“Perhaps she ain’t done nothing of the sort!” — growled a thick-set burly farmer, who with a capacious mug of ale before him was sucking at his pipe with as much zeal as a baby at its bottle— “Ef you cares for my ‘pinion, which, m’appen you doan’t, she’s neither Low nor ‘Igh. She’s no Seck. If she h’longed to a Seck, she wouldn’t be readin’ on a book under the Five Sisters last Sunday marnin’ when the bells was a-ringin’ for church time. I goes past ‘er, an’ I sez ‘Marnin,’ mum!’ an’ she looks up smilin’-like, an’ sez she: ‘Good- marnin!’ Nice day, isn’t it?’ ‘Splendid day, mum,’ sez I, an’ she went on readin’, an’ I went on a walkin’. I sez then, and I sez now, she ain’t no Seck!”
“Example,” sighed Mrs. Buggins, “is better than precept. It would be more decent if the lady showed herself in church as a lesson to others, — if she did so more lost sheep might follow!”
“Hor-hor-hor!” chuckled Bainton, from a corner of the room— “Don’t you worrit yourself, Missis Buggins, ‘bout no lost sheep! Sheep allus goes where there’s somethin’ to graze upon, — leastways that’s my ‘speriemce, an’ if there ain’t no grazin’ there ain’t no sheep! An’ them as grazes on Passon Walden, gittin’ out of ’im all they can to ‘elp ’em along, wouldn’t go to church, no more than Miss Vancourt do, if they didn’t know wot a man ’e is to be relied on in times o’ trouble, an’ a reg’lar ‘usband to the parish in sickness an’ in ‘elth, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, till death do ’im part. Miss Vancourt don’t want nothin’ out of ’im as all we doos, an’ she kin show ‘er independence ef she likes to by stayin’ away from church when she fancies, an’ readin’ books instead of ‘earin’ sermons, — there ain’t no harm in that.”
“I’m not so sure that I agree with you, Mr. Bainton,” — said a stout, oily-looking personage, named Netlips, the grocer and ‘general store’ dealer of the village, a man who was renowned in the district for the profundity and point of his observations at electoral meetings, and for the entirely original manner in which he ‘used’ the English language; “Public worship is a necessary evil. It is a factor in vulgar civilisations. Without it, the system of religious politics would fall into cohesion, — absolute cohesion!” And he rapped his fist on the table with a smartness that made his hearers jump. “At the last meeting I addressed in this division, I said we must support the props. The aristocracy must bear them on their shoulders. If your Squire stays away from church, he may be called a heathen with propriety, though a Liberal. And why? Because he makes public exposure of himself as a heathen negative! He is bound to keep up the church factor in the community. Otherwise he runs straight aground on Cohesion.”
This oratorical outburst on the part of Mr. Netlips was listened to with respectful awe and admiration.
“Ay, ay!” said Roger Buggins, who as ‘mine host’ stood in his shirt sleeves at the entrance of his bar, surveying his customers and mentally counting up their reckonings— “Cohesion would never do — cohesion government would send the country to pieces. You’re right, Mr. Netlips, — you’re right! Props must be kep’ up!”
“I don’t see no props in goin’ to church,” — said Dan Ridley, the little working tailor of the village— “I goes because I likes Mr. Walden, but if there was a man in the pulpit I didn’t like, I’d stop away. There’s a deal too many wolves in sheep’s clothing getting ordained in the service o’ the Lord, an’ I don’t blame Miss Vancourt if so be she takes time to find out the sort o’ man Mr. Walden is before settin’ under him as ‘twere. She can say prayers an’ read ’em too in her own room, an’ study the Bible all right without goin’ to church. Many folks as goes to church reg’lar are downright mean lyin’ raskills — and don’t never read their Bibles at all. Mebbe they does as much harm as what Mr. Netlips calls Cohesion, though I don’t myself purfess to understand Government language, it bein’ too deep for me.”
Mr. Netlips smiled condescendingly, and nodded as one who should say— ‘You do well, my poor fellow, to be humble in my presence!’ — and buried his nose in his tankard of ale.
“Mebbe Cohesion’s got hold o’ my red cow” — said the burly farmer who had spoken before— “For she’s as ailin’ as ever she was, an’ if I lose her, I loses a bit o’ my livin.’ An’ that’s what I sez an’ ‘olds by, no church-goin’ seems to ‘elp us in a bit o’ trouble, an’ it ain’t decent or Christian like, so it ‘pears, to pray to the Almighty for the savin’ of a cow. I asked Passon Walden if ’twould be right, for the cow’s as valuable to me as ever my wife was when she was alive, if not more, an’ he sez quite pleasant-like— ‘Well no, Mister Thorpe, I think it best not to make any sort of special prayer for the poor beast, but just do all you can for it, and leave the rest to Providence. A cow is worldly goods, you see — and we’re not quite justified in praying to be allowed to keep our worldly goods.’ ‘Ain’t we!’ I sez— ‘Is that a fact? He smiled and said it was. So I thanked him and comed away. But I’ve been thinkin’ it over since, an’ I sez to myself — ef we ain’t to pray for keepin’ an’ ‘avin’ our worldly goods, wot ‘ave we got to pray for?”
“Oh Mr. Thorpe!” ejaculated Mrs. Buggins, almost tearfully— “It is not this world but the next, that we must think of! We must pray for our souls!”
“Well, marm, I ain’t got a ‘soul’ wot I knows on — an’ as for the next world, if there ain’t no cattle farmin’ there, I reckon I’ll be out o’ work. Do you count on keepin’ a bar in the ‘eavenly country?”
A loud guffaw went the round of the room, and Mrs. Buggins gasped with horror.
“Oh, Roger!” she murmured, addressing her portly spouse, who at once took up the argument.
“You goes too fur — you goes too fur, Mister Thorpe!” he said severely— “There ain’t no keepin’ bars nor farmin’ carried on in the next world, nor marrying nor givin’ in marriage. We be all as the angels there.”
“A nice angel you’ll make too, Mr. Buggins!” said Farmer Thorpe, as he sent his tankard to be refilled,— “Lord! We won’t know you!”
Again the laugh went round, and Mrs. Buggins precipitately retired to her ‘inner parlour’ there to recover from the shock occasioned to her religious feelings by the irreverent remarks of her too matter- of-fact customer. Meanwhile Dan Ridley, the tailor, had again reverted to the subject of Miss Vancourt.
“There’s one thing about her comin’ to church,” — he said; “If so be as she did come it ‘ud do us all good, for she’s real pleasant to look at. I’ve seen her a many times in the village.”
“Ah, so have I!” chorussed two or three more men.
“She’s been in to see Adam Frost’s children an’ she gave Baby Hippolyta a bag o’ sweeties,” — said Bainton. “An’ she’s called at the schoolhouse, but Miss Eden, she worn’t in an’ Susie Prescott saw her, an’ Susie was that struck that she ‘adn’t a wurrd to say, so she tells us, an’ Miss Vancourt she went to old Josey Letherbarrow’s straight away an’ there she stayed iver so long. She ain’t called at our house yet.”
“Which ‘ouse might you be a-meanin’, Tummas?” queried Farmer Thorpe, with a slow grin— “Your own or your measter’s?”
“When we speaks in the plural we means not one, but two,” — rejoined Bainton with dignity. “An’ when I sez ‘our’ I means myself an’ Passon, which Miss Vancourt ain’t as yet left her card on Passon. He went up in a great ‘urry one afternoon when he knowed she was out, — he knowed it, ‘cos I told ’im as ‘ow I’d seen her gallopin’ by on that mare of hers which, they calls Cleopatra-an’ away ’e run like a March ‘are, an’ he ups to the Manor and down again, an’ sez he, laughin’ like: ‘I’ve done my dooty by the lady’ sez he— ‘I’ve left my card!’ That was three days ago, an’ there ain’t been no return o’ the perliteness up to the present—”
Here he broke off and began to drink his ale, as a small dapper man entered the bar-room with a brisk step and called for ‘a glass of home-brewed,’ looking round
on those assembled with a condescending smile. All of them knew him as Jim Bennett, Miss Vancourt’s groom.
“Well, mates!” he said with a sprightly air of familiarity— “All well and hearty?”
“As yourself, Mr. Bennett,” — replied Roger Buggins, acting as spokesman for the rest, and personally serving him with the foaming draught he had ordered. “Which, we likewise trusts your lady is well?”
“My lady enjoys the hest of health, thank you!” said Bennett, with polite gravity. And tossing off the contents of his glass, he signified by an eloquent gesture and accompanying wink, that he was ‘good for another.’
“We was just a-sayin’ as you come in, Mr. Bennett,” observed Dan Ridley, “that we’d none of us seen your lady at church yet on Sundays, Mebbe she ain’t of our ‘persuasion’ as they sez, or mehbe she goes into Riversford, preferrin’ ‘Igh services—”
Bennett smiled a superior smile, and leaning easily against the bar, crossed his legs and surveyed the company generally with a compassionate air.
“I suppose it’s quite a business down here, — goin’ to church, eh?” he queried— “Sort of excitement like — only bit of fun you’ve got — helps to keep you all alive! That’s the country way, but Lord bless you! — in town we’re not taking any!”
Bainton looked up, — and Mr. Netlips loosened his collar and lifted his head, as though preparing himself for another flow of ‘cohesion’ eloquence. Farmer Thorpe turned his bull-neck slowly round, and brought his eyes to bear on the speaker.
“How d’ye make that out, Mr. Bennett?” he demanded. “Doan’t ye sarve the A’mighty same in town as in country?”
“Not a bit of it!” replied Bennett airily— “You’re a long way behind the times, Mr. Thorpe! — you are indeed, beggin’ your pardon for sayin’ so! The ‘best’ people have given up the Almighty altogether, owing to recent scientific discoveries. They’ve taken to the Almighty Dollar instead which no science can do away with. And Sundays aren’t used any more for church-going, except among the middle-class population, — they’re just Bridge days with OUR set — Bridge lunches, Bridge suppers, — every Sunday’s chock full of engagements to ‘Bridge,’ right through the ‘season.’”
“That’s cards, ain’t it?” enquired Dan Ridley.
“Just so! Harmless cards!” rejoined Bennett— “Only you can chuck away a few thousands or so on ’em if you like!”
Mr. Netlips here pushed aside his emptied ale-glass and raised his fat head unctuously out of his stiff shirt-collar.
“Are we to understand,” he began ponderously, “that Miss Vancourt is addicted to this fashion of procrastinating the Lord’s Day?”
Bennett straightened his dapper figure suddenly.
“Now don’t you put yourself out, Mr. Netlips, don’t, that’s a good feller!” he said in sarcastically soothing tones— “There’s no elections going on just at present — when there is you can bring your best leg foremost, and rant away for all you’re worth! My lady don’t gamble, if that’s what you mean, — though she’s always with the swagger set, and likely so to remain. But you keep up your spirits!- -your groceries ‘ull be paid for all right! — she don’t run up no bills — so don’t you fear, cards or no cards! And as for procrastinating the Lord’s Day, whatever that may be, I could name to you the folks what does worse than play Bridge on Sundays. And who are they? Why the clergymen theirselves! And how does they do worse? Why by tellin’ lies as fast as they can stick! They says we’re all going to heaven if we’re good, — and they don’t know nothing about it, — and we’re all going to hell if we’re bad, and they don’t know nothing about that neither! I tell you, as I told you at first, in town we’ve got beyond all that stuff — we’re just not taking any!”
He paused, and there was a deep silence, while he drank off his second glass of ale. The thoughts of every man present were apparently too deep for words.
“You’re a smart chap!” said Bainton at last, breaking the mystic spell and rising to take his leave— “An’ I don’t want to argify with ye, for I’spect you’re about right in what you sez about Sunday ways in town — but I tell ye what, young feller! — you’ve got to ‘ave a deal o’ patience an’ a deal o’ pity for they poor starveling sinners wot gits boxed up in cities an’ never ain’t got no room to look at the sky, or see the wide fields with all the daisies blowin’ open to the sun. No wonder they’re so took up wi’ their scinetific muddlins over worms an’ microbes an’ sich-like, as to ‘ave forgot what the Almighty is doin’ in the workin’ o’ the Universe, — but it’s onny jest like poor prisiners in a cell wot walks up an’ down, up an’ down, countin’ the stones in the wall with scinetific multiplication-like, an’ ‘splainin’ to their poor lonely selves as how many stones makes a square foot, an’ so many square feet makes a square yard, an’ on they goes a-walkin’ their mis’able little round an’ countin’ their mis’able little sums, an’ all the time just outside the prison the flowers is all bloomin’ wild an’ the birds singin’, an’ the blue sky over it all with God smilin’ behind it. That’s ‘ow ’tis, Mr. Bennett!” and Bainton looked into the lining of his cap as was his wont before he put it on his head— “I believe all you say right enough, an’ it don’t put me out nohow — I’ve seen too much o’ natur to be shook off my ‘old on the Almighty — for there’s no worm wot ain’t sure of a rose or some kind o’ flower an’ fruit somewhere, though m’appen the poor blind thing don’t know where to find it. It’s case o’ leadin’ on, an’ guidin’ beyond our knowledge, Mr. Bennett, — an’ that’s wot Passon Walden tells us. HE don’t bother us wi’ no ‘hows’ nor ‘whys’ nor ‘wherefores’ — he says we can FEEL God with us in our daily work, an’ so we can, if we’ve a mind to! Daily work and common things shows Him to us, — why look there!” — here he pulled from his pocket a small paper-bag, and opening it, showed some dry loose seed— “There ain’t nothin’ commoner than that! That’s pansy seed — a special stock too, — well now, if you didn’t know how common it is, wouldn’t it seem a miracle as wonderful as any in the Testymen, that out o’ that handful o’ dust like, the finest flowers of purple an’ yellow will come? — ay! some o’ them two to three inches across, an’ every petal like velvet an’ silk! If so be you don’t b’lieve in a God, Mr. Bennett, owin’ to town opinions, you try the gardenin’ business! That’ll make a man of ye! I allus sez if Adam had stuck to the gardenin’ business an’ left the tailorin’ trade alone we’d have all been in Eden now!”
His eyes twinkled, as glancing round the company, he saw that his words had made an impression and awakened a responsive smile— “Good- night t’ye!” And touching Bennett on the shoulder in passing, he added: “You come an’ see me, my lad, when you feels like goin’ a bit in the scinetific line! Mebbe I can tell ye a few pints wot the learned gentlemen in London don’t know. Anyway, a little church- goin’ under Passon Walden won’t do you no ‘arm, nor your lady neither, if she’s what I takes her for, which is believin’ her to be all good as wimmin goes. An’ when Passon warms to his work an’ tells ye plain as ‘ow everything’s ordained for the best, an’ as ‘ow every flower’s a miracle of the Lord, an’ every bird’s song a bit o’ the Lord’s own special music, it ‘eartens ye up an’ makes ye more ‘opeful o’ your own poor mis’able self — it do reely now!”
With another friendly pat on the groom’s shoulder, and a cheery smile, Bainton passed out, and left the rest of the company in the ‘Mother Huff’ tap-room solemnly gazing upon one another.
“He speaks straight, he do,” said Farmer Thorpe, “An’ he ain’t no canter, — he’s just plain Tummas, an’ wot he sez he means.”
“Here’s to his ‘elth, — a game old boy!” said Bennett good- humouredly, ordering another glass of ale; “It’s quite a treat to meet a man like him, and I shan’t be above owning that he’s got a deal of right on his side. But what he says ain’t Orthodox Church teaching.”
“Mebbe not,” said Dan Kidley, “but it’s Passon
Walden’s teachin’, an’ if you ain’t ‘eard Passon yet, Mister Bennett, I’d advise ye to go next Sunday. An’ if your lady ‘ud make up her mind to go too just for once—”
Bennett gave an expressive gesture.
“She won’t go — you may depend on that!” he said; “She’s had too much of parsons as it is. Why Mrs. Fred — that’s her American aunt — was regular pestered with ’em coming beggin’ of her for their churches and their windows and their schools and their infants and their poor, lame, blind, sick of all sorts, as well as for theirselves. D’rectly they knew she was a millionaire lady’ they ‘adn’t got but one thought — how to get some of the millions out of her. There was three secretaries kept when we was in London, and they’d hardly time for bite nor sup with all the work they ‘ad, refusin’ scores of churches and religious folks all together. Miss Maryllia’s got a complete scare o’ parsons. Whenever she see a shovel-hat coming she just flew! When she was in Paris it was the Catholics as wanted money — nuns, sisters of the poor, priests as ‘ad been turned out by the Government, — and what not, — and out in America it was the Christian Scientists all the time with such a lot of tickets for lectures and fal-lals as you never saw, — then came the Spiritooalists with their seeances; and altogether the Vancourt family got to look on all sorts of religions merely as so many kinds of beggin’ boxes which if you dropped money into, you went straight to the Holy-holies, and if you didn’t you dropped down into the great big D’s. No! — I don’t think anyone need expect to see my lady at church — it’s the last place she’d ever think of going to!”
This piece of information was received by his hearers with profound gravity. No one spoke, and during the uncomfortable pause Bennett gave a careless ‘Good-night!’ — and took his departure.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 606