Books: Pages from a Journal with Other Papers
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Mark Rutherford >> Pages from a Journal with Other Papers
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"A pretty mess that handkerchief is in, Cobb." She always called him
simply "Cobb."
"Yes, it was an a-a-accident. I must have a clean one. I didn't think
it was so dirty."
"The washing of your snuffy handkerchiefs costs quite enough as it is,
Cobb, without using them in that way."
"What way?" said Mr. Cobb weakly.
"Oh, I saw it all, going out without your hat and standing there like a
silly fool cleaning that bit of paper. I wonder what the lightermen
thought of you."
It will already have been noticed that the question what other people
thought was always the test which was put in Langborough whenever
anything was done or anything happened not in accordance with the usual
routine, and Mrs. Cobb struck at her husband's conscience by referring
him to his lightermen. She continued -
"And you know what she is as well as I do, and if she'd been respectable
you'd have been rude to her, as you generally are."
"You bought that last new gown of her, and you never had one as fitted
you so well."
"What's that got to do with it? You may be sure I knew my place when I
went there. Fit? Yes, it did fit; them sort of women, it stands to
reason, are just the women to fit you."
Mr. Cobb was silent. He was a mild man, and he knew by much experience
how unprofitable controversy with Mrs. Cobb was. He could not forget
Mrs. Fairfax's stooping figure when she was about to pick up the bill.
She caused in all the Langborough males an unaccustomed quivering and
warmth, the same in each, physical, perhaps, but salutary, for the
monotony of life was relieved thereby and a deference and even a grace
were begotten which did not usually distinguish Langborough manners.
Not one of Mrs. Fairfax's admirers, however, could say that she showed
any desire for conversation with him, nor could any direct evidence be
obtained as to what she thought of things in general. There was, to be
sure, the French book, and there were other circumstances already
mentioned from which suspicion or certainty (suspicion, as we have seen,
passing immediately into certainty in Langborough) of infidelity or
disreputable conduct followed, but no corroborating word from her could
be adduced. She attended to her business, accepted orders with thanks
and smiles, talked about the weather and the accident to the coach, was
punctual in her attendance at church, calm and inscrutable as the
Sphinx. The attendance at church was, of course, set down to "business
considerations," and was held to be quite consistent with the scepticism
and loose morality deducible from the French book and the unground
coffee.
In speaking of the male creatures of the town we have left out Dr.
Midleton. He was forty-eight years old, and had been rector twenty
years. He had obtained high mathematical honours at Cambridge, and
became a tutor in a grammar school, but was soon presented by his
college with the living of Langborough. He was tall, spare, clean-
shaven, grey-eyed, dark-haired, thin-faced, his lips were curved and
compressed, and he stooped slightly. He was a widower with no children,
and the Rectory was efficiently kept in order by an aged housekeeper.
Tractarianism had not arisen in 1839, but he was High Church and an
enemy to all kinds of fanaticism, apt to be satirical, even in his
sermons, on the right of private judgment to interpret texts as it
pleased in ignorance of Hebrew and Greek. He was respected and feared
more than any other man in the parish. He had a great library, and had
taken up archaeology as a hobby. He knew the history of every church in
the county, and more about the Langborough records than was known by the
town clerk. He was chairman of a Board of Governors charged with the
administration of wealthy trust for alms and schools. When he first
took office he found that this trust was controlled almost entirely by a
man named Jackson, a local solicitor, whose salary as clerk was 400
pounds a year and who had a large private practice. The alms were
allotted to serve political purposes, and the headmaster of the school
enjoyed a salary of 800 pounds a year for teaching forty boys, of whom
twenty were boarders. Mr. Midleton--he was Mr. Midleton then--very soon
determined to alter this state of things. Jackson went about sneering
at the newcomer who was going to turn the place upside down, and having
been accustomed to interfere in the debates in the Board-room,
interrupted the Rector at the third or fourth meeting.
"You'll get yourself in a mess if you do that, Mr. Chairman."
"Mr. Jackson," replied the Rector, rising slowly, "it may perhaps save
trouble if I remind you now, once for all, that I am chairman and you
are the clerk. Mr. Bingham, you were about to speak."
It was Dr. Midleton who obtained the new Act of Parliament remodelling
the trust, whereby a much larger portion of its funds was devoted to
education. Jackson died, partly from drink and partly from spite and
vexation, and the headmaster was pensioned. The Rector was not popular
with the middle class. He was not fond of paying visits, but he never
neglected his duty, and by the poor was almost beloved, for he was
careless and intimate in his talk with them and generous to real
distress. Everybody admired his courage. The cholera in 1831 was very
bad in Langborough, and the people were in a panic at the new disease,
which was fatal in many cases within six hours after the first attack.
The Rector through that dark time was untouched by the contagious dread
which overpowered his parishioners, and his presence carried confidence
and health. On the worst day, sultry, stifling, with no sun, an
indescribable terror crept abroad, and Mr. Cobb, standing at his gate,
was overcome by it. In five minutes he had heard of two deaths, and he
began to feel what were called "premonitory symptoms." He carried a
brandy flask in his pocket, brandy being then considered a remedy, and
he drank freely, but imagined himself worse. He was about to rush
indoors and tell Mrs. Cobb to send for the surgeon, when the Rector
passed.
"Ah, Mr. Cobb! I was just about to call on you; glad to see you looking
so well when there's so much sickness. We shall want you on the School
Committee this evening," and then he explained some business which was
to be discussed. Mr. Cobb afterwards was fond of telling the story of
this interview.
"Would you believe it?" said he. "He spoke to me about nothing much but
the trust, but somehow my stomach seemed quieter at once. The sinking--
just HERE, you know--was dreadful before he came up, and the brandy was
no good. It was a something in his way that did it."
Dr. Midleton was obliged to call on Mrs. Fairfax as a newcomer. He
found Mrs. Harrop there, and Mrs. Fairfax asked him to step into the
back parlour, into which no one in Langborough had hitherto been
admitted. Gowns were tried on in the shop, the door being bolted and
the blind drawn. Dr. Midleton found four little shelves of books on the
cupboard by the side of the fireplace. Some were French, but most of
them were English. Although it was such a small collection, his book-
lover's instinct compelled him to look at it. His eyes fell upon a
Religio Medici, and he opened it hastily. On the fly-leaf was written
"Mary Leighton, from R. L." He had just time, before its owner entered,
to replace it and to muse for an instant.
"Richard Leighton of Trinity: it is not a common name, but it cannot be
he--have lost sight of him for years; heard he was married, and came to
no good."
He was able to watch her for a minute as she stood by the table giving
some directions to her child, who was sent on an errand. In that minute
he saw her as she had not been seen by anybody in Langborough. To Mrs.
Bingham and her friends Mrs. Fairfax was the substratum of a body and
skirt, with the inestimable advantage over a substratum of cane and
padding that a scandalous history of it could be invented and believed.
To Langborough men, married and single, she was a member of "the sex,"
as women were called in those days, who possessed in a remarkable degree
the power of exciting that quivering and warmth we have already
observed. Dr. Midleton saw before him a lady, tall but delicately
built, with handsome face and dark brown hair just streaked with grey,
and he saw also diffused over every feature a light which in her eyes,
forward-looking and earnest, became concentrated into a vivid, steady
flame. The few words she spoke to her daughter were sharply cut, a
delightful contrast in his ear to the dialect to which he was
accustomed, distinguished by its universal vowel and suppression of the
consonants. How he inwardly rejoiced to hear the sound of the second
"t" in the word "distinct," when she told her little messenger that Mr.
Cobb had been "distinctly" ordered to send the coals yesterday. He
remained standing until the child had gone.
"Pray be seated," she said. She went to the fireplace, leaned on the
mantelpiece, and poked the fire. The attitude struck him. She was
about to put some coals in the grate, but he interfered with an "Allow
me," and performed the office for her. She thanked him simply, and sat
down opposite to him, facing the light. She began the conversation.
"It is good of you to call on me; calling on people, especially on
newcomers must be an unpleasant part of a clergyman's duty."
"It is so, madam, sometimes--there are not many newcomers."
"It is an advantage in your profession that you must generally be
governed by duty. It is often easier to do what we are obliged to do,
even if it be disagreeable, than to choose our path by our likes and
dislikes."
The bell rang, and Mrs. Fairfax went into the shop.
"Who can she be?" said the Doctor to himself. Such an experience as
this he had not known since he had been rector. Langborough did not
deal in ideas. It was content to affirm that Miss Tarrant now and then
gave herself airs, that Mrs. Sweeting had a way of her own, that Mr.
Cobb lacked spirit and was downtrodden by his wife.
She returned and sat down again.
"You know nobody in these parts, Mrs. Fairfax?"
"Nobody."
"Yours is a bold venture, is it not?"
"It is--certainly. A good many plans were projected, of which this was
one, and there were equal difficulties in the way of all. When that is
the case we may almost as well draw lots."
"Ah, that is what I often say to some of the weaker sort among my
parishioners. I said it to poor Cobb the other day. He did not know
whether he should do this or do that. 'It doesn't matter much,' said I,
'what you do, but do something. DO it, with all your strength.'"
The Doctor was thoroughly Tory, and he slid away to his favourite
doctrine.
"Our ancestors, madam, were not such fools as we often take them to be.
They consulted the sortes or lots, and at the last election--we have a
potwalloping constituency here--three parts of the voters would have
done better if they had trusted to the toss-up of a penny instead of
their reason."
Mrs. Fairfax leaned back in her chair. Dr. Midleton noticed her
wedding-ring, and also a handsome sapphire ring. She spoke rather
slowly and meditatively.
"Life is so complicated; so few of the consequences of many actions of
the greatest moment can be foreseen, that the belief in the lot is not
unnatural."
"You have some books, I see--Sir Thomas Browne." He took down the
volume.
"Leighton! Leighton! how odd! Was it Richard Leighton?"
"Yes."
"Really; and you knew him?"
"He was a friend of my brother."
"Do you know what has become of him? He was at Cambridge with me, but
was younger."
"I have not seen him for some time. Do you mind if I open the window a
little?"
"Certainly not."
She stood at the window for a moment, looking out on the garden, with
her hand on the top of the sash. The Doctor had turned his chair a
little and his eyes were fixed on her there with her uplifted arm. A
picture which belonged to his father instantly came back to him. He
recollected it so well. It represented a woman watching a young man in
a courtyard who is just mounting his horse. We are every now and then
reminded of pictures by a group, an attitude, or the arrangement of a
landscape which, thereby, acquires a new charm.
Suddenly the shop bell rang again, and Mrs. Fairfax's little girl rushed
into the parlour. She had fallen down and cut her wrist terribly with a
piece of a bottle containing some harts-horn which she had to buy at the
druggist's on her way home from Mr. Cobb's. The blood flowed freely,
but Mrs. Fairfax, unbewildered, put her thumb firmly on the wrist just
above the wound and instructed the doctor how to use his pocket-
handkerchief as a tourniquet. As he was tying it, although such careful
attention to the operation was necessary, he noticed Mrs. Fairfax's
hands, and he almost forgot himself and the accident.
"There is glass in the wrist," she said. "Will you kindly fetch the
surgeon? I do not like to leave."
He went at once, and fortunately met him in his gig.
On the third day after the mishap Dr. Midleton thought he ought to
inquire after the child. The glass had been extracted and she was doing
well. Her mother was at work in the back-parlour. She made no apology
for her occupation, but laid down her tools.
"Pray go on, madam."
"Certainly not. I am afraid I might make a mistake with my scissors if
I were to listen to you; or, worse, if I were to pay attention to them I
should not pay attention to you."
He smiled. "It is an art, I should think, which requires not only much
attention but practice."
She evaded the implied question. "It is difficult to fit, but it is
more difficult to please."
"That is true in my own profession."
"But you are not obliged to please."
"No, not obliged, I am happy to say. If my parishioners do not hear the
truth I have no excuse. It must be rather trying to the temper of a
lady like yourself to humour the caprices of the vulgar."
"No; they are my customers, and even if they are unpleasant they are so
not to me personally but to their servant, who ceases to be their
servant when she ceases to be employed upon their clothes."
"You are a philosopher, madam; that sentiment is worthy of Epictetus."
"I have read Epictetus in Mrs. Carter's translation."
"You have read Epictetus? That is remarkable! I should think no other
woman in the county has read him." He leaned forward a little and his
face was lighted up. "I have a library, madam, a large library; I
should like to show it to you, if--if it can be managed without
difficulty."
"It will give me great pleasure to see it some day. It must be a
delightful solace to you in a town like this, in which I daresay you
have but few friends. I suppose, though, you visit a good deal?"
"No; I do not visit much. I differ from my brother Sinclair in the next
parish. He is always visiting. What is the consequence?--gossip and,
as I conceive, a loss of dignity and self-respect. I will go wherever
there is trouble or wherever I am wanted, but I will not go anywhere for
idle talk."
"I think you are right. A priest should not make himself cheap and
common. He should be representative of sacred interests superior to the
ordinary interests of life."
"I am grateful to you, madam, very grateful to you for these
observations. They are as just as they are unusual. I sincerely hope
that we--" But there was a knock at the door.
"Come in." It was Mrs. Harrop. "Your bell rang, Mrs. Fairfax, but
maybe you didn't hear it as you were engaged in conversation. Good
morning, Dr. Midleton. I hope I don't intrude?"
"No, you do not."
He bowed to the ladies, and as he went out, the parlour-door being open,
he moved the outer door backwards and forwards.
"It would be as well, Mrs. Fairfax, to have a bell hung there which
would act properly."
"I don't know quite what Dr. Midleton means," said Mrs. Harrop when he
had gone. "The bell did ring, loud enough for most people to have heard
it, and I waited ever so long."
He walked down the street with his customary firm step, and met Mr.
Bingham who stopped him, half smiling and not quite at his ease.
"We are sorry, Doctor, you did not give Hutchings your vote for the
almshouse last Thursday; we expected you would have gone with us."
"You expected? Why?"
"Well, you see, sir, Hutchings has always worked hard for our side."
"I am astonished, Mr. Bingham, that you should suppose that I will ever
consent to divert the funds of a trust for party purposes."
Mr. Bingham, although he had just determined to give the Doctor a bit of
his mind, felt his strength depart from him. His sentences lacked power
to stand upright and fell sprawling. "No offence, Doctor, I merely
wanted you to know--not so much my own views--difficulty to keep our
friends together. Short--you know Tom Short--was saying to me he was
afraid--"
"Pay no attention to fools. Good morning."
The Doctor came in that night from a vestry meeting to which he went
after dinner. The clock was striking nine, the chimes played their
tune, and as the last note sounded the housekeeper and servants filed
into the study for prayers. Prayers over they rose and went out, and he
sat down. His habits were becoming fixed and for some years he had
always read in the evening the friends of his youth. No sermon was
composed then; no ecclesiastical literature was studied. Pope and Swift
were favourites and, curiously enough, Lord Byron. His case is not
uncommon, for it often happens that men who are forced into reserve or
opposition preserve a secret, youthful, poetic passion and are even kept
alive by it. On this particular evening, however, Pope, Byron, and
Swift remained on his shelves. He meditated.
"A wedding-ring on her finger; no widow's weeds; he may nevertheless be
dead--I believe I heard he was--and she has discontinued that frightful
disfigurement. Leighton had the thickest crop of black hair I ever saw
on a man: what thick, black hair that child has! A lady; a reader of
books; nobody to be compared with her here." At this point he rose and
walked about the room for a quarter of an hour. He sat down again and
took up an important paper about the Trust. He had forgotten it and it
was to be discussed the next day. His eyes wandered over it but he paid
no attention to it; and somewhat disgusted with himself he went to bed.
Mrs. Fairfax had happened to tell him that she was fond of walking soon
after breakfast before she opened her shop, and generally preferred the
lane on the west side of the Common. From his house the direct road to
the lane lay down the High Street, but about a fortnight after that
evening in his study he found himself one morning in Deadman's Rents, a
narrow, dirty alley which led to the east side of the Common. Deadman's
Rents was inhabited by men who worked in brickyards and coalyards, who
did odd jobs, and by washerwomen and charwomen. It contained also three
beershops. The dwellers in the Rents were much surprised to see the
Doctor amongst them at that early hour, and conjectured he must have
come on a professional errand. Every one of the Deadman ladies who was
at her door--and they were generally at their doors in the daytime--
vigilantly watched him. He went straight through the Rents to the
Common, whereupon Mrs. Wiggins, who supported herself by the sale of
firewood, jam, pickles, and peppermints, was particularly disturbed and
was obliged to go over to the "Kicking Donkey," partly to communicate
what she had seen and partly to ward off by half a quartern of rum the
sinking which always threatened her when she was in any way agitated.
When he reached the common it struck him that for the first time in his
life he had gone a roundabout way to escape being seen. Some people
naturally take to side-streets; he, on the contrary, preferred the High
Street; it was his quarter-deck and he paraded it like a captain. "Was
he doing wrong?" he said to himself. Certainly not; he desired a little
intelligent conversation and there was no need to tell everybody what he
wanted. It was unfortunate, nevertheless, that it was necessary to go
through Deadman's Rents in order to get it. He soon saw Mrs. Fairfax
and her little girl in front of him. He overtook her, and she showed no
surprise at seeing him.
"I have been thinking," said he, "about what you told me"--this was a
reference to an interview not recorded. "I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop
should have been impertinent to you."
"You need not be annoyed. The import of a word is not fixed. If
anything annoying is said to me, I always ask myself what it means--not
to me but to the speaker. Besides, as I have told you before, shop
insolence is nothing."
"You may be justified in not resenting it, but Mrs. Harrop cannot be
excused. I am not surprised to find that she can use such language, but
I am astonished that she should use it to you. It shows an utter lack
of perception. Your Epictetus has been studied to some purpose."
"I have quite forgotten him. I do not recollect books, but I never
forget the lessons taught me by my own trade."
"You have had much trouble?"
"I have had my share: probably not in excess. It is difficult for
anybody to know whether his suffering is excessive: there is no means
of measuring it with that of others."
"Have you no friends with whom you can share it?"
"I have known but one woman intimately, and she is now dead. I have
known two or three men whom I esteemed, but close friendship between a
woman and a man, unless he is her husband, as a rule is impossible."
"Do you really think so?"
"I am certain of it. I am speaking now of a friendship which would
justify a demand for sympathy with real sorrows."
They continued their walk in silence for the next two or three minutes.
"We are now near the end of the lane. I must turn and go back."
"I will go with you."
"Thank you: I should detain you: I have to make a call on business at
the White House. Good morning."
They parted.
Dr. Midleton presently met Mrs. Jenkins of Deadman's Rents, who was
going to the White House to do a day's washing. A few steps further he
met Mr. Harrop in his gig, who overtook Mrs. Fairfax. Thus it came to
pass that Deadman's Rents and the High Street knew before nightfall that
Dr. Midleton and Mrs. Fairfax had been seen on the Common that morning.
Mrs. Jenkins protested, that "if she was to be burnt alive with fuz-
faggits and brimstone, nothink but what she witnessed with her own eyes
should pass her lips, whatsomever she might think, and although they
were a-walkin'--him with his arm round her waist--she did NOT see him a-
kissin' of her--how could she when they were a hundred yards off?"
The Doctor prolonged his stroll and reached home about half-past eleven.
A third of his life had been spent in Langborough. He remembered the
day he came and the unpacking of his books. They lined the walls of his
room, some of them rare, all of them his friends. Nobody in Langborough
had ever asked him to lend a single volume. The solitary scholar never
forsook his studies, but at times he sighed over them and they seemed a
little vain. They were not entirely without external effect, for Pope
and Swift in disguise often spoke to the vestry or the governors, and
the Doctor's manners even in the shops were moulded by his intercourse
with the classic dead. Their names, however, in Langborough were almost
unknown. He had now become hardened by constant unsympathetic contact.
Suddenly a stranger had appeared who was an inhabitant of his own world
and talked his own tongue. The prospect of genuine intercourse
disclosed itself. None but those who have felt it can imagine the
relief, the joyous expansion, which follow the discovery after long
years of imprisonment with decent people of a person before whom it is
unnecessary to stifle what we most care to express. No wonder he was
excited!
But the stranger was a woman. He meditated much that morning on her
singular aptitude for reflection, but he presently began to dream over
figure, hair, eyes, hands. A picture in the most vivid colours painted
itself before him, and he could not close his eyes to it. He was
distressed to find himself the victim of this unaccustomed tyranny. He
did not know that it is impossible for a man to love a woman's soul
without loving her body. There is no such thing as a spiritual love
apart from a corporeal love, the one celestial and the other earthly,
and the spiritual love begets a passion peculiar in its intensity. He
was happily diverted by Mr. Bingham, who called about a coming contested
election for the governorships.
Next week there was another tea-party at Mrs. Cobb's. The ladies were
in high spirits, for a subject of conversation was assured. If there
had been an inquest, or a marriage, or a highway robbery before one of
these parties, or if the contents of a will had just been made known, or
still better, if any scandal had just come to light, the guests were
always cheerful. Now, of course, the topic was Dr. Midleton and Mrs.
Fairfax.
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