第 十六 章 · 第16章

. He does not like this branch of his profession—indeed he hates it—but

will not admit it to himself. The habit of not admitting things to

himself has become a confirmed one with him. Nevertheless there haunts

him an ill defined sense that life would be pleasanter if there were no

sick sinners, or if they would at any rate face an eternity of torture

with more indifference. He does not feel that he is in his element. The

farmers look as if they were in their element. They are full-bodied,

healthy and contented; but between him and them there is a great gulf

fixed. A hard and drawn look begins to settle about the corners of his

mouth, so that even if he were not in a black coat and white tie a

child might know him for a parson.

He knows that he is doing his duty. Every day convinces him of this

more firmly; but then there is not much duty for him to do. He is sadly

in want of occupation. He has no taste for any of those field sports

which were not considered unbecoming for a clergyman forty years ago.

He does not ride, nor shoot, nor fish, nor course, nor play cricket.

Study, to do him justice, he had never really liked, and what

inducement was there for him to study at Battersby? He reads neither

old books nor new ones. He does not interest himself in art or science

or politics, but he sets his back up with some promptness if any of

them show any development unfamiliar to himself. True, he writes his

own sermons, but even his wife considers that his _forte_ lies rather

in the example of his life (which is one long act of self-devotion)

than in his utterances from the pulpit. After breakfast he retires to

his study; he cuts little bits out of the Bible and gums them with

exquisite neatness by the side of other little bits; this he calls

making a Harmony of the Old and New Testaments. Alongside the extracts

he copies in the very perfection of hand-writing extracts from Mede

(the only man, according to Theobald, who really understood the Book of

Revelation), Patrick, and other old divines. He works steadily at this

for half an hour every morning during many years, and the result is

doubtless valuable. After some years have gone by he hears his children

their lessons, and the daily oft-repeated screams that issue from the

study during the lesson hours tell their own horrible story over the

house. He has also taken to collecting a _hortus siccus_, and through

the interest of his father was once mentioned in the Saturday Magazine

as having been the first to find a plant, whose name I have forgotten,

in the neighbourhood of Battersby. This number of the Saturday Magazine

has been bound in red morocco, and is kept upon the drawing-room table.

He potters about his garden; if he hears a hen cackling he runs and

tells Christina, and straightway goes hunting for the egg.

When the two Miss Allabys came, as they sometimes did, to stay with

Christina, they said the life led by their sister and brother-in-law

was an idyll. Happy indeed was Christina in her choice, for that she

had had a choice was a fiction which soon took root among them—and

happy Theobald in his Christina. Somehow or other Christina was always

a little shy of cards when her sisters were staying with her, though at

other times she enjoyed a game of cribbage or a rubber of whist

heartily enough, but her sisters knew they would never be asked to

Battersby again if they were to refer to that little matter, and on the

whole it was worth their while to be asked to Battersby. If Theobald’s

temper was rather irritable he did not vent it upon them.

By nature reserved, if he could have found someone to cook his dinner

for him, he would rather have lived in a desert island than not. In his

heart of hearts he held with Pope that “the greatest nuisance to

mankind is man” or words to that effect—only that women, with the

exception perhaps of Christina, were worse. Yet for all this when

visitors called he put a better face on it than anyone who was behind

the scenes would have expected.

He was quick too at introducing the names of any literary celebrities

whom he had met at his father’s house, and soon established an

all-round reputation which satisfied even Christina herself.

Who so _integer vitæ scelerisque purus_, it was asked, as Mr Pontifex

of Battersby? Who so fit to be consulted if any difficulty about parish

management should arise? Who such a happy mixture of the sincere

uninquiring Christian and of the man of the world? For so people

actually called him. They said he was such an admirable man of

business. Certainly if he had said he would pay a sum of money at a

certain time, the money would be forthcoming on the appointed day, and

this is saying a good deal for any man. His constitutional timidity

rendered him incapable of an attempt to overreach when there was the

remotest chance of opposition or publicity, and his correct bearing and

somewhat stern expression were a great protection to him against being

overreached. He never talked of money, and invariably changed the

subject whenever money was introduced. His expression of unutterable

horror at all kinds of meanness was a sufficient guarantee that he was

not mean himself. Besides he had no business transactions save of the

most ordinary butcher’s book and baker’s book description. His

tastes—if he had any—were, as we have seen, simple; he had £900 a year

and a house; the neighbourhood was cheap, and for some time he had no

children to be a drag upon him. Who was not to be envied, and if envied

why then respected, if Theobald was not enviable?

Yet I imagine that Christina was on the whole happier than her husband.

She had not to go and visit sick parishioners, and the management of

her house and the keeping of her accounts afforded as much occupation

as she desired. Her principal duty was, as she well said, to her

husband—to love him, honour him, and keep him in a good temper. To do

her justice she fulfilled this duty to the uttermost of her power. It

would have been better perhaps if she had not so frequently assured her

husband that he was the best and wisest of mankind, for no one in his

little world ever dreamed of telling him anything else, and it was not

long before he ceased to have any doubt upon the matter. As for his

temper, which had become very violent at times, she took care to humour

it on the slightest sign of an approaching outbreak. She had early

found that this was much the easiest plan. The thunder was seldom for

herself. Long before her marriage even she had studied his little ways,

and knew how to add fuel to the fire as long as the fire seemed to want

it, and then to damp it judiciously down, making as little smoke as

possible.

In money matters she was scrupulousness itself. Theobald made her a

quarterly allowance for her dress, pocket money and little charities

and presents. In these last items she was liberal in proportion to her

income; indeed she dressed with great economy and gave away whatever

was over in presents or charity. Oh, what a comfort it was to Theobald

to reflect that he had a wife on whom he could rely never to cost him a

sixpence of unauthorised expenditure! Letting alone her absolute

submission, the perfect coincidence of her opinion with his own upon

every subject and her constant assurances to him that he was right in

everything which he took it into his head to say or do, what a tower of

strength to him was her exactness in money matters! As years went by he

became as fond of his wife as it was in his nature to be of any living

thing, and applauded himself for having stuck to his engagement—a piece

of virtue of which he was now reaping the reward. Even when Christina

did outrun her quarterly stipend by some thirty shillings or a couple

of pounds, it was always made perfectly clear to Theobald how the

deficiency had arisen—there had been an unusually costly evening dress

bought which was to last a long time, or somebody’s unexpected wedding

had necessitated a more handsome present than the quarter’s balance

would quite allow: the excess of expenditure was always repaid in the

following quarter or quarters even though it were only ten shillings at

a time.

I believe, however, that after they had been married some twenty years,

Christina had somewhat fallen from her original perfection as regards

money. She had got gradually in arrear during many successive quarters,

till she had contracted a chronic loan a sort of domestic national

debt, amounting to between seven and eight pounds. Theobald at length

felt that a remonstrance had become imperative, and took advantage of

his silver wedding day to inform Christina that her indebtedness was

cancelled, and at the same time to beg that she would endeavour

henceforth to equalise her expenditure and her income. She burst into

tears of love and gratitude, assured him that he was the best and most

generous of men, and never during the remainder of her married life was

she a single shilling behind hand.

Christina hated change of all sorts no less cordially than her husband.

She and Theobald had nearly everything in this world that they could

wish for; why, then, should people desire to introduce all sorts of

changes of which no one could foresee the end? Religion, she was deeply

convinced, had long since attained its final development, nor could it

enter into the heart of reasonable man to conceive any faith more

perfect than was inculcated by the Church of England. She could imagine

no position more honourable than that of a clergyman’s wife unless

indeed it were a bishop’s. Considering his father’s influence it was

not at all impossible that Theobald might be a bishop some day—and

then—then would occur to her that one little flaw in the practice of

the Church of England—a flaw not indeed in its doctrine, but in its

policy, which she believed on the whole to be a mistaken one in this

respect. I mean the fact that a bishop’s wife does not take the rank of

her husband.

This had been the doing of Elizabeth, who had been a bad woman, of

exceeding doubtful moral character, and at heart a Papist to the last.

Perhaps people ought to have been above mere considerations of worldly

dignity, but the world was as it was, and such things carried weight

with them, whether they ought to do so or no. Her influence as plain

Mrs Pontifex, wife, we will say, of the Bishop of Winchester, would no

doubt be considerable. Such a character as hers could not fail to carry

weight if she were ever in a sufficiently conspicuous sphere for its

influence to be widely felt; but as Lady Winchester—or the

Bishopess—which would sound quite nicely—who could doubt that her power

for good would be enhanced? And it would be all the nicer because if

she had a daughter the daughter would not be a Bishopess unless indeed

she were to marry a Bishop too, which would not be likely.

These were her thoughts upon her good days; at other times she would,

to do her justice, have doubts whether she was in all respects as

spiritually minded as she ought to be. She must press on, press on,

till every enemy to her salvation was surmounted and Satan himself lay

bruised under her feet. It occurred to her on one of these occasions

that she might steal a march over some of her contemporaries if she

were to leave off eating black puddings, of which whenever they had

killed a pig she had hitherto partaken freely; and if she were also

careful that no fowls were served at her table which had had their

necks wrung, but only such as had had their throats cut and been

allowed to bleed. St Paul and the Church of Jerusalem had insisted upon

it as necessary that even Gentile converts should abstain from things

strangled and from blood, and they had joined this prohibition with

that of a vice about the abominable nature of which there could be no

question; it would be well therefore to abstain in future and see

whether any noteworthy spiritual result ensued. She did abstain, and

was certain that from the day of her resolve she had felt stronger,

purer in heart, and in all respects more spiritually minded than she

had ever felt hitherto. Theobald did not lay so much stress on this as

she did, but as she settled what he should have at dinner she could

take care that he got no strangled fowls; as for black puddings,

happily, he had seen them made when he was a boy, and had never got

over his aversion for them. She wished the matter were one of more

general observance than it was; this was just a case in which as Lady

Winchester she might have been able to do what as plain Mrs Pontifex it

was hopeless even to attempt.

And thus this worthy couple jogged on from month to month and from year

to year. The reader, if he has passed middle life and has a clerical

connection, will probably remember scores and scores of rectors and

rectors’ wives who differed in no material respect from Theobald and

Christina. Speaking from a recollection and experience extending over

nearly eighty years from the time when I was myself a child in the

nursery of a vicarage, I should say I had drawn the better rather than

the worse side of the life of an English country parson of some fifty

years ago. I admit, however, that there are no such people to be found

nowadays. A more united or, on the whole, happier, couple could not

have been found in England. One grief only overshadowed the early years

of their married life: I mean the fact that no living children were

born to them.