Part 10 (2/2)
”Policy, Mrs. Stiffe--ye know we're all Jesuits here, the local paper says so in yesterday's issue--policy! You see, when I first came here Miss Pritchett came to church. She's a leading person here and I made no doubt others would follow her. Indeed, they did, too! and when they saw what the Catholic Church really was they stayed with us. And then, again, Miss Pritchett was always ready to give us a cheque for any good work, and we want all the money we can get! Oh, there's a lot of good in Miss Pritchett!”
”I fail to see it on a short acquaintance,” Lucy remarked; ”if she gave generously, it was only to flatter her vanity. I'm sure of that.”
”It's a great mistake to attribute unworthy motives to worthy deeds,”
the vicar said. ”We've no right to do it, and it's only giving ourselves away when we do, after all!”
”Oh, it's all very well, Vicar,” said good Mrs. Stiffe; ”we know you never say anything against any one. But if Miss Pritchett is such an angel, what's the reason of her behaviour now? My brother told me that things were getting very strained.”
”Ah, that's a different matter entirely,” Blantyre said. ”She began to interfere in important things. And, of course, we couldn't have that.
I'd have let her manage the soup-kitchens and boss the ladies' guilds till the sky fell. But she wanted to do more than that. Poor dear King offended her in some way--he's not what ye'd call a ladies' man--and she wrote to me to send him away at once! And there were other incidents.
I've been doing my best to meet her views and to keep in with her, but it's been very difficult and I felt the storm would burst soon. I wanted to keep her in the Faith for her own silly sake! She's not a very strong-minded person beneath her manner, and she's just the sort of woman some spiritualistic quack or Christian Science gentleman would get hold of and ruin her health and happiness. I did hope she'd find peace in the Church. Well, it can't be helped,” he ended with a rather sad smile, for his heart was tender for all his flock and he saw far down into the human soul and loved it. Then he changed suddenly. ”What am I doing!” he cried, ”talking parochial politics at a garden party! Shame on me! Come on, Mrs. Stiffe, come on, Lucy, Mr. Chaff, the piano-entertainer, is going to give his happy half-hour at Earl's Court.”
They went merrily away with him. As they approached the rows of chairs in front of the piano, he turned suddenly to his sister.
”Why didn't ye knock her down?” he said suddenly, with an exaggerated brogue and real comic force. Both ladies burst out laughing.
”You ought to have been on the music-hall stage, Vicar,” Mrs. Stiffe said, ”you're wasted in Hornham.”
”So I've been told,” he said. ”I shall think seriously of it. It's a pity to waste a talent.”
CHAPTER VI
BOADICEA, JOAN OF ARC, CHARLOTTE CORDAY, JAEL, AND MISS PRITCHETT OF HORNHAM
People of taste are never without wonder at the extraordinary lack of it that many well-to-do folk display. It was but rarely that a person of taste entered Malakoff Lodge, where Miss Pritchett dwelt, but when such an event did happen, the impression was simply that of enormous surprise. The drawing-room into which visitors were shown was an immense place and full of furniture. In each of the corners stood a life-sized piece of statuary painted in ”natural colours.” Here one saw an immense negro, some six feet high, with coffee-coloured skin, gleaming red lips, and a gaudy robe of blue and yellow. This monster supported a large earthenware basket on his back, painted, of course, in correct straw-colour, from which sprang a tall palm that reached to the ceiling.
In other corners of the room were an Egyptian dancing-girl, a Turk, and an Indian fakir, all of which supported ferns, which it was part of Miss Gussie Davies' duty to water every morning.
The many tables, chiefly of circular or octagonal form, which stood about the room, bore a mult.i.tude of costly and hideous articles which should have been relegated to a museum, to ill.u.s.trate the deplorable taste of the middle cla.s.ses during the early and mid-Victorian era.
Here, for example, was a model of the leaning tower of Pisa done in white alabaster, some two feet in height, and s.h.i.+elded from harm by a thick gla.s.s case. There, the eye fell upon a bunch of very purple grapes and a nectarine or two, made of wax, with a waxen bee settling upon them, all covered with gla.s.s also. Literary tastes were not forgotten.
Immense volumes of Moore's poems, the works of Southey or Robert Montgomery lay about on the tables. These were bound in heavy leather boards, elaborately tooled in gold representations of Greek lyres and golden laurel crowns. The s.h.i.+ning gilt edges were preserved from the profanation of a casual opening by two or three immense bra.s.s clasps which imprisoned the poet's thoughts within.
The time in which these things were made was a sentimental age, and it was well reflected in its _bijouterie_. Innumerable nymphs and shepherdesses stood about offering each other hearts, madrigals, and other dainties. But they had none of the piquant grace that Watteau would have given them, or the charm the white-hot fires of Dresden might have burnt into them. They were solid, very British nymphs, whose drapery was most decorously arranged that one thick ankle might be visible, but no more;--nymphs and shepherdesses who, one might imagine, sat happily by the bank of some ca.n.a.l, singing the pious ditties of Dr.
Watts as the sun went down,--nymphs, in short, with a moral purpose. The hangings of Miss Pritchett's room, the heavy window curtains that descended from baldachinos of gleaming gold, were all of a rich crimson, an extraordinary colour that is not made now, and the wall-paper was a heavy pattern in dark ultramarine and gold. Indeed, there was enough gold in this mausoleum to have satisfied Miss Killmansegg herself.
One merit the place had in summer, it was cool, and when the barouche that was the envy of Hornham drove up at Malakoff gates, Miss Pritchett rushed into the drawing-room, and, sinking into an arm-chair of purple plush, fanned a red and angry face with her handkerchief.
The companion followed her meekly.
”Wait there, Miss Davies,” said the spinster sharply; ”stand there for a moment, please, till I can get my breath.”
Miss Davies remained standing before her patroness in meek obedience.
After a minute or two, Miss Pritchett motioned with her hand towards an adjacent chair. Gussie Davies sat down.
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