The Vicar of Bullhampton

Nevertheless, in spite of these strong expressions of opinion, Mr. Fenwick, by the dint of the bitter words which he spoke in reference to the brother's duty as a Christian, did get leave from the farmer to make the proposition to Mrs. George Brattle, – such permission as would have bound the brother to accept Carry, providing that Mrs. George would also consent to accept her. But even this permission was accompanied by an assurance that it would not have been given had he not felt perfectly convinced that his wife would not listen for a moment to the scheme. He spoke of his wife almost with awe, when Mr. Fenwick left him to make this second attack. "She has never had nothing to say to none sich as that," said the farmer, shaking his head, as he alluded both to his wife and to his sister; "and I ain't sure as she'll be first-rate civil to any one as mentions sich in her hearing."

But Mr. Fenwick persevered, in spite even of this caution. When the Vicar re-entered the house, Mrs. George Brattle had retired to her parlour, and the kitchen was in the hands of the maid-servant. He followed the lady, however, and found that she had been at the trouble, since he had seen her last, of putting on a clean cap on his behalf. He began at once, jumping again into the middle of things by a reference to her husband.

"Mrs. Brattle," he said, "your husband and I have been talking about his poor sister Carry."

"The least said the soonest mended about that one, I'm afeared," said the dame.

"Indeed, I agree with you. Were she once placed in safe and kind hands, the less then said the better. She has left the life she was leading – "

"They never leaves it," said the dame.

"It is so seldom that an opportunity is given them. Poor Carry is at the present moment most anxious to be placed somewhere out of danger."

"Mr. Fenwick, if you ask me, I'd rather not talk about her; – I would indeed. She's been and brought a slur upon us all, the vile thing! If you ask me, Mr. Fenwick, there ain't nothing too bad for her."

Fenwick, who, on the other hand, thought that there could be hardly anything too good for his poor penitent, was beginning to be angry with the woman. Of course, he made in his own mind those comparisons which are common to us all on such occasions. What was the great virtue of this fat, well-fed, selfish, ignorant woman before him, that she should turn up her nose at a sister who had been unfortunate? Was it not an abominable case of the Pharisee thanking the Lord that he was not such a one as the Publican; – whereas the Publican was in a fair way to heaven?

"Surely you would have her saved, if it be possible to save her?" said the Vicar.

"I don't know about saving. If such as them is to be made all's one as others as have always been decent, I'm sure I don't know who it is as isn't to be saved."

"Have you never read of Mary Magdalen, Mrs. Brattle?"

"Yes, I have, Mr. Fenwick. Perhaps she hadn't got no father, nor brothers, and sisters, and sisters-in-law, as would be pretty well broken-hearted when her vileness would be cast up again' 'em. Perhaps she hadn't got no decent house over her head afore she begun. I don't know how that was."

"Our Saviour's tender mercy, then, would not have been wide enough for such sin as that." This the Vicar said with intended irony; but irony was thrown away on Mrs. George Brattle.

"Them days and ours isn't the same, Mr. Fenwick, and you can't make 'em the same. And Our Saviour isn't here now to say who is to be a Mary Magdalen and who isn't. As for Carry Brattle, she has made her bed and she must lie upon it. We shan't interfere."

Fenwick was determined, however, that he would make his proposition. It was almost certain now that he could do no good to Carry by making it; but he felt that it would be a pleasure to him to make this self-righteous woman know what he conceived to be her duty in the matter. "My idea was this – that you should take her in here, and endeavour to preserve her from future evil courses."

"Take her in here?" shrieked the woman.

"Yes; here. Who is nearer to her than a brother?"

"Not if I know it, Mr. Fenwick; and if that is what you have been saying to Brattle, I must tell you that you've come on a very bad errand. People, Mr. Fenwick, knows how to manage things such as that for themselves in their own houses. Strangers don't usually talk about such things, Mr. Fenwick. Perhaps, Mr. Fenwick, you didn't know as how we have got girls of our own coming up. Have her in here – at Startup? I think I see her here!"

"But, Mrs. Brattle – "

"Don't Mrs. Brattle me, Mr. Fenwick, for I won't be so treated. And I must tell you that I don't think it over decent of you, – a clergyman, and a young man, too, in a way, – to come talking of such a one in a house like this."

"Would you have her starve, or die in a ditch?"

"There ain't no question of starving. Such as her don't starve. As long as it lasts, they've the best of eating and drinking, – only too much of it. There's prisons; let 'em go there if they means repentance. But they never does, – never, till there ain't nobody to notice 'em any longer; and by that time they're mostly thieves and pickpockets."

"And you would do nothing to save your own husband's sister from such a fate?"

"What business had she to be sister to any honest man? Think of what she's been and done to my children, who wouldn't else have had nobody to be ashamed of. There never wasn't one of the Hugginses who didn't behave herself; – that is of the women," added Mrs. George, remembering the misdeeds of a certain drunken uncle of her own, who had come to great trouble in a matter of horseflesh. "And now, Mr. Fenwick, let me beg that there mayn't be another word about her. I don't know nothing of such women, nor what is their ways, and I don't want. I never didn't speak a word to such a one in my life, and I certainly won't begin under my own roof. People knows well enough what's good for them to do and what isn't without being dictated to by a clergyman. You'll excuse me, Mr. Fenwick; but I'll just make bold to say as much as that. Good morning, Mr. Fenwick."

In the yard, standing close by the gig, he met the farmer again.

"You didn't find she'd be of your way of thinking, Muster Fenwick?"

"Not exactly, Mr. Brattle."

"I know'd she wouldn't. The truth is, Muster Fenwick, that young women as goes astray after that fashion is just like any sick animal, as all the animals as ain't comes and sets upon immediately. It's just as well, too. They knows it beforehand, and it keeps 'em straight."

"It didn't keep poor Carry straight."

"And, by the same token, she must suffer, and so must we all. But, Muster Fenwick, as far as ten or fifteen pounds goes, if it can be of use – "

But the Vicar, in his indignation, repudiated the offer of money, and drove himself back to Salisbury with his heart full of sorrow at the hardness of the world. What this woman had been saying to him was only what the world had said to her, – the world that knows so much better how to treat an erring sinner than did Our Saviour when on earth.

He went with his sad news to Mrs. Stiggs's house, and then made terms for Carry's board and lodging, at any rate, for a fortnight. And he said much to the girl as to the disposition of her time. He would send her books, and she was to be diligent in needle-work on behalf of the Stiggs family. And then he begged her to go to the daily service in the cathedral, – not so much because he thought that the public worship was necessary for her, as that thus she would be provided with a salutary employment for a portion of her day. Carry, as she bade him farewell, said very little. Yes; she would stay with Mrs. Stiggs. That was all that she did say.

CHAPTER XLII.

MR. QUICKENHAM, Q.C

On the Thursday in Passion week, which fell on the 6th of April, Mr. and Mrs. Quickenham came to Bullhampton Vicarage. The lawyer intended to take a long holiday, – four entire days, – and to return to London on the following Tuesday; and Mrs. Quickenham meant to be very happy with her sister.

"It is such a comfort to get him out of town, if it's only for two days," said Mrs. Quickenham; "and I do believe he has run away this time without any papers in his portmanteau."

Mrs. Fenwick, with something of apology in her tone, explained to her sister that she was especially desirous of getting a legal opinion on this occasion from her brother-in-law.

"That's mere holiday work," said the barrister's anxious wife. "There's nothing he likes so much as that; but it is the reading of those horrible long papers by gaslight. I wouldn't mind how much he had to talk, nor yet how much he had to write, if it wasn't for all that weary reading. Of course he does have juniors with him now, but I don't find that it makes much difference. He's at it every night, sheet after sheet; and though he always says he's coming up immediately, it's two or three before he's in bed."

Mrs. Quickenham was three or four years older than her sister, and Mr. Quickenham was twelve years older than his wife. The lawyer therefore was considerably senior to the clergyman. He was at the Chancery bar, and after the usual years of hard and almost profitless struggling, had worked himself up into a position in which his income was very large, and his labours never ending. Since the days in which he had begun to have before his eyes some idea of a future career for himself, he had always been struggling hard for a certain goal, struggling successfully, and yet never getting nearer to the thing he desired. A scholarship had been all in all to him when he left school; and, as he got it, a distant fellowship already loomed before his eyes. That attained was only a step towards his life in London. His first brief, anxiously as it had been desired, had given no real satisfaction. As soon as it came to him it was a rung of the ladder already out of sight. And so it had been all through his life, as he advanced upwards, making a business, taking a wife to himself, and becoming the father of many children. There was always something before him which was to make him happy when he reached it. His gown was of silk, and his income almost greater than his desires; but he would fain sit upon the Bench, and have at any rate his evenings for his own enjoyment. He firmly believed now, that that had been the object of his constant ambition; though could he retrace his thoughts as a young man, he would find that in the early days of his forensic toils, the silent, heavy, unillumined solemnity of the judge had appeared to him to be nothing in comparison with the glittering audacity of the successful advocate. He had tried the one, and might probably soon try the other. And when that time shall have come, and Mr. Quickenham shall sit upon his seat of honour in the new Law Courts, passing long, long hours in the tedious labours of conscientious painful listening; then he will look forward again to the happy ease of dignified retirement, to the coming time in which all his hours will be his own. And then, again, when those unfurnished hours are there, and with them shall have come the infirmities which years and toil shall have brought, his mind will run on once more to that eternal rest in which fees and salary, honours and dignity, wife and children, with all the joys of satisfied success, shall be brought together for him in one perfect amalgam which he will call by the name of Heaven. In the meantime, he has now come down to Bullhampton to enjoy himself for four days, – if he can find enjoyment without his law papers.

Mr. Quickenham was a tall, thin man, with eager gray eyes, and a long projecting nose, on which, his enemies in the courts of law were wont to say, his wife would hang a kettle, in order that the unnecessary heat coming from his mouth might not be wasted. His hair was already grizzled, and, in the matter of whiskers, his heavy impatient hand had nearly altogether cut away the only intended ornament to his face. He was a man who allowed himself time for nothing but his law work, eating all his meals as though the saving of a few minutes in that operation were matter of vital importance, dressing and undressing at railroad speed, moving ever with a quick, impetuous step, as though the whole world around him went too slowly. He was short-sighted, too, and would tumble about in his unnecessary hurry, barking his shins, bruising his knuckles, and breaking most things that were breakable, – but caring nothing for his sufferings either in body or in purse so that he was not reminded of his awkwardness by his wife. An untidy man he was, who spilt his soup on his waistcoat and slobbered with his tea, whose fingers were apt to be ink-stained, and who had a grievous habit of mislaying papers that were most material to him. He would bellow to the servants to have his things found for him, and would then scold them for looking. But when alone he would be ever scolding himself because of the faults which he thus committed. A conscientious, hard-working, friendly man he was, but one difficult to deal with; hot in his temper, impatient of all stupidities, impatient often of that which he wrongly thought to be stupidity, never owning himself to be wrong, anxious always for the truth, but often missing to see it, a man who would fret grievously for the merest trifle, and think nothing of the greatest success when it had once been gained. Such a one was Mr. Quickenham; and he was a man of whom all his enemies and most of his friends were a little afraid. Mrs. Fenwick would declare herself to be much in awe of him; and our Vicar, though he would not admit as much, was always a little on his guard when the great barrister was with him.

How it had come to pass that Mr. Chamberlaine had not been called upon to take a part in the Cathedral services during Passion week cannot here be explained; but it was the fact, that when Mr. Quickenham arrived at Bullhampton, the Canon was staying at The Privets. He had come over there early in the week, – as it was supposed by Mr. Fenwick with some hope of talking his nephew into a more reasonable state of mind respecting Miss Lowther; but, according to Mrs. Fenwick's uncharitable views, with the distinct object of escaping the long church services of the Holy week, – and was to return to Salisbury on the Saturday. He was, therefore, invited to meet Mr. Quickenham at dinner on the Thursday. In his own city and among his own neighbours he would have thought it indiscreet to dine out in Passion week; but, as he explained to Mr. Fenwick, these things were very different in a rural parish.

Mr. Quickenham arrived an hour or two before dinner, and was immediately taken out to see the obnoxious building; while Mrs. Fenwick, who never would go to see it, described all its horrors to her sister within the guarded precincts of her own drawing-room.

"It used to be a bit of common land, didn't it?" said Mr. Quickenham.

"I hardly know what is common land," replied the Vicar. "The children used to play here, and when there was a bit of grass on it some of the neighbours' cows would get it."

"It was never advertised – to be let on building lease?"

"Oh dear no! Lord Trowbridge never did anything of that sort."

"I dare say not," said the lawyer. "I dare say not." Then he walked round the plot of ground, pacing it, as though something might be learned in that way. Then he looked up at the building with his hands in his pockets, and his head on one side. "Has there been a deed of gift, – perhaps a peppercorn rent, or something of that kind?" The Vicar declared that he was altogether ignorant of what had been done between the agent for the Marquis and the trustees to whom had been committed the building of the chapel. "I dare say nothing," said Mr. Quickenham. "They've been in such a hurry to punish you, that they've gone on a mere verbal permission. What's the extent of the glebe?"

"They call it forty-two acres."

"Did you ever have it measured?"

"Never. It would make no difference to me whether it is forty-one or forty-three."

"That's as may be," said the lawyer. "It's as nasty a thing as I've looked at for many a day, but it wouldn't do to call it a nuisance."

"Of course not. Janet is very hot about it; but, as for me, I've made up my mind to swallow it. After all, what harm will it do me?"

"It's an insult, – that's all."

"But if I can show that I don't take it as an insult, the insult will be nothing. Of course the people know that their landlord is trying to spite me."

"That's just it."

"And for awhile they'll spite me too, because he does. Of course it's a bore. It cripples one's influence, and to a certain degree spreads dissent at the cost of the Church. Men and women will go to that place merely because Lord Trowbridge favours the building. I know all that, and it irks me; but still it will be better to swallow it."

"Who's the oldest man in the parish?" asked Mr. Quickenham; "the oldest with his senses still about him." The parson reflected for awhile, and then said that he thought Brattle, the miller, was as old a man as there was there, with the capability left to him of remembering and of stating what he remembered. "And what's his age, – about?" Fenwick said that the miller was between sixty and seventy, and had lived in Bullhampton all his life. "A church-going man?" asked the lawyer. To this the Vicar was obliged to reply that, to his very great regret, old Brattle never entered a church. "Then I'll step over and see him during morning service to-morrow," said the lawyer. The Vicar raised his eyebrows, but said nothing as to the propriety of Mr. Quickenham's personal attendance at a place of worship on Good Friday.

"Can anything be done, Richard?" said Mrs. Fenwick, appealing to her brother-in-law.

"Yes; – undoubtedly something can be done."

"Can there, indeed? I am so glad. What can be done?"

"You can make the best of it."

"That's just what I'm determined I won't do. It's mean-spirited, and so I tell Frank. I never would have hurt them as long as they treated us well; but now they are enemies, and as enemies I will regard them. I should think myself disgraced if I were to sit down in the presence of the Marquis of Trowbridge; I should, indeed."

"You can easily manage that by standing up when you meet him," said Mr. Quickenham. Mr. Quickenham could be very funny at times, but those who knew him would remark that whenever he was funny he had something to hide. His wife as she heard his wit was quite sure that he had some plan in his head about the chapel.

At half-past six there came Mr. Chamberlaine and his nephew. The conversation about the chapel was still continued, and the canon from Salisbury was very eloquent, and learned also, upon the subject. His eloquence was brightest while the ladies were still in the room, but his learning was brought forth most manifestly after they had retired. He was very clear in his opinion that the Marquis had the law on his side in giving the land for the purpose in question, even if it could be shown that he was simply the lord of the manor, and not so possessed of the spot as to do what he liked in it for his own purposes. Mr. Chamberlaine expressed his opinion that, although he himself might think otherwise, it would be held to be for the benefit of the community that the chapel should be built, and in no court could an injunction against the building be obtained.

"But he couldn't give leave to have it put on another man's ground," said the Queen's Counsel.

"There is no question of another man's ground here," said the member of the Chapter.

"I'm not so sure of that," continued Mr. Quickenham. "It may not be the ground of any one man, but if it's the ground of any ten or twenty it's the same thing."

"But then there would be a lawsuit," said the Vicar.

"It might come to that," said the Queen's Counsel.

"I'm sure you wouldn't have a leg to stand upon," said the member of the Chapter.

"I don't see that at all," said Gilmore. "If the land is common to the parish, the Marquis of Trowbridge cannot give it to a part of the parishioners because he is Lord of the Manor."

"For such a purpose I should think he can," said Mr. Chamberlaine.

"And I'm quite sure he can't," said Mr. Quickenham. "All the same, it may be very difficult to prove that he hasn't the right; and in the meantime there stands the chapel, a fact accomplished. If the ground had been bought and the purchasers had wanted a title, I think it probable the Marquis would never have got his money."

"There can be no doubt that it is very ungentlemanlike," said Mr. Chamberlaine.

"There I'm afraid I can't help you," said Mr. Quickenham. "Good law is not defined very clearly here in England; but good manners have never been defined at all."

"I don't want anyone to help me on such a matter as that," said Mr. Chamberlaine, who did not altogether like Mr. Quickenham.

"I dare say not," said Mr. Quickenham; "and yet the question may be open to argument. A man may do what he likes with his own, and can hardly be called ungentlemanlike because he gives it away to a person you don't happen to like."

"I know what we all think about it in Salisbury," said Mr. Chamberlaine.

"It's just possible that you may be a little hypercritical in Salisbury," said Quickenham.

There was nothing else discussed and nothing else thought of in the Vicarage. The first of June had been the day now fixed for the opening of the new chapel, and here they were already in April. Mr. Fenwick was quite of opinion that if the services of Mr. Puddleham's congregation were once commenced in the building they must be continued there. As long as the thing was a thing not yet accomplished it might be practicable to stop it; but there could be no stopping it when the full tide of Methodist eloquence should have begun to pour itself from the new pulpit. It would then have been made the House of God, – even though not consecrated, – and as such it must remain. And now he was becoming sick of the grievance, and wished that it was over. As to going to law with the Marquis on a question of Common-right, it was a thing that he would not think of doing. The living had come to him from his college, and he had thought it right to let the Bursar of Saint John's know what was being done; but it was quite clear that the college could not interfere or spend their money on a matter which, though it was parochial, had no reference to their property in the parish. It was not for the college, as patron of the living, to inquire whether certain lands belonged to the Marquis of Trowbridge or to the parish at large, though the Vicar no doubt, as one of the inhabitants of the place, might raise the question at law if he chose to find the money and could find the ground on which to raise it. His old friend the Bursar wrote him back a joking letter, recommending him to put more fire into his sermons and thus to preach his enemy down.

"I have become so sick of this chapel," the Vicar said to his wife that night, "that I wish the subject might never be mentioned again in the house."

"You can't be more sick of it than I am," said his wife.

"What I mean is, that I'm sick of it as a subject of conversation. There it is, and let us make the best of it, as Quickenham says."

"You can't expect anything like sympathy from Richard, you know."

"I don't want any sympathy. I want simply silence. If you'll only make up your mind to take it for granted, and to put up with it – as you had to do with the frost when the shrubs were killed, or with anything that is disagreeable but unavoidable, the feeling of unhappiness about it would die away at once. One does not grieve at the inevitable."

"But one must be quite sure that it is inevitable."

"There it stands, and nothing that we can do can stop it."

"Charlotte says that she is sure Richard has got something in his head. Though he will not sympathise, he will think and contrive and fight."

"And half ruin us by his fighting," said the husband. "He fancies the land may be common land, and not private property."

"Then of course the chapel has no right to be there."

"But who is to have it removed? And if I could succeed in doing so, what would be said to me for putting down a place of worship after such a fashion as that?"

"Who could say anything against you, Frank?"

"The truth is, it is Lord Trowbridge who is my enemy here, and not the chapel or Mr. Puddleham. I'd have given the spot for the chapel, had they wanted it, and had I had the power to give it. I'm annoyed because Lord Trowbridge should know that he had got the better of me. If I can only bring myself to feel, – and you too, – that there is no better in it, and no worse, I shall be annoyed no longer. Lord Trowbridge cannot really touch me; and could he, I do not know that he would."