A Bachelor's Comedy

CHAPTER IV

Mrs. Stamford, the wife of the Squire of the parish, stood before the mantelpiece awaiting the arrival of the new Vicar. She was a tall, spare woman, and her garments always seemed to cling to her, not because they couldn’t come off, but because they dared not. Even in repose, Mrs. Stamford always looked as if she had that moment finished doing something energetic, or were just about to start again.

“Pleased to see you, Mr. Deane,” she said, when Andy, very flat and shining about the head, was ushered in. “Only got back a day or two since, or we should have looked you up before. Have you got settled down? How d’you like Gaythorpe?”

She fired these remarks with such directness that Andy could not help feeling as if some one had thrown something at him.

“I like it immensely.” Then, after a moment’s pause, and with a good deal of effort, “I am more than grateful to you and Mr. Stamford – ”

“Oh, that’s all right; we’ll take that as read,” interrupted Mrs. Stamford with a short laugh so exactly like that of William the parrot that Andy could not help having a bewildered feeling that she would next begin to draw corks as well. However, she looked towards the door behind her guest instead, and remarked in a voice which she kept for that one topic —

“Here is my son, Dick.”

A tall young fellow, very like his mother, but somehow indefinably weaker, came forward and shook hands without effusion.

“Got settled down yet?”

“Quite, thank you.”

“You’ll find it dullish, I expect.”

“No – rather exciting, so far.”

The young men took each other’s measure, and then Dick Stamford said in a different tone —

“Well, come in and have a game of billiards with me when you’ve nothing better to do.”

“Thanks, I shall be very pleased,” said Andy.

It was queer how anxiously Mrs. Stamford had looked from one to the other during the little conversation, and more odd still that this tough, unemotional woman should be unable to keep back a long sigh of relief when it was over.

“Have a turn in the garden until the others turn up?” said Dick, after a pause.

So the two young men went out, and a moment later Mr. Stamford came into the room, limping slightly, and walking with a stick. As he closed the door he looked across anxiously at his wife.

“Well?”

“I think it will be a success. He has taken Mr. Deane round the garden.”

“I wonder, Ellen, if we ought not to have let him remain in the Guards. He showed no tendency to drink when he was with his regiment, so far as I know.”

Mrs. Stamford’s mouth set into those firm lines her husband knew so well.

“It was his duty to come home and look after things when your accident made you unable to do so. He will be master here. He must learn how to manage the estate.”

Mr. Stamford smiled at his wife, and it could be seen then whence Dick’s weakness came.

“You wanted him home, Ellen, and so did I.”

“I should never have suggested it if I had not thought it the right thing,” said Mrs. Stamford, flushing a little.

“Of course not – of course not,” agreed her husband. “Young companionship is all he needs, and I think Mr. Deane will supply that deficiency. It was his open look and pleasant, manly tone that struck me when I first heard him preach. ‘Just the sort of young fellow to make a nice companion for Dick,’ I said to myself.” He rubbed his hands together as he repeated this little story for the hundredth time, after the manner of people who live deep in the country and have little to talk about. “I went straight to my cousin after the service and asked if the lad wouldn’t do for us.”

“Your cousin thought it an unsuitable appointment. He wanted you to take the senior curate,” said Mrs. Stamford, “and in some ways he was quite right. Of course this boy can’t preach.”

“No.” Mr. Stamford chuckled. “I believe, though, he thinks he got the living on account of that sermon about Saul.”

“Oh, well, so long as he doesn’t preach more than half an hour I don’t care what he says.”

They were both smiling as the two young men came in through the glass door, and then luncheon was announced.

“Mrs. Atterton and Elizabeth can’t be coming,” said Mrs. Stamford, glancing at the clock. “Anyhow, we won’t wait any longer.”

So they went across the spacious old hall into a dining-room where everything was so harmonious and so mellowed by long companionship, that you noticed the various objects in it at first no more than you do, at first sight, the details of any beautiful thing which has grown and not been made. Mr. Stamford himself was no more conscious of his treasure-house than he was of the nose upon his face. He was, of course, in some hidden place, proud of both. The nose was the best kind of nose, and the house was the best kind of house, and it would have been incongruous if a Stamford of Gaythorpe Manor had been provided with a nose or a house that was less than the best; but he felt no more inclination to draw his visitor’s attention to his surroundings than to his nose.

“Cold beef, please,” said Andy, in answer to the butler’s discreet inquiries; and when the man returned with quite a mountain of thins slices on the plate he felt too much of a stranger to offer any remonstrance.

Mrs. Stamford gave the man an imperceptible nod of approval, for it had already penetrated to her ears – as such things do penetrate in country places – that the new Vicar had an enormous appetite.

But Andy wrestled with the cold beef, all unheeding, for it takes a lifetime to learn – and some happy ones never learn – how different are people’s thoughts of us from what we imagine they must be – not worse, necessarily, or better, but so extraordinarily different.

Then a cart went past the window to the front door and they all looked up.

“Elizabeth at last. Dick!” said his mother.

The young man left his luncheon and went, with more alertness than Andy had supposed him capable of, to welcome the belated guest. A minute later he returned with her, and Mr. and Mrs. Stamford both glanced with pleased eyes at the tall, gallant-looking couple who came down the long room together. Evidently, felt Andy, there was something in the air, though he saw, when Elizabeth sat down, that she had no engagement ring on her finger.

“I’m so sorry to be late,” she said, “but at the last moment mamma’s back gave way.”

“Oh, how unfortunate; but I quite understand,” responded Mrs. Stamford, more nearly gushing than Andy could have believed possible.

“I hoped Mrs. Atterton’s back had been better of late,” said Mr. Stamford.

Then Mrs. Stamford added, to draw the stranger into the conversation, “Poor Mrs. Atterton is troubled with a weak back, Mr. Deane.”

Thus was Andy introduced to that feature of Gaythorpe society – Mrs. Atterton’s back. He looked across at Elizabeth and remembered vividly his first sight of her, shining out, as it were, between the drab, middle-aged crowd, and his secret resentment against her was increased. She obviously had everything; it must have been simply a childish desire to ‘best’ him which had led her to bid against him until he was obliged to pay some pounds more than he need have done.

“And how,” said Elizabeth, leaning towards him, “do you like Gaythorpe?”

The question did not surprise him, because it would have been much more unusual at this period if any one had failed to ask it; but what did astonish him was the change in Elizabeth’s manner from the extreme stiffness of their last parting to an eager kindness that made Andy say to himself, with some pleasant feeling of man-of-the-worldness, that she was evidently the sort who would flirt with a broomstick if nothing else were available. He had known that kind in London town. And he winked to himself astutely over the fruit-tart as he responded to her overtures with some reserve.

After luncheon they all went into the garden, and just for a moment, while Dick fetched the key of one of the fruit-houses, and Mrs. Stamford was settling her husband in his long chair, Andy and the young lady were alone together on a broad grass walk beside a hedge of lilacs. There was a border of flowering plants on the other side just coming into bloom, and at the end you could see a little figure of Love without an arm under a copper beech. Somewhere in the distance a pigeon was cooing. The full sun lay very calm and bright and even over the old stable tower and the long house, and the grass path before them. The stable clock chimed a quarter to three. It all seemed the very embodiment of age-long prosperity and pleasant ease.

Andy felt at peace with all the world. She could flirt with him if she liked – he didn’t care.

“So you’re fond of walking?” he said indulgently, continuing a topic started at luncheon.

“Yes,” she said, staring at the grass path. Then she put out a hand, not touching him, only nearly, and the colour in her cheeks deepened until they were like some exquisite fruit that a young sun had kissed in orchards that belonged to the youth of the world. But Elizabeth was always greatly annoyed at her trick of blushing, and compared herself bitterly to a beetroot.

“You were going to say!” remarked Andy.

“Oh, there’s Mr. Stamford coming. I must tell you. I’ve been to see Mrs. Simpson,” said Elizabeth.

“Well?” said Andy, taken aback.

“You wanted it for her. And I bid against you until you had to pay pounds more than you need have done. And you must have had so many expenses getting into your house. And it was all so idiotic of me. My sister always says I’m an idiot, and I am. I only stopped when I did because I hadn’t another penny until next July.”

“Why” – Andy stood still, facing her, and the most wonderful scent from all the sun-warmed lilacs blew across them – enveloped them – “why – you wanted it for Mrs. Simpson too?”

“You surely couldn’t think,” said Elizabeth, “that I wanted that beast for myself!”

“You thought I did,” muttered Andy.

“Oh – a man – that’s different,” said Miss Elizabeth.

“My furniture is all Sheraton – modern, of course, but good in style,” said Andy loftily. Then he saw Elizabeth’s hair against the lilacs, all brown and gold, and something made him forget he was the new Vicar – he was a boy and she a girl, with a joke between them. “I say,” he chuckled, “you know it wouldn’t go into her house. She’s made me put her sideboard into my dining-room.”

Ha-ha-ha! They laughed together for the first time, and the sound mingled with the rustling of young leaves and the love-song of a thrush, as much a part of the sweetness of nature in springtime as the rest.

Then Dick Stamford came towards them with his mother, and Elizabeth slipped her arm through that of the elder woman with her little air of reposeful tenderness which sat almost oddly on a young girl. She had that sort of kindness in her ways which most girls only learn from their first baby, and her voice held deep notes which caught the heart every now and then, breaking her light chatter like a stone in a narrow stream.

“You’ll stay tea, Elizabeth, and then Dick shall take you home,” said Mrs. Stamford.

“I’m awfully sorry, but I must have the cart round in half an hour. Mamma’s back – ” apologised Elizabeth.

So mamma’s back was not only a convenience to herself, personally.

Then Andy said good-bye, and Mrs. Stamford, leaving Dick and Elizabeth alone, strolled down the drive with her other guest.

“You will find Gaythorpe very quiet,” said Mrs. Stamford at the gate, obviously thinking of something else, and yet lingering.

Andy glanced back at it all, and a sudden vivid picture of the tumult of things warring beyond this quiet place struck across his mind.

“This seems – ” He sought a way to say it, but none came. “This does seem quiet.” He tried again. “Seems as if it had been lived in easily for ages.”

“Um. Well, people have no leisure to live now; they’ve only time to make a living,” said Mrs. Stamford absently. Then she said what she had been meaning to say all down the drive. “My son is a great deal alone here in the evenings. More alone than is good for him. I shall be grateful if you will come in when you can and have a game of billiards. You play, don’t you?”

“Oh yes – we had a couple of tables at the Men’s Institute in my last parish. I shall be very pleased to come,” said Andy.

So he went away down the road, feeling that pleasant as the world had been that morning early, it was immensely more delightful now.

Two urchins watched him go up the road, then squashed disreputable hats down on their brows and began to imitate his professional stride which he had unconsciously copied on first arrival in London from the senior curate.

“Parson Andy walks like this! Parson Andy walks like this!” they chanted together under their breath, stepping down the road behind him.

For by this abbreviation was the Reverend Andrew Deane already known to his parishioners. It was inevitable, of course, but as yet he remained in blissful ignorance of the fact, and only the night before had secretly burned a satin tie-case on which a tactless cousin had embroidered ‘Andy.’

As he went across the churchyard, taking the short-cut home, he glanced once more at the gravestone of Gulielmus; and having glanced, he stood a moment, thinking.

It was most probable that this dead brother of his had been entertained by a Stamford of Gaythorpe Manor, just as he had been. Will Ford – who was now Gulielmus – had no doubt walked back by the very path beside which his body now lay sleeping.

What had he felt? Why had he never married? How had life gone with him?

Andy was standing very still in the warm quiet of the spring afternoon when suddenly a sense of jolly-good-fellowship and kindness seemed to fill his spirit – as if some comrade had passed that way and shouted a merry greeting. There was nothing strange or abnormal about it, either then or in the ineffaceable after-remembrance of it.

Only – Andy had felt on his first journey to Gaythorpe as if, across the centuries, he greeted a brother; now he felt as if, across the centuries, a brother greeted him.

CHAPTER V

Andy sat in his study, endeavouring to prepare a Sunday-morning sermon that should justify the high opinion of his preaching which had led Mr. Stamford to present him to the living of Gaythorpe.

A light rain fell outside and a scent of the honeysuckle – it being now June – came through the open window; but Andy was not yet aware that every wayside flower preaches the finest sermon man can preach to man, and says, more convincingly than any parson ever could, ‘God so loved the world.’

The new Vicar, therefore, had taken in turn such topics as the Origin of Evil and the Reason for Free Will, handling them with a courage perfectly remarkable when you consider how the saints of all ages have hesitated afraid before them. This morning, however, having settled these questions, he cast about him for something else which should be at once striking and profound, and it was some time before he noticed a gradually increasing noise in the other part of the house.

Even when he did become aware of it he brushed it aside from his mind and went peacefully on, reconciling the doctrine of evolution with the second chapter of Genesis. At last, however, the study door was burst open in a manner that even a poet could not ignore, and Mrs. Jebb paused, inarticulate with some unknown emotion, upon the threshold.

“Not the boiler burst again?” exclaimed Andy, who had already learned some of the trials of a housekeeper.

Mrs. Jebb swallowed, blinked, and demanded —

“Did you give that – female – permission to clean my furniture?”

It was a long way from the dawn of the world to Mrs. Simpson’s sideboard, and for the moment Andy felt nonplussed; then he remembered.

“Oh, she’s turned up to polish it, poor woman, has she?” he said, with an air of relief. “I told her she could. It’s all right.”

Mrs. Jebb fluttered forward, wavering a little like a butterfly that has imbibed too much nectar, and she alighted with one trembling hand upon the writing-table edge.

“It is not all right,” she said. “It is all very, very wrong, Mr. Deane. Poor, I am, reduced to domestic service, I may be – but I will retire to the workhouse before I will allow a female from outside to polish furniture in this house while I remain your lady-cook-housekeeper.”

“Really, Mrs. Jebb – I’m sure I never – ” began Andy.

“What will the parish say?” went on Mrs. Jebb, growing still more agitated as she saw Andy’s concerned face. “What will the world say? Naturally that I’m not fit to be your housekeeper, if Mrs. Simpson has to come with dusters and furniture polish and an – an infant, to clean the Vicar’s dining-room sideboard.”

A dragging sound as of something being pulled reluctantly along, a bump, a yell, and Mrs. Simpson’s voice in the rear, shrill with motherly indignation.

“How dare you call this dear child names?” she cried, replying to the limitless opprobrium which lay behind the word ‘infant’ rather than to the term itself.

“Come, come,” said Andy, rising. “He is an infant all right, aren’t you, Jimmy? Not twenty-one yet, ha-ha! There is nothing unpleasant in the word ‘infant.’ ”

He smiled ingratiatingly from one angry face to the other, trying to carry it off easily, but in truth as frightened as a decent young man always is when he stands between two quarrelling women.

“There’s a way,” replied Mrs. Simpson slowly, glaring with her prominent light-blue eyes at Mrs. Jebb – “there’s a way of saying ‘woman’ that implies things I wouldn’t sully my lips by uttering. And yet ‘woman’ isn’t a bad word.”

“It all comes to this,” panted Mrs. Jebb. “Is Mrs. Simpson to walk in without a with-your-leave or a by-your-leave and start polishing your sideboard, or is she not?”

“It’s her sideboard,” said Andy weakly. “But I’m sure you’ll look after it all right, if Mrs. Simpson doesn’t mind.”

“Why should she mind? And if it’s hers, why doesn’t she take it away? Dozens of times I’ve said that the hideous thing completely ruins your dining-room, and I’m sure – ”

“Now,” interposed Mrs. Simpson, who grew, quiet as her opponent grew noisy, “now I shall say what I’d meant to keep to myself, because Mrs. Jebb has her living to earn, poor thing, and I wouldn’t do her an injury. That sideboard in its present state, Mr. Deane, is a disgrace. So is your beautiful table. So is all the furniture.”

“It only wants dusting. We’ve not had time this morning,” quavered Mrs. Jebb, retreating before this onslaught.

“It wants what you’ll never give it,” said Mrs. Simpson, hauling Jimmy away, and looking back for a last shot. “It wants elbow-grease.”

“Look here,” said Andy, pulling himself together. “I – er – really – discord in a clergyman’s house is what I greatly dislike. Mrs. Jebb, I told Mrs. Simpson she could come and clean her sideboard. Mrs. Simpson, you must put yourself in Mrs. Jebb’s place and consider if your feelings might not have been hurt under similar circumstances. This really won’t do.”

He threw his head back, settled his chin in his collar, and looked as nearly like the senior curate before a refractory Bible Class as nature permitted.

Mrs. Simpson paused.

“I came peacefully enough,” she said, “and I was going to tell Mrs. Jebb, only she went off at such a tangent, that I did ring five times. But I couldn’t make any one hear, so I walked into the hall. Then I saw the dining-room door open, and nobody there, so I went in there and started polishing. I’ll own it may have looked funny, but she shouldn’t have spoken as she did.”

“There! That makes all the difference. Doesn’t it, Mrs. Jebb?” said Andy eagerly, forgetting to be dignified. “I say, shake hands and make it up. Jimmy, shake hands with Mrs. Jebb to start with.”

“Won’t. Hate her. She’s got yeller teef like old Towzer.”

“Hush, hush,” said Mrs. Simpson, changing all in a minute from the fighting woman to the careful mother. “Jimmy mustn’t talk like that. Jimmy must beg the lady’s pardon.”

“Won’t,” said that gentleman truculently.