Yet the people went to church regularly enough in all their own little scattered parishes, and Richard Everton’s congregation, though it had fallen off for a few weeks immediately after Jennie Kiernan’s death, rallied together again in due course and resumed its normal aspect. But the most sanguine onlooker could never have said that it was either a devout or deeply attentive congregation. The chief interest of the villagers appeared to be centered on Mrs. Everton — her looks, her manners, and, more than all, her dress. They attended the church to see her, much as the stalls and dress circle people attend certain plays merely to see the costumes. She was the principal attraction, and everything and everybody seemed to wait for her on Sundays, — even the Church service itself. The organist never began to play the opening voluntary till one of the small choir boys, sent out as scout, returned to him with the information that Mrs. Everton was ‘just a-comin’.’ Her slight, pretty figure, always daintily clothed — her beautiful hair, always massed in twists and curls that shone like burnished gold, — her fair face, with the dark blue eyes always demurely downcast as she entered and walked noiselessly up the aisle, — all these charms were subject for comment, and ill-natured comment, too, on the part of the Shadbrook rustics, who were as spiteful and cruel as most semi-educated provincial folk are who only see two ways of existence, namely, ‘doing’ people and being ‘done’ by them. The village grocer’s girl, a young feminine scarecrow with projecting teeth and a snub nose, tossed her head at the lovely goldilocks of the Vicar’s wife, saying she never did see such ‘dyed ‘air and himpudence.’ The ‘young’ lady at the bar of the ‘Stag and Crow’ public-house, who had once in the long-ago been honored by the kisses of Mr. Minchin himself, before he married the pauper baronet’s daughter, remarked that ‘the wicked extravagance of Mrs. Everton was that shameful that she wondered how the Vicar could stand it! — she did indeed!’ The carpenter’s niece, fat, sallow and ungainly, but who despite these drawbacks was understood to be engaged to a Cheltenham tailor of distinction, sighed gently and opined that her Tom ‘wouldn’t look at a woman who got up her eyes and painted her cheeks like that for ever so!’
Poor little Azalea, quite unconscious of the small fires of envy, hatred and all uncharitableness which were smoldering around her in their coarse and common breasts, imagined that her husband’s parishioners liked to see her well-dressed, and that, by making herself look as bright and charming as possible, she was creating a favorable impression. She never thought that, on the contrary, if she had clothed herself like a frump, brushed her hair straight, and covered the charming contour of her well-shaped little body with an ill-cut cloak, she would have been much less harshly judged. A pretty woman is always an object of suspicion to the plain majority — and when she adds elegant attire to the attractions of form and feature, she is still more quickly and utterly condemned. Of course Azalea readily divined that she was not popular with the Shadbrook villagers, and in the real regret which she inwardly felt for the unfortunate end of hard-working, heart-broken Jennie Kiernan, she tried her gentle best to soften and remove the feeling which some of the people, influenced by the drunken raving of Dan, appeared to cherish against her. But her timid efforts were entirely misjudged, — they merely thought that she was trying to ‘eat humble pie’ and ‘curry favor’ with them, and while outwardly respectful to her in her presence, they mocked at her behind her back. Gradually discovering this, and resenting it with all the force of a spirit which, though essentially feminine, was proud to a fault, she presently ceased to visit the people at all, and lived in her own home like a bird in a cage, avoiding the village as much as possible in all her walks and drives.
“It’s no use,” — she said, shaking her little head mournfully one day when her husband ventured tenderly to remonstrate with her on the way in which she was isolating herself from his parishioners— “It’s no use, Dick! The people don’t like me, and I’m afraid I don’t like them! I’ve never done them any harm, and I wanted, to love them all and be a friend to them, only they wouldn’t and won’t let me. And I feel — oh, I feel that they just hate me because I’m not a proper sort of clergyman’s wife! I’m not! You know I’m not! To begin with — I’m not tall enough!” Here she broke into a merry laugh, but there was a glisten as of tears in her eyes. “No, — don’t make fun of me, Dick! — I’m not, really! A proper wife for a clergyman ought to be tall and angular, — her figure ought to darken the cottage doors — positively darken them, Dick! — and she ought always to wear tweed costumes and ‘spats’ in muddy weather. Now, I look simply awful in tweeds, and my feet and ankles would all go to nothing in spats — they’re not big enough or thick enough. Then she certainly oughtn’t to have curly hair — it ought to be the kind that always looks wet near the temples, and it ought to show quite recent marks of the comb through it, as if it had just been plowed! You know! And a good long nose is a great advantage — a nose that’s thin at the end and a little bit red and scrubby, — because then it looks as if it had been poking and poking into kitchens and cupboards, as a clergyman’s wife’s nose ought to poke, — and does poke, pretty often!” She laughed again, and put her little hand coaxingly under his chin. “Don’t be angry with my nonsense, Dick! — but you can’t say that you know any other clergyman with a wife like me?”
“No, that I can’t!” and he caught the small caressing hand in his own and kissed it— “That’s a fact, Azalea! I don’t know any man of my calling who has a wife so pretty, so dainty, so sweet, and quaint and dear—”
“Hush — hush!” she said, and her bright face suddenly clouded— “I don’t like you to praise me, Dick — I’m not worth it — I’m so useless to you.”
“Useless!” he exclaimed—’”Useless, Azalea?”
“Yes!” She smiled at him, but her eyes were wistful— “Quite useless, dear! Really, I am. I’m only — well! — just pretty. I am pretty — that’s the worst of it. It’s so unfortunate! Because I’m the only pretty person in the place! I wish there was another one to divide the uncomfortable honor with me. But there’s no one now since”— ‘here she hesitated a second— “since Jacynth Miller went away — and she — she was not pretty — she was beautiful.”
He was silent.
“I hear,” — Azalea went on— “that she has gone on the Stage. Do you think that’s true?”
“I should say it was very likely,” he answered.
A pause followed. Then Azalea sighed profoundly.
“I wonder,” she said— “whether all very beautiful women are wicked?”
Richard smiled down upon the fair face very tenderly —
“Let us hope not, darling!” he replied— “But in many cases the gift of great beauty seems to bring the worst kind of temptation in its train—”
“Temptation to do what?” she asked.
“Temptation to make the basest uses of it!” and his gentle voice grew suddenly cold and stern— “To snare and captivate and torture the souls of men to their own eternal shame! That is what Jacynth Miller has begun to do, — that is what she will continue to do till the end of her days — unless—”
“Unless — what?” And his wife’s eyes were full of a vague wonder as she put the question. He answered in accents of tense passion such as he himself was unaware of.
“Unless God intervenes! Unless God Himself cuts short her career before she ruins too many lives!”
“Why, Dick!” Azalea exclaimed, in open surprise— “I had no idea you felt so deeply about it! Then you do at last agree with me that she was — and is — a hopelessly bad girl?” —
“Yes, of course I agree with you!” he replied, with a touch of bitterness— “I agree with you that she was, and is hopelessly bad, Azalea! And I don’t know why we think of her — or speak of her. I would rather not. I don’t want to be un-Christian in my judgment — but I fear that even if she is not so now, she is likely to be one of the worst and most dangerous women ever born!”
He spoke in a thrilling t
one of suppressed anger, which even to his little wife seemed strange.
“Have you heard anything quite lately about her then, Dick?” she asked.
He met her inquiring look fully and frankly.
“I have heard nothing at all, my dear,” — he said, more quietly— “Nothing. And it is not likely that I shall ever. hear.”
His manner implied that he wished the subject dropped, and Azalea did not pursue it.
In the short space of little more than two years long ages seemed to have rolled away since the Kiernan affair, which, however, was as fresh in the mind of every inhabitant of Shadbrook as though it had only just occurred. Dan himself never allowed it to be forgotten, — Dan, who had become a veritable demon in his drink, never ceased declaiming the story of what he conceived to be his wrongs and his injuries to whomsoever would listen to his ravings — and as everything he said was always repeated with exaggerations, the whole district for miles round was affected by a vague distrust and dislike of the Evertons and gave them what is called the cold shoulder. People said:— “Oh no! There was nothing exactly against them — but Mrs. Everton was a mischievous woman — one could not be too careful!” And again:— “It was always a mistake for a parson to meddle too much with his parishioners — and Mr. Everton was rather officious in that way; and his wife was — well, really, such a very conceited little person!” And so on, and so on, with that spread of little trickling nothings which are like the outpouring of a sewer from diseased and dirty minds — little nothings which are far more wicked than open slander, because they cannot be proved sufficiently to the law to meet with the law’s punishment. To say that Mr and Mrs. Minchin did not aid and abet Dan Kiernan in his congenial task of making it difficult for Richard Everton and his wife to live pleasantly in Shadbrook, would be to underrate their undoubtedly great abilities. No two people ever lived who more honestly enjoyed the business of injuring others — and even as Mr. Minchin delighted in poisoning beer, so Mrs. Minchin delighted in poisoning reputations. This virtuous couple, however, went to church regularly — not Shadbrook Church, but another more modern one, with a ‘High’ ritual, situated nearer to the Minchin Brewery, — and they were also regular communicants. Respectability sat enthroned on their smug brows, — who could doubt the honesty of Mr. Minchin, with his capacious smile and wolfish eye? Who could suspect the sincerity of Mrs. Minchin’s loud laugh and frankly large feet? No one! — that is, no one who was employed by the Brewery, or connected with the Brewery.
Other folks who did not depend on Brewery references and had not borrowed Brewery money, were less constrained in opinion. Mrs. Minchin was something of a ‘cat,’ they were wont to observe, — and Mr. Minchin himself was a hypocrite. They did not believe Mrs. Everton was such a ‘horrid creature’ as Mrs. Minchin made her out to be. She was too pretty and too fascinating — these were her chief faults. But the consensus of provincial feeling being always distinctly dead against pretty women wherever they are, Mrs. Everton remained outside the pale of general approval, and had as many enemies as though she were a world’s reformer. And the frivolous little creature grew quieter, paler and thinner, less buoyant of step, less radiant of smile, — and concentrated all the pent-up playful tenderness of her nature more and more upon her home, her husband and her child. ‘Baby dear ‘was indeed the very core of her existence; she adored him and spoiled him as much as he could be spoiled, which was not so very much after all. He had a rather remarkable character of his own, and commanded himself as well as others in a firm yet perfectly undemonstrative way. He was tall for his age, and had an angelic dignity of look and manner far exceeding his years; — so much so that the very servants who ministered to his needs spoke of him with a certain wondering respect. He was ‘Master Laurence’ with every one now, — it was only his mother who still persisted in calling him ‘Baby dear.’ One day he looked at her smilingly as though she were a baby herself, and said in his yet imperfect English:
“Me not baby. Me man!”
And Azalea laughed.
“You darling!” she exclaimed— “But you are a baby! Yes, you are! My baby!” And then, some inexplicable emotion seizing her, she pressed the little fellow’s fair head to her bosom— “My baby!” she repeated, and tears sprang to her eyes— “Oh, my little pet! Don’t grow a man too soon! Don’t, darling! You are so sweet as you are!”
He felt a warm drop on his face and put up his tiny hand to feel her cheek.
“Muzzer kyin’!” he said, gravely— “Muzzer too pitty to ky. Me go tell Dad.” And he tried to wriggle off her knee. She caught and held him fast.
“No, dear — don’t tell Dad. Dad wouldn’t — wouldn’t understand. Mothers often cry.”
He studied her with a serious, silent intentness. She saw herself mirrored in the depths of his large, wondering, innocent blue eyes, and all suddenly a great vista seemed opening before her in the possible future life of the child she had brought into the world. What would he be? What career lay before him when his childhood was over, his young ideals crushed out of him in a public school and his nature forced and flattened into the formal and uniform shape demanded by purely conventional education? A faint shudder ran through her and she sighed. She had accustomed herself to thinking lately — and thinking was hard work. Moreover it did not agree with her.
“There’s time yet,” — she said to herself— “I shan’t lose him quite immediately — and perhaps Dick won’t send him to a public school, after all — perhaps — oh, a thousand things may happen!” And, with a surprised laugh at herself for her own unusual gravity, she kissed her ‘Baby dear’ over and over again, and said to him:
“You are baby! Mother’s very own baby! Now and always!”
And little Laurence, seeing her smile at him, smiled also, and repeated gravely with an infinitely sweet content:
“Now and alwiss!” —
CHAPTER XII
THERE came a wonderful month of April on the Cotswolds — an April all blue skies and sunshine and warm airs — an April that no one in the neighborhood ever forgot, for reasons more significant than even the fine weather, which of itself was unusual and remarkable. It was just such a spring-time as Richard Everton loved, when the fields overran themselves with buttercups and daisies — when violets came out in thick scented clusters under the greenly sprouting hedges, and blue-bells sprang up in the moist recesses of the woods, thrusting their dark blue spikes aloft ready to burst into bell-like blossom. Azalea declared it was the loveliest April she had ever known, and she herself expanded with its cheering influence, like a rose unfurling its bright heart to the sun. On Shadbrook village and all the district around it, the influences of a warm season made an almost miraculous difference, — cottages that had for months looked bare and squalid, became transformed as if by magic into picturesque little bowers of verdure, with the glossy green leaves and cream-yellow buds of the hardy climbing Dijon rose twisting and twining itself up to the very chimneys, while on all the outlying moors and in all the adjacent woodlands, a perfect wealth of wild blossoms sprouted up through the last year’s withered leaves and filled the air with delicious odor. The Vicarage garden became a paradise of floral beauty, — great clumps of lilac and laburnum vied with each other in displaying the richest and brightest quantity of bloom, — the borders blazed with hyacinths and tulips, — and in a warm corner where the sunshine stayed longest, thousands of crocuses blew asunder their transparent vestures and swayed to and fro among the green grass like fairy dancers tripping it in a carnival of color. This golden opening of the year was, when fine weather came with it, the Vicar’s happiest time — for his pretty wife sparkled into new animation with the brightness of Nature, and both she and little Laurence, inseparable Companions, were always roaming about the grounds together, Azalea enjoying her small son’s games at ball and humming-top with as much zest as though she were herself a child. Often and often when writing his sermon, Richard would lay down his pen and watch them from his window, and sm
ile as the sound of their gay laughter reached him in the seclusion of his study, — and he would silently thank God for their beloved and beautiful lives. He had, of late, as has already been said, resigned himself to the general dullness of Shadbrook, and to the ‘tone’ adopted towards him by his parishioners, and if ever the lurking demons of ambition or discontent stirred within him, he made swift attack upon them and drove them back into their lair.
“I have nothing to wish for,” he would say to himself, with emphasis— “Nothing to regret — nothing to desire. I am content. Indeed, I am more than content, — I am happy.”
He impressed this fact often and often upon Sebastien Douay, who persisted in considering Shadbrook ‘limited’ as a life’s outlook. But whenever he thus touched on the subject the little priest smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“If anything was to be done with the people, I would say with you that to be here is happiness,” — he declared— “But see you! All the Saints and angels and archangels could not move them to understand so much as one leetle bit of the cause and the need of religion. No! I will tell you one thing. And I say the same for myself as for you. If in the middle of Holy Mass there was news brought to my congregation that a pigsty was on fire, every one would run out of the church! Yes! Think you then they can believe in God when they would leave His service for a burning pigsty? No! But see again! If they were all drinking beer at Minchin’s expense and some one came to them with the same pigsty alarm they would not go! No! Not till they had finished the beer!”
“Well!” and Everton smiled rather sadly— “Would it not be the same everywhere else? In London, Paris or New York? Every man has his own special pigsty which he seeks to protect above all things. My dear friend, my unfortunate experience is that most men will leave God for anything that immediately and materially concerns their present selves. Shadbrook is no worse than other places in this regard. Wherever I went I should find no better parishioners—”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 722
