Volume Ii Part 2 (1/2)
In King's Warren Parsonage the vicar's wife was seated at her little table. Before her was a handsome service of _real_ Queen Anne plate; the square-looking teapot with its solid ebony handle, and the bowl and jug to match, for in those days they were sugar bowls and not sugar basins.
Mrs. Dodd was not alone; she had two visitors, old Mrs. Wurzel and her inseparable companion, Miss Grains. The tea was good and strong, the cream perfection; all three ladies were in the best of temper. As a rule even the most cantankerous women are placable after afternoon tea. No man had ever partaken of Mrs. Dodd's tea in her own peculiar sanctum; that honour was reserved for those of her own s.e.x, her cronies, her fellow-workers. In this little room the village scandals were threshed out, in this room the female scholars of the Sunday school received what Mrs. Dodd was pleased to call a few words of advice and admonition. What the mysterious advice was that Mrs. Dodd imparted, who can tell? One thing is certain, as they left the Vicarage they always wept, all save Jemima Ann Blogg the defiant; she alone had shed no tears.
”It's very sad,” said the vicar's wife, ”but I don't think any other course is open to me. I never looked upon Hephzibah Wallis as flighty; in fact, she was undoubtedly the steadiest of all my girls. It's really enough to break the old mother's heart. Why they should always want to go out of service and into matrimony I can't think; but I suppose they are all the same; but this is the climax. The creature actually declares that she has engaged herself to a foreigner.”
The eyes of the other two members of the council of three were raised in mingled astonishment and horror.
”Yes, it's too true,” continued the vicaress; ”but I shall not hesitate in my duty, which is plain: she must be saved from the foreigner and herself. I'll read you her letter.
”'Villa Lambert.
”'DEAR MOTHER,
”'You will be glad to hear that we are all well. We are living in what they call a villa, and though I like quiet the life is very dull. All through our travels Mr. Capt, who, as you know, is Mr. Haggard's own man, has been very attentive to me; he has asked me to marry him. I think it only right, dear mother, to consult you and father before saying yes. I should tell you that we are much attached to each other. Mr. Capt is very respectable, and very clever, too, for a foreigner. He is a Swiss gentleman. I'm sure you would like to hear him talk, though he's sometimes rather difficult to understand, as he uses so many dictionary words. I suppose it will have to be a long engagement, for, as you know, service is no heritage, and we are both in service. What Mr. Capt wishes me to do is to be married to him here at once, which he says would be much nicer than being engaged; but I don't think it would be right to keep it from mistress, as she has been so kind. Please let me have an answer by return, as Mr. Capt is very anxious. Give my love to father, and hoping this finds you both well,
”'I am, ”'Your loving daughter, ”'HEPHZIBAH WALLIS.'”
”Poor thing,” exclaimed the stout Miss Grains, for she felt a ready sympathy, as an engaged young woman, with the whole of the rest of her s.e.x who were in a similar position.
”Poor thing, indeed,” cried the vicaress, ”shameless thing, I call her; a girl who has been educated under my own eyes, who was actually confirmed in this very parish, calmly proposes to degrade herself, her parents and me by secretly marrying a disgusting foreigner, for foreigners are disgusting, as a rule. I shall forbid it, I shall distinctly forbid it; it's a duty I owe to dear Georgie. I am disappointed in Hephzibah Wallis.”
”I'm afraid, Mrs. Dodd, it will be difficult to save the girl; here we are in King's Warren, while she is in Switzerland, and no doubt the man makes love to her,” insinuated Mrs. Wurzel.
”Ah, yes,” said the brewer's daughter softly, as she thought of her own little flirtation with the sallow French master, whose cla.s.ses she had attended.
”They may be fascinating,” said Mrs. Wurzel spitefully, ”but they always smell of tobacco and never cut their nails.”
Alas! the accusation was too true as regards the French master, at all events, and the brewer's daughter was temporarily extinguished.
”To a person in the position of Hephzibah Wallis,” said the vicar's wife magisterially, ”the length of their nails is of little importance; it's their want of principle that I object to; as for this creature Capt, like the rest of them he is, I suppose, an atheist, or perhaps worse, a Papist, for when he was here with his master he never once came inside the church. Goody Wallis has asked me to write to her, and I shall certainly do so at once, distinctly forbidding it. I haven't mentioned the matter to Anastatia, for she is so weak and romantic that she's quite capable of writing herself to the girl and inciting her to rebellion.”
Here she carefully folded the letter and replaced it in her writing desk.
”And your sister-in-law's own affair, dear Mrs. Dodd, is it an indiscretion to ask you if it is settled yet?” said old Mrs. Wurzel with sympathetic interest.
”Stacey Dodd, Mrs. Wurzel, is, I regret to say, of a secretive nature; she does not confide in me. No, her own sister-in-law is the last person whom she would trust. But I believe, mind I do not state it as a fact, but I have reason to believe that she has refused the squire; his age was an obstacle, you know, and then Lucy would have been a difficulty. I don't think it would quite have been a bed of roses; that girl would have been a very serious responsibility indeed.”
A discreet tap was heard at the door.
The vicar never presumed to enter his wife's room without knocking; he evidently had something to communicate. He saluted the ladies and commenced his tale at once.
”A dreadful thing has happened. I have just returned from The Warren, where I left the squire in a natural state of violent indignation.”
The ladies expressed their curiosity.
The portly vicar continued:
”Oh, there's no secret about it, the country is ringing with it.”
Then he read the paragraph in _The Sphere_, with which the reader is acquainted.