The Vicar's Daughter. George MacDonald
but I shrink from any plan that seems to take it for granted that the poor are more wicked than the rich. Why don't we send missionaries to Belgravia? The outside of the cup and platter may sometimes be dirtier than the inside."
"Your missionary could hardly force his way through the servants to the boudoir or drawing-room."
"And the poor have no servants to defend them."
I have recorded this much of the conversation chiefly for the sake of introducing Miss Clare, who now spoke.
"Don't you think, sir," she asked, addressing my father, "that the help one can give to another must always depend on the measure in which one is free one's self?"
My father was silent—thinking. We were all silent. I said to myself, "There, papa! that is something after your own heart." With marked deference and solemnity he answered at length,—
"I have little doubt you are right, Miss Clare. That puts the question upon its own eternal foundation. The mode used must be of infinitely less importance than the person who uses it."
As he spoke, he looked at her with a far more attentive regard than hitherto. Indeed, the eyes of all the company seemed to be scanning the small woman; but she bore the scrutiny well, if indeed she was not unconscious of it; and my husband began to find out one of my reasons for asking her, which was simply that he might see her face. At this moment it was in one of its higher phases. It was, at its best, a grand face,—at its worst, a suffering face; a little too large, perhaps, for the small body which it crowned with a flame of soul; but while you saw her face you never thought of the rest of her; and her attire seemed to court an escape from all observation.
"But," my father went on, looking at Mr. Blackstone, "I am anxious from the clergyman's point of view, to know what my friend here thinks he must try to do in his very difficult position."
"I think the best thing I could do," returned Mr. Blackstone, laughing, "would be to go to school to Miss Clare."
"I shouldn't wonder," my father responded.
"But, in the mean time, I should prefer the chaplaincy of a suburban cemetery."
"Certainly your charge would be a less troublesome one. Your congregation would be quiet enough, at least," said Roger.
"'Then are they glad because they be quiet,'" said my father, as if unconsciously uttering his own reflections. But he was a little cunning, and would say things like that when, fearful of irreverence, he wanted to turn the current of the conversation.
"But, surely," said Miss Clare, "a more active congregation would be quite as desirable."
She had one fault—no, defect: she was slow to enter into the humor of a thing. It seemed almost as if the first aspect of any bit of fun presented to her was that of something wrong. A moment's reflection, however, almost always ended in a sunny laugh, partly at her own stupidity, as she called it.
"You mistake my meaning," said Mr. Blackstone. "My chief, almost sole, attraction to the regions of the grave is the sexton, and not the placidity of the inhabitants; though perhaps Miss Clare might value that more highly if she had more experience of how noisy human nature can be."
Miss Clare gave a little smile, which after-knowledge enabled me to interpret as meaning, "Perhaps I do know a trifle about it;" but she said nothing.
"My first inquiry," he went on, "before accepting such an appointment, would be as to the character and mental habits of the sexton. If I found him a man capable of regarding human nature from a stand-point of his own, I should close with the offer at once. If, on the contrary, he was a common-place man, who made faultless responses, and cherished the friendship of the undertaker, I should decline. In fact, I should regard the sexton as my proposed master; and whether I should accept the place or not would depend altogether on whether I liked him or not. Think what revelations of human nature a real man in such a position could give me: 'Hand me the shovel. You stop a bit,—you're out of breath. Sit down on that stone there, and light your pipe; here's some tobacco. Now tell me the rest of the story. How did the old fellow get on after he had buried his termagant wife?' That's how I should treat him; and I should get, in return, such a succession of peeps into human life and intent and aspirations, as, in the course of a few years, would send me to the next vicarage that turned up a sadder and wiser man, Mr. Walton."
"I don't doubt it," said my father; but whether in sympathy with Mr. Blackstone, or in latent disapproval of a tone judged unbecoming to a clergyman, I cannot tell. Sometimes, I confess, I could not help suspecting the source of the deficiency in humor which he often complained of in me; but I always came to the conclusion that what seemed such a deficiency in him was only occasioned by the presence of a deeper feeling.
Miss Clare was the first to leave.
"What a lovely countenance that is!" said my husband, the moment she was out of hearing.
"She is a very remarkable woman," said my father.
"I suspect she knows a good deal more than most of us," said Mr. Blackstone. "Did you see how her face lighted up always before she said any thing? You can never come nearer to seeing a thought than in her face just before she speaks."
"What is she?" asked Roger.
"Can't you see what she is?" returned his brother. "She's a saint,—Saint Clare."
"If you had been a Scotchman, now," said Roger "that fine name would have sunk to Sinkler in your mouth."
"Not a more vulgar corruption, however, than is common in the mouths of English lords and ladies, when they turn St. John into Singen, reminding one of nothing but the French for an ape," said my father.
"But what does she do?" persisted Roger.
"Why should you think she does any thing?" I asked.
"She looks as if she had to earn her own living."
"She does. She teaches music."
"Why didn't you ask her to play?"
"Because this is the first time she has been to the house."
"Does she go to church, do you suppose?"
"I have no doubt of it; but why do you ask?"
"Because she looks as if she didn't want it. I never saw such an angelic expression upon a countenance."
"You must take me to call upon her," said my father.
"I will with pleasure," I answered.
I found, however, that this was easier promised than performed; for I had asked her by word of mouth at Cousin Judy's, and had not the slightest idea where she lived. Of course I applied to Judy; but she had mislaid her address, and, promising to ask her for it, forgot more than once. My father had to return home without seeing her again.
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