Florence Young - Coelebs - The Love Story of a Bachelor

“We shall look the typical country vicar and vicaress,” she said, with a most unclerical dimple coming into play when she smiled. “I hate dowdiness, Walter.”

“Can’t you get something made in the time?” he asked.

“No. I wouldn’t if I could. For one dinner! Imagine it! Why shouldn’t I look a country vicaress? That’s what I am.”

“You always look pretty,” he said, “and so do your clothes.”

“I believe,” she observed, with a fair imitation of John Musgrave’s tone and manner, “that I compare very favourably with other clergymen’s wives.”

He laughed.

“John considers you smart.”

“Oh, John?” She waved a small hand, as though she waved aside John’s opinion as of no account. “Was that man ever young, Walter?” she asked. “Somehow, I can never picture him as a boy.”

“No,” he said. “I can’t, either. When I knew him first he was an elderly young man with a predilection for botany. But I believe at heart he is one of the kindest and best of fellows, incapable of a mean action or thought. I admire John.”

She looked across at him, smiling.

“He suggests veal to me,” she said – “which possesses no nature, according to the butcher. When John matures I shall perhaps appreciate him better. He is new wine in an old bottle – the outside crusted, and the inside thin and bloodless.”

“New wine is apt to break old bottles,” he reminded her.

“I know,” she said. “I am waiting for John to break through his crust.”

The kitchen of John Musgrave’s establishment presented on Tuesday evening a scene of unusual activity. Martha, whose love for “Miss” Belle was even deeper than her affection for her master, was bent on doing her best for the honour of the house. It was an important occasion.

To Martha, as to all the old residents of Moresby, the Hall stood as the symbol of greatness, rather as Buckingham Palace might stand in the regard of the nation. Indeed, in local opinion it is possible that the Hall ranked above Buckingham Palace in importance, as tangible greatness surpasses legendary splendour. Moresby was accustomed to look with awe upon the Hall, which, since the reign of the old squire, had remained for the greater part of the time unoccupied, the present squire for private reasons preferring to live elsewhere.

The Hall still retained its importance in Moresby opinion; but had ceased to be the centre of magnificent bounty, such as it had been in the past. Now that it was let to wealthy people, local interest was stirred to a pitch of tremendous curiosity, and still greater expectation. The poor of Moresby – and save for John Musgrave, and Miss Simpson, who lived alone as Mr Musgrave did in isolated comfort, Moresby inhabitants were mainly poor – looked forward to a Christmas of the good old order, when feasting at the Hall was a yearly institution and, in local phraseology, things had not been backward in the way of good cheer.

Since to John Musgrave had fallen the unique honour of entertaining the new mistress of the Hall, Martha felt that some of the glory of the great house had descended upon Mr Musgrave’s roof, and spread itself with benign condescension over each individual member of the household. A generous share of it enveloped Martha. Eliza, not being a native, could not be expected to participate in this reverence for local grandeur; she was, indeed, sufficiently lacking in appreciation to complain unceasingly of the extra labour imposed upon herself by the arrival of visitors in Mr Musgrave’s house, notwithstanding that Mr Musgrave had engaged a younger girl to assist her in the heavier part of her duties.

“I didn’t know there was company kept,” she observed to Martha. “I’ve always set my face against company every place I’ve been to. It makes such a lot of extra work. Does Mr Musgrave keep much company?”

“I don’t count Miss Belle as company,” Martha replied. “She comes sometimes, and her husband, and the children. Three of them,” she added, with the amiable intention of firing Eliza’s resentment – “boys, and that full o’ mischief, you never!”

“I can’t put up with children,” returned Eliza decidedly, “and dogs are worse. I couldn’t stay in a house where there were animals kept, unless it was a cat – a clean cat. I can’t abear dogs.”

Neither could John Musgrave; and Mrs Chadwick had brought a pekinese with her.

Martha smiled drily.

“I wonder you don’t give notice,” she said.

“Notice!” sniffed Eliza. “And go to a new place with a two months’ reference! I had a nine-months’ character when I came here.”

Martha, whose service numbered twenty-two years, looked her contempt.

“You might just as well have said nine weeks,” she retorted. “Girls don’t seem able to keep their places nowadays. I don’t think much of a reference that doesn’t run over the year.”

Eliza returned to the dining-room, where her assistant was engaged in laying the table, and aired her grievances anew in Ellen’s more sympathetic ears. Ellen, being in a subordinate position, was forced into the awkward predicament of being obliged to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare. She stood in awe of Eliza, and did her utmost to propitiate her; therefore, upon Eliza’s reiterated complaint that her legs were giving under her, she redoubled her own energies, and did more than her share of the work. But not being a qualified parlourmaid, which Eliza, with a disregard for exactness, professed to be, she could not relieve her superior of the agreeable task of waiting at table, though she performed all the intermediate duties between kitchen and dining-room while the dinner was in progress, and was greatly interested in and impressed with the splendour of Mrs Chadwick, if somewhat disconcerted by this, her first, view of ladies dining in evening dress.

The elegance of the ladies, and the imposing spectacle of Mr Musgrave’s shirt front, filled her with wondering admiration; while the gay, careless chatter of the strangers, and Mr Errol’s easy and amusing talk, caused her to forget at times that she was present in the capacity of servitor, and not an interested spectator of a new kind of kinema.

Eliza’s deportment in its aloof detachment was admirable; the merriest sally of wit was lost upon her, and Mrs Chadwick’s surprising knack of telling daring stories elicited no more than a disapproving sniff. Eliza was as wonderful in her way as the guests, in Ellen’s opinion.

The enjoyment ended for Ellen with the placing of the dessert on the table, and the closing of the dining-room door but she carried the wonder of all she had heard and seen to the kitchen, and there related it for the benefit of Martha and Mr King, who had looked in with a view to dining late himself. Eliza, collapsed in an arm-chair, pronounced herself too weary to eat.

The enjoyment for Mr Musgrave began where it should have ended, with the departure of the ladies from the dining-room. He closed the door upon them with formal politeness, and then returned to his seat with an air as collapsed as Eliza’s, and lighted himself a cigar. The vicar, lighting a cigar also, looked across at him, and smiled.

“She will certainly,” he said, “wake Moresby up.”

John Musgrave took the cigar from his mouth, and examined the lighted end thoughtfully, a frown contracting his brow as though the sight of a cigar annoyed him. Since he was in reality addicted to cigar smoking, the frown was probably induced by his reflections.

“I am not in sympathy with advanced women,” he remarked, after a pause. “A woman should be womanly.”

He frowned again, and regarded the vicar through the chrysanthemums decorating the centre of the table.