“Things is come to a pretty pass in this ’ere country,” then said Mr. Netlips grandiosely, “when the woman who is merely the elevation of the man, exhibits in public a conviction to which her status is unfitted. If the lady who now possesses the Manor were under the submission of a husband, he would naturally assume the control which is govemmentally retaliative and so compel her to include the religious considerations of the minority in her communicative system!”
Farmer Thorpe looked impressed, but slightly puzzled.
“You sez fine, Mr. Netlips, — you sez fine,” he observed respectfully. “Not that I altogether understands ye, but that’s onny my want of book-larnin’ and not spellin’ through the dictionary as I oughter when I was a youngster. Howsomever I makes bold to guess wot you’re drivin’ at and I dessay you may be right. But I’m fair bound to own that if it worn’t for Mr. Walden, I shouldn’t be found in church o’ Sundays neither, but lyin’ flat on my back in a field wi’ my face turned up to the sun, a-thinkin’ of the goodness o’ God, and hopin’ He’d put a hand out to ‘elp make the crops grow as they should do. Onny Passon he be a rare good man, and he do speak to the ‘art of ye so wise-like and quiet, and that’s why I goes to hear him and sez the prayers wot’s writ for me to say and doos as he asks me to do. But if I’d been unfort’nit enough to live in the parish of Badsworth under that old liar Leveson, I’d a put my fist in his jelly face ‘fore I’d a listened to a word he had to say! Them’s my sentiments, mates! — and you can read ’em how you like, Mr. Netlips. God’s in heaven we know, — but there’s onny churches on earth, an’ we ‘as to make sure whether there’s men or devils inside of ’em ‘fore we goes kneelin’ and grubbin’ in front of ‘uman idols — Good-night t’ye!”
With these somewhat disjointed remarks Farmer Thorpe strode out of the tap-room, whistling loudly to his dog as he reached the door. The heavy tramp of his departing feet echoed along the outside lane and died away, and Roger Buggins, glancing at the sheep-faced clock in the bar, opined that it was ‘near closin’ hour.’ All the company rose and began to take their leave.
“Church or no church, Miss Vancourt’s a real lady!” declared Dan Bidley emphatically— “She may have her reasons, an’ good ones too, for not attending service, but she ain’t no heathen, I’m sartin’ sure o’ that.”
“You cannot argumentarially be sure of what you do not know,” said Mr. Netlips, with a tight smile, buttoning on his overcoat— “A heathen is a proscription of the law, and cannot enjoy the rights of the commons.”
Dan stared.
“There ain’t no proscription of the law in stayin’ away from church,” he said— “Nobody’s bound to go. Lords nor commons can’t compel us.”
Mr. Netlips shook his head and frowned darkly, with the air of one who could unveil a great mystery if he chose.
“Compulsion is a legal community,” he said— “And while powerless to bring affluence to the Christian conscience, it culminates in the citizenship of the heathen. Miss Vancourt, as her father’s daughter, should be represented by the baptized spirit, and not by the afflatus of the ungenerate! Good-night!”
Still puckering his brow into lines of mysterious suggestiveness, the learned Netlips went his way, Roger Buggins gazing after him admiringly.
“That man’s reg’lar lost down ’ere,” — he observed— “He oughter ha’ been in Parliament.”
“Ah, so he ought!” agreed Dan Ridley— “Where’s there’s fog he’d a made it foggier, and where’s there’s no understandin’ he’d a made it less understandable. I daresay he’d a bin Prime Minister in no time- -he’s just the sort. They likes a good old muddler for that work — someone as has the knack o’ addlin’ the people’s brains an’ makin’ them see a straight line as though’twere crooked. It keeps things quiet an’ yet worrity-like — first up, then down — this way, then that way, an’ never nothin’ certain, but plenty o’ big words rantin’ round. That’s Netlips all over, — it’s in the shape of his ‘ed, — he was born like it. I don’t like his style myself, — but he’d make a grand cab-nit minister!”
“Ay, so he would!” acquiesced Buggins, as he drew the little red curtains across the windows of the tap-room and extinguished the hanging lamp— “Easy rest ye, Dan!”
“Same to you, Mr. Buggins!” responded the tailor cheerfully, as he turned out into the cool sweet dimness of the hawthorn-hedged lane in which the ‘Mother Huff’ stood— “I make bold to say that church or no church, Miss Vancourt’s bein’ at her own ‘ouse ‘ull be a gain an’ a blessing to the village.”
“Mebbe so,” returned Buggins laconically, — and closing his door he barred it across for the night, while Dan Ridley, full of the half- poetic, half philosophic thoughts which the subjects of religion and religious worship frequently excite in a more or less untutored rustic mind, trudged slowly homeward.
During these days, Maryllia herself, unconscious of the remarks passed upon her as the lady of the Manor by her village neighbours, had not been idle, nor had she suffered much from depression of spirits, though, socially speaking, she was having what she privately considered in her own mind ‘rather a dull time.’ To begin with, everybody in the neighbourhood that was anybody in the neighbourhood, had called upon her, — and the antique oaken table in the great hall was littered with a snowy array of variously shaped bits of pasteboard, bearing names small and great, — names of old county families, — names of new mushroom gentry, — names of clergymen and their wives in profusion, and one or two modest cards with the plain ‘Mr.’ of the only young bachelors anywhere near for fifteen miles round. Nearly every man had a wife— “Such a pity!” commented Maryllia, when noting the fact— “One can never ask any of them to dinner without their dragons!”
Most of the callers had paid their ‘duty visits’ at a time of the afternoon when she was always out, — roaming over her own woods and fields, and ‘taking stock’ as she said, of her own possessions, — but on one or two occasions she had been caught ‘in,’ and this was the case when Sir Morton Pippitt, accompanied by his daughter Tabitha, Mr. Julian Adderley, and Mr. Marius Longford were announced just at the apt and fitting hour of ‘five-o’clock tea.’ Rising from the chair where she had negligently thrown herself to read for a quiet half hour, she set aside her book, and received those important personages with the careless ease and amiable indifference which was a ‘manner familiar’ to her, and which invariably succeeded in making less graceful persons than she was, feel wretchedly awkward and unhappy about the management of their hands and feet. With a smiling upward and downward glance, she mastered Sir Morton Pippitt’s ‘striking and jovial personality,’ — his stiffly-carried upright form, large lower chest, close-shaven red face, and pleasantly clean white hair,— “The very picture of a Bone-Melter” — she thought— “He looks as if he had been boiled all over himself — quite a nice well- washed old man,” — her observant eyes flashed over the attenuated form of Julian Adderley with a sparkle of humour, — she noticed the careful carelessness of his attire, the artistic ‘set’ of his ruddy locks, the eccentric cut of his trousers, and the, to himself, peculiar knot of his tie.
“The poor thing wants to be something out of the common and can’t quite manage it,” she mentally decided, while she viewed with extreme disfavour the feline elegance affected by Mr. Marius Longford, and the sleek smile, practised by him ‘for women only,’ with which he blandly admitted her existence. To Miss Tabitha Pippit she offered a chair of capacious dimensions, amply provided with large down cushons, inviting her to sit down in it with a gentleness which implied kindly consideration for her years and for the fatigue she might possibly experience as a result of the drive over from Badsworth Hall, — whereat the severe spinster’s chronically red nose reddened more visibly, and between her thin lips she sharply enunciated her preference for ‘a higher seat, — no cushions, thank you!’ Thereupon she selected the ‘higher seat’ for herself, in the shape of an old-fashioned music-stool, without ba
ck or arm-rest, and sat stiffly upon it like a draper’s clothed dummy put up in a window for public inspection. Maryllia smiled, — she knew that kind of woman well; — and paying only the most casual attention to her for the rest of the time, returned to her own place by the open windows and began to dispense the tea, while Sir Morton Pippitt opened conversation by feigning to recall having met her some two or three years back. He was not altogether in the best of humours, the sight of his recently dismissed butler, Primmins, having upset his nerves. He knew how servants ‘talked.’ Who could tell what Primmins might not say in his new situation at Abbot’s Manor, of his former experiences at Badsworth Hall? And so it was with a somewhat heated countenance that Sir Morton endeavoured to allude to a former acquaintance with his hostess at a Foreign Office function.
“Oh no, I don’t think so,” said Maryllia, lazily dropping lumps of sugar into the tea-cups— “Do you take sugar? I ought to ask, I know, — such a number of men have the gout nowadays, and they take saccharine. I haven’t any saccharine, — so sorry! You do like sugar, Mr. Adderley? How nice of you!” And she smiled. “None for you, Mr. Longford? I thought not. You, Miss Pippitt? No! Everybody else, yes? That’s all right! The Foreign Office? I think not, Sir Morton, — I gave up going there long ago when I was quite young. My aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, always went — you must have met her and taken her for me, I always hated a Foreign Office ‘crush.’ Such big receptions bore one terribly — you never see anybody you really want to know, and the Prime Minister always looks tired to death. His face is a study in several agonies. Two or three years ago? Oh no, — I don’t think I was in London at that time. And you were there, were you? Really!”
She handed a cup of tea with a bewitching smile and a ‘Will you kindly pass it?’ to Julian Adderley, who so impetuously accepted the task she imposed upon him of acting as general waiter to the company, that in hastening towards her he caught his foot in the trailing laces of her gown and nearly fell over the tea-tray.
“A thousand pardons!” he murmured, righting himself with an effort— “So clumsy of me!”
“Don’t mention it!” said Maryllia, placidly— “Will you hand bread- and-butter to Miss Pippitt, Do you take hot cake, Sir Morton?”
Sir Morton’s face had become considerably redder during this interval, and, as he spread his handkerchief out on one knee to receive the possible dribblings of tea from the cup he had begun to sip at somewhat noisily, he looked as he certainly felt, rather at a loss what next to say. He was not long in this state of indecision, however, for a bright idea occurred to him, causing a smile to spread among his loose cheek-wrinkles.
“I’m sorry my friend the Duke of Lumpton has left me,” he said with unctuous pomp. “He would have been delighted — er — delighted to call with me to-day—”
“Who is he?” enquired Maryllia, languidly.
Again Sir Morton reddened, but managed to conceal his discomfiture in a fat laugh.
“Well, my dear lady, he is Lumpton! — that is enough for him, and for most people—”
“Really? — Oh — well — of course! — I suppose so!” interrupted Maryllia, with an expressive smile, which caused Miss Tabitha’s angular form, perched as it was on the high music-stool, to quiver with spite, and moved Miss Tabitha’s neatly gloved fingers to clench like a cat’s claws in their kid sheaths with an insane desire to scratch the fair face on which that smile was reflected.
“He is a charming fellow, the Duke-charming-charming!” went on Sir Morton, unconscious of the complex workings of thought in his elderly daughter’s acidulated brain! “And his great ‘chum,’ Lord Mawdenham, has also been staying with us — but they left Badsworth yesterday, I’m sorry to say. They travelled up to London with Lady Elizabeth Messing, who paid us a visit of two or three days—”
“Lady Elizabeth Messing!” echoed Maryllia, with a sudden ripple of laughter— “Dear me! Did you have her staying with you? How very nice of you! She is such a terror!”
Mr. Marius Longford stroked one of his pussy-cat whiskers thoughtfully, and put in his word.
“Lady Elizabeth spoke of you, Miss Vancourt, several times,” he said. “In fact” — and he smiled— “she had a good deal to say! She remembers meeting you in Paris, and — if I mistake not — also at Homburg on one occasion. She was surprised to hear you were coming to live in this dull country place — she said it would never suit you at all — you were altogether too brilliant — er—” he bowed—” and er- -charming!” This complimentary phrase was spoken with the air of a beneficent paterfamilias giving a child a bon-bon.
Maryllia’s glance swept over him carelessly.
“Much obliged to her, I’m sure!” she said— “I can quite imagine the anxiety she felt concerning me! So good of her! Is she a great friend of yours?”
Mr. Longford looked slightly disconcerted.
“Well, no,” he replied— “I have only during these last few days — through Sir Morton — had the pleasure of her acquaintance—”
“Mr. Longford is not a ‘society’ man!” said Sir Morton, with a chuckle— “He lives on the heights of Parnassus — and looks down with scorn on the browsing sheep in the valleys below! He is a great author!”
“Indeed!” and Maryllia raised her delicately arched eyebrows with a faint movement of polite surprise— “But all authors are great nowadays, aren’t they? There are no little ones left.”
“Oh, yes, indeed, and alas, there are!” exclaimed Julian Adderley, flourishing his emptied tea-cup in the air before setting it back in its saucer and depositing the whole on a table before him; “I am one of them, Miss Vancourt! Pray be merciful to me!”
The absurd attitude of appeal he assumed moved Maryllia to a laugh.
“Well, when you look like that I guess I will!” she said playfully, not without a sense of liking for the quaint human creature who so willingly made himself ridiculous without being conscious of it— “What is your line in the small way?”
“Verse!” he replied, with tragic emphasis— “Verse which nobody reads — verse which nobody wants — verse which whenever it struggles into publication, my erudite friend here, Mr. Longford, batters into pulp with a sledge-hammer review of half-a-dozen lines in the heavier magazines. Verse, my dear Miss Vancourt! — verse written to please myself, though its results do not feed myself. But what matter! I am happy! This village of St. Rest, for example, has exercised a spell of enchantment over me. It has soothed my soul! So much so, that I have taken a cottage in a wood — how melodious that sounds! — at the modest rent of a pound a week. That much I can afford, — that much I will risk — and on the air, the water, the nuts, the berries, the fruits, the flowers, I will live like a primaeval man, and let the baser world go by!” He ran his fingers through his long hair. “It will be an experience! So new — so fresh!”
Miss Tabitha sniffed sarcastically, and gave a short, hard laugh.
“I hope you’ll enjoy yourself!” she said tartly— “But you’ll soon tire. I told you at once when you said you had decided to spend the summer in this neighbourhood that you’d regret it. You’ll find it very dull.”
“Oh, I don’t think he will!” murmured Maryllia graciously; “He will be writing poetry all the time, you see! Besides, with you and Sir Morton as neighbours, how CAN he feel dull? Won’t you have some more tea?”
“No, thank you!” and Miss Pippitt rose,— “Father, we must be going. You have not yet explained to Miss Vancourt the object of our visit.”
“True, true!” and Sir Morton got out of his chair with some difficulty— “Time flies fast in such fascinating company!” and he smiled beamingly— “We came, my dear lady, to ask you to dine with us on Thursday next at Badsworth Hall.” No words could convey the pomposity which Sir Morton managed to infuse into this simple sentence. To dine at Badsworth was, or ought to be, according to his idea, the utmost height of human bliss and ambition. “We will invite some of our most distinguished neighbours to meet you, — there are a
few of the old stock left—” this as if he were of the ‘old stock’ himself;— “I knew your father — poor fellow! — and of course I remember seeing you as a child, though you don’t remember me — ha- ha! — but I shall be delighted to welcome you under my roof—”
“Thanks so much!” said Maryllia, demurely— “But please let it be for another time, will you? I haven’t a single evening disengaged between this and the end of June! So sorry! I’ll come over to tea some day, with pleasure! I know Badsworth. Dear old place! — quite famous too, once in the bygone days — almost as famous as Abbot’s Manor itself. Let me see!” and she looked up at the ceiling musingly— “There was a Badsworth who fought against the Commonwealth, — and there was another who was Prime Minister or something of that kind, — then there was a Sir Thomas Badsworth who wrote books — and another who did some wonderful service for King James the First — yes, and there were some lovely women in the family, too — I suppose their portraits are all there? Yes — I thought so!” — this as Sir Morton nodded a blandly possessive affirmative— “How things change, don’t they? Poor old Badsworth! So funny to think you live there! Oh, yes! I’ll come over — certainly I’ll come over, — some day!”
Thus murmuring polite platitudes, Maryllia bade her visitors adieu. Sir Morton conquered an inclination to gasp for breath and say ‘Damn!’ at the young lady’s careless refusal of his invitation to dinner, — Miss Tabitha secretly rejoiced.
“I’m sure I don’t want her at Badsworth,” she said within herself, viciously— “Nasty little insolent conceited thing! I believe her hair is dyed, and her complexion put on! A regular play-actress!”
Unconscious of the spinster’s amiable thoughts, Maryllia was holding out a hand to her.
“Good-bye!” she said— “So kind of you to come and see me! I’m sure you think I must be lonely here. But I’m not, really! I don’t think I ever shall be, — because as soon as I have got the house quite in order, I am going to ask a great many friends to stay with me in turn. They will enjoy seeing the old place, and country air is such a boon to London people! Good-bye!” — and here she turned to Marius Longford— “I’m afraid I haven’t read any of your books! — anyway I expect they would be too deep for me. Wouldn’t they?”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 607
