Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor, Page 2

That a woman should seek to secure ahusband for herself occurred to him a greater indelicacy still. JohnMusgrave had had the appalling experience of a written offer ofmarriage. He had replied to the writer courteously, and had promptlyburnt the letter. He would have liked to have burnt the recollection ofit, had that been possible; but unfortunately the foolish sentiment ofthat ill-considered letter remained in his memory, a constant anddistressful humiliation, which was rendered the more disconcertingbecause he was continually and unavoidably brought into contact with thewriter. She lived within a quarter of a mile of his own gates, andbusied herself actively in the parish. John Musgrave also busiedhimself in the parish. To have thrown up this work, which he regardedas a duty of the head of his house, would have been impossible to him.Therefore he braced himself to meet this woman on school-boards andcommittees and other local interests, and tried to appear unconscious,when he encountered her, of a matter that always jumped into his mindwhenever he saw her thin, eager face, or listened to the insistent tonesof her reed-like voice, which made itself constantly heard at any publicgathering.

  John Musgrave was not thinking of this lady as he sat at breakfast andpoured himself out a cup of coffee from the old-fashioned urn that hadgraced the table every morning within his memory; but the return ofEliza, like an austere Flora, whose sour visage showed above a basket ofhot-house fruits hiding shyly beneath a profusion of wax-like blossoms,brought her promptly and most unpleasantly to his mind. Only one personin Moresby could send him such a gift. He turned purple in the facewhen he beheld this dainty offering of fruit and flowers, and splutteredwith rage as he waved their approach aside.

  "Take away that--that rubbish," he commanded fiercely. "How dare youbring it in here!"

  Eliza stared at him resentfully. She did not show surprise, becausethat was an emotion she seldom displayed, but she disapproved highly ofhis tone.

  "I did not know what else to do with it, sir," she answered.

  "No, no; of course not." John Musgrave seized an egg, and decapitatedit with a shaking hand. "Take it with you, please," he said, in amollified voice.

  "Oh, thank you, sir," Eliza murmured, with a twist of her thin lipswhich was the only trick of smiling they knew.

  He turned in his seat and stared at her fixedly.

  "Tell Martha from me," he said curtly, "to throw that litter on thefire. I don't like cut flowers, and I do not eat fruit. If--ifanything else of the kind arrives, do not take it in."

  Eliza carried the rejected offering with her to the kitchen, whereMartha and the chauffeur lingered over a late breakfast, and simperinglydisplayed the gift which she bore in the angular crook of her arm.

  "The master gave them to me," she announced, with the consciousintonation of one marked out for especial favour.

  The chauffeur was in the act of drinking coffee, but something wentwrong with his throat at this moment, and Eliza, who was fastidious,turned aside from the unpleasant spectacle he presented, and buried hernose in the flowers. Martha good-naturedly thumped him on the back.

  "Oh Lord?" he gasped. "Oh Lord?"

  "I don't wonder," Martha ejaculated, with a contemptuous glance at therespectable Eliza, who was engaged in examining the contents of herbasket. "That gipsy fortune-teller has turned her 'ead, poor thing!"

  "There go all my 'opes," said the mendacious chauffeur, pointing to thedark stains of spilled coffee as though they symbolised his aspirations."Strike me blue mouldy! if I don't go out and cut my bloomin' throat.If you don't want me to commit sooicide, Lizer, share round thoseplums."

  Generosity was not catalogued among Eliza's undoubted qualities. Shetook from the depths of the basket two of the smallest peaches, andplacing these on the table, retired promptly from the kitchen, bearingher treasure with her.

  "Mean, I call it," cried the indignant chauffeur after her retreatingback. "One measly peach in return for a broken 'eart. If you'd givenme 'alf a dozen I'd 'ave kissed you."

  Martha laughed comfortably.

  "If you aren't careful, she'll 'ave you up for breach of promise," shesaid.

  "She'd lose the day," the chauffeur answered confidently. "A jury wouldonly 'ave to look at 'er to know no man would 'ave 'ad the pluck to 'avedone it."

  Martha laughed again.

  "That gipsy woman got a shilling out of 'er," she remarked, "for telling'er she was going to marry a gentleman. She believes it, silly thing!"

  "She's as likely to marry a gentleman as anyone," the chauffeuranswered. "Marriages are made in heaven, I've heard; and that's whereLizer'll 'ave to go to find 'er man. But the governor didn't ought toplay with 'er young and untried affections. Givin' 'er presents likethat."

  Martha rose deliberately, pushing back her chair. She had been in JohnMusgrave's service for over twenty years, and therefore spoke as onehaving authority.

  "'E give 'em to 'er most likely to throw in the ashbin," she said. "Asilly like Lizer would believe anything."

  Nevertheless Martha was not happy in her mind in regard to that basketof hot-house produce. She experienced a strong curiosity to learn whereit had come from, and why it had been sent, and rejected by therecipient. Only a rooted objection to question Eliza on intimate familymatters restrained her curiosity sufficiently to prevent her fromdiscussing the subject with her fellow-servant. Martha, as theback-stairs custodian of the family honour, could not permit herself togossip with the housemaid about John Musgrave's affairs.

  CHAPTER TWO.

  The Rev Walter Errol stood in the vestry doorway and watched, as hehad watched for many years, his departing congregation. It was a largecongregation, disproportionately large, considering the size of theparish. It was drawn mainly from the neighbouring parish of Rushleigh,which was a big town compared with Moresby. But the incumbent ofMoresby was an eloquent preacher, and the Rushleigh inhabitants foundthat the two-mile walk across the fields was well repaid in thesatisfaction of hearing the message they desired to hear presented tothem in a manner which was interesting as well as instructive, and moreeffective on this account. A message, whether beautiful or the reverse,has a greater hold on the imagination when effectively presented.

  The flock of the Rev Walter Errol never went away empty. There wasalways something in what he said to appeal to each individual member ofthe congregation, and so much that was novel and enlightened in hisdiscourse that the thinker and the scholar found food for speculation,as well as the careless youth of the parish, who wandered into thechurch as a matter of course or from curiosity, and returned again andagain because what they heard there was bright and stimulating andarresting, and gave them a sense of their own importance andresponsibility in life, as well as a more beautiful conception of lifeitself.

  The vicar, while he stood at the vestry door, was thinking of manythings. Among other subjects of a greater or less importance, histhoughts turned upon John Musgrave, his sidesman and very good patron.He had read the burial service over John Musgrave's parents, and themarriage service over John Musgrave's sister; he had stood shoulder toshoulder with him when they were young men together, and later inmiddle-age they maintained their friendship, as men who hold jointmemories of their youth and talk together of intimate things. He hadmarried, John Musgrave had remained a bachelor. Each held the state ofthe other a matter for commiseration.

  This evening the vicar was thinking of John Musgrave's lonely condition,and was feeling quite unnecessarily sorry for the man.

  "He would have made a good father," he thought.

  The one thing he never said of him was, he would make a good husband.But a good father is, after all, the best that can be said of a man.

  While he remained at the vestry door, his sexton and right-hand manappeared at his side, and stood watching with him the departure of theflock. Robert looked after the vanishing forms with a slightlycontemptuous glance, as one who failed to understand what they found inthis weekly service to attract them from the fields in summer, and fromtheir firesides in winter, when clearly
there was no obligation for themto attend. Then he looked up into the face of the vicar, whom he lovedas much as he loved anything in this curious world he adorned, and thecontemptuous incredulity in his eyes deepened.

  "Once again, sir," he observed, with a jerk of his head in the directionof the departing congregation. His manner and tone implied plainer thanwords could have, "We'd not be here, you and I, if we weren't paid forit."

  The vicar glanced at his henchman and smiled.

  "Once again, Robert," he repeated. "For your sake and mine and theirs,I hope it will be `once again' often."

  Robert grunted.