TIME DEANS WKfE
BY MRS EILOaRY
THE DEAN'S WIFE.
a Nobel.
BY
MRS EILOART,
AUTHOR OF
' some of our girls/ ' the love that lived,' ' just a woman
'the cukate's discipline,' 'st beuk's,' etc., etc.
A NEW EDITION.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAOR
I. COMING TO HER KINGDOM, .... 1
II. MART REARDON, . . . . , 6
III. HOW THEY WERE MATED, . . . . .19
IV. WEDDED DAYS, ...... 27
V. CROWS' CORNER, . . . . . .34
VI. GRANTLEY GERMAINE, METHODIST MINISTER, . . 41
VII. MISS TODD AND HER NEIGHBOURS,. . . .51
vin. A BISHOP'S SACRIFICE, ..... 57
IX. MISS TODD GIVES HER ADVICE, . . . .62
X. MR GERMAINE'S VISITOR, . .... 73
XI. MB GERMAINE GOES OUT IN THE SUN, . . .81
XII. MR GERMAINE VISITS FAIRYLAND, . . . .90
XIII. RICHARD GERMAN'S STORY, . . . .98
XIV. THE PRODIGAL'S PENITENCE, . . . .110
XV. LADY MARY CALLS ON MBS GERMAINE, , . .114
XVI. UNCLE DICK, . . . . , ,118
XVII. THE LADIES' WALK, ..... 123
XVIII. RICHARD SPENDS AN EVENING WITH MISS TODD, . . 131
XIX. MISS TODD'S PROPHECY, . . . . .136
XX. AFTER THE PERFORMANCE, . , . .142
XXI. A LECTURE FOB LADY MARY, . . .146
XXII. MR GERMAINE DOES NOT SEE HIS WAY, . . .153
XXIII. THE NEW NOVEL, . . . . . .156
XXIV. HOW HIS CAKE TASTED, . . , , .164
XXV. THE INCUMBENT OF ST THOMAS'S. .... 168
lv Contents.
CHAPTBR PAGE
xxvi. mr germaine's troubles with his flock, . • *?4
xxvii. the lion on the ladies' walk, » •
xxviii. at the deanery, ...» * ^7
xxix. richard german and the dean, . • • 192
xxx. Winifred's wooers, . 202
xxxi. no second best, . . . • .211
xxxii. how mr germaine enlightens tasmania, . . 216
xxxiii. away from carminster, .... 225
xxxiv. amidst the mountains, .... 231
xxxv. the marble vivified, ..... 241
xxxvi. stirling castle, ..... 24S
xxxvii. what galatea said to pygmalion, . . . 250
xxxviii. miss todd's lettjsr, . . . , .254
xxxix. the dean leaves carminster, . , .259
xl. a church dignitary, . . . . .264
xli. how things went on, . . , . . 268
xlii. Winifred's letter, ..... 272
xliii. two widows, . . . . . . 276
xliv. miss todd speaks plainly, . . . .285
xlv. richard german dines out, .... 291
xlvi. first in the field, . . . .304
xlvii. and foremost in the fray, .... 308
xlviii. second best suffices mr germaine, . . .314
xlix. over the punch-bowl, . . . . . 317
l. my lord bishop, . . , . .325
li. the search begun, ..... 333
lii. 'also the very rev. george dalmaine,' . . 346
liii. how richard worked on, .... 353
liv. how lady mary took the news, . < ggQ
lv. what cissy did, ... . ggg
lvi. all told, . , , , ^
THE DEAN'S WIFE.
CHAPTER I.
coming to her kingdom.
The king is coming to Carminster ! Long live the king!
Such in effect, only putting the word dean for king, was
the general feeling throughout Carminster. The late dean
had not been a popular man. He lived very much within
his means, and the tradespeople of Carminster had always
considered that he did not spend half the money he ought
to do amongst them. He kept no society ; and, though on
decent terms with the clergy of the place, there was no cor-
diality between them. He had never quarrelled with the
bishop, but still the bishop did not like him. There was
really nothing that any one—always with the exception of
the tradespeople—could find to say against him; but then
there was nothing to praise. He had lived thirty years
amongst the folks of Carminster, and not done a single action
by which to win either remembrance or regret, now that he
had gone to his long account.
He had not even left a wife behind him. He had been
a widower so many years that many people were by no
means certain that he had ever been married at all. It was
A
2
The Dearis Wife.
certain that there were no children to deplore his loss.
Only some relations, elderly, well-to-do, and commonplace
like himself (people, as the aforesaid tradespeople remarked,
of no family at all, just like the dean himself) proved
his will, took possession of his belongings, and wound up
his affairs. He had been a man of whom neither Peerage
nor Baronetage knew anything. There was nothing in
him to reflect any credit on Carminster during his life, and
therefore no reason why Carminster should grieve at his
death. Therefore expectant eyes and eager hopes turned
eagerly towards the rising sun in the person of the new dean.
There was not very much known of him, but all that
was known was satisfactory. He was the younger son of
a family as old as any in England. He had not won any
great renown in scholarship, nor distinguished himself at
college ; but, on the other hand, he was fairly popular with
all who knew him. A good-natured, kind-hearted man, if
no great preacher: ' And, after all, we don't want ranters,'
said the Carminster tradespeople: ' And we do want a
gentleman,' said Carminster society, ' and it is a great ad van-
tage that the dean is married, and married too so well: we are
not going to have a mere little nobody brought amongst us.'
So whatever there was known of the dean was in his
favour; still, as I have said, it was not so very much after
all. But of his wife, if there was not so much known, a
great deal was said, and a great deal more expected. She
was an earl's daughter, to begin with—an Irish earl, it is
true; but that was rather in her favour, as far as the
tradespeople were concerned. She would spend the dean's
money freely amongst them. The late dean had, it was
fully believed, opened a deposit account at a London co-
operative store, and received all his household stores there-
from. The Carminster tradespeople had never forgiyi-11
him that piece of economy. Dealing at co-operative stores
Coming to Her Kingdom. 3
meant ready money. Why couldn't he spend his ready
money with them on credit prices ? No Irish earl's
daughter would stoop to such a meanness as that. And
she was very clever, so people said; had written one or
two novels, it was reported. Carminster society did not
quite like that; they were rather afraid of clever people :
but they made up their minds not to believe it. People
were always telling lies of their betters. Most likely this
was a calumny, like so many others. The tradespeople were
inclined to believe it. If my lady wrote books, she couldn't
be looking after theirs too closely. And she was handsome,
and fond of company ; every one was ready to believe this
last. There would be dinner-parties and dances at the
deanery—it had been almost like a deserted house in the old
dean's time—and Lady Mary would take the lead in right
of her title, even before the bishop's wife, in all manner of
festivities, giving and receiving, and shining everywhere,
and making Carminster gayer and brighter than it had been
for years.
Yes, everybody, unless it might be the bishop, to whom
naturally the dean was of a little importance, was disposed to
think a great deal more of Lady Mary than of her husband.
The bishop's wife was not at all disposed to be jealous of
this new star in her social firmament; she was a sensible
woman, good-natured, kind-hearted, and devoted to her
family. She had eight daughters, with ages varying from
twenty-four downwards. The chief duty of their mother
was to get these girls married. Three were engaged to
curates, and were to become brides as soon as the bishop
had found livings for the young men. But they might not
all marry curates; Lady Mary might bring titled cousins
into the town. Both she and her husband were so well con-
nected ; there might be chances of red coats instead of black
for some of the five unappropriated maidens at the palace.
4
The Dean's Wife.
'Oh, Lady Mary would be a great acquisition, a very
great!' said Mrs Johnson to every one.
And there was nobody in Carminster who did not agree
with her. Never had the different circles in the cathe-
dral town been so unanimous in their opinion of any one,
unless it might be of the late unlamented dean.
The cathedral set were very pleased with Lady Mary's
title and position and social prestige; for though, of course,
the cathedral set was at the summit of the social scale in
Carminster, it had sometimes enough to do to hold its own
against the outside world. Carminster was not merely
a cathedral city; it owed some of its importance to its
manufactures, and the men who made their money there-
in had a way of showing off the good things that money
gave them in a manner which the dignitaries of the
cathedral thought impertinent in the extreme.
There was a baronet amongst the manufacturers : he had
obtained his title on the occasion of a royal visit, when
he had spent a good many thousands for the credit of the
place; and his wife had been heard to say that a baronet
was the equal of a bishop any day of the week, and indeed
better, inasmuch as his wife was a ' lady,' while the bishop's
was only plain ' missis,' just like a butcher's.
Mrs Johnson affected to treat the speech with the con-
tempt which it deserved, but it rankled nevertheless,
and she hailed Lady Mary's advent as a strong reinforce-
ment to the cathedral ranks. But the manufacturers had
heard of Lady Mary too. Her politics were liberal; it
was known that she had opinions of her own, and did not
content herself with adopting those of her husband, ready
made. She had interested herself before her marriage, and
after, in sundry elections together with other ladies, and
had worked hard on behalf of men who were certainly not
of her own order.
Coming to Her Kingdom.
5
4 There would be no nonsense about her,' said the manu-
facturers ; and the baronet's lady said she should certainly
call at the deanery, and hoped to see a great deal of my
Lady Mary.
The Dissenting element was rather strong at Carminster,
and some of the Dissenters—the more heterodox ones—
were very pleased at my lady's advent. In those two novels
which she had written in the early years of her married
life, were opinions that they said were as heterodox as
their own. And Carminster, a generation or two back,
had had a little literary importance, principally maintained
by the worshippers in the old Presbyterian meeting-house.
They, too, expected something from Lady Mary. She
would be something more than a dean's wife. She would
have an individuality of her own. Her books showed that
she might do something for the intellectual life of Car-
minster, which had not had much to boast of lately. As
to the more orthodox Dissenters, they were very well
pleased too that a lady who, in one way or another, had
shown so much liberality of opinion was coming amongst
them. As a rule, Dissent and Deans had not much to do
with each other, unless as antagonists; but from Lady Mary,
and from the dean in her right, all manner of good things
were looked for.
There never was a man who started in a new sphere
with a better chance of popularity, and never a lady who
found more expectant worshippers ready to welcome her.
6
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER IL
mary reardon.
A good many years before the opening of this story, Lady
Mary Reardon was staying with some old friends of her
father's at their country house in Somersetshire; and there
the dean, her present husband, first met her.
At that time nothing was further from his thoughts
than the possibility that he should ever be a dean at all.
He was about four-and-twenty, had just been called to the
Bar, and the prospect of briefs was not too flattering. That
did not matter very much at present. He had a good al-
lowance from his father, whose especial favourite he was,
and he could afford to take things easily and pleasantly
as long as his father lived and he remained unmarried.
He did not mean to marry ; not, at least, till he was in
a position to do so very comfortably, or unless he met
a young lady very well dowered and favourably inclined
to him. He was a prudent young man, with no bad ways
at all about him, and rather nice manners. He was all
that was good and correct; and folly and imprudence
seemed utterly alien to his nature. And as soon as he saw
Mary Reardon—at least before he had known her two
days—he did the maddest and most foolish thing possible
—fell head over ears in love with her. And what was
there in such a girl for such a young man as himself to
fall in love with ? That was what anybody would have
thought who did not know something of the innate per-
versity of human nature.
Mary Reardon was barely sixteen, and in many things
very childish and uninformed for her age. In fact, as
her detractors said, she had had no bringing up at all.
Mary Reardon.
7
Her father had always been a poor man, having run
through his own money, which was not much, and through
that of his wife, which was a great deal more; and his
wife being dead, he and his daughter had been wandering
about the Continent, and to various watering-places in
England and Ireland; and Mary had learned to read and
write somehow, and to speak French, and to dance, and to
make her own bonnets, and mend her own gloves and her
father's, nobody could tell how, for she had never been
to school above a month at a time, and never had a gover-
ness at all. So that it was no wonder she had grown
up, although an earl's daughter, to be as little like an
ordinary young lady as it was possible to be without alto-
gether outraging society beyond forgiveness.
Still, such as she was, George Dalmaine fell in love with her.
She was altogether different from any one he had ever met
with in his life, and perhaps that had something to do with it.
His people, all of them, possessed all the virtues and
respectabilities that it is possible to possess. They never
said anything that was not correct, or did anything that
it was not perfectly proper they should do. They were also
so well brought up, and so well bred, and so well behaved,'
and so well dressed, that their very perfection sometimes
became monotonous ; but there was no monotony in Mary
Reardon. She was a ' tom-boy,' said proper young ladies,
and with some truth. She was all sparkle, fun, vivacity;
she tore her dresses, and, poor girl! never, hardly, had a
decent one to tear. She talked too loudly, and slammed
doors, and ran in and out of rooms, and was never quiet,
still, or subdued for a moment. She was overflowing with
animal life, and, without knowing it—though she would
not have cared if she had known—was always sinning
against every rule and regulation of what a well-behaved
young lady ought to do.
8
The Dearis Wife.
But she was very charming in George Dalmaine's eyes
withal. She was not a faultless beauty, but she had a
colour that came and went, and eyes that sparkled or
drooped with her varying moods. She had a bright,
clear skin, where the sun had left traces of his kisses
in freckles that were the trouble of Mary's life. She
had other troubles—her father's debts, his improvidence,
her old dresses—but the freckles weighed most on her
mind; she did not know that they gave yet another
charm to the sparkling, sunny, saucy face that men's
eyes so loved to look upon. And she had dark brown
hair that looked as if there were threads of gold in it,
when in the sun—hair that rippled and waved and curled
of its own sweet will; soft, fine, and silky, but never smooth.
Those were the days of bands and braids, of glycerine
and Rowland's Macassar; but nothing would make Mary
Reardon's hair comport itself as well-behaved tresses
should do. But it had wound itself round George Dal-
maine's heart all the more strongly.
She was quick and clever in many ways, George Dal-
maine could see that; she had a warm heart and a warm
temper—two things that, when they go together, are apt
to lead their owner into some trouble. She was generous as
the day, brave, true, and loyal, clever and quick. All this
George Dalmaine saw; but he did not see, and it would
have been an incomprehensible thing to him if he had, that
the girl had, for good or ill, the gift of genius. Cleverness,
pleasantness, kindness, all these George could understand,
but genius would only have been a puzzle to him. If he had
detected this element in Mary, the chances are that his sound
common sense would have prevented his falling in love with
her. As it was, she charmed, perplexed, and fascinated him;
and he would never have thought that it was just the in-
comprehensible in her character which had won him.
Mary Reardon.
9
Mary's mother had been an Englishwoman, and died in
giving birth to this, her only child. Her married life had
been a short and not a very happy one. Lord Cashel had
been one of the most devoted of lovers, one of the most
affectionate of husbands, and one of the best-bred and most
gentlemanly of men, but his wife had had a good deal to
bear with. She had a horror of debt, a love of orderly
ways and regular hours; would have liked her household
to go by clockwork. It was a wonder to everybody that
she had married Lord Cashel; but she loved him to the
last. He was one of those sweet, sunny-tempered men
whom wives and daughters love blindly, let them suffer
as they may.
Mary had much of her English mother in her, which was
a very good thing for Lord Cashel's comfort; and her English
relatives were kind to her for her dead mother's sake. Mrs
Blount, at whose house she met George Dalmaine, had been
her mother's second cousin; and when she saw the way
matters were going with George Dalmaine, hoped, for
Mary's sake, nothing would occur to prevent the course
of true love running smooth.
But the love was only true on George's part. Mary had
for him no love at all. She was very pleased with his
admiration ; it amused and flattered her. He thought her
worth looking at, in spite of the freckles ! They rode to-
gether, they walked together. She repeated ' Moore's Melo-
dies' to him : she had the prettiest, softest Irish accent
in the world. George was not aware of his own case, did
not know where he was drifting, or to what all these golden
summer hours would lead, till they were suddenly broken
in upon by a summons to the death-bed of his father.
That was a great grief to George. There had been a
very warm affection between his father and himself. For
a time, the suddenness of the blow put all thoughts of the
10
The Dean's Wife.
wild, bright Irish girl out of his head. Then, when the
first shock was over, and the first bitterness had passed,
came other troubles which were likely to affect his future
career. His elder brother intimated that he was not dis-
posed to continue the allowance to George which he had
hitherto received. He felt that he could not do it con-
sistently with the duty which he owed to his wife and
family. He had always had a great idea of duty : George
perhaps felt that he might as well have chosen another time
to carry out such ideas. And there was no will left, so that,
excepting for three thousand pounds which would come to
him under his mother's settlement at her death, George had
nothing to look forward to but his own exertions \ and the
prospect was not a cheering one.
Then at this time there befell another death in the family,
that of George's younger brother, who was at Oxford, and
had been intended for the Church and the family living.
Then Sir Frederick's heart softened a little, seeing that
he had only one brother left, and he came forward with
what he believed to be a very liberal offer. The family
living must fall in very shortly. It was occupied by a
great-uncle who was eighty-three, and had held it for fifty
years. Many men in his position, Sir Frederick said,
would make money by the living when it did come into
their hands, but he wished for nothing of the sort. If
George would take orders, the living should be his; and
Sir Frederick would allow him a hundred and fifty a-year
in the meantime. He was fitter for the Church than the
Bar, Sir Frederick said; without unusual talents and great
energy, nothing was to be done in the law now-a-days. If
George did not accept this offer, he, Sir Frederick, would
wash his hands of him, feeling that he had done all that
could reasonably be required of him.
There was very little liking between the brothers. If
Mary Reardon.
II
George could have dispensed with help from his brother
altogether, he would have done so; as it was, he thought
it best to take the assistance so grudgingly offered—especi-
ally as his mother urged him to do so—and enter the
Church. He had no fervent religious convictions, he did
not believe or disbelieve anything very strongly; but the
family living was a good one, the rectory a charming old-
fashioned house, with good grounds which abutted on those
of the Hall; and George had always been a rather good
young man, who had no unruly tendencies or wayward dis-
positions to lead him very far astray.
So it was settled : George became a clergyman instead
of a barrister; and the old rector dying, very conveniently,
six weeks after his nephew's ordination, Sir Frederick kept
his word, gave George the living, and intimated that, as
their mother had not been left very well off, it was clearly
George's duty to take her and his sisters to live with him.
There certainly never was a man with a clearer idea, not
only of his own duty but of other people's, than Sir Frede-
rick; and by impressing on every one what they ought to do,
he threw a great deal of the burthen, that some might have
thought should have been his own, upon their shoulders.
It might have seemed to some that the right way for Sir
Frederick to assist his mother would have been to have
allowed her a thousand a-year out of his very handsome
property. The late baronet had been a comparatively poor
man when he married his wife, who had no fortune of her
own, consequently the settlement had not been on a very
liberal scale. He had always intended to make his will,
and rectify matters. The property was very different to
what it had been when he became its master. He had been
careful and painstaking, and a good legacy from a rich aunt
had enabled him to clear off several heavy mortgages; and
Lady Delmaine had been a good manager, and held her own
12
The Dean's Wife.
in the county upon a very moderate expenditure, so that
he had been enabled after a time to lay by money, and
then to acquire a farm here and a field there, and to round
his estate off very nicely, greatly to his wife's satisfaction
and his own. He had been so prudent, so saving, and she
had so delighted to help him : but, like so many prudent
people, he had put off till the morrow what should have
been done on the day, and Lady Dalmaine found herself
left with a title, five hundred a-year to keep it up, and
three unmarried daughters to provide for.
There were a few thousands of personal property, and
these my lady and her younger children shared with Sir
Frederick. The interest of the girls' portions would not be
enough to dress them decently, so that it seemed a very
desirable arrangement for George to have his mother and
sisters to live with him at the vicarage, especially—as Sir
Frederick told him—as he had no wife of his own to pro-
vide for.
George himself did not see what else he could do. He
was not unkind—indeed, he was fond of his mother; but
still—still, if he could have had that bright, wild Irish girl
to share his vicarage, it might have pleased him better.
But he had never said a word of love to her. He did not
know what had become of her, and was not clever enough or
energetic enough to succeed as a lover any better than, ac-
cording to Sir Frederick, he would have done as a lawyer.
It had been a very bright, a very happy time, those few sweet
summer days. Should he ever again see the girl who had
made them so sweet ? Would she ever think of him ?
Would she ever laugh at anyone or with any one as she had
laughed at and with him ? These thoughts came to him very
often at first; not so frequently as the years went on, but
still there never was a face or a voice that gladdened his eyes
or his heart as had the face and the voice of Mary Reardon.
Mary Reardon.
13
He made a very fair parson. He preached tolerable
sermons, didactic and argumentative ; nobody perhaps was
any the better for hearing them, but still they generally
felt, after hearing them, that they had spent their Sunday
mornings in rather a creditable manner. He looked after
the schools and the charities, which Sir Frederick pretty
well left to him, always saying he himself had so many
claims upon him in London, and that the living was so
good, and that having given it to his brother, he was of
course so much out of pocket, that he could not do so muck
in the village as he would have liked to do. He kept a
pony-carriage for his mother, and a footman; he would net
allow her to contribute anything to the housekeeping,.
And when his sisters married, which they did one afrer
the other, he gave the wedding-breakfast and a handsome
present. In return for all this, his house was kept in
better style than any other rectory or vicarage in the
county; his dinners were well cooked, his domestic life
moved upon wheels, and he was able withal to lay by a
few hundreds every year. He was a careful though not
a penurious man, and this pleased him. He liked his good
dinners; he liked his well-ordered home; he liked his annual
trip abroad. He made the best of his life, and went on his
way as sedately as if that quiet heart of his had never learnt
how dear a sound a girl's laugh could be.
One of his sisters fell into a bad state of health after the
birth of her second child. She had married very well, and
there was a large house to direct, a position in the county to
maintain, hospitalities to be exercised, two delicate children
to be considered; and an invalid, even with the assistance of
the best of servants, was unequal to the duties of the position.
There was nothing for it, Lady Dalmaine said, but for
her to look after her daughter instead of her son, and
therefore she left the vicarage. She felt she had done
14
The Dean's Wife.
her duty by him : another duty now called her away. It
did not seem to occur to my lady how thoroughly George
had done his duty by her. So she went, and George found
himself alone in his large house. His sister-in-law became
very gracious to him then. She told him he ought to
marry. She did more. She had two of her sisters to stay
with her, and sent George invitations to the Hall every day
while they were with her. George went, because he had
nothing better to do, and the luncheons and dinners at the
Hall were good. He had never been very partial to his
sister-in-law.
Fred had married very prudently, but not quite after
the manner in which the Dalmaines generally married. It
was suspected that his wife was of Jewish descent. There
were certain facial peculiarities about her which tended to
confirm the suspicion. Certain it was that her father had
been a pawnbroker, that he developed into a bill-dis-
counter; that he had made money largely, and spent it in
a great house and on great dinners, and had bought the
prudent Frederick (who had not always been quite so
prudent as people believed him to be) as his son-in-law.
Frederick had not got quite so good a prize as he had
imagined himself to be worth. There had been a little
angry feeling between himself and his wife's father in
consequence, but it had subsided now. The old gentle-
man had made his daughter a very handsome present—
settled on herself as pin-money for {my lady' when she
came into her title—and he came every autumn to enjoy
the shooting, and behaved most liberally on the birth of
each successive child. He made no secret of the fact that
he had a son-in-law after his own heart; and, indeed, two
more congenial spirits it would have been difficult to find.
But George had no intention of becoming another son-
in-law to the ci-devant pawnbroker; no, not ^ven though,
Mary Reardon.
15
as my lady more than hinted, twenty thousand each was
to be her sisters' portion. He was not what is called a
marrying man; he had the tastes and peculiarities that are
supposed to be indigenous to old bachelors. He was cold,
quiet, self-contained, a very good uncle, a very civil brother-,
in-law, and though not on cordial terms with his brother,
still on as good as a parson ought to be with his squire.
He liked ladies' society in a calm, rational, platonic way,
but the cleverest coquette in the world could not have
got up a flirtation with him; and my lady gave up the
hope of providing him with a wife, in disgust, and her
sisters went unmated back to London.
They had not gone a week when George left his vicarage
for his usual autumn tour. He was a good pedestrian, and
this time he undertook a walking tour in Wales. He had
been abroad, of course, like every other well-born and well-
to-do Englishman, seen Swiss mountains, and Italian lakes;
but it was a new experience to find how much beauty and
grandeur he might revel in, without crossing the sea.
It was a very beautiful autumn. George enjoyed his holi-
day; and having arrived at Llanberis, of course made_a point
of ascending Snowdon before his return home, which was
to be in two or three days.
He walked up the mountain alone. He had a profound
contempt for guides, as wholly unnecessary to a man who
has his limbs and his eyes.
Not very far from the summit of the mountain is a spring,
which is said, and I daresay with truth, to be the highest
in Great Britain; and here George paused, and taking the
silver cap off his brandy-flask, filled and drank, having
prudently qualified the water with a little of the spirit.
As he drank, a fancy seized him. ' If this were the
Wishing Well of the Giant's Causeway, what would I wish
for?' Then the memory of the saucy lips that had told
t
16
The Dearis Wife.
him of the,well and its supposed power came to him. ' If
it were you that were drinking, it would be money and
greatness you would be seeking after. To be Lord Chan-
cellor, or to have ten thousand pounds for your first fee—
it is something like that the heart of a lawyer would be
cravin'; but it's little enough would content me.'
And he remembered, too, that he had felt at the time
that, if the granting of a wish had been promised him, Jie
would ask for neither power nor wealth, but only that
Mary Reardon might some day be his own. All that
afternoon, just such a sweet bright day as this, she had sat
telling him Irish stories and legends, and that of the Wish-
ing Well had been one of them. And where was she now,
this girl who had woke something in him that no woman's
face or voice had ever done since—' The one woman,' he had
said to himself, ' that, if ever he did marry, he would wish
to marry'? 'Flung herself away on some Irish scapegrace,
most likely,' was his thought; and then he stooped and
filled his drinking-cup again. He would wish—though the
mountain-spring had no such power as that by the ocean
was said to possess—he would drink and wish that once
more, at least, he might see Mary Reardon again.
'Would you be kind enough to lend me your cup for a
moment, sir, when you have finished ?'
He turned, and before the wish had been fully formed
it was granted, and Mary Reardon stood before him, Seven
years since he had seen her; but he felt that he could not be
mistaken, though seven years had not passed without doing
their work. Those were the same bright eyes, laughing in
spite of themselves, the same rich colouring and waving hair.
A little more demure and conventional—she was address-
ing, as she imagined, a stranger; but the mountain air
had flushed her cheeks, and given her eyes something of
the old glad light, and she looked younger than her years
BTary Rear don.
t;
—a stranger might have taken her for nineteen. Her
figure was slight and girlish still; and the sun, though
he had kindly forgotten to freckle, had browned the delicate
skin as he had loved to do of old. There was no doubt of
it. His wish was granted, and Mary Reardon was there.
He took off his hat, and bowed very low, as he emptied
the cup and filled it again. And he looked at her very
eagerly to see if she remembered him. Hot a bit! There
was no thought of him. He had known but one love in
all his life; but she, on her side, had had many lovers.
She was in travelling costume; a dark blue serge dress,
very simply made, and plain straw hat. Her alpenstock
was in her hand. She looked as if, like him, she had
been walking up the mountain-side. She gave him one of
her old smiles as she took the cup, and, turning to a lady
on a pony, handed it to her. Her travelling companion,
evidently. They had a guide, who was holding the pony's
reins. Mary stooped to fill the cup again.
' So sorry to detain you. It was very careless of me to
forget our own. Ho, thanks,' as he offered to flavour the
water from his flask. ' Shall we go on now ?' and she
turned to the lady on the pony.
' One word—one minute !' gasped George. ' I—I—
surely I cannot be mistaken ! I have the honour, have I
not, of speaking to Lady Mary—' He paused—dared he
add ' Reardon ? '
' Mary Reardon. Yes, that's I,' she said, her whole face
lighting up as she spoke; ' but—I haven't the pleasure of
knowing—'
'Ho, I suppose not,' said George, ruefully. ' It is a very
long while since we knew each other, and then it was for
such a little time; but even if I am forgotten, surely,
Lady Mary, you remember the Larches, and your cousin,
Mrs Blount ?'
B
i8
The Dean's Wife.
' Dear old Dorry ! How good she was to ine! Oh, I
could never forget her ! I think I remember you too, now.
Mr Dall—Dall— No, I haven't got it quite right, but I
remember you. Didn't you swing me in the orchard ? Oh,
I was a sad tom-boy, I'm afraid. Please tell me ; I haven't
got your name quite right, have I ? '
, 'Not exactly; but I'm glad I have not altogether slipped
out of your memory. I am George Dalmaine.'
' Oh ! I remember. Let me introduce you to my friend.
Miss Todd,' she said, turning to the lady on the pony's back,
who had sat by in silence, a quiet, but not uninterested
spectator of the meeting. 'Jane, dear, Mr George Dal-
maine, who was very good to me at Cousin Dorry's, seven
years ago; swung me till I was tired—how I must have
made his arms ache !—rowed me on the fish-pond poor dear
Dorry called a lake; let me upset him, and then managed
that Dorry should think it was he who was in fault; read
to me of afternoons, while we did our sewing; and, kindest
thing of all, let me talk as much nonsense as I pleased!'
The lady on the pony smiled and bowed. George just
glanced *at her, and saw that she was small, slight, and
apparently about forty, dressed from head to foot in grey,
with nothing remarkable about her but a pair of the pleas-
antest and yet keenest eyes in the world. She had a clear,
decisive voice too, as she said,—
' I think, if we are to reach the bottom of Snowdon to-
night, the sooner we are at the top the better.'
And they went up the mountain, and looked down on the
great white world of granite peaks together; and Mary
II ear don laughed and talked, and was as strong and as nimble
as any mountain nymph could be. And as his heart thawed
aiid his soul woke in the sunshine of her presence, George
Dalmaine rejoiced that Mary Heard on was still the Mary
Reardon of old—as unchanged in everything as in her name.
How They were Mated.
l9
CHAPTER III.
how they were mated.
But women like Mary Reardon do not live unmarried till
twenty-three without having a story of their own—a story
that may change or warp the nature, even if it leaves the
name the same.
Lady Mary had had her story, though the only fact in it
which appeared to George Dalmaine to be of any import-
ance was that the earl was dead. George had never made
his personal acquaintance, but he knew enough by report to
know that such a death was not altogether a subject for
regret. Lady Mary was not left very well provided for ;
he did not learn that in words, but he could guess as much
from the manner in which she was travelling with Miss
Todd, neither lady having a personal attendant. Well, he
did not want money with his wife, and Mary should be his
wife if he could win her. And at first, with that calm,
serene self-complacency which was a characteristic of the
Dalmaines, he made sure that he should so win her. She
would want a home and a husband; every woman wanted
both. She seemed to like him; was almost as gay as of old ;
her hair was smoothed; she had clean collars instead of
rumpled ones, and did not appear to tear her dresses as she
had been in the habit of doing formerly. She was perhaps
better informed, and might talk more brilliantly ; but he
was not sure, she had always been such a very clever girl.
And she moved more gracefully, had more the air of a
woman of the world; but she did not look a day older than
she did seven years ago, and, he flattered himself, was in
everything the same.
But over Mary Reardon there had come the change of a
20
The Dean's Wife.
lost love and a saddened life. Not a year after she had
first known George Dalmaine, there came a young country-
man of her own in her way—gallant, and gay and brave—
and he won Mary's heart to beat for him as it would never
beat for mortal man again. They parted troth-plighted;
and the young soldier sailed away to lose his life in some
inglorious Indian squabble, as so many a brave man's life
has been wasted before and since.
Then there came a great desolation over Mary Rear don.
All the joy and the glory had gone out of her life. It
seemed as if there was nothing but bitterness and weeping
for her dead for ever. She had so loved him ! And she
could so love ! Her hero, her knight, so young, so noble,
and so tender, gone, never—never to return. No hope, no
light, nothing but darkness and sorrow for evermore. Oh !
if Heaven would but be merciful, and call her away too.
Hearts did break, did they not, when they had such bur-
thens to bear as had she ? How was it, then, that hers kept
beating on ?
There was a year of long dull misery, when George Dal-
maine would have seen a change indeed if he had met her;
when her eyes were dim, and her cheeks had lost their glow,
and her step, that surest sign of failing health and sinking
hopes, had lost all its spring and elasticity; when in the
morning she said, ' When will it be night ? ' and at night,
4 When will the morning come ? ' Sorrow's old story, re-
peated by weary souls from one generation to another. And
then her father fell ill, and she had to nurse him. She was
very fond of him, just as her mother had been. Idle, weak,
improvident as he was, he had that sweet sunny temper and
those kind, caressing ways that to many women make up
for so much. Then the earl had to be taken abroad, and
there was trouble in raising the money to do it with; and
this trouble, like many others, Mary had to meet. And the
How They were Mated.
21
earl got a little better, and then a little worse; and they
tried place after place, and there were always anxieties for
Mary about ways and means. And at last he died, just
two years before that meeting by the spring on Snowdon,
leaving Lady Mary Reardon with barely two hundred a-year
with which to maintain her position as an earl's daughter,
but with Miss Todd for a friend.
A great many people, in the course of their lives, had
been very thankful to have Miss Todd as a friend; but none
perhaps had ever been in such sore need of her as Lady
Mary, when she found herself left alone in Florence with
her dead father. Miss Todd had come to Florence for a
rest and a holiday. She was rather a busy woman. As
she sometimes said, had she married, she would only have
had her husband's affairs and her own to occupy her. Be-
ing single, and with no necessity to work for her living,
everybody seemed to think that she might work for them.
Miss Todd had a great deal of this to thank herself for.
She had more of kindly helpfulness than any woman could
spend on herself, consequently it overflowed on her neigh-
hours. She helped Lady Mary in her trouble, stood by
her as an elder sister; and when the Earl of Cash el was
laid to rest in the English burying-ground, she took his
daughter away with her for a time, and the time seemed as
if it would never come to an end.
The present Earl of Cashel could do nothing for his
orphan relative. He was so poor that the title would
have been an encumbrance to him had he not determined
to look about for an heiress to share it with him. Mary's
other Irish relations would, as she said, have all given her
a welcome with a heart and a half, now that she was left
almost unprovided for; but she had seen very little of
them of late years. Some of her English relatives wrote
kindly. She might have found a home, for a time at
22
The Dearts Wife.
least, at the Larches; but she remembered Cousin Dorry's
lectures and the long hours of sewing for the poor, and
felt that she could bear these worse now than she had
done as a girl. So she stayed on with Miss Todd; and
perhaps the two years she had spent with that kind friend
had done as much to change and develop her, as had done
that early love with its sad ending.
Miss Todd lived, when she was at home, in London.
But she travelled a great deal, and one way and another,
Mary Beardon saw very much of the world under her
auspices. Not of the fashionable world : Miss Todd was
simply the daughter of a professional man, and, unless
under special circumstances, seldom entered aristocratic
circles. But Mary saw a great many clever people in
Miss Todd's little drawing-room; she heard of a great
many things that were going on in the world; she read
books upon subjects whose very names had been unknown
to her till now; she went about with Miss Todd to
theatres, and concerts, and to public meetings. Miss
Todd had her own opinions upon various matters, both
social and political; and, above all, she saw something of
the dark and seamy side of London life—of the children
perishing for want of fresh air, of women leading hopeless,
ruined lives—of the misery that cannot help itself—of that
worse misery that will not. Then they travelled; and so
the two years had gone on. But all that Mary had seen
and learned while with Miss Todd, and all her varied
experiences while with her father, though they had all
tended to make her a good, self-relying, and unselfish
woman, had also helped to make her, like Miss Todd, rather
a peculiar one.
Nothing of all this did George Dalmaine see. He was
charmed, as none but Mary had ever charmed him. He was
a man who wanted amusing. He was quiet, slow, and per-
How They were Mated.
23
haps the least in the world commonplace. Mary amused
him infinitely. Her past sorrows were seared over now.
Her lost love would never be forgotten. There was not a
day she did not think of him, and of the father so dear, with
all his faults. But still she was living her life now. She
could suffer when alone, moan her moan in the dark nights
and the lonely hours ; but the strong vitality in her was
making itself felt now. She could laugh, and sing, and talk
as of old, to all appearance; though not a day passed with-
out her heart going back to the graves of her dead.
They all three stayed at Llanberis for a week; then Miss
Todd decided on going to Barmouth. George Dalmaine
found out that he had heard much of the beauties of that
place, but had never seen it. He could easily spare time
for a visit there. The friend he had left in charge of his
parish was quite content to remain at his post another fort-
night. So they went to that quaintest, queerest, most ill-
provided, and most beautiful of Welsh watering-places; and
George was always with them. He grew warmer in his
wooing. Mary was wilful and perverse. He never felt
sure of her. It had always seemed to him, when looking
at marriage in the abstract, that nothing could be more
easy. He began to find many difficulties now. Did Mary
love him? Would she have him? All sorts of doubts
beset him now. And though he did not think more meanly
of himself, he thought ten times more of Mary than he had
done even in the first rapturous moment of meeting her by
the mountain spring.
Then Mary began to see how things were with him, and
to take herself to task. There had been a time when a
man's love would have been a thing to be laughed at
She was not a coquette—she would not have crossed the
room to have brought a prince to her feet; but still there
had been a time with Mary when it had seemed to her
24
The Dearts Wife.
that men's hearts were toys for girls to play with. Hei
own great grief had made her pitiful. If George loved
her ? Well, he did love her—she could not doubt it.
That was a sad thing for him. Mary felt very sorry.
She liked him well enough to wish that he did not love
her. It was so easy to see how things were going. And
what should she do with this love, now she had won it ?
He was so kind, too—so thoughtful in little things, and
watched her every look with the devotion of a dog.
' I wonder if I ever could have cared for him,' thought
Mary, 1 if—if it had not been— No, never in that way;
he is not the man for a woman to worship. But he is the
man to worship a woman, and might not that do after all ?'
That was what she was thinking, on the last evening
of their stay in beautiful Barmouth. She was alone in
their lodgings. Miss Todd preferred, when she could have
them, apartments to an hotel; it was more economical,
quieter, and they had them to themselves. Their rooms
were half-way up the hill round which Barmouth grows.
Comfortable, old-fashioned rooms, looking over the chim-
ney-pots of the house in front of them, and so on to the
mouth of the river where it swells out into the sea. Let
Miss Todd be ever so short a time in lodgings, she made
them look like home. There were a few ferns, that George
Dalmaine, had found for them, on the table; some books
that he had lent them—' Pickwick,' and the ' Spectator,'
which he had brought in the day before. The twilight
was deepening, and Miss Todd, who had gone out to settle
with a porter to fetch their luggage the next day, had not
yet returned. Mary found herself wondering whether she
would bring George in with her. It was a time at which
he was apt to come in. She rather hoped he would. He
might say good-bye, and he could not say anything more
while Miss Todd was present,
How They were Mated.
25
She heard Miss Todd at the door, and her clear, decided
voice saying in its clearest and most decided tones,—
4 Good-night. I'll not ask you in, for we have many
things still to see to, and we start very early to-morrow.'
Then her friend came in, full of the news of what she
had done, and very ready for the tea which was awaiting
her; but she said not a word of George, and Mary felt a
little disappointed.
But when the tea-things were cleared away and the pack-
ing finished—Mary thought there was not nearly so much
of it to do as Miss Todd had intimated to George—and
they took their seats by the window to have a last look
at the sea, all silvered by the moonlight, Miss Todd said
suddenly,—
4 Your friend, the Rev. George, has asked me for our
address in London, Mary, and I half promised to send it
to him. Shall I ? '
4 Well—why not ? '
4 You know best why not—or why. I haven't inter-
posed, Mary; but of course I'm not blind, and from the
first moment we met I saw that that was coming which, from
the time you and I joined forces together, I knew must
come sooner or later—an oflfer really worthy the acceptance
of Lady Mary Reardon. Those two or three others that
have been made you were not—'
4 It wouldn't have mattered if they had been; I didn't
care for one of the men.'
4 No ?—and you do care for this one ?'
There was only a shake of the head for answer.
4 He cares for you.'
4 Can I help that ? '
4 Well, I do think that you might have helped being so
very pleasant to him. He is very much in earnest: he
would make a very good husband, and I think you are one
26
The Dean's Wife.
of those women who are better married. You won't make
half such a good old maid as I have done.'
' How did you come to be single ? That is always the
puzzle to me.'
♦ I never had your beauty, Mary; but I suppose I had
my own little attractions. I have had three offers, my
dear. In a worldly way they were each fairly good.
There was nothing to be said against the character of any
one of my suitors \ each was of a suitable age, and as good-
looking as the average of men. And each, to my great
amusement, was equally astonished when I refused him.
Each put the same question, " Was I in love with any-
body else ? " to which I could only say, " No—but I was
not in love with him." A man never seems to think that
a woman may like a single life for its own sake -} she must,
according to him, be in love with some one or another.
Now, I don't think it's in me to fall in love at all, and I
was determined never to marry unless I did. And I have
always been able to stand alone very well. But the case
is different with you.'
' I am not at all in love with Mr George Dalmaine. I
don't think there is any man living could make me love—
again.'
' Ah ! the past has its story with you. But liking and
affection might do with you instead of love. And the love
might come in time. I think you will be better mated than
single, Mary. Unless you say "No" to-morrow, I will send
this envelope, in which I have enclosed our address, to Mr
Dalmaine. There must be something in a man who can
keep a woman in his memory for seven years. He would
make a good husband; and let me tell you, Mary Beardon,
that a good husband is a very good thing.'
So George Dalmaine followed them to London ; and in less
than three months, he and Mary Beardon were man and wife.
Wedded Days.
2 7
CHAPTER IV.
wedded days.
Perhaps nobody was pleased by this marriage but George
bimself and Miss Todd. Tbe latter had made up her mind
that for her friend—impulsive, erratic, wilful—marriage to
a man of George Dalmaine's character was the best thing
that could befall her.
1 He'll never set the Thames on fire,' said the little
woman to herself; ' but she has brains for both, and he
may teach her what to do with them. All she wants is
ballast. Well, she'll find that in him.'
Mary herself had yielded because it was, after all, very
sweet to be loved. This man was giving her so much—the
one love of his life. He had kept her memory for seven
years, and never once asked her what she had done in all
that time. He just asked her to be his wife, had no jealous
misgivings about the past, no doubt and fear that he should
not get as good measure as he gave. It was an undoubting,
unquestioning affection—as loyal a love, Mary felt, as ever
was given to woman; and she thought, if only in pity, she
would let him love. And she would make him a good
wife; she liked him very much already—better, she was
beginning to feel, than she should ever like any one else,
although without a grain of that passionate idolatry, that
utter abnegation of self, which had been given to her young
soldier. It was rather curious the feeling between these
two. The cold, grave, self-possessed man loved with the
fervid intensity that was the chief characteristic of the
woman he worshipped. She, on her part, gave him the
calm, rational affection which it might have been expected
was all that he was capable of feeling.
28
The Dearis Wife.
George's mother disapproved of the marriage very much.
Lady Mary's training, she told her son, had been such that
she would make the worst possible wife for a clergyman.
And the Reardons had had a bad name for generations. A
spendthrift, careless race; the last two had all but died in
the workhouse, and the present was living by betting and
other disreputable means. In her heart my lady was dis-
pleased that the vicarage was now, as a home, closed to her.
She had always looked forward to returning to that when
her daughter's health was re-established. And there wer.e
appearances that it would shortly be so.
Lady Dalmaine had never intended George to marry.
He had done so much for her and his sisters that it seemed
only natural he should go on doing more, and make his
existence one entirely subservient to her comfort.
Sir Frederick, had his word, too, against the Reardons.
But in his heart he was a little jealous that George was
bringing a wife home to the vicarage of very different rank
to the one he had brought to the Hall. And the younger
Lady Dalmaine felt this too, and resolved that it should not
be her fault if Lady Mary was not taught her proper place
in the parish, and made to feel that, after all, the clergyman's
wife was of very little importance compared to the squire's.
As to George's sisters, they were all indignant at his
marriage, and quite of opinion with the elder Lady Dalmaine,
that she was a very ill-used person. Somehow, they had all
got into a way of looking upon George as the bachelor uncle
—the bachelor brother—who was to exist solely for his
family.
From Frederick, who had been simply and consistently
selfish and grasping, they looked for nothing, and for him
never had a word of blame. He had never allowed them
to expect anything from him, and they had not been dis-
appointed; but from George, who had till now seemed only
Wedded Days.
29
to live to help them, such conduct as this seemed unjustifi-
able in the extreme.
However, they were all civil outwardly, with the excep-
tion that the elder Lady Dalmaine, in her first letter to her
son, told him how unfit his wife was to reign at the
vicarage. But even she wrote very nicely to the bride-elect,
and they sent some rather handsome wedding-presents; the
shabbiest came from Sir Frederick and his wife. George
took his bride for a short honeymoon tour to Paris; and
then they began their new life together in the quiet country
village.
And for a little time there never was man so happy in
this world as George Dalmaine. Mary was like sunshine
in his home and by his hearth.
Under his mother's rule there had been order, regularity,
decorum; but the routine had been ungenial and unbending.
There was no light, no warmth. He had, without knowing
it, become chilled and narrowed; a little more, and he
would have become so cramped and narrowed by the very
comforts that surrounded him, the very perfection of the rules
by which he and his household were expected alike to walk,
that he would have been as incapable of moving in other
grooves as a man who all his life has been cramped with
irons would be of moving freely if they were once withdrawn.
Lady Mary was true as the day; loyal to her heart's core.
Having married this man, she meant to make him the best
of all possible wives. As it was she had to find, as many
another woman has done, she could be no better a wife than
her husband would allow her to be. But she did not find
this at first. She was full, almost as when she had been a
girl, of fun and merriment and sweet sunshiny ways. Dal-
maine had never been so happy in his life. And she was so
capable, too. He had a little quiet pride and triumph there.
His mother had said that under the rule of the shiftless
30
The Dean's Wife.
daughter of a ruined spendthrift his income would be wasted,
his household demoralised, and his furniture ruined.
Now Lady Mary was one of those who have the happy
gift of helpfulness; she had two clever hands, and an active
brain to tell her how to make use of them. She could trim
a bonnet, or write a story. She had her ideas—very prac-
tical ones—as to the management of a household ; and her
theories—not quite so practical, young women as well as
young men being apt to take stray excursions into TTtopia
—as to the best management of the kingdom. She could
talk with the old women of her parish upon their rheu-
matism and their grandchildren, and discuss with her
husband the politics of the day, or the movements of the
various parties in the Church.
She had learned a great deal, in her father's time.
Troubles had taught her many things which, with some
girls, might have turned to ill—but Mary fteardon's nature
possessed the alchemy which turns all to gold ; and she had
learned a great deal also while with Miss Todd.
So bright, so clever, so capable, so sweet a wife, George
Dalmaine thought that never man had had before. He was
so proud of her self-reliance, her promptness, her helpfulness ;
and then, man-like, did his very best to destroy these
qualities in her, for which he had married, and which he
still admired in her. He liked her high spirits, her ready
laughter, her quick wit; but he wanted them only exercised
just when it pleased him. He was grave and taciturn by
nature; and though it was Mary's gaiety and sparkle that
had won him, he sometimes accused her, to himself, of want
of dignity and reticence—a want he had never detected in
her till she became his wife. Then he wanted her to be as
helpful and as capable as she really was, and yet to be as
subservient and as easily led as men always fancy simple-
tons can be, and as simpletons never are.
Wedded Days.
3i
Mary was quite willing that he should be master; but in
her own domain, her own sphere, she was resolute in being
mistress. And she could hold her own as well as any lady
living when it so pleased her ; and having held it, George's
family told him he was under the rule of his wife, because
mother, sisters, sister-in-law and brother, saw that there
was for ever an end to their own rule. George, at-any rate,
had escaped them altogether.
They had all many faults to find with Mary, and then
George was weak enough to do that for which his wife
thought that, to her dying day, it would be impossible she
should forgive him : he let his people speak against her to
him, and then let her know that he had done so. Now
Lady Mary, as I have said, was truth and loyalty itself;
and the very intensity of her truth and loyalty made her
utterly pitiless to the least failure in these respects in
another. She would have stood by her husband against all
the world. No one should utter a breath against him in
her hearing. Or, if they did, she would so speak that never
again should they repeat such offence. But George seemed
to think there might be something in what his people said.
She was perhaps too imperious; she held her own way in
some things with too high a hand. She had not altogether
the staidness, the suavity that beseemed a clergyman's wife.
When his mother had questioned the domestic management,
it was with the best of intentions \ when his brother had
doubted the wisdom of some of Mary's rules, he had meant
kindly. Why should not Mary take such things as they
were meant ?
The way that Mary did take them was to tell him he
was a traitor. She did not measure her words, and was
pitiless in her scorn of the man who would let mother, or
brother, or sister speak against his wife in his hearing.
There was much bitterness, and perhaps it never quite
32
The Dearts Wife.
wore away between them. And Lady Mary made a dis-
covery which is one of the saddest that a wife can make \
she had married a weak man. He loved her—yes—he
loved her through it alL .But to women like Lady Mary,
the love of a weakling seems so poor a thing. She had be-
lieved him to be as true and as loyal as herself when she
married him, and it had been that belief which had made
her feel as if, in time, she might give him back a love
almost equalling his own. She had not known of his weak-
ness, or she would have been wise enough to have felt that
perfect truth and loyalty must have strength for their
foundation.
If she had started with love, there might have come to
her the pitying tenderness that a wife sometimes has for a
weak husband—the almost divine compassion that a mother
has for an ailing or an erring child. It might have come, it
does to some; but I question if her own nature was not too
intense for her to understand or sympathise with such weak-
ness. She had made ample allowance for her father, who in
his way had been a much worse and a much weaker man
than her husband. But then he had been her father. She
had so grown up in the shadow of his faults, that she had
never seen how great they were. And the earl had been so
gracious and so pleasant, had had such kind words, such
caressing ways; had so sweet a temper, too—and temper
has so much to do with a woman's daily life—that both wife
and daughter had loved him fondly to the last. He had al-
ways been pleasant to live with, and poor George Dalmaine
was not altogether so : he had his little captious tempers,
and his trying ways. And the earl, on minor points, was
the very soul of chivalry. His womenkind were perfect in
his eyes, and he would have maintained them perfect at the
sword's point, if need had been, against all the world. Mary
could pity her father, but she had no pity for her husband.
Wedded Days.
33
So the marriage had not turned out altogether so happily
as George Dalmaine had expected. Still they rubbed on
together, and ties had come such as can only come between
wife and husband. Children had been born and died, and
George had been very tender to his wife in their mutual sor-
row; and there were two daughters living at this time who
were the very joy and pride of their parents' hearts. And
George had grown a little wiser as regarded his relations;
that is to say, he had learned to check their interference,
and never quoted them to his wife. And, after all, it was
not that he had ever been so very fond of them. But they
were his relations; and, being so, they should have been
faultless in his wife's eyes, whatever they might be in his own.
There are a good many George Dalmaines in the world.
Lady Mary had filled up her life one way or another. Her
mother-in-law, who would not have sinned against one of
the minor decorums to have saved a life, said of her that
she was hopeless and irrepressible when she took that part
in the election of the county member to which allusion has
been made; and yet she did nothing more than is permitted
to ladies to do when elections are on foot. And when that
novel in which, after the death of her only son, she wrote
away some of the bitterness of her sorrow, was published,
my lady spoke to her son on the publicity and notoriety
which his wife was attaining, and which might seriously
hinder his preferment in the Church. But George had a
little pride in the wife who had shown that she could make
herself famous if she chose.
Lady Mary wrote no more novels. That one had done
its work of healing, and she had her girls growing up to
be her comfort now. And she had many resources, in-
terests, and aims in which she was using her husband to
take part. He would have been the quietest of country
parsons if it had not been for her. As it was, he became
c
34
The Dearis Wife.
talked of as one of the most learned o£ divines, one of the
rising lights of a progressive age. He had talents which
were covered with rust when he married. He had bright-
ened and rubbed them up. He had a good share of busi-
ness talent, a certain mild pugnacity, and a 'pertinacity that
never knew when it was beaten. So that he was a useful
man in his way and to his party. And knowing his use-
fulness, it was with a mild self-complacency, as of one only
receiving his due and nothing further, that he saw himself
the Dean of Carminster.
CHAPTER Y.
crows' corner.
There was a reading-room which somehow had become
appropriated by the clergy of Carminster to their especial
use. There was no law, written or unwritten, that this
should be so, but somehow no one, with the exception of
the one physician of the city—and he had a son in holy
orders—and two or three elderly gentlemen connected
equally with the County and the Church, ever expected to
make use of it. The supply of papers was not particularly
good. Of course there was the patriarch John Bull, which,
amongst all the mushroom papers of to-day, seems like a
country gentleman of a good old stock—Conservative
because all his forefathers have been so before him, and his
opinions have come down to him through the years, with
his acres and his old family dwelling. The Times of course,
and the Standard, and the Morning Post, but no Spectator ;
they were a little shy, the clerics of Carminster, of anything
that savoured of the Broad Church. They were rather
Crows' Corner.
35
High in the city, and very dry, and the Broad Church
frightened them. Of Evangelicalism they had a little mis-
trust, as something rather too fervid for practical purposes,
and slightly vulgar; bordering, indeed, on Dissent. But on
the other hand, with one or two exceptions, there was no
tendency to Ritualism amongst them. They had a great
dislike of Popery, or anything that leaned that way; and
they, and their bishop, and their new dean were all well
inclined to go on in their old beaten tracks. They believed
jpst as much as their fathers in the Church had done before
them, and had no wish to stray into forbidden paths, and
no hankering after forbidden fruits.
This reading-room was at the corner of two of the prin-
cipal streets of the city, and at this corner its clerical fre-
quenters were in the habit of standing when they had left,
or before entering it, and exchanging greetings or indulging
in the gossip of the day. So much was this a habit of
theirs, that this especial spot was known to irreverent
spirits (and even cathedral cities are not exempt from such)
as ' Crows' Corner.' And here one sunny September after-
noon, two or three weeks after the dean and Lady Mary
had taken possession of the deanery, seven or eight black-
coated gentlemen might be seen exchanging a little parting
chat before going home—the more fashionable and wealthier
ones to dinner, those with less pretensions and larger fami-
lies to tea, without a dinner to follow it.
There was another reading-room in the place, very much
better supplied with papers and periodicals than this more
clerical one, and with a tolerable library of works of refer-
ence, to say nothing of novels and travels. But this, which
had originally been started as a Mechanics' Institute, no
clergyman who stood upon the dignity of his order would
have thought of belonging to. The dissenting ministers, and
there was a fair number of them of all denominations in this
3<5
The Dean's Wife.
cathedral city, all went there; so did some of the smaller
professional men, so did several retired tradesmen who
would else have found time hang very heavy on their hands,
and so did one clergyman, who did not stand so much on
the dignity of his order as it behoved him to do, and whose
sermons, when he heard of them—he had never heard them
—make the bishop frown, and who was held to be altogether
heterodox and loose in his ideas.
He went to the reading-room of the Mechanics' Institute
because, he said plainly, he found books there which it was
necessary he should consult, and which he could not afford
to buy, and could meet with nowhere else in the city.
Also, he said, he liked to meet the dissenters : interchange
of thought and opinion was good, and it was as well to
meet with men of all denominations. Perhaps he would
not have said this had it not been with a wish to gird a
little at his bishop, from whom he had nothing to expect,
and who was known to have some distrust of the Dissenters.
The Rev. Cyril Warne was not popular amongst his
clerical brethren. He was clever and sarcastic, and not
very amiable, and some of the weaker spirits stood just a
little in awe of his tongue; so that if a better living—the
one he held in jfche city was poor enough—had fallen to his
lot, and had taken him away from Carminster, its clergy might
have rejoiced a little at his good fortune, but would certainly
have rejoiced much more in their own.
Now, when they were all basking in the sun this Septem-
ber afternoon, the Rev. Cyril Warne was seen coming down
one of the streets—that one which led from the Mechanics'
Institute. No doubt he had been spending his afternoon
there, for he had a great book under his arm, about which
he appeared to be talking to his companion, who every now
and then interrupted him with a little eagerness and the
air of a man who is accustomed to have his words listened
Crows' Corner.
37
to with rather more deference than the Rev. Cyril Warne
appeared disposed to pay to them.
These two men were in striking contrast. The Rev. Cyril
was short, dark, active, wiry, not very clerical in his appear-
ance, and not particularly well dressed ; with very little
indeed of the clerical air and manner about him at all.
Indeed, when it had been intimated to him that the bishop
liked his clergy always to be attired in conformity with their
calling, he had said plainly there was no occasion always
to carry the shop about with him. So that, to-day, he was
wearing a black necktie, rather shabby chimney-pot hat,
and a well-worn coat of no particular cut \ but still, in spite
of ill-dressing and a certain brusqueness of tone and manner,
though you might have hesitated in pronouncing him a
clergyman, he would not have spoken ten words before you
would have said that his status was that of gentleman.
His companion was a much handsomer man than the
Rev. Cyril. Tall, slender, with light-brown hair, turning
slightly grey at the temples, which made him at thirty-two
look several years older, but on the other hand gave him a
certain air of fashion, and became him just as powder used
to become certain faces. He was very well dressed, with
even elaborate care and precision. From the round hat of
the true clerical cut, and the faultless white necktie, to the
well-fitting coat, every ihing was calculated to give you the
impression that he was a clergyman of that moderate school
which avoids all desire to be taken either for Catholic priest
or for layman. And he carried bis head high, and had
altogether the appearance of having at one time or another
had military training. There was an intense pride in the face,
partly the pride of an intellect which has not had too many
chances of measuring its strength against that of its com-
peers, and partly the pride of a man not quite sure of his
position, but bent—even against all the world, if need be—
38
The Dean's Wife.
on maintaining and asserting it. The whole face and
manner were aggressive, haughty, and defiant; the courtesy
was too elaborate, the dress too studied, for one who had
all his life held the place of a gentleman amongst gentlemen,
and took it to be his own as a matter of course.
The Rev. Cyril stopped to speak to ODe or two of his
acquaintances—his companion drawing back for the moment,
then turning with all the others as an open carriage came
down the street, with a lady and two girls seated in it.
' Lady Mary sunning herself,' said the Rev. Theophilus
Browne. He had always pleasant, kindly things to say to
and of ladies, and though married, and fifty, was the most
popular man at garden and croquet parties,—croquet was
then in the ascendant in all the city. The carriage stopped.
Lady Mary had something to say to Mr Browne, and he
drew near that she should say it; and while she spoke,
every gentleman there, as well as the companion of the
Rev. Cyril, had ample opportunity, of which this last fully
availed himself, of seeing her.
He might well look. Such women as Lady Mary had
not often come in his way; but her graceful matronly
beauty, her rich dress, all her surroundings—were matters
he could appreciate to the full. She was no longer young,
but on her mother's side she came of a stock whose beauty
had a long day, and from the father's she had the lovely
Irish eyes, now blue, now black, and the dark hair and the
changeful light and shade of his race. "When the face was
at rest there was a certain haughtiness in the expression,
which had not been there when she was a younger woman.
Perhaps it might not have been there now, had it not been
for some experiences of her married life. She had had to
hold her own, and had held it. There had never been much
pride of place and rank in Lady Mary, till sundry of her
husband's dear relatives had called it forth, and then Lady
Crows* Corner.
39
Mary had asserted herself. She had found that it would
not do to forget, still less to allow others to forget, that she
was an earl's daughter; and so something of this proud
defiance, which had embittered her nature to a little ex-
tent, had left its mark on the face.
But when that face lighted up with smiles, as it did now
when addressing the Rev. Theophilus Browne, the sweet
genuine nature of the woman shone out. She could no
more help pleasing than the sun could help shining. She
had said of herself that she had infinite capacities for being
disagreeable: there was at least one lady living, who bore
the same name as herself, who could have confirmed that
statement. But she was disagreeable by an effort—it was
compulsory maliciousness, only resorted to in sheer self-
defence; but it was no effort at all—merely second nature
with her—to be all that was bright, and gracious, and
sweet, and sunshiny. There never was a woman with less
of the coquette in her. The intense pride underlying all
her graciousness would alone have preserved her from that,
even if her pure, true, womanliness had failed to do so;
and there never was a woman whom other women were so
ready to accuse of being a thorough-paced coquette to her
heart's core.
' We were so sorry—the dean and I—that we were out
when you brought Mrs Browne to the deanery yesterday,' she
said, holding out her hand to Mr Browne; and every man
there present envied him. ' I shall call on her soon with
my girls, and hope then to have the pleasure of making
her acquaintance.'
One after another of the gentlemen standing at Crows'
Corner came and spoke to Lady Mary. Then the Rev.
Cyril, who knew very well that he could not annoy the
incumbent of St Barnabas more, asked him to present him
to Lady Mary. There was an unspoken antipathy between
40
The Dean's Wife.
these two clergymen. Mr Warne knew his brother clergy
man's feelings, and delighted in trampling on them. He
knew that from his outspokenness, and a certain not too
reverent way he had of speaking of things that some of
them held as sacred as the Bible itself, he was looked shyly
on. But no one looked on him so shyly as did the vicar of
St Barnabas. He was higher in his views than any other
clergyman in the city—the stiffest and straightest of church-
men; and he looked upon Mr Warne as a very black sheep
indeed, if not a totally lost one. But Mr Warne was in
his right when he asked for an introduction to Lady Mary;
and very reluctantly Mr Turner of St Barnabas performed
that introduction. Then Lady Mary smiled even more
sunnily than she had done on Mr Browne, and held out
her well-gloved hand to him also.
£ I have heard of you, Mr Warne,' she said, ' and I hope
soon to have the pleasure of hearing you. My dear friend
Miss Todd is in your parish, and I mean to desert the
cathedral some Sunday, that I may come to your church.'
Mr Warne could have fallen down and worshipped Lady
Mary then and there, for was not this a triumph over all
those Church brethren of his who looked upon him as a
sheep of such a doubtful colour ? But as he could not drop
on his knees in the mud and sing pseans of thankfulness, he
had to bow and smile his thanks at Lady Mary's praises;
and then she and her girls were whirled away, amidst smiles
from her to every gentleman there standing at Crows'
Corner—not excepting Mr Warne's late companion, on
whom for a moment her bright eyes had rested with a little
curiosity—and bows from every one of them but him who
felt that he had no right to bow.
Grantley Germaine, Methodist Minister.
4i
CHAPTER YI.
grantley germaine, methodist minister.
Mr Warne walked on with his tall, handsome acquaintance
by his side, till they came to a corner where they separated,
each taking his own way: Mr Warne in an exulting frame
of mind, with Lady Mary's smile and her flattering words
still present to him—words which from her seemed ten times
as gracious as they would have done from any other woman.
He was so wrapped up in himself that he did not notice the
gloomy abstraction of his companion, nor the curt manner
in which he bade him farewell.
Then Grantley Germaine pulled his hat fiercely over his
brows, and strode on with a look on his face that spoke little
for the serenity of the mind within. Why had he been left
out in the cold ? Why should not he have been introduced
to this Lady Mary Dalmaine, as well as that pert little
Warne, of whom no one—not even his fellow-clergymen—
had a good word to say ? What could she find to praise in
his sermons ? Why should those vapid effusions of his, re-
markable for nothing but their audacity and profanity in
speaking of holy things which all should reverence, be
thought worth her hearing, when he, Grantley Germaine,
could preach the truth with fire, and force, and eloquence—
equal surely to that of his master Wesley? And yet there
were none to sing his praises in my lady's ears; none to tell
this dean's wife where she might hear Christ's gospel set
forth with such utterance of power as surely never had been
heard in this dull, God-forgotting cathedral city before.
Ho; she would go to the church to hear the blasphemies
of an unbeliever, who would explain everything away by
science, and knew nothing of faith, or hope, or inspiration.
42
The Dean's Wife.
Tliis Warne, this Broad Churchman, scoffing at his Church
while yet he wore her livery, could claim as his right to be
introduced to her, and was recognised as an equal by every
one of these men on whom she had smiled, just because he
belonged to their order, and, priests of Baal that they were,
they stood by their order; while he, speaking the truth as
Wesley spoke it—Wesley, the truest, faithfullest son of that
Church which yet had cast him out—was held unworthy to
approach her! Would one of those men have introduced
him to her, as Warne had been introduced, just as a sheer
matter of course, and that by a man who held him and his
doctrines alike in detestation ? They all knew him by sight
and by name, but beyond the stiffest, curtest recognition,
they treated him as an utter stranger; and yet, did he not
set forth the doctrines of their Church more purely and more
truthfully than ever they had been set forth in the cathedral
or in any church of all their city ? And he was treated as
an alien—a pariah—a Dissenter, forsooth !—he, as duly or- -
dained by the laying-on of hands as ever a one of them;
i Methodist' applied to him as a term of reproach and con-
tumely, setting him apart as low, and unfit even to approach
that woman in her beauty and her pride, around whom they
had all so delighted to gather.
Why couldn't Warne have brought him forward ? Warne
was glad to pick his brains, and get what he could out of
them for his own purposes, and he liked to make a parade
of liberality of thought. But what was it worth when it
came to the test ? Oh ! Warne, broad and free as he might
call himself, was as narrow and cramped as any one of them
.all, and looked in his heart with as much disdain upon the
Methodist as even Turner, that stiffest of High Churchmen,
himself.
Ah! priests! priests ! every one of them warped and
narrow and proud ! thought he, who, in his soul was as
Grantley Germaine, Methodist Minister. 43
thorough a priest as ever Rome sent forth to bind men hand
and foot, and lead them blindfold whither they wist not.
And how beautiful she was, this Lady Mary! Oh, to
preach before such a woman! To see her hanging on his
words, stirred by his eloquence, moved to tears, and sorrow,
and repentance—humbled, stricken, and subdued ! Brought
by him to the fold of Christ, to the very feet of the Saviour
—or to his own !
It was like a vision before him, what he had seen to-day;
mocking him with glimpses of a world from which he was
shut out. This gracious, smiling woman, so stately yet so
sweet, throned, as it were, in her carriage, with these men
basking in her smiles: the very richness of her dress, her
silks and velvets, the glitter of a bracelet as she moved her
hand, were part of her charm to his sensuous imagination.
And the girls with her, buds round the parent rose—one in
her early teens, fair, delicate, timid, the other a mere child, a
tiny miniature of her mother, laughing, saucy, coquetting
with one or two who spoke to her—these children, so daintily
dressed, so tenderly nurtured, added to the refinement and
the wealth which gave Lady Mary yet another charm.
But they, like their mother, were shut out from him; no
chance that he would ever be allowed to pet the little one,
or talk to the elder girl in that half-fatherly, half-laughing
way Mr Browne, always popular with young people, had
done. The children he had to do with were of a very
different stamp to these; and he thought, with not too
much warmth of paternal feeling, of his little ones who
called him father.
He was now in a street with small semi-detached, semi-
genteel houses on either side, and little gardens in front:
houses for the most part inhabited by people who had come
down in the world—by clerks, by the editor of one of the
local papers, two or three maiden ladies, a couple of curates,
44
The Dean's Wife.
the Unitarian minister, and himself—all people who thought
that they had some claims to social position, but without
much income to maintain it on.
Some of the houses were bright and pretty, with flowers
in the windows, clean curtains and blinds, and gardens well
kept up. Clearly occupied by people who, if they had not
much money, know how to make the best of what little
they had. The very sun seemed to shine more brightly on
these dwellings, as if he too sympathised with their owners'
wish to make the best of matters. But other houses looked
shabby and woe-begone, with steps that were never hearth-
stoned, windows that apparently were never cleaned—as if
those who occupied them had given up the contest with
Fortune, and were content to let her ill-use them as much
as she pleased; houses where the blinds were never straight,
where half-washed clothes were always hanging out to dry
in the neglected back gardens, where there were untidy
children and dirty little maids-of-all work, and generally a
mistress who was shiftless and helpless, with draggle-tailed
skirts and an unfailing recollection that she had seen better
days.
There were at least a dozen houses of this stamp in the
street, but it was to the most dreary-looking of all that
Crantley Germaine turned his steps ; and after knocking
at the door with a vigour that roused the whole street, he
was, after waiting three or four minutes, during which time
he did not forget to address himself to the knocker again
and yet again, let in by perhaps the smallest and dirtiest
damsel that ever figured as maid-of-all-work since the days
of the immortal Marchioness. Her master scowled down
on her, and in tones as dignified as if he were addressing
the most portly of butlers, asked her why he had been kept
waiting.
' I was a-washin' the children in the back-kitchen, an'
Grantley Germaine, Methodist Minister. 45
the dishes was all about, an' missus a-ringin' for her tea,
an' the kettle a-bilin' over, an' the cat a-runnin' away with
the rest o' the loin o' mutton which was to be for to-
morrow's dinner ; an' please, sir, I've chased him, but 'tain't
o' no use—he got up to the top o' the wall where I couldn't
reach him, an' there he is, sir, a-grinnin' an' a-swearin' an'
a-eatin' it up as fast as ever he can eat it; an' oh ! please,
sir, will you go an' see if you can get it from him, or we
sha'n't have nuthen but 'taters for dinner to-morrow 1'
So, without a pause, the poor little child-servant poured
forth her string of troubles, looking up pitifully in her
master's face the while; for unless he did rescue the
mutton from the cat, there would be little enough for
the household dinner on the next day.
Grantley Germaine seemed not to hear her; he pushed
past along the dirty, unswept passage and into a room as
comfortless and ill-kept as might have been expected from
the exterior of the house.
The furniture had all been good in its time, too. But
it was ill-kept; and the carpet was worn and shabby, the
curtains faded. On a couch, with a cradle by her side, in
which a sickly baby was sleeping, lay Mrs Germaine. She
was a thin, pale woman, with a look of confirmed ill-health
and a fretful expression. She was just her husband's age,
but appeared to be several years his senior. Time does not
deal equally with men and with women, and in this case he
had dealt very unequally indeed.
There was a little girl by the side of the fireplace, with
very rough hair and a very dirty frock. She looked up half
sullenly at her father as he came in. She might have been
a pretty child if properly dressed, and a nice one if she had
been properly brought up. She was playing with a shabby
old doll, very quietly for fear of waking the baby.
Grantley Germaine took it all in : the comfortless, untidy
46
The Dearis Wife.
room—the pale, ill-dressed wife—the neglected child; and
he thought what an ugly picture it was ! what a wretched
contrast to that vision of splendour and refinement, of grace
and beauty, which had shone on him for a moment at Crows'
Corner! What a shame it was that such a man as he
should have such pitiful surroundings ! Why shouldn't his
child be well dressed, and pretty, and smiling, and fearless,
like that bright, coquettish little fairy he had seen in Lady
Mary's carriage ? Small chance of this ill-kempt urchin ever
growing up into such a stately young nymph as was Lady
Mary's elder daughter. Then, by way of bringing Tip his
little daughter to be fearless and riante, he asked her harshly
what she was staring at him for, and ordered her to leave
the room.
' She rocks baby when he wants it,' said his wife, in a
faint tone of remonstrance.
' Why need you have the baby here ? Is this a place for
a cradle? Why can't Jane see to him ?' he asked her in
the stern, sonorous tones which were such a contrast to the
poor woman's miserable quivering treble.
' Jane has the other two, and they're more than she can
manage,' was the feeble answer.
Grantley Germaine grew more and more out of temper
every moment. What a companion for a man like him !
This dull, soulless, sickly creature ; faded and worn and old
before her time! And the face of Lady Mary, radiant,
smiling, glowing, came before him more vividly than ever.
If he had fallen in with such a woman as herself, there
was no knowing to what heights he might not have risen.
It was more than whispered that the dean never would have
been the dean if it had not been for his wife; that she had
called forth his latent talents, and given him an energy and
force he would never have possessed but for her. With
such a wife by his side, such a companion by his hearth,
Grantley Germaine, Methodist Minister. 47
what could not he, Grantley Germaine, have done ? Why
on earth had he been fool enough to tie himself for life to
that poor wretched creature before him, as he had done ?
And yet, six years ago, when Grantley Germaine had
entered into matrimony with Lucy Ricketts, it was thought
that he had done a very good thing for himself. The bride
was six-and-twenty, like himself; but she was good-looking,
had five hundred pounds of her own, and expectations from
her father, a well-to-do tradesman. But her father had
failed in business, and then died, so there were no further
expectations from him. And the children had come fast,
and the money had gone, and Mrs Germaine's health had
given way, so that she was now a confirmed invalid, able to
do little but nurse the baby, and patch and mend for the
children. His stipend was not so small as that of many
Dissenting ministers, and with each child there came an
accession of income, in the fatherly, despotic way in which
Methodism looks after its preachers. And the congrega-
tion were kind, but they were not rich ; Methodism had
been at a low ebb till Grantley Germaine had come into
the city. That wonderful organisation which rules all the
affairs of Wesley's Church—an organisation surely second
only to that of the Jesuits in its complex machinery and
far-seeing, far-reaching power—had despatched him hither
as the right man in the right place, to raise by the fire and
force of his preaching a cause which seem blighted, as it
were, by the shadow of the cathedral.
And he was preaching fervidly, passionately. He was
not, perhaps, what in the truest sense of the term we may
call eloquent; he lacked depth and height; he was shallow
and superficial. But still he had something in him that
might pass for eloquence. It palled after a time, when his
listeners found no result. But it served for the time, too,
and the chapel filled; and a great many people belonging
48
The Dean's Wife.
of the Church, or to the various other sects in the city,
came to hear this handsome, fashionable-looking young
preacher, who was so unlike all preconceived ideas of what
a Methodist minister should be.
He was very flattered by his success. The great things
he might have done, he said to himself, if only he had not
been hampered by narrow means, and an uncongenial com-
panion wrapped up in her own ailments !
'There's a letter for you on the mantel-piece,' said his
wife, presently. ' It came while you were out.'
He took it, and frowned as he did so. The direction was
in a large, ill-formed hand, the envelope a cheap one, and it
bore the superscription, 4 The Rev. Grantley German,' plain
German, without that aristocratic ' aine' for the termination,
which made such a difference in the name.
He walked out of the room, and went into his study with
the letter. It was a small room looking on the ill-kept
back garden, where, as usual, a few small articles of clothing
were hanging out to dry. The recesses by the fireplace
were filled with books, some of a serious and theological
character, but with not a few cheap novels and some of the
modern poets among them.
The little room was as ill-kept as the rest of the house,
looking and speaking plainly of an ailing mistress and a
servant unequal to her duties. He flung himself in an arm-
chair by the window, and looked again at the outside of the
letter.
'He might address me by my rightful name. By the
name to which I have an infinitely better right than to that
detestable commonplace one he delights in. I think there
never was a man so beset on all sides by the prejudices and
inefficiency of those around him as myself.'
He opened and read, not without a little difficulty, for
the haudwriting of his correspondent was stiff and crabbed:
Grantley Germaine., Methodist Minister. 49
'My dear Son,—I cannoc help it if I vex you much more
by directing my letter as I have done. I cannot lend my-
self to a lie, no, nor to anything which seems to me to savour
in the least of one. And I cannot but think that you are
lending yourself to that which is untruthful in claiming a
name which, to my certain knowledge, hath not been borne
by any one of our family for the last four generations. Be-
yond that my knowledge does not go. We have been plain
folks, and have kept no count of such vanities as pedigrees.
But I have never heard that our remoter ancestors came
from France, or that we were in any way allied to that
French Huguenot family to whom you say you have traced
back our descent. It seems to me an idle vanity, this claim
of yours, with something of deceit and false pretension in it,
and however much I may grieve you, I cannot, as I say,
lend myself unto it.
' I am grieved to hear of your straitened circumstances,
and your wife's health is a heavy burden on you, calling
for much care and tenderness and self-denial on your part;
for it is hard for the ailing and sickly to stint and spare.
You must stint for her, poor afflicted one. Others of our
ministers do well upon the same stipend that is given you,
and though your wife's illness involves many charges, I
cannot but think that, with a little wise economy on your
part, they might be met. But I would help you, and that
very gladly, only my means have of late been more strait-
ened than ever, and at no time, as you know, have they been
over-abundant. It may be that I have not worldly wisdom
enough to guide my affairs as well as some; but I cannot
help it. I cannot live for nothing but the bread that per-
isheth. While there are souls to be saved and sinners to be
brought to Christ, I must make them my chief care, if by
any means I can so preach the Lord that they may lay hold
on Him. If by wrestling in prayer, and studying how best
D
The Dean's Wife.
to expound the word, so that the erring sheep may be
brought unto repentance, I spend the time that might win
a better share of the riches of this world, as I say, I cannot
help it. I must be about my Father's work, and having put
my hand to the plough, I dare not draw it back.
' I have had a letter, that has touched me very nearly,
from your brother Richard. He seems doing well in Lon-
don, writing, he tells me, for one of the daily papers there.
And he wants to help me—to send me money, so that, as he
says, I may have necessary comforts. This is kind of him.
But the natural man in Richard was always generous. But
I cannot forget his sin. I can't let the son who has so erred
think that any gifts of his may do instead of penitence. Be-
side, I am like Paul. I will be beholden to none for my
maintenance while I can still work with my right hand.
He does not ask me to forgive him yet—he says he dares
not—but he hopes that sometimes I think of him with a
little kindness. Think of him ! My son ! my son ! would
God that I had died before he sinned that sin ! He is my
Benjamin, my youngest, and my heart is always yearning
for him. Night and day I wrestle for him with the Lord.
If I could but feel that- he was brought into the fold, and
his sin washed away, I should think that I had nothing more
to ask for.
' I fear many things for him in London. It is the great
Babylon, full of snares and temptations; and he who has
fallen once, and fallen so terribly, may yield to sin again.
He is doing good work now—for it is good work to be
writing for a paper that, being read all over the kingdom,
carries light into dark places. It is not as if he were writing
idle stories or foolish verses, as he was once so fond of doing.
It is a great thing for every man, rich or poor, to know what
is being done all the world over, so that our rulers may fee
the light of day is being thrown over all they do. Know-
Miss Todd and Her Neighbours. 51
ledge is spread by this, and iniquity checked. This is good
work for Richard, and I rejoice thereat. But still I tremble
for him. I wish you, as his elder, would write—I enclose
his address—and keep a loving, brotherly eye upon him.
One young man can do so much more for another than a
father, who is so often supposed to have forgotten his own
youth. A kindly word from you, a tender warning, may do
very much. And the lad will be more open with one nearer
his own years than with me—above nil since I had to re-
proach him so severely for that great sin—so I want you to
write to him, and let me know, if you can, from time to
time, how he is doing.
1 May the Lord bless you both, my Judah and my
Benjamin.—Your loving father, Josiah German.'
CHAPTER VII.
miss todd and her neighbours.
Just as, with a very lowering countenance, the ' Judah' to
whom this letter was addressed had folded it up and put it
in his pocket, a sharp cry from the garden without called
his attention there. His eldest boy, an urchin of three
years, had, by means of the dustbin, struggled up to the
top of the wall in order to reach some of the next-door
neighbour's flowers which were visible above it. The result
was a slip of the foot, and a fall from the wall, when master
Johnny hit his head so sharply that the blood ran down his
face, but not so severely that he could not scream his loudest.
The little sister and the poor little maid ran out. Mr
Germaine stepped out more leisurely. There was crying
and sobbing now by all three. The sight of the blood had a
52
The Dean's Wife.
bewildering effect upon the nerves of the two little damsels.
Even Mr Germaine felt a little concerned. The cut looked
ugly.
'Carry him in, Jane,' he said, majestically; 'and take
him up to his bed.'
Poor little Jane staggered along under the weight of the
fat, heavy boy. Mr Germaine might have taken him him-
self. He was fond of talking of parental love; a favourite
image of his in the jpulpit was ' the child carried in the
strong arms of the father.' But this child was dirty, and
the father had his best coat on, and Mr Germaine's coats cost
money. So he let poor Jane stagger on beneath her load,
and when they reached the little entrance-hall, on their way
upstairs, they heard a double knock—not a very loud, but
still a peremptory one—the knock of some person demand-
ing instant admittance.
' Put him down, Jane. Ho; carry him up out of the way,
and then go to the door,' said Mr Germaine.
Double knocks were not very frequent at that house.
Another minister might have assumed, as a matter of course,
that it was one of his congregation paying a friendly visit;
but Mr Germaine's flock did not care to see very much of
their pastor out of his pulpit. They were proud of his talents
—proud to see their chapel filled by strangers and outsiders,
but their hearts did not go out to him as they went out to
homelier men, of whom, perhaps, no one but their own people
had ever heard a word. No, it was not likely to be one of
these.
Susan—I may say here that the two elder children had
their plebeian names from maternal grandparents, having
been born when their father had expectations from his wife's
family—Susan ran to the door; she could just manage to
open it with her little hands, and in another second Mr
Germaine found himself face to face with a lady, plump,
Miss Todd and Her Neighbours.
53
pink, petite, between fifty and sixty, nicely dressed, but with-
out the usual out-door garments, having but a pretty little
cap on her head.
'I am Miss Todd, your next door neighbour, Mr Ger-
maine ; and seeing the accident just now from my bedroom
window, I have come to give any help I can. You don't
carry that child easily, my dear,' to Jane—poor little Jane,
who could hardly believe her ears at being so addressed.
' Let me take him. Upstairs, is it ?'
In a second Johnny was resting securely in the soft round
arms of Miss Todd. She had a very good dress on, too.
One of her virtues—a cardinal one, she maintained, in
elderly women—was that of dressing well; but she thought
much less of her dress than Johnny's father did of his coat.
' Which room ? Go first, please, and show me the way.
This was to Mr Germaine, and he ushered her into his
own bedroom, as being the best furnished in the house; and
then Miss Todd laid Johnny on the bed, cut back some of
the hair which had matted over the wound, sponged his
face, pressed the cut together, then applied some sticking-
plaster, which, with her scissors, she had brought out of her
pocket; and all as neatly and deftly as if she had been an
hospital nurse half her life time.
'There's nothing to ciy about, Johnny,' she said. She
had the names of the children and the poor little maid all
perfect by this time. 'You must keep quite quiet, and I
shall send you in a sponge-cake and a book all pictures. Eat
the cake, look at the pictures, and go to sleep. When you
wake again, you won't feel anything of the cut; but don't go
climbing the garden wall again, and never fight with cats.'
'You will allow me to introduce you to my wife, Miss
Todd, that she may have the pleasure of thanking you for
your great kindness to this unlucky little boy of ours ?' said
Mr Germaine, with very elaborate courtesy.
54
The Dean's Wife.
'But the cake and the picture-book for my patient,' said
Miss Todd. ' I wanted to send them in at once.'
' Johnny can wait,' said his father.
* But Johnny won't like the waiting,' said Miss Todd.
* And I want him to go to sleep. I shall be very happy
to make Mrs Germaine's acquaintance, but, perhaps, it had
better be at some future time.'
' My wife is an invalid,' said Mr Germaine,-with a tender
regret in his tone. ' She is unable to call anywhere. ' But
perhaps you may have guessed as much,' he added, with a
pathetic pitifulness, 'from the glimpse you have already had
of our disorganised household ?'
' Then I will see Mrs Germaine, certainly, at once,' said
Miss Todd. ' And, Johnny, keep quiet—the picture-book
and the cake will soon be here; and if the cut is quite well,
and papa will allow me, I shall send you in a basket of
apples to-morrow.'
' You are too good,' murmured Mr Germaine, as he led
the way downstairs to the room where his wife was on the
couch, flushed and anxious, wondering what all the commo-
tion in the house was about, and wishing Jane would keep
the children quiet.
' My darling, I have brought you a visitor,' said Mr Ger-
maine, as he stepped up to his wife's sofa. ' A neighbour
who has shown herself a friend already—Miss Todd.'
How poor Mrs Germaine wished that her hair was smooth,
and the room a little tidier ! She was not at all astonished
at the change in her husband's manner—she was used to
that. I do not think it would be fair to call Grantley Ger-
maine a hypocrite. He did not mean to deceive. But he
was a born actor. In the pulpit he was the preacher, fiery,
impassioned, ready to speak the truth at all hazards and
all costs—to go to the scaffold or stake, if need be, in its
defence. Perhaps he wouldn't have spoken the truth out
Miss Todd and Her Neighbours. 5 5
ro fearlessly if the scaffold or the stake had been realities—
I'm not sure—there was a good deal of obstinacy in the
man, as there is in all weak egotists. At home, when there
was any one looking on, he was the affectionate father, the
devoted husband ; he fell into his part as a matter of course
the moment stranger eyes were on him. He believed him-
self to be the things he simulated, so that even his poor
wife did not reproach him for the difference in his moods,
and would as soon have thought of questioning the sincerity
of his kindness when it came, as she would have doubted
the existence of the sun when it shone upon her.
' My wife is a sad invalid,' said Mr Germaine ; ' and our
little maid is young, and not too efficient. But I am sure,
from the kindness you have shown to our little boy to-day,
I need make no apologies. Johnny hurt himself in the
garden just now,' turning to his wife,c and Miss Todd, who saw
the accident, kindly came in to offer her valuable assistance.'
' It was not valuable at all,' said Miss Todd, who saw
that the poor mother was rendered uneasy by her husband's
magniloquence. 'Your little maid could have done as much.
Johnny had a fall, Mrs Germaine, and hurt his head. I
saw the fall from my window, and not knowing the extent
of the mischief, took the liberty of running in to inquire.
We have put Johnny to bed with a bit of sticking-plaster
on his poor little pate ; and I am going in now to send him
. in a cake and a picture-book. An hour or two's quiet, and
Johnny will be himself again.'
Mrs Germaine murmured feeble thanks. Miss Todd
moved towards the door.
' We can't spare you yet, Miss Todd. Not even for
Johnny,' said Mr Germaine. ' You will give my dear
wife a little more of your society. How do you like Car-
minster ? Have you seen enough of it yet to form an
opinion ? '
56
The Dean's Wife.
1 No ; I only arrived a few weeks ago. I have just settled
down. I suppose it is like other cathedral towns—just a
little dull; but one can find work to do everywhere, and a
very dear friend of mine has lately settled here.'
' Lady Mary Dalmaine ? I think I heard her mention
you to-day.'
' Did you ?'
There was a little more surprise in Miss Todd's voice than
was quite well-bred. Her sympathies were very wide, and
she was not at all a slave to conventionality; but still she
knew that it must be some strange chance of circumstance
to bring the dean's wife and a Methodist minister in such
near contact as he had intimated. But still Lady Mary
must have uttered her name in his hearing. The man
could not tell a lie about such a matter.
' She was speaking to my friend "Warne—Warne of St
Jude's. I think you sit under him. We were just pass-
ing, and she stopped her carriage. And certainly to have
Lady Mary for a friend is enough to make even Carminster
endurable.'
' That man isn't telling me a lie, and he isn't telling me
all the truth,' said Miss Todd to herself. ' I should advise
Mary, if she comes across him again, to be very guarded in
her utterances.'
Then she said aloud,—
' I must go now; Johnny ought^to have his picture-book.
I will come again if you will allow me,' she added, turning
to Mrs Germaine 'Neighbours should be neighbourly, you
know,' and she smiled in a way that warmed the invalid's
poor languid pulses as they had not been warmed for many
a day.
' Do—do !' she murmured gently, ' I shall be so glad.'
' And I shall be so grateful,' said Mr Germaine. ' My
wife sees very little society but the members of my con-
A Bishops Sacrifice.
57
gregation. They are good people — but—but—' and lit*
shrugged bis shoulders as if so to intimate that his flock
were not all that could be wished in the matter of re-
finement.
Then he went back to his ' darling,' and he said,—
4 If you wish ladies to call on you, you might see that the
room is fit for you to receive them in. Surely Jane could
do it a little better than this, if you were to look after
her ?'
Mrs Germaine feebly began to excuse herself and Jane,
but the baby began to cry, and Mr Germaine hated crying
babies, though he talked tenderly enough of 'helpless in-
fancy' in the pulpit. While so talking he believed, or at
least he felt as if he believed, in the charms of ' helpless in-
fancy.' But he was not in the pulpit now; and so the
poor little sufferer, instead of being cradled ' in the strong
arms of its father,' was hushed off in the weakly ones of its
ailing mother.
CHAPTER VIII.
a bishop's sacrifice.
When Lady Mary returned to the deanery that afternoon,
she found some visitors awaiting her in that very pleasant
sitting-room of hers looking over the quaint old-fashioned
flower-garden on to the Cathedral walls. You could sit in
this room and hear the great organ pouring forth its volumes
of sound, and the chant of the choristers, and the rich tones
of the anthem. There was only an invisible fence which
ran along a narrow footpath that divided the cathedral from
the garden, so that when you were in the room, it seemed ds
58
The Dean's Wife.
if tlie garden ran to the very walls of the sacred edifice.
The room was large and low, panelled with oak, and per-
haps, with many women, might have been gloomy; but
there could be no gloom in any room that called Lady Mary
mistress. There was abundance of china, and flowers and
water-colour drawings, all kinds of fanciful feminine adorn-
ments, which at first sight seemed almost as much out of
place in the room, with its sombre walls and its small-paned
windows, as if they had been put in one of the cloisters of
the cathedral itself.
All these things might be incongruous, but the effect was
charming enough. The room had formerly been the study
of successive deans. Lady Mary had seen its capabilities
and seized it as hers, her husband, who had not the habit
of acquiring many books, acquiescing; and with bright
curtains surrounding, not lessening the light from the narrow
windows, bright rugs on the floor, and all her many trea-
sures round her, she had made herself the prettiest bower
that any lady possessed in the county.
Her visitors were Mrs Johnson, the bishop's wife, and her
daughters. Mrs Johnson had called, duly, within a week
of Lady Mary's arrival, and that call had as duly been
returned six days after. Now she come in a less formal
and ceremonious manner, and had brought three of her girls
with her. Every one liked Mrs Johnson. She was so good-
natured. But still, she had a manner and a way with her
that some people found a little trying. She was so accus-
tomed to manage her large household, to look after her
husband, who had not been made a bishop on account of
his brains, and to keep an eye on the curates and the
minor canons, that she was apt to advise and to lecture her
equals in age and station, with the best intentions in the
world, but perhaps not always with the best results.
She was so large, so stout, so motherly, so matronly, that
A Bishops Sacrifice.
59
to weaker souls she was sometimes just a little overpower-
ing. They were not prepared to have the error of their
ways pointed out to them as if they were girls in their teens
or one of the inferior clergy.
1 How lovely you have made this room look !' she said,
when the first salutations had been exchanged, and she had
excused herself for having waited Lady Mary's return on the
plea of having something of the utmost importance to tell her.
' Such a den as it was before ! But there was one thing to be
said : we none of us ever saw it. This might have been a her-
mitage instead of a deanery, till you came to it. But things
will be better now. And what a blessing for your girls
that you have come to Carminster! Governesses are all
very well, and I have no doubt you did your best to get a
really excellent one. But first-rate governesses will not
go to those dull country parsonages, pay what you will, I
know. I have had my troubles. Now, you can have such
advantages here. That is what I have come about to-day.
Mademoiselle Barriere has consented to come to the palace
once a-week if I can arrange a class. Her terms are high,
and she will take nothing less, though, I tell her, to give
dancing lessons at the palace is such a recommendation, and
I want you to let both your girls join mine. Any one can
see they have never had dancing lessons, and there is no
time to be lost in Winifred's case. She will be coming out
in a year or two, and if she pokes as she does now, what-
ever figure will she make in a ball-room ? As to little Cissy,
if that child were mine, I should let her have dancing
lessons at every opportunity—she will never hold her head
up else.'
' Thanks—I'll talk to the dean about it,' said Lady Mary,
a little more ruffled than she cared to show ; for what
mother likes to be told that her girls are awkward and
carry themselves badly
6o
The Dean's Wife.
1 Oli, yes, I will have some tea with pleasure; but never
mind my girls, they are gone with yours into the garden.
I hope we shall see a great deal of each other. Your girls
must come very often to see mine. They will be so much
better for mixing with others of their age. And we have
not very much society out of the cathedral set. Carmin-
ster is a terrible place for Dissenters. There seems no
keeping them under.' She spoke as she might have spoken
of keeping under rabbits. ' I'm sure the bishop does his
best, but I don't think he is seconded quite as he should
be by his clergy. And it makes it bad for the society of
a place when there are so many married people who don't
belong to the Church. And I think, from what I hear,
more and more of the class who ought—if only from the
position to which they have risen—ought to support the
Church, are seceding from it. There's a new Methodist
minister : I believe that more people go to hear him of an
evening than ever come to the cathedral, both services put
together. He does preach wonderfully well, I'm told. Some
of these people do; at least, so one hears. Of course, I never
heard a sermon out of church, myself, in my life. Oh yes !
abroad, of course. I always make a point of attending
High Mass if I can, but then the music is so fine.'
' I should like to hear this Methodist,' said Lady Mary,
who had not thought much of the sermons she had listened
to in the cathedral, and was very tired of her husband's.
' Where is his chapel ?'
' Oh, my dear Lady Mary, you couldn't go to him ! It
is one of those things that it is simply impossible for you
or me to do. If the man were a Unitarian, even, it would
not be so bad. Whatever the Unitarians may be, and
the bishop says they believe a great deal more than the
Broad Church do—well, whatever they may be, or how-
ever much or little they believe, they're not low. But
A Bishop's Sacrifice.
61
Methodism! No \ I have thought I should like to go
myself, but I feel that it is not prudent, not what in my
place it would be right to do. And one must make sacri-
fices to one's position. Ah ! I often think, dear Lady Mary,
what sacrifices the bishop has had to make to his ! *
' Indeed ! I never heard—'
(No) of course, one doesn't talk of such things, but
you are like one of ourselves, now. The bishop was never
intended for the Church, you know: he was just to have
been a country gentleman. His father was senior partner
in the great banking firm of Hyde, Johnson, Cash, & Co.
when we first became engaged, and they failed. It was
a dreadful affair!—everything went, and poor Thomas
entered the Church just as the dean did. Oh ! it was such
a disappointment to me. I don't mean about the money,
for I knew his mother's relatives would look after him,
and they did, splendidly ! I have never seen kinder people.
But the bishop, when I first knew him, was generally con-
sidered, whatever ball-room he entered, to be the best
dancer in it. I think it was that that attracted me. And
he was so passionately fond of dancing ; round dances especi-
ally. He didn't give it up altogether for some years after
he was ordained. Only in a quiet way, you know, and
amongst family parties. But when he became a bishop
we both felt that it must be dropped altogether. It would
not do now, -you know. Still, it is a sacrifice, for the
bishop was a young man, for a bishop, when he became
one. But he has never stood up, no, not even in a quad-
rille, since.'
' A martyr to his Church,' said Lady Mary solemnly, as
she poured out some more tea for the martyr's wife.
' Quite so ; but you cannot wonder that I wish my girls
to have the best instruction. They all take after their
father, and deserve it And you will let Cicely and Wini-
62
The Deait's Wife.
fred join mine in lessons with Mademoiselle Barrifere. The
expense will not be so ruinous if we each pay our proportion,
and it really grieves me to see how your poor little Win
pokes.'
Lady Mary promised again to think of it, and Mrs John-
son took her departure just as Miss Todd came to the
deanery.
CHAPTER IX
miss todd gives her advice.
' Sit down and have some tea, and hear me abuse my neigh-
hours,' said Lady Mary as she welcomed her friend Jane.
' I've been called to order like a school-girl. Do tell me
whether it is incumbent on me to be lectured, and bear it
patiently, by the bishop's wife. Is that part of my duty as
the dean's ? '
' Tell me what the lecture was about, and I will answer,'
said Miss Todd, discreetly.
And then she was told how the girls poked and were
sorely in need of dancing lessons; how the bishop was a
martyr to his Church, inasmuch as he had given up danc-
ing for her cause ; and how she, Lady Mary, was a very ill-
used woman, inasmuch as the bishop's wife had forbidden
her to enter a Methodist chapel.
' But I mean to go for all that,' she said. ' Good sermons
are, as you once said of good husbands, very excellent things,
and I don't know but what they're quite as rare; if the dean
were here, I should say rather more so.'
1 Do as you like about Mademoiselle Barri&re and the
girls,' said Miss Todd, ' but don't go to the chapel. I know
the man—at least, I have made some acquaintance with him
Miss Todd gives Her Advice.
63
to-day, and I don't think you will get any good from liim;
not because he is a Methodist, but because he's a humbug.'
Then Miss Todd related her experiences.
'It is just as I expected,' she said, when she had con-
eluded. * I knew in this city of yours I should find plenty
of work to do. Here it is opening to my hand. An ailing
neighbour with small means and four small children, and a
husband who calls her " darling " before people, and, if I am
not very much mistaken, calls her anything but darling
when there is no one by to be impressed. And I've my
neighbours on the other side, who have already appealed
to my tender mercies. Oh ! I knew, Mary, when I broke up
my London home and followed you here, that I should have
plenty to look after besides just yourself; and I'm very
much mistaken,' she added with a half-rueful smile, ' if
you don't give me some work in that way. You are not just
the right sort of stuff, my dear, that a dean's wife should
be made of.'
' I wish you had followed me sooner, Jane. How often
have I begged of you to come and settle at Harkley.'
' The country, pure and simple, my dear, is too pure and
simple for me,' said Miss Todd. ' I couldn't exist in a
village. And the work that wants doing in one is not the
work for which I am best adapted. I should have quarrelled
with your brother-in-law, the squire, about the cottages, and
he wouldn't have done anything to them, and I should not
have got on with the other members of your husband's
family; and there would have been no avoiding them in a
small place like that. Here I can be as obscure as I please,
and yet find enough to do. I need know no one but you,
in your own circle, unless I please. And really, my neigh-
hours seem almost enough for me. Next door, alone, I shall
find enough to do. I never saw such a comfortless den, to
be called the home of civilised, educated people, in my life.'
64
The Deans Wife.
' What a dreadful thing for an educated refined man to
live in such a place—to have such an incapable being for a
wife; and by your account, Jane, he is at least both edu-
cated and refined.'
* H—um, yes—I suppose so. Yes, a man may be fairly
educated without having been either to Oxford or Cambridge,
and there is a certain amount of refinement in him, though
I doubt if it extends below the surface; but I've no pity for
him—I should never set my foot inside his door to help him.
It is his wife and the children I am thinking of. To have
small means, and a poor little dirty girl for a servant, who
has never been taught to do any one thing as it should be
done, and bad health, and a husband who will dress well—
I'm sure he wears a better coat than the dean.'
' That's not saying much. You know the dean's bad
dressing is one of my standing troubles.'
' And I should say that Mr Germaine's good dressing is
one of his wife's. Oh, my heart ached, Mary, to see her
there, weak, ill, and so badly looked to.'
' Well, I'm sorry for her, but still I feel so sorry for the
husband too. How can a man write, or think, or study
amidst such surroundings ? And you may be sure that he
must think and study to some purpose, when even the
bishop's wife speaks well of his sermons. I mean to judge
them for myself.'
' I wouldn't, if I were you, Mary. It is no use rowing
against the stream when there is nothing to be gained by
it. And it will be rowing against the stream very much
for the dean's wife to go to a Methodist chapel. And it
will turn that man's head with conceit, and I believe he
has more than his due share of that as it is. Be sensible,
and be guided by your bishop's wife for once.'
' Oh, I should never let him know that I went. I should slip
in of an evening and sit in a corner, where no one will see me.'
Miss Todd gives Her Advice.
65
* As if the very bricks of his chapel wouldn't tell him
that Lady Mary Dalmaine had been one of his auditors!
Now, be good, Mary, and we will go next Sunday and hear
Mr Warne. The dean's sermons are of course all that they
ought to be, but I daresay you want a change after all these
years. However, you won't hear him in the cathedral as
regularly as you did in the little church at Harkley. And
here comes the dean, and I must be going. Good-bye, and
come and see me very soon. I want to show you what a cosy
little nest I have made for myself.'
And Miss Todd slipped away without seeing the dean.
She did not like him quite so well as she had done a good
many years ago at Barmouth. She was not quite sure that
Lady Mary would not have been a happier woman, free and
unwedded, living with her, and making a home wherever
they had listed. She doubted whether she had given her the
best of advice, though she had meant it for the best at the
time. But it was too late to think of that now. As Lady
Mary had made her bed (with her, Miss Todd's help) so she
must lie upon it; a husband, once accepted, is one of the
inevitables of life, as to which silence is the truest friend-
ship. But she did not like the dean altogether ; she did not
think that he made her Mary quite so happy as she had
once thought he would do.
The dean came into his wife's room with several letters
in his hand about which he wished to consult her. He had
a jealous fear of being governed by his wife, a fear which
perhaps he would never have known had not his mother
and his brother kindly suggested the thought, years ago,
and yet there was little he could do without her. He would
hesitate, and weigh matters, and deliberate, till the time for
action had passed. She was prompt and keen-sighted, and
generally arrived at the right result, guided thereto solely
by her instincts. He had a habit of leaning on her which
E
66
7 he Dearis Wife.
she did not quite like. She would rather have had him
stand alone and judge for himself. A man should do that,
she thought. He should not look to his wife in every diffi-
culty, and then be resentful if she spoke a little too de-
cidedly. But he had another habit which annoyed her still
more. He would have liked her to lean on him as much as
he leaned on her. Now, Lady Mary would have liked to go
her own way in all things that a woman should. Neither
was the dean a man to consult or to ask advice from. He
had very little tact in social matters, and he lacked his wife's
keen, quick insight. Something of this might arise from
the man's great love. In everything he would have had his
wife look to him. Something also might be due to the un-
worthy feeling at which I have hinted.
A few years back the dean had become a much richer
man. A sister of his mother's had bequeathed him the
whole of the property which her husband's will had left at
her disposal. She did it, she said, because he was the best
son and brother she had ever known. Naturally the deal's
mother and brother and sisters were very wroth at his being
so rewarded. The dean himself had never thought that he
did more than his duty in acting as he had done by his
mother and sisters, but still the reward, to him, was very
acceptable. And his self-complacency, too, was a little
flattered at finding what a much better man he had been,
all these years, than he had ever thought himself to be.
And he was very glad to be able to give his wife a carriage,
and many other luxuries suitable to ladies of her station.
And, his sisters being all well married, and his mother
having her income solely to herself, while his brother was
still the richer man of the two, he did not think it incum-
bent on him to do, as his relatives all said he should do,
divide the property his aunt had left him amongst them.
He spoke his mind rather freely to them, and there was a
Miss Todd gives Her Advice.
67
coolness in consequence. Then he spoke of them to his
wife, almost as hardly as they deserved; and she agreeing
with him, condemning their meanness in terms as severe
as his own, he was wroth with her. They were his relations,
after all, and it was not for his wife to speak ill of them.
After a bit, he persuaded himself that it was Lady Mary
who had quarrelled with them, and not himself.
When this money came to him, his wife intimated a wish
that the whole of her own small income should now be at
her own disposal.. She had thrown it, when they were first
married, into the common purse. But now he was rich
enough surely to let her have it for her own expenditure.
And this was a thing that George Dalmaine did not like at
all. The sum was so small, only two hundred a-year, but
poor Lord Cashel, in his last illness, had had the forethought
to settle it on his daughter free from the control of a
husband. Now, he would have let her spend as much or
more on her toilette if she had come to him for the money
or sent in the bills, but to pay so much into her hands, or
rather, to know that she had the command of such a sum
uncontrolled by him, somehow took much of the sweetness
of his newly-acquired riches away. He had resented and
murmured, said there should be one common purse between
husband and wife; but Lady Mary held her own. She had
often felt that the ' common purse' theory is not always a
pleasant one for the wife, who sometimes, under such an
arrangement, has no purse at all of her own ; she had found
that, carried out in practice, it left her nothing to spare for
the little extravagancies, the small prettinesses, which she
most delighted in; that she had to keep a close check on
her personal expenses, and above all, that she had nothing
to give away. With the exception of this last, these
economies had not greatly fretted her. Nay, she had taken
a pride in practising them, in showing George how much
68
The Dean's Wife.
she could do with a little as long as there was need that she
should do so. But, now that he might be called a rich man,
there was no reason that her own should not be her very
own, to spend or to spare as she pleased; but there was
not much sparing with her.
She had a great delight in giving. She was prudent and
economical enough in her personal expenses; but to give—
to help any cause that she sympathised with, to purchase
something pretty for George's birthday, a little keepsake for
a friend, toys for children who would else have never had
one, all the little charities and benefactions beyond and above
those she was bound to deal out from her position as a clergy-
man's wife—was a great pleasure to her. She spent very
little more on her dress than she had hitherto done. George
was a plain man in his own ways, but he had liked his wife
to have her share of adornments; but now she had something
at her own disposal, and her husband would have liked her
to have had nothing but what came from him.
And there was another cloud between them that had
deepened with the years. When Lady Mary first became
a wife, she had thought that in all more serious and holier
matters she could look up to George for help and guidance.
She had some devotional feelings, strivings for the higher
and unseen, for personal piety, for spiritual life, dim grop-
ings after God and truth. And of all this her husband
knew nothing. He had been near akin to rationalism in
his youth; thought very little about religion, and perhaps
believed less. Then, when he did think of entering the
Church, he thought also that he must make up his mind to
something more definite in his belief than he had hitherto
done. He had no great sins, and not a folly at all to repent
of. He was, constitutionally opposed to anything extreme.
And, with the one exception of his love for Mary Reardon,
he had never experienced a great emotion in his life.
Miss Todd gives Her Advice.
69
Religion with him was a matter of reason and of argu-
ment, just as something very like irreligion had been. He
argued himself into believing, or thinking he believed, the
Thirty-nine Articles. He argued himself into an assent to
the Common Prayer-book. On the whole, perhaps he be-
lieved rather more than does the average clergyman of the
present day; but it was all dry, dogmatic, and slightly
Calvinistic. There was no warmth or feeling in it. He did
his duty in his state of life. He was a man of whom no
one could with truth say an evil thing. But his religion
was as pulseless and as lifeless as had been his infidelity.
Truly, he had had a call to his sacred office, but it had
been from his brother to a very good living.
So, just where his wife would have most rejoiced in his
companionship, she was alone. He had, as I have said,
been very tender to her when their children died; but
when she spoke of the unseen world to which they had
gone, where her love might follow them—where, after the
years had passed, she should garner them in her arms again,
she met with but a tame response from him. Was he so
sure that things were as his wife believed them ? Were the
little children indeed safe with the Lord? Would they
ever be given back to him and her again ? He could not
tell. He felt that though over the open grave he might
read words of hope and comfort, his own faith was not
secure enough for him to take them to himself when his
own trouble came. And his wife knew it too, and went
groping on alone—crying to God in the darkness and the
sorrow that had come upon her, grateful to her husband
for his kindness, but feeling that she needed something
which neither as preacher nor as husband he was able to
give.
Truly, there was that little rift in the lute which is apt
to go on widening and widening with the years. And Misa
70
The Dean's Wife.
Todd was, perhaps, right in thinking she had not done her
best for her friend when she had counselled her to be
George Dalmaine's wife.
The dean showed his letters to his wife. Three of them
were applications for money for things which, in his new
position, he could hardly refuse to help.
' I suppose I must do it,' he said; ' but it comes heavy all
at once. Here is this new hospital they are building—I
suppose I must send them five pounds.'
'You must send them ten, George. Two would have
done when you were a plain parson. The Dean of Car-
minster can't put his name down for less than ten to a
thing like this.'
' Here is one, however, to which I will not give a penny.
For the restoration of the Ancient Church of St Theodosius.
There's a new man there—the bishop was telling me of him
—only came into the city at the same time we did, and he
has set this on foot already. He will give the bishop some
trouble, I expect. What does St Theodosius want with
repairs? It's in as good order as any church in the diocese.
It's a great pity any one ever sent young Glade here. He
is as thorough going a Ritualist as ever Oxford turned out,
and I expect his idea of restoring St Theodosius is to make
it as like a Catholic church as possible. Crosses and flowers,
and mummery and flummery. There has never been any-
thing of that kind in Carminster. They have always lived
so peaceably together. Turner, perhaps, goes a little beyond
the mark, and Warne is not, perhaps, quite as clear in his
doctrine as he should be.
'No: Miss Todd tells me the Unitarians go to hear him
when they want to be shocked, and he shocks them.'
' Miss Todd shouldn't jest about serious things,' said the
dean. ' Warne has his crotchets, but the Church allows a
certain freedom; but Glade is off the running altogether.
Miss Todd gives Her Advice. 71
He will make mischief in Carminster, or I am much mis-
taken. What possessed the Chancellor to send him here ?
The living is in his gift. Carminster has been one of the
most quietly united places in the kingdom. I don't suppose
there's a cathedral city in the kingdom where the clergy are
on better terms with each other, or get on better with their
people. How we shall have Glade pulling one way, and
Turner will follow his example and break bounds; and
Warne will think he may break bounds too, and get broader
than ever; and we shall all be by the ears before very long.'
( He couldn't do worse if he was a Dissenter,' said Lady
Mary, demurely.
1 Oh ! a fellow like that is ten times worse than a Dis-
senter. And there has never been much trouble with the
Dissenters here. They make no way but amongst the lower
classes and the trades-people. Nobody else would ever think
of going to chapeL'
(I want to go to chapel,' said Lady Mary, 1 though I'm
not in trade, and I haven't the good fortune to belong to
the lower classes. There's somebody else come into the city
besides Horace Glade—somebody who can preach wonder-
fully. Mrs Johnson has told me of him. He is the new
minister of the Methodist chapel. She says she has heard
he is something wonderful. I am going to hear and judge
for myself.'
' Oh, that's quite out of the question, Mary. Your own
sense must tell you that. All Carminster would be set
talking if the dean's wife were to go to a Methodist chapel.
Mrs Johnson never advised you to do that?'
' I can't see why I should not hear a good sermon for
once, even if it is preached in a chapel. Hot but what
yours are very good, George. Your arguments are uresis-
tible, only I am so apt to lose the thread. And you are a
wonderfully clear reasoner—everybody says so—but still—
72
The Dean s Wife.
still I want something more than arguments and reason. 1
should like to hear some one who would make me feel, whether
I would or no—who would carry me along with him—con-
vince me just by the strength of his own convictions—take
me out of myself for a while—do for me what Wesley did
for the poor untaught souls to whom he spoke. If you
won't bring into your churches something of Wesley's fire,
and force, and passion, can you wonder that people leave
your churches to go where they can meet with it ? '
'We don't want Ranters in the Church,' said the dean.
'And so you turned Wesley out of it! Wesley, who
would have made your Church the greatest living power
for good in Christendom! Well, this Mr Germaine is a
follower of Wesley, and I should like to hear him. I have
set my heart on hearing him, George; that is,' she added,
in a lower tone, with a little pleading in it, 'unless you
■very much wish that I should not do so.'
' You are not very much in the habit of studying my
wishes,' said the dean austerely, ' when they don't precisely
agree with your own.'
He was in rather a bad temper just now. He was a
fairly good and just man, but you could hardly call him
an amiable one. And the demands that had been made
on him for money, and the manner in which his wife
had told him he should meet them, had not conduced to
his serenity.
He could do a generous thing on a large scale, when
there was any occasion that he should do it, as had been
shown by his conduct to his mother and sisters ; but the
habit of frugality which the so doing had called forth had
grown upon him ; and, if he had to put his hand into
his pocket, he never drew it out with a good grace. And
then, too, he did not like his wife to care so little for his
sermons. He took a great deal of pains with them. He
Mr Germciine's Visitor.
73
was rather great in argument. And his grammar was
faultless. He prided himself that he always preached as
a gentleman and a scholar. And that Mary—his wife—
whose praise he would rather have had than that of the
whole bench of bishops—should intimate that she might
obtain more benefit from a Ranter in a conventicle than
she could from him ! He felt himself to be ill-used and
insulted.
1 Do just as you please,' he said sulkily
'I will please not to go, George, if it vexes you,' she
said, so sweetly that the dean was thawed.
4 Well, I would rather that you did not—not yet, at
least—not till we are settled down in Carminster. People
will think it strange at first, you know.'
So Lady Mary gave in for the present, but as she was
not absolutely perfect, and had a will and a way of her
own, it is doubtful whether she would have yielded to her
husband quite so readily, had it not been for the sensible
advice from Miss Todd which had been given her that
afternoon.
CHAPTER X.
in germaine's vtsitor.
Mr Germaine was in his study the next morning, turning
over in his mind a number of ideas for a course of new
sermons which he proposed giving. The coming of the
Rev. Horace Glade to the living of St Theodosius had
roused some interest in the minds of not a few besides
the dean and the bishop. He was a Ritualist of a very
advanced type. Young, fervid, meaning well, and deter-
74
The Dean's Wife.
mined to win souls by the dozen with the help of candles
and censers, and saints' days and fasts, and festivals.
Really a good young man, with a very tender heart for
the poor and suffering, and an intense desire not only to
save souls, but to help bodies. He was a High Church-
man by descent, his father having been one before him;
but the son, having gone to Oxford, had, of course, im-
proved on the father, who was no longer living to say,
' Thus far is it wise and safe to go, but no farther.'
The father had been the vicar of a large London parish,
had had a good living, and held his own against a trouble-
some vestry, who had always looked with a little suspicion
on their vicar, as disposed to carry matters with rather too
high a hand. And he had written a volume of poems which,
in their day, were said to be second only to Keble's. Per-
haps they were—at a distance. So that young Horace had
grown up, as it were, predestined to the temple. He would
never make such a preacher as his father, who in the pulpit
was above the average, but he, wisely, did not trust to his
preaching alone. He had set to work as soon as he came to
Carminster. His church—it was a deliciously old, dark,
and inconvenient one—wanted restoring, and he had al-
ready sent out that appeal for help in the good work which
had so roused the dean. He had dismissed the snuffy old
pew-opener, and go.t half-a-dozen young gentlemen to put on
very long coats with belts round the waist, and to cut their
hair very close, so that they might look as much like monks
as it is possible for English laymen in the nineteenth cen-
tury to look, and this selected six took the place of the
snuffy old lady, and ushered people to their places, taking
care that everybody did have places, whether they paid pew-
rent or not, which was more than could be said of that
venerable matron. And with the help of the organist he
formed a choir, to which every young lady in his parish with
Mr Germaine's Visitor.
75
a voice, and some •wlio had none, was ready to belong. And
he shaved himself close, and had his hair cut very close
indeed—so close on the middle of the head that it looked
like a tonsure. And something about his dress, like that of
his six gentlemen pew-openers, always gave people the im-
pression that he too was a monk at large; and he always
said that he should live and die a celibate, and kept his
word as most young clergymen of his school do, and at the
present moment has a wife and a dozen children; and his
heart is still as sound, and his head, perhaps, a little sounder,
than it was in the days when he scared a staid cathedral city
from its propriety.
Now, it had occurred to Mr Germaine that in this young
priest he should find a foeman worthy of his steel. He
would preach against Ritualism—he would have a whole
course of sermons against it. Confession, with its tempta-
tions, its coarseness, its impurity, should be attacked. The
pomps, the ceremonies, the formalities which were allowed
to intervene between man and his God, should all be de-
nounced. He would speak out and spare nothing. He
would let this arrogant young priest know that he, the Dis-
senter, would quail at nothing. Young Horace Glade was
really not half so much a priest at heart as his opponent.
Yes; he would speak in such a fashion that all Carminster
should hear of it—ay ! and should come and hear him—
moved thereto by the report of his eloquence and the fear-
lessness of his utterance.
It did not matter very much to Mr Germaine that his own
people, those to whom he was specially appointed minister,
cared very little about the evil thing he was preparing to
denounce—that he might spend his time much better than
in warning them against a temptation which was not likely
to come in their way, a folly to which they would be the
last people to yield. He wanted other people besides just
76
The Dean's Wife.
his own flock to come and hear him. Strangers and out-
siders were flocking in fast to his little chapel \ they should
flock in, before long, so that there should not be standing
room for those who wished to hang upon his words. Yes;
he, the despised Dissenter, the Methodist, the pariah amongst
the sects, would send his voice like a trumpet blast through
the length and the breadth of Carminster, till, as if he had
been another Gideon, the evil walls that priestcraft and
Popery had raised around men's souls should fall before
him.
He paced eagerly up and down his little study, his head
thrown back, his nostrils quivering, his whole frame swell-
ing with the thoughts that were working in him like a fire.
And like water on the fire came the voice of his dirty
little handmaid, as she timidly opened the door,—
' Please, sir, here's Mr Crinnell, he's brought home the
washin', an' would be glad if he could have a word in
season with you.'
A word in season ! Was ever word more out of season
than these would be ? Just as he was in the very climax of
a peroration that should shake all Carminster to its centre,
feeling like Jove himself when preparing to launch forth his
thunder, to be called to common earth and every-day life by
one of his congregation, and that a wholly insignificant be-
ing—the postman of the parish and the husband of his
laundress.
If it had been Saturday he would have sent out word to
Mr Crinnell that he was preparing for the morrow's duties,
but it was only Tuesday morning, and every one of his con-
gregation would take it ill if he was not prepared to give
them counsel or comfort if they needed it. The knowledge
of this had often chafed him sorely. People would come to
him with their petty little troubles, their heartaches, their
doubts, their fears, and think that he, Grantley Germaine,
Mr Germaine's Visitor.
77
one of the cleverest men of his day, certainly the greatest
pulpit orator in all Carminster, had nothing else to do but
condole with a shoemaker's wife when she lost her baby,
or discuss the doctrine of salvation by faith alone with a
carpenter.
' Show Mr Crinnell in,' he said severely, and Mr Crinnell
came in. A comfortable, well-clad man, looking much more
like a small farmer than a postman, with a certain self-corn-
placency in his good-natured face, and a deliberate utter-
ance, as if he weighed his words before he spoke them, and
felt that they were well worth the weighing. He bent his
head as he entered, and said 1 Good-morning,' and looked as
if he thought Mr Germaine might ask him to take a chair,
which Mr Germaine not doing, he stood with his hat in his
hand, and began,—
' Business first, sir, always—and my wife has told me to
say that she will take more pains with your shirts, and is
sorry they haven't given satisfaction. I tell her, sir, she
should take as much pains with other gentlemen's as she
does with mine. I've been a public character like yourself,
sir, in my time—I've been a class-leader for many years, and
after that I was local preacher for ten years at Wayle's Trots.
Ten miles from here, sir. A poor benighted place, with one
service in the church a fortnight. Parson used to come over
from one of the churches here. But his preachin' was all
chaff an' stubble. I don't believe—it's not in vain-glory I
say it—but I don't believe they'd ever heard the word till I
went amongst 'em. So I know your feelin's, sir, about your
shirts. I know what it is to stand up in a pulpit, and feel
your laundress has not done her duty by you. I don't think
you'll have to complain of my wife again in that respect, sir.
But now, concerning other matters. There was a something
in your sermon last Sunday as somehow jarred upon me:
" The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." That
78
The Dean's Wife.
was the text, sir; but I don't think you followed it out just
tightly. It seemed to me as if you were inclined to make
overmuch of the wisdom of this world \ to set too much stress
upon book-learnin'; and I never yet heard, sir, that book-
learnin', an' Latin, an' Greek, an' what not, will make us
frise unto salvation.'
4 There are many things most desirable and valuable in
their way, of which one cannot strictly say that they are
wise in the way you mean,' said Mr Germaine, in his loftiest
and most chilling tone ; 4 and yet we should be doing ourselves
wrong; we should offend against the very Providence which
sends such things, if we were to despise them altogether.'
He had risen as he spoke, and stood leaning his arm on
the mantelpiece. He could not ask that illiterate clod to
sit down in his presence. It would be placing him too much
upon an equality; but yet he could not well remain seated
himself without doing so. The man was one of his flock,
and had for years, as he said, been first class-leader
and then local preacher, and in his rough, rude way he had
done no small good amongst rough, rude souls.
4 No, I don't despise book-learnin', although it's little
enough ever fell to my share. But I do despise it when it's
made too much on; when it's exalted and set up on high, so
that simple souls who just know how to read their Bibles,
an' nothin' more, are puzzled, an' think it's their own ignor-
ance is in fault, when it's just the fine words that is leadin'
them astray. You blow your trumpet finely, Mr Germaine,
but to me it has an uncertain sound. There's so many
flourishes in it, I don't always know rightly what you mean
with all your words. Now, about the miracles, last Sunday,
I couldn't rightly make you out there. If it wasn't that no
such doctrine could ever be preached in a chapel of ours, I
should say you didn't just believe in 'em—not just as the
Bible puts them afore us—plain and simple, that there waa
Mr Germain J s Visitor.
79
such things—that they really came to pass, and that you be-'
lieve in 'em just as you do that the sun rose this mornin'.'
* I am not aware that I ever speak with an uncertain
sound. You cannot have rightly understood my meaning,
Mr Crinnell,' said Mr Germaine, with increasing loftiness ;
' a little more of that book-learning in the pew, which you
so much despise, might perhaps make things clearer in the
pulpit.'
f It's something new to me, to bo told that book-learning
is the right road to heaven,' said Mr Crinnell stolidly;
and then he argued the point from his own way of think-
ing, to the effect that overmuch culture, overmuch learning,
were snares of the evil one, and likely to lead souls astray.
Decidedly, Mr Crinnell took a very narrow view of
matters; but, as decidedly, a more genial spirit might have
led him to a different way of thinking. But the man who
heard him was not genial at all He was chafed, irritated
beyond measure, that this boor should dare to come and
speak to him in such a sort. Take up his precious time—
that time when he was thinking with how certain a sound
he could blow his trumpet, blow it so that the echo of its
blast should reach the ears of those who, until Grantley
Germaine had preached there, would never have set foot
in a Methodist chapel.
And how intolerable it seemed that this Crinnell—-just
because he 'sat under him' and paid pew-rent—should
think he had a right to come and lecture him, his pastor,
upon the overmuch learning which he did not understand ;
upon the culture and the erudition which were so awfully
wasted in him, and such as he. Oh for hearers who would
understand him ! Oh for such freedom as the poorest,
dullest curate in the Church was possessed of! He heard
Mr Crinnell to the end; then he said, still keeping his
position by the mantelpiece, just as the other had kept his
8o
The Dean's Wife.
"by the table with his hat in his hand, only tapping it now
and again to give emphasis to his words,—
* I'll think over what you have said, Mr Crinnell, at my
leisure. I cannot promise you that it will induce me to
think less of the little learning which it has taken me no
small trouble to acquire, or even to wish that I was as
innocent as yourself of the wisdom of this world.'
Mr Crinnell felt himself snubbed—felt, too, there was a
sneer lurking under the words ; but Mr Germaine had now
changed his position, and taken up some papers on the table
as if he wished to work at them. Then he glanced at the
door, and Mr Crinnell took the hint.
' Good-day, Mr Crinnell; I'll ring for my servant to
show you to the door,' said his minister; but he did not
extend his white and carefully kept hand.
' And me !' said Mr Crinnell to himself, ' that has been
a minister too !'
He opened the study door, and he fumbled along the
passage, which was rather dark; but the little maid did
not come. Mr Crinnell did not want her; he could open
the door for himself. But there was something wrong with
the lock, or Mr Crinnell was irritated; but he was unable
to get out, so Mr Germaine, who felt as if he could not
sit down to work until his unwelcome visitor had left the
house, came from his study and opened the door for him.
Mr Crinnell thanked him, and was sorry to trouble him.
But he went home and gave his wife an account of the
interview.
' And he stood by the mantel, leanin' on it, without ever
askin' me to take a chair, an' a-lookin' down on me, Hannah,
the whole time I was speakin', for all the world as if he
was the Lord A'mighty listenin' to a black beetle.'
Mr Germaine goes out in the Sun. Si
CHAPTER XL
MB GERMAINE GOES OUT IN THE SUN.
As Mr Crinnell -went down the narrow little path that led
to the gate of the untidy garden, Mr Germaine, standing at
his door, saw two ladies at the gate of his neighbour, Miss
Todd, trying to open it, hut in vain. There was a little
peculiarity about the latch which Mr Germaine knew very
well—his own, when it was fastened, being secured in the
same manner. He went forward, and bowing with a grace
and deference that became him very well, asked to be al-
lowed to open the gate for them. There was no bell—no-
body in James Street had bells to their gates ; the maids
had something else to do than run down the length of the
front garden, so careless people who did not mind dogs or
beggars left their gates open, and careful people like Miss
Todd secured them by this latch.
The sun was shining his brightest, lighting up even shabby
semi-genteel James Street for once, and it was one of those
streets—there are many such in all cities, more especially in
London—where the sun never seems to shine at all. The
smoke never rises, the blacks are always falling, and there is
a dull, leaden hue about, as if in sympathy with the fortunes
of the inhabitants. But the sun was shining to-day—shin-
ing, too, right into the eyes of the Rev. Grantley Germaine as
he went forward and opened the gate.
His eyes were dazzled, but not by the sun. He was in
close contact with the woman of whom he had been hourly
thinking since he had first set eyes on her. She who was
his embodiment of beauty, and grace, and rank—the queen of
her little world—was waiting there, with her daughter by her
side, and unable to obtain entrance to Miss Todd's little garden.
82
he Dean's Wife.
They were a pretty group enough, the mother and daughter.
Each was the complement of the other, and somehow it never
seemed as if either looked quite so well apart. Somehow—
it was only a chance, for they never gave the matter a
thought when they were dressing—but their dresses always
' went together,' so that the colour of the one would throw
up the other. They might have been dressed by an artist, the
effect was so good. There was a little likeness in the form
of the face and forehead, and when, too, Lady Mary's face
was in repose—not a very frequent thing—or her daughter's
lightened up, one would remind you of the other. But they
were unlike in their colourings. Lady Mary's beauty was
bright and glowing—a rose in its full prime. Her daughter's
was delicate and subdued; you had to look again and yet again
before you fully realised its charm. It was the beauty of
a pale rose-tinted shell, of a bud half-open, of anything deli-
cate and tender, and sweet and pure. She was shy, too,
timid and retiring—a mere girl, scarcely sixteen, and Mr
Germaine hardly gave her a second glance. Crude fruit,
he would have told you, was not to his taste. It was to
the mother, whose charms he could so well appreciate, and
who surely, if half that men said of her intellect or her
breadth of thought and judgment was true, would appreciate
him, that he was so delighted at being able to render the
service she stood in need of.
He opened the gate, and he showed her how the latch
went; and then she thanked him, smiling as she did so.
She could not help the graciousness of her smile. It would
have been just the same if he had been the dirtiest and ugliest
little boy in the street; but the man did not know that. He
felt his head turning. It was as if he had had a sunstroke.
He had never in all his life had such a smile, and from
such lips before.
Then her thanks; only two or three words, and very com-
Mr Germaine goes out in the Sun.
83
monplace ones; but Lady Mary's tones made him feel as if
pearls and diamonds were dropping from her lips. Indeed,
she was one of those women who make men remember that
old fairy tale of their childhood—the time perhaps might
come when Mr Germaine would learn that the same lips
could send forth scorpions as well as roses.
Outwardly he was man enough of the world to keep his
self-possession, though his whole brain was whirling • and
bowing once more, he said that he had only too much plea-
sure in serving Lady Mary Dalmaine. Then she passed
on, and with another smile from her, and a little timid
blushing bow from Winifred, his goddess was at Miss Todd's
door.
Miss Todd was at home. And her home was by this time
a very pretty one. She had had time to settle down, and
arrange her books, and hang up her pictures, and have her
garden put in order, and fill her room with flowers. It was
a home that no one would have expected to have found in
James Street. But Miss Todd had been attracted there
partly because the rents were low, and partly because from
James Street it was very easy to get into green fields and
see something of the country. She could have afforded a
better house, and two servants; but then, as she had told
Lady Mary, this cheap little house left her a nice margin for a
great many things that were always turning up. And if she
had had two servants, Maria, her one solitary damsel, would
not have been the friend that she was now to her mistress.
Maria had travelled with Miss Todd, had lived with her
in apartments, and, now that they had gone into housekeep-
ing together, had undertaken, with the assistance of a woman
one day a week for the dirty work, to perform all the house-
hold duties. Maria was not an every-day servant, just as
Miss Todd was not an every-day mistress. There had sprung
up between them something of the unconventional intimacy
84
The Dean's Wife,
which exists between mistress and maid in many French
families. It answered very well in this instance. Maria
was, to a great extent, what her mistress had made her.
She was a tall, strong, large-boned Suffolk woman of seven-
and-twenty. Not at all perfect, being troubled with fits of
sulkiness whenever her family troubles were too much for
her, or her young man—she always had a young man about
whom she was wont to wax sentimental—did not write to
her. She changed her young man about once a year, used
to mope a little after one had been discarded, and then buy
a new bonnet and look out for another lover.
When the sulkiness reached a certain point, Miss Todd
used to nerve herself up to the task and give Maria a good
scolding. Maria would then shed a few tears, wipe her
eyes, and go about her work again in better spirits for a
time.
She read much the same books that her mistress did, liked
a good novel, though the Fortnightly and the quarterlies were
a little beyond her, and had her own pet volumes of poems of
the sentimental order, and took the liveliest interest in her
mistress's affairs and visitors, without at the same time ever
forgetting that if Miss Todd was the best friend she had in
the world, still she was her mistress, after all.
As I have said, she was not perfect; her weak point was
bright stoves and fenders, so Miss Todd had none. Now
and then, when the last young man had been too remiss
about writing, or her sisters would persist in changing their
places every month, and wrote to her for money instead of
earning it for themselves, she had her fits of gloom and
silence, but she was not the machine that your thorough
servant becomes, who doesn't care a pin whether you live or
die, so long as she has good handsome mourning in the one
event, or her good wages go on in the other.
She was a woman like her mistress. Miss Todd knew all
Mr Germaine goes out in the Sun.
85
her troubles about her family, guessed at those about the
young men, never bought a dress without showing it to
Maria, and expected to see Maria's in return. They were
two friends, with some disparity, certainly, in social position,
age and education, but they were friends; and if Maria did
show a little sulkiness occasionally, when her troubles were
too many for her, she never uttered an impertinence, and
would have sat up with her mistress night and day if there
had been any need, and would as soon have thought of flying
as of refusing to do anything because she was ' never engaged
to do it.'
She welcomed Lady Mary and her daughter with a smile
as she opened the door, a smile more deferential, but quite
as cordial, as that with which Miss Todd received them in
her pretty little drawing-room. Then she hurried up with
the tea, in which she knew Lady Mary delighted, and the
biscuits which she knew delighted her daughter. Miss Todd
knew very well that, when her visitors were gone, Maria
would find some excuse for entering the room, and she would
say how splendidly Lady Mary was looking—Lady Mary had
long ago won Maria's heart, and never came to the house
without a few kind words—and what a charming dress
Miss Dalmaine had on ! And Miss Todd would assent; and
would either mistress or maid be the worse for this little bit
of gossip ?
Lady Mary sipped her tea, and as she sipped it said,—
'I've seen him, Jane ! Your miracle of a minister, He
opened your gate for ma I don't wonder at his turning
your head.'
' Mine !' cried Miss Todd, a little indignantly. '"When I
told you, Mary, that I thought the man a humbug. Mine,
indeed ! when he is letting his wife die before his eyes!'
' Ah, yes ! I remember. Then it was my head you turned
with your description of him. And he is handsome—and—
86
The Dearis Wife.
well—yes, I think gentlemanly ; a little too elaborate in his
courtesy, perhaps. Well, J am not going to hear him for all
that—George doesn't like it, and—and—'
'You are not going to his chapel ?' said Miss Todd, with
a demure little smile and a glance at Winifred. Then she
said, ' Let me give you some more tea—no ?—well, I must
have another cup myself. You don't know how tired I am.
You would be tired too, Mary, if you had been minding a
baker's shop all the morning.'
' A baker's shop!' said Lady Mary and her daughter,
with wide-open eyes and cups held half-way in the air.
'Yes, a baker's shop; and it's very different work, I can
tell you, keeping shop in earnest, to what it is minding a
stall at a fancy fair. I'll tell you how it came about. I
went to pay my weekly bill at the baker's with whom I've
dealt ever since we came here. I had always had a little
chat with the mistress of the shop. It is that one at the
corner. You know I like to be friends with my neigh-
bours. And I saw that she was suffering—suffering so
terribly that she could hardly stand or move. I had a
little talk with her; and I found she was enduring one of
those terrible internal complaints which, sooner or later,
render an operation necessary. And how to stand or move,
or sit, she told me, she hardly knew. Her husband had
gone on his rounds; she had a small servant—a better
edition of the ' Marchioness' next door. But the girl was
too ignorant to attend to the shop, and besides, she had the
children to look to, so she had written to a cousin to come
and help. But the cousin couldn't come for ten days, and,
meanwhile, she was suffering a martyrdom. I came home
and took counsel with myself and Maria. She was quite
ready to do her part, but not so ready to let me do mine.
The best of servants have their prejudices, and their ideas
of what ladies may do and what they may not do. But
Mr Germaine goes out in the Sun.
87
Maria gave in at last; and then I went round to the
baker's shop and I said to its mistress,—
' " I want to help you. I want to do what I can for you
while you are waiting for your cousin. Now think—-just
tell me, is there anything whatever that I can do for you—
anything whatever that, if your cousin were here or you had
a sister, you would ask her to do ?—and I will do it."
' The poor soul looked at me with as much wonder in her
eyes as there was in yours just now, Mary, and then she
said,—
1" Do you mean it ? Do you really mean it ? "
' " I mean what I say," I said ; " anything that your sister
or your mother would do for you I will; now tell me in
what way you would like me to help you."
' Then she said timidly,—
' " There—there's the shop to mind. Oh ! if I could but
get off doing that of a morning while my husband is going
his rounds—he is back in the afternoon—but—but you're a
lady!"
' " And a woman," I said. " And I'm going to help you,
and mind your shop for you while your husband goes his
rounds, and in the evening my maid, Maria, shall pome and
help you into bed, and undress the baby." So I have been
minding the shop this morning while that poor creature got
what ease she could 011 the sofa in the back parlour; it
wasn't much ease there, I'm afraid, but it was the torture
of the rack when she was behind the counter.'
' But it seems such a strange thing for a lady to do.'
* Just what Maria said. But ladies have done harder
work than that, Mary, remembering, as I did, just that
they were women, and that there were so many poor souls
needing their help. And oh ! Mary, ladies or not, if we
women, suffering as we do—bom to suffering as some of us
seem to be—can't help one another, how dare we look even
88
The Dean's Wife.
to God for help ? This poor creature has a terrible ordeal
to go through. I doubt whether she'll get over it, but it is
something to make her last hours a little pleasanter, her
last pillow a little softer. It is but the cup of cold water
that one gives, but if you had seen her this morning, and
heard her gratitude, you would have known how she was
perishing for that.'
'You're a better Christian than I am, Jane,' said Lady
Mary. ' I'd do a great deal for a poor soul in suffering,
but I don't think I could do just what you have done this
morning.'
' My word ! Mary, no,' said Miss Todd. ' Why, the shop
would be besieged, and all the local papers full of Lady
Mary's benevolence. But a plain little body like me can do
a great many things that even a matron like yourself cannot.
Plainness and insignificance have their uses in this world;
I assure you, this morning I made as good a shop-woman as
the cousin herself would have done, and none of my cus-
tomers could have told that I was not to the manner born.
But you can do something for me. I know you have a
frequent supply of fruit and flowers from Harkley ; send
me some grapes and roses if you have them. There's the
curate's wife at Poole in a low fever—I should like some
grapes for her; hothouse grapes don't come out of curates'
salaries, you know ; and I want some for next door.'
' Oh ! with pleasure. I'm sure that man's life must want
a little brightening—'
' The life of the man's wife does. I have taken her in
hand, and she is better already. But I shall have my work
with her. The husband in that case is not half so good as
the curate or the baker. They're commonplace-looking
men, both these last, and Mr James's sermons are about
as indifferent as sermons in general. And the means in
both instances are as limited as those of Mr Germaine; but
Mr Germaine goes out in the Sun. 89
their wives are better cared for and more kindly dealt
with.'
'Yes; but your Methodist minister next door is one of
your exceptional men. Why, he must be, for a bishop's
wife to praise his sermons ! And the nerves are so easily
over-wrought with such a man. And how can you expect
him to lend his mind to all the petty cares of his position ?'
' Then he shouldn't have undertaken the position and its
responsibilities,' said Miss Todd. ' Oh, Mary! I've no
patience with your little greatnesses, your petty geniuses,
who, because they can mouth it a little, think that the
commonplace duties of every-day life are beneath them !
Overwrought nerves ! My dear Mary, the man eats, drinks,
sleeps well, his nerves are his pride and his temper; there's
nothing else the matter with him. But there is a great deal
the matter with his wife, if his selfishness would let him see
it. Oh ! I've no sympathy with the talent that is too fine for
every-day use, with the goodness that wont stand common
wear and tear. But never mind, Mary, send me the grapes
for his wife and for Mr James. Oh ! and an amusing book
or two for my friend at the baker's. She can read a little,
and then she forgets her pain. I suppose I ought to give
her sermons or tracts, but I doubt whether she would care
to read them.'
Lady Mary promised the books as well as the flowers and
the fruit, and as she walked down the little street with her
daughter, Grantley Germaine's eyes followed her, and then,
as he turned them on his poor faded, ill-dressed wife, he
asked himself how it was that such a woman as Lady Mary
had not fallen to his share.
90
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XIL
mr germaine visits fairyland.
Lady Mary drove round, a day or two after, and left all
that she had promised Miss Todd in the hands of Maria.
Miss Todd herself was at the baker's, and when she came
home, after a very hurried lunch, she divided Lady Mary's
bounty, and sending Maria next door with a glorious bunch
of roses, red and yellow, and a basketful of grapes, purple
and gold, she went upstairs to change her dress preparatory
to a call on Mrs James with the remainder of the fruit and
flowers. Now, her maid Maria had a liking for titles, just
like the rest of us, and she dearly loved to utter Lady
Mary's name, and make the most of her intimacy with her
mistress. She uttered it now in grandiloquent accents to
the poor little ' Marchioness' when she came to the door.
She had been simply told by Miss Todd to leave the grapes
and flowers as from her; but Maria could not ignore the
fact that they came from Lady Mary—that Lady Mary had
left them with Miss Todd for Mrs Germaine, that Lady
Mary had heard of Mrs Germaine's ill-health—Lady Mary
was always kindness itself when any one was ill; there
were at least a dozen Lady Marys uttered in the ears of
the astounded Marchioness, and repeated by her to her
master and mistress.
' It's very kind,' said Mrs Germaine, flushing faintly with
pleasure, ' and the grapes are very beautiful. Whatever
made her think of me, Grantley ? '
Grantley smiled superciliously. For his wife to suppose
that Lady Mary would have thought of her I He tasted
the grapes, and he did much more than taste, and he praised
their flavour; and as he ate he thought of the glowing
Mr Germaine visits Fairyland.
91
matronly beauty who had sent them, rich tinted and ripe,
perfect in form and colour as the fruit she had given—
him ! There was no doubt of it in his mind. No credit
given to Lady Mary for the womanly kindness that had
made her think of the invalid who could not procure such
dainties. They were an offering at the shrine of his elo-
quence, of his grace, of his courtesy. Lady Mary had
heard of his power and his strength, and she had seen him.
Thence had come both fruit and flowers.
• ' I suppose we ought to thank Lady Mary,' said Mrs
Germaine. ' Shall I tell Miss Todd how much obliged I
am, or perhaps I had better write ? '
' No—don't trouble yourself; it will come better from
me. I will thank her in your name.'
He took up his wife's blotting-book and began,—
' My dear Lady Mary—'
How well that looked! How pleasant it was to be
writing to an earl's daughter! Then he went on, and
wrote a few graceful phrases—a certain outward grace of
speech and manner belonged to this man—it was entirely
outward, like veneer, and the veneer was apt to wear off.
He read what he had written, wrote another word or two,
and spoke affectionately of his 'dear wife.' Then he laid
down his pen, and said suddenly,—
' I don't see why I should write at all. I'll call at the
deanery and give my thanks in person.'
' You will go to the deanery,' said Mrs Germaine, looking
half frightened. Won't that seem rather odd, Grantley ? '
' Why shouldn't I go ? It seems to me a better way of
thanking Lady Mary than any other. And if I meet the
dean, I don't suppose he'll bite me.'
He drew himself up to his full height, and looked—he
felt—as much a clergyman as any dean, reotor, or vicar in
all Carminster. And as good a gentleman too. There was
92
The Dean's Wife.
good blood in bis veins, he was sure, though his father
always would adhere to that stupid plebeian 'German,'
ignoring the courtlier race from which his son felt they had
come. No ; he would go to the deanery and let Lady Mary
see, Dissenter though he was, he could play his part in her
drawing-room as well as any Churchman of them all.
Lady Mary was alone when he came, and not a little
surprised to see him. She had never anticipated his know-
ing from whom the grapes and roses had come. Miss Todd
had always been in the habit of applying to her for help
for one or other of her protegees. This help had generally
been in money when they were apart, though now and then
fruit and game had found its way from the rectory at Hark-
ley to the bedside of some invalid in London. Miss Todd
had warned her that when she came to settle in Carminster
she should tax her resources heavily in kind. And Lady
Mary was very pleased to be so taxed ; but she had never
expected that it should be known from whom these bene-
factions came. She set it down rightly to some blunder of
Maria's that Mr Germaine knew his wife was indebted for
the fruit to her. And she received him very graciously.
It was odd that he should call—perhaps a little intrusive j
if he had felt that thanks were due to her, he should have
written them. But perhaps he did not know that. She be-
lieved Dissenters were very good people, and did, she was
sure, wonders amongst the poor; but they did not mix much
in general society. This man was a wonderful preacher—
Mrs Johnson would never have spoken of him as she had done
if he had not been, but no doubt he shared the ostracism of
his sect. It seemed rather hard, for he was a gentleman in
manners; very hard, as she looked at him again, for he was
a man evidently formed for ladies' society, and with a good,
almost aristocratic appearance. How well he held his
head up. Nothing at all of the ordinary type of Dissenting
Mr Germaine visits Fairyland.
93
ministers, as she had heard of them, about him. Surely it
•would be a charity to be kind to the man now he had come,
and give him some tea, and let him feel himself welcome.
He did feel himself welcome, unquestionably. He warmed
and expanded in the sunshine of Lady Mary's smiles, and
she was not chary of them. And her smiles were so apt to
mislead. They were so apt to convey much more than she
ever intended they should. She asked very kindly after his
wife, and he was the tender husband, concerned and anxious
about the invalid shut out by circumstances, and the ano-
malous position of a Dissenting minister's wife, from that
more refined society which was open to the family of the
poorest curate in the Church. Lady Mary felt a little
abashed at this. How hard this ostracism seemed on the
Dissenters! It didn't occur to her that, though she might
occasionally receive the curates and their wives at the dean-
ery, she could hardly be said to be on visiting terms with
any, and that a small income with married people has its
social disadvantages, which are not entirely confined to the
Dissenters.
She felt full of pity for Mrs Germaine. If the husband
was a gentleman, why should not the wife be a lady ? And
for a lady to be an invalid, and shut out of society because
her husband was a Dissenting minister, was surely a very
cruel thing. And a few flowers, a little fruit, to be such
unusual luxuries as to call forth all this gratitude ! Why,
she could cover Mr Germaine's tables with them. They
had such an abundance every week from Harkley—Sir
George had become very gracious now his brother was a
dean—besides what the smaller garden of the deanery
yielded. Mr Germaine dwelt pathetically upon his wife's
loneliness. He made quite a moving picture, so that Lady
Mary's heart rose to her lips, and in a generous and
womanly impulse she said,—
94
The Dean's Wife.
' I hope to do myself the pleasure of calling on Mrs Ger-
maine the next time I go to James Street.'
Mr Germaine thanked her for the proposed honour. He
gently hinted that the menage, with an invalid mistress and
slender means, would be something wholly different to any-
thing Lady Mary had ever seen. But Lady Mary pooh-
poohed him.
' It will be Mrs Germaine that I go to see. Herself—
not her surroundings3' and then she led him to talk of
other things.
They were both clever people3 they both liked much the
same reading. Grantley Germaine knew his Tennyson and
his Browning as well as did Lady Mary, and his Swinburne
a great deal better. They were both Liberal in politics—
the lady very much more so than the gentleman 3 so it is no
wonder that nearly an hour passed before Grantley Ger-
maine found that he had made rather a long morning call.
It suited him so well, the atmosphere of the place—the
flowers with their faint perfume. Lady Mary detested all
artificial scents, just as she detested paint and powder, false
hair and false lace 3 but in the perfume of flowers she revelled.
And the picturesque old room, with all its plenishing of choice
and beautiful things 3 the look-out into the garden, which, so
long neglected before her time, Lady Mary had now brought
into order. The noble cedars, and the cathedral walls rising
so grandly behind their smoky foliage, and above all, the
graceful, brilliant woman, with her silken draperies flowing
on the ground, as she sat in a low chair, her jewelled fingers
playing with the long hair of her pet spaniel. Ah ! Grant-
ley Germaine found himself too much at home amidst such
surroundings as these. His head was in a whirl. He was
breathing incense which mounted to his brain—he had never
spent such an hour in all his life before 3 he was in Elysium
—in Fairyland 3 when presently the dean came in.
Mr Germame visits Fairyland. 95
He knew the dean by sight, and the dean knew him by
name; but Lady Mary performed the ceremony of intro-
duction, and the dean bowed a little stiffly; Grantley Ger-
maine a little reverently—-just as a young and unbeneficed
clergyman should bow to his superior in age and station.
The dean had a little to say about the weather, because he
did not know what else he should find to speak about, and
then Mr Germaine cook his leave. It was fairyland no
longer, now the dean was there. But he had been in fairy-
land for a time. That was a memory for ever. Yes, he
had been in fairyland, alone in it with its queen.
4 Whatever brought that man here ?' said the dean.
4 Begging, I suppose; but he might have written.'
4 No—I sent his wife a few flowers and some grapes. She
is a great invalid. Miss Todd told me of her. And he
came to thank me.'
4 Hem—might have written,' said the dean, again.
4 I'm rather glad he didn't. I like him. He talks very
well.'
The dean didn't talk well unless by special effort. He
was silent, reticent, and generally, when alone with his wife,
absorbed in the newspaper. He could hardly be called an
amusing companion. He was very fond of being near his
wife : to look up from his paper or his letters was happiness
enough for him; but not for her. She would have liked
an interchange of thought. She wanted to talk and to hear
him talk; to laugh, and to see him laugh too. He had
hung upon her words once: it was her liveliness, her ani-
mation that had attracted him; now it often seemed as if
it bored him. Still he would have liked her to be as amus-
ing as ever, only to be wound up like a musical-box, and be
silent and voiceless unless when it pleased him she should
be otherwise.
«Yes—I do like him,' continued Lady Mary. 4 Of course,
96
The Dean's Wife.
I should not go and hear him preach, as you object to it,
George, but I shall call on his wife, and see if I can do her
any little kindnesses. It is very sad for them, his slender
means and her ill-health.'
' I daresay he has twice as much as many a curate.'
'Yes, I always do say, George, that the way you bene-
ficed clergy pay your curates is very mean of you. But
that is no reason I shouldn't do what little I can for Mrs
Germaine.'
'I think you have plenty of people to see to, without
troubling yourself about Mrs Germaine. I've no doubt all
the old ladies in her husband's congregation look after her.
And you will lay yourself open to all sorts of remarks.'
'About which I shall not trouble myself in the least.
No, George, I gave way to you about the chapel. I should
very much like indeed to hear Mr Germaine preach. I am
convinced that there the man would be at his very best, and
that there would be a force and a power in him which one
does not often meet with in the Church.'
'Bant—rant,' muttered the dean. It must have been
rather trying to him to find that his wife appreciated his own
sermons so little.
'Ah, well—rant, if you like to call it so. What does
the name matter, so long as the soul is stirred or the heart
comforted ? Still, George, I shall follow your wishes there.
It is not a duty incumbent on me to go to a Dissenting
chapel for the sake of hearing a preacher, however eloquent,
but it is a duty that I should help another woman, whose
life I may make a little brighter and pleasanter by a few acts
of kindness on my part, which will cost me so little, and yet
which will be so much to her,' said Lady Mary, flushing a
little as she spoke.
' As much kindness as you please ; send her game, flowers,
books, anything you like—only don't go yourself. It's absurd
Mr Germaine visits Fairyland.
97
—it's incongruous—for you to visit the wife of a Dissenting
minister.'
'Now, I daresay you wouldn't think it half so incongru-
ous if you were only a curate, George. Then we should be
all little folks together. And why, because you are a dig-
nitary of the Church, shouldn't your wife do a good-natured
thing by a poor soul who is in need of kindness ? It's absurd
—it's unchristian of you to talk like that.'
' You will go your own way, of course—you will do as
you please,' he said, with the ill-used air of a man much put
upon.
' I shall go my own way when I think it the right one.
I suppose there is not another lady in all Carminster of whom
you would think it improper to visit this poor lady. And
why should not I, just because you are higher in the Church
than you were two months back ? George, I thought you
were a betterman. I'm ashamed of your narrow-minded-
ness.'
He was just a little ashamed of himself. Why shouldn't
she do a kind and womanly thing, because the subject of her
kindness was a Dissenter's wife ? But he was one of those
men who never own themselves to be in the wrong, and who,
when the conviction that an opinion is wrong is borne in
upon them, only become more obstinately attached to it.
On the other hand, his wife was equally firm in adhering
to what she believed to be the right. So that it seemed
tolerably certain Lady Mary would keep her word to Mr
Germaine and call upon his wife.
a
98
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XIIL
riciiard German's story
When Grantley Germaine came home, he found a letter
which, for a little time at least, put even Lady Mary and
all the beatitude of the hour he had spent in her morning-
room out of his thoughts. This letter was from that younger
brother of his who had been spoken of in that other letter
which had been so obstinately addressed to him under the
name of German, and it will be better understood if some
brief account is given of the writer and of the antecedents
of Grantley Germaine himself.
In a small town in the North there lived a tradesman, a
painstaking, careful, honest man, who worked diligently
with his hands at his business of tailoring all the week
through, and preached on the Sundays without fee or reward.
He had had sufficient education for his status in life, and
had tried to teach himself what more he could. And he had
a great power of words, a simple, forcible eloquence that
went home to the hearts of men like his auditors, plain, un-
lettered souls, who hung on his words as if they were indeed
the bread of life.
Wesley had seen the good such men could do. Men with
little book-learning but much power; who, above all things,
had faith—that faith which would indeed move mountains—
mountains of care, and sorrow and sin, from those who heard
them. He was known through all the country side as one
of the most eloquent of the local preachers, so that it had
seemed to many almost a pity that he had not devoted him-
self entirely to the ministry, given up his trade, and gone
\> college to prepare for ordination.
But the thought of doing this had never occurred to Josiah
Richard German!s Story. 99
German himself. He liked his- trade. He liked to fashion
the good stout wearing garments. You may be sure every
coat and pair of trousers was made to the Lord, and, as he
worked, he liked to think over his sermons and plan what he
should say to the little flock who came from far and near to
listen to him. Then he liked speaking—pouring forth his
thoughts of God's goodness and Christ's love, and of God's
judgment too, and Christ's requirements. He was narrow-
minded in his theology, narrow-minded, too, in his ideas of
the literature and the pleasures of our day. No praise of a
novel, however great, would have induced him to read it.
I think he would have died sooner than have set his foot in
a theatre. His one delight was reading history, politics,
theology, and books of any kind that would help him to
make up for the deficiencies of his general culture. Books
were his one extravagance ; his tastes were simple enough :
the plainest fare, the homeliest dress would have contented
him ; but they would not always content his wife.
He had married at four-and-twenty a woman of altogether
different character and tastes to himself. She, too, had been
brought up a Methodist, and had a certain emotional piety
which had made him think her sympathies were far more
akin to his than they really were. She was pretty, and a
little vain, but loving and tender. They were very happy on
the whole, though something in the strictness and severity
of her husband's views at times pressed rather hardly on
the wife, and he could have wished that she was less fond
of bright colours and somewhat more serious in demeanour.
Then their first-born came. The father would have given
him some Scripture name, but the mother had, before her
marriage, lived as useful companion with a lady of the name
of Grantley, who had shown her many kindnesses, and left
her at her death a small legacy. Then, too, she thought the
name of Grantley was a much better sounding one than
100
The Dean's Wife.
plain John, or Samuel, or Joshua. She had had a little more
light reading than her husband, so he was persuaded to let
the boy be called after his mother's dead patroness. Then,
after seven or eight years, another son was born to them,
and the mother died in giving him birth. So to this son the
father's heart turned with all the passion and the tenderness
that he had given his dead wife. Grantley was the one that
perhaps he was proudest of; but Richard, with his mother's
eyes and smile, was his darling, his Benjamin, the dearest
treasure of his heart.
Grantley was always a clever boy, bright and promising.
His schoolmaster was proud of his progress ; sometimes his
father felt that he himself was almost sinfully fond, too. As
he grew older, he showed greater power of speech than even
his father had done; he was fluent, poetical, and above all,
there were already signs of a manner which, though it after-
wards savoured of the histrionic, was at that time only taken
as an earnest of impressions unusually deep for one so young.
He became a class-leader in his turn, and then it seemed
clear to the father that a lad so gifted should be especially
dedicated to the ministry. He would save, and he would
spare, but his boy should go to college and be a burning and
a shining light hereafter.
So Grantley went, and he worked hard and perfected
himself in some things that neither clergymen nor ministers
are always perfect in. He practised calisthenics, and he
studied his walk and bearing, and, unknown to his father,
who would have thought he was on the high road to perdi-
tion, he attended the performances of the leading tragic
actors of the day, and, out of his small allowance, contrived
to pay for a few lessons in elocution. He would not only
preach, but he would preach well. His manner should be
good as well as his words. The result was not quite sue-
cessful. Something of the stage always clung aboutt he
Richard Germarfs Story. 101
man. It might be that he was a born actor; so that even
when most earnest in the pulpit you felt that you were
rather hearing one who was enacting the part of a preacher
than a preacher himself. His attitudes were too studied,
his declamation too laboured, and above all, his whispers,
as Miss Todd said when she first heard of him, always put
you in mind of the greater villain in a melodrama suggest-
ing murder to the lesser.
Then he got married, and it was thought that he had done
very well in marrying. His wife was fairly educated for her
station, very fond of him, very proud of being the wife of
the young minister from whom such great work was expected
in the Church, and anxious to do her duty as his wife and
be something of a helpmate and a companion to him.
But she was a totally different woman to Lady Mary Hal-
maine. A little commonplace, perhaps—her husband began
to think her so after a time—and rather shallow. His own
culture was not of the deepest, but he was quick enough to
see any deficiency in hers. But things went on tolerably
well with them till the children came too fast, and ill-health
followed on them.
Then the home, which had had something of brightness
and pleasantness till then, became what we have seen it, and
Grantley Germaine chafed and fretted because his surround-
ings were so comfortless, and because his wife had lost her
looks and was confined to her sofa half her time. He spent
as much as ever on himself; it was the invalid who had to
spare, and the children who were pinched, but their father's
coat was as good as ever, if the children's shoemaker had to
wait for his bill.
The other son, B-ichard, had gone a wholly different way.
He, too, had talents out of the common. People did not
know it at first, did not see that there was all the superi-
ority in him over his brother Grantley that genius has over
102
The Deaths Wife.
talent. He was pleasant, light-hearted, and good-tempered.
But he had not his brother's fluency of speech, nor his
studied bearing. He was to all appearance, at twenty, just
such a good-natured young fellow as one meets with by the
dozen in every town and city in the kingdom.
He was to be a printer, and he worked in the office of the
one newspaper in the little town. After a time he added
reporting to his other duties, and wrote a paragraph or,
once in a way, a leader, when the editor's duties were rather
heavy.
All this gave the father great content. His son, his
youngest and dearest, was near him, working at a good and
useful trade, and likely to help his fellow-men in other
ways than just by that trade. He might edit a newspaper
in time, and in newspapers Josiah German believed and
delighted as much as he avoided novels.
Then, after a time, there came in Poets' Corner delicious
little bits of verse, speaking of the woodland and the sea,
bringing the very green of the trees and the smell of the spray
before you. Verses signed with the initials R. G. Verses
which Josiah German read over and over again, and cut
out of the paper and pasted in a little book, which he
placed in a small drawer where he kept the letters of his
4 boys.'
To the father's fond fancy there was the making of another
Wordsworth in his son. The boy would never soar beyond
the clouds and talk with the angels, as Milton had done, but
he would be wise with the wisdom that nature teaches; the
trees and the flowers and the woods would whisper to him
of their Maker, and he would be blest and happy in his gift,
which would also be a blessing and a happiness to others.
Ah ! poor fond human heart, building its hopes upon the
sand of a boy's steadfastness !
There came a change in the verses, a change that Josiah
Richard German's Story.
German greatly disapproved of, though perhaps the younger
readers of the North Mail might be of another opinion. A
figure came into the verses, and made them live with its own
glowing life. 1 Bonny Ellen ;' ' Winsome Ellen ;' ' The
fairest and the dearest;' ' The sweetest rose that ever blew.'
So the young poet did his best to propitiate his love, and
the father, who had so rejoiced in the freedom of his verses
from anything like earthly stains, lamented this touch of
passion and earthly love, in the verses that had been as clear
and as cold as a crystal spring before.
But he had loved, himself. So had Wordsworth, and he
could remember copying out in his best writing those verses
beginning, ' She was a phantom of delight,'and sending them
as a valentine to his late wife. And Milton had loved too
—well, perhaps rather foolishly, but the greatest souls had
had their boyhood to live through; and there was Burns
who wrote of ' The Daisy,' and of ' Mary in Heaven,' ay !
and those other verses, he was not sure, but he thought
some one had told him they were by Burns,
' Had we never loved sae blindly.
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Never met and never parted, .
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.'
Ah ! but those verses spoke of a sinful love, such as his
boy could never feel. He might have Burns' genius, but
he would have nothing in common with him but the genius.
He was the child of many prayers. He had been brought
up so straitly and strictly from his childhood. No; he
would never soil his soul as Burns had soiled his, so that
all the glory of his genius never made men forget how low
he had fallen.
But the Ayrshire peasant's son had been brought up to
read his Bible and go to kirk, and yet neither kirk nor Bible
104
The Dean's Wife.
had kept his feet from falling; and so it was with Richard
German. There was far more of Burns than of Wordsworth
in him, after all. The strong, bright, imaginative nature
had its weakness too. And the Ellen he had sung in his
verse was no saintly Beatrice, no, nor any calm, decorous
English lady, living in orderly ways and loving by measured
rule. She was a girl rather below him in rank—the daughter
of a bailiff in a neighbouring village; pretty and pert, and
with not too much coyness or coldness to chill a lover's
ardour.
But she was a goddess in his eyes, nymph, angel, all that
a girl can be to a young lover whose soul has known no
other passion. How fond he was of her! How proud she
was of the verses, not half of which she understood. What
a happy time it was for a while; what a bright, sunshiny
beginning, and what a woful ending!
It had begun in a boy's liking for a pair of bright eyes
and a pretty face—the pretty face magnified into a loveli-
ness fit to captivate the world, by his poetic fancy. He saw
a goddess in a peasant girl with a scanty education and
little refinement. The old, old story. A goddess to be wor-
shipped. A woman to be wronged.
In his boyish love he had not thought at first of marriage.
All the common-place realities that take off the sweetness
and the glory of love's young dream never came to mar his,
till he found that he had sinned against himself, against the
woman he loved, and that she was despised and lost unless
he made her his wife.
He would have done that at once, but there were practi-
cal difficulties in the way. His earnings were very small,
and he was never one to save. Lavish and free-handed,
books for his father, little comforts for the home, which he
knew that father would never buy for himself, presents for
his Ellen, help for any comrade or friend in trouble— so the
Richard German's Story. 105
money went, and when he found that before long he would
be a father, and that Ellen needed a husband's shelter, he
had not five pounds in the world to furnish a home to take
her to.
Of course he must marry her. There was never a moment's
question of that. Give her what poor justice he could, and
atone to her as far as possible for the injury he had wrought
her. But to take her to bare walls seemed impossible. There
was a scanty choice of furnished rooms in the little town.
And he could not, he dared not ask his father for help. How
would it be possible for him to tell that grave, good man,
whose life had always been as free from smirch or stain of
sin as any saint's, that he, his son, on whom such hopes had
been set, who had been so carefully trained, so guarded from
evil words and ways, had fallen into the mire, and had be-
come himself an outcast, an impure, degraded thing, and had
made another and a weaker one a sharer in his impurity and
degradation.
I believe he felt their mutual sinfulness infinitely more
than did the poor ' weed' he had undone. She was of a coarser
fibre altogether, and besides, her misfortune was too common
a one in girls of her own class to awaken any strong feeling
of self-reprobation in her mind. He would marry and make
an honest woman of her. She had no fear of Richard, and
not much dread of the opinion of her little world.
But for him it was terrible. His father must know in due
course of time why he had married in such haste, and taken
to himself a wife before he had the means of supporting her.
And then he seemed to see his sin with his father's eye, as
the vile impure thing it was. The desecration of love, the
defilement of the marriage bond. Yes—and the sin against
his own soul, against righteousness, against God. That was
how his father would look at it; and now, as if his father's
conscience had come to him instead of his own, he cried with
io 6
The Dean's Wife.
David : ' Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done
this evil in Thy sight.'
If he could but have gone to his father in his penitence
and told him, all things might have been different. But he
could not. He was shamed and humbled to the dust. How
should he tell his father, that he who had looked so high had
fallen so miserably low !
He settled with Ellen that they must wait a little. He
would get some sort of a home for her as soon as possible, in
ample time for the father of her child to be her husband,
and he would not tell his father till—till just before the
wedding. So he went on putting the evil day off to the
last.
Putting it off—yes ! but it came on him like a thunder
clap. An accident befel Ellen, which at any other time
might have been almost harmless \ but as it was, her child
was born before its time, and she became the dead mother
of a dead child.
Then Richard was frantic. There was no thought now
of hiding anything from his father. He was past that—
past all shame—past all reproach. Ellen, the one love of
his young life, his wife that was to be, was dead; she, and
her child and his, and he had slain them both.
And his father had no pity on him. If he had but gone
to him a little sooner in his penitence, he might have shown
him some sympathy now the consequences of his sin had
come upon him. But instead of a comforter he had a judge.
A judge who told him he was seducer as well as murderer;
who told him he had sinned against God and righteousness \
that he was a sinner, one whose face it was terrible for
him to look upon.
The father's heart was well-nigh broken. He spoke more
sternly because the very pain burning at his heart found
vent for its agony in his reproachful words. He felt—and
Richard Germans Story. 107
can there be a greater sting to a parent ?—that it would
have been an easier thing to have looked upon his son dead
than to have looked upon him as so great a sinner.
For this Methodist local preacher was not at all a man
of the world, be it remembered. He had no belief in sow-
ing wild oats. He thought that God's word inculcated
purity and stainlessness as much to men as to women. So
that the sin of his son was as awful a thing to him as if it
had been the sin of a daughter. And he could and did
make allowances for the poor girl—she had paid so terrible
a penalty for her folly—that he would not make for his
son. She had been motherless ; her father had taken little
heed to her ways. But his son had been brought up in the
Church of Christ from his infancy. There was no excuse
possible for him. He had sinned against light and know-
ledge, and had wilfully become a castaway.
Richard was overcome by grief and remorse. There are
times when it does seem as if the best of fathers—and there
was never a better father in this world than Joshua German
—cannot supply a mother's place. If his mother had but
been living she would have understood his grief, known
how it was that, loving his father as he did, he had not
dared to come as the prodigal had come to his father. She
would have consoled and comforted the one, and pleaded
with the other, and so have drawn them together. But
there was no mother living now, and Richard German had
no one to whom he could pour forth his sorrow and his
self-abasement. He could not stay in the place. The sight
of his father's stern, cold face was as intolerable to him as
for the time the sight of his own pale, guilty one was to his
father. He left the little town the day after Ellen and her
child were buried, and he wrote one short, despairing letter
to his father, in which he said he dared not ask for pardon :
he felt himself unworthy to be under the same roof with
io8
The Dean's Wife.
him, and that all his life long the memory of his sin would
be present to him.
Ah ! what tears, what wrestlings in prayer, what suppli-
cations for the erring one that letter called forth ! Joshua
German felt a broken-hearted man. He went about his
work heavily : when he preached there was a mournful
strain. He had his faith in God still to sustain him; but
never was his faith tried so hardly. This grief was to him far
greater than that caused by his wife's death. He felt and
looked aged and worn; his health became affected, and at
last he broke down utterly, and had a serious illness, which
swallowed up his slender savings, and, when he recovered,
he found that if he wanted to clear all off and pay what he
owed like an honest man, he must sell the little stock in
his shop and begin life afresh.
Then he resolved upon leaving the place where he had
suffered so much, where everything reminded him of his
son's backsliding and his dead wife. And there was, too, a
sense of shame weighing him down. Whenever he preached
to his people here, he felt as if every one was asking him
why he had not seen to his own household better. Surely,
they would say, there was something wrong in the man
himself, in his teaching, in his life, when his own son had
been so great a sinner.
He heard of a small chapel amongst the Cumberland
mountains where a preacher was needed. He asked and
obtained the charge of this. Then he put together his few
belongings—his books, a very little simple furniture, and
moved to a village two miles distant from the chapel, where
he settled down, working with his own hands at his trade, and
so earning a slender living. And every Sunday, through
rain or snow or burning sun, he walked to the chapel, and
spoke to the simple souls there of God and Christ. He
was not an unhappy man : you could not call any man
Richard German's Story.
109
unhappy who has such a faith as his to sustain him. But
still, at times his heart was very desolate • there were times
when God seemed so far off, and He had once been so near.
Meanwhile Richard German was making his way in Lon-
don. At first he had felt reckless—ready to fall into any
sin, yield to any temptation, given over altogether to the
evil one. But he was no weakling. And, although he had
sinned, his father had not trained him in all good, pure
Christian ways for nothing. He had stumbled and fallen,
but after a time he rose to his feet again, and set out firmly
on his way. He would lead such a life that his father
should never have cause to mourn for him again. Perhaps
in time his father might be brought to forgive him. That
was the dearest longing of his heart.
It seemed, now, as if he had never loved even Ellen as he
loved his father. In truth he never had. It was a boyish
liking. It would have passed away as he grew older. Had
he married her, he would have been kind and faithful, but
there would have been no true union between them. But
from his childhood he had had an affection for his father,
surpassing all that children usually feel. And this love had
grown with his growth. It seemed to him now as if there
never had been a man so deserving of respect, so good, so
noble—ah ! and with all the sternness he had shown to his
sin—so gentle and tender as that father of his. Oh ! if any-
thing he could do in the time to come could win that father
to forget his sin !
He set to work with a will. He obtained employment at
a printer's, and wrote small articles for the magazines and
reviews. At last he worked his way on to the staff of one
of the leading London journals, and then he ventured to
write to his father, as we have seen. Now he had written
to his brother; and with that letter we will begin our next
chapter
IIO
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XIV.
the prodigal's penitence.
'98 Wendell Street, London.
' My dear Grantley,—It seems so many years since I have
seen you, that sometimes I think you must have forgotten
me; only I know, by myself, that blood is thicker than water,
and that mother's sons must remember each other if they
didn't meet for a lifetime. I ought to have written before
—I know it, and yet I know too that you are not surprised
at my having kept silence all that time. I have been
ashamed to write. Till I felt that I had so far worked my
way up hill that my father and you would both feel I had
the making of a man in me, I would do nothing but send
him a line now and then to let him know I was living and
well, which line, if he chose, he could communicate to you.
(I am doing fairly well. I think I am living the life
that he would like me to lead. I am on the staff of the
Day Star. That is a good paper; one my father always
approved of. I write other things, not under my own name,
and they have had some little praise. I can keep myself
very well, and if my father would only let me I would keep
him too. But he will not. I am afraid—oh ! I am sorely
afraid, Grantley, that it is the memory of my sin which
makes him deny me the privilege of helping him. Could
you not ask him to let me do so ? I would ask for nothing
more, as yet, though I am longing to see his face—longing
to hold his hand. I wonder whether he will ever let me
do so. Could you do nothing for me ? Am I to be cast
out for ever ? God knows my sin was great enough, but I
have been terribly punished : I am punished still. If he
does forgive me, I feel that I can never forgive myself.
The Prodigal's Penitence.
in
The memory of my poor girl, who might have been living
yet, but for me, is ever present. I think, if he knew what
I have borne, he would feel some pity. Can you do nothing
for me in this matter ?
41 shall have a fortnight to spare soon, and I am coming
to see you. I shall not ask you to find room for me in your
house, for with your wife so great an invalid it would be a
shame to put you and her to the trouble of entertaining
a guest. I shall do very well at one or other of the hotels.
And then I shall be able to see you and your children, and
to talk over old times. That will be the best holiday for me.
4 If you have the chance between this and then, see if any
word of yours will help me with my father. I feel as if I
would give half my life to be assured of his forgiveness.
Sometimes I feel as if I could go down like the prodigal, and
say, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee,
and am no more worthy to be called thy son." Yes, utterly
unworthy. He cannot feel that more than I do. But then
my heart fails me. I cannot go and see that look upon his
face which was there when I last parted from him. Can't
you help me, Grantley ? You have never displeased him
by a word. You have always been good and straight—a
son to be proud of. It is so intolerable for me to think
that because of my past sin he will not let me help him in
the least. He is not young now, and his health is broken,
partly, I know, through my sin and misconduct; and to
think that I am making four or five hundreds a-year by
work which is a delight and pleasure to me, and could so
easily make more if I had but the spur of working for him,
while he is toiling, stooping over his lap-board and his needle,
with failing eyesight and stiff joints, to earn perhaps the
tenth part of what I make so easily.
4 But, whatever you do, when you write, Grantley, don't
let him know anything of the magazine stories, etc. You
112
The Dean's Wife.
know he has a horror of all fiction, as something emanating
directly from the evil one. Let him only know of me as
a journalist. I may tell you in confidence that I hope to be
known some day as something else. But never, while he
lives, under my real name. I have given him trouble and
sorrow enough. I will not add to it by letting him think
that, as a novelist, I am telling lies wholesale in print. It
is of course a mere prejudice on his part, but then the pre-
judices of one so good—so almost faultless as our father,
should be respected. But I must tell you that, in the inter-
vals of other work, I am writing a story. I do honestly
believe, Grantley, that it will be a good one, and will make
its mark in the world. I have so much pleasure in writing
it—in painting the mountains over which I wandered when
a boy with my Wordsworth in my pocket—the lakes by
which I have pictured all sorts of fairy legends. I don't
think I flatter myself when I say I am making them live
again in my pages. But, let what will come of this book,
my father shall never know that I have written it. I would
rather, dearly as I love my manuscript, fling it in the fire
than give him the vexation of knowing that the son who
has already grieved him so bitterly has become one of that
tribe of story-tellers on which he looks with such contempt.
'My letter has grown very long. Good-bye, my dear
Grantley. Help me out of my trouble if you can, and
bring me face to face with my father.—Your loving brother,
' Dick German.'
This letter was simply incomprehensible to Mr Grantley
Germaine. The sorrow for the sin seemed over-great. He
was pure enough in his own life. He had no tendency
whatever to the coarser vices. But he had mixed enough
with men of the world to know how men of the world look
upon such offences as his brother had been guilty of, and the
The Prodigal's Penitence. 113
humiliation, the shame, the self-abasement his brother felt
appeared to him needless. Dick had done very wrong, and
so had a great many other young men, who never thought
of bewailing their sins in the fashion Dick did. Then, too,
he could not understand the intense respect his brother felt
for his father. Mr Grantley Germaine would not own it,
but he was rather ashamed of his father himself. It
seemed out of place, so absurd, so out of all keeping with
the fitness of things that he, Grantley Germaine, should
have had such a progenitor. Dick ought to have learned
differently by this time. A proper sense of duty was all
very well. He hoped he entertained that, but a polished,
gentlemanly son, who carefully kept both mind and body
up to the nineteenth century requirements of development
and culture, could not be expected to look with the same
deference on a parent who was only a small tradesman and
had taught himself what little he knew, that he would have
done had his father been placed, as he ought to have been,
in the upper circles of society.
In fact, Josiah German ought to have been the father of
Grantley Germaine. It was a mistake altogether, for which
the latter gentleman did not hold himself responsible.
He wrote back to his brother that he should be very
pleased to see him, and only regretted that his narrow
means ('preaching does not pay as well as journalising
seems to do') and his wife's ill-health prevented his enter-
taining him in his own house. And while telling him that
he thought his sorrow for the past a little overstrained, he
added that he might be sure he would use his utmost efforts
with his father so as to bring about a reconciliation.
H
U4
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XV.
lady matty calls on mrs germaine.
Ten days after Dick German had written to his brother,
Lady Mary Dalmaine paid her first visit to Mrs Grantley
Germaine. Mrs Germaine was very much flattered and not
a little fluttered by the visit. But she was a simple, natural,
unaffected woman, very ready to talk of her children, and
very glad to have a sympathising listener to her account of
her many ailments. Lady Mary was one of the kindest souls
on earth, and her heart went out to her poor ailing, suffering
sister. She promised to call again, and she would send Mrs
Germaine books. Then, when she rose to take her leave,
Mr Germaine himself came in, and she had to stay a little
longer and hear his thanks for her kindness to his wife.
How bright she looked in their plain, dull room. It was
clean and tidy, though how that result was brought about
the reader shall hear presently. She lit it up with her
tasteful dress and the sweet sunshine of her matronly
beauty. Grantley Germaine felt as if his eyes would never
weary of looking on her, or his heart cease to bemoan the
evil fate that had prevented his winning such a woman
for himself. Lady Mary sat and smiled on husband and
wife alike. She saw that both were pleased with her, and
it was very pleasant to her to please. She would about as
soon have thought of turning Mrs Germaine's head as her
husband's. In fact, Lady Mary was one of those women
who, with the best of intentions, sometimes do a great deal
of harm, who charm because they cannot help it, win hearts
that they take no count of, and in the utmost simplicity
and purity do more mischief at times than the veriest
coquette that ever breathed.
Lady Mary calls on Mrs Germaine. 115
Lady Mary would have been horrified if any one had
suggested to her that Grantley Germaine was fast falling in
love with her; and then she would have laughed at the idea
as one of the most absurd of impossibilities. To begin
with, she was half-a-dozen years older than he, she would
have said, and the mother of a girl nearly grown up, to say
nothing of the dean and Mrs Germaine. And then all the
proud blood of all the Earls of Cashel would have come
flashing up to her face, and she would have asked how it
could be possible, even if both were free, that one in his
position should raise Lis eyes to one in hers ? She was to
all appearance the simplest, most genial woman under the
sun; she would smile on a crossing-sweeper as kindly as on
a duke, but there was the latent pride of caste and race
underlying it all. Marie Antoinette might play at being
dairy-maid, but do you suppose that she ever for a moment
forgot that she was Queen of France, or ever for a moment
wished to be anything less ?
Of course she saw that Mr Grantley Germaine admired her
very much indeed, but then everybody did that. She was
a woman who had, all her life, been used to admiration on
every side, excepting perhaps from her mother and sisters-in-
law. Women as well as men had owned her charm, but
certainly with men the charm had been more effective.
She carried sunshine with her wherever she went. If Mr
Germaine brightened under it, why, so did everyone else.
Be it said, too, that handsome as was Mr Germaine, and
much as Lady Mary liked half-an-hour's chat with him, she
was quite as well pleased to see his wife look the happier
and the brighter for her visit. For men's admiration she
did not care so especially, unless they were very clever men
indeed, when she took the compliment as due rather to her
intellect than her beauty, and Mr Germaine was not clever
enough for this. She would set herself to charm an old
The Dean's Wife.
woman or a" sick boy witb far more consciousness of effort
than she did him. Still, innocent as Lady Mary Dalmaine was
of all but that power of pleasing which was as natural to her
as her beauty, it does not the less follow that it is always
rather an unfortunate thing when women like herself come
in contact with such men as Grantley Germaine—very unfor-
tunate, indeed, I might add, for the men.
Lady Mary went to Miss Todd when she had left the Ger-
maines. Miss Todd was at home, and very busy making
caps. Lady Mary had noticed that Mrs Germaine had worn
a very pretty one, and Miss Todd was at work on one much
like it, only trimmed with different coloured ribbon.
'Yes,' she said, in answer to Lady Mary, ' I made Mrs
Germaine's cap, and I altered her dress for her; my baker's
wife has her cousin to stay with her now, so that my hands
are free. And Maria and I did a great deal more. We got
her in here to lunch yesterday, and while Mr Germaine was
at the reading-room, Maria and the marchioness turned out
that dingy sitting-room of theirs—cleaned it thoroughly.
Maria hesitated a little at first, but George Herbert's verses
were too much for her; I read them to her, and she went
and swept that room out, unto the Lord, and made it what
you see this morning. When Mrs Germaine went back she
cried like a child, poor thing. I fancy I could bring her
round if that husband of hers would only do his part.'
' She seems so delicate, poor thing !'
' She isn't delicate; she is simply starving, perishing of
inanition. That is the way so many women in the poorer
middle classes die—and not always the poorer either—simply
because they have no wives to look after them, as Miss Cobbe
put it when she spoke so much to the purpose at Berners
Street on the " little health " of ladies. The appetite goes;
they can't relish the daily food of the household, the cold
roast mutton palls—even pickled onions wont make it go
Lady Mary calls on Mrs Germaine. wj
down—they know little of cookery, and their servants know
less, and thus day after day goes on—they subsist—it can't
be called living—upon tea and toast, and so the strength
goes, and they die at last sheerly and solely for want of
kitchen physic. If they had ever been taught to cook, to
make the most of a little, they might teach their servants to
prepare it for them; as it is, they die, as I say, as much
from inanition as if they were the wives of men out of
work. Then the husbands don't look after them—women's
illnesses are incomprehensible to them. Over-strung nerves,
weakness, hysteria, men understand nothing of these till
they suffer from them in their turn; and—no, I wont say
it of all men, but such a one as Mr Germaine expects his
wife to be in harness to the last. He will do nothing to
relieve her : the incessant strain, the perpetual worry, it is
all this that is telling on her.'
' But what can a man do ? ' asked Lady Mary.
' Oh ! a good deal if he pleases, as I told him—'
'You told him!'
' Yes, when a man comes fretting, or seeming to fret, about
his wife's ill-health, and how much he suffers in consequence,
I think it's time to speak, especially if you don't believe half
he says. I told him how the noise of the children, and the
worry of the little maid, and the perplexities about the
dinners, and the difficulty of getting anything for her own
were too much for her ; and he looked at me with that grand
seigneur air of his, and said,—
' " Really, Miss Todd, these are domestic affairs with
which I have nothing to do. No concern of mine whatever."
' They will have to be your concern,' I said, ' if your wife
dies ; and you will have to be master and mistress too. I
do think, Mr Germaine, that if you would only learn first
how to buy a mutton chop, and then to cook it, you would
do your wife more good than all the doctors in the world.'
ii8
The Dean's Wife.
Lady Mary laughed.
'Oh, Jane, that is too absurd ! Fancy Mr Germaine bar-
gaining for mutton chops !'
' Yes, it does seem rather incongruous for sucli a tragedy-
king. I don't know why we shouldn't say tragedy-king as
well as tragedy-queen, but it would be a very good thing
for that poor woman if he did. However, I shall look after
her a little—I've some spare time now. The curate's wife
is well, I've done, for the present, with the baker's shop, so
I can take Mrs Germaine as my next case.'
' I'll help you, Jane,' said Lady Mary heartily.
' There's no occasion, my dear Mary,' said Miss Todd
drily; ' I think I can manage Mrs Germaine myself, and
they've a brother coming from town, so that they will b(
pretty well taken up with him.'
' Ah, well, then perhaps I had better not call again till he
has left Carminster.'
' Ho, don't; great ladies are sometimes rather in the way
in little folk's houses. You're a very great lady in Carminster,
Mary, remember, and one of the folks next door is very
small indeed. How, tell me what you think of this cap. I
am making it for Mrs Germaine to wear in honour of hei
brother-in-law's arrival.'
CHAPTER XVL
UNCLE DICK.
Two days after Lady Mary's visit, Mr Grantley Germaine
came from the reading-room and found a visitor installed in
the small front parlour. The said visitor had a child on one
knee, another by his side, and he was rocking the cradle with
Uncle Dick.
119
the baby in it with his foot. It was one of Mrs Germaine's
bad days, when her back was so weak that it seemed, as she
often said, as if she had no bone in it; and, as she lay on the
sofa, she had been rocking the cradle feebly with her hand,
when her visitor had said, ' Let me do that,' had drawn the
cradle to him, and with the firm, steady motion of his foot,
had sent the child off to sleep.
There was a parcel of toys on the table \ a great doll, a
box of bricks, and an enormous cake. There was another
parcel, which afterwards proved to contain books, by their
side, and the visitor, Mr Richard German, looked as if he
had thoroughly taken possession of the place and all the
people in it, had made himself completely at home and
well acquainted with everyone of them, though, from the
marchioness to her mistress, not an individual in it, until
Mr Germaine came home, had seen him before.
He was a fine, handsome fellow, and you would have
taken him for a sailor much sooner than for a literary man
or journalist. He was sunburnt, tall, broad-chested, rather
careless in his dress, bearded, but not moustached, had
brown wavy hair, too long for the'present fashion, and dark
grey eyes that were as kind, as manly and true as ever
looked out of a man's face. He never went out for a walk
in London but some small child would ask him to knock
at a door, or take it over a crossing; dogs, children, old
women, all turned to him for kindness, and found it.
His life had been an erratic one. The work of special
reporting suited him exaqtly. If labourers struck because
they found that the task [of keeping body and soul together
seemed to be at least moije than body and soul were worth,
Richard German was de spatched to report on the state of
things, and he would so ingratiate himself with the village
matrons that all the thrift and contrivances of their cot-
tage economy, their pinching and paring, their piecing and
120
The Dean's Wife.
mending, were told him. He pictured the want and the
need, the gaunt men, old before their time, the hungry
children, the ill-drained cottages, the thrift, the manage-
ment, the wish to make the best of things, till people began
to think there might be something in the strike after all,
and that it was just possible the English labourer was not
quite so well off as either English dogs or English pigs.
If all the working population of a large town was reduced
to semi-starvation by the cessation of one special branch of its
industry, Richard German was the one to paint the empty
shops, the closed factories, the overloaded pawnbrokers,
and the pinched faces. His heart was in such work. It
was work that his father would have approved of—work,
too, that pleased his kindly, helpful nature. Here and
there, wherever the ruling powers of the Day Star sent
him, nothing came amiss to Richard German. A Lord
Mayor's banquet, a great fire, a political demonstration—
no painter could have rendered them better with brush and
colour than did he with pen and ink.
He had a great dog at his feet, and this dog had first
frightened the children and then been eagerly welcomed as
a playmate by them. Their uncle—he was Uncle Dick
with them already—was telling them how he had saved
Rollo's life in a fire to which he had gone in the interests
of his paper, when Mr Germaine came in.
'They—they have made no stranger of you,' he said,
looking rather doubtfully at the children on Richard's lap
and the cradle at his foot.
' No—why should they ? We are all so glad to see
each other,' and though he could not rise on account of the
children, he shook Grantley's hand with a fervour which
was almost too much for the other's fingers.
He was a little puzzled by Richard. He was so altered :
he was browner, bigger than he had ever thought to
Uncle Dick.
121
see liim. A man all through, a very genuine man, and in
his genuineness something inexplicable to his brother ; any-
thing artificial, laboured, elaborate, he could have compre-
hended better, but this great brother Dick was as simple
and as natural as a child.
The small maid brought- in tea presently, and looked
clean and happy. Miss Todd's Maria had done something
to bring about the former result, but Mr Richard had
come like a great burst of sunshine upon her. But all
the sunshine in the world would not make her poor little
arms any the stronger, and the tray she was carrying was
the largest in the house, and she had made it more full
than usual in his honour, and as she staggered in beneath
her load, she looked so like falling that Richard caught it
from her and placed it on the table, Mr Grantley Germaine
scowling severely on his poor little hand-maiden the while.
Mrs Germaine sat up to make the tea, but it was
Richard, not her husband, who brought her chair to the
table, placed her footstool, and so waited on her that the
labour of tea-making was lessened by one-half. He was
so thoroughly the man, that, like most sailors and some
soldiers, he could do all manner of things that most people
would think work only fit for women, and yet it appeared
only natural and proper that he should do them. A baby
seemed as much in its rightful place when in his arms
as if it were in a woman's. Nothing would make him
look effeminate or unmanly. You only thought of him as
clever and helpfuL He said of himself that it was his
lonely bachelor life which had made him so useful; but
the natural kindliness of his heart had a great deal more
to do with it.
When tea was over, Mrs Germaine took to her sofa
again. They had not yet begun fires, and she shivered a
little as she drew her worn old shawl over her feet.
122
The Dearis Wife.
' There's not much good in that,' said .Richard, as he
arranged it for her.
' No, it is thin. I should have liked a small blanket
from one of the children's beds, but Grantley does not
like the look of them, and they me untidy in a sitting
room.'
' Better have bed and bedstead down at once,' said Mr
Germaine; then, turning to his brother,—
' Shall we take a turn in the town ? I have a letter
to write, though, first, and we will post it when we go.'
' I'll step out for a quarter of an hour while you write it,'
said Richard, and he went out, leaving Mrs Germaine in
mild amaze that any one in the shape of man should be so
gentle and helpful, so strong, and yet so tender.
'"Why hasn't he got married?' she said, with a little
wonder that this jewel of humanity had not been already
appropriated. ' He will make some woman very happy.'
Presently Richard came back with something bright and
warm and soft-looking flung over his arm, and he placed it
lightly over his sister-in-law's feet. It was one of the
prettiest of sofa blankets. It lit up all the dull shabby
room as a bright bit of colour will sometimes do.
' I didn't know what to bring you from town, Lucy,' he
said—he called her by her Christian name already, just as
if he had known her ever since her marriage—' children
one can never go far wrong with—so I have just been out
and got you this. They're all the fashion in London,
you know.'
' Oh, Richard, you are too good to me—too good to all of
us,' she said, with the tears in her eyes, ' and it is so pretty,
and so soft. Oh ! it will be such a comfort, you don't know.
I've so often wished for one—and even Grantley can't find
fault with this.'
And Mr Germaine was graciously pleased to approve of
The Ladies' Walk.
123
the present to his wife, when he looked over the parcel of
books which his brother had brought for him from town.
CHAPTER XVII.
the ladies' walk.
The river that runs by Carminster and makes such an
important feature in the otherwise monotonous scenery,
forms at one portion of its course a very favourite pro-
menade for the ladies who dwell in the city. About half-
a-mile from the cathedral there stands an old ruin, formerly
a castle of some importance, but of which nothing now
remains but a few battered walls. But the ground on
which the castle stood abuts on the river, rising to some
height above, a precipitous wooded cliff skirting the water.
Along the upper surface of this cliff, a walk of a quarter of
a mile's length has been formed, broad, well-gravelled, and
with seats at intervals. Being on the very outskirts of the
city, these seats are supposed to command a very fine view.
At any rate, you see green fields from them, and cows
browsing therein, and you can watch the course of the
river and see the little pleasure-boats flecking its surface,
and there are red-tiled homesteads in the distance, and
here and there statelier mansions with their surrounding
parks, so that, if not very picturesque, the view is pretty
and peaceful, and, above all, thoroughly English in its
character.
The walk on the cliff is called the Ladies' Walk, and
here, on fine sunny afternoons, almost every day but
Sunday, the ladies par excellence of the city, the wives of
the cathedral dignitaries and the clergy generally, delight
124
The Dean's Wife.
to take tlieir gentle exercise. On Sunday afternoons the
walk is given up to the tradespeople, and the working-
classes generally. Saturday afternoon is the favourite
one with the more aristocratic classes, and the Saturday
afternoon after Richard German had come to Carminster,
his brother took him there.
Not that either was likely to meet many people of his
acquaintance. Richard, of course, was an utter stranger to
every one, and his brother's congregation were of a class who
would never have thought of intruding on the Ladies' Walk
at a time when the ladies were most likely to be there. And
on Saturdays their domestic and business cares were just as
heavy on them as they were light on the ladies to whom the
walk was especially appropriated. But Mr Germaine had
no wish to meet his people. The small tradespeople who
would ask him to tea, and let him see that they thought
themselves ill-used if he did not come ; and their wives, who
asked so affectionately after his wife, and were even more
ill-used than their husbands, that * he never dropped in in
a friendly way;' these people were very disagreeable to
him. Their little presents, their civilities, were all sources
of annoyance to him.
Lady Mary's grapes, and Lady Mary's game, were grace-
ful, tasteful articles for a gentleman to receive; his little
maid and her mistress were both at a loss what to do with
the pheasants which were not plucked, and the hare which
was not skinned, till Miss Todd came to the rescue, sent
them off to her poulterer, who prepared them for the table,
and then Maria superintended the rest. But all these
details, as he told his wife, were not in his province. But
when the pork-butcher sent a tender loin of pork, and the
other butcher a leg of Welsh mutton, as delicate compli-
ments to Mrs Germaine's failing appetite, though the
marchioness cooked them in a style that did her credit, he
The Ladies' Walk.
125
was very wroth. These common offerings of the counter
seemed so utterly beneath the acceptance of a gentleman.
He dined off the pork, though, very heartily, and he didn't
disdain the sage and onions, and he made an equally good
dinner off the mutton. But he detested the donors of these
gifts. Coarse common-place souls, and yet these were the
very souls that he, with his culture, his refinement, his
aesthetic and artistic tendencies, was expected to save.
No, it was none of his flock that this pastor wished to
meet, this bright afternoon. It was Lady Mary in whose
eyes he hoped to sun himself; and accordingly he took
Dick up and down the Ladies' Walk, with the big dog at
their heels, looking right and left, hut never seeing her he
hoped to see.
It was bright and pleasant. Every lady in the city
seemed to be there to-day, but the especial lady whom Mr
Germaine was so wishing for. There was Mrs Johnson
with three of her daughters and their governess, and she
was smiling and talking to every one she met—to every one
but Mr Germaine, whom she passed without recognition.
They knew each other by sight, but the bishop's wife could
not be expected to know Mr Germaine in any other way,
he thought, with a little bitterness, and looked out more
anxiously than ever for Lady Mary.
There were plenty of the clergy. That young man from
St Theodosius, who was already believed to be wavering in
his views of celibacy, and to be paying more visits to the
palace than any bishop without daughters could expect him
to pay. He met Mrs Johnson, and she was very gracious to
him, and Mr Germaine heard her ask him to come home
with her and have some tea. And yet the bishop was said
to have as profound a horror of Bitualism as he had of
Dissent. It did not look like it, for here was the bishop
himself, and he was smiling and talking to the young priest
126
The Dean's Wife.
just as if his views were as tame and as dry and as much
out of date as his own. The bishop was a thin, wiry man
with nothing very remarkable about him now, whatever
there might have been in the days when, according to his
wife, he was the best dancer in every ballroom he entered.
But he was gentlemanly and pleasant, and his wife made
the palace very popular, and he and most of his clergy were
much of the same way of thinking, especially in the city.
Mr Warne came and talked to Mr Germaine for a time,
and was introduced to his brother. Mr "Warne was pleased
at this introduction. A man hailing from town, and on
the staff of one of the London papers, was worth talking to.
But there was no one else for Mr Germaine to speak to.
He was isolated from the crowd around, and he felt the
isolation : thought that Richard must remark it, fancied it
was a studied insult to himself, and longed more ardently
for Lady Mary than ever.
Richard would have liked to have brought his eldest
nephew and niece with him, but their father disapproved of
the idea.
' Children are nuisances out of doors,' he said.
To Richard a child could never be a nuisance, out of
doors or in. So Richard had comforted himself with his
dog, and for some time Rollo had just followed dutifully at
the heels of his master, and then couched himself at his
feet. But perhaps he got weary of the talk between Mr
Warne and his master, perhaps he wanted to see a little
more of the Carminster beauties, or attract their notice to
himself—he was a dog who liked and appreciated the
society of ladies; but whatever his motive, Rollo had dis-
appeared, and his master called, whistled, looked for him
in the crowd of idlers passing to and fro, but in vain.
* Wouldn't lose that dog for any money,' said Richard,
springing to his feet. ' He's one of the best fellows going.'
The Ladies' Walk.
127
He bade Mr Warne good morning hastily, and walked
on a little way, when the sounds of a canine affray met his
ear, followed by such a stream of lamentations, plaints,
self-bemoanings and appeals for compassion in Hollo's well-
known voice as convinced his master that in his own
opinion Hollo must be a very ill-used dog indeed.
The truth was that Hollo, on leaving his master, had
brushed rather rudely against a dog much larger than him-
self—a fine Newfoundland—who, being accustomed, when-
ever he was on the Ladies' Walk, to attract all eyes,
resented the liberty, perhaps, too, was rather jealous of the
admiration that Hollo, though a smaller dog than himself,
in right of his bright glossy coat and handsome head, at-
tracted. There was a skirmish, and then a fight, and if
the owner of the Newfoundland had not called him off,
things might have gone badly for Hollo. As it was, he
made the best or the worst of them. Mrs Johnson and her
daughters had come up—the bishop had turned back with
the owner of the Newfoundland—and two or three other
ladies, and to all of these Hollo was narrating his wrongs,
holding up one paw, and saying, as plainly as it was pos-
sible for dog to say, how shamefully he had been treated by
that great cowardly Newfoundland.
How the ladies pitied him ! And Hollo knew they did.
He would not have made half such a fuss if they had been
gentlemen. They were very angry with the great New-
foundland, whom till to-day they had all looked upon as
a friend. He had made a cowardly use of his size and
strength, while this poor handsome, inoffensive creature
had been quietly walking along. Hollo's note changed all
of a sudden just as Mrs Johnson and her assenting friends
had arrived at this point. ' Snap-—bark—you impudent
little cur—what do you mean by interfering with your
betters?' That was what Hollo said to a pretty little
128
The Deatts Wife.
white dog who came up in a sympathising way to ask
Rollo what was the matter. Rollo did not want his pity
he preferred that of the ladies. In an instant the little
white dog was hustled over the cliff, and there he clung
with his paws on a narrow ledge six feet below, looking up
wistfully for help, and appealing for succour as loudly as
Rollo had done for pity.
' Stop that, old fellow ! Nobody has killed you.'
Rollo heard his master's voice and left off yelping. He
hung his head, crouched down, and looked very- much
ashamed of himself. But the little dog, who saw the river
below, and did not like the idea of a wetting, continued to
utter appeals for help, and then a shrill, childish voice was
heard, and a small figure with fair hair and a blue serge
dress pushed past the ladies, and, running to the edge of the
cliff, looked down and called out,—
' Gyp—Gyp—my darling Gyp !'
* Is it your dog, Cicely ? ' asked Mrs Johnson ; ' and how
will you get him up from there ?'
For an answer, Cicely Dalmaine turned a pair of the
most expressive eyes in the world to the only gentleman
present—Mr Richard German. She was only eight years
old, and one of the prettiest creatures that he had ever seen.
She knew the power of her eyes and the power of her
prettiness, and she used them now upon Mr German. She
said not a word to him, but she cried out plaintively,—
' It is my Gyp—my darling Gyp !' and then she looked
again.
'Is it your dog down there ?' said Richard. She
seemed so much more a fairy than a child that he scarcely
knew how to address her. ' If mine has sent him over there,
I suppose I must fetch him up for you.'
Cicely smiled, but looked as if the ' fetching him up' was
perfectly a matter of course, and Mr German prepared to
The Ladies' Walk.
129
descend the cliff. The ladies stood waiting. Grantley
Germaine had come up by this time, so had Miss Todd,
who was with Cicely's elder sister Winifred. Cicely was
volubly telling her sister and Miss Todd, for the benefit of
the surrounding company, how it was that the wicked
great brown dog had pushed her little darling Gyp over
the cliff. Then she went up to the wicked dog and
petted and fondled him, telling him all the time how badly
behaved he was. She was as much an actress born as Grant-
ley Germaine was an actor. She had inherited all her
mother's power of charm, but used it far more consciously.
She made a very pretty group with the big dog, and was
quite aware that she did so ; and when the little dog, whose
sad treatment she was bewailing, made his appearance in
Richard German's arms, she had forgotten for the moment
his very existence.
Richard German was about to place the little animal on
the ground and walk away, when a tall, staid young lady
stepped up to claim it. She held out her arms, and asked
with a little anxiety,—
'Is he hurt?' Then more shyly, 'Thank you so very much.'
In all his life Richard German felt that he had never seen
a face to win on a man more. It was gentle and calm and
placid almost to a fault, till the eyes lit up and a gentle
colour came into the checks. Fair, tall, and slight, with an
impress of careful culture and refinement, a girl who was
evidently the cherished treasure of some mother's heart—of
some rich man's home. But more than the culture and the
refinement, there was an atmosphere of purity and repose
surrounding this girl as if it would be impossible to think an
evil thought or utter a coarse word in her presence. Richard
German raised his hat to her, almost involuntarily, with the
feeling that he might have had on entering a church rather
than as an act of courtesy to a lady.
1
130
The Dean's Wife.
' I do not think he is at all hurt,' he said, ' and I deserve
no thanks for fetching him. It was my dog who threw him
over.'
Then Miss Cicely Dalmaine, who was tired of posing with
only ladies to look on, came rushing up.
« Gyp—Gyp—my darling Gyp !' and she caught the dog
and kissed her again and again, glancing at Mr Richard
German as she did so.
Then Miss Todd came up and told Cicely the dog was
quite well, and they had better be walking home. Miss
Todd had very little patience with the pretty creature's
minauderies. Mr Germaine seized the opportunity to in-
troduce his brother to her, and to ask, rather too audibly,
' If she knew how it was that Lady Mary was not out
this fine afternoon ?'
'1 believe Lady Mary prefers staying at home,' said
Miss Todd stiffly, 'but I cannot answer for her movements.'
Then she drew off her charges—the two girls and their
dog, and as she did so, Richard German turned to his
brother,—
' Who is that tall young lady with Miss Todd ?'
' That—' Mr Germaine glanced carelessly after the trio.
' Oh—Lady Mary Dalmaine's eldest daughter. I don't
know much of her—a girl in the school-room, I believe;
but you will like her mother—she is a friend of my wife's.
I daresay I shall be able to introduce you ina day or two.'
Then Mr Germaine walked on, with his head more
erect than usual, knowing that Mrs Johnson had heard
him, and that his evident acquaintance with the dean's
wife must have astonished her not a littla
Richard spends an Evening with Miss Todd. 131
CHAPTER XVIII.
richard spends an evening with miss todd.
Richard German found his brother more altered than he
had expected. He would hardly own it to himself, but he
was disappointed in him. Grantley had been something
of a hero in his eyes—the great big brother who was so
clever, so fluent, whose early piety and gifts of prayer had
made him seem almost a saint in the younger brother's
eyes. Grantley could not understand the agony of self-
abasement with which he still looked upon his early sin,
the remorse with which he viewed its consequences.
'Of course it was all very wrong,' Grantley said; 'but
young men are so often led astray, and I always thought
my father looked on the whole thing too severely. He
lives in a groove, and his isolated life prevents his taking
that broader view of things which a man of more culture
and more knowledge of the world would have done. As
to the poor girl, of course her fate was very deplorable,
but she would never have done for a wife for you, Dick—
never. These early marriages with women every way be-
neath them are the ruin of rising men. I speak feelingly,
as I know what I have experienced myself. There is
nothing spoils a man's whole career like a marriage with
a woman every way beneath him !'
'I would have risked the spoiling my career to have
had Ellen alive and by my side,' said Richard, hoarsely;
but, as he spoke of Ellen, another face, fair and gentle,
wholly unlike the bright, saucy, brunette beauty which
had turned his boyish head, arose before him. Arose
to shame and humble him. What right had he, who
had steeped his soul in sin, and ruined a girl's life, to
132
The Dean's Wife.
think of this stainless creature, placed in right of her
purity and innocence as far above him as a Madonna in
the heavens ?
Then Grantley's bitterness at his social position was
inexplicable to Richard.
' What does it matter what the bishop's wife and the
cathedral set think of you? Go your own ways, man,
live your own life, and let them go to—anywhere they
please. And there must be some good Christians amongst
them; Lady Mary Dalmaine seems to have shown herself
such to your wife.'
' Lady Mary Dalmaine has more brains than the bishop,
the dean, and all the clergy put together; she comes here,
certainly : perhaps she finds a culture and a congeniality
in this house that she does not meet with either in the
palace or the deanery.'
' The dean is generally believed to have a fair amount of
brains, too,' said Richard.
' I don't think she is quite happy with him. He is
cold and stiff; she is artistic and emotional. It is not
what you can call a happy marriage, but then happy
marriages are very rare.'
With his brother's crusade against the Ritualists Richard
agreed heartily, though he laughed at his bitterness against
the foolish young priest at St Theodosius'.
' He's only a boy, and he'll grow out of his nonsense in
time,' he said. Don't make him of so much importance,
but preach against the thing itself as much as you please.'
Lady Mary came to see Mrs Germaine once while
Richard was staying in Carminster, and he was introduced
to her.
* She is a very handsome and a very charming lady,'
he told his brother; 'but I don't know that I like her
quite as well as I do Miss Todd.'
Richard spends an Evening with Miss Todd. 133
This Grantley could not understand at all. Miss Todd
was liis bete noir. She was so plain-spoken, cared so little
what people thought as long as she achieved the end she
had in view; was old and little, and socially insignificant,
in spite of her friendship with Lady Mary. And, above
all, Miss Todd had committed the unpardonable offence
of letting him see that she thought very much more of his
wife's sufferings than she did of his eloquence. She came
to the house solely and simply because his wife was ill
and wanted her, not a bit because she thought Mr Ger-
maine a very clever man sadly out of his rightful sphere.
Indeed, he almost hated Miss Todd, because, on more
than one occasion, she had spoken to him about his wife
in a manner that he considered nobody but the most
impertinent of busybodies would have done. But he could
not speak about this to Richard. His brother never
seemed to think that he was to be pitied for having
married as he had done, for having fastened such an
incubus round his neck as a wife who was always ailing,
who had lost her good looks, and had never had any
connections to speak of. Richard's pity indeed seemed
all given to his wife.
But Richard liked Miss Todd very much for having
given him a glimpse into heaven. One afternoon he called
on her, and she told him he must stay to tea—not the
delicate five o'clock tea with its wafer-like bread and
butter or fancy biscuits which precede a late dinner, but
a real genuine six o'clock tea, with cake and toast. Early
dinners suited Maria better: she got over her work
sooner, and had the evening for her sewing or verse
reading, or writing letters to the latest young man.
Miss Todd did not much care when she dined. Her
only idea of dinner was that, come when it would, it was
always at an inconvenient time, and that it was a great
134
The Dean's Wife.
pity one could not do without dinners altogether. And
unexpectedly, too, other visitors dropped in—Winifred and
her little sister. The dean and Lady Mary were dining
at the palace, and they had permission to come and take
Miss Todd by storm. The carriage was to fetch them at ten,
before it went to the palace for mamma and papa.
It was Cicely who explained everything. She was
radiant with delight at ' coming out to tea,' at sitting up
two hours later than usual, and, above all, though she
did not say it, at the sight of Mr Richard German. He
had made a great impression on her. She thought better
of Mr Grantley Germaine for having so creditable a
relation.
' I like brothers,' she had informed Winifred; (other
people's.'
So she liked Mr Germaine's brother, and chatted away
half the evening to him while he sat and listened to Miss
Todd and her, and looked at the fair still girl opposite
quietly knitting. So still, so calm.
' It rests a man's soul to look at her,' said Richard
German to himself. And now and then there was a word,
a flash of the soft grey eyes, a gleam of pale rose-colour on
the oval outline of the cheek, that showed there was life
enough beneath the quietness. It never occurred to
Richard that he ought to go, that Miss Todd had not asked
him to spend the evening there. He was so thoroughly,
so intensely happy; this quiet girl subdued and cheered
him. He felt as if to wake that sleeping soul to life, to
make that still, pure heart beat and throb for him, would
be worth the risk of life itself. Madonna, saint, statue.
No! something sweeter, fairer far—a girl in her opening
womanhood, a pure, virginal soul utterly unconscious of all
the latent possibilities of love that lay sleeping beneath its
placid calm.
Richard spends an Evening with Miss Todd. 135
' And if ever she wakes, she will wake in earnest,' said
Dick German to himself. ' My life on it, if that girl ever
does love, she will give her whole heart to the man she
cares for.'
He saw her into her father's carriage. He never ven-
tured even to touch her hand when they parted, but he lifted
Cicely in and stole a kiss, and then, having bade Miss
Todd good-night, he went in and sat down in his brother's
study.
Mr Germaine was just putting the finishing strokes to
the first sermon which was to be launched like a cannon-
shot against the iniquities of Ritualism, and that foolish
young priest of St Theodosius, its pioneer in Carminster.
He lifted up his eyes as his brother came in, and said,—
' You are late, are you not ? You have never been next
door all this time ? '
' Yes; Miss Todd had a visitor—two—little Cicely Dal-
maine—I wonder how many men's hearts that brat will live
to tread on, she must have been a coquette in her cradle;
and her eldest sister—Miss Dalmaine.'
He hesitated a little before he uttered her name, and his
brother detected it.
' Miss Dalmaine. The dean's daughter. Don't burn your
fingers, Dick. That girl is as much above you as if she
were one of the princesses.'
'Yes, she is above me, but not in the way you mean,'
said his brother. ' If there were nothing more between us
than that she is the dean's daughter, and that her grand-
father was an earl, while my father is a small tradesman,
and my grandfather was as small a farmer, I think I could
win her, Grantley. I'd try for it. But that isn't all, and
you know it. I am not fit to touch the hem of her garment,
much more to win her as my wife.'
136
7 he Dean's Wife,
CHAPTER XIX.
miss todd's prophecy.
Out of its still, sleepy life—out of its dream-like, drowsy
existence— Grantley Germaine woke Carminster. This
credit is due to him. He had given the dull cathedral
town more to talk of than it had had for years. Dissent
had been so very low a thing, confined to the smaller
tradespeople and the working classes, that no one in
Carminster had ever entertained any animosity towards
it—a mild contempt for something harmless and utterly
insignificant being the prevailing feeling. But Grantley
Germaine had made all Carminster feel that Dissent was
a power in the place, and that it would not be satisfied
to he passed by as a thing unnoted, and be content with
mere toleration—it could speak, and would speak trumpet-
tongued, and carry the flag of aggression into the opposite
camp.
In a word, Grantley Germaine had begun that course
of sermons of his against Ritualism which he afterwards
embodied in a book, hoping thereby to become famous as
an author wherever the English language was spoken;
and it need hardly be said that these hopes came to
nothing.
But, in a small way, the sermons made him famous as
a preacher. Nothing like them had ever been heard in
Carminster. The city was not great in preachers. It
did not pride itself upon them. Mr Warne was thought
clever, but he was eccentric and peculiar; his church was
in an out-of-the-way part, and he was altogether a little
out of the running; and, though his matter was good and
his delivery fair, still he had none of the oratorical display
Miss Todd's Prophecy.
137
and finish which made whatever Grantley Germaine uttered
seem so much better than it really was.
The dean was a very good preacher, according to Car-
minster. Those argumentative, logical sermons by which he
almost convinced even himself that he believed all that he
ought to believe as a good Churchman, were thought very
highly of by his fellow clergy and the ' society' of the place.
So were the bishop's. They were such pleasant, gentlemanly,
fluent compositions, "sliding over disagreeables, and tripping
over all debatable ground as jauntily and gracefully as ever
the bishop himself in his early days had tripped it in a
ball-room. But Grantley Germaine's sermons were different
things altogether. They were impassioned, fierce, aggressive,
unconventional. They attacked Ritualism boldly; they in-
veighed against all priestcraft with that trenchant bitter-
ness that none can use so well as he who has the soul
of a priest himself. The Church people were puzzled.
Ritualism was an unpopular, un-English thing, and they
had none of them liked it; but then the Ritualists were
still members, although refractory ones, of the Established
Church, and they were not sure whether they were doing
well in approving any attacks on them from an outsider.
The first sermon Grantley Germaine preached was printed
in the leading local paper that came out the next Saturday.
The dean took it to Lady Mary and read part of it.
'It's wonderfully clever,' she said. 'It's more than
clever—it's eloquent, it's impassioned. He hits hard, and
he knows how to find out the weak points of his opponents.'
' He may be very clever,' said the dean; ' but he doesn't
write good English. No man without a thorough classical
training ever does; and of course none of these Dissenters
ever have that.'
Then he quoted several sentences which were not exactly
in grammatical accuracy, what they should be; still, no
The Dean's Wife.
one but a purist like the dean would ever have detected it.
Grantley Germaine's English was quite equal to that of
the majority of our M.P.'s or the average of our clergy.
Lady Mary grew impatient.
' I do believe,' she said, ' that if you were to hear Burke
himself, and he were to misplace the smallest word, you
would not listen to his most eloquent discourse without
cavilling."
' If a man speaks in public at all, he ought to speak Eng-
lish,' said the dean.
'This is better than good English—this is better than
good grammar. Any dullard who has been well trained
at school can speak that,' she cried. ' This is fire and elo-
quence, poetry, and passion. This invective is magnificent;'
and she read a passage in which the impurities of the con-
fessional, the prostration of soul in the penitent, the arrogant
attitude of the priest, were all pictured with considerable
verve and force. The dean himself liked it better when it
came from her lips. Indeed, Grantley Germaine's discourses
were better things to listen to than to read. His strength
was not sufficiently sustained, his power of reasoning not
clear enough, for such a critic as the dean; but his philip-
pics sounded well enough read as Lady Mary read them.
'Yes, that's not bad,' said the dean; ' but I don't know
that it will do much good. Ritualism, like all other absur-
dities, will die a natural death if we only let it alone.'
' I'd help it on its way, though,' said Lady Mary. Then
she turned over the paper and looked at parts of the sermon
again. ' I should like to hear him,' she said. ' Discourses
like this sound so much better than they read.'
'Well, go and hear him, Mary, if you wish it so much,'
said her husband gravely.
After all, why shouldn't she ? It was such a little thing
for a woman to want, and even if she were seen in the
Miss Todd's Prophecy.
139
chapel, her being there would excite much less attention
now that this first sermon had attracted so much remark.
It would only be thought that she had a little curiosity to
hear a rather exceptional preacher •, just as other great ladies
had flocked once in a way to hear Whitefield.
4 That's good of you, George,' she cried. ' More than I
expected from the Dean of Carminster ;' and she made him
a very low curtsey. 4 Quite magnanimous and tolerant.
Miss Todd and I will go next Sunday, lest you should change
your mind. Men are given to change, you know.'
41 don't think I am,' said the dean rather austerely.
His wife was only pleased, and it was but a little joke,
this, on her part; yet this was what he could not see. Her
high spirits, her fun, her liking for an innocent piece of mis-
chief were all incomprehensible to him. They had amused
him before he married her; indeed they had been a great
part of her attractiveness, but now he would have had her
more staid, more dignified—a different being altogether—a
model clergyman's wife, in fact—an average good sort of
woman; as if it would ever be possible for Mary Heardon
to have developed into that when she became Mary Dal-
maine !
The next Sunday evening the Methodist Chapel in Old
Weigh Street was filled to overflowing. There were Inde-
pendents and Baptists from their own chapels, a few IJni-
tarians and Church people from every church in the city.
The chapel was old and ugly, built in the times when people
thought beauty a sin and ugliness one of the cardinal virtues.
It had been built by one of Wesley's immediate followers,
and it was said that he himself had preached there. But
surely it had never held more people than it held now—and
to Grantley Germaine's thinking never such an audience.
For, far away, in one of the corners, just where they would
be least seen, and from which they could slip out most easily}
140
The Dean's Wife.
he saw the sonsie, homely face of Miss Todd, and, he could
not be mistaken, the soft bright, still beautiful one of her
friend Lady Mary. That was a triumph for the Methodist
minister indeed ; was it not also something of a triumph for
the man ? He did not ask himself that—-just then was not
the time to question too closely why his pulses thrilled and
his cheeks flushed—it was enough for him that the wife of
a High Church dignitary was there to hear him attack a sac-
tion of the Church to which she was supposed to belong.
He preached very well that evening—even Miss Todd
owned that. As to Lady Mary, he took her by storm. He
attracted the emotional, ecstatic part of her nature. He him-
self was emotional, and as much of an artist as is every
true actor. And she did not yet see how much was acting,
how much genuine. The sudden dropping of the voice,
the whisper that was heard by every one of his audience
—the stage tricks, as Miss Todd irreverently termed them
—were not perceived by her. She had grown so very
weary of her husband's laboured discourses, and the utter-
ances of the other preachers in the cathedral—even of the
bishop himself—had made little impression on her. Indeed,
preaching was altogether at a discount amongst the Church
people in Carminster, so that Lady Mary's heart was
warmed and stirred within her, and she listened eagerly
to every word that fell from the preacher's lips; wholly
unconscious of the effect her eager attention was having
on him.
She took Miss Todd home with her to the deanery, and
the dean heard a very glowing account of the sermon from
his wife.
' He is a great preacher,' she said.
' He is a fluent one,' said Miss Todd.
' Really eloquent—and eloquence is so rare a gift'
(Which he doesn't possess,' said her friend.
Miss TodcCs Propkecy.
141
'You wont think so when you have heard him a dozen
times, Mary. He has neither height nor depth enough for
eloquence.'
' And it is such a pity he is so misplaced,' said Lady
Mary. ' A man like that to be thrown away as he is.'
' I never heard that Wesley was thrown away upon the
colliers—or a greater than Wesley when he preached to
sinners and publicans,' said Miss Todd, a little stiffly.
For once she looked cross: her pleasant, rosy face with
the little white curls—they had been brown when Mary
Heard on first knew her—had an unusual expression. She
was 'past her patience,' as she would have said herself,
with Lady Mary's enthusiasm about a man who was not
worth it.
' But, however, I agree with you, Mary,' she continued,
' this man is thrown away. But he wont be thrown away
long. He'll rat. You'll have him in the Church, dean,
before long. Preaching in the cathedral, possibly.'
'We don't want him,' cried the dean. 'Who is he?
What is he ? The Church is a profession for gentlemen
only.'
' It's supposed to be so—that's why Grantley Germaine
will enter it. He has aristocratic tastes and tendencies.
The Church will just suit him. He'll intend to be a bishop
when he comes over, but I don't think he'll realise his in-
tentions. Some snug proprietary chapel will suit him, or
some chapel of ease in a rising suburban district. Mark
my words, dean, Grantley Germaine will be "clerk" as
well as yourself before half-a-dozen years are over, and he'll
hold his own against the class from which he has come.
He'll be more of a Churchman than you and the bishop put
together. Commend me to a renegade! and there's the
ma-king of one in the man you've heard to-night, Mary.'
142
The Dean's Wife
CHAPTER XX
after the performance.
The curtain had fallen, the lights were turned off, the
orchestra and the audience had departed—in other words,
Grantley Germaine was going home and the chapel doors
were closed. He had played his part very well, and now
the reaction had set in. There wefb no more eager, up-
turned eyes, no listeners hanging on his words, only the
dull, miry street with the gas-lamps faintly shining here
and there, throwing a yellow light on the misty darkness
of a drizzling November evening, and then his own home,
which to-night struck him as duller, darker, dingier, more
sordid and commonplace, more utterly beneath the brilliant
preacher and the eloquent orator than ever.
But his poor wife had done her best to give him some-
thing of a welcome. Some little flickerings of strength
had come to her, thanks in a great measure to Miss Todd
and the kitchen physic in which she so devoutly believed.
She had on one of her best dresses, a poor faded affair, it
is true, and one of those pretty caps which Miss Todd had
given her. The room was tidy. The marchioness had
improved very much under Maria's teaching; the plain
little supper was neatly spread, and there were a few
chrysanthemums on the table. But the cradle was there,
for the baby was too delicate to be trusted out of its
mother's care, and the perpetual presence of this cradle
was becoming an eyesore to the father of its little occupant.
He sat down by the fire, warmed his hands over the blaze,
and Mrs Germaine asked eagerly,—
4 A good congregation to-night, Grantley ?'
'Very—every seat full—and not even standing room.
After the Performance. 143
He warmed as he spoke. ' I think I never did better—never
in my life. I spoke of the Popery to which we were tending,
of the enslavement of men's minds by a priesthood for its
own ends. I asked if this was the heritage that our great
Protestant fathers had left us—'
The baby whimpered in its sleep.
'Not quite so loud, Grantley dear. I wish I could have
gone to hear you. Go on—tell me some more, please. I
like it so very much.'
' What is the use of my telling you anything when you
think of nothing but that child ?' he said angrily. ' Can't
you send him away ? '
' The kitchen is draughty, and there is no fire upstairs,'
she said; ' he is quiet now. Go on, please, Grantley.'
He walked up and down.
' Yes, I think this sermon will tell—I think it will be
heard of. And who do you think was there ?—Lady Mary
Dalmaine herself, with that spiteful old maid from next
door. Fancy the dean's wife,' he said, with an ironical
humility, ' deigning to set her foot in a Methodist chapel!'
'Yes, I daresay people will talk about it,' said poor
Mrs Germaine, and the common-place remark grated on her
husband terribly.
' I suppose they will—make a world's wonder of it that
her ladyship—the best born and the cleverest woman in all
Carminster—should deign to come to a conventicle. But
she was there, notwithstanding. There is no getting over
that fact,' he added exultingly.
' It was a great compliment to you, Grantley. But I
don't see why you should call the chapel a conventicle.
What is a conventicle ? I never rightly knew. Hush ! baby
dear. I'm afraid he's not quite so well to-night, Grantley.
And you shouldn't call Miss Todd a spiteful old maid. She
has done more for baby and me than tongue can telh'
144
The Dean's Wife.
11 wish, you could give a thought to any being in the
world but your baby,' he said, and flung himself sullenly in
his arm-chair by the fireside and began to eat.
He felt so angry with his wife that he could hardly speak.
She was wrapped up in her child and her ailments. She
had not a thought for him. What a contrast she was to the
woman whose eyes had been fixed so intently on him that
evening. Lady Mary was always ready to talk and to sym-
pathise. What a career he might have had if he had but
had such a woman for his wife ! She would never have
troubled him about a baby's illnesses or her own either. She
would always have been bright and willing, and eager and
helpful. It never occurred to him that the dean might have
had a different story to tell. That he only saw Lady Mary
when domestic cares and anxieties were put aside. That
she had left them behind her at home, and that when her
kindly visits to his wife were paid, it was a pleasant relief
to her to have a clever man to talk with, just as it was a
pleasant relief to him to be listened to by a clever woman.
There was plenty of money to oil the wheels of life at the
deanery, and Lady Mary had always thought it her duty to
listen even to her husband's sermons beforehand, when on
any special occasion he read them to her, and she had always
been sympathetic and ready to enter into any of his plans.
But if he had come to her when Cissy was ailing, or a new
cook had shown signs of utter incompetence on the very eve
of a dinner-party, he would have found her attention as
divided as was poor Mrs Germaine's with her baby and the
marchioness.
And life had dealt much more hardly with one woman than
the with other. Lady Mary, if she had not robust health,
had what is even better, plenty of vitality, and almost irre-
pressible energy. And she had not only had far more beauty
than poor Mrs Germaine to start with, but hers was the
After the Performance. 145
beauty that has not only a bright day but a long one. Look-
ing on his wife to-night, and remembering the fair yet glow-
ing face he had seen that night, with its surroundings of lace
and flowers, Mr Germaine thought what a mistake he had
made in marrying a woman of his own age. ' She looks ten
years older than I do.' But he never thought of Lady Mary's
age at all. Yery few men did. And if they looked in the
'Peerage' they never believed the date they saw. Mr
Germaine would certainly not have done so if he had had a
1 Peerage' in which to look.
' Lady Mary has written herself, hasn't she ?' said his
wife. 'A novel, wasn't it ?'
'Yes, and a good one !'
' I should like to see it. I know you don't think there is
any harm in reading novels, Grantley, or you wouldn't have
given all the money you did for that set of Thackeray's.
Still a novel doesn't seem quite the thing for a clergyman's
wife, does it ? I always thought, till I knew Lady Mary, that
an authoress must be so different to other women, and she is
just the same, only nicer. I like her very much, almost as
much as I like Miss Todd.'
How all the little inanities were grating on her husband !
What a woman was this for a man with his brains to be tied
to ! Well, he had married her with his eyes open, and knew
that she was not particularly clever, and not at all what is
commonly known as ' intellectual.' He had had, at the
time, some vague ideas of improving her, and before the
babies and the bad health came, she would have been very
glad to have been improved. But instead, he had devoted
himself to his own culture, just as he had devoted himself to
his own physical development by practising calisthenics and
vigorous exercise with the dumb-bells every morning. And
he had kept up his reading, and mixed with his fellow-men,
146
The Dean's Wife.
vvlio at least read their papers, and so knew something of
the way the world was going.
Mentally and.bodily he was the stronger and better gifted
of the two, and what had be done for his weaker, less-gifted
partner that she should be other than the housekeeper and
the nurse which he now found fault with her for being!
And, as an invalid, not very successful even in these capa-
cities.
As to her—well, poor soul! she was thankful for small
mercies, and, as she often told herself, she had got what
she married for—the glory and honour of being a 4 cleve~
man's wife.'
CHAPTER XXL
a lecture for lady mary.
Mrs Johnson came to the deanery the next day, in time
for afternoon tea; but it was not only tea she came for, but
to administer.a motherly reproof to Lady Mary. She had
so many daughters to look after, so many young clergymen to
see to, that she had a mild good-tempered way of calling
every one to order, more or less, if their proceedings were
not quite in accordance with her views. She had two of
her daughters with her, the third and fourth, and it being
too dull and too cold for them to wander with Winifred and
Cicely in the deanery grounds, as they had done when Mrs
Johnson admonished Lady Mary as to the desirability of her
daughters having dancing lessons, they all gathered together
in the bay window of the room, and looked over Cissy's col-
lection of Christmas cards and valentines.
4 How could you, my dear Lady Mary !' said Mrs John
A Lecture for Lady Mary. 147
son, stirring her tea ; ' how could you do such a thought
less thing as go to the Methodist chapel last evening. It's
all over the city. The fishmonger brought the news to the
cook, and she was full of it when she came to me for
orders: and the bishop heard it from the butler, and Amy
there,' she nodded significantly at the group in the window,
4 was told of it by Mr Glade himself, when he brought her
a new piece of sacred music this morning.'
Lady Mary flushed.
41 think your cook and your butler and that silly young
man from St Theodosius ought all to be very much
obliged to me for giving them something to talk about;
but surely, when you give me the pleasure of your society,
we may find other matters to discuss than the gossip of
servants and of boys.'
4 Oh, my dear Lady Mary, I beg your pardon if I have
offended you, but it is right you should know how these
things are talked about; and don't be too hard on Mr
Glade. He is really a very good, well-meaning young
man; so well-connected too—and a little private property.
The bishop thinks he will come all right in time. Young
men will go into extremes, you know. Sometimes they're
Radicals, sometimes Utopians, sometimes they run wild.
But they marry and grow rational. A wife will do
wonders for young Glade. I should not be at all surprised
if he is as moderate in his views as the bishop or the dean.'
4 Ah ! I see : a wife will do wonders, and he comes this
morning to the palace to see Amy. Am I to congratulate
you ?'
4 Well, yes; of course we should have liked it better
if his views at present had not been quite so extreme; and
Amy at first thought him rather young and unformed.
But still, as I told her—as I tell all my girls—it does not
do to be too particular. You can't, when you marry,
148
The Dean's Wife.
have a man just all that you would have him. You must
expect to put up with a few little things; no husband is
absolute perfection.'
'.But I think a girl should at least believe in the per-
fection of her lover,' -said Lady Mary. ' When she gives
herself to him she should think that no man can be like
him or come up to him. For once in her life let her in-
dulge in a little bit of romance. No fear but she well
wake fast enough.'
' Yes, yes; the romance is very charming, but girls are
more sensible than they were in our young days, Lady
Mary. No, I mustn't say that; but still, when there are
eight in a family, it is not like one, and we must do
without the romance sometimes. Still, I agree with you,
I don't like a worldly spirit in the young, and I really
believe Amy has all the necessary amount of affection for
her intended. But about the chapel—you mustn't go there
again, of course. It was just a little escapade. But, as
you have been, tell me what it was all like. Did Mr
Germaine preach as well as they say he does ? And does
he sound his h's? They say these ranters never do.'
' He does sound his h's : he preaches well, and he does not
rant. Indeed,' added Lady Mary, with deliberate emphasis,
not caring how she involved her own husband in her
satire, ' till last night I don't think I ever heard a really
good sermon in my life. Once come with me, dear Mrs
Johnson, and you'll never care for service in the cathedral
again—that is, of course, unless the bishop himself preaches.'
Mrs Johnson felt uncomfortable; she had a vague mis-
giving that Lady Mary was laughing at her; but her
hostess kept her countenance, poured out move tea, and
went on sipping it. Mrs Johnson rose to go, saying, a little
stiffly, ' That would be quite out of the question, Lady
Mary.' She did not know how to advise or remonstrate.
A Lecture for Lady Mary. 149
Lady Mary was clearly incorrigible, without the slightest
notion of what was due to her own order or her husband's
position. She called her girls together, and they left Cissy
and her valentines ; and left Lady Mary, too, rather ruffled
by the visit.
The impertinence of it! To tell her, Lady Mary Dal-
maine, what the bishop's butler and cook were talking
about. To say nothing of that foolish boy at St Theodo-
sius's, whom Mrs Johnson was so ready to get as a husband
for her daughter.
And just then in came the dean, and he began, as usual,
taking up one or other of the books lying on his wife's
table, and fidgeting with the nicknacks. It was a habit he
had, and an annoying one to his wife; he generally found
something that wanted mending or was out of place, as
to-day.
' This inkstand wants soldering. Cicely, isn't this one of
your lesson-books ?'
Yes, it is; Cissy, take it to the school-room,' said her
mother. Then, turning to the dean, when the child had
gone, ' You'll be pleased to hear, George, the bishop's
cook and the bishop's butler both think I've acted very
improperly in going to Weigh Street Chapel last night, and
Mr Glade (who is going to marry Amy) is of the same
opinion. I was thinking of going next Sunday evening.
There are four more sermons to be given on the same sub-
ject; but of course, with disapproval from such quarters, I
must give up the idea.'
c I doubt whether the bishop is much inlluenced by the
opinion of either butler or cook, but his future son-in-law
is another matter. But I don't know, Mary, that you and
I need mind him any more than the servants. Go to
Weigh Street Chapel, if you like, at any rate while this
series lasts,' said the dean rather graciously.
The Dean's Wife.
In truth, he was a consistent man, and Ritualism was to
him even a worse thing than Popery No son-in-law with
the views of the young incumbent of Theodosius would have
been acceptable to him, if he had had twice eight daughters.
' He seems a clever fellow, this Germaine,' he continued,
1 and at any rate you may as well hear what he has to say
from his view of the question. I think it's a fair one.
And I think, too, and I'm sorry to say I differ from the
bishop in so thinking, that it is quite time Church and
Dissent were joined together against the common enemy.'
The next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, in the same
corner of the chapel, Grantley Germaine saw Lady Mary
Dalmaine's face turned eagerly toward him. Miss Todd
was with her; but she only looked calmly critical. A
trying look for a speaker to see. She came, she told Lady
Mary, because it was better she should be with her than
any one else—not from any good she expected to derive.
But these sermons were like new life to Lady Mary. The
man was well up in the current literature of the day. ' If
not a great orator, he knew what people were thinking, in
the world, of the subjects he discussed; he knew how to
speak to men and women of the nineteenth century. Now
the dean believed in St Paul—reverenced him perhaps
rather more than his wife did. She always said he was
very hard upon women. The bishop and the curates be-
lieved in St Paul and all the other apostles; but they
seemed, as soon as they got into the pulpit, to think that
the world had not moved a step in the last nineteen hun-
dred years. They had nothing for the poor soul tired and
troubled with the unrest, the unquiet doubts, the tepid
faith than to-day. Well, this man, at any rate, did better
than that. He was a man of his time, and knew its needs.
If he had neither the genius of a Whitefield nor the piety
of a Wesley, he had that facile, fluent cleverness, that
A Lecture for Lady Mary. 151
emotional warmth, which will often pass muster for both.
At any rate, for a little time at least, they so passed muster
with Lady Mary.
But these sermons had done something in Carminster
that no sermons had ever done before. The Dissenters
had always been almost ignored—treated with a good-
natured contempt—a toleration that looked as if they were
not worth considering. But the Church people began to
feel they might be a power in the place. Some—and of
this party was the dean—said ojjenlv, as he had said to his
wife, that the Church should make common cause with
them against the common enemy, and there could be no
greater enemy than Popery, or its parody, Ritualism. But
the bishop was of another opinion. There might be faults
and specks in the Church—errors of judgment in some of
her sons. But it was not for outsiders to peck and cavil
at her—no, nor to censure the differences of opinion which
might prevail amongst her members. He thought Mr
Germaine's conduct excessively impertinent, to say the
least. Mrs Johnson was quite of her husband's opinion,
and said, too, that Lady Mary had done a most foolish and
inconsiderate thing in attending the Weigh Street Chapel.
There was a little coolness between the two ladies for a
short time, but it did not last. Mrs Johnson, on principle,
never quarrelled with anybody — there was never any
knowing when they might be useful—and Lady Mary did
not think Mrs Johnsen worth quarrelling with, and so they
were soon on as good terms as ever.
Mr Warne heard everything that everybody had to say,
and was very much amused. ' It was a storm in a teacup,'
he said, 'and it would not make one Ritualist the less,
though it might make a Churchman the more.'
'Why don't you come over to us, and have done with
it?' he said to Grantley Germaine. 'You're thrown away
152
The Dean's Wife.
on the Methodists; but you might make good way in the
Church. Take one side or another. It must be Evangeli-
cal now. You should have been High. But in attacking
poor young Glade as you have done, you have just cut the
ground from under your own feet. You must be a broad
Liberal Evangelist of the fashionable school—or wouldn't
it suit you to be broad altogether ?'
11 have my convictions,' said Grantley Germaine austerely.
{If I joined the Church, it should not be either as a Unitarian
or a Freethinker. But I will not deny that I have thought
very seriously of what you say, and the day may come when
I may be a fellow priest of the same order as yourself.'
' Me! I am only a priest so far as the Prayer-Book
makes me one,' said Mr Warne. 1 But there is the making
of a dozen priests in you, my dear fellow. I sometimes
think you are an anachronism. Born three hundred years
ago in Spain or Italy, and what a Pope or Grand Inquisitor
you would have made! As it is, come over to us, and I
shall live to see you a bishop.'
' The whole thing is too serious to be jested over,' said
Mr Germaine, and went on reading the Times. It was in
the reading-room of the Mechanics that this dialogue took
place, and, as Mr Warne walked home, he said to himself,
much as Miss Todd had done,—
' That fellow means to rat, and will bloom into a full-
blown rector some day. Well, we shall gain little, and
the Methodists won't lose much; but what a great man
Mr Grantley Germaine himself will be!'
Mr Germaine does not see His Way.
153
CHAPTER XXII.
mr germaine does not see his way.
Mr Grantley Germaine was trying very hard to see his
way to the performance of a very difficult duty : that duty
was the one of leaving the ministry to which he had devoted
himself, and the sect amidst which he had been born, that
he might enrol himself amongst the ordained clergy of the
Church of England. There would have been nothing to pre-
vent his doing this if he only had had the funds first for his
collegiate career, or, if that should not be thought necessary
by the bishop who ordained him, still to support his wife
and family while waiting for a living, or at best a curacy.
But funds he had none. How should a man have, he said,
with this constant drain upon his purse which an ailing wife
entailed. In reality the ailing wife drained him very little.
Even Miss Todd's plain speaking would not induce him to
see to that regimen of beef-tea and mutton chops which she
bad prescribed ; so that Miss Todd saw to it herself, and duly
looked after Mrs Germaine as one of her cases. If it had
been a matter of a hundred or so, there was no doubt in Mr
Germaine's mind that he could have obtained it from his
brother. Dick was always liberal; but to keep a whole
family for some years would be too heavy a tax even for him.
So the winter drifted away, and Mr Germaine could not yet
see his way to the performance of his duty, or rather, as
clearly as he could have wished, what it was his duty to do.
In other words, he kept in the Methodist ministry because
he could not see how he could raise money enough to enter
the Church.
He saw a great deal of Lady Mary this winter, and this
made him more and more anxious to see his way to the per
154
The DearCs Wife.
formance of his duty and the improvement of his social posi-
tion. He even went to the deanery—and the dean was stiffly,
coldly gracious to him. He said openly that Grantley Ger-
maine had spoken out to some purpose, and that it was a
pity those in the Church did not follow the example thus set
them by an outsider. The dean had a very English horror
of Popery and Ritualism ; but that was not all. His wife's
influence over him was very great—greater than either of
them fully realised. Whatever she liked or approved of,
that, after a time, must be liked and approved of by him.
She had praised this man, she had liked his preaching, and
so the dean, in the stately, measured manner that befits a
Church dignitary towards the minister of an inferior sect,
made Grantley Germaine welcome to the deanery. That was
enough. The doors of Lady Mary's home were open to him,
and he was not the man to measure too closely the cordiality
of its master's welcome.
But in his own home he saw much more of Lady Mary.
Mrs Germaine was sinking fast, and now was the time that
every kindness was required for her. Lady Mary was very
glad to show such kindness. This poor, patient sufferer, who
asked so little and bore so much so meekly, had grown upon
her. She went round to the little home, day after day, to
read and talk to the poor ailing wife. It was sheer woman-
liness and pity, and after a time other feelings crept in. Just
when Grantley Germaine was flattering himself that these
visits were paid partly out of appreciation of his merits and
a tender sympathy with the burden his wife's ailments laid
upon him, Lady Mary's eyes began to open to the fact that,
if Grantley Germaine shone in the pulpit, he did not shine
io quite so much advantage in the domestic circle.
She had some pity for him still, as a man very much out
of place, but a greater pity for the poor wife. The miseries
of the poor little menage,.the economies that fell so heavily
Mr Germaine does not see His Way.
155
on the one who was least able to bear them—nothing of
this escaped her eyes. She had not pinched and saved and
gone without pretty dresses that her father might have a
good coat, not to know something of such things.
As to Miss Todd, she was becoming almost as well known
in Carminster as Lady Mary herself. The round, rosy,
cheerful face, the crisp little white curls, the neat brown
dresses, the short skirts which showed the trim ankles and
small feet, all Miss Todd's remaining stock of beauty, were
well known now. Miss Todd did not go into society at all.
She had her peculiarities—perhaps her eccentricities; and
so, with the exception of the deanery, she did not visit at a
single 'good house ' in the place.
She had plenty of visiting besides. The largest circle of
acquaintance of any lady in Carminster. All the shabby
genteel people, the helpless, shiftless ones for whom life
seemed too hard, and who were never getting on in the
world for themselves, and always in the way of those who
were, these were the folks who by some mysterious affinity
—the affinity weakness has for strength, the bindweed for
the sturdiest tree near it—found out Miss Todd, or she
found them out, and were helped and comforted by her.
Amongst the very poor she did not go so much. There
were plenty to see to them, she said; many perhaps who
understood them better than she did, though in her way,
and every now and then, as she saw occasion, she helped
freely enough with purse and advice; but she was greatest
amongst the poor of the middle class, and how very poor
they are, and how much they suffer, few know but those
who have penetrated. behind the curtain that respectability
draws around to hide its sufferings.
She had quite a lending library of books for those to
whom even the hire of a novel would have been too much;
she begged flowers and fruit, and sometimes old clothes, for
156
The Deari!s Wife.
her protigSes. She was great in all kinds of domestic diffi-
culties. Slie knew who was the best doctor, the best chim-
ney-sweep, the best charwoman in all Carminster, and she
had made herself quite a power in the place before she had
been in it a year.
And so things went on at Carminster through all the
winter, and still Mr Germaine could not clearly see which
way his duty lay. Oh ! if some one could but have seen it
for him, and given him just a few hundreds a-year, with
which to keep wife and children, and prepare himself for
the first step towards a bishopric !
CHAPTER XXIIL
the new novel.
They were not great book-lovers at Carminster. Of course,
there were two or three circulating libraries, and the
Mechanics' had a very good collection of well-worn volumes
—mostly presents. But, as a rule, literature was rather at
a discount, and its followers were looked shyly on. But,
now and then, a book that had stirred all the reading circles
in England would find its way into Carminster and be talked
about, discussed, and handled, and even read.
For now and then a book comes into the world that is by
one who is born either by word of mouth or stroke of pen,
to speak to his fellow-men. Such a book came out in the
spring that followed on this winter, during which Mr Ger-
maine's mind had been so disquieted about his duty. It
was a novel in the orthodox three-volume form, and it was
evidently written by one to whom the art of story-telling
was a delight and a pleasure. It was written, too, by one
The New Novel.
*5 7
who loved nature, for whom the breezes blew and the flowers
opened, to whom the stars told their secrets and the sea
murmured its mysteries. Whoever wrote this book had the
heart and soul of a poet, even though he could never string
two rhymes together. And it was a good book, pure and
honest in tone, and its hero was a man whom no woman
need be ashamed to love, and its heroine was the purest and
sweetest of virginal souls that was ever portrayed in words.
This book had made a stir. It was anonymous, but
whoever wrote it had evidently the practised hand of a
ready writer. It was fluent and eloquent, written by some
one who knew the world of men and women as well as the
world of the mountains and the moors. But the great
charm was in the descriptions of these latter, and also in the
description of the heroine, the sweet, shy lily-bud, too calm,
too pure—almost too cold, for even the opening rose to be
her simile, the girl just opening into womanhood—
' Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and streamlet meet.'
Grantley Germaine had a copy of this book : 1 From the
author,' he informed Lady Mary Dalmaine, with a little air
of mystery; and he lent it to her, and she read and was
delighted long before every other lady in Oarminster found
that it was incumbent on her also to read and be delighted.
For the people at Carminster were like some other people
who are supposed to be far more au courant with all that is
going on—they like to be told what to praise, what to ad-
mire; and so they waited till the new novel had been
lauded by the Times, warmly praised by the World, abused
by the Saturday, analysed by the Spectator, and had had
one tribute of admiration after another poured on it by
every one of the London dailies.
Then the good people of Carminster gave their unbiassed
and impartial opinion; but Lady Mary had formed hers first.
i58
The Dean's Wife.
She galloped through the book as she always did when
a story interested her. She hated to be kept in suspense
as to the fate of the heroine or the ultimate happiness of
the hero. The plot, she always maintained, was the least
part of a story. There were no plots in real life. Mys-
teries were never cleared up when they ought to be ;
people never died at the right time; secrets were never
found out just wheh they should be; the days flowed on
and on, and life was never rounded off into periods as the
story-tellers made it. It was only a narrative, at the best;
very often a dull uninteresting one.
So, as she never cared for the plot, she made the char-
acters of the book and the spirit that permeated it her chief
study, and, when she had read this especial book a second
time, with even more delight and interest than she had the
first, she laid the third volume down, and leaning back in
her chair, said thoughtfully,—
* Where did he find his heroine ?' She felt sure that the
writer of the book was a man, sure that the heroine so
tenderly and delicately pictured was from life. ' And
where did he find her ? And who was he ? It might have
been my Winifred whom he has painted; my Winifred whom
he has idealised rather. But who has seen her who does write
—who could write like this ? Not Mr Germaine himself—
this book is altogether beyond him. There is more thought
in any one of its chapters than in a dozen of his sermons.'
Then she put the book aside. It was but a chance
resemblance. The writer of the book liked those still, calm
girls of whom her Winifred was a type. And he had
drawn a lily among maidens, a Madonna in her morning
prime. The picture was like, very like her Winifred, but
the resemblance could only be a chance one.
Mr Germaine looked even more mysterious when Lady
Mary returned the books than when he lent them. And
The New Novel.
159
he would give her no information as to the author. It
struck Lady Mary that he -would not have been disinclined
to have been credited with the paternity of the book. She
was beginning to understand Mr Germaine better than she
had done. She had still some admiration for the man's
talents, some pity for what she thought the unworthiness
of his position; but the admiration was very different to
what it had been, and the pity was slightly alloyed with
contempt.
When Miss Todd had read the book, which she did some
time after, borrowing it from the circulating library, Lady
Mary asked her what she thought of the heroine.
' A good girl and a lady,' said Miss Todd; ' and one who
would certainly never fling herself at the head or feet of
any man living. I wish there were more like her.'
Miss Todd had her own thoughts, but she said, either of
the author and his heroine, nothing more. She was not
going to say too much to Winifred's mother.
Well, the book had a wonderful run, and the praise it
won was enough to turn the brain of any young author.
But who the writer was no one knew. At least, if Mr
Germaine did, he kept his secret well.
In the autumn Richard German came to Carminster for
a little while. He had only a fortnight to spare, and he
thought it well to spend that with his brother. The chil-
dren were pleased beyond measure to see him. The baby
had passed away, so poor, ailing Mrs Germaine had that
charge less, and she looked, Richard thought, as if she
would soon follow the little one.
He was very kind, just like her own brother, as she some-
times told him. When she had gone upstairs for the night,
he spoke about her ver^ anxiously to Grantley.
'You won't keep her long if she doesn't mend.'
' She has been like this for years. A little better and a
i6o
The Dean's Wife.
little worse; it's a constant expense and care; it's a terrible
thing, Richard, a terrible thing to have a sickly wife. A
rich man may do with it, but a poor man never !'
4 I think it's a terrible thing for the wife herself, Grant-
ley. Now, can't I do anything to help you ? Would change
of air—would Men tone or Nice bring her round? I'm
making money fast, and my father won't take a penny from
me. I have seen him, as I wrote to you—yes, I've seen
him, thank God, but he won't let me help him. Can't I
help you ? '
Very much Mr Germaine would have liked such help, but
not to take his wife to Mentone or Nice. He hesitated.
Should he tell Richard his hopes and aspirations; but then
the sum required would be so large—a family to be main-
tained for years ; that would take very much more than one
winter spent abroad. Richard went on,—
4 Think it over, old fellow; your wife is my sister, you
know; I have a right to help her. Don't stand on ceremony;
just look on my purse as your own, and take what you want
out of it.'
4 Thank you, I'll think of it,' said Mr Germaine. 4 You
are very good, Richard, and I'm much obliged to you.'
A less amiable man than Richard German would have
chafed at the tone in which these thanks were uttered.
There were always a bland, contemptuous insolence of courtesy
about Mr Germaine when speaking to those he thought be-
neath him in any way, and not all Richard's success could
make his elder brother forget the fact that he—Richard—
was the younger, the boy who had been idle at school, always
slow and dull of speech till his London life had ripened him
somewhat—who had sinned a great sin. The more Richard
got on in the world, the more Mr Germaine felt inclined to
condemn that early sin of his which at first he had condoned
so lightly.
The New Novel.
161
'Nothing succeeds like successyes, that may be all very
true with the world at large, the outsiders who only know
us by name and fame, but nothing is so unpardonable as sue-
cess, with friends and relatives. To my thinking,' A prophet
has no honour in his own country' is much the truer saying
of the two.
Richard was too genial and easy-natured to see this for
himself, and Grantley would always be the big brother to him,
who had been as a boy the cleverer and forwarder of the two.
And he had not come there to see faults in his relatives, but
to rest from his labours in town, and perhaps to catch a
glimpse of some one who was not exactly related to him, and
it might have been with a view to this that he called on Miss
Todd the following afternoon.
She was not at home, Maria informed him, but she asked
him in to wait; she was sure Miss Todd would be glad to
see him when she returned, and she would* not be long out.
So he sat down in the pretty little sitting-room—not so
very little either, for it was the whole length of the house ;
and the folding-doors had been taken down to throw it into
one apartment. It was full of all manner of pretty things
that Miss Todd had acquired in her travels : gifts from
friends, heirlooms in china, and above all, the abundance of
books and flowers in which she delighted as much as her
friend Lady Mary.
It was a very cosy little nest, and Miss Todd was taking
more and more pleasure in adorning it. She was beginning
to feel settled at last, she said; she was tired of travelling
about, and, at her age, people wanted a home.
Richard German amused himself with looking at the
books, and presently came to the first volume of the novel
of which I have spoken, A Maiden Fair. It was well worn,
and just in the state that authors so like to see their volumes
three months after publication.
h
162
The Dear?s Wife.
He glanced over the pnges, and when he came to a
description of that queen of the rose-bud garden of girls,
which the author had painted with such a loving hand, his
face brightened, and he read it softly, half aloud.
'Yes, it is very like her, you have drawn that portrait
very well, Mr Richard German.'
It was Miss Todd who spoke; she had let herself in as
usual with her latch-key, and she stood before him—neat,
erect, and trim as ever.
'Your book has had a great success,' she said, ' and you
have idealised your snow-maiden very charmingly.'
' I—my book—what are you talking about, Miss Todd ?'
said Richard, as he advanced to shake hands with the little
lady.
Mr German, you are nothing if not truthful, and if there
is any one you wish to deceive about the authorship of that
novel, don't look at him or her with that tell-tale face.
You wrote it—and you have idealised a very nice little girl
—no, she isn't little, but she is nice—into a young goddess.
It's very clever of you. You have placed her on a pedestal,
elevated, sublimated her—is there such a word, or have I
coined it ?—and yet we recognise the portrait of Miss Wini-
fred Dalmaine at once; and, to the best of my belief, you
have only spoken to her once in your life.'
' Twice,' he said softly. ' Once here—once on the Ladies'
Walk. And though I am pleased that you think Miss
Dalmaine's portrait is well drawn in this book, I don't
think she is idealised in the least.'
' Ah! you don't know Winny as I do. She is a good
girl—a very good girl; but you should see her at times.
No ! it is a shame to speak like that. She is really one of
the dearest of girls; but it is amusing to see a child that
is snubbed and scolded for forgetfulness, for not keeping
her dresses tidy, for being too late at breakfast, set up like
The New Novel.
163
this for us all to fall down and worship. But I like your
Maiden Fair—I like the hook and I like its heroine.
Your type of womanhood is not one to make a woman feel
ashamed of her sex. And you have given her good looks
too, which is another point in your favour. How is it that
it is only in women's books that we meet with the ugly,
forward, red-haired hussies who fall at a man's feet and ask
him to trample on them, and the man disdains to do it ?'
Miss Todd had taken off her bonnet while she spoke, and
rung the bell.
' Tea, please,' she said, when Maria came in answer;
'Mr German will stay—I don't ask you,' she continued,
' for I know you will.'
' I don't know how you have detected the authorship of
that book,' Bichard began presently.
'It was as clear as daylight. You meet a young lady
here—you, whom I know to be a man earning his living by
literature; you are so impressed by her that you cannot
take your eyes off her the whole evening: you go away,
and soon after there comes out a book in which, besides
very vivid descriptions of mountain scenery, amidst which
you have told me you had spent your early days, there is
such a portrait of that same young lady—flattered and
idealised, of course, that her mother is struck by its resem-
blance, and even people who have only seen her occasionally
ask one another, and even remark to Lady Mary, how very
much Marguerite puts them in mind of Miss Dalmaine.'
' If you have discovered the authorship of this book, Miss
Tedd, will you have the great goodness to keep it a secret ?
Some one very near and dear to me—my father indeed—has
a horror of novels and of novel-writers—I shouldn't like him
to know that I have written this book. You will promise ?'
' Of course—not even Lady Mary shall know; and she
and I have not many secrets from each other.'
164
The Dean's Wife.
4 And—and—may I ask what Lady Mary thought of the
portrait ? ' said Richard German, looking into his teacup as
he spoke.
4 She thought, as I do, that the portrait was idealised. She
also wondered very much by whom it was drawn. I had
formed my own conclusions, but I did not enlighten her.
What would be the use ? She might have resented as an
impertinence, if she had known the writer of the book, what
she is now inclined to think is a mere chance resemblance.'
Richard German flushed.
41 cannot see the impertinence.'
1 No—but Lady Mary might. There is no knowing how
she might take it. And—and—take an old woman's advice,
Mr German—you have painted Winifred Dalmaine's por-
trait so that it is almost a living thing. Be content there-
with. There's a very high wall between a journalist, even
though he should become the most successful novelist of the
day, and the daughter of the Dean of Carminster. The dean
has the prejudices of his caste and his position. I didn't
think he had half so many when I first knew him, eighteen
years ago. Perhaps he hasn't improved. Perhaps I didn't
know him so thoroughly then as I do now. But I do know
him now, and I know that the advice I have given you is
the best and soundest. If you're a wise man you'll follow it.'
CHAPTER XXIY.
how his cake tasted.
Was Richard German a wise man or a fool ? He did not
altogether take Miss Todd's advice; he could not quite put
Winifred Dalmaine out of his head. Was it that she had in
some way found her road to his heart ? But he did this—
How His Cake tasted.
he looked the whole thing manfully in the face, and then,
saying to himself that there was nothing but flight for him—
fled. Wise or not, having one foot in the stream, he did not
choose, if he could help it, to let his whole body fall in
After all, what was this girl to him ? Wouldn't she despise
him if she knew of his birth ?—knew of that old man amongst
the Cumberland mountains, plying his trade all the week
through, and preaching God's word to the simple souls around
him on the Sunday? She was an earl's grand-daughter,
and the daughter of a dean. What could she have in com-
mon with a man who was the son of a small tradesman, who
was also a Dissenting minister ? If she knew of his folly,
she would not even pity him for it. She would hold it as
so utterly contemptible. No; he wasn't going to be despised
by her, or by any woman living ! He would go up to London
at once, work hard, harder than ever, and put this young lady,
who was so much above him, altogether out of his thoughts.
Yes, she was above him, he said, in a more softened mood;
not merely that she was nobly descended and well born, but
in her stainlessness and purity. Even if he had been her
equal in rank, would not that sin of his be for ever a barrier
between them ? That sin, which had laid a death at his
door. He might be good enough for a mere woman of the
world; for one who would look upon such a sin as a venial
thing in one of his sex, as the most unpardonable of offences
in one of her own. There were such women; but this girl
was not one of them. He, soiled and stained, was it for
him, even if all other things had been equal, to aspire to
mate with this sweet sinlessness ? He was not worthy to
touch the hem of her garment. He would go back to London
and—not forget her. A man wasn't required to perform
the impossible.
He had one last look at Winifred Dalmaine before he
did go, however, and that was in the cathedral one morning,
The Dean's Wife.
when her father was preaching. The dean's sermons were
always logical and laboured, and fairly well delivered, and,
there being nothing to arrest the attention in them, the
mind was free to wander where it would. At any rate, there
was nothing in this especial sermon to prevent Richard
German thinking all the time it lasted of Winifred Dalmaine.
What was she thinking of, this quiet, placid girl ? Of
the sermon ? there was nothing in that for a young soul like
hers to cling to. Of her little sister ? of her books ? of her
lessons ? of the coming lover—the possible husband ? He
had had her before him, her whole soul laid bare, as it were,
when he had pen and ink to deal with. But then he was
an artist delineating his model. How he was a mere man,
and could see nothing clearly. What sort of a woman
would she grow into? Would she ever wake and love?
Did the world hgld the Pygmalion that would rouse this
Galatea ?
The cathedral music swelled grandly, and he sat there and
looked and looked, and dreamed of a noble and stately
woman, the friend and adviser of her husband, the blessing
of her children, the truest friend, the dearest wife, the
tenderest mother—the woman that the girl before him was
to be : to be for another, if never for him. And the world
would be the richer and the better for her living in it.
And he should remember her all his days as his loveliest
ideal of girlhood, his loftiest type of womanhood.
Forget her ? Why should he forget her ? Was a man
ever the worse for his loyalty to his queen, for his devotion
to his Madonna ? Why should he not think of this girl
as queen and Madonna too ? He had had a woful image of
womanhood present before him for many years, a bright,
bold face, shamed, angry, and defiant, then cold and white
in the coffin to which he had hurried it. Ah, poor flaunt-
ing thing ! If only he had seen Winifred Dalmaine's fair
How His Cake tasted.
pale face a little earlier, would he ever have loved this
peasant girl as he had done, to his own remorse and her
undoing ?
When he went up to London he set to work very earnestly,
and the result of this work appeared early the following
summer in another novel, John Marstoris Home. And the
presiding spirit of this home—that young wife, the matron
with her surroundings of girls and boys was just what
he had pictured Winifred Dalmaine might grow into, that
Sunday morning as he watched her in the cathedral. His
Marguerite mated, with maidens blossoming into woman-
hood to call her mother, with sons to come to her with their
aspirations and their troubles, with a husband who looked
on her as the very mainstay of his life. Then he woke and
found himself famous; his book was a great success. The
other had done well, but this did ten times better.
Who was the writer ? people asked, and asked in vain.
Richard German kept his incognito, his brother had pro-
mised not to reveal it, and Miss Todd, when she read the
book, said nothing, even to Lady Mary, of the author.
One review after another, all joining in the universal
praise; one edition after another, all sold off as soon as
published. Richard German's head felt sometimes as if it
was ready to turn, and then the thought of the old father
in Cumberland, to whom all this success would be so much
vanity, who would rather have seen his son the lowliest
preacher to a few souls hungering for the Word than a
story-teller with the fame of Scott, came to sober him. He
enjoyed his success, but he could not even take that fair
share of honest pride in it to which he had a right. There
was no one with whom to share it. His mother had said
of Dick German that, give him a cake, and it seemed to
have no taste at all till he had given half of it away; so
now that he had this huge cake of fame and profit, with the
The Dean's Wife.
chance before liiin of winning an easy income by work in
which his soul delighted, there was no one with whom to
share his cake. If his father would but have approved of
his work, if he would only have taken of its profits; if the
girl whose portrait he had drawn so lovingly as maid and
matron would but have shown a little pride, a little plea-
sure, at seeing her portrait held up to the plaudits of the
world, he would have felt that his cake was not all for him-
self. If even his brother had been a little different, if he
had taken his success a little less carpingly, and not looked
as if all Dick won was so much taken from himself, then,
even, his cake would have had more sweetness than it now
possessed. No; Richard German's cake was a very fine one
to look at, but it had not quite the right taste, after alL
CHAPTER XXV.
the incumbent of st thomas's.
' One's brother is one's brother after all,' said Dick one fine
September morning, ' and I daresay what I don't quite like
in Grantley may be only manner. He had always a pecu-
liar way with him ; and he may be a little quick-tempered
now poor Lucy is gone. Men take their griefs so differently,
and besides, it is trying, it must be trying, when a fellow is
so clever, and has had such great things expected of him, to
see a younger brother, of whom nothing at all ever was ex-
pected, carrying all before him in the way I've done. How
I've done it puzzles me. I suppose luck's at the bottom of
it; so I'll run down to Carminster and look up Grantley.
I wonder how he feels now he's a full-blown parson. In-
cum bent of St Thomas's; it will suit him better than the
The Incumbent of St Thomas's. 169
position of a Nonconformist; and the dean and the others
will be away, so that there will be no chance of my meeting
any one whom I had better not meet.'
Richard had heard from his brother lately to the effect
that the dean and his family were talking of going on the
Continent early in the autumn, so Dick made sure, or made
himself believe that he was sure—he was as clever as the
rest of us in self-deception—that there would be no likeli-
hood of his burning his fingers this time, as he expressed it.
And his brother was his brother, as he said, after all, and
he ought to go and see him. He had not been near him
since that hurried visit he had paid to Carminster at the
time of poor Lucy's funeral.
For Mrs Germaine had gone, and her husband was left a
widower—not wholly inconsolable, and somehow the dearest
wish of his heart had been given him, and he had over-
leaped the social barrier which separates Nonconformity
from the Church. In truth, he had something else to think
of besides a wife, and especially a wife who had been so
totally uncongenial as, for a long time past, since her good
looks had faded, her good health gone, he had thought her.
He was a free man, unshackled and unmated, and he was
also incumbent of the new district church of St Thomas.
It had all come about with very little difficulty. Things
had shaped themselves as if on purpose to fit in with his
wishes. First, Mrs Johnson had' married her fourth
daughter, as she had all along meant to do, in spite of
ins very advanced Ritualism, to the young vicar of St
Theodosius. And that clergyman, having had a living
offered him in the neighbourhood of London, had thought
it well to give up St Theodosius for it. His bride liked
London better, and the Carminsters had not taken kindly
to his views of Church reform.
The bishop was very glad in his heart that he went,
170
The Dearts Wife.
though he took a daughter with him, and after all, as Mrs
Johnson would have said, when one has eight daughters,
one is not sorry to settle them, even at a little distance
from the parent home. The people at Carminster had
never been well affected towards Ritualism. They liked
the spectacle and the music, but the proceedings at St
Theodosius had on the whole been an innovation of which
they did not approve. And there had been, in consequence,
a tendency to a little reaction—they wouldn't, of course,
go over to Dissent, unless it might be a few of the small
shopkeepers — people of no consequence whatever, with
whom, of course, society would not expect to be on bowing
terms, even in heaven. But they became rather too Evan-
gelical; cavilled a little about the bishop's whist parties,
and whispered unpleasant things about his love of dancing
when a layman,
The bishop was one of the kindest of souls, and he liked
his people to like him, but he did not want to give up his
whist to please them. At the same time he wished to show
that, though not liking to live with an uncomfortable strait-
ness, he was by no means so ultra High Church as his son-
in-law. He took counsel with the dean, and it occurred to
the dean that he might please his wife and help his bishop
at the same time. He had excellent intentions in the matter,
but he had not an excellent memory, or he would have re-
membered that of late Lady Mary had not been by any
means so warm in her praises of Grantley Germaine as had
formerly been the case, and that she had quite given up that
occasional attendance at the Weigh Street Chapel, in which
she had indulged even after the sermons against Ritualism
were finished.
Once there had been a time when his wife had come to
him in all her changing moods, telling him of her likes and
dislikes as fast as she formed them, when her whims, caprices,
The Incumbent of St Thomases. 171
loves and liates had been shown on the surface. There had
not been the shadow of a secret between them. She had
been frank and open as the day. All this had pleased him
very much at the time. It had been so novel, so sweet, to
have this bright sunny nature opening before him. But
then little crosses and petulances had come. The sunniest
nature has its moods, the brightest day its shade. Lady Mary
was not perfect; and the dean was no more unreasonable than
are many other men—he simply asked perfection; and so
once in a way his wife's enthusiasm about a new piano, her
anger about some meanness, public or private, had seemed
to him overdone, and he had checked it. She never tired
him now with her demonstrativeness. Towards him, at least,
she was as dignified as even he would have had a dean's wife
to be. She was j ust herself still—impulsive, excitable, warm-
hearted as ever; but to him she showed a reserve, a reti-
cence, copied from his own. And then this vexed him—he
would have had her gay, talkative, animated, just when it
suited him; but now, with him, she was never gay or ani-
mated at all.
So, owing to this wall of ice which the dean himself had
built up between his wife and himself, he was not aware how
much her opinion of Grantley Germaine had changed. She
had watched by the deathbed of his wife. She had seen him
cold, indifferent—bored, in fact, by the long illness and the
claims it made upon his slender purse. And she had heard
him speak in general terms of the sadness it is in married life,
when there is no congeniality between the two partners,
when the intellect of the two has never been on a par, and
the culture of the one has infinitely outgrown that of the
other. All the platitudes with which a shallow, selfish man,
with a great deal of showy cleverness, seeks to evade the
performance of the commonest duties of every-day life, and
persuade himself that he is a very ill-used being indeed.
172
The Dean's Wife.
She saw him as a weakling, and a selfish weakling too, and
despised him accordingly. She was civil to him during his
wife's lifetime, and then, of course, she went no more to his
house, but he came to the deanery on sufferance occasionally
—the dean thinking to please his wife by tolerating him,
and thinking to please her still more when he went and told
her what great things the bishop and he purposed doing for
her favourite.
' I thought you would like to hear this,' he said, a little
stiffly. ' But I never seem able to please you, Mary.'
' Thank you very much, if you are doing this to please
me. But though Grantley Germaine will be in the seventh
heaven when he sees himself a clergyman of the Established
Church instead of one of the pariahs of Dissent, I don't
think he is just the man for St Thomas's. They will want
a plain, hardworking man there, who knows the needs of
the people, and can speak to them in a language they will
understand.'
' Who can you have better for that than a devout Metho-
dist minister ? The bishop is very willing to ordain him,
thinking him so specially fit for the post. Young Glade
would have liked it: but he is better where he has gone, in
the east of London. Otherwise he would have worked the
district thoroughly; but we don't want any of that Ritual-
istic nonsense at Carminster. It has done harm enough
already. The bishop sees that. And though Evangelical
Germaine is liberal, we shall have none of that pharisaical
nonsense that has been talked so much lately. Germaine
has more sense and a better education than I gave him credit
for. I've been studying him a good deal lately, and he has
more than once spoken to me of his wish to enter the Church,
and here seems the very opening for him.'
He had certainly been 'studying' Grantley Germaine;
but it was after a fashion of his own, being bent on finding
The Incumbent of St Thomas's. 173
out all the good points in the man—all that should fit him
for the Church—with the view of pleasing Lady Mary.
And now she was not pleased at all. She simply said,
1 Yery well, I hope things will turn out as the bishop and
you expect/ and went on with her work, and the dean went
hack to his study, feeling himself a very ill-used man, and
with a vague sense that he was throwing his love away upon
a wife who had so long since outgrown whatever love she,
on her part, might once have felt* for him.
But why do men build barriers and then complain they
cannot overleap them ?
Grantley Germaine was very thankful for his preferment,
though St Thomas's in Tasmania was not exactly the church
he would have chosen. Tasmania—why it had got that
name, unless it was that it was a kind of No Man's Land
and new settlement for the surplus population of Carminster
to migrate to, no one could tell. It was on the outskirts of
the city, just beyond the Ladies' "Walk. There had been
first a public-house by the river, and two or three cottages;
then the cottages increased, and the Freehold Land Society
bought a large piece of ground, and one man built here and
another there, according to his taste or fancy. And another
public-house sprang up, and two or three smaller shops.
Then several well-to-do tradesmen, whose shops were on that
side of the city nearest Tasmania, bought small plots of
ground and built villas on them. Then the Baptists had a
little iron chapel, and at last it was thought that a church
should be built. The Freehold Land Society gave the
ground very generously, and sold all their remaining acres
to much better advantage in consequence. A Church al-
ways enhances the respectability of a neighbourhood. A
row of small villas was built directly the church was begun,
and single ladies and widows of small means flocked to
them. There was a collection in the cathedral, followed
174
The Dean's Wife.
by one in every cburcb in the city. St Thomas s was to be
a church with somewhat of a missionary character, for be-
sides the well-to-do tradesmen, the single ladies and widows,
there was a population of a different character altogether.
Squatters whom neither the Freehold Land Society nor
any one else could dispossess—gipsies who camped on the
neighbouring common—hawkers, bricklayers, cabmen, who
had possessed themselves of a tiny piece of ground, and
sublimely ignoring all sanitary considerations, had had a
few hundreds of bricks and a chimney put together, and
calling the construction a house, had settled therein.
For all this large class constantly flowing out to Tasmania,
and filling its small tenements as fast as they became empty,
because rent was cheaper there than in any other part of
Carminster, it was thought that a church should be erected,
and so contributions came in freely, and it was felt by a
good many people that the bishop, in appointing to this
church one who had been a minister of a sect which pre-
eminently has its followers amongst the working classes,
had shown a great deal of sound sense, and so much freedom
from ultra-churehism as might induce people to forget his
whist-parties and overlook the fact that he had a Ritualist
for his last new son-in-law.
CHAPTER XXVL
mr germaine's troubles with his flock.
Richard found his brother very well pleased to see him,
and not a little elated by the change in his own position.
Tasmania was not all that he could have wished it, he said.
It was some distance from the cathedral and the best part
Mr GerMaine's Troubles with His Flock, 175
of the city, and there was not a single resident gentleman
in the whole district, but it would do for a beginning, he
told Richard. He was located in a villa near the church,
boarding with a widow lady who also took charge of the
children. It was the best arrangement he could make for
the present, he considered : there was no parsonage attached
to the church; they ought to build one by-and-by, he con-
sidered, and there was a very small endowment, the income
being principally made up by pew-rents. But the seats
were letting well, and he thought of soon beginning a course
of sermons on the relations of the Church to the State.
People would come from every part of Carminster to hear
them. The Liberation Society had actually been at work in
the place. A cathedral city ! Two lectures had lately been
given on the subject, to which his sermons would be a very
apposite reply.
' Rather a dangerous subject for you to take up, isn't it,
Grantley ?' asked his brother. ' I'd let it alone if I were
you, on my own account, to say nothing of the old
father.'
' Who must expect his sons to think for themselves when
they have once arrived at manhood,' said Mr Germaine
grandly. ' Besides, you know my feeling—that Methodism
is an essential part of the Church—a younger off-shoot.
John Wesley himself would never admit that he was any-
thing but a Churchman.'
' But the Church isn't of the same way of thinking as the
Methodists, unfortunately—well, I wouldn't do it if I were
you, that's all, and I don't think it's a subject your people
will care very much for, either.'
1 It is a subject my people ought to care about. That
little iron Baptist chapel is filling fast. Surely, when a
faithful pastor sees the sin of schism spreading around him,
it is his duty to lift up a warning voice ?'
176
The DeatCs Wife.
4 Yes—exactly ; just as if lie had never been guilty of the
sin himself,' said the impracticable Richard.
Then he rose, and suggested to his little niece and nephew
that he should take them for a walk, and they should show
him the beauties of Tasmania.
This conve rsation had taken place the morning after
Richard's arrival, so that he had the day before him. He
had studiously abstained from asking after the dean or Lady
Mary, so that he might not appear to be angling for news
of their daughter. But his brother had told him that Lady
Mary had shown much kindness to the children, that Miss
Dalmaine had dressed their dolls, and was often having
them to the deanery to play with her little sister. That
was all true enough. Lady Mary had grown very tender
and pitiful to these motherless children, just as, in the last
illness of their parent, she had grown to love her simply be-
cause she was weak and helpless and clung to her. And
she had promised her these children should always find a
friend in her. It was thus that Mr Germaine's arrogance
was condoned, and that he was still admitted to Lady Mary's
drawing-room.
Richard took the children down to the river, and then on
to the common: he gathered them nuts and blackberries,-
he played at the children in the wood, and they made be-
lieve to be the robins, covering him with brown and yellow
leaves. Then he had a talk with the gipsies, and another
talk with the man who let out boats, and he fell into con-
versation quite naturally with the old lady who sold him
some 4 goodies' for the little ones, and with the carpenter
who was repairing the fence. And he took stock of the
well-to-do tradesmen's villas and the little semi-genteel
houses where the ladies lived who had seen better days.
And by the time he came home, he could have written a
very graphic sketch of Tasmania for his paper, and had
Mr Germain?s Troubles with His Flock. 17?
learned as much about its ways and wants as if he had lived
there for months. But then the training of a special corre-
spondent ought to go for something.
Mr Germaine dined early. The widow with whom he
resided insisted upon that. Early dinners were good for
the children, and they suited her habits, so, much against
the aristocratic tendencies that were fast developing in him,
he had to submit. And after dinner Diehard and he had a
quiet smoke together, before going out again, and then the
former said,—
'I've pretty well been over your district with these
youngsters. They've sturdy little legs of their own! I
like the place. It's breezy and healthy. Just the thing,
for the children, and plenty of work for you.'
'Yes, work in plenty; and I have put my hand to the
plough already. I have started a Sunday school. There are
plenty of teachers here ; but the children are a rough lot—
perfect little pagans. The difficulty will be to catch them.'
' They'll be caught : they always are. And you've a fair
crop of gipsies on the common. Some come here regularly
for the summer months, they tell me. You'll have some
trouble with their boys—they're a wild lot, sadly in want
of humanising.'
' The best way to humanise them would be with a stick.
Don't look astounded, Dick. I've been to the gipsies, and
I told them their duty was to come to church. Did I get
one to come? No! They're incorrigible and hopeless.
I've tried open-air preaching. People even came from Car-
minster to hear me. But as to the gipsies, they lolled and
they lounged, they smoked and they stared, but I can't say
I gained their attention for five minutes. Of course they
steal—at least, they have the credit of it; and do what I
will, say what I will, I can't get one of them to come to
church.'
H
i;8
The Dean's Wife.
'Ah, well, you've plenty besides the gipsies, and you'll
get round them in time. And there are so many others.
A whole colony of squatters—how do you get on with them ?'
' Not at all. There is no getting on. Many have been
settled here for years, and they've done without church so
long that they don't see its value now there is one close to
them. They don't belong to the criminal class, and they
don't beat their wives—not very often; but, as far as re-
ligion is concerned, or any of the higher influences of life,
they are utterly stolid, stupid and dense—mere animals,
pagans like the gipsies.'
'Yes, I see that. They want rousing, too,' said Richard.
' Then they should come to their church to be roused!
They should come to their church to be elevated and
sanctified and saved—to learn their own vileness and un-
worthiness—that is what I tell them, what I am always
telling them. You don't know how hard I've striven
amongst these men, Richard, and yet I make no way with
them.'
' I don't wonder at it, if you speak to them as you are
speaking of them-, Grantley. Do you know, if I were a
working man, and you took that tone with me, I might
knock you down for bullying me about your church, but
you'd never get me to come to it. Man alive! Do you
think there's no way to God but through the doors of a
place with a steeple to it ? Did you ever try reading the
newspaper to them ?'
' Don't be profane, Richard. I read the Bible,' said Mr
Germain e, loftily.
' I'm not profane, but you and I don't look at the thing
in the same light,' replied Richard.
' You have no right, Richard, to say in what light I look
at things,' cried Mr Germaine, with increasing irritation.
' Allow me, Grantley,' was the reply, given with in-
Mr Germaine's Troubles with His Flock. 179
vincible good temper; 'I know a little of these men, as
well as you. And your first thought about a man is to save
his soul"; mine is, to make him feel that he has a soul to be
saved. Talk to these men at first of other things than re-
ligion. Of anything that's going on in the world at large.
Take them out of the sphere of the public-house and the
skittle-ground. Let them feel there's something going on
besides what they see in Tasmania. Why, if you were
only to get them into your school-room, and, as I say, read
the newspaper to them, you would do no end of good.'
' Possibly,' said Mr Germaine, loftily; 4 but I don't see
that it's my business to read the paper to them.'
4 Maybe not; if I lived down here I'd do it for you. But
as I don't, you'd better find some of the better educated
amongst your parishioners to do it. You know these men
can't half read, and while they're spelling out an article,
they lose the gist of it. Have Penny Headings—real Penny
Headings—not cheap concerts, where the genteel part of
your parish pay their sixpences to hear each other sing badly.
Keep it down to the pennies, and get the men and the Sun-
day-school children to sing and recite. Don't hurry your
folks to church ; they'll come of their own accord after a
time, if you give them good seats and make them welcome.
Don't shut them off in a corner, in the way they do in some
of these new-fashioned proprietary churches in London. If
you have free seats, let them be as good as any others in the
church, so that the old folks, if they come early, may have a
fair chance of hearing what you have to say to them.'
4 Have you done, Hichard ? '
4 Pretty well for to-day. I may find more to say to-morrow.
I suppose you think I'm rather impertinent. But I go about
among these men, you see, when the Electric sends me one
day to find out all about a strike, and another day to find
out the why and wherefore of a railway accident or a mine
i8o
The Deans Wife.
explosion. And this is such a fine field for a parson. Such
a splendid opening amongst the roughs and the gipsies.'
'Well, if you have quite done, we will take a turn on the
Ladies' Walk.'
CHAPTER XXVIL
the lion on the ladies' walk.
It was nearly two years since Richard had walked down
the ' Ladies' Walk.' Nearly a year since he had seen the
girl whose portrait he had limned so lovingly. He was safe
from any chance of seeing her now, and so best. She had
served him as an admirable model. He could never, of
himself, in his erratic life, have conceived anything so
stately, yet so sweet, so still, pure, refined, so all that the
lady and the maiden should be, had he not seen this girl.
Better that he should not see her again. Better, decidedly;
he had no wish to make a fool of himself, he was thinking,
just as his brother said,—
' Here come Lady Mary and her daughters.'
' I—I heard that they had gone on the Continent for the
autumn,' said Richard, pleased, in spite of all his prudence.
' So they did, and having had enough of it, returned a
fortnight ago.'
There was no help for it. Man cannot contend against
the inevitable. Since fate willed that he should meet Wini-
fred Dalmaine, why, he must bear his fate like a man. He
looked down the Walk—it was crowded, being the espe-
cial day and hour when ladies most delighted to congregate
thereon, and, besides, being one of the loveliest and softest
of autumnal days; and there were, as his brother had said,
Lady Mary and her daughters, bowing and smiling right and
The Lion on the Ladies' Walk. 181
left, doing their duty to the cathedral society as its most
gracious queen and princesses.
Mr Germaine bowed very low when he met Lady Mary,
but there was a difference in his bow to what it had for-
merly been. He was within the fold—standing on the
same platform as herself. He felt the difference, and she
knew that he felt it, and had a malicious pleasure now and
then in giving him a little snub. She had no desire to do
so to-day, for, as he introduced his brother, Lady Mary's
bright handsome face grew brighter, and she held out her
hand with one of her sunniest smiles, in which, however,
there was a glance of mischief.
' I have had a great wish to know you, Mr Richard
German.'
Grantley noticed that she sounded the name as his
brother wrote it, not as he did himself.
' But we seem hardly strangers. My daughters, too—I
think you have met before ? '
There was a sparkle in the eye, and a quiver in the
mobile mouth. Had Lady Mary recognised those portraits
of her daughter ? That might be flattering, but then how
did she recognise him as their author ?
'You must come and see us at the deanery, she con
tinued. ' It is my " at home " next Tuesday, when as many
of my friends as can spare time are good enough to come
and see me. I hope you will be of the number. Your
brother, I hope, will join me also ? '
Mr Germaine bowed. The invitation was so clearly
given on his brother's account. Lady Mary's manner to
him had been so empresse, so cordial, she evidently wished
very much that he should come, while to himself it was just
polite, and no more. But he could not refuse. It had
long been the desire of his heart to be included amongst the
guests at the deanery on Tuesday nights, when all the
182
The Dean's Wife.
elite of Carminster was supposed to assemble within in
its walls.
' I shall have much pleasure,' he said stiffly.
' I shall be very pleased,' said Richard, simply, and he
glanced at the girl standing near him, and thought the last
year had done as he had expected it would, ripened and
developed her, and made her much more like that second
portrait he had drawn of her than she had been a twelve-
month back. That was a compliment to his artistic skill.
He felt rather proud of it—felt entitled to see a little more
of her in consequence. After all, what harm could it pos-
sibly do ? The girl was lovely and sweet and good. But
he was not going to fall in love with her, any more than
he was going to cry for the moon. He would go to the
deanery. Not all the warnings of all the Miss Todds in
the world should prevent his seeing his model in her own
home, amidst suitable surroundings.
Mr Germaine turned back to walk with Lady Mary.
But he found himself, he knew not how, side by side with
Winifred. Lady Mary kept Richard to herself. As they
walked down the sunny length of the Ladies' Walk, he
remarked how many eyes were bent curiously on him.
Some impertinently, as if they were taking stock of a strange
monster, a creature with whose ways they were not alto-
gether acquainted, some wonderingly, with a little reverence;
and Lady Mary, in acknowledging the many salutes and
smiles especially directed towards her, did so with a little
flush of conscious triumph.
' All the world of Carminster seems out to-day,' Richard
said.
' Yes, the fine day has brought the people, and the
thought that perhaps they would see some one on the
Ladies' Walk worth looking at,' she said.
' They must always do that when you are present, Lady
The Lion on the Ladies' Walk.
183
Mary,' lie said, feeling as if a compixment was expected of
him.
But Lady Mary was prepared to pay compliments rather
than receive them.
'It is not me whom they come to see. They were a
little curious at first on my account, but T am a very every-
day matter with them now. But though we don't think
so much of books as we should at Carminster, and are a
little behind the time of day, as I suppose most cathedral
cities are, we do like to make the most of the leading lion
of the day when he comes amongst us. Don't look so
puzzled, Mr German. Your two books have turned all our
heads, and when the news came that you were coming—it
was only a word dropped by your brother that set it flying
—why, we naturally thought you would be on the Ladies'
Walk to-day, and so came out in full force to welcome you.'
' My two books—' Richard began, with a darkening brow.
' Yes, A Maiden Fair, and its successor. No ; you cannot
deny their authorship, Mr German.'
41 have no wish to own it, Lady Mary. There are
reasons why I should be very sorry to be credited with
writing the best novel that ever yet was printed.'
' Indeed ! Does journalism ask such sacrifices ? No; of
course not. How absurd I am. Still, doubtless you have
reasons of your own for maintaining privacy.'
' I have not yet admitted any reasons.'
' That is, you have not yet admitted the authorship of
two of the most charming novels that have appeared for
many a day. Well, all Carminster credits you with writing
them. All Carminster will be terribly disappointed if you
say you have not. Do let us believe that we are feasting
our dazzled eyes on a genius for once in a while.'
' And how has Carminster got hold of this idea ? ' asked
Richard.
184
The Dean's Wife.
He was evidently irritated and annoyed. Surely his
brother had not betrayed his secret, and yet who else could
have done so?
Grantley, indeed, had kept faith in the spirit, but not in
the letter. The honour of being the brother of a novelist
who was the talk of the day, who had achieved the success
not only of this year but of the last, was a great thing for a
man who had just emerged from a sect which is supposed
to set down all fiction in literature, all such pleasures as
the theatre or the ball-room affords, as equally pernicious.
He was on honour with his brother, it was true; so when
Mrs Johnson, struck, as he meant her to be, by the con-
scious expression of his face when she was praising the
book, which he had lent her, asked him if he knew the
author, he had told her as much—that he was in honour
bound not to tell. And so told, as he meant to do.
' Is it yourself ? ' she said bluntly. ' You had a copy of
A Maiden Fair, I know, last year. You lent me that, if
you remember. People don't usually buy three-volume novels.
That makes it so convenient to know authors—you can bor-
row their books for nothing. Did you write these two ?'
* No, that I can say. You are near the mark, but not
quite near enough.'
' Then it must be your brother. I remember, now, you
had a brother staying with you a year or two ago. He
writes for one of the penny papers, I am told. Wonderful
things they are. Quite good property, the bishop says. It
must be your brother. Isn't it, now ? '
' As I told you, Mrs Johnson, I am on honour to keep the
author's secret.'
' Ah, well, that will do. It is your brother. May I keep
your book a little longer ? I want to lend it to the Honour-
able Miss Flint; she has asked for it at Hyde's, but it's
always out. and she doesn't subscribe regularly.
The Lion on the Ladies' Walk.
185
' I shall have much pleasure in placing my books at your
service \ but I hope that whatever your own ideas of the
authorship may be, you will keep the secret. It is a secret,
remember.'
1 Oh, of course—of course.
And then Miss Flint had the secret confided to her, as a
secret; so had Lady Mary, who really kept it; while from
Miss Flint it flowed forth over all the cathedral set. So
that when Richard German made his appearance in Carmin-
ster, everybody was prepared to lionise him.
After the first, Richard took his lionising very well.
After all, it was most unlikely that the gossip of this hum-
drum little place would ever reach the London papers, so
that by that means his father would find that one of his
sons had taken to the evil craft of story-telling. And it was
very pleasant to have Lady Mary smiling in his face, and
have her welcome him as a camerade.
4 Not that I ever did much. Not that I ever equalled you.
My books were clever—at least, so many people said so, that
I was bound to believe them. But I think it is with writ-
ing as with music. If one can produce only a little of one's
own, one understands and enters into the productions of
others so much better. I don't think anybody quite ignor-
ant of music could really enjoy an opera; and so, if one has
only tried to string a short story together, one enters more
thoroughly into the spirit of a novel. And I did like your
books so much !—so very much. And—where did you get
your heroine—your prima donna—in A Maiden Fair, and
that secondary heroine, who is only Marguerite, mated and
matronly, in John Marston's Home ?'
4 Let me keep that secret at least, if I cannot keep the
other.'
Then Mrs Johnson came up, and asked Mr Germaine to
introduce her to his brother ; and she told Mr German the
The Dean*s Wife.
bishop and she both hoped to see him at the palace before he
left Carminster. And she introduced the Honourable Miss
Flint to him ; and Miss Flint, who was old and poor and
angular, but still a person of some consequence at Carmin-
ster, thanked him, in a mysterious undertone, for the great
pleasure he had given her, and hoped he would come to one
of her Thursday afternoons.
That was all Miss Flint ever did in the way of hospitality:
give weak tea, and thin bread-and-butter to as many as chose
to come to her little house wedged in the cathedral close, be-
tween the deanery and the residence of one of the canons.
But being the Honourable Miss Flint, and niece to a former
bishop, people thought a great deal of her Thursday after-
noons. She looked at Mr Germaine and hesitated. Then
she said, a little stiffly,—
' I shall, of course, be very pleased to see you, Mr Ger-
maine, with your brother.'
And Mr Germaine bowed. The old woman—vulgar, in
spite of ancestry and training, had done a horribly rude thing
to him—let him see that she only wanted him, the ex-Non-
conformist minister, because it was the fashion to like his
brother's books, and his brother was staying with him.
And Mr Germaine would have submitted to the rudeness
and have gone, had it not been for Richard.
' I am much obliged to you, but my time down here is
very precious, and I am sure I shall not be able to avail my-
self of your kindness. My brother will answer for himself.'
' Oh, come, Mr Germaine, come, of course; but we've
got you always, and we haven't got your brother.'
Then there were more people coming, more bright eyes
resting curiously on Richard German's face, till they turned
off the Ladies' Walk and towards the cathedral, when Lady
Mary said,—
' Now come home with me, and I'll give you some tea.'
At the Deanery.
18;
CHAPTER XXVIIL
at the deanery.
That seemed such an every-day affair, the going in to have
tea in the deanery, but it was a very memorable afternoon
to Richard German. It was the first time he had ever seen
his model in her own home. And the stately old walls of
the deanery, with the air of refined, yet home-like comfort
Lady Mary threw around them, seemed just the place for
her to grow up into her womanhood. Hay, the womanhood
had come. The shy girl was stately and self-possessed
enough in her own sphere. Bending over the teacups, per-
forming those light and pretty duties which afternoon tea
imposes, she looked so completely the realisation of all that
he had painted, all that he had imagined she would be, only
with the warmth of life about her, the air of reality. Quiet
and staid enough she was; but he made her talk, and tell
him where, outside the city, the primroses were to be found,
and the wild hyacinths grew thickest. Cissy and she had
long walks and rambles together, when they got out into
the country, she told him. The country!—to him, coming
from London, this slow place seemed nothing else. The
dean was there, and he was very courteous to Richard, partly
because he really liked a clever man when he met him, partly
to please his wife. And two or three of the clergy came in,
as they were apt to do at Lady Mary's tea-time. And they
hung about the tea-maker so much that it struck Richard
German they had come for something besides their tea.
The dean's daughter was fast giving another attraction to
the deanery. There was no doubt two, at least, of the young
men had found her so. But of all the pieces of still life
that he had ever seen—of all that he had ever dreamed of
188
The Dearts Wife.
marble statues warmed into life—Winifred Dalmaine with
these young curates—nay, one was a vicar—seemed the
most still, the most marble-like.
And they were good-looking young men, and well-con-
nected, and well-bred, and pleasant j but they would have
been much more welcome at the palace than at the deanery,
so far as the daughters of either house were concerned.
Their homage simply bored the young lady to whom it was
addressed; she had not the slightest taste for flirtation; it
was utterly distasteful to her. She was just civil—stiffly,
coldly civil—to the young clerics; and then she turned to
Richard German with the faintest wild-rose blush, and the
sweetest, shyest smile, and asked him to tell her where he
had found an old ballad that he had put in one of his books.
Could the most exquisite of coquettes have done more ?
She was as snow to these others—spring sunshine to him.
He did not know that to her he was as yet only the author
of books that had pleased her very much, and that he had
never ventured upon anything like love-making. To be
made love to! To be courted, wooed, won, wedded ! The
thing that the Misses Johnson and others thought women
were born for. Winifred had a savage disdain for it all.
She was placid and gentle enough in everything but this \
but Diana herself could not have been more pitilessly obdu-
rate to her wooers than was Winifred Dalmaine.
Richard thought this very charming of her. He liked a
woman to stand on her pedestal and be worshipped. This
stately girl in her lofty maidenhood was so completely his
ideal. Unapproachable to all the world but him. How
pleasant it was to see how sweet and gracious she could be
to him ! He wouldn't have cared for a girl who could be
won by any man. He had cared once for fruit that fell too
easily. Was it that which made him now value fruit that
seemed so utterly out of the reach of mortal man ?
At the Deanery.
189
Cissy came up to him presently.
1 I have read your books,' she said, ' both of them. I'm
in novels now, you know ; that is, mamma chooses them for
me, and I know who you take your heroine from—'
' You are a very wise little lady.'
She looked mischievous and wicked, and more provokingly
pretty than ever.
' I suppose it was that time your big dog ill-used ours
that made you take it into your head that Win would do.
Wasn't it, now ? '
Cissy was called away by her governess, and then Mr
Germaine found it was time to leave. As they walked
home he said,—
' Lady Mary is ten times as attractive as her daughter;
but the dean is about the most insufferable prig I ever
encountered.'
' He's stiff, Grantley; but don't you sometimes find your-
self much in the same position as an officer who has risen
from the ranks ? I think these people patronise you rather
too much—always with the exception of Lady Mary.'
1 Who is worth the whole set put together, only she is
married so unhappily. These uncongenial marriages are
such wretched things !'
And Grantley Germaine sighed. In the man's overween-
ing vanity, all Lady Mary's kindness to his wife, and then
to his children, he set down to interest in and admiration
for himself. If she drew back and was stiff and reserved,
it was because the dean disapproved of her intimacy with
him. Everything was clouded by his own egotism, and
when he spoke of uncongenial marriages, he remembered
that they had once been fellow-victims, and had vague
dreams of what might happen if she, on her part, were as
free as he on his.
• I t.hink you are in a false position here altogether,Grant-
190
The Dean's Wife.
ley; I wouldn't mix myself up so much with these people,
if I were you. What do you want with the cheap civilities
of old harridans like Miss Flint, or the patronage of a bishop's
wife, bent on nothing but marrying her daughters ? There's
plenty of work in Tasmania, and I'd keep to it, if I
were you.'
' Thank you, Richard; but now I have won my way into
something like cultivated and decent society, I am not going
to give it up because I fancy people are not quite so civil as
they might be. One must have some change from the
gipsies and pedlars, or worse still, the small tradesmen of
Tasmania.'
' Well, I think these young parsons and the dean, too,
looked shyly and stiffly on you. You may rely upon it,
they'll never really look on you as one of themselves. I'd
learn to live my life without them.'
'We must each learn to live our lives our own way,
Richard,' said his brother, holding his head higher in the air
than ever; ' and if I can have the society of men of culture
and refinement—men, too, whose social position is no better
than that I have achieved for myself—I do not see why you
should blame me for preferring it to that of the illiterate
clods and dolts of whom my cure is composed. I do not
think I shall be found wanting in my duty to these latter
through doing so. Now there is one thing I have been
wanting to speak to you about. Why don't you adopt the
correct spelling of our name ? Like myself, you are making
way in the world, and there is no reason you should still
adhere to that commonplace abbreviation of it in which my
father delights. We were Germaines, I am persuaded,
originally, when we first came over from France.'
4 Time of William the Conqueror, Grantley ? No, the
name's too modern for that, and there's not a drop of French
blood in us. Germans we are, and Germans we have been
At the Deanery.
191
for the last two hundred years, as the parish books of Way-
mere testify.'
4 Yes, hut we were Germaines before that.'
4 Ah ! find out your original Frenchman, and then I'll
believe in him.'
'There's no occasion ; the Heralds' College is satisfied that
the name as you have it is a corruption of the original French
one, and they have found me my crest and arms in accord-
ance.'
4 Oh Lord, Grantley ! So you've set up a crest. Why,
not one of the folks in Way mere ever heard of such a thing!
We are to be great folks indeed, when we come into such
honours.'
' There is no reason, because our family has for some
generations been in a state of decadence, that you and I should
not be gentlemen and marry ladies.'
41 hope I am the first. I hope, perhaps, to marry the
latter,' said Richard, with his cheeks flushing, 4 but not by
altering the name my father gave me. To begin with, he
would not like it; and it is not for me,' he added in a lower
tone, 4 who have given him so much sorrow, to vex him, if
I can help it, for such a trifle. And then, I don't believe
that we have the slightest right to the name as you spell it;
and I don't care to take either name or crest to which my
right is not perfectly clear. Of course, you can do as you
please. If any remarks are made, it's enough to say we don't
agree about the spelling of the name. If you really believe
in the French theory, why, you can honestly write yourself
as you do, and even take the crest the Heralds' College so
generously supplies you with. I don't believe in it, and
I cannot, and even if I did believe in it, I should still be
plain Richard German as long as my father lives.'
By this time they had reached the door of Grantley's pre-
sent residence. Mrs Smith had found a room for Dick, so
192
The Deaths TT'tfe.
that, this time, he was really his brother's guest, contriving
however, in an indirect way, to do much more than pay his
charges.
' I won't go in now,' he said; 11 think I ought to go and
see Miss Todd ; she was very good to me the last time I was
here.'
CHAPTER XXIX.?
richard german and the dean.
It was an inspiration of the moment, this visit to Miss Todd;
for Richard felt that he had offended Grantley, and it was
as well to let the irritation subside. Therefore he went
away with the intention, if he did not find Miss Todd at
home, of disposing of his evening elsewhere, and not return-
ing to his quarters in Tasmania till it was too late for further
discussion. But Miss Todd was at home, and very glad to
see him, and she gave him some tea—:a real tea this time, with
cake and preserves and toast; and they had as good a talk
together as ever had Dr Johnson with either friend or toady.
Miss Todd liked to know all about London, though she
had left it. Of the world of London, as Richard German
knew it, at least—books, and the people who wrote them,
pictures, and the men who painted them—Richard had plenty
to tell her of all these. But he could get nothing in return
from her—nothing, at least, that he wanted. She had no
information to give about any one in the deanery beyond
the merest commonplaces. The truth was that Miss Todd's
sympathies were altogether with Richard; she thought him
as good and pure and genuine a man as she had ever met
with. But she had meddled once, and, she thought, not too
wisely, in affairs matrimonial, and she had resolved never so
to meddle again—she would never mix or make with love
Richard German and the Dean. 193
affairs more. She was not at all sure that it might not have
been very much better for Lady Mary if she had been Mary
Heard on still, knocking about the world with her, or resting
in some snug little nest like this, and living her own life,
free and unshackled by a husband's ideas of what was due
to her dignity, or his relatives' notions as to what was to be
expected of a clergyman's wife, to say nothing of a dean's.
But she had plenty to say of Tasmania, and the people
there, and the work his brother might do if he chose.
4 Do you often go to hear him ? ' asked Richard.
4No,' she answered jesuitically, 4it's too far;' then, for,
as she had once said to Richard of himself, she was nothing
if not truthful, 4 it isn't only that, but your brother never
did quite suit me in the pulpit. I like him still less in the
church than in the chapel. The performance is too good—
too thoroughly well done. There's not an actor on the stage
has finer tragic tones, or a more telling whisper. And when
he stands before the altar and reads the Communion Service,
I can't help smiling. It is too perfect. Why didn't he go
on the stage to start with ?'
Richard thought Miss Todd was not very far wrong when
he witnessed his brother's performance in the church the
next morning.
On the Tuesday he presented himself at the deanery so
early that even Lady Mary had not descended to receive
her guests.
At first he thought the drawing-room vacant, till he saw
a small figure coiled up in a corner with a book on its lap,
and then Cissy's voice was heard,—
41 am reading your last book again, Mr German, and I
like it better than ever. But I wish you'd write a book of
fairy tales and put me in.'
4 So I will, when I do write fairy tales. You shall be
made the Fairy Queen,'
194
The DearCs Wife.
' I told Win,' said Cissy, in a mysterious wliisper, ' that
you had put her in your first book, and drawn a likeness of
her as you hoped she would be in your second. If you had
only seen how she coloured up; but I don't think she was
at all angry, for she smiled, and caught me up and kissed
me. She said it was all nonsense, but I don't think she
meant it; do you, Mr German ?'
And the precocious imp—she had certainly more than
enough coquetry for her sister and herself—smiled up in his
face, and just then Lady Mary came rustling in with her
husband, and asked after Mr Germaine, who, she was told,
would arrive before very long, having been called out to a
sick person. The dean thought there was a good deal of
illness about, and wondered if Tasmania was healthy, and
thought Mr Germaine would find plenty to do there.
Then Winifred came in. Ah ! how fair and pure she
looked this evening, in her long white cashmere. Richard
had never seen her in evening dress; she was like a
princess in his eyes to-night. But she blushed when she met
him, and drooped her eyes. Then he caught sight of Cissy's
sparkling rosebud face watching them, and felt, princess or
not, she might be his for the winning. She was a statue, a
snow-queen to every man beside, but to him she could open,
flower-like. What more encouragement could a man want,
who thought that the wooing should be all on his side, and
that maidenhood and womanhood had a royalty of their
own, than one of those rare smiles ? It might be the very
contrast of this still fair queenliness, so different from the
peasant charms which had been so easily surrendered, that
made Richard German feel, that night, his heart, at last, had
gone utterly out of his keeping.
The dean, that best-intentioned of men, who really had
every good quality in this world but tact and temper, made
one of his blunders again that night. There had been a
Richard German and the Dean.
195
little passage-at-arms between liim and Lady Mary that
evening before they descended to the drawing-room. He
had blamed her rather too bluntly, for he so hated blaming
her at all that he had to nerve himself up to do it, and then,
as a natural consequence, did it badly, for undue attention
to a lady just arrived in Carminster.
' You ought not to have called on her,' he said; ' Louisa
has written to me that she is not a fit person : she heard of
her in London last season, and besides, there are the papers.
You shouldn't, you ought to have known better than to visit
a divorced woman.'
' A divorced woman ! Yes, whose character is without a
stain, and who sent her husband from her because he was
too bad to live with ; and she has come down here to live
near Miss Todd, so that she may have the comfort and sym-
pathy of her friendship, and you speak of her as if she were
infamous.'
' I don't speak of her as infamous at all. I only say that
she is not a person whom it is advisable for a woman in your
position to know,' said the dean testily.
'My position ! Just as if my position, being so secure as
it is, ought not to enable me to be of some service to those
who need it. And this lady does need it! She is friend-
less, but for Miss Todd. She has been cruelly maligned.'
* Yes, that's just it. Why should you have anything to
do with a woman who has got herself talked of ? Now, I
agree with Louisa. No woman ever gets talked of—'
' Have the goodness not to bring up Louisa Dalmaine's
name to me as an example. And I wonder at you, George,
I do ! Is this your Christianity ? You are as conventional
and as thoroughly given up to the world as was ever a
Pharisee. And you've read your Bible often enough to
know what was said to them.'
The dean had blundered through it all. He onlv meant
196
The Dean's Wife.
to give his wife a gentle caution, and he had said ten times
as much as he had intended. He was really sorry for the
poor lady of whom he had spoken. He would have gone
out of his way to have done her any substantial service,
and he had said more than once that her husband was a
scoundrel. But he always had an idea that his wife was
not sufficiently guarded, and he did think, too, that a
woman must have been guilty, if not of actual sin, at least
of great imprudence, to let herself be talked of. And be-
sides, he was of the opinion shared by a great many men,
that if a woman can't suffer and be strong, at any rate she
should suffer and be still. Surely it is better to bear any-
thing than to be dragged before the public.
In all his life George Dalmaine had never once owned to
his wife that he repented anything he might have said to
her, or had been in the wrong in saying it. But he would
always try to make amends to her in one way or another—
the way was seldom the right one—»-and he did so now, with
his usual success. He was very cordial to Miss Todd, of
whom he was not very fond, and more cordial still to
Richard German, thinking also to please her there. He
talked to him a great deal, and praised his books, and was
sorry he had not had time to finish reading the last one,
and when they parted he shook hands with him very warmly,
and told him he hoped to see him very often at the deanery
during his stay in Carminster.
Then he told his wife what he had done, thinking so to
propitiate her.
'1 am afraid you have not done a very wise thing,' she
said; 'I am afraid he thinks too much of our Winifred,
as it is.'
The dean opened his eyes.
* Such a child !'
'Nearly nineteen, George.'
Richard German and the Dean. 197
' Well, it would be utter madness—unheard-of presump-
tion in him. A man of no family whatever; the brother
of a Dissenting minister—'
' Who means to be a bishop* You've set his foot on the
first rung of the ladder yourself.'
Lady Mary had not endorsed her husband's invitation to
the deanery. She had acted, as she thought, with great
prudence and self-denial, for she would have been very
pleased to have seen Diehard German every day at her house.
And here were all her prudence and self-denial thrown away.
Diehard German came, and it was very clear before long
what he was coming for. It went to Lady Mary's heart to
be cold to the young man. And then he was her guest,
though only to the extent of afternoon tea, and inhospitality
seemed just one of the sins it was impossible for her to
commit. But it was clear as day that he came to the deanery
to sun himself in the soft eyes of its elder daughter, and it
was also clear that those eyes were shining on him as they
had never shone on mortal man before.
Diehard German was taking a longer holiday than he had
intended, but he had made up his mind to win his wife in
it if possible. There had come a great improvement in his
circumstances even since he came down to Carminster. His
position as a novelist was already secure, and he had been
asked to write for one of the leading magazines on terms
that seemed a small fortune. And he had also had the
editorship of one of the London papers offered him, so that
there was an increased and regular income, and a more
settled life than he had hitherto had. It was not a brilliant
position he had to offer, but still it was not a bad one. There
might be a little difficulty at first, but surely the dean would
be brought to see things in a rational light with a little
persuasion.
To the dean he resolved to go in the first instance. Per-
I9S
The Dean's Wife.
haps, if he had been quite sure that he would have been
welcome as a son-in-law, he might have gone to his daughter
instead. But there was a possibility—more than a possi-
bility, he told himself at times—of his rejection, and it
would not be right or manly to seek to win this girl till he
had her father's consent to do so.
And so, when Richard German had been just three weeks
at Carminster, he went up to the deanery one June morn-
ing, and asking for the dean, was shown into his study; and
as soon as he saw him there the dean, though not the quick-
est witted of men, knew what had brought him, and waxed
wroth accordingly. His wife had foreseen this, and he had
not. And here was this most unwelcome suitor, to whom
nothing but No could by any possibility be said. He
only hoped he would not keep long beating about the
bush.
That was a thing 'Richard German could not do. He
stated his case plainly. He had been attracted by Miss
Dalmaine the first time he had seen her. That was more
than two years ago. She was then so young, and his posi*
tion was then so much inferior to that which he had now
achieved, that it would have been folly to have come for-
ward sooner.
The dean looked as if he thought there was folly enough
in coming forward now. He was as uninviting a father-
in-law as ever lover told his tale to. He drew his papers
towards him and turned them over, as if he was impatient
that Richard German should tell his story and be gone.
The young man felt that a refusal was coming—felt, too,
that he was looked upon as an intruder, and his blood
warmed up.
' I do not mean for a moment to assert that I am socially
Miss Dalmaine's equal.'
' Of course not, of course not, muttered the dean, and
Richard German and the Dean. 199
shuffled the papers before him as if they -were so many
cards, and looked up with renewed impatience.
' Still, I hope that the position I offer is not wholly un-
worthy her. I have saved a few thousands, which I propose
to settle. I would insure my life on her account for any
sum you would think proper, and I should also be willing,
if you wished it, to purchase a house in London, and add
that and the furniture to the settlement. After all that, I
think I might say we should not begin with less than fifteen
hundred a-year, which, with ordinary success, might be
doubled before long.'
The dean looked as if the applicant before him was utter-
ing a language he did not understand.
Richard went on, feeling all the time as if his case was
desperate, and yet feeling, too, that he must state his case
fully.
'As the wife of the editor of , Miss Dalmaine's posi-
tion in London would not be a bad one—certainly equal to
that of the wives of most professional men; and though my
family—'
The dean moved his hand in the air.
'"We won't go into that,' he said ; ' it is quite unnecessary.
I am much obliged to you, Mr German, or Germaine; but
my daughter is young—and—and—though I recognise your
individual position as a literary man, and the is, 1
believe, an excellent paper, still, by such a marriage as you
propose, my daughter would be so completely taken out of
the sphere in which she has been brought up—thrown, as it
were, into altogether another world, that I cannot bring
myself to entertain the proposition you have done me the
honour of making.'
' I hope your decision is not final, dean ? Take a little
time to think it over.'
' I want no further time,' said the dean austerely. ' There
200
The DeatHs Wife.
are reasons, which I will not pain you by entering on, why
this proposal of yours has caused me great surprise. These
reasons are not connected with the question of income.
My daughter may—very possibly will—marry a man whose
means are far less than yours, but he must be—I will not
say a gentleman, that is so wide a term now-a-days, but
his connections must be—well, if not equal to her descent
on her mother's side, at least something on a par with
my own.'
There are tones that tell more than words, and somehow
it was borne in upon Richard German's mind, that if his
brother had been the poorest curate in Carminster, only if
his original starting-point had been the church instead of
the chapel, he would have had a better chance. Every
chance possibly, considering the name and the income he
was fast making for himself. But it evidently seemed to the
dean utterly needless to hear anything more than he knew
already. It was the most impossible of all absurdities that
the brother of Grantley Germaine, such a little while back
the minister of the Weigh Street Chapel, could be a suitable
aspirant for his daughter's hand.
' I shall hope for a change in time, dean,' he said.
' While I live, and your daughter is free, I will never give
up the idea that I may win her.'
'You will do nothing in a secret or underhanded way, I
trust,' said the dean, rising and speaking very irritably; ' I
have a right to ask that of you.'
' You have every right to ask of me all that one man of
honour may ask of another; I won't say one gentleman
only—I agree with you, the term is too wide.'
'You have not spoken to my daughter yet ?'
' No; that would not have been acting fairly. And I
do not promise, but, unless I mistake myself, I shall not
speak till I have your leave. I don't despair yet of ob-
Richard Germati and the Dean. 201
taining it, dean. And Miss Dalmaine is so young that she
can wait; and I can wait too.'
There was no defiance in the words, and yet the dean re-
sented them as much as if there had been.
* Waiting will be of little use, Mr German. It cannot
alter either your position or my daughter's.'
' But it may alter the view you take of these positions,
dean. I trust it will.'
' I wish you good morning, Mr German ; this interview
is becoming painful, and protracting it will lead to no good.'
The dean did not extend his hand as he spoke, and as
Bichard German moved to the door he rang the bell for
him to be shown out; but before the footman could appear
Bichard was in the hall, from the further end of which the
study opened, and there he saw Lady Mary.
She had just come with a basketful of late flowers from
the garden. She was a little surprised at seeing him so
early; then one look at his face told her the errand on
which he had come, and its result. She looked up to him,
she could not help it, with her eyes full of pity, and in-
stiuctively put out her hand, with,—
' Oh, Mr German, I am so sorry !'
' Thank you, Lady Mary, you are very good.' He held
her hand firmly as he spoke. 'I am sorry, too; sorry, but
not hopeless, I will never give up hope while life remains
and she is free.'
'I cannot say that you are wise in so acting,' she said,
in a lower tone; but all the while her heart echoed his
words. He looked so brave and steadfast as a wooer.
Though her girl might come of a hundred earls, she ought
to feel honoured in having won the love of such a man.
And he saw her sympathy in her eyes; those tender honest
eyes, which even in their brightest moments always looked
as if tears were lurking below the surface, just as her
202
The Dean's Wife.
voice, when it rang out most gladly, had an undertone of
sadness. ' I cannot say you are wise,' she repeated, ' and
yet—'
'Yet you will not hlame me for my folly,' he said; and
just then the dean came out, and the footman made his
appearance, and was ready to open the door.
The dean said 'Good-day,' and bowed very stiffly, and
Lady Mary very genially, and then she went into her hus-
band's study, and awaited his reappearance there.
CHAPTER XXX.
Winifred's wooers.
'What have you been saying to that poor young man?'
asked Lady Mary as soon as the dean came into his study.
' Given him a fitting answer to a very impertinent ques-
tion,' was the reply. ' What could possess the man ?—
whatever could make him think that I should let him have
my daughter ? A man come from no one knows where—'
' One of the leading authors of the day.'
' Stuff!' cried the dean impatiently. ' One of those writing
fellows who make a stir for a little time, and then are thought
of no more. Who remembers a six months' old novel ? '
' It's as utterly forgotten, in the majority of cases, as six
hours' old sermons.'
' Well, we wont discuss that question. You surely did
not expect that I could give him any other answer than the
one I have done ?'
' An unconditional refusal ?'
' An unconditional refusal.'
'And what does Winnie say?'
Winifred's Wooers.
203
'The fellow has said nothing to her ; I must do him justice
there. He has behaved like a gentleman so far. And there
is no reason that I see why she should be told; turning her
head for nothing. He has had his answer, and he's gone—
there's an end of it.'
'Hot so far as Winifred is concerned. I agree with you
that towards her Mr German has behaved very honourably ;
but do you think a man has no other way of telling a girl
he is in love with her than by words ? Ah, it's little you
know of love-makings, George ! You never were great in
that way yourself • but still I think I knew what was coming
some time before it came, and I have seen quite enough here
to know that Winifred had a right to expect that this gentle-
man should come to you as he has done.'
' She doesn't surely care for him ? '
'Whether she cares for him or not, a girl doesn't like to
feel that she has been trifled with. If an offer's her due, she
expects the offer, whether she means to say "No" to it 01*
not. Winifred ought to be told of this,' added her mother
more gravely. ' I think there should be perfect openness
between parents and children. If it comes to her knowledge
in any other way—and it will come—it must come sooner or
later—she will feel that she has not been fairly dealt with.'
Whatever Winifred thought, she said very little when her
mother told her that Mr German had proposed to her father
for her, and been refused.
' He is not your equal in family, and papa would not care
that you should marry a literary man, however talented.
The income is precarious, the position uncertain,' said Lady
Mary, trying loyally to look as if she endorsed the dean's
views to the full.
She was not sure in her heart whether she would have
given her girl to Richard German or not. Underneath all
her good-nature and kindness there was an infinite amount of
204
The Dean's Wife.
pride—quiet, self-contained pride. In all the trials and
economies of her early days, nothing, so long as she could
keep her father from running into debt, could really trouble
her. If she mended stockings—nay, if she had gone barefoot
for want of stockings at all—she would have been Lady
Mary Reardon still. So Miss Todd, the daughter of a small
medical practitioner, had been her dearest friend, and she
had been kind and tender as a sister to the wife of an obscure
Methodist minister, because there had been the calm belief
that she was too secure, too highly placed, to derogate from
lier position either by her friendship or her kindness. So,
with all her fellow-feeling for Richard German, all her true
liking for the man and admiration of his books, she could
not help approving the dean's decision; and yet—and yet
—she could not help wishing, too, that that decision had
been otherwise.
What did Winifred think of him ? She went on her own
way, calm, gentle, placid as ever, and Lady Mary thought
that all was well. The girl had said not a word when told
of her father's decision, and Lady Mary thought there was
no harm done. But to the girl herself, the fact that Richard
German had thought her worth his love was like new life.
A revelation which woke the soul within her. She read his
books again and yet again. Was it possible that it was from
her he had drawn his inspiration ? Did he believe her to be
such an id?al of maidenhood and of all womanly perfection
and sweetness as he had painted her? She flushed into
a rapture, half pain, half pride, at the thought. To be so
loved!—to be so believed in ! Was that nothing, even
though the man himself were meanly born, and of poor
estate ? She had still a right to glory in his love—to feel
that it had honoured and ennobled her.
Noblesse oblige 1 No one believes in that more than do
English gentlewomen. Winifred never thought it harsh or
Winifreds Wooers.
205
unkind of her father to have refused this man. She was
different from the majority of girls; she had never let her
thoughts run very much on love or marriage. But when-
ever she had so thought it had always seemed as a matter of
course that her suitor must be a gentleman; one of her own
caste. She would as soon have dreamed of one who was not
so raising his eyes to her as if she had been of the blood
royal. So that it never once occurred to her that the dean
had dealt severely by her lover.
But very soon after the dean had another application
for his daughter's hand; let who would woo Winifred Dal-
maine, it was clear that they must go first to her father.
She was a young lady whom it was impossible to draw into
a quiet corner or a garden nook. She did not know, or would
not, what staircases were meant for, or to what uses bay
windows could be put. She was in utter ignorance of the
very A B C of flirtation ; indeed, of the average young men
of the day she had rather a dislike. She had told her mother
once, that they never had much to say, and did not know
how to say it. She could be graciousness and sweetness
itself to a deaf old man, whom every other girl thought a
bore. Elderly men voted her charming; young men ad-
mired and were petrified. Still there were two who would
not be conquered even by petrification, and one of these,
seeing no chance of making his way with the maiden her-
self, went at once to the father.
He was one of those young clergymen whom Richard
German had met the first time he visited the deanery.
He was a very popular young man in Carminster; his liv-
ing was only five miles off, and it produced seven hundred
a-year, and he had a small private income besides. And
nothing could be said against his family or himself in
any way whatever. His character was as spotless as his
necktie. If he was not likely to be a brilliant son-in-law,
206
The Dean's Wife.
at any rate lie would be a thoroughly safe and respectable
one.
So thought the dean, and he gave him a patient hearing,
and promised not only to lay his proposals before his daugh-
ter, but to use his interest with her. He kept his word,
but was neither very much surprised nor displeased when
Winifred said ' No' to the proposal thus submitted. She
had no wish to marry yet. She did not think she should
ever like Mr Merton enough to wish to marry him.
' After all, she might do better,' said the dean to his wife,
1 and she is very young.'
'I think she might do a very great deal better,' said
Lady Mary, who did not at all approve of her would-be son-
in-law. ' He is milk-and-water, and bread-and-butter,' she
bad said to Miss Todd. 'There is more true manliness in
Richard German's little finger than in Mr Merton's soul
nnd body.'
A day or two after the dean spoke to her, rather wist-
fully for him—there was kindness and tenderness enough
in the man, but he could not show it in words. If only he
had worn just a little bit of his heart on his sleeve now and
then !—So when he spoke in this strain, his wife was a
little surprised, but failed to credit him with the depth of
fatherly feeling lurking underneath. What he said was,—
'Do you think sbe cares for—that other fellow? She
may do better than Merton, but still, Merton is a young
man whom most girls would like.'
Every one of the Miss Johnsons would jump at him,' said
Lady Mary, 'but Winifred isn't a Miss Johnson.'
' If I thought she cared for him,' said the dean a little
anxiously, and he looked at his wife, hoping she would say
something to comfort him on that point.
His girls were very dear to him—not so dear as their
mother, though to them he would often be more open in
Winifreds Wooers.
207
his tenderness. And perhaps he would not have been quite
so summary in his dealings with Richard German, had it
not been that he was the first man who had sought to rob
him of his daughter. That was the way the dean had put
it, after the fashion of many fathers; but now that he found
there were other robbers in the way, he did not feel quite
so much anger against this first one.
Lady Mary had no comfort to give him.
4 Winifred is not a girl who would talk of such a thing,
even to her mother,' she answered.
Then there came another robber. This time it was that
other young parson whom Richard had met. It had never
occurred to him to go first to the maiden, he made so sure
of success with her father. The advantages on his part, he
thought, were irresistible. And they were really great.
His living was a little further from Carminster than the
last suitor's, but it brought in nine hundred a-year. He
would have as much more on his mother's death, and there
was every probability that he would be the squire as well
as parson of his parish. His brother's health was failing
fast and the doctors gave little hope. His career at Oxford
had not been so faultless as that of the Rev. Henry Merton,
and he had not the sweet temper or the faultless manners of
that exemplary young man. He had also more than the
usual clerical proneness to flirtation, but marriage would
cure all that, and on the whole the dean felt rather elated
when this third suitor for his daughter's hand came forward.
4 You have my best wishes,' he said, 'and I think I may
promise you every success. I will speak to Lady Mary
and my daughter to-day. Suppose you ride over to-morrow
afternoon? You will find the ladies at home, and I dare-
say will not be displeasd with your reception.'
4 To-morrow afternoon ? I am due at the Oaks to dinner
in the evening. That would be cutting it rather close
208
The Deans Wife.
wouldn't it ? To-day's Tuesday—suppose we say Thursday ?
Lady Mary will be at home ? '
' Lady Mary will make a point of being at home,' said
the dean ; but he thought the ways of some lovers of this
generation were different to what they had been in his
youth. And he felt a little nettled that his daughter's
suitor should make so sure of winning her.
But the Reverend Mark Westwood had always been
accustomed to have all good things come to him with scarce
an effort of his own. And he knew himself to be as desir-
able a party as any within many miles of Carminster. He
could not be said to have fallen in love with Winifred Dal-
maine. He had yet to learn what love meant. He had
had so many flirtations, so many little likings, mostly with
married women, as being safer, that he had had no time
for a great passion. But he had decided that he ought to
marry. His brother's health, and the little entanglements
into which he himself was always being drawn, made that
necessary. And he had looked round for a suitable wife,
and seen none fairer or more suitable than Miss Dalmaine.
Her very coldness was another charm. To win a girl of
whom no man could say that he might have had her if he
chose—a very Diana amongst women, cold, stately, proud,
immovable—this would be something to glory in. And
then the connection; an earl's grand-daughter, and well
born on the father's side. She was a filly, he said to him-
self, worth paying any price for.
He had been addicted to races in his time, and now and
then to himself, indulged in a little horsey language still,
but only to himself, or with one or two of his greatest inti-
mates. He was a large young man, stout and florid; you
might have taken him for a well-to-do brewer, a gentleman
farmer, anything but a clerk in holy orders. He had gone
into the Church much as the dean had done, because there
Winifred's Wooers.
'was a good living in the family, and he meant to leave it if
his elder brother departed this life, just as the dean would
have done under similar circumstances. But he was a good-
hearted young fellow; he had no wish that his brother
should die to make way for him, and he had a curate, and
paid him very well, and gave very freely to the poor of his
parish, and altogether took life as easily and pleasantly as
a young man, with good health, good means, and a most
excellent opinion of himself is entitled to do.
He left the deanery in a very enviable frame of mind,
and he strolled down the High Street of Carminster, his
riding-whip still in his hand, looking to the right and left
with the pleasant, easy confidence of a man who knows that
he is on good terms with the world and the world with him.
He had been and gone and done it! That was the prevail-
ing sentiment just then. He had not the slightest fear but
that Miss Dalmaine would accept him. That sort of-girl
always does as she is told, he had said to himself.
He had had a little trepidation before going to the dean;
not that he had at all dreaded a refusal, but he had felt the
awkwardness that is not an uncommon feeling at such times,
of stating his intentions, and his means, and his prospects,
and his ideas as to settlements. It was all over now. He
was duly engaged; the lady's consent was an assured fact.
He had done his duty so far to himself and his family.
He looked in at Benson's window. Benson was the
jeweller of Carminster. Every one, nearly, who was in a
position to give an engaged ring bought it of Benson. His
windows were very bright to-day, glistening in the autumn
sun, and set out to the best advantage to attract customex-s,
it being market-day. There was a whole tray of rings,
many of them diamond. Mr Westwood looked at these.
' I wonder whether I ought to buy one to take with me
on Thursday. Don't know her size; she'll feel offended if
o
2id
The Dean s Wife.
it's too large. That diamond half-hoop is about the thing.
Wonder what the price is ? Fifty, I should say. Well, I
suppose there'll be time enough for that next week. Don't
know. If I was sure of a fit, it would look better to take
it to her at once.'
He turned, as he heard his name, and saw Mrs Johnson
in her great open barouche "with its old-fashioned yellow
body, and any number of daughters with her, drawn up
before the shop. He knew Mrs Johnson very well. He
had been made very welcome at the palace, and it had been
thought by many that so clever a woman as Mrs Johnson
could not fail to secure so well-to-do a young man as a
son-in-law. But he had triumphed in escaping the toils
which he knew were set for him. He went up to her now,
and was very warmly greeted by the matron, and there
were smiles showered on him by the maidens. He knew
his value; he knew what the greeting and the smiles were
for, he flattered himself; and thought he would let Mrs
Johnson know how things were.
' Just a hint,' he said to himself; ' she has been so bent
on running me down.'
'Are you coming to the palace?' said Mrs Johnson.
' We never see you there now.'
' Been so busy. So much at the deanery. Must be, you
know, just now,' he added confidentially. ' That's what is
making me look in at Benson's. I suppose a man would
do there as well as anywhere else. Oh ! I'll come and see
you soon—but not this week. I'm due at the deanery
again next Thursday.'
Then Mrs Johnson perfectly understood what she was
meant to understand. The circumstances no doubt were
trying, but she could hold her own under them.
' I see, I understand,' she said, with her friendliest smile,
'and I wish you joy with all my heart. You will do very
No Second Best.
well at Benson's, though, for more important matters than
the ring, I should advise you to go to London. Come and
see us soon. You may be sure you have all our best wishes.'
Then she bade him good-bye, and the girls, who had heard
what she said, as she had meant them to hear, took their
cue from their mother, and nodded, and smiled, and waved
hands, and sent him as many bright, if mute, congratulations
as if he had selected one of their own number to share his
rectory with him.
So that Mr Westwood felt a little disappointed when he
turned to look in at Benson's window again.
CHAPTER XXXI.
no second best.
The dean was not altogether pleased with his daughter's
suitor. He could understand that a young man, having
gained the paternal consent, might shrink from the further
ordeal of at once pleading his cause to the lady, and prefer
leaving matters in the father's hands for a few hours. But
that he should not come the next day to learn his fate, that
for the sake of a dinner-party he should wait another twenty-
four hours before he knew it!
And he did not like that dinner being at the Oaks. There
was a very mature siren there, who had flirted on a large
scale with one generation of men, and was now doing her
best to flirt with a second. That she was married made
very little difference. Her husband took things easily, and
never troubled himself about the little amusements of his
wife. And her name had been coupled with Mr West
wood's ; he had been one of her most devoted cavaliers. He
212
The Dean's Wife.
surely ought not, for her sake, to have given up the visit
proposed to him at the deanery.
' I shall speak to him very plainly about that, and one or
two other things,' said the dean to himself, as he walked
towards his wife's morning-room.
He found her alone with Winifred, which he thought
fortunate. She was writing letters, but laid down her pen
as he came in, and looked up as if to ask the reason of his
visit. He never felt quite welcome in that pretty room,
never felt quite sure that he might not be breaking in upon
his wife's pursuits. Years ago she had been very eager that
he should share them. She had gone to him impulsively to
tell him of every wish, of every whim. But he had always
been grave, prosaic, matter-of-fact, and, without meaning it,
had chilled and repulsed her.
Then he had felt himself hardly dealt by, that her eyes did
not flash a welcome, or the face brighten up as he entered.
She had no love for him, he had said; she had never loved
him. He must bear it, perforce ; but it was not the easier
to bear that he felt he must still go on loving her to the end.
Winifred was knitting something useful for one of Miss
Todd's many protegies, and she went on, scarcely looking
up. Surely, thought her father, she had grown stiller and
quieter than ever—her work seemed almost mechanical.
Well, he had something to tell that would rouse her up.
Then, closing the door carefully, he sat down, and after
due preamble, to which, surely, as the bearer of important
news, he was entitled, he set forth all Mr Westwood's
pretensions, and notwithstanding the dinner at the Oaks,
backed them up with his own approval.
' It is your third chance, and your best, my lassie,' he
said. (' My lassie' was always his pet word for his elder
daughter.) 'I do not think we could wish for anything
better for you. Mr Westwood in many respects is all we
No Second Best.
213
have a riglii to expect for you, and you will be settled very
near your mother and myself.'
Not a word from Lady Mary, but there was a furtive
glance at her daughter. Would she take this man—good-
tempered, common-place, slightly vulgar—because his con-
nections and position pleased her father? She had been
loved by a man who, whatever drawbacks of position and
fortune he might have, was at least worth loving in him-
self. In himself, a man of a thousand.
4 He is coming on Thursday,' continued the dean, 4 to hear
his answer from yourself, Winny. I suppose you will give
him an answer such as he would like to hear ?
4 I cannot marry him, papa. I do not see any occasion
why I need marry at all.'
Winifred looked up with clear, unfaltering eyes. There
was no want of courage in her; she was morally braver
than her father, and he felt that if it came to a conflict
between their wills, it was his that would have to yield.
He began, in a puzzled, uncertain tone,—
4 But, my dear, all young women look forward to marry-
ing as a thing that must sooner or later come. And I
don't think you are likely to have a more advantageous
offer than this. You are hard to please. Haven't you
read the story of the crooked stick ?' he asked, with a
faint laugh.
4 Suppose there is no need for me to take a stick at all,
papa ? I don't see the need.'
4 But what am I to tell Mr Westwood ? ' asked the dean,
with a little irritation. 41 gave him hopes—almost assur-
ances. I never thought that a girl' in her senses could re-
fuse so eligible an offer. What reason can I give ? '
41 don't love him, papa; perhaps that might do. And
I don't feel as if love would ever come.'
'Then you love some one else. That man—' then the
214
The Dean's Wife.
dean checked himself, not too soon, ' that newspaper man ;
surely you are not letting your head run upon him ?'
1 Don't be angry with me, papa, but I must speak to you
very plainly about Mr German. I don't know whether I
love him or not—I am sometimes puzzled to know what
people really mean by love—whether it will ever come to
me. But I do feel that if things had been different, if he
had been so situated that you could have accepted him for
your son-in-law, I might have been very happy with him.
I don't blame you, papa; it was one of those things that
could not be—I quite understand that; still, I am very
proud of Mr German's love. I think I shall feel the happier
and better for it all my life, and I will take no one who is
not every bit as good as he. I daresay I shall never meet
with his equal; there are not many such in the world, and,
as I cannot take him, I must remain unmarried. But that
isn't so dreadful. Mamma does not want to part with me,
I know, .and I think you would miss me, too, a little.'
If the dean could only have sworn a dozen oaths, what a
relief it would have been to his feelings ! He was not the
best-tempered of men, and never had he felt so sorely tried
as now. Richard German had robbed him of his daughter
as much as if he had married her. If he was to come between
her and any other match, he might as well have had her at
once. He walked up and down the room in his anger, while
Winifred took up her knitting and went on to all appearance
as mechanically as ever.
' But what am I to say ?' burst forth the dean presently.
' I made so sure. I never expected anything like this—
what am I to say to Westwood when he comes ? You
won't have me go and tell him that because you can't have
Mr German you won't have anybody else ? '
' I think I should tell him, George, that it is he who has
made a little too sure,' said Lady Mary, ' and that young
No Second Best.
215
ladies are not to be won quite so easily as be thinks. Is
not that enough ? Girls don't want their fathers to court
them.'
' But "Winifred isn't like other girls,' pleaded the poor
dean. ' They all come to me first.'
' Which is very right and proper, only they should make
a little more sure of the lady,' said his wife.
( She won't let them. They could as soon make sure of
a statue !' said the dean, for once angry with his daughter
for those very qualities in which, till now, he had taken
much pride.
' She isn't a Miss Johnson, certainly,' said Lady Mary ;
' but still, the newspaper man, as you call him, knew how
to make sure, it seems, without coming to you.'
' If you are bringing up that German's name again, I have
no more to say,' cried the dean, in redoubled wrath, and he
left the room in a different frame of mind to that; in which
he had entered it.
And then Lady Mary went up to her daughter and
kissed her.
Winifred clung to her like a child.
' I am so glad you are not angry with me, mamma ; but
it does seem as if, in marriage, there can be no such thing
as second best. And the best I cannot have.'
When Lady Mary told all this to her friend, Miss Todd,
that little woman only said,—
' Winifred is a good girl, and a wise one. But she
thought.—' If I had been as wise twenty years ago, should
I have urged her mother, as I did, to be content with only
second best ?'
216
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XXXII.
how mr germaine enlightens tasmania.
That winter was rather a trying one to some of the people
at Carminster. The bishop and the dean both began to
think that they had made rather a blunder when they had
installed Grantley Germaine as incumbent of Tasmania.
They had thought that he would be just the man for the
place; the very model of a working clergyman; that Sun-
day schools, clothing clubs, mothers' meetings—all the
organisations by which a church, especially in a poor
neighbourhood, is supposed to reach the poorer classes, would
flourish under him.
But all these things were almost ignored by him. The
Sunday schools prospered pretty well, because two or three
young ladies worked them well; and there was a choir
started, and all the dirty little boys with good voices were
caught and made to wash themselves clean, and put on
surplices, and walk after the incumbent in procession to
and from the vestry. With the exception of St Theodosius',
and of course in the cathedral, there had never been any-
thing of the kind in Carminster. Mr Germaine looked
very dignified at the head of this procession, especially when
he had prevailed on several tall lads and young men with
bass and tenor voices to endue themselves also in surplices,
and so file after the incumbent, and between him and the
little boys. The singing was good : some of the better-class
people in Tasmania were fond of music, and they met and
practised it; so people came to hear that as well as the
sermons, which, however deficient in logic or force of rea-
soning, were at least different to anything they could hear
elsewhere in Carminster. They passed for eloquence
Mr Germaine enlightens Tasmania.
217
amongst people who had never heard what eloquence really
is.
But this was not what the bishop had desired. To have
people drawn away from other churches by a pseudo-fashion-
able preacher, and to know that the roughs and rabble who
were really in his charge were neglected. He gently hinted
something of the kind to Mr Germaine, and was told that
he had been thinking of a course of sermons calculated to
fill the church fuller than ever. * Sermons for the Times'
—they would be attractive enough, surely, even to the lowest
roughs in Tasmania.
The bishop doubted it, and the event proved him right.
The sermons were preached, and a very genteel congregation
came to hear them, but not a costermonger or hawker from
any one of the Tasmania hovels. Then Mr Germaine lamented
the obduracy of his flock to Lady Mary, and she told him he
would never get on unless he had Miss Todd for his curate.
He turned to Miss Todd, and with elaborate courtesy re-
quested her assistance. She would give him a little advice,
she told him, but could do no more. The class of people he
wanted to attract would never come to him unless he made
himself popular.
' Try " Penny Headings,"' she said, much as his brother
had done, ' and make them as amusing as possible. Give
them a bit of Dickens—a bit of Bret Harte, and even if
they don't come to church you'll have done them no harm.'
Mr Germaine bowed grandly. He had always been, as
far as he knew how, an elaborately polite man; but his man-
ners, since he entered the Church, had become of the court,
courtly. Lady Mary said of him that he was the first gen-
tleman in all Carminster. And he promised to think over
Miss Todd's advice 3 and he kept his word, after his fashion.
Ten days after she had a little packet of bright blue hand-
bills in which, in bold black type, was announced,—
218
The Dear?s Wife.
A COURSE OF LECTURES ON THE POETS,
by
THE REV. GRANTLEY GERMAINE.
SWINBURNE, .... Nov. 1.
BROWNING, . . . Nov. 15.
ROSSETTI, .... Nov. 30.
In the National School-room, Tasmania.
Tlie bishop was scandalised by these lectures. The dean
said the man had taken leave of his senses. Miss Todd was
charmed. She said that Grantley Germaine was doing
exactly what she had expected he would do ; and Lady
Mary, wicked enough to be equally charmed, went to hear
the lecture on Browning, in hopes, she said, that he would be
brought down to the level of her comprehension, but came
away declaring that the poet and his interpreter were alike
unintelligible. Mr Germaine was remonstrated with by his
bishop, but Mr Germaine held his own. The lectures, he
said, were such as a clergyman might give with all pro-
priety, and were calculated to elevate and develop the minds
of the class to whom they were addressed. Whether he
meant the gipsies, hawkers, and brickmakers, there is no
telling; but certainly not one of those classes came to the
school-room to the lectures, any more than they came to the
church to hear the sermons.
But, given a man with a tolerable presence, a fluent de-
livery, a good memory, and a certain aptness at turning the
light current literature of the day to his own uses, and he
is sure to be run after by a few men and a great many
women. Mr Germaine was aware of that; and his lectures,
like his sermons were something new. Half-educated women.
Mr Germaine enlightens Tasmania. 219
who would have been better employed at home, reading
something they might possibly understand came to the lec-
tures, and said they were very fine, and mixed up the three
poets of whom they had heard, together, went away without
a single clear idea of one of them, and thought they had
listened to something very superior and intellectual.
With it all, Mr Germaine was very much at the deanery
that winter. Lady Mary had promised his wife to be kind
to his children, and she was not a woman to forget a promise
so made. She had the tender, regretful pity for the weak,
ailing sufferer who had gone that a strong nature often has
for a weak one, who trusts to it, clings to it, and has no
other claim upon it but its own utter helplessness. She
could not be kind to the children and shut her doors on the
father; so Mr Germaine came to and from the deanery,
and held his head all the higher in consequence, and never
thought that it was only owing to his little ones that Lady
Mary bore with him as she did.
He had some thought of marrying again; but then the
woman who would just suit him was very hard to find. He
wanted a lady, he wanted money; he wanted good looks and
' some intellectual capacity,' he said to himself. He had no
wish to repeat the mistake that he had made in his first
marriage, and link himself again with his mental inferior.
He had repented that bargain bitterly enough. Not for a
gold mine would he make such another.
Poor Mrs Germaine had had a little more cause to rue
her bargain ; but, like other weary wives, she had found her
rest, and could say nothing now. Little enough had she
said in her lifetime. She had submitted meekly enough to
all entailed upon her by her own inferiority and her lord's
greatness ; but there were two women who knew what her
married life had been, and one of these was the woman whom,
above all others, Mr Germaine had the audacity to say to his
220
The Dean's Wife.
own soul he would have chosen for himself out of all the
world had she been free. What might he not achieve if he
had such a woman as Lady Mary by his side ? Older than
himself! What did that matter ? She was in the prime of
her rich summer, and had years and years before her of un-
fading bloom. And she had rank, knowledge of the world,
verve, spirit, intellect—all—everything that that poor, faded
creature he had married had not. But Lady Mary was not
to be had, and he knew not where to seek one in the least
resembling her.
So he would wait, he said. He had flung himself away
once. He would take care not to do it a second time.
As to Mr Warne, he had startled the dean, and shocked
the bishop, and set people talking this winter even more
than Mr Germaine had done. He had always been very
vague in his orthodoxy, but he seemed now to think there
was no such thing as orthodoxy at all. He took texts from
the Scriptures still, and preached therefrom sermons to prove
that Christianity was but a development of the age—the last
form of religion; that the teachings of Confucius had antici-
pated it in many things ; and that Buddhism was in many
points only another form of apostolic doctrine. He had got
altogether past any disputes about Bitualism or Dissent,
High Church and Low. He was in a serene atmosphere,
where such minor differences never vexed him. He had
long passed the point at which you may consider Servetus a
martyr, and speak of the Trinity as an allegory. Socrates,
Plato, Mahomet, Buddha—these had all been sent to en-
lighten the world, and so had Jesus Christ. It might be
very condescending of a man so far advanced in agnosticism
to admit this, but the admission was not quite enough to
please his bishop.
As to the dean, he said Mr Warne ought to leave the
Church; and Mr Warne said—as so many are saying at the
Mr Germaine enlightens Tasmania. 221
present day—that the Church of England, in the best sense
of the word, was a broad one—so broad that he found ample
latitude within her borders for all and every form of (dis)-
belief.
And the trying part of it was that there really was a
good deal of good in Mr Warne. And after his own fashion,
and in his own way, he meant to do good. He would have
been delighted to have had the charge of Tasmania, and he
really would have effected something like a revolution there.
He was a Materialist, just as the dean was a Rationalist,
and they ought neither of them to have gone into the
Church; but being there, they each meant to do what was
right in his own way. Mr Warne would have worked hard
at the day schools in Tasmania ; he would have lectured the
gipsies and hawkers on the sin of dirt, and the stupidity of
drunkenness. He could not have prayed with any good
effect by the side of a dying woman—he had his doubts as
to the efficacy of prayer ; but he would have given her
what substantial kindness he could afford, and have told
those about her to let her have quiet and fresh air. If only
he had been a doctor, he would have been a good man,
and earned his living fairly; and perhaps, had he been
a doctor, he would have learned that there are more secrets
in our poor humanity than the dissecting knife and the
scalpel will ever lay bare, and that there is something
more in men and women than bones or sinews, flesh or
muscle.
And the bishop was powerless. Nolo episcopari / If
ever men uttered that speech with sincerity, they might
utter it now-a-days. Nothing could be done to prevent Mr
Warne from propagating infidelity from his pulpit; no-
thing could be done to make Mr Germaine look after his
people like a Christian minister out of it. Tasmania was
in a worse state than ever, but people came from all parts
222
The Dean's Wife.
of Carminster to hear Mr Germaine discourse on Swin-
burne and Rossetti.
As to Mr Wr-twood, he survived his disappointment,
though it was always one of the most unaccountable things
in his life that Miss Dalmaine declined the offer of his
hand. To.himself, and one or two of his intimates, he set
it down to a slight softening of the brain inherited from
her mother. 4 One of those over-clever women who have
generally a screw loose in the upper story.' He bought a
diamond ring at Benson's, before the winter was over, and
he gave it to the fifth Miss Johnson; but her hopes of
being Lady Westwood were doomed to disappointment, for,
two months after, Mr Westwood's elder brother returned
from Italy with renewed health and a young wife. Still,
Mrs J olinson had another daughter married, and she very
wisely never alluded to that day when she had met Mr
Westwood just as he had left the deanery.
Then, towards the spring, there came a trouble to the
deanery such as they had never expected. Day by day,
without any ostensible reason, without the medical men
being able to give any reason for it, Winifred Dalmaine
grew paler and weaker and thinner. The dean and his
wife had mourned for their sons, but the health of the girls
had always been good; now, for no cause whatever, as far
as any one could see, the elder one was drooping. She had
made no complaint; she had gone on living a life much
like other girls, only with more earnest work and study in
it; and now the work and the study had all come to an
end, the pale hands were folded listlessly, the eyes were
dim, the figure bowed; the girl was sinking—sinking day
by day. And all for what ?
Because the light had gone out of her life. The girl had
loved better than she knew. She could not tell, herself,
what was amiss. She would have denied, and have believed
Mr Germame enlightens Tasmania. 223
that she was doing so with perfect truth, that she was
pining for Richard German; that her life had lost all its
sweetness and its savour because he no longer could come
into it. Her father grew grave and anxious, and said to
her mother, wistfully,—
1 Is she fretting for that fellow, do you think ? '
And the mother knew not what to say in answer. Girls
do die of love sometimes, she knew, and she could remember
when she would have been glad, indeed, to have felt that
she could so die. When she had wept for her young lover,
and known that he was lost for ever. But there had been
no dying for her. She had such intense vitality. Let what-
ever heartbreaks come, she must go on enduring. And she
had endured, had suffered, had survived. But Winifred
was altogether different. She would not complain or mur-
mur in passion and agony, as her mother had done, asking
heaven itself why it was she had so much to bear. She
would just bear, and bear in silence, till she broke beneath
the load. That was how it would be with her, the mother
knew j and was she to lose her just as she had lost her
boys ?
1 And what can we do if she is fretting ?' asked Lady
Mary. ' Can we send to him and ask him to save our girl's
life ? Is that what you are thinking of, George ?'
At last the doctors suggested, as they always do when
they can do nothing more, a change of air and scene. The
dean proposed Italy, France; anywhere, according to him,
so long as it was far away, and cost plenty of money. Lady
Mary was to take her daughter, it was arranged ; it would
be difficult just then for him to spare the time to go with
them ; but the further they went, and the more money they
spent on the journey, the better he felt he should be satisfied.
Parting with his money, which he liked as well as most men
—parting with his wife and daughters, whom he loved better
224
The Dean's Wife.
than do most men—seemed to him to be a sacrifice that
ought to bring some return.
' Winnie has seen so little of England,' said Lady Mary,
' that a change to any part of her own country would be
sufficient.'
She did not tell her husband the true reason why she
spoke. She had a nervous dread of going too far away from
him if Winifred grew worse. To have the girl ill, hope-
lessly ill, on her hands, and she alone—away from him—
anywhere that a telegram could not fetch him in a day by
her side ! She felt helpless without him ; stunned, almost.
This trouble was so new, so unexpected. The wall that had
grown up between her husband and herself had made their
children all the dearer unto each. Now the danger that was
threatening one child seemed to make the wife ready to lean
upon her husband as she had not leaned for years.
' She has scarcely ever had even a glimpse of the sea,' said
her mother. ' Surely that would be change enough to begin
with; or let me take her to the Lakes, and then on to Scot-
land. She has lived in a flat country all her life. Only to
see a mountain, if no higher than Skid daw, will be a change.
We are flat enough here at Carminster, and, heaven knows,'
she added, with a sigh, ' we were flatter still at Harkley.'
There came such a light and such a colour into his
daughter's face when her mother spoke of the Lakes, that
the dean thought nothing could be better. She certainly
had lived a much quieter life than girls of her class gener-
ally do. First, at the rectory at Harkley, then at the
deanery at Carminster, varied by an occasional stay at Sir
Frederick's, when the dean paid his annual visit to his
brother's home. She had never even been to London; only
twice to the sea, and that when she was a child in her nurs-
ery, one time from whooping-cough, another time from scar-
latina. The lakes and the mountains—nothing could be
Away from Carminster.
225
better, he said. Their very names seemed to have done her
good already.
But the dean had forgotten, or had never known, that
the man who had come between him and his daughter had
drawn his first breath in Westmoreland, and spent his
boyhood amongst the mountains of that and the adjacent
county. Lady Mary had known and had not forgotten it,
and the sudden brightening of her daughter's face was per-
fectly intelligible to her.
'We will go to the Lakes,' she said, and gave orders for
packing forthwith.
CHAPTER XXX11L
AWAY FROM CARMINSTER.
Whether it was the mountain air or the mountain memories,
I know not, but Winifred Dalmaine was a new creature
when she found herself fairly amongst them. She saw more
of her mother—more of her mother's very self—when they
were alone, with Cissy for sole companion. There was a
very great affection between the staid, stately, calm girl,
and her quick, impulsive mother, and that affection deepened,
if possible, now. Life was freer, pleasanter away from Car-
minster, and Lady Mary was more herself than she had
been at any time since her marriage. Winifred had never
spoken of this new trouble which had come into her life,
but she had always felt that her mother pitied it. Now, with-
out a word spoken on the subject, she understood much more.
Her mother could sympathise as well as pity. Her heart
was as fresh and as young as when she had been a girl her-
self; and she knew what a girl could feel. Knew it as well
as if she had been sister as well as mother, and gave in
p
226
The DeatCs Wife.
addition the tender sympathetic love that only a mother
knows.
They sailed on beautiful Windermere, and felt as if they
were floating on a fairy lake. As if all their every-day life
had past away, and the time of the enchanters had come again.
They looked at Grasmere, lying so still and fair amongst
the mountains, and stood by the graves of a household
where Wordsworth and his loved ones are sleeping. Then
on to the bolder heights and darker waters of Cumberland,
making Keswick their headquarters, and taking long walks
day after day up mountain sides and by the borders of
Derwentwater and her sister lakes, till Winifred's eyes
sparkled with a light almost equalling her mother's, and
her cheeks had a colour they had never known in all her
life before.
As to Lady Mary, she looked as young and as handsome
as her daughter. Winifred was growing better. That was
a delight beyond words; but besides this she was away
from Carminster, and her life had had its trials there. If
she was not adapted for a clergyman's wife, she was still
less adapted for a dean's, and she had made a great many
blunders which had to some extent lessened her popularity
amongst the more conventional portion of Carminster society.
She had done things which other ladies might have done
with impunity; but which, as the dean told her plainly, and
Mrs Johnson told her almost as plainly, a dean's wife should
not do. She had had no intention of offending or shocking
people; she had simply sinned out of sheer good nature.
All Mr Germaine's failings were imputed to her. She
had encouraged him to aspire to a position in the Church
for which he now proved totally unfitted. She had turned
his head with her smiles and her eyes, a great many women
said. A great many men wished she would turn theirs in
the same way. Then she had not only visited, but driven
Away from Carminster.
227
out in an open carriage with a lady whose antecedents people
said were questionable. The antecedents were, that having
a had husband, so bad that it was a pollution and an infamy
for any good woman to live with him, she had freed herself
from him by divorce. People said, as the dean had said, that
she ought to have submitted. A woman should bear anything
sooner than be talked about and get into the papers. Lady
Mary had very warmly sympathised with this unhappy lady,
and both Mrs Johnson and the dean, and a good many
people besides, had thought her conduct in doing so not
likely to prove edifying to wives whose husbands were not
altogether what they should be.
Then she had entertained an actress at the deanery. The
actress was a woman of stainless repute and high in her profes-
sion, and when she came as a ' star' to Carminster, Lady
Mary had called on her and induced her to become her
guest. She had done the same by a young singer who was
making herself known in oratorios and concerts. The girl
looked, and was motherless. She was shy, timid, nervous
—excepting when she sang; and then the delight she had
in exercising her magnificent voice gave her that confidence
which she never had at other times. She was laid up with
a sore throat at the hotel where she had been staying
with her company, and her, too, Lady Mary fetched to the
deanery, where they had to leave her behind, and nursed
and petted her till she was free to resume her engagements.
Even the dean had not a word to say against this, for he
was a kindly man at the core, although you were a long
time finding your way to that core. A motherless girl of
good repute, ill and alone—he was almost as sorry for her
as his wife; but Mrs Johnson shook her head, and Miss
Flint and others of her stamp said openly that Lady Mary
had desecrated the deanery.
' I know you did it out of kindness, my dear Lady Mary,'
228
The Dean's Wife.
said Mrs Johnson, who was a kind woman herself, bnt never
said or did a thing—unless it might be now and then when
she lamented that her husband's dancing days were over—
that a bishop's wife should not do or say; ' but it would
have answered the purpose just as well if you had sent your
maid every day to see how the poor young person was get-
ting on. And you might have lent her a few books; but
as it is'—and then, as I have said, she shook her head—
'we don't take up this kind of people at Carminster. I
know what you are going to tell me. Stanley of Norwich
did something of the sort with Jenny Lind ; but his people
didn't like it. There was a great deal of talk about it, and
things of the sort are better left alone.'
Also it was well known that Lady Mary read the West-
minster,—she shared it with Miss Todd. And then Miss
Todd, who knew all sorts of people, had first a very hetero-
dox lecturer to see her, then a lady who was known all over
the kingdom for her warm defence of women's interests,
then an author whose books were considered worse than
Kenan's, and all these people were taken to the deanery, and
some of them asked to dinner.
All this was very bad, and Mrs Johnson looked very grave
about it; but Lady Mary went on doing worse. She did
what no lady in the cathedral set had ever done in Carmin-
ster before. She visited with tradespeople. The ' trades-
people' were two or three families who had made their
money in business, and had come forward very liberally
when a wing was built to the Hospital for Children. Their
daughters had, in conjunction with Winifred—'A dean's
daughter and a draper's!' said Miss Flint, with uplifted
hands—decorated the walls of some of the rooms for the
little sufferers; and Lady Mary, who had taken a very
warm interest in the work too, had also got them to keep
the children supplied with picture-books and flowers, and so
Away from Carminster.
229
had come about this visiting, by which Lady Mary was
considered so to have lowered her dignity.
They were pleasant people; they were fairly well read
people, and what was much more to Lady Mary, the gentle-
men took a warm interest both in the Children's Hospital
and in the Free Library and Working Men's Club which
Mr Warne had originated, and which Lady Mary had so
strenuously supported him in. But the taint of trade was
on them, and a dean's wife should have known her place
better than to have visited them.
Then she came in for a share of the reproach that fell on
Mr Warne for his sins. He would never have gone to such
lengths as he had done, said society and Maria Flint, if
Lady Mary had not encouraged him. He had always had
a singular way of thinking, and his sermons had been
peculiar; still, he had kept within bounds—but now ! He
was not only preaching Socinianism, Darwinism, materi-
alism, in the Church, but out of it he was doing as much
harm to the working men in one way as Mr Germaine was
injuring them in another. He was lecturing, too—upon
political economy!—as if labourers and artisans had any-
thing to do with that; upon our old sea-side towns—when
not a working man in Carminster was ever likely to leave
the Midlands; upon emigration and its advantages—send-
ing the very people away whom we wanted to work for us
here.
Lady Mary was guilty in this last instance. The work
that Mr Warne was doing was just the work that she would
have liked her husband to have been busy in if such work had
been in his way. As it was, the dean had helped him with
money, and taken his part when the bishop had spoken
of him in condemnation. There might have been a little
fellow feeling with one whose unbelief only differed from
his own in that it took a more emotional and fervid form.
230
The Dearis Wife.
Lady Mary certainly had urged Mr Warne on. And he
had worked all the better for knowing that he was sure of
her smiles in the end. And she had taken his part even
more boldly than her husband, when the bishop had spoken
in condemnation.
' Whether Mr Warne believes much or little,' she had
said, ' he is doing his best according to his lights. And
who does believe now-a-days ? ' she asked bitterly. ' Can
one go anywhere, in the Church at least, and find a firm
anchorage for one's soul ? All the tones that ring out are
uncertain. Every word is wavering and weak. It is only
unbelief that dares to say, whatever may be true, these
things at least are false !'
' I hope, Lady Mary,' said the bishop, and he never
looked more like a bishop in his life, ' that you find no
uncertain tones within the cathedral walls, at least. I
think,' and he turned to his dean for encouragement, ' that
the words which are uttered there are anything but weak
and wavering.'
' I don't know how that may be,' she had answered bit-
terly, ' but there are some questions I will never come to
your cathedral to hear answered.'
And there was a glance at her husband which he under-
stood. Mr Warne had faced his unbelief and avowed it.
He was still paltering and playing with his ; trying by every
logical argument, every train of reasoning, to make himself
and other people think that two and three make four, when
in his inner consciousness he knew that they make five.
Never had his sermons been sounder, better thought out,
than now.
'To have heard them,' as Mrs Johnson said—she was a
great admirer of the dean's—' and remain an unbeliever
afterwards ! Ah ! if only they could have converted the
dean himself! Charity begins at home. Should not faith ?
Amidst the Mountains.
231
Can we expect others to believe the words we doubt our-
selves ?'
Well, all this Lady Mary had left behind. Let Mr Ger-
maine neglect his duty, or Mr Warne do his in the wrong
way, she at least would be untroubled by their failings for
a time. Her sins did not weigh very heavily upon her
now she was away from the place where she had committed
them, and she could not and did not make any fine resolu-
tions never to commit such sins again. She knew she should
do the same things when she went back—that she should
blunder and make mistakes as before; but ' sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof,' said Lady Mary, and resolved to
enjoy to the full the good time the fates were giving her now.
They were three girls together, Cissy said, and mamma
was the youngest of the three ; and Lady Mary's keen sense
of enjoyment and intense vitality really made Cissy's words
seem almost true.
CHAPTER XXXIY.
amidst the mountains.
There is a tiny village by the side of one of the smaller
Cumberland lakes, nestling almost at the foot of Skiddaw.
The village consists of an hotel, of course, for the benefit
of any travellers who may come to stay there, and a dozen
cottages—not a shop amongst them but the one which is
post-office, baker, and grocer in general.
And in this tiny hamlet Lady Mary and her girls found
themselves, one fine June morning, walking by the end of
the lake, and looking at some cows which had just been
driven out to pasture on the grassy roadside by the water,
and wondering whether they should be able to obtain any
milk at a cottage they saw near.
232
The Dean's Wife.
They had walked four miles from the hotel at which they
had spent the night, and after a good rest, which would
allow time for a sketch by Winifred, they purposed return-
ing \ but they were all thirsty, and milk, or water, if milk
was not to be had, was the first consideration.
There was a field a dozen yards distant from the side of
the lake, out of which the cows had just been driven to find
fresh pasture, and on the hedge of this field a number of
clothes were hung to dry, and a woman, hard-featured, clean,
with homely cotton gown and turned-up sleeves, was look-
ing at these clothes with wrath in her eye, which presently
found vent in words.
For want of a better auditor she turned to Lady Mary.
Evidently she was in want of sympathy, aggrieved and
injured, and it might be, Lady Mary looked a person from
whom sympathy might be expected; but she spoke, pointing
scornfully at the clothes on the hedge,—
' Look at them ! Saturday mornin' tew be a dryin'!
That's good management, I call it. To hev your things
about a dabbin' an' a messin' all the week through, instead
of havin' a woman as knows her work to do it for ye, and
then ha' done. My way is a good lather, a good rub, a
good boil, and clean all off. Look at the colour o' they!
I'd be ashamed to own 'em !'
Lady Mary nodded assentingly, but thought it better not
to give an opinion in words. The owner of the clothes
might be within hearing. Cissy ran behind her mother to
laugh. Winifred looked demurely at the cows.
1 It's the woman that lives up there that they belongs to,'
said their new acquaintance, pointing to the hoteL ' She's
got a couple o' bits o' girls she sets to muck out her things,
an' they're dirtier when they've done than afore they began.
I washed for her, I did, a week sin'. I were a whole day
at the tub, from six to night. She gev me no victuals but
Amidst the Mountains.
233
my tea. I had to come home to my own place for the rest,'
she nodded towards a neighbouring cottage; ' an' I bought
myself two pounds o' soap an' a penorth o' soda, an' when
the day was over, what do yew think she had the brass to
give me ? '
Lady Mary shook her head as an intimation that she did
not know how laundry-work was requited in this part of
the world; and the speaker, evidently convinced that she
had found some one who took an interest in her wrongs,
continued in a more excited tone,—
' Eighteenpence ! that were her money, for soap an' soda
an' my day's work. Did you ever hear o' the like ? " So,
missus," I said, " ye've got a cheap bargain out o' me to-day,
but ye'll never get such another. Ye may just take a turn
at the tub yourself the next time your things is dirty." So
she's set they two gells to do it—an' a deal o' notion they have
how a day's washin' should be done ! They clouts show it!'
Away she walked to the cottage to which she had pointed,
evidently in a better frame of mind from the fact that she
had found a listener, and apparently a sympathetic one.
' Would she have any milk, mamma ?' askecl Cissy.
'Maybe these cows belong to her. And she is such an
oddity ! I should like to see a little more of her.'
The woman was standing at her door as they passed, and
looked calmed and quieted.
Cissy ran up to her.
* Have you any milk you could let us have?'
' Very little—not nigh enough if yew're thirsty; and
there won't be gettin' no more till the afternoon, when the
cows are milked again. She might hev a pint to spare' (she
nodded sharply towards the hotel); ' but if she's seen ye
talkin' to me, she'll none let yew have it. She's that spite-
ful agin my friends or any one belongin' to me, she won't
even pass the time o' day to the man o' the house! But
234
The Dean's Wife.
come in, come in, an' sit ye down. Ye look real tired.
Come in, an' sit ye down, anyway.'
She spoke as warmly as if they really were her ' friends,'
and of long standing; and she led the way into her cottage.
They were all tired, and all amused, and they followed her
into the house plaee. It was a thorough cottage room, but
as clean as water and woman's hands could make it: a red-
tiled floor, with a small square of carpet by the fire; a round
table in the centre, with a tablecloth upon it, and some oat-
meal cakes; a small fire, carefully packed together, and a
few rashers of bacon keeping warm in front; a cushioned
"Windsor arm-chair and footstool by the fire ; a small book-
case opposite the window, which was large and built out;
and in the window was a tailor's board, with a pair of
trousers in hand, and all the implements of a small village
tradesman—-just workshop, sitting-room, and kitchen alto-
gether, with an air of homely comfort pervading all, and a
perfect cleanliness that was in itself refinement.
' Sit ye down, sit ye down an' rest,' said the good woman,
bustling about, and packing the oat-cakes on the table into
a wooden kist or chest by the side of the fire, and deposit-
ing the bacon in a cupboard ; ' yew're in nobody's way.
The man o' the house has gone out for a spell, with his
pipe. He likes an airin' in the middle o' the day when he's
been stoopin' over his work. Sit ye down, and I'll tell ye
what I'll do for ye. I'll make ye some coffee, such as we
hev for ourselves. Maybe that'll serve your turn as well
the milk ?'
' Thank you ; we shall be very glad of it,' said Lady
Mary, who was by this time thoroughly at home. 1 But I
do hope we are not keeping your husband from his dinner ?'
' Husband ! He's no husband o' mine,' said the woman,
preparing the coffee while she spoke. 'I keep house for
him, I do, an' make what I can odd times. I don't belong to
Amidst the Mountains.
235
this part of the world, either. I'd been keepin' my brother's
place for him near Kendal, an' when he got married, away
I came to go back to my father and mother near Penrhyn.
I had to walk it, you know; an' made sure I should do it
in two days, an' would find a decent place to sleep in.
When I got here it was night, an' not a soul would take
me in—not one but the man of the house here. It was
pourin' with rain, an' I was half dead. I'd walked thirty
miles, an* gone clean out of my way. Oh, I were real tired,
I were! I never felt aught like it. He let me warm
myself by his fire, an' gave me the stirabout he'd just
made for his own supper. It were smoked, too,' she added,
with a little chuckle. ' I were tired an' clemmed, but I
noticed that, though I don't believe he did. An' the next
day he said, if I liked, I might stay on an' do for him ; an'
so I stayed. It's two years since, but I'll warrant ye he's
had no smoked porridge since. They do n't to say want me
at home while my mother can get about, an' I do n't care to
go livin' upon them.'
By this time the coffee was made, and they were all glad
of it, though it was not exactly such 'coffee as in France.'
The girls were glad of the oat-cakes, when produced with
' Maybe ye'd like a bit.'
Lady Mary looked at the contents of the bookcase:
Cruden's Concordance, Baxter's Rest, Cowper, The Pilgrim's
Progress; Sermons, books of theology, and a volume of
Poe's Odes and Poems.
* You have a good many books here,' she said. ' You must
be glad of some reading on the long winter evenings.'
The woman shook her head.
' I can't read,' she said, with a little wistful sorrow in her
tone. ' But the man of the house is a rare seholard !' she
flashed into enthusiasm as she spoke; 'and he's a deal
more books than them, upstairs. He's a local preacher,
236
The Dean's Wife.
yew know. There's neither church nor chapel here; but
the Methodists has a place two miles off, an' he goes there
every Sunday mornin' wet or dry, an' preaches—fine ! I'd
like yew to hear him. He's had a deal o' trouble in his
time, I've been told,' she added, dropping her voice, and
speaking with a little mystery ; ' lost his money an' his
wife, an' had some trouble with his sons. I never knew
just the rights on it. But to hear him speak o' the love an'
the goodness of God, an' the peace an' the blessedness of the
believers, yew'd think he'd never had a sore heart for an
hour in his life. He works at his trade in the week, as
yew see;' and she pointed to the board; 1 an' people
come from far an' nigh to hear him on the Sunday. If
yew were in these parts, maybe yew would like to come
too ?'
* I should like it very much,' said Lady Mary, while
Cissy's eyes brightened at the chance of hearing a preacher
so out of the common as a tailor working for his bread all
the week and preaching on the Sunday must be ; 'but I am
afraid it will be too far for us. "What is the name of the
place where your minister preaches ?'
And, before an answer could be given, the minister, or
' man of the house,' entered the cottage. He was a tall,
loosely^built, elderly man, very shabbily dressed, with a coat
that wanted some of his own handicraft in repairing it. He
had a pipe in his mouth, and an old low-crowned felt hat on
his head. The pipe and hat were removed, not without a
certain air of dignity and courtesy when he saw the guests
his housekeeper was entertaining; and in the1 Good day !'
that he gave there was an implied, if not a spoken welcome.
Lady Mary rose to go. No doubt her host wanted his
dinner.
' Sit you down, pray,' he said, in tones that, though there
was a slight roughness and a little accent about them, were
Amidst the Mountains.
237
yet those of an educated man. ' You have come a distance,
I expect, and are most likely tired.'
'Yes, we have walked from Hartwell, and we feel it is
rather a long way now, especially as we have to return ; but
your mountain air and your mountain roads are so fine, that
we don't feel the fatigue so much as we otherwise should.'
' Yes, they are fine,' he said, with a reverent thankfulness
in his tone. 'It is a grand thing for a man to be living
here. It would not be half a life to me if I spent it in a
town. I did live in a town once; still, it was near the
mountains; but not like this, and then my means were
lessened, and a great desire came upon me to be at rest.
The Lord is always present, always with us; but we seem
to see Him more closely, face to face, amidst these His
mountains.'
There was a grave dignity in the tone, and a deep yet
quiet fervour, as of a man to whom the Lord was very
near; to whom his being ' always present' was an abiding
joy. To him all was firm, real, true. What did death, or
time, or trouble, matter to such a one ? Oh, to believe as
he believed ! to hold fast the everlasting, and feel that it
was sure ! Ho crying, groping for the light; no stretching
out of trembling hands into the dim unseen, and bringing
nothing back. Heaven was as near to this man as earth—
eternity as time.
Cissy, who always read anything and everything that
came in her way, was looking at the volumes within the
bookcase. He turned to her with a smile.
' I have some good friends there,' he said, ' would you like
to see them a little closer ?'
He opened the bookcase, and Cissy took out one or two,
' The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul,' ' The Call
to the "Unconverted,' and put them back rather quickly; then
she seized the volume of Poe.
fhe Dean's Wife.
11 should like this,' she said.
4 That !' with a touch of angry surprise in his tone. 4 It's
the worst book I have in the case. I shouldn't keep it there,
but that it belonged to one of my sons. He bought it when
he was a boy, and didn't know how to spend his money
better. It is such arrant nonsense! I tried to read it;
but,' and he gave a grim little laugh, 4 it was too much for
me altogether. I could make neither head nor tail of the
stuff.'
Poe's weird ghostliness had a charm of its own for Lady
Mary, and she came to his defence.
4 What, not even the " Raven ? " I see you have that
here,' she said, as she took the volume from Cissy.
4 Tap, tap—tapping evermore—as if any bird ever did
that! No, I don't like the stuff. I don't like stories at all,
you must know. To me there is nothing like the truth;
nothing so dreadful as a lie; and these stories, novels,
romances, I do think,' he said, with a grave simplicity that
had something serio-comic in it, 4 that they are inventions of
the Evil One.'
Cissy gave a side-glance at her mother, who had written
a novel or two in her day.
4 What! all stories ? ' cried Lady Mary. 4 And you have
Cowper there, who wrote the 44 Task," for such as you and
me, and the story of 44 John Gilpin," for such a child as this.'
He gave the smile of one who feels that he is driven into
a corner, but will neither give up nor lose his temper.
4 Whatever made him write 44 John Gilpin," I don't know.
He might have set himself to better work. But the story,
I have heard, was true. Cowper only turned it into verse.'
4 And is that how you account for Wordsworth's "Betty
Foy," or his 44 White Doe of By Is tone ? " I see you have
Wordsworth there.'
4 Ah ! and I read him too!' he answered, with his face
Amidst the Mountains.
239
kindling as he spoke. Wordsworth's good! and he never
invented those stories. He heard them—knew Betty Foy
herself. Oh, he was no maker of stories, was Wordsworth;
only just one of the greatest poets that ever lived—after
Milton.'
'Well, but the parables of our Lord, they are stories
surely,' urged Lady Mary.
' Illustrations—illustrations only,' he said with invincible
obstinacy. It was clear the story-tellers need look for little
mercy from him. He took out one and another of his
books and handed them to Lady Mary. They were nearly
all doctrinal, and he had a word of comment or of praise
for each. Presently he came to Euclid, and gave it with
a smile to Cissy. ' That's not in your line, I expect ? '
4 But it will be before very long, I hope,' answered her
mother quickly. 4 Girls are being really educated now-a-days.'
4 I'm glad of it, very glad,' he said heartily. Then he
opened a drawer and took out a portable celestial globe and
showed it to Cissy. 4 Looks like a toy, doesn't it ? I dare-
say now, at your school, when you want to learn about the
stars, you have a fine large globe to do it with. But poor
folks like me must do with the best they can get. I am
very fond of astronomy,' he added, turning to Lady Mary.
' It's a noble study; and I've mastered Latin pretty well,
and I'm learning Greek ; but it's hard—very hard'—and
there was something of pathos in the tones as he spoke—
'without any help. I should like to master Hebrew, but I
suppose that is one of the things that cannot be. I have
two sons though,' he added with a brightening face, 4 who
are fine scholars. One is a grand preacher, and has gone
over to the Church. Well, there are good men there, and
John Wesley would never have left the Church if he could
have helped it. But I think, in our poor little chapels,
plain men like myself sometimes reach poor folks like our-
240
The Dean's Wife.
selves better. And my other son -writes for the papers.
That is good work. It is a great thing to know all that is
going on in the world, and it is a great thing to be able to
lead people and tell them of any wrong that is doing, for
our rulers want looking after now and then, the best of
them,' he added, with another of his grave, almost grim
smiles flickering over his face.
' You must be very proud of both your sons,' said Lady
Mary, with a vague wonder whether both these sons were
not known to her.
' Proud !—ah ! that is not the word,' he said, half sadly.
'No, I have no right to be proud. I was once, and pride
went before a downfall. But that is not a story to trouble
you with. I expect my younger son—the one who writes
—down here in a day or two. He will stay with me, I
hope, for a little time. He and I shall have fine walks and
talks together under the stars and along the mountains.'
There was a great tenderness in his tone as he spoke of
this son, and yet something in the tenderness, especially
when he dwelt on the pride that had had a fall, that made
Lady Mary feel that at one time or another this son had
been a sorrow to him.
The housekeeper had been listening all this time with
admiring eyes fixed on her master. It was clear that to her
there was no man in all this world his equal for learning as
for goodness. Now she began clearing away the cups and
saucers, and producing the oat-cakes and the bacon, as if she
thought it was time he dined. Lady Mary slipped some
silver into the woman's hand, then turned to him.
' We must be going now. We shall walk on all the better
for this rest; and if ever we do meet again, and I'm sure I
trust we shall, I hope you will think better of the poor
story-tellers.'
She smiled as she spoke, and held out her hand. As he
The Marble vivified.
241
took it in his, the cottage-door, which had only been partly
closed, was now pushed wide open, and a tall, manly figure
entered, clothed in a grey travelling-suit.
' Richard !' cried the master of the house. ' My son, that
I was just speaking of,' he added, turning to Lady Mary ;
and in his son she saw the man who had aspired to her
daughter's hand—Richard German.
CHAPTER XXX Y.
the marble vivified.
( We did not expect you so soon, Richard,' said his father.
' We would have had better fare for you if we had known
you had been coming to-day.'
' Whatever fare is good enough for you is good enough for
me, father,' was the answer; and then he turned to Lady
Mary, who stood embarrassed, pained. What would she
not have given if only she had left the cottage five minutes
sooner ? ' This is an unexpected pleasure, Lady Maryand
he held out his hand. She might have spared her pity. The
position had no embarrassment for him.
She took his hand—coldly, stiffly; she could not help it.
The father was a man for any son to be proud of; and yet
what was he ?—a poor local preacher, working with his own
hands at a mean trade for his living during the week. She
took it all in,—the cottage room, the red-tiled floor, the
poor pinched meal, the tailor's board,—and it was the son
of this house who had come to win her daughter, the grand-
daughter of the Earl of Cashel, at the deanery of Carminster.
This was the meanest, most ignoble moment of Lady Mary
Dalmaine's life. It did not last long; and ashamed enough
she was of it afterwards.
a
24^
The Dean's Wife.
' Good-day,' she said; we were just going as you came.
Your father has been good enough to allow us a long rest.
Come, Cissy. Winifred, what are you staying for ? '
Winifred had gone up to Richard's father, and there was
an expression on her face, and a light in her eyes, that gave
her a glow and a beauty her mother had never seen before.
She had held out her hand to him, and spoke timidly, shyly,
yet with sufficient clearness,—
' Good-day, Mr German. I am so glad to have met with
you. Only '—and the loveliest blush that ever maiden wore
gave her yet intenser beauty—'I hope you will follow
mamma's advice, and think more kindly of the story-tellers.
We owe them very much.'
Then she followed her mother out of the cottage, and in
a second or two Richard German overtook them.
' May I set you on your road, Lady Mary ? Are you
going to walk. Would you like me to get you a conveyance
from the hotel ?'
Thank you; we prefer walking. We have had a good
rest. Don't let us take you from your father, Mr German.'
' There is one favour I have to beg of you, Lady
Mary. I heard you, as I came into the house just now,
say something of seeing my father again. If you should
ever do so, may I beg most earnestly that you will not let
him know his son is one of the story-tellers against whom,
from what I also heard, I fancy he has been inveighing. I
can't tell Miss Dalmaine how grateful I am to her for plead-
ing to him in their behalf. I have caused my father much
sorrow in my time,' he said, with a lowered tone and sad-
dened eyes. ' I fancy sometimes it is on account of that
sorrow he will not let me have the privilege I should have
prized so greatly of giving him a home more worthy of him.
I would not give him the new sorrow of learning that I was
one of a craft which he so despises and distrusts as those
The Marble vivified.
243
' story-tellers' and novelists. No, not for the fame of Scott
—for the immortality of Shakespeare ! You may thin£ it
narrow-minded on his part. It is so, possibly—a prejudice
and a weakness which a larger culture and a fuller know-
ledge of the world would have made him outgrow long since.
But it is the prejudice and the weakness of one of the best of
men, and I, as his son, am bound to respect it. So, if you
should meet my father again, Lady Mary, will you keep my
secret for me?'
1 Faithfully, Mr German3 you may be sure of that. You
may go back to your father, and feel quite at rest on that
point.' And now she held out her hand again, with all her
better self shining in her eyes. ' He is a father to be proud
of, and I am sure he is proud of his son.'
Then he turned to take leave of Winifred.
' Thank you very much for speaking to my father on be-
half of the story-tellers, Miss Dalmaine; though I am
afraid it is too late in the day for him to alter his opinion of
them.'
He spoke lightly 3 but, as he held her hand, he could not
help the pressure that he gave, and Winifred left her hand
within his clasp. She said not a word, but the colour came
and went, and her lips moved as if she would have spoken if
she could. Perhaps Richard German saw something to give
him heart and hope when she raised her eyes to his for a
second3 for he went away with a more confident look and
a more buoyant step than he had worn at starting. Cissy
came up now with her word, when he had gone.
' I liked that old minister—or tailor, which is he ?—very
much, mamma 3' and an elfish look stole into Cissy's eyes.
' Do you think Mr Germaine—our Mr Germaine, at Car-
minster—would quite like us to know who he has for his
father ?'
* Don't say our Mr Germaine, Cissy,' said her mother,
244
The Dean s Wife.
coldly. 'I suppose, if one had given it a thought, one
might have known that this was the class from which a
Methodist minister would spring. As Mrs Johnson re-
minded me, when we first went to Carminster, " The differ-
ence between Dissenters and Church-people is almost inex-
plicable."'
She had never quoted Mrs Johnson before. But she
felt just now ' The Dean's Wife' all over. And the pride
of race, even more than of sect (for of that she had as little
as any woman who ever went to church could have), was
manifesting itself. Diehard German might be a brave man
and a noble man—he had a right, as she told him, to be
proud of his father—and if he had never asked for her
daughter's hand, she would have gloried in his friendship.
But he had asked for that hand, and, knowing his parentage,
he should never have done so. Well, they should see no
more of him now. He would see, if he had not seen it
before, the folly of attempting to renew his suit for Wini-
fred's hand; and Winifred would see clearly now, if she had
not seen it before, how hopeless such a suit must be.
' I should have thought this the last man for Mr Ger-
maine to have had as a father,' said Winifred, slowly; ' but I
do think, mamma, that he is just the very man whom we might
have expected Mr Diehard German to have had. Mamma,
do you know I feel very proud to-day ? '
' Dun on, Cissy,' said Lady Mary. The elder daughter
seemed bent on saying things that it might not be expedient
for the younger one to hear. ' What have you to be so
proud of, Winnie ? That a man, good and true in himself,
I admit, but still only the son of a small village tailor—a
man with not a drop of gentle blood in his veins—asked
the daughter of the Dean of Carminster, and the grand-
daughter of the Earl of Cash el, to be his wife ? I said
" good and true;" but would a true man have done
The Marble vivified.
245
this ? He ought, at least, to have told your father of his
family.'
* Papa said he stopped him just as he was coming to that,'
said Winifred, eagerly. ' But I am proud of him, mamma ■
I am proud of being loved by such a man ! He is good and
true, as you say. Good and true all through ! There was
no false shame when we met him in that poor cottage. See
how he honours his father; how he holds him up to you as
one who should be honoured ; though he is a poor man, work-
ing for his living a ta mean trade. And isn't it grand to
see how little he thinks of the fame he might have, com-
pared to the vexation it might give his father to know that
his son was a novelist. Mamma, I don't wish to vex you.
Of course I should never think of disobeying papa, or you ;
but still I am, and always shall be, proud that Bichard
German thought well enough of me to ask me to be his wife,
and I feel that I shall never care for anyone else as I care
for him. I shall not make myself unhappy. I don't think
I am one of those gii'ls who would die of love. I suppose I
felt it very much at first, and that had something to do with
my illness. But I am better and stronger now, and I can
look at the thing differently. I feel that it is so much to
be thankful for that I have had, that I have, the love of
Bichard German, that I ought not to murmur because we
cannot be more than lovers. Oh! mamma, there is more
goodness and nobleness in him than in a hundred such men
as papa and you would have given me to.'
Cissy came running back. She knew perfectly well why
she had been sent away. Neither mother nor sister had
ever taken her into their confidence, and yet somehow she
had guessed the whole story of Bichard German's love, and
sympathised warmly with it.
* I suppose I may come back now, mamma, if all the
secrets are told ? Let's have a run on now, Winnie.' And
246
The Dean's Wife.
when they well in front of Lady Mary, she said boldly:
' Stick to him, Win ! Never mind if his father is a tailor.
Wouldn't I have a man if he wrote such famous stories, and
put me in them !'
CHAPTER XXXVL
STIRLING CASTLE.
Is there a lovelier view in all the British Isles than that
from Stirling Castle ? All that romance and poetry, and
history—all memories of great deeds nobly done, can do to
add yet more of charm and interest are there. Bannockburn
in the distance, and the fair fertile fields stretching so peace-
fully beneath, and the grim old castle for the immediate
background, with all its records of the Stuarts and their
stormy times, and that hapless Mary to whom charm and
beauty were such poisoned gifts.
Some thoughts like these were passing through the mind
of Lady Mary Dalmaine as she sat with her daughters on
the green summit of the hill on which the castle stands.
They were just by the side of the broad walk that winds
round the building; a slender tree behind gave them some
shade, and Winifred was sketching the nearest portion of
the castle. Cissy, who could never be taught to keep still
unless quite tired out, was under orders to remain by her
mother's side ; and Lady Mary herself was dlinking in even
a deeper draught of delight than she had yet inhaled since
she left home.
That quick, intense nature of hers, which made her live at
every pore, made travelling a delight and enjoyment to her,
which a less emotional being could not realise for a moment.
She had, too, that intense power of sympathy and assimila-
tion which finds so.manv outlets in travel. She had never
Stirling Castle.
247
been to Ireland but once in her life; and then, despite her
mother, and her own English birth, she was at once an Irish-
woman. She said, and she felt at the time, that never was
beauty like that of the Emerald Isle—never a poet like
Moore—never a nation so wronged as Ireland. She la-
mented over the past glories of Merrion Square, built for
dukes and tenanted by doctors. She became the most fervid
of Home-Rulers, and rode on a jaunting-car for the first
time in her life as if she had never ascended any other vehicle.
That had been in the days of her girlhood, just after she had
first seen George Dalmaine, her father having taken it into
his head to live in his own country for a little while, and
try if Dublin was not cheaper than London. As if he could
live cheaply anywhere ! Wherever she had gone since—first
with him, then with Miss Todd—she had made the most and
the best of her travels, always meeting with things worth
seeing, people worth remembering. So at the Lakes. She had
sobered down enough to read Wordsworth and to delight in
the haunts the poet had loved, and the honour in which his
memory was held, and—if she found the {Excursion' tedious
—to say that never were nobler sonnets written than those
that Wordsworth penned. So now, in Scotland, she had
gloried in the stately beauty of Edinburgh, and the pictur-
esque gables of the Canongate, as if she had been a born
denizen of the city. As to Scott, he was her countryman—
was not his language hers ? No born Scotchwoman could
have more gloried in his fame, or come more completely than
did she, under his spell, while visiting the scenes which he
had immortalised.
What a blessed change it all was from Carminster ! She
had not had a holiday—not a real holiday—these twenty
years ! She had got away from all the dreariness, the con-
ventionalities, the gossip, the littleness, that had been bear-
ing so heavily on her. Of course, she should have to go
248
The Dean's Wife.
back to them again, but not yet—not yet! And she hardly
dared own it to herself, but she had escaped'from her husband
also. George was very good—in his way—all wives know
what is meant by ' in his way'—and he was very fond of
her of course. She had grown so much used to his love,
and, unhappily, for many years it had given her so little satis-
faction, that she had got to speaking of it as ' of course.'
But she dared not realise, even to herself, what it is for an
emotional,^sympathetic nature to be linked for life to one
who moves as if bound by fetters, lives as if all life were
reduced to a rule of three.
She had a letter from Miss Todd in her pocket, but she
had put it there unread. Of her friend herself she could
not hear too much, but her friend would have so much to
tell her of Carminster—of all the doings, little and great, of
that sleepy human beehive from which she had escaped for
a while. The letter would keep, she had said that morning
when she had left the hotel, and started with her girls for
Stirling. She would have one more day, at least, without
troubling herself with news from school.
Cissy was always fidgety when still, cross when the fidgets
had lasted too long; and at last she sprang up.
' Mamma, let us come and explore the place a little by
ourselves, and leave Winnie here to her sketching. She will
be another hour at least.'
' Do you mind being left for a little while, Winnie ?'
asked her mother.
Winifred was very busy with her sketch, very content to
be left. Lady Mary and Cissy wandered away, Cissy mak-
ing all manner of speculations and remarks upon everything
they saw. The guide had done his duty, and told them all
that lay in his beat; and now, as Cissy said, they were free
to make out things for themselves; and she led her mother
to the courtyard in front of the castle,
Stirling Castle.
249
' The guide never told us what that statue was, she said,
pointing to one of Scotland's greatest kings; 11 suppose
because he didn't begin till we had got inside the castle.'
A working-man coming past had heard her.
'That is Bruce,' he said, with a reverent pride,' looking
on Bannockburn.'
' Where you Scots beat us English so thoroughly,' said
Lady Mary, with a smile that won the man's heart at once.
' And that is Wallace's Monument,' he added, pointing to
a rugged tower in a little distance, ' looking upon Falkirk.'
Bruce and Wallace!—they were as real and true as if
they had been living to this day, unto this man. He hon-
oured them as if they were still breathing. He liked the
lady to whom he was speaking better that her cheeks flushed
and her eyes brightened as he spoke. And, indeed, she was
as proud of Bannockburn as was he. It was a brave fight,
bravely fought, and the right side had conquered, as it de-
served to do, she would have said, and Scots-and English
could clasp hands over it together, now.
When Cissy had done her best to tire her mother out by
dragging her over every part of the castle that they had ex-
plored with the guide, she kindly suggested that she might
be tired.
' And here is Queen Mary's seat to rest upon, and you
can look through the slits in the wall just as she did; and
will you read Miss Todd's letter, and tell me how my silk-
worms are getting on. Miss Todd said every time she wrote
she would let me know.'
Lady Mary took out the letter.
11 don't see anything about the silkworms, but plenty of
other things. Cissy, you've fairly tired me out. Run and
tell your sister where she will find me when she has finished
her sketch, and I'll read on till I come to the silkworms.'
Cissy ran on oW^ntly, but seeing her sister engaged in
250
The Deaths Wife.
conversation witli a gentleman she knew very well, went
back a little way and kept quiet, out of sight, for full five
minutes. Then, feeling that a young person who could be
so discreet and considerate was entitled to all the privileges
of a confidant^, went up to the pair.
' Winnie, when you have quite done, will you come to
mamma at Queen Mary's seat? But I don't think you
need hurry away, Mr German, for mamma's very tired, and
has ever such a long letter from- Miss Todd to read.'
Then she went back to her mother with such a look of con-
scious self-importance that if Lady Mary had not been absorbed
in her letter she could not have failed to have noticed it.
' I told Winny where to find you, mamma, but you can
have a good rest. I don't think she will be ready for some
time yet.'
CHAPTER XXXVII.
what galatea said to pygmalion.
Winifred had gone on placidly sketching for some little
time after her mother had left her. She looked very placid,
very contented. So much so that a passer-by, who had
paused to look at her, said to himself, that a girl who could
wear so calm a face and look as if nothing could trouble her
so long as her perspective was correct, and her drawing in
keeping, would never break her heart for any man.
' Galatea before she came down from her pedestal,' he said
to himself; ' shall I ever win her from it ?'
Galatea raised her eyes with a little frown on her fore-
head, for the sun had come round to that side of the castle,
and was staring impertinently at her. It was at the sun she
was frowning, not at this stranger who had just come up,
What Galatea said to Pygmalion.
251
for presently, when she did see him, she rose to her feet,
coloured, looked confused for a moment, then stood the pic-
ture of well-bred maidenhood.
4 Icicle !' he said to himself \ 4 and yet how could she
speak as she did to my father ?'
To her he said,—
4 Good-day, Miss Dalmaine. I had not expected the plea-
sure of seeing you so soon again.'
He held out his hand, and when she gave him hers, a
look came into her face that made him feel as if, after all,
his Galatea might be waking to life. She trembled, quivered
all over, and looked as if there was something in her heart
which she must say, but did not know how to find words to
tell it in.
No man could be quite calm, looking at such a face as
that. Could it mean that she was not so indifferent to him
as her people would have had her ? He lost his own calm-
ness and self-possession for a moment, and murmured pas-
sionately,—
41 am so glad to see you. More glad than I can say.'
4 And I am glad to see you, Mr German '—her self-posses-
sion came to her as his vanished. Not an uncommon thing in
cases like the present. 41 have been wishing to see you
again very much. I wanted—I wished,' she hesitated,
almost stammered, then with a little more impetuosity went
on, 41 wished—I was going to tell you.' Just then Cissy
came up, made her little speech and departed. The mere
sight of her sister, the feeling that her mother was near, that
at any moment her one chance of saying what she had to
say to Richard German might be taken from her, gave
Winifred almost the courage of despair. 41 wanted to
tell you, Mr German,' she said, in very low but perfectly
audible tones, and with great collectedness, 4 that when
papa told me what you had said to him on my account, I
252
The Dean's Wife.
felt very proud—that I felt still more proud and honoured
the other day, when I saw how good a man you had for a
father, and how fond he was of you. Of course in all ways
respecting the disposal of myself I must be guided by my
parents. Not a thought of ever opposing their wishes in
this has ever crossed my mind. You believe that, I hope,'
she added, with an almost austerity of maidenly dignity—
Richard German was not to think she was offering herself
to him ; ' but do believe also, even if I never see you again,
that I value what you have given me very much; that I
shall always value it. You do believe that, do you not ?'
she asked, with a little eagerness, and for one moment her
eyes were uplifted to his.
' I do believe it,' he said gravely; 1 but—but, Miss Dal-
maine—Winifred ! is the happiness of my life—after what
you have said, may I not add the happiness of yours ?—to be
sacrificed like this ? What my origin is, you know; I am
not, and never have been, ashamed of it. I am a self-made
man. I should have told the dean all if he had only given
me time ; but self-made men don't always marry in their
own sphere.'
She shook her head.
* I don't know, I don't think papa will ever change. I
had no thought of anything like that, Mr German, when I
spoke to you.'
He understood her. It was only because she thought
that all was utterly hopeless and over between them that
she had spoken as she had done. It was just that he should
take what comfort he could from the knowledge of her pride
and pleasure in his love; that he should not feel for a
moment that any disdain of his parentage could influence
her. Now that she had spoken, if he presumed too much
upon this, if he were too eager in his gratitude, he should
hcare his Galatea back into marble again. And what a con-
What Gatatea said to Pygmalion.
253
fession she had made ! How much she had told him ! So
much that a dozen deans should not keep her from him.
' I know, I know,' he said, with the tenderest reverence.
'You have been very good, and I am more grateful than I
can say. I shall think of your goodness often enough.
Nothing can deprive me of the precious words you have
spoken; and I shall never lose the hope that some day I
may hear more precious words still—some day when you
feel free to utter them. No, don't draw back, my queen !
I don't believe in the impossible. He who has won so
much from you can win everything.'
' I must go to mamma !' said the girl, hurriedly stooping
to pick up her drawing materials. Good-day, Mr German.'
He gathered pencils and sketch-book together for her.
' May I not walk with you as far as Lady Mary ? ' he
said, as if he had a perfect right to do so, and he held all
her little properties as if it were a matter of course that he
should carry them.
Presently Lady Mary saw them coming; so did Cissy.
Lady Mary rose and welcomed Mr German a little coldly.'
Had he followed them on to Scotland ? If so, good-bye
to her holiday. Though, indeed, something she had read
in her letter made her feel that it must come to an end
sooner than she had intended.
' I did not think to meet you again so soon, Lady Mary,
when I found that business for my paper sent me on to
Scotland. I could hardly believe, when my eyes first rested
on Miss Dalmaine, who it was I had the inexpressible hap-
piness of seeing.'
He dwelt on the words ' inexpressible happiness,' and
looked Lady Mary full in the face as he uttered them,
daringly, defiantly, as a man might well look who had made
up his mind that no pride of hers or of her husband's should
keep the girl on whom he had set his heart from him. He
254
The Dean's Wife.
was resolved to take her Winifred from her, and he would
do it too! She felt instinctively sure of that. And her
heart warmed to him for his boldness. Do not all women
love a bold wooer ? And she could have loved him as her
son for other things. If only he had been born a gentle-
man. Perhaps, too, if only he had not been Grantley Ger-
maine's brother. But she took no notice of the flag thus
waved in her face : the manner in which those two words
showed that he still loved, still hoped, and wished her to
know that he did both. She only answered with some
commonplace, and then he took his leave, and she said to
Winifred, as quietly as if no such person as Mr Richard
German was in existence,—
' My dear, I have had a long letter from Miss Todd; you
may read it in the train if you like. And we can't go on
to the Highlands, as we had hoped to do, for she speaks as
if your father was not quite so well as when we left him.'
CHAPTER X X X Y111.
miss todd's letter'.
When they were in the train, Lady Mary put, as a matter
of course, Miss Todd's letter into Winifred's hands. That
Avas generally the custom with these two. There was per-
feet confidence between them. If Lady Mary had a number
of letters, the chances were that she would tell Winifred to
begin opening some, and tell her who they were from, while
she read the others. If Winifred had any letters, she
always came with them to her mother. So now, Avith
(You'll see what she says about papa,' the letter was put
into Winifred's hands.
Miss Todcts Letter.
255
{My Dearest Mary,—Are you never coming back?
What an endless holiday you are having ! Does it feel like
the old times, when you and I went wandering about the
world together—two ladies errant ? How we did enjoy our-
selves, to be sure ! But I am an old woman now, and you
are a matron and the wife of a dignitary of the Church, with
two daughters by your side. Ah ! life has many disappoint-
ments; but I hope that some day it will gratify this hope
of mine—that you and I shall go off together, anywhere—
Paris, Rome, anywhere—so long as it is just our two selves.
I shouldn't mind the girls so much if your motherly heart
could not bear the parting with them; but not the dean!
I respect your husband infinitely, but one has to be on one's
good behaviour with him, and one does not want that when
one is out for a holiday.
' Now for news. The fifth Miss Johnson is married. Now
there are only three of them left on hand. The bridegroom,
as of course you know, is the gentleman whom a fair maiden
we are both very fond of might have had and didn't. They
do say, but I think that must be only one of the wicked
little stories that are always flying about such correct places
as Carminster—but they do say, that the engagement ring
he gave her, a very fine diamond half-hoop, for I've seen it,
was bought for that fair maiden before she had accepted
him—he felt so confident of success—and that she refused
him and the ring together. Ask Winifred if she can throw
any light on this story ?
'How well the Miss Johnsons are performing their mis-
sions! They were brought up to marry, and they do it,
one after another, in a way that delights their mother, who,
I know, pities all old maids as much as some old maids pity
a great many wives. There is no question with these girls
about the husband, so long as he has tolerable means and is
of average character. It is marriage they want ■ and one
256
The Dean's Wife.
husband will do as well as another. They mean to marry
somebody, from their cradles; and they carry their inten-
tions out at the earliest opportunity. But do you think,
Mary, amongst all the Miss Johnsons—amongst a thousand
such—that there will be one who will ever know what a
true marriage really is ?
' We miss you very much at Carminster. We want some-
body to talk about. Lady Mary's dresses; Lady Mary's
doings; Lady Mary's sayings; and, latterly, Lady Mary's
daughters, have done a great deal to enliven this most re-
spectable but slightly stagnant city. And I think we are
really fond of you, though we do so much fault-finding.
You could do, and have done, at Carminster more than any
other woman. But there is one thing you must never
attempt to do again: take up a Methodist minister ? I
know the dean and the bishop had quite as much to do with
the affair as you had; if he had turned out a success, they
would have taken the full credit of it; but as he has turned
out a failure, why you may have the credit of that.
I If the man had been any other than what he is; if he
had been such an one as his successor, who is working side
by side with Mr Warne at the Working Men's College he
is bent on founding, and has given three lectures at the
Mechanics' on geology—what different conclusions Mr
Warne and he must draw from their geological studies ! I
wonder if they ever argue in private about the first chapter of
Genesis ?—well, between them, they are humanising some
of the men in this town, which is a great deal more than
the lectures on Swinburne and K-ossetti will ever do.
II fancy Mr Germaine thinks himself a little ill-used in
this matter. He went to the Church partly for the sake of
position, partly to escape the many little worries that a
Dissenting minister, unless blessed with a very Christ-like
temper, is apt to meet with. He has no liking for the poor—
Miss Todd's Letter.
257
no sympathy with these uncultured natures, whose homely
utterances jar on his gentility. He thought to escape from
them by joining the Church ; and the bishop has placed
him in the poorest district of the city, thinking he was the
very man for the place ! Was there ever so square a peg
in so round a hole ?
• He came the other day to fetch his children—I had had
them for the day. I am keeping my promise to you in
looking after them. So he came for the little ones, just as
he comes to the deanery, only with a difference—I am
not Lady Mary. And he was full of wrath. He had just
come from the bedside of a dying woman, and what vent
his irritability had not found on her, he poured out on me—
with all due politeness, you understand : I daresay the
politeness was not thought needful in her case.
' He had obtained, with some trouble to himself, as he
informed me, an order for this woman's admittance as an in-
door patient to the hospital. As I knew he got the order
from you, I failed to see the trouble. She was very ill of
some internal complaint. Finding her case was hopeless,
the poor creature returned home. Hearing what she had
done, Mr Germaine took it for granted that she was cured,
and offered up thanks in church for her recovery. Three
days after, she died. He came to see her the day before
her death. She had sent for him; and, by way of comfort,
he had lectured her on the folly of returning home to die,
when she would have saved her husband so much expense
by remaining in the hospital, especially as he had had all
the trouble of obtaining an order for her admission from
Lady Mary Dalmaine. How that man does like to mouth
your name!
' Well, I scolded him : I couldn't help it. And I dare-
say I wasted my words; for if a man is so obtuse that he is
awake to nothing but the fact of his own exceeding refine-
258
The Dean's Wife.
ment and culture, his love of fine names and fine people—
I don't mean you, Mary—how can one wake him up to feel
that there are human hearts and sensibilities even amongst
charwomen and costermongers ? However, I told him that
it was not an unusual thing for the poor to prefer, at any
loss of comfort to themselves, dying in their own homes;
and that, though his own personal experience might not
bear out the fact, there have been cases in which husbands
have denied themselves even necessaries that their wives
might have all needful comforts in their last illnesses.
Well, we parted on our usual friendly terms. I think he
felt that last stroke. He tolerates me, because I am Lady
Mary's friend. I tolerate him because of his children, and
the promise you and I made to their mother.
'Now I must tell you about the dean. I don't think he
is quite himself. You know I promised you that, as he
never complains of ill-health, I would look after him. Well,
he does not complain now, but he is not quite what he
should be. It is not much—it may be only that he misses
you all. The deanery is a fearfully dull place now its
womenkind are away. I don't think it is at all necessary
that you should return sooner than you had intended; and
I should not have told you of any change in the dean, had
it not been for my promise. But I did promise, and I
have told you that he is certainly not so well as when you
went away.
' So now good-bye! This is a long letter, like one of
those talks we have now and then—not very often—be-
tween the lights over our afternoon tea; only the talk has
been all on my side. Love to the girls.—Yours most
affectionately,
'Jane Todd.'
' I shall go home to-morrow,' said Lady Mary.
The Dean leaves Cai-minster.
259
CHAPTER XXXIX.
the dean leaves carminster.
The dean was looking ill and feeling ill when his wife and
daughters returned to Carminster. Indeed, he had not had
a very happy life of late—as no man can have who has mis-
taken his vocation. And, late in the day though it was to
feel it, still the dean did feel that that was the case with him.
If he had married a commonplace, conventional woman,
perhaps he might never have felt this as he felt it now. But
his wife, when great griefs had come upon them both, had
turned to him for help and comfort, which he had felt wholly
unable to give her. Then it was he had learned how weak
and poor is an educated acquiescence in formal doctrines,
which one is supposed to believe in, and to preach for so
many hundreds a-year and a certain social position. His
wife had gone her own way since then, and he had remained
in his. Somehow it had seemed to him as if they would
never again be truly one, since that hour when, as if from
the very darkness of the grave, she had looked up and
asked for light, and he, priest though he was, had none
to give her.
He might have gone on, placidly content with the routine
of his office, taking it for granted, as some others do, that
all was well with him, if it had not been for the feeling that
this want of belief, of firm, earnest conviction on his part,
was the real barrier between his wife and himself. The
earnestness, the truth, the passion, of the emotional nature
to which he had linked himself forbade this. He could
have been contented to have been one more of the agnostics
in our pulpits, had it not been for the conviction that the
woman he loved held such agnosticism in him as a sin
260
The Dean's Wife.
against himself, in that he was leading an untrue, un-
worthy life.
If, like Mr Warne, he could have openly gone over to the
side of Rationalism and Liberality; appealed to people's
minds if he could not save their souls, seeing that he thought
no such salvation necessary ; helped the working man in his
home if he could not get him to church ; and insisted upon
it that, whether children were baptised or not, they must
go to school, she might have gone with him to some extent.
But he was not a poor man's parson—he was not fit to
be a parson at all; he was cold, argumentative, rational;
but all his arguments, all his reasonings, were nothing when
his wife had come to him in despair and agony, wailing for
her dead. Ten words from that homely Methodist minister
she had met in the mountains, spoken as he would have
spoken them, would have outweighed all her husband's faint
assurances that there must be a hereafter because the
Church said so.
And those sermons of his which had shown so much
learning, which had been so well argued out and reasoned
—had they ever won a soul to God, turned a sinner from
his ways ? Did he believe in them even while he uttered
them ? His wife had once asked him that question. Now
he was asking it himself. And the answer was a dreary
one, which he hardly dared look in the face.
' There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half your creeds.'
Yes, that is true enough, but the doubt should be honest.
The doubter should be in such a position that his disbelief
should involve no discredit. If the dean had only remained
in his original position he might still in all honour have
been a rationalist or an agnostic. And his wife's heart
might still have trusted in him. As it was, if ever he had
The Demi leaves Carminster. 261
Lad her love and trust, he felt that long since they had gone
from him.
Now, a gentleman well on in middle life does not fall into
a decline or pine away with a broken heart, either because
he finds he has mistaken his vocation or because he thinks
his wife does not care for him as much as he would have her
do. But the deanery had been cheerless without wife and
children, and the dean's thoughts had been gloomy ones, and
then he caught cold, and the cold hung about him, as colds
will do when the sufferer has not sufficient stamina or vital
energy to throw them off; and so it had happened that Miss
Todd had thought it only right and proper to write to Lady
Mary as she had written.
Then his wife came hurrying back to him. Through all
the clouds and the coldness that had come between them she
knew enough of her husband to feel that he would go on
suffering mutely sooner than interfere with any pleasure of
hers. He would not write, he would say nothing; that she
knew, and so acted on Miss Todd's advice, and was thankful
when she came back that she had done so.
The dean had had unbroken health for years, and now he
had come down with a run, and seemed unable to get up
again. He did not complain, and formerly he had been
very querulous and fretful about mere trifles. Now he was
more patient and gentle than his wife had ever known him
to be, and, accordingly, her solicitude on his account was
redoubled. It was not in Lady Mary's nature to be other-
wise than kind to any one in suffering. She had more ten-
derness and affection for her husband now than she had felt
since the first year of their marriage. The little grievances,
the clouds, the coldnesses that had arisen between them, were
put away by her. She was anxious and unhappy on his ac-
count, the more so that his ailment was one that the doctors
could only meet by prescribing change of air and scene.
262
The Dean's Wife.
'It's always fighting with shadows when they can say
nothing more than that,' said Lady Mary to Miss Todd.
' Why can't they tell me at once what is the matter with
him ? '
' Because they don't know it themselves,' said Miss Todd.
' But they are right in what they prescribe. Take your
husband anywhere, so long as it is away from the deanery,
Mary, if you wish to save something more than his life—his
reason!'
' His reason ! My husband's brain affected ! Why, if
ever there was a mind so perfectly regulated, so well hung
that by no possibility could it go a hair's-breadth wrong, it
is the dean's !' cried Lady Mary. 'You or I are much
more likely to lose our mental balance than he is.'
'Well, perhaps I have used too bold a word; but this
place does not suit him ; get him away, Mary-—get him away
as soon as you can, or you will have him morbid—melan-
choly—something of the kind. There, don't look frightened;
don't mind an old woman's fancies, but—get him away.'
But the dean was loath to go. He was in that state of
nervous depression when both mind and body shrink from
the slightest exertion. If he went away, he said, he did not
know where to go, and at last the thing was decided for him.
His brother had gone down to the south coast after a severe
attack of bronchitis, which, in yielding, had made way for
the gout—a family complaint of the Dalmaines, and apt to
terminate unpleasantly. The dean was telegraphed for, and
nervous morbidness, hypochondria, all fled, as such ailments
are prone to do for a time, at the approach of more apparent
peril to one so nearly connected with him.
He would go at once; he had not seen Frederick for three
years—of course he would go. He was quite well enough.
It was absurd to talk of a cold when Frederick was dying
of gout, as his father had died before him.
The Dean leaves Carminster. 263
Should Lady Mary go with him ? she asked ; he was not
fit to go alone. And he laughed at that, and said he had
never felt better in his life. He should like to have her
with him; but in a furnished seaside house there might
be scanty accommodation—and—and—Julia, at the best of
times, was never too fond of visitors.
He really did seem so well that his wife thought it was
absurd for her to insist on going with him, and she knew
that Lady Dalmaine would not be too desirous that she
should be her guest. Long since the two sisters-in-law had
found that they agreed best at a distance. So she contented
herself with looking after the packing of her husband's port-
manteau, taking care that his flannels and linen were duly
aired, giving him a hundred minute directions as to the care
he should take of himself—directions which he would be
sure to forget, but yet which he felt flattered in receiving.
She cut his sandwiches herself, filled his sherry flask, made
him take some cough lozenges—he hated the things, but lie
loved her for thinking of them—and then she drove him
down herself to the station, and stood waiting by the rail-
way carriage to see him off.
' Good-bye, Mary,' he said, and held her hand as if he
could not bear to part with it.
He might have been going away for a twelvemonth in-
stead of a week or two ; and he might have been a husband
in the first year of his wedded life, instead of the twentieth,
for the fulness of love that was in him.
' Good-bye, George,' she said in her softest, most caressing
tones. ' Take care of yourself. And when you come back,'
she added, with a little laugh, ' you and I will have a journey
by ourselves—another honeymoon, you know,' she whispered.
Then the steam-engine gave its horrible whistle, and hus-
band and wife were parted—for a longer day than either
thought for.
264
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XL.
A OHUBCH DIGNITARY.
The dean settled himself comfortably in the corner of his
carriage, took up the Times, and tried to read it. But his
thoughts were with his home, with his wife and daughters,
and with the invalid to whom he was hastening. He felt
depressed at leaving home, anxious and concerned about his
brother. He was a man upon whom early home ties weighed
very strongly. If his brother had not been all that a brother
should be, still there was the relationship, the tie of blood
between them; and now that Frederick was ill—danger-
ously ill—it was not the time to remember past unkind-
nesses. So with his wife. He always loved her most when
away. The want of reticence, of ' dignity,' as he expressed
it to himself, ceased to jar upon him, and the coldness with
which at times she enwrapped herself as in a veil was less
felt.
And then his girls. It was very hard to be carried away
from them just as they had returned to him; and "Winifred,
too, with renewed health and spirits, looking as if she had
quite forgotten ' that fellow.' Lady Mary had told him of
the meeting by Stirling Castle.
' He will never give her up,' she said; ' and if she won't
give him up, what is to be done ? '
' We shall see,' said the dean, declining to commit him-
self. ' There is plenty of time before her.'
She had also told him of their meeting with Richard
German's father, and at first the dean had been very wroth.
* A fellow coming from such a place as that to look up to
my girl—to any girl who is in the position of a lady.'
' He not only looks up, but she looks down,' said Lady
A Church Dignitary.
265
Mary,—' that is to say, she will never look on any one else
as she does on him. We shall never see our Winnie mated,
George.'
The dean had made no answer, as his wife had hoped he
would do. Sometimes she had felt that if he would yield,
she on her part would give way; that love was a great
thing, and Richard German was a true man, let his father
be what he might. But though the dean had not spoken,
there was something in his face that made his wife feel very
sure that, come the worst to the worst, her girl should not
die of a broken heart through her father's sternness.
The dean, finding that the Times gave him no refuge from
his anxious thoughts, turned towards his fellow-passengers.
There were only two. A bluff, hearty-looking man, with
keen eyes, a firm under-jaw, and a powerful frame; a man
who might, from the respectability of his appearance, be a
butler taking his holiday, a detective in private clothes, but
who was certainly not a gentleman—not at all the man one
expects to meet with in a first-class railway carriage. His
companion was opposite to him. He was carefully dressed
in clerical costume,—much better dressed than the dean,
who, though he certainly looked like a clergyman, would
have been far more likely to have given a stranger the im-
pression that he was a curate in needy circumstances than
a dignitary of the Church, with a fair private fortune of
his own.
This gentleman evidently inclined to the former opinion
of the dean, for be offered him the Guardian with the bland
benevolence of one who feels that he is conferring a favour
on a poorer man.
* A good paper, a very good,' he said. ' One that we
ought all to support.'
' I see it every week,' said the dean.
' Ah ! of course; so do most people who, like myself—
2 66
The Dean's Wife.
and I suppose I may say you—are in orders. I have read
it every week regularly since I was first ordained. Sound,
sound ! that's what it is, sir, and that's what we none of us
are now-a-days, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to a
poor curate looking out for another place, like yourself.'
' Thank you,' said the dean loftily. Then his eye met
that of the respectable butler-like man opposite, and that
person winked—it was unmistakable—actually winked at
him ! The dean did not like his company at all. He made
up his mind to get out at the next station and select another
carriage. Presently, while the clerical gentleman was
poring over the Guardian, his companion looked at the dean
and tapped his forehead. Then the dean understood his
position, but did not feel it any the pleasanter. He was shut
up with a madman and his keeper. All the more reason
that he should shift his quarters at the first opportunity.
{When I was Archbishop of Canterbury,' said the insane
gentleman, presently, ' I insisted that all the bishops should
take a dozen copies of the Guardian each, and distribute
them amongst the more necessitous clergy of their dioceses.
But an archbishopric is a great care—a great care. I gave
it up, and contented myself with being Bishop of London.
But that was too much ; the fogs at Fulham mounted to my
brain; sometimes,' he said, with a pathetic wistfulness, ' I
feel as if I should never get them out of it. So I thought
less work, even if there was less pay, would suit me better,
and I took up with being a simple curate, like yourself, in
the country. But I couldn't make both ends meet. I was
nearly starved ! They sent me old clothes from the Clergy
Aid Society, but they wouldn't fit, and they were so shabby
—not quite so bad as yours, though; so I thought I must
have a decent coat if I kept in the Church, and decided
on coming to this part of the world and settling here. I'm
the Dean of Carminster now.'
A Church Dignitary.
267
' Oh!'
The dean began to doubt the speaker's insanity, and to
question whether he was not himself the victim of a very
impertinent hoax. He sent a glance of fierce inquii'y to the
supposed keeper opposite, and was answered by a nod and a
low 1 That's the way of it. Been in the Church for the last
five years, all that time in one asylum or another. Quiet,
as you see, sir. Not a bit of harm in him; his friends
thought change of air might be of service, an' I'm taking
him down to our place at Bingley. We've a name for these
kind of cases. I say—quiet there ! What's up now ?'
The clerical gentleman had lowered the window, and was
thrusting his head out of it.
' I say, guard, stop this! Hi, there ! you must pull up.
We're past Carminster, and I'm to dine at the palace.'
He tried to open the door, but the keeper was too much
for him.
1 You just sit still and hold your tongue,' he said gruffly;
' I was told you were one of the quiet ones, but this doesn't
look much like it. Lucky I brought these pretty things ;
I suppose you've seen something of the sort before? I
won't use them if you behave like a gentleman, but I will,
by gom ! if you don't.'
He produced a pair of handcuffs, and looked very signifi-
cantly at his charge, who shrank back into his corner,
cowering before the stern look bent on him. He was
frightened, evidently ; the handcuffs were not unfamiliar
things to him, and yet, with the fear, there was a furtive
look of cunning, a look that the dean did not like at all, but
a look that was the last thing his memory took in, as a hor-
rible smell filled the air, a dense smoke pervaded the car-
riage, and there were shrieks, and groans, and cries for help,
and a sudden dash against the carriage door by the madman,
the keeper, and the dean, pell-mell.
268
The Dean's Wife.
Anything to escape from being burned alive or torn to
atoms, as in that awful tragedy of Abergele.
This was a repetition of those horrors on a smaller scale.
The railway company, with their usual eminent foresight,
had taken amidst their luggage a case of dynamite, and that
evening sun shone on a wreck of carriages, charred and
broken; and, worse still, on wrecks that there would be no
retrieving—on mutilated, shapeless things that once were
men and women; on forms so burned and dismembered
that those who had loved them best in life would never
know them again. That was the end of that day's work—
—of the railway journey which had carried George Dal-
maine to his doom.
CHAPTER XLL
how things went on.
' If he had only died at home !'
If he had only died at home ! Yes, that was the crown-
ing bitterness in the cup of horror held to the lips of Lady
Mary. If she had but been with her husband at the last.
If she could have nursed him in his last illness, held his
hand in his last agony, seen his glazing eyes turn on her in
mute farewell, it would have been some comfort. But to
have him snatched from her like this ! Without a word,
without a look. Gone into the darkness and the cold;
hurried, torn away without a word.
There was no bringing him home, either to the vaults of
the cathedral where he had officiated, or to the little village
churchyard where he had so often read the Church's words
of hope and comfort over lowly graves. Who was to dis-
tinguish, amidst all that charred, battered humanity, dis-
How Things went on.
269
membered and despoiled of all that it had been in life,
which shapeless fragments once were part of the living man
George Dalmaine ? All that humanity and decency could
do was to collect the blackened limbs and trunks, and, bury-
ing them in one common grave, erect a stone to the memory
of those who had perished, because the railway officials had
thought fit to yoke a luggage train on to a passenger one.
So that George Dalmaine's wife and daughters could take
no last look of their dead; there was no grave for them to
weep over • nothing, nothing but the memory of that last
kind look at parting, that wave of the hand which they
were never to press again.
One does not know how the first days after such a shock
are passed. It is all a horror, a darkness; something too
terrible ever to be revealed. The days go on into night,
and the night brightens into day, and the heart beats and
the pulses throb under all this dull, deadening pain, and at
last we come out quivering, bruised, bleeding, but still feel-
ing that we have yet our lives to live, and that the world
around us is still going on the same as ever.
So it was Lady Mary emerged from the first awful gloom
of her widowhood into the grey, sunless atmosphere of every-
day life. She had to think of her girls, to go on living,
though the husband and father had been taken from them
You may say, was the task so hard, since she had never
loved this man as he had loved her ? All the harder. To
a generous soul, full, perfect love is such contentment. If
she had given her husband all the love that a wife should
give, she felt as if she could better bear his loss. But
she had not done this, and now it seemed as if she had
wronged him infinitely. All the little faults, the caprices,
the shortcomings of the dean were forgotten now. It
seemed as if she had never known another and an earlier
love ; all memory of that great grief of her youth seemed so
270
The Dean's Wife.
completely blotted out in this new sorrow. And in tliis
sorrow there was the sting of self-reproach, which there had
not been before. She had not loved one-half enough ! She
had been a niggard, weighing and calculating the affection
which shoiild have been given without measure. The dean
was faultless now. Death threw a veil over every imperfec-
tion. Nothing was remembered but the great love which
she had never paid back in full.
Miss Todd came to the front, as she always did in time of
trouble. Of course there were many arrangements to be
made : the deanery to be left, and another home sought for.
Lady Mary clung to her old friend in her desolation, much
as her girls in their turn clung to her; so it was settled
that their home, at least for a time, should be together.
Miss Todd had but to give three months' notice, and her
little house was off her hands, so that she looked about at
once for suitable quarters for herself and Lady Mary, and
a pretty house with a moderate garden, on the outskirts of
the city, was taken for their joint occupation. Mrs John-
son had suggested travelling, but Lady Mary shrunk from
that. She did not want to leave a place so full of memories
of her dear dead husband. It would seem like wishing to
forget; and remembrance, even though remembrance pierced
her heart, was all that she could give him now. Everyone
was full of kindness and sympathy. The tragedy was so
awful, so different from an ordinary death; and it was a
comfort to be with those who had known her husband and
spoke kindly of him. So it was settled for a time, at least,
Lady Mary and her daughters would remain in the neigh-
bourhood of Carminster and share their home with Miss
Todd.
Somebody else came to Carminster to be comforted by
the presence of Lady Mary, as she expressed it. This was
Lady Dalmaine. Sir Frederick had succumbed to the gout,
Winifred's Letter.
271
and had died two days after that awful journey of his
brother's. People were civil enough to say that the shock
of his brother's fate had something to do with it; but as
Sir Frederick had never cared enough for any one being in
the world but himself to be greatly shocked by anything
that might befall him, we may give the gout the credit of
his demise. Lady Dalmaine had little but her settlements.
Like his father, Sir Frederick had not troubled himself to
make a will, always saying he had taken good care of his
wife when he married her, and she would have enough with
what the law gave her of his personality. As Sir Frederick
had had the land-hunger on him, he had added acre to acre
as fast as he could, so that there was a fine estate for the
next heir, but not a very large provision for Lady Dalmaine.
And the next heir under the entail was in India, a wealthy
man, high in office, with a baronetcy that he had won for
himself; a widower without children, and not at all anxious
to hurry back to take possession of his new belongings. He
had written to Lady Dalmaine, requesting her to make the
Hall her home till he returned; but my lady considered
she could not afford to do so, and that Carminster, where
her dear husband's brother had been so well known and
respected, and where her dear sister was still staying, would
be the best place for her.
So she came to add one more to the dowagers and
spinsters directly or indirectly connected with the cathe-
dral set. Lady Mary tolerated her, but she could not be
really cordial. Not even the grief which, according to Lady
Dalmaine, they shared in common could make her that.
She could not forget, and she could not forgive her sister-
in-law the fact, that the first bitterness between her husband
and herself had been caused by her. But Lady Dalmaine
only saw just what suited her. She could not shine in Lon-
don as she had shone. Indeed, she had never found her
272
The Dean's Wife.
way into very exalted circles there, and she would not go
on living at Harkley with diminished state; so she came to
Carminster, where Lady Mary in her own right, and as a
dean's widow, was still a person of no small importance,
and took up her residence in one of the good houses in the
Close, and was very friendly with the Honourable Miss Flint,
who snubbed and patronised her in turns. You may be sure
she had found out all about the father who had been first a
pawnbroker and then a bill-discounter, rode in her carriage,
borrowed her books, ate her dinners, and in return gave her
the entree of her house on Tuesdays, and regaled her, along
with all the other haute noblesse of Carminster, on weak tea
and stale bread-and-butter.
And so the stream of life flowed on; tame, dull, and
commonplace to all appearance as ever, for all the awful
tragedy that had whirled husband and father away from
his dear ones.
CHAPTER XLIL
Winifred's letter.
It was two months since the dean had gone on that awful
journey of his—two months, and Lady Mary sat alone in
the drawing-room of her new house. Everything was
bright and pretty, as of old. The treasures of the deanery
and Miss Todd's own share, combined. The windows of the
room looked on a garden bright with early autumn flowers,
and the September sun was pouring down his beams on all;
golden roses, purple dahlias, crimson hollyhocks; lighting
up, too, the buhl and the china, the pictures and carvings
of the room where Lady Mary sat, but throwing into deeper
gloom the sable folds of the widow's dress she wore.
WinifrecPs Letter.
273
It all seemed such a mockery to her—the flowers, the
sunshine, the pretty home; she sickened of it all. To have
sat in sackcloth and ashes, mourning her dead, would have
been more congenial—her dead, whom she had not loved
one-half enough in life, but who was so dear now he was
gone. She sat, with listless hands folded in her lap, looking
vacantly out of the window and seeing nothing, listening,
though she hardly knew that she was listening, for a step to
come that her better reason told her would never come again.
All the glow and the brightness had left her beauty. She
was pale and wan, a shadow of her former self. The dean
might have been satisfied could he have looked on her now.
He had never thought he would be mourned like this.
Presently Winifred came in, looking paler and fairer than
ever in her mourning robes, and crept up to her mother's side.
' I have brought you something that I think you ought to
see, mamma. It came some weeks back—soon after dear
papa—but I did not like to bring it to you sooner; it
seemed as if I had no right to trouble you. I have not
answered it, of course ; I would not do that without show-
ing it to you. But there should be no secrets between us—
least of all now.
She offered her mother a letter, and Lady Mary took it
almost mechanically; then she roused herself by an effort,
and read it through. It was from Richard German.
He had written it as soon as he heard of the dean's death
—written it with his heart full of pity for the girl he loved.
He told her in it how he felt for her grief; that she could
know no sorrow he did not share, with more to the same
purport. Nothing of love as such, but much of tenderness
and sympathy,—the letter of a strong man, who would have
gone to the world's end to render help, if help had been
possible.
Lady Mary's tears fell fast as she read it.
s
2;4
The Dean's Wife.
' He is good !' she said. ' He has a true heart and a
tender.'
She recognised the nobleness, the integrity of this letter.
There was nothing in it the whole world might not have
seen. A friend, who had no hope that ever by any chance
could he be more than friend, might have sent it. He would
take no advantage of the father's death to press his suit upon
the daughter; but he -must let her have whatever comfort
and solace the knowledge of his sympathy might give.
Then she read the letter again, and in her heart she could
not but own that the writer was one of whose love a girl
might indeed be proud. And love was so great a thing—
the greatest thing in all the world, it seemed to her now.
Oh, if she could but have given her husband such a love as
her girl felt for Richard German ! She would have sorrow
to endure, but it would be sorrow without remorse. She
gave the letter back to Winifred.
4 It must have been a comfort to you, dear. You would
like to answer it. Tell him I have read his letter, and I
thank him very much for the kind way in which he speaks
of your dear father and myself.'
Then Winifred went away with her precious letter—the
first love-letter she had ever had in all her life. And yet it
was not a love-letter either, written, too, as it was, with the
very shadow of death brooding over them all. Her mother
had given her permission to answer it, but Winifred felt
half-scared when she sat down to do so. What should she
say to him ? How should she write ? Did he expect to hear
from her? Would he think it forward of her to write?
Her mother would not have told her to write if there had
been any likelihood of that. She herself, when the letter
had first come, had felt it called for an answer. Then she
read Richard German's epistle again, and the tears rained
from her eyes as the pitiful words woke up her great grief
WinifrecPs Letter.
275
again. But they gave her courage too. The writer was, as
her mother said, so good, so tender. A girl need fear no
misinterpretation who trusted in him. So she wrote,—
c Dear Mr German,—I was very pleased to hear from
you. Our trouble has been so very great, and your sym-
pathy was very welcome. We miss dear papa every day and
every hour. It seems as if we should never get over our
loss. And mamma suffers terribly. It seems as if she would
never be her own old self again. I gave her your letter to
read, and she wished me to thank you for the kind words in
which you spoke of dear papa, and your sympathy with her
great bereavement. I thank you, too, myself. In sorrow
such as ours there seems no comfort like the kindness of
friends.—Yours—'
Then she hesitated. He had addressed her as formally
as she had him, as, 'Dear Miss Dalmaine;' but he had
signed himself, ' Always and ever your devoted friend.'
She could not do that, so she took refuge in commonplace
—commonplace with just the chill off, that is, and wrote
herself his—'Very truly,
'Winifred Dalmaine.'
He understood it all, and kissed the pretty old-world
name again and again.
' Mine very truly—yes, I will keep you to that—mine
more truly than you think for !'
He would not have had her a shade less coy or less
reserved. It was not a time to talk of love now j but he
would wait, and wait on. All in good time, and Winifred
Dalmaine should be his, as he had for years meant her
to be.
2 ;6
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XLIIL
two widows.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good—that most
veracious of proverbs was fully borne out in the awful
catastrophe that had lately befallen the Dalmaines. Mr
Grantley Germaine did not quote this proverb to himself.
It was too vulgar for his aesthetic taste. But still the spirit
of the proverb came to sustain and cheer him under the
many and increasing difficulties that beset him in his in-
cumbency of St Thomas.
The dean had departed this life. Mr Germaine was sure
that he had never wished he should do so ; and, to do him
justice, he had not. It had been an event beyond all
reasonable expectation. The dean had had such good
health, led such a quiet, rational life, that, if one had given
it a thought, one would have counted on his living to be
eighty, at least. And he was gone• hurried away ; vanished
into darkness ; blown out like the flame of a candle; ex-
tinguished like a falling star : all these metaphors Mr Ger-
maine made use of in a sermon which he preached on the
occasion—a sermon which made many people shed tears,
and an abstract of which was printed in the Carminster
News. Indeed, from every pulpit there had gone forth
voices of mourning for the dean. It was altogether such a
horrible thing!
When railways blew deans to pieces, society, as Miss
Flint said, was shattered to the centre. The Queen herself
would not be safe, next. When the mighty are fallen, a
general insecurity is felt amidst every class. If a dozen
accidents had happened to excursion trains—especially if
they had been travelling on a Sunday—they would not
Two Widows,
217
have made one-half the stir that did this disaster which had
befallen a cathedral dignitary.
The horror, the suddenness, the appalling swiftness of the
tragedy—all were dwelt on very fully by Mr Germaine, and
he realised them all in a manner Miss Flint and others of
the cathedral set, who took it almost as a personal affront
that such a disaster should have befallen a dean, could never
have done. But still there was this fact: dreadful as was
the catastrophe, things would have been very much worse
if Lady Mary had been travelling with the dean. As it
was, she was left a widow; and time might prove her not
wholly inconsolable.
' And why should he not console her?' Grantley Ger-
maine drew himself proudly up before the glass, and asked
himself that question. He was handsome and aristocratic
in his appearance. There was not, to all seeming, a better
gentleman in all Carminster. As to the dean—cold, badly
dressed, a formalist, stiff, unattractive—beyond the natural
shock which would pass away in time, it was impossible
that Lady Mary could mourn his loss very long. Grantley
Germaine was her equal now—socially, at least, on the
same platform. If he had remained in that wretched Old
Weigh Street Chapel, of course the thing would have been
impossible. But he had come out of that, and gone in for
all the good things that gentility gives to its followers. He
was a rising man. He was not going to stop long in this
wretched hole—Tasmania. London was his sphere, a
bishopric the prize that awaited him, and, once married to
Lady Mary, preferment would be sure to come. She was
a few years older than himself; but what did that matter ?
She knew how to dress, and women with her type of beauty
looked handsome at sixty. Hers was a beauty that would
see one generation after another of pink and white pretty
girls grow sallow and meagre, and fade off into plainness, if
278
The Dean's Wife.
they kept .single, after the first disappointment, imaginary
or otherwise, or, if they married, after the first baby. No;
of all the women in this world, Lady Mary was the one for
him, and Fate, in dealing so cruelly by the dean, had dealt
not unkindly by Grantley Germaine.
Of course, for months to come he must breathe no hint
of his hopes. She must wear her weeds and weep her tears
for a certain time. Propriety required that. Women al-
ways thought they were sorry when a husband was taken
from them, whether they really were so or not. But there
could be no real heart-break in this case. The dean had
not been a man to call forth the love of such a woman as
Lady Mary.
There were the daughters, too—one quite old enough to
be married. Most likely she would be so before very long.
Cicely was a pert little thing, who would be better at
boarding-school. He should take care she went there as
soon as he was her father-in-law. And there were his own
children. Well, Lady Mary had always been very good to
them, and they could go to school too, if she wished it. In-
deed, it would be much better that they did so. The ex-
pense could easily be met when he had Lady Mary's purse
to draw upon.
Mr Germaine had ascertained that the lady of whom he
was thinking so tenderly had been left very well endowed
by her first husband. All his property was left to her un-
conditionally, for her lifetime, to be divided equally be-
tween her daughters at her death, ' I dare say she has a
little property of her own,' thought Mr Germaine. ' That
most likely is at her own disposal. Then there is no doubt
but that she will see the propriety of insuring her life. It
is what a woman should always do when her income dies
with her, and she is likely to leave her husband in less
affluent circumstances than she has shared with him.'
Two Widows.
279
Mr Germaine had never insured his own life for the sake
of his former wife; but then, as we all know, men don't
always apply the same rules to themselves which they think
so suitable for women.
Lady Mary's income, indeed, was a very comfortable
one. The dean had always been a careful man, and his
little investments had turned out very fortunate ones; so
that she was a much richer woman than her sister-in-law,
Lady Dalmaine. But she was living very simply and quietly
at present. Miss Todd had pronounced herself unequal to
the management of an establishment such as had been
maintained at the deanery, and had a horror of indoor men-
servants. So Maria was promoted to the post of parlour-
maid, and the butler and footmen who had served the dean
were dismissed with a year's wages. There was a gardener,
and a boy for dirty work, but the horses were put out at
livery, and the stable-keeper found a coachman when re-
quired. Lady Dalmaine, with half Lady Mary's income,
kept up far more state and style. ' She knew what was
due to her position,' she told Miss Flint; ' which poor
Mary had never done. And who could expect it, when
they knew what a man her father had been, and poor
George had married her almost out of charity. There
was no knowing what would have become of her if he had
not done so.'
Mr Germaine had written to Lady Mary, soon after the
dean's death, the kindest, best worded of letters. Nothing,
Miss Todd, who read the letter, said, could be nicer. When
he spoke of the pangs of bereavement, and the utter loneli-
ness of a widowed heart, one would almost have thought
that he had really felt sorry when his own wife was taken
from him. But four months had gone by since the loss of
her husband, and he had not seen Lady Mary yet. He
had called many times, and had left cards by the dozen.
28o
The Dearfs Wife.
but the answer was always the same—Lady Mary was un-
able as yet to receive.
He had not quite liked that. He knew that she had
seen the bishop and Mrs Johnson. Indeed, their kindness
had been very precious to her, for the bishop had always
been her husband's friend, and she had never thought how
good and motherly and tender Mrs Johnson could be, till
she had leaned on her ample bosom and felt as if she could
cry her heart out there. And one or two of the clergy had
been admitted j older men than himself, it was true, but
still she might have included him. But she had not for-
gotten his children. As soon as she had settled down in
her new home, she had sent for them, and had had them
repeatedly since. Surely, by this time, she might admit
their father to her presence ?
So Mr G-ermaine got himself up with even more care
than usual—and there was not a lady in all Carminster
who tobk longer over her toilet—and walked slowly from
Tasmania to that far more aristocratic neighbourhood known
as Brooke's Road, where Lady Mary was now abiding. It
was a fine mild day in November. The flowers had paled
and faded, which had been all aglow when "Winifred had
brought her mother Richard German's letter, and the brown
and yellow leaves were thin and sparse, but their was a
pleasant sweetness in the air, a soft, tender mist—which,
compared to a London fog, was as a bride's veil to a widow's
crape—hanging over all. Lady Mary was at home, he was
told, this time, and he was at once ushered into the draw-
ing-room, where she sat.
She rose to receive him—taller, paler, statelier, in her
heavy mourning robes, than he had ever seen her, but worn
and sad as he had never thought it possible that he or any
man could see her. Had she really cared for the dean ?—
that oold, stiff formalist, so utterly unlovable and ungenial,
Two Widows.
281
as he had always thought him ? It looked like it; or was
it not rather that she had been staying in, out of a foolish
regard to propriety, and had grown pale and ill in conse-
quence ?
He was sympathetic—tenderly so. He pressed her hand
warmly, and yet it was only the warmth of a privileged
friend. He looked in her eyes with a tenderness tempered
by respect. Ho lady but must feel flattered by such reve-
rential friendship. Miss Todd was present, so were Wini-
fred and Cissy. That did not matter now. He could say
nothing, as yet, that all the world might not hear. He
hoped all the world then present would hear and comment
favourably.
' You are better?' he said softly to Lady Mary, when he
had greeted the other ladies present. ' Still you look as if
your grief had been very heavy for you. I need not say
how I have felt for you. And my own loss has been heavy;
the dean was so good a friend to me. But for him I might
not have found it so easy to enter on a course which is so
much more congenial than my previous one. He was so
good a friend to me. We had so much in common. You
do well to mourn him ; but still your own life is so precious
—mourn in reason, for the sake of others.'
He said it all so nicely, in such a beautifully modulated
voice, that the tears sprang into Lady Mary's eyes. She
had grown more lenient in her judgments since her bereave-
ment, more disposed to think kindly and mercifully of every
one. Miss Todd's eyes twinkled maliciously, but the girls
seemed inclined to weep in company with their mother.
Mr Germaine was satisfied with the effect he had produced,
and changed the subject to a more cheerful one. He praised
the situation of the new house, the garden, the mild, soft
beauty of the day; and Lady Mary was won out of herself
and her gloom, as he had meant she should be, and the girls
282
The Dearts Wife.
brightened, and a more cheerful tone pervaded the group.
Commonplace is one of thosS things we despise but cannot
do without. Mr Germaine was pleased to find that he had
cleared the atmosphere of the room. He recommended
several books to Lady Mary, which she promised him to
read. He told Cissy a funny little story of his youngest
hopeful. He thanked Winifred for her many kindnesses to
them. Then he lowered his tone, as he said to Lady Mary,—
' It is difficult to think what the motherless little creatures
would have done without you.'
Miss Todd, who sat quietly by, trim, demure, neat, and
busy as ever with her knitting-needles, said to herself that
the devoted gratitude he threw into his speech was the best
done thing she had ever heard off the stage.
Mr Germaine did not wish to wear out his welcome, and
he rose to go at the end of the conventional half-hour. But
just then a carriage and pair swept up the drive of the
house. The men-servants were in the deepest mourning,
and when the carriage stopped, a tall, pale, angular lady,
clothed, like Lady Mary, in the sables of widowhood, was
seen to emerge.
Lady Mary gave the faintest shiver. It was her sister-
in-law, Lady Dalmaine. Her visits had to be endured, but
they were not welcome, and she turned to Mr Germaine
almost as if asking him to stay and share the infliction.
' Don't go. They are just bringing up tea.'
He bowed, with the manner of one who placed himself
utterly at her disposal, and Lady Dalmaine came sweeping
in. She kissed Lady Mary, who bore the kiss with the air
of a martyr. Lady Dalmaine was one of those women who
always kiss wherever they can find an excuse for doing so,
and Lady Mary had once said of her to the dean, that her
kisses always made her feel that the tiibe of Judas was not
yet extinct. Then she kissed the girls, and shook hands
Two Widows.
283
with Miss Todd, and curtsied to Mr Germaine and said she
was pleased to make his acquaintance. He handed her her
tea and sat down by her, and they had a little talk about
Carminster and Tasmania. Lady Dalmaine was not an
attractive woman. She was cold, conventional, and not
very clever. But she was a baronet's widow and the sister-
in-law of Lady Mary. That was enough for Mr Germaine,
and it was enough, too, for her that he was a man with a
good presence, pleasant, ready, and apparently very much
impressed with Lady Dalmaine. And he was a clergyman;
she thought that was enough to establish his social position.
A clergyman, a widower, in the prime of life and of good
appearance.
She promised to come to Tasmania and hear him. He
told her her horses would find themselves up to their fet-
locks in mud, and hoped, with a smile, her coachman
would not give her warning the next day for bringing him
into so uncivilised a region. It was worse, according to
him, than any district in the east end of London, and the
inhabitants were of a rougher and more brutal stamp than
any he had ever encountered in his life. ' But it is a fine
field for work,' he said, with lofty expansion of soul; ' a fine
field, as those knew who placed me there. But sometimes
one does feel as if the task was rather heavy; then one
comes out, and a little refreshment like this,' and he waved
his hand towards the tea-table, though it was not just the
tea he was meaning, ' sends me back invigorated in mind
and body. A little congenial society,' he looked with a
tender reverence at Lady Mary; ' a little good talk,' and
he smiled at Lady Dalmaine, ' sends me back another man.'
When Lady Dalmaine got into her carriage again, she
was in a state of virtuous indignation.
' Poor George ! If that woman isn't making up to Mr
Germaine already ! And he is good-looking and rather nice 4
284
The Dean's Wife.
but a woman with a grown-up daughter ! There may be ex-
cuses for second marriages sometimes, but where there is a
family—and the horrible indelicacy of thinking of such a
thing already !'
She said all this to Miss Flint, who quite agreed with her;
but Lady Dalmaine went to hear Mr Germaine the next
Sunday, and after a fortnight he was asked in a very quiet
way to dinner—that she might have the pleasure of im-
proving her acquaintance with him : only herself and her
friend Miss Flint—if he could be satisfied with the society of
ladies alone.
Mr Germaine went and was satisfied. So satisfied that
he had no desire to repeat the experiment. He detested
Miss Flint, who never let him forget that he had not always
been in the Church, but had come into great honour lately.
And he did not admire Lady Dalmaine. But still she was
Lady Dalmaine, and it was something to have dined alone
with Miss Flint and her.
He called on Lady Mary a fortnight after that first visit
of his to the house in Brooke's Boad, and he took her one
of the books about which he had spoken on the former oc-
casion. He was very graciously received. Lady Mary's
mood had softened to most people. She had made up her
mind to endure even her sister-in-law. And she was glad
of a little change, a little pleasant talk. Then he came
again in a week—this time with an illustrated paper for
Cissy—and then he came in another week to ask Winifred if
she would help with a Christmas-tree that some of the mem-
bers of his congregation were getting up for the children.
1 They want a little encouragement, and they will feel
very much flattered and honoured if Miss Dalmaine will
give them her countenance.'
' Oh, Winifred will give them a great deal more,' said
Lady Mary, warming up, as it was her wont to do when-
Miss Todd speaks Plainly.
285
ever there was a kindness to be done. 4 She can dress
them some French dolls with caps and costumes all correct,
and she will assist in the decorations of the schoolroom.
You may quite count on her, Mr Germaine.'
4 Could you not come amongst us on that night ? he said
softly. 4 It might be a little break for you, and your pres-
ence would give us all so much pleasure.'
4 Oh, I go nowhere but to the cathedral, or quiet drives
with the girls,' said Lady Mary. 4 I couldn't do anything
like that, Mr Germaine—don't ask me; but the girls will
come on Christmas Eve, and Miss Todd, I have no doubt,
will bring them—or perhaps my sister-in-law, Lady Dal-
maine—she is taking quite an interest in Tasmanian affairs.'
41 am sure Lady Dalmaine will be pleased to escort her
nieces,' said Miss Todd, decidedly ; 4 and you and I will keep
our Christmas Eve together, Mary, as we have done once or
twice in our lives before.'
CHAPTER XLIY.
MISS todd speaks plainly.
Miss Todd had made it a rule, soon after Lady Mary and
she had made their common home together, that every morn-
ing after breakfast there should be a little cabinet council
of two, in which the dinner of the day, any new expendi-
ture should be settled, along with anything else that re-
quired discussion. Lady Mary had wanted to avoid this.
Everything relating to money, and the common little affairs
of every-day life, had seemed at first such a trouble. She
was quite satisfied to leave everything in Miss Todd's hands;
she would sign cheques whenever they were wanted, and,
286
The Dean's Wife.
with such implicit trust as she had in her friend, surely
that was all that need be looked for from her ?
But Miss Todd would not allow this; she was not going
to allow her friend to sink into a morbid state of do-nothing-
ness, as if there were nothing in the world worth interest-
ing herself about now that the dean had gone out of it. She
insisted upon it that Lady Mary should ' audit accounts,' as
she expressed it, settle the programme of the day's doings,
and, generally speaking, consider herself as one of the mis-
tresses of the joint household. These consultations were
always held alone. Miss Todd could speak more plainly to
Lady Mary, than before her girls, if there was need of
plain speaking, and, the morning after Mr Germaine's visit,
it seemed to Miss Todd that there was need indeed.
' We must not have that man here, Mary,' she said; 'he
is coming too often. Y ou must snub him a little, and keep
him away. My snubbings count for nothing, or he would
have stayed away long ago.'
' But why should he stay away, Jane ? He doesn't talk
badly, and I can't have the children so much as I do, and
shut my doors on the father.'
' The children are quite old enough now to go to board-
ing-school, and so I shall tell Mr Germaine. They would
be much better there than either with you or their father—
learning nothing and running wild. And if you don't have
the children quite so much, their delightful father will send
them away for his own comfort's sake. But I am not think-
ing of the children—I am thinking of you, Mary. Do you
know, have you ever asked yourself, what Mr Germaine
means by coming here so often ? '
Something in Miss Todd's voice, and something in her
look said so much more than her words, that Lady Mary
started, turned pale, then flushed crimson.
'It isn't that, it isn't that, Jane! It can be nothing
Miss Todd speaks Plainly. 287
of the kind, and George not dead these six months ! Oh,
you can't mean it! Besides—besides, how can he, how can
you, how can anyone think that I would marry again ? Am
I one of those women who go fronr one husband to another?
To think that you should fancy such a thing of me! It
would be a desecration, an infamy ! I should despise myself
if I were capable of doing it! I should never expect my
children to love or respect me more !'
Then came a burst of tears. Lady Mary felt cruelly
aggrieved. And her loss was impressed so vividly upon her
by Miss Todd's words. It seemed as if her husband must
be lost indeed, if she was free to marry again. Freedom !
It was desolation ! That any man should think it possible
to win her for his own. It seemed as great an insult as if
the dean were still living.
1 I knew I should vex you,' said Miss Todd, ' but it had
to be done, Mary. I foresaw what would come as soon as
the poor dean was taken from us.'
' But it is so soon !' cried Lady Mary, ' and how dare he
—how dare any man insult me by thinking that I would
marry again ?'
4 He wont be the only one, Mary. You must look the
thing fully in the face, and don't say I'm a brute for making
you do it. You are still very handsome; you have always
had a crowd of admirers ; now the admirers will be lovers.
You have a good income and a good position. I dare say
you will have to say " No " a good many times. But a man
in Mr Germaine's position ought not to be allowed the chance
of having " No " said to him. Surely you are sufficiently a
woman of the world to manage that, Mary ? '
i I don't think he would dare,' said Lady Mary slowly.
1 I wouldn't like to answer for the extent of his daring,'
said Miss Todd; 4 keep him out of the house, Mary, and
keep him at arm's length if he will push in.'
The Dean's Wife.
And, just now, it was rather a difficult thing to keep Mr
Germaine out of the house. Richard German had come
down to Carminster, and had found his way to the house in
Brooke's Road. He was not staying with his brother, pre-
ferring an hotel ; but he had come several times to see Lady
Mary, or Lady Mary's daughter, and, as things were just
now, it didn't seem so easy to show the cold shoulder to Mr
Germaine as it might have been if his brother had kept away
from Carminster.
Richard had spoken boldly out to Lady Mary. He had
asked her if, indeed, there was to be no hope for him ?
Were his own life and her daughter's too to be sacrificed
because his origin was less exalted than she would have had
it ? And Lady Mary had not known what to say. He was
all that she could have wished, if he had been better born,
and had had another father. And her girl loved him, and,
what was more, it did not seem as if she would ever love
anyone else.
' It is a great gulp,' said Lady Mary to Miss Todd. ' I
shall have a great deal to swallow, Jane; and yet they do
love each other, and love is so great a thing.'
1 And the ways and means are sufficient, which is a great
thing also,' said Miss Todd.
She had not meant to interfere when this love affair had
first arisen, having, as she always thought, interfered not
too wisely in an earlier one. But Lady Mary's misery since
her husband's death had made her think she must have had
a fair share of happiness in his lifetime. And she had
grown very fond of both the young people, while there was
no question that they were very fond of each other.
' I think he will make a name that she will be proud of,'
said Lady Mary ; ' and I like the father. Let him be what
he may—Methodist, tailor, anything—he is a man to be
venerated. And I like Richard because he so looks up to
Miss Todd speaks Plainly.
289
his father. You would have thought some great piece of
good fortune had befallen him by the proud, pleased way
in which he told me that his father had at last consented
to let him provide for his wants, so that he will give up all
work but that connected with the pulpit. I wish you had
heard him speak, Jane.
'" I have gone wrong in my time, Lady Mary," he said,
looking as shame-faced as I should have thought no young
man of the present day could look. " I have sinned as so
many men sin, and, through my fault, another suffered
very grievously. I am not worthy of your daughter; not
because she is gently born and I am otherwise, but because
she is so good and pure. That is the real difference between
us, to my thinking. God helping me, I'll make up that
difference in my after life. That is why my father has re-
fused to take all help from me till now. But he at last
believes I am doing my best to atone for the past; if he did
not do so, he would have died of starvation before he would
have taken a crumb from my hand."
'Now, I like him for that, Jane !' said Lady Mary, with
glistening eyes. ' One can easily guess at the sin. There
is no need that he should speak of it in plainer words. But
how many men would speak of it, if even they gave their fault
a second thought, as anything but a folly ? Oh ! I do like
Bichard German ! And I know that he will not only give
my girl a great love, but be very tender and gentle with
her. I think—I am sure—she will be happy with him.
And yet—oh, Jane ! it is so much to swallow ! And would
the dean consent if he were alive ? That is my difficulty.
Would her father ever have consented ? I think I could
swallow my own pride, but can I answer that George would
ever have swallowed his ?'
' Just tell me this, Mary ; do you really feel it would be
o-ood for your girl if she were to marry Bichard German ?
T
290
The Dean's Wife.
and can you honestly feel that if the dean were living you
would ask him to forget his pride—to forget everything but
that here was a true man, who would make your daughter
happy ?'
' Yes, I would, Jane ! As I say, it's a great gulp for me;
but I would ask him to set aside all caste prejudices against
Richard German—to forget even his brother; and that,'
said Lady Mary, with a comical look, 'would be a good
deal for both of us to forget—and only remember that our
girl and Richard German loved each other, and that in
everything but her birth he was fully her equal.'
' Then, Mary, I think I can answer for the dean. Did
you ever know him refuse you anything you really wished
for ? Anything that you thought it right and fitting should
be done, he was always ready to do sooner or later. He
might have his little ways—all men have—and I dare say
there were clouds between you now and then; but he loved
you, Mary: he only saw things with your eyes; and he would
have given his girl to Richard German, if he had once felt
that you thought it best that he should have her.—Hot at
first—I don't say that. He would have had a struggle with
himself, just as you have had a struggle; but it would have
been overcome, and he would have yielded to the young
folks, as you have done.'
' And there will be no struggle now,' said Lady Mary,
with a solemn tenderness. ' If he knows, and surely he
must knpw, Jane : the veil cannot be so dense but that he
must know something of what is going on on earth—he
will not blame me for this.
• " There must be wisdom in great death ;
The dead shall look me through and through,"
she said, softly. ' George will know why I've done
Richard German dines Out.
291
CHAPTER XLV.
RICHARD GERMAN DINES OUT.
So the new year passed more happily for Richard German
than he could at one time have anticipated. Lady Mary
had given a conditional consent to his marriage with her
daughter. The conditions were these : there was to he no
regular engagement, but she would not object to a corre-
spondence, and Richard might visit them in Brooke's Road
whenever his literary labours allowed him the time to stay in
Carminster. And when Winifred was of age—and she wanted
more than a twelvemonth of that time—she might then
decide for herself.
' But she is not to be blamed; and you are not to say
hard words of her if she changes her mind, Richard,' said
Lady Mary. ' She must be left perfectly free.'
Richard agreed with a good grace. He would have liked
to have shortened the term of probation; but then some-
thing was due to the memory of the dean, and Lady Mary
had conceded so much, that he felt hardly justified in asking
for more. So he went back to London a very happy man;
set to work with a better will than ever at a new novel,
which was to outdo all its predecessors, and began taking a
lively interest in a certain moderate class of house property
round and about Kensington, and exploring all the bric-cL-
brae shops and art furniture places within three or four
miles of his lodgings.
He was going to have a very pretty nest to bring his bird
home to. No fear that the bird would change her mind and
want to go elsewhere. But he was not going in for Queen
Anne furniture, nor for much artistic correctness. I don't
think we shall care so much for Queen Anne furniture in
292
The Dean's Wife.
twenty years' time as we do now. It is thin and meagre
and angular ; and a room furnished in that style, or in any
other requiring such strict aesthetic correctness, can never
be just a home; for our homes, like our garments, should
be for us, and not we for them. And in a room that is so
perfect one is afraid to bring in the least thing that is not
in keeping. It is an anachronism in history—a false note
in music. And when we have gone on living into middle-
age, things have come about us—gifts of dear friends who
have passed on before; heirlooms that have come down
through the generations; treasures we have picked up
abroad; gifts from children; pretty things we have been
tempted to purchase when there was a little idle money that
wanted spending. If we are to give up all this, it is paying
too dear a price for correctness; it is living a life of prunes
and prisms, housing ourselves in a strait-waistcoat of bricks
and mortar.
I have not put these sentiments in Richard German's
mouth, as I might have done—I utter them in proprid per-
sond; but Richard felt them. He was going to have a
home. It might, according to the Misses Garrett or to
Morris, be full of inaccuracies, blunders, and solecisms; but
it should be pretty and bright, and, above all comfortable;
and so he set to work to find a straw here or a feather there
for the plaiting of his nest.
He generally had an hour or two to spare (dining earlier
that he should do so) before he went down to the office of
his paper; and through the wet, muddy streets, with the
gaslight shining on the puddles, he went on the wintry even-
ings after his return from Carminster, prowling, as he ex-
pressed it, for prey. There was a region he was especially
fond of haunting—all that network of streets lying between
Tottenham Court Road and the Strand, including the neigh-
bourhood of Castle Street and Leicester Square.
Richard German dines Out.
293
And is there not in these streets something that is the
very essence of London life—frowsy, dull, unattractive, and
sordid as are some; respectable, Philistine, and middle-class
as are others; and close and stifling, crowded, reeking,
squalid as are yet more ? The years have gone on and 011,
and they are just as they were forty or fifty years ago, only,
it may be, smokier, grimier, dirtier. There are good shops
amongst them—shops where you must be a wary bidder
indeed if you expect bargains, but still shops—and I am not
speaking merely of Wardour Street; indeed, neither Dick
German nor I would ever think of going for our bargains
there—but still shops where one may meet with a good bit
of china or a curious carving, and after much chaffering,
bear it away, hoping that we have not paid too dearly
for it.
But the streets themselves—the streets that Dickens
painted, some of which must be the very same as when
Johnson drew those full breaths of London life in which he
so delighted—these were what Richard German loved to
roam in—prowl was his word, as I have said, and it is only
men who can prowl.
Down this alley, and up that court, and so into this
crowded, teeming street, where costermongers and hawkers
are plying their trade, and poor housemothers, and small
girls old before their time, are looking out for far other
bargains than that one which in a neighboring thoroughfare
Richard German has been bidding for. And the hideous
joints, the very offal of the markets, hung in the butchers'
shops. And the gin-palace, bright and attractive, as, please
God, we hope that before long in every such quarter the
coffee-palace will be; and, it may be, some woman's face,
boldly engraved, life size, hung therein—the portrait of
some actress, the one bit of ideality there, speaking, above
all the sordid wants, the coarse voices, the loud oaths, the
294
The Dean's Wife.
smells, the clamour—of something beyond it all—of a life
that is different from this ; not art, in the highest sense, in
any way, but still art that does good so far as it lifts those
who could not soar very loftily a little above the reek and
the uproar of their daily existence.
Yes; this was what Richard German delighted in: the
streets—and the poorer streets especially—and the men and
the women therein. Whenever he went bargain-hunting,
lie always wound up with a little bit of this lower life. It
sharpened his sympathies, he said, and if he took things too
easily and pleasantly, they would be sure to get dulled and
blunted. But ever and again some poor matron, with many
mouths to feed, and little to put into them, or some small
starveling, found a piece of silver slipped into her hand, and,
before her wondering eyes had fully learned from whom it
came, Richard German had passed out of sight.
It was towards the end of January, nearly a month since
he had left Carminster, when he went out on one of these
evening walks. It was sloppy and dingy and dull—an un-
pleasant night altogether; but Richard wanted exercise.
He had been hard at work all day, had dined fairly well,
and now, before he went to the office of the Day Star, he
thought he would make another bid for a pair of vases he
had seen in Green Street, and then look a little on the
world as it went its way in Compton Street and some
others near.
It was Monday night, so the costermongers were not
driving a very busy trade; the greens and the carrots were
glistening with the rain, the fish looked all the better
for its washing. Around the cook-shop, with its great
joints and its rolls of plum-pudding, were gathered two or
three hungry-looking men, with pinched, red noses, and half-
a-dozen boys, some calculating what they should buy, others
feasting on the smell and the sight of the food, knowing that
Richard German dines Out.
295
for that night at least their share of it was likely to be very
little more.
Richard was in a good humour with himself and the
world. He had got his vases for just a guinea less than he
had thought he should have to pay for them ; and he had
made an offer, which he thought was likely to be accepted,
for a very charming little Indian cabinet: the very thing to
hold a lady's treasures—ribbons, fans, gloves, letters, his
letters—so it seemed to him. If he became the possessor of
that cabinet, he meant to put it in a corner of his room, just
where he could look up from his writing and see it; and
then he should be able to picture slender fingers opening,
and a fair head bending over it. There was no doubt but
that such a vision would make his novel progress all the
better.
The boys looked very hungrily at the plum-pudding, and
Richard's hand found its way to his pocket, and the boys
found their way into the shop, and presently each one
emerged with a great slice in his hand, and a look of inex-
pressible contentment on his face. For the men Richard
had no pence and no pity. They were soddened drinkers,
evidently, and he was turning away, when some one, whc
at a little distance had been first watching the cook-shop and
then Richard, came up to him. He was of a different type
to the red-nosed, ragged, uncombed creatures whom Richard
had just turned from. His clothes, though worn, were well
cut, and he was clean—nothing of the drunkard about him,
but an air of pinched, starved gentility, and, withal, an un-
deniably clerical appearance.
' A curate out of work, poor wretch !' thought Richard;
1 but one can't give him pennorths of pudding, as one has
done the boys.'
The clerical-looking individual came closer to Dick, and
whispered softly,—
296
The Dean's Wife.
41 cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed,' and then glanced
furtively at the cook-shop. 4 That round of beef, sir, might
dine the bench of bishops !'
' It's a noble joint, certainly,' said Richard 3 4 shall we go
inside and have some for supper.'
The eager, ravening look the man fixed on the meat was
that of one not far from starvation. To take him in and
feed him well seemed to Richard the best thing to do, but
his new acquaintance shrank back.
4 I—I can't eat in those places. The smell of so many
mixed viands—and the company is sometimes as mixed;
but if you would like supper off that beef, sir, or a late
dinner, call it which you will—I have not dined yet—my
lodgings are at your service. They are round the corner,
and I should be most happy to entertain you there. I have
plates and knives3 I am not sure about the mustard. I
think, too, my bread ran out last night3 but still, there is
the room, and you might sup or dine—say dine, the sound is
pleasanter—in privacy and comfort off that beef. That man
has a noble carving-knife. What a slice he shaved off then!'
4 A character !' thought Richard. 4 More likely an actor
out of work than a curate, but starving, evidently.'
He went into the cook-shop, and the other followed him.
The joint they had been admiring was cold, so that a few
slices were easily put up in paper, and a little mustard
spread thereon.
4 Best to make sure of it,' said the gentleman with whom
Richard was to sup. He also suggested a slice or two of
ham. 4 They eat well together, flavours that combine to
mutual advantage,' he murmured.
Richard also purchased a couple of crusty loaves, and
then his entertainer led the way to the lodgings to which he
had invited Richard.
Tt was clear that it would not do for the purchases
Richard German dines Out. 297
Richard had made to be pressed on him. The man might be
starving, but his pride was as strong as his hunger, and if
Richard wanted him to eat, he would have to sit down in
company with him, and make a feint of doing so himself.
It was a dismal street, the one they entered. Not tenanted
by the lowest poor, but by those who still clung to some
faint shadow of respectability, who were striving hard to
earn their daily bread honestly, under whatever adverse
circumstances might be pressing on them. Tall houses that
looked as if since they had been built neither whitewash nor
paint had ever been spent on them. Grimy, smoky, rusty,
but still inhabited by decent people, fighting hard to keep
the wolf that was for ever baying from the door.
Richard followed his would-be host into one of these
houses, into a dark passage, and up a narrow flight of steep
uncarpeted stairs. There were two rooms on every floor,
and every room had a separate family residing in it. The
shop below was occupied by a bookbinder, and in the win-
dow Richard had noticed some curious old books, priced at
their full value, and some coloured theatrical prints of
Madame Vestris and her contemporaries. There were few
signs of business in the shop—it was as hopeless-looking as
all the others in the street, with the exception of those kept
by the baker, who made a fine show of bread, and the
publican, who, however, sold more beer than gin. They
' were not drunkards in Tower Street, with a few exceptions.
Richard followed his guide up to the very top of the
house, and they entered a large, sparely-furnished room, with
a bed against the wall, and a small round table in the
centre. The woman who let them in had lent them her candle,
and it was well she had done so, otherwise they would
have been in darkness. His host bustled about, produced a
fairly clean cloth, a jug of water, one glass and a teacup,
two plates, all of which he deposited on the table, and
2gS
The Dean's Wife.
then, with a wave of his hand, as if doing the honours of a
regal feast, said to Richard,—
4 You see, I have provided my part. Make yourself at
home. You are heartily welcome.'
Richard opened his paper of beef, and placed it on the
table, flanked by the little crusty loaves.
4 We shall have it in comfort here,' he said, humouring
the peculiarities of his host. 4 Will you carve, or shall I ?'
And, while talking, he had deposited the largest slice of
beef on a plate, and pushed it towards him. There was no
need for pressing ; the poor fellow was ravenously hungry,
and he ate almost fiercely for a few minutes, still with
something of the usual habits of a gentleman. Then he
poured out some water, and took a little, in an absent way
remarking,—
4 Beef and beer go well together.'
4 So they do,' said Richard, 4 and I dare say they keep a
good brew at that public-house at the corner. Is there
anyone here who would fetch us a pot ?'
4 I dare say Mrs Jones would oblige you,' said the host;
4 the good woman who let us in, and who so kindly fur-
nished you with a candle. Shall I call her ? She is on
the floor below. She is a most valuable woman : sees to
all my little wants in a way you would not credit. I am
indebted to Mrs Jones for many kindnesses, also for a little
tea and sugar I borrowed of her yesterday.'
Mrs J ones came up in answer to a summons very politely
worded from the host.
41 am so sorry to trouble you, Mrs Jones, but would you
kindly allow your little boy, or, if he is in bed, would you
object to go yourself and procure us some beer ? My friend
here does not seem to care for the water, and I am afraid,
myself, it is not filtered.'
Richard slipped a shilling into the woman's hand.
Richard German dines Out.
299
'Draught stout, if you would be so good, Mrs Jones,'
said the master of the room, turning to Richard to see if
that met his views; and on a nod being given by him, and
a gentle intimation that Mrs Jones might keep the change
for her trouble, she went away readily enough.
She soon returned with the beer and another glass. She
was a comfortable, middle-aged woman, and, there was no
doubt, a good neighbour, Richard thought, to his host.
This latter, having eaten heartily of the beef, and drunk as
freely of the stout, now turned towards the fire, which had
evidently been packed together with a view of making it
last, gave it a stir with the poker, and a flame leaped up.
And as it leaped a light fell on the hand which held the
poker, and Richard saw a ring which, or one like it, had
been very familiar to him.
It was an onyx handsomely mounted, with the mono-
gram ' G. D.' engraved thereon. Richard would not be
sure of the letters, but the peculiar setting and shape of
the stone were very familiar to him. Cicely Dalmaine had
directed his attention to it once, and told him that her
mother had given it to her father on his last birthday.
His companion saw his eyes bent on the ring, and, drawing
it off his finger, gave it to him to look at.
' A fine stone, isn't it ?' he said. ' It was a present to
me from a valued friend, a dignitary of the Church. A
handsome present, but he owed me a great deal.'
There was the monogram, ' G. D.' Richard had never
had the ring but once in his hand before, when the dean
had been graciously pleased to draw it off his finger that he
might see the peculiar colouring of the stone, one day when
the conversation had turned upon cameos and cut gems.
But Richard could have sworn that this was the ring he
had held in his hand that day. Had the man before him
hovered round the dead and mutilated after that awful rail-
3°°
The Dearts Wife.
way accident in search of spoil, and had he carried this
bauble away from the shattered limb on which he had found
it ? An uneasy feeling, as if he were in company with a
ghoul or a Cornish wrecker, came over Richard. And how
could the man know to whom this ring had belonged?
Out of all that ghastly wreck scarcely anything had been
saved which it was possible to identify. A few had escaped
with life; but the destruction of the dead had been so com-
plete, that the field where their remains were found was
another Aceldama.
But his host did not look in the least like a ghoul or a
wrecker. There was nothing to distinguish him from the
crowd of middle-aged, middle-sized men one meets constantly,
unless it might be the evident wish to make the most of
clothes which had seen their best days, and to preserve as
much of the appearance of a clergyman as possible. It
was his carefully modulated voice and his manner which had
made Richard think he might possibly have been an actor.
He had a furtive, restless look, and a way of avoiding the eyes
of those he spoke to. But the poverty to which he had come
might account for that. Richard felt sorely puzzled.
' Would you mind parting with this ring ?' he said, pre-
sently; ' I would give you a good price for it.'
The other shook his head.
'I don't like doing that. It may seem strange, in my
circumstances; but we in the clerical profession never know
what may turn up. Like Mr Micawber, we are always
hopeful. I have friends in high places; friends who have
done very much for me, and may do as much again. The
Archbishop of Canterbury has promised me—this is, of
course, in confidence—the first vacant living worth my
acceptance that falls in. So that I should not like to sell
this ring. A pawnbroker, if I were very much pushed,
would advance me something handsome upon it. I may be
Richard German dines Out.
301
obliged to take it to the pawnbroker, but I won't sell it.
The dean—'
' Oh ! it was a dean gave it you ?' exclaimed Richard.
* Did I say that, young man ? I am not one to boast.
I have had enough to do with deans, and bishops too, in my
time. But this gentleman gave me this ring—at least, I
took it from him—in part payment of a great obligation
which I laid him under. Very few men would have had it
in their power to have conferred stfch a favour on another,
very few would have acted with the promptitude I did. I
saw the right thing to be done, and, sir, I did it!'
He struck the bars with the poker as he spoke, and looked
up almost fiercely at Richard, as if asking him whether he
doubted either his will or his capabilities to do the right
thing at the right time. Richard was very much puzzled,
but he thought he would try conciliation.
' I've no doubt you were successful. Must have been,
for the dean or the bishop—'
' Dignitary—say dignitary,' was the answer, given with a
little myterious importance.
' For the dignitary to have shown his regard for you in
this very handsome manner. Perhaps he may reward you
more substantially yet: a good living now, or a canonry.'
His host shook his head yet more slowly.
' He is in no position any longer to confer anything of
the kind.'
Richard felt more and more uncomfortable. It must
be of the dean he was speaking. There was something
ghastly in these allusions to a man who had perished so
awfully.
* He will never have much to give away again. It was
rest he wanted—and I gave him rest,' said his host, with a
mysterious shake of the head.
'Murdered him on the way before the explosion took
302
The Dean's Wife.
place/ thought Richard; 'but then, what does the fellow
mean by sitting there and talking about it ? '
'You don't understand, you young men,' said his host,
with just a little contempt that withal was good-natured.
'You rattle about from one thing to another—dancing,
flirting, visiting, making money, making love, making your
way in the world, as you call it, and you never can under-
stand that at the time of life to which I and my friend the
dignitary have attained we may like a little rest and quiet-
ness. Freedom from worry and care, that's what we want,
and that's what he's having, poor fellow, and I hope he
enjoys it. There are very few who would have made the
sacrifices for him that I did, just give up to him all that I
had laid out so nicely for myself, because I felt that what
with one thing and another he was pretty well overdone.
I did it. So I think I've a right to the ring. The watch
I had to part with—at least, put it away for a time.'
' The watch !' cried Richard German, more than ever con-
vinced he had to do with a murderer whose crime had only
been hidden by that explosion on the railway. Then he re-
collected himself, arid spoke more quietly. ' If you think so
very much of the watch, on account of its former owner, I
should be happy to advance you the sum necessary to. redeem'
it. What do you say ? Shall we go at once ?'
The other shook his head.
' I'm afraid it's too late. And besides, the night is cold
and rainy; and I am sleepy—very sleepy,' he said, in a
dreamy, drowsy way. ' So would you be, if you had been
writing sermons all day long. I lay in a stock; there is no
knowing how soon the Bishop of London may appoint me
one of his chaplains, or give me that living I told you he
had promised me.'
' I thought it was the Archbishop of Canterbury.'
' Both the bishop and he are my friends. I am sure to
Richard German dines Out. 303
come in for something good before long. I should like to
read you one of my sermons.'
' I'll come and hear it to-morrow, if you'll allow me,' said
Richard, whom the mention of the time had reminded that
he must be at the office of the Day Star.
'Do,' was the gracious answer; 'and perhaps you'd like
to dine here. It's quiet, as you see, and if the food is plain,
it's good. I never tasted better stout. The room and Mrs
Jones and the table appointments are all at your service.
I shall be very pleased to see you.'
' I'll come,' said Richard, ' and a little earlier than I did
to-night, if you've no objection, and I'll look in first at that
shop where I met you and see what they have.'
' There may be roast fowls to-morrow evening—cold, with
ham or German sausages, they eat excellently—and pork-
pies, if indigestible, are very savoury.'
He said all this in an absent dreary way, as if merely
throwing out a hint for the benefit of Richard, not at all as
if he wished to be provided with a meal at his expense.
Richard followed his tone.
' I'll bear it in mind,' he said. ' Much obliged to you for
the hint, and you'll see me here a little before seven.'
'Six isn't a bad hour for dinner,' said the other, glancing
at the table, on which, though there was enough remaining
from the meal he had just made for a breakfast, there would
certainly be very little for lunch. So that he might think
it advisable to dine early.
' I'll come at six,' said Richard, ' if that will suit you ?'
' Excellently well. Good-night. Shall I light you down
the stairs ? This candle is nearly out. Perhaps Mrs Jones
has another at your service. Mrs J ones !' He leaned over
the baluster and shouted—' The candle you lent my friend
has quite gone out. Could you show him the way down ? '
^nd Mrs Jones came forward this time with a candle
304
The Dean s Wife.
in a brass candlestick and marshalled Richard down the
stairs.
4 I am very sorry to give you so much trouble,' he said,
when they had arrived at the street door; ' but I should
never have found my way out without your assistance.'
Then he slipped another shilling into her hand. 41 am
coming to see the gentleman upstairs to-morrow—perhaps
you'll kindly see that there are candles ready.'
He thought it would be as well to have a good light, and
he also thought it would be well to be on friendly terms
with Mrs Jones. She curtsied and took the money.
'Thankee, sir ; I'm glad he's some one to look after hi in.
He wants it, sir—he wants it,' and she shook her head
mysteriously.
But Richard had to hurry away to his office, for the warn-
ing voice of Big Ben told him that it was more than time
the editor of the Day Star was at his duties.
CHAPTER XLVI.
FIRST IN THE FIELD.
As I have intimated in a previous chapter, Lady Mary
had found some difficulty in shutting Mr Germaine out of
her house while his brother was in Carminster. It was so
difficult to freeze one brother while giving a warm welcome
to the other. One thing she had stipulated with Richard,
and that was, Grantley Germaine should know nothing of
his position with regard to Winifred. In fact, it was to be
kept a secret from the whole world.
4 If it ever does come to an engagement,' said Lady Mary,
4 there will be quite time enough then to make it known.'
First in the Field.
305
So that Mr Germaine was npt aware that there was a
possibility of a quasi-relationship arising between himself
and Lady Mary. Had he been, it would not have mattered.
Or perhaps he might have thought that Richard's success
was an augury of his own.
He was growing more and more dissatisfied with his pre-
sent position. He said to himself that the bishop and the
late dean, between them, had set a thoroughbred racer to do
the work of a dray horse, when they put him in Tasmania,
or a Toledo rapier to labour like a butcher's saw. He was
thrown away—wasted, here. He felt it more and more
every day.
' If one was only doing any good,' he said pathetically to
Mr Warne, ' but one isn't—one can't feel that one gets on
a bit with them. They are a set of savages ! There is no
savage like the English rough, and he is at his best or his
worst in Tasmania. I am wasting myself on these people
—spending myself for nought! Now this winter I have
started a fresh course of subjects for evening lectures. I
thought I would come down to their level, so I have had
one on ' Ballads and their Singers,' another on ' Popular
Superstitions,' a third on the ' Influence of the Church in
the Middle Ages; and the admission fee was only sixpence.
I suppose a dozen or so of the better sort of my congrega-
tion came, but not a single working man : and after all my
time and all my trouble—and to get up a course of lectures
takes something out of a man—I didn't clear enough to pay
the cost of the room !'
1 Now, I wonder at that,' said Mr Warne. ' I should have
thought the old women would have come to have heard about
the bogies, and that all the hawkers would have liked to
have heard about the ballads. Oh, you must get to London
—you must get to London, Germaine ! You're altogether
thrown away in Carminster. Get to London. Look out for
u
306
The Dean's Wife.
a rich wife, and start a proprietary church of your own.
By-the-bye, have you heard that Lady Mary is leaving for
the south of France in a week or so ? I don't know how
long she will remain. The youngest girl has a cough, and
change of air is ordered; so they are going there for the
spring. Dr Bees has told me full particulars. The chances
are that Lady Mary does not come back with the swallows.
She is thrown away on Carminster, like yourself. Per-
haps she will never come back; or never as Lady Mary
Dalmaine.
Mr Germaine turned pale.
You don't mean—you don't think that there is any one
in the field already ?' he gasped ; ' and the dean's only gone
seven months.'
' No j of course not. No one would dare to approach her
in that way yet. But such a woman is sure to marry'again.
She must marry, if only for peace and quietness; there will
be so many buzzing around. But, Germaine, will you come
and take the class of history at my Working Men's College?
That's something in your line, now.'
'My time is very much occupied just now,' said Mr
Germaine.
It generally was occupied when Mr Warne appealed to
him for help.
' And you don't like the working man; he comes between
you and your gentility, eh? ' said Mr Warne.
' He's an incorrigible brute,' said Mr Germaine. ' I have
given up the task of civilising him in despair. It may be,'
he said, with a certain aristocratic loftiness, ' that I am not
adapted for it. I confess that I don't understand the lower
classes. I have nothing in common with them.'
' Nothing at all, I should say,' remarked Mr Warne—
* nothing; especially not with a certain carpenter and a
rather well-known tent-maker, who, for his class, was a
First in the Field.
30 7
very well-educated man, and lived in Judea some two thou-
sand years ago. Man alive, if you don't take everything
that is said of these two, or everything that they said them-
selves, as literally true, at least believe in them, and for
their sakes give your fellow-men a helping hand when they
are trying to raise themselves above the level of the brute!
Well, you wont take my history class * I must get Jones,
the Unitarian minister, to do it then. He lectures on
geology as well. I should like the bishop to hear him. I'm
rather sorry you won't come, too, Germaine. We're con-
sidered rather heterodox, and you'd have given us a mild
flavour of Evangelicalism which we're in want of. But you're
quite right—the working man isn't in your way. Get up to
London—get up to London, and take your line. You've
cut the chapel, so you can't be a Wesleyan Spurgeon. Never
mind; Bellew's gone, and the ladies will like another in
his place.
Mr Germaine's plumes were ruffled, but Mr Warne took
his departure quite unconscious or quite untroubled by the
fact that he had ruffled them. He had a habit, not quite
an unconscious one, of reminding Grantley Germaine of his
former position as a Dissenting minister, and, without ever
saying so in plain words, of letting him feel that his motives
in joining the Church were not wholly without alloy. But
Mr Warne had also spoken this morning of the possibility
of Lady Mary's leaving Carminster shortly, and the almost
certainty that she would not return to it a widow.
' Such a woman is sure to marry again.'
No doubt others would be of the same opinion as Mr
Warne, and each would try to be first in the field. How
could he be first if she were in the south of France or in
London, to which she would be very likely to go on her
return from the Continent ? He had thought of waiting
till her year of mourning had expired ; but if she were once
308
The Dean's Wife.
away from Carminster, who would trouble themselves to
ask how long she had been a widow ? Who that wanted to
made her a wife, at least ? Far better be too soon than too
late, and, after all, it was not as if she had really loved the
dean. She might protest against his impetuosity, but she
was just the woman to like an ardent lover. And, out of
propriety, she might not capitulate at once, but he would at
least have been the first in the field, and there would be
such an understanding established between them that he
would be sure to come off victor in the end.
' And we have always been such good friends,' he thought,
remembering her many kindnesses to his late wife and his
children, all of which he set down as due entirely to his
own merits.
' She must be expecting something of this from me. She
has a right to look for an offer at my hands. A little sooner
or a little later; but I think in this case the lady would be
better pleased if it is sooner. Lady Mary Germaine—Mr
Germaine and Lady Mary. The names go very well to-
gether. What a fortunate thing I adopted the original
termination of our family name!'
CHAPTER XLYII.
and foremost in the fray.
Lady Mary was alone the next day when Mr Germaine
called on her. He thought himself very fortunate. Miss
Todd, he heard, and the girls had gone out shopping. So
Miss Todd was out of the way for an hour at least, and it
was rather early in the day for visitors. He hoped he
should have the lady he had come to woo to himself. She
And Foremost in the Fray. 309
was looking very handsome. Something of the bitterness
of her grief had subsided. Nature was re-asserting herself,
and Lady Mary's cheeks were no longer so pale nor her
eyes so dim as on the occasion of Mr Germaine's first visit
after her great bereavement. And her deep mourning
suited her. She had the clear bright skin that always looks
so well in black. Mr Germaine, as he looked at her, felt
that in spite of her few years of seniority, she was indeed a
prize worth winning.
He began talking about Cissy's health.
'1 am so sorry to hear you are going to leave us, Lady
Mary—still more sorry for the cause. Little Cissy has
been ailing, I hear.'
4 But she is very much better now. Dr Bees saw her
this morning, and thinks that if this change in the weather
lasts, she may remain in England. But we shall go to town
in the spring. Of course we should be very quiet. But
Winifred has never been to London but once, and then only
for a month's visit. We should just go sightseeing, and
look on at the follies and vanities of the great world; but,
of course, without sharing them. Still, I think that we
should all be the better for the change.'
So it was clear that she was going to London in a short
time, whether she went abroad or not first. He had done
well to make up his mind to speak, early as it was. Once
in London, she would be beset by wooers. Look on the
follies and vanities indeed, without sharing in them ! That
was all very well, but there would be plenty to look on her.
She would be sure to come back from London engaged, if
not actually married—that is, if she went there free from any
engagment to him. It should not be his fault if she did so.
'We shall miss you very much,' he said, with a solemn
tenderness. ' This place will be desolate indeed when you
are gone. You have been my best hel per in my parish work.'
3io
The Dearis Wife.
He bent forward as be spoke, and looked as if he would
have liked to have taken one, if not both her hands, in his;
but he could not easily do so, as she was working a tea-table
cloth in crewels.
' I don't know that I have helped you at all in Tasmania.
You have never asked me for assistance, unless it was last
Christmas, when the girls decorated your schoolroom for
you. If you had wanted real practical help, you should
have come to Miss Todd.'
' Do you think your sympathy has been nothing ?' he
asked, dropping his voice, as he spoke, to the most thrilling
of whispers.
Lady Mary began to feel half afraid of what was coming,
and yet it was so soon. Surely the man would never dare
already—
Mr Germaine went on, a little emboldened, inasmuch as
he saw the hand that held the needle was fluttering. Lady
Mary was really very angry, and her needle was going in
and out of her work with more rapidity than skill.
' Do you think I can forget that it was you who first
smoothed my way for me; that but for you I might still
have been plodding wearily along in the uncongenial paths
of Dissent—a mere sectarian ? There has been much, there
is much in Tasmania not congenial to me; but still, I have
borne up, knowing that you had something to do with
appointing me to a sphere where I might be usefully and
well employed.'
' I! Not at all !' cried Lady Mary, curtly. ' It was all
the bishop's doing—his—and perhaps the dean's,' she added,
in a lower tone. ' I should never have thought of appoint-
ing you to Tasmania, Mr Germaine; I don't think you are
at all adapted for it.'
' No; you are right. It is not my sphere. But I have
worked there patiently and steadily, doing what little good
A nd Foremost in the Fray. 311
I could, feeling that you were near me. How shall I work
now that you are gone ? I cannot stay longer; Carminster
is not a place for either you or me, Lady Mary. You are
going to London; if I follow you there, and it's hard,
surely,' he added, with a complacent smile, ' if I don't find
a more suitable pulpit, and a more appreciative congregation
than in Tasmania, may I venture to hope, that you will not,
at some distant day, refuse to share a lot which, by that
time, I may have rendered not wholly unworthy even your
acceptance ?'
He was trying to take her hand now, more resolutely
than ever. Even the tea-cloth could not keep him off.
Lady Mary drew her work around her like an armour.
' It is much too soon—much too soon, Mr Germaine, to
think or speak of such a possibility.'
Her eyes were flashing and her cheeks crimsoned. If
Mr Germaine saw these warning signs he did not interpret
them rightly.
' Yes, I know that is what conventionalism would say,
but you and I are-not conventional. We have known each
other so long, so intimately—we have been such friends.'
'1 was your wife's friend, Mr Germaine—poor soul, she
needed one !' said Lady Mary significantly.
' She did indeed,' he went on; 'and you were as an angel to
her. Shall I ever forget that ? She and I were not happily
mated; there was little in common between us; and you,
like myself, dear Lady Mary, have suffered from an uncon-
genial union ; had I not felt, with the intuition that intense
sympathy alone can give, that this was so, do you think
that I should so early have ventured to tell you of my
hopes ? There was so much that was good in the dean ! A
true pillar of the Church. A man that all who knew him
could only respect and admire, but still, not the man, dear
friend, not the man for whom such a woman as yourself
312
The Dearis Wife.
would mourn with that great and hopeless sorrow which
only the loss of a soul thoroughly in unison with your own
could call forth. Like my own late partner, the dean—'
Lady Mary sprang up. If eyes had flashed and cheeks
flushed before, both were burning now. All the self-conceit
of the man upon whom she looked could not blind him to
the contempt that was visible in her face. He aspire to
her hand ! He measure himself against her late husband !
He who had been so cold and careless a husband himself, so
neglectful a father!
' How dare you speak of the dean in that tone !' she
cried. 4 The dean was a gentleman ! How dare you come
and think to be second in his place ? '
All the pride of race, of social position, was in her tone
and look as she spoke to him. There was no mistaking that.
Her late husband had stood on the same social platform
as herself, but what was he, Grantley Germaine, that he
should venture to approach her as a wooer ? If he had
been a true man like his brother, he would have been equal
to the position, and stood on his right as a man to love
her as a woman. But there was little of true manhood in
Grantley Germaine, and Lady Mary had cut him to the
quick when she told him that the dean was a gentleman.
He understood fully how the words implied that he was
none—not worthy to approach her in any way.
Lady Mary calmed down—if you can call white heat
calming down.
4 Just understand me, Mr Germaine. Whatever show of
friendship there has been between us has arisen principally
through my wish to show your late wife—a most unhappy,
most neglected woman—whatever kindness I could. All
women should stand by one another; the strong and the
helpful should aid the weak and suffering. That has
always been my theory, and I acted upon it towards Mrs
And Foremost in the Fray.
313
Germaine. Whatever kindness I have shown your children
since her death has originated in a promise I made her—
out of no consideration to yourself. And I shall not
tell you, Mr Gei'maine, as I shall tell anyone else who may
venture, after a time, to approach me as you have done—
though I doubt whether any but yourself would have the
temerity to be so premature as you have been—that I
think one husband is enough for any woman, and that I
shall remain as I am to the end of my days; but I do tell
you that, were I still Mary Reardon, spinster, and you
the best-born man in England, I wouldn't have you. And
it is not your birth, either. Your brother has taught me to
see that a man should be judged by himself and not by the
class he springs from. But it is you yourself, sir, whom I
would refuse under any circumstances whatever.' She rang
the bell. 1 Don't you think you had better go now ? This
isn't pleasant for either of us. And don't call too soon again,
please, Mr Germaine. Not, at any rate, until after my re-
turn from London.'
He slunk out, looking more crestfallen than ever he had
looked in his life. And he was a day or two, at least, before
be recovered his usual nerve and self-confidence. But it
came to him at last, and he said,—
' What a tongue that woman has, to be sure ! I may
congratulate myself on a very narrow escape. I wouldn't
have her for the world. There is no doubt but that, after
all, these clever women are much better acquaintances
than wives.'
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER XLYIII.
second best suffices mr germa1ne.
( I'm afraid I've been very rude,' said Lady Maiy, when Mr
Germaine bad withdrawn ; ' and yet why did that man dare
to come as he did ? And to hint that I had not been as
fond of the dean as I should have been ! Oh, George! my
darling George ! a man like that to measure himself against
you !'
Then she cried very bitterly. Was there a little lurking
feeling that she had not given the dean quite as full a love
as a wife should give a husband ? And so, now that he was
gone, did she wish to make amends by all this tenderness
given to his memory ? But she certainly had never loved
her husband as she loved him now. There had been nothing
in their relations during life to call forth the passionate
sorrow with which she wailed him dead.
And perhaps this, the first offer she had had since her
husband's death, gave her a fresh sense of desolation and
loneliness. That any man should think he had a right ta
speak to her of love ! While a wife she had been well used
to admiration—while a girl to something more. But the ad-
miration had never passed its legitimate limits. If she had
not been a very loving wife, she had been one of the most
loyal. And now her husband was gone—her shield, her
buckler of defence—and any man who liked might think he
had a right to woo her.
' It's insufferable of them—the cowards ! and no one to
come between them and me, now,' she cried, with an un-
reasonableness at which Miss Todd laughed when she told
her of what had passed, and thus commented on it,—
1 Wasps will come wherever there's honey,' said Miss
Second Best suffices Mr Germaine. 315
Todd. ' I warned you of this, Mary. I knew what might
be expected—especially with Mr Germaine. Well, he has
had his congi—that's over; he can't well propose a second
time.'
' I wish I had been a little more civil to him though, for
—for Richard's sake,' said Lady Mary.
Miss Todd noticed the ' Richard,' and was not displeased.
'Well, you certainly spoke plainly,' she answered; 'but
I don't know that it will do him any harm. And he wont
tell his brother all you said to him—if he tells him anything.
But I'm not sorry—no, I'm not sorry one bit, Mary, that
you said to him all you did about his wife. He deserved it!'
' Still, I'm not quite satisfied with myself for saying it,'
observed Lady Mary.
But Mr Germaine found^comfort where he had least looked
for it. Lady Dalmaine came to hear him; then, to the
horror of Miss Flint, she took two seats in his church. Miss
Flint flatly refused to occupy either of them.
' I have been to the cathedral all my life, and I will not
leave it now,' she said loftily,' for a mere district church and
a man in it who has come over from Methodism.'
' If I had known that, I need only have taken the one
seat,' said Lady Dalmaine. 'Never mind, it will always be
convenient when I have a friend staying with me. It will
be no more than having a spare seat in one's carriage, after
all. There are always plenty of people very glad of that.'
Miss Flint kept to her resolution of not going to hear the
Methodist, as she expressed it, but the spare seat in the car-
riage went with the spare seat in the pew. Lady Dalmaine
wrote to an old school-fellow, several years older than her
self—the typical spinster of a past day—plain, angular,
and bony, with a decided squint and very little money. And
when she wrote she asked her to come and stay with hei
till the summer. She hinted that it was sometimes awk
316
The Dean's Wife,
ward for a widow to be alone; that gentlemen would call—
would persist in calling—and would not allow her to shut
her door against them, let her own wishes be what they
might. Miss Cragg quite understood what was expected of
her. She was to be duenna and useful companion, minus
the salary. Well, it would save her thirty shillings a-week
at her boarding-house, and the change would do her good.
And there would be drives, and a little society.
So she came down; took the vacant seat in the carriage
as well as the spare seat in the church, was entranced with
Mr Germaine's eloquence, and played propriety whenever
he called, and he did call very often, on Lady Dalmaine.
That lady and Miss Cragg took a great interest in Tas-
mania. No wonder, they both said, that Mr Germaine felt
his difficulties too many for him when he had so few ladies
to assist him. They looked after the schools, and gave
tracts to the old women, and told people they were nowhere
in this world, and would be worse than nowhere in the next,
if they did not go to church. And to every one they sang
Mr Germaine's praises as the apostle of the day, the man
whose eloquence would regenerate a sinful world ; and Miss
Cragg worked him a pair of slippers, and Lady Dalmaine
asked him to nice little dinners, and to cosy little suppers,
after the Sunday services. And when the summer came
Miss Cragg did not return to London, but stayed with my
lady till August, and then they went to Killarney, as a quiet
and suitable place for a widow only just out of her first year
of mourning to visit for a change ef air and scene. And
Mr Germaine followed them there, and the end of it was
that he came back an engaged man, pluming himself on the
fact that if his intended was not an earl's daughter, she was,
at least, a baronet's widow. She was plain and thin,
sharp-featured and sharp-tempered; she was one to keep
a tight hold on her money, and never forgot or suffered
Over the Punch-Bowl.
317
her husband to forget, that it was she who had brought it
to liim.
But it was a great step for Grant ley Germaine to marry
my lady; and he was not like Winifred Dalmaine; 'second
best' would do for him. If he could not have that born
queen of women, my Lady Mary, if her sunshine and sweet-
ness could never be for him, why, he could put up with her
sister-in-law, and flatter himself he was drinking wine when
all the time it was only vinegar, flavoured with mildewed
raspberries.
But before his marriage with my lady, or even his engage-
ment, had come to pass, some curious things had come to
light which had caused a little stir in Carminster, and we
must begin a chapter in which to speak of them.
CHAPTER XLIX.
over the punch-bowl.
Richard was very punctual at his appointment the night
after his interview with his new acquaintance. He went
well prepared with the materials for supper—or dinner : a
roast fowl, some slices of ham, a raised pie, and some solidly
built pastry. Also some salad and dressing, and a bottle of
claret. The eyes of his host sparkled when he saw all these
various good things.
'You'll enjoy them here,' he said. 'Meals can only be
properly relished in peace and quiet. It gives me great
pleasure to put my room at your disposal; see, I have every-
thing ready. Mrs Jones has placed all her dinner service
at my command—poor soul, it isn't much, but she does her
best! What have you there—wine ? My favourite next
The Dean's Wife.
to Burgundy. If you have any Burgundy, bring it next
time. Burgundy's a royal wine ; like " a king's face, gives
grace " wherever it shines. Perhaps you would like some
beer; their pale ale—Allsopp's, on draught—is very good,
at the place from which you had the stout last night; shall
I call Mrs Jones? '
' Do,' said Bichard. ' It's a capital thought of yours.
The ale with the solids, and afterwards we'll sit with our
feet on the fender and discuss the claret, and a good many
things besides ; I've time for a long talk to-night.'
He had so arranged matters that he need not go to the
office of the Day Star till nearly midnight. And before
that time came he hoped, with the food and ale and wine,
to have so worked upon his host as to have drawn from
him a little more about the dignitary who had given him
his ring.
' In vino Veritas,' thought Bichard. '1 wonder if he will
lose his caution if I make him half tipsy. Brandy might
have answered the purpose better than claret; but I dare
say Mrs Jones can fetch us some, and supply us with hot
water to top up with, if I think it good for him !'
The dinner went off very well.
' We'll call it dinner,' said Bichard's host; ' there is a
good deal in a name, even if it's only the name of a meal,
and dinner at this hour does sound a more correct thing
than supper.'
' And, talking of names,' said Bichard, ' what am I to
call you. My name's German—Dick German, at your
service.'
'And mine is Mr Smith,' said the other; ' that's what
they call me here, at least; it's a convenient name, quiet
and unobtrusive. You can slip about the world anywhere
under it.'
' Like a domino in a masquerade,' said Bichard. ' Yes,
Over the Punch-BowL
319
it's a convenient name, and, being nobody's property in
particular, why, anyone can make use of it without feeling
they're committing larceny, Mr Smith.'
' Ah! if you had had all the fine names that I have
had !' said Mr Smith, ' you'd know the comfort of a name
that doesn't commit you to anything. When I was the
Archbishop of Canterbury, I got quite tired of being called
" Your Grace," so I came down a step, and was plain Bishop
of London; but then they " my lorded " me so that I was
sick of it. And then, as I couldn't make my wife " My
Lady," why, she eloped—eloped, if you'll believe me, with
one of the chaplains. There was a thing to do ! I got dis-
gusted, and cut the whole concern. They may get who
they can to be bishop—they won't get me. I'd rather be a
plain curate as I am ; only just now I'm in want of a situa-
tion, which makes it rather trying, Still, I'm quiet—'
1 Take a little more claret,' said Richard; ' the beer's all
gone. I wonder that, with your great love of repose, you
were so ready to give up the quietness and seclusion to
which you were hastening to your friend the dignitary.'
' He wanted it a deal more than I did,' was the answer.
'Yes, this claret's good—pity there's no more.of it. Mrs
Jones has a punch-bowl, a fine old bit of china that she sets
no small store by; I should like you to see it. I wonder
how many years it is since punch was made in that bowl ?
Punch is a noble drink! The wretched compounds they
have now-a-days—claret-cup, champagne-cup; any bit of a
girl can make them—good for nothing but to be flirted over.
But punch!—punch, sir, is the drink for men ! I believe
that if we only knew the truth about Dr Johnson, it was
punch, not tea, that he delighted in—punch that Mrs Thrale
supplied him with so freely; only Boswell didn't think it
would sound so well. Ah, punch, punch ! If we had
that bowl, and I think there's one or two things wanted
The Dean's Wife.
besides; I Have a kettle here, and we would soon make it
boil.'
' Punch is the stuff!' cried Richard—' the right stuff for
story-tellers. I go with you there, Mr Smith. Now, I'll
make a bargain with you. If you'll find the bowl and the
water, I'll fetch the lemons and the other little matters—
sugar, and so on; then we'll have u good talk," as your
friend, Dr Johnson phrased it, and maybe we'll have a song
or a story. I'll sing, you shall tell stories—some of your
clerical experiences, eh ? Oh, we'll make a night of it!'
Mr Smith rubbed his hands with delight.
' You are as fine a fellow, sir, as ever was Dr Johnson—
a man after my own heart. Yes; I'll tell you some stories,
sir, and especially that one about the dignitary, and how I
did him.'
' Cracked !' said Richard to himself, as he went out after
the materials for the punch. ' Mad as a March hare, but
with a good deal of method in his madness, too. Wasn't
there some story, after that terrible railway affair, about a
lunatic and his keeper, who were found handcuffed together
and both living, but terribly bruised and senseless? By
Jove, I begin to see daylight now !'
There never was better punch brewed than that which
Richard German compounded in Mrs Jones's punch-bowL
It was worthy of the bowl, which was a noble specimen of
oriental china. Richard had a little business transaction
with Mrs J ones respecting it some days after, and that bowl,
filled with roses or great heavy bunches of lilac, or clusters
of rhododendron—Mrs Richard German has an unfailing
supply of flowers sent her from the country—is one of the
favourite ornaments in his pretty dining-room at Ken-
sington.
That punch did wonders. Mr Smith warmed over it; he
grew more confidential than ever,—the trials and troubles
Over the Punch-Bowl.
321
he had gone through, sometimes as a penniless curate, some-
times as one or other of the archbishops, were recounted in
a manner that was both feeling and pathetic. Richard kept
on the watch lest a word should bring him to the ' dignitary'
—he was afraid of broaching the subject suddenly, lest he
should put ' Mr Smith' on his guard; but presently that
worthy himself said,—
' I tried being Dean of Carminster for a little while, but
they wanted me to spend half my fortune in putting the
cathedral in order. I found, instead of a quiet place where
one might rest and rust, that I had got into a regular nest
of hornets. So I came away. I got tired of it, and then,
just as I was going to stay at the country house my friends
had provided for me, I fell in with my successor, the digni-
tary I told you of. Poor fellow ! I pitied him. He looked
worn and tired, regularly ill with the worry of the thing. I
heard, too, that he had a wife ! "Well, well, a wife and a
deanery; your own house to manage and a cathedral to look
after are too much for any man—though an unmarried clergy-
man has his trials; the girls will make love to you j and the
old maids and the widows are worse than the girls. Do
it which ever .way you will, there's little peace and quietness
in the Church; it's just living in a steeple, with the bells
clanging and the rooks cawing from morning to night.'
It seems to have been too much for the dignitary your
successor,' said Richard. 'Your glass is empty, let me
fill it.'
' Too much altogether, poor fellow ! You like this punch ?
It's not the first time you have made it, I expect. It was
fortunate that, as you are so fond of it, I was able to supply
you with the hot water, and Mrs Jones with the bowl and
the glasses. Ah ! that bowl has been at many a good man's
feast. Addison may have got fuddled over it, and preached
his humdrum moralities when he was half-seas over. What
x
322
The DearCs Wife.
a much handsomer thing it is on the table than your colour-
less glass decanters, or your black bottles that you're ashamed
of ! Punch is a royal liquor, and deserves a royal chalice !'
4 If we only had that unhappy dignitary you were speak-
ing of here,' said Richard, trying to turn back to the Dean
of Carminster, 4 a glass or two of this would be a capital
medicine for him.'
4 He can't come,' said the other solemnly; 4 he can't come.
Port was his weakness—it's the weakness of us all who wear
the cloth, unless it may be the bishops, and they delight in
brandy. But he's safe where I've placed him—safe from
his wife : she was a handsome woman, I heard, and all the
chapter were in love with her. Well, I did a noble thing
by that dignitary—a little more punch, if you have any to
spare—just a little.'
He was approaching the maudlin stage. He would soon
be incapable of talking at all, and Richard felt that out of
the farrago of nonsense he was uttering, there were some
truths which he ought to hear.
4 Not just yet,' he said ; 4 a bargain is a bargain. We
were to have songs and stories turn and turn about over
the punch. Now, do you just finish that story of yours about
the dignitary; it seems an uncommonly good one; then I'll
fill your glass and sing you a song while you drink it.
Come, I want to hear what it was you did for the poor
fellow ; some good-natured turn or other, I'll answer for it.'
4 You may do that confidently,' was the reply, given with
drunken gravity. If he had been my own brother, I could
not not have done a kinder thing by him—sent him to the
very place meant for me; quite a palace! a bishop's is
nothing to it! and there he is at the present moment,
lapped in Elysium, with my own confidential man to take
charge of him—no cares—no worries—everything provided
for him • and here am I out in the world, starving and
Over the Punch-Bowl.
323
shifting about, as you see. I hope he's grateful—I hope
so; but, do you know, sometimes I doubt it.' He looked
up at Richard in a bewildered, muddled way. ' Men are so
obstinate, and this especial dignitary I've always heard was
as bad as any donkey. And yet there he is, wrapped now
in cotton wool, as one may say; taken as much care of as a
baby in a bassinet; and yet, because I sent him there, and it
wasn't just of his own doing, I daresay he thinks himself ill-
used. Well, I knew what was good for him, if he didn't
know it himself, and I went and did it. But about the
punch, I'm getting dry.'
' Finish the story, and you shall finish the punch,' said
Richard. ' A bargain's a bargain, you know.'
' Well, it was this—I can't remember clearly,' said Mr
Smith, putting his hand to his head, ' I get a little muddled
up sometimes—there was a bit of a flare-up when we were
all travelling together on the railway. Something went
wrong. It always will go wrong until they've hung a dozen
or so of directors. I got up, once in the House of Lords and
said so. That was when I was Bishop of Sodor and Man.
Some one said half-a-dozen bishops or so would answer the
purpose, but I put that down as irreverent, and the House
stood by me. Well, we all came out together—it was a
whizz and a fuzz and a buzz, as if the world was coming to
an end, and every gun in it going off of its own accord, and
then I found myself in a field, with a lot of very unpleasant
things lying about. TJgh !' he turned pale, and gave a
shudder; ' they had been men and women once, " but all
the king's horses and all the king's men " would never put
these poor creatures together again ! We wont talk about
it. I suppose the dignitary and my man and I had been a
little quicker than the others, or, may be, not so near the
engine. I can't tell you how it happened that we were
saved and so many sent nowhere We were some way from
324
The Dean's Wife.
those poor smashed-up wretches, too, in a little hollow all
to ourselves. The dignitary looked very queer—a bad
bruise on his forehead and a cut on his cheek. He was
not what you would call a handsome man, at the best of
times, but his own mother wouldn't have known him then.
As to my man, he was either a corpse or looked like one,
and neither he nor the dignitary had the slightest notion of
what was going on. I felt very sorry for them both, espe-
cially the dignitary. " Here's a poor fellow," I said to my-
self, " terribly knocked about, and as soon as he gets a little
better, he'll have to go back to the deanery, and have that
confounded cathedral to look after;" it isn't right for one
of my cloth to swear, but when I think of that cathedral,
it's too much for me; " and he'll never be the same man
after this. How, if he could only go where I'm going, and
be kept as quiet and snug as they meant to keep me, what
a blessing it would be for him ! And if my man here isn't
killed, he'll look after him, and if he is killed, why, they'll
get somebody else in his place, and the poor dignitary will
have a nice time of it, and get well over his hurts and rest
his nerves." It was a fine thought of mine, wasn't it?
Wont that punch be getting cold ?'
' I'll mix you some more, if it is,' said Richard; ' but I
keep to my bargain; it's a famous story. Well, how did
you manage matters ?'
* I changed coats with him, and emptied his waistcoat
pockets into mine. I thought it was much better for the
people at the place where he was going to think it was me
they had the charge of. They'd be sure to pay him every
attention then. So it was just as well that they shouldn't
see his card-case or his pocket-book. There was a little
matter of money, too, which came in handy afterwards. Of
course, it was only fair he should be paying my charges
when I was paying his. And I took this ring off his finger
iMy Lord Bishop.'
325
as a little memorial of my kindness to him. Then I thought,
to make things quite sure, as I hadn't a card-case of my own
to give him in exchange, I'd better fasten him and my man
together. My man had a way—an objectionable way, I
considered it>—of carrying handcuffs about with him, and if
there was any chance of losing me in a crowd, or if he was
out of temper with me, he'd slip one on his own wrist and
one on mine; it was rather a liberty, you know ; still, it
was his little way, and he was a good servant. Well, I
fastened him and the dignitary together. I thought,
" There'll be no mistake now about things, and whether my
man's" dead or alive, they'll take the poor dignitary down
to the very place where they were going to take me, and
what a blessing that will be for him!" Then I slipped
away myself, and left the two lying there. And I've been
living quietly since—resting—but I think I must get into
harness again. I don't think, with my talents, I ought to
keep out of the pulpit. I think I shall try Westminster
next. When you've heard me, you'll never care for Stanley.
But isn't that all the story ? And where's the punch ? '
CHAPTER L.
'my lord bishop.'
Richard German woke the next morning with the feeling,
not that the world was coming to an end, but that there
was one more person in it than he had imagined, and that
that person was likely to be an obstacle to the marriage
which he had been contemplating with such rapture.
There could be very little .doubt, he considered, that
there was some truth—considerable truth—in ' Mr Smith's'
326
The Dectris Wife.
story. But, after all, was the dean still living ? He had
been alive, according to ' Mr Smith,' when he so cleverly
changed coats with him, and despoiled him of his ring.
But it did not follow that he was living still. He might
have died soon after his removal to the asylum. Surely, if
he were living, it would by this time have become manifest
to those in whose charge he was that they had hold of the
wrong person. But would they give him up then ? Per-
haps 'Mr Smith's' relatives paid very highly for him, and
the owner of the asylum might be satisfied to keep some
one for whom he was very highly paid, without troubling
himself too much about his identity. There were awk-
ward stories sometimes told about such places and their
managers.
On the other hand, ' Mr Smith ' would surely have rela-
tions who would visit him at times; and by now they must
have discovered that- it was not their ' Mr Smith' at all who
was in durance. And how about the keeper, and the owner
of the asylum ? Why was not the mistake discovered at
once ? On the whole, Richard German did not feel quite so
sure, after a little consideration, that his intended father-in-
law was really living ; but he did feel sure that it was his
duty to ascertain the fact, even though by so doing he threw
fresh obstacles in the way of his own happiness.
He had found that ' Mr Smith ' was in total ignorance of
the name of the place to which he had so disinterestedly sent
the dean. It had escaped his memory altogether, he said,
if indeed he had ever heard it; he never troubled himself
about such details—his friend managed everything of the
sort for him. And then he had sunk off into a drunken
sleep, in which Richard thought it as well to leave him. It
would be worse than useless to communicate with Lady
Mary on the subject until he had attained something like
certainty; and so Richard determined to go on the morrow
'My Lord Bishop327
to the place where the catastrophe had taken place and learn
what he could.
In the afternoon, however, it occurred to him that it
would be as well to look up ' Mr Smith.' He went round
to Tower Street accordingly, and there he found him by the
fire, a miserable object, woe-begone and shivering. Mrs
Jones was opposite, stirring some gruel over the fire. She
looked up with a smile as Richard came in.
' Very glad to see you, sir. Here's the gentleman, Mr
Smith, come again to see you. I've been persuadin' him,
sir,' she added, turning to Richard, ' to take a little gruel.
It's a fine thing to settle the stomach. He's not quite his-
self this mornin.' Rather worse than usual,' she added, with
a meaning look at Richard, which conveyed her full con-
sciousness of ' Mr Smith's ' infirmity.
'I'm afraid I made that punch rather too strong last
night,' said Richard.
1 Mr Smith' groaned and shook his head.
' It was not the punch—good punch never hurts man of
woman. It's the loneliness—the dreadful loneliness of my
position that's preying on me,' he began to say, in a weak,
maudlin way. 4 It does not do—I'm convinced of that—for
44 man to be alone." I always said that celibacy was best for
the clergy; but I've changed my mind, and proposed to Mrs
Jones. I think of taking the post of Bishop of Norwich.
I tell her, though I cannot give her a title, as lay lords can,
still the position is not one beneath her acceptance. She
has a boy or two—well, I'll adopt them, educate them, send
them to the Church. We want more parsons—it is the want
of the day. Mrs Jones hesitates; has scruples. I wish,
my dear sir, you'd reason her out of them.'
Mrs Jones took all this in a very sensible, matter-of-fact
way.
4 Didn't I tell you, Mr Smith, I'd go to church with you
328
The Dean's Wife.
as soon as you'd bought the ring and the banns were called,
if only you'd leave off that nonsense you were talkin' about
cuttin' your throat if I wouldn't.' She stood behind Mr
Smith, and nodded very emphatically at Dick as she spoke,
to let bim see that there was some meaning in her words.
' But you must go to your friends, sir—you must go to your
friends while we're waitin'. He's not fit to be alone, sir—
he really isn't, when the low spirits is on him. There's the
knife, sir,' pointing to one on the table, ' that he brought to
my door not an hour ago, and told me he'd plunge it in his
vitals unless I promised to make him happy.'
Richard felt a little remorse when he thought of the
punch. Had it brought on an attack of delirium tremens,
or increased the mania under which poor ' Mr Smith' was
suffering ? It was clear he was not fit to be alone. Had
it not been for Mrs Jones's kindness, that knife, by this
time, might have found another resting-place than the table.
The sooner ' Mr Smith' was placed in that Elysium to which
he had so kindly sent the Dean of Carminster, the better
for himself, and possibly for other people. He thought
matters over a little and then said,—
'Mrs Jones is quite right, Mr Smith. You ought not
to stay here while the banns are being called; propriety
forbids it. You must take lodgings elsewhere, or visit
some of your friends. As you are not very well to-day,
perhaps you would like me'to communicate with them ?'
' Mr Smith ' shook his head.
'I don't choose anyone belonging to me to know where
I am. They've always been opposed to my marriage. I've
been engaged a dozen times at least, and they've stepped in
and interfered. I have no objection to go away from here,
but—my funds are low—and—'
' Stay with me !' cried Richard, ' for a few days at least,
till you've time to look about you. Mrs J ones, would you
'My Lord Bishop'
329
be good enough to send for a cab, and to put up any little
matters that Mr Smith might like to take with him ?'
Mrs Jones despatched one of her boys who had just come
in from school for the cab, and found a change of linen and
a comb and brush, which she put in rather an imposing
portmanteau.
4 It'll be the savin' of him, sir,' she said, softly; ' he's not
fit to be at large, poor thing ! And I hope,' she added, in
a still lower tone, ' that you wont go for to think that I've
ever encouraged him in any o' that stuff he's been talkin',
sir. I'm not a woman to marry, or I might have done it
time and time again; and least of all, I shouldn't take up
with.a gentleman that's a little bit wrong in his upper
story.'
Richard assured her he thought nothing of the kind.
Then he made her a small present for her trouble, and gave
her his card, in case any of ' Mr Smith's' relations should
have heard of his whereabouts, and have followed him to
Tower Street. And by that time the cab coming, he assisted
Mr Smith into it, Mrs Jones bringing down the portman-
teau, and they drove to Richard's lodgings, where Mr Smith
was at once placed by his host in an easy-chair by the fire,
with a great amount of respect and consideration, which
rather astonished his landlady, who was laying the cloth.
4 My friend will dine with me, Mrs Tozer,' said Richard ;
4 and after dinner I should like a word or two with your
husband and yourself in your own parlour.'
Mr Tozer had been a butler in good service. He had
married a fellow-servant, who, having been only upper
housemaid, considered herself greatly honoured when Mr
Tozer made her an offer of his hand. She worked very
much harder than she had done while in service, and Mr
Tozer eked out the family income by performing the part
of butler at dinner parties in the neighbourhood.
330
The Dear?s Wife.
Richard was a lodger of long-standing; never looked too
closely at his bills, and was content to let his landlady pur-
vey for him. Besides, he was great friends with the two
young Tozers—boys of ten and twelve; and Mr and Mrs
Tozer, having much faith in Richard's attainments, were in
the habit of consulting him about their sons' schooling, and
deferentially asking his opinion about their educational
progress. So that Richard was on the best of terms with
his landlord and landlady, and just now felt rather glad
that he was so.
Mr Tozer was smoking a pipe when Richard descended
to the front kitchen, which the Tozers in their gentility
designated a parlour. Mrs Tozer was darning stockings;
the boys were by the fire, learning lessons. Mr Tozer laid
down his pipe and rose when Richard went in. Mrs Tozer
told her sons to hand him a chair, but Richard preferred
standing.
' I haven't much to say, and I haven't much time to say
it in,' he remarked; 'but I shall be very-glad, Mr Tozer, if
your wife and you can arrange to take my friend in for a
little time. He is a great invalid, suffering from a severe
nervous attack. He has scarcely eaten anything to-day,
and there never were better cooked cutlets in this world
than those you sent up, Mrs Tozer. He is fanciful, hysteri-
cal, broken-down. What I want is this; will you, Mrs
Tozer, make him up a bed in the little dressing-room that
opens out of my bedroom ? And as I shall not be home
very early, I should be very much obliged, Mr Tozer, if you
have no other engagement, if you will kindly remain with
him till I come home. If he goes to bed, keep near him
still. You can look upon it, you know, as an engagement
to a dinner-party, and I shall be happy to pay accordingly.
The same with Mrs Tozer. Extra trouble, extra pay. We
sha'n't quarrel when settling time comes. You'll find the
* My Lord Bishop/ 331
Times and the Day Star in my room, Mr Tozer, if you can
manage to oblige me.'
Mir Tozer intimated his readiness to do so. He was very
pleased with the prospect of a quiet evening, with nothing
to do but to read the papers, and half-a-guinea for doing it.
Richard introduced him to 'Mr Smith' as a friend who
would take his place as host during his unavoidable absence,
and Mr Tozer at once laid himself out to be as agreeable as
possible, and felt that Mr German was ' every inch a gentle-
man.' ' Mr Smith' rallied a little. Mr Tozer's society agreed
with him. They had some capital coffee and toast, which
Mrs Tozer brought up herself, waiting on her lord as she
had done when she was still an underling in the servants'-
hall, while he had attained to the dignity of the house-
keeper's parlour. Then they had cribbage together, and,
after cribbage, Mr Tozer mixed, as Richard had desired him
to do, a small quantity of brandy-and-water. He kept his
charge company in that as he had done in other things.
When Richard came home he found Mr Smith was in bed,
and Mr Tozer sitting up in the'room adjoining—Richard's
own apartment. Mr Smith was in a sweet sleep.
'Looks heavenly, doesn't he, sir?' asked Mr Tozer, as he
showed his charge to Richard. Then they returned into
Richard's room, and Mr Tozer said, ' I got him to bed, sir,
and I valeted him. He's a nice gentleman, and he's been
telling me his troubles—quite familiar-like. I've waited on
bishops in my time, sir; but I never did think that I should
be honoured to sit down and play cribbage with one, and
hear him tell me, as if I'd been his own brother, how the
curates and the chapter—I don't rightly know what he
means by the chapter; I suppose it's a terribly long one
the bishops have to get by heart—were too many for him.
That accounts for the little weakness, sir—nervousness, I
know that's the name gentlefolks give it; but he never
332
The Dean's Wife.
asked for no more than I mixed him, only he said he
couldn't drink alone—it was so unsocial-like. Will his
lordship be long here, sir ?' asked Tozer, with the bated
breath of one who is speaking of a great personage.
41 don't exactly know, Tozer. He wants rest and quiet;
that is certain. And he can have it here for a day or two,
I suppose ?'
4 Mrs Tozer and me will be proud and happy, sir, to do
anything in our power for you, or his lordship either,' said
Tozei\
4 Much obliged to you both, I'm sure, Mr Tozer,' said
Richard. 4 Well, I shall be out all day to-morrow, and if
you could make it convenient, as your company is evidently
acceptable to my friend in there—'
4 So good of his lordship !' murmured Tozer.
4 Perhaps, if you've nothing else in hand, it would be as
well to keep with him just as you have to-night, all day to-
morrow; and don't leave him—nervous patients want a
deal of watching—and be careful about the stimulants; a
nice little dinner, whether I'm back or not. But carve
yourself at lunch, and at dinner too, if I'm not in the way.
I see you know what I mean, Tozer. It's a case where the
nerves have been terribly overwrought. Nothing but a
thorough change, and the companionship and care of a
thoughtful, steady man like yourself, will bring matters
round."
Tozer beamed with delight.
4 I've nothing on to-morrow, sir. I'm quite at your ser-
vice. It's not the first time I've had to do with these nerv-
ous attacks. It's wonderful how many gentlemen—and
ladies too, for the matter of that—is subject to them.'
4 Thank you, Tozer. Well, we'll say good-night,' said
Richard, who was very tired, and had a long day's work
cut out for the morrow.
The Search begun.
333
' Good-night, sir. If you'll allow me, I'll just see that
his lordship is well covered up.' And Tozer took the candle
and gazed as reverently as on a sleeping saint upon his
lodger's guest. Then he came back, evidently refreshed in
spirit by the sight. ' A little time here, sir—a little time,
and pleasant society and good care, and we shall have his
lordship quite himself again.' And Tozer walked away with
head erect, well satisfied with himself, as a man well might
be who believed that he had the charge of an ailing bishop
put upon him.
' I hope,' thought Richard, as he undressed, that ' Mr
Smith will stick to his bishopric to-morrow. If he comes
down to a curacy, Tozer will take alarm, and decline the
post of madman's keeper.'
CHAPTER LL
the search begun.
Richard had looked up the files of the Bay Star, and read
over again all that the papers had to say of the catastrophe
in which the dean had disappeared. The only thing that
bore out 4 Mr Smith's ' story was a statement that it was said
a lunatic and his keeper .had been amongst those who were
saved. There was nothing more—no allusion to the state
of insensibility in which, according to 4 Mr Smith,' they
both were—it was given more as a rumour current in the
neighbourhood than as an authenticated fact. And at
breakfast Mr Smith was taciturn and reserved, and evi-
dently indisposed to enter upon the subject.
Mr Tozer noticed his manner when he brought in the
tea. As a rule,"he did not wait on the lodgers, thinking
Mrs Tozer and the one smaU maid competent to do so.
334
The Dean s Wife.
But he came in now with a solemn dignity befitting a man
accustomed to breathe the air of episcopal palaces, and
whispered to Richard,—
4 His lordship is not so well this piorning. They never
are in nervous cases. He'll be better as the day goes on.
Lunch, with a glass or two of sherry, will set him up.'
4 Mind it is only a glass or two, Tozer,' said Richard.
To which Tozer replied impressively,—
4 You may place every confidence in me, Mr German.'
Richard started out on his quest directly after breakfast.
First, he took the train to Burleigh, the next station be-
yond the place at which the accident had taken place ; and
there he made inquiries of station-master, hotel-keepers,
porters—any and every one who had been at all concerned
in that terrible affair, but could hear nothing of a lunatic
and his keeper.
4 They must have gone with the rest,' said the station-
master; 4 and have been buried in the churchyard at Am-
side. You'll see three graves there, side by side, sir, with
tablets in memory of those whe are placed beneath them.
But who is who, or which grave holds which, is more than
any man can tell. It was a dreadful thing, sir—dreadful.'
4 But there were no inquiries from friends or relatives
about these people,' said Richard ; 4 and there surely would
have been if they had been amidst those slain by the ex-
plosion.'
41 should say so, sir. No; if there was any one like
the parties you are speaking of in that train, they must
have got a conveyance from one of the farmers at Arnside,
and gone on. Any one in charge of a lunatic would like to
have him out of the way of the stir and disturbance as soon
as he could. Why, the mere sight was enough to drive a
sane man mad, sir. That's it, you may depend upon it, sir.
The keeper pulled himself together, picked his man up,
The Search begun.
335
and got him away in a trap out to the place where he was
expected.'
' Where would that be ? Are there any lunatic asylums
in this neighbourhood ? ' asked Richard.
4 Only the county, twelve miles from here. Perhaps
your man might be in that.'
4 Hardly likely,' said Richard; 4 and yet it might be.
Twelve miles from here. Is it near a station ?'
4 Only a mile off; but there is not a train stops there for
two hours, if you are in a hurry, sir.'
Richard was eighty miles from London as it was, and he
had to be back at the office of the Day Star by the evening.
It was out of the question that he could, to-day, either visit the
county asylum or even go as far as Arnside. It was a little
village half-a-mile from the scene of the accident, the station-
master told him, and people had come hurrying from there
to give what help they could as soon as they heard of the
disaster; and, in the churchyard, all that was left of the
victims was buried. It was possible, the station-master
thought, that Richard might hear something more of the
survivors, if he went there.
But it was too late now to do anything but hurry
back to town as fast as the up-express could take him;
and Richard, as he was being borne to London by it, felt
rather doubtful whether he was not as much out of his
senses as was 'Mr Smith.' Suppose it was all another
fiction of that fertile but misdirected brain ! And yet how
did he come by that ring which Richard felt sure he had
seen upon the dean's finger ?
It was past midnight when he reached home, and he found
4 Mr Smith' in bed, as he had done the evening before. Mr
Tozer bad a good account to give of him.
' His lordship has had a nice quiet day, and been very
affable and chatty.'
336
The Dean's Wife.
' Much obliged to you, Tozer, for taking such good care of
him. Now I want to go away to-morrow upon business,
and I shall most likely stay away all night—very likely not
return till about this time on Monday. Will you sleep in
my bedroom instead of me, and continue taking the same
care of this poor gentleman that you have been doing ?'
Mr Tozer bowed his prompt acquiescence. Keeping a
bishop company was very pleasant work, and it gave him a
bland sense of dignity such as he had not experienced since,
from a butler, he subsided into his present position. The
next morning Mr Smith was very much better, cheerful,
and communicative, and Richard found no difficulty in lead-
ing him into talk about the dignitary whom he had so kindly
provided for.
' I happened to be in the neighbourhood, and I made
some inquiries about him,' said Richard; 'but no one could
tell me anything. The retreat you have found for him must
be a very quiet one.'
' They'd keep him snug, once they'd got him,' said ' Mr
Smith,' with a cunning significance.
' Was it anywhere about Arnside, the village near which
the explosion took place, that he is now residing, or is it
further down the line ?' asked Richard.
' You must excuse me, my dear friend; you must excuse
me, if I decline to tell you anything further than that the
place to which he went as my substitute is one where he
would have every kindness, and comfort, and perfect rest
from that brain-work which is the curse of our modern life.
I shall tell you no more than I have told. I begin to think
1 have told you too much as it is.' And Mr Smith relapsed
into dignified silence.
After breakfast was over, Richard started in a hansom
for the station from whence he was to find his way to Tor-
rington, the station for the county lunatic asylum. He had
The Search begun.
33 7
not much hope of success, and yet it seemed as if he must
go on. If the father of the girl he loved was indeed buried
there—a sane, man in a lunatic asylum—it was his bounden
duty to leave no stone unturned in the effort to help him.
And it was only himself who could perform this duty, since
it might be torturing Lady Mary needlessly to let her know
that there was a chance of her husband being still a living man.
He was at Torrington by midday, and a brisk walk
brought him to the asylum. Richard had decided on his
course. He should most likely have to do with a man to
whom a patient more or less would be of very little import-
ance, and it would be best to tell him everything in a
straightforward way. Whether it would have been as ad-
visable in the case of a private asylum, Richard was not so
clear.
The doctor was a pleasant, genial man, and he heard
Richard's story patiently, but there was a little twinkle in
his eye when he had finished.
11 see what you are thinking,' said Richard. * Don't
you consider, now, that I am as fit to become an inmate
here, as any one of those whom you have the charge of ? '
'You have told me a very singular story,' was the
answer; ' and, by your own acknowledgment, you have
only a lunatic's word for its truth.'
' Still, if there is the merest possibility that it is true,'
urged Richard, ' am I not bound to make every effort ?
The gentleman in question is the father of one with whom
I hope to be very closely connected.'
' The Dean of Carminster, I think you said ? ' asked Dr
Blake. ' And you believe him to be here—a sane man ?
I think 1 can answer for it that we have no one within
these walls who is detained without good reason ; and if the
dean is not buried in Arnside churchyard, under the tablets
erected to his memory, along with others, who is ?'
Y
33»
The Dean's Wife.
4 It was impossible to recognise or indentify auy o. the
remains,' said Richard. 'All that could be done was to
put them in three common graves, and inscribe the sup-
posed names of those buried there.'
4 Still, if the dean isn't buried there, who is ? ' asked Dr
Blake, quietly.
4 Some foreign clerk, some sailor going to join his ship.
There are thousands who might be hurried out of life like
this, and no one say that they were missing. If the story
I have heard is true, and mind, I don't say that it is true,
only that I am bound to ascertain whether it is so or not—
some poor, nameless, friendless creature has taken the place
of the much-respected Dean of Carminster, Why, my dear
sir, I have travelled in a train scores of times since I first
came to London, and if such a thing had occurred to me, it
would never have been known what had become of me. I
was here to-day, and there to-morrow, looking for work and
materials for work wherever I could get it; and if I had
disappeared in this or in any other way, though there are
those who, after a time, would have missed, and mourned
me, still, it would never have been known how I had come
to my end. So it is just possible that some waif and stray
such as I once was is taking the place, in the churchyard
at Arnside, that is supposed to be filled by the Dean of
Carminster.'
4 That may be, but I'm tolerably certain we have no dean
here. I cannot remember, at this distance of time, whether
or not we were expecting anyone on that day. Most likely
we were ; there are always arrivals and departures in a
place like this. But the best way and the quickest will be
for me to show you through the men's wards myself. At
any rate, it will give you materials for a chapter in your
next novel, or a leader in your paper, when you are in want
of a subject.'
The Search begun.
339
Through the mad world into which Richard passed we
are not going to follow him. He saw men in outdoor
occupations—men working at trades—men in the infirmary,
at the tailor's board, the carpenter's bench, the turning-
lathe ; and lastly he saw them seated at table. But there
was no Dean of Carminster amongst them. Worn faces—■
sad faces—old men with a vacant wonder, as if they had not
yet recovered the surprise of finding themselves where they
were; young men—blank, reckless, stolid—and some as
indifferent and as commonplace as if they were still living
in the outer world, and no bar had set them apart from
their fellow-men.
Dr Blake enjoyed showing his kingdom to Richard. It
was not often he had a novelist and journalist combined to
tialk with, and he was proud of his asylum and of the way
in which it was ordered. Still, by the smile that flickered
o^er his face whenever he brought Richard into contact with
a fresh group, and turned on him a questioning look, it was
clear that he thought his visitor had started on a wild-goose
chase when he came to hunt for the Dean of Carminster,
disguised as a lunatic, in the county asylum.
Richard slept that night at Torrington, and the next
morning took the first train and went back to Amside. He
came there just in time for morning service. The church
was old and grey, innocent of renovation; the sermon was
one of the ordinary stamp, dealing with old-time dogmas,
with impossible creeds, with matters utterly beyond and
above the ordinary needs and requirements of the untaught,
illiterate souls below. There was the usual population of a
country village. A few farmers in good broadcloth, their
wives and children dressed with an approach to fashion on
which the squire's wife and daughters looked with a little
contemptuous disdain; the small tradespeople of the place
—such of them, at least, as did not attend the Methodist
340
The Dean's Wife.
chapel; and a few labouring men with their elder children.
There were furtive glances cast at Richard. Even the ladies
of the squire's family did not disdain to look at him from
over their prayer-books. A well-dressed, good-looking
stranger was a rarity in the church at Arnside. As to
Richard himself, his thoughts were wandering during the
prayers, and it was impossible to keep them from straying
during the sermon; and he was looking at the various mem-
bers of the congregation, and deciding to which of them it
would be best to apply for the information he desired. At
last he settled on a rosy, stout, comfortable-looking man,
who, he decided, must be the village Boniface, who was at-
tending church less, perhaps, from inclination, than with a
view to propitiate the squire and the vicar. So to him,
when the service was over, and the congregation had filed
out, he applied, asking, in the first instance, if there was
any place in the village where he could meet with a plain
dinner, ' or eggs and bacon, if there's nothing better to be
had.'
' Come to my place, the Red Cow, and I'll give you a cut
out of a beefsteak-pie that the missus an' I have got for our-
selves an' the childer,' was the answer; ' that's if a fine gen-
tleman from London like you can put up with plain fare.'
' I expect I've dined worse, many a time in my life,' said
Richard; ' and I dare say you'll give me a glass of good ale
to wash it down with ? '
' You may make sure of that,' was the answer; and Richard
found himself now at a small hostel—old-fashioned, pictur-
esque—with low parlour, with beams across the ceiling, and
a great window-seat full of geraniums housed for the winter,
and looking, as they always do look in such places, infinitely
better than their relatives in a rich man's greenhouse.
There was a good fire, half-a-dozen children, with clean
faces and pinafores, and the cloth ready laid for dinner.
The Search begun.
341
The landlady came up : ' Would the gentleman take a seat
■while they lit the fire in the best parlour ? They would send
him in the pasty and potatoes before they sat down them-
selves.'
' And keep all these hungry youngsters waiting ? ' said
Richard. ' No; I dine with you, or not at all. The pasty's
ready, I know by the smell, which also tells me that it's a
good one.'
Richard was seated by this time, with a small child by
his side, a smaller one on his knee. The landlady smiled,
said they should be proud of his company; and, the landlord
coming in, Richard told him he had invited himself to a
seat at his table.
The fare was good, if plain, and Richard, while discussing
it, turned the conversation to the great railway accident
which had taken place so near them.
' Ah, poor souls !' the landlady said; 1 that was a terrible
time! We had the place here thronged; an' the crowner's
'quest sat upon the dead. They put them on trestles in the
church. There was no room for they, here. 'Twas as much
as we could do to find room for the living who wanted
seeing to. We gave up our own room, and sent the childer
away to their uncle's, a mile off. 'Twas a thing childer
were better out of hearin'.'
' Did you see any of the bodies ? ' asked Richard.
' My man there wouldn't have had me go—no, not if I
had had the dmpe, with my hands full here, an' work for
half-a-dozen more if I'd had 'em,' was the answer. ' But
Mr Maine, the wheelwright here, were on the 'quest; he's
a rare feelin' man, and he told me such a sight were enough
to kill a man, let alone a woman; there wasn't one whose
own mother would have known him. But you read all
about it in the papers, sir; and 'twas just as bad as they
put it. Did you know any one who was killed, sir? I
342
The Dearis Wife.
thought perhaps you might, and have come down here to
see the graves in our churchyard.'
4 What I want to know is this—what I have come down
for is this,' answered Richard, thinking, as in the case of the
lunatic asylum, that straightforward dealing would be best
4 was their amongst the living who were brought here or
elsewhere a middle-aged gentleman, who called himself a
clergyman ? and was there with him a man who claimed to
have the charge of him, and who stated that he (the gentle-
man) was not quite in his right senses ? '
Landlord and landlady looked at each other and shook
their heads.
4 No one of that sort here,' said the latter presently.
4 Five on 'em was ladies, poor dears! and three childer,
pretty lambs! One was never tired, when she got better,
of play in' with an old doll one of mine lent her. An' what
were the gentlemen, father ?'
4 There was a sailor, I know,' said the landlord, 4 and he
swore dreadful! so that couldn't be the parson, anyway.
Only bein' out of his mind might make a difference, the
madness bringin' the wickedness out of him, just as they
say the drink does. But he was a sailor right enough, an'
he was in a mortal way because ho said his mate had got
blown up, an' was buried in the churchy ard. Now, that
couldn't be. There was just twelve people missin', and
twelve bodies, when they was all put together, buried in
our churchyard. As I told the sailor, his mate, when he
had made up his mind not to lose his ship, whatever he did,
had picked hisself up and walked on to Liverpool. Our
sailor left at the end of a week, and he wrote to the missis
here, sayin' he'd lost his ship, and supposed his mate had
gone with her. He was a fatherless lad, an' no mother
worth speakin' on, brought up in the trainin' ship, and this
one had taken to him. They'd made their last voyage to-
The Search begun.
343
gether, an' meant to make this. He was regularly riled
that the young 'un didn't write. That made him stick to it
the—never mind what he called them—had buried hi™ by
mistake.'
' Then we had a commercial traveller, an' a young doctor,'
said the landlady; ' but the rest of the folks was taken off
in carts, made as comfortable as they could with straw
under 'em, and sent 'em to Laverton—that's our nearest
station, you know, sir. There's a big hotel there;, perhaps
you'd hear of your missing gentleman if you went there.'
Richard thought it would be as well to try. At any rate,
here was another stone that it behoved him to turn. He
finished the apple-tart with which the meat-pie had been
followed, asked Mrs Tooke if she could accommodate him
with a bed in case he returned from Laverton, and having
settled that point, started off on his further quest.
The walk to Laverton was above four miles, but the after-
noon was bright, clear, and frosty. Mr Tooke protested
against his walking, and was sure that Mr Maine would
lend a chaise-cart; he was always an obliging man, and very
considerate to his neighbours, and would do anything to
oblige a customer of theirs. Richard had no wish for the
tax-cart, and started of at a pace which within an hour
brought him to the Railway Hotel at Laverton.
It was a large place—big, showy, and imposing; a con-
trast every way to the snug little old-world hostel at Arnside.
The waiters were of the stamp of Mr Tozer, and there was
no landlord, no landlady, but a manageress, employed by the
company to whom the hotel belonged. But the manageress
was as civil and communicative as the landlady of the ' Red
Cow,' although she had a silk dress fashionably cut, instead
of a linsey made in the fashion of ten years ago, and she
told Richard all there was to tell. They had had twenty
people brought them from Arnside at the time of the acci-
344
The Dearis Wife.
dent. Some kept their beds a week, some a fortnight; some
went off the next day—there were four gentlemen who did
so; they were just a little bruised and shaken, and a night's
rest set them up. The others stayed, some a week, some
two or three days. They were none of them so injured, she
heard, as those who had been taken to Arnside, which was
the nearest place.
Could she give full particulars of those who had left the
day after.they came to Laverton ? Well, she thought she
could, with the help of the head waiter, who had seen more
of them than she had done herself. Of course, an hotel like
this was very different from the ' Red Cow' at Arnside—
this with a little smile of conscious superiority. There were
always people coming and going; but still, any one who was
brought in such a way as these poor creatures from Arnside
was likely to be better remembered.
Charles, the head waiter, came in, and Richard ques-
tioned him.
Yes; he quite well remembered all the gents who left the
day after the accident. There was a smart, well-dressed young
fellow, who was furious with the railway people because
they had given him a black eye, and he was just going a
hundred miles further down the country to be married. He
went to bed with half-a-pound of steak fastened on his fore-
head; and when he started the next morning the bruise had
gone down, but it was all the colours of the rainbow. And
there were two elderly gentlemen. Elderly !—Richard felt
hopeful. About what age ? ' One was seventy-three—he toid
every one so, and boasted how few men there were of his
age who would have such a spill and be none the worse for
it the next day. The other was a little, round, stout, fussy
man, a friend of the other elderly party. And the fourth
was a young fellow of twenty. There were three other
gentlemen, and their friends came and took them away—'
The Search begun.
345
' Their friends ? What were their friends like ?'
Two of the friends were wives, the third friend a daughter j
no one at all likely to be the keeper of a lunatic asylum had
appeared on the scene. There was nothing for it, Richard
felt, but to return to Arnside about as wise as he came.
He had made arrangements which permitted him to re-
main away from the office of the Bay Star that night; and
so, bidding good-bye to the handsome manageress, and feeing
the waiter for the information he had not been able to give,
he walked back towards the Red Cow, along the frosty road,
under the quiet light of the wintry stars.
And where was the man of whom he was in search ?
Beyond those stars, looking down upon his, Richard's, quest
with a gentle pity ?—and was all that was mortal of him
decaying within those awful graves at Arnside ? He sup-
posed it must be so, and his eccentric lodger, ' Mr Smith,'
must have despoiled the dead, and then, with the cunning
of madness, have invented this story to gloss over the theft.
But was the man really mad, or only a very clever im-
postor, who, he might possibly find, on his return, had
escaped from Mr Tozer's charge with whatever portable
property he could lay his hands on ? Somehow Richard
could not believe that; he had seen a good deal of human
nature, and ' Mr Smith,' if mad, was nothing worse. And
what had become of that young sailor of whom his friend
had never heard ? Was it he who was taking the place of
the Right Reverend the Dean of Carminster in that quiet
churchyard ? Richard felt sorely puzzled; but he would not
give up the quest yet. On the morrow he would inquire
about the neighbourhood of Arnside. If the dean was on
the earth he would discover him !
* And then have him tell me for my pains I'm not good
enough for his son-in-law.'
Mrs Tooke was very pleased to see Richard back at the
34^
The Deaths Wife.
Red Cow. It was a compliment to the little inn that he
should return there instead of staying at the great hotel at
Laverton. Richard sat and smoked in the family sitting-
room, and made further inquiries respecting the neighbour-
hood, then told the elder children some wonderful stories,
and afterwards discussed the prospects of agriculture and
of the beer trade under the present Govern ment with his
landlord. Then they had supper off the remains of that
redoubtable meat pasty, and afterwards Richard went to
bed and slept in a large room with wainscoted walls and
sloping ceiling, where ivy peeped in at the little casement
window, and where every article of furniture was black
with age, and redolent of beeswax and turpentine.
CHAPTER LIL
' also the very rev. george dalmaine.'
The day was as clear and frosty as the one before had been,
and Richard prepared to make the best of the few hours
that lay before him. He did ample justice to the eggs
and bacon Mrs Tooke provided for breakfast, and then
went round the village to make further inquiries. Had any
one on the night or the morning after the explosion on
the railway seen or heard anything of two such persons as
he described ? The idea possessed him that ' Mr Smith's'
•keeper might have rallied sufficiently to have secured the
services of anyone passing with a cart and horse, and so
have got himself and his charge driven to whatever might
have been their destination. He went to the wheelwright,
to the general shop, to two or three of the neighbouring
farms, to the people at the lodge of the great house, and
' Also the Very Rev. George Dalmainel 347
from all the answer was the same. No one could tell him
anything.
Then Richard felt disheartened at last. 4 " Mr Smith "
may be a madman, but he's had brains enough to make a
fool of me,' he said, as he drew near the church] and then
it occurred to him that he had not yet seen the graves where
it seemed as if indeed the man he was in search of must be
buried. He would see that at least before he turned back ;
perhaps that would help him to disbelieve 'Mr Smith's'
story, which, in spite of all its improbabilities, in spite of
his better reason, he could not help still giving credit to.
The churchyard had nothing to distinguish it from a thousand
others—grass-covered, nameless graves, and here and there
one with a stone bearing the name and some simple epitaph
of one who had passed away. Two or three old yew trees,
a few sheep browsing peacefully, that was all. All, but for
that awful record on the wall just opposite the church.
Three mounds placed closely side by side, with an iron
palisade around, and on the wall three tablets bearing record
of the names and ages of those who were placed below.
Four children, a mother, a servant, two sisters, a lad of
eighteen, an old man, another in the early prime of life—
different grades of rank, different ages, but all snatched
away by one horrible doom] their names were duly set
forth] the date, the manner of the catastrophe—Richard
read all the terrible record, and came at last to one whom
I have not included in this list, 4 Also the Yery Reverend
George Dalmaine, Dean of Carminster.'
4 Gathered together with the rest. I suppose there is no
believing anything else,' said Richard to himself ] 4 I've done
my best to find him living. I suppose now I must be con-
tent to go home and believe him dead.'
He heard steps behind him—the heavy, faltering steps,
they seemed, of an old and feeble man, followed by a sharper.
348
The DearCs Wife.
quicker tread ; and as he turned, a harsh but not unkindly
voice said,—
' Now I hope, sir, you're satisfied; I've brought you here
just to let you see that you're dead and buried, an' so can't
be alive and walking about. There you are, "The Very
Reverend George Dalmaine," etc., etc. Now you can't be
there and here too, can you ?'
The speaker was a tall, barely middle-aged man, with a
powerful frame and a determineddooking face, and the
gentleman he was addressing had white hair, and stooped,
and walked feebly, leaning on his umbrella. And he looked
at the names on the tablets and read them over slowly till
he came to the last; 'Also the Very Reverend George
Dalmaine.' Then he shook his head, and said softly,—
'And still I am here, and the tombstone lies.'
A thrill of horror and yet of delight passed through
Richard German's veins. "Was this white-haired man, old,
feeble, bent before his time, looking on the grave which was
supposed to hold him, but had garnered another in his place,
was this his Winifred's father, the strong, active man, in his
mature prime, whom he had known as the Dean of Car-
minster ?
He took off his hat with a reverence he had never before
shown the man before him, and advanced with outstretched
hand.
' You remember me, I hope, sir ?'
The poor dimmed eyes looked up with a feeble uncertainty.
' I—yes—surely I have seen you ; but my head wanders
at times. Still, I think people called you Richard German,
in the days when they called me George Dalmaine.'
His voice was meek and low; but, as he spoke, it grew
a little stronger, and a flickering light came into the eyes.
The attendant with him came up with an air of authority,—
' My patient, sir; when I am out with him the doctor
* Also tke Very Rev. George Dalmaine * 349
does not like him to speak to strangers. It excites him,
and does mischief.'
' Quite so; I perfectly understand,' said Richard, who
felt that the man before him was only doing his duty, and
carrying out his master's orders. He must temporise, and
go carefully to work, if he meant to ascertain where the
dean resided. ' I knew this gentleman before he came to
Dr—'
(Dr Ashley,' said the dean, with a faint smile, ' I know
his name, though he will not give me mine.'
' One point to me,' thought Richard ; ' there's the doctor's
name gained.' He slipped a sovereign in the attendant's
hand. ' I don't think a little quiet talk with this gentle-
man will hurt him—especially with you present. I shall
be careful not to excite him. He looks sadly broken since
I saw him last.'
' Well he may, sir, said the attendant, whom possibly the
sovereign had induced to think that the doctor's regulations
as to silence did not apply to Richard. ' I never thought
we should bring him round when I first set eyes on
him. He'd been blown out, sir, of the railway carriage
that he was travelling down to Burleigh in ; he and the
attendant who was taking charge of him. The doctor and
I had gone off in the carriage to meet 'em, and when we
got to Burleigh we heard there had been a smash and worse.
So we drove back towards where it had happened; and, as
we were driving—I was on the box, sir, with the coachman
—I was just an extra hand taken on in case we'd any trouble
with him • but, lord, he's no trouble in that way, a child
might lead him—well, I heard a groan, and turning round,
I tells the doctor, who was inside—ours is a close carriage,
sir, made to open as we want it, kept for the patients ; we
never has more than two, most times one at a time—and
I says to the doctor, " There's some poor soul as has come
The Dean's Wife.
to grief a-lying here;" an' he says, " I'll get out an' see, an'
do you get down ;" which I did. An' there we found him,
an' the man as was to bring him, a-lyin' flat on their backs
—bruised that way you'd hardly have known him. We got
them in the carriage an' drove off. 'Twas a bad job, at first,
for the keeper ; they thought he'd never get over it, but he
did, though he'll never be fit for work like this again.' He
nodded, as he spoke, towards the dean. ' Even with your
quiet ones you're never quite sure when they may break
out; so the railway company made it up to him, and he's
set up in business at Mile End, London.'
' Then he has never been employed about this gentleman
since the accident ? ' said Richard.
4 Never set eyes on him. He was too bad at first; then,
as soon as he got better, his wife took him off to the seaside,
and from that he went up to London. I was took on at
once in his place, regular; and I thought—you know, I
suppose, the turn the poor gentleman has taken—'
Richard thought it best to nod affirmatively. The first
thing to be done was to get all the information he could.
4 Well, I thought that if he really saw on this stone what
I'd heard there was—just the name he lays claim to—it
might do him good. He's stuck to that name constant,
ever since we've had him. Before that, we were told he
was sometimes a bishop, sometimes a curate, but always in
the Church ! Now he's the Dean of Carminster; nothing
else will do. And there, you see, is the dean, dead and
buried. I've driven over seven miles to show him that
stone. I'd heard about it, an' I thought it would do him
good, But I don't know what to make of the way he's
looking at it.
The dean had seated himself on a flat tombstone just in
front of the three graves, and holding his umbrella like a
stick, with both his weak, thin hands, he sat gazing on the
' Also the Very Rev. George Dalmaine.' 351
tablets, repeating to himself, over and over again, in a low
tone,—
'Also the Very Reverend George Dalmaine.'
The keeper shook his head.
' I don't know what to make of him. It doesn't seem as
if he knew what to make of it either, does it ?'
He spoke all along as he might have done of a child or a
deaf person—one who could either not hear or not under-
stand a word of what was said. Richard sat down by the
dean,—
'We have missed you very much, sir.'
The dean looked vacantly at him. Then a faint recollec
tion seemed to come.
' I suppose so; and yet I don't know. No one has ever
come to see after me. One gets so soon forgotten, and the
world goes on just the same.'
' You have not been forgotten. I can answer for that,'
said Richard.
' It is good of you to say so; but why has no one ever
been to see after me ? When I was George Dalmaine I had
a wife—ah ! there were not many like her—and two girls;
but no one comes to see after me. How is it ? Am I George
Dalmaine, sitting here? or is it George Dalmaine buried
with the others in one of those graves ?'
' Lady Mary has grieved for you very bitterly.'
' Then she should have come to have seen me, and have
taken me away from these people. Why did she leave me
with them so long ? And my little Cissy; I suppose she
has other things now to amuse herself with than her father.
I was very fond of little Cissy ; but children soon forget.'
'Neither Cissy nor Winifred has forgotten you.'
' I think they have, if, indeed, I am George Dalmaine,
which I sometimes doubt. Or was I George Dalmaine be-
fore the railway nearly killed me, and was I changed into
35*
The Dean's Wife.
another man during that long illness ? I don't know \ I can*
not understand.' He put his hand to his head. 'It puzzles
me very much; it is such a tangled web.'
'It will be unravelled very soon, now. Shall I bring
Lady Mary to see you soon, sir ? ' asked Richard.
' If she will come,' was the answer, with a little bitter-
ness. ' Tell her I would not have left her so long as she
has left me.'
'You will not blame her when you know how and why
she has done so,' answered Richard.
The keeper drew a little nearer.
'We must be getting back now, sir. It's seven miles
from here to our place at Burrylees. And the doctor doesn't
like me to keep him out too long.'
' Then I will say good-day,' said Richard. And he took
the dean's nerveless cold fingers in his own warm grasp, and
held them firmly, trying to convey more by that pressure
than he could by words. ' I will come and see you very
soon j in a day or two, I hope; and I trust that Lady Mary
may accompany me.'
'Bring his wife, sir—bring Mrs Barton! He's always
wanting his wife—Mary, he calls her, too—she'll do him
more good than that lady of title you're talking about. A
wife is a wife when one's ill, or in trouble, even if we haven't
hit it always so well together. And it doesn't seem kind
for him to be deserted like this,' said the keeper, who was
clearly a man of his day as regarded the treatment of
lunatics—but still a man who honestly believed that it was
a lunatic he had to deal with, in the poor broken sufferer
who called himself George Dalmaine. ' She's gone abroad,
sir, to Algiers or somewhere, for her health, and never been
near the place since he's been in it. If she's back in Eng-
land by this, and you see her, you might as well give her a
hint how the poor gentleman's fretting about her.'
How Richard worked on. 353
The dean did not seem to hear this. He sat with his
eyes still fixed on the tablet that bore his name, and he
said presently,—
4 Why did she let them write that lie ? Why has she
never been near me all this time ? If I am George Dal-
maine; or if not—if that is George Dalmaine sleeping
there—why, who then am I ?'
4A little longer and he would have been mad in earnest,'
thought Richard; then he said firmly,—4 Lady Mary will
come and tell you how it is she has not been to see you,
sir—you understand that, I hope ? Your dear loving wife
will come. It will be all right then, and your little Cissy
will come, too.'
4 We must be going,' said the keeper, and hurried off his
charge.
The dean walked feebly, slowly. He seemed scarcely to
have realised Richard's last words. But when he was in
the carriage, he waved his hand, and his poor worn face
brightened up a little. 4 Give her my love—give them all
my love,' he cried, and so svas borne away in the carriage.
CHAPTER LT I 1.
how richard worked on.
One thing struck Richard German very painfully after his
parting with the dean—the quiet, unresisting manner in
which he had gone back with his attendant. There had
been no thought of escape—no appeal, such as might
have been expected, to Richard to set him free by proclaim-
ing that he was indeed George Dalmaine, and not the man
he was supposed to be, and therefore unlawfully detained
z
3*4
The Dean's Wije.
Not that Richard could have succeeded in claiming him
then and there. That stout keeper would have shown
fight if need be, and have called the village constable to his
assistance, and have been quite within his right in doing
so. But still, it would have seemed more natural for
the dean to have appealed for help—to have insisted on his
freedom—than to have gone back as meekly as a sheep to
the slaughter. Still, there was one comfort: he seemed
kindly and fairly dealt by. Whoever had placed ' Mr
Smith' in Dr Ashley's charge had certainly chosen his
guardian well as far as humanity and kindness went, to
judge by appearances. The thing now was how to induce
Dr Ashley to see that his rightful patient, whom it was
clear he had never yet seen, was not the one he'd been
treating so carefully all the winter.
Richard had plenty to do, and went straight on to do it.
First he paid his bill at the ' Red Cow,' and inquired if
they had ever heard of Dr Ashley at Burrylees. No, no-
body at Arnside ever had a doctor of that name. When
they wanted a doctor, which wasn't often, unless it was
at the squire's, who of course could afford to pay, they
sent to Laverton. But Mrs Tooke thought her cousin the
dressmaker, who sometimes went to Burrylees to see her
aunt there, might know, and she took Richard round to see
that young person, whom he found very busily manufactur-
ing a resplendent costume for the blacksmith's daughter,
but very well disposed for a gossip with the gentleman
from London.
Yes, she knew Burrylees very well. Often went to stay
with her aunt, who was married to a butcher there, and
being well-to-do, liked to have her over to help with the
children's things. Burrylees was a very quiet, dead-alive
sort of a place. Laverton was the nearest station, and that
was seven miles off. It was six miles from Arnside. Dr
How Richard worked on.
355
Ashley—yes, she had heard of him. He lived in an old
place just at the end of the town. There was a large
garden, and some fine old trees. He had very little practice,
it was believed—there wasn't much in Burrylees for anyone,
there was another doctor. Nobody knew how Dr Ashley
managed, unless he had private property, for he kept a
carriage and jobbed his horses of her other uncte, who had
the best inn of the place. She thought he went amongst
the county people mostly, and his wife visited them, if she
visited at all; and some did say the doctor took in mad
patients. There was generally a gentleman—sometimes two
—going out in the carriage, but they might be visitors, she
couldn't tell.
Richard thanked her, and sprang into the fly which was
waiting to take him to Laverton. He got out of the train
at Carminstcr, and soon found himself in the dining-room
of Dr Rees, the leading physician of the town, and the
medical attendant of the Dalmaines at the deanery.
Fortunately Dr Rees was at home—for Richard was
sorely pressed for time—and he listened with no little
wonder to the account given him. He was a good-natured
man, very partial to Lady Mary and her daughters, and he
had heard, as all medical men must do, a great many curious
things in his life, but this was by far the most curious of all
that he had heard.
' The Dean of Carminster shut up in a lunatic asylum,
when everybody supposed him to be dead and buried ! Are
you sure—are you quite sure, my dear sir, that some chance
resemblance hasn't deceived you—or have you been lee
away by that singular " Mr Smith's " story ? you novelists
have such lively imaginations.'
' But my imagination wouldn't carry me the length of
taking any one for the dean, nor would my imagination
influence him to recognise me.'
356
The Dean's Wife.
' Ah ! true—no, I suppose—yes—it must be true. I
don't see anything else for it. Poor fellow! Well, it's a
great pity you didn't discover him a little sooner. There's
the deanery filled up. I wonder how they'll settle that?
It won't matter to him so much as it might have done
to many. He'll be Sir George Dalmaine now; but if
you had not made this discovery till a few months later,
what a ^ry awkward thing it might have been for Lady
Mary !' and the doctor looked aghast at the vision he had
conjured up.
' You mean that she might have married again? No; I
don't think she would be the woman to take a second
husband.' ^
The doctor looked demure, and said nothing. In his
heart he had thought, as everybody else in Carminster had
thought, that Lady Maiy must inevitably marry again.
' There'll be no possibility of anything of the kind, now,'
he said; 1 but she ought to be told of this ; and then we
must see about fetching away the dean. We shall have to
be careful there. That shock on the railway has clearly
unsettled his mind. We must go to work gently, and not
startle him too much. Let me see, what sort of a place did
you say he was in ?'
Richard gave all the information he had received from
the little dressmaker and the keeper.
' Dr Ashley ! Dr Ashley ! Why, it's the very same man
I knew twenty years ago—clever, but made a mess of it in
marrying. A man can't get on if his wife wont let him, and
this man's wife was a great hindrance to him. He bought
a middle-class practice, and she would only be civil to a very
select few of the patients. That wasn't all; she looked after
the bills, made them up, and if people didn't pay as promptly
as she thought they should, insisted upon it that Ashley
shouldn't attend any more. It's all very well for a woman
How Richard zvorked on.
to help a man in his business, but she shouldn't insist upon
it that she knows better than he does himself how it should
be managed. The butchers' and bakers' wives didn't like it
when Mrs Ashley affected not to know them 3 and the more
genteel people, whose payments were not quite so prompt
as the tradespeople's, didn't like it that they were dunned.
And then, without being exactly extravagant, she had a
certain idea of the rate at which a medical man should live,
and the appearance he should keep up, so at last poor Ashley
came to grief. He had to compound with his creditors, sell
ail up, and take a situation as assistant, while Mrs A went
home to her friends. After a bit he came into a little money,
and then he wrote to me that he had been offered the guardian-
ship of one invalid, mentally afflicted, and should be glad if
I would recommend him any other. He was going to take
a good house in Burrylees — should keep a carriage, and
everything suitable to people of position, and should, of
course, expect corresponding terms. That would suit Mrs
A very nicely. I sent him one " invalid "—a dipsomaniac.
He did very well by him. He's a clever fellow, is Ashley.
He sent him home cured in a twelvemonth. Of course the
friends had to pay—trust Mrs A. for that!—but he was
cured. Oh, the dean's fallen into very good hands. I dare
say " Mr Smith's " friends have been paying seven or eight
hundred a-year for him 3 and if you have " Mr Smith " safe
and sound, Mrs Ashley wont mind the exchange.'
i I left him safe enough,' said Richard, 1 and I want to
catch the four up-express, so that I may be able to look after
him before I go to the office.'
4But you'll come with me first and see Lady Mary ? She
ought to be told at once.'
4 You're the best man to tell her 3 that's why I came to
you. If she faints or gets hysterical, she couldn't have any
better about her than the family doctor.'
35«
The Dearis Wife.
1 All I know is,' said Dr Rees shortly, ' I'm not going alone
to tell Lady Mary this very strange story. I can't expect
her to believe it from the lips of any one but the person who
has actually seen the dean. I wouldn't have believed it
myself second-hand. Then we shall want you to go with us
to Ashley's. You've seen the dean, so that woman can't face
it out to you that they've got the right man.'
t But she'll have my " Mr Smith " in his place.'
' But we haven't got your Mr Smith down here. Ashley's
all right; but that woman will give us trouble. You see,
when you come to think of it, the Ashleys mayn't feel satis-
fied that your Mr Smith is the right man after all. They've
never seen him, and the keeper who had him in charge is at
Mile End. If we only had that man it would be something.
But we must have you. Can't you come at once with me to
Lady Mary, and then start off for Burrylees ? Once Lady
Mary has heard this story, she won't lose an hour in going
to her husband. If there's no train for Burleigh, she'll insist
on the station-master running a special one for her—end
she'll make him do it, too.'
' But neither Lady Mary nor you will make me go to
Burrylees to-night. I'm due at my office this evening; I
expect I shall have a leader to write when I get there,
besides any other work that may turn up.'
* But you must stay ! you must stay! I cannot possibly
get through this business without you,' urged Dr Rees—he
had lived so long in Carminster, that the affairs of a dean,
either past or present, were in his eyes of far more import-
ance than those of any London penny paper. 'They can
get somebody else to write your leader; and surely, if you
telegraph at once, there are people in the place who will do
your work for you. But Lady Mary ought to be told at
once; and then you must proceed with us to Burrylees.
It is only due to the dean—or Sir George—whatever must
How Richard ivorked on. 359
we call him ?—that not an hour should be lost now we know
of his existence.'
1 I'm not going to stay away another night from my paper,'
said Richard, stoutly; 'but I'll tell you what I will do,
doctor; I'll work all night; I'll arrange matters with my
sub. so that he can take my place to-morrow, and I'll run
down here by the nine express in the morning, go to Lady
Mary with you, tell her she's a wife, instead of a widow,
and then, if you wish it, go on to Burrylees with you and
her, and take that poor gentleman out of the clutches of
Mrs Ashley. Will that do for you ?'
' I suppose it must,' said Dr Rees; ' but it involves the
delay of a day, which hardly seems respectful to Sir George
and Lady Mary.'
' Oh, when a man has been shut up seven or eight months
as a lunatic, another day can't matter so much. And as to
Lady Mary, you can show every respect to her by telling
her yourself what has taken place.
'I don't tell Lady Mary without you,'said the doctor,
firmly ; ' and I don't go to Burrylees without you—under-
stand that, Mr German.'
'Just as you please; but I do nothing more for the dean
or Lady Mary to-day—understand that, Dr Rees. The
public claim me now—the public in the shape of my paper.
Now, I'm going to my train, that I may dine with "Mr
Smith." I hope my landlady will give me something good.
I feel as if I deserved it. Dinner and the Day Star !—
that's my programme for to-day—and the best part of the
night.'
Richard went towards the door, then turned back.
'Oh, doctor, shall I bring " Mr Smith" down with me to-
morrow ? Will that facilitate matters, do you think, with
Mrs Ashley ?'
' No, no; don't,' said the doctor, who had no wish at all
360
The Dean's Wife.
to be travelling about the country with a lunatic, even
under Richard's convoy. ' She wont know him; she'd
decline to take him in; and there wouldn't be time to get
his keeper from Mile End for the purpose of identifying him.'
' And suppose I'm left with " Mr Smith " on my hands ?'
'You'll have rescued the dean,'said Dr Rees, as if to have
done that ought to be enough for any mortal man.
' Perhaps you'd like him yourself as a study. He'd be an
interesting case—especially in a cathedral city.'
' Ta, ta !' laughed the doctor; ' you'll lose the train, Mr
German, if you don't mind, and how about your duty to
the public then ?'
So Richard ran off, and was just in time to catch the
up-express.
CHAPTER LI Y.
how lady mary took the news.
' I haven't lost my train, but suppose I lose my wife ?'
thought Richard, as he was being whirled along. ' Winnie
is a young lady of even more consequence than when I first
proposed, and the dean threw me over with scant courtesy
at that time. Sir George may be still scantier in his
courtesy. I wonder now whether it would have been
better to have left him in durance. Two young hearts to
be broken and blighted just that one elderly gentleman may
be at large. Ah well! it's no use looking forward to evils
that may never come. I must get the dean back into his
wife's hands, and then let him see pretty plainly I mean to
have his daughter for a wife of my own.'
A pleasant smell greeted Richard's nostrils as he entered
his lodgings The little maid let him in, and he ran up-
How Lady Mary took the News. 361
stairs. 4 Mr Smith' was at table, looking benign and
happy. 4 Every inch a bishop !' thought Richard. 4 He
hasn't enlightened Tozer yet.' Mr Tozer himself had just
taken liis seat, and was preparing to carve, looking very
lovingly at the roast hare before him as he did so, when
Richard came in.
* Glad to see you back, sir, he said—not quite truthfully,
for 4 his lordship' had insisted the day before on his taking
his place at the table, declaring he could never eat but in
company, and Tozer bad graciously consented to oblige him.
He had enjoyed his dinner very much; he meant to have
enjoyed it equally to-day. But he stepped aside with a
promptitude and grace worthy of a courtier, helped 4 Mr
Smith' to vegetables and gravy, and then proceeded to serve
Richard.
4 Mr Smith' laid down his knife and fork.
4 Say grace, Mr Tozer—grace, if you please, just as you
did yesterday.'
Tozer said grace, and then 'Mr Smith' observed to
Richard,—
41 have been telling Mr Tozer he should go into the
Church. I never saw a man more fitted for it; I never had
a chaplain who said grace more impressively.'
Mr Tozer looked flattered but modest.
4 His lordship is too good,' he murmured.
4 Not at all—not at all,' said 4 Mr Smith,' with great con-
descension; 4 but I think I know merit when I meet with it.
Circumstances are strange and adverse now, Mr Tozer; but
there is no knowing what may happen some day. Who
knows?—you may be one of my chaplains.'
4 Give me a glass of ale, Tozer, and go and talk it over
with Mrs T.,' said Richard; then he went on with his
dinner, in the course of which he attempted, but without
success, to learn from 4 Mr Smith' something about his
362
The Dearis Wife.
friends or relatives. ' Mr Smith' was very cautious and
reticent on these points. He would tell of nothing but
matters ecclesiastical. He made an excellent dinner, how-
ever, and was evidently very happy; so that, commending
him to the care of Mr Tozer, .Richard took his departure for
the office of the Day Star. He was up all night, and at
seven he left London, and a little before eleven found him-
self again in the dining-room of Dr Rees.
'1 have arranged everything regarding my patients, just
as I suppose you have done with respect to your paper,'
said that gentleman; 1 My friend, Mr Hailes, takes them
for me to-day, so that if Lady Mary carries me off to Burry-
lees, as I am pretty confident she will do, I am quite at her
service.'
' I wonder how she'll take it,' said Richard, thoughtfully.
' Cry—this sort of women always do—then she'll cover
you with thanks—perhaps something more. I shouldn't
mind just then being in your place; then she'll carry us
off to the station, ask one of us to telegraph to Burleigh so
that a carriage may be ready to take us on to Burrylees,
and—after that!'
Early as it was in the day when they arrived at Lady
Mary's residence, she had had a visitor before them. Lady
Dalmaine had received a letter by the last post the preced-
ing evening which had kept her awake best part of the
night, and the result was that she had come to her sister-in
law that morning. The letter was from the present titular
baronet, Sir Thomas or Colonel Dalmaine, at present, as I
have said, in India. He had written to Lady Dalmaine, as
the widow of the late head of the house. He said in his
letter that the difficulties of quitting his post were increas-
ing, that he had no wish to give up active employment and
settle down as a country gentleman for years, and that it
would give him great satisfaction if Lady Dalmaine were to
How Lady Mary took the News. 363
reside at the Hall in Harkley, or at any rate for some
months in the year, so that the place might not be wholly
deserted.
Lady Dalmaine had no wish to return to Harkley with
diminished state. And she had never held her own very
well there. The ' county' had looked shyly on her, and
Sir Frederick had not been popular enough to make people
accept his wife for his sake, if they could not for her own.
* My Lady' was a much greater lady in Oarminster than
she had ever been in her life. And she had budding hopes
which a removal to Harkley might nip in the bud. But if
Lady Mary would go to Harkley it would be an excellent
thing for her and her girls, and not a bad thing for Lady
Dalmaine. Lady Mary would be where Mr Germaine could
not see her. He had admired her very much, there was no
question of that; a great many people admired her as well
as Mr Germaine. Even in her widowhood, and quietly as
she was living, her presence could not but be felt. Such a
woman would make it felt anywhere. Carminster would
be a much nicer place, Mr Germaine a much easier conquest,
if Lady Mary was at the Hall with her daughters.
Therefore Lady Dalmaine had walked round to breakfast
with her sister-in-law, a proceeding which had made every
one open their eyes, excepting Miss Todd, who always pro-
fessed that it was too late in the day for her to be astonished
at anything. But she felt certain that Lady Dalmaine had
some point to carry, or she would not have made this un-
usual exertion, and was therefore not at all surprised when
Lady Dalmaine, in those sweetly subdued tones of hers,
intimated that there was a little matter of business, a letter
from Sir Thomas, the present head of the house, about
which she wished to have a little talk with dear Mary.
She produced the letter, read part, and then made her
suggestion to Lady Mary.
3^4
The Dean's Wife.
4 If you were to go, dear—there should certainly be a
resident lady in every parish, and as the wife of the former
clergyman—though perhaps you were not just what clergy-
men's wives usually are—still, it would be a great thing for
the village. I couldn't live there; the memories of dear Sir
Frederick would be too much for me.'
4 And what must my memories be, Julia ?' asked Lady
Mary sharply. 4 If not the house, the village itself is full
of recollections, not always pleasant ones, of my early mar-
ried life. No; neither you nor I are wanted in Harkley.
The present vicar's wife is a good woman, who understands
the poor better than ever you or I did. But I will never go
back to Harkley. I was not so happy in the place.'
41 did not know that you had found out what every one
saw,' said Lady Dalmaine—4 that you and George were not
exactly fitted for each other. Poor fellow! But I think,
for your own sake, Mary, if not for the poor folks at
Harkley, you should leave Carminster. You are being
talked about. You can't help it—you don't mean it. I
always say, when people tell me such things, that you don't
mean any harm, but you are not prudent, and with these
girls—and "Winifred isn't bad looking, and Cissy will be
pretty some day—you should be careful. Even at -our time
of life, or at least yours—I think I am the younger of
the two.'
4 Six months exactly,' said Lady Mary.
4 Ah, I thought it was more. Most people think there is
a considerable difference between us. Well, as I was say-
ing, people will talk—'
'To those who care to listen to them,' observed Lady
Mary.
4 And—and—it isn't nice. For the girls' sake, Mary,
you should go to a place where there are not so many
tongues.'
How Lady Mary took the Hews. 365
'Nor so many ears,' said Lady Mary. 'Scandal wants
auditors as well as talkers, Julia.'
* Ah, you were always too clever for me, Mary ! As if it is
possible to prevent people talking! There is Mr Warne's name
mixed up with yours. They say he is always coming here.'
'Three times last week, four the week before, and to
dinner this evening,' said Lady Mary, ' Miss Todd is help-
ing him to refurnish the vicarage. You will see a lady
before long there, Julia.'
' Mary !—so soon ? '
' Julia ! If you were not thinking of a second husband
yourself, soon as it is, would you be quite so ready to credit
me with doing so ? As if I were a woman to marry twice !
—I to insult my girls by giving them any one in their dear
father's place! Mr Warne's wife doesn't come from this
part of the world.'
' Then there is Mr Germaine,' said Lady Dalmaine rather
feebly, but watching her sister-in-law all the time.
' If you like to amuse yourself by listening to all this
tattle, Julia, understand that I don't want it second-hand ;
and I shall not go to live at Harkley—nothing will in-
duce me.'
The door opened as she spoke, so that Dr Rees and
Richard heard the words. It was Cissy who ushered them
in. Cissy, who hated her aunt, and thought that she and poor
mamma had been quite long enough together for the latter's
comfort. She had met the visitors in the hall just as they
entered the house, and brought them at once to her mother,
in order to break the tete-a-tete with Lady Dalmaine. She
felt the former owed her something when she saw her look-
ing flushed and angry, and Lady Dalmaine calm and acidu-
lated as ever. Dr Rees caught at the words she had just
been uttering. He had not known how to introduce the
subject. Now here was the very opening he wanted.
366
The Dean's Wife.
' You would not go to Harkley, Lady Mary ?' he said,
with an abruptness that struck her as strange in a man so
uniformly polite as the worthy doctor. ' And yet if things
had been different, we should all have expected to have seen
you reigning there.'
' There is no question of reigning, Dr Rees, but of going
as deputy-housekeeper,' said Lady Mary.
Cissy had retreated. Dr Bees looked to see that the door
was shut.
' We don't want the girls on our hands as well as their
mother,' was his thought. ' She is not quite herself, as it is.
I expect Lady Dalmaine and she have been having a word
or two. Will she go? No ; we must have it out before her.
Well, it doesn't matter. Everybody must know, sooner or
later.' Then he said with his blandest smile, ' I think it is
not unlikely that you may go to Harkley, Lady Mary; but
not as deputy—as queen-regnant, or queen-consort, rather;
which after all comes practically to much the same thing.
' What was the man driving at ? ' thought Lady Dalmaine.
' Queen-regnant and queen-consort, indeed ! What did he
mean by it ? '
Dr Rees came a little nearer to Lady Mary, took her
hand, as if he were feeling her pulse, and said,—
' Can you bear a great surprise—a great joy ? This
gentleman,' pointing to Richard, ' has some strange news to
tell you.'
' I—I beg your pardon, Mr German. I've not had a
moment's time to speak to you. Dr Rees has so taken me
by surprise,' she said, looking at both with a great wonder
in her eyes.
' I shall surprise you more than Dr Rees has done,' said
Richard. Then he looked at the doctor. ' Shall I tell her ?'
The doctor nodded, and then Richard went on, as it had
been agreed between them he should do, recounting his
How Lady Mary took the Hews. 367
first meeting with ' Mr Smith,' his visit to Arnside, and its
results. When he came to what he had seen there, Lady
Mary stopped him.
' Oh, George! my husband ! How has he borne it all
this time ?'
Then she burst into tears, just as Dr Rees had expected;
and, before they were wiped from her eyes, did also just as
he had expected, rang the bell, and, sobbing and laughing,
ordered the brougham to be got ready, that she might drive
to the station.
* There is plenty of time,' said Dr Rees. ' If we don't
catch the next train, there is one runs an hour later.'
Lady Mary's eyes flashed through her tears.
' My husband has been imprisoned as a lunatic for months,
Dr Rees! Do you think, now I know he is alive, I will
lose a moment in hurrying to him ? '
She was shaking, trembling all over. Richard looked at
Dr Rees. He nodded significantly—a nod that said em-
phatically 'Just what I expected.'
But Lady Mary had plenty of presence of mind amidst
all her mental turmoil. She rang the bell a second time,
and gave orders that her daughters should be told she wished
them to go out with her at once, and she also asked that
Miss Todd should be informed she should be glad to speak
to her in her bedroom. As she was going out of the room,
she turned to Richard German,—
' I don't know how to thank you enough! I can never
thank you, Richard; Winifred must do it for me.'
She had never called him by his Christian name before.
Dr Rees learned a great deal from that little speech; so did
Lady Dalmaine, who had sat unobserved all through. Now
she thought it time to make her presence felt.
' Perhaps I had better accompany you,' she said. ' Lady
Mary might be glad of my presence '
368
The Dearis Wife.
' She will have her daughters,' said Richard ; ' and we
shall be a formidable party as it is. I think, Dr Rees,
there will be quite enough of us, without troubling her
ladyship ? '
' Perhaps the fewer people the dean sees the better for
his nerves at first,' said Dr Rees gravely. 1 He is evidently
much broken.'
' But he isn't the dean now,' said Lady Dalmaine, a little
spitefully. Wouldn't Lady Mary have to leave Carminster,
after all ? And Mr Germaine couldn't marry her! Was
it not better that her rival queen should be wife instead of
widow ? But there was a little bitterness in the cup.
' He will be Sir George Dalmaine, the head of his house,
and we shall lose our charming Lady Mary from Carminster,'
said Dr Rees. 1 But the county will be the gainer, and so
will Harkley. Lady Mary will be in her rightful sphere at
the Hall.'
The doctor was as fond of Lady Dalmaine as were most
people, or he might not have spoken as he did.
Lady Mary came in now, radiant—handsome—her eye-
lashes still wet with tears; smiles on her lip, roses on her
cheeks, looking ten years younger than when the two gentle-
men had entered the room. She wore a black dress, but it
was of silk, very handsome—a dress Lady Dalmaine had
seen a twelvemonth back, and her bonnet was a coloured
one. ' No weeds at all about her,' as Lady Dalmaine re-
marked, and the girls were in the quiet travelling dresses of
the last winter.
' You have left off your mourning !' said Lady Dalmaine.
' What will the people say in Car-minster ? Surely it would
have been better to have kept it on for the journey.'
' And gone to him looking as if I had anything to grieve
for now ! Don't look so puzzled, my darlings. The days of
our mourning are over. There is no time to spare now.
What Cissy did.
369
Mamma will tell you all about it in the train. Richard,
when we are there, will you see if we can have a compart-
ment to ourselves ? We can tell my darlings then where
they are going, and whom they will bring home.'
Miss Todd had come in, looking for once fluttered and
thrown off her balance.
'I—I—don't understand it all!' she said. 'You have
made nothing clear to me, Mary.'
' Hadn't time, Jenny—it will be all clear as daylight
when we bring him back !'
As she stepped into the carriage, she said to Dr Rees,—
' When we reach the station, please telegraph for a couple
of flys to meet us at Burleigh.'
The doctor turned to look for Richard, that he might
again appeal to him whether he had not been right. But
Richard had walked on. The carriage was full without
him, and a short cut which a carriage could not take brought
him to the station in ample time to hand out Lady Mary,
and tell her he had secured a compartment for their party.
CHAPTER LV
what cissy did.
The story that Richard had told Dr Rees and Lady Mary
was repeated to the daughters of the latter as they travelled
along to claim the dean. The girls, like their mother, were
bewildered, puzzled, overcome. They both cried. It was
good to have their father back again, but it was not good
to think how long he had been in a captivity that must
have been as irksome as a prison. Cissy waxed furious.
' They must have known—they couldn't really believe the
2 a
37°
The Dean's Wife.
dear papa was mad ! Papa! and she opened her eyes wido
at the thought that any one could be so nearly insane them-
selves as to doubt the sanity of her father. To them all it
was a dream—something strange and almost incomprehen-
sible; but still, here was Richard German, who said that he
had seen and spoken to the man whom all had believed to
be lying dismembered past all recognition in his grave ; and
here was Dr Rees—cool, calm, blandly polite as ever—say.
ing that he believed the story, and was prepared to act
upon it.
Lady Mary sat quiet and silent, but she was trembling,
quivering all over. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes
sparkling; she looked handsomer and younger than she
had done for years.
' She must have loved him after all,' thought Richard, who
was watching her curiously; ' and yet he seemed scarcely the
man for such a woman to love.' And Dr Rees was a little
puzzled too. ' "Who would have thought she was so fond of
him ?' he said to himself.
' Did she love him so much ?' Lady Mary at least never
asked herself that question. He was her husband, her tower
of strength, without whom she had felt so desolate and alone.
No one would dare to make love to her now, or think it
possible that she could forget she had been more than twenty
years a wife. If the dean had never disappeared, would
Grantley Germaine have dared to have insulted her as he
had done ? Poor man ! When he had so solemnly laid
himself at Lady Mary's feet, how little thought he had that
she would consider his doing so an unpardonable affront!
Her mind was dwelling on her husband, not with tender-
ness, but with trust. He would take care of her novy, and
she, on her part, would be so good to him ! All the little
differences between them, the coldness, the estrangement,
geemed swept away. They would begiu their married life
What Cissy did.
371
afresh; she should understand him, make allowance for his
peculiarities, as she had never done yet. He was her hus-
band, after all! Her husband, given back from the very
jaws of death to be her shield and safeguard.
Winifred said very little, but there were tears in her eyes,
and a faint colour in her cheeks, showing that, in her way,
she was as much moved as Cissy, who kept up an almost in-
cessant chatter, which all of the others were too absorbed in
their own different thoughts to heed. And the train whirled
on and they were soon at Burleigh, where two carriages were
awaiting them. Lady Mary and Dr Bees entered one, the
two girls and Bichard the other. Then they drove on through
quiet country roads, green lanes and little hamlets, all wear-
ing the still calm old-world look that English scenery pos-
sesses when out of sight and hearing of the smoke and noise
of the railway-engine.
'You must keep up your nerve, Lady Mary,' said Dr
Bees, as they drew near Burrylees. ' We may have to deal
very carefully with the dean. Don't let me have any trouble
with you.'
'You may trust me; I shall neither go into hysterics nor
faint,' was the answer.
They found their way easily enough to the residence of
Dr Ashley. It was an old house that had seen better days,
having formerly been occupied by one of the lesser county
magnates. But there were not many who wanted such a
house now, when the distance from the railways that had
sprung up since it had been built made it seem out of the
way and inaccessible ; so Dr Ashley had obtained it on low
terms, let off the pasture land that had accompanied it to a
farmer, and found the secluded gardens and the high walls
that surrounded them admirably adapted for the two or three
patients of whom he wished to have the charge.
There was only one patient now, and that was our friend
37 2
The Dean's Wife.
the dean, known to Dr Ashley as Mr James Barton, a
patient with a good income, a clever but by no means too
affectionate wife, who was quite content to pay very hand-
somely so that her husband might have all the luxuries to
which his position entitled him; and when she had so paid,
and placed him under the care of one who had been highly
recommended to her as extremely skilful in all such cases,
thought that she had done her duty to the full, and went
her own way, spending her time and the residue of her hus-
band's income very pleasantly, sometimes at one and some-
times at another of the capitals or watering-places of Europe.
She had not seen her husband since, by the advice of
friends and of the medical man who had known him from
his boyhood, she had decided on removing him from the
large asylum where he had been first placed, and which
numbered half a hundred patients besides himself, and en-
trusting him to the charge of Dr Ashley, who, as he never
had more than three, and often only two, patients, it was
thought would be better able to watch over a malady so
peculiar as her husband's. She had to pay nearly three
times as much to Dr Ashley as she had done to the owner
of the larger asylum ; but that did not matter. Mrs Barton
was a good-natured woman, with a fair idea of justice, and
it seemed only right that half her husband's income should
be spent on himself. Indeed she was a great deal happier
when she had decided on doing so, enjoying her other half
with an easier conscience.
Mrs Ashley was in her drawing-room when she saw the
carriages that held Lady Mary and her party come sweeping
round the lawn up to the house door. There had been a
little delay in letting them in. A bell by the gate (a strong,
close one, with a little wicket peephole) had been rung, and
then, after the doctor's man-servant had examined them
through this peephole, he had cautiously opened the gate,
What Cissy did.
373
flung it wide, and let the carriages sweep through. The
high walls, the closed gates, the little peephole, had impressed
Cissy, who began to cry, ' Poor papa ! shut up in prison !'
And Lady Mary realised more fully than she had yet done
that her husband had been in duresse since she had last
seen him.
Mrs Ashley felt hopeful of new patients. She looked
round her drawing-room to see that it was all in order, and
she settled her skirts and glanced at the glass, and was
satisfied that she and her room were all as they should be.
Dr Pees introduced himself as an old acquaintance of
her husband's, and Mrs Ashley was very gracious both to
him and to Lady Mary, but she wondered why the two girls
had come, and who was that tall brown man who took in,
she felt, every detail of her drawing-room, every feature of
her face, at the first glance.
Dr Ashley was not at home, she was sorry to say. He
was going his rounds—or rather, he had been sent for to a
complicated and difficult case at Lord Erlston's. The eldest
son had fallen and injured the back part of his head. Brain-
fever had set in, and now that had subsided they were afraid
of something like idiocy supervening. So sad in such a
case—a youth upon whom so many hopes rested. But Dr
Ashley's reputation in such cases was well known, and if
any one could prevent the evils that were dreaded, it would
be he.
Lady Mary heard without hearing. She was listening
for every footfall—every noise in the house—thinking it
might bring her some tidings of her husband. She was
under the same roof with him—perhaps he was in the next
room—and here was this woman chattering away, but giving
her no tidings, though she was so longing to hear them.
She looked impatiently at Dr Pees. He understood her.
Another minute, and he felt that Lady Mary would be
The Dean's Wife.
taking matters into her own hands, and this might lead to
something like a collision between the two ladies—an event
by all means to be avoided.
'You have a patient here,' he began, 'in whom we all
feel some- interest.'
'Mr James Barton—a most singular case,' said Mrs
Ashley, with a winning smile. ' Poor gentleman ! He has
never been himself since that great accession of fortune.
He detested the Church, and his father said he should go
into it ; he would do nothing else for him, especially as he
had thought fit to marry without his consent. Then, when
his great aunt died, and left him all her property, just as he
was about to take orders with a view to the family living,
it overcame him completely. But he is better—oh! he
is certainly better, under Dr Ashley. Before that, we
heard that he had twenty fancies—never kept to one for a
day together; now, since he he has been here, he persists in
calling himself the Dean of Carminster—the poor dean, you
know—that dreadful railway accident! Oh! a thousand
pardons! I forgot that I was speaking to Lady Mary
Dalmaine. Can it be?' And she looked with a little
curiosity at the handsome dress, which had not a sign of
mourning about it, of the lady before her.
' You have said nothing painful—nothing but what we
were prepared to hear,'said Lady Mary. 'But I—we all
of us—have a great interest in your patient. We should
take it as a great favour if you would allow us to see him.'
' I—I—' It was very difficult to refuse ' Lady' Mary, and
it was possible she might injure Dr Ashley by displeasing
her. It was quite possible that she had come with Dr
Bees, not merely to see this patient, but to arrange about
the reception of another; but, on the other hand, Mrs
Ashley knew her husband's rules regarding his patients,
and the imperative necessity he considered it that this
What Cissy did.
375
especial patient should be kept free from any disturbing in-
fluence whatever. She hesitated, then said timidly,—' Dr
Ashley is most particular that his patients should see only
their most intimate friends, and this is a case in which the
utmost care is required.'
Mrs Ashley looked distressed and uneasy. Dr Rees
knew that she was right, and knew also that she would not
be at all more likely to accede to Lady Mary's wish if she
were acquainted with the real state of the case. There
seemed nothing for H but to wait for the return of Dr
Ashley.
Richard had his post by the window, which opened to the
ground. His quick ear caught the sound of steps, and just
as Lady Mary was about to urge, almost with tears, her
wish to see the doctor's patient, he beckoned to her. She
stepped forward, and saw two figures moving on the lawn,
a little distance from the window. One, a stout, burly
man, he recognised as the attendant he had spoken to be-
fore; the other, bent, grey-haired, with slow, feeble move-
ment, Lady Mary looked at anxiously, hardly able to realise
that this could be the husband who, when he had parted
with her, had been in the mature prime of his manhood.
She stood with parted lips, clenched hands, and eyes half-
blinded by her tears. ' What he must have suffered !
What he must have gone through!' was her thought.
Then, at a motion of her hand, Righard threw the window
open, and she stepped out. He closed the window directly
she had gone, and Dr Rees, who had stepped forward, waved
the girls back. They had not yet seen that sad, broken
man outside, and he did not mean that they should do so.
' One at a time,' he said to Richard; then, turning to
Mrs Ashley, who came up swelling with a little sense of
ruffled importance at the manner in which Lady Mary had
set her husband's rules at defiance, he said quietly,—'I
376
The Deans Wife.
will answer for everything to your husband, my dear
madame. Some explanation is your due. Allow me to defer
it till his return. Meanwhile, I keep watch here.'
Lady Mary went forward to her husband, and he looked
feebly and vacantly at her. If he recognised her, there was
no gladness in such recognition. The two men standing
by the window glanced at each other, then turned to look
again. The keeper drew hack a little, believing that this
strange handsome lady was there by permission of his
mistress. Lady Mary went up closer, and put her hand
upon her husband's arm,—
' Oh, George ! my dearest! What a cruel parting this
has been ! Don't you know me, my own ? '
He looked at her sadly, but without reproach.
' You have left me here a long time, Mary.'
' Oh, don't blame me ! How did I know ? How could
I tell ? But we will have you home and nurse you into
strength again. My poor, poor George! You must have
been very ill !'
'I suppose I have been,' he said, wearily; 'but that has
not been all. They have said such strange things to me
and of me, and they have kept me here when I told them I
ought to go to my own home. But perhaps they knew best,
after all. Perhaps they knew I was not wanted there or
missed. If I had been missed, Mary, I think you would
have found me sooner.'
' I lost not one moment, as soon as I knew that you were
here, in coming to you, George. We have come to take you
back to your own home—the girls and I. Oh, George! my
darling ! don't look at me like that! You break my hearty
Put your arm round me. Draw me to you. You never
met me like this when we had parted before. George, my
dearest, are you not glad that we have come to you ? Don't
you want to come to your own home again ?
What Cissy did.
377
She sank almost to his feet, kissing his hands, bathing
them with her tears, and he looked down at her, pitifully,
half-vacantly. There was no gladness, no wish to return.
Richard glanced again at Dr Rees. They could hear no-
thing; but what they saw was enough.
'We must have him in,' said the doctor, 'inhere, and
set that youngster to work,' and he looked at Cissy, who
still kept her place by Winnie.
She felt very indignant at being thus kept in the back-
ground, waiting for the father whom she had thought to see
as soon as she came to 'the prison' where they were keep-
ing him, and she was wondering what it all meant. Wini-
fred was wondering too, but still had guessed instinctively
why it was her mother had gone into the garden, and why
Dr Rees and Richard kept watch by the window.
Lady Mary turned to the two men by the window with
a look that appealed to them for counsel and help. She had
never expected anything like this. She had thought to be
welcomed rapturously by her husband as his deliverer, who
had come to restore him to his fellow-men. And he seemed
to have no wish to come back amongst them. There was
no thankfulness to her, no joy at seeing her. And they
had never been parted yet for a week, but that with all his
apparent coldness he had let her see how glad he was to
have her by his side again.
' Don't you wish to come with us, George ?' she said.
'And there are the girls; wont you come and speak to
them ? '
' The girls ?' he asked, vacantly.
' Winifred and Cissy, your own daughters, George. Oh,
they were so pleased to come ! They have grieved so for
your loss.'
' But they have been like you, Mary; they have not
hurried to come and take me from this place. And now I
37*
The Dean's Wife.
don't know that I care to go. It seems as if I were indeed
buried beneath that stone in the churchyard. As well dead
as forgotten,' he said, with a bitter melancholy, the old
jealous love showing itself in the speech.
' You have never been forgotten, not for a day—for an
hour ! Oh, George, George ! if you only knew how we have
mourned you ! Wont you come home with us ? To your
own home—to your own place ?'
1 Never to my own place, if you mean the cathedral, Mary.
That is filled up. They told me so. They showed me in
the newspaper. And so best. I wasn't fitted for it. I
didn't know—I couldn't tell. Things that seemed clear as
day to other men grew darker and darker to me. If I went
back I would never mount pulpit stairs again. But why
should I go back ? I am best here, Mary; I have got used
to it at last, and they are not unkind; and it is rest and
quiet, and I always feel so tired,' he said, with a weary
hopelessness.
Lady Mary turned one despairing glance at the window.
Richard opened it, and Dr Bees stepped out. He went up
to George Dalmaine, and took his thin, nerveless hand
in his.
f Good-day, my dear sir. I cannot tell you how glad I
am, how glad we shall all be in Carminster to have you safe
and sound amongst us. But it's chilly out here. Come to
the fire inside. There are some young people longing to
see their father again.'
' Dr Bees, I think. Ah! yes, I remember, but it all
seems so long ago,' was the answer, still in the same dull,
listless tone.
The doctor drew him into the drawing-room, Lady Mary
following. Winifred gave a little cry at the sight of her
father. He was so old, so worn, so different to what he
had beeD when he left them. Cissy took tight hold of her
What Cissy did.
379
sister's hand, and drew back, half-frightened for a second.
Dr Rees put up his hand to motion the girls into silence,
and placed his charge in an arm-chair by the fire. Mrs
Ashley drew herself up and began :—
'Dr Rees, I must protest against this. It is a most
unwarrantable liberty, and whatever Dr Ashley will say
when he returns I cannot tell.'
Dr Rees paid no attention to the lady. He kept his eye
anxiously upon Sir George. He sat quietly in the chair,
warmed his hands by the fire, shivered a little as if with cold,
and looked dreamily at his daughters, as if he were not quite
sure whether or not he recognised them. That was too
much for Cissy. Not all the doctors in the world should
keep her quiet now. She sprang forward, and into her
father's arms, crying and kissing him, and wetting his face
with her tears.
' Papa ! papa ! Don't you know me ? I'm Ciss ! and
I've come with mamma and Dr Rees to fetch you home
again. Oh! you naughty, dear, good, bad papa to hide
from us all this time, and never let us know that you were
safe and well! And we've been breaking our hearts about
you ! But we've got you now ! Papa ! papa ! papa !'
There was a sound of other sobs than Cissy's in the room,
and other tears were flowing, for George Dalmaine was
crying, like a woman, over his child. Then he looked round
for his wife, and held out his hand to her.
' Oh, Mary ! what a time it is since I left you !'
And he placed his arm round, and drew her to him.
' Safe !' murmured Dr Rees to Richard. ' His sanity
hung on a straw. Cissy has turned the balance.'
38o
The Dean's Wife.
CHAPTER LYL
all told.
I do not knew that there is any need to paint the stupefac-
tion of Dr Ashley when he found that all this time he had
been doctoring a sane man as a madman, nor the indignation
of his wife when she found their one patient was to be
carried away from them by main force, instead of another
being brought to share the attentions of Dr Ashley. ' Mr
Smith' consoled her; and a visit which that gentleman's
wife soon afterwards paid him left no doubt on her mind
that this time, at least, her husband's cares were bestowed
upon the right party.
As to the dean, or rather Sir George Dalmaine, he kept
his word to the full, and never mounted pulpit stairs again.
His place was filled up in Carminster; he had no wish to
dispossess its present occupant, and there was other work
for him elsewhere. He went back to Harkley with his wife,
and made a better squire than he had ever made a parson,
and Lady Mary was in her element. The Hall suited her
a great deal better than the rectoiy had ever done. And
her husband and she were linked together as they had never
been before.
Sir George would never have his former health and
strength. And with his new position there came cares and
responsibilities which made him very dependent on his wife.
She was his right hand, his counsellor, his best help. And
he was not ashamed to own it. Much of that coldness, that
reserve, which had seemed a second nature to him, had been
broken down in his long illness, and the worse than loneli-
ness which had followed on it. As to Lady Mary, she
nursed him, and petted him, and made him in every way
her idol, as she had never done before.
All told.
381
' It is such a great thing to have a husband, after all,' she
said to Miss Todd,—' one never knows how great till one has
lost him.'
She never owned to herself how much Grantley Germaine
had to do with teaching her the value of the only person in
the world who could protect her from such annoyances as he
had inflicted on her.
As to Mr Germaine, he married Lady Dalmaine, and they
live in London. He has a chapel-of-ease in a West End dis-
trict; but he is not thought quite so much of as he was for
a time in Carminster. Still, his church fills fairly well; and
as he has neither hawkers nor costermongers, nor indeed any
poor at'all in his present church, he manages to do his duty
by his flock without those trials to his temper which beset
him in Tasmania. And Lady Dalmaine makes him quite as
good a wife as he deserves; still, their domestic felicity is
not quite perfect. The children go to boarding-school, and
they spend the greater part of their holidays at ' IJncle
Dick's.'
Fortunately for them, and for Uncle Dick too, that gentle-
man married two months after Sir George Dalmaine was
restored to his family. The last and only time that Sir
George again officiated in a church was when he performed
the marriage service for his elder daughter. He never raised
a question as to whether Richard was worthy of her. She
and her mother had settled that, he seemed to think, and
there was nothing for it but acquiescence on his part; and
his gratitude to Richard made such acquiescence very easy.
Miss Todd remains in Carminster. She has grown to like
the cathedral town, and the people, and their ways. She
says she should not have room enough to work in Harkley,
and that there is no more there than Lady Mary and the
vicar's wife can do ; and being one of the busiest of women,
she is also one of the happiest—always with the exception
382 The Dean's Wife.
of Lady Mary, who, if anything, with larger means and a
wider sphere, is busier even than her friend, who is a power
in her county, an influence in town, and even more popular,
and infinitely happier, as a country gentleman's wife than
ever she was as a clean's.
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