The Carbonels

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  CHAPTER TEN. INNOVATIONS.

  "Timotheus placed on high

  Among the tuneful choir,

  With flying fingers touched the lyre."

  Dryden.

  On the first of October the new beginning was to be made. The new curate, Mr Harford, arrived, and spent his first few days at Greenhow, while looking out for a lodging at Downhill, for he was to be shared between the two parishes as before, and Mr Atkins still undertook to assist on Sundays. Mr Harford looked very young, almost a boy, and was small and thin, but not in the least delicate. He had only worked off his superfluous flesh in study and parish cares at Oxford, and he was likely to do the same in his new home. He looked on it as likely to be his residence for a long time, for, as the President had already told Mrs Carbonel, he was engaged to a young lady, whose father would not consent to her marriage till he had a living worth 500 pounds a year, and there were a good many fellows senior to him.

  He seemed to have no fears of any amount of work, and the first thing he thought of was how to arrange for Uphill to have two services on Sunday, as he thought could be contrived by giving the Downhill people, who mostly lived near the church, their second service in the evening instead of the morning; and, as Mr Atkins would thus have more to do, he gave up to that gentleman the addition to his stipend, which the President had offered to himself. The boon was great to the Greenhow family, who had often been hindered by weather from getting to Downhill. Moreover, he had plans for one service and sermon in the week, and for a cottage lecture at a distant hamlet.

  Also, in the first fortnight of his stay, he had called at every house, alike in Downhill and Uphill, to the great surprise of some of the families, who had not in the memory of man seen a parson cross their threshold. Some did not like it, such as old Dame Verdon, who, though she could hardly get out of bed, was very sore about the new school; and when her friends came to see her, told them wonderful stories which she had picked up-or Lizzie had from some hawker-that the gentlefolks thought there were too many children for the rates and taxes, and they were going to get them all into the school, and make an end of them. Sometimes she said it was by "giving of them all the cowpox," as Dame Spurrell called vaccination as the fashion was in those parts, sometimes it was by sending them all out to Botany Bay.

  And as Mrs Carbonel had prevailed on the new gardener's wife to have her baby vaccinated, and George Hewlett's and Mrs Mole's children had been thence treated by her own hands, this was believed the more, although none of the children were visibly the worse for it after the first few days; but some of the women, and almost all the children believed the story, and many of the little ones were in fits of terror about the school, so that there was a falling off even with the Sunday School. The new school was only an additional room to a good-sized cottage, with a couple of windows and a brick floor, fitted with forms without backs, but which had at least good firm legs to stand upon, pegs for the cloaks and head-gear round the walls, and a single desk, likely to be quite sufficient for the superior few who were to learn writing and summing. The stock, obtained from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, consisted of a dozen copies of Mrs Trimmer's Abridgment of the Old Testament, the same number of the lady's work on the New Testament, a packet of little paper books of the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables and the Miracles, and another packet of little books, where the alphabet led the way upwards from ba, bo, etcetera, to "Our cat can kill a rat; can she not?" Also the broken Catechism, and Sellon's Abridgment of instruction on the Catechism. There were a housewife full of needles, some brass thimbles, and a roll of calico provided, and this was the apparatus with which most village schools would commence.

  Mrs Thorpe arrived with her two little girls, the neatest of creatures, still wearing her weeds, as indeed widows engaged in any business used to do for life as a sort of protection. Under her crape borders showed the smoothest of hair, and her apron was spotlessly white. The two little girls were patterns, with short cut hair, spotted blue frocks and checkered pinafores in the week, lilac frocks on Sundays; white capes on that same day, and bonnets of coarse straw, tied down with green ribbon, over little bonnet caps with plain net frilling, the only attempt at luxury apparent in their dress. Their names were Jane and Mary, and they looked very pretty and demure, though there was a little mischief in Mary's eyes. Nothing could look nicer or more promising in the eyes of the sisters when they took her to her cottage, nor could any one be better pleased than she to work under her own young ladies, and to have so peaceful a home for her little daughters. She was introduced to her future scholars on Sunday in the wash-house, and very shy and awkward did they look, nor were the numbers as large as usual.

  Mr Harford came to open the school on Monday morning, and the ladies met him there. The room was in beautiful order, and presently the younger Moles, the George Hewletts, the Seddons, the Pucklechurch grandchildren, and about half-a-dozen more dropped in; but no one else appeared, and these stood handling their pennies and looking sheepish.

  Mr Harford, after looking out to see whether any one else was coming, addressed them in words a little too fine for their comprehension, and then read a few prayers, after which he and Mrs Carbonel went away, taking the unwilling Sophy to her lessons, but leaving Dora to follow when she had heard the names called over, and inaugurated the work; and their journey was enlivened by meeting a child with flying hair and ragged garments rushing headlong, so as to have only just time to turn off short over a gap in a field where some men who were ploughing called out, "Run, little one, run; she'll catch thee!" with a great shouting laugh, and at the same moment appeared, with a big stick in her hand, Nancy Morris in full chase, her cap on the back of her head, and looking not much less wild than her offspring.

  However, she drew up at the sight of the clergyman and the lady, pulled her cap forward and her apron to the middle, curtsied low, and in a voice of conscious merit, though out of breath, explained that she was "arter Elizabeth," who was that terrifying and contrary that she would not go to school.

  Mr Harford, not quite accustomed to the popular use of the verb to terrify, began to ask what the child had done to alarm her mother so much and Nancy, understanding him as little, said, "'Tis all along of Dame Verdon, ma'am. She be for to say that the new governess will beat them and send them off to Minsterham, as sure as they're alive; and I told Bet not to believe no such stuff, but her won't listen to I-"

  Mr Harford was the more mystified. Why should she send them to Minsterham? And what was the child afraid of? Mrs Carbonel had more notion. Minsterham was the assize town, and going thither was a polite form of mentioning the being before a court of justice.

  "Elizabeth need have no fears of a prison," she said. "She is a silly child to be frightened; but when she sees that the other children like school, and that nothing happens to them, she will know better. Don't beat her, it will only frighten her more."

  "If it is your will, ma'am, I'll let her off; but I'll give her the stick another time, as sure as she is alive, the little toad."

  "Hopeful," said the lady and gentleman to each other, as soon as she was out of sight, and they could laugh.

  It was indeed uphill work in every sense that was before Mrs Thorpe, but the effect was visible in much improvement in the general demeanour of the children. A chair was found for her where she sat among them at church, and prevented the outrageous misconduct that the ladies had been unable effectively to check; and the superior readers were gradually acquiring a very cheap form of Prayer-book, with only Matins and Evensong and the Collects, besides the Psalms.

  But that the children sat on the chancel steps, and that kneeling in church was unknown to them, never occurred as an irreverence to any of the party, though as Mr Harford read the ante-Communion service from the altar instead of disrobing himself of his surplice in the pulpit just before the sermon, he had to walk through the whole school, making those in his way stand up to let him pass.

  The singers, on the establishment
of a double service, began to absent themselves at least once on a Sunday, so Mr Harford and the ladies tried to arrange for the singing of the children instead. He had no knowledge of music, which was then thought a rather doubtful accomplishment for a young man, and Mrs Thorpe had, if possible, less, so all that could be done was for Dora to train the children by ear; and she found that their thin, shrill notes were held as painful by all save a few doting mothers, her sisters, and herself. The captain laughed at her, and finally promised her a grinding organ. It came; it could play four tunes, and all the singers were naturally offended. But on the first Sunday there was a great catastrophe, for when once set on it would not stop, but went on playing its four tunes long after the Old Hundredth was finished. Mr Harford waited to begin the Prayer for King George till it had finished, hoping that it would stop, if not at the end of the second tune at least at the fourth; but, behold, it started off with the Old Hundredth again, upon which Captain Carbonel emerged from his pew, and, with the help of Master Pucklechurch, bore it out into the churchyard, where it continued to play till after the service, when there was time to check its pertinacity by adjustment of the machinery. At its best, the singers-even George Hewlett-were much hurt, and the compromise was made that it never should uplift its voice when they were present in full force with bass, flute, and viol, but should only draw forth its four tunes when there were only the children to need the accompaniment.

  Even then, Dan Hewlett, who unluckily had the best voice of all, swore that he would never come to church again while "they had that there horgin to buzz away like a big bumbledore;" and he kept his word.

  "You see, ma'am, he has his feelings," said Molly.

  He would fain have made all his family join in the secession; but Johnnie would not be kept away from Sunday School; and Molly had heard rumours of penny clubs and of prizes at Christmas so, though the other children were very irregular, she kept them on after a fashion.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN. AN UNPROFITABLE CROP.

  "My mother bids me bind my hair."-Old Ballad.

  "Oh Mary, Mary, what is to be done about the hair?" cried Sophy, one Sunday after church.

  "Isn't it dreadful?" said Dora. "Those fearful curl-papers sticking out with rolls of old newspapers! I told them it was not fit to be seen last Sunday, but there were even Elizabeth and Jane Hewlett in them to-day."

  "Yes," said Mary, "they said that mother's aunt was coming to tea, so she had curled them before they came out. I told them I would excuse it for this once, but that I should send any one home who came such a figure on Sunday."

  Elizabeth and Jane, be it observed, were George Hewlett's daughters, the most civilised, if the dullest-witted, of the flock. Polly, Betsy, and Judy were the children of Dan Hewlett. As a rule, all the old women of the parish were called Betty, all the middle-aged Lizzie, and the girls Elizabeth.

  "It is worse on week-days," said Dora. "One would think it was a collection of little porcupines!"

  "And so dirty," began Sophy, but she was hushed up, for Edmund was seen approaching, and Mary never allowed him to be worried with the small, fretting details of school life.

  It was a time when it was the fashion for young ladies up to their teens to have their hair curled in ringlets round their heads or on their shoulders. Sophy's hair curled naturally, and had been "turned up" ever since she had come to live at home in the dignity of fourteen, but she and both her sisters wore falls of drooping ringlets in front, and in Mary's case these had been used to be curled in paper at night, though she would as soon have been seen thus decorated by day as in her night-cap. But there was scarcely another matron in the parish who did not think a fringe of curl-paper the proper mode of disposing of her locks when in morning desabille, unless she were elderly and wore a front, which could be taken off and put on with the best cap.

  Maid-servants wore short curls or smooth folds round side-combs under net caps, and this was the usual trim of the superior kind of women. The working women wore thick muslin white caps, under which, it was to be hoped, their hair was cut short, though often it straggled out in unseemly elf-locks. Married women did not go bareheaded, not even the younger ladies, except in the evening, when, like their maiden sisters, they wore coils of their back hair round huge upright ornamental combs on the summit of their heads.

  But the children's heads were deservedly pain and grief to the Carbonel senses, and Mary was impelled to go and make a speech in school, desiring that no more curl-papers should appear there on Sundays, and recommending that all hair should be kept short, as her own and her sister's had been, till the fit age for the "turning up" was attained. She called up Susan Pucklechurch and Rachel Mole, who had nice smooth hair neatly parted in the middle, and declared them to be examples of the way that heads ought to appear.

  That afternoon the women stood out at their gates. "So the lady told you to take pattern by Widdy Mole's child, did her?" said Nanny Barton, loud enough for all her neighbours to hear.

  "Ay, mother, by Rachel Mole and Susie Pucklechurch."

  "As if I'd go out of my way to follow after a mean creeper and low thing like Widow Mole," exclaimed Mrs Barton.

  "She knows which way her bread is buttered. A-making favourites!" exclaimed Nancy Morris.

  "Getting in to work in the garding away from Farmer Goodenough, as her man had worked for for years, ay, and his before un," chimed in Nanny Barton.

  "And if you could see the platefuls and cupfuls as the ladies carries out to her," added Betsy Seddon. "My word and honour! No wonder she is getting lively enough just to bust some day."

  "That's the way she comes over them," said Nanny Barton.

  "That's what them gentlefolks likes, and Bessy Mole she knows it," observed Nancy Morris; at which they all laughed shrilly.

  "As though I'd take pattern by her," exclaimed Nanny Barton. "I'd liefer take pattern by Softy Sam, or Goodenough's old scarecrow."

  "Whatever's that?" demanded Tirzah, coming out of the "Fox and Hounds." "What have they been after now?"

  "Just the lady's been a preachin' down at that there school, how that she don't want no curl-papers there, and that all the poor children's heads is to be clipped like boys, and setting up that there Rachel Mole's bowl-dish of a poll to set the fashion."

  "There! As I telled you," said Tirzah. "That's the way gentry always goes on if they gets their way."

  "They just hates to see a curl or a bit of ribbon," added Betsy Seddon.

  "Or to see one have a bit of pleasure," added Nancy Morris. "Pucklechurches and Mole, they never durst send their poor children to the fair-"

  "And to hear the lady run out agin' me for just having a drop of beer," exclaimed Nanny Barton. "Nothing warn't bad enough for me! As if she hadn't her wine and all the rest of it, and a poor woman mayn't touch one draught, if it is ever so-"

  "Well, you know, Nan, you'd had a bit more than enough," said Tirzah.

  "Well, and what call to that was hern or yourn?" cried Nancy, facing upon her.

  "A pretty job I had to get you home that night," said Tirzah; and they all laughed. "And you wouldn't be here now if Tom Postboy hadn't pulled up his horses in time."

  "And was it for her to cast up to me if I was a bit overtaken?" demanded Nanny.

  It may be supposed that after such a conversation as this there was not much chance of the bowl-dish setting the fashion. There was not the same ill-temper and jealousy of Susan Pucklechurch being held up as an example, for her family were the natural hangers-on of Greenhow, and were, besides, always neater and better dressed than the others; but Mrs Mole was even poorer than themselves, and had worked with them, even while "keeping herself to herself," a great offence in their eyes. Thus nobody was inclined to follow the clipped fashion, except one or two meeker women, who had scarcely seen that their girls' hair was getting beyond bounds. It is to be remembered that seventy years ago, long hair could hardly be kept in respectable trim by busy mothers working in the fields, and with much less power of getting brushes a
nd combs than at present; so that the crops were almost the only means of securing cleanliness and tidiness, and were worn also by all the little daughters of such gentry as did not care for fashion, nor for making them sleep on a ring of lumps as big as walnuts. So that Mrs Carbonel and her sisters really wished for what was wholesome and proper when they tried to make the children conform to their rules, if the women could only have seen it so, instead of resenting the interference.

  Sunday brought George Hewlett's two girls with their hair fastened up in womanly guise, and their cousins becurled as before; but there was nothing particularly untidy, and Mary held her peace.

  However, the war was not over, and one day, when, after a short absence, Dora and Sophy went into the school, they found five or six girls bristling with twists of old newspapers, and others in a still more objectionable condition, with wild unkempt hair about their necks, and the half-dozen really neat ones were on the form around Mrs Thorpe, who proceeded to tell Dora that she was quite in despair, the more she spoke to the girls about tidy heads, the worse they were, and she was really afraid to let her own children or the clean ones sit near the dirty ones.

  Dora's spirit was roused. "Very well," she said, "Mrs Carbonel and I will not be disobeyed. Come here, Lizzie Barton. Your head is disgraceful. Lend me your scissors, Mrs Thorpe."

  Lizzie Barton began to cry, with her knuckles in her eyes, and would not stir; but Dora was resolute. One child made a rush for the door; but Dora desired Sophy to stand by the door and bar the passage, and called Mrs Thorpe to hold Lizzie Barton, who certainly was a spectacle, with half-a-dozen horns twisted out of old advertisement papers, but the rest of her hair flying in disgusting elf-locks. She was cowed, however, into standing quiet, till her appendages had been sheared off by the determined scissors. "There, I am sure you must be much more comfortable," Dora assured her. "Get your mother to wash your head, and you will look so nice to-morrow. Now then, Betsy Hewlett."