Comin' Thro' the Rye (Mathers)/Summer/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V.
"He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bow-string, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; what his heart thinks his tongue speaks."
It is half past eleven o'clock, and we are all in church (save Fane and Captain Oliver), confessing ourselves to be miserable sinners, although in our secret souls we think ourselves nothing of the sort. We are in a big pew that contains besides hassocks and chairs, a carpet, a table, a cupboard, and red curtains, which latter hide us when sitting or kneeling from the open-mouthed, open-eyed gaze of the Luttrell hinds. In former and more unmannerly days the cupboard held good store of cake and wine, of which the squire, his wife and daughters, and the stranger within his gates, partook during the sermon. Rather trying for the poor parson overhead on a hot summer's day, with his parched throat, and secondly, thirdly, and fourthly still before him.
And now we are all standing up, able to take our fill of staring at the well-washed, well-greased congregation, who are singing "Jerusalem the golden," with all the strength of their bucolic hearts and voices.
I wish they had a few H's among them, these good and bad people! They let them all go so recklessly, but with the universal law of compensation, put them in again in the wrong place. How loud and clear presently sounds their "Incline our 'arts to keep this law!" It is no use to struggle against overwhelming numbers; we may as well let ours go with the rest, for we can never leaven the lump. I think that whoever invented the letter H did not sufficiently take into consideration the prevailing tendency of mankind to ease. Aitch! It is a word in itself, and a hard one; in hot weather especially, how comfortably and easily does it slip away altogether!
The rector is very like Mr. Skipworth in appearance, voice, and manner. For an hour we sit under him and listen to his discursive ramblings, which, so far as I can make out, are about Jeremiah in the briars, though what on earth he did there, and how he got into such an uncomfortable position, we are not told. Could not a clever man say all he has to say to his congregation pithily and well in twenty minutes? Is there anything that damages the cause of Christianity so much as the incapacity of these servants of God to expound the Scriptures lucidly and well? In the Houses of Parliament, and wherever enlightened men are gathered together to hear clever, wise, or improving talk, would they sit silent for an hour listening to twaddle that is an insult to their understandings? A thousand times, no! They would walk out, or cry aloud, or silence the speaker quickly enough; but in the house of prayer that cannot be done, and so folks with starving souls go Sunday after Sunday seeking bread and having a stone offered to them. Surely, men who stutter, men who speak indistinctly, men whose hearts may be pure and good enough, but whose words are weak; men who have no strong sympathy with their hearers, and cannot express themselves concisely and to the point—should not be set up above their fellow men, to preach the grandest, highest truths the world contains! A man should be proved to be a good and bold orator, a sound logician and accomplished scholar, so that he may appeal as irresistibly to the mind and imagination as to the souls of his congregation, before he enters holy orders: for is not an enormous power put into his hands for good or evil?
When a fine preacher arises, how people flock from the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, to hear him! How his fiery, heart-searching words pierce his listeners' hearts; How he holds the mirror up to the bad, wicked soul, and cries, "Behold! to this you have fallen and are falling!" We almost see the gaping bottomless pit, with the writhing scorpions, and the worm that never dies; feel the licking fire of the curling flames; hear the voice of the Man of Sorrows calling us away from destruction. I heard such a man once at Pimpernel.
And now we are out again, and walking across the churchyard; and the sun flickers down gaily on the living who walk erect, and on the green shield of earth that lies heavy on the breast of those who have "fought their fight with the pale warrior," and been vanquished, as all men have been and must be. At the gate the carriages are waiting, for Luttrell Court is more than two miles away, and I find myself seated next to Mr. Vasher, and opposite Milly and Mrs. Lister.
"How well you behaved in church," says Paul, "you never smiled once, not even when that fat lady tried to pass the fat man in the narrow pew, and they got wedged together!"
"Did I not!" I say laughing. "And yet I could not help thinking of a rhyme in one of the nursery books at home—
Who went up to church in a barrow,
She said with a smile,
As she stuck in the aisle,
They build these here churches too narrow!"
"The lady in church must have been a direct descendant of the one at Yarrow," says Paul, looking at me.
I hope he is not observing the crushed and forlorn appearance of my bonnet: in future I will, at all risks, carry a band-box. Milly's airy erection is quite faultless. How good-tempered people ought to feel when they are perfectly well dressed! I could be quite angelic, I think, if I were. Mrs. Lister looks as prim and unapproachable as though she were made of buckram. Her lips are pursed up very tight; she grasps her prayer-book as though it were a pistol, and altogether she is not a pleasant object to contemplate.
"There is Fane!" says Milly suddenly, as we roll smoothly along under the shadow of the giant trees that line the park; and there, sure enough, in the distance, sneakily dodging behind a tree, and looking very hot, dirty, and ashamed of himself, is her missing lord and master.
Did I ever say that Fane is only a few years older than Milly, and that they are a very young couple indeed? Every Sunday morning, regularly as clockwork, does Milly make Fane dress to go to church with her, and every Sunday morning at the very last moment does he succeed in making his escape, and she has to go without him. This morning he has seduced Captain Oliver from the path of duty, and the pair have evidently been up to some unlawful amusement, for they appear exceedingly anxious to hide their persons from our view. But Milly gets out of the carriage and majestically walks across the grass to where they lie perdu. (Where could she have learnt that dignified swagger? I should like to see her try it on with the governor), and we all follow.
Fane and his companion, thus run to earth, emerge and present their disreputable persons to our gaze. Their light summer suits are all patched and stained with green, as though they had been rolling on the grass. The Captain's face is scratched, and so is Fane's hand. Half a dozen dogs are tearing round and round a tree, at the top of which a piteous miau! sufficiently explains the nature of these gentlemen's Sunday morning amusements.
"I am disgusted with you, Fane," says Milly; "and as to you, Captain Oliver, I am surprised at you."
And she sails away with her lord, leaving poor Captain Oliver utterly squashed. He does not know that it is Milly's habit to visit all her husband's misdeeds upon his friends, and that nothing will ever make her believe that they do not lead him into every scrape—not he them.
"Poor Oliver!" says Paul, as we walk away, leaving that abased warrior to the tender mercies of Mrs. Lister. Very tender they will be too, as she wants him for a son-in-law. "How crestfallen he does look, to be sure! And he is considered to have more brass than any other man in his regiment." . . .
"He is quickly routed, then; but it is impossible for a man to be rude to a lady, is it not?"
"Quite."
"Are fathers generally polite to their families?"
"If they are gentlemen."
"Oh!"
"I want to know," says Mr. Vasher, looking down on my tumbled bonnet, "what I am to call you. I won't call you Miss Adair; I don't like Helen. May I call you Nell?"
"Oh, no. What would Milly say? Besides, I was young when you use to call me that; I am grown up now."
"And no longer young?"
"Oh, yes; pretty well. When we have known each other a little longer, you know———"
"Yes, we shall be near neighbours," he says, with quite a sudden gladness in his voice; we shall have plenty of time for getting to know each other better."
"I do not improve on acquaintance," I say, smiling. "Oh, you will find me out to be such a little wretch. If you saw me in a rage once, you would not forget it."
"Who puts you out?"
"Dorley, or Basan, or—or—another person."
"And supposing I do?"
"You will be frightened."
"I am not afraid," he says, looking deep into my laughing face with his brown, brown eyes, that are self-willed and strong and tender at one and the same time. "Did any one ever keep you in order, Nell?"
"Never!" I say, proudly.
And I smile to myself as I think of my lover and bond-slave George, who never swayed, never could sway me in will, or mind, or heart. No, certainly, I have never been managed by anybody yet.
"Women ought not to have their own way," says Mr. Vasher. "After a while they go in for Women's Rights, and at last it comes to the husband's standing on the platform and holding the baby, while they hold forth upon everything in heaven and earth."
"I don't think those sort of people ever have anything so frivolous as a baby," I say, considering. "Talking of babies, do you know that you will see two at luncheon to-day? They are coming down for certain."
"Horrible!" he says shuddering. "If there is one sight more appetizing, clean, and savoury than another, it is a baby at table."
"Take care the mothers do not hear you," I say, as we enter the house; "they would never speak to you again if they did."
We have taken off our bonnets and pulled out our locks, have powdered or not powdered our hot faces as our habits or inclinations will, and we are sitting one and all in the cool dining-room eating cold lamb and salad. The griffins outside shadow themselves grotesquely on the drawn blinds; they seem to grin in upon us malevolently, with their great misshapen noses and curling wicked mouths. Everybody is talking at once, eagerly, alertly, as though the loss of his voice for two hours had been a severe trial, and he is determined to make up for lost time.
"I saw a man in church who was even smaller than I am," says Lord St. John to me, "and I was so pleased. Not but what I always console myself with a couplet that I saw somewhere once; it began—
Nor wants that little long.'"
"I fancy that appplies to things, not people," I say doubtfully "and I am nearly sure it is a hymn."
"St. John has lost himself among the Psalms," says Charles.
"The safest place he ever got into," says Mr. Silvestre.
"That comes of going to church," says Captain Brabazon.
Lord St. John smiles blandly at his friends and continues: "It may be that I am prejudiced, Miss Adair, for a man naturally likes to think that he ought to be exactly like what he is, but I like being little. There is a peculiar charm in the upsidedownness of being a lord of creation and yet so much shorter than most ladies—to feel that they could take me up and horsewhip me without an effort, and yet that they do not! Delicious creatures! And it is a fact, Miss Adair, that if ladies cannot have a gigantic slashing fellow for a lover, who could crush them between his finger and thumb, they like to have something that they can protect, and pet, and spoil. Women's love is divided into two classes, the adoring and the protective, and upon my word, I think the dear souls enjoy the one as well as the other."
There is a chorus of laughter all round the table, in which Alice joins. I wonder if she pets the little man?
He betakes himself to claret cup, so do I, and sit listening to the nonsense that is flying about. How very seldom Silvia's voice is heard. It is the rarest thing to hear her speak, and then it is only to Milly or Fane, or Sir George Vestris. Although she lives among us, she somehow seems to be set apart; if it were not for her perfect loveliness, one would not remember she was present. I have seen neither look nor word exchanged between her and Paul Vasher to-day. If he loves her still, how can he bear to see her appropriated by another man as he does? Lovers are kittle cattle! The butler is opening a bottle of Bass leisurely; but some imp of the weather has got inside it, and he shoots out the corkscrew in the man's face, hitting him severely on the nose, and deluging him in frothing, foamy liquid. To his credit be it spoken, however, there is not the ghost of a smile upon his face, only ale, as he takes a cloth and wipes himself. Mr. Vasher catches my eye and laughs. I am glad he has some sense of the ridiculous; people are so difficult to get on with who have none. I wish he was on my side of the table, and not all that way off. Mrs. Lister is opposite me, and I make a discovery concerning her; she wears false teeth and they do not fit her. She will choke herself some day. Perhaps if she were to return them to the dentist and say—
What is their use, sir, to me?"
he would give her a set that might fit her better.
"There's my precious," exclaims Alice, lifting her head and listening; and sure enough certain clucks and coos and chokes in the distance announce the advent of the olive branches.
The door opens and enter two nurses bearing aloft a small Lovelace and a smaller Luttrell, who are deposited by the same on their mothers' laps. Milly's baby is very young yet, and has that peculiarly decrepid look that extreme youth and age seem to share equally. His wonderful little hands are as shrivelled and wrinkled as though he had taken in washing for a hundred years. He is too small to be troublesome, and lies flat on his back, staring about him and taking a meal off his fists. Alice's son is a different matter. He is eighteen months old, and of an inquiring, avaricious turn of mind. He drinks wine out of his mother's glass without winking; he smashes a plate or two, and nearly puts out his eyes with a fork. He takes a fancy to some bright, golden coloured jelly before him, but when he has some on a plate does not eat it; only churns it all up between his fingers, becoming so absorbed in his occupation, that his voice is not heard for fully two minutes.
Little Lord St. John leaves his place, and goes round to look at the youngster, addressing it affectionately as "chucky, chucky, chucky!" whether under the mistaken notion that he is a species of young pig, I know not.
"Little angel!" murmurs Alice, gazing at her son.
"Pretty king!" says Milly, as her infant sneezes in her face.
"Never makes a sound," says Alice, kissing the top of her baby's golden head.
"Never cries at strangers," says Milly, rubbing her cheeks against her heir's primrose down.
I never knew until to-day how mothers drivel. Lord St. John ventures his face too near Alice's boy, and he puts out his plump, jelly-covered little fingers, and firmly grasps that gentleman's moustaches with a solemn and delighted countenance. The more the poor man tries to get away, the harder the baby holds on, and not until tears of pain stand in Lord St. John's eyes is he released. At the top of the table there is a sort of happy family show, that is calculated to fill all beholders with an insane desire to jump up and rush, all of us, to church and be married on the spot—the spectacle of connubial bliss is so beautiful. Fane looks at Milly, then at the baby; Milly looks at the baby, then at Fane. It is very touching, no doubt ; but is it not rather public? Young Lovelace has struggled to the floor, and made friends with the dog. They are eating a biscuit between them. The dog takes a bit, then the baby does. It is very interesting, but rather dirty.
We go into the drawing-room, and stare at one another, and marvel, as everybody does every Sunday of their lives, what we are going to do with ourselves. If I were twenty years older I should retire to my bedroom and go comfortably to sleep, as Mesdames Fleming and Lister are going to do, I am morally certain. Alice and Milly have vanished after their babies; the Misses Lister are whispering together; Silvia is giving Sir George Vestris a liberal education at the window. A sound of merriment comes faintly from Fane's study; clearly men have a better notion of passing time than ladies. Reading novels on Sunday is forbidden, but it is no sin to act them. Spicy, full-flavoured, exciting lover-stories run through more quickly and easily on this day than any other, and more love nonsense is talked on a Sunday than in all the remaining six days of the week.
"Are you going to church this afternoon?" asks Paul Vasher's voice behind me, as I stand drumming my fingers against the glass.
"It is too hot," I say, turning round. "Oh, I do feel so cross! Why may not one work, or dig, or do something useful on Sunday afternoon?"
"We are going to church," says Miss Lister, appearing before us; "will you come, Miss Adair?"
"No, thanks," I say, looking up at the burning, cloudless vault overhead. "Is it not too far for you?"
They do not think it is, and go away to "put on their things," which means half an hour's hard labour before the looking-glass, trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
"Don't betray me if I tell you a secret," says Paul, laughing, "but I think the Listers expect Brabazon and Oliver to accompany them to church, and they are hiding"
"What cowards! Did they promise to go?"
"They temporized, I believe."
"Alas! for the glory of the British flag," I say, "is not that one of them peeping round the beech-tree?"
"It is."
"I have a great mind, a very great mind, to tell the Listers where he is; they would not stand on ceremony, they would fetch him."
"Brabazon and Oliver would run," says Paul, "and it is too hot for a chase, is it not? Here they are."
Yes, here are the young ladies freshly touzled, freshly repaired, with smart white veils that now stand out jauntily enough from their faces, but will by-and-by stick to them or melt imperceptibly into the same.
"Have you seen Captain Oliver?" asks the one.
"Have you seen Captain Brabazon?" asks the other, looking anxiously about.
They are not looking in the right direction, or they would see the whole of one gentleman's right boot and half of the other gentleman's left eye. They hunt about for a little while, poor souls, and at last, shame forbidding them to take their bonnets off, they set out across the park, quarrelling fiercely as they go, if one may judge by their backs. When the coast is clear the Captains cautiously leave their hiding-place, and make off, looking as pleased as two school-boys.
"When I look at those girls," says Paul, emphatically, “I feel thankful that I have no sisters."
"I am going out into the garden," says Milly, appearing with Fane; "will you come, Nell?"
I fetch my hat, and we all go out together. Husband and wife walk on in front. His arm is round her neck, her arm is half-way round his waist; they lean towards each other like a tall and short weeping willow. It is rather trying to one's gravity to walk behind them, and, catching Paul's eye, I go off into a fit of laughter.
"Do they always behave like that?" I ask. "I never saw them together before, except when they were engaged, and there was some excuse then."
"They always did abroad," says Paul, "or at least when I met them; they were the amazement of all beholders."
"I would rather get up early in the morning to do it," I say, energetically, "than have every one smiling at me, would not you?"
"Much rather!" he says, with emphasis; "it would pretty well take the bloom off to have any amount of people looking at one."
We are in the park now, where are cool shady paths and long pleasant glades, through which the hot tyrannical sun cannot pierce. In the distance Silvia and Sir George Vestris are walking; do they never, I wonder, grow tired of each other's society?
"There go the lovers," says Paul, looking towards them.
"Are they both pretending, do you think?" I say, speaking my thoughts, as I have a bad knack of doing, since for what are words given us, save to delicately disguise our meaning?
"Pretending!" he repeats, with real astonishment; "why should she? I did not know people ever pretended to be in love."
Evidently he has no suspicion that she loves him still; far less is there any of the quick eagerness in his voice that a lover's should borrow.
"Nell," he says, looking down on me with a queer smile, "don't ever try to deceive any one, for your face will always betray you. Now, I know what you are thinking; pray, was it to me and Silvia that you meditated playing gooseberry?"
"Yes, it was," I say, turning my red face round. "I have always wanted to tell you. I knew all along that you liked her; I knew it at Charteris."
"And you think I like her now?"
"Do you not?" I say, lifting my eyes to his dark face. "Do you forget so quickly?"
"I do not forget," he says, "but that old fancy is dead and buried, thank God!" he throws out his arms with a gesture of freedom, "and is as little likely to be revived again as a body that has lain in the earth until it has fallen into dust."
"And she?" I ask, involuntarily.
"Has forgotten," he says; "why should she remember me? In fact, she seems positively to dislike me; never looks at or notices me, and I don't think we have exchanged twenty words."
"Yes," I say to myself, "and that is what makes me so sure. If she ever looked at or talked to you as to any one else———" But in him love is surely, certainly dead, for jealousy is the very pith and marrow of the passion, and he does not feel a single twinge.
"She does not care for him!" I say, stoutly; "I have seen real lovers often: they are different. These are sham ones; to watch them is like looking at make-believe feasts, like we used to have at home."
Paul is loyal even to his buried love. He does not say, "She is a coquette to the heart's core; she can never really care for any one." And I honour him as he holds his peace and says nothing.
It is a glorious afternoon. The hum of insects and birds is all about us; the ripe earth seems to hold the year's full perfection in her lap, like a gold flower that is wrought to its uttermost beauty. All too soon, alas! will it tremble and fade and wither away, for does not decay tread ever on the heels of all absolutely fair and lovely things? It is the common, ugly, everyday belongings that are never taken from us.
"And to-morrow this time," I say, as we turn back towards the house, following the gracefully interwoven forms of my sister and brother-in-law, "you will be perfectly happy among the birds! I wonder if any instinct tells them that this is their last day on earth?"
"It is to be hoped not! And what will you be doing?"
"Oh, I'm going to enjoy myself too," I say brightly; "I shall have a long gossip with my sisters in the morning, and in the afternoon I shall go down by the sea."
"And take a book?"
"No. I have such heaps to think about!"
"People?"
"Plenty!—Mother, and Jack, and Dolly, and—and others."
"And others?" he repeats, bending his head to look into my face. "Tell me, amongst these others is there—a Lubin?"