A Tale of a Lonely Parish

Front matter

A TALE OF A LONELY PAEISH A TALE OF A LONELY PAEISH BY F. MARION CRAWFORD /__ AUTHOR OF 'MR. ISAACS,' ' DR. CLADIUS,' (A ROMAN SINGER,' 'ZOROASTER,' ETC. VOL I. LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. 1886. [ The right of Translation is reserved.] COPYRIGHT 1886 By F. MARION CRAWFORD TO 9£p S^otljer I DEDICATE THIS TALE A MEAN TOKEN OF A LIFELONG AFFECTION Sokrento, Christmas Day 1885. A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. CHARTER L The Reverend Augustin Ambrose would gladly have given up taking pupils. He was growing old and his sight was l>e^inning to trouble him } he was very weary of Thucydides, of Homer, of the works of Mr. Todhunter of which the green bindings expressed a hope still unrealised, of conic sections — even of his beloved Horace. He was tired of the stnpidities of the dull young men who were sent to him because they could not "keep up," and he had long ceased to be sur prised or interested by the remarks of the clever ones who were sent to him because their educa tion had not prepared them for an English University.

The dull ones could never be made to understand anything, though Mr. Ambrose VOL. L B [chap. 2 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. generally succeeded in making them remember enough to matriculate, by dint of ceaseless re petition and a system of memoria technica which embraced most things necessary to the salvation of dull youth. The clever ones, on the other hand, generally lacked altogether the solid foundation of learning ; they could construe fluently but did not know a long syllable from a short one ; they had vague notions of elemental algebra and no notion at all of arithmetic, but did very well in conic sections ; they knew notldng of prosody, but dabbled perpetuady in Enghsh blank verse ; altogether they knew most of those things which they need not have known and they knew none of those things thoroughly which they ought to have known.

After twenty years of experience Mr. Ambrose ascertained that it was easier to teach a stupid boy than a clever one, but that he would prefer not to teach at all. Unfortunately the smad tithes of a small country parish in Essex did not furnish a sufficient income for his needs. He had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, within a few years of taking his degree, wherein he had obtained high honours. I. J A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. 3 But he had married and had found himself obliged to accept, the first hving offered to him, to wit, the vicarage of Bdhngsfield, whereof his college held the rectory and received the great tithes. The entire income he obtained from his cure never at any time exceeded three hundred and forty-seven pounds, and in the year when it reached that high figure there had been an unusually large number of marriages.

Chapter II

In the warm June weather young Angleside went up to pass bis examination for entrance at Trinity7. There is nothing particularly interesting or worthy of note in that simple process, though at that time the custom of imposing an examination had only been recently imported from Oxford. For one whole day forty or fifty young fedows from ad parts of the country sat at the long dining tables in the beautiful old hall and wrote as busdy as they could, answering the printed questions before them, aud eyeing each other curiously from time to time. The weather was warm and sultry, the trees were all in fud leaf and Cambridge was deserted. Only a few hard reading men, who stayed up during the Long, wandered out with books at the backs of the colleges or strayed slowly through the empty7 CHAP. II.] A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. 25 courts, objects of considerable interest to the youths who had come up for tbe entrance examination — chiefly pale men in rather shabby clothes with old gowns and battered caps, and a general appearance of being the worse for wear.

Angleside had been in Cambridge before and consequently lost no time in returning to Billings field when the examination was over. Short was to spend the summer at the vicarage, reading hard until the term began, when he was to go up and compete for a minor scholarship ; Angleside was to wait until he heard whether he had passed, and was then going abroad to meet his father and to rest from the extreme exertion of mastering the " Apology " and the first books of the " Memorabilia." John drove over to meet the Honourable Cornehus, who was in a terrible state of anxiety and left him no peace on the way asking him again and again to repeat the answers to the questions which had been proposed, reckoning up the ones he had answered wrong and the ones he thought he might have answered right, and coming each time to a different con clusion, finally lighting a huge brierwood pipe A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. [chap. and swearing "that it was a beastly shame to subject human beings to such awful torture."

John calmed him by saying he fancied Cornehus had "got through"; for John's words were a species of gospel to Cornehus. By the time they reached the vicarage Angleside felt sanguine of his success. The vicar was not visible. It was a strange and unheard of thing — there were visitors in the drawing-room. This doubtless accounted for the fact that the fly from the Duke's Head was standing on the opposite side of the road. The two young men went into their study7, which was on the ground floor and opened upon the passage which led to the drawing room from the little had. Angleside remarked that by leaving the door open they would catch a glimpse of the visitor when he went out. But the visitor stayed long. Tbe curiosity of the two was wrought up to a high pitch ; it was many months since there had been a real visitor at the vicarage.

Angleside suggested going out and finding old Reynolds — he always knew everything that was going on. " If we only wait long enough," said Short philosophically, " they are sure to come out." " Perhaps," returned Cornelius rather doubtfully. "They" did come out. The drawing-room door opened and there was a sound of voices. It was a woman's voice, and a particularly sweet voice, too. Stdl no one came down the passage. The lady seemed to be linger ing in taking her leave. Then there was a sound of smad feet and suddenly a little girl stood before the open door of the study, looking wonderingly at the two young men. Short thought he had never seen such a beautiful chdd. She could not have been more than seven or eight years old, and was not tad for her age ; a dehcate httle figure, ad in black, with long brown curls upon her shoulders, flowing abundantly from beneath a round black sador 's hat that was set far back upon ber head.

The chdd's face was rather pale than very fan, of a beautiful transparent paleness, with the least tinge of colour in the cheeks ; her great violet ey7es gazed wonderingly into the study, and - her hps parted in childlike uncer- [chap. 28 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. tainty, whde her httle gloved hand rested on the door-post as though to get a sense of security from something so sohd. It was only for a moment. Both the young fedows smded at the chdd unconsciously. Per haps she thought they were laughing at her; she turned and ran away again ; then passed a second time, stealing a long glance at the two strangers, but fodowed immediately by the lady, who was probably her mother, and whose voice had been heard for the last few moments. The lady, too, glanced in as she went by, and John Short lost his heart then and there ; not that the lady was beautiful as the little girl was, but because there was something in her face, in her figure, in her whole carriage, that moved the boy suddenly as she looked at hint and sent the blood rushing to his cheeks and forehead.

She seemed y7oung, but he never thought of her age. In reality she was nine-and-twenty years old but looked younger. She was pale, far paler than the httle girl, but she had those same violet eyes, large, deep and sorrowful, beneath dark, smooth ey7ebrows that arched high and rose a httle in the middle. Her mouth was perhaps large for her face but her fud lips curved gently and seemed able to smde, though she was not smiling. Her nose was perhaps too small — her face was far from faultless — and it had the slightest tendency to turn up instead of down, but it was so dehcately modelled that an artist would have pardoned it that deviation from the classic. Thick brown hair waved across her white forehead and was hidden under the black bonnet and the ved thrown back over it. She was dressed in black and the close-fitting gown showed off with unconscious vanity the hnes of a perfectly moulded and perfectly supple figure.

But it was especiady her eyes which attracted John's sudden attention at that first glance, her violet eyes, tender, sad, almost pathetic, seeming to ask sympathy and mar vellously able to command it. It was but for a moment that she paused. Then came tbe vicar, following her from the drawing-room, and ad three went on. Presently Short heard the front door open and Mi- Ambrose shouted to the fly. [chap. 30 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. " Muggins ! Muggins ! " No one had ever been able to say why Abraham Boosey, the pubhcan, had christened his henchman with an appedation so vulgar, to say the least of it — so amazingly cacophonous. The man's real name was plain Charles Bird ; but Abraham Boosey had christened him Muggins and Muggins he remained. Muggins had had some beer and was asleep, for the afternoon was hot and he had anticipated his " fours."

Short saw his opportunity and darted out of the study to the had where the lady and her little girl were waiting while the vicar tried to rouse the driver of the fly by shouting at him. John blushed again as he passed close to the woman with the sad eyes ; he could not ted why7, but the blood mounted to the very roots of his hair, and for a moment he felt very foolish. " I'd wake him up, Mr. Ambrose," he said, running out hatless into the summer's sun. " Wake up, you lazy beggar ! " be shouted in the ear of the sleeping Muggins, shaking him violently by the arm as he stood upon the wheel. Muggins grimted something and smiled II.] 31 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. rather idiotically. " It was only the young gentleman's play," he would have said. Bless you ! he did not mind being shaken and screamed at !

He slowly turned his horses and brought the fly up to the door. John walked back and stood waiting. " Thank you," said the lady in a voice that made his heart jump, as she came out from under the porch and the vicar helped her to get in. Then it was the turn of the httle girl. " Good-bye, my dear," said the vicar kindly as he took her hand. " Good-bye," said the chdd. Then she hesitated and looked at John, who was standing beside the clergyman. "Good-bye," she repeated, holding out her httle hand shyly towards him. John took it and grew redder than ever as he felt that the lady was watching him. Then the httle girl blushed and laughed in her small embarrassment, and climbed into the carriage. " You wid write, then ? " asked Mr. Ambrose as he shut the door. " Yes — and thank you again. You are very, very kind to me," answered the lady, and John thought that as she spoke there were tears in her voice.

She seemed very unhappy and to John she seemed very beautiful. Muggins cracked his whip and the fly moved off, leaving the vicar and his pupd standing together at the iron wicket gate before the house. " Wed ? Do you think Angleside got through ? " asked Mr. Ambrose, rather anxiously. Short said he thought Angleside was safe. He hoped the vicar would say something about the lady, but to his annoyance, he said nothing at ad. John coidd not ask questions, seeing it was none of his business and was fain to con tent himself with thinking of the lady's face and voice. He felt very uncomfortable at dinner. He thought the excedent Mrs. Ambrose ey7ed him with unusual severity, as though suspecting what he was thinking about, and he thought the vicar's gray eye twinkled occasionady with the pleasant sense of possessing a secret he had no intention of imparting.

As a matter of fact Mrs. Ambrose was supremely unconscious of the fact that John had seen the lady, and looked at him with some curiosity, observing that he seemed nervous and blushed from time to time and was more silent than usual. She came to the conclusion that he had been working too hard, as usual, and that night requested him to take two httle pellets of aconite, and to repeat the dose in the morning. Whether it was the result of the homœopathic medicine or of the lapse of a few hours and a good night's rest, it is impossible to say ; John, however, was himself again the next morning and showed no further signs of nervousness. But he kept his eyes and ears open, hoping for some news of the exquisite creature who bad made so profound an im pression on his heart. In due time the joyful news arrived from Cambridge that the Honourable Cornelius had passed his examination and was at liberty to matriculate at the beginning of the term.

The intelligence was duly telegraphed to bis father, and in a few hours came a despatch in answer, full of affectionate congratulation and requesting that Cornelius should proceed at once to Paris, where his father was waiting for him. The young man took an affectionate leave of tbe VOL. i. D vicar, of Mrs. Ambrose and especiady of John Short, for whom he had conceived an almost superstitious admiration; old Reynolds was not forgotten in the farewed, and for several days after Angleside's departure the aged gardener was observed to walk somewhat unsteadily and to wear a peculiarly thoughtful expression ; whde the vicar observed with annoyance that Straw berry, the old mare, was less carefully groomed than usual. Strangely coincident with these phenomena was the fact that Simon Gunn's yellow cat seemed to have entirely repented of her evil practices, renouncing from the day when Cornehus left for Paris her periodical invasion of the asparagus beds at the foot of the garden.

But the vicar was too practical a man to waste time in speculating upon the occult relations of seemingly disconnected facts. He apphed himself with ddigence to the work of preparing John Short to compete for the minor scholarship. The labour was congenial. He had never taken a pupd so far before, and it was a genidne delight to him to bring his own real powers into play at last. As the summer wore on, he predicted ad manner of success for John Short, and his predictions were destined before long to be realised, for John did all he promised to do and more also. To have succeeded in pushing the Honourable Cornelius through his entrance examination was a triumph indeed, but an uninteresting one at best, and one which had no further consequences. But to be the means of turning out the senior classic of the University was an honour which would not only greatly increase the good vicar's reputation but would be to hini a source of the keenest satisfaction during the remainder of his hfe ; moreover the prospects which would be immediately opened to John in case he obtained such a brilliant success would be a very material benefit to his unlucky father, whose talents yielded him but a precarious livelihood and whose pitiable con dition had induced his old schoolfellow to under take the education of his son.

Much depended upon John's obtaining one or more scholarships during his career at college. To a man of inferior talents the vicar would have suggested that it would be wiser to go to [chap. A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. a smader college than Trinity where he would have less competition to expect; but as soon as he realised John's powers, he made up his mind that it would be precisely where competi tion was hottest that his pupd would have the greatest success. He woidd get something — perhaps his father would make a httle more money — the vicar even dreamed of lending John a smad sum — something would turn up; at all events he must go to the largest codege and do everything in the best possible way. Mean while he must work as hard as he could during the few months remaining; before the becdnnino of his first term.

Whether the lady ever wrote to Mr. Ambrose, John could not ascertain ; she was never men tioned at the vicarage, and it seemed as though the mystery were never to be solved. But the impression she had made upon the young man's mind remained and even gained strength by the working of his imagination ; for he thought of her night and day, treasuring up every memory of her that he coidd recall, budding romances in his mind, conceiving the most ingenious reasons for II.] 37 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. the solitary visit she had made to the vicarage, and inwardly vowing that if ever he should be at liberty to fodow his own inclinations he would go out into the world and search for her. He was only eighteen then, and of a strongly susceptible temperament. He had seen nothing of the world, for even when living in London, in a dingy lodging, with his father, he had been perpetually occupied with books, reading much and seeing little.

Then he had been at school, but he had seen the dark side of school hfe — the side which boys who are known to be very poor generady see ; and more than ever he had resorted to study for comfort and relief from outward ids. Then at last he had been transferred to a serener state in the vicarage of Billingsfield and had grown up rapidly from a schoolboy to a young man ; but, as has been said, the feminine element at the vicarage was solely represented by Mrs. Ambrose and the monotony of her maternal society was varied only by the occasional visits of the mild young Mrs. Edward Pewlay. John Short had indeed a powerful and aspiring imagination, but it would have been im possible even by straining that faculty to its A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. [chap. utmost activity to think in the same breath of romance and of Mrs. Ambrose, for even in her youth Mrs. Ambrose had not been precisely a romantic character.

John's fancy was not stimu lated by bis surroundings, but it fed upon itself and grew fast enough to acquire an influence over everything he did. It was not surprising that, when at last chance threw in his way a being who seemed instantly to reahse and fulfil his wddest dreams of beauty and feminine fascina tion, he should have yielded without a struggle to the delicious influence, feehng that henceforth his ideal had taken shape and substance, and had thereby become more than ever the ideal in which be delighted. He gave her names, a dozen of them every day, christening her after every heroine in fiction and history of whom he had ever read. But no name seemed to suit ber wed enough ; whereupon he wrote a Greek ode and a Latin epistle to the fad unknown, but omitted to show them to the Reverend Augustin Ambrose, though he was quite certain that they were the best he had ever produced.

Then he began to write a novel, but suddenly recollected that a famous author had written one entitled " No Name," and as that was the only title he could possibly give to the work he contemplated he of course had no choice but to abandon the work itself. He wrote more verses, and he dreamed more dreams, and he meanwhile acquired much learning and in pro cess of time realised that he had but a few days longer to stay at Bdhngsfield. The Michaelmas term was about to open and he must bid farewell to the hospitable roof and tbe learned conversation of the good vicar. But when those last days came be realised that he was leaving the scene of his only dream, and his heart grew sad. Indeed he loved tbe old red brick vicarage with its low porch, overgrown with creepers, its fragrant old flower garden, surrounding it on three sides, its gabled roof, its south wall whereon the vicar constantly attempted to train fig trees, maintaining that the climate of England had grown warmer and that he would prove it — John loved it all, and especially he loved the little study, lined with the books grown familiar to him, and the study door, the door through [chap. 40 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. which he had seen that lovely face which he firmly believed was to inspire him to do great things and to influence his whole life for ever after.

He would leave the door open and place himself just where he bad sat that day, and then he woidd look suddenly up with beating heart, almost fancying he could again see those violet eyes gazing at him from the dusky passage — blushing then to himself, like any girl, and bury ing himself in his book till the fancy was grown too strong and he looked up again. He bad attempted to sketch her face on a bit of paper ; but he had no skid and he thrust the drawing into the paper basket, horrified at having made anything so hideous in the effort to represent anything so beautiful, and returned to making odes upon her, and Latin epistles, in which he succeeded much better. And now the time had come when he must leave ad this dreaming, or at least the scene of it, and go to codege and win scholarships and renown.

It was hard to go and be showed his regret so plainly that Mrs. Ambrose was touched at what she took for his affection for the place and for herself and for the vicar. John Short was indeed very grateful to her for all the kindness she had shown him, and to Mr. Ambrose for the learning he had acquired ; for John was a fine fedow and never forgot an obligation nor undervalued one. But when we are very young our hearts are far more easily touched to joy and sadness by the chords and discords of our own dreaming, than by the material doings of the world around us, or by the strong and benevolent interest our elders are good enough to take in us. We feel grateful to those same elders if we have any good in us, but we are far from feeling a similar interest in them. We see in our imaginations wonderful pictures, and we hear wonderful words, for everything we dream of partakes of an unknown perfection and completely throws into the shade the inartistic commonplaces of daily life.

As John Short grew older, he often regretted the society of his old tutor and in the frequent absence of important buttons from his raiment he bitterly realised that there was no longer a motherly Mrs. Ambrose to inspect his linen ; but when he took leave of them what hurt him most A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. [chap. was to turn his back upon the beloved old study, upon the very door through which he had once, and only once, beheld the ideal of his first love dream. Though the vicar was glad to see the boy started upon what he already regarded as a career of certain victory, he was sorry to lose him, not knowing when he shoidd see him again. John intended to read through ad the vacations untd he got his degree. He might indeed have come down for a day or two at Christmas, but with his very slender resources even so short a pleasure trip was not to be thought of lightly.

It was therefore to be a long separation, so long to look forward to that when John saw the shabby7 little box which contained ad his worldly goods put up into the back of the vicar's dogcart, and stood at last in the had, saying good-bye, he felt as though he was being thrust out into the world never to return again, his heart seemed to rise in his throat, the tears stood in his eyes and he could hardly speak a word. Even then he thought of that day when he had waked up the sleepy7 Muggins to take away the beautdul unknown lady. He felt he must be quick about his leave-taking, or he would break down. " You have been very good to me. I — I shall never forget it," he murmured as he shook hands with Mrs. Ambrose. "And you, too, sir — " he added turning to the vicar. But the old clergy man cut him short, being himself rather uncertain about the throat.

" Good-bye, my lad. God bless y7ou. We shall hear of y7ou soon — showing them what you can do with your Alcaics — Good-bye." So John got into the dogcart and was driven off by the ancient Reynolds — past the* " Duke's Head," past the "Feathers," past the churchyard and the croft — the " croat," they called it in Bdhngsfield — and on by the windmill on the heath, a hideous bit of grassless common euphem istically so named, and so out to the high-road towards the railway station, feeling very miserable indeed. It is a curious fact, too, in the history of his psychology that in proportion as he got farther from the vicarage he thought more and more of his old tutor and less and less of his un finished dream, and he realised painfully that [chap. A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. the vicar was nearly the only friend he had in the world.

He would of course find Cornehus Angleside at Cambridge, but he suspected that Cornehus, turned loose among a merry band of undergraduates of his own position would be a very different person from the idle youth he had known at Bdhngsfield, trembhng in the intervals of his idleness at the awful prospect of the entrance examination, and frantically attempting to master some bit of stray knowledge which ndght possibly be useful to him. Cornehus would hunt, would gamble, would go to the races and would give wines at codege ; John was to be a reading man who must avoid such things as he woidd avoid the devil himself, not only because he was too wretchedly poor to have any share whatever in the amusements of Cornelius and his set, but because every minute was important, every hour meant not only learning but meant, most emphatically, money.

He thought of his poor father, grinding out the hfe of a literary7 hack in a wretched London lodging, duiing Heaven knew where and generady supping not at all, saving every penny to help his son's education, hard working, honest, lacking no virtue except the virtue of all virtues — success. Then he thought how he himself had been favoured by fortune during these last years, living under the vicar's roof, treated with the same consideration as the high-born young gentlemen who had been his companions, living well, sleeping wed and getting the best education in England for nothing or next to nothing, whde that same father of his had never ceased to slave day and night with his pen, honestly doing his best and yet enjoying none of the good things of hfe. . John thought of ad this and set his teeth boldly to face the world.

A few months, he thought, and he might have earned a scholarship — be might be independent. Then a httle longer — less than three years and he might, nay, he would, take high honours in the university and come back crowned with glory, with the prospect of a fellowship, with every profession open to him, with the world at his feet and with money in his hand to help his father out of all his troubles. That was how John Short went to Trinity. It was a hard struggle at first, for he found him- [chap- 46 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. self much poorer than he bad imagined, and it seemed as though the ends could not possibly meet. There was no question of denying himself luxuries ; that would have been easy enough. In those first months it was the necessities that he lacked, the coals for his httle grate, the od for his one smad lamp.

But he fought bravely through it, having, like many another young fedow who has weathered the storms of poverty in pursuit of learning, an iron constitution, and an even stronger wid. He used to say long afterwards that feeling cold was a mere habit and that when one thoroughly7 understood the construction of Greek verses, some stimulus of physical discomfort was necessary to make the imagination work well ; in support of which assertion he said that he had never done such good things by the comfortable fire in the study at Billingsfield vicarage as he did after wards on winter nights by the hght of a tadow candle, high up in Neville's Court. Moreover, if any one argued that it was better for an ex tremely poor man not to go to Trinity, but to some much smader college, he answered that as far as he himself was concerned he could not II.] 47 A TALE OF A LONELY PARISH. have done better, which was quite true and therefore perfectly unanswerable.