an engraved flask, as old as the pictures of Teniers or Breughel. A bowl of chrysanthemums, a ham, a game pie, a sirloin, and a salad made a glow of colour, and promised a substantial repast. Everybody knew that what the Vicar gave was of the best, no cheap champagnes or doubtful moselles, but sound claret, and the finest beer that was brewed on this side of York.
The supper-hour was supposed to be nine o’clock, and on returning from church the gentlemen had come straight to the dining-room. Mrs. Dulcimer and the two girls found them there when they came downstairs after taking off their bonnets.
The Vicar was standing in front of the fire, caressing his favourite tabby cat with his foot, as that privileged animal rolled upon the hearth-rug. Sir Kenrick sat in cousin Simeon’s arm-chair, a deep velvet-covered chair, almost as large as a small house. Cyril stood looking dreamily down at the fire.
‘Welcome, young ladies!’ exclaimed the Vicar, cheerily. ‘I thought Mrs. Dulcimer was never going to give us our supper. Come, Beatrix, this is your place, at my right hand.’
‘And Sir Kenrick will sit next Beatrix,’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer, on manœuvring intent. ‘Bella, my love, you next the Vicar, and Cyril must sit by me. I want to ask him about the next missionary meeting.’
They were all seated after good-natured Mrs. Dulcimer’s desire,—Kenrick by the side of Beatrix, gravely contemplative of the fine face with its rich un-English colouring; Cyril looking a little distrait as lively Miss Scratchell discussed his sermon in her bright appreciative way, and with an air of being quite as well read in theology as he was. A wonderful girl, Miss Scratchell, with a knack of picking up stray facts, and educating herself with the crumbs that fell from other people’s tables, just as her father’s poultry picked up their nourishment in the open street and in other people’s stable yards.
‘How did you like the sermon, Sir Kenrick?’ asked Bella, smiling across the chrysanthemums, and offering to the baronet’s contemplation an insignificant prettiness, all dimples and pale pink roses.
‘As much as I like any sermons, except the Vicar’s,’ answered Kenrick, coolly. ‘I like to hear Mr. Dulcimer preach, because he makes me think. I sit on tenter-hooks all the time, longing to stand up and argue the point with him. But as for Cyril’s moral battering-rams and catapults, and all the artillery which he brings to bear against my sinful soul, I’m afraid their chief effect is to make me drowsy.’
‘They do other people good though,’ said Bella. ‘Mrs. Piper told me she never felt awakened till she heard Mr. Culverhouse’s Lent sermons.’
‘Praise from Mrs. Piper is praise indeed,’ remarked the Vicar.
‘Oh, but she really does know a good deal about sermons,’ said Bella. ‘She is very fond of what she calls serious reading; she reads a sermon every morning before she goes to her cook to order the dinners.’
‘And then she goes to the larder and looks at the joints to see if there have been “followers” overnight,’ suggested Kenrick; ‘and according to her theological reading is the keenness of her eye and the acidity of her temper. If she has been reading Jeremy Taylor she takes a liberal view of the sirloin, and orders a hot joint for the servants’ hall; if she has been reading old Latimer she is humorous and caustic, and declares cold meat too good for domestic sinners. But if her pious meditations have been directed by Baxter or Charnock I pity the cook. There will be short commons in the servants’ hall that day.’
Bella laughed heartily. She had a pretty laugh, and she made it a rule to laugh at any sally of Sir Kenrick’s. It is something for a penniless village lawyer’s daughter to be on familiar terms with a baronet, even though his estate be ever so heavily mortgaged. Bella felt that her intimacy with the Vicarage and its surroundings lifted her above the rest of the Scratchells. Her younger sisters used to ask her what Sir Kenrick was like, and if he wore thick-soled boots like common people, and ever drank anything so vulgar as beer.
The supper went on merrily. The Vicar talked of men and of books, the younger men joining in just enough to sustain the conversation. Supper at the Vicarage, substantial as the meal was, seemed more or less an excuse for sitting at a table talking, for a couple of hours at a stretch. Long after the sirloin had been carried off to do duty in the kitchen, Mr. Dulcimer sat in the carver’s seat, sipping his claret and talking of men and books. Beatrix could not imagine anything more delightful than those Sunday evening discourses.
But now came a message from the footman in the kitchen to remind his mistress that it was half-past ten. The rule at the Water House was for every door to be locked and bolted when the clock struck eleven. Beatrix started up, like Cinderella at the ball.
‘Oh, Mrs. Dulcimer, I had no idea it was so late.’
‘A tribute to my conversation, or a proof of your patience, my dear,’ said the Vicar. ‘Cyril, you’ll see Miss Harefield home. Jane, run and get Miss Harefield’s bonnet.’
‘Kenrick can see Beatrix home while Cyril tells us about the missionary meeting,’ said that artful Mrs. Dulcimer.
‘My dear Mrs. Dulcimer, I can tell you about the missionary meeting this minute,’ said Cyril. ‘I have had a letter from Mr. Vickerman, and he will be very happy to preach in the morning this day three weeks, and to give a lecture in the schoolroom in the evening.’
The neat little parlourmaid came back laden with jackets and bonnets, and Beatrix and Isabella equipped themselves quickly for their walk.
‘We really don’t want any one,’ remarked Beatrix, blushing, as the two young men followed them into the hall. ‘Parker is here to take care of us.’
Parker pulled his forelock assentingly.
‘But I am going with you all the same,’ said Cyril, with gentle firmness, and he had the audacity to offer Beatrix his arm before Sir Kenrick could seize his opportunity.
Naturally Sir Kenrick gave his arm to Miss Scratchell.
‘What will they say at home when I tell them this?’ thought Bella.
She liked Cyril best, and admired him as the first among men, but Sir Kenrick’s title made him the more important person in her mind.
All the stars were shining out of the dark calm heaven—constellations and variable stars looking down at them from that unutterable remoteness beyond the planet Neptune. The walk was not long, but the way was full of beauty under that starry sky—a road that led downhill into the watery valley which made the chief loveliness of Little Yafford. It was a lonely road, leading away from the town—a road bordered on one side by a narrow wood of Scotch firs, on the other by a stretch of somewhat marshy common, and so down into the valley where the Water House rose, with black old tower, ivy-shrouded, above the winding river. There was an old Roman bridge across the river, and then came the gate of the Water House, under an ancient archway.
Cyril walked away with Beatrix’s hand under his arm, the footman following at a respectful distance. Mr. Culverhouse forgot—or ignored—the fact of Miss Scratchell’s residence lying exactly the other way, and left Bella to be disposed of by his cousin. Beatrix also seemed to forget all about her friend. She did not run back to bid Bella good night. They would meet to-morrow, no doubt, and Bella, who was the soul of amiability, would forgive her.
They walked on in silence, that thrilling silence which tells of deepest feeling. These are the moments which women remember and look back upon in the gray sober hours of afterlife. It is not some girlish triumph—the glory of ball-room or court—which the faded beauty recalls and meditates upon with that sense of sad sweetness which hangs round the memories of long ago. No; it is such a moment as this, when her hand hung tremulous upon her lover’s arm, and words would not come from lips that were faint with a great joy.
‘Have you thought of what I said yesterday, Beatrix?’ Cyril asked at last, in those grave tones of his which to her ear seemed the most exquisite music.
‘Did not you say it? What should I do but think of it? When do I ever think of anything except you and your words?’ she exclaimed, with a kind of impatience.
‘And you have spoken to your father, or you have made up your mind to let me speak to him?’
‘I have done neither. What is the use of my speaking, or of your speaking, unless you want my father to separate us for ever? Do you think that he will be civil to you when he knows that I love you? Do you think he would let me marry the man I love? No, that would be showing me too much kindness. If we lived in the good old fairy tale days he would send out a herald to invite the ugliest and most hateful men in the kingdom to come and compete for his daughter’s hand, and the ugliest and vilest should have the prize. That’s how my father would treat me if the age we live in would allow him, and as he can’t do quite so much as that, he will wait quietly till some detestable person comes in his way, and then order me to marry him.’
‘Beatrix, do you think it is right and just to talk like this?’
‘I can’t pronounce upon the rightness of it, but I know it is not unjust. I am saying nothing but the truth. Ah, Cyril, I may seem wicked and bitter and unwomanly when I talk like this; yes, I am all those bad things—a woman unworthy to be loved by you, except that I am so much to be pitied. But who has made me what I am? If you knew how I used to try to make my father love me! If you could have seen me when I was a little thin sickly child creeping into his study and crouching at his knee, to be repulsed just a little more harshly than he would have sent away a dog! I went on trying against every discouragement. Who else was there for me to love?—who else was there to love me? My mother was gone; my governess told me that it was natural for a father to love his child—an only child—a motherless child most of all. So I went on trying. And I think the more I tried to win his love the more hateful I became to him. And now, though we meet two or three times a day and speak civilly to each other, we live quite apart. When he was dangerously ill last winter, I used to sit in the corridor outside his bedroom day and night, fearing that he was going to die, and thinking that perhaps at the last he might relent, and remember that I was his daughter, and stretch out his feeble arms to me and take me to his heart. But though death came very near him—awfully near—there was no relenting.’
‘My darling, life has been very hard for you,’ said Cyril, with deepest pity.
She shocked him by her vehemence—but she moved him to compassion by the depth of bygone misery her present indignation revealed.
‘My father has been hard to me, and he has hardened me,’ she said. ‘He turned my heart to stone. It was cold and hard as stone, Cyril, till you melted it.’
‘My dearest, there are many duties involved in that great duty of honouring your father,’ pleaded Cyril, ‘and perhaps the chief of all is patience. You must be patient, love; the hour of relenting will come at last. Duty and filial love will win their reward. But you must never again speak of your father as you have spoken to-night. It is my duty to forbid this great sin. I could not see you kneeling at the altar rails—and put the sacred cup into your hands—knowing you cherished such a spirit as this.’
‘I will not disobey you,’ she answered, with a grave humility. ‘I will not speak of my father at all.’
‘And you will endeavour to think of him with kindness, as you used in the days when you were trying to win his love?’
‘In those days I used to think of him with fear,’ said Beatrix. ‘The sound of his voice or his footstep always made me shiver. But I had this saying in my mind, “It is natural for a father to love his motherless child,” and I did try very hard, very patiently, to make him love me.’
‘Go on trying, dearest, and the love will come at last. Remember the parable of the unjust judge. Human love, like heavenly love, is to be won by many prayers. And if I am to be your lover, and your husband, Beatrix, I can only be so with your father’s knowledge and approval. Dearly, deeply as I love you, I will not stoop to win you by deceit and suppression. I would not so dishonour you, I could not so dishonour myself.’
‘Let me go then,’ cried the girl, passionately. ‘Throw me away as you would throw a withered rose into that river,’ pointing to the dark stream under the Roman arch—shadowy waters on which the distant stars shone dimly,—‘you will never win me with his consent. He will not believe in your love for me. He will misjudge and insult you, for he believes in no man’s truth or honour. He has made for himself a religion of hatred and suspicion. Why should we make him the ruler of our lives—why should we accept misery because he wills us to be miserable? You are quite sure that you love me, Cyril—it is really love and not pity that you feel for me?’ she asked, suddenly, with a gush of womanliness.
‘The truest, fondest, deepest love man ever felt. Will that content you?’
‘It does more than content me—it makes me exquisitely happy. Then, since you love me, Cyril, and really choose me above all other women—so many of them worthy to be so chosen—for your wife, you must stoop a little. You must be content to take me without my father’s consent, or blessing, and without his money. But we do not care for that, do we, either of us?’
‘Not a jot, Beatrix. The money is a millstone round your neck. Let that go, with all my heart. But if you and I were to be quietly married some day at the old parish church, darling, and were to walk away together arm in arm into a happy, smiling, useful future, as we might do,—can you guess what the world would say of your husband?’
‘No—unless it said he was foolish to choose so faulty a wife.’
‘The world would say that the penniless curate played a crafty game, and that, knowing Christian Harefield would never consent beforehand to receive him as a son-in-law, he had hazarded his chances on a clandestine marriage, counting upon Mr. Harefield’s being won over to receive him and forgive his daughter afterwards. That is what the world would say of any man, Beatrix, who married under such circumstances; and that is what the world shall not say of me.’
‘Then you value the world’s opinion more than you value me,’ said Beatrix.
‘“I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more,”’
answered her lover. ‘I shall call upon your father to-morrow.’
The church clock and the stable clock at the Water House began to strike eleven.
‘Good night, Cyril, you must be the manager of our destiny, but I’m afraid you will bring about nothing but sorrow and parting.’
‘I will do what is right, my dear. I will trust in Him who rules and governs all hearts—even your father’s when he seems hardest to you.’
‘Good night, Cyril.’
‘Good night, my best and dearest.’
He would not take her to his heart, or kiss the proud lips that were so near his own as they stood side by side in the shadow of the wide archway, though the discreet Parker kept his distance. He only took her hand and pressed it gently, and, with a murmured blessing, left her, just as the little low door in the archway opened, and the light shone faintly from within, making a kind of aureole round the bald head of the old gardener who lived in the mediæval gateway.