Part 22

She came to him at last, a long, lean woman who had bent a stubborn back to many sorrows. A meek, unsubdued woman. The lankiness of limb, and the lankness of feature and hair, sufficiently pleasing in poor Ted, stretched forth at his long length yonder, were not such agreeable characteristics in the mother. Narrow face—narrow nature. In the thin features, contracted nostrils, close, small mouth, Dan might have read poor hope for Kitty.

"I have taken his jewellery," she said in her toneless voice. "I thought it best not to leave it about in a lodging-house. I miss a ring—a ring I gave him on his last birthday. Can you tell me where it is?"

She spread the watch, the chain, the sleeve-links, a certain pearl stud which Dan had noticed once or twice in his shirt when poor Gunton wore dress clothes, upon the table—all the poor, invaluable trifles which had lain on the drawers in that pathetic little heap bequeathed to the dead man's friend. "The ring is missing, you see," she said. She tied up the articles in a spare white handkerchief and slipped them into the pocket of her dress.

"Everything of his has become doubly precious to me," she said. "Perhaps you will be so good as to make inquiries about the ring."

Dan roused himself. Here was his opportunity. "I think the ring—" he began. "I think he gave the ring to Kitty, you know—the girl he was engaged to," he got out.

"Engaged?" the lady repeated. "My boy engaged—and without my knowledge!"

"We don't tell our mothers everything, I'm afraid," Dan said. He made a ghastly attempt to smile, to get back to his habitual easy manner which had forsaken him. "'Twouldn't be for our mothers' peace of mind—"

She interrupted him with cold dislike. "I know nothing of you and your mother," she said. "I know that there was perfect confidence between my son and me."

It was hard, after that, to tell her the story, but he told it, and saw her narrow face change from its frozen grieving to a still more frozen anger. She would not believe, or she affected not to believe, the story. A girl out of a little country shop to marry—her boy!

"You have no right to take away his character so, and he not here to defend himself!" she said. "He—I perceive that he has consorted with low company since he has been here; but he is a gentleman—my son, by birth and education."

"He was a gentleman," Dan said gently. Was—was? Ted was! Ted, who had been so alive, so "in it" in the jovial sense always—was! The word choked poor Dan, but he stumbled on, and told of the poor fellow's last charge to him, his last request to his mother.

Sometimes, in his confidential moments, Ted had spoken of this mother of his. "She is a good woman," he had said; "I suppose she never did, or said, or thought a wicked thing in her life."

She might be good, but she had now a heart as hard as the nether millstone. She did not choose to credit the story. She would not do her dear son's memory such an insult as to believe it. She looked with suspicion as well as dislike upon the poor friend with the rumpled red hair, with the fair skin, blurred and mottled, as such fair skins are wont to be, by his weeping. It was quite possible, she told herself in her miserable little wisdom, that he had made up the tale for his own ends. The hundred pounds was for himself, or at least he would share it. She would not believe; and presently she would hear no more.

"I must now really ask you to leave me alone," she said. "Your good feeling will show you that I have enough to bear."

"And you refuse to do this last thing poor Ted asked of you?" Dan said to her.

"I have no proof that he asked it," she answered.

And with that insult ringing in his ears, Dan went.

He pulled the door to upon him with a muttered oath on his lips; but he was not so enraged as another man would have been in his place. The "old girl" wasn't behaving well; but in Dan's experience, so many people did not behave well; and as it happened, the thing could be put right. If it had been yesterday, how helpless he would have been in the emergency! But old Playford's death had come just in the nick of time. As for himself and his chance—his last chance—well! He looked across at that other door behind which Ted lay. Ted and he had stuck together through ill report and good, had helped each other out of many a scrape, had had such good times!

Dan looked for a moment at the closed door, then stepped across the yard of matting and opened it.

Many a time he had run in without waiting for admission to his friend's lodgings, had pushed open the door to call a word to the young doctor, already gone to bed or not yet got up, perhaps. So, once more he opened the door far enough to admit his red head, and looked in. Ted was dead, he knew; but it takes time to reconcile us to the fact that the dead are also deaf, senseless, past grieving or comfort.

"It's all right, old man; don't you worry. I'll see to it," Dan said.

CARES OF A CURATE

"November 6th, 1901.

"... You were with me much down at H— in the spring, and saw many of the ins and outs of a certain affair then going on in which I was personally interested, and which took up a large portion of my time; and I think I owe it to you, Charles, to let you know how to all that foolishness there came a finish. This 'excellent bachelor' is not to be spoilt by matrimony. She wouldn't have me. And so on, and so on. I spare you all particulars, and you see that I am alive to tell the tale. It made things a little difficult at H—. I got away as soon as I could and met with another curacy in this place, and I write to you on the evening of my arrival. It looks a cheerful, pretty little spot, but I haven't shaken down yet, and thoughts of H—, and of last May when you were with me, keep turning up in my mind to-night.

"My vicar seems all right. I thought it very decent of him to meet me himself at the station. He apologised for having insisted on an answer to his written question—was I a confirmed bachelor? The ladies of the parish were in favour of a celibate curate, he said, and he himself did not want to be bothered by a man who would be getting married directly, and going away. I told him there would not be any fear of misdemeanour of that kind with me.

"He brought me on here—well no, he didn't, that was what I wished him to do. He took me to the vicarage and gave me tea. His daughter gave it, rather. You'd like the daughter. Not very young, and not pretending to be; filled with good sense, a practical, companionable sort of body. She, too, was good enough to approve my estate of confirmed bachelorhood. She said they had found things work so much pleasanter on these lines. The last three of her father's curates had been devoted to the single life. I asked, for the sake of conversation, what had become of them, and she told me, without the change of a muscle of her face, that they had married. The vicar awoke to the subject of our conversation here, and said that they had married his three other daughters.

"'Jessica is the only one left me now,' he said.

"'Jessica must always be left or what will become of you?' the sensible young woman said.

"A great many women would have felt it a little awkward, but she was quite unembarrassed. She very kindly put on her hat to show me the way to my rooms. Even came in, and sat talking for an hour. She said quite naturally that the best thing a woman got out of advancing years was the possibility of making of a man a friend. She is thirty-five, and isn't ashamed of the fact. Altogether a refreshing woman.

"My rooms are not like those at H—. Do you remember that evening in May when your sister had been on the river with the Hysopps, and she and Tom and the mother came in, and they brought Mary? The moon was on the water, and we would not have in the lamps, but sat and talked in that light. Well, there's no river here, and the moon doesn't shine, and there are one or two other things missing! But Mrs Bust, my landlady—what a name!—appears a decent sort, and to judge by my supper to-night, an excellent cook.

"By the way, every available jug and jar and glass is filled with chrysanthemums. No less than seven ladies, whose names she gave me, had brought up bunches during the day, Mrs Bust said.

"This really looks extremely kind of the people. I thought it such a pretty way of welcoming a stranger....

"26th November.

"I'm not in the least offended. Why should I be? I know, as you say, that lookers-on see most of the game, and I am sure that you are perfectly genuine in your advice. But I have had enough, thank you. It will last me my life. Besides, you are mistaken—she wouldn't. A girl like that with four hundred a year—I always knew the money was a bar—why should she? I've got no illusions about myself, as a rule. I was a fool ever to think it possible. Thank you—but don't say any more about it. I ask it as a favour. I have rolled a stone against that door, you understand. 'Want but a few things and complain of nothing' shall be my motto; and although at a certain time of my life I wanted a good deal, at least I won't complain.

"If only there were fewer women in the world! Fewer in B—, perhaps, would answer my purpose. The fact of my being a confirmed bachelor makes them feel safe with me, I suppose, but the fact is I can't stir for them, Charles; I stifle with them. I wish you'd run down and take some of the pressure off. I wish a few other good fellows would come and rescue me. Her mother said that Mary (the forbidden topic!) was not suited for a clergyman's wife, that she hated useful work. Perhaps that was why I liked her so much. She never bored me. These women—!

"They are as kind as angels. I'm going to run my pen through the above.

"I've got in a piano—you know my weakness for strumming? My landlady's daughter shares that weakness. I hear the piano begin before I reach the garden gate, I hear it shut with a bang as I come in at the door. Waltzes, played very quick, and galops with the loud pedal down and an impromptu bass. Her mother suggested to me that Cissy should come in and play to me in the evenings sometimes. I did not exactly jump at the offer, and Mrs Bust, to remove a possible objection in my mind, explained that of course she had not intended to leave her daughter alone with me; she herself could bring her sewing and chaperon her, she said.

"I am beginning to dread my meals because this good woman waits on me. I have begged to be allowed to pour out my own glass of beer and to reach my own salt-cellar. No use.

"Mrs Carter, an influential parishioner, living at a nice place called The Lawns (I haven't counted how many there are of them, but have noticed a few yards of grass-plot at the side of the house), said to me the other day that she believed I was a woman-hater. I had encountered fifteen of them at her house and was in a desperate mood. I said I was. I thought I was safe with Mrs Carter. I've met each one of that fifteen since, and she has in every case stopped to say to me—'Oh, I hear you're a woman-hater!' They all seemed to be mightily pleased. It put me in a stupid position. I managed to say something civil to each; but I have a bone to pick with Mrs Carter! She is always poking her fun at every one, and wants to know if I don't make an exception in favour of Jessica.

"Jessica!!

"She and I get on together, however. So we need; for she is an ardent worker in the parish, and morn and noon and dewy eve are she and I thrown together. Often, when I think to have an hour to myself for reading or writing, she comes to my room and sits over the fire with me, her petticoats carefully lifted, her feet on the fender—I am tempted to wish her at Jericho; but she is a good sort....

"5th December.

"Many thanks for your brilliant suggestion. Very thoughtful of you. Jessica is not in the least that kind of woman. She might have been married ten years ago if she had liked. She told me all about it. The last man who married the sister meant to have Jessica.

"I say, there's a tragedy, Charles! To feel as you do about the woman you want to marry, and to have to go through it with another!

"She's a splendid manager and organiser, and a devoted worker. She told me yesterday that if ever she did consent to marry it would have to be her father's curate; she would neither leave the parish nor her father, she said. A lot of women would have been embarrassed in saying that, and I can see the expression of your face as you read it. Spare your gibes. Jessica is miles above the ordinary tricks and wiles and falsities of women. You'd know it if you saw her. A stout, strong-looking young woman in thick boots and short skirts; a weather-beaten, serviceable being.

"It must have been for her sterling qualities those other men were in love with Jessica. All the same, dreadful, doubtless, to lose her.

"I note your news of H—. I have cut off all relations with that place. People there don't know where I am. Have forgotten that I exist, most likely. Do not trouble to send me any further information.

"Ah, my dear Charles! If I only might do my work for the next world after a manly fashion, as other men do the work of this! These women won't let me. They are in everything. They meddle and mar and make mischief. Half of the Fifteen (can you halve them?) are at loggerheads with the other half because of words I am reported to have said. They quarrel with each other, but, heaven help me! they won't quarrel with me. They make me perpetual presents, they ask me endless questions, they consult me in difficulties of their own ingenious making and always cropping up. Half of them have husbands they might go to, children to occupy their time. One is at least sixty—!

"A girl and her mother have been here to see me to-day. Mother indignant, girl in floods of tears. Some one of the Fifteen had said that the girl was 'running after' me. Me, with my thirty-eight years, my fortune of a hundred and fifty a year! Can't you see my blushes on the paper as I write it? Had her daughter by look, by word, by deed, done anything to deserve that cruel slander, the mother wanted to know? Then, was I not ashamed such things should be said? God knows I am ashamed, but what can I do? They are always saying such things one of another. How can I stop it?

"'You must not be so civil to them,' Jessica says.

"I assure her that without positive rudeness I can't be less civil than I am.

"'Then, be rude to them,' counsels Jessica.

"How can one man, standing alone, immersed in rummage sales, parish concerts, mothers' meetings, school teas, and other feminine functions, be rude to Fifteen women at once? Between you and me, I have tried it, in my desperation, in individual cases, and it has no effect. I have discovered you can't please a woman better than to bully her.

"'You must marry Jessica,' Mrs Carter says. 'Married to Jessica you will find yourself a mere man, a very ordinary person.'

"'I should want an extraordinary nerve to do it,' I was on the point of saying, but remembered in time how she had reported me to the Fifteen. The pulpit is becoming the only place where I can enjoy the luxury of free speech. Words spoken in any less public place are brought back to me distorted past recognition.

"Heigho! I am always grumbling. As a fact, people put themselves out in the most flattering manner to be kind to me; I suppose I am as comfortable here as I should be in any place after H—.

"Little Cissy Bust found out that I was fond of flowers. Since then she pulls off a chrysanthemum every morning from the plant in her mother's window, and lays it beside my plate. Sweet of the little thing, but I watch with dismay the blooms lessening on the maternal plant. The mother is a good sort, in her way, but as I've been working in it all day I don't care to be bothered with the tittle-tattle of the parish when I come home at night. She is always bringing me delicacies off her own table. I have to eat them, because she stops to see me do it....

"19th December.

"How many afternoon tea-cloths have I had given me since I came, Charles? Guess.

"Nine. I haven't the smallest use for one of them. I never get the chance of having tea at home in the afternoon, being always under the obligation to eat muffins in this lady's house or that. Jessica came in through wind and rain one day and said she'd like to have a cup. Here seemed my opportunity. I showed her the nine and facetiously asked her to choose; or should I spread them all at once? She always has too much in hand to stop to jest over trifles; she waved the tea-cloths aside, and seized her cup off Mrs Bust's tray, and went on talking shop. I don't want to decry Jessica. She's worth all the rest put together. While they gabble, she does things. If Mrs Carter (who hates the sight of her, by the way) and the rest of them would only let us alone!

"So the engagement at H— is broken off! It must be a blow to poor Holt, but I never thought him suited to her. Who is, I wonder? What a madness it was to think that she and I could pull together. Imagine that little teasing, irresponsible child in such a box as this, bored to death by these interminable women! For all her naughtiness and her folly she was wiser than I. But I am wiser now.

"Of course, if you hear of any fresh engagements or new freaks of the young lady, you will let me know at once.

"Mrs Bust was insolent about that cup of tea. I greatly hope Jessica did not notice the way she banged the tray down. She said afterwards that no single lady should come to a single gentleman's rooms, let alone take a meal with him. If there were other rooms to be had I would not put up with this creature. My dear Charles, I'm getting to be, in reality, what I've had the credit for being all along—a woman-hater.

"I go a good bit to Mrs Carter's. Her house is comfortable, and she is an amusing creature. Sees jokes, and cheers one up. She teases me about my beset condition, and tries to get me to say things. She calls me Job, and the Fifteen my comforters. Neither witty nor appropriate, but it pleases Mrs Carter. She says the least I can do is to give the nine donors of the nine tea-cloths tea. I frankly told her of the difficulty with Bust, who is inexorable on the matter of etiquette. It will be all right if she comes, Mrs Carter says. She is so set on it, I've had to give in. I've asked them. They're coming on Thursday.