Walden smiled, but forbore to continue conversation on this somewhat personal theme. He retired into his own study, there to concoct the stiffest, most clerical, and most formal note to Miss Vancourt that he could possibly devise. He had the very greatest reluctance to attempt such a task, and sat with a sheet of notepaper before him for some time, staring at it without formulating any commencement. Then he began: “The Rev. John Walden presents his compliments to Miss Vancourt, and begs to inform her—”
No, that would never do! ‘Begs to inform her’ sounded almost threatening. The Rev. John Walden might ‘beg to inform her’ that she had no business to wear pink shoes with high heels, for example. He destroyed one half sheet of paper, put the other half economically aside to serve as a stray leaflet for ‘church memoranda,’ and commenced in a different strain.
“Dear Madam,”
“Dear Madam!” He looked at the two words in some annoyance. They were very ugly. Addressed to a person who wore pink shoes, they seemed singularly abrupt. And if Miss Vancourt should chance to resemble in the least her ancestress, Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, they were wholly unsuitable. A creditor might write ‘Dear Madam’ to a customer in application for an outstanding bill, — but to Mary Elia Adelgisa one would surely begin, — Ah! — now how would one begin? He paused, biting the end of his penholder. Another half sheet of notepaper was wasted, and equally another half sheet devoted to ‘church memoranda.’ Then he began:
“Dear Miss Vancourt,”
At this, he threw down his pen altogether. Too familiar! By all the gods of Greece, whom he had almost believed in even while studying Divinity at Oxford, a great deal too familiar!
“It is just as if I knew her!” he said to himself in vexation. “And I don’t know her! And what’s more, I don’t want to know her! If it were not for this business of the Five Sisters, I wouldn’t go near her. Positively I wouldn’t!”
A mellow chime from the old eight-day clock in the outer hall struck on the silence. Three o’clock! The train by which Miss Vancourt would arrive, was timed to reach Riversford station at three, — if it was not late, which it generally was. Nebbie, who had been snoozing peacefully near the study window in a patch of sunlight, suddenly rose, shook himself, and trotted out on to the lawn, sniffing the air with ears and tail erect. Walden watched him abstractedly.
“Perhaps he scents a future enemy in Miss Vancourt’s dog, Plato!” And this whimsical idea made him smile. “He is quite intelligent enough. He is certainly more intelligent than I am this afternoon, for I cannot write even a commonplace ordinary note to a commonplace ordinary woman!” Here a sly brain-devil whispered that Miss Vancourt might possibly be neither commonplace nor ordinary, — but he put the suggestion aside with a ‘Get thee behind me, Satan’ inflexibility. “The fact is, I had better not write to her at all. I’ll send Bainton with a verbal message; he is sure to give a quaint and pleasant turn to it, — he knew her father, and I didn’t; — it will be much better to send Bainton.”
Having made this resolve, his brow cleared, and he was more satisfied. Tearing up the last half sheet of wasted note-paper he had spoilt in futile attempts to address the lady of the Manor, he laughed at his failures.
“Even if it were etiquette to use the old Roman form of correspondence, which some people think ought to be revived, it wouldn’t do in this case,” he said. “Imagine it! ‘John Walden to Maryllia Vancourt, — Greeting!’ How unutterably, how stupendously ridiculous it would look!”
He shut all his writing materials in his desk, and following Nebbie out to the lawn, seated himself with a volume of Owen Meredith in his hand. He was soon absorbed. Yet every now and again his thoughts strayed to the Five Sisters, and with persistent fidelity of detail his mind’s eye showed him the grassy knoll so soft to the tread, where the doomed trees stood proudly and gracefully, clad just at this season all in a glorious panoply of young green, — where, as the poet whose tender word melodies he was reading might have said of the surroundings:
“For moisture of sweet showers, All the grass is thick with flowers.”
“Yes, I shall send Bainton up to the Manor with a civil message,” he mused— “and he can — and certainly will — add anything else to it he likes. Of course the lady may be offended, — some women take offence at anything — but I don’t much care if she is. My conscience will not reproach me for having warned her of the impending destruction of one of the most picturesque portions of her property. But personally, I shall not write to her, nor will I go to see her. I shall have to pay a formal call, of course, in a week or two, — but I need not go inside the Manor for that. To leave my card, as minister of the parish, will be quite sufficient.”
He turned again to the volume in his hand. His eyes fell casually on a verse in the poem of ‘Resurrection’:
“The world is filled with folly and sin; And Love must cling where it can, I say, — For Beauty is easy enough to win, But one isn’t loved every day.”
He sighed involuntarily. Then to banish an unacknowledged regret, he began to criticise his author.
“If the world and the ambitions of diplomatic service had not stepped in between Lord Lytton and his muse, he would have been a fine poet,” he said half aloud;— “A pity he was not born obscurely and in poverty — he would have been wholly great, instead of as now, merely greatly gifted. He missed his true vocation. So many of us do likewise. I often wonder whether I have missed mine?”
But this idea brooked no consideration. He knew he had not mistaken his calling. He was the very man for it. Many of his ‘cloth’ might have taken a lesson from him in the whole art of unselfish ministration to the needs of others. But with all his high spiritual aim, he was essentially human, and pleasantly conscious of his own failings and obstinacies. He did not hold himself as above the weaker brethren, but as one with them, and of them. And through the steady maintenance of this mental attitude, he found himself able to participate in ordinary emotions, ordinary interests and ordinary lives with small and outlying parishes in the concerns of the people committed to their charge. It is not too much to say that though he was in himself distinctly reserved and apart from the average majority of men, the quiet exercise of his influence over the village of St. Rest had resulted in so attracting and fastening the fibres of love and confidence in all the hearts about him to his own, that anything of serious harm occurring to himself, would have been considered in the light of real fatality and ruin to the whole community. When a clergyman can succeed in establishing such complete trust and sympathy between himself and his parishioners, there can be no question of his fitness for the high vocation to which he has been ordained. When, on the contrary, one finds a village or town where the inhabitants are split up into small and quarrelsome sects, and are more or less in a state of objective ferment against the minister who should be their ruling head, the blame is presumably more with the minister than with those who dispute his teaching, inasmuch as he must have fallen far below the expected standard in some way or other, to have thus incurred general animosity.
“If all fails,” mused Walden presently, his thoughts again reverting to the Five Sisters’ question,— “If Bainton does his errand awkwardly, — if the lady will not see him, — if any one of the thousand things do happen that are quite likely to happen, and so spoil all chance of interceding with Miss Vancourt to spare the trees, — why then I will go myself to-morrow morning to the scene of intended massacre before six o’clock. I will be there before an axe is lifted! And if Bainton meant anything at all by his hint, others will be there too! Yes! — I shall go, — in fact it will be my duty to go in case of a row.”
A smile showed itself under his silver-brown moustache. The idea of a row seemed not altogether unpleasant to him. He stooped and patted his dog playfully.
“Nebuchadnezzar!” he said, with mock solemnity; whereat Nebbie, lying at his feet, opened one eye, blinked it lazily and wagged his tail— “Nebuchadnezzar, I think our presence will be nee
ded to-morrow morning at an early hour, in attendance on the Five Sisters! Do you hear me, Nebuchadnezzar?” Again Nebbie blinked. “Good! That wink expresses understanding. We shall have to be there, in case of a row.”
Nebbie yawned, stretched out his paws, and closed both eyes in peaceful slumber. It was a beautiful afternoon;— ‘sufficient for the day was the evil thereof’ according to Nebbie. The Reverend John turned over a few more pages of Owen Meredith, and presently came to the conclusion that he would go punting. The decision was no sooner arrived at than he prepared to carry it out. Nebbie awoke with a start from his doze to see his master on the move, and quickly trotted after him across the lawn to the river. Here, the sole occupant of the shining stream was a maternal swan, white as a cloud on the summit of Mont Blanc, floating in stately ease up and down the water, carrying her young brood of cygnets on her back, under the snowy curve of her arching wings. Walden unchained the punt and sprang into it, — Nebbie dutifully following, — and then divested himself of his coat. He was just about to take the punting pole in hand, when Bainton’s figure suddenly emerged from the shrubbery.
“Off on the wild wave, Passon, are ye?” he observed,— “Well, it’s a fine day for it! M’appen you ain’t seen the corpses of four rats anywhere around? No? Then I ‘spect their lovin’ relations must ha’ been an’ ate ’em up, which may be their pertikler way of doin’ funerals. I nabbed ’em all last night in the new traps of my own invention. mebbe the lilies will be all the better for their loss. I’ll be catchin’ some more this evenin’. Lord; Passon, if you was to ‘old out offers of a shillin’ a head, the rats ‘ud be gone in no time, — an’ the lilies too!”
Walden absorbed in getting his punt out, only smiled and nodded acquiescingly.
“The train must ha’ been poonctual,” went on Bainton, staring stolidly at the shining water. “Amazin’ poonctual for once in its life. For a one ‘oss fly, goin’ at a one ‘oss fly pace, ‘as jes’ passed through the village, and is jiggitin’ up to the Manor this very minute. I s’pose Miss Vancourt’s inside it.”
Walden paused, — punt-pole in hand.
“Yes, I suppose she is,” he rejoined. “Come to me at six o’clock, Bainton. I shall want you.”
“Very good, sir!”
The pole splashed in the water, — the punt shot out into the clear stream, — Nebbie gave two short barks, as was his custom when he found himself being helplessly borne away from dry land, — and in a few seconds Walden had disappeared round one of the bends of the river. Bainton stood ruminating for a minute.
“Jest a one ‘oss fly, goin’ at a one ‘oss fly pace!” he repeated, slowly;— “It’s a cheap way of comin’ ‘ome to one’s father’s ‘Alls — jest in a one ‘oss fly! She might ha’ ordered a kerridge an’ pair by telegram, an’ dashed it up in fine style, but a one ‘oss fly! It do take the edge off a ‘ome-comin’! — it do reely now.”
And with a kind of short grunt at the vanity and disappointment of human expectations, he went his way to the kitchen garden, there to ‘chew the cud of sweet and bitter memory’ over the asparagus beds, which were in a highly promising condition.
VIII
The one-horse fly, going at a one-horse fly pace, had made its way with comfortable jaunting slowness from Riversford to St. Rest, its stout, heavy-faced driver being altogether unconscious that his fare was no less a personage than Miss Vancourt, the lady of the Manor. When a small, girlish person, clad in a plain, close-fitting garb of navy-blue serge, and wearing a simple yet coquettish dark straw hat to match, accosted him at the Riversford railway station with a brief, ‘Cab, please,’ and sprang into his vehicle, he was a trifle sulky at being engaged in such a haphazard fashion by an apparently insignificant young female who had no luggage, not so much as a handbag.
“Wheer be you a-goin’?” he demanded, turning his bull neck slowly round— “I baint pertikler for a far journey.”
“Aren’t you?” and the young lady smiled. “You must drive me to St. Rest, — Abbot’s Manor, please!”
The heavy-faced driver paused, considering. Should he perform the journey, or should he not? Perhaps it would be wisest to undertake the job, — there was the ‘Mother Huff’ at the end of the journey, and Roger Buggins was a friend of his. Yes, — he would take the risk of conveying the humbly-clad female up to the Manor; he had heard rumours that the old place was once again to be inhabited, and that the mistress of it was daily expected; — this person in the blue serge was probably one of her messengers or retainers.
“My fare’s ten shillings,” he observed, still peering round distrustfully; “It’s a good seven mile up hill and down dale.”
“All right!” responded the young woman, cheerfully; “You shall have ten shillings. Only please begin to go, won’t you?”
This request was accompanied by an arch smile, and a flash of blue eyes from under the dark straw hat brim. Whereat the cumbrous Jehu was faintly moved to a responsive grin.
“She ain’t bad-looking, neither!” he muttered to himself, — and he was in a somewhat better humour when at last he ondescended to start. His vehicle was a closed one, and though be fully expected his passenger would put her head out of the window, when the horse was labouring up-hill, and entreat him to go faster, — which habit he had found by experience was customary to woman in a one-horse fly,- -nothing of the kind happened on this occasion. The person in the blue serge was evidently both patient and undemonstrative. Whether the horse crawled or slouched, or trotted, — whether the fly dragged, or bumped, or jolted, she made no sign. When St. Rest was reached at last, and the driver whipped his steed into a semblance of spirit, and drove through the little village with a clatter, two or three people came to the doors of their cottages and looked at the vehicle scrutinisingly, wondering whether its occupant was, or was not Miss Vancourt. But a meaning wink from the sage on the box intimated that they need not trouble themselves, — the ‘fare’ was no one of the least importance.
Presently, the fine old armorial gates of the drive which led up to Abbot’s Manor were reached, — they were set wide open, this having been done according to Mrs. Spruce’s orders. A woman at the lodge came hastily out, but the cab had passed her before she had time to see who was in it. Up through the grand avenue of stately oaks and broad-branching elms, whose boughs, rich with the budding green, swayed in the light wind with a soft rustling sound as of sweeping silks on velvet, the unostentatious vehicle jogged slowly, — it was a steady ascent all the way, and the driver was duly considerate of his animal’s capabilities. At last came the turn in the long approach, which showed the whole width of the Manor, with its ancient rose-brick frontage and glorious oaken gables shining in the warm afternoon sunlight, — the old Tudor courtyard spreading before it, its grey walls and paving stones half hidden in a wilderness of spring blossom. Here, too, the gates were open, and the one-horse fly made its lumbering and awkward entrance within, drawing up with a jerk at the carved portico. The young person in blue serge jumped out, purse in hand.
“Ten shillings, I think?” she said; but before the driver could answer her, the great iron-clamped door of the Manor swung open, and a respectable retainer in black stood on the threshold.
“Oh, will you pay the driver, please?” said the young lady, addressing this functionary; “He says his fare is ten shillings. I daresay he would like an extra five shillings for himself as well,” and she smiled— “Here it is!”
She handed the money to the personage in black, who was no other than the former butler to Sir Morton Pippitt, now at the Manor on temp’ry service,’ and who in turn presented it with an official stateliness to the startled fly-man, who was just waking up to the fact that his fare, whom he had considered as a person of no account whatever, was the actual mistress of the Manor.
“Drive out to the left of the court,” said the butler imperatively; “Reverse way to which you entered.”
The submissive Jehu prepared to obey. The young person in blue serge smil
ed up at him.
“Good afternoon!” said she.
“Same to you, mum!” he replied, touching his cap; “And thank ye kindly!”
Whereat, his stock of eloquence being exhausted, he whipped up his steed to a gallop and departed in haste for the ‘Mother Huff,’ full of eagerness to relate the news of Miss Vancourt’s arrival, further embellished by the fact that he had himself driven her up from the station, ‘all unbeknown like.’
Miss Vancourt herself, meanwhile, stepped into her ancestral halls, and stood for a moment, silent, looking round her with a wistful, almost pathetic earnestness.
“Tea is served in the morning-room, Madam,” said the butler respectfully, all the time wondering whether this slight, childlike- looking creature was really Miss Vancourt, or some young friend of hers sent as an advance herald of her arrival. “Mrs. Spruce thought you would find it comfortable there.”
“Mrs. Spruce!” exclaimed the girl, eagerly; “Where is she?”
“Here, ma’am-here, my lady,” said a quavering voice-and Mrs. Spruce, presenting quite a comely and maternal aspect in her best black silk gown, and old-fashioned cap, with lace lappets, such as the late Squire had always insisted on her wearing, came forward curtseying nervously.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 597
