The Vicar's Daughter, George MacDonald [important books to read .txt] 📗

once my husband has insisted on raising her wages, on the ground of the endless good he gets in his painting from the merriment her oddities afford him,—namely, the clear insight, which, he asserts, is the invariable consequence. I must in honesty say, however, that I have seen him something else than merry with her behavior, many a time.

But I find the things I have to say so crowd upon me, that I must either proceed to arrange them under heads,—which would immediately deprive them of any right to a place in my story,—or keep them till they are naturally swept from the bank of my material by the slow wearing of the current of my narrative. I prefer the latter, because I think my readers will.

What with one thing and another, this thing to be done and that thing to be avoided, there was nothing more said about the dinner-party, until my father came to see us in the month of July. I was to have paid them a visit before then; but things had come in the way of that also, and now my father was commissioned by my mother to arrange for my going the next month.

As soon as I had shown my father to his little room, I ran down to Percivale.

“Papa is come,” I said.

“I am delighted to hear it,” he answered, laying down his palette and brushes. “Where is he?”

“Gone up stairs,” I answered. “I wouldn’t disturb you till he came down again.”

He answered with that world-wide English phrase, so suggestive of a hopeful disposition, “All right!” And with all its grumbling, and the tristesse which the French consider its chief characteristic, I think my father is right, who says, that, more than any other nation, England has been, is, and will be, saved by hope. Resuming his implements, my husband added,—

“I haven’t quite finished my pipe,—I will go on till he comes down.”

Although he laid it on his pipe, I knew well enough it was just that little bit of paint he wanted to finish, and not the residue of tobacco in the black and red bowl.

“And now we’ll have our dinner party,” I said.

I do believe, that, for all the nonsense I had talked about returning invitations, the real thing at my heart even then was an impulse towards hospitable entertainment, and the desire to see my husband merry with his friends, under—shall I say it?—the protecting wing of his wife. For, as mother of the family, the wife has to mother her husband also; to consider him as her first-born, and look out for what will not only give him pleasure but be good for him. And I may just add here, that for a long time my bear has fully given in to this.

“And who are you going to ask?” he said. “Mr. and Mrs. Morley to begin with, and”—

“No, no,” I answered. “We are going to have a jolly evening of it, with nobody present who will make you either anxious or annoyed. Mr. Blackstone,”—he wasn’t married then,—“Miss Clare, I think,—and”—

“What do you ask her for?”

“I won’t if you don’t like her, but”—

“I haven’t had a chance of liking or disliking her yet.”

“That is partly why I want to ask her,—I am so sure you would like her if you knew her.”

“Where did you tell me you had met her?”

“At Cousin Judy’s. I must have one lady to keep me in countenance with so many gentlemen, you know. I have another reason for asking her, which I would rather you should find out than I tell you. Do you mind?”

“Not in the least, if you don’t think she will spoil the fun.”

“I am sure she won’t. Then there’s your brother Roger.”

“Of course. Who more?”

“I think that will do. There will be six of us then,—quite a large enough party for our little dining-room.”

“Why shouldn’t we dine here? It wouldn’t be so hot, and we should have more room.”

I liked the idea. The night before, Percivale arranged every thing, so that not only his paintings, of which he had far too many, and which were huddled about the room, but all his properties as well, should be accessory to a picturesque effect. And when the table was covered with the glass and plate,—of which latter my mother had taken care I should not be destitute,—and adorned with the flowers which Roger brought me from Covent Garden, assisted by a few of our own, I thought the bird’s-eye view from the top of Jacob’s ladder a very pretty one indeed.

Resolved that Percivale should have no cause of complaint as regarded the simplicity of my arrangements, I gave orders that our little Ethel, who at that time of the evening was always asleep, should be laid on the couch in my room off the study, with the door ajar, so that Sarah, who was now her nurse, might wait with an easy mind. The dinner was brought in by the outer door of the study, to avoid the awkwardness and possible disaster of the private precipice.

The principal dish, a small sirloin of beef, was at the foot of the table, and a couple of boiled fowls, as I thought, before me. But when the covers were removed, to my surprise I found they were roasted.

“What have you got there, Percivale?” I asked. “Isn’t it sirloin?”

“I’m not an adept in such matters,” he replied. “I should say it was.”

My father gave a glance at the joint. Something seemed to be wrong. I rose and went to my husband’s side. Powers of cuisine! Jemima had roasted the fowls, and boiled the sirloin. My exclamation was the signal for an outbreak of laughter, led by my father. I was trembling in the balance between mortification on my own account and sympathy with the evident amusement of my father and Mr. Blackstone. But the thought that Mr. Morley might have been and was not of the party came with such a pang and such a relief, that it settled the point, and I burst out laughing.

“I dare say it’s all right,” said Roger. “Why shouldn’t a sirloin be boiled as well as roasted? I venture to assert that it is all a whim, and we are on the verge of a new discovery to swell the number of those which already owe their being to blunders.”

“Let us all try a slice, then,” said Mr. Blackstone, “and compare results.”

This was agreed to; and a solemn silence followed, during which each sought acquaintance with the new dish.

“I am sorry to say,” remarked my father, speaking first, “that Roger is all wrong, and we have only made the discovery that custom is right. It is plain enough why sirloin is always roasted.”

“I yield myself convinced,” said Roger.

“And I am certain,” said Mr. Blackstone, “that if the loin set before the king, whoever he was, had been boiled, be would never have knighted it.”

Thanks to the loin, the last possible touch of constraint had vanished, and the party grew a very merry one. The apple-pudding which followed was declared perfect, and eaten up. Percivale produced some good wine from somewhere, which evidently added to the enjoyment of the gentlemen, my father included, who likes a good glass of wine as well as anybody. But a tiny little whimper called me away, and Miss Clare accompanied me; the gentlemen insisting that we should return as soon as possible, and bring the homuncle, as Roger called the baby, with us.

When we returned, the two clergymen were in close conversation, and the other two gentlemen were chiefly listening. My father was saying,—

“My dear sir, I don’t see how any man can do his duty as a clergyman who doesn’t visit his parishioners.”

“In London it is simply impossible,” returned Mr. Blackstone. “In the country you are welcome wherever you go; any visit I might pay would most likely be regarded either as an intrusion, or as giving the right to pecuniary aid, of which evils the latter is the worse. There are portions of every London parish which clergymen and their coadjutors have so degraded by the practical teaching of beggary, that they have blocked up every door to a healthy spiritual relation between them and pastor possible.”

“Would you not give alms at all, then?”

“One thing, at least, I have made up my mind upon,—that alms from any but the hand of personal friendship tend to evil, and will, in the long run, increase misery.”

“What, then, do you suppose the proper relation between a London clergyman and his parishioners?”

“One, I am afraid, which does not at present exist,—one which it is his first business perhaps to bring about. I confess I regard with a repulsion amounting to horror the idea of walking into a poor man’s house, except either I have business with him, or desire his personal acquaintance.”

“But if our office”—

“Makes it my business to serve—not to assume authority over them especially to the degree of forcing service upon them. I will not say how far intimacy may not justify you in immediate assault upon a man’s conscience; but I shrink from any plan that seems to take it for granted that the poor are more wicked than the rich. Why don’t we send missionaries to Belgravia? The outside of the cup and platter may sometimes be dirtier than the inside.”

“Your missionary could hardly force his way through the servants to the boudoir or drawing-room.”

“And the poor have no servants to defend them.”

I have recorded this much of the conversation chiefly for the sake of introducing Miss Clare, who now spoke.

“Don’t you think, sir,” she asked, addressing my father, “that the help one can give to another must always depend on the measure in which one is free one’s self?”

My father was silent—thinking. We were all silent. I said to myself, “There, papa! that is something after your own heart.” With marked deference and solemnity he answered at length,—

“I have little doubt you are right, Miss Clare. That puts the question upon its own eternal foundation. The mode used must be of infinitely less importance than the person who uses it.”

As he spoke, he looked at her with a far more attentive regard than hitherto. Indeed, the eyes of all the company seemed to be scanning the small woman; but she bore the scrutiny well, if indeed she was not unconscious of it; and my husband began to find out one of my reasons for asking her, which was simply that he might see her face. At this moment it was in one of its higher phases. It was, at its best, a grand face,—at its worst, a suffering face; a little too large, perhaps, for the small body which it crowned with a flame of soul; but while you saw her face you never thought of the rest of her; and her attire seemed to court an escape from all observation.

“But,” my father went on, looking at Mr. Blackstone, “I am anxious from the clergyman’s point of view, to know what my friend here thinks he must try to do in his very difficult position.”

“I think the best thing I could do,” returned Mr. Blackstone, laughing, “would be to go to school to Miss Clare.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” my father responded.

“But, in the mean time, I should prefer the chaplaincy of a suburban cemetery.”

“Certainly your charge would be a less troublesome one. Your congregation would be quiet enough, at least,” said Roger.

“‘Then are they glad because they be quiet,’” said my father, as if unconsciously uttering his own reflections. But he was a little cunning, and would say things like that when,