A Bachelor's Comedy. J. E. Buckrose
a little hill and pointing with his whip towards a square tower with the roofs of a village clustering near; a flight of rooks trailed across blue sky and grey-white clouds.
Andy drew a long breath.
“It’s—it’s extraordinarily peaceful,” he said.
“Not so peaceful as you’d——However, best find out for yourself,” said Mr. Thorpe.
So they jogged on again, cop, cop, cop in a sunny silence, until they neared the Vicarage, when the churchwarden added—
“Mr. and Mrs. Stamford are away, else they’d have asked you to lunch, of course, as they gave you the living. I thought you’d maybe look round the Vicarage, and then come up to my house for a meal. Mrs. Thorpe has a cold fowl waiting for you when you’re ready for it.”
“Thank you. It’s awfully good——”
“And I’d have stopped to show you round myself,” said Mr. Thorpe, rolling on, as it were, over Andy’s acknowledgments, “but I have to see a man about some pigs. However, young Sam Petch’ll be there. He was odd man to the old Vicar.”
“Do you advise me to retain his services?” inquired Andy, with the responsible dignity of a vicar and a householder.
“Um,” said Mr. Thorpe. “I don’t know. The poor old Vicar grew very feeble towards the end, and let things go. And those Petches are none of ’em models. They don’t seem to know when they’re speaking the truth and when they aren’t. And young Sam drinks a bit too. No, I can’t really advise you to keep him on.”
“I shall certainly not do so after what you tell me,” said the new Vicar, sitting very erect. “I have the strongest feelings about the households of the clergy—they should be above reproach.”
“Y-yes,” said Mr. Thorpe. Then, relieved, “And, of course, the Petches have William to fall back on.”
“If there is any one responsible that settles——” began Andy, when the mare shied violently at a man on the road, and he had to devote his attention to his new hat.
“It’s the man who’s waiting to see me about the pigs,” said Mr. Thorpe calmly, indicating a red-faced, angry-looking person on the roadside. “He looks as if he was tired of waiting. Should you mind walking across the churchyard instead of driving round to the Vicarage gate?”
“Of course,” cried Andy, jumping down; and followed by Mr. Thorpe’s hearty “Mind you come up for a meal as soon as you’re ready,” he went through the churchyard gate.
It clicked loosely behind him, easy with the passing of the generations, and as he walked down the path a great many of these thoughts which are common to all generous youth passed through his mind; for there is, in every one of us, such a glorious wish to do something for the world when we are young, though we can no more talk about it, then, than Andy could have done as he looked at the gravestone of that Gulielmus who in life had been plain Will Ford.
Even to his own soul, Andy did not say those things; he only remarked to himself that he would be always, as it were, Gulielmus. The abbreviation should not intrude. The Reverend Andrew Deane he was, and the Reverend Andrew Deane he would remain.
Thus reflecting he reached the little gate leading into the Vicarage garden, and a tall, middle-aged man stood there, cap in hand. Honesty was in his blue eyes—respectful candour in his pleasant voice.
“Mr. Thorpe wished me to show you round, sir,” he said.
“Ah! Good-day. Where is the lad?”
“The lad?” said the man, a little surprised. “Oh, he’s got a place at Millsby, sir.”
“Good. That’s excellent,” said Andy, much relieved at not being obliged to start with a dismissal. “Now for the house.”
“Peas here,” said the man, passing a plot of ground, “and beans there. I bought the seed and sowed them on my own responsibility. ‘Whoever’s coming,’ says I to myself, ‘old or young, he’ll want peas and beans.’ ”
The words flowed in that delightful easy way which is of all human sounds the most comfortable, running into the heart like a cordial.
“Most thoughtful of you,” said Andy warmly.
And his fellow-curates in London had talked of the apathy of village people! He would tell them about this when he saw them. What working-man of their flock would buy peas and beans and sow them for love of the Church?
“I put a row of potatoes in too,” continued the man. “Says I to my wife, ‘Married or single, he’ll want potatoes.’ ”
“You’re married, then?” said Andy, as they reached the house door, wishful to show interest in the domestic concerns of this ardent churchman.
“Yes,” replied the man. “My wife can’t get about much, I’m sorry to say. Legs given way. But”—he gave a queer side look at Andy—“it isn’t that she’s lost power, so to speak: the power’s only moved from her legs into her tongue.”
Andy smiled back—and when two men enjoy together the immemorial joke about a woman’s tongue it is as good as a sign of freemasonry—then he said solemnly, “Very sad for you both, I am sure.”
“Yes,” said the man, immediately solemn too. “I’m sure I don’t know what we would do if it wasn’t for William.”
“William!” repeated Andy. “Why—what is your name?”
“Samuel Petch,” said the man.
“Then it will be young Sam Petch who has taken a situation at Millsby?” demanded Andy.
“I’m young Sam Petch. Father’s old Sam Petch. He’s eighty-one.”
“Oh!” said Andy.
And almost in silence he went over the Vicarage escorted by his pleasant and obliging guide, who said at every turn, “We ought to trim honeysuckle; I only waited until you came,” or “I put a few newspapers down here, because the sun seemed to be fading the paint.”
Andy tramped up and down stairs, and peered into cellars, and found no words in which to inform young Sam Petch that his services were not required.
How was it possible in face of that trustful confidence to say abruptly, “You are mistaken. You may remove your peas, beans, and potatoes, or I will pay for them. Even your wife’s legs are nothing to me, though I deplore them. You must depart”? Andy could not do it.
At last Sam Petch went back to lock up the opened rooms while the new Vicar stood alone at his own front door. It was rather a dignified door, with pillars where roses grew and five steps leading into the garden, and Andy’s heart swelled with a proud sense of possession. Here he would stand welcoming in the senior curate who had treated him like a rather stupid schoolboy. Here the aunt and cousins who could not remember that he was a man and a clergyman would take on a proper attitude of respect. Here the lady lay-helper who had so condescended to him in the London parish would be received, kindly, but—He held out a hand and rehearsed the greeting. The bland and prosperous Vicar on his own threshold. Quite equal to dealing with anything.
“A-hem!” coughed Sam Petch behind him.
“Ah—that you, Sam?” said Andy, turning very red and drawing in his hand. “We—er—we had better be moving on. I was just—er—exercising my arm.”
“Exercise splendid thing, sir,” said Sam, tactfully looking away. And while they walked down the road Andy said to himself that a man accustomed for two years to dealing with sharp Cockneys would find the simple villager a very easy problem. All he had to do was to wait until they reached the cottage at the next turning and then say, firmly but kindly, that he did not need Mr. Petch’s services.
The turning was two hundred yards away—one hundred and fifty——
“Here’s