Scenes of Clerical Life

the Miss Linnets were to Miss Pratt what the apple-scented September is to the

  bare, nipping days of late November. The Miss Linnets were in that temperate

  zone of oldmaidism, when a woman will not say but that if a man of suitable

  years and character were to offer himself, she might be induced to tread the

  remainder of life's vale in company with him; Miss Pratt was in that arctic

  region where a woman is confident that at no time of life would she have

  consented to give up her liberty, and that she has never seen the man whom she

  would engage to honour and obey. If the Miss Linnets were old maids, they were

  old maids with natural ringlets and embonpoint, not to say obesity; Miss Pratt

  was an old maid with a cap, a braided "front," a backbone and appendages. Miss

  Pratt was the one blue-stocking of Milby, possessing, she said, no less than

  five hundred volumes, competent, as her brother the doctor often observed, to

  conduct a conversation on any topic whatever, and occasionally dabbling a little

  in authorship, though it was understood that she had never put forth the full

  powers of her mind in print. Her Letters to a Young Man on his Entrance into

  Life, and De Courcy, or the Rash Promise, a Tale for Youth, were mere trifles

  which she had been induced to publish because they were calculated for popular

  utility, but they were nothing to what she had for years had by her in

  manuscript. Her latest production had been Six Stanzas, addressed to the Rev.

  Edgar Tryan, printed on glazed paper with a neat border, and beginning,

  "Forward, young wrestler for the truth!"

  Miss Pratt having kept her brother's house during his long widowhood, his

  daughter, Miss Eliza, had had the advantage of being educated by her aunt, and

  thus of imbibing a very strong antipathy to all that remarkable woman's tastes

  and opinions. The silent handsome girl of two-and-twenty, who is covering the

  Memoirs of Felix Neff, is Miss Eliza Pratt; and the small elderly lady in dowdy

  clothing, who is also working diligently, is Mrs Pettifer, a superior-minded

  widow, much valued in Milby, being such a very respectable person to have in the

  house in case of illness, and of quite too good a family to receive any

  money-payment ?you could always send her garden-stuff that would make her ample

  amends. Miss Pratt has enough to do in commenting on the heap of volumes before

  her, feeling it a responsibility entailed on her by her great powers of mind to

  leave nothing without the advantage of her opinion. Whatever was good must be

  sprinkled with the chrism of her approval; whatever was evil must be blighted by

  her condemnation.

  "Upon my word," she said, in a deliberate high voice, as if she were dictating

  to an amanuensis, "it is a most admirable selection of works for popular

  reading, this that our excellent Mr Tryan has made. I do not know whether, if

  the task had been confided to me, I could have made a selection, combining in a

  higher degree religious instruction and edification, with a due admixture of the

  purer species of amusement. This story of Father Clement is a library in itself

  on the errors of Romanism. I have ever considered fiction a suitable form for

  conveying moral and religious instruction, as I have shown in my little work De

  Courcy, which, as a very clever writer in the Crompton Argus said at the time of

  its appearance, is the light vehicle of a weighty moral."

  "One 'ud think," said Mrs Linnet, who also had her spectacles on, but chiefly

  for the purpose of seeing what the others were doing, "there didn't want much to

  drive people away from a religion as makes 'em walk barefoot over stone floors,

  like that girl in Father Clement?sending the blood up to the head frightful.

  Anybody might see that was an unnat'ral creed."

  "Yes," said Miss Pratt, "but asceticism is not the root of the error, as Mr

  Tryan was telling us the other evening?it is the denial of the great doctrine of

  justification by faith. Much as I had reflected on all subjects in the course of

  my life, I am indebted to Mr Tryan for opening my eyes to the full importance of

  that cardinal doctrine of the Reformation. From a child I had a deep sense of

  religion, but in my early day the Gospel light was obscured in the English

  Church, notwithstanding the possession of our incomparable Liturgy, than which I

  know no human composition more faultless and sublime. As I tell Eliza, I was not

  blest as she is at the age of two-and-twenty, in knowing a clergyman who unites

  all that is great and admirable in intellect with the highest spirtual gifts. I

  am no contemptible judge of a man's acquirements, and I assure you I have tested

  Mr Tryan's by questions which are a pretty severe touchstone. It is ture, I

  sometimes carry him a little beyond the depth of the other listeners. Profound

  learning," continued Miss Pratt, shutting her spectacles, and tapping them on

  the book before her, "has not many to estimate it in Milby."

  "Miss Pratt," said Rebecca, "will you please give me Scott's Force of Truth?

  There?that small book lying against the Life of Legh Richmond."

  "That's a book I'm very fond of?the Life of Legh Richmond," said Mrs Linnet. "He

  found out all about that woman at Tutbury as pretended to live without eating.

  Stuff and nonsense!"

  Mrs Linnet had become a reader of religious books since Mr Tryan's advent, and

  as she was in the habit of confining her perusal to the purely secular portions,

  which bore a very small proportion to the whole, she could make rapid progress

  through a large number of volumes. On taking up the biography of a celebrated

  preacher, she immediately turned to the end to see what disease he died of; and

  if his legs swelled, as her own occasionally did, she felt a stronger interest

  in ascertaining any earlier facts in the history of the dropsical divine?whether

  he had ever fallen off a stage coach, whether he had married more than one wife,

  and, in general, any adventures or repartees recorded of him previous to the

  epoch of his conversion. She then glanced over the letters and diary, and

  wherever there was a predominance of Zion, the River of Life, and notes of

  exclamation, she turned over to the next page; but any passage in which she saw

  such promising nouns as "small-pox," "pony," or "boots and shoes," at once

  arrested her.

  "It is half-past six now," said Miss Linnet, looking at her watch as the servant

  appeared with the tea-tray. "I suppose the delegates are come back by this time.

  If Mr Tryan had not so kindly promised to call and let us know, I should hardly

  rest without walking to Milby myself to know what answer they have brought back.

  It is a great privilege for us, Mr Tryan living at Mrs Wagstaffs, for he is

  often able to take us on his way backwards and forward into the town."

  "I wonder if there's another man in the world who has been brought up as Mr

  Tryan has, that would choose to live in those small close rooms on the common,

  among heaps of dirty cottages, for the sake of being near the poor people," said

  Mrs Pettifer. "I'm afraid he hurts his health by it; he looks to me far from

  strong."

  "Ah," said Miss Pratt, "I understand he i
s of a highly respectable family

  indeed, in Huntingdonshire. I heard him myself speak of his father's

  carriage?quite incidentally you know?and Eliza tells me what very fine cambric

  handkerchiefs he uses. My eyes are not good enough to see such things, but I

  know what breeding is as well as most people, and it is easy to see that Mr

  Tryan is quite comme il faw, to use a French expression."

  "I should like to tell him better nor use fine cambric i' this place, where

  there's such washing, it's a shame to be seen," said Mrs Linnet; "he'll get 'em

  tore to pieces. Good lawn 'ud be far better. I saw what a colour his linen

  looked at the sacrament last Sunday. Mary's making him a black silk case to hold

  his bands, but I told her she'd more need wash 'em for him."

  "O mother!" said Rebecca, with solemn severity, "pray don't think of

  pocket-handkerchiefs and linen, when we are talking of such a man. And at this

  moment, too, when he is perhaps having to bear a heavy blow. We have more need

  to help him by prayer, as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses. We don't

  know but wickedness may have triumphed, and Mr Prendergast may have consented to

  forbid the lecture. There have been dispensations quite as mysterious, and Satan

  is evidently putting forth all his strength to resist the entrance of the Gospel

  into Milby Church."

  "You niver spoke a truer word than that, my dear," said Mrs Linnet, who accepted

  all religious phrases, but was extremely rationalistic in her interpretation;

  "for if iver Old Harry appeared in a human form, it's that Dempster. It was all

  through him as we got cheated out o' Pye's Croft, making out as the title wasn't

  good. Such lawyers's villany! As if paying good money wasn't title enough to

  anything. If your father as is dead and gone had been worthy to know it! But

  he'll have a fall some day, Dempster will. Mark my words."

  "Ah, out of his carriage, you mean," said Miss Pratt, who, in the movement

  occasioned by the clearing of the table, had lost the first part of Mrs Linnet's

  speech. "It certainly is alarming to see him driving home from Rotherby,

  flogging his galloping horse like a madman. My brother has often said he

  expected every Thursday evening to be called in to set some of Dempster's bones;

  but I suppose he may drop that expectation now, for we are given to understand

  from good authority that he has forbidden his wife to call my brother in again

  either to herself or her mother. He swears no Tryanite doctor shall attend his

  family. I have reason to believe that Pilgrim was called in to Mrs Dempster's

  mother the other day."

  "Poor Mrs Raynor! she's glad to do anything for the sake of peace and

  quietness," said Mrs Pettifer; "but it's no trifle at her time of life to part

  with a doctor as knows her constitution."

  "What trouble that poor woman has to bear in her old age!" said Mary Linnet, "to

  see her daughter leading such a life!?an only daughter, too, that she doats on."

  "Yes, indeed," said Miss Pratt. "We, of course, know more about it than most

  people, my brother having attended the family so many years. For my part, I

  never thought well of the marriage; and I endeavoured to dissuade my brother

  when Mrs Raynor asked him to give Janet away at the wedding. 'If you will take

  my advice, Richard,' I said, 'you will have nothing to do with that marriage.'

  And he has seen the justice of my opinion since. Mrs Raynor herself was against

  the connection at first; but she always spoiled Janet, and I fear, too, she was

  won over by a foolish pride in having her daughter marry a professional man. I

  fear it was so. No one but myself, I think, foresaw the extent of the evil."

  "Well," said Mrs Pettifer, "Janet had nothing to look to but being a governess;

  and it was hard for Mrs Raynor to have to work at millinering?a woman well

  brought up, and her husband a man who held his head as high as any man in

  Thurston. And it isn't everybody that sees everything fifteen years beforehand.

  Robert Dempster was the cleverest man in Milby; and there weren't many young men

  fit to talk to Janet."

  "It is a thousand pities," said Miss Pratt, choosing to ignore Mrs Pettifer's

  slight sarcasm, "for I certainly did consider Janet Raynor the most promising

  young woman of my acquaintance; ?a little too much lifted up, perhaps, by her

  superior education, and too much given to satire, but able to express herself

  very well indeed about any book I recommended to her perusal. There is no young

  woman in Milby now who can be compared with what Janet was when she was married,

  either in mind or person. I consider Miss Landor far, far below her. Indeed, I

  cannot say much for the mental superiority of the young ladies in our first

  families. They are superficial? very superficial."

  "She made the handsomest bride that ever came out of Milby church, too," said

  Mrs Pettifer. "Such a very fine figure! and it showed off her white poplin so

  well. And what a pretty smile Janet always had! Poor thing, she keeps that now

  for all her old friends. I never see her but she has something pretty to say to

  me?living in the same street, you know, I can't help seeing her often, though

  I've never been to the house since Dempster broke out on me in one of his

  drunken fits. She comes to me sometimes, poor thing, looking so strange, anybody

  passing her in the street may see plain enough what's the matter; but she's

  always got some little good-natured plan in her head for all that. Only last

  night when I met her, I saw five yards off she wasn't fit to be out; but she had

  a basin in her hand, full of something she was carrying to Sally Martin, the

  deformed girl that's in a consumption."

  "But she is just as bitter against Mr Tryan as her husband is, I understand,"

  said Rebecca. "Her heart is very much set against the truth, for I understand

  she bought Mr Tryan's sermons on purpose to ridicule them to Mrs Crewe."

  "Well, poor thing," said Mrs Pettifer, "you know she stands up for eveything her

  husband says and does. She never will admit to anybody that he's not a good

  husband."

  "That is her pride," said Miss Pratt. "She married him in opposition to the

  advice of her best friends, and now she is not willing admit that she was wrong.

  Why, even to my brother? and a medical attendant, you know, can hardly fail to

  be acquainted with family secrets?she has always pretended to have the highest

  respect for her husband's qualities. Poor Mrs Raynor, how-ever, is well aware

  that every one knows the real state of things. Latterly, she has not even

  avoided the subject with me. The very last time I called on her she said, 'Have

  you been to see my poor daughter?' and burst into tears."

  "Pride or no pride," said Mrs Pettifer, "I shall always stand up for Janet

  Dempster. She sat up with me night after night when I had that attack of

  rheumatic fever six years ago. There's great excuses for her. When a woman can't

  think of her husband coming home without trembling, it's enough to make her

  drink something to blunt her feelings?and no children either, to keep her from

  it. You and me might do the same, if we were in her place."

&nb
sp; "Speak for yourself, Mrs Pettifer," said Miss Pratt. "Under no circumstances can

  I imagine myself resorting to a practice so degrading. A woman should find

  support in her own strength of mind."

  "I think," said Rebecca, who considered Miss Pratt still very blind in spiritual

  things, notwithstanding her assumption of enlightenment, "she will find poor

  support if she trusts only to her own strength. She must seek aid elsewhere than

  in herself."

  Happily the removal of the tea-things just then created a little confusion,

  which aided Miss Pratt to repress her resentment at Rebecca's presumption in

  correcting her?a person like Rebecca Linnet! who six months ago was as flighty

  and vain a woman as Miss Pratt had ever known?so very unconscious of her

  unfortunate person!

  The ladies had scarcely been seated at their work another hour, when the sun was

  sinking, and the clouds that flecked the sky to the very zenith were every

  moment taking on a brighter gold. The gate of the little garden opened, and Miss

  Linnet, seated at her small table near the window, saw Mr Tryan enter.

  "There is Mr Tryan," she said, and her pale cheek was lighted up with a little

  blush that would have made her look more attractive to almost any one except

  Miss Eliza Pratt, whose fine grey eyes allowed few things to escape her silent

  observation. "Mary Linnet gets more and more in love with Mr Tryan," thought

  Miss Eliza; "it is really pitiable to see such feelings in a woman of her age,

  with those old-maidish little ringlets. I dare say she flatters herself Mr Tryan

  may fall in love with her, because he makes her useful among the poor." At the

  same time, Miss Eliza, as she bent her handsome head and large cannon curls with

  apparent calmness over her work, felt a considerable internal flutter when she

  heard her knock at the door. Rebecca had less self-command. She felt too much

  agitated to go on with her pasting, and clutched the leg of the table to

  counteract the trembling in her hands.

  Poor women's hearts! Heaven forbid that I should laugh at you, and make cheap

  jests on your susceptibility towards the clerical sex, as if it had nothing

  deeper or more lovely in it than the mere vulgar angling for a husband. Even in

  these enlightened days, many a curate who, considered abstractedly, is nothing

  more than a sleek bimanous animal in a white neckcloth, with views more or less

  Anglican, and furtively addicted to the flute, is adored by a girl who has

  coarse brothers, or by a solitary woman who would like to be a helpmate in good

  works beyond her own means, simply because he seems to them the model of

  refinement and of public usefulness. What wonder, then, that in Milby society,

  such as I have told you it was a very long while ago, a zealous evangelical

  clergyman, aged thirty-three, called forth all the little agitations that belong

  to the divine necessity of loving, implanted in the Miss Linnets, with their

  seven or eight lustrums and their unfashionable ringlets, no less than in Miss

  Eliza Pratt, with her youthful bloom and her ample cannon curls.

  But Mr Tryan has entered the room, and the strange light from the golden sky

  falling on his light brown hair, which is brushed high up round his head, makes

  it look almost like an aur?ole. His grey eyes, too, shine with unwonted

  brilliancy this evening. They were not remarkable eyes, but they accorded

  completely in their changing light with the changing expression of his person,

  which indicated the paradoxical character often observable in a large-limbed

  sanguine blond; at once mild and irritable, gentle and overbearing, indolent and

  resolute, self-conscious and dreamy. Except that the well-filled lips had

  something of the artificially compressed look which is often the sign of a

  struggle to keep the dragon undermost, and that the complexion was rather

  pallid, giving the idea of imperfect health, Mr Tryan's face in repose was that