The Last Chronicle of Barset (27 page)

‘Every twig, with Hopkins to hold the ladder and cut the sticks; and as Hopkins is just a hundred and one years old, we could have done it pretty nearly as well alone.'

‘I do not think that,' said Grace.

‘He has been grumbling all the time,' said Lily, ‘and swears he never will have the laurels so robbed again. Five or six years ago he used to declare that death would certainly save him from the pain of such another desecration before the next Christmas; but he has given up that foolish notion now, and talks as though he meant to protect the Allington shrubs at any rate to the end of this century.'

‘I am sure we gave our share from the parsonage,' said Mrs Boyce, who never understood a joke.

‘All the best came from the parsonage, as of course they ought,' said Lily. ‘But Hopkins had to make up the deficiency. And as my uncle told him to take the haycart for them instead of the hand-barrow, he is broken-hearted.'

‘I am sure he was very good-natured,' said Grace.

‘Nevertheless he is broken-hearted; and I am very good-natured too, and I am broken-backed. Who is going to preach tomorrow morning, Mrs Boyce?'

‘Mr Swanton will preach in the morning.'

‘Tell him not to be long, because of the children's pudding. Tell Mr Boyce if he is long, we won't any of us come next Sunday.'

‘My dear, how can you say such wicked things! I shall not tell him anything of the kind.'

‘That's not wicked, Mrs Boyce. If I were to say I had eaten so much lunch that I didn't want any dinner, you'd understand that. If Mr Swanton will preach for three-quarters of an hour –'

‘He only preached for three-quarters of an hour once, Lily.'

‘He has been over the half-hour every Sunday since he has been here. His average is over forty minutes, and I say it's a shame.'

‘It is not a shame at all, Lily,' said Mrs Boyce, becoming very serious.

‘Look at my uncle; he doesn't like to go to sleep, and he has to suffer a purgatory in keeping himself awake.'

‘If your uncle is heavy, how can Mr Swanton help it? If Mr Dale's mind were on the subject he would not sleep.'

‘Come, Mrs Boyce; there's somebody else sleeps sometimes besides my uncle. When Mr Boyce put up his finger and just touches his nose, I know as well as possible why he does it.'

‘Lily Dale, you have no business to say so. It is not true. I don't know how you can bring yourself to talk in that way of your own clergyman. If I were to tell your mamma she would be shocked.'

‘You won't be so ill-natured, Mrs Boyce – after all that I've done for the church.'

‘If you think more about the clergyman, Lily, and less about the church,' said Mrs Boyce very sententiously, ‘more about the matter and less about the manner, more of the reality and less of the form, I think you'd find that your religion would go further with you. Miss Crawley is the daughter of a clergyman, and I'm sure she'll agree with me.'

‘If she agrees with anybody in scolding me I'll quarrel with her.'

‘I didn't mean to scold you, Lily.'

‘I don't mind it from you, Mrs Boyce. Indeed, I rather like it. It is a sort of pastoral visitation; and as Mr Boyce never scolds me himself I take it as coming from him by attorney.' Then there was silence for a minute or two, during which Mrs Boyce was endeavouring to discover whether Miss Dale was laughing at her or not. As she was not quite certain, she thought at last that she would let the suspected fault pass unobserved. ‘Don't wait for us, Mrs Boyce,' said Lily. ‘We must remain till Hopkins has sent Gregory to sweep the church out and take away the rubbish. We'll see that the key is left at Mrs Giles's.'

‘Thank you, my dear. Then I may as well go. I thought I'd come in and see that it was all right. I'm sure Mr Boyce will be very much obliged to you and Miss Crawley. Good-night, my dear.'

‘Good-night, Mrs Boyce; and be sure you don't let Mr Swanton be long tomorrow.' To this parting shot Mrs Boyce made no rejoinder; but she hurried out of the church somewhat the quicker for it, and closed the door after her with something of a slam.

Of all persons clergymen are the most irreverent in the handling of things supposed to be sacred, and next to them clergymen's wives, and after them those other ladies, old or young, who take upon themselves semi-clerical duties. And it is natural that it should be so;
for is it not said that familiarity does breed contempt? When a parson takes his lay friend over his church on a week day, how much less of the spirit of genuflexion and head-uncovering the clergyman will display than the layman! The parson pulls about the woodwork and knocks about the stonework, as though it were mere wood and stone; and talks aloud in the aisle, and treats even the reading-desk as a common thing; whereas the visitor whispers gently, and carries himself as though even in looking at a church he was bound to regard himself as performing some service that was half divine. Now Lily Dale and Grace Crawley were both accustomed to churches, and had been so long at work in this church for the last two days, that the building had lost to them much of its sacredness, and they were almost as irreverent as though they were two curates.

‘I am so glad she has gone,' said Lily. ‘We shall have to stop here for the next hour, as Gregory won't know what to take away and what to leave. I was so afraid she was going to stop and see us off the premises.'

‘I don't know why you should dislike her.'

‘I don't dislike her. I like her very well,' said Lily Dale. ‘But don't you feel that there are people whom one knows very intimately, who are really friends – for whom if they were dying one would grieve, whom if they were in misfortune one would go far to help, but with whom for all that one can have no sympathy. And yet they are so near to one that they know all the events of one's life, and are justified by unquestioned friendship in talking about things which should never be mentioned except where sympathy exists.'

‘Yes; I understand that.'

‘Everybody understands it who has been unhappy. That woman sometimes says things to me that make me wish – wish that they'd make him bishop of Patagonia. And yet she does it all in friendship, and mamma says that she is quite right.'

‘I liked her for standing up for her husband.'

‘But he does go to sleep – and then he scratches his nose to show that he's awake. I shouldn't have said it, only she is always hinting at uncle Christopher. Uncle Christopher certainly does go to sleep when Mr Boyce preaches, and he hasn't studied any scientific little
movements during his slumbers to make the people believe that he's all alive. I gave him a hint one day, and he got so angry with me!'

‘I shouldn't have thought he could have been angry with you. It seems to me from what you say that you may do whatever you please with him.'

‘He is very good to me. If you knew it all – if you could understand how good he has been! I'll try and tell you some day. It is not what he has done that makes me love him so – but what he has thoroughly understood, and what, so understanding, he has not done, and what he has not said. It is a case of sympathy. If ever there was a gentleman uncle Christopher is one. And I used to dislike him so, at one time!'

‘And why?'

‘Chiefly because he would make me wear brown frocks when I wanted to have them pink or green. And he kept me for six months from having them long, and up to this day he scolds me if there is half an inch on the ground for him to tread upon.'

‘I shouldn't mind that if I were you.'

‘I don't – not now. But it used to be serious when I was a young girl. And we thought, Bell and I, that he was cross to mamma. He and mamma didn't agree at first, you know, as they do now. It is quite true that he did dislike mamma when we first came here.'

‘I can't think how anybody could ever dislike Mrs Dale.'

‘But he did. And then he wanted to make up a marriage between Bell and my cousin Bernard. But neither of them cared a bit for the other, and then he used to scold them – and then – and then – and then – Oh, he was so good to me! Here's Gregory at last. Gregory, we've been waiting this hour and a half.'

‘It ain't ten minutes since Hopkins let me come with the barrows, miss.'

‘Then Hopkins is a traitor. Never mind. You'd better begin now – up there at the steps. It'll be quite dark in a few minutes. Here's Mrs Giles with her broom. Come, Mrs Giles; we shall have to pass the night here if you don't make haste. Are you cold, Grace?'

‘No; I'm not cold. I'm thinking what they are doing now in the church at Hogglestock.'

‘The Hogglestock church is not pretty – like this?'

‘Oh, no. It is a very plain brick building, with something like a pigeon-house for a belfry. And the pulpit is over the reading-desk, and the reading-desk over the clerk, so that papa, when he preaches, is nearly up to the ceiling. And the whole place is divided into pews, in which the farmers hide themselves when they come to church.'

‘So that nobody can see whether they go to sleep or no. Oh, Mrs Giles, you musn't pull that down. That's what we have been putting up all day.'

‘But it be in the way, miss; so that the minister can't budge in or out o' the door.'

‘Never mind. Then he must stay one side or the other. That would be too much after all our trouble!' And Miss Dale hurried across the chancel to save some prettily arching boughs, which, in the judgment of Mrs Giles, encroached too much on the vestry door. ‘As if it signified which side he was,' she said in a whisper to Grace.

‘I don't suppose they'll have anything in the church at home,' said Grace.

‘Somebody will stick up a wreath or two, I daresay.'

‘Nobody will. There never is anybody at Hogglestock to stick up wreaths, or to do anything for the prettiness of life. And now there will be less done than ever. How can mamma look after holly-leaves in her present state? And yet she will miss them, too. Poor mamma sees very little that is pretty; but she has not forgotten how pleasant pretty things are.'

‘I wish I knew your mother, Grace.'

‘I think it would be impossible for anyone to know mamma now – for anyone who had not known her before. She never makes even a new acquaintance. She seems to think that there is nothing left for her in the world but to try and keep papa out of misery. And she does not succeed in that. Poor papa!'

‘Is he very unhappy about this wicked accusation?'

‘Yes; he is very unhappy. But, Lily, I don't know about its being wicked.'

‘But you know that it is untrue.'

‘Of course I know that papa did not mean to take anything that was not his own. But, you see, nobody knows where it came from;
and nobody except mamma and Jane and I understand how very absent papa can be. I'm sure he doesn't know the least in the world how he came by it himself, or he would tell mamma. Do you know, Lily, I think I have been wrong to come away.'

‘Don't say that, dear. Remember how anxious Mrs Crawley was that you should come.'

‘But I cannot bear to be comfortable here while they are so wretched at home. It seems such a mockery. Every time I find myself smiling at what you say to me, I think I must be the most heartless creature in the world.'

‘Is it so very bad with them, Grace?'

‘Indeed it is bad. I don't think you can imagine what mamma has to go through. She has to cook all that is eaten in the house, and then, very often, there is no money in the house to buy anything. If you were to see the clothes she wears, even that would make your heart bleed. I who have been used to being poor all my life – even I, when I am at home, am dismayed by what she has to endure.'

‘What can we do for her, Grace?'

‘You can do nothing, Lily. But when things are like that at home you can understand what I feel in being here.'

Mrs Giles and Gregory had now completed their task, or had so nearly done so as to make Miss Dale think that she might safely leave the church. ‘We will go in now,' she said; ‘for it is dark and cold, and what I call creepy. Do you ever fancy that perhaps you will see a ghost some day?'

‘I don't think I shall ever see a ghost; but all the same I should be half afraid to be here alone in the dark.'

‘I am often here alone in the dark, but I am beginning to think I shall never see a ghost now. I am losing all my romance, and getting to be an old woman. Do you know, Grace, I do so hate myself for being such an old maid.'

‘But who says you're an old maid, Lily?'

‘I see it in people's eyes, and hear it in their voices. And they all talk to me as if I were very steady, and altogether removed from anything like fun and frolic. It seems to be admitted that if a girl does not want to fall in love, she ought not to care for any other fun in the
world. If anybody made out a list of the old ladies in these parts, they'd put down Lady Julia, and mamma, and Mrs Boyce, and me, and old Mrs Hearne. The very children have an awful respect for me, and give over playing directly they see me. Well, mamma, we've done at last, and I have had such a scolding from Mrs Boyce.'

‘I daresay you deserved it, my dear.'

‘No, I did not, mamma. Ask Grace if I did.'

‘Was she not saucy to Mrs Boyce, Miss Crawley?'

‘She said that Mr Boyce scratches his nose in church,' said Grace.

‘So he does; and goes to sleep, too.'

‘If you told Mrs Boyce that, Lily, I think she was quite right to scold you.'

Such was Miss Lily Dale, with whom Grace Crawley was staying – Lily Dale with whom Mr John Eames, of the Income-tax Office, had been so long and so steadily in love, that he was regarded among his fellow-clerks as a miracle of constancy – who had, herself, in former days been so unfortunate in love as to have been regarded among her friends in the country as the most ill-used of women. As John Eames had been able to be comfortable in life – that is to say, not utterly a wretch – in spite of his love, so had she managed to hold up her head, and live as other young women live, in spite of her misfortune. But as it may be said also that his constancy was true constancy, although he knew how to enjoy the good things of the world, so also had her misfortune been a true misfortune, although she had been able to bear it without much outer show of shipwreck. For a few days – for a week or two, when the blow first struck her, she had been knocked down, and the friends who were nearest to her had thought that she would never again stand erect upon her feet. But she had been very strong, stout at heart, of a fixed purpose, and capable of resistance against oppression. Even her own mother had been astonished, and sometimes almost dismayed, by the strength of her will. Her mother knew well how it was with her now; but they who saw her frequently, and who did not know her as her mother knew her – the Mrs Boyces of her acquaintance – whispered among themselves that Lily Dale was not so soft of heart as people used to think.