The Dean and his Daughter ... Fifth edition

Chapter I

ransjaiHEN I look back to the earlier days of rffWySJ my life, I wonder why I did not follow the example of Bampfylde Moore Carew. and run away with the gipsies. Many of them came through our parish on their way back wards and forwards between the south, and Exmoor and Dartmoor in the north. Ossulston was, I think, the most miserable village in all North Devon. For miles and miles there was not a hedge — nothing but heavy, squat, stone walls. The river ran through the parish, and there was a mill, of course, and a mill-dam with trout in it, which used to lie under the shadow of the old stone bridge ; you could lean on the parapet and watch them hanging lazily about in the stream, each in its own especial nook. My father was the Vicar of Ossulston, and I was his only child. The Vicarage was a stone house of eight rooms, roofed with stone roughly chipped into heavy slabs.

We kept a couple of A cows, some pigs, and of course poultry and ducks. I need scarcely say we had an orchard, but the trees had not been grafted for years, and were long past their prime. We burned wood and turf — being many miles from the nearest railway station, and even from the canal. Our roof was thickly covered with yellow stone crop, houseleek, and other such parasitic plants. In the garden my father allowed old gooseberry and currant trees to run to waste, and there were a few wallflowers. Once or twice a year my father went to Exeter, coming back with clothes for himself, a supply of tobacco and spirits and rough stuffs, flannel, calico, print, and serge, to be made into garments for his daughter. He used to bring back some ready-made boots and a few other domestic necessaries, not to be procured at the village shop.

Of myself, and my education, with the exception of Greek and Latin which he taught me more or less thoroughly, and of anything that might con cern me, he took no heed whatever. Except that I had to go to church twice on Sundays, I was as little looked after as an Exmoor colt. I was happy, however, in my own way. For I could not even remember the loss of my mother, and there was nobody to care or trouble where I went or what I did. When I was six years old, I recollect that I used to steal the fresh eggs early in the morning, make little holes in them with a pin, suck out the contents, and carefully pulverise and bury the shells. My father often wondered why his hens did not lay as regularly as they ought to have done ; but he never seemed to trouble himself as to how I got my breakfast, or, indeed, whether I got any breakfast at all.

In summer there were apples and plums. After dinner I could forage for myself in the kitchen, for my father dined alone. Sometimes I did not see him for several days together. When his own dinner was over, he used to sit in an arm-chair in his room, smoke a long clay pipe, and drink spirits and water. When he had had enough tobacco and enough spirits, he used to go to bed. His great occasions were when a neighbouring farmer asked him to dinner. He always accepted such invitations. ' We must be all things to all men,' he used to say solemnly. I fancy he gave this precept a some what liberal interpretation, for I know now that the peculiar condition in which he used to return home was due to strong waters, and that his late hours the next morning, with his anxiety for dry toast and weak tea, had the same explanation.

I have since heard that he was a disappointed man. He ought to have taken high honours at his university, but instead of that he somehow failed to take a good degree. He ought to have had a Fellowship and a College living, but his claims were passed over. As he got on in life, or rather in years, his friends persistently gave him the cold shoulder. The livings he had been positively promised, and which had been given to other men, were more numerous than the number of pounds in his own wretched stipend. He once in desperation thought of writing a book on the antiquities, county history, and natural his tory of Devonshire, but he never got further than ordering several reams of foolscap and a big jar of ink, for both of which he was ultimately sued in the County Court, when an order was made against him to liquidate the amount by monthly instal ments of four shillings each.

My father was now perilously close upon sixty years of age, but had a pleasant habit of telling everybody that he was somewhere between forty six and fifty. Age had certainly put very few traces upon him. Like all selfish men he was thoroughly well preserved, and if he had been a duke, with the medical resources of a duke, with the culinary resources of a duke, and with ducal opportunities for travel, change of climate, and special attention to every minute detail of com fort, might, perhaps, have lived on into his tenth decade. With nothing to worry you, and with plenty of money, it is perfectly possible to trifle with Providence up to an immense age. His own views of life and its arrangements, so far as they concerned himself, were simple enough. He had his income as Vicar and his bit of glebe, which he prudently let out.

During the summer months, when London was empty, he made a clear profit. Some fashionable London preacher would come down and take the Vicarage for three months, undertaking all the responsibilities of parochial service. Out of this temporary transfer my father used to make a comfortable annual sum. In fact he tarmed his Vicarage, and the summer months in which he let his house were the season of his fat kine. Always struggling to make both ends meet, he somehow contrived to satisfy the problem from his own point of view. For my own part I know no more dull, wretched, miserable being than a stupid man with a few worthless and fourth-rate university credentials, on the strength of which he believes, or has once believed, that he can take the world by storm. My father had forgotten all that he ever knew, if, indeed, he had ever known anything ; and in the private bar-room of the village inn, he was, as I knew perfectly well, the general butt of the company.

They pretended to listen to him, they treated him to whisky and water, and when the time came for closing, he was, in consideration of his position, sent home in charge of the stable-boy. That youth had a very fair alto voice, in virtue of which he sang in the parish choir. It was un pleasant to see him put his tongue in his cheek when my unhappy father stumbled through the words ' manifold sins.' These were a few of my youthful trials. So the years slipped away until I was twenty. I kept no account of time ; why should I have done so? There was nothing in the past to which I could look back, nor anything in the future to which I could look forward. Andromeda, chained up by her hands to the rock, was not more helpless. But she had a chance which I had not. At any moment the sea monster might put in an appearance and devour her.

I had no prospect of any such sharp, sudden, and merciful end to my sufferings. There I was — chained. Twenty years from now I should be an old woman. And the twenty years showed no hope, prospect, or even chance of release. It was horrible. One morning there came a break in this ter rible monotony. My father received a letter which evidently puzzled him. It could not have been a County Court summons, for he anticipated those and knew their contents before their arrival. Neither was it an offer of preferment, in which case he would have at once made his way to Pent ridge, the nearest railway station, and have done extravagant things in telegraphy ; perhaps even have borrowed a couple of pounds, on the strength of the good news, from the landlord of the ' Bull Hotel,' and so have hurried up to London, by way of taking time by the forelock, and making assurance doubly sure.

Evidently it was none of these things. Equally clear was it that it meant something, and as the something in question could not possibly be for the worse, I was content to wait. That afternoon, my father, at an hour earlier than usual, betook himself to the room which he called his study. Let me give the inventory of this apartment. There were several battered vol umes of Bohn's Translations of the Classics ; there were some odd volumes of South, Barrow, and Til lotson. There was Stanley's ' Sinai and Palestine,' an old edition of the ' Encyclopædia Britannica,' Alford's ' Greek Testament,' Harold Browne on the Articles, Paley's ' Evidences,' and a few stray novels in yellow pasteboard ; ' Barchester Towers,' ' The Last Chronicles of Barset,' ' Dr Thorne, ' Tom Jones,' ' Peter Simple,' and other such ec clesiastical and unecclesiastical romances.

On the mantelpiece was a tobacco jar, and by it were one or two clay pipes ; there was a shelf with bottles white and black, most of them empty. On rails against the wall, hung in various stages of dilapi dation, overcoats, leggings, and waterproof gar ments. There was also an old double-barrelled gun, a powder flask, and a shot-belt, for my father, being on terms with the surrounding farmers, con sidered rabbits a lawful part of the tithe of which the State had iniquitously despoiled him. I entered this sanctum sanctorum without terror. I was too old for my father to smack me, and there was really nothing else of which I need be in the least degree afraid. But I knew it was his habit to transact important business in the study. Unim portant business, such as the bill of the butcher or of the baker, he used to transact at the garden gate ■ and so, when summoned to the study, I knew that there was something more important on hand than the weekly accounts, or the prospects of the potato patch, or the precise reasons why the old brown Cochin hen should have left off laying.

My father was in an old wooden arm-chair, in which he looked almost venerable. It was close to the table, which gave him an appearance of having that very moment abandoned his work. There must have been in him, at some time or other, some vague instincts of art, for the pose and the surroundings were really clever. As I opened the door I almost seemed to hear a small bell jingle for the rising of the curtain. My parent arranged his necktie, and ran his fingers through his hair ; then he twisted his only ring round upon his little finger, bringing the small brilliant diamond held in its claws into prominent play. Then he cleared his throat and began. ' Take a seat, Miriam,' he commenced. Then, when I had obeyed, he proceeded cheerily, and in a tone of assurance, as if he possessed the secrets of the Universe, and it lay with him only to hold up his little finger and to at once stop the rotation of the earth upon its axis. ' My dear friend, I may say my oldest friend, for long years have not diminished an affection which was commenced at Rugby, continued at Cambridge, and confirmed and consolidated in riper life ; my dear friend, I say, Sir Henry Craven, is exhausted by his manifold duties in town, and writes to say that he wants a few days or weeks of entire rest.

Of course I have asked him to share our humble roof; his wealth is enormous, his influence immense. I believe that to-morrow he could get me made a Bishop ; you may be sure I shall not lose the chance, and you must use your wits to aid me. He is a man of the world, and men of the world are captivated at once by an inge'nue. You see, my dear, this place is lonely, desolate and remote. You have no companions of your own age ; you have not those pleasures and innocent enjoyments which it is the chief sorrow of my life that I am unable to provide for you. And I too,' here my father expanded his chest, and assumed an appearance of intense re sponsibility, ' feel myself a labourer in the vineyard whose allotted work has not yet come to his hand. I am wasting my abilities and my time in a small parish, when I ought to be leading public opinion, warning against the errors of the time, and point ing out the true path to take among the many rocks, shoals, gulfs, and quicksands that beset our age.

And so, my dear, we must be practical. Get the house in order ; get some ammonia and sponge the grease spots out of my Sunday suit ; see that my study is put in order, and make the reception-room look as pretty as you can. Juggins, our churchwarden, has a greenhouse, and no doubt Mrs Juggins will lend you a few geraniums or calceolarias, or something of the kind in pots. And if you have a muslin dress — I believe you have — you had better get it washed and ironed, for you'll have to dine while Sir Henry is here ; and you will want a little blue ribbon round your waist, and some velvet, or something, round your neck. Here is a two-shilling piece. And now pray be as quick as you can, for money in travelling expenses is no object to Sir Henry. He thinks nothing of ten shillings for a fly. It is odd that the good things of this world should be so unevenly divided.

And he may be here very shortly. He must on no account find us unprepared.' And herewith my excellent parent strolled away down the village to visit his senior churchwarden, intimating that he wished me to accompany him. By a singular and happy coincidence it was one o'clock. Mr Thacker, a prosperous blacksmith and wheelwright, was just about to dine off bacon and broad beans, with a treacle dumpling to follow. The call of the Vicar was positively opportune. My father and I stayed to dinner, and after it he smoked a pipe with Mr Thacker, over which they discussed the present average prices of market produce. He also intimated the name and rank of his expected visitor, whereat Mr Thacker put aside the tobacco jar, and produced a box of cigars, together with a choice bottle of old Hollands. ' He had always himself,' said the churchwarden, ' been a hard-working man who had paid his own way, every farthing of it, and had never been beholden to anybody for anything.' This was a home-thrust which made my father gulp his Hollands at the temporary risk of suffo cation.

Mr Thacker added that good men were scarce, and he, for his part, should like to see my father made a Bishop, or a Canon at least. ' What does it matter, Mr St Aubyn ? ' he pro foundly observed. ' Some of us ride to the hounds in pink, and some in black. 'Tisn't those who ride in pink that are always in at the death. Give me a man who knows the country. Look there, the Hollands are your way. It's only April now. Wait till the hunting season. I shall see you in gaiters long before you'll see me in my old tops. When you've got the gaiters you must remember an old friend, and let me have a good cathedral lease. I never like to trouble a friend, especially a gentle man, and a reverend gentleman like yourself, and that little matter of three pound ten last Michael mas may stand over as long as you like.

Here's my hand upon it.' • To forego a very doubtful debt of seventy shillings for the prospect, however remote, of an advantageous lease, is not, as things go, a bad spe culation. Evidently Mr Thacker did not think so ; THE DEAN AND HIS DAUCHTER. 10 for, as his Vicar left, he pressed a sovereign upon him, with some incoherent remarks about the num ber of turnpikes upon the road. He must have forgotten in his excitement that his reverend visitor had been a foot passenger, and did not live more than half a mile away. The gold in his waistcoat pocket imparted elas ticity to my father's tread. He hummed operatic airs as we walked back. He had been in his younger days one of the leading spirits of a musical club. His head was erect, and his chest expanded like that of a pouter pigeon. Indeed, his enthusiasm was positively infectious, and I began to picture myself the proud possessor of a silk dress, a sewing machine, and a complete set of Tennyson's poems, inaccessible luxuries for which I had often yearned when sitting alone in the twilight upon the kitchen hearth, knitting mittens and stockings for the winter, and sorely puzzled over the stockings in the matter of heel.

I held a brief council of war that night with Mrs Peel, our only domestic, in which we rehearsed the household stores, and went into a number of minute economic details. There is an infinite amount of trouble involved in such small matters as linen, the best china tea service, and the temporary reproduction of almost forgotten household treasures that are resting in lavender, and must be furbished up for this special occasion. But my father did not interfere with us, and so upon the whole we settled matters more expeditiously than might have been anticipated.

Chapter II

Two days later the great man himself arrived some what late in the afternoon, and while the swallows were still flying high. He was the sole occupant of a pair-horse fly, the front seat of which was littered with newspapers and other light baggage. A second and humbler vehicle conveyed his valet with a portmanteau, a fur overcoat, rugs, and other necessaries of travel, all charmingly strapped together in the most de lightful order. Before the first fly had stopped the valet was waiting at our porch to let down the steps, open the door, and assist his master out. It must have been many years since our village had witnessed so imposing an arrival. My father received the old gentleman in his most courtly style with marked cordiality, but without effusion. Sir Henry, after shaking hands, looked round and pleasantly remarked that it was a pretty place, but that it would be, he should imagine, rather dull in winter.

My father an swered with a bit of Latin which I had heard him quote so often that I knew it by heart. It was, — 0 fortunati nimium, sua si bona norint, Agricolœ! And he wagged his head as much as to say, — ' a Dean should always be a learned man. Look how I have kept up my classics.' Sir Henry's answer was vague but reassuring, and evidently intended to be kindly. He said, — 'Exactly so. What I have always felt myself. Poor Peel used to say that every man should know his Horace by heart ; but I never really had the time.' And with this we all went indoors. We had dinner at seven, and it went off better than might have been expected. There were freshly caught trout with melted butter, a pair of broiled chickens with vegetables, an apple pie with clotted cream, and some cheese and salad. Sir Henry had with forethought brought down a supply of wine and liqueurs, partly, no doubt, out of kindness, and partly with due regard for his own comfort.

The valet, Mr Watson, waited upon us with a solemnity that almost chilled my veins. He had an eye that seemed to be perpetu ally occupied with estimates and measurements. I am sure before the dinner was over he had thoroughly satisfied himself that the carpet had been turned a second time, and that it had not been originally planned for the room. Dinner over, Mr Watson produced fresh wines and the liqueurs, and somehow I found myself drinking a glass of claret. It was the first time I had ever tasted claret in my life, and I frankly confess that I did not like it. He then with de liberation placed on the table a large box of cigars and a small silver spirit-lamp. I took this as a signal for my departure, and after exchanging glances with my father, and returning Sir Henry's bow, acted upon it.

I was not sorry to get away, for Sir Henry, although he did not stare at me, eyed me, as it were, round the corner, and with such persistency as to make me extremely un comfortable. Mr Watson with many apologies, begged me to permit him to make the coffee himself, as he knew exactly how Sir Henry liked it. He performed the task to a marvel, and returned from the dining room with the welcome intimation that my father desired me to be told that I need not sit up. This was but too pleasant news for me, and I hurried off to bed, Mr Watson handing me my candle with the most profound gravity, and asking me if a cigar in the servants' hall would be against the rules of what he called ' The Rectory.' I reassured him on this point, and in a very few minutes was sound asleep. Early next morning I was up and about.

The sitting-room, where we had banqueted the night before, had to be arranged and decorated with fresh flowers. Of these I managed to get together a sufficient allowance. Mrs Juggins had been very liberal, and so had the Thackers. I also scalded a bowl of milk, and made some fresh clotted cream in the most approved Devonshire fashion. The delicate sulphur-tinted primrose was thick on every hedge bank, and I adorned the table with its blossom, and with some violets which grew in a treasured nook of my own. This exhausted my own resources. From Mrs Juggins and Mrs Thacker I procured a few more flowers, and what was far more important, a young duckling and some early potatoes not much larger then big walnuts, to the preparation of which articles for the first dejeuner our Vicarage had ever witnessed, I at once addressed myself, only too glad to have anything to keep my mind employed.

My father was later than usual. He was dressed with scrupulous care, and had an indescribable air about him of one who was artistically accommodat ing himself to an amusing situation, an air which might almost have fitted the Grand Monarque at the Petit Trianon. He looked radiant, and posi tively many years younger than his actual age. Sir Henry, of course, was about three-quarters of an hour late, but was also most carefully ar rayed. The same age as my father, as nearly as might be, he looked about fifteen years younger. He was slightly bald, but not a grey hair was visible upon his head or in his daintily trimmed whiskers. His single-breasted morning-coat fitted his well-preserved figure to perfection, and his Parisian boots were as resplendent as if cut out of solid jet. I could not help in a kind of way admiring him.

He was beyond doubt a fine and handsome man, or at any rate had once been so, and he had that ease and charm of manner which means nothing in itself, but can only be acquired at Courts. I understood this secret soon after, when I found out that he had been successively at Eton, a Queen's page, a cornet in the Blues, and ulti mately military attaches and after that, Secretary of Legation at Vienna — still the most exclusive Court in Europe, and the one where old traditions are the most jealously preserved. Breakfast over, Sir Henry declared himself in favour of a walk. England, he observed, was the only country in which a walk in the lanes was really possible, and even pleasant. Besides, our English villages were picturesque without being squalid or malarious. He was a bit of an anti quarian, he added, and there would almost certainly be some monuments, or possibly even bronzes in our beautiful old church, which would interest him.

Would I kindly act as his guide ? ' When,' said he with a smile that did credit to his dentist, ' I visit a country place, I always follow the example of our greatest living lawyer, Lord Selborne. I look into the local antiquities, and try in my small way to fit them in with the county history. Now, I came across a most curious inscription once in a parish church in Torbay. It was in memory of an Admiral who had died in the Spanish main, and it commenced, " Here lie the heart and brains of — " well, whoever it may have been. It was strictly correct. The gallant old gentleman had died in action, and they had brought home his brain and his heart in a small keg of rum. With you, Miss St Aubyn, to guide me, I am sure that we shall unearth something of interest. Your father must be too busied with his parochial work to spare many moments of his hardly-earned leisure for archæology.' My father frankly admitted that this was the case, carefully adding, however, that archæology in all its branches had always been his favourite pursuit, and concl'jding with some incoherent remarks about a rocking stone in the nearest parish.

So I picked up my hat and a light shawl, and away I went with the old gentleman. It was impossible to be angry with him. It was exas perating. He gave you no loophole whatever. He was the very pink of politeness, an Emperor of small talk. Besides, his small talk was really clever, and wholly unlike anything I had ever heard. He was far too satisfied with himself and his own position, to be in any way vain. How the time passed, I can hardly tell ; I was excited, and, to tell the truth, a trifle overwrought. But everything went smoothly enough, for Sir Henry, somehow or other, gave me no trouble. Looking back at things now, I should say he was endeavouring to impress me with the idea that he would make a most admirable and in dulgent husband. ' Devonshire, Miss St Aubyn,' he said, ' almost reminds me of Nice and Mentone.

The climate seems identical. Of course you have seen the Mediterranean.' I replied that I had not. ' Ah, indeed ! I suppose your father has been too engrossed in his literary labours to take you there ? It is the garden of the Hesperides, the land of the Phœnicians. Oranges and peaches and lemons grow in the open air, and the tideless sea is perpetually calm and blue. You are too hnppy to think of anything, or even to do any thing. And up above you are the Alps ; pine forests at their base, then gorse and heather, then eternal snow. It seems strange to sit in the shade, and to look upwards at untrodden snow. Travel lers will tell you of the glories of Rio, and of Jamaica, and of San Francisco harbour, but for my part I prefer the bay of Villefranche and the Riviera generally to the rest of the world.

To tell you the truth, I have an idea of building myself a villa there, and never again returning to this land of fog and mist.' I answered, wholly without enthusiasm, that it was no doubt very beautiful, but that I myself had never been out of Devonshire, and could so but half realise his description. The discovery that I had never left my native county made him very angry. I ought at least to have been to Paris, to London in the season, to Cowes during the Regatta week, to Ascot, to the Highlands, and to a number of other places, with all of which he was eminently familiar. Feeling bound to somehow stop this flood of conversation, I quietly reminded him that my father's stipend had put an annual Continental tour beyond his reach. In the most airy and graceful manner possible, Sir Henry assured me that money was a mere trifle, that my father's position would soon be most materially improved, that some other clerical pre ferment was a certainty for him, and that with a wider field his talents could not possibly but assert themselves. 'Your father,' he went on to say, 'has hidden himself too much, and has not done his own great abilities justice.

But he is still in the prime of life and fully able to make his mark. And,' he went on to add, ' I am now speaking to you, dear Miss St Aubyn, with your father's permission, and in deed at his express wish. He is most anxious to resume his fitting position in the world, a position distinctly due to his birth, his connections, and his great natural gifts. But his first and one thought is for yourself, and he wishes you to understand that in every step he may take under my guidance, or with my assistance or otherwise, the one and only object nearest to his heart is your own welfare and happiness.' Here he stopped, and I had to reply as best I could, and without consideration. Of course I had sense enough to know what the whole thing meant, but what was I to do ? I was as helpless as the daughter of Jairus, or as Iphigenia herself.