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Mark Rutherford >> Pages from a Journal with Other Papers
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Your affectionate godfather,
G. L.
My Dear Godfather,--I have sent back the Orelli. How I should love to
come and to wander about the meadows with you by the river or sit in the
boat with you under the willows. But I cannot, for I have promised to
speak at a Woman's Temperance Meeting next week, and in the week
following I am going to read a paper called "An Educational Experiment,"
before our Ethical Society. This, I think, will be interesting. I have
placed my pupils in difficult historical positions, and have made them
tell me what they would have done, giving the reasons. I am thus
enabled to detect any weakness and to strengthen character on that side.
Most of the girls are embarrassed by the conflict of motives, and I have
to impress upon them the necessity in life of disregarding those which
are of less importance and of prompt action on the stronger. I have
classified my results in tables, so that it may be seen at a glance what
impulses are most generally operative.
But to go back to your letter. I will not have you shuffle. You can
say so much if you like. Talk to me just as you did when we last sat
under the cedar-tree. I MUST know your mind about theology and
metaphysics.
Your affectionate godchild,
HERMIONE.
My Dear Hermione,--I am sorry you could not come. I am sorry that what
people call a "cause" should have kept you away. If any of your friends
had been ill; if it had been a dog or a cat, I should not have cared so
much. You are dreadful! Theology and metaphysics! I do not understand
what they are as formal sciences. Everything seems to me theological
and metaphysical. What Shakespeare says now and then carries me further
than anything I have read in the system-books into which I have looked.
I cannot take up a few propositions, bind them into faggots, and say,
"This is theology, and that is metaphysics." There is much "discourse
of God" in a May blossom, and my admiration of it is "beyond nature,"
but I am not sure upon this latter point, for I do not know in the least
what f?s?? or Nature is. We love justice and generosity, and hate
injustice and meanness, but the origin of virtue, the life of the soul,
is as much beyond me as the origin of life in a plant or animal, and I
do not bother myself with trying to find it out. I do feel, however,
that justice and generosity have somehow a higher authority than I or
any human being can give them, and if I had children of my own this is
what I should try, not exactly to teach them, but to breathe into them.
I really, my dear child, dare not attempt an essay on the influence
which priests and professors have had upon the world, nor am I quite
clear that "shadowy" and "uncertain" mean the same thing. All ultimate
facts in a sense are shadowy, but they are not uncertain. When you try
to pinch them between your fingers they seem unsubstantial, but they are
very real. Are you sure that you yourself stand on solid granite?
Your affectionate godfather,
G. L.
My Dear Godfather,--You are most disappointing and evasive. I gave up
the discussion on Latin and Greek, but I did and do want your reply to a
most simple question. If you had to teach children--you surely can
imagine yourself in such a position--would you teach them WHAT ARE
GENERALLY KNOWN AS THEOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS?--excuse the emphasis. You
have an answer, I am certain, and you may just as well give it me. I
know that you had rather, or affect you had rather, talk about Catullus,
but I also know that you think upon serious subjects sometimes. These
matters cannot now be put aside. We live in a world in which certain
problems are forced upon us and we are compelled to come to some
conclusion upon them. I cannot shut myself up and determine that I will
have no opinion upon Education or Socialism or Women's Rights. The fact
that these questions are here is plain proof that it is my duty not to
ignore them. You hate large generalisations, but how can we exist
without them? They may never be entirely true, but they are
indispensable, and, if you never commit yourself to any, you are much
more likely to be practically wrong than if you use them.
Take, for example, the Local Veto. I admitted in my speech that there
is much to be urged against it. It might act harshly, and it is quite
true that poor men in large towns cannot spend their evenings in their
filthy homes; but I MUST be for it or against it, and I am
enthusiastically for it, because on the whole it will do good. So with
Socialism. The evils of Capitalism are so monstrous that any remedy is
better than none. Socialism may not be the direct course: it may be a
tremendously awkward tack, but it is only by tacking that we get along.
So with positive education, but I have enlarged upon this already. What
a sermon to my dear godfather! Forgive me, but you will have to take
sides, and do, please, be a little more definite about my book.
Your affectionate godchild,
HERMIONE.
My Dear Hermione,--I haven't written for some time, for I was unwell for
nearly a month. The doctor has given me physic, but my age is really
the mischief, and it is incurable. I caught cold through sitting out of
doors after dinner with the rector, a good fellow if he would not smoke
on my port. To smoke on good port is a sin. He knows my infirmity,
that I cannot sit still long, and he excuses my attendance at church.
Would you believe it? When I was very bad, and thought I might die, I
read Horace again, whom you detest. I often wonder what he really
thought upon many things when he looked out on the
taciturna noctis
signa."
Justice is not often done to him. He saw a long way, but he did not
make believe he saw beyond his limit, and was content with it. A rare
virtue is intellectual content!
"Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi
Finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
Tentaris numeros."
The rector was telling me about Tom Pavenham's wedding. He has married
Margaret Loxley, as you may perhaps have seen in the paper I sent you.
Mrs. Loxley, her mother, was a Barfield, and old Pavenham, when he was a
youth, fell in love with her. She was also in love with him. He was
well-to-do, and farmed about seven hundred acres, but he was not thought
good enough by the elder Barfields, who lived in what was called a park.
They would not hear of the match. She was sent to France, and he went
to Buenos Ayres. After some years had passed he married out there, and
she married. His wife died when her first child, a boy, was born.
Loxley also died, leaving his wife with an only daughter. Pavenham
retired from business in South America, and came back with his son to
his native village, where he meant to spend the rest of his days. Tom
and Margaret were at once desperately smitten with one another. The
father and mother have kept their own flame alive, and I believe it is
as bright as it ever was. It is delightful to see them together. They
called on me with the children after the betrothal. He was so courteous
and attentive to her, and she seemed to bask in his obvious affection.
I noticed how they looked at one another and smiled happily as the boy
and girl wandered off together towards the filbert walk. The rector
told me that he was talking to old Pavenham one evening, and said to
him: "Jem, aren't you sometimes sad when you think of what ought to
have happened?" His voice shook a bit as he replied gently: "God be
thanked for what we have! Besides, it has all come to pass in Tom and
Margaret."
You must not be angry with me if I say nothing more about Positive
Education. It is a great strain on me to talk upon such matters, and
when I do I always feel afterwards that I have said much which is mere
words. That is a sure test; I must obey my daemon. I wish I could give
you what you want for what you have given me; but when do we get what we
want in exchange for what we give? Our trafficking is a clumsy barter.
A man sells me a sheep, and I pay him in return with my grandfather's
old sextant. This is not quite true for you and me. Love is given and
love is returned. A Dieu--not adieu. Remember that the world is very
big, and that there may be room in it for a few creatures like
Your affectionate godfather,
G. L.
MRS. FAIRFAX
The town of Langborough in 1839 had not been much disturbed since the
beginning of the preceding century. The new houses were nearly all of
them built to replace others which had fallen into decay; there were no
drains; the drinking-water came from pumps; the low fever killed thirty
or forty people every autumn; the Moot Hall still stood in the middle of
the High Street; the newspaper came but once a week; nobody read any
books; and the Saturday market and the annual fair were the only events
in public local history. Langborough, being seventy miles from London
and eight from the main coach-road, had but little communication with
the outside world. Its inhabitants intermarried without crossing from
other stocks, and men determined their choice mainly by equality of
fortune and rank. The shape of the nose and lips and colour of the eyes
may have had some influence in masculine selection, but not much: the
doctor took the lawyer's daughter, the draper took the grocer's, and the
carpenter took the blacksmith's. Husbands and wives, as a rule, lived
comfortably with one another; there was no reason why they should
quarrel. The air of the place was sleepy; the men attended to their
business, and the women were entirely apart, minding their household
affairs and taking tea with one another. In Langborough, dozing as it
had dozed since the days of Queen Anne, it was almost impossible that
any woman should differ so much from another that she could be the cause
of passionate preference.
One day in the spring of 1839 Langborough was stirred to its depths. No
such excitement had been felt in the town since the run upon the bank in
1825, when one of the partners went up to London, brought down ten
thousand pounds in gold with him by the mail, and was met at Thaxton
cross-roads by a post-chaise, which was guarded into Langborough by
three men with pistols. A circular printed in London was received on
that spring day in 1839 by all the respectable ladies in the town
stating that a Mrs. Fairfax was about to begin business in Ferry Street
as a dressmaker. She had taken the only house to be let in Ferry
Street. It was a cottage with a front and back sitting-room, and
belonged to an old lady in Lincoln, who inherited it from her brother,
who once lived in it but had been dead forty years. Before a week had
gone by four-fifths of the population of Langborough had re-inspected
it. The front room was the shop, and in the window was a lay-figure
attired in an evening robe of rose-coloured silk, the like of which for
style and fit no native lady had ever seen. Underneath it was a card--
"Mrs. Fairfax, Milliner and Dressmaker." The circular stated that Mrs.
Fairfax could provide materials or would make up those brought to her by
her customers.
Great was the debate which followed this unexpected apparition. Who
Mrs. Fairfax was could not be discovered. Her furniture and the lay-
figure had come by the waggon, and the only information the driver could
give was that he was directed at the "George and Blue Boar" in Holborn
to fetch them from Great Ormond Street. After much discussion it was
agreed that Mrs. Bingham, the wife of the wine merchant, should call on
Mrs. Fairfax and inquire the price of a gown. Mrs. Bingham was at the
head of society in Langborough, and had the reputation of being very
clever. It was hoped, and indeed fully expected, that she would be able
to penetrate the mystery. She went, opened the door, a little bell
sounded, and Mrs. Fairfax presented herself. Mrs. Bingham's eyes fell
at once upon Mrs. Fairfax's dress. It was black, with no ornament, and
constructed with an accuracy and grace which proved at once to Mrs.
Bingham that its maker was mistress of her art. Mrs. Bingham, although
she could not entirely desert the linendraper's wife, whose husband was
a good customer for brandy, had some of her clothes made in London when
she stayed with her sister in town, and, to use her own phrase, "knew
what was what."
"Mrs. Fairfax?"
A bow.
"Will you please tell me what a gown would cost made somewhat like that
in the window?"
"For yourself, madam?"
"Yes."
"Pardon me; I am afraid that colour would not suit you."
Mrs. Bingham was a stout woman with a ruddy complexion.
"One colour costs no more than another?"
"No, madam: twelve guineas; that silk is expensive. Will you not take
a seat?"
"I am afraid you will find twelve guineas too much for anybody here.
Have you nothing cheaper?"
Mrs. Fairfax produced some patterns and fashion-plates.
"I suppose the gown in the window is your own make?"
"My own make and design."
"Then you are not beginning business?"
"I hope I may say that I thoroughly understand it."
The door leading into the back parlour opened, and a little girl about
nine or ten years old entered.
"Mother, I want--"
Mrs. Fairfax, without saying a word, gently led the child into the
parlour again.
"Dear me, what a pretty little girl! Is that yours?"
"Yes, she is mine."
Mrs. Bingham noticed that Mrs. Fairfax did not wear a widow's cap, and
that she had a wedding-ring on her finger.
"You will find it rather lonely here. Have you been accustomed to
solitude?"
"Yes. That silk, now, would suit you admirably. With less ornament it
would be ten guineas."
"Thank you: I must not be so extravagant at present. May I look at
something which will do for walking? You would not, I suppose, make a
walking-dress for Langborough exactly as you would have made it in
London?"
"If you mean for walking about the roads here, it would differ slightly
from one which would be suitable for London."
"Will you show me what you have usually made for town?"
"This is what is worn now."
Mrs. Bingham was baffled but not defeated. She gave an order for a
walking-dress, and hoped that Mrs. Fairfax might be more communicative.
"Have you any introductions here?"
"None whatever."
"It is rather a risk if you are unknown."
"Perhaps you have been exempt from risks: some people are obliged
constantly to encounter them."
"'Exempt,' 'encounter,"' thought Mrs. Bingham: "she must have been to a
good school."
"When will you be ready to try on?"
"On Friday," and Mrs. Fairfax opened the door.
As Mrs. Bingham went out she noticed a French book lying on a side
table.
The day following was Sunday, and Mrs. Fairfax and her daughter were at
church. They sat at the back, and all the congregation turned on
entering, looked at them, and thought about them during the service.
They went out as soon as it was over, but Mrs. Harrop, wife of the
ironmonger, and Mrs. Cobb, wife of the coal merchant, escaped with equal
promptitude and were close behind them.
"There isn't a crease in that body," said Mrs. Harrop.
On Monday Mrs. Bingham was at the post-office. She took care to be
there at the dinner hour, when the postmaster's wife generally came to
the counter.
"A newcomer, Mrs. Carter. Have you seen Mrs. Fairfax?"
"Once or twice, ma'am."
"Has she many letters?"
The door between the office and the parlour was open.
"I've no doubt she will have, ma'am, if her business succeeds."
"I wonder where she lived before she came here. It is curious, isn't
it, that nobody knows her? Did you ever notice how her letters are
stamped?"
"Can't say as I have, ma'am."
Mrs. Carter shut the parlour door. "The smell of those onions," she
whispered to her husband, "blows right in here." She then altered her
tone a trifle.
"One of 'em, Mrs. Bingham, had the Portsmouth postmark on it; but this
is in the strictest confidence, and I should never dream of letting it
out to anybody but you, but I don't mind you, because I know you won't
repeat it, and if my husband was to hear me he'd be in a fearful rage,
for there was a dreadful row when I told Lady Caroline at Thaxton Manor
about the letters Miss Margaret was getting, and it was found out that
it was me as told her, and some gentleman in London wrote to the
Postmaster-General about it."
"You may depend upon me, Mrs. Carter." Mrs. Bingham considered she had
completely satisfied her conscience when she imposed an oath of secrecy
on Mrs. Harrop, who was also self-exonerated when she had imposed a
similar oath on Mrs. Cobb.
A fortnight after the visit to the post-office there was a tea-party.
Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, the grocer's wife, and Miss
Tarrant, an elderly lady, living on a small annuity, but most genteel,
were invited to Mrs. Bingham's. They began to talk of Mrs. Fairfax
directly they had tasted the hot buttered toast. They had before them
the following facts: the carrier's deposition that the goods came from
Great Ormond Street; the lay-figure and what it wore; Mrs. Fairfax's
prices; the little girl; the wedding-ring but no widow's weeds; the
Portsmouth postmark; the French book; Mrs. Bingham's new gown, and
lastly--a piece of information contributed by Mrs. Sweeting and
considered to be of great importance, as we shall see presently--that
Mrs. Fairfax bought her coffee whole and ground it herself. On these
facts, nine in all, the ladies had to construct--it was imperative that
they should construct it--an explanation of Mrs. Fairfax, and it must be
confessed that they were not worse equipped than many a picturesque and
successful historian. At the request of the company, Mrs. Bingham went
upstairs and put on the gown.
"Do you mind coming to the window, Mrs. Bingham?" asked Mrs. Harrop.
Mrs. Bingham rose and went to the window. Her guests also rose. She
held her arms down and then held them up, and was surveyed from every
point of the compass.
"I thought it was a pucker, but it's only the shadow," observed Mrs.
Harrop.
Mrs. Cobb stroked the body and shook the skirt. Not a single
depreciatory criticism was ventured. Excepting the wearer, nobody
present had seen such a masterpiece. But although for half a lifetime
we may have beheld nothing better than an imperfect actual, we recognise
instantly the superiority and glory of the realised Ideal when it is
presented to us. Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, and Miss
Tarrant became suddenly aware of possibilities of which they had not
hitherto dreamed. Mrs. Swanley, the linendraper's wife, was degraded
and deposed.
"She must have learned that in London," said Mrs. Harrop.
"London! my dear Mrs. Harrop," replied Mrs. Bingham, "I know London
pretty well, and how things are cut there. I told you there was a
French book on the table. Take my word for it, she has lived in Paris.
She MUST have lived there."
"Where is Great Ormond Street, Mrs. Bingham?" inquired Mrs. Sweeting.
"A great many foreigners live there; it is somewhere near Leicester
Square."
Mrs. Bingham knew nothing about the street, but having just concluded a
residence in Paris from the French book, that conclusion led at once to
a further conclusion, clear as noonday, as to the quality of the people
who inhabited Great Ormond Street, and consequently to the final
deduction of its locality.
"Did you not say, Mrs. Sweeting, that she buys her coffee whole?" added
Mrs. Bingham, as if inspiration had flashed into her. "If you want
additional proof that she is French, there it is."
"Portsmouth," mused Mrs. Cobb. "You say, Mrs. Bingham, there are a good
many officers there. Let me see--1815--it's twenty-four years ago since
the battle. A captain may have picked her up in Paris. I'll be bound
that, if she ever was married, she was married when she was sixteen or
seventeen. They are always obliged to marry those French girls when
they are nothing but chits, I've been told--those of them, least-ways,
that don't live with men without being married. That would make her
about forty, and then he found her out and left her, and she went back
to Paris and learned dressmaking."
"But he writes to her from Portsmouth," said Mrs. Bingham, who had not
been told that the solitary letter from Portsmouth was addressed in a
man's handwriting.
"He may not have broken with her altogether," replied Mrs. Cobb. "If he
isn't a downright brute he'll want to hear about his daughter."
"Well," said Mrs. Sweeting, twitching her eyes as she was wont to do
when she was about to give an opinion which she knew would disturb any
of her friends, "you may talk as you like, but the last thing Swanley
made for me looked as if it had been to the wash and hung on me to dry.
French or English, captain or no captain, I shall go to Mrs. Fairfax.
Her character's got nothing to do with her cut. Suppose she IS
divorced; judging from that body of yours, Mrs. Bingham, I shan't have
to send back a pelisse half a dozen times to get it altered. When it
comes to that you get sick of the thing, and may just as well give it
away."
Mrs. Sweeting occupied the lowest rank in this particular section of
Langborough society. As a grocer Mr. Sweeting was not quite on a level
with the coal dealer, who was a merchant, nor with the ironmonger, who
repaired ploughs, and he was certainly below Mr. Bingham. Miss Tarrant,
never having been "connected with trade"--her father was chief clerk in
the bank--considered herself superior to all her acquaintances, but her
very small income prevented her from claiming her superiority so
effectively as she desired.
"Mrs. Sweeting," she said, "I am surprised at you! You do not consider
what the moral effect on the lower orders of patronising a female of
this kind will be, probably an abandoned woman. The child, no doubt,
was not born in wedlock. We are sinners ourselves if we support
sinners."
"Miss Tarrant," retorted Mrs. Sweeting, "I'm the respectable mother of
five children, and I don't want any sermons on sin except in church. If
it wasn't a sin of Swanley to charge me three guineas for that pelisse,
and wouldn't take it back, I don't know what sin."
Mrs. Bingham, although she was accustomed to tea-table disputes, and
even enjoyed them, was a little afraid of Mrs. Sweeting's tongue, and
thought it politic to interfere.
"I agree with you entirely, Mrs. Sweeting, about the inferiority of Mrs.
Swanley to this newcomer, but we must consider Miss Tarrant's position
in the parish and her responsibilities. She is no doubt right from her
point of view."
So the conversation ended, but Mrs. Fairfax's biography, which was to be
published under authority in Langborough, was now rounded off and
complete. She was a Parisian, father and mother unknown, was found in
Paris in 1815 by Captain Fairfax, who, by her intrigues and threats of
exposure, was forced into a marriage with her. A few years afterwards
he had grounds for a divorce, but not wishing a scandal, consented to a
compromise and voluntary separation. He left one child in her custody,
as it showed signs of resemblance to its mother, to whom he gave a small
monthly allowance. She had been apprenticed as a dressmaker in Paris,
had returned thither in order to master her trade, and then came back to
England. In a very little time, so clever was she that she learned to
speak English fluently, although, as Mrs. Bingham at once noticed, the
French accent was very perceptible. It was a good, intelligible,
working theory, and that was all that was wanted. This was Mrs. Fairfax
so far as her female neighbours were concerned. To the men in
Langborough she was what she was to the women, but with a difference.
When she went to Mr. Sweeting's shop to order her groceries, Mr.
Sweeting, notwithstanding the canonical legend of her life, served her
himself, and was much entangled by her dark hair, and was drawn down by
it into a most polite bow. Mr. Cobb, who had a little cabin of an
office in his coal-yard, hastened back to it from superintending the
discharge of a lighter, when Mrs. Fairfax called to pay her little bill,
actually took off his hat, begged her to be seated, and hoped she did
not find the last lot of coals dusty. He was now unloading some of the
best Wallsend that ever came up the river, and would take care that the
next half ton should not have an ounce of small in it.
"You'll find it chilly where you are living, ma'am, but it isn't damp,
that's one comfort. The bottom of your street is damp, and down here in
a flood anything like what we had fourteen years ago, we are nearly
drowned. If you'll step outside with me I'll show you how high the
water rose." He opened the door, and Mrs. Fairfax thought it courteous
not to refuse. He walked to the back of his cabin bareheaded, although
the morning was cold, and pointed out to her the white paint mark on the
wall. She, dropped her receipted bill in the black mud and stooped to
pick it up. Mr. Cobb plunged after it and wiped it carefully on his
silk pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Cobb's bay window commanded the whole
length of the coal-yard. In this bay window she always sat and worked
and nodded to the customers, or gossiped with them as they passed. She
turned her back on Mrs. Fairfax both when she entered the yard and when
she left it, but watched her carefully. Mr. Cobb came into dinner, but
his wife bided her time, knowing that, as he took snuff, the
handkerchief would be used. It was very provoking, he was absent-
minded, and forgot his usual pinch before he sat down to his meal. For
three-quarters of an hour his wife was afflicted with painfully uneasy
impatience, and found it very difficult to reply to Mr. Cobb's
occasional remarks. At last the cheese was finished, the snuff-box
appeared, and after it the handkerchief.
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