THE Rectory was a red house standing in a garden, which its inhabitants, one and all, energetically declared not to be damp; from which the stranger might gather that they were not so certain on the subject as it would be well to be. Its doors were quite level with the ground, so that you walked in, without the interval even of a step to raise you above the drippings of the rain: and as the drawing-room windows also opened down to the ground, it was rather a trying business in wet weather, and kept both the housemaid and the family much on the alert. The two girls went in through the open window, for the afternoon was quite bright and fair, and no fear of rain: but they found nobody in the drawing-room, which was low and rather dark, notwithstanding those two good-sized French windows, which somehow seemed to keep the light within themselves, and did not distribute it to the further side of the drab-coloured wall; this, unornamented with pictures or any variety, afforded a dingy background for the somewhat dingy couches and easy-chairs, which were covered with brownish chintz, intended to keep clean, or in franker language, ‘not to show the dirt’ for as long a period as possible. Chintzes and wall papers, and even dresses, which were calculated not to show the dirt, were very popular at the time Mrs. Plowden married, as means of economy, and her daughters had been brought up in that tenet of faith. Accordingly everything in the room was more or less of this dingy drab complexion, which was not exhilarating to the spirits. There were signs that the room had been recently occupied by the untidiness of the loose cover of one of the sofas, which bore evident signs that some one had been lying there, and had jumped up hastily, and apparently fled, since the old novel he or she had been reading lay open on its face on the floor, and the antimacassars with which the sofa had been adorned were huddled up in limp bundles, and lay here and there where restless shoulders or limbs had left them. Florence gave her cousin a look as she picked up the book and spread out the forlorn adornments on the arm and back of the sofa. ‘They were put on quite fresh two days ago, and look at them!’ said poor Florry; they were chiefly in crochet, and the work of her own hands.
‘He has been here,’ she said, ‘and papa has called him to see if he was at work. Papa might just as well let it alone, for he is never at work; but that is what they will not learn,’ said Florence, impatient of the blindness of her parents. ‘We,’ she added, ‘have to put the room tidy after him a dozen times a day; but I prefer him to be in the drawing-room, for at least he can’t smoke here——’
‘If he is out,’ said Mab, ‘let us go, Florry: we have lost half the afternoon already.’
‘I don’t believe he is out—he is being “jawed,” as he calls it, in papa’s study: don’t you hear them? Papa is at it hot! and what good will it do? He will only say the same thing over and over—I could say it all myself off by heart, everything papa says—and, of course, so could Jim, and what good can that do? Come and stop it, Mab. Jim will be so thankful to you: and poor papa won’t be sorry either,’ Florence said, with a more sympathetic perception, ‘for he knows it’s useless; but when he once begins he can’t stop himself.’
‘Oh,’ said Mab, ‘I can’t go and disturb Uncle James.’
‘When he’ll be so thankful to be disturbed!’ said Florry, ‘and you much better than me, for you will have the air of not knowing what it all means. No; don’t go to the study door. Go round by the garden, to the window where he can see you coming. Walk slowly, and make a little noise to attract their attention, so that you may not take them unawares. You might ring, or whistle, or something—or call to Dash—and then papa would see you, and have time to make up a face.’
These domestic diplomacies were unknown to Mab, but she took to them with the natural instinct of femininity. There was a certain element of fun, too, in stopping what she still called ‘a scolding,’ and in getting the culprit off—even though the culprit did not commend himself very warmly to her partiality. She carried out the programme accordingly, while Florence waited just out of sight of the study window. It was not a French window like those in the drawing-room, and it looked out upon the dullest portion of the surroundings—a bit of grass where the water lay treacherous during the long winter months in the slight concave of the ground, with shrubs cruelly green and unchanging around it, and a dead wall which they only partially veiled behind. Mab began to call Dash loudly as she walked round the corner to this sanctuary, scattering the gravel with her feet.
The scene that might have been seen inside the Rector’s window at that moment was this: a tall youth seated on a chair presenting nothing more responsive than the crown of his head, supported on his hands, to his father’s remarks, and saying never a word; while the Rector, who had risen from his own seat at his writing-table in his impatience, stood pouring out the vials of his wrath. He was putting before Jim all the enormities of which he had been guilty—his debts, the expense he had been to his parents, the disappointment, the disgrace. When, however, Mr. Plowden held up his hands to heaven and earth in grief and disappointment that it should be ‘my son’ who had been sent down by his college, it is to be feared that Jim was making angry comments in his mind to the effect that all his father cared for was that—‘not me, or anything about me.’ He knew the circumstances very well—far better than his father could tell him; and was it likely his conscience would be more tender for being dragged over the same ground again and again? When the Rector cried, ‘What is the use of talking to an impenitent cub like you?’ his son felt deeply inclined to reply, ‘There is none.’ He had, indeed, been wound up to the pitch of saying, ‘Why do you go on like that when you’re so sure it will make no difference?’—a profoundly sensible utterance, but one, perhaps, which it does still less good to say.
When ‘Dash, Dash! come here, old fellow—get ready to come out for a walk,’ sounded into the study, that home of anything but retired leisure, the Rector came to a sudden stop. ‘There’s some confounded visitor or other,’ he said in vexation, but not without relief.
‘It isn’t a visitor, it’s Mab.’
‘Don’t contradict me, sir! Who is she but a visitor, a silly girl breaking in where your mother herself—— Don’t think I’ve done with you because I’m interrupted. Don’t let me see you stir from your book till dinner. Try whether you can’t do something like your simple duty, for once in a way, just for the variety of the thing! Eh!—yes, my dear, you can come in if you really want to, if you have anything to say to me, but you know I’m always busy.’
‘Open the window, please, uncle,’ said Mab. ‘Is Jim there? We want him to come out with us, out on the river. The weeds are coming up already in the backwater, and we don’t want to risk going over the weir. It would be a wetting, and it might be a drowning, don’t you know: and we want Jim.’
The weeds and the weir were the invention of the moment, and Mab felt rather proud of her skill; for of course the most obstinate of backwaters is not choked with weeds in March, and the girls, who were used to the river, were not so foolish at that season as to approach the weir. The Rector looked out upon his niece, of whom he was proud, with a look of helplessness; for even from his sister he had kept the secret (knowing nothing of Florry’s indiscretions) of the sad state of affairs with Jim.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘it is quite true that Jim is here: but he’s busy, almost as busy as I am, reading up, don’t you know, for his examination. You really must not tempt him to-day. I am sure you know the river so well, you will take care not to go near the weir.’
‘But, Uncle James, it is getting near four o’clock, we shan’t be more than an hour. Don’t you think he will get on much better with his work when he comes back?’
Jim had gradually expanded himself while this conversation was going on; his father’s back being turned he actually, not metaphorically, kicked up his heels a little in secret demonstration of his joy. Then he rose, and appeared exceedingly composed and respectful behind his father, who was leaning out of the open window. ‘Since it is a question of the girls’ comfort, sir,’ said Jim, ‘an hour won’t make very much difference. I can get up that Sophocles just as well after dinner as now.’
‘I don’t put much faith in you after dinner,’ said the Rector, without turning his head.
‘Oh, but why shouldn’t you, uncle?’ said Mab, ‘I’ll answer for him! Of course he’ll work! Why there’s nothing to do after dinner. Uncle says you may come, Jim.’
‘I don’t say anything of the kind,’ said Mr. Plowden. But his eyes went from Mab outside to Jim within. They were both of them so young, and surely if there could be anything innocent in this world it would be an hour on the river with your sister and your cousin, both interested in keeping a boy straight. What was Sophocles after all (in which Jim took so little interest) in comparison with a more healthy rule of habit and purified nature? If only he would but be good, what would it matter about Sophocles? The Rector sighed with perplexity and impatience. It was all very well to attempt to keep Jim back, to say he was busy. Would all that keep him at his book a moment longer than his father’s eye was on him? And if Jim escaped and stole out by himself, how could it be known whether his companions would be as innocent as Mab and Florry? Was it not even a good point in the boy, showing at bottom some traces of early innocence, that it was with Florry and Mab that he wished to go? Mr. Plowden turned in from the window and looked at his boy. He was the only boy of the house, and no doubt he had been petted and spoiled, and taught to think that everything was to give way to him. The Rector looked at him with that longing of disappointed love, the father’s dreadful sense of impotence, the intolerable feeling that a touch given somewhere somehow, at the right moment, might bring all right if he only could tell when and how to give it. What did it matter that all his plans and arrangements should be put out the moment he had made them, if the right effect could be produced anyhow? Perhaps this little girl, with her childish innocent mind—who could tell? And at least how innocent it all was, the boy and the two girls! They would bring no harm to him, and perhaps—who could tell?
‘You will come home straight, Jim, and get to work again as soon as you return?’
‘Of course, sir,’ said Jim, opening large eyes, as if he had never departed from his word in his life. ‘Of course, when I say it I will do it. If you would but learn that it is the best thing to trust a fellow,’ he said, looking at the Rector with a grieved disappointment which quite outdid Mr. Plowden’s sentiments of the same kind. The poor Rector could not restrain a laugh as the young man hurried out of the room, leaving Sophocles just ready to topple over, on the very edge of the table; but it was not a cheerful laugh: though, perhaps, there was the chance that little Mab, if she had only been a little prettier—— Prettiness, however, as he knew, is not the only thing that matters in things of this kind.
‘You little brick!’ cried Jim, as they hurried along. ‘I owe you one for that. What put it into your little head to come and get me off to-day? for I was at the end of my patience, and could not think of any excuse to get away.’
‘What should you have done, Jim, if I had not come? read your Greek?’
‘Not if I know it,’ said Jim. ‘I should just have cut and run, excuse or no excuse. A fellow can’t be shut up all the afternoon, and the sun shining. It’s cruelty to animals. The old Pater has forgotten that he was ever young.’
‘But you will keep your promise, Jim, and go back and learn up your Greek?’
‘Oh, we’ll see about that. Let’s get our pull first. Oh, there’s Flo! I thought you and I were going alone.’
‘It was Florry who wanted you to come,’ said Mab, with the frankness of extreme youth, ‘not me. I like to do the pulling myself.’
‘You shall if you like,’ he said. ‘I’m not fond of trouble. And it’s not much fun you know, after all, to go out with your sister and your cousin. It’s too much bread and butter. If I’d known that Flo was in it I shouldn’t have come.’
‘You can go back if you please—to your Greek.’
‘Oh, catch me,’ said the young man.
‘But you will when we come back, Jim?’
‘Perhaps I shall; not if you bully me. So I warn you. I should do my work all right and make up lost time if I wasn’t bullied for ever and ever. Every one is at me. You heard what papa said. He ought to know how a man feels and shut up. But it’s being so much among women, I suppose, makes a clergyman like that. If he wasn’t a clergyman he wouldn’t nag, he’d leave that to the women, and then I should feel that there was some one who understood. But how do you suppose a fellow is to do anything when from morning to night he hears nothing but “Are you going to your work, Jim? When do you begin your work? How are you getting on with your work?” and so forth. If I don’t pass it will be the family’s fault, it will not be mine. Mab, do you row stroke or bow?’
Mab jumped into the boat and took her place, without otherwise answering his question; but when they had floated out amid the reflections of the still river, she found that little tongue, which was not always under proper control.
‘I like pulling,’ she said, ‘very much. I’d rather a great deal have an oar myself than sit still and let other people row me; and I like to bring mother out or—Aunt Jane.’ She was about to say even Aunt Jane, but happily remembered that Aunt Jane was the mother of both her companions. ‘But,’ said Mab, with a long, slow stroke, to which Florence, very anxious to hear what was passing, kept time very badly, ‘one thing I do hate is to pull an idle man.’
‘By Jove!’ burst from the lips of Jim. He had been listening very calmly up to the last two or three words, amused to hear little Mab’s statement of what she liked and didn’t like, but quite sure that she could say nothing that was derogatory to himself. ‘I say, you little cat, why did you ask me to come out if you meant next moment to give me a scratch like this?’
‘I told you it was Florry who wanted you and not me.’
‘You might be civil at least,’ said Jim, who had actually reddened under this assault. ‘What did you come and butter up my father for, to let me go?’
‘That was different,’ said Mab. ‘When it is against the old people, of course you are my own side; and then it was fun carrying you off as if you were something one had captured; and you looked so silly with uncle holding forth.’ She broke into a laugh, while Jim grew redder and redder. ‘But one thing I will never hold with,’ said Mab, ‘is that girls, who are not nearly so strong, should take and row a big heavy man.’
‘Not so heavy,’ cried Florence, pushing her head forward, neglecting her stroke entirely, and putting the boat out of trim. ‘Oh, Mab, why should you reproach him too? He’s no heavier than I am.’
‘Shut up, Flo,’ cried Jim indignantly, ‘I’m close upon eleven stone, and that’s the least a man should be of my size.’
‘Well,’ said Mab (‘I’ll pull you round, Florry, if you don’t mind)—that is what I say; girls may do for themselves as much as they please, but to drag about a great heavy man, whether it is pulling in a boat or driving in a dog-cart, or whatever it is, is what I don’t like. It is not what ought to be.’
‘You are so old-fashioned, Mab,’ said Florence anxiously from behind. ‘You and Aunt Emily, you have the old antiquated ways of thinking about women, that men should take care of them, and work for them, and all that, when perhaps it is the women that are most able to work, and take care of others too.’
‘I have no antiquated ways,’ said Mab. ‘I have no ways at all. I don’t think about women any more than about—other people. Mother and I have not got many men to take care of us, have we? But I say, it isn’t our place to pull a heavy man. He should do that for us. I prefer to pull myself. Do, do, Florry, keep time! And I don’t want your help, Jim. I am not talking of to-day; I am talking of things in general. It isn’t nice; it doesn’t look well; it’s not the right thing. I don’t want to have any man working for me; I’d much rather do it for myself. But he is the biggest and the strongest, and we oughtn’t to be doing things for him. That’s my opinion, without any reference to to-day.’
‘You are not very civil,’ said Jim. ‘Why didn’t you leave me at my Greek, Miss Mab? I might have done a lot, and been free after dinner. Now, instead of father’s jawing, which I’m used to, I have yours, which I’m not used to, and a slave in the evening as well. Hold hard a moment, till I shake off my coat and my boots, and I’ll swim ashore.’
‘Oh, Jim! it will be your death,’ said the frightened Florence, starting from her seat, and once more putting the boat dreadfully out of trim.
‘Be quiet, sit down!’ cried Mab, ‘or we shall have an accident. Do you hear? Jim is not going to do anything so silly. I was not speaking of him; I was only making a general remark. You can sit there and welcome so long as you steer against me, Jim: for I am pulling the boat round, can’t you see, and Florry is not the least good.’
‘Girls never are,’ said Jim; ‘the least little thing puts them out.’
‘You see, Florry:’ said Mab, ‘it was on his account you were exciting yourself and behaving like one of the cockneys on Bank Holiday, and he doesn’t mind. Let him alone. How far can we go to get back in daylight, Jim?’
Florence once more put in her word. ‘We can go as far as the island,’ she said.
‘Coming back to-morrow morning?’ said Jim. ‘How should she know? Going up you can go as far as the lock, and going down you can go as far as the lock, but not a step more.’
‘That’s like an oracle,’ said Mab.
‘Well, so I am. If I don’t know anything else, I know the river. I know it every step up to Oxford and down to London. I’m as good as the Thames Conservancy man. They’d better put me on if they want to look after all the backwaters and keep the riparians in order. That’s what I could do. I may not be a dab at Sophocles, but there isn’t a man knows the river better. You ask any man that knows me, either at Oxford or here.’
‘Then why does not Uncle James try to get you an appointment on the river? It would be better than going out to the colonies.’
‘Oh, they don’t think so here. In the colonies nobody knows you. You may go about in a flannel shirt and knickerbockers, and a revolver in your belt; but if you stay at home they want some work for you that you can do in a black coat and top hat.’
‘Couldn’t you take care of the riparians and the backwaters in a top hat, if you liked?’
‘Oh, they like a naval man,’ said Jim; ‘their uniform gives them a little dignity, don’t you know, whereas I’m nobody.’
‘But it is the same in everything. You can’t be somebody all at once. You must begin low down,’ said Mab, bending her little person over her oar with that slow, steady stroke which confused Florence. Florry was choppy and irregular—one time slow, the next fast; never able to hit the time which Mab gave her with such steady composure. ‘The way to do,’ said Mab, ‘is to put everything else out of your head, as long as you are able to, and think of nothing but that. You should never mind what you like, or what you want, but just set your thoughts on what you are doing. Look at Florry; she wants to hear what we’re saying, and she wants to defend you, Jim, that I mayn’t say anything unpleasant; and the consequence is that if you were not steering against me with all your might, I should pull the boat round and round.’
‘Florry is only a girl, and a bad specimen,’ said Jim. ‘You should have let me pull, and then you’d have seen something like pulling.’
‘I am only a girl myself,’ said Mab.
‘But, then, you’re a good specimen,’ said the young man, with a laugh. ‘You keep your eyes in the boat.’
‘Which is what you don’t do, Jim!’
‘How do you know, you little thing, lecturing people older than yourself? I may not with Sophocles—but I do with other things.’
‘Which other things?’ said Mab.
But Jim made no reply; and here Florry interposed again with strokes shorter and more irregular than ever, to talk over her cousin’s shoulder, and ask, though they were not half-way to the island, or even to the lock for that matter, whether it would be better to turn back and go home. They lay for a moment in midstream. Mab pausing on her steady oar to remonstrate, making a picture in the water, the boat floating as a bird floats in mid air, between the sky and the river, which reflected every line of cloud and stretch of blue. Some cows at the water’s edge stood double, feeding, on the very brink, and the trees still bare, but all downy with life, pushing out a greenness here and there, seemed to stretch out of the water in reflection to meet the others on the bank. Watcham lay glorified, one white house above the rest lighting up all the river with its white shadow in the stream. The boat lay like a thing enchanted with the three figures shining in afternoon light, above and below.