by F. M. Mayor
Canon Jocelyn was never conceited, but while deploring his too slight knowledge of Hebrew, he took pride in his business acuteness. He was pleased that he had so often been consulted.
8
At night Mary took Dora into her room. She showed her Ruth’s photograph. The face was feeble, sad, and vacant; it had sometimes been redeemed in life by a glance of affection or merriment. This did not appear in the photograph.
‘You don’t think, like Ella, she should never have come back, do you?’ said Mary.
‘Oh no,’ said Dora, ‘I should have loved to have done what I could for her. I should have liked to be a mental nurse; it’s so sad for them. But it’s better it’s over, isn’t it?’
‘I know it is, but I felt all the happiness of my life went with her.’
‘Really, Mary, I think you’re wonderful,’ said Dora, taking Mary’s hand.
‘No, there’s nothing wonderful about me,’ said Mary, disengaging herself. As dutiful parsons’ daughters they were alike, but there were regions in Mary Dora could not enter.
‘Mary dear, you’ve had a very hard life.’
‘No, I don’t think so – only loneliness. I do long for a sister.’
‘Yes,’ said Dora. ‘There’s nothing quite like a sister. Gertrude was my special, you know, and she married. One doesn’t lose them exactly, but it can’t be the same, though we’re very good pals the rest of us. You must treat me as a sort of sister. Will you, Mary?’
‘Darling Dora,’ cried Mary, flinging her arms round her friend.
Quiet warmth, not heat, was what Dora liked. She was perhaps relieved when the arms were taken away.
‘I thought once we really should be sisters,’ said she. ‘It’s all so long ago. Did you know – you must have guessed – Will and I were in love?’
‘I knew Will was; I didn’t know about you.’
‘I was stupidly shy. I dreaded it coming to a point.’
‘You would have taken him, wouldn’t you?’ said Mary gently. ‘Do you mind my asking?’
‘Mind your asking,’ said Dora; ‘no, of course I don’t. Oh yes, I should have taken him. But of course I was nothing like clever enough for all of you. And I think your father didn’t like it. And Will seemed so nervous of him. I sometimes wonder if that was why he never did propose.’
‘Everything went wrong about Will and Father,’ said Mary. ‘For one thing he was so bad at Latin. It was one of the great disappointments of Father’s life that none of my brothers really cared for classics.’
‘Really, Mary?’
‘You don’t know what he and his friends felt about Latin and Greek. They were dearer to them than almost anything else, except the Bible.’
‘How funny, Mary; don’t you think so?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mary had often heard her father and Mr Sykes deplore the decline of learning – one of the principal reasons they had for shaking their heads. ‘Learning must be carried on. It’s a kind of apostolic succession.’
‘Oh no, Mary,’ said Dora, bewildered. ‘And anyhow you like Latin. Don’t I remember you one day reciting Latin poetry?’
‘I was never really good; besides I was a girl. It was his sons he cared for. Will’s Latin lessons with Father – I shall never forget them. Things got much worse when Will was older. He drank, you know; he was very unhappy. It was that, I think, and Father was so hard. He had to go to Canada.’
‘You’re shaking all over, Mary’
‘Am I? Yes, I think I am. I used to hate Father about Will, Dora; he was as cold as ice. Telling you has brought it all back. It seems to me parents didn’t think it necessary to understand their children in those days. Besides, Will always showed his worst side to Father from fright. I know so well what that is.’
‘Are you afraid of Canon Jocelyn, Mary?’
‘Not exactly, but I never knew any one who could make one feel so small. Will has done very well in Canada. I suppose it’s better he went. Only we used to be so close to one another, and I’ve lost him altogether now he’s married.’
‘She’s a Canadian, isn’t she?’ asked Dora.
‘Yes.’
‘Any children?’
‘He’s just got his fourth.’
‘How splendid. Any boys?’
‘Two boys. Here’s the photograph of them.’
Dora looked at it with no trace of envy.
‘Aren’t they sweet?’ she cried. ‘And what a nice face his wife has’ (her kind, optimistic eye passing over the commonness). ‘I know she must be nice,’ with the feeling that nothing could be too good for him. ‘Dear me, I hadn’t thought of those old days for years. Dear Will.’ Her smile had always been sweet; in middle age it had become more sweet. ‘But I must not be sentimental. I have a very happy life, and Gertrude’s infants are such darlings.’
The time for romance was past. She had certainly retricked her beams,* but Mary thought there was a little connection between her old love affair and the speech she made pensively, when they took a walk in the twilight one evening. ‘How glad one is, Mary, that this life isn’t all.’
When Dora went to her room after the long talk, the fire had burnt low, and not all the beauty of the silver sticks could compensate for the very small oases of light created by the two candles. The wind was up, and kept tapping a branch against the window. Tranquil and prosaic to a fault, she felt tonight as if the sorrows of the past, the solitude of the present haunted the room. She wondered if the mad girl had died in the high bed. She longed for her cosy villa home at Southsea, for companionable tram bells. She tossed for hours, with bitter thoughts against Canon Jocelyn.
The wind died down in the morning; the sun shone; she felt her calm self again.
In compunction at unkindness she suggested, ‘Do you give your father a cup of Benger’s* at ten? Mother has it and quite enjoys it. At their age the night is rather long for them.’
To be coupled with Mrs Redland and ‘at their age’ was a revenge Canon Jocelyn would have felt.
He and Mary were both occupied at breakfast with the prospect of the Meryton’s garden-party that afternoon. As Claudia put it, ‘The animals come out of the ark, and we polish them off with an annual feed.’ The strange history of last night seemed far away. At breakfast, too, a letter from Will arrived with news of his crops, church, and investments, such a letter as any church-warden might have written. There was no trace of Jocelyn erudition. With it came a photograph of Will and his family – a prosperous, not distinguished, not at all handsome father, a stout mother, with the commonness much increased, healthy children.
‘Very nice,’ said Canon Jocelyn, without special enthusiasm.
‘That is my godchild little Frances, I think, on the right. She was the eldest, but I cannot remember the second; was it Lilian?’
‘No; Lilian is the baby, you know, Father.’
‘The baby. Yes. Well,’ as though addressing a child, ‘you must be sure and write a letter of thanks and send my kind love, and you had better look out some fairy-tales for them for Christmas later on; perhaps the Arabian Nights.’
‘We gave them that last Christmas, you remember.’
‘Did we? But no doubt you can find something for them.’
The son who had nearly broken his heart roused but tranquil and inaccurate interest now. The tempests of life can die down as though they had never been.
9
Mary’s appearance for the Meryton party occupied Dora. Her own dressing was quiet, neat, tasteful, late in the fashion, but not behind it. She looked a model for clergymen’s daughters.
Mary had never been a good manager of dress. Her allowance was ample for a schoolgirl’s pocket-money, but not sufficient for a woman. From a mixture of pride and shyness she had never explained what was her due. She had to give endless small sums, relieving village wants. She had only an absolute minimum for herself. Crepe de chine underclothes and such had no attraction for her. She was too proud to become the slave of money for luxuries, but s
he was in a cage; money would have let her out.
She had her best dress made by Miss Wantage in Cayley and her everyday by Miss Porter in Dedmayne. Miss Porter produced a dreadful parody of the fashion-plates. But she was an old friend, whose feelings must not be hurt. In hats Mary constantly feared she was buying something extreme and must alter it, making it flatter if high hats were worn, higher if flat hats were worn.
‘Mary, dear,’ said Dora pleasantly, ‘let me do a little something to that hat, may I? I always trim mother’s and the girls’. And those little ends of hair – shall I fasten them up with a slide? Mother was very particular when we were young. She used to say dressing carelessly was burying a talent. I always thought that so helpful.’
‘Nobody ever noticed much when I was young.’
‘Your aunt was so busy, wasn’t she, with her reading and her beautiful needlework?’
Never had woman been lazier than Aunt Lottie, sitting on a sofa even in early middle age, putting occasional stitches into cushion-covers. Mary left Dora to her kind impression.
The pony took Dora and Mary to Meryton Court.
They approached the wonderful, dignified old house, reposing placidly in the afternoon sun.
‘Are you shy?’ said Mary. ‘I am to the pitch I am not quite sure what my name is.’
‘Oh yes, I never go to these sort of houses,’ said Dora easily. ‘Of course they make me shy.’
The interior was not merely beautiful, though it was beautiful in the highest degree. The pictures, both frames and canvases, softened by the lovely bloom of age, seemed as natural to the house as the elm trees in the park. The oak panelling, like black shining water, the rich red crimson brocade on the chairs and sofas, the Indian and Chinese cabinets, the porcelain, even the profusion of today’s hot-house flowers – all had a landscape’s power of looking not new, but fresh, not faded, but immemorial.
Lady Meryton smiled her sweetest on Dora and Mary. When her time must be given to others, she herself took them to the rose garden. ‘I believe Kathy is there and you must see her.’
There was Kathy, the Kathy Mary had dreaded. She fell captive to her beauty on the spot: the broad forehead, the large grey eyes, serious and true; the exquisitely shaped mouth with its sweet, very benignant curve; the straight tall figure like a beech tree. In former times, when beauty was more thought of, Kathy might have had wars waged for her.
With her was Claudia. In contrast to the guests, who had bought best summer dresses with an eye to the Meryton garden-party, Claudia wore a coat and skirt – perfectly fitting, but a coat and skirt. She always looked as if she were in a riding-habit. Lady Meryton wore a lovely grey silk.
‘Claudia, dearest,’ she had said, ‘couldn’t you put on something prettier? I think it pleases people.’
‘No; there is one thing I draw the line at,’ answered Claudia, ‘and that is the party-frockers, all decked out with beads and chains like squaws. I’m afraid they must miss the bliss of seeing me got up to kill.’
Claudia was thin, weather-beaten, and born to the saddle. She and Kathy had retired to the rose garden for a quiet discussion on harness.
‘Claudia,’ said Lady Meryton, ‘here is Dora Redland. I remember you and her toddling about together so well. Miss Hollings, Miss Redland, and this is my niece Kathy and my cousin, Mary Jocelyn. You are not really relations, but I feel as if you were.’
Lady Meryton went off to other guests.
‘Mamma seems to think we swore an eternal friendship in our cradles,’ said Claudia to Dora. ‘I suppose the nurses pushed our prams side by side now and then. My mother has such an imagination.’ ·
‘I remember coming to tea here sometimes. I think you had a white dog called Scamp,’ said Dora.
‘Did we? Oh, by the way, would you tell Ella – I think Mamma said she wasn’t coming today – there’s no need for her to trouble herself about Fred Parry’s hens? The Hunt has given him the usual compensation. Of course the cases are gone into systematically, only he likes to get somebody fresh arid pour out his woes. All the rest of us know him rather too well.’
Dora came from that section of the middle class which is so good and kind it cannot be rude (Mary came from the section above it which can), but there was a touch of dryness in her answer. ‘Won’t you see Ella yourself? She’s coming back tomorrow.’
Meanwhile Mary, like a romantic lover, was speechless in awe before Kathy. Kathy did not speak either; the two stood and looked at one another.
‘I don’t quite know why Mamma brought you here,’ said Claudia, turning to Mary. ‘The rain’s ruined the roses. Kathy and I supposed no one could possibly want to look at them but there are some rather good kinds, I believe. I ought to know them and don’t; they’ve got the names on them.’
‘Roses don’t do very well with us at Southsea,’ said Dora to Kathy. ‘I expect we spoil them.’
Kathy turned her beautiful eyes on Dora in silent indifference, and made no answer.
‘Did you enjoy Florence very much?’ Mary asked Claudia. ‘You were just going off when we last met.’
This harmless question was answered crushingly.
‘I didn’t go in the end. I can’t bear churches – it’s enough to be dragged to one every Sunday morning – or pictures of naked females, and that’s all there is at Florence.’
The ordinary coinage of small talk did not circulate with Claudia. She hated London, she went to buy clothes sometimes. If compelled to stay the night, she relieved the tedium by a farce or revue, roared with laughter, and was bored. She hated ordinary parties; she hated everywhere abroad, except the resort of big game. The only books she read were Jorrocks, Pickwick, and The Adventures of an Irish R.M.,* so that one or two further topics broached by Dora and Mary died at birth. Kathy had been silent, because she was thinking of something else. Now she spoke to Claudia across Mary, as if Mary were empty air.
‘I don’t see how you mean about Taffy,’ and Claudia, in her husky county voice, resumed the discourse on martingales Lady Meryton had interrupted.
‘That’s a lovely crimson rose,’ said Dora to Mary. They made conversation with one another about pinks and crimsons.
‘They gave you tea, I hope,’ said Claudia over her shoulder to Mary. ‘There are some peaches in the tent. I always think the one point of a party is the peaches.’
This broad hint could not be ignored. Mary was generally without initiative at parties, staying just where her hostess put her. She took Dora back to the lawn.
‘Why I was supposed to want to see Dora Redland!’ said Claudia to Kathy. ‘Mary Jocelyn has always been a pet. Dora is just a vicar’s daughter, not even our vicar, and Mamma used to have a mad freak of Mrs Redland coming to stay for two or three days. I used to think she was Dawson’s sister, only it was a bit rough on Dawson’ (Lady Meryton’s maid), ‘and say a kind word before I saw my mistake. Dora is a regular Sunday-frocker – that isn’t so bad as a party-frocker, I own – but don’t you feel it in your bones she’d call her coat and skirt a costume, and do rather funny things at dinner?’
‘Claudia,’ said Lady Meryton that evening, ‘how could you desert our guests.’
‘Now, Mamma, Kath and I toiled like niggers stuffing the beasts of the people with tea. Then we thought we might have some respite.’
‘Dearest,’ said Lady Meryton, speaking with even more than her usual gentleness, ‘I do wish you were kinder.’
‘Don’t speak to me like that, Mamma,’ said Claudia, blushing. ‘I never knew any one who could make one feel so small as you do. I’m sorry; I will behave better.’
One day the Jocelyns and Dora went to examine the remains of an Augustinian priory, and had tea afterwards at the Vicarage.
‘You may not have heard that much more has been discovered of the Priory since your father’s time,’ said Canon Jocelyn to Dora. ‘The Augustinians were especially numerous in this part of the country. Of course we owe several of our finest churches to their zeal, but no one had any
idea till lately on what an immense scale the Priory was planned.’
When the Roman Church was sufficiently remote, Canon Jocelyn regarded it with the same affection as his own. When it was near at hand, creating perverts, he hated it.
‘I’m delighted to see you all,’ said Mr Sykes, the rosy, white-haired vicar, who, with Mr Herbert, met the Jocelyn party at his church gate. ‘And it’s a particular pleasure to see Miss Redland again. I hope your mother and sisters are well. I wish you could persuade your mother to revisit these parts; we should give her a most hearty welcome.’ His duty done by Dora’s affairs he went on, ‘I’ve got Herbert to help me, you see. He has the Augustinians at his fingers’ ends, and I hope Miss Redland shares our harmless madness for the Augustinians, because I’m looking forward to a peculiar treat today, Jocelyn. There’s a French priest I met at Rouen in June, an excellent fellow, who has been examining the archives of one of the Augustinian priories over there, and, if you’ll believe me, it’s a kind of Mother House of ours here, and they have documents relating to us, which shed any amount of new light on the topography. I have a letter from the priest I must show you after tea. He says we are to suck him dry for any information he’s got.’ I
The mantle of learning covered all the priest’s theological errors.
‘There were some things we had got wrong about the refectory. And you remember the arch you and I disputed about. I particularly want to look at that again, for we have proof that you are right and I am wrong. I hoped in that one matter of the arch I had caught your father napping, Mary, but it was not to be.’
They walked round and round the church, ascended and descended stairs, retraced their steps, peered at inscriptions, went down on their hands and knees. They passed to the churchyard, where some mounds and grass-grown masonry enabled the three clergymen to construct a graphic picture of a past civilization. Yet with all of them this was merely a pastime; their serious interest lay elsewhere.
