"Hush," said I, "these are very wild imaginings. Look about you. Here is good, kind . . . " I indicated the old woman with the porcupine face, ". . . who takes such excellent care of you. You are surrounded by friends. Be comforted." But she would not listen to me and called out wildly for her mother to come and take her home.
I would have given a great deal to save her. For what in the end was the result of all my exertions? One person came into this world and another left it - it seemed no very great achievement.
I began a prayer of commendation, but had not said above a dozen words when I heard a sort of squeal. Opening one eye, I saw the old woman snatch up the baby and run from the room as fast as her legs could carry her.
I finished my prayer and, with a sigh, went to find the lady's husband. I discovered him in his library where, with an admirable shew of masculine unconcern, he was reading a book. It was then about seven or eight o'clock.
I thought that it became me as a clergyman to offer some comfort and to say something of the wife he had lost, but I was prevented by my complete ignorance of everything that concerned her. Of her virtue I could say nothing at all. Of her beauty I knew little enough; I had only ever seen her with features contorted in the agonies of childbirth and of death. So I told him in plain words what had happened and finished with a short speech that sounded, even to my own ears, uncommonly like an apology for having killed his wife.
"Oh!" he said. "I dare say you did what you could."
I admired his philosophy though I confess it surprized me a little. Then I recalled that, in speaking to me, she had made several errors of grammar and had employed some dialect words and expressions. I concluded that perhaps, like many gentlemen before him, he had been enticed into an unequal marriage by blue eyes and fair hair, and that he had later come to regret it.
"A son, you say?" he said in perfect good humour. "Excellent!" And he stuck his head out of the door and called for the baby to be brought to him. A moment later Dando and the porcupine-faced nurse appeared with the child. The gentleman examined his son very minutely and declared himself delighted. Then he held the baby up and said the following words to it: "On to the shovel you must go, sir!" He gave the child a hearty shake; "And into the fire you must go, sir!" Another shake; "And under the burning coals you must go, sir!" And another shake.
I found his humour a little odd.
Then the nurse brought out a cloath and seemed to be about to wrap the baby in it.
"Oh, but I must protest, sir!" I cried, "Indeed I must! Have you nothing cleaner to wrap the child in?"
They all looked at me in some amazement. Then the gentle man smiled and said, "What excellent eyesight you must have, Mr Simonelli! Does not this cloath appear to you to be made of the finest, whitest linen imaginable?"
"No," said I in some irritation, "it appears to me to be a dirty rag that I would scarcely use to clean my boots!"
"Indeed?" said the gentleman in some surprize. "And Dando? Tell me, how does he strike you? Do you see the ruby buckles on his shoes? No? What of his yellow velvet coat and shining sword?"
I shook my head. (Dando, I may say, was dressed in the same quaint, old-fashioned style as his master, and looked every inch what he no doubt was - a tattered, swaggering scoundrel. He wore jack-boots up to his thighs, a bunch of ragged dirty lace at his throat and an ancient tricorne hat on his head.)
The gentleman gazed thoughtfully at me for a minute or two. "Mr Simonelli," he said at last, "I am quite struck by your face! Those lustrous eyes! Those fine dark eye-lashes! Those noble eye-brows! Every feature proclaims your close connexion with my own family! Do me the kindnes, if you will, of stepping before this mirror and standing at my side."
I did as he asked and, leaving aside some difference in our complexions (his as brown as beechmast, mine as white as hot-pressed paper), the resemblance was, I confess, remarkable. Everything which is odd or unsettling in my own face, I saw repeated in his: the same long eye-brows like black pen-strokes terminating in an upward flourish; the same curious slant to the eye-lid which bestows upon the face an expression of sleepy arrogance; the same little black mole just below the right eye.
"Oh!" he cried. "There can be no doubt about it! What was your father's name?"
"Simonelli," I said with a smile, "evidently."
"And his place of birth?"
I hesitated. "Genoa," I said.
"What was your mother's name?"
"Frances Simon."
"And her place of birth?"
"York."
He took a scrap of paper from the table and wrote it all down. "Simon and Simonelli," he said, "that is odd." He seemed to wait for some further illumination upon the matter of my parentage. He was disappointed. "Well, no matter," he said. "Whatever the connexion between us, Mr Simonelli, I shall discover it. You have done me a great service and I had intended to pay you liberally for it, but I have no notion of relations paying for services that ought to be given freely as part of the duty that family members owe one another." He smiled his long, knowing smile, "And so I must examine the question further," he said.
So all his much-vaunted interest in my face and family came to this: he would not pay me! It made me very angry to think I could have been so taken in by him! I informed him briefly that I was the new Rector of Allhope and said that I hoped to see him in church on Sunday.
But he only smiled and said, "We are not in your parish here. This house is Allhope House and according to ancient agreement I am the Lord of Allhope Manor, but over the years the house and village have become separated and now stand, as you see, at some distance from each other."
I had not the least idea what he was talking about. I turned to go with Dando who was to accompany me back to the village, but at the library door I looked back and said, "It is a curious thing, sir, but you never told me your name."
"I am John Hollyshoes," said he with a smile.
Just as the door closed I could have sworn I heard the sound of a shovel being pushed into the fire and the sound of coals being raked over.
The ride back to the village was considerably less pleasant than the ride to Allhope House had been. The moonlight was all shut out by the clouds and it continued to rain, yet Dando rode as swiftly as his master and at every moment I expected our headlong rush to end in broken necks.
A few lights appeared - the lights of a village. I got down from the black horse and turned to say something to Dando, whereupon I discovered that in that same instant of my dismounting he had caught up the reins of the black horse and was gone. I took one step and immediately fell over my trunk and parcels of books - which I presume had been left for me by Dando and which I had entirely forgot until that moment.
There seemed to be nothing close at hand but a few miserable cottages. Some distance off to the right, half a dozen windows blazed with light and their large size and regular appearance impressed me with ideas of warm rooms, supper tables and comfortable sofas. In short they suggested the abode of a gentleman.
My knock was answered by a neat maidservant. I inquired whether this was Mr Gathercole's house. She replied that Admiral Gathercole had drowned six years ago. Was I the new Rector?
The neat maidservant left me in the hall to go and announce me to someone or other and I had time to look about me. The floor was of ancient stone flags, very well swept, and the bright gleam upon every oak cabinet, every walnut chest of drawers, every little table, plainly spoke of the plentiful application of beeswax and of pleasant female industry. All was cleanliness, delicacy, elegance - which was more, I discovered, than could be said for me. I was well provided with all the various stains, smears and general dishevelments that may be acquired by walking for hours through heavy rain, galloping through thickly wooded countryside and then toiling long and hard at a childbed and a deathbed; and in addition I had acquired a sort of veneer of black grease - the inevitable result, I fancy, of a sojourn in John Hollyshoes's house.
The neat maidservant led me to a
drawing-room where two ladies waited to see what sort of clergyman they had got. One rose with ponderous majesty and announced herself to be Mrs Gathercole, the Admiral's relict. The other lady was Mrs Edmond, the Admiral's sister.
An old-fashioned Pembroke-table had been spread with a white linen cloath for supper. And the supper was a good one. There was a dish of fricasseed chicken and another of scalloped oysters, there was apple tart, Wensleydale cheese, and a decanter of wine and glasses.
Mrs Gathercole had my own letter and another upon which I discerned the unappetising scrawl of Dr Prothero. "Simonelli is an Italian name, is it not?" asked Mrs Gathercole.
"It is, madam, but the bearer of the name whom you see before you is an Englishman." She pressed me no further upon this point and I was glad not to be obliged to repeat the one or two falsehoods I had already uttered that day.
She took up Dr Prothero's letter, read aloud one or two compliments upon my learning in a somewhat doubting tone and began to speak of the house where I was to live. She said that when a house was for many years in the care of an ancient gentleman - as was the case here - it was liable to fall into a state of some dilapidation - she feared I would have a good many repairs to make and the expense would be very great, but as I was a gentleman of independent property, she supposed I would not mind it. She ran on in this manner and I stared into the fire. I was tired to death. But as I sat there I became conscious of something having been said which was not quite right, which it was my duty to correct as soon as possible. I stirred myself to speak. "Madam," I said, "you labour under a misapprehension. I have no property."
"Money, then," she said, "Government bonds."
"No, madam. Nothing."
There was a short silence.
"Mr Simonelli," said Mrs Gathercole, "this is a small parish and, for the most part, poor. The living yields no more than £50 a year. It is very far from providing an income to support a gentleman. You will not have enough money to live on."
Too late I saw the perfidious Prothero's design to immure me in poverty and obscurity. But what could I do? I had no money and no illusions that my numerous enemies at Cambridge, having once got rid of me, would ever allow me to return. I sighed and said something of my modest needs.
Mrs Gathercole gave a short, uncheerful laugh. "You may think so, Mr Simonelli, but your wife will think very differently when she understands how little she is to have for her housekeeping expences.
"My wife, madam?" said I in some astonishment.
"You are a married man, are not you, Mr Simonelli?"
"I, madam? No, madam!"
A silence of much longer duration.
"Well!" she said at last. "I do not know what to say. My instructions were clear enough, I think! A respectable, married man of private fortune. I cannot imagine what Prothero is thinking of. I have already refused the living of Allhope to one young man on the grounds of his unmarried state, but he at least has six hundred pounds a year."
The other lady, Mrs Edmond, now spoke for the first time. "What troubles me rather more," she said, "is that Dr Prothero appears to have sent us a scholar. Upperstone House is the only gentleman's house in the parish. With the exception of Mrs Gathercole's own family your parishioners will all be hill-farmers, shepherds and tradesmen of the meanest sort. Your learning, Mr Simonelli, will all be wasted here."
I had nothing to say and some of the despair I felt must have shewed in my face for both ladies became a little kinder. They told me that a room had been got ready for me at the Rectory and Mrs Edmond asked how long it had been since I had eaten. I confessed that I had had nothing since the night before. They invited me to share their supper and then watched as everything I touched - dainty china, white linen napkins - became covered with dark, greasy marks.
As the door closed behind me I heard Mrs Edmond say, "Well, well. So that is Italian beauty! Quite remarkable. I do not think I ever saw an example of it before."
10 o'clock, Sept. 17th., 1811.
Last night complete despair! This morning perfect hope and cheerfulness! New plans constantly bubbling up in my brain! What could be more calculated to raise the spirits than a bright autumn morning with a heavy dew? Everything is rich colour, intoxicating freshness, and sparkle!
I am excessively pleased with the Rectory - and hope that I may be allowed to keep it. It is an old stone house. The ceilings are low, the floor of every room is either higher or lower than the floors of neighbouring rooms and there are more gables than chimneys. It has fourteen rooms! What in the world will I do with fourteen rooms?
I discovered Mr Whitmore's clothes in a cupboard. I had not, I confess, spared many thoughts for this old gentleman, but his clothes brought him vividly before me. Every bump and bulge of his ancient shoes betray their firm conviction that they still enclose his feet. His half-unravelled wig has not yet noticed that his poor old head is gone. The cloath of his long, pale coat is stretched and bagged, here to accomodate his sharp elbows, there to take account of the stoop of his shoulders. It was almost as if I had opened the cupboard and discovered Mr Whitmore.
Someone calls me from the garden . . .
4 o'clock, the same day.
Jemmy - the old man I spoke to yesterday - is dead. He was found this morning outside his cottage, struck clean in two from the crown of his head to his groin. Is it possible to conceive of any thing more horrible? Curiously, in all the rain we had yesterday, no one remembers seeing any lightning. The funeral will be tomorrow. He was the first person I spoke to in Allhope and my first duty will be to bury him.
The second, and to my mind lesser, misfortune to have befallen the parish is that a young woman has disappeared. Dido Puddifer has not been seen since early this morning when her mother, Mrs Glossop, went to a neighbour's house to borrow a nutmeg grater. Mrs Glossop left Dido walking up and down in the orchard with her baby at her breast, but when she returned the baby was lying in the wet grass and Dido was gone.
I accompanied Mrs Edmond to the cottage to pay a visit of sympathy to the family and as we were coming back Mrs Edmond said, "The worst of it is that she is a very pretty girl, all golden curls and soft blue eyes. I cannot help but suppose some passing scoundrel has taken a fancy to her and made her go along with him."
"But does it not seem more likely," said I, "that she went with him of her own accord? She is uneducated, illiterate, and probably never thought seriously upon ethical questions in her life."
"I do not think you quite understand," said Mrs Edmond. "No girl ever loved home and husband more than Dido. No girl was more delighted to have a baby of her own. Dido Puddifer is a silly, giddy sort of girl, but she is also as good as gold."
"Oh!" said I, with a smile. "I dare say she was very good until today, but then, you know, temptation might never have come her way before."
But Mrs Edmond proved quite immoveable in her prejudice in favour of Dido Puddifer and so I said no more. Besides she soon began to speak of a much more interesting subject - my own future.
"My sister-in-law's wealth, Mr Simonelli, causes her to overrate the needs of other people. She imagines that no one can exist upon less than seven hundred pounds a year, but you will do well enough. The living is 50 pounds a year, but the farm could be made to yield twice, thrice that amount. The first four or five years you must be frugal. I will see to it that you are supplied with milk and butter from Upperstone-farm, but by midsummer, Mr Simonelli, you must buy a milch-cow of your own." She thought a moment. "I dare say Marjory Hollinsclough will let me have a hen or two for you."
Sept. 20th., 1811.
This morning Rectory-lane was knee-deep in yellow and brown leaves. A silver rain like smoke blew across the churchyard. A dozen crows in their clerical dress of decent black were idling among the graves. They rose up to flap about me as I came down the lane like a host of winged curates all ready to do my bidding.
There was a whisper of sounds at my back, stifled laughter, a genteel cough, and then: "Oh! Mr Simonelli!" spoken very
sweetly and rather low.
I turned.
Five young ladies; on each face I saw the same laughing eyes, the same knowing smiles, the same rain-speckled brown curls, like a strain of music taken up and repeated many different ways. There were even to my befuddled senses the same bonnets, umbrellas, muslins, ribbons, repeated in a bewildering variety of colours but all sweetly blending together, all harmonious. All that I could have asserted with any assurance at that moment was that they were all as beautiful as angels. They were grouped most fetchingly, sheltering each other from the rain with their umbrellas, and the composure and dignity of the two eldest were in no way compromised by the giggles of the two youngest.
The tallest - she who had called my name - begged my pardon. To call out to someone in the lane was very shocking, she hoped I would forgive her but, ". . . Mama has entirely neglected to introduce us and Aunt Edmond is so taken up with the business about poor Dido that . . . well, in short, Mr Simonelli, we thought it best to lay ceremony aside and introduce ourselves. We are made bold to do it by the thought that you are to be our clergyman. The lambs ought not to fear the shepherd, ought they, Mr Simonelli? Oh, but I have no patience with that stupid Dr Prothero! Why did he not send you to us earlier? I hope, Mr Simonelli, that you will not judge Allhope by this dull season!" And she dismissed with a wave of her hand the sweetest, most tranquil prospect imaginable; woods, hills, moors and streams were all deemed entirely unworthy of my attention. "If only you had come in July or August then we might have shewn you all the beauties of Derbyshire, but now I fear you will find it very dull." But her smile defied me to find any place dull where she was to be found. "Yet," she said, brightening, "perhaps I shall persuade mama to give a ball. Do you like dancing, Mr Simonelli?"
"But Aunt Edmond says that Mr Simonelli is a scholar," said one of her sisters with the same sly smile. "Perhaps he only cares for books."
"Which books do you like best, Mr Simonelli?" demanded a Miss Gathercole of the middle size.