Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

“Pray inform Miss Oldcastle, Judy, that Mr Walton insists upon seeing her at once.”

“That is quite unnecessary. Miss Oldcastle will be here presently,” I said.

Mrs Oldcastle turned slightly livid with wrath. She was always white, as I have said: the change I can describe only by the word I have used, indicating a bluish darkening of the whiteness. She walked towards the door beside me. I stepped between her and it.

“Pardon me, Mrs Oldcastle. That is the way to Miss Oldcastle’s room. I am here to protect her.”

Without saying a word she turned and looked at Captain Everard. He advanced with a long stride of determination. But ere he reached me, the door behind me opened, and Miss Oldcastle appeared in her bonnet and shawl, catrying a small bag in her hand. Seeing how things were, the moment she entered, she put her hand on my arm, and stood fronting the enemy with me. Judy was on my right, her eyes flashing, and her cheek as red as a peony, evidently prepared to do battle a toute outrance for her friends.

“Miss Oldcastle, go to your room instantly, I COMMAND you,” said her mother; and she approached as if to remove her hand from my arm. I put my other arm between her and her daughter.

“No, Mrs Oldcastle,” I said. “You have lost all a mother’s rights by ceasing to behave like a mother, Miss Oldcastle will never more do anything in obedience to your commands, whatever she may do in compliance with your wishes.”

“Allow me to remark,” said Captain Everard, with attempted nonchalance, “that that is strange doctrine for your cloth.”

“So much the worse for my cloth, then,” I answered, “and the better for yours if it leads you to act more honourably.”

Still keeping himself entrenched in the affectation of a supercilious indifference, he smiled haughtily, and gave a look of dramatic appeal to Mrs Oldcastle.

“At least,” said that lady, “do not disgrace yourself, Ethelwyn, by leaving the house in this unaccountable manner at night and on foot. If you WILL leave the protection of your mother’s roof, wait at least till tomorrow.”

“I would rather spend the night in the open air than pass another under your roof, mother. You have been a strange mother to me—and Dorothy too!”

“At least do not put your character in question by going in this unmaidenly fashion. People will talk to your prejudice—and Mr Walton’s too.”

Ethelwyn smiled.—She was now as collected as I was, seeming to have cast off all her weakness. My heart was uplifted more than I can say.—She knew her mother too well to be caught by the change in her tone.

I had not hitherto interrupted her once when she took the answer upon herself, for she was not one to be checked when she chose to speak. But now she answered nothing, only looked at me, and I understood her, of course.

“They will hardly have time to do so, I trust, before it will be out of their power. It rests with Miss Oldcastle herself to say when that shall be.”

As if she had never suspected that such was the result of her scheming, Mrs Oldcastle’s demeanour changed utterly. The form of her visage was altered. She made a spring at her daughter, and seized her by the arm.

“Then I forbid it,” she screamed; “and I WILL be obeyed. I stand on my rights. Go to your room, you minx.”

“There is no law human or divine to prevent her from marrying whom she will. How old are you, Ethelwyn?”

I thought it better to seem even cooler than I was.

“Twenty-seven,” answered Miss Oldcastle.

“Is it possible you can be so foolish, Mrs Oldcastle, as to think you have the slightest hold on your daughter’s freedom? Let her arm go.”

But she kept her grasp.

“You hurt me, mother,” said Miss Oldcastle.

“Hurt you? you smooth-faced hypocrite! I will hurt you then!”

But I took Mrs Oldcastle’s arm in my hand, and she let go her hold.

“How dare you touch a woman?” she said.

“Because she has so far ceased to be a woman as to torture her own daughter.”

Here Captain Everard stepped forward, saying,—

“The riot-act ought to be read, I think. It is time for the military to interfere.”

“Well put, Captain Everard,” I said. “Our side will disperse if you will only leave room for us to go.”

“Possibly I may have something to say in the matter.”

“Say on.”

“This lady has jilted me.”

“Have you, Ethelwyn?”

“I have not.”

“Then, Captain Everard, you lie.”

“You dare to tell me so?”

And he strode a pace nearer.

“It needs no daring. I know you too well; and so does another who trusted you and found you false as hell.”

“You presume on your cloth, but—” he said, lifting his hand.

“You may strike me, presuming on my cloth,” I answered; “and I will not return your blow. Insult me as you will, and I will bear it. Call me coward, and I will say nothing. But lay one hand on me to prevent me from doing my duty, and I knock you down—or find you more of a man than I take you for.”

It was either conscience or something not so good that made a coward of him. He turned on his heel.

“I really am not sufficiently interested in the affair to oppose you. You may take the girl for me. Both your cloth and the presence of ladies protect your insolence. I do not like brawling where one cannot fight. You shall hear from me before long, Mr Walton.”

“No, Captain Everard, I shall not hear from you. You know you dare not write to me. I know that of you which, even on the code of the duellist, would justify any gentleman in refusing to meet you. Stand out of my way!”

I advanced with Miss Oldcastle on my arm. He drew back; and we left the room.

As we reached the door, Judy bounded after us, threw her arms round her aunt’s neck, then round mine, kissing us both, and returned to her place on the sofa. Mrs Oldcastle gave a scream, and sunk fainting on a chair. It was a last effort to detain her daughter and gain time. Miss Oldcastle would have returned, but I would not permit her.

“No,” I said; “she will be better without you. Judy, ring the bell for Sarah.”

“How dare you give orders in my house?” exclaimed Mrs Oldcastle, sitting bolt upright in the chair, and shaking her fist at us. Then assuming the heroic, she added, “From this moment she is no daughter of mine. Nor can you touch one farthing of her money, sir. You have married a beggar after all, and that you’ll both know before long.”

“Thy money perish with thee!” I said, and repented the moment I had said it. It sounded like an imprecation, and I know I had no correspondent feeling; for, after all, she was the mother of my Ethelwyn. But the allusion to money made me so indignant, that the words burst from me ere I could consider their import.

The cool wind greeted us like the breath of God, as we left the house and closed the door behind us. The moon was shining from the edge of a vaporous mountain, which gradually drew away from her, leaving her alone in the midst of a lake of blue. But we had not gone many paces from the house when Miss Oldcastle began to tremble violently, and could scarcely get along with all the help I could give her. Nor, for the space of six weeks did one word pass between us about the painful occurrences of that evening. For all that time she was quite unable to bear it.

When we managed at last to reach the vicarage, I gave her in charge to my sister, with instructions to help her to bed at once, while I went for Dr Duncan.

CHAPTER XXXIII. OLD ROGERS’S THANKSGIVING

I found the old man seated at his dinner, which he left immediately when he heard that Miss Oldcastle needed his help. In a few words I told him, as we went, the story of what had befallen at the Hall, to which he listened with the interest of a boy reading a romance, asking twenty questions about the particulars which I hurried over. Then he shook me warmly by the hand, saying—

“You have fairly won her, Walton, and I am as glad of it as I could be of anything I can think of. She is well worth all you must have suffered. This will at length remove the curse from that wretched family. You have saved her from perhaps even a worse fate than her sister’s.”

“I fear she will be ill, though,” I said, “after all that she has gone through.”

But I did not even suspect how ill she would be.

As soon as I heard Dr Duncan’s opinion of her, which was not very definite, a great fear seized upon me that I was destined to lose her after all. This fear, however, terrible as it was, did not torture me like the fear that had preceded it. I could oftener feel able to say, “Thy will be done” than I could before.

Dr Duncan was hardly out of the house when Old Rogers arrived, and was shown into the study. He looked excited. I allowed him to tell out his story, which was his daughter’s of course, without interruption. He ended by saying:—

“Now, sir, you really must do summat. This won’t do in a Christian country. We ain’t aboard ship here with a nor’-easter a-walkin’ the quarter-deck.”

“There’s no occasion, my dear old fellow, to do anything.”

He was taken aback.

“Well, I don’t understand you, Mr Walton. You’re the last man I’d have expected to hear argufy for faith without works. It’s right to trust in God; but if you don’t stand to your halliards, your craft ‘ll miss stays, and your faith ‘ll be blown out of the bolt-ropes in the turn of a marlinspike.”

I suspect there was some confusion in the figure, but the old man’s meaning was plain enough. Nor would I keep him in a moment more of suspense.

“Miss Oldcastle is in the house, Old Rogers,” I said.

“What house, sir?” returned the old man, his gray eyes opening wider as he spoke.

“This house, to be sure.”

I shall never forget the look the old man cast upwards, or the reality given to it by the ordinarily odd sailor-fashion of pulling his forelock, as he returned inward thanks to the Father of all for His kindness to his friend. And never in my now wide circle of readers shall I find one, the most educated and responsive, who will listen to my story with a more gracious interest than that old man showed as I recounted to him the adventures of the evening. There were few to whom I could have told them: to Old Rogers I felt that it was right and natural and dignified to tell the story even of my love’s victory.

How then am I able to tell it to the world as now? I can easily explain the seeming inconsistency. It is not merely that I am speaking, as I have said before, from behind a screen, or as clothed in the coat of darkness of an anonymous writer; but I find that, as I come nearer and nearer to the invisible world, all my brothers and sisters grow dearer and dearer to me; I feel towards them more and more as the children of my Father in heaven; and although some of them are good children and some naughty children, some very lovable and some hard to love, yet I never feel that they are below me, or unfit to listen to the story even of my love, if they only care to listen; and if they do not care, there is no harm done, except they read it. Even should they, and then scoff at what seemed and seems to me the precious story, I have these defences: first, that it was not for them that I cast forth my precious pearls, for precious to me is the significance of every fact in my history—not that it is mine, for I have only been as clay in the hands of the potter, but that it is God’s, who made my history as it seemed and was good to Him; and second, that even should they trample them under their feet, they cannot well get at me to rend me. And more, the nearer I come to the region beyond, the more I feel that in that land a man needs not shrink from uttering his deepest thoughts, inasmuch as he that understands them not will not therefore revile him.—“But you are not there yet. You are in the land in which the brother speaketh evil of that which he understandeth not.”—True, friend; too true. But I only do as Dr Donne did in writing that poem in his sickness, when he thought he was near to the world of which we speak: I rehearse now, that I may find it easier then.

   “Since I am coming to that holy room,      Where, with the choir of saints for evermore,    I shall be made thy music, as I come,      I tune the instrument here at the door;      And what I must do then, think here before.”

When Rogers had thanked God, he rose, took my hand, and said:—

“Mr Walton, you WILL preach now. I thank God for the good we shall all get from the trouble you have gone through.”

“I ought to be the better for it,” I answered.

“You WILL be the better for it,” he returned. “I believe I’ve allus been the better for any trouble as ever I had to go through with. I couldn’t quite say the same for every bit of good luck I had; leastways, I considei trouble the best luck a man can have. And I wish you a good night, sir. Thank God! again.”

“But, Rogers, you don’t mean it would be good for us to have bad luck always, do you? You shouldn’t be pleased at what’s come to me now, in that case.”

“No, sir, sartinly not.”

“How can you say, then, that bad luck is the best luck?”

“I mean the bad luck that comes to us—not the bad luck that doesn’t come. But you’re right, sir. Good luck or bad luck’s both best when HE sends ‘em, as He allus does. In fac’, sir, there is no bad luck but what comes out o’ the man hisself. The rest’s all good.”

But whether it was the consequence of a reaction from the mental strain I had suffered, or the depressing effect of Miss Oldcastle’s illness coming so close upon the joy of winning her; or that I was more careless and less anxious to do my duty than I ought to have been—I greatly fear that Old Rogers must have been painfully disappointed in the sermons which I did preach for several of the following Sundays. He never even hinted at such a fact, but I felt it much myself. A man has often to be humbled through failure, especially after success. I do not clearly know how my failures worked upon me; but I think a man may sometimes get spiritual good without being conscious of the point of its arrival, or being able to trace the process by which it was wrought in him. I believe that my failures did work some humility in me, and a certain carelessness of outward success even in spiritual matters, so far as the success affected me, provided only the will of God was done in the dishonour of my weakness. And I think, but I am not sure, that soon after I approached this condition of mind, I began to preach better. But still I found for some time that however much the subject of my sermon interested me in my study or in the church or vestry on the Saturday evening; nay, even although my heart was full of fervour during the prayers and lessons; no sooner had I begun to speak than the glow died out of the sky of my thoughts; a dull clearness of the intellectual faculties took its place; and I was painfully aware that what I could speak without being moved myself was not the most likely utterance to move the feelings of those who only listened. Still a man may occasionally be used by the Spirit of God as the inglorious “trumpet of a prophecy” instead of being inspired with the life of the Word, and hence speaking out of a full heart in testimony of that which he hath known and seen.

I hardly remember when or how I came upon the plan, but now, as often as I find myself in such a condition, I turn away from any attempt to produce a sermon; and, taking up one of the sayings of our Lord which He himself has said “are spirit and are life,” I labour simply to make the people see in it what I see in it; and when I find that thus my own heart is warmed, I am justified in the hope that the hearts of some at least of my hearers are thereby warmed likewise.

But no doubt the fact that the life of Miss Oldcastle seemed to tremble in the balance, had something to do with those results of which I may have already said too much. My design had been to go at once to London and make preparation for as early a wedding as she would consent to; but the very day after I brought her home, life and not marriage was the question. Dr Duncan looked very grave, and although he gave me all the encouragement he could, all his encouragement did not amount to much. There was such a lack of vitality about her! The treatment to which she had been for so long a time subjected had depressed her till life was nearly quenched from lack of hope. Nor did the sudden change seem able to restore the healthy action of what the old physicians called the animal spirits. Possibly the strong reaction paralysed their channels, and thus prevented her gladness from reaching her physical nature so as to operate on its health. Her whole complaint appeared in excessive weakness. Finding that she fainted after every little excitement, I left her for four weeks entirely to my sister and Dr Duncan, during which time she never saw me; and it was long before I could venture to stay in her room more than a minute or two. But as the summer approached she began to show signs of reviving life, and by the end of May was able to be wheeled into the garden in a chair.

During her aunt’s illness, Judy came often to the vicarage. But Miss Oldcastle was unable to see her any more than myself without the painful consequence which I have mentioned. So the dear child always came to me in the study, and through her endless vivacity infected me with some of her hope. For she had no fears whatever about her aunt’s recovery.

I had had some painful apprehensions as to the treatment Judy herself might meet with from her grandmother, and had been doubtful whether I ought not to hive carried her off as well as her aunt; but the first time she came, which was the next day, she set my mind at rest on that subject.

“But does your grannie know where you are come?” I had asked her.

“So well, Mr Walton,” sne replied, “that there was no occasion to tell her. Why shouldn’t I rebel as well as Aunt Wynnie, I wonder?” she added, looking archness itself.

“How does she bear it?”

“Bear what, Mr Walton?”

“The loss of your aunt.”

“You don’t think grannie cares about that, do you! She’s vexed enough at the loss of Captain Everard,—Do you know, I think he had too much wine yesterday, or he wouldn’t have made quite such a fool of himself.”

“I fear he hadn’t had quite enough to give him courage, Judy. I daresay he was brave enough once, but a bad conscience soon destroys a man’s courage.”

“Why do you call it a bad conscience, Mr Walton? I should have thought that a bad conscience was one that would let a girl go on anyhow and say nothing about it to make her uncomfortable.”

“You are quite right, Judy; that is the worst kind of conscience, certainly. But tell me, how does Mrs Oldcastle bear it?”

“You asked me that already.”

Somehow Judy’s words always seem more pert upon paper than they did upon her lips. Her naivete, the twinkling light in her eyes, and the smile flitting about her mouth, always modified greatly the expression of her words.

“—Grannie never says a word about you or auntie either.”

“But you said she was vexed: how do you know that?”

“Because ever since the captain went away this morning, she won’t speak a word to Sarah even.”

“Are you not afraid of her locking you up some day or other?”

“Not a bit of it. Grannie won’t touch me. And you shouldn’t tempt me to run away from her like auntie. I won’t. Grannie is a naughty old lady, and I don’t believe anybody loves her but me—not Sarah, I’m certain. Therefore I can’t leave her, and I won’t leave her, Mr Walton, whatever you may say about her.”

“Indeed, I don’t want you to leave her, Judy.”

And Judy did not leave her as long as she lived. And the old lady’s love to that child was at least one redeeming point in her fierce character. No one can tell how mucn good it may have done her before she died—though but a few years passed before her soul was required of her. Before that time came, however, a quarrel took place between her and Sarah, which quarrel I incline to regard as a hopeful sign. And to this day Judy has never heard how her old grannie treated her mother. When she learns it now from these pages I think she will be glad that she did not know it before her death.

The old lady would see neither doctor nor parson; nor would she hear of sending for her daughter. The only sign of softening that she gave was that once she folded her granddaughter in her arms and wept long and bitterly. Perhaps the thought of her dying child came back upon her, along with the reflection that the only friend she had was the child of that marriage which she had persecuted to dissolution.

CHAPTER XXXIV. TOM’S STORY

My reader will perceive that this part of my story is drawing to a close. It embraces but a brief period of my life, and I have plenty more behind not altogether unworthy of record. But the portions of any man’s life most generally interesting are those in which, while the outward history is most stirring, it derives its chief significance from accompanying conflict within. It is not the rapid change of events, or the unusual concourse of circumstances that alone can interest the thoughtful mind; while, on the other hand, internal change and tumult can be ill set forth to the reader, save they be accompanied and in part, at least, occasioned by outward events capable of embodying and elucidating the things that are of themselves unseen. For man’s life ought to be a whole; and not to mention the spiritual necessities of our nature—to leave the fact alone that a man is a mere thing of shreds and patches until his heart is united, as the Psalmist says, to fear the name of God—to leave these considerations aside, I say, no man’s life is fit for representation as a work of art save in proportion as there has been a significant relation between his outer and inner life, a visible outcome of some sort of harmony between them. Therefore I chose the portion in which I had suffered most, and in which the outward occurrences of my own life had been most interesting, for the fullest representation; while I reserve for a more occasional and fragmentary record many things in the way of experience, thought, observation, and facts in the history both of myself and individuals of my flock, which admit of, and indeed require, a more individual treatment than would be altogether suitable to a continuous story. But before I close this part of my communications with those whom I count my friends, for till they assure me of the contrary I mean to flatter myself with considering my readers generally as such, I must gather up the ends of my thread, and dispose them in such a manner that they shall neither hang too loose, nor yet refuse length enough for what my friend Rogers would call splicing.

It was yet summer when Miss Oldcastle and I were married. It was to me a day awful in its gladness. She was now quite well, and no shadow hung upon her half-moon forehead. We went for a fortnight into Wales, and then returned to the vicarage and the duties of the parish, in which my wife was quite ready to assist me.

Perhaps it would help the wives of some clergymen out of some difficulties, and be their protection against some reproaches, if they would at once take the position with regard to the parishioners which Mrs Walton took, namely, that of their servant, but not in her own right—in her husband’s. She saw, and told them so, that the best thing she could do for them was to help me, that she held no office whatever in the parish, and they must apply to me when anything went amiss. Had she not constantly refused to be a “judge or a divider,” she would have been constantly troubled with quarrels too paltry to be referred to me, and which were the sooner forgotten that the litigants were not drawn on further and further into the desert of dispute by the mirage of a justice that could quench no thirst. Only when any such affair was brought before me, did she use her good offices to bring about a right feeling between the contending parties, generally next-door neighbours, and mostly women, who, being at home all day, found their rights clash in a manner that seldom happened with those that worked in the fields. Whatever her counsel could do, however, had full scope through me, who earnestly sought it. And whatever she gave the poor, she gave as a private person, out of her own pocket. She never administered the communion offering—that is, after finding out, as she soon did, that it was a source of endless dispute between some of the recipients, who regarded it as their common property, and were never satisfied with what they received. This is the case in many country parishes, I fear. As soon as I came to know it, I simply told the recipients that, although the communion offering belonged to them, yet the distribution of it rested entirely with me; and that I would distribute it neither according to their fancied merits nor the degree of friendship I felt for them, but according to the best judgment I could form as to their necessities; and if any of them thought these were underrated, they were quite at liberty to make a fresh representation of them to me; but that I, who knew more about their neighbours than it was likely they did, and was not prejudiced by the personal regards which they could hardly fail to be influenced by, was more likely than they were to arrive at an equitable distribution of the money—upon my principles if not on theirs. And at the same time I tried to show them that a very great part of the disputes in the world came from our having a very keen feeling of our own troubles, and a very dull feeling of our neighbour’s; for if the case was reversed, and our neighbour’s condition became ours, ten to one our judgment would be reversed likewise. And I think some of them got some sense out of what I said. But I ever found the great difficulty in my dealing with my people to be the preservation of the authority which was needful for service; for when the elder serve the younger—and in many cases it is not age that determines seniority—they must not forget that without which the service they offer will fail to be received as such by those to whom it is offered. At the same time they must ever take heed that their claim to authority be founded on the truth, and not on ecclesiastical or social position. Their standing in the church accredits their offer of service: the service itself can only be accredited by the Truth and the Lord of Truth, who is the servant of all.