THE rectory of Markham Royal was a very good living—a living intended for the second son of the reigning family when there was a second son; and indeed it was more than probable that Roland Markham, when he grew up, would have to “go in for” the Church, in order to take advantage of this family provision. Sir William, being in his own person the third son of his family, and the youngest, there was nobody who had a claim upon it when he came into possession of the title and estates; for the Markhams of Underwood, who were the next heirs, and who had been very confident in their hopes up to the moment of Sir William’s marriage—a wrong which they had never forgiven—had but one son, who was too old to be cut into clerical trim. This was how Mr. Stainforth had got the living. He had held it for nearly thirty-five years, and had been a good rector enough, jogging on very easily, harming nobody, and if not particularly active in his parish, at least quite amiable and inoffensive, friendly with all the best families, and not uncharitable to the poor. He had a little money of his own, and had kept a good table, and returned to a certain degree the civilities of his richer neighbours. And he had been able to keep a pretty little carriage for his wife as long as she lived, and for his daughter; and altogether to maintain the traditionary position which the rector of Markham Royal had always held in the county. Perhaps an inoffensive man who disturbs nobody is the one who can hold such a position best; just as it is better (though this rule has at present a brilliant exception) for a president of the Royal Academy to be not too distinguished a painter, and even sometimes for a bishop not to be too great a divine. Society prefers the suave and mediocre, and when a man acquires a high place in its ranks by reason of his profession, requires of him that he should be as little professional as possible. Mr. Stainforth was of the good old order of the squire-parson, the clerical country gentleman who respects abuses which are venerable, and deprecates any great eagerness about the way to heaven. Perhaps he had not very distinct views about heaven at all. Now and then he would preach a sermon about golden gates, and harps, and shining raiment, but it was seldom, if ever, of his own composition. In his own practice he thought it best to think as little about dying as possible, and he did not try to impose a different rule on his neighbours. He thought that it would most likely all come right somehow or other in the end, and that in the meantime there was not much good to be done by too much dwelling on the subject, which indeed is a view of the subject which a great many people are disposed to take. He had lived long enough to see all his sons and daughters established in life, which was a great matter. He had two girls who were very well married, and two sons with capital appointments, besides Frank, who was scrambling for his living somehow, and could manage to “get on”—and Dolly, who was too young to cost very much. There was enough to provide for Dolly when the rector should die—and he felt that he had fully done his duty to his family. And he had done his duty to his parish. There was no more dissent than was inevitable; and Mr. Stainforth treated it as inevitable, and did not interfere with it. He was very reasonable on this subject—so reasonable that the curates he had generally disagreed with him violently; and he was at the present period taking the duty alone, though it was somewhat laborious, rather than attempt to regulate the young assistant priest who set up confessions, or the muscular young parson who instituted games.
“Let the people alone,” was Mr. Stainforth’s rule, to which these hot-headed young neophytes without experience would give no faith. Sometimes he would be quite eloquent on the subject. “Let the chapel alone,” he would say. “What can we do in the Church with the emotions, especially among the poor? A washerwoman who has feelings wants her chapel. It makes her a great deal happier than you or I could do. All that does the Church good. And let the others peg away at me if they please. It keeps Spicer amused, and keeps him out of more mischief.”
Spicer was the village grocer, against whom all the young men hurled themselves and their arguments in vain. But the rector dealt with Spicer, and always had a chat with him when he passed the shop-door. There was a mutual respect between them.
“But our rector, I don’t say nothing against him,” Spicer would say at the end of his speech, when there was any demonstration in the neighbourhood in the dissenting interest; “he mayn’t be much of a one for work, but he’s a credit to the place.” There was a great deal to be said for the head of the parish hierarchy who continued to get his things from you, blandly indifferent to the fact that you were a dissenter, and in despite of all those co-operative societies which drive grocers to a keener frenzy than any Church establishment. Lord Westland got all his things down from town, and so did the doctor and the smaller magnates; while even the chapel minister was known to have a clandestine hamper, given out to be a present from some supporter, but arriving suspiciously once a month. The rector, however, never swerved. To him the parish was the parish, and a Markham Royal grocer the proper grocer for Markham Royal—a principle which could not but have its reward.
This was the chief reason, and not economy, as many people said, why Mr. Stainforth did the duty himself, and had no curate. Dolly was his curate. She had been born in the order, so to speak, and none could recollect the time when she had not felt it her duty to set an example, and carried more or less the burden of the parish upon her shoulders. She had been dedicated, like young Samuel, from her earliest years to the service of the Temple. She set out upon her round of visits every day as regularly as any curate could have done, had her days for the schools, and her clothing clubs, and her mother’s meetings, at which the seventeen-year-old creature discoursed the women about their duties to their families in a way which was beautiful to hear. How she could know so much about children was a standing wonder to the women; but it was just as astounding to see her calculate the interest upon elevenpence ha’penny at four and a half per cent; indeed a great deal more miraculous to some of us. She played the organ in church; she took charge of the decorations. She watched all the sick people, careful to observe just the right moment when it was expedient “to send papa;” and the parish got on very pleasantly under the joint sway of the father and daughter. It did not make a very great appearance in the diocesan lists of subscriptions, and there was no doubt that a great many of the people who had feelings, as the rector said, went to the little Wesleyan chapel. But Mr. Stainforth did not mind that. It was a safety valve, and so was the Bethel chapel, in the nearest town, to which Spicer went every Sunday, which was much less tolerant than Bethesda, and hurled all manner of denunciations against the Church. Sometimes the neighbouring incumbents would warn the rector that his village was a hotbed of mischief, and be very severe on the subject of his excessive tolerance. But Mr. Stainforth was seventy-six, and not likely to live long enough to see any of the great earthquakes with which they threatened him. “There will be peace in my time,” he said.
This supineness did not displease Sir William, who, though in opposition, held fast to the old Whig maxims of freedom of opinion, and preferred to conciliate the dissenters, with an eye to the general elections and their political support generally. He went very regularly to church at the head of his fine family, but there was always a consciousness in him that, much as he should regret it, it might possibly be his duty one day or other to assail the establishment; and he thought it a point of honour not to show any exaggerated attachment to it now which might be turned into reproaches afterwards. Neither did the Trevors object at all to Mr. Stainforth’s easy good temper. The things they were afraid of were the Pope, and the Jesuits, whom they supposed to be lurking under every hedgerow. So long as the rector kept ritualism at bay they found no fault with him. The Westlands, however, were very strong on the opposite side. They were people who endeavoured always to do as persons of their rank ought to do, and they liked a high ritual just as they liked high life. Though they “countenanced” the school-feast, and were always ready to do their duty in this way in the parish, yet they never let slip an opportunity of expressing their opinion of the rector’s weakness.
“But we have no influence,” Lady Westland said. “The living is in the hands of the Markhams. Though they are commoners they were settled here before us, and therefore have the advantage of us in a great many ways.”
It was a bold thing to say this in the very district where it was well known the Markhams had been established for centuries, and where Lord Westland had acquired the Towers by purchase only about a dozen years before. But if there was one quality upon which Lady Westland prided herself it was courage. She was somewhat bitter about the Markhams altogether. There were so many things in which they had the advantage of her. To be sure, she took precedence of Lady Markham whenever they met, and walked triumphantly out of the room before her; but she could not but be aware that in most other ways the baronet’s wife had the best of it. The Chase had been in the Markham family for generations, whereas Westland Towers was painfully new; and to come to still more intimate particulars, Paul Markham was a young man of distinction, whereas George Westland, though an honourable, was nothing but an overgrown school-boy. Ada, indeed, was quite as handsome, perhaps handsomer, than Alice, and much cleverer: but she did not receive the same attention. Ada was withal rather a difficult young woman, who gave her parents a great deal of trouble. She took a pleasure in running her talk to the very edge of evil, and made every kind of daring revelation about herself and her family, putting her mother’s secret intentions into large type and publishing them abroad. She liked to see the flutter of semi-horror, semi-incredulity with which her bold sayings were received. She liked to shock people; but perhaps, at the same time, she made a shrewd calculation that, when she published what seemed to be to her own disadvantage, nobody would believe her. This, however, was not so successful an expedient as appeared. When she said that Paul had been expected to throw his handkerchief at her, nobody took it for an impertinent volley of extravagance on her part. It was vain that she involved Dolly in it. In the very faces of her auditors Ada saw the truth reflected back to her; and thus, though she would not have hesitated to marry the heir of the Markhams, she could not excuse the family for what they brought upon her. Lord Westland was not a man to feel the stings which hurt his wife and daughter. He was protected by a much higher opinion of himself; but even he felt a certain annoyance with “my friend Markham,” who was listened to more respectfully, and looked up to with much more trust than he. Lord Westland took this as an instance of the folly and stupidity of country people, but yet he felt it in his heart.
Thus the one family was to the other what Mordecai was to Haman. Lady Westland kept her ears always open to hear anything to the disadvantage of the Markhams. Paul’s youthful vagaries, and even the little scrapes which Harry and Roland got into at school she seized upon with eagerness. She was as much interested in chronicling these misdeeds as if they had been so many items to her advantage; but, notwithstanding everything, the Markhams always came off the best. George Westland got into more scrapes at school than all of them put together; and now that he had come home, and had finished his education, what must he do, this heir to a peerage, this only son of so rich and important a house, but go sighing and gaping after Dolly Stainforth, who was no more than the parson’s daughter? His mother and sister were driven almost wild by the mere suspicion of this. And not only was it day by day more evidently true, but it even became apparent to them that George for once had reached a point from which he would neither be bullied nor frightened. He let them say whatever they pleased, but he took his own way.
What Dolly thought of this has been already seen. Dolly, who was angry at her brother’s defection and sadly wounded by the failure of the Markhams, resented George Westland’s presence more than she did the absence of the others, and turned her back upon him, rejecting his services. She treated him with absolute contumely, impatient of his very look. Why is it that the wrong person will always present himself in such cases? Why, when a girl’s fancy is caught by one youth, will another attach himself to her side, and devote himself to her service, to have all the little carelessnesses of the other resented upon him? Dolly had not a word to say to young Westland. She would have liked to have pushed him aside out of her way; and Paul perhaps had not given one thought to Dolly since they danced together at the children’s balls at the Chase, while he was still a schoolboy. Thus the threads in the shuttle of life mix themselves up and get all woven the wrong way.
The Trevors were happily beyond the reach of all tremors of this kind. The old admiral lived a kind of mummy life, swathed in flannels against the rheumatism, and in bandages against the gout, with his food weighed out to him, and his wine measured by the too-scrupulous care of his daughter, whose life was spent in guarding him against cold and indigestion and excitement. Miss Trevor, the eldest, though she was deaf, always heard and understood what he said; but Miss Matilda, the second, never understood her dear papa, and had constantly to have his commands repeated to her. Between her parish work, in which she was assiduous, and her dear papa, this good soul’s existence was full. She was very humble-minded, and anxious to please everybody, but yet she was constantly giving offence to Mrs. Booth, whom she sometimes passed in the road, and sometimes brushed against at the church door, without seeing. Thus her inoffensive life was diversified by a succession of little quarrels, wholly unintentional, and which the poor lady could not understand. But these were the only palpitations in her calm existence; and her sister was free even from such agitation. She gave herself up to the housekeeping, and to reading the newspapers, which she did every morning, from beginning to end, specially dwelling upon all the naval debates and letters about the construction of ships. To give the admiral his “nourishment” at the proper time, to see that the carriage came round exactly at the right moment, to regulate the length of the drive to a moment, this was “a woman’s work,” and absorbed the admiral’s daughter in all the rigidity of routine. Thus life went on—as if it would never end.
As this history is for once to dwell in the highest circles, and deal only with people who may be called county people, and were of the highest importance in the district, it is scarcely necessary to speak of the smaller gentry. There were one or two small proprietors who farmed their own land, or who had so little land that it was scarcely worth farming, who lived about the skirts of the parish, and scarcely counted among its aristocracy. Some of these were so much nearer other parish churches that they did not even come to church at Markham Royal. Sir William Markham owned almost the whole of the parish. He had widened out his borders year by year during the long time he had held the property, and swallowed up various decaying houses of old squires. Such a little villa as Rosebank could not make any claim to be considered among the very smallest proprietors, and it was more to her devotion to the church than to anything else that Mrs. Booth owed her social elevation. She was very good in the parish. She and her niece visited the poor assiduously, and were familiar every-day visitors at the rectory, and so insensibly saw themselves received everywhere. They were the agents of almost every scheme of social improvement, always ready to act for the greater ladies, who had less time to spare, and content to pick up the crumbs of society from these great folks’ tables. Though they were quite insignificant in themselves they were in the midst of everything, and not unimportant members of the society which admitted them on sufferance, yet ended by being somewhat dependent upon them. If ever Miss Trevor enjoyed a holiday from her close attendance on her father, it was when Mrs. Booth had the carriage sent for her before luncheon and came to spend the day, with her dinner-dress and her cap in a little box. She could manage to guess at what the admiral meant, and she would play at backgammon with him, or read the newspapers, while Jane Trevor rested her weary soul in her own room, writing a detailed report to her aurist, or putting a few new verses into a book with a Bramah lock, which held the confidences of her life. It was Miss Booth who was the most popular of the two at Westland Towers, where Ada liked to have a hanger-on. But in the rectory they were both in their element—more familiar, and constantly interfering with Dolly, whom they both were very fond of, and whom they worried considerably. Rosebank had a balance and pendant in Elderbower, where lived an Indian officer and his family, but the Elders were a large family very much occupied with each other, with the cares of education, and making both ends meet; and consequently they took little part in what was going on, and need not be counted at all.
This was the circle which encompassed the Markhams like a chorus, like the ring of spectators which is always found encircling combatants in all classes. In this arena, round which were ranged all the bystanders, was about to be enacted the drama of their family life.