LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 MRS. THOMAS A. DRISCOLL
 
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 BASSET 
 
 A VILLAGE CHRONICLE
 
 C^BUFL 
 
 DR. MARK AND MRS. LATIMER 
 
 "Somebody said — I forget who it w/as — that if one had one's duty and a dream. 
 one had enough for life." 
 
 Page 207
 
 // 
 
 BASSET 
 
 A VILLAGE CHRONICLE 
 
 BY 
 
 S. G. TALLENTYRE 
 
 AUTHOn OF 
 
 'the life of VOLTAIRE" "tHE FRIENDS OF VOLTAIKE' 
 
 "the life OF MIRABEAU" ETC. 
 
 Frontispiece by C. M. BUIiD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
 
 1912 
 
 /^A^
 
 Copyright, 1910, by 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
 
 New Yokk 
 
 FOURTH PR ly TING
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 I. 
 
 Harry, the Squire 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 
 II. 
 
 Harry's Wife 
 
 
 
 23 
 
 III. 
 
 Parson Grant 
 
 
 
 59 
 
 IV. 
 
 Dr. Richard 
 
 
 
 89 
 
 V. 
 
 Dr. Mark 
 
 
 
 109 
 
 VI. 
 
 The White Cottage 
 
 
 
 148 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Chantry 
 
 
 
 170 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Sir John 
 
 
 
 203 
 
 IX. 
 
 My Lady 
 
 
 
 227 
 
 X. 
 
 An Ending . 
 
 
 
 252 
 
 XI. 
 
 A Beginning 
 
 
 
 283
 
 BASSET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HARRY^ THE SQUIRE 
 
 Some seventy years ago, when that coarse, 
 choleric, good-natured old gentleman, Wil- 
 liam IV., had just vacated the throne of 
 Britain; when sanitation and popular edu- 
 cation were not; when, with luck, one could 
 still find noble lords to frank one's letters, 
 and, without it, might still fight a duel or be 
 imprisoned for debt; when the railway sys- 
 tem was in its hopeful infancy, and the 
 stage-coach in a vigorous old age; when Is- 
 lington was a country suburb, and the only 
 fault of Tottenham and Highgate was to 
 be too remote and rural; when policemen 
 were called " peelers," and omnibuses " shilli- 
 beers"; when all young men looked (only 
 looked) immeasurably more serious and re- 
 spectable than any young men do now; when 
 young ladies bought, and wore on each side 
 of the face, three little curls, and daily
 
 2 BASSET 
 
 ironed them out iii^on the kitchen table to 
 keep them crisp and fresh; when a large 
 public really supposed that in Mrs. Hemans 
 and L.E.L. burnt the divine fire, and that 
 " Thaddeus of Warsaw " was a work of 
 genius; — in these darkly remote ages the vil- 
 lage of Basset lay a hundred coach miles 
 from London, five from the little town of 
 Dilchester, and three from any other ^-illage. 
 The word " lay " is used advisedly ; for 
 though Basset may be identified, it will not 
 be found. In the old man one can indeed 
 trace the boy; but, not the less, the boy — 
 with the boy's spirit and the boy's heart — is 
 gone for ever. 
 
 Basset had a much too large Norman 
 church, which the piety of a chatelaine of 
 Basset ^lanor — tempus George III. — had 
 " improved " with two galleries. 
 
 Without the church was the callage green, 
 where the local louts mooned and spat on 
 Sunday mornings during the service. On 
 the green were the disused stocks, and a 
 large slimy pond, which the village always 
 drank and never connected with the typhus 
 which, by some special dispensation of Prov- 
 idence, was not always epidemic. 
 
 Looking on to the green were some charm-
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 3 
 
 ingly picturesque, thatched cottages, with 
 roses creeping up them, and within, too 
 often, nameless vice and disease — the fruits 
 of over-crowding. Then there was the dame 
 school — which really did no harm; the public- 
 house — which did a good deal — though it 
 looked pastoral and guileless enough, with 
 the old, smock-frocked Hodges smoking their 
 long clay pipes and drinking their ale out of 
 mugs, on the rude bench outside the door. 
 The doctor's low, red house had a flagged 
 path up to it, and homely flowerbeds on 
 either side of the path — tended by the doc- 
 tor's good lady, with her skirt well pinned 
 up, and an expression of dogged resolution 
 upon her face. The very small, genteel, cot- 
 tage near the doctor's — the obsolete and 
 expressive word " genteel " was much in 
 vogue then — belonged to Miss Pilkington, 
 who was the daughter (of course) of a late 
 Rector of Basset, who had lived very com- 
 fortably and hospitably, keeping his horses 
 and carriages like a gentleman, and had 
 left his daughters useless and portionless. 
 The Rectory was a large, roomy place — 
 rather sunless and damp, only nobody 
 bothered about aspects in 1837 — with a 
 capital garden and a paddock.
 
 4 BASSET 
 
 On rising ground, looking down on the 
 village, stood the low, rambling house that 
 belonged to Sir John Railton, a real, live 
 baronet, who used periodically to try to en- 
 dure the quiet and tedium of Basset, in- 
 variably discover it was not to be done, let 
 the Chantry, and return to Crockford's and 
 Newmarket. A couple of prosperous farms 
 — these were the days of Protection — also 
 overlooked the village. 
 
 About half a mile from it — old, grey 
 stone, Elizabethan — lay Basset Manor. It 
 had a long row of sunny bedrooms and a 
 cheerful parlour on its upper floor, and, on 
 its lower, dark, oak-panelled living-rooms 
 and vast, rambling kitchens. Without, there 
 were first-rate stables, lawns and bowling- 
 green, grass paths through the high-walled 
 kitchen garden, and beds of untidj'^ flowers. 
 Here, the Squires of Basset had reigned 
 since the days of Queen Anne, sometimes 
 doing that which was evil in the sight of the 
 Lord, and sometimes that which was good, 
 but more often doing nothing in particular, 
 except enjoy themselves. 
 
 Just about the time of the demise of King 
 William, young Harry Latimer attained his 
 majority, and his mother, who had long
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 5 
 
 reigned, but not ruled, at Basset Manor, 
 died. 
 
 From her portrait — that of a youngish 
 woman, with a vague blue eye and a pretty, 
 feeble face — it is easy to account for 
 the lax, hospitable, happy-go-lucky charac- 
 ter the Manor attained in her day; and 
 also for a certain spoiled obstinacy which 
 lay deep down in the character of her 
 son. 
 
 Every person in Basset went into mourn- 
 ing when she died, and, of course, Harry 
 and his household into the most lugubrious 
 mourning of all. Then he set up to her 
 memory in Basset church, just above the 
 Manor pew, a huge and dreadful tablet, on 
 which were inscribed, in the richest tomb- 
 stone English, the virtues she had never 
 possessed. 
 
 He used to read that inscription during 
 the Morning Service for many Sundays 
 after her death, with some emotion and a 
 comfortable sense of having amply done his 
 duty. After a while he gave it a bow of 
 mental acknowledgment only; and at last 
 entirely forgot its presence, and the colour- 
 less personality it commemorated; yawned 
 rather obviously through the sermon, winked
 
 6 BASSET 
 
 a cheery blue eye at a friend in the gallery, 
 and was himself again. 
 
 Presently he had a lively coming of age 
 dinner-party at the jNIanor, and a headache 
 next morning — and came into his own. 
 
 It is impossible to imagine a braver and 
 jollier figure than Harry Latimer at one and 
 twent3\ With his fair head and ruddy Eng- 
 lish face, his well-set person, already in- 
 clining to a little stoutness, his capital seat 
 on a horse, his first-rate animal spirits, his 
 generous share of pluck and daring, and his 
 love of sport and the open — he might have 
 sat for the typical British country gentle- 
 man of that day, but that he was not suffi- 
 ciently thick-headed. 
 
 True, Squire Hariy never opened a book 
 and only skimmed a newspaper, but he had 
 a shrewd enough mind, though it w^as chiefly 
 devoted to finding himself new pleasures. 
 For this young gentleman had plenty of 
 money for his amusements without working 
 for it, and an estate wdiich was not too ex- 
 tensive for a single agent to manage — or 
 to mismanage — unassisted. 
 
 About ten, then, every day — except on a 
 hunting morning — the Squire came down to 
 his breakfast, opened the post-bag, threw the
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 7 
 
 bills on to a side-table, and screwed the 
 moral advice from an aunt — his mother's 
 elder and sterner sister — into a ball and 
 aimed it neatly at the fire, or the fireplace. 
 He spread open the little Times — yester- 
 day's — on the sideboard, and gained an idea 
 of its contents (which was all he wanted) 
 as he cut himself cold beef. 
 
 His real interests were confined to Basset; 
 as all Basset's real interests were in itself. 
 Naturally, when one had to endure the 
 long discomforts of a stage-coach, or the 
 heavy expenses of posting, to reach one's 
 relations, one seldom attempted to reach 
 them; and when the recipient of their 
 verbose, heavy-weighted letters had to pay 
 the postage there was less than no induce- 
 ment to keep up a correspondence. While, 
 as for news from foreign countries, Harry, 
 in common with many Englishmen of his 
 class of that day, had never seen any, and 
 despised them; honestly pitied benighted per- 
 sons who spoke any language but his own; 
 and had been taught by Mrs. Latimer that 
 English would be the mother-tongue of 
 heaven. 
 
 The agent, a thin-lipped and shifty-faced 
 person, arrived before Harry had finished
 
 8 BASSET 
 
 his second cup of coffee. Those blue eyes of 
 the Squire were by no means defective in 
 penetration of character, but it would have 
 been a confounded nuisance to be always 
 suspecting everybody, so Harry comfortably 
 assumed — on the principle of the negligent 
 mother, who invariably finds paragons of 
 nurses and governesses to do her own duty 
 by her cliildren — that the agent was honest 
 and diligent, and listened with half an ear to 
 his dull stories of land drainage and tumbhng 
 cottages. 
 
 Mr. Phillips had his morning dram; and 
 sometimes Harry also — and Harry went out 
 to the stables. 
 
 A love and a knowledge of horseflesh 
 had been in the blood of the Latimers since 
 Latimers there w^ere. There was stabling 
 for a dozen horses in the great stables of 
 Basset Manor, and generally eight or ten 
 in possession of them. The stalwart, hand- 
 some boy, W'ith his beautiful roan mare, 
 Victoria — his coming-of-age present to him- 
 self — nosing up to him for the contents of 
 the breakfast sugar-basin, which he always 
 prodigally emptied into his pocket, would 
 have been a w^orthy subject for that very 
 rising genius Mr. Landseer. The stables
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 9 
 
 were much the best kept part of Harry's 
 household. The grooms and ostlers knew 
 their master's knowledge of their business; 
 and the extreme freedom of his expletives — 
 a freedom he shared with better men than 
 himself — kept them up to the mark. 
 
 In the garden he was frankly uninterested. 
 Flowers were the business of women, and 
 Harry would as soon have blacked his own 
 boots as worked in his own garden. So he 
 simply strolled round it, quite unobservant, 
 with his couple of pepper-and-salt dandie 
 pups at his heels. Sometimes he threw a 
 silver fourpenny bit and a good-natured 
 word to the dirty, grinning urchin who was 
 sweeping up leaves, and who knew quite 
 well that the fourpenny and the good-nature 
 were dependent, not in the least on his own 
 conduct, but entirely on his master's feel- 
 ings at the moment. 
 
 As Harry's housekeeping consisted simply 
 and entirely in sending the cook a glass of 
 port when the dishes were good, and return- 
 ing them with contumely to the kitchen when 
 they were bad, it did not occupy much of his 
 day; but occasionally the cook, a tall, thin 
 lady, to whom her master would by no means 
 have dared to give a conge, appeared in the
 
 lo BASSET 
 
 dining-room with a sheaf of bills, at the sum 
 total of which Harry always grumbled, in 
 the sanguine hope that the grumbling would 
 reduce their amount for future occasions. 
 
 Then he played with the dandies, Dim 
 and Tim, and wrote half a letter; played 
 with the dandies again, tore up the half 
 letter, and decided to write the whole to- 
 morrow, and by that time Victoria was at the 
 door. It was only on these leisurelj^ non- 
 hunting days that he had time to ride her 
 easily along the narrow country lanes or 
 the turnpike road to the five-mile distant 
 market-town. 
 
 For Harry was the most regular, as he 
 was the straightest rider to hounds in the 
 county; the j oiliest and most fearless, of a 
 brave and jolly age, in the hunting-field. 
 He was Master of the Hounds at one and 
 twenty, and the Hunt breakfasts at Basset 
 Manor in those days are still proudly re- 
 membered in the village. The garden-boy — 
 he of the grin and the fourpence — is an old 
 man now, and can still recall something of 
 those fine, pleasant, chilly English morn- 
 ings, with the men in pink, and the impa- 
 tient dogs and horses, fretting to be gone, 
 on the drive in fix)nt of the Manor windows.
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE ii 
 
 On the excellent personal testimony of the 
 kitchenmaid, sister to the garden boy, no 
 other Hunt breakfast-table groaned under 
 viands so many and costly as did Harry's. 
 On the word of the county, he was one of 
 the most popular Masters it ever knew, with 
 his fair, flushed face, and his loud, good 
 spirits; and yet, withal, taking his sport 
 with the gravity and earnestness befitting an 
 Englishman. 
 
 But on frosty days, or in the non-hunting 
 season, Harry and Victoria — Dim and Tim 
 having been left in tears in the dining-room 
 — rode leisurely through Basset village. 
 
 All the smock-frocked Hodges greeted him 
 as he went by, and were proud of such a well 
 set-up young lord, and Harry had a salute, 
 with his riding-whip, and a pleasant word for 
 everybody. His heart and pocket were al- 
 ways open to the tales of woe the old gran- 
 nies, with many an apologizing curtsey, 
 stopped him to tell him. As he gave his 
 guinea or his florin without investigating 
 the story, he was immensely popular with 
 those sufferers — the largest class — whose 
 stories do not bear being pried into, and 
 as he was irrevocably good-natured and in- 
 curably sanguine, he really had not the least
 
 12 BASSET 
 
 difficulty in honestly believing what he was 
 told. 
 
 When, in one of his own outlying cot- 
 tages — a most picturesque, rose-covered 
 place, quite unfit for decent human habita- 
 tion — a man laj^ dying of typhus, the Squire 
 put a couple of bottles of port — the remedy 
 in those days for every human ill — into the 
 dee}) pockets of his riding-coat, and pleased 
 the sufferer by the present far more than if 
 he had rebuilt the cottage, whose insanitary 
 condition, neither Harry nor, indeed, any 
 one else held responsible for the suffering. 
 
 Sometimes, in the country lanes, he would 
 meet old Dr. Benet, trotting calmly by in 
 his gig. "Hie! doctor," says Harry, and 
 bethinking himself that there is no time like 
 the 2^resent, and that he lias felt the most 
 uncommon painful twinges in that left foot 
 lately, pulls up, and takes a httle "nonsense 
 and advice." 
 
 To be sure, if the advice took the form, 
 as it sometimes did (for Dr. Benet was per- 
 fectly honest as well as shrewd), of " patience 
 and flannel," or a few glasses less in the 
 evening, Harry changed the subject, Avaved 
 his whip in a farewell salute, and remem- 
 bered, as he rode off, the abysmal depths
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 13 
 
 of ignorance the faculty often displayed, 
 and the ghastly mistakes the cleverest made 
 at times, and had his usual quantity of port 
 at night. Whereas, if Dr. Benet did not 
 mention the port as a probable cause of 
 the ailment, Harry comfortably considered 
 it might be a cure — and had a couple of 
 glasses extra. 
 
 Sometimes, for he was really exceedingly 
 kind-hearted, he trotted around of an after- 
 noon and paid his respects to Miss Pilking- 
 ton, at the genteel cottage near the doctor's. 
 She was tremblingly delighted at his visit — 
 almost all old women loved Harry, and but 
 too many young. He spread a zone of mas- 
 culine largeness and untidiness in her nar- 
 row, prim parlour; and when she anxiously 
 produced cake and wine — these were the 
 dark ages before afternoon tea — he delighted 
 her by finishing the whole cake with his 
 healthy, young appetite, and swallowed a 
 couple of glasses of her unique feminine 
 brand of sherry wine as if he liked it. He 
 further prescribed for her canary; it had 
 lost all its feathers, and looked so undressed 
 and indecent she had covered up its cage 
 with a handkerchief, a proceeding which 
 caused her guest to roar with laughter, and
 
 14 BASSET 
 
 enjoy himself vastl3\ When he went away, 
 he seemed to take with him free air and the 
 sunshine. 
 
 His visit, and the pleasant things it came 
 naturally to him to say, lay warm about 
 Rachel Pilkington's heart, and she did not 
 know, or at least not for a long time, that 
 with the Squire, as with many other people, 
 out of sight was entirely out of mind, and 
 that for him there was no such thing as a 
 past or a future, but only the present 
 moment. 
 
 Now and again, riding by the Rectory 
 gate put him in mind of the grim old Par- 
 son, and he rode up to the windows of the 
 study — falsely so called in this instance — and 
 thumped on them with that ever-useful riding- 
 crop. 
 
 The Parson was a straight shot, and had 
 a military history before his clerical, so 
 Harry could resj)ect him, with self-respect. 
 While, if church-going had been any pass- 
 port to his favour, he should certainly have 
 liked Harr}'-, who was regular in attendance 
 there, and if the sermon were less dull than 
 usual, actually listened to it, with a hand on 
 each knee, and a rather surprised expression 
 of countenance; sang the psalm lustily, with
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 15 
 
 great enjoyment to himself; while once — at 
 least once — when a young man from Dil- 
 chester had occupied the pulpit, and been 
 very pathetic over a Ragged School, a close 
 observer might have surprised a moisture in 
 Harry's blue eyes. 
 
 If Harry's religion affected his emotions 
 rather than his conduct, emotionalism is, 
 after all, the whole religion of persons far 
 more professedly devout than the Squire of 
 Basset. 
 
 Perhaps as often as once a week, when 
 there was nothing to hunt or shoot, Harry 
 rode, or drove his phaeton — he was an adept 
 at the ribbons — into Dilchester. There, he 
 would stand about in the courtyard of the 
 old inn, " The Case is Altered," and take 
 bets with the other idlers (waiting, as he 
 was, for the arrival of the coach from Lon- 
 don) as to the probability of these new rail- 
 roads, beginning to be opened all over the 
 country, ousting the good old coaches out of 
 it at last. Harry, who had on every subject 
 that delightful facility for believing that 
 what he did not wish could not possibly come 
 to pass, quite refused to foresee the decline 
 of horseflesh; so did the landlord, also a 
 stout, sanguine person.
 
 1 6 BASSET 
 
 At last, with a fine craclving of whips, 
 and a cheery noise and bustle, in comes the 
 coach to a minute; the frozen passengers 
 descended from the roof, and the asphyxiated 
 ones inside were pulled out from masses of 
 bags and bundles by the guard. The old 
 coachman used to point out Harry to the 
 passengers, with a sort of proprietary pride 
 in him and his smart phaeton and cobs. 
 Harry had an easy, all-men-are-equal air 
 with the coachman, as he had with every- 
 body; with the landlord's arch and ogling 
 daughter, and the ostler, whom he had just 
 damned impatiently for some neglect of duty. 
 The parcels of things he had ordered from 
 London — a fine new coat from the crack 
 tailor in Jermyn Street among them — were 
 packed into the phaeton; Harry drove off; 
 and the idlers looked after him, and envied, 
 and lazil}^ admired him. 
 
 Not seldom of an evening there was a 
 jolly bachelor party at Basset Manor. 
 
 At half-past five, Harry and a half a 
 dozen neighbouring squires sat down to dine 
 — and were still sitting at half-past eight. 
 Intoxication as a fashionable vice had passed, 
 or was fast passing, away, and Harry and 
 his friends were certainly not intoxicated.
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 17 
 
 But the quantity they drank would as cer- 
 tainly suffice to lay their degenerate grand- 
 sons under the table; and that the liveliness 
 of the parties was largely born of the bottle 
 need not be denied. Tim, the smaller dan- 
 die, used to search on the floor, lest the revel- 
 lers should luckily and inadvertently have 
 dropped anything toothsome. Dim would 
 sit on the hearth, with his vast, wide head 
 very much on one side, gravely considering 
 the lords of creation enjoying their noble 
 and rational pleasures. 
 
 Occasionally, the party played cards; once 
 they stole out and caught a couple of poach- 
 ers, red-handed, in the very act, in Harry's 
 modest preserves. 
 
 Of course, Harry cursed the offenders at 
 the moment, and, equally of course, let 
 them off in the sequel; a prosecution being 
 such a confounded lot of trouble! But 
 though Harry seldom took any except for 
 his pleasures, it must be accounted to him 
 for righteousness that for them he took 
 often a very great deal, that he enjoyed 
 with a refreshing heartiness and simplicity, 
 and was neither bored nor fastidious in his 
 amusements. If the Basset dinner-table was 
 overladen, it may be remembered that its
 
 1 8 BASSET 
 
 host had often been walking all day among 
 the turnips, with a shooting lunch consisting 
 of absolutely nothing but a hunch of bread 
 and cheese, stuffed into his pocket. He 
 would drive himself a dozen miles in his 
 phaeton to a dinner-party in the teeth of 
 a black North-Easter; and it is certainly on 
 record that one eventful night, in a bitter 
 midwinter, muffled to the eyes, he rode to 
 Dilchester to the assembly ball, through the 
 deepest snow of years. 
 
 The ball-room w^as uncomfortably stuffy 
 and crowded when he got there; wax candles 
 in great glass lustres lit the scene, and often 
 shed showers of wax over the good-tempered 
 dancers; the fiddlers in a gallery made up in 
 energy what they lacked in tune and time, 
 and the supper was principally distinguished 
 by an untidy plenty. But w'hat did that 
 matter? Harry was the best dancer and the 
 handsomest man in the room; and a steward 
 presently introduced him to Miss ^lary 
 JNIatthews, of Clayton Hall, near Dilchester, 
 aged eighteen, and vastly enjoying herself at 
 her very first ball, under the fond and strict 
 chaperonage of a mother in a cap and a grey 
 silk gown, sitting on a dais and watching^ 
 not the party, but Mary at it.
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 19 
 
 Pollie was a very slight little creature, not 
 really pretty, but with such bright curls and 
 such a bright face that she conveyed an 
 impression of prettiness. The family history 
 records that she was dressed in white muslin 
 — which was then not simply a synonym for 
 the obsolete virtues, but a stiff fabric actu- 
 ally worn by young women at balls. Her 
 feet beneath it, in the satin slippers she had 
 made herself, were aching to be dancing and 
 off. Harry loved, first, her freshness and 
 vigour, her ndif and new delight in the party 
 and in life; and she loved Harry— prin- 
 cipally because she was at the age to love 
 somebody, and so far had scarcely spoken a 
 dozen times to any man under fifty except 
 her writing-master, who had been twice 
 widowed, and was of a homely, eruptive 
 countenance. 
 
 Let it be added that Pollie was now, as 
 she was ever, a most generous, candid, quick- 
 tempered, honourable and intelligent little 
 person, with her bright wits certainly not 
 stifled by study, and with a mind and heart, 
 like the age in which she lived, full of be- 
 ginnings and possibilities. 
 
 She danced all the dances with Harry she 
 could, with Madam — ^herself aged about
 
 20 BASSET 
 
 thirty-eight, but feehng and seeming older 
 than a woman of sixty does now — con- 
 scientiously regarding her from the dais. 
 At the end of the evening — an immensely 
 long evening, and seeming so dreadfully 
 short! — it was Harry who handed INIadam 
 and Pollie to their landau, with old John- 
 Coachman, in his flaxen wig, and with liis 
 fat, friendly face smiling from his box at 
 our JMiss and the good-looking Squire in his 
 swallov\- tails and the handsomest waistcoat 
 the eye of man ever saw. 
 
 It was Harry who, the ver}^ next day, sat 
 down to compose a most serious letter — 
 making savage threats of kicking Dim and 
 Tim when they interrupted him — in which 
 he set forth in very manl}^ terms the state 
 of his heart and his fortune, and begged the 
 leave of her mother to pay his addresses 
 to JMiss ]Mary ISIatthews at once. 
 
 INIiss JNIary IMatthews being fatherless, her 
 mother had to take counsel with a pompous 
 and worldly uncle, with a stock and fob, who 
 looked very sharply and narrowly into 
 Harry's money affairs, and piously hoped 
 for the best regarding Harrj^'s character, or 
 shared the common, convenient belief that men 
 " for the most, become much more the better
 
 HARRY, THE SQUIRE 21 
 
 for being a little bad." Then the Squire 
 rode over to Clayton Hall on Victoria, and 
 some very thin excuse about the character 
 of a housemaid; and Pollie came out to the 
 door, with the curls shading a very becoming 
 blush, gave Victoria some sugar, and heard 
 something, in spite of the curls, that Harry 
 bent over to say in her ear. 
 
 After that, came a solemn dinner — a partie 
 carree at Clayton Hall— when the uncle and 
 Mrs. Matthews sustained a dull conversation 
 a deux, and Harry and Pollie tried hard to 
 catch glimpses of each other round the great 
 epergne containing trifle, which occupied the 
 middle of the table. The next day Harry 
 brought Pollie a little pearl ring. The two 
 were alone together perhaps three hours — 
 for three minutes a time — during their court- 
 ship. 
 
 Once, indeed, Harry drove Pollie and her 
 mother over to Basset Manor, and announced 
 his lovelorn and philistine intention of build- 
 ing Pollie a sham Gothic arbour in the 
 garden, and replacing the excellent old 
 Georgian furniture in the drawing-room 
 with a suite in rosewood and crimson satin; 
 and on this occasion the pair were actually 
 in sole possession of each other for half an
 
 2 2 BASSET 
 
 hour, while INIadam JMatthews went to in- 
 spect the Hnen cupboards. But what use 
 was half an hour, with Harry bewitched and 
 intoxicated with Pollie's extreme vivacity, 
 and Pollie in love with love? 
 
 Presently, Madam, who w-as nothing if not 
 good and conscientious, made her daughter 
 sit down with her and sew at a most excel- 
 lent, serviceable trousseau, and, as they 
 worked, set forth to the spirited Pollie the 
 " mild and compliant mind " the ideal wife 
 always exhibited. 
 
 Finally, there w^as a wedding, with the 
 bells ringing, and all Dilchester en fete; a 
 wedding-breakfast, with speech-making and 
 incessant health-drinkings ; and at last the 
 phaeton and that pair of spanking cobs at 
 the door, the luggage strapped up at the 
 back, the bridegroom in his great, caped 
 driving-coat, the bride with her face bloom- 
 ing and glowing under a beaver bonnet, 
 the cobs dancing to be off^shoes, rice, cheers 
 — and Harrj'^ and Pollie had driven — into 
 futurity.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Harry's wife 
 
 In the archives of Clayton Hall, there was 
 found the other day the little packet of let- 
 ters the new Mrs. Latimer wrote to her 
 mother on her wedding trip. Does any 
 bride out of a book declare in such letters 
 whether she is happy or unhappy during 
 these momentous weeks? Certainly not any 
 bride with the strong good sense of Pollie. 
 The first letter described the journey by 
 phaeton to London, and the sights there; 
 how Harry had shown Pollie, Tattersall's, 
 and the new National Gallery in the place 
 where the old King's Mews used to be; and, 
 best of all, that good, wise, resolute little 
 Queen, riding of an afternoon with Lord 
 Melbourne. Next, Harry took Pollie their 
 first triji in a steam carriage on one of 
 the new railroads, and Pollie, much im- 
 pressed, wrote of the " surprising velocity " 
 of the motion. (It was to some purpose, 
 after all, she had composed a pattern epistle 
 
 33
 
 24 BASSET 
 
 three times a week in the schoolroom to 
 an imaginary correspondent.) 
 
 After London, the pair — knowing and 
 content to know, that this was the trip of 
 their lives, and that, once back in Basset, 
 Dilchester would be almost their furthest 
 limit — crossed the Channel and posted to 
 Paris. From there, Pollie wrote her inten- 
 tion of embroidering Harry a beautiful 
 waistcoat in fuchsias — the waistcoat to come 
 as an entire surprise to him, and so only to 
 be worked when he was out. A subtle ob- 
 server might have drawn deductions from 
 the fact that just a fortnight later the waist- 
 coat was announced as finished. 
 
 Finally, the couple recrossed the Chan- 
 nel — six hours in the packet-boat in the 
 teeth of a contrary wind — rejoined the cobs 
 and phaeton, and went a tour round the 
 cathedral cities of England. By cathedral 
 III — Lincoln — Harry had sworn off cathe- 
 drals entirely and for ever, and had gone 
 to a horse-show instead; but Pollie con- 
 scientiously sketched nearly all of them, not 
 worrying about perspective, but achieving 
 results at least showing grip and spirit. 
 
 The subtle observer might again have 
 made deductions, not only from the number
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 25 
 
 of the sketches, but from the length of time 
 and the undivided attention evidently be- 
 stowed upon each of them. 
 
 Just three months after the wedding-day, 
 Basset, having erected a triumphal arch with 
 a very intoxicated-looking " Welcome " in 
 cotton-wool on it, mustered its whole popu- 
 lation in its one street, and cheered the 
 bride and bridegroom as Harry drove the 
 phaeton to the Manor. He looked his ever- 
 joll}^ robust, good-natured self, and the bride 
 seemed the merest slip of a bright-eyed 
 little girl beside him. Miss Pilkington, 
 having punctiliously paid her wedding call at 
 the Manor two days later, shook her kind 
 head, and said she hoped — meaning she did 
 not think — so gay a creature could be fit 
 for the responsibilities of marriage. 
 
 Yet it may be that, even on their wedding 
 journey, Pollie had, very dimly, begun to 
 realize that there might be drawbacks for 
 the wife in the happy temperament of a hus- 
 band who was so incapable of believing any- 
 thing but the best that he never prepared 
 for the worst; and that if he was always 
 careless, it might behove her to be more 
 than commonly careful. Still, it was a very 
 eager and trusting Pollie who had come back
 
 26 BASSET 
 
 to the JNIanor, quite read}^ to believe that any 
 little disillusions of the Avedding journey 
 were due to her, as yet, necessarily imper- 
 fect understanding of the nature and con- 
 stitution of man. 
 
 She had been excellently well taught by 
 her mother — then absent in the West of 
 England nursing a sick sister — to tackle 
 man's domestic difficulties for him. 
 
 Harry thought Pollie looked uncommonly 
 pretty — and so she did — with a housekeeping 
 apron pinned to her very slender bodice, and 
 with the heavy household kej^s in a great 
 pocket, when she went off after breakfast 
 their first morning at Basset Manor for a 
 preliminary engagement with Harry's cook. 
 He looked up from pulling Tim's ears and 
 laughed at her alert and business-like air, and 
 said he shouldn't advise her to bother herself 
 over old Jones, as Jones always had done 
 just what she liked and always would; and 
 Pollie, who had been told that it was her 
 duty to make her dependents do theirs, said, 
 " Not with me, Harry," with such a fine 
 determination, that Harry laughed the more. 
 However, Mrs. Jones, who was nearty a foot 
 taller than her mistress, and could have 
 picked her up in one hand and shaken her.
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 27 
 
 very soon became mild and apologetic under 
 Pollie's fearless and truthful eyes, and learnt 
 to clean and tremble. 
 
 Harry gave Pollie quite large sums of 
 money, at quite uncertain intervals, by way 
 of making a housekeeping allowance, and 
 though the sums were, at first, far more 
 generous than was necessary, and Pollie 
 j)erched a kiss on the top of his head in 
 grateful acknowledgment of them, she was 
 aware all the same that this was not, so to 
 speak, the way to do business. 
 
 When she dismissed an artful housemaid, 
 who had gauged her master's character and 
 taken advantage of his convenient habit of 
 shutting his eyes to everything that was 
 awry, Harry was much less pleased. Jane 
 had made him very comfortable and had 
 seemed all right, so of course she was all 
 right! In fact, Harry's theory was that, 
 since reformation was always resented by the 
 reformees and made the reformer deucedly 
 unpopular, why reform? Pollie, on the other 
 hand, had always been given to understand 
 that to do nothing is often to do wrong. 
 She looked up at Harry — they were sitting 
 together after dinner on an evening a few 
 weeks after they came home — and returned
 
 28 BASSET 
 
 to the bright-coloured wool-work antimacassar 
 she was making, without saying anything. 
 
 In the mornings, she used to walk round 
 the garden with him, in the little, thin, in- 
 adequate black satin boots in which the 
 women of that epoch followed their lords 
 through the rough places of the world with 
 a courage and spirit their stoutest-shod sis- 
 ters of to-day have not exceeded. Harry was 
 not wholl}^ pleased with her when she noticed 
 the immense discrepancy between the seeds 
 and bulbs bought and the flowers raised. 
 But, as he had really rather desired the end, 
 though not enough himself to take the means, 
 he was quite pleased when, in the sequel, the 
 florist's bills were few and the flowers many. 
 
 Soon, the JNIanor gave the first of several 
 large and solemn dinner-parties to the other 
 manors and halls of the neighbourhood, and 
 Harry was wholly delighted ^^ith the ponder- 
 ous excellence of the feast Pollie and Mrs. 
 Jones had been busily preparing since nine 
 o'clock in the morning. 
 
 No husband — certainly not such a new 
 and good-natured one as Harry — could have 
 failed to admire the ^vife he caught sight of 
 at times round the silver candelabra and the 
 piled-up dishes set out on the table. Even a
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 29 
 
 trousseau-frock of a heavy silk of a crude 
 mild-blue, could not take away the colour 
 and brightness from Pollie's face; as the fact 
 that she knew very little could not take away 
 the natural intelligence of her conversation. 
 The knighted IMayor of Dilchester, who was 
 her neighbour, was quite delighted with her, 
 and told Harry over the wine afterwards 
 what a lucky man he was. Perhaps, as 
 Harry was passing, quite gradually, to the 
 more normal marital attitude of feeling that 
 Pollie was a lucky woman, the information 
 did no harm. 
 
 In the drawing-room, when all the rest 
 of the company had made music after tea — 
 everybody sang and played in those days, 
 nobody very badly and nobody very well — 
 Harry roared out to Pollie's accompaniment 
 the jovial history of Cax^tain Wattle, " who 
 was all for love and a little for the bottle "; 
 and then one of the comic songs from the 
 " Vocal Library," a song with that obvious 
 and primitive wit — the wit of the practical 
 joke and the pun — which has long ceased to 
 amuse. It amused that simpler and cheer- 
 ful comi^any, however. 
 
 Harry and Pollie's dinner-parties, having 
 begun at half-past five, did not break up till
 
 30 BASSET 
 
 ten. It was not to their inordinate length 
 that sensible Pollie ascribed Harry's cross- 
 ness the next morning. She accepted man — 
 as most of the women round her had to 
 accept him — as a creature who, though cer- 
 tainly no longer drinking to intoxication, yet 
 on festive occasions necessarily saw the world 
 much en rose at the moment, and much en 
 7ioir the next day. When Harry kicked Dim, 
 not at all severely, when Dim unw^ittingly 
 got in his way, and Dim, offended more than 
 hurt, rubbed his face against Pollie's frock 
 asking an explanation, Pollie, stroking the 
 large head, whispered to him that this was one 
 of the small things of life, which he and she 
 must not mind. 
 
 To be sure, it was also a small thing that 
 Harry, having very generousl}^ bestowed 
 trifling weekly pensions on some old folks in 
 the village, invariably forgot to pay them; 
 and that, having faithfully promised Mr. 
 Philli2)s to come and inspect the roof of some 
 distant cottage, he scarcely ever remembered 
 the promise; and Polly, inventing a pudding, 
 was constantly being called away from her 
 duties to see to Harry's, Harry being out 
 shooting (it was now early autumn) with a 
 neighbouring squire.
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 31 
 
 It was also a small thing that Harry put 
 off answering his letters until his corre- 
 spondents wrote to inquire of Pollie if he 
 were dead; that he stuffed business communi- 
 cations into his pockets, and gaily ignored 
 their existence; and that he was always mean- 
 ing to order hoes and rakes for the garden- 
 ers, and never doing it. 
 
 Still, to every hundred persons who can 
 bear with courage the blows of Fate, there is 
 about one who can equably support her slaps. 
 Pollie was astonished to find such trifles could 
 annoy her ; when Harry saw she was annoyed, 
 and offered her a new lace tippet from Lon- 
 don to make up, Pollie, conscientiously re- 
 fusing the tippet because there were already 
 three in her trousseau, came to Harry all the 
 same and, laying her soft and glowing cheek 
 against his, said that she had not meant to 
 be cross. 
 
 It was Harry's turn to be a little cross 
 presently, when the weather turned wet and 
 the gout in his toe kept him to the house for 
 a few days. 
 
 He was not a person of resources, and it 
 was naturally a little annoying to him to find 
 that Pollie was; for to see others contented 
 with things that do not content one's self,
 
 32 BASSET 
 
 is seldom pleasing. When the household 
 duties were done, Pollie found footstool- 
 covers positively calling out to be beaded ; and 
 sat, looking verj^ pretty and quite absorbed in 
 her occupation, bj^ Harry's side. Then, one 
 day, hobbling into the librarj^ on the foot he 
 had been expressly forbidden to put to the 
 ground, he found his wife on the toj) of the 
 steps by one of the great book-cases, wholly 
 and entirelv absorbed in the Spectator of 
 Joseph Addison. Harr}^ never reading him- 
 self, entertained a dark suspicion that there 
 was something a little imfeminine about a 
 woman who could not rest satisfied with ]Miss 
 Terrier's " Destiny," Heath's " Book of 
 Beauty," and the illustrations in Thomson's 
 " Castle of Indolence " — all adorning the 
 drawing-room table. 
 
 Pollie, still holding ISIr. Addison, came 
 down the steps slowly at Harry's call. Her 
 straightforward mind could not see any rea- 
 son why she should not read the Spectator be- 
 cause it bored Harry. But remembering the 
 softness and the meekness which were the 
 ideal wifely virtues, she, with an effort, did 
 not say so. 
 
 The very next daj^ she herself readjusted, 
 as it were, the intellectual balance between
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 33 
 
 the sexes by driving the lady's phaeton — 
 Harry had given it to her, and was teaching 
 her to handle the ribbons — into a ditch, and 
 by inquiring at dinner, with that perfectly 
 cheerful candour which always distinguished 
 her, if Lord INlelbourne were a Whig or a 
 Tory. 
 
 Still, when Harry was about again, Pollie 
 often found her waj'^ to the old book-cases, 
 and sitting on those steps, with her small 
 white-stockinged, sandalled feet dangling, dis- 
 covered, to her great good fortune, that Jane 
 Porter and " The Songs of the Affections " 
 did not form the sum total of English litera- 
 ture. 
 
 One brilliant morning of early September, 
 the post-bag, ^arriving at breakfast, was found 
 to contain a solid and lengthy communica- 
 tion from Harry's lawyer at Dilchester about 
 a property to which Harry was a trustee. 
 He threw the letter over to Pollie, not be- 
 cause he supposed she understood business, 
 but because he was just going out to a neigh- 
 bour for a day's partridge-shooting, and did 
 not want to bother about it himself. Pollie 
 read it while Harry was putting on his shoot- 
 ing boots and playing with the dogs. 
 
 " JNIr. Ilastrick wants to see you at once —
 
 34 BASSET 
 
 to-da}^ Harry," she said. " He says the busi- 
 ness is very important, and ' if not attended 
 to,' " reads PolHe from the letter, " ' might 
 result in a verj^ serious loss.' " 
 
 "Fudge!" says Harry, pulling on the 
 second boot. " Old Rastrick's always fussing 
 about something." 
 
 " It does seem serious, Harry," answers 
 Pollie, still reading the letter; " he says again 
 it is most expedient he should see you to-day." 
 
 " Then he won't," rej^lies Harry, \\ath his 
 jolly laugh. " Here, throw it over to me, 
 Pollie, and don't frown like that. Women 
 never ought to interfere in business." With 
 that, Harry, having impatientl}^ read the 
 paper himself, threw it into a drawer in his 
 writing-table, and, whistling cheerfully, went 
 out to the hall-door to see if Victoria had 
 been brought round. 
 
 The sun was streaming pleasantly into the 
 dining-room, but for the moment the world 
 did not look gay to Pollie. " As this may be 
 a serious matter, not for j^ou and your wife 
 only, but for your children hereafter," ^Ir. 
 Rastrick had written — and Harry did not find 
 it worth the sacrifice of a day's pleasure! 
 
 Poilie's eyes were still thoughtful when she 
 came out to the door to see him off. He
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 35 
 
 looked so hearty and vigorous, as he flung 
 himself into the saddle, so full of youth and 
 hfe, it was inspiriting to see him. Just as he 
 was starting, he turned to Pollie, to hope good- 
 naturedly she would not be dull, and to sug- 
 gest that if she were, she should ask old Pil 
 (thus Harry abbreviated the representative of 
 the house of Pilkington) to spend the after- 
 noon with her. 
 
 About a week later, there came another 
 solemn communication from Mr. Rastrick, ex- 
 pressing surprise that he had heard nothing 
 from his client on the important business of 
 which he had written to him, but adding that 
 the matter had turned out less serious than 
 he had anticipated, and, he believed, would 
 be settled satisfactorily. 
 
 " I told you so! " says Harry, pulling one 
 of Pollie's little curls — in her case, they were 
 her own, growing on her head — and Pollie 
 found herself in the rather annoying, but not 
 uncommon, position of being forgiven — for 
 having been perfectly right. 
 
 That day seemed to her to mark an era. 
 Certainly, after it, Harry's faults often came 
 up before the bar of her righteous young judg- 
 ment, and received scant mercy there; and 
 she forgot that in the days when Harry used
 
 36 ' BASSET 
 
 to ride from Basset to Clayton Hall to woo 
 her, it was his very insouciance and sanguine- 
 ness which used to make her home seem dull 
 and everybody in it so old when he had gone 
 away. 
 
 Sometimes now, they even had small dis- 
 putes — over some household matter at break- 
 fast-time, perhaps. Pollie began her house- 
 keeping — with the keys and the pinafore — 
 sore and troubled. When, with very great 
 difficulty and in a few hours' time, she had 
 brought her high spirit to apology and con- 
 trition, she was met with the blank wall of 
 the fact that Harry had totally and utterly 
 forgotten, not only the nature of the offence, 
 but that there had been one at all. 
 
 But sometimes there were graver things — ■ 
 " on n'a qu'a glisser pour faire mal." Harry's 
 lazy good-nature occasionall}' led him into 
 small j)redicaments, from which the easiest 
 way out was a by-path from the truth. The 
 wondering honesty of Pollie's eyes was quite 
 lost on him. One day, alas! she tried a small 
 shaft of contempt, and it glanced off him 
 easily, doing neither harm nor good. As for 
 detecting that everything was not perfectly 
 right, if Harry did detect it, being an en- 
 tirely practical person, he would simply have
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 37 
 
 said that of course no one could go on 
 honeymooning for ever. 
 
 Certainly, if troubles there were, Pollie 
 had the best of remedies for them — plenty to 
 do. Because one's heart aches, is no reason 
 the plums should not be made into jam; and 
 whether one is happy or unhappy, the house- 
 linen will not count and mend itself. 
 
 In the evenings, after dinner, Harry used 
 to have his wine brought into the red-satin 
 drawing-room, and enjoyed it, sitting before 
 the fire, while Pollie sang to him. She used 
 to sing nearly every evening, her repertoire 
 being quite limited — 
 
 " I'd be a butterfly ! living a rover, 
 Dying when fair things are fading away;" 
 
 and a very long ballad, describing minutely 
 the five inadequate reasons why the hero 
 Never Said He Loved, until verse six, when, 
 with several passionately tremulous chords, he 
 at last expressed his feelings. 
 
 Bj^ this climax, despite the chords, Harry 
 was generally asleep. PolHe, with her hands 
 resting on the keyboard, could see him from 
 where she sat: with his goodly, fair head 
 thrown back on the chair, and self-indulgence
 
 38 BASSET 
 
 marking — it had not yet marked — its obvious 
 lines on his boyish face. Dim — Tim was 
 asleep like his master — would rise slowly 
 sometimes from the hearthrug, and come to 
 Pollie to inquire if this was by any chance a 
 trouble a lick could heal. 
 
 Then tea was brought in, at half-past eight, 
 and when Pollie had brewed it, taking a great 
 deal of interest in the process, it was her 
 custom to sit on one of those beaded foot- 
 stools bj^ Harry's side, and drink her cup with 
 her head resting against his knee. 
 
 At first, she had been used to talk to him 
 about the things which had been in her mind 
 in the day, or her new naif ex^jcriences of 
 life. While on all material questions Harry 
 was perfectly shrewd and sensible, the world 
 of abstract ideas had absolutely no existence 
 for him — though, after all, it was not ideas 
 which Pollie's developing heart missed, but 
 ideals. She sat there for a long time, looking 
 into the red hollows of the fire, and seeing 
 there, perhaps, Harry's shortcomings and not 
 her own. She had been too fond of him to 
 be merciful to them. 
 
 Some chance remark he made about hap- 
 pening to have met her that night of the Dil- 
 chester ball, seemed to sav that if he had not
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 39 
 
 met her, he would have met some one else, 
 who would have done as well. Harry, to be 
 sure, had not meant that, or meant anything. 
 He rested the Globe which he was reading on 
 Pollie's head; and under that canopy her 
 pretty face took a strange sadness, and she 
 began to think — a dangerous thought— how 
 much she would have kept if, when they were 
 still only lovers, Harry had been taken away 
 from her; for she guessed already that, beside 
 the loss of illusion, the losses of death might 
 be kind. 
 
 Harry's laugh roused her with a start; he 
 read aloud something out of the paper — one 
 of those cheerfully blatant sarcasms in which 
 the press of that day indulged. 
 
 Presently, Pollie got up to snuff the can- 
 dles, shaking herself morally the while. What 
 a fool she was! what a wicked fool! Soft, 
 persuasive, amiable — how short she fell of 
 that accepted, wifely standard! Yet, the 
 very next morning, when she did try the art 
 of coaxing to make Harry sit down and pay 
 his bills, or keej) some long-neglected prom- 
 ise, she found, as she was always finding, that 
 though he seemed to yield to her at the time, 
 he did nothing, and next day they were back 
 at exactly the same place again — the finger
 
 40 BASSET 
 
 removed, the indiarubber ball resumed its 
 original and incurable shape. 
 
 In the very few novels Pollie had been 
 permitted to read, when the heroine was not 
 discreetly left at the church door, her chil- 
 dren settled and simplified for her all the 
 difficulties of life. 
 
 When, in that winter, her small, stalwart 
 son was born, with Harry's English blue eyes 
 and fair hair, and a distinct likeness in his 
 crumpled red face to Harry's out-of-door 
 complexion, she made quite sure this con- 
 venient rule was going to apply to her. 
 
 Harry was certainly the proudest and most 
 affectionate of fathers, and took an even 
 greater interest in the surprising girth of 
 Tommy's legs than did that comfortable, ig- 
 norant, motherlj^ old woman who was Pollie 
 and Tommy's nurse. No father ever dug 
 an infant in the ribs with more hilarious 
 results than Harry. The heir nearly gur- 
 gled and laughed himself into a fit when 
 Harry gently winked his cheerful eye at him, 
 or softly touched him — Tommy rolling at his 
 ease on the hearth-rug — with the toe of a 
 shooting boot. Presently, he preferred the 
 sight of his father's jolly face even to the 
 delicious amusement of pulling his mother's
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 41 
 
 curls as if they were a bell-rope. Harry 
 talked loudly of his son's perfections when he 
 met the other squires in the field, and they 
 laughed at him, and liked him better for his 
 naif delight in his new toy. 
 
 A toy — a really valuable toy, but for whose 
 preservation he was not in the least respon- 
 sible — that is what Pollie, sitting with the 
 child on her lap, and looking over his downy 
 light head into the fire, very soon came to 
 the conclusion that Harry regarded their 
 son. 
 
 Of course, it was only natural and manlike 
 that when Tommy became fractious or boring, 
 Harry should precipitately resign him to his 
 mother, and that when, on the mere suspicion 
 of a cry upstairs of an evening, she fled in its 
 direction as if she had been shot out of a 
 cannon, Harry should observe lazily that he 
 was certain she need not bother, it was sure 
 to be all right; which, of course, it always 
 was. It was natural, too, that Pollie and not 
 Harry should be anxious over passing infantile 
 comj^laints — in this day scientifically assigned 
 to flies in the milk, and in that to the direct 
 Hand of God. But was it natural, Pollie 
 asked herself, that when, in that hour after 
 dinner, as they sat talking over their tea, she
 
 42 BASSET 
 
 tentatively spoke of Tommy's education and 
 future, Harry should obviously regard the 
 subject as a dull one, which did not in any 
 way concern him, and remarked indolently 
 that of course Tommy would get along some- 
 how? That was just, in fact, what that reso- 
 lute little mother of his did not mean him to 
 do. She meant to put forth her very best 
 efforts to help him to get along well. 
 
 She was sitting in her usual attitude at 
 that hour, with her head against Harr^^'s knee, 
 and for the first time was conscious that she 
 disliked the touch of his fingers on the soft- 
 ness of her cheek and neck. Harry-like, he 
 did not even observe that she shrank from 
 him, and, ^^hen the next night she took a 
 chair opposite him instead of her footstool, to 
 which she returned no more, noticed no change 
 at all. 
 
 The child, indeed, whom she had made so 
 ignorantly certain was to draw her to Harry, 
 more deeply divided them. PoUie, whose vive 
 nature had been angry, but angry only, at 
 Harry's casual affection and indifference for 
 herself, felt passionate resentment that he 
 should mete the same feelings to the child. 
 She turned away her head now even when 
 the pair were at play, as if something in the
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 43 
 
 sight hurt her. When, one night, she did 
 bring Harry to speculate — half jocularly — 
 on Tommy's future, it was but to know, what 
 she had so far only suspected, that she and 
 Harr}^ had not an idea in common, and that, 
 if Tommy's upbringing was not to be wholly 
 harmful, she must be always counteracting 
 Harry's influence. In a minute his head was 
 behind the Globe again, and he was whistling 
 softly as he read. On to Pollie's little bare 
 hand with the wedding-ring on it there 
 splashed, to her surprise and resentment, a 
 sudden tear. 
 
 It being the shooting season, Harry, of 
 course, was constantly out. 
 
 As women then never followed the guns, 
 and as they walked little and played no out- 
 door games, for open-air exercises only rid- 
 ing and driving remained, and though Pollie 
 was learning, she had not yet learnt those 
 arts. So she had only the occupations of in- 
 doors — where the small troubles of life always 
 loom large. Harry's idiosyncrasies, which 
 had annoyed her at breakfast, came up, un- 
 forbidden, before her mind in the long, soli- 
 tary hours. 
 
 Yesterday, she had lit again, by chance, 
 on one of his lazy lies, and knew that he was
 
 44 BASSET 
 
 neither troubled at it nor at being found out 
 in it. 
 
 To-day — sitting in the nursery sewing 
 clothes for Tommy, and looking above his 
 sleeping head at the dripping window-pane, 
 where " rain and wind beat dark December " 
 ■ — it seemed to her that since her marriage she 
 had been always accepting lowered standards, 
 or quarrelling with Harrj% in itself a lowering 
 thing, for the better ones she knew. A revolt 
 against him and against fate, a sudden, strong 
 tempest of hatred, took possession of her. 
 She took Tommy from her lap into her arms, 
 and held him so tightly to her heart — in a 
 fierce determination he should have neither 
 lot nor part with his father — that Tommy 
 woke up, screamed indignation at such treat- 
 ment, and old INIrs. Chinnery came in from 
 the next room to see if her charge were being 
 murdered. 
 
 All that week Pollie was very silent. But 
 Harry, who always volubly filled in all pauses 
 himself, noticed notliing. 
 
 At church, on the Sunday, the sermon 
 chanced to be on the Forgiveness of Injuries, 
 and Harry, who had never borne any living 
 soul a grudge for more than five minutes, 
 listened moved and attentive, while Poilie,
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 45 
 
 staring absently under her bonnet at old 
 JNIrs. Latimer's monument, did not hear a 
 word from beginning to end. 
 
 At the five o'clock Sunday dinner she 
 hardly roused herself to make the ordinary 
 observations, or to answer Harry's. She 
 was dreaming deeply — not without a gloomy 
 pleasure in her own vindictive imaginings — 
 of a Harry, ill or troubled, whom she would 
 by no means succour or solace. She looked 
 at his good-natured face across the dishes of 
 wintry pears and grapes — he was enjoying his 
 Sunday claret (the best bin) in perfect con- 
 tentment — and believed that she hated him. 
 From force of habit, through all her distress 
 and bitterness, she kept on absently anointing 
 the joint in front of her with the gravy — to 
 keep the goodness in it — and no wretchedness 
 of spirit could prevent her from mentally 
 noting presently that Mrs. Jones had insuffi- 
 ciently browned the pudding. 
 
 In the drawing-room, she and Harry both 
 produced books suitable for the day. Every- 
 body then read, or pretended to read, ser- 
 mons on Sunday, and if Harry's chosen dis- 
 course on the Plagues of Egypt fell off his 
 knee before he had reached the end of the 
 first paragrax^h, and his head dropped back
 
 46 BASSET 
 
 in the chair with his mouth open, the general 
 opinion would certainly have been that he 
 did much better to sleep over a pious work 
 than to keep awake over a secular. 
 
 Pollie's sermon on Sodom and Gomorrah 
 lay unnoticed on her knee, and she gazed 
 past Harry's sleeping form, with her pretty 
 eyes blank and sad, into the future. If only 
 there were a future for her! If only she had 
 know^n — in time — what life and love and mar- 
 riage meant! 
 
 The regular breathing of Dim and Tim, as 
 they lay stretched in their after-dinner sleep 
 on the hearth-rug, made a monotonous ac- 
 companiment to her thoughts. She was 
 so profoundly absorbed in them that even 
 a cry in the nursery overhead passed un- 
 heard. 
 
 Five minutes later there was the report of 
 a gun — apparently quite close to the windows 
 — which brought the four occupants of the 
 draW'ing-room to their feet in a second. In 
 a dozen more, Harry had his gun, and w^as 
 ready to go in quest of the poacher, with his 
 blue eyes eager and alert, agog for a fray, and 
 bidding Pollie hold back Dim and Tim. She 
 called out to him from the hearth-rug, where 
 she had each dog by his collar, in a phrase she
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 47 
 
 had used a hundred times before, " Take care 
 of yourself, Harry! " 
 
 When she could hear his footsteps no 
 more, and the dogs were quieter — only mur- 
 muring excitement and disappointment occa- 
 sionally, as she sat between them on the floor 
 — the phrase came back to her mind. 
 
 If he did take care of himself, there were 
 twenty, thirty, forty years she must spend at 
 his side, the spirit always subdued to the 
 flesh, herself slipping into his likeness, and — 
 far worse — seeing Tommy slip into it too. 
 If he never came back, she would be free to 
 lead her own life, with the child — to find, 
 perhaps, the hapj)iness she had missed! She 
 began to see what she had missed. In books, 
 poachers shot tyrannical landowners. Even 
 Pollie — in her absorbed bitterness — had to 
 smile at the thought of the much too easy- 
 going Harry as a tyrant. But it was only in 
 books! Because she knew such a catastrophe 
 was so exceedingly unlikely to happen, she 
 believed that she actually wished it to-night. 
 And suddenly, with a guilty start, she became 
 aware of Dim, sitting up with his ridiculous 
 head exceedingly on one side, contemplating 
 her gravely, as if he knew what was in her 
 mind.
 
 48 BASSET 
 
 On the morrow, Harry did not get up. 
 He felt ill — a chill, j^erhaps, from chasing the 
 poacher. He grumbled a good deal and made 
 great havoc of his bed-clothes. Pollie went 
 down to her store-room and looked out the 
 three household remedies which her mother had 
 assured her the prudent housewife had always 
 at hand — arnica, colcliicum for the gout, and 
 sal volatile. As the arnica announced itself 
 on the bottle to be intended for bruises and 
 outward application, and Harry had no 
 bruises, it was manifestly unsuitable. So 
 Pollie tried the colchicum — gout takes all 
 forms, and Harry might be suffering from 
 one of them; and then, in case it was not the 
 gout after all, the sal volatile. 
 
 Hany said he felt worse when he had 
 imbibed these remedies, and rather crossly 
 suggested — everj^body believed piously and 
 faithfully in the curative properties of medi- 
 cine then — that they were stale. Pollie shook 
 her head and curls, and sat on the edge of the 
 bed, regarding Harry attentively. He did not 
 look ill; the outdoor tan on his face had not 
 faded at all. Her own experience of sickness 
 was limited to an attack of measles at twelve 
 years old; she tried to remember what she 
 had felt like on that important occasion, and
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 49 
 
 could not. She brought Harry some soup 
 and wine and the newspaper, and resumed her 
 household duties. 
 
 When she came up to him a little later, 
 he was still tossing untidily and unhappily, 
 and declared himself to be in considerable 
 pain. Pollie suggested she should send John 
 for Dr. Benet. Her ignorance was in no way 
 alarmed. To it, death was still a name, not 
 a reality; a thing which had removed King 
 William IV. and sometimes an old uncle or 
 a cousin — her father had died in her infancy — 
 but had never come so near to her that she 
 had learnt either to dread or to recognize it. 
 
 Plarry was not sure whether he would 
 see old Benet, or whether he would not. 
 Doctors were such asses! Harry, in point 
 of fact, had several shooting engagements 
 that week, and had not quite decided whether 
 old Benet would cure him in time for them, 
 or maliciously prevent him from fulfilling 
 them. 
 
 He dozed restlessly in the afternoon. It 
 was six o'clock before John left the Manor, 
 and nearly eight before Dr. Benet reached 
 it. He wheezed asthmatically up the stairs 
 alone — he was very fat and short. Harry 
 had been annoyed with Pollie for standing
 
 50 BASSET 
 
 at the end of his four-poster, looking at him 
 and inquiring if he were better, and had 
 bidden her to go downstairs. Dr. Benet was 
 overhead a long while, creaking about noisily, 
 doing a good deal, it seemed to Pollie listen- 
 ing below, but not talking much. When at 
 last he came heavily downstairs again, Pollie, 
 with her work still in her hand, went to the 
 drawing-room door to meet him, asked cheer- 
 fully how Harry was, and if he would be out 
 of bed to-morrow. 
 
 There was a look on old Benet's homely 
 face that seemed to her to make her heart 
 give a sudden leap and then stand still. But 
 self-control had been part of her training, and 
 it did not fail her. The wool-work dropped 
 out of her hands, but she stooped, picked 
 it up, folded it, and laid it by on a 
 table, before she shut the door and came 
 back to the hearth where the doctor was 
 standing. 
 
 He must not disguise from her that this 
 was a very serious thing, and that he did 
 not like the look of the patient at all. Every 
 one, to his misfortune, knows those time- 
 honoured formulas, the same seventy, or 
 seven hundred, years ago. Dr. Benet wrote 
 a note to a colleague in Dilchester — a note
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 51 
 
 summoning liim to come at once — which John 
 must ride hard and dehver. He gave Polhe 
 some directions. She was intelHgent; that he 
 had always guessed from her face. He took 
 hold of her sHm hand, hanging at her side — 
 it was as cold as a stone — and patted it 
 kindly between his own fat, red, old paws, and 
 said there was no need to lose hope, Harry 
 had the finest of constitutions. As he rode 
 away from the Manor, he recalled something 
 in her expression, and wondered that the 
 Squire, who was handsome enough certainly 
 to please any woman's fancy, was quite the 
 man to have inspired so profound and pas- 
 sionate a feeling. 
 
 When he had gone, Pollie stood for a mo- 
 ment by the hall-door, which she had opened, 
 thinking. 
 
 Les desirs accomplis! Out of her exceed- 
 ingly limited acquaintance with the French 
 language that little phrase came back to her, 
 followed her upstairs to Harry's room, and 
 drummed in her ears above the high-sounding 
 phrases in which Dr. Clarke from Dilchester, 
 presently retrieved by John, tried to hide his 
 ignorance and his anxiety. 
 
 Les desirs accomplis! The words still 
 throbbed in her mind as she sat the remainder
 
 52 BASSET 
 
 of the night in Plarrv's room. Gamps were 
 the only sick nurses of that date, and, natu- 
 rally, households like Pollie's would have none 
 of them. She had wished Harry dead; and he 
 was dying. By the light of tlie candle and 
 her o\\'n accusing soul, he looked far more ill 
 and sunken than he really was. She w^ould 
 have her wish, as a judgment: This you de- 
 sired; take it — to your lifelong regret. 
 
 AVhen " the still morn went out with san- 
 dals grey," and Pollie peeped again through 
 Harrj^'s bed-curtains, he was asleep; and so 
 sound asleejD, for one dreadful moment she 
 thought her punishment had come. 
 
 Dr. Benet, arriving an hour or two later, 
 considered his patient a something, though 
 but a trifle, better. 
 
 But there were still many days of gnawing 
 anxiety — or alternations of hope and fear not 
 less cruel — when Pollie believed her desire 
 had been heard in Heaven, bj^ the just and 
 avenging God of the Old Testament lessons 
 of her childhood. She had wliat is called 
 no time to think, but she had time and to 
 spare to find out that the burden refused can 
 weigh heavier than the burden borne; and 
 that though, in her marriage, she had made 
 one of the most fatal of human mistakes, there
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 53 
 
 was one greater and more fatal — rebellion 
 against its consequences. 
 
 The beautiful quiver of the most nourish- 
 ing of all possible calf's-foot jelly, which 
 she had made with her own eager hands, 
 and the perfect greaselessness and potency of 
 the beef-tea, expressed her repentance. She 
 would most thankfully have gone down on 
 her knees and scrubbed the floor of Harry's 
 bedroom, if the medical science of her age 
 had demanded such hygienic precautions — 
 which it certainly did not. As it was, she 
 satisfied its requirements, and a little com- 
 forted her self-accusing soul, by piling up 
 the patient's fire, and excluding oxygen from 
 his room with so much fervour and thorough- 
 ness that only that natural excellence of con- 
 stitution, on which old Benet was pinning his 
 faith, could have made him weather her devo- 
 tion. In the cold dawn of many mornings, 
 Harry saw her httle figure, in the simplest 
 and neatest of wrappers, and with her curls 
 appearing below a small, frilled nightcap, 
 standing inside his bed-curtains, bringing him 
 cups of nourishment. 
 
 When, after many days, he began to be 
 annoyed with her for always remembering to 
 give him his medicines — they were most
 
 54 BASSET 
 
 numerous and nauseous — a weight seemed to 
 be lifted from her heart. He had been so 
 ominously meek and grateful ! 
 
 No good woman ever thanked Providence 
 so fervently to hear a little bad language as 
 Pollie, when Harry showed his renewed 
 vigour b}^ energetically damning all drugs and 
 the entire medical profession. He asked for 
 Tim, and Pollie's housewifely soul made no 
 account of paw-marks on the spotlessness 
 of the counterpane; and for Tommy, and 
 Pollie was not even hurt when he was quite 
 disproportionately annoyed at the child for 
 crying at his haggard, changed face. In her 
 remorse — though at its bitterest she knew 
 very well that she loved every hair wliich 
 composed the down on Tommy's head (called 
 curls by Pollie and Mrs. Chinnery) better 
 than Harry's whole body — she hardly allowed 
 herself to see the child at all. 
 
 Harrj^ recovered, chieflj^ because he had 
 always been firmly convinced that it was 
 perfecth^ impossible for him to do anything 
 else. He came downstairs again, not at all 
 a changed man, but precisely the same man 
 he had gone up; and Pollie, not substantially 
 a different woman, resumed her life with him. 
 
 Only now, since she had wished him dead
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 55 
 
 and he had nearly died, the sense of her own 
 failings made her merciful to his. Some- 
 times, when he annoj^ed or wounded her, she 
 would go into the drawing-room, and, looking 
 up at his mother's picture, tell herself that 
 for the son of that feebly good-natured 
 person, with her pleasant, watery smile, the 
 allowances should indeed be great. When 
 he offered her a present — a peace-offering — a 
 wiser Pollie took it, though there were more 
 than three in her trousseau. She found out 
 gradually that, though one has missed the 
 best, good may yet remain; that if the Harry 
 she had been in love with was lost to her, 
 perhaps had never existed, there still lived 
 beside her a Harry of whom she was really 
 fond, and with whom her duty lay for all her 
 days. 
 
 His good-natured camaraderie^ which was 
 offence when she still loved him — or thought 
 she did — she accepted as her greatest bless- 
 ing, and was thankful that he gave her a 
 kind, careless affection, and exacted no more. 
 
 She learnt in time to be " soople in things 
 immaterial"; and when she knew her anger 
 was just, remembered, or tried to remember, 
 that " in the course of justice none of us 
 should see salvation."
 
 SG BASSET 
 
 Patience to endure was the besetting 
 virtue of that age, as imj)atience to reform 
 is the besetting virtue of this; and Polhe 
 ^^•as the child of her time. Her pride — the 
 pride which not only never whines under 
 misfortune, but denies that there is any mis- 
 fortune to whine about — also helped her not 
 a little. 
 
 After all, too, the novels were not wholly 
 wrong. How was it possible not to feel 
 gently to Harry when Tommy looked up to 
 her with Harry's eyes, and laid on hers a fat 
 hand, stubby and strong and short — Harry's 
 in miniature? But, if his face was his 
 father's, in his nature he had his mother's 
 deeper and livelier feelings, quicker temper, 
 and honest heart. 
 
 It was her care, of course — and her happi- 
 ness, too — to plan, to think, to look ahead for 
 the son, while the father was breaking in for 
 him the cleverest little pony in the world; to 
 persuade Harry to see ]Mr. Rastrick on mat- 
 ters which would affect Tommy hereafter, in- 
 stead of aiming IMr. Rastrick's communica- 
 tions, made into suitable pellets, at Tommy 
 tumbling on the floor with Dim and Tim, 
 his inseiDarable allies. 
 
 The problem — that hard problem — to make
 
 HARRY'S WIFE 57 
 
 Tommy respect a father who was eminently, 
 but only, likeable; to obey him, but not to 
 follow in his waj'S — she tackled with sense 
 and spirit, and some measure of success. 
 And so made her compromise with Fate. 
 
 At her side, of course. Tommy learnt 
 C A T — cat, and D O G— dog, and, from that 
 extraordinary Early- Victorian compendium, 
 " Infantine Knowledge," responded to such 
 dissimilar questions (in this strange rotation) 
 as "Who made j^ou?" "What is sago?" 
 "Where is New York?" 
 
 Presently, Pollie went into the library, 
 found Harry's old Latin grammar, and, with 
 her curls rather flurried, and her cheeks rather 
 flushed, learnt mensa, " a table," and amo, 
 " I love," to be in time to help Tommy out of 
 that pitfall concerning hostages and the gate 
 of a city, into which she knew he must 
 eventually be led. She used to hide the Latin 
 grammar hastily under the sofa cushion when 
 she heard Harry's footstep approaching; he 
 was so certain to say that women had no 
 business with Latin, and could not possibly 
 understand it! 
 
 Only now, she took care to remind herself 
 that, after all, he was by no means the only 
 man of his day who believed that " if you once
 
 58 BASSET 
 
 suffer women to eat of the tree of knowledge, 
 the rest of the family will soon be reduced 
 to the same aerial and unsatisfactory diet." 
 
 It was also rather under the rose, and 
 when Harry was out, that Pollie pursued her 
 own reading, practising that innocent and 
 comforting deceit, as formerly, sitting on the 
 top of a step-ladder, with a sandalled foot 
 dangling, and the curls shadowing an ab- 
 sorbed, bent face. 
 
 With wonder and delight she delved into 
 that gold-mine of inexhaustible riches — the 
 wisdom and genius of Shakespeare; and, 
 sometimes, when that great master of the 
 human heart touched with his sure hand some 
 chord in her own experience, or opened the 
 door of a new world of passion and feeling 
 into which she might only look, she would lift 
 her head, catch her breath in a sudden sigh, 
 and feel as if her life were over. 
 
 But, indeed, she had only finished Chap- 
 ter II.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PARSON GRANT 
 
 When Harry Latimer's father was enjoying 
 himself at Basset Manor, and Miss Pilking- 
 ton's father was dispensing a pleasant and 
 nnjustifiahle hospitality at the Rectory, the 
 only son of a well-born country gentleman — 
 living about thirty miles from Dilchester — 
 went up to Cambridge University. 
 
 Peter Grant was at this time an immensely 
 broad, tall, powerful and stupid young man, 
 with a shock-head of reddish hair, a solid 
 aversion to book-learning, and an equally 
 solid and obstinate aptitude for what the 
 slang of this day would call " ragging." It 
 was not indeed that Peter was the pioneer of 
 those frolics which took up all his time and 
 energy at Alma Mater, but he was always in 
 at the death. If the proctors caught anybody, 
 they always caught him. His slow tongue 
 was perfectly inapt at excuses; and while 
 luckier undergraduates scraped into Chapel 
 
 S9
 
 6o BASSET 
 
 by the skin of their teeth, as it were, honest 
 Peter was invariably just too late. 
 
 He reall}^ drank less than his companions — 
 though that distinction allowed him the privi- 
 lege of drinking a good deal — but his red face 
 and the lurid light shed on it by his red 
 thatch of hair earned him the reputation of 
 drinking much more. He was a great man 
 on the river, and a terrifying boxer. His 
 tutor warned him and expostulated with him 
 in the first week of his first term. At the end 
 of his fourth term, he was sent down to an 
 enraged father, who announced an irrevocable 
 intention of giving Peter a small farm, hing 
 between Basset and Dilchester, and nothing 
 else of any sort or description, and turning 
 him, there and then, into a gentleman- 
 farmer. 
 
 Peter did not object or agree to this 
 proposal. But the next day he quietly walked 
 out of the house with a few guineas in his 
 pocket, took the stage from Dilchester to 
 London; enlisted in the Rifle Brigade, which 
 was shortly — in the spring of 1809 — ordered 
 to Portugal to join the army, then fighting 
 the French in the Peninsula, under Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley. 
 
 For three years he served his country as
 
 PARSON GRANT 6i 
 
 so many did and do, honourably and without 
 honours; and eventually became a non-com- 
 missioned officer. His herculean frame and 
 constitution weathered the cruelties of Gen- 
 eral Craufurd's forced marches— the priva- 
 tions, the sickness, the blunders and the mis- 
 management which peculiarly distinguished 
 that miserable and glorious campaign. 
 
 Finally, he joined the Forlorn Hope at 
 the storming of Rodrigo, where the gallant 
 Craufurd was killed; and again volunteered 
 for the Forlorn Hope at the awful and bloody 
 storming of Badajoz in April, 1812. 
 
 The Peter Grant of the Rifle Brigade in 
 the Peninsular War was, of course, precisely 
 the Peter Grant of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge. He had no more the wits than he had 
 opportunity for leadership, and not the wits 
 to make the opportunity. But he had the 
 dogged spirit of Highland ancestors, which 
 turned him, on the defensive, into a sohd, 
 immovable rock, and caused him to be — 
 now in a literal and dreadful sense — always 
 in at the death. Now, as then, he led the 
 life of his comrades; and a brave and brutal 
 life it was. Only somehow Peter kept, what 
 he kept for ever, a certain softness in his 
 rough heart, and fidelity to a very brief creed :
 
 62 BASSET 
 
 respect a good woman, and never tell a lie— 
 unless it is absolutely necessary. 
 
 It will be remembered that the besieging 
 army lay outside Badajoz for a fortnight in 
 ceaseless torrential rains; and at eight o'clock 
 in the evening of April 6, 1812, began to 
 storm the city. 
 
 Fortunately for history, some of the be- 
 siegers lived to forget the horrors of what 
 one of them called " the most sanguinarj^ and 
 awful engagements on the records of any 
 country," so far that they could hereafter 
 speak and write of it. But of that storming 
 in the darkness, when the besieged, not less 
 furious and resolute than the besiegers, flung 
 down the breaches, bags and barrels of gun- 
 powder, live shells, hand grenades and fire- 
 balls; when " exploding mines cast up friends 
 and foes together," and the booming of can- 
 non and the shrieks, curses and agonies of the 
 wounded, made hell, Peter Grant's lips, at 
 least, could never be brought to tell. 
 
 He was one of the first inside the walls of 
 Badajoz. 
 
 But here again were the regions of the 
 damned — and a worse damnation. The city 
 was at the mercy of a soldiery desperate from 
 long privations, drunk with victory and wine,
 
 PARSON GRANT 6^, 
 
 who, in the confusion, fired on their own 
 comrades, shot the women and children in the 
 streets " for pastime," and committed out- 
 rages, murders, debaucheries — every vileness 
 of which the human breast is capable, and 
 which, except in broadest outline, no pen can 
 describe. 
 
 It was Peter's fate to find himself, almost 
 at once, in a great house where some drunken 
 soldiers had crashed in the door and were 
 looting and killing broadcast. In an upper 
 room, Peter discovered the master of the 
 house, an elderly Spaniard already wounded 
 in the fray, and a woman, whom Peter sup- 
 posed to be his daughter. Whether it was 
 the look of her face — a young face which 
 horror had frozen into an expression of 
 anguish more appealing than any prayers or 
 entreaties — or whether he simply acted on in- 
 stinct, Peter could never tell; but, in a mo- 
 ment, he stood single-handed defending this 
 man and woman, on the narrow stairway 
 which led to the room where they had refuged, 
 against his comrades. Peter, with his ugly 
 mop of red hair, his redder face, and with a 
 great gash in the cheek — Peter, six feet high 
 and broad to match, lunging and plunging 
 with his sword, was no doubt a sight gro-
 
 64 BASSET 
 
 tesque enough. But it was so fearsome a one 
 that it saved the old Spaniard from certain 
 death, and the girl from a fate far worse. 
 For three days, with searcelj^ a moment's 
 intermission, he held his post. 
 
 On April 10, when the 9th Regiment was 
 marched into the town, plunder and debauch- 
 ery ceased, and Badajoz began to be an 
 orderly British garrison, Peter himself suc- 
 cumbed not only to a natural exhaustion, but 
 to a violent rheumatism, brought on from the 
 wet of the fortnight before the walls of the 
 city. But he had friends, bound b}^ no com- 
 mon ties. The Spaniard, something recov- 
 ered of his wounds; the girl, whom Peter 
 knew now to be his wife, desired nothing bet- 
 ter than to nurse and help their benefactor. 
 
 Don Luis de la IMano, aged about fifty, 
 was a courteous, honourable, generous and 
 formal personage — an excellent tj^^e of the 
 Sj)anish gentleman of his day. 
 
 Of his wife, Peter remembered, as he lay 
 painful and feverish, a tall, slight figure, with 
 a dark mantilla shading her dusky hair and 
 the soft pallor of her face, who came noise- 
 lessty in and out of his sick-room; and pres- 
 ently, being devote exceedingly, found among 
 her ruined possessions a broken crucifix, which
 
 PARSON GRANT 6s 
 
 she hung on the wall facing his bed. She 
 knew a httle English, and he as little Spanish. 
 But, fortunately, neither wished to talk. 
 Peter's eyes — the wistful eyes of some faithful 
 old dog — followed her about the room. After 
 the brutalities and miseries of the campaign — 
 after the hell of the storming and sack — the 
 mutilated salon where he lay seemed like 
 heaven; and the ministering woman — perhaps 
 any woman who had nursed him then would 
 have seemed so — an angel. When he was 
 better — but so crippled with rheumatism that 
 his soldiering days were obviously ended and 
 he was at once given his discharge — his hosts 
 insisted on taking him to their country home, 
 near Ronda. 
 
 By the time they reached it — it was an old 
 Moorish palace greatly out of repair — the 
 lavish Southern spring was well advanced. 
 Peter had not thought — if he had thought 
 about it at all— that natural beauty had a 
 voice he could hear. But forty years after 
 he could still smell the aromatic scents of 
 Southern nights, and see the garden with the 
 great cool shade of the eucalyj)tus tree, the 
 rich tangle of flowers growing on the broken 
 terraces, the dark j^citio with the lemon and 
 orange trees in old green tubs, and the white,
 
 66 BASSET 
 
 hot wall of the house, where the lizards sunned 
 themselves, and a great clump of bougain- 
 villeas hung broken by its own weight. 
 
 Beneath the eucalyptus, Teresa presently 
 brought an ancient Spanish-English conversa- 
 tion book, pens, paper, and an old jMoorish 
 inkstand, and essayed to teach her guest the 
 Spanish language. 
 
 She was herself a verj^ young, intense, 
 devout, ecstatic W'Oman, with a purity never 
 assailed by passion — profoundlj^ believing 
 what a particularly dubious old padre had 
 preached, and not the least disturbed by what 
 he had practised. She had been married at 
 sixteen, and she was faithfully attached to her 
 husband, who treated her as a daughter. It 
 never entered into her heart that Peter might 
 care for her in a way in w^hich she was her- 
 self, perhaps, constitutionally incapable of 
 caring for any one. And, indeed, Peter never 
 was in love wnth her; he onlj^ loved her — just 
 as the shaggy old dog he strongly resembled 
 might humbly and dumbly love his mistress. 
 When Don Luis joined the lessons, Peter no 
 more disliked his presence than the worshipper 
 at a shrine resents the other worshippers. 
 
 He was, it must be confessed, a slow and 
 clumsy pupil. His hands had been long used
 
 PARSON GRANT 67 
 
 to a more practical weapon than a pen; and 
 he could never think quickly. 
 
 The spring merged into an intense, breath- 
 less summer, with that strange air of waiting 
 and expectancy conveyed by great heat — with 
 the sky above always a fervent blue, and the 
 patio, or the deep shadows of the eucalyptus, 
 the only places where one could live. 
 
 Suddenly, one burning day, Teresa was 
 taken ill with one of those fearfully rapid 
 inflammatory complaints, little understood 
 now, and wholly misunderstood then. Peter, 
 with his rheumatic limbs forced to an activity 
 he did not even feel painful, and only his 
 thatch of hair to protect his head from the 
 fierce sun, rushed the four miles into Ronda 
 for the doctor. 
 
 But before the next noon Teresa was dead, 
 and Peter was sitting, dull and stricken, 
 under the eucalyptus, trying, with the help 
 of the little, old grammar, to write some 
 necessary letters for the poor old Don. 
 
 Peter's Spanish — together with the dis- 
 turbed state of the country — may have been 
 the reason why no relative of any kind ap- 
 peared for several days. It thus fell to Peter 
 himself to make all the arrangements for her 
 funeral — badly, but as best he could. Don
 
 68 BASSET 
 
 Luis found a comfort in his presence — ^he had 
 realized his guest's reverence and adoration 
 for Teresa — and Peter did not commit the 
 mistake of speech, which, in the early stages 
 of grief, so often makes a man a worse com- 
 forter than a dog. By the hour together, 
 he and Don Luis sat together in the patio, 
 smoking the eternal cigarrito of the Sj^aniard, 
 and sajang nothing at all. At last, there 
 arrived voluble, tearful relations; and Peter 
 knew that his mission and a chapter of his life 
 w ere finished. 
 
 He said good-bye to his kind and broken 
 host, taking with him, for the purpose of a 
 correspondence, the grammar, and the exer- 
 cises which Teresa had corrected. He found 
 a home-bound ship at jNIalaga, and returned to 
 England. For a while, and at long intervals, 
 he wrote to Don Luis, but the shortage of 
 Peter's epistolary ideas, as well as of his 
 Spanish, soon caused the correspondence to 
 wane; and at last it died altogether. 
 
 The first news that met Peter on his ar- 
 rival was the death of his father. 
 
 Peter's name had not been mentioned in 
 the despatches; and there was no reason why 
 he should be forgiven. Old ^Ir. Grant left 
 practically all his money — there was less than
 
 PARSON GRANT 69 
 
 had been expected — to his daughter; and once 
 again his son found himself beginning the 
 world. He chanced to meet one day Sir John 
 Railton, then quite a boy, and a distant 
 cousin of Peter's. Sir John, having extracted 
 some part of Peter's story, clapped him cheer- 
 fully on the back, and suggested he should 
 become a parson; adding that old Pil of Bas- 
 set was dead certain to drop off soon, and 
 that then Peter should have the living of 
 Basset — be hanged if he shouldn't! Perhaps 
 Peter was dimlj^ aware he was not wholly 
 cut out for a parson; but there were a good 
 many as little suited to their cloth; and his 
 fortunes were at a low ebb. 
 
 Somehow, he scraped through his Ordina- 
 tion examinations — the Bishop must surely 
 have been a cousin too — was ordained to a 
 very poor curacy near Dilchester, where his 
 usual bad luck followed him. " Old Pil " per- 
 versely lived to be ninety ; and it was not until 
 the reign of William IV. was nearly ended, 
 and Peter himself was about fifty years old, 
 that he at last received his reward, and be- 
 came, as the youthful patron had promised, 
 Rector of Basset. 
 
 It is almost impossible to imagine a 
 greater contrast than that formed by the
 
 70 BASSET 
 
 placid jog-trot life of the country clergy of 
 that day and the fierce excitement of Peter's 
 military youth — unless it were the contrast be- 
 tween little, dull, English Basset, with its few 
 cottages with smoke-wreathed chimneys, the 
 green green and stagnant pond, the still, grey 
 landscape and the white ribbon of the turn- 
 pike road winding through it, and the riot of 
 rich colour, the luxuriant tropical growths, the 
 warmth, passion and glow of Southern Spain. 
 
 Peter's long curacy had indeed given him 
 plenty of time to become acclimatized; only 
 he had known the curacy to be a stepping- 
 stone, a means to an end, while Basset was 
 the last word, and for life. 
 
 The Rectory was a large house; not so 
 forlorn and shabb}^ when Peter took posses- 
 sion of it as it afterwards became. He had 
 the benefit of the Pilkington flock wall- 
 paj^ers — outlined here and there with the 
 shape of Pilkington sideboards and ward- 
 robes, removed. He bought at the Pilkington 
 sale a horse-hair suite for his dining-room ; and 
 took over the Pilkington oilcloth, wearing into 
 holes, in the hall, and a disconsolate umbrella- 
 stand. He further bought an ancient leather 
 chair for the study — so-called; and the auc- 
 tioneer who was disposing of the Pilkington
 
 PARSON GRANT 71 
 
 effects delicately suggested that some of the 
 ponderous tomes from which the late rector 
 had drawn material for his sermons would at 
 least look well in Peter's study; and then, 
 seeing the ineffectiveness of that argument on 
 Peter's honest mind, observed how badly off 
 the elderly Miss Pilkingtons were left — and 
 Peter purchased at once. 
 
 The drawing-room he decided to use as a 
 lumber-room. The auctioneer persuaded him 
 into a vast four-post bed, adding, as an in- 
 ducement, that three Pilkingtons had already 
 died in it, and that its excellent durability 
 made it more than probable that Peter might 
 die in it too. 
 
 His sister, Maria, sent him as much house- 
 hold linen as she thought he was fit to be 
 entrusted with. Peter found an elderly cou- 
 ple in the village to manage for him — or, 
 more correctly, the elderly couple found Peter 
 to manage — and he began to be Rector of 
 Basset. 
 
 It is a great mistake, and a common mis- 
 take, to think that because the modern parson 
 has a standard of duty at once broader and 
 higher than any these old parsons set up for 
 themselves, therefore the old parsons were not, 
 as a general rule, conscientious persons. If
 
 72 BASSET 
 
 they shot, hunted, and dined freely enough, 
 it was because there appeared to them no 
 reason why the man of God should not be 
 something of a man of the world as well. 
 Old Pilkington certainly had acted up to liis 
 lights, and conducted his services, as he be- 
 lieved, decently and in order. Peter's code of 
 duty was shorter and rougher, but such com- 
 mands as he heard he obeyed doggedly and 
 faithfully; and if he considered that he had 
 a right to be on leave all the week and in 
 marching orders on Sunday only, three parts 
 of the Established Church of his day shared 
 that opinion with him. 
 
 About nine, then, on most week-days, he 
 partook of a leisurely, untid}^ breakfast, and 
 smoked three or four cigarettes thoughtfully 
 after it. 
 
 That smoking was the worst accusation 
 Basset ever brought against him. Then, in- 
 deed, smoking was still considered a low or 
 a fast habit; even Harry Latimer, in liis 
 free and easy bachelor daj^s, never smoked 
 anywhere but in the stables or in a remote 
 upjoer room; and after Pollie's advent, she 
 used to purify a place in which some one had 
 had a pipe much more vigorously than she 
 would have thought of doing if some one had
 
 PARSON GRANT 73 
 
 had scarlet-fever. Most of his congregation 
 would have considered it preferable that Peter 
 should smell of drink than of smoke. Miss 
 Pilkington, whose adored, excellent papa had 
 had three parts of a bottle of port regularly 
 every night, thought Peter's pet vice so hor- 
 rible that she could never bear to allude to it. 
 
 Peter, who was little affected by people's 
 opinions, even when he divined them, which 
 was not often, never smoked the cigarettes 
 out of doors, or, as it were, before the parish; 
 but within he found Don Luis' habit of infinite 
 comfort and calm. 
 
 After the morning cigarettes, it was his 
 habit to stej) softly, in carpet slippers, down 
 the long-flagged passage to the kitchen and 
 meekly ask Mrs. Ainger for his boots, with 
 an undoubted apology in his gruff tones for 
 having taken the liberty to be born with 
 feet. Peter, indeed, was the kind of man who 
 would eat saltless eggs for ever rather than 
 ring the bell; and, such is the pusillanimity 
 of six feet in its socks before four feet three 
 in the person of a determined little black-eyed 
 woman, that he had actually on one occasion 
 deceitfully put a bleeding chop into the fire 
 rather than confess to Mrs. Ainger, by leav- 
 ing it on his plate, that it had been uneatable.
 
 74 BASSET 
 
 Of Ainger mari he was considerably less 
 afraid; indeed, it was only before the weak 
 and defenceless that Peter himself became 
 timid and unresisting. 
 
 All day long, sometimes, he and Ainger 
 gardened, Ainger doing a good deal of lean- 
 ing on his spade and contemplating the land- 
 scape and the political situation, but Peter 
 working with the solid thoroughness with 
 which he had ragged at the University or 
 shot down Frenchmen at Badajoz. To paint 
 one's own gates and tar one's own fences was 
 not esteemed b)^ an age greatly more conven- 
 tional than our own to be a gentlemanly 
 proceeding, any more than to turn one's self 
 into a hob-nail Hodge and dig and plant the 
 garden was the work of a gentleman; but, 
 somehow, no one ever mistook old Peter for 
 anything else. 
 
 If his want of means fortunately supplied 
 him with a good deal of work, it somewhat 
 limited liis play. 
 
 He kept no carriage; not even what Syd- 
 ney Smith called " one of those Shem, Ham, 
 and Japhet buggies, made on INIount Ararat 
 soon after the subsidence of the waters," which 
 were to be found in many a rectory stable. 
 He could not hunt unless some one mounted
 
 PARSON GRANT 75 
 
 him. Good-natured Harry Latimer, indeed, 
 did that not seldom; and Peter was such a 
 first-rate shot with his antiquated flint-lock 
 that he got many a day in the coverts with 
 the local squires. They thought him a stupid 
 fellow enough when he dined with them and 
 their lady wives and daughters of an after- 
 noon, and so he was. When the men tried to 
 draw him out on the subject of his military 
 experiences over the wine after dinner, no 
 glib meanderings from the point would roll 
 off his difficult tongue. He filled up his 
 glass in an obstinate, heavy silence; and 
 kept it. Occasionally Dr. Benet dined with 
 him — a very bad dinner — at the Rectory. 
 Old Benet, perhaps, guessed, very vaguely, 
 at something in Peter's heart or history, not 
 for prying eyes. 
 
 At the Manor, the Parson dined often, 
 and loved to dine. Practical Pollie always 
 remembered the dishes he liked; and when 
 she sang " I'd be a Butterfly " in the draw- 
 ing-room, he used to take up a most awkward 
 position on a chair just behind her, where 
 he sat well forwards, with his large red hands 
 on his knees, and his eyes looking straight 
 into space. 
 
 Presently, she learnt a couple of those Irish
 
 76 BASSET 
 
 ]Melodies of INIoore's which tug at the heart- 
 strings, and at which the women of that time 
 would weep and faint with a long extinct 
 sensibiHty. Sentiment only made old Peter 
 grimmer and gruffer than ever. But he never 
 forgot to ask for the INIelodies regularly every 
 time he came; and when Pollie had sung 
 them and administered to him four large 
 cups of tea, and Dim and Tim rubbed 
 themselves in canine friendliness against 
 his legs, he would tramp home, not ill- 
 content. 
 
 Of course, now and then, there were secular 
 duties connected with the parish, and a pa- 
 rishioner came to consult him about selling a 
 pig or making a will; while sometimes, natu- 
 rally, persons elected to die, to be baptized, 
 or to be buried, on week-days. Though Peter 
 seldom visited anj^ one, unless asked, when 
 asked, he would walk his ten miles — his par- 
 ish was very stragghng — at any time, and 
 through any weather; and though, when he 
 had read to the sick person a chapter of the 
 Bible (seldom well selected), he had no spirit- 
 ual consolations to offer and sat by the bed 
 dull and dumb enough, yet, somehow, there 
 was an atmosphere of sympathy about him 
 not misunderstood, and many an old crone
 
 PARSON GRANT 77 
 
 died the easier for the grasp of the Parson's 
 hand. 
 
 His Sundays were really laborious. 
 
 In the very early days of his curacy, 
 wretched Peter had once sat for five whole 
 hours gazing despairingly at a virgin sheet of 
 manuscript, mending dozens of quill pens, 
 and giving himself a severe headache, without 
 even reaching the text of his first sermon. 
 Then he strode into Dilchester, spent a sum 
 he could very ill afford on two hundred 
 Original Discourses — of great variety of sub- 
 ject, said the advertisement, and might have 
 added, of doctrine as well. The absurd 
 prejudice, still extant, of not reading printed 
 and published sermons by well-known writers 
 was much more violent then — as were all 
 prejudices — than it is now. So Peter, both at 
 his curacy and at Basset, kept those two 
 hundred Original Discourses in his boot-cup- 
 board in a pile, and twice on Sundays 
 preached the top ones, which, used, he duly 
 placed at the bottom till their turn came 
 round again. 
 
 Armed, then, with one of these Discourses, 
 — rather dirty through having come in con- 
 tact with the boots — he walked to church 
 every Sunday morning. He did not feel it to
 
 78 BASSET 
 
 be part of his duty to compel the louts on the 
 green to come in; so .they bade hun good- 
 morning sheepishly and with perfect good- 
 nature, and stayed outside. 
 
 Mr. Pilkington had been a luxurious per- 
 son who had had the church w^armed in win- 
 ter b}^ a stove. Hardier Peter simply put on 
 his great-coat beneath his surplice, causing 
 himself to look like a very long, stout, ani- 
 mated bolster, with a j^air of workaday legs 
 appearing beneath it. The IManor pew had a 
 fire-place, in which Pollie had a fire lit by one 
 of the JNIanor servants an hour before church- 
 time, and sensible ISlrs. Benet brought one 
 extra shawl for her own shoulders, and an- 
 other for her good man's legs. 
 
 In Peter's code of duty it was written 
 large that the seldomness of his services 
 should be compensated by their length. So 
 all that can be put into Order for JMorning 
 Prayer, he put there ; the clerk was immensely 
 leisurely and droning; "the music" — always 
 so-called — consisting of a small band of about 
 four instruments, and occupying the little 
 western gallery, played very loud and slow; 
 while the bought sermon was, of course — 
 since it is much easier to be lengthy than 
 brief, and apparently impossible when one has
 
 PARSON GRANT 79 
 
 nothing to say to hel}) saying it at immense 
 length — never less than three-quarters of an 
 hour in duration. 
 
 One morning, Peter, in the great pulpit, 
 would find himself enunciating a smug Evan- 
 gelicalism, and in the afternoon he was mildly 
 — to be sure, very mildly — Latitudinarian; 
 and once he surprised himself stumbling 
 through a diatribe against the iniquities of 
 Rome. He never did it again. The next 
 day he marshalled his Two Hundred in front 
 of him, and disgraced from the ranks any 
 containing allusions to the Scarlet Lady or 
 the Damnable Doctrine of Indulgences. 
 Peter had seen Roman Catholicism at first 
 hand — not always a much better kind than 
 that the Discourses pointed in such lurid 
 colours; but, then, he had known one to 
 whom Catholicism was an inspiration of a 
 divine purit}^ a most fervent, assured faith, 
 and Parson Grant was doggedly deter- 
 mined to leave it to the other parsons to 
 decry. 
 
 As for his congregation becoming drowsy 
 during his sermons, that Peter took as quite 
 natural, and was neither amused nor discom- 
 fited when an old gaffer on the front free seat 
 put up his legs on it the moment the text
 
 8o BASSET 
 
 was given out, that he might sleep the more 
 at his ease. 
 
 ]Mr. Pilkington had kept the church well 
 swept, mended, and garnished. But when 
 the cloth covering on the Table fell into rags, 
 that neglect did not seem to Peter to be of 
 the least consequence; and when the clerk 
 suggested the drawer in that Table to be a 
 handy place in which to keep the tallow dips 
 and the matches wherewith the pulpit was lit 
 at afternoon service, Peter readily agreed. 
 
 Old Pilkington, again, had pleasantly but 
 firmly reprimanded " the music " after service, 
 when, during service, it had become particu- 
 larly discordant and noisy; but in Peter's day 
 the 'cello — played by the village cobbler — 
 was allowed to drown all the other instru- 
 ments until, in despair, the}" themselves quar- 
 relled with it at the alehouse one evening, 
 and reduced it, bj^ the logic of the fist, to 
 comparative silence. 
 
 Nor did it seem wrong to Peter, when he 
 acquired a large, underbred dog like a brown 
 rug, to allow Rover to rove up the aisle to 
 the vestry with him. When Rover found 
 the service too long, which, with his excellent 
 canine judgment, he alwaj^s did, and scrab- 
 bled feelingly at the vestry door, Peter simply
 
 PARSON GRANT 8i 
 
 left his reading-desk and the prayers, and 
 went to that door to address to Rover a few 
 calming words, perfectly audible throughout 
 the church. 
 
 Yet it was not that old Peter was irrev- 
 erent; but that he had lived, rough and hard, 
 amid events whose magnitude made trifles, 
 trifles indeed, and if he had been able to 
 formulate his thoughts, might have argued 
 that what seemed small to him must be smaller 
 indeed to Omnipotence, ruling the stupendous 
 events of all the world. 
 
 Besides, Peter was of his age. When once 
 his old enemy, rheumatism, imprisoned him 
 to the house, and he had a locujri in the shaj^e 
 of what Crabb Robinson would have called 
 " a genteel youth with a Pusejdte tendency," 
 that divine was not half so shocked by the 
 sins of omission and commission he found 
 perpetrated in Basset Church as genteel 
 youths with a Puseyite tendency would be 
 now. It is pleasant to add that Peter quite 
 appreciated in this aide-de-camp his greater 
 diligence and strictness of life, and that the 
 genteel youth found himself, at the end of 
 a very brief visit, feeling almost affectionately 
 towards lax, untidy Parson Grant. 
 
 After JNIr. and Mrs. Ainger had managed
 
 82 BASSET 
 
 the Rectory for some years, Ainger died. 
 Peter found a new gardener, and INlrs. Ainger 
 continued to conduct the house. 
 
 One night, about a year after these events, 
 Peter sat up exceedingly late, smoking ciga- 
 rette after cigarette, and composing a letter 
 with even more throes and difficulty than usu- 
 ally accompanied his literary productions. 
 He himself posted the letter the next morning. 
 
 Three days later, at four o'clock on a win- 
 ter afternoon, as he sat in his study, repre- 
 hensibly smoking as usual, the door opened 
 (the hall doors of Basset were always on the 
 latch), and Maria, Peter's sister, from whom 
 he had been contentedly parted for many 
 years, suddenly broke in upon iiim. She was 
 about fifty-five, stout and agitated, the stout- 
 ness being apparently increased by her volu- 
 minous shawl, bonnet and muff; while her 
 agitation was such that she omitted all greet- 
 ing, and simply gasped — 
 
 "Peter, how could you?" and then in the 
 same breath, " You have been smoking! " 
 
 Following a natural instinct, Peter avowed 
 the lesser of two sins, and made some in- 
 distinct apologies for the cigarettes. But 
 he knew very well that Maria had a point 
 from which she was not likelv to be turned.
 
 PARSON GRANT 83 
 
 The truth was, that that old fool Peter had 
 proposed marriage to Mrs. Ainger, or had 
 been made by her to think that he had pro- 
 posed it. Middle-aged and entirely unbeauti- 
 ful, that little, determined woman had posi- 
 tively persuaded Parson Grant that she had 
 injured a hitherto immaculate reputation by 
 living in the house with him after her hus- 
 band's death, and that marriage was but a 
 just reparation. 
 
 Wretched Peter had weakly yielded to 
 these representations; but some life-preserv- 
 ing instinct had made him immediately write 
 off his intentions to the bold and decided 
 INIaria. She argued with him — " a good talk- 
 ing to," was her own expression — for upwards 
 of an hour, discovered there had been no let- 
 ters, and nothing practically in the shaj)e of a 
 promise, and at last made Peter — Peter was 
 so unutterably stupid! — see that he was the 
 victim of an artful design. 
 
 Then, leaving him in his study, she hastened 
 to the back regions, had a heated conversation 
 with ]Mrs. Ainger, dismissed and packed her 
 off then and there, compensating her for the 
 inconvenience of a hurried departure with a 
 sufficient sum of money (Peter's). Breath- 
 ing asthmatically, INI aria proceeded to the
 
 84 BASSET 
 
 wintry garden, and gave notice to the gar- 
 dener, and before nightfall had discovered a 
 new, promising couple to take charge of the 
 Rectory — the husband being so much younger 
 than the wife that he could by no possibility 
 die first. 
 
 That night INIaria passed under her broth- 
 er's roof — tired, triumphant, and a Httle short 
 in temi)er. The next day Peter put her and 
 her carpet-bag into the dilapidated gig, which 
 was the only vehicle to be hired in Basset, and 
 she returned to Dilchester, and, thence by 
 coach, to the bosom of a recklessly large 
 Early-Victorian family, having accomplished, 
 perhaps, the prime good deed of her life. 
 
 Old Peter went back with heavy steps to 
 the study, drew out the cigarettes again, and 
 passed a long, idle, thoughtful evening, smok- 
 ing, while distant sounds from the back 
 regions of the new brooms sweeping clean 
 reached him, not disturbingly. 
 
 It was five and twentj^ years since he had 
 left Spain and Teresa; and there were mo- 
 ments — only moments — when he could see 
 them as clearly as if the five and twentj" 
 years were yesterday. The " idiocy " — that 
 was Maria's name for it — which he had nearly 
 perpetrated did not soil, because it never
 
 PARSON GRANT 85 
 
 touched at all, that episode of his early life. 
 He could no more have aspired to Teresa 
 than the ragamuffin in the crowd can aspire to 
 the princess. He believed that, had she lived 
 and been free, he could never have asked 
 more than to touch the hem of her garment, 
 and go away. It is true that in these dull, 
 practical years he was not always thinking 
 of her. It is only in books that people re- 
 member without ceasing; in life there is 
 always something to be done next, 
 
 " And we forget because we must, 
 And not because we will." 
 
 Memento of her, save the many correc- 
 tions in her little handwriting in the Spanish 
 exercise books which he kept in a drawer up- 
 stairs, he had none. At first, he had been 
 used to look at them often and with an 
 intolerable pang; after a while, it sufficed 
 him to know they were there; and at last — so 
 strangely are we made — he would recall the 
 garden at Ronda, and Teresa in her slim 
 youth and with her delicate, spiritual face, 
 without sorrow. Pollie Latimer would have 
 said he was happy — he had kept his illusions. 
 And, indeed, though he knew humbly that as 
 a wife Teresa would have been infinitely
 
 86 BASSET 
 
 above him, it never once occurred to him that 
 when an ordinary man marries a saint, it 
 may not be only the saint who suffers. 
 
 To-night, his mind went shpping back to 
 old times more than usual. 
 
 " You had better have married a Span- 
 iard! " Maria had said, as though a Spaniard 
 were a Hottentot. As a rule, in the solitary 
 evenings, Peter, having been out all day in the 
 fresh air, and the grog at his side being strong, 
 went to sleep. But to-night, he forgot to 
 drink the grog, and the cigarette ash burnt a 
 hole in the sleeve of his forlorn old coat; and 
 it was so late when he went to bed that he 
 crej)t upstairs in his large, stockinged feet, 
 absurdly afraid of waking and shocking his 
 brand-new household. 
 
 A few years after the INIrs. Ainger epi- 
 sode, of which Basset never even heard — 
 unluckily, its excitements being very few — 
 Parson Grant made a new friend. That is 
 to say. Tommy Latimer of the Manor, then 
 aged about four, took him into his charge 
 and favour, and visited him whenever he was 
 allowed to, and sometimes when he was not. 
 The truth is. Tommy, who was a j^outh of 
 great enterprise, found that all the things he 
 was forbidden to do in the Manor garden
 
 PARSON GRANT 87 
 
 were permitted to him at the Rectory — that 
 there he could survey Hfe from the top of the 
 dust-heap or the chicken-house with impunity. 
 As Tommy was always talking himself, he 
 did not notice Peter's conversational deficien- 
 cies. The Parson, indeed, sat in his study 
 and listened quite patiently and interestedly 
 while Tommy counted up to two hundred, 
 a recently acquired accomplishment under 
 which the IManor had already turned restive. 
 
 Occasionally, as a great treat, Tommy had 
 the delicious enjoyment — he thought it a 
 delicious enjoyment, if no one else did — of 
 dining tete-a-tete of an afternoon with his 
 spiritual director, and, after dinner, had a 
 little decanter and wineglass to himself and 
 what he called tawny-port — it was, indeed, 
 very tawny — to drink; and then, when des- 
 sert was over, the Parson would show him 
 how to use a toy sword — Tommy making a 
 number of tidif, eager inquiries, without wait- 
 ing for the answers, as to real battles. 
 
 It is impossible to say how large a place 
 the friendship for the child took in the Par- 
 son's dull and limited life at last. Basset 
 used often to see them, walking hand in hand 
 through the village, on terms of the greatest 
 confidence. Peter would call on Mrs. Lati-
 
 88 BASSET 
 
 mer solely in the hope — never disappointed — 
 of hearing her talk about Tommy. He 
 walked his rheumatic legs into Dilchester to 
 buy the child toys out of his ill-filled purse; 
 and when Tommy artfully admired anything 
 at the Rectory, that weak old Peter always 
 gave it to him. 
 
 But sometimes, as he blundered through 
 one of the bought sermons on a Sunday after- 
 noon, for just a second the great grey church 
 and the bats in the roof, " the music " fidget- 
 ting in the gallery, the Early- Victorian 
 women in the garish hues they affected, and 
 even flaxen-headed Tommy at liis mother's 
 side, were as though they were not; and 
 Peter saw again Teresa in her black robes in 
 the Southern garden — with its rich tangle 
 of flowers growing on the broken terraces, the 
 dark patio, and the white, hot wall where the 
 lizards sunned themselves and the great clumiD 
 of bougainvilleas hung broken by its ow^n 
 weight.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DR. RICHARD 
 
 Ever since Basset had been doctored by any- 
 bod}^ it had been doctored by Benets. 
 
 In the Georgian period, Benet pere had 
 set up in Basset his httle apothecary's shop, 
 with his name, and a pestle and mortar on 
 a board, over its door; had made pills, po- 
 tions and plaisters for the neighbourhood, 
 sold it scented soaps, and the powder many 
 persons still Avore in their hair; had ridden 
 on his old nag to most of the houses of the 
 local gentry, where he sometimes took a glass 
 of wine in the housekeeper's room; and was 
 considered to have done well for himself 
 when he married a housekeeper's niece. 
 
 He gave his son a very fairly good medical 
 education, and was able to leave him not only 
 his ])ractice, but an exceedingl}^ modest inde- 
 pendent fortune as well. Young Dr. Richard 
 removed from above the door the board with 
 the pestle and mortar on it, while he con- 
 tinued to ply those instruments and to live 
 
 89
 
 90 BASSET 
 
 in the house of his father. What had been 
 the shop, with two pink bottles in it, became 
 the best parlour, and a very small surgery 
 was built next to it. Basset began to talk 
 of calling in the doctor, instead of using the 
 'pothecary. Present^ Dr. Richard married 
 the only daughter of a small solicitor in Dil- 
 chester; JNlrs. Latimer, the elder, really be- 
 cause she was bored and idle, and society in 
 Basset was woefully restricted, and not with 
 any idea of creating precedent, called on the 
 bride; the Pilkingtons and other local gentry 
 followed suit, and came to the conclusion that 
 if a man be worthy to kill you or cure you, 
 he may be suffered to dine with you as well. 
 
 In time, there were no better liked people 
 by all classes in the village than " young Dr. 
 Benet " (as Basset persisted in calling him, 
 in contradistinction to his father, long after 
 his scanty hair was grey and his figure 
 portly) and Jane, his wife. 
 
 When Harry Latimer had indulged in 
 matrimonj^ some few years, and Parson 
 Grant had narrowly avoided it, the Doctor 
 was about sixty-eight years old, short in the 
 neck and leg, with a wheezy, astlimatical 
 tendencj% rather a red face, the scanty grey 
 hair (he wore no ^vig) having a surprised.
 
 DR. RICHARD 91 
 
 rumpled appearance, black worsted stockings, 
 a great big silver watch, and, under untidy, 
 shaggy grey eyebrows, a pair of uncommonly 
 penetrating and kindly eyes. 
 
 INIrs. Benet was also short to match him, 
 a capable person, with a broad, plain, clever 
 face, skirts sensibly short, shoes sensibly flat, 
 wearing on the top of her own hair a brown 
 madonna front, which she hung, with simple 
 straightforwardness, with her cap on the cap- 
 stan b}^ the looking-glass every night when 
 she went to bed, and replaced on her head, 
 with the same candid honesty, every morning 
 when she got up. Onlj^ her husband's affec- 
 tion could possibly at any time have made 
 him find her attractive; but, after all, it is 
 much better to be thought beautiful because 
 one is loved, than to be loved because one is 
 thought beautiful. 
 
 There was no happier home in Basset than 
 the Doctor's shabby and well-scrubbed little 
 house. The living-room, though it was fur- 
 nished with a horsehair suite, a brown wall- 
 paper, and a dismal print of the trial of 
 Queen Caroline, was all the same a pleasant, 
 lovable place when the old curtains were 
 drawn about the windows on a wintry night, 
 a bright fire ablaze, and the tea and muffins
 
 92 BASSET 
 
 on the table. The Benets' Maggie, a short- 
 sleeved, short-frocked creature from the 
 dame-school, sang louder and more cheerily 
 over her kitchen dish-washings than any- 
 body else's JNIaggie in the neighbourhood. 
 The parlour, once the shop, was, to be sure, 
 a cold, stuff}^ room, with a sofa like a sar- 
 cophagus, the ornament which had figured on 
 the top of the Benets' wedding cake nearly 
 forty years earlier under a glass shade on the 
 table, while two imitation parrots (in wools, 
 with boot buttons for eyes), which had been 
 made and presented to the Benets by a niece 
 • — not out of malice prepense, but with really 
 kind and pleasant intentions — surveyed the 
 scene from the white marble mantelpiece. 
 Still, as the parlour was never used except on 
 the rare occasion of a tea-party, its beauties 
 gave its owners satisfaction without incon- 
 venience. 
 
 Punctually at six o'clock everj^ morning, 
 Mrs. Benet rose softly from beside her sleej)- 
 ing lord, and in a serviceable dressing-gown, 
 and with an infinitesimal plait of grey hair 
 hanging below her night-cap, lit a tallow dip, 
 and went to rouse Maggie. Then, having 
 performed her own toilet very quietly, 
 INIadam, leaving the Doctor still slumbering.
 
 DR. RICHARD 93 
 
 descended to the kitchen to cook his break- 
 fast, while the youthful Maggie swept and 
 dusted with great vigour, humming a hymn 
 beneath her breath. 
 
 Directly after breakfast, the Doctor went 
 to his little surgery, and there doctored the 
 humbler patients who came to see him. 
 
 There were not many of them as a rule — 
 which was just as well for Dr. Richard. 
 ]\lost of them could certainly have afforded 
 much better to pay him something, than he 
 could aiford not to be paid at all; but he was 
 of an age which made quite sure that to be 
 charitable is inevitably to do good; and asked 
 no fees from the poor on principle. To be 
 sure, despite that weakness, they were a little 
 in awe as well as fond of him. For the 
 Doctor, in that age of medical darkness, had 
 what is more useful even to his profession 
 than a knowledge of medicine — a great knowl- 
 edge of character; and was famous for his 
 diagnosis of the maladies of the soul as well 
 as of the body. He not only perceived, 
 which was easy, from the look of Hodge's 
 face and the trembling of his hands, the direc- 
 tion of Hodge's wages; but saw, though in- 
 deed only in a glass darkly, what few people 
 saw at all in that day, the effect of mind on
 
 94 BASSET 
 
 body; so that the little dressmaker, a meek, 
 frightened thing, who had rashly set up for 
 herself in Basset — the Basset ladies having 
 hitherto had all their garments made in Dil- 
 chester — required, not physic and plaisters, as 
 she believed, but a start, and an order from 
 little ]Mrs. Latimer at the jNlanor. The very 
 next afternoon. Dr. Richard wheezed up the 
 JSIanor drive to see Pollie; obtained her word, 
 which was as good as a bond, to assist Miss 
 Fitten; and cured his patient. 
 
 Yet Dr. Benet was certainly not so su- 
 perior to his age as to disbelieve in drugs. 
 His visitors at the surgery would have been 
 bitterly disappointed if he had not sent them 
 away laden with pill-boxes and medicine- 
 bottles, and would certainly not have believed 
 that they could be really better, unless they 
 had first been made to feel very much worse. 
 
 At half-past nine, the Doctor locked up 
 the surgery door, and went into the kitchen 
 to tell his wife of some invalid who would be 
 the better for some milk, and of another who 
 would like one of her puddings. INIrs. Benet 
 herself buttoned her husband's round, short 
 figure into his driving-coat, and put his great 
 neckcloth the proper number of times round 
 his neck — or as many times as the neck
 
 DR. RICHARD 95 
 
 permitted — gave him a sound smack on the 
 shoulder instead of a kiss, and came down 
 the flagged path to see him start off in the 
 gig, sometimes with George, the groom, but 
 more often without him. The horse — fifteen 
 years earher he had been named, not so very 
 inaptly, Neck-or-Nothing — had to be roused 
 from the doze into which he always fell, from 
 long habit, directly he pulled up at any hu- 
 man habitation; the Doctor drew the old 
 driving-apron over his knees, shook his whip 
 as good-bye at his wife, and Neck-or-Nothing 
 (who was fat as well as lazy) ambled tran- 
 quill}^ through little Basset into the country 
 lanes beyond. 
 
 Dr. Benet had a very scattered practice, 
 and if people had sent for the doctor in those 
 days half as often as they do now, would 
 have been busy indeed. 
 
 For the ten years between 1830 and 1840 
 were among the most unhealthy in modern 
 history. The poor — not only the poor of the 
 great towns, but of little villages like Bas- 
 set — lived in a condition of filth and over- 
 crowding, with which there was no sanitary 
 inspector to interfere. An excellent authority 
 declared that, even among the wealthy classes, 
 " the broad principles of drainage were less
 
 96 BASSET 
 
 understood than they had been in Xineveh, 
 and were certainly not as good as they were 
 in Rome under Augustus." Provisions were 
 very dear, and trade very bad. The waves of 
 typhus, cholera, and small-pox which broke 
 over the country, were accepted with a most 
 fatal fatalism. The health of the people was 
 not improved by the little beer-shops which, 
 in addition to the public-houses proper, were 
 opened everywhere, after the repeal of the 
 beer duty in 1830. 
 
 But old Dr. Benet, with many of liis breth- 
 ren, was prevented from being overworked 
 or rich, not only by the fact that people 
 doctored their small ailments themselves, 
 but by the rarity of the nen^ous diseases 
 which have since become so lucrative a part of 
 medical practice; and by that very fatalism 
 which made people not only accept their sick- 
 ness as from Heaven, but trust their cure to 
 it as well. 
 
 It was, perhaps, at some desolate cottage 
 that Neck-or-Nothing pulled up first; and 
 the old Doctor climbed down, stoutly and 
 with difficulty, with a great physic bottle 
 sticking out of his pocket, knotted the reins 
 on the gatepost, and went within. Be sure 
 his perspicacity seldom deceived him as to
 
 DR. RICHARD 97 
 
 whether the starved look on his peaky child- 
 patient's face was there because the parents 
 would not, or because they could not, feed it 
 j^roperly. Plausible explanations were lost 
 on the Doctor somehow. Those eyes under 
 the shaggy eyebrows might be old eyes, but 
 they were alert enough. Sometimes, out of 
 the i)ocket with the physic came some rough 
 toy, which Mrs. Benet, who had a maternal 
 heart under her brisk, manly aspect, had sent 
 the child. When Mrs. Hodge came to the 
 gate to see him drive away, the Doctor would 
 ask why, if there was always enough money 
 for the beer-house, there should not be enough 
 for milk; adding that he would call in again 
 in a week, and should easily see by the look 
 of his patient where the money had gone. 
 
 JMore often, a grateful sufferer paid his 
 fee in the form of a basket of crab-apples, or 
 half a sack of potatoes; Neck-or-Nothing 
 would turn his lazy head, and look rei^roach- 
 fully at his master, as these make-weights 
 were being thumped into the gig. 
 
 Now and again, in a green spring lane, 
 the Doctor would stop, dig up some ferns and 
 primroses, and add further to the burdens in 
 the carriage. Except in rare cases, he was 
 nearly as leisurely as his horse, and did not
 
 98 BASSET 
 
 as a rule suppose his advice would turn the 
 scales of life and death. If Xature had not 
 been, so to speak, wholly out of court in that 
 da}', old Benet would have trusted to her; as 
 it was, though he believed, more or less, 
 with the rest of his profession, in his oa^ti 
 interference with her operations, he Avas 
 Avise enough to belicA^e rather less than 
 more. 
 
 At the great house, at AA^hich he arrived 
 present^, he descended from the gig at the 
 hall door — a dreadful Roman portico — as 
 clumsil}' and unconcernedly as if the eye of 
 the spacious and magnificent footman Avere 
 but the humble and uncritical orb of jNIrs. 
 Hodge. Xor did the languid fine airs of the 
 local magnate's lady in the drawing-room — 
 Avho was anxious to impress upon him that, 
 for her, the apothecary, the attorney, the 
 merchant, Avere an entirely different and 
 loAver class from the landed gentry — affect 
 him at all. He Avas simply busy about his 
 duties; and, for him, her airs AA^ere merely 
 part of the day's work. She found out too, 
 in time, that instead of the stout, AA-heezy, 
 grey-headed little apothecary being afraid of 
 her, she had become herself a little afraid 
 of him, as being imperturbably candid, and
 
 DR. RICHARD 99 
 
 having a disconcerting knack of hitting the 
 right nail on the head. 
 
 It was difficult for the Doctor, when she 
 took him presently to her invalid husband's 
 room, to convey without offence to Sir 
 Thomas INIainwaring that he ate too much 
 and drank too much; but somehow old Benet 
 did it. It was not that he had a good bedside 
 manner. The cultivated, pompous cheerful- 
 ness, the fresh, jovial air of heartiness and 
 prosperity which is supposed to enliven the 
 sick, Dr. Richard had not. It is true he liked 
 his joke, and when he laughed his long, shak- 
 ing asthmatic chuckle, which threatened to 
 break the chair under him and even to end 
 his life suddenly in an apoplexy, the patient 
 must needs laugh too. Dr. Benet's bedside 
 manner was, in fact, his own natural manner 
 — and perhaps, after all, that is in all cir- 
 cumstances, private or professional, the best 
 manner there is. 
 
 He left Sir Thomas and my Lady with 
 the conviction that he had spoken the truth; 
 and that, if that truth-speaking cost him their 
 patronage, he would amble back to Basset in 
 his disgraceful old gig to his shabby house, 
 hourgeoise wife, and second-rate friends, quite 
 philosophically.
 
 loo BASSET 
 
 The Baronet and his Lady were sensible 
 enough to see the advantage of such a medi- 
 cal adviser over the politer Dr. Clarke from 
 Dilchester, who kow-towed to them, and 
 called their complaints by much j)leasanter 
 names; and when Sir Thomas over-ate and 
 drank liimself again, it was old Dr. Richard 
 who was requested to step in and tell him so. 
 
 Verj^ many of liis cases were, of course, far 
 more sad and difficult. 
 
 There were times when he came from some 
 house of mourning, pondering over the spec- 
 tacle of men grieving because they could 
 not grieve; or on the problem that innocence 
 should suffer so damnably for guilt, while 
 guilt sometimes — but not often, because they 
 who sow to the flesh are wont to reap corrup- 
 tion even in this world — goes healthy and 
 free. 
 
 The reins lay so loosely on Xeck-or-Xoth- 
 ing's back, that that prudent animal would 
 sometimes stop altogether and take a nap, 
 wliile his master meditated. In a hovel, per- 
 haps, the Doctor had left some miserable 
 creature, diseased and poor, with notliing to 
 live for, and yet clinging to life; and in some 
 wealthy and substantial house. Youth with his 
 world at his feet, but not loth to leave it.
 
 DR. RICHARD loi 
 
 Who should solve these riddles? Was there 
 any solution of the Great Riddle, after all? 
 The Doctor remembered his whereabouts 
 with a start, gave the reins a jerk, and trotted 
 tranquilly home, beneath fleecy skies, between 
 the meadows where the lambs were already 
 bleating, and saw from the fall and decay of 
 autumn, 
 
 " New blossoms flourish, and new flowers arise 
 As God had been abroad, and walking there 
 Had left His footsteps, and reformed the year." 
 
 At home — he reached it at most irregular 
 hours, though seldom until late afternoon, on 
 account of the long distances between the 
 houses of his patients — his wife was always 
 about, awaiting him. The pickles she pickled, 
 the sound ale she brewed, the blackings and 
 furniture polishes she invented, the cleanings 
 she personally prosecuted or supervised, in 
 his absence, would have been impossible to 
 a less indefatigable person. In their small 
 back garden she kept chickens, and attended 
 to them herself; keeping a sharp eye mean- 
 time on George, planting spinach. 
 
 Jane Benet had not wasted much of her 
 day over that abominable institution, the
 
 I02 BASSET 
 
 morning call. ]\Irs. Latimer was alwaj^s bus}' 
 herself; and with ]Miss Pilkington, who was 
 not, old Jeannie evinced a somewhat short 
 patience when Rachel sat in the Doctor's 
 prim, damp parlour prattling politely, and 
 sipping cowslip wine. 
 
 It was generally said, indeed, that Jane 
 Benet had a temper, and since there is no 
 having a character without one, no doubt she 
 had. But that temper, like her house^\dfely 
 qualities, was used for her " old man," as 
 she called him, and not against him. If she 
 scolded George and JMaggie, it was in her 
 determination to have everything spick and 
 span for the Doctor when he came back; and 
 she did not mind in the least how much mud 
 his Wellingtons brought into her minute, 
 spotless passage called a hall. She unwound 
 that many-wreathed neckcloth from his short 
 neck, and made wifely inquiries as to whether 
 he had eaten the sandwich she had put into 
 his pocket in the morning. If he looked tired 
 or worried, she was not the fool to ask him 
 why or wherefore; instead, she arranged for 
 dinner to be half an hour earlier, and, weather 
 permitting, put his old armchair and slippers 
 cosity near the fire of the homely living-room. 
 
 Their dinner was generally about four — a
 
 DR. RICHARD 103 
 
 fearsome hour, if it involves making small- 
 talk to guests for the remainder of the even- 
 ing, but not such a bad hour if that evening 
 is to be a deux, and those two find in each 
 other's society an entire satisfaction. 
 
 When Maggie had cleared the table, Jane 
 Benet snuffed the tallow candles, and stitched 
 at one of the Doctor's shirts, while Richard 
 made up his books. Then, work and business 
 were put away, the candles were snuffed 
 again, INIaggie brought in the tea-tray, Jean- 
 nie brewed her good-man and herself an ex- 
 cellent, strong cup apiece, and, placing their 
 substantial feet on the fender and drawing 
 up to the fire, they each produced a novel. 
 Dr. Richard nearly chuckled himself into a 
 fit over " Pickwick," which had just appeared 
 as a whole, and which he had borrowed from 
 the Dilchester book-club; while large tears 
 rolled down Mrs. Benet's capacious cheeks 
 over the yards of sentiment and pathos in 
 the last fashionable romance by a Lady of 
 Title. It would be hard to say whether 
 Doctor or Mrs. Doctor had the greater 
 enjoyment. 
 
 About ten, Jane felt in a petticoat pocket 
 for a voluminous handkerchief, and mopped 
 up her tears in a final, business-like manner;
 
 I04 BASSET 
 
 and the Doctor, still chuckling, replaced 
 " Pickwick " on a shelf. If it was cold 
 weather, j\Irs. Benet concocted a modest 
 night-cap of mulled port. Over it, the pair 
 talked a little, or understood each other with- 
 out talking. 
 
 That they w^ere childless, having greatly 
 wished for children, had drawn them the 
 closer. The few relatives either had left in 
 the world were so far away that, even if the 
 Doctor could have spared the time, he could 
 not have afforded the money to visit them. 
 So they had only each other — and Basset. 
 
 In the village there was not a single soul 
 who was not Dr. Richard's patient; and all 
 his patients w^ere, in greater or less degree, 
 his friends. His life had begun among them, 
 and would end there; his wife's life was 
 merged in his comj^letely, and she was, in the 
 strictest sense, the helpmeet for him. 
 
 Sometimes, as the pleasant fire — economi- 
 cally made uip by JNIrs. Benet to last the right 
 time but no longer — flickered to its close, 
 the Doctor would lean forward to her chair 
 and affectionately pat one of those stout, 
 work-worn hands, wliich had done so much 
 for him. There were no heads in Basset 
 w^hich rested easier on their pillows than those
 
 DR. RICHARD 105 
 
 two old heads in the night-caps, in the great 
 four-poster with the faded red curtains, in the 
 Doctor's house. 
 
 Their just slumbers were comparatively 
 seldom disturbed by the ringing of the night 
 bell. When they were, Mrs. Benet, not a 
 little annoj^ed at the want of consideration of 
 persons who elected to die or be born at hours 
 so inconvenient, herself rose and, if need 
 were, roused George to get ready the gig, 
 and protected her husband with wraps against 
 that night air, which the profession and the 
 laity of the day alike held to be so fruitful 
 a source of disease. In the Doctor's ab- 
 sence, Jane, since she could do no good, 
 snoozed sensibly; but she was always awake 
 with that universal panacea for all trials and 
 inconveniences, a hot cup of tea, when he 
 came back. 
 
 Did he say anything to her of his profes- 
 sional experiences? Who knows? She was 
 certainly either the wise woman who could 
 hold her tongue; or the wiser and rarer 
 woman who did not even try to loosen his. 
 
 Quiet as Basset certainly was, people so 
 well known as Dr. Richard and his wife could 
 not be suffered to spend all their leisure at 
 their own fireside.
 
 io6 BASSET 
 
 Sometimes they passed a blameless even^ 
 ing — tea, muffins, and sixpenny whist — at 
 ]Miss Pilkington's. It must be confessed that 
 this entertainment sadly bored the Doctor; 
 Jane, woman-like, was not ill-pleased to hear a 
 little gossip, and put on her silk dress — every 
 woman then, whether she siller had to spare 
 or not, walked in silk attire on festal occa- 
 sions. Jane Benet's brown silk was of im- 
 memorial antiquity; and in mid-career had 
 received a sad check in the shape of a tureen 
 of melted butter being spilt down its front 
 breadth, at a dinner-party in Dilchester, by a 
 coachman masquerading for the evening as a 
 butler. Mrs. Benet, having tried ineffectu- 
 ally to match the silk, and with all known 
 household remedies to remove the stain, at 
 last philosophically resolved always to keep 
 her large arm — finished at the wrist with 
 a white one-buttoned glove, and ornamented 
 with a bracelet made out of an aunt's 
 hair — in a position to hide the damaged 
 part. 
 
 The Doctor, who had said " Very hand- 
 some, Jeannie, very handsome," when he first 
 saw the dress, continued to say so and think 
 so every time it appeared. Therefore, with 
 its skirt well turned up over a most respect-
 
 DR. RICHARD 107 
 
 able petticoat, her evening cap in a box in 
 her hand, and the Doctor by her side, carry- 
 ing a lanthorn and her large pair of satin 
 slippers, Jane walked out to dine in it with 
 the Latimers, without a qualm. And what 
 was good enough for the Doctor and the 
 Squire, must surely be good enough for any- 
 body. 
 
 One autumn morning, Mrs. Benet, having 
 occasion to buy some honey at a distant cot- 
 tage, was surprised to perceive on her home- 
 ward way the only house in Basset which was 
 let in lodgings, undergoing a very unusual 
 cleaning and repairing. 
 
 jNIrs. Whittaker, the landlady, was a person 
 so perfectly pleasant and slatternly that Mrs, 
 Benet always felt strongly inclined to tell 
 her what she thought of her. Her husband, 
 however, had warned her, when she was 
 taken with such an inclination with regard 
 to any of his patients, to come away at once; 
 so she returned to him with no further in- 
 formation than that Mrs. Whittaker had evi- 
 dently let her rooms to somebody. Once, 
 they had been briefly inhabited by Phillips, 
 Harry Latimer's agent, before he found a 
 house; and Peter Grant had stayed there, 
 waiting for the surviving Pilkingtons to
 
 io8 BASSET 
 
 abandon the Rectory. But who could pos- 
 sibly want to lodge in Basset now? 
 
 The next morning, Dr. Richard was called 
 out early to one of the farms on the hill. 
 That daughter of Eve, his wife, suggested he 
 should " just walk round " by INIrs. Whit- 
 taker's on his way back. The old Doctor's 
 eye twinkled a little, but he was not without 
 a mild curiosity on his own account. Hav- 
 ing paid his visit, he returned vici JNIrs. Whit- 
 taker's. And, behold, the autumn garden had 
 been trimmed and tidied; there was a clean 
 blind and a new geranium in the window; 
 and on the low door, a modest brass plate, 
 highly polished, with the new, clear inscrip- 
 tion: Dr. ]Mark Spencer, Physician and 
 Surgeon.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DR. MARK 
 
 Dr. JMark Spencer was at this time about 
 four and thirty years old; very thin and tall, 
 with dark eyes having an intent, alert look; 
 lithe and quick of movement; slow to speak, 
 and rapid to decide and act; the stuff of 
 which doers and not thinkers are made; too 
 clever to despise the cleverness of others, but 
 himself too clever not to see their foolishness, 
 and too self-confident not to condemn it. 
 
 When he smiled, the smile showed a face, 
 habitually grave, to be full of humour and 
 sympathy, and there was generally a twinkle 
 at the back of those serious eyes; while the 
 mouth betrayed more sensitiveness than is a 
 comfortable possession in a harsh world. 
 
 Spencer had overworked in his profession 
 in London, and had prudently exiled himself 
 to Basset for a few years, to rest and recover. 
 Basset had been chosen as being near — but 
 not too near — to a parson friend in Dil- 
 
 109
 
 no BASSET 
 
 Chester, and for its own unquestionable merits 
 of peace and quietness. 
 
 Simj)ly with the idea of keeping liis hand 
 in with a few stray patients, Spencer had put 
 up the plate on his door. He, of course, 
 concluded Basset was doctored by somebody j 
 and also concluded — not veiy unfairly, con- 
 sidering the low standard attained by the 
 country practitioner of the day — that the 
 somebody would certainly be ignorant, and 
 probably intemperate. The few patients Dr. 
 ]Mark might filch from liim would be no loss, 
 thinks Dr. Mark; nay, it seemed likely there 
 was room, if not m Basset, round Basset, for 
 a couple of medical men without their getting 
 greatly in each other's way. If there w^as not 
 room, why, the more time for rest, country 
 air, and those medical experiments and re- 
 searches w^hich were the absorption of his 
 life. 
 
 To say that Spencer was ambitious in his 
 profession would scarcely be true; for though 
 he was of the character of which successful 
 men are made, he at all times put the work 
 above the wages. He saw, in fact, in the 
 darkness which might be felt, of the medical 
 science of the day, a great dawn faintly show- 
 ing. What that daw^n would reveal, he
 
 DR. MARK III 
 
 guessed but dimly, but at least something 
 better than most of his professional brethren, 
 and strained every nerve to hasten the com- 
 ing of the light. 
 
 When the first shock of discovering him 
 was over, old Dr. and Mrs. Benet — Mrs. 
 Benet especially — may be said to have re- 
 garded him much as a passenger on a stage- 
 coach, who had reserved and obtained his 
 seat, may have regarded the person who came 
 running up at the last moment to find all 
 the places occupied — the seated passenger's 
 sensation being one of a comfortable triumph, 
 slightly mingled with a fear that the guard 
 might be bribed to let the late comer mount 
 after all and crowd them unpleasantly. 
 
 The first week or two of his stay, Mrs. 
 Benet was always happening to pass by 
 Myrtle Cottage, and seeing Spencer's dark 
 head, by the geranium in the window, bent 
 over a book or what she described as " some 
 of your nasty doctor's stuflPs " in a zinc tray. 
 Then she happened to hear of the philosophic 
 young man's entire indifference to ]\Irs. 
 Whittaker's lamentable cooking; and, some- 
 how or other, obtained the certain and inti- 
 mate knowledge that far from being dis- 
 turbed by his landladj^'s lazy ways he calmly
 
 112 BASSET 
 
 blew the dust off his mantelpiece or flicked 
 it from his writing-table with his pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 Old Benet used to laugh when his Jeannie 
 brought him these stories and suggested 
 that Spencer's tolerance of dust was his own 
 affair, and that if his ways displeased Mrs. 
 Benet it would be better if she happened to 
 jDass INIyrtle Cottage less often. INIrs. Benet 
 was not f)leased with her good-man for mak- 
 ing these stupid, sensible observations. She 
 was naturally a thousand times more jealous 
 for him than he could be for himself, and 
 perhaps, too, with her quick, sound, unrea- 
 sonable feminine intuition, she scented dan- 
 gers for Dr. Richard from Spencer's advent 
 which Dr. Richard's wisdom did not foresee 
 for himself. 
 
 As for Spencer — beyond fervently hoping 
 that none of them would call upon him, un- 
 less professionally, he was at first entirely 
 oblivious of his neighbours. Then, one day, 
 starting out for a walk, he saw Dr. Richard 
 hoisting his stout, short person into his gig, 
 and Xeck-or-Xothing slumbering tranquilly, 
 as usual; and the sight amused him a little. 
 Presently, his landlady having informed him 
 of the identity of ]Mrs. Benet, he encountered
 
 DR. MARK 113 
 
 the offended curiosity of her look, as, in a 
 pair of clogs and very short skirts revealing 
 thick, white-stockinged ankles, she made her 
 way through the village mud — and was 
 amused the more. 
 
 In church, on the first Sunday he attended 
 service, when he sat just in front of the 
 Benets, he declared afterwards he could feel 
 the persistent hostility of Jane Benet's eye 
 in the small of his back. From his position 
 he could see through the open door, and 
 presently, up the churchyard, where the first 
 gusty wind of early autumn was blowing the 
 leaves hither and thither, came Pollie Lati- 
 mer, with the deep beaver bonnet shading a 
 face which Dr. JNIark did not find beautiful, 
 but caught himself wishing to catch sight of 
 again. 
 
 To be sure, at that date there was no rea- 
 son for Jane Benet's enmity; Spencer had not 
 a single patient. 
 
 It was, indeed, the very next day that he 
 began to practise in Basset — on the wife of a 
 small tradesman from Dilchester, who had 
 just taken a house on the outskirts of the vil- 
 lage, and had never, since he arrived, had a 
 doctor at all. The wife was ill of some simple 
 malady, which Spencer easily cured. But
 
 114 BASSET 
 
 the cure gained him more credit than it de- 
 served, for if the malady had been simple, 
 it had not been too simple for that pompous 
 old ass. Dr. Clarke of Dilchester, to have 
 mistaken and mistreated. Of course, in a 
 small place — the smaller the place the greater 
 the gossip is an invariable rule — in a couple 
 of hours after Dr. Mark had paid that first 
 professional call, it was a matter of common 
 knowledge. 
 
 The tradesman never having been his pa- 
 tient. Dr. Benet could afford to be, and was, 
 perfectly equable. 
 
 On the morrow, ISIiss Fitten's one appren- 
 tice ran a broken needle deep into her hand, 
 and, as Spencer's house Mas next door to ^Nliss 
 Fitten's, came to him to have it extracted. 
 
 A little later, the tradesman's wife ha^^ng 
 said many good and grateful things of Dr. 
 Mark to her neighbour, a gouty old farmer, 
 the farmer sulkily observed that he had been 
 pajdng the "old boy " for nothing for a 
 score of months, and sent for Spencer. The 
 young man studied the new patient out of 
 those quick, black eyes of his; did not say 
 much, but looked as if he knew much more 
 than he said; and suggested a remedy or 
 two, diflterent to any the " old boy " had pro-
 
 DR. MARK 115 
 
 posed. The new remedies certainly did not 
 remove the gout, but they rendered it "so 
 tame }^ou could stroke it," and the old farmer 
 expressed an opinion that the young man was 
 a darned sight less stoopid than the old, 
 though he hadn't nothing to say against Dr. 
 Benet — having, in point of fact, said the 
 worst. 
 
 On one of his visits to the farmer. Dr. 
 Mark met Peter Grant, who had come, not 
 to minister sj^iritually to the sick, but to buy 
 from him a sitting of duck's eggs. Doctor 
 and parson liked each other from the first — 
 they both said so little. They left the farm to- 
 gether — S23encer's lithe, energetic steps slow- 
 ing down to suit Peter's heavy, rheumatic 
 tread — and walked through Basset, laying 
 the foundations of a long, silent, satisfactory 
 friendship. 
 
 Is it necessary to say that Mrs. Benet 
 happened to be looking out of her best par- 
 lour window when they passed? or that, hav- 
 ing warmed and fed her man when he came 
 back that afternoon, she told him what she 
 had seen? She added that, with the defec- 
 tion of that wicked, drinking old Farmer 
 Finch, she did not like the look of things at 
 all. Dr. Richard was much more concerned
 
 ii6 BASSET 
 
 that Jeannie's comfortable fat face looked 
 positively distressed and drawn, than with her 
 gloomy prognostications. He said calmly 
 that Farmer Finch was a cantankerous per- 
 son, but that since he, Benet, had done all he 
 could, it was not unnatural Finch should try 
 some one else; that anyhow, Jeannie, Finch 
 isn't a great loss. As for the Parson, he 
 never saw any doctor professionally, but he 
 had evidently done his duty, and called on 
 Spencer, a duty which Dr. Benet j)roposed to 
 fulfil himself to-morrow afternoon. 
 
 Jeannie took up her novel with a hand 
 which was not perfectly steady; her Doctor 
 had a pinch or two of snuff, and resumed 
 his Dickens; and when they spoke again it 
 was of something else. 
 
 All the young peo2:)le in Basset Dr. Richard 
 had brought into the world; and had eased 
 the journey out of it for the grandsires of 
 most of them. He was confident of his 
 patients' fidelity and affection; but perhaps, 
 as jMadam was so mistrustful, he appeared 
 a little more confident than he actually was. 
 
 He called on his rival the next da}\ 
 
 The two men did not dislike each other. 
 Nay, there was much softness and kindliness 
 in Spencer's eyes as he looked at his little
 
 DR. MARK 117 
 
 fat, wheezy, good-natured guest; while Dr. 
 Richard's heart was sorry for the younger 
 man's lonehness — for a hfe which seemed to 
 have been all work, and to have had no time 
 for those comfortable domestic affections 
 which had made the best part of old Benet's 
 own existence. It was when they drifted on 
 to professional topics that the gulf between 
 them yawned wide. Dr. Richard talked a 
 good deal, and it was Dr. Mark's opinion — a 
 positive, youthful opinion, generally, but not 
 always, right — that your talker can by no 
 means be thinker too, and is inevitably slight 
 and shallow. Dr. Benet's talk, of course, re- 
 vealed him to be of the old school; following, 
 not blindly, but following in the steps of 
 medical forebears, with eyes getting just a 
 little too dim to descry that dawn to which 
 Dr. INIark pressed forward, eager and certain. 
 Spencer sat back in his rickety old writing- 
 chair, balanced it precariously on its back 
 legs, and looked straight past Richard Benet's 
 head to the dingy wall, almost as if he saw 
 written on it the message to Darius of old. 
 He said very little. But old Benet found, 
 when it was time to go, there was a very 
 strong impression left on his mind that this 
 new young gentleman considered those fa-
 
 ii8 BASSET 
 
 miliar epidemics of typhus and cholera to be 
 man's fault rather than God's will; that, if he 
 would not go so far as to say with Macbeth, 
 " Throw physic to the dogs, I'll none of it," 
 all the same, the numerous draughts, powders, 
 pills, without which Dr. Benet's patients 
 would have had no satisfaction in being ill, 
 were not only generally unnecessary, but 
 sometimes actually harmful. 
 
 On the other hand, it was inevitable that, 
 though ]Mark looked at Kichard with that 
 strong sympathy which was liis charm as well 
 as his strength and weakness, he looked upon 
 him as deplorably — shall one say? — stick-in- 
 the-mud and old-fashioned. 
 
 Dr. Richard puffed slowly homewards, 
 rather liking his rival, thinking, despite him- 
 self, highly of his cleverness, shaking his good 
 grey head over the exceedingly daring revo- 
 lutionary ideas in that young black one, and 
 for the first time realizing that Dr. 31 ark was 
 a rival indeed. 
 
 The rivalry, as well as the revolutionary 
 nature of those ideas, received ample con- 
 firmation as the weeks went on. 
 
 To-day, it was some small accident to 
 which Spencer was summoned hurriedly; and 
 the family of the accident found him so
 
 DR. MARK 119 
 
 much quicker and handier with his long, thin, 
 supple fingers, than Dr. Benet,' that it de- 
 cided unanimously, to keep him. 
 
 Next, a young lady from town, who had 
 heard there of Dr. Spencer's growing reputa- 
 tion, developed measles when she was visit- 
 ing the august home of Sir Thomas and 
 Lady Mainwaring. Knowing of Dr. Spen- 
 cer's neighbourhood, she naturally asked if he 
 might attend her. My lady's verdict of him 
 was that Dr. Spencer was much more of a 
 gentleman, as well as a better doctor, than 
 the little Basset apothecary, and that in fu- 
 ture, Thomas, we will employ him ourselves. 
 When Sir Thomas, who had grown fond of 
 old Benet, suggested that it was awkward to 
 change j^our doctor, my lady inquired curtly 
 why, pray, you should not change your doc- 
 tor as much as your butcher? — and the matter 
 was settled. 
 
 Old Finch called in young Spencer again 
 and again. " You do do better for me than 
 the old boy," says candid Finch. Mark an- 
 swered that his treatment of the case was not 
 materially different to his predecessor's. 
 
 " I know as you doctors have to say that," 
 answers the farmer, winking a blood-shot eye 
 very slowly; "pretend the first man's done
 
 120 BASSET 
 
 right; and do something different j^ourself 
 all the time. I knows you." 
 
 Spencer laughed. " All the same, Dr. 
 Benet treated you very well," says he. 
 
 The number of notes ]\Iark had had to 
 write lately to old Richard, telling him he had 
 been called in to another, and yet another, 
 of the old man's patients, did not lie easily on 
 jNIark's soul. He had by no means come to 
 Basset to ruin a fellow-worker. He did not 
 particularly want money. Still, he liked the 
 experience — the work for the work's sake — 
 and, as his health was improving, was not 
 inclined to reject it. Sometimes, the interest 
 of the thing absorbed him, and he forgot old 
 Benet wholly. When he remembered, short 
 of taking down his plate and leaving Basset, 
 he did not see what he could do. The fight 
 was fair enough; and provided it was fair, 
 Spencer liked a fight, and had always found 
 difficulties in the wa}" add zest to the chase. 
 He was sorry for the old man; Dr. ]Mark 
 having, indeed, that last infirmity of noble 
 minds, an inconveniently soft heart. But, 
 after all, he did think him something of a 
 muff, and probably pigheaded, as only igno- 
 rance can be. 
 
 At any rate, he could not accuse himself
 
 DR. MARK 121 
 
 of having kept the patients he had made by 
 speaking smooth things to them, or yielding 
 to their prejudices. 
 
 In that age of hermetically shut windows, 
 Spencer had plainly proclaimed himself, in as 
 few words as possible, the friend of fresh air. 
 He informed not a few of the cottagers who 
 came for his advice in the mornings before 
 he started off on his rounds, that half their 
 diseases came from dirt, and the other half 
 from drink; and made them pay for the in- 
 formation. For, if he was in advance of old 
 Benet in his ideas on medicine, so he was in 
 his ideas on philanthropy. What one can get 
 for nothing, one is apt to consider nothing 
 worth. So Spencer insisted on the produc- 
 tion of a modest — a verj^ modest — fee before 
 he looked at the sufferer's tongue, and felt 
 his pulse. If that fee by no means covered 
 the expensive medicine the disorders some- 
 times required, or compensated Dr. Mark for 
 the care, candour, time and trouble he ex- 
 pended — well, that was so much the better for 
 his soul, while the patients' self-respect was 
 left uninjured. 
 
 Harry Latimer called, tardily, on the new 
 man one afternoon, and brought him an invi- 
 tation from Pollie to dine at the Manor.
 
 122 BASSET 
 
 The Latimers had not any idea of giving 
 up old Benet as their medical adviser, a fact 
 of which Spencer was heartily glad. There 
 was no reason he should not dine with them; 
 he only wished he had been able to think of a 
 reason, or at least of an excuse which sounded 
 like one. He hated wasting an evening in 
 festivity; and he did not particularly like 
 Harry. The " old squires, full of foolish 
 opinions and fermented liquors," were a class 
 among his new patients whom ^Nlark despised 
 with the fervour of an energetic and self- 
 denying temperament; while he believed, 
 like the pioneer he was, that from indul- 
 gence in the liquors — far short of drunken- 
 ness — came the foolishness of the opinions, 
 and much deterioration of body and char- 
 acter. 
 
 Harry was not old, and he was not foolish. 
 But he was idle, jolly, easy, self-indulgent; 
 the type of man for whom Parson Grant and 
 Dr. Benet could feel, and did feel, much lik- 
 ing; but who was inevitably antagonistic to 
 Mark. It was on his lips to refuse to go — 
 without any excuse. Then he remembered 
 Pollie's face as she had come into church — 
 that charming face, at once gay and thought- 
 ful, with some faint shadow across its j^outh —
 
 DR. MARK 123 
 
 ■^vondered why she had married Harry, and 
 thought he would go and see. 
 
 Harry was riding, and Spencer came to 
 the gate with him while he mounted Victoria. 
 
 Dislike being nearly always mutual, Harry 
 had not been drawn to the " new man." He 
 reined up when he met old Benet presently, 
 and inquired good-naturedly if " young Saw- 
 bones there " was doing him much mischief? 
 Dr. Benet, knowing that to advertise failure 
 is to spread it, answered that he thought not 
 — competition was healthy, plenty of room 
 for two; the usual formulas. But it was with 
 his grey head very bent, and old ej^es not a 
 little dull and sad, that he turned into his 
 house, where Jeannie was on the doorstep, 
 agitatedly agog to know if the Squire had 
 been to see that man professionally? 
 
 Spencer looked out from an exceedingly 
 tumbled wardrobe his only brocaded evening 
 waistcoat; on the evening appointed, dined 
 at the Manor; sat next to an arch, coy, 
 simpering, middle-aged girl, who quickly 
 bored him into a gloomy silence. At dinner, 
 he caught himself watching Mrs. Latimer 
 attentively as she sat at the head of her 
 table, lively and talking, but quite simply 
 interested in and proud of her shining dinner-
 
 124 BASSET 
 
 party damask and china. Once, at dessert, 
 he observed the glance of tolerant affection 
 slie gave to Harry, with his good-looking face 
 reddening comfortabh^ over the port; and 
 into Dr. ^Mark's mind flashed the phrase of 
 the French philosopher, " On a tant d'indul- 
 gence quand on n'a plus d'amour! " 
 
 Spencer did not make himself more popu- 
 lar with his host after dinner by declining 
 to refill his glass as the great cut-glass de- 
 canters went their frequent rounds. Harry — 
 and many another besides Harry in that day 
 — measured a man's manliness bj^ the depth of 
 his potations. And the Squire was some- 
 thing annoyed that to this abstemious and 
 silent person — lithe, active, determined — it 
 was wholh" impossible to ajjply the epithet of 
 milksoj). 
 
 After Spencer had counted out, with Mrs. 
 Latimer, the counters for a game of Pope 
 Joan, he returned home as soon as might be. 
 
 He had walked the Paris hospitals, and 
 was studj^ing now — he was very likely the 
 onl}^ English medical man of his day who did 
 so — the works of the great French doctors, 
 Tissot, Tronchin, Cabanis. His profession 
 had been always his only mistress — almost 
 his only friend — all-engrossing and sufficient.
 
 DR. MARK 125 
 
 But this evening his thoughts wandered. He 
 pushed aside Cabanis' " Rapports du Phy- 
 sique et du INIoral de rHomme," and looked 
 round the room; and it struck him for the 
 first time as untidy and comfortless. 
 
 Then, with a frown at his own inattention, 
 he resumed his book. 
 
 It was not long after the Manor dinner- 
 party that Spencer bought himself a horse; 
 his practice having increased so fast that it 
 was impossible to keep pace with it on foot. 
 After that, because nothing succeeds like 
 success, it increased further still. 
 
 It was not, of course, that old Dr. Benet 
 had no patients; he still had some, where but 
 a few months ago he had had all. A good 
 many of the poor, feeling that the doctoring 
 was better when you paid for it, but not 
 being able to pay, returned to their first love. 
 There were both farms and manors round 
 Basset which had never made any change. 
 INIost of Dr. Benet's Dilchester patients were 
 faithful; but, on the other hand, a good many 
 of Dr. Clarke's of Dilchester had gone over 
 to Silencer of Basset, who was less handy, 
 but, when you got him, less dangerous. Con- 
 servative Miss Pilkington — the Pilkingi:on 
 family having been ushered in and out of the
 
 126 BASSET 
 
 world by a Benet these last seventy years — 
 would rather have died than have been doc- 
 tored by any one else. But that was some- 
 thing less to her credit, because she felt sure 
 she would die most certainly if she exposed 
 herself to the tricks of a young gentle- 
 man who, in her own phrase, " believed in 
 draughts," meaning ventilation, and disbe- 
 lieved in them, meaning the row of great 
 bottles on the mantelpiece. 
 
 In church now, if looks could kill. Dr. 
 ^lark would have been stabbed (in the back) 
 many a time. If he was sorry for her hus- 
 band, ^Irs. Benet he regarded simply as an 
 angry, ugly, old woman, who decidedly 
 tickled his sense of humour. 
 
 Spencer had come to Basset in early 
 autumn. 
 
 The winter was unhealthy but hardly 
 more unhealthy than usual. March brought 
 a spell of bitter weather, and an epidemic of 
 influenza so virulent and widespread that even 
 Dr. Benet, with his lessening practice, was 
 busy, and his young rival, far from finding 
 Basset a rest cure, had scarcely time to eat or 
 sleep. In the midst of it, Tommy Latimer, 
 who had been thrown by his jjonj^ half a 
 dozen times and picked himself up again as
 
 DR. MARK 127 
 
 uninjured as an indiarubber ball, elected to 
 be thrown once more; j)icked himself up, 
 swallowing unmanly sobs, and complained of 
 his back. Harry was agreeably certain, as 
 usual, it was a trifle; and, thus convinced, 
 rode off to keep an appointment in Dil- 
 chester. Pollie sent for Dr. Benet. Dr. 
 Benet, having carefully examined the child, 
 pronounced the injuries slight. Before the 
 afternoon, Pollie had sent for him again. 
 The child looked ill, and complained of 
 greater pain. 
 
 " When Harry was so bad," says Pollie, 
 " you sent for Dr. Clarke. Only now, per- 
 haps, you might have Dr. Spencer? He is 
 so near, and he seems to be so much cleverer 
 than Dr. Clarke, isn't he?" 
 
 Lies stuck in old Benet's throat; but if 
 an honest man can wish he was a liar — and, 
 be sure, he can — Dr. Richard wished it then. 
 
 Spencer was sent for, and came. The two 
 men examined the child together. Was Dr. 
 Mark something surprised, and ever so little 
 disappointed, that he had to concur abso- 
 lutely in old Benet's diagnosis of the case as 
 trivial? If he was, he was ashamed of the 
 sensation when he saw the relief in Pollie's 
 eyes. She opened the hall door to the two
 
 128 BASSET 
 
 men, thanking them; and they walked down 
 the drive in silence. The younger man was 
 by nature too shy and reserved to be able to 
 bridge over a difficulty by conversation; be- 
 sides, he was thinking of something else; and 
 in the heart of the old one was a great bit- 
 terness. 
 
 When he got home — it was nearly four 
 o'clock in the afternoon — he did not attempt 
 to minimize to his wife, as he had persistently 
 done hitherto, the rise in his rival's and the 
 fall in his own fortunes. Jeannie followed 
 him into the dining-room. It was snowing 
 softly outside, and the room looked light, 
 white, and cheerless. 
 
 It was not so much the loss of money old 
 Richard felt, though he did feel that. But if 
 they were poor, there was that very little in- 
 dependent fortune to keep them from want, 
 and Jeannie was a manager in a thousand. 
 It was the faithlessness of his people that 
 lay heavy on his soul. He knew he had al- 
 ways done his best for them; he believed that 
 that best had been, in the main, not unsuc- 
 cessful. With not a few of them, he had been 
 down into those deep j)laces of intimate con- 
 fidence and knowledge into which in sickness 
 of bodj^, the soul — willingl}" or unwillingly —
 
 DR. MARK 129 
 
 sometimes takes a friend. He had seen many 
 sores and secrets — of the heart; and, cheery 
 old talker though he was, never a hint of them 
 had passed his lips or looked out of his eyes. 
 To be sure, he had only done his duty. But 
 the duties of his profession exact a greater 
 self-denial and a higher virtue than any other. 
 If he had been paid only by the affection and 
 fidelity of his patients, he would have felt 
 himself well paid. And behold! after forty 
 years spent in their service, in six months 
 nearly half of them had deserted him. 
 
 Jeannie poured out a sudden tornado of 
 angry words against the deserters, and the 
 character and conduct of Dr. IMark. Her old 
 man looked ill and sunken, and her heart was 
 hot within her. He stretched out his cold 
 hand to pat hers in the accustomed caress, 
 and said, " No, no, Jeannie, Spencer has 
 always acted honourably." 
 
 And Jeannie, who cried so enjoy ably and 
 profusely over sham griefs in a novel, and 
 would have despised herself for ever if her 
 doctor had caught her weeping at a real 
 trouble, gave a sudden, loud, vindictive sniff, 
 and retreated to the kitchen to prepare his 
 dinner, where, since " there is no seeing one's 
 way through tears," she brushed them away
 
 130 BASSET 
 
 with the back of her hand, and tried to think 
 of a dish that would tempt him. 
 
 AVhen jNlaggie went into the dining-room 
 to lay the cloth, she had to clear her throat 
 loudly three times before the Doctor — who 
 was sitting w^ith his folded arms leaning on 
 the table, staring at the drab wall-paper oppo- 
 site — heard the hint and made way for her. 
 
 A very few days later, when the snow was 
 thick on the ground, Dr. Richard, having been 
 called out very early in the morning, did not 
 return home until six o'clock in the evening. 
 All through their belated dinner, the old pair 
 hardly sj)oke; and Maggie confided to the 
 boy from the shop, who had knocked at the 
 back door with the express purpose of throw- 
 ing a snowball at her when she opened it, that 
 the two in there had been a-quarrelling. Her 
 sharp young eyes were rather disappointed to 
 see no traces of a fray when she brought in 
 the evening tea. While Jeannie was brewing 
 it, the old doctor, who had not taken his book 
 as usual, said — 
 
 " It was Spencer I was called to this morn- 
 ing, Jeannie. He's down with the influenza." 
 
 ]\Irs. Benet responded by a snort, which, 
 if ever snort said anything, said, " Serve him 
 right!" and went on with her tea-making.
 
 DR. MARK 131 
 
 " I went to see him again this evening," 
 said Dr. Richard. " The fact is, I don't like 
 his symptoms at all. He's a delicate man, 
 and he has been very much out of health. I 
 don't trust Mrs. Whittaker to look after 
 him — she's a deal too plausible — and I can't 
 find any one else. That old woman, Muggle- 
 ton, is down with the thing herself." 
 
 Mrs. Benet gave the Doctor his cup, and 
 sat down with her own; and was understood 
 to remark that, as Dr. Spencer was so mighty 
 clever, he had better cure himself. 
 
 " It isn't good doctoring he wants, Jean- 
 nie," says Richard, "it's good nursing." 
 
 Mrs. Benet replied, " Oh, it's nursing, is 
 it? " very snappishly, and there was a long 
 pause. Then she gave the Doctor his second 
 cup, and with it the new Edinburgh, just 
 come from the Dilchester Book Club. But 
 he put the volume on one side. 
 
 " I am not easy about him, Jeannie, and 
 that's the fact. Ask Maggie for my boots, 
 and I'll go round and sit with him for an 
 hour, and see if that woman has done what 
 I told her." 
 
 Then Jeannie rose in her ire. 
 
 " You're cold and tired, and you haven't 
 eaten any dinner," she said. " And you're
 
 132 BASSET 
 
 sixty-eight years old, and he's done you a lot 
 of harm, and you shan't go and kill yourself 
 for him. You sit still where you are and 
 drink that tea, and I'll manage liim." 
 
 If she had substituted " murder " for 
 " manage," she could not have uttered it more 
 bloodthirstily. Dr. Richard had not felt like 
 laughing for many a day, but he did smile to 
 himself then. 
 
 ]Mrs. Benet was out of the room about 
 twenty minutes. When she returned, she 
 had put on her clogs, girded up her skirts, 
 pinned on a stout plaid shawl with a brooch, 
 hung a strong basket on her arm, and was in 
 the act of tying her bonnet strings in a large, 
 fierce bow. 
 
 Dr. Richard looked up from the Edinburgh 
 which he was pretending to read, and said, 
 " Thank you, Jeannie." 
 
 " Now mind," says Jeannie, still consider- 
 ably ruffled in temper, " if I'm not back by 
 ten, you're to lock the front door, and not to 
 trust it to ^Maggie. And if I'm not home to- 
 morrow before you're up, j^ou're to put on 
 the new flannel shirt I've just finished. It's 
 on the chair by the bed. They're warmer 
 before they're washed. And, mind, j^ou're 
 not to change it because it scratches. It's
 
 DR. MARK 133 
 
 the scratching that keeps up the circula- 
 tion." 
 
 " It is, Jeannie," says old Richard, feel- 
 ingly. If the shirt had been of hair, he 
 would have consented to wear it. 
 
 In a minute he added, " The medicines I've 
 ordered Spencer are on the mantelpiece, and 
 the directions on the bottles. Keep the room 
 warm, and keep him as quiet as you can. I'll 
 be round by nine o'clock to-morrow morning." 
 He gave a few more technical instructions, 
 and Jeannie listened with a face at once 
 hostile, sensible, and attentive. 
 
 Then he said again, " Thank you, Jean- 
 nie," and felt for one of her fat old hands 
 under her shawl. She responded by giving 
 him a sound thump on his shoulder. She 
 might have liked, perhaps, to have kissed 
 him on the top of his untidj^ gi'ey head, but 
 under the circumstances would have felt such 
 a caress to be lowering to her self-respect; so 
 she contented herself with the thump and a 
 look at him which said many contrary things. 
 
 In the passage, she added a stout gingham 
 umbrella to her other luggage (for it was 
 again snowing fast), and tramped out into 
 the cold and the darkness. 
 
 It should not be necessary to say that
 
 134 BASSET 
 
 ]Mark Spencer had not summoned Dr. Rich- 
 ard before it was absolutely essential. Keenly 
 interested as he was in disease as disease, he 
 was also the least fanciful of human beings 
 regarding his own maladies; and his interest 
 in them was purely impersonal, which is 
 tantamount to saying that Heaven had ex- 
 pressly designed him to be a doctor. His 
 strong confidence in his star, united to strong 
 self-confidence, always made him sure, when 
 he was ill, that he would certainly recover. 
 
 But on this occasion, after having ig- 
 nored his symptoms for many days — being, 
 in fact, particularly engrossed with the symp- 
 toms of other people — there came that snowy 
 morning when he literally could not get up 
 and go out as usual — even if Ms medical 
 knowledge had not convinced him, in spite 
 of himself, of the madness of such a proceed- 
 ing. Now, too, the extreme mental depres- 
 sion, w^hich was a characteristic of the in- 
 fluenza of that day, as of later days, over- 
 whelmed him like a thick Cloud. 
 
 He had passed a sleepless and feverish 
 night. In the cold morning light, the ill- 
 furnished and disorderly room looked barren 
 and miserable exceedingly. Dr. Mark saw 
 clearly, not only the disadvantages of life —
 
 DR. MARK 135 
 
 that view can be taken philosophically — but 
 of his own life. The obstacles in the path in 
 which he was resolved to tread seemed insur- 
 mountable; he was alone, and no man cared 
 for his soul. 
 
 Thus feeling, when Mrs. Whittaker brought 
 him a cup of lukewarm tea instead of break- 
 fast, and said pleasantly, "Lor, sir! you do 
 look bad. I shouldn't wonder if you was 
 one of them as goes off very quick," and he 
 believed her, he realized it was time to send 
 for his rival. 
 
 An old woman in a cottage had one day 
 candidly told Dr. Mark that she preferred 
 Dr. Richard; he was "so comfortable." 
 Spencer remembered that observation when 
 old Benet sank wheezily on to the ricketty 
 chair by the bed, and looked at him with that 
 steady blue eye, which seemed to say reassur- 
 ingly that one's sufferings might be very real 
 without being very serious. If there were 
 jealousy and bitterness in the old Doctor's 
 soul, they were certainly not in his manner. 
 But Spencer's shrewdness had always given 
 his rival credit for being worthy and kindly — 
 in fact, a good old woman. 
 
 What surprised him was that, after a very 
 few questions, and the usual formulas, Dr.
 
 136 BASSET 
 
 Benet had not onl}' discovered old scars, 
 which JNIark believed healing nature had cov- 
 ered or effaced, and weaknesses and tenden- 
 cies wdiich it must needs take a good intelli- 
 gence or a long time to find out, but that he 
 had also thoroughly gauged his patient's tem- 
 j^erament, and if he did not know^ much about 
 the sickness, b}^ some shrewd intuition cer- 
 tainly did know the sick man. 
 
 When the old Doctor recommended reme- 
 dies, contrary to all the young one's best 
 theories, Sj)encer found himself, to his own 
 surprise, not only consenting to take them, 
 but feebly wondering if there might not be 
 some good in them after all. 
 
 The two spoke together for a few minutes 
 about those new^ patients of JSIark's, w^ho had 
 once been Dr. Richard's, and whom Dr. 
 Richard must needs take over again until 
 his rival had recovered; and it was not Dr. 
 Richard who found the subject most painful. 
 When he rose to go, he said he would look 
 in again in the evening. Spencer answ^ered 
 hoarsely, it w^as not necessar3\ But as he 
 lay weak and aching through the cold and 
 wretched day — with its solitude onty broken 
 by the rare appearances of Mrs. Whittaker's 
 amiable and untidy head round the bed cur-
 
 DR. MARK 137 
 
 tains — he caught himself trusting that the 
 old boy had not taken him at his word. And 
 when Dr. Benet did come creaking in again — 
 to find that JNIrs. Whittaker, who had readily 
 promised to do everything he had bidden her, 
 had done nothing — Mark owned humbly to 
 his own heart that he was glad. 
 
 After that, he was too ill to be glad or 
 sorry about anything. The cold March twi- 
 light came in through the uncurtained win- 
 dow. The miserable fire went out. Mark 
 passed first into that strange borderland 
 when one is neither sensible nor senseless; 
 conscious, but only of supreme discomfort; 
 and at last fell into a restless sleej), filled with 
 troubled dreams. 
 
 When he woke up, not knowing whether 
 he had been asleep five minutes or as many 
 hours, he thought he was dreaming still. 
 
 There was a cheerful fire in the grate, and 
 its pleasant flicker in the room. A kettle 
 sang on the hob. Through a long hole in his 
 tattered bed curtain, he further perceived 
 that a plaid shawl had been hung over the 
 bare window. His clothes, which he had left 
 half on a chair, and half on the floor, had 
 been neatly folded. On the mantelpiece, the 
 goodly row of black bottles ordered by Dr.
 
 138 BASSET 
 
 Eenet had been supplemented by more bot- 
 tles, a teapot, and a milk- jug. On the chair 
 by the bed there was a tray, and a glass with 
 a cooling drink in it. Spencer also saw that, 
 while he slept, his very bed — perhaps even 
 himself^ — had been tidied, as by a master hand. 
 There was an extra and spotless blanket over 
 his feet. On a nail on his wall hung a large 
 and decent female bonnet of Dunstable black 
 straw. And seated in a rocking-chair by the 
 fire, with her madonna front surmounted by a 
 night-cap, her manly dressing-gown of grey 
 flannel tied by the sleeves round her neck to 
 afford extra warmth — with her hands clasped 
 on her capacious lap, her eyes closed, and her 
 face perfectly alert, wakeful, and determined 
 — sat the author of all the changes. 
 
 ]Mark was for the moment annoyed, but 
 too ill to be keenly annoyed; then, being 
 weak, and deficient in his usual abundant 
 self-control, he had to stuff a corner of the 
 sheet into his mouth to prevent himself from 
 laughing out loud. He did not make a sound. 
 But in two minutes, his curtains had been 
 drawn back, and there, like avenging Eleanor 
 presenting the poisoned bowl to Rosamund, 
 stood JNIrs. Benet with a long medicine glass 
 in her hand. She offered no explanations of
 
 DR. MARK 139 
 
 her appearance or her role. She merely ob- 
 served with a Roman simphcity and stern- 
 ness, that it was time for the medicine; and 
 Mark found himself draining to the last drop 
 the long, nauseous and slimy draught — of 
 which he entirely disapproved — as if he liked 
 it. 
 
 After that, Mrs. Benet announced that he 
 must go to sleep; and he slept, as he said 
 himself later, because he did not dare to keep 
 awake. 
 
 When he did wake, a March morning sun- 
 shine filled the room; the window had been 
 shorn of its plaid; the nurse, in it and her 
 bonnet, was standing by his side to make 
 the announcement that she was leaving him 
 for an hour to see to her old man. Spencer, 
 whose tongue was as slow to express grati- 
 tude as his heart was quick to feel it, tried to 
 thank her, and begged her not to return. 
 She shook her head at him meditatively, as 
 if to inquire what he fancied would become of 
 him if she did not. When Dr. Benet arrived 
 at nine, Spencer, thanking him again, de- 
 clared he need not further trouble his wife; 
 and old Benet said, " You don't know 
 Jeannie." 
 
 If he did not, he was to know her soon.
 
 I40 BASSET 
 
 In a few days he began positively to like 
 the broad face which he had thought merely 
 ugly and absurd, and the sound of her steady 
 step and voice. Under the circumstances, it 
 was not perhaps surprising that she should 
 insist — well knowing his conceited mistrust 
 of medicines — not only that he should take 
 all those her husband had ordered, but some 
 patent home-made ones which she took in ad- 
 dition to old Benet's remedies when she her- 
 self was ill, and to which she always ascribed 
 her cure. A little judicious starvation in 
 the early stages of influenza was one of the 
 new articles of Spencer's medical creed, and 
 lo! at all hours of the day and night he found 
 himself fed up with strong broths and port 
 wine; while Mrs. Benet further caused some 
 particularly solid and life-giving soup (a 
 speciality of Pollie's cook) to be sent down 
 from the INIanor. 
 
 Knowing his nonsensical partiality for 
 fresh air, she firmlv nailed up strips of cloth 
 all round the window (which, of course, was 
 never opened) lest by any chance even the 
 smallest amount of oxygen should penetrate 
 through the cracks. Spencer often had to 
 put his head under the bed-clothes now to 
 silence his chuckles. He had beheved, not
 
 DR. MARK 141 
 
 wrongly, that he had a great deal of deter- 
 mination of character. But those who are the 
 slowest to yield to force are sometimes the 
 readiest to yield to kindness. 
 
 One day, when old Queen Eleanor brought 
 him a steaming cup of beef-tea, Spencer 
 looked up at her with a twinkle in his eyes 
 and said, "Don't you wish it was poison?" 
 and with something very like an answering 
 twinkle in hers, Eleanor replied, " Young 
 man, you are uncommonly lucky it's 
 not." 
 
 Somehow, after that, there was a bridge 
 over the differences between them; and, a 
 little doubtfully and shamefacedly, they be- 
 gan to cross it. 
 
 The nurse's brisk, healthy manner of treat- 
 ing disease as a brief, tiresome accident, par- 
 ticularly ai^pealed to a patient who was 
 always ashamed of himself if he had a sick 
 mind because he had a sick body. The ruth- 
 less way in which she, morally, pulverized 
 Mrs. Whittaker to dust, when that lady put 
 her head into the room with futile offers of 
 assistance, also did the invalid a great deal 
 of good. 
 
 Soon, when old Benet paid his visit, 
 Spencer took to watching keenly the wife's
 
 142 BASSET 
 
 face as her husband talked; and he hked the 
 stern, dogged fideUty with which she carried 
 out the old Doctor's instructions — especially 
 when she knew they were likely to be dis- 
 approved of by the young one. 
 
 Now and again, as she sat knitting her 
 good-man a 2^aii' of stockings, she let fall 
 things she had heard, from quite impartial 
 outsiders, in his praise. One day, she told her 
 patient the story of a case in Dilchester, 
 which the London bigwigs had given up as 
 hopeless, and he?' doctor had pronounced 
 curable — ^and cured. And, indeed, as Spen- 
 cer grew to know his rival better, the more 
 he respected the Doctor, as well as liked the 
 man; and his pride had to confess that he 
 had mistaken for a stiff-necked country fool 
 a wise old person who had something very 
 like an inborn genius for discovering disease, 
 and mother-wit worth all the learning of the 
 schools. 
 
 On her side, old JNIadam soon divined — 
 somehow, for IMark was a man who found it 
 absolutely impossible to bestow confidences — 
 the story of his solitary and determined youth, 
 and of success, quickly followed by ill-health. 
 Instead of a medical Juggernaut, with his 
 car crushing in cruel triumph other people's
 
 DR. MARK 143 
 
 practice and hapj)iness, she saw a nature 
 singularly sensitive and compassionate. Of 
 course, being still in love with her old man, 
 she immediately imparted to him all her dis- 
 coveries, and Richard said simply, " Well, 
 you know, Jeannie, I always liked Spencer 
 personally from the first, only I didn't dare 
 to tell you so." 
 
 By the time Mark had guessed at the one 
 lack in his new friends' lives — their childless- 
 ness — Jeannie was mothering hiin. Her 
 quaint figure still moved him to smiles — 
 under the bed-clothes — when he looked at 
 her, but now she and her husband had come 
 into it, he no longer felt himself alone in the 
 world he meant to conquer. He read, and 
 Hked to read, their homely love-story. While, 
 on her side, Jeannie, as she brewed him beef- 
 tea or washed up his tea-cup and medicine- 
 glasses, mentally scoured Basset for a wife 
 for him, and even cast a bird's-eye view over 
 Dilchester with the same end. 
 
 When, at the end of two or three weeks, 
 he grew better, and she only came every now 
 and then for an hour, and finally merely 
 looked in upon him two or three times a day, 
 he positively decided that, despite the work 
 awaiting him and the brief time accorded to
 
 144 BASSET 
 
 any mortal to do it, he was not perfectly glad 
 he was getting well. 
 
 One day, as he sat in an armchair by the 
 fire, she entered his bedroom suddenly, in her 
 grim bonnet, and — after they had exchanged 
 the briefest of greetings, and without having 
 asked such a superfluity as his permission — 
 began calmly and thoroughly to overhaul his 
 wardrobe. 
 
 The next day, when he was promoted to his 
 sitting-room for the first time, he beheld her, 
 through its window, to his great amusement, 
 carrjT^ing home, fully exposed to the gaze of 
 Basset, an armful of his unmended clothing, 
 of which socks were by far the most decent 
 items. 
 
 It was now that those two old cronies, 
 Peter Grant and Tommy Latimer, came to 
 call on him; Peter, sitting looking into the 
 fire in a compassionate silence; and Tommy, 
 in the old armchair opposite, positively 
 bursting with suppressed questions — his 
 mother having prudenth^ warned him it 
 would be rude to ask any. 
 
 Later, came Mr. and INIrs. Latimer 
 themselves. Mrs. Latimer brought a jelly in 
 a shape, and jNIark liked to watch the en- 
 grossed interest she took in turning it out.
 
 DR. MARK 145 
 
 whole and perfect, on to a plate. She found 
 his deep, attentive eyes upon her face, when 
 she had finished that important work, and 
 met them with her frank, clear look. 
 
 While he and Harry were talking — or 
 Harry was talking and Spencer appearing to 
 listen— she took up a number of the (Quar- 
 terly from among Mark's heterogeneous pos- 
 sessions — the Quarterlu still in its " boister- 
 ous youth " — and INIark saw her pucker her 
 white forehead as her quick and uninstructed 
 intelligence came across some allusion she 
 did not catch. When she put down the 
 book and joined in the conversation, he was 
 surprised at the acuteness of her sympathies 
 and the ready comprehensions of her heart; 
 for he knew that it is those who have suffered 
 themselves who feel for others, and that the 
 heart only understands what it has endured. 
 
 Three or four days after, Harry came 
 again, alone. 
 
 Since " one can hardly hate any one that 
 one knows," he and Spencer got on much 
 better now than at their first meetings. 
 Harry was full of bonhomie and kindness. 
 This time, he brought INIark, Daniel's 
 " Rural Sports," the only book he ever will- 
 ingly opened himself, and so the only book
 
 146 BASSET 
 
 he could conceive any other man washing to 
 read. Then, too, his jolly, healthy aspect 
 was strengthening like a tonic. He hos- 
 pitably invited Spencer to come and recruit 
 for a week or two at the IManor — it looks so 
 deucedly uncomfortable here, says candid 
 Harry. Spencer only paused a second before 
 refusing the invitation. But Harry was 
 quite clever enough to see that he actually 
 ^^■anted to come; what was beyond his com- 
 prehension was that any one should wish to 
 do some perfectly possible thing, and not 
 do it. 
 
 He went off, contemplatively whistling, 
 and reflected on such queerness for quite 
 three or four minutes. 
 
 But if Spencer was not, as he had said, 
 well enough to be a guest at the Manor, he 
 was apparently well enough to be a pretty 
 constant visitor at the Benets'. 
 
 He spent almost every evening there now. 
 His long legs filled up most of the little 
 parlour. Before INIaggie brought in the tea- 
 things, the professional books were produced 
 from the surgery, and old Benet's rumpled 
 grey head and ISIark's dark one met together 
 over those thick volumes. The old man, as 
 ever, talked a good deal, and the young one
 
 DR. MARK 147 
 
 very little. ^Irs. Benet, who was quite un- 
 blushingly engaged in darning Mark's wool- 
 len drawers, held up her needle to thread it 
 at the candlelight, and now and then made a 
 short, sensible suggestion. Maggie's cheer- 
 ful singing came from the kitchen; and 
 Queen Caroline, being tried over the mantel- 
 piece, looked down on a scene both pleasant 
 and peaceful. 
 
 Basset used to see, and comment on the 
 fact, that the invalid walked back quite late, 
 on uncommonly chilly spring evenings, to 
 Myrtle Cottage, though it was still stated he 
 was not well enough to visit or to receive 
 patients. 
 
 One day, it beheld him being taken by 
 old Benet and Neck-or-Nothing into Dil- 
 chester. Neck-or-Nothing had quite three- 
 quarters of an hour's good sleep outside the 
 office of Messrs. Bastrick and Dodd, solici- 
 tors, while his passengers were within. 
 
 Soon after, Basset observed that the brass 
 plates outside Myrtle Cottage and Dr. 
 Benet's house were both missing. There was 
 a brief, blank interval. Then they were re- 
 placed, each bearing the inscription — 
 
 Drs. Benet and Spencer, 
 Physicians and Surgeons.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 
 
 While the partnership between Drs. 
 Richard and INIark was still a new thing 
 and a nine days' wonder, Basset actually 
 found itself in the throes of yet another ex- 
 citement. ]Miss Pilkington's niece was com- 
 ing to live with her. 
 
 Rachel Pilkington was the fourth of " old 
 Pil's " five motherless daughters. 
 
 For many years his Rectory house had 
 been efficiently managed by Eliza, the eldest 
 and the most disagreeable of the flock. The 
 four younger sisters spent their time in doing 
 little duties and kindnesses in the village, in 
 copying music, drawing in crayons, practising 
 the harp and the art of keeping their temper 
 when Eliza lost hers. 
 
 Rachel was a little, slight, delicate, sensi- 
 tive creature, with rather a high spirit, and 
 thin cheeks which easily flushed. At 
 sixteen, she alone of the sisters went to a 
 boarding-school in Dilchester, where she was 
 
 148
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 149 
 
 taught, with eleven other young ladies, how 
 to enter and leave with grace a carriage per- 
 manently stationed in the back yard; and 
 where she might have said with Miss Bil- 
 lickin, " a poorness of blood flowed from the 
 table which has run through my life." 
 
 She returned to Basset Rectorj^ in the 
 state of genteel starvation, not then at all 
 unusual in girls educated at polite academies. 
 
 While old Benet was still pouring into her 
 port wine and most of the drugs in his 
 pharmacopoeia, Sophy, her youngest sister, 
 was married to a Yorkshire curate. Rachel's 
 life scarcely knew another event until, some 
 fifteen years later, old Pilkington died, 
 leaving his daughters to face the world on 
 a pittance of about a hundred a year each. 
 
 They had so long sat together in a pleasant 
 breakfast parlour doing nothing that need 
 have been done, and trying not to tread, 
 metaphorically, on each other's toes, that 
 they unanimously decided to part company 
 at once. Eliza elected to live in Dilchester, 
 and Rachel, intensely conservative, faithful 
 and affectionate — Rachel, who felt her 
 native village to be the hub of the universe 
 and was not without the rather comforting 
 idea that, if she left, the hub would not
 
 ISO BASSET 
 
 work — took the White Cottage, about four 
 doors from the Benets', and settled in Basset 
 for ever. 
 
 She was at this time five and fiftj^ — five 
 and fifty being then a good ten years older 
 than it is now. She was liberal and generous 
 to a fault, devoutly religious, and with great 
 purity and simplicitj^ of nature. She laid 
 up for herself no treasure on earth; let not 
 her left hand know what her right hand did; 
 blessed them which cursed her, and prayed 
 for them that despitefully used her; or, in 
 other words, had most of the qualities which 
 exasperate sensible people, spell failure for 
 this world, and are the ideal attributes of 
 the Sermon on the JNIount. 
 
 It must be added that, at the same time, 
 Rachel was warmlj^ human. She was very 
 glad to be parted from her sisters, though she 
 was very sorry she was glad. She had, as 
 had all the Pilkingtons, a great deal of family 
 pride. On the strength of their descent from 
 a mythical Sir Pjdke, who had — of course — 
 come over with the Conqueror, they were all 
 imbued with the comfortable idea that, as 
 a family, they could not possibly do wrong. 
 Rachel was about four feet two inches high, 
 but felt quite tall, on the principle that a
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 151 
 
 Pilkington must inevitably be the right 
 height; M'hile the same faith in the family 
 infallibility caused her loyally to think that 
 old Pilkington had done well in living, as 
 Harry Latimer put it, like a fighting cock, 
 and leaving his daughters to penury. 
 
 It was naturally a dreadful wrench to 
 Rachel to leave the Rectory; and when she 
 saw Peter Grant's coarse and shabby effects 
 being moved into parlours hitherto sacred 
 to Pilkingtons, and into the room where 
 Rachel's mother had died — years and years 
 ago — she had to take to her bed for three or 
 four days, quite ill from agitation. The 
 calming powders Dr. Benet administered did 
 her less good than his wife's visit of sympathy, 
 when the expression on old Jeannie's face 
 clearly showed that she thought Miss Pilking- 
 ton a fool. 
 
 She soon settled down, however, to her 
 new life- — with a faint regret for past afflu- 
 ence, but soothed by the feeling that, what- 
 ever Fate did, one, after all, remained a Pil- 
 kington — and accepted her straitened cir- 
 cumstances with great courage and cheerful- 
 ness. 
 
 Not at all clever in anything else, she 
 managed gifts and benefactions to the
 
 152 BASSET 
 
 poor out of her hundred per annum — 
 miraculous, hke the loaves and fishes of the 
 Gospel. When such charity threatened really 
 disastrous effects on her exchequer — a small, 
 green silk, netted purse — she paid a visit to 
 ]Mr. Rastrick, in whom her faith personally 
 was even greater than her faith in man 
 generally as the creature appointed by Provi- 
 dence to manage money, business, firearms, 
 and emergencies generally. 
 
 Had old Rastrick wished, he could easily 
 have cheated her of her whole little fortune — 
 only, God tempers the wind to the shorn 
 lamb, and he did not so wish. Rachel would 
 leave his office, sorry that a new shawl was 
 imjiossible for her, since her crippled nephew 
 must have that winter coat — with her usual 
 cheerful, j^leasant expression of countenance, 
 and vaguely feeling enlightened. 
 
 But, of course, it was not only in giving 
 that Rachel was generous and foolish. 
 
 When she heard Eliza was ill, she imme- 
 diately and impulsively borrowed Farmer 
 Finch's chaise, and posted off to Dilchester, 
 armed with shawls, a warming-pan, and soup 
 reluctantly made bj^ Sarah — her sour, sharp 
 servant who had been one of the Rectory 
 housemaids and had now taken JNliss Rachel
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 153 
 
 in charge. Rachel was not deterred from re- 
 peating such kindness by the fact that Eliza 
 jjointed out tartly that if she had wished for 
 Rachel's aid she could have asked for it. 
 Eliza also hinted plainly that she had but a 
 low opinion of people who had so little to 
 do that they could leave their home and 
 duties at any moment. 
 
 Two of Rachel's firmest convictions were 
 that all clergymen are always right, and that 
 her father could do no wrong; and when she 
 saw Peter Grant conducting — or non-con- 
 ducting — the services and himself in a man- 
 ner of which Mr. Pilkington could never 
 have approved, she found it hard to reconcile 
 these tenets. 
 
 Her religion — that religion which made 
 her not only religious but good — had once 
 been pure delight to her. 
 
 But her intuitions detected the lifeless- 
 ness and formalism of those discourses of old 
 Grant's, written for nobody in particular, by 
 nobody in particular. The ragged condition 
 of his preaching gown was a real distress to 
 her. The deteriorated band not only grated 
 dreadfully on her musical ear, but jarred, by 
 its casual and whispering behaviour, on her 
 reverent soul. It was an agony to her to see
 
 154 BASSET 
 
 Rover — of whom she was moreover very timid 
 ■ — sacrilegiously strolling into the chancel 
 whenever he thought fit. But she was such 
 a really pious woman that on one occasion, in 
 the Litany, when she saw a mouse in the 
 corner of her neglected pew — as it were, men- 
 acing her — she kept quite a quarter of her 
 devout attention on the service, and only 
 three parts on the enemy. Sarah was sent 
 up to the pew next day with a mouse-trap; 
 and also — it was really necessary — brought 
 with her a patent blackbeetle exterminator, 
 invented by a Pilkington grandmother. 
 
 In fiction, the typical old maid always 
 spends her evening weeping " over the 
 shoulder knot that sleeps within her cuff- 
 box," or pondering over the dear, dead days 
 of love and youth. 
 
 There had been no love — in a sense, hardly 
 any real youth — for Rachel. She had always 
 been without that exquisite illusiveness — 
 called charm; and for the only pursuit then 
 permitted to women, the pursuit of a hus- 
 band, she had had too much pride and 
 delicacy. So not having even a dog or a 
 Cause like a modern spinster, she sat alone 
 in the long evenings; sometimes divested the 
 harp of its green baize suit, and sang to it;
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 155 
 
 and, if it had not been one of the best 
 established Pilkington traditions that the 
 whole family inevitably sang true, would 
 have fancied the thinness and sharpness of 
 old age in her voice. 
 
 One day, when Basset was still gaping 
 and gasping at the new plate on the doctors' 
 doors, Rachel received a letter from her 
 sister Sophy; and, the letter arriving in the 
 morning, saved it to enjoy over her evening 
 tea. Not that Sophj^'s letters were generally 
 enjoyable, the first sheet being, as a rule, 
 filled with lamentations on her poverty, and 
 the second with envy of Rachel's superior 
 wealth and comforts; for, as Sophy very 
 justly said, a single woman is rich on a 
 hundred pounds a year compared with a 
 family of seven, exclusive of parents, on 
 two hundred and fifty. 
 
 But this evening, Miss Pilkington, study- 
 ing the closely written sheets, was surprised 
 to find that Sophy began, not by pitying her- 
 self, but by pitying her. She was sure dear 
 Rachel must often find Basset very dull! 
 
 Rachel laid down the letter, not a little 
 astonished and affronted. The very idea that 
 the birth-place of the family should be criti- 
 cised, appeared to her almost sacrilegious.
 
 156 BASSET 
 
 Dull! when she knew every man, woman, 
 and child in it ; when she had onty to look out 
 of her parlour window to see INIrs. Benet in 
 her best shawl and bonnet, going — wtII, 
 where could she be going? or JNIiss Fitten 
 staggering under a vast brown paper parcel, 
 evidently somebody's new gown — ^but whose? 
 
 Dull? What was Sophy thinking of? 
 
 That was evident, even to Rachel's un- 
 suspiciousness, when, on the next sheet, 
 Soj)hy proceeded to say that she had long 
 thought what a delightful companion Ann, 
 her eldest daughter, would be for her aunt 
 Rachel, and to propose that Rachel should 
 have her to live with her. Having stated on 
 page two that every additional mouth to feed 
 was dreadfully exj)ensive for the Thornberys, 
 did not prevent Sophy boldly representing on 
 page four that Ann " could not make any 
 difference " to Rachel. Sarah, said Sophy — 
 knowing Sarah and Rachel too — need not be 
 consulted. 
 
 A business-like postscript added that Ann 
 having the prospect of a reliable escort as far 
 as Burkham, by the coach arriving there on 
 Thursday week, did not Rachel think it 
 would be a great pity to miss such a provi- 
 dential opportunity?
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 157 
 
 Given Rachel's weakness and strong sense 
 of duty, it should scarcely be necessary to 
 say that on Thursday week she was standing 
 at her door, with her cheeks flushed and her 
 eyes very kind and bright, expecting Ann. 
 When a chaise drew up, and a slight figure 
 descended, much disguised in shabby and 
 miscellaneous wraps, Rachel drew her niece 
 closely to her, and having found a very 
 lovely and roselike face in the depths of a 
 bonnet, kissed it with real warmth and af- 
 fection. 
 
 As they sat at the generous tea Rachel 
 had provided, she could scarcely eat any- 
 thing for delighting in Ann's prettiness. 
 She was already looking forward to j^roudly 
 introducing her to Basset. Then, remember- 
 ing if she had gained, her niece had certainly 
 lost, kind Rachel leant forward, patted Ann's 
 little hand, and said warmly, she quite under- 
 stood how Ann must have felt parting from 
 her parents and brothers and sisters. 
 
 Sensibility was a virtue then, not a vice, 
 as now. Ann raised her eyes — they were as 
 calm and blue as a spring sky — to Rachel's, 
 and said in her soft, even voice, she had felt 
 it dreadfully, but was sure she was going to 
 be very happy with her aunt.
 
 158 BASSET 
 
 In the evening, Rachel forgot her netting 
 to watch that exquisite head, with its meek 
 braids of fair hair, outlined against the sam- 
 pler hanging on the wall; the carmine and 
 lilies of the face bent over some needlework; 
 and the slender, round arm, showing through 
 the muslin sleeve. When Ann had gone to 
 bed, Rachel began a prematurely enthusiastic 
 letter to Sophy to say what a very pretty, 
 dear girl she found her niece. 
 
 Rachel enjoyed, very likely, as much as 
 Ann, the admiration in Pollie's honest eyes 
 when, the next morning, Mrs. Latimer, as 
 leading lady in the village and in duty bound, 
 paid a morning call on the newcomer; and 
 properly aj^preciated the frank, rude, com- 
 plimentary stares in which INIrs. Benet in- 
 dulged when she called. 
 
 At church, on the very first Sunday Ann 
 accomjDanied her there, Rachel was quite 
 excited by the glances thrown at her com- 
 panion. She strongly suspected JNIark Spen- 
 cer of having changed his seat from one 
 corner of his green-baize pew to another 
 with the express purpose of getting a better 
 view of Ann; though, to be sure, his new 
 post commanded an improved outlook, 
 not only on Miss Pilkington's, but on the
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 159 
 
 Manor pew and on the clerk and parson as 
 well. 
 
 It was, very reprehensibly, during the 
 sermon that it occurred to Rachel that her 
 niece was very poorly dressed. On that 
 Sunday evening, as Ann read aloud to her 
 aunt — in just the same gentle voice as she 
 had read a recipe for damson cheese the 
 night before — some of those verses of George 
 Herbert, whose quaint piety brought tears 
 into Rachel's eyes, it flashed into her mind 
 that she might part with the marrow-spoon. 
 
 Rachel loved every item of her share of 
 the family silver, as if it had been a relation. 
 But, all the same, on Monday she unearthed 
 from the little plate-chest in her bedroom the 
 long silver object^ — something like a giant 
 pen-holder — with which three generations of 
 Pilkingtons had extracted the small portion 
 of marrow which resides in the hollow bone 
 that accompanies boiled beef; and profanely 
 sold it to the Dilchester silversmith. 
 
 Wlien she saw Ann next Sunday in the 
 sweetest straw bonnet, with ribbons as blue 
 as her eyes, the little aunt knew she must 
 complete the sacrifice with the shawl which 
 had been her own mother's — which she had 
 reverenced too deeply to wear herself.
 
 i6o BASSET 
 
 Ann was genuinely delighted with these 
 presents. Whether the sentiment in them 
 touched her at all, Rachel could not tell. 
 She looked up at her niece as they walked 
 back from church — Ann was but a little 
 creature bj^ modern measures, but a tall 
 woman beside Aunt Pilkington — wondered if 
 Ann had a very warm heart, and reproached 
 herself that she wondered. 
 
 That she had a very serene temper and a 
 very orderly mind, there was no doubt. She 
 played spillikins with her aunt, or listened 
 tranquilly to stories of Pilkington palmy days 
 and ancestors, by the hour together. She 
 picked up dropped stitches of knitting with 
 admirable patience; and, the bird being com- 
 mitted to her charge, never once forgot to 
 give him seed and water, and decently cover 
 up his cage whenever the hall-door bell pre- 
 saged a visitor. 
 
 Yet her amiability did not come from 
 stupidit}^ 
 
 She saved Rachel more than one visit to 
 Mr. Rastrick, and introduced a better method 
 of unravelling knott}" points in accounts than 
 the simple one Rachel had hitherto adopted — 
 that of neatly cutting out the page where 
 they refused to balance with a j)air of em-
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE i6i 
 
 broidery scissors, letting bygones be bygones, 
 and starting afresh with as much " in hand " 
 as fate and bad management had left in the 
 green silk purse. 
 
 After Ann had been at the White Cottage 
 about a fortnight, news came from Y^orkshire 
 that her crippled brother was seriously ill. 
 Imj)ulsive Rachel was all for packing her 
 niece home, then and there, that she might 
 be in time to receive his last kiss. However, 
 Ann raised the thoroughly sound objection of 
 the expense of the journey, and observed 
 that children always pulled through illnesses 
 — very sensibly, as it turned out, the next 
 post bringing news of Frank's improvement. 
 
 Somehow, after this little episode, there 
 was— if this be not to put it too strongly — a 
 faint mistrust in Rachel's kind eyes when 
 they looked at her niece. 
 
 Was pretty Ann altogether too good to be 
 true? Rachel was not perfectly sure. 
 
 She sat long sometimes looking into the 
 little fire (which, the spring being cold, Sarah 
 still kindly permitted her) , thinking, when 
 Ann had gone to bed. At times she won- 
 dered, foolishly no doubt, if she were not 
 almost more lonely now than she had been 
 before her niece came. Those quick, lively
 
 1 62 BASSET 
 
 feelings always bubbling up in her own heart, 
 seemed to find no response in Ann's. Though 
 Ann's manner to her aunt was perfectly 
 respectful, yet Rachel felt — nay, knew — that 
 Ann despised her for having managed mat- 
 ters so badly as to be left a penniless old 
 maid, when other women, with less advan- 
 tages, had a husband and consideration. 
 To-night, too, the darkly uncharitable idea 
 actually suggested itself to her that, though 
 Ann might be nearly as horrified at telling 
 a good, round lie as w^ould Rachel herself, she 
 might play false all the same. 
 
 The inaugural tea-party wdiich JMiss Pil- 
 kington gave presently to introduce Ann to 
 Basset society, did not succeed in making her 
 known to its mankind; when the White Cot- 
 tage issued invitations thej% with one consent, 
 began to make excuse. 
 
 However, the very next morning, when 
 she and Rachel were walking in the village, 
 Harry Latimer, who was riding with his son, 
 pulled up and had a much longer talk with 
 JMiss Pilkington than he would, perhaps, have 
 indulged in if there had been no Ann, bloom- 
 ing like a rose, by her side. 
 
 It w^as, after all, only natural that Rachel, 
 having repeatedly told Ann all the legends of
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 163 
 
 the Pilkingtons' Rectory days, Ann should at 
 last express a strong wish to see her ancestral 
 home for herself. Good-natured Mrs. Lati- 
 mer, hearing of the wish, offered her 
 chaperonage; a day was appointed, and the 
 three ladies paid Peter a solemn forenoon 
 visit. 
 
 Peter, of course, was caught red-handed, 
 as he always was, smoking, and in clothes 
 so disgraceful that Grandpapa Pilkington 
 would have died rather than be seen in 
 them. The deep gloom that settled on his 
 face when he realized he had been entrapped 
 by visitors, was patent to one of them. He 
 asked news of Mrs. Latimer of his friend 
 Tommy, and made no further contribution to 
 the conversation. Pollie presently suggested 
 that JNIiss Thornbery would like to see the 
 garden — now freshly dressed in April green 
 — and the four, Peter and Ann leading, 
 peregrinated round it — Peter never uttering 
 a word, and taking no more interest in Ann 
 than if she had been a gooseberry bush. 
 
 When the party returned to the library, 
 Ann, undaunted, asked very prettily if she 
 might borrow one of grandpapa's books; and 
 chose a dusty tome. In a week or two, she 
 returned the book to Parson Grant, with an
 
 1 64 BASSET 
 
 admirably written little note, saying she was 
 very grateful for the loan of books, as her 
 aunt had so few. That idiot Peter dropped 
 the note into the paper-basket, without even 
 seeing the suggestion it contained. Ann 
 passed totally and immediately out of his 
 recollection, and the episode of Mr. Grant 
 and JNIiss Thornbery was finally closed. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Ann complained of a 
 pain in her arm, which she thought required 
 a doctor. 
 
 Her lovely complexion and the clear 
 brightness of her eyes appeared, even to 
 ]Miss Pilkington, to be quite unimpaired; but 
 an indoor life and much attention to health 
 had made Rachel chronicalty nervous about 
 it, and she rephed that she would send for 
 Dr. Benet. Ann answered that she thought, 
 Auntie, Dr. Benet was getting very old, and 
 papa always liked his children to have a 
 j^oung doctor if possible, so would there be 
 any harm in having Dr. Spencer instead? 
 Perplexity showed in Rachel's eyes and fore- 
 head. The proprieties surely demanded that 
 a young woman's medical adviser should not 
 be a young man! The pain, to be sure, was 
 situated ver}^ decently at j)resent in Ann's 
 arm. But then, it might move. Besides,
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 165 
 
 though the doctors were in partnership, the 
 old man might yet have feehngs about the 
 young one being preferred before him. 
 
 However, Rachel yielded to the very 
 gentle persistence by which Ann always had 
 her own way. Only, as luck would have it, 
 Mark was absent for the whole day in Dil- 
 chester, and old Benet came in his place. 
 The pain in the arm did not seem to him at 
 all serious. At least, he simj)ly sent for its 
 relief a bottle of white liquid which smelt, 
 felt, and looked exactly like water, and said 
 he need not call again. 
 
 Three days later, Rachel and the patient 
 received an invitation to a small evening 
 party at INIrs. Benet's. 
 
 If truth be told, Mrs. Benet's parties 
 were not much more exhilarating than Miss 
 Pilkington's, but they had the merit of being 
 rarer. 
 
 On the present occasion, Mark Spencer, 
 Mrs. Rastrick from Dilchester, Rachel and 
 Ann found themselves, with their host and 
 hostess, at six o'clock in the evening, in Mrs. 
 Benet's best parlour — with its furniture 
 clothed in covers of green and purple wool, 
 artificial fruit under one glass case, pink 
 wax fox and hoimds under another, the
 
 1 66 BASSET 
 
 wool parrots leering with their boot-buttons 
 of eyes from the mantelj)iece, and, pervading 
 the room, the cold smell of disuse. 
 
 JNIrs. Rastrick, who was a complaining 
 elderly lady in a large turban, sat next to 
 Miss Pilkington, and breathed into her 
 always sympathetic ear laments on life, 
 husbands, and servants. Rachel punctuated 
 the stories by nodding her head very interest-' 
 edly and emphatically, and racked her brain 
 for methods of helping jNIrs. Rastrick — JNIrs. 
 Rastrick being in every respect immeasurably 
 more capable and fortunate than Rachel her- 
 self. Dr. Benet chatted cheerily to Ann, 
 who was delightfully fresh and dimpled in a 
 much- washed muslin; and Spencer's tete-a- 
 tete with his hostess was considerably inter- 
 rupted by that lady keeping one eye on Ann's 
 apjjcarance and character, and the other on 
 the door, anticipating that iVIaggie would be 
 late with the tea. 
 
 After the banquet — genteelly handed on 
 a tray — the four elders settled down to com- 
 merce, played for a very little money. Ann 
 was provided as entertainments with a volume 
 of " The Keepsake," and with Dr. Mark 
 Spencer. 
 
 Spencer was by no means an impassive
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 167 
 
 old dullard like Peter Grant. He was not at 
 all insensible to the charms of Ann's ex- 
 quisite youth; to the sweep of the dark lashes 
 on her cheek, as she looked down at the 
 book in her lap; to the cool and fragrant air 
 that hung about her; and to her good breed- 
 ing. Nor was she more difficult to talk to 
 than many an ugly woman, and Spencer 
 easily sustained with her a not thrillingly 
 interesting conversation. He was quite aware 
 — and amused, not disconcerted, at the 
 knowledge — that Mrs. Benet was listening 
 to every word of it, while she kept at the 
 same time a brisk mastery over her hand of 
 cards. 
 
 When the game was over, Maggie, who 
 was panting by now as if the party had been 
 a race, brought in the tray again — on this 
 occasion containing cakes and wine and 
 water. 
 
 Precisely at nine o'clock, Mrs. Rastrick, 
 having exchanged the large turban for a large 
 bonnet, and anticipating a bronchitis from 
 the night air, was packed into her chaise; 
 Sarah " fetched " Miss Pilkington and Ann 
 and escorted them to the White Cottage — 
 about twelve paces from the Benets' house. 
 Mrs. Benet reclad the best parlour in holland,
 
 1 68 BASSET 
 
 and covered her Sunday merino with a black 
 silk apron. She, Spencer and her old man 
 thankfully repaired to the living-room, where 
 she made a really good brew of tea in the old 
 brown teapot, which, of course, did its duty 
 much better than the grand silver one; 
 ]M aggie brought in a heaped dish of the 
 cakes and sandwiches which had survived the 
 party; each man took his accustomed, com- 
 fortable chair; and in ten minutes old Benet 
 was deep in his fifth reading of " Peter 
 Simple," his wife in Lady Blessington's last 
 novel "The Slaves of Society" (feeling she 
 had been in a measure one of them herself), 
 and ]Mark in the current Blackwood. 
 
 They read in a pleasant, sociable silence 
 for about half an hour. Then ^Irs. Benet 
 looked up at jNIark, and said, " Well, will she 
 do?" 
 
 Spencer laughed, " She wouldn't have me, 
 if I asked her," he answered, stretching out 
 his long legs, and contemplating the large 
 boots at the end of them. 
 
 "Oh!" says old Jeannie. "Well, if you 
 don't want her, don't ask her, that's all; " 
 and they relapsed into silence and their 
 books. 
 
 The next day, a bibulous old pensioner of
 
 THE WHITE COTTAGE 169 
 
 Rachel Pilkington's called upon her, demand- 
 ing — for that last time which never is the last 
 ' — a little monetary assistance. At the end of 
 their conversation, he begged her pardon, but 
 thought she and her miss would like to know 
 that the Chantry had been took, he couldn't 
 rightly say by who. 
 
 No one who has lived for any length of 
 time in a small, remote village will be greatly 
 surprised to hear, ten minutes after re- 
 ceiving this intelHgence, Ann and Miss 
 Pilkington were in their shawls and bonnets, 
 malving an excursion to Sir John's domain, 
 which was about a quarter of a mile away. 
 In its garden, they found the old gardener, 
 who acted as caretaker when the house was 
 empty. 
 
 He informed them that the news was 
 correct, and that in a week's time he expected 
 the tenants, whom he had not seen, and of 
 whom he knew nothing but their name — Mr. 
 and Mrs. Darbisher.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CHANTRY 
 
 The Chantry was a low, sunny house, with a 
 rose garden sloping to a terrace with a sun- 
 dial. In a pleasant oak-panelled parlour — 
 having a door and windows opening on the 
 garden — Lady Lucy, Sir John Railton's 
 mother, had been used to sit reading and 
 embroidering by a work-table, with its deep 
 well full of many coloured embroidery silks. 
 Little John used to plunge his small hands 
 into their softness, and always remembered 
 — for it is such trifles the memorj^ keeps 
 longest and clearest — the feeling and the 
 brightness of them. 
 
 Lady Lucy died when he was six, but he 
 might have said with Cowper, " Such was the 
 impression her tenderness made upon me, 
 though the opportunity she had for showing 
 it was so short," that her influence never 
 quite died out of his life. It was certainly 
 its associations with her wliich prevented him 
 from selling the Chantry. It bored him hor- 
 
 170
 
 THE CHANTRY 171 
 
 ribly, as has been said, when he came back to 
 it. But he Hked to think of it standing 
 there, as it had stood in her day, with the 
 same books and pictures and her Httle 
 mahogany writing-table — a feehng that did 
 not prevent him from letting it when luck 
 and times were bad. 
 
 The afternoon following Miss Pilkington's 
 and Ann's visit to the house, Rachel hap- 
 pened — providentially as she said — to be sit- 
 ting at her j^arlour window, when there came 
 through Basset at a trot a travelling carriage 
 much cumbered with luggage. 
 
 From it, a female head, rather gay as to its 
 bonnet and with a floating veil, constantly 
 emerged, to say something to a very young 
 horseman with a handsome boyish face and 
 the newest thing in riding-coats, who, as the 
 female head alwaj^s retired into the carriage 
 as quickly as it had popped out, might have 
 guessed to be somewhat curt and snubbing in 
 his replies. Dr. Benet, who was at his gate 
 dismounting from his gig as the carriage 
 passed, thought the emerging head was an 
 old woman's ; Miss Pilkington said the bonnet 
 would be a highly improper one for any 
 elderly person. 
 
 These conflicting opinions were settled by
 
 172 BASSET 
 
 Harry Latimer receiving a letter from a 
 friend, asking him to make welcome in Bas- 
 set the writer's sister and nephew, Mrs. 
 Darbisher and her son. 
 
 oNIrs. Darbisher was, in jDoint of fact, about 
 fifty; one of those clever, foolish, entertain- 
 ing and irresponsible women whom, for the 
 amusement and confusion of the world, we 
 have always with us, but who Avere perhaps 
 more common seventy years ago than they 
 are now, Julia Darbisher made up for a 
 lack of all education, except of the most 
 trivial and useless kind, by a much more 
 valuable asset — a great deal of mother-wit. 
 She had a verj^ lively imagination and a very 
 warm heart, a voluble and not scrupulously 
 truthful tongue; she was kind and easy-going 
 to a fault; extremely untidy, absolutely good- 
 natured — in brief, a charming person to have 
 as a friend, but a little difficult to deal with 
 as a relation. 
 
 She had been early left a widow ^vith an 
 onl}^ son and a sufficient, comfortable in- 
 come. 
 
 She had shamefully spoilt Lionel — and was 
 quite surprised that he became wilful and 
 undutiful. She had brought him up to think 
 himself suj^erior to every one — and then was
 
 THE CHANTRY 173 
 
 a little grieved to discover that he thought 
 himself superior to her. 
 
 He was, indeed, clever — though not, of 
 course, half so clever as he and she thought 
 — as well as honest and quick tempered, and 
 at twenty-two, very, very young indeed. 
 Though he had been brought up at his 
 mother's apron-strings — or at a private school 
 and a tutor's, which comes to almost the same 
 thing — he was no milk-sop. 
 
 After three years at Oxford, he had in- 
 sisted on travelling abroad, often out of the 
 beaten track — and that at a period when the 
 ordinary Briton made sure that a week's 
 feeding on anything but his own roast beef 
 would poison him — and had proved himself 
 to have grit and enterprise. It was not the 
 irksome fact that his mother held the purse- 
 strings — for she was, even in her own despite, 
 the most liberal of women — that recalled him 
 to England much sooner than he intended, 
 but the agonized anticipations in her letters 
 that every ship or diligence her dearest Li 
 entered would undoubtedly kill him, and the 
 fact, conveyed by an officious relative, that 
 anxiety was really making her ill. 
 
 Of course, he felt it due to himself to be 
 distinctly cross when he did return.
 
 174 BASSET 
 
 His mother's impressive horror at the free- 
 thinking opinions of a young Scotchman 
 Lionel had met on his travels, egged him on 
 to imply darkly that he himself shared them. 
 His strictures on the horrible tastelessness 
 and Philistinism — Lionel had natural good 
 taste, and was fresh from Italy — of the fur- 
 nished house she was then occupying, directly 
 led to their taking, for a few months, the 
 Chantry, by whose old-world charms Lionel 
 had been attracted. 
 
 There was a certain amount of shooting 
 attached to Sir John's domain. Lionel had 
 caused a fine cartload of books to precede 
 him at the Chantry, for, as fate seemed to be 
 against his adopting the role of a celebrated 
 traveller, he was now trying to make uji his 
 mind as to whether he should become a 
 Shelley or a Bj^on, or merely one of the 
 gentlemen who hewed and hacked them in 
 the Quarterly or the Edinburgh. His 
 mother's belief in his capacity to do or be 
 anything he liked was not greater than his 
 own; only she annoyed him because she made 
 him absurd by showing it and talking 
 about it. 
 
 A further argument for living in Basset 
 was, that everybody there was to know there,
 
 THE CHANTRY 175 
 
 the Darbishers would know, through their 
 introduction to the Latimers. On the whole, 
 Lionel was disposed to think he might have 
 a very tolerably enjoyable time; while, so 
 excellent a training had he given his mother 
 in unselfishness, that if he were happy — and 
 safe — he could certainly conclude she would 
 be happy too. 
 
 As soon as might be, and in duty bound, 
 Mrs. Latimer put on her new spring pelisse 
 and called at the Chantry. Mrs. Darbisher 
 greeted her with the liveliest warmth and 
 good-nature, and was so natural and amus- 
 ing, PoUie quite enjoyed the visit. Dar- 
 bisher himself did not come in till she was 
 just going away. She liked his handsome, 
 fresh-coloured, boyish face, and a certain 
 simplicity and frankness that kept peeping 
 up, as it were, through a rather grave, grand 
 manner. 
 
 She fixed a day on the spot for the new- 
 comers to dine at the Manor. 
 
 On the evening appointed, Lionel sur- 
 veyed his mother with a sternly critical 
 anxiety when she came down into the par- 
 lour equipped for the evening. The truth 
 was, that Mrs. Darbisher's clothing always 
 had an alarming appearance of being very
 
 176 BASSET 
 
 insecurely fastened on, and that at a dinner- 
 party, a very few months earlier, her turban, 
 ornamented with a bird of paradise, had 
 actually fallen from her head among the 
 dishes and silver on the table, revealing an 
 extremely scantj^ grc}" coiffure. Lionel's rage 
 and agonj^ at this accident were quite 
 j^athetic, and were not at all lessened by the 
 fact that his mother took it as an excellent 
 joke. 
 
 He had spoken to her so severely about it 
 that this evening she came into the room, 
 with one hand at the turban, saying, " I 
 assure you, Lionel, it's perfectly safe, for I 
 can feel several of the pins actually running 
 into my head." 
 
 Lionel replied, with great solemnity, that 
 he was glad to hear it. 
 
 He was so very sensitive and priggish and 
 j^oung, that his mother would have laughed 
 if she had dared; as it was, she only per- 
 mitted herself a smile as she looked up at 
 him rather deprecatingly, as they drove away 
 together. He warned her on the brief drive 
 — to be sure, it was quite necessary— of 
 several things it would be much better if she 
 did not say; and she replied, with a twinkle in 
 her humorous eyes, and perhaps a shadow
 
 THE CHANTRY 177 
 
 iii them too, that she really would try to re- 
 member. 
 
 One other guest had preceded them at the 
 Manor, Dr. Spencer. 
 
 Lionel Darbisher said afterwards that 
 PoUie's drawing-room set his teeth on edge. 
 But Spencer, who also had taste, both natural 
 and cultivated, liked it, while it amused him. 
 That is, he had the sort of affection one does 
 have for homely, ugly, familiar things — for 
 the great drab carpet spread with magnolias; 
 the wool covers Pollie's own busy hands had 
 worked to preserve the magnificence of the 
 satin and rosewood suite; the twin sofas, 
 also wool-worked, on which one could by no 
 means lie; the cabinet with the wax roses in 
 it; and the marble mantelpiece, where a 
 large Dresden china shepherd piped to a 
 shepherdess over the head of a dainty ala- 
 baster lady, holding up an exquisitely 
 wrought lace skirt, under a glass shade. 
 
 Occasionally — not often — when Spencer 
 dined with the Latimers, he arrived ten 
 minutes too early, and, while his host was 
 engaged in the solemn business of getting up 
 the wine, spent them with his hostess. 
 
 He would sit on the edge of one of those 
 uncomfortable sofas, playing with Dim's silky
 
 178 BASSET 
 
 ear, while Pollie, almost lost in the depths 
 of a great chair opposite, lifted her ardent 
 face and talked to him — as one who has been 
 living among strangers talks to a friend, re- 
 found. Spencer did not himself say much — 
 what he said, he noticed she remembered and 
 spoke of when they met again — but, reading 
 his Browning long after, and recalling the 
 soft glow and change — the wonder, life, 
 eagerness in her face — he thought it was 
 not only Evelyn Ho23e who was made of 
 " spirit, fire and dew." 
 
 But politeness had not permitted him — or 
 he had not permitted himself — to be more 
 than ten minutes too soon, and the Dar- 
 bishers came in and were introduced. The 
 onh" other guest that evening was Peter 
 Grant, who was late, and unconscious of it. 
 
 Some of the party certainly enjoj^ed them- 
 selves, but Lionel Darbisher was not one of 
 them. Mrs. Darbisher had made Harry 
 laugh consummately before he had finished 
 ladling out the soup; and the fish was still 
 on the table — soles at one end, turbot at the 
 other — when oNIrs. Darbisher was clearly 
 heard by the whole company to say, " ]\Iy 
 son Li is very clever indeed, you know, ]Mr. 
 Latimer — aren't you, Buppy?"
 
 THE CHANTRY 179 
 
 Now, to be called " Li," with its reflection 
 on his veracity, was annoying to Lionel, but 
 to be addressed by his baby-name " Buppy," 
 with its off^ensive nearness to " puppy," was 
 worse; while even a person neither vain nor 
 young would have felt foolish at having his 
 cleverness pointed out to a party of people 
 who had obviously not noticed it. 
 
 He said, "Certainly not, ma'am!" with 
 great indignation and a very hot face. 
 
 Mrs. Darbisher did not make matters 
 better by adding that, of course, Li's was not 
 the stupid sort of cleverness which passes 
 examinations, and that he had, in fact, come 
 down from Oxford without troubling much 
 about them. 
 
 By this time, compassionate Pollie was 
 really sorry for the unhappy youth, in his 
 resplendent waistcoat and fashionable black 
 satin stock; Spencer, who was peculiarly 
 intolerant of silly women, felt contemp- 
 tuous of the mother; Parson Grant noticed 
 nothing; Harry, enjoying himself vastly, was 
 taking wine with Mrs. Darbisher, and leading 
 her on to fresh witticisms and enormities; 
 and the unhappiest of the party was that 
 humorous lady herself, who was acutely con- 
 scious of her son's disajjproval, and egged on
 
 i8o BASSET 
 
 by it to desperation and a yet more reckless 
 use of her gift of making other people laugh. 
 
 When the women had gone into the 
 drawing-room, and " the usual procession of 
 bottles . . . with their Christian names in 
 silver round their necks " went its way down 
 the table, Spencer's soft heart, and recollec- 
 tions of his own youth perhaps, made him 
 draw his chair to young Darbisher's, and 
 pour a little oil and wine into the boy's 
 wounds by talking to him as if he were ten 
 years older than, to look at liim, he possibly 
 could be. 
 
 Darbisher was really going to be clever, 
 and had not made his travels with his eyes 
 shut; he was a sportsman, with something 
 besides sport to talk about; and Spencer only 
 smiled inwardly at the height and the 
 breadth of his ambitions. For at two and 
 twenty every man is going to conquer the 
 world; five and thirtj'' may well look 
 back compassionately at such fine dreams. 
 Besides, Spencer liked the boy's in- 
 genuous face, and there was something 
 rather touching in that youthful conceit. 
 
 Lionel quite began to enjo}^ liimself pres- 
 ently, when he got hold of Parson Grant and 
 poured defiantly into his old ear the objec-
 
 THE CHANTRY 
 
 I8l 
 
 tions to the miraculous which Lionel had 
 obtained from his Scotch friend, and the 
 Scotch friend from Mr. David Hume. 
 
 It would have taken a very outrageous 
 scepticism to rouse Peter. He had no argu- 
 ments to advance in favour of Balaam's ass 
 really having spoken, or Joshua's sun really 
 having stood still, except that he supposed 
 they did, as the people who were there at 
 tlie time said so. Then he filled his glass, 
 sipped his port, and asked Lionel if the 
 shooting prospects in the Chantry coverts 
 were good. 
 
 In the drawing-room, Mrs. Darbisher had 
 told Pollie all Lionel's history, from the time 
 he was in long clothes, and had earnestly be- 
 sought her advice (like all people who con- 
 stantly ask advice, Mrs. Darbisher never took 
 it) as to the best way of dealing with a son 
 who scorned her behests and scolded her 
 much more than she had ever dared to scold 
 him. 
 
 Mrs. Darbisher's extreme volubility saved 
 Pollie the useless trouble of giving any 
 counsel. Just before talk and laughter in the 
 hall, heralded the approach of the rest of 
 the party, ]\Irs. Darbisher hurriedly said she 
 had been regretting all the evening that Mr.
 
 1 82 BASSET 
 
 Latimer, pleasant as he was, was alive at all, 
 as she distinctly saw that Pollie's was a 
 character any woman would be thankful for 
 in her son's wife. 
 
 Lionel was extremely severe and silent on 
 the homeward drive; and when his mother 
 said, apparently apropos of nothing, but in 
 fact in allusion to the turban, " I assure you, 
 Buppy dear, — that is, Lionel — it didn't even 
 wobble," and laughed a little, he received the 
 remark with perfect disdain. 
 
 Mrs. Darbisher was awake the greater 
 part of the night, admonishing herself as an 
 old fool, and shedding a few tears over 
 Lionel's undutif ulness ; while Lionel came 
 down to breakfast, after a very good eight 
 hours' sleep, a little less condemnatory, and 
 aware that, though he found his mother an- 
 noying, he was fond of her. 
 
 It was rather unfortunate that his repent- 
 ance took the form of accompanying her to 
 the Basset shop the next morning, for, into 
 that small, dark, sticky emporium, when ISIrs. 
 Darbisher was trying to think what she had 
 come to buy, and Lionel, much bored, was 
 looking at the boots, string and hams 
 suspended from the ceihng, there entered two 
 ladies.
 
 THE CHANTRY 183 
 
 Without a moment's warning, Mrs. Dar- 
 bisher threw her arms round the elder of 
 them, would have kissed her, only poke bon- 
 nets prevented, and said impulsively, " My 
 dear — now, ai'e you Mary Anne or Sophy? 
 I am delighted to see you! And who ever 
 would have thought of meeting you here!" 
 
 Lionel had become dreadfully used by 
 now — that is, if any one could get used 
 to such things — to his mother impulsively 
 meeting and greeting dearest old friends, 
 warmly asldng them to stay with her, and 
 then confessing she had quite forgotten their 
 names. To the argument that one does not 
 love a woman less because her name is, or is 
 not, Jane or Matilda, Lionel listened with 
 very scant patience, and said he did not care 
 to have people invited to the house— it was 
 not his house, but he seldom remembered 
 that — whose very names were a mystery. 
 
 However, on this occasion. Miss Pilking- 
 ton, for it was she, unravelled the knot by 
 saying she was not Sophy or Mary Anne but 
 Rachel, and by perfectly recollecting having 
 met Mrs. Darbisher, then unmarried, staying 
 at the house of a mutual and distant cousin, 
 some five and twenty years earlier. 
 
 Miss Pilkington was a good deal flustered;
 
 1 84 BASSET 
 
 but to be connected with the Pilkingtons, 
 however remotely, hall-marked any one in 
 her eyes as solid silver. She forgave Mrs. 
 Darbisher that undoubted flightiness of man- 
 ner and appearance, and accepted her 
 promiscuous invitations quite warmly. 
 
 Lionel was so annoyed with the whole i^ro- 
 ceedings that he continued to gaze pointedly, 
 with a heightened colour in his face, at the 
 boots and hams; and never once looked at 
 Ann, modest and charming in the back- 
 ground. Xor did he particularly look at 
 her when they were presently introduced, 
 being entirely engrossed in his anxiety to 
 get his mother away and prevent her from 
 making herself — or was it from making him? 
 — absurd. He was decidedly gruff as they 
 walked home, and when JNIrs. Darbisher 
 rashly observed how very fond she had 
 always been of Rachel Pilkington, could not 
 help observing, " You seem to have got on 
 verj^ well without her for the last quarter 
 of a century, ma'am." 
 
 Darbisher was not present when ^liss 
 Pilkington and Ann paid their duty call at 
 the Chantry. Good-naturedly warned by 
 Harry Latimer of the exceeding tedium of 
 Miss Pilkington's tea-parties, he declined to
 
 THE CHANTRY 185 
 
 attend the first of those functions, and his 
 mother went alone. 
 
 Old Mrs. Benet, meeting Ann one day — 
 Ann was not sure that she very much liked 
 Mrs. Benet — inquired if she knew the new 
 young man up at the Chantry, and when Ann 
 said she had onl}^ seen him once for two 
 minutes, Mrs. Benet observed, " Well, that's a 
 pity, that is; he ought to be in love with you 
 by this time ; " and Ann blushed, without look- 
 ing foolish, as any one else would have done. 
 
 In due course, she and Miss Pilkington 
 spent a IMay evening with the Darbishers; 
 the two elders recalled old times in Lady 
 Lucy's parlour, while Lionel took Ann round 
 the rose-garden. 
 
 As his attention was not so much centred 
 on himself this time, he perceived what a 
 lovely little creature — she just reached 
 Lionel's stalwart shoulder — Ann was. Be- 
 fore they left the parlour, she had drawn a 
 book out of the shelf — had Pollie Latimer 
 told her of Lionel's literary aspirations, or 
 was it merely a bow she always drew at a 
 venture? — and asked him if he were a great 
 reader. As they strolled up and down the 
 sundial path, Lionel was soon pouring into 
 her ear some of his cleverest literary aspira-
 
 1 86 BASSET 
 
 tions and ideas; and found her calm silence 
 and sympathy very soothing after his 
 mother's commonplace, and often very com- 
 monsense, criticisms, beginning, " But Buppy 
 dear," with which she brought his fine 
 theories down, with a thud, from the reahns 
 of fancy to the hard and vulgar earth of fact. 
 
 When they were recalled to the parlour — 
 by JNIrs. Darbisher vaguely waving a parasol 
 in their direction out of the glass-door — that 
 ladj^'s irresponsible tongue was wagging on 
 merril}^ as usual, while what should have been 
 a precise bow in her cap had come unstitched 
 and was falling over her ample face in a 
 streamer. 
 
 It was almost impossible for her son to 
 help comparing mentally JNIiss Thornbery's 
 composed neatness with the maternal un- 
 tidiness. Perhaps Mrs. Darbisher — unwise 
 jieople being often very sharp — detected the 
 comparison, for when the visitors had gone, 
 she looked attentively at Lionel, and sighed 
 as she said, " A very dainty, sweet girl, I 
 think, don't you, dear?" — and Lionel had 
 the temerity to say that he had not noticed. 
 
 He was at some pains to account for his 
 ready acceptance of JNIiss Pilkington's next 
 invitation; having dubbed the first tea-jiarty
 
 THE CHANTRY 187 
 
 entirely beneath the attention of his sex; 
 and Mrs. Darbisher only just strangled in 
 the utterance a rash remark on the extra 
 smartness of Lionel's attire, as he and she 
 started for that festivity. 
 
 Next, there came an expedition to Dil- 
 chester — in which Pollie, the chaperon, drove 
 Ann into that town in the low phaeton, 
 Latimer and Darbisher riding — with some 
 shopping and a five o'clock dinner at " The 
 Case is Altered " as goal. 
 
 Pollie had made up her mind as to Ann's 
 character by this time — and kept her own 
 counsel. Life had taught her nothing if not 
 the perfect good nature and obstinacy of 
 Harry's judgment of his friends, and she did 
 not try to alter it. " A very pretty girl, and 
 all you women are so deucedly jealous," 
 would have been Harry's comment on any 
 criticism of hers. 
 
 She was earnestly engaged on the drive 
 in managing tlie cobs. Darbisher rode on 
 Ann's side of the carriage, and said nothing 
 in particular — or the nothings that mean 
 everything. When they pulled up at " The 
 Case is Altered," the wind had a little 
 rumpled Pollie's ciu'ls, and the exertion of 
 keeping the whip hand of the cobs had
 
 1 88 BASSET 
 
 heightened her colour, while Ann's fair braids, 
 under a copious veil and bonnet, were as un- 
 ruffled as herself. 
 
 As they were alighting, who should walk 
 by but JNIark Spencer, who had been to see a 
 IJatient in the town. Hospitable Harry at 
 once asked him to join their party at dinner. 
 
 Years afterwards, Spencer told the only 
 confidant — or rather, the nearest approach to 
 a confidant he ever had in the world — that at 
 that dinner he perceived and knew, with the 
 absolute certainty one does sometimes know 
 entirel}^ unprovable things, that INIiss Ann 
 had conveyed to young Darbisher the impres- 
 sion that he, Spencer, was her unsuccessful 
 wooer; and that, therefore, Darbisher threw 
 at Spencer, when he was not gazing en- 
 raptured and devoutly at Ann, looks of 
 the greatest affront and indignation. The 
 thought of them amused INIark Spencer, even 
 after much lapse of time. Old Jane Benet, 
 raising her keen eyes to his face for a minute, 
 said, " I suppose Pollie Latimer wasn't silly 
 enough to be taken in by that girl's non- 
 sense?" — and Mark answered he thought 
 ]Mrs. Latimer was not often taken in. 
 
 She, as well as her husband, and JNIark too, 
 somehow liked Lionel at that dinner for the
 
 THE CHANTRY 189 
 
 ardour and thoroughness of his mushroom 
 passion. He was so hot and sincere and 
 transparent in it, those would have been hard 
 hearts indeed that did not desire to help it 
 along. 
 
 After dinner, when the whole party walked 
 to see the ruined monastery half a mile from 
 the town, the three elders drojiped con- 
 sideratety behind. As they talked, they were 
 all conscious of Lionel's handsome head bend- 
 ing over his companion, as he poured into her 
 small ear all his fine dreams and egotisms, 
 and she listened in absorbed silence. Or was 
 she not listening at all, but simply going on 
 mentally arranging her modest wardrobe or 
 finances? Anyhow, before they reached the 
 ruins, Lionel was quoting poetry to her, and 
 she was inquiring, with a naivete any bud- 
 ding author must have found adorable, 
 whether the lines were Lord Byron's or his 
 own? 
 
 Of the three behind, Harry said — his 
 vocabulary was not at all extensive — that 
 Miss Thornbery was an uncommon pretty 
 girl, wasn't she? 
 
 Mark replied he thought her face lacking 
 in expression and change; and Harry asked 
 what the deuce anybody wanted a face to
 
 I90 BASSET 
 
 change for when it began by being as good- 
 looking as that? 
 
 Pollie did not say much. Perhaps she 
 recalled the days, not so very long ago, when 
 she too was a girl — only not, of course, 
 thought straightforward and clear-seeing 
 Pollie, half such a pretty girl as Ann. Once, 
 looking at the pair ahead, she caught her 
 breath in a sigh, as if she envied them their 
 dream. Spencer turned for a moment and 
 looked at her; and Pollie drew out her watch, 
 suspended round her neck on a long hair 
 chain, and said practically they must hurry 
 or the}^ would be late getting home. 
 
 After that, there were many of " JNIay's 
 warm, slow, yellow, moonlit summer nights," 
 when that excellently good-natured Harry 
 insisted on having young Darbisher to dinner, 
 and INIiss Ann to meet him; and after dinner, 
 made short work of the solemn conventions 
 of the day which decreed that it was at once 
 unwholesome and improper to walk in the 
 garden in the evening. 
 
 When Ann was due to drink evening tea 
 at the IManor — one drank tea in those days, 
 and did not merely have it — Harry ac- 
 quainted Darbisher, and he dropped in — ^by 
 accident.
 
 THE CHANTRY 191 
 
 That naif young gentleman was always 
 making excuses to buy things at the shop he 
 had despised, in the hope, not disappointed, 
 of meeting Ann; or hanging about the 
 Benets' gate, exchanging the time of day with 
 the old Doctor, with one eye and all his 
 attention on the White Cottage. 
 
 He scowled indignantly now not only at 
 Spencer, but at Parson Grant; and Spencer 
 realized — old Peter of course observed noth- 
 ing — that Ann had somehow managed to 
 translate her one brief visit to the Rectory 
 into a declaration of, at least, admiration on 
 the part of the Rector. 
 
 Boxes of resplendent raiment arrived from 
 London, and the same vanity which, a little 
 while ago, had given Lionel every satisfaction 
 in his appearance, now made him agonizingly 
 diffident concerning it. Having severely ab- 
 stained from church-going for the express 
 pleasure of shocking the church-goers, he now 
 began to exercise the greatest ingenuity in 
 timing his arrival and departure from that 
 building to coincide exactly with Miss Pil- 
 kington's and her niece's. At home, he spent 
 hours locked in his sitting-room composing 
 verses — verses which were just good enough 
 to make one confidently hope that their writer
 
 192 BASSET 
 
 would soon see how bad they were, and 
 take to some other pursuit. Lionel had, 
 indeed, his complaint very thoroughly; all 
 the usual symptoms; and the rash very fully 
 out. 
 
 jMeanwhile, nobody, or hardly anybody, 
 had even thought of ]Mrs. Darbisher. 
 
 That vague, sharp, roving eye of hers had 
 soon detected that the heart her bo}^ w^anted 
 was a cold and shallow little heart; that the 
 great sorrows and joys of life would leave 
 Ann unmoved and impervious. Once, in 
 early daj^s, when there was still time, she did 
 venture to suggest to Lionel that she did not 
 think ^liss Thornbery had much feeling; but 
 Lionel's wrath caused her hurriedly and 
 foolishlj^ to eat her words. What, after all, 
 wise and resolute people have to do she, too, 
 found herself doing — helplessly looking on; 
 or, what was worse, sitting at home, when 
 Lionel was out, fancj^ing what she did not 
 see. She was not sufficiently machiavellian 
 to invite Ann to the Chantry, morning, 
 noon and night, and surfeit Lionel with her 
 prettiness and her sameness; and she was 
 not bold enough — or sill}^ enough — to 
 thwart him and object to Ann plainly and 
 openly.
 
 THE CHANTRY 193 
 
 One afternoon, Mrs. Latimer, coming to 
 call, found her with traces of the unbecom- 
 ing tears of real grief on her face, her shawl 
 slipping from her shoulders, and capstrings 
 floating with a vague melancholy. She did 
 not conceal the tears, or directly allude to 
 them; but presently she asked Pollie what 
 she thought of Ann's character. 
 
 Pollie tried to be consolatory, but she was 
 too honest to convey the impression that she 
 liked Ann very particularly. A gleam of 
 humour came into Mrs. Darbisher's wet and 
 wandering eye, and she said how much she 
 wished Mr. Grant or Dr. Spencer had proved 
 — more susceptible. Pollie did not respond 
 to this aspiration; she only said, in her down- 
 right, practical way — 
 
 " But, as you say, Mrs. Darbisher, your 
 son is entirely dependent on you, he cannot 
 marry without your consent;" and Julia 
 Darbisher, looking absently round for her. 
 handkerchief to remove the last tear, re- 
 plied — 
 
 "Ah! but then, my dear, he can make 
 me give it." 
 
 Of course, that proved to be the case. 
 
 Only two or three evenings later, Lionel, 
 who had been out, unaccounted for, all day,
 
 194 BASSET 
 
 came into Lady Lucy's parlour about nine 
 o'clock, bringing his news which was no news. 
 JNlrs. Darbisher was putting a few stitches, 
 absently, in some needlework; she hated 
 needlework, but as it was then de rigueur 
 for all women to do it, she was in the habit 
 of continually beginning pieces of embroid- 
 ery, and leaving them about the room, half 
 finished, with the point of the needle upper- 
 most to catch the unwary. The candles were 
 not lit, but it was still light enough for her 
 to see Lionel's face, and before he had uttered 
 three sentences, she got up — with reels of 
 silk, scissors and thimbles, rolling off her lap 
 on to the floor — and kissed her boy with her 
 usual injudicious warmth. 
 
 To-night, however, he magnanimously 
 overlooked the remarkable angle at which the 
 embrace set her turban, and a certain damp- 
 ness on her cheeks, and was soon pacing up 
 and down the room, eagerly enumerating all 
 Ann's virtues, and every now and then, quite 
 unconsciousty, stooping to pick up some of 
 the needlework appliances on the floor. He 
 finished by saying that Everybody — every- 
 body, that convenient generality which, as 
 often as not, means nobody — Everybody says 
 it is a good thing to marry young, and it will
 
 THE CHANTRY 195 
 
 be so nice for you to have a daughter to 
 look after you and help you. 
 
 At this juncture, Mrs. Darbisher was feel- 
 ing about vaguely, and with difficulty for she 
 was not slim, for the scissors under her chair, 
 and her answer was not audible. She did 
 not, indeed, say very much till the candles 
 had been brought, and Lionel's excitement 
 had subsided sufficiently to let him sit down 
 and merely relieve his feelings by rapidly 
 moving about, as he talked, the pens and trays 
 on the writing-table. His real good self was 
 touched not a little — and his conceit and the 
 selfishness of the most blissfully selfish of all 
 human conditions drojDped from him for a 
 moment — when he and his mother came to 
 discuss money matters, and she proposed, not 
 with her usual impulsiveness, but as one who 
 had counted the cost, to make over to the 
 young couple the half of her kingdom— 
 the half being about five hundred a year. 
 Lionel's gratitude for that liberality — after- 
 wards slightly curbed by solicitors — was spoilt 
 for her when she stated that she would not 
 live with him and Ann, and she saw that he 
 was grateful for that too. 
 
 Before they went to bed — very late — 
 Lionel was again dilating on Ann's charms
 
 196 BASSET 
 
 of mind and character — the others were cer- 
 tainly self-evident — as if with an actual dis- 
 putant; and it occurred to his mother that 
 he might bj^ chance be arguing down some 
 faint doubt in his own mind, and not only 
 the decided doubt in hers. 
 
 " Ann is coming to see you early to- 
 morrow," he said; and he suggested, as tact- 
 fully and tentatively as he could, that his 
 mother should wear the brown dress as being 
 so much — well, tidier than the others. 
 
 There was an undoubted twinkle in her 
 eye — on the top of a tear, perhaps — as she 
 said, " Bup — Lionel dear, I shall try to do 
 3'ou credit." 
 
 Certainly, if she was not all she ought to 
 have been, on that interview on the morrow, 
 Ann was — modest, but not foolish; meekly 
 lovely to look at; and of course, having the 
 blood of Pilkingtons in her veins, perfectly 
 a lady. Julia Darbisher knew she ought to 
 be thankful that she was not embracing a 
 kitchenmaid — for she knew she would have 
 been embracing her if Lionel had elected her 
 to be his wife. He was absorbingly proud of 
 the wife he had chosen. ]Mrs. Darbisher was 
 quite glad of an excuse to leave them and go 
 upstairs, stumbling over her suitable brown
 
 THE CHANTRY 197 
 
 silk dress on the way, that she might unearth 
 from a strange medley of possessions some 
 fine old lace and the family rubies. 
 
 Ann's lovely eyes brightened as these 
 treasures were produced. It is certainly not 
 against a woman's character that she should 
 be aware of the difference between rose- 
 point and " only Hamilton " ; but Mrs. Dar- 
 bisher was surprised, considering the strait- 
 ened circumstances of Ann's bringing-up, 
 that she evinced so sound a knowledge of the 
 value of the filmy fabric in front of her. 
 Lionel, taking the rubies out of their cases, 
 said of course the setting was old-fashioned 
 and might be altered, but that he himself 
 liked it. Mrs. Darbisher also liked it. But, 
 somehow, before Ann left, they had all agreed 
 the rubies were to be sent to London to be 
 reset — in the garish and dreadful mode of 
 the day. 
 
 Of all Basset, Miss Pilkington alone had 
 the simplicity to be surprised at Ann's en- 
 gagement. Since Lionel had taken to coming 
 to church, she had extended to him her warm- 
 est trust and liking. The Thornberys could 
 hardly help feeling relieved and thankful that 
 their daughter was going to be supported 
 permanently and comfortably by another
 
 198 BASSET 
 
 than themselves. For many a girl of Ann's 
 generation, marriage actually was, as Char- 
 lotte Collins had declared it, " the only hon- 
 ourable provision for well-educated young 
 women of small fortune, and . . . their 
 best preservative from want." 
 
 Mrs. Benet, meeting Ann in the road the 
 day after the engagement was announced, 
 simply said, "Oh ho! so it's come off all 
 right, has it?" which Ann felt, as indeed it 
 was, to be a rude, blunt way of putting 
 things. 
 
 The old Doctor patted her shoulder, and 
 made a small joke, and thought she blushed 
 very becomingly; and his wife said medita- 
 tively to him when they got home, " I 
 suppose a silly old man's always taken in by 
 a pretty face." 
 
 And Richard answered, " Not so often as 
 you might think, Jeannie." 
 
 Mark Spencer felt absolutely certain, when 
 he congratulated INIiss Thornbery, that she 
 had not only made Darbisher believe, but by 
 now comfortably believed herself, that he, 
 Spencer, would have married her if she would 
 have had him. This conviction used to shake 
 him with silent amusement as he sat poring 
 over those " doctor's stuffs " in their zinc
 
 THE CHANTRY 199 
 
 trays at Myrtle Cottage in the evenings. 
 Parson Grant forgot to offer any congratu- 
 lations at all. That omission was perhaj)s at- 
 tributed to pique. 
 
 Soon, the question of wedding presents 
 pleasantly agitated peaceful Basset, like a 
 ripple on a lake. 
 
 Harry Latimer drove himself up to Lon- 
 don, and bought a centre ornament for the 
 dining-room table consisting of very tall 
 silver cupids, or angels, bearing on their 
 wings a vast receptacle, also silver, for trifle. 
 Pollie presented the Paisley shawl without 
 which no woman's married happiness in that 
 day was complete. Spencer tried to combine 
 in his x^resent of a writing-table something 
 that would please the bride's predilection for 
 the showy — she surely had that predilection? 
 — and the bridegroom's better taste. 
 
 Mrs. Benet caused herself to be carried by 
 the gig into Dilchester, where she spent a 
 long and thrillingly interesting day, shop- 
 ping; buying first a vast wedding-bonnet for 
 herself, on which fruit, flowers, blonde, gos- 
 samer, and feathers were heaped in a quite 
 reckless profusion; and then, after some 
 cogitation, purchasing the wedding present — 
 a large china lady, clad in a short but not in-
 
 200 BASSET 
 
 decent pink shirt, and listening attentively to 
 a shell. 
 
 The Doctor and Maggie were both called 
 into the clammy closeness of the parlour to 
 inspect this offering. jNIaggie said, " Lor! " 
 and declared herself that glad she was not 
 going to have the dusting of it. 
 
 " Verj^ unique indeed, Jeannie, I should say 
 — very unique," was the Doctor's observation; 
 and seeing the word " oNIiranda " at the lady's 
 base, he added that it had escaped liim for the 
 moment who INIiranda was. 
 
 " That's for them to find out," said INIrs. 
 Benet firmly, as if she were setting the bridal 
 pair a conundrum. 
 
 INIiss Pilkington of course gave Ann every- 
 thing Sarah would allow her to part with. 
 The Thornbery brothers and sisters sent small 
 home-made offerings, and Rachel wondered a 
 little if Ann quite remembered the self-denial 
 and labour those poor presents cost. 
 
 Eliza of Dilchester, who, with other faults, 
 had the Pilkington failing of excessive gen- 
 erosity, contributed five pounds towards the 
 trousseau. That Ann made the very best use 
 of the very little money she had to devote to 
 this end, is as certain as that little ]Miss Fitten 
 grew more thin, nerv^ous and anemic than ever
 
 THE CHANTRY 201 
 
 in the strain of carrying out her ideas. Mrs. 
 Latimer lent most of her garments as patterns. 
 Mrs. Darbisher offered Ann half the silks and 
 shawls in a wardrobe kept in a condition Ann 
 rightly thought deplorable; just as she was 
 always trying to make over to Lionel the 
 family silver, then in a London bank. 
 
 He declined to take that present, saying, 
 " We certainlj^ shan't consent to rob my 
 mother any further, shall we, Ann? " — and 
 Ann said, " Of course not," with a pretty 
 emphasis which did not prevent the idea oc- 
 curring to Mrs. Darbisher's mind that Ann 
 privately thought a little contemptuously of 
 her for offering so much, and of Lionel for 
 not accepting it. 
 
 To be sure, his mother would have cut off 
 her head and given it to him readily enough, 
 only she knew he would think the gift empty 
 and worthless. 
 
 A dreadful restlessness consumed her in 
 these days. She was ashamed of the maternal 
 jealousy — if, indeed, jealousy it was that 
 made it painful to her to see Lionel and Ann 
 wandering, absorbed in each other, in the 
 rose garden. To escape them and the feeling, 
 she paid calls in Basset at all sorts of un- 
 conventional hom's — always absently leaving
 
 202 BASSET 
 
 in her train, a glove, a parasol, or a scarf — 
 and was everywhere more irresponsibly amus- 
 ing than ever. Harry Latimer, who was 
 wont to beat a hasty retreat before the ad- 
 vance of callers, left special instructions with 
 the parlourmaid that he was to be sought 
 till found whenever ]Mrs. Darbisher arrived. 
 If her humour at this time constantly outran 
 her discretion, in a manner which would have 
 earned Lionel's sternest filial disapproval, at 
 least not a word ever tripped off her tongue 
 in criticism of her son's choice; while that 
 torrent of liveliness would naturally be taken 
 as a proof she rejoiced in it. 
 
 Mrs. Latimer, holding her hand to say 
 good-bye after one of these visits, was sud- 
 denly struck with the idea that she had 
 grown much thinner than when she first 
 came to Basset, and that her eyes had a 
 sleepless look. She said so, in her candid 
 fashion; and at once felt that Mrs. Darbisher 
 was not pleased at her perspicacity. 
 
 Harry came in at that moment. 
 
 It had just been decided that, owing to 
 the minute size of the White Cottage, Ann 
 was to be married from the Manor, and that 
 a week before the wedding INIrs. Latimer was 
 to give a festal wedding diimer-party.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SIR JOHN 
 
 It was now some four and twenty years since 
 Peter Grant had been clapped on the back by 
 his young cousin, John Railton, and offered 
 the Cliurch as a career. 
 
 When John's mother, Lady Lucy, died, 
 the boy was left to a father, not of evil life, 
 but of evil temper, who, himself a spoilt child, 
 was determined his son should not be. A 
 long course of i^etty tyranny and bullying 
 something soured John's nature and em- 
 bittered his view of life, but it at least made 
 him neither liar nor slave. 
 
 Once at Oxford, and in independent pos- 
 session of his mother's small fortune, he of 
 course misused the liberty and money which 
 he had never been taught to use. His wild- 
 ness was far more thorough and extensive 
 than Peter Grant's, for Jack's mind was not 
 *' a little balanced with stupidity," as Peter's 
 had been. Jack's tandem was one of the 
 sights of the University — tandems were not 
 
 203
 
 204 BASSET 
 
 a forbidden jo}^ there until 183G. He might 
 have said with Edgar, " Wine loved I deeply, 
 dice dearly." There was not a prize-fight or 
 a cock-fight within miles at which one might 
 not have seen Jack's lean, handsome, and 
 rather sinister young face. As to head-work, 
 he had plenty of brains, and passed the 
 absolutely necessary examinations without 
 much trouble. 
 
 Before he came down from Oxford the old 
 Baronet was dead — an event at which John 
 neither felt nor feigned any particular sor- 
 row. 
 
 Young Sir John, now a wealthy man, 
 came up to town, and there amused him- 
 self with, and as, the other j^oung bloods 
 of the day. Once, at least, he figured with 
 a couple of friends at Bow^ Street, charged 
 with wrenching knockers off street doors, and 
 assaulting the police. Then he paid a fine 
 for maliciously upsetting a shell-fish stall; 
 did it again, and paid the fine, doubled. One 
 had to be young, and young in the epoch 
 when the obvious and elementary practical 
 joke appealed to almost everybody as wit, to 
 extract from it the uproarious mirth John 
 and his friends certainly extracted. Soon 
 the young baronet was much heard of at
 
 SIR JOHN 205 
 
 Newmarket and Brooks', and the dingy 
 green-room of a certain theatre. The green- 
 room was the antechamber to a noisy and 
 brief esclandre of a sentimental character. 
 
 Sir John went abroad, travelled, sobered; 
 returned home, taking a fitful interest in 
 politics and literature, breakfasted now and 
 again with Rogers or at Holland House; 
 dropped the green-room, and resumed gam- 
 bling and racing, more temperately. 
 
 His own natural good parts made him 
 acceptable in the society of people distin- 
 guished in mind or achievement; only he 
 himself remained always dilettante, achieving 
 nothing. Was it that ample means made him 
 lazy, or that the cynicism in his nature caused 
 him to doubt the value of the success he saw 
 his compeers sacrificing ease, and sometimes 
 honour, to achieve? He would sit in the 
 midst of a clever company, able to hold his 
 own in the conversation, and by no means 
 always troubling to hold it — a long, rather 
 distinguished figure, carelessly well dressed, 
 with the curl on his lips, and something 
 steadfast and pleasant in the eyes. It was 
 said by those of his friends who had tested it, 
 that his generosity was great; and there was 
 a kind of softness and reverence far away
 
 2o6 BASSET 
 
 down in his heart which, perhaps, the memory 
 of his mother kept there, and which was, in 
 fact, a part of his inheritance from her. He 
 had agreeable, shabby, bachelor quarters in 
 town; a terrible family mansion in Norfolk, 
 and the Chantry, Basset. 
 
 In those days, noblesse rarely obliged the 
 young noble to do anything but amuse him- 
 self; and the very class which most suffered 
 from his negligence, seems most to have 
 admired the sj)lash and dash, the extrava- 
 gance and magnificence which kei)t their 
 lord from mending their broken fences, and 
 rebuilding their tumbling cottages. The 
 villagers in Basset, at least, quite enjoyed 
 in Sir John's youth the highly coloured 
 stories of liis losses at plaj^ and his reck- 
 lessness on the turf; and when he came to 
 the Chantry with his horses, his man cook 
 from London, his foreign valet, and his air 
 of the great world, they were quite grateful 
 to him for dissipating the w^orst evil of the 
 country village — dullness. 
 
 By the time he was forty he had become 
 a far more conscientious landowner; and 
 though his visits to Basset w^ere very short, 
 they were more frequent, and had business 
 as an object.
 
 SIR JOHN 207 
 
 On the day before the Manor was to 
 give the wedding dinner-party, Parson Grant 
 actually had a letter which was not from 
 Maria, now his sole correspondent, and found 
 by a hasty scrawl on a vast sheet of paper — 
 written in the immense hurry of the person 
 who has nothing definite to do— that Sir 
 John proposed, as the Chantry was let, 
 damn it, to descend that very day upon 
 the hospitality of the Rector and the 
 Rectory; that cursed PhillijDS — who was 
 Sir John's agent as well as the Latimers' — 
 requesting the Baronet's presence to see to 
 some of his outlying properties. Sir John 
 never spared Peter's cloth either in speech 
 or writing; after all, he had, so to speak, 
 himself cut out that cloth for Peter's wear; 
 besides, Peter must be used to strong 
 language — " our armies swore terribly in 
 Flanders." 
 
 A postscript announced, " Have not for- 
 gotten your cook — am bringing Adolphe ; " 
 which meant that Sir John, on his last visit 
 to the Rectory, had suffered so grievously at 
 the hands of the Rectory factotum, that this 
 time he purposed to be accompanied by his 
 own — a perfectly clever, adaptable, dislionest, 
 good-natured foreigner — of no distinct nation-
 
 2o8 BASSET 
 
 ality — able to talk, rather ill, any language, 
 and to cook, admirably well, any food. 
 
 Peter timidly announced to his house* 
 hold that Sir John was to be expected that 
 evening; himself assisted to prepare the guest 
 chamber, by moving the lumber and boxes 
 it contained into a corner; and, meeting 
 Pollie, surprised and surpassed himself by 
 having the readiness and aplomb to ask if 
 he might bring Sir John to the dinner-party 
 on the morrow. 
 
 . The dinner-hour was fashionably late at 
 six, when it was still broad dajdight, and 
 there was no need of the tall, best wax 
 candles in the great silver candelabra. 
 
 Sir John, sitting with his hostess on one 
 side — he liked Pollie for her charm of perfect 
 naturalness, and respected her for the excel- 
 lence of her dinners — and Mrs. Darbisher on 
 the other, was fully, if idly, engaged in 
 listening to the sallies of the amazing, amus- 
 ing old M^oman to whom lie found he had 
 let the Chantry; so that, even if her turban 
 had not obscured his view, he would scarcely 
 have noticed the heroine of the evening. 
 
 After the dessert and the wine, he and 
 Peter adjourned to the garden, and smoked a 
 few of the cigarettes with which the pockets
 
 SIR JOHN 209 
 
 of Peter's shameful old coat were always 
 stuffed. Then Peter, who had made, simply 
 and obviously, a large collection of good 
 things from dessert for Tommy, went up- 
 stairs to 2:>resent them to that youth — doing 
 his best to keep awake in bed. 
 
 As Sir John strolled to the drawing-room, 
 he heard the sound of the harp, and entered 
 softly. 
 
 Though it was still daylight without, the 
 great velvet curtains had been drawn — Mrs. 
 Latimer having worked their borders of roses 
 and tulips, at immense expense of labour, on 
 purpose to be seen on festal occasions. 
 Against their rich, dark background, just 
 under the glow of a chandelier full of 
 candles, Ann Thornbery sat at the old harp 
 belonging to the Pilkingtons, drawing her 
 fingers across the strings, in the preliminary 
 bars of a song. 
 
 Very few people realize how great advan- 
 tage beauty receives from dress and fashion — ■ 
 how much the jewel owes to its setting. But 
 there are rare occasions when artlessness is 
 the highest art. It would have been con- 
 sidered little short of improper if Ann had 
 prematurely arrayed herself in one of her 
 new trousseau frocks, so she was dressed in
 
 2IO BASSET 
 
 the soft old muslin that clung to her slight 
 figure, and added to its exquisite air of 
 virginity and youth. 
 
 With her fair hair parted softly, Madonna- 
 wise, on her forehead, with the " white 
 wonder " of the hand on the harp-strings, 
 with her head a little raised, and her lovely, 
 clear eyes looking up, she might have stood 
 as model to a painter of a " young-eyed 
 cherubin " harping in Heaven. When she 
 sang " Angels ever bright and fair," in a 
 voice not fine or rich, but as clear and fresh 
 as dawn, and with round limpid notes 
 in it like a boy's, the resemblance was com- 
 plete. 
 
 Sir John, having closed the door, leant 
 against the jamb, and, with his own face in 
 shadow, watched the singer's. 
 
 When she had finished, there was a silence 
 ■ — the best of thanks. Old Rastrick, who of 
 course was of the party, retrieved jVIrs. Dar- 
 bisher's handkerchief from under a chair, and 
 she mopped up a large tear without conceal- 
 ment — Lionel considering it correct and be- 
 coming that women should cry at sentiment. 
 JMrs. Benet had been so intent in listening 
 that she had quite forgotten to cover the stain 
 in her front breadth with her amj)le arm; and
 
 SIR JOHN 211 
 
 her old man had, momentarily, ceased to 
 regret his carpet-slippers and liis home- 
 evening. 
 
 Rachel's kind, good face looked as if it 
 were in church; but a comfortable, human 
 satisfaction in such a creditable niece, showed 
 on it, when the room broke into applause and 
 admiration. Adoring Lionel, who had been 
 sitting with his back to the company, wor- 
 shipping Ann, went to help her to repair a 
 very slight accident to a harp-string; Pollie 
 said, ''Please sing us something else"; 
 Harry, whom " Angels " had also moved, 
 added, " Several things " ; and Sir John, still 
 leaning against the door with his face in 
 shadow, said nothing at all. 
 
 It was not until Ann had given, at Lionel's 
 suggestion, " Fly away, pretty moth," and 
 come down from heaven to be a most coy and 
 lovely woman — one could be coy in the 
 forties without being ridiculous — that he 
 moved from his place, came across to her, 
 introduced himself in a few easy words, and 
 stood chatting for a time to her and to 
 Lionel. 
 
 Lionel naturally desired to walk home 
 with Miss Pilkington and Ann (who had, of 
 course, been duly and technically " fetched "
 
 212 BASSET 
 
 by Sarah), but was so charmed with Ann's 
 thoughtfuhiess when she softly commanded 
 him to go with liis mother (who was to lose 
 him so soon!) that he obeyed, good-naturedly. 
 
 So it turned out that it was Sir John and 
 Peter Grant who escorted the ladies of the 
 White Cottage to their door — Sarah, carry- 
 ing the party slippers, being sent on ahead. 
 Grant, who liked JNIiss Pilkingi:on, and w^as 
 quite unconscious of any criticism in her 
 mind of himself, went on in front with her in 
 his usual silence; and Ann, who had an 
 adorable little hood framing her face, walked 
 behind with Sir John. 
 
 Before the occupants of the White 
 Cottage went to bed, Sarah, who, though 
 disagreeable, was familiar, had of course to 
 hear all about the dinner — that is, all she had 
 not heard already from the JNIanor cook. 
 
 She inquired if Mrs. Latimer wore her 
 puce or the (turned) blue, and if jNIiss Ann 
 liked the Baronite? Ann said it was the 
 turned blue, which she did not consider very 
 becoming, and that she thought Sir John was 
 a dear old gentleman. 
 
 " The dear old gentleman " and his host 
 sat up, both smoking, for an hour in Peter's 
 study. Sir John asked a few questions about
 
 SIR JOHN 213 
 
 the only people he did not already know well 
 in Basset — the Darbishers and Miss Thorn- 
 bery. Peter's answers were not less vague 
 and unsatisfactory than usual. 
 
 When Sir John went up to bed, contrary 
 to his usual custom he roused the sleeping 
 Adolphe, and gave him a few orders. 
 
 The day after the dinner-party, Miss 
 Pilkington retired to ,bed, suffering from 
 what she called an " obstruction on the chest, 
 caused by the night air." When Dr. Benet 
 arrived and said simply, that the obstruction 
 was lower down than the chest, and was 
 occasioned by the rich food at the dinner- 
 party, Rachel naturally attributed the opinion 
 to the Doctor's lack of breeding, and actually 
 told Ann that she did sometimes wish she 
 could be bold enough to employ Dr. Spencer 
 on her own account, as one could see at a 
 glance he was a thorough gentleman. 
 
 Ann agreed gently, but a little indif- 
 ferently. 
 
 As Dr. Benet left the house, after his 
 second professional visit to Miss Pilkington, 
 he beheld the voluble and good-looking 
 Adolphe conversing with grim Sarah at 
 the back door; and wondered if that agree- 
 able foreigner could possibly be courting the
 
 214 BASSET 
 
 stern virgin who ruled the mistress of the 
 White Cottage. 
 
 Later that same day, PolHe, coming to the 
 Cottage with new-laid eggs and inquiries, 
 beheld on her way there, disappearing down 
 the lane near the Rectory, two figures. 
 Lionel Darbisher she had just met, riding 
 into Dilchester. The only other lean, tall 
 men in the neighbourhood of Basset were Sir 
 John Railton and Dr. INIark Spencer. Pollie 
 had half thought for a moment Ann's com- 
 panion was Spencer; but as she passed 
 Mja'tle Cottage, there was his dark head by 
 the scarlet geranium. There was something 
 puzzled about the bright face she put into 
 JNIiss Pilkington's bed-curtains, as she asked 
 after that lady's health. Among other things, 
 JNIiss Pilkington informed her that Ann 
 was taking a little walk with Lionel, un- 
 chaperoned she feared, but how, the chaperon 
 being ill, was this enormit}^ to be avoided? 
 " When you doubt, abstain ; " is an uncom- 
 monly sound rule to apply to speech. Pollie, 
 feeling deceitful, kept her own counsel, and 
 walked home thoughtfully. 
 
 This was Fridaj'^ — the wedding was to be 
 the following Wednesday. 
 
 On Saturday, Ann spent the afternoon at
 
 SIR JOHN 215 
 
 the Chantry, and as she sat in the parlour 
 with Lionel and Mrs. Darbisher, unpacking a 
 wedding present, Sir John came to pay his 
 respects to his tenant. It struck that lady 
 that her landlord did not look so old as she 
 had supposed him to be when they met at 
 the Latimers'. He had a vigorous, de- 
 termined look on his face to-day; was it that 
 a kind of ardour and deviltry which had been 
 in his eyes as extinct fire was alive again? 
 Certainly the sarcastic mouth softened a little 
 as he looked round the parlour where a small 
 John had stood by his mother's side, pricking 
 a text on to paper with a pin, or flattening a 
 button of a nose — it had grown drooping and 
 Jewish looking since — against the window 
 pane, watching the summer rain on the roses. 
 Ann was sitting in his mother's chair by the 
 writing-table, with her bonnet hanging on 
 her arm by its blue ribbons, and her lovely 
 face bent over the present. Sir John came 
 to admire it too — and Mrs. Darbisher saw it 
 was the face only on which his eyes were 
 fixed. 
 
 Lionel's mare was led round to the gravel 
 walk outside the long windows — there were 
 papers in Mr. Rastrick's ofiice awaiting his 
 signature — and Ann put down the parcel and.
 
 2i6 BASSET 
 
 with the bonnet still on her arm, went out 
 to see him mount. To be afraid of every- 
 thing was one of the accepted charms of the 
 young woman of the daj", and Ann, whose 
 admirable nerves and perfect health had given 
 her really an excellent courage, put out a very 
 timid little hand to pat the mare with the 
 smallest and most gingerly of pats. Lionel 
 stooped to say something in farewell, wliich 
 JNlrs. Darbisher and Sir John, standing by 
 the window, did not hear. He rode away — 
 handsome, happy, and often looking back. 
 
 It was only natural that when Ann rose 
 to leave, saying she was dreadfully busy and 
 of course did not like to be away from Aunt 
 Rachel for long. Sir John should offer to take 
 her home. JNIrs. Darbisher, in spite of her 
 flimsy satin slippers, came to the extreme 
 limit of the Chantry grounds with her 
 guests, and stood at the gate looking after 
 them until they had quite disappeared from 
 view. 
 
 When Lionel returned from Dilchester, 
 he found his mother refreshingly and ex- 
 traordinarily silent. He naturally attributed 
 this to her distress at the prospect of losing 
 him, and wasted a long time assuring her, 
 really heartily and warmly, that Ann and he
 
 SIR JOHN 217 
 
 should be always staying with her or she with 
 them, and that the parting would be only 
 nominal. She returned quite absent and brief 
 rei^lies, and scarcely seemed to hear him. 
 
 On Sunday, Sir John accompanied his 
 host to church in the morning; sat in the 
 Railton family pew; looked about him a 
 good deal and yawned. He announced to 
 Peter his intention of staying at home in 
 the afternoon, candidly stating that two 
 such sermons in one day were more than 
 he could bear. Old Peter, who, unless he 
 had been under marching orders on Sundays, 
 would very likely not have attended any 
 service himself, w^as not in the least offended. 
 
 In those daj^s, if people went to church 
 once they went twice, and the afternoon 
 service at Basset was as well, or ill, attended 
 as the morning. On that particular Sundaj^ 
 however, Ann and Sarah were both absentees 
 — owing to Miss Pilkington's illness. 
 
 Peter Grant certainly could not complain 
 that either on week-days or Sundays his 
 guest was a troublesome one. 
 
 Sir John was out all daj% generally on his 
 horse, which he had brought with him — pre- 
 sumably inspecting his farms and property 
 with Phillips. Sometimes, he would stroll
 
 2i8 BASSET 
 
 out again in the evening, in the warm June 
 dusk. In fact, his only defect as a visitor was 
 that he gave no hint when his visit was likely 
 to end. That it would last over the wedding 
 Avas certain. He had sent for his phaeton 
 and cobs, which presaged an even longer sta3^ 
 Peter had always liked his cousin, and this 
 time, despite Sir John's saturnine face and 
 sarcastic utterance, there was surely in him 
 something of the eagerness and spirit which 
 had marked the boy. Adolphe always made 
 himself popular in a kitchen by the simple 
 system of making ardent love to the oldest 
 and ugliest woman in it; and when he was 
 not thus engaged, seemed fully occupied in 
 running errands for the household, or his 
 master, in the village and even in Dil- 
 chester. 
 
 Peter's post-bag was quite heavy and fat 
 now Sir John was his guest. Once, at least, 
 a thick legal document arrived, which the 
 Baronet received as if he had expected it, and 
 to which he made no allusion. But a certain 
 satisfaction on his guest's face suggested to 
 Peter that Sir John had been successfully 
 raising money. 
 
 INIeanwhile, the village was quite enjoying 
 the wedding preparations. The dame school
 
 SIR JOHN 219 
 
 was to have a holiday for the great occa- 
 sion; and there was talk of erecting such a 
 triumphal arch as had welcomed home Harry 
 and Pollie. Mrs. Muggleton, the dingy pew- 
 opener, made, on Tuesday, a feint of giving 
 the church an extra clean. The custom of 
 decorating it with flowers was yet unknown; 
 but Pollie, with some exercise of tact and 
 skill, succeeded in abstracting Peter's old 
 surplice from the vestry, and had it washed 
 and mended. 
 
 At the Manor, for hours together for 
 several daj^s before the great occasion, she 
 and Mrs. Jones bent their very dissimilar 
 heads together over INIrs. Glasse, and evolved 
 from those heads and her instructions the 
 loveliest pies and jellies. 
 
 Harry, in the library, made a few efforts 
 to compose a speech, suitably parental in 
 character, for the breakfast (he was to act 
 in loco parentis, and give the bride away), 
 soon decided to trust to the inspiration of 
 the moment and his usual excellent luck; 
 whistled to the dogs, and went out to 
 despatch a cart and a strong horse into 
 Dilchester to meet cases of wine, specially 
 ordered from London. 
 
 Mrs. Benet, now knowing Mark's wardrobe
 
 2 20 BASSET 
 
 by heart, and regarding all tailors as sharks 
 preying on foolish man, herself made him a 
 new wedding w^aistcoat — several sizes too 
 large, so that he could grow stout with im- 
 punity. 
 
 At the Chantr}^ there was naturallj^ much 
 business and preparation. 
 
 With a solemn omniscience, Lionel had 
 actually settled on a suitable wedding cos- 
 tume for his mother; and especially begged 
 her to keep the lace shawl which completed 
 it in place, and by no means to allow it, as 
 had once happened, to catch in the chain 
 round her neck and hang suspended bj'' a 
 single thread down her back, like a flag at 
 half-mast on a still da3^ He further issued 
 minutely careful instructions as to her con- 
 duct at the breakfast; but liis personal con- 
 dition of triumphant bliss made him, on the 
 whole, less strict with her than usual, and 
 he forgave her her anxious eyes and frequent 
 lapses into tears, as natural though unneces- 
 sary. 
 
 She remained, for her, curiously silent. 
 She seemed to be always on the point of say- 
 ing things, and then stopping short. Lionel 
 must have detected such repression, as being 
 extremely foreign to her character, but that
 
 SIR JOHN 221 
 
 he was totally absorbed in himself, Ann, and 
 hapi)iness. 
 
 JNIeanwhile, at the White Cottage, Miss 
 Pilkington was daily making herself worse 
 b}^ the fear she should not be better in time 
 for the important day. On JNIonday, it 
 became evident that anticipation had indeed 
 brought about realization; and she shed many 
 tears of disapj)ointment, while Ann softly 
 bathed her head with eau-de-Cologne. 
 
 Ann was the most gentle and soothing of 
 nurses, totally without the bang and bounce 
 which distinguish her descendants to-day; 
 and, instead of their loud-voiced health and 
 cheerfulness — all very well if one is one's self 
 healthy and cheerful — had the quiet and 
 repose which were once taken to be excel- 
 lent things in woman. When Rachel opened 
 her aching eyes, there, on the chair by the 
 window, was her niece, with the fair smooth 
 head bent over the voluminous trousseau 
 pocket handkerchief, which she was em- 
 broidering with her Christian name — it was 
 unlucky to put the surname till it was really 
 one's own — and the invalid shut her eyes 
 again with a contented sigh, as if she had 
 seen something refreshing and healing. 
 
 Of course, Ann was not always in the sick-
 
 222 BASSET 
 
 room. It was Sarah who pointed out that 
 ]Miss had a deal to do a-sorting and a-packing 
 of her things for London — the honeymoon 
 was to be spent there. But, all the same, 
 Ann was unselfishly ready to run little 
 errands for her aunt — to fetch the beautiful 
 beef-tea Mrs. Latimer was having made for 
 her — or to leave a message at Dr. Benet's to 
 say the precise hour at which the patient 
 would next wish to see him. The solemn rule, 
 that the well-])red young lady must never be 
 allowed out-of-doors unattended, had, per- 
 force, to be more and more relaxed in Ann's 
 case; but she was so perfecth^ modest and 
 decorous and, withal, was to be married so 
 soon, that even Miss Pilkington was com- 
 fortably resigned to the inevitable. 
 
 On the evening before the wedding Ann 
 brought in the little, white, low-necked 
 bridal frock to show it to her aunt in its 
 full beauty and completion; and tried on the 
 bonnet, with its white satin ribbons, and the 
 lace pelerine in which she was to " go away." 
 
 She was naturally pleased to give that 
 little dress-rehearsal; and so gently attentive 
 presently in herself bringing upstairs her 
 aunt's mild supper of bread and milk, that 
 Rachel felt, with a new, sudden stab at her
 
 SIR JOHN 223 
 
 heart, how much she would miss her pretty 
 companion. 
 
 Presently, from the bed, as in duty bound, 
 the aunt tendered a little last, good, kindly 
 advice on the right conduct of a wife — and 
 felt herself suddenly pulled up against the 
 blank wall of Ann's quiet self-satisfaction, 
 which made her gently and absolutely certain 
 of being perfect in every relation of life. 
 When they said good night, the old spinster 
 was almost ashamed, in the face of the bride's 
 exquisite calm, of her own warm, agitated 
 feehngs and emotions. 
 
 The wedding-day — it was the 1st of July 
 — dawned fine and hot. 
 
 Before half-past ten— the service was to 
 be at eleven — Basset church presented an 
 appearance of very uncommon animation. 
 Carriages had begun to arrive from Dil- 
 chester; great barouches brought a sprinkling 
 of the County. The free benches and the 
 music-gallery were crowded with villagers; 
 the school children, ready to scatter flowers, 
 were drawn up in line outside. In the 
 vestry. Parson Grant and Rover were de- 
 jectedly waiting the appointed hour — the 
 Parson, having being greatly warned against 
 being behind time, was much before it, and
 
 224 BASSET 
 
 clad a good half-hour too soon in his clean 
 surplice; while Rover lay at full length, with 
 his head between his paws, looking attentively 
 at his master and inquiring with his eyes how 
 much longer this sort of thing was to go on. 
 
 Eliza Pilkington, the bride's nearest rela- 
 tion present, was in the JNIanor pew with 
 Mrs. Latimer. 
 
 Pollie had on a new gown and a blonde 
 scarf; and at her side. Tommy, in a beautiful 
 little nankeen suit and frilled collar, was 
 literally and metaphorically on the tiptoe of 
 excitement, mounted on two hassocks, and 
 prepared to enjoy his first wedding to the 
 full. 
 
 Mrs. Darbisher, accompanied by her 
 brother-in-law, who was stajang at the 
 Chantry, had, thought observant Pollie, a 
 thin, distraught look. 
 
 Mrs. Benet was magnificent in her new 
 bonnet; a thick, handsome lace veil over 
 her face, first worn at her own marriage, did 
 not prevent her shrewd old ej^es from seeing 
 everybody and everything. The Doctor was 
 there — reluctantly — but trying, not unsuc- 
 cessfull}^ to put a good face on the matter 
 and appear genial and hearty. 
 
 INIark Spencer was, so far, absent; and Sir
 
 SIR JOHN 225 
 
 John's family pew was being rigorously pre- 
 served for him by Mrs. Muggleton. Old 
 Finch had contrived to drag his gouty foot 
 into the farm seat. Miss Fitten, tremblingly 
 anxious to see the results of her handiwork, 
 had a good place near him. Those who had 
 tears were preparing to shed them now. 
 JMrs. Rastrick was not likely to miss so happy 
 an opportunity of being miserable. Mr. 
 Rastrick, detained by business, drove up at 
 the last minute — that is to say, about ten 
 minutes to eleven — and prayed briefly into 
 the lining of a brand-new white beaver hat. 
 
 Hovering about the aisle were Lionel and 
 his best man, Chisholm, the young Scotsman, 
 who had already thought better of free think- 
 ing. Lionel was anxiously wondering if any 
 one would notice the slight imperfection of 
 fit in the back of his fine new blue swallow- 
 tail, or if he had only imagined that defect; 
 then, impatiently, wished the whole business 
 were over, and he and Ann were off — to 
 Elysium. 
 
 It had been arranged that Harry Latimer, 
 in his parental character, was to drive in the 
 best yellow landeau to the White Cottage and 
 call for Ann. 
 
 The landeau was heard to rumble past the
 
 226 BASSET 
 
 church, pull up at the White Cottage, wait 
 there, and, after a rather long interval, drive 
 to the church again. The clock struck eleven. 
 There were the usual stirrings and whisper- 
 ings of excitement, and every one was look- 
 ing towards the door, ]Mrs. Latimer's brisk 
 little head being also turned in that direction. 
 
 Suddenly, she saw her husband come in — 
 alone, walking quickly, and with a most 
 portentous expression on his ruddy face. In 
 his hand there was a letter, beautifully di- 
 rected in a sloping feminine handwriting to 
 Lionel Darbisher, Esquire. 
 
 JNIaking straight for Lionel, as Harry 
 passed his own pew he breathed in his wife's 
 ear the momentous and laconic statement, 
 "Bolted with Railton!"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MY LADY 
 
 The action of Sir John's most widely criti- 
 cized, was all the same one of the most 
 generous and genuine of his life. To be 
 capable of being wholly enthralled by a 
 woman implies, surely, a faith in human 
 nature, a sincerity of devotion, and an un- 
 worldliness which are not ignoble traits. 
 
 For the arts and cajoleries of accomphshed 
 and designing beauty, Sir John was, by much 
 experience, perfectly a match; but when he 
 saw Ann — with the innocence which recalled 
 his mother — a violet — 
 
 " dim, 
 But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
 Or Cytherea's breath," 
 
 he fell in love with her with the rapture 
 of a boy, and believed that he worshipped 
 an angel. To rescue her from a marriage 
 she was soon brought to avow loveless; to 
 woo her, but never to sear or frighten her, 
 
 227
 
 228 BASSET 
 
 with the ardour of his sudden, leaping pas- 
 sion; to deceive a few old women and bribe 
 a couple of servants, needed determination 
 and some shrewdness, but not much time. 
 
 As for Ann, when she first saw Sir John, 
 it naturally occurred to her as a pity that 
 she had met him too late; her instincts soon 
 told her that it might not be too late after 
 all. Then she really did nothing but be 
 lovely and a little pathetic; meet Sir John, 
 by chance, as often as possible; and when 
 the meetings were no longer by chance, 
 modestly and gently facilitate them. 
 
 Lionel, whom she had really liked vei^y 
 well indeed, she almost forgot. 
 
 The shortness of the time and the diffi- 
 culties of the chase, made Sir John the 
 more hot to engage in it. Was it Ann or 
 himself who had suggested the special license, 
 the marriage in Dilchester on the morning 
 of July 1st — since it could not possibly be 
 arranged sooner — ^the cobs and phaeton wait- 
 ing to drive the pair at once on the first 
 stage of their honeymoon journey? 
 
 At the time. Sir John certainly thought it 
 was he who had arranged everything. 
 
 After Ann had kissed her aunt good night 
 on that last evening of June, she had written
 
 MY LADY 229 
 
 two letters, one to Rachel and one to Lionel, 
 saying all the usual things in quite the 
 nicest way. In Rachel's letter, she had not 
 forgotten to thank her aunt for all her kind- 
 ness, to apologize for the trouble she was 
 giving, and to add that marrying Sir John 
 would be such a much better thing for poor 
 papa and mama and the brothers and sisters 
 at home! 
 
 In the letter to Lionel was that well-worn, 
 but very just and good excuse, about the feel- 
 ings of one's heart being beyond one's con- 
 trol; and he was not spared the supreme 
 hanalite — Ann would henceforth regard him 
 as a brother. 
 
 She pinned these two notes on her pin- 
 cushion in the accepted manner. She put 
 away the white bridal frock, honestly regret- 
 ful she could not wear it. Since the perfectly 
 reliable Sarah had been instructed to call her 
 in excellent time to elope comfortably, Ann 
 slept all night — a sound, soft sleep like a 
 baby's. In the morning, she rose as fresh 
 as a flower, put on the going-away frock, 
 the pelerine, the bonnet with white ribbons, 
 saw that the two notes were secure on the 
 pin-cushion, left her little room in neatest 
 order, said " Good-bye, Sarah, and thank you
 
 230 BASSET 
 
 very much " (more substantial thanks having 
 been offered bj^ Sir John), sHj^ped out 
 through the garden gate into a by-lane lead- 
 ing to the Rectory, and there found awaiting 
 her, Sir John, Adolphe, the cobs and the 
 phaeton. 
 
 Sir John's hands shook a little as he 
 heljDed her into the carriage; but then he had 
 been awake half the night, excited like a boy. 
 Even Ann detected, from a certain softness 
 and exhilaration on the face he bent down 
 into her bonnet, that he was a good deal 
 moved. 
 
 They had chosen their time well. Every- 
 body in Basset was dressing for Ann's wed- 
 ding with Lionel, and not a soul saw them 
 as they drove through the village. 
 
 When Harry gave Lionel Ann's letter — 
 which Sarah had duly found on the pin- 
 cushion, and presented to INIr. Latimer as 
 arranged — Lionel read it like a man in a 
 dream. As if he had not understood it, he 
 began to read it again. 
 
 Harrj" used to vow afterwards he never 
 said a word to INIrs. Darbisher, and that she 
 must have grasped the situation by instinct. 
 It is certainly true that, abandoning her para- 
 phernalia of vinaigrette, nosegay, and prayer-
 
 MY LADY 231 
 
 book, and pushing past her fat and be- 
 wildered brother-in-law, she made Lionel give 
 her his arm and — with a kind of dignity that 
 was foreign to her, and a self-possession for 
 which her dearest friend would not have given 
 her credit — walked with him down the aisle, 
 through the phalanx of children in the 
 churchyard, to the yellow barouche, which 
 was to have driven the bride and bride- 
 groom to the INIanor. She herself gave the 
 old coachman the direction to the Chantry; 
 Lionel followed her into the carriage, and 
 they drove away. 
 
 In the church the surprised murmurs of 
 the congregation quickly became an open 
 buzz. 
 
 In three minutes every one had grasped 
 the truth, or something like it. Eliza Pil- 
 kington sat down suddenly and fanned herself 
 prodigiousl}^ Various guests — chiefly those 
 to whom it could not possibly matter if Ann 
 Thornbery married a man called Darbisher 
 or a man called Railton or nobody at all- 
 felt justified in turning faint. In those days, 
 it was no uncommon thing to keep a bottle 
 of wine and biscuits as emergency rations in 
 the cupboard in one's pew. Llarry im- 
 mediately produced these restoratives from
 
 232 BASSET 
 
 the Manor seat, revived INIrs. Rastrick on the 
 spot, and himself had half a glass of sherry 
 to soothe his emotions. His kindness, his 
 excellent common-sense, and his all-for-the- 
 best-in-the-best-of-worlds disposition, made 
 him the very man for such a crisis. It is cer- 
 tain that when he had reminded Eliza Pilking- 
 ton that Railton and Ann were " tied up 
 tight " by this time in Dilchester, and that it 
 wasn't such a bad thing to have a title in the 
 family, Eliza — although she waved the com- 
 fort away with her fan and great dignity — 
 felt better, and was able to go at once to the 
 White Cottage to inform Rachel that she 
 ought to have seen this coming on. 
 
 Mrs. Benet gripped her husband's arm 
 very tightly and said trimphantly, " I told 
 you so!" — not meaning that she had pro- 
 phesied such a catastrophe, but that she had 
 always considered Ann, like Habakkuk, 
 " capable de tout." 
 
 Pollie explained matters to INIrs. Dar- 
 bisher's brother-in-law, and he returned at 
 once, on her advice, to the Chantry. Tommy, 
 who had dismally realized by this time that 
 he was to be cheated of his first wedding, 
 dissolved into tears. 
 
 Rover had come out of the vestrv once
 
 MY LADY 233 
 
 or twice to see what was happening, and 
 returning, reported affairs to Peter. Only 
 Peter was so dense that he positively had 
 taken in nothing, and it was not till the 
 church was half emptied of guests — who 
 had mostly taken their carriages and gone 
 straight home — that Harry, coming into the 
 vestry, found, to his huge amusement, 
 the Parson still waiting to perform the cere- 
 mony. 
 
 On their way up to the Manor to have 
 something to eat, Harry made Peter ac- 
 quainted with the facts in detail. Is it 
 possible there was a gleam of something 
 Hke pleasure and excitement in his dim old 
 eye, and that for a moment he was not 
 the parson of dull Basset, but once again 
 that great, wild, rash, profligate, shock- 
 headed. Ensign Peter of the Rifle Brigade? 
 
 To the partie carree at the Manor — Mr. 
 and ]Mrs. Latimer, Tommy and Grant — all 
 gathered at one end of the great, richly 
 spread wedding breakfast-table, eating a 
 little and talking a great deal, enter 
 presently Mark Spencer. Knowing he had 
 not been in church, and supposing he had 
 not heard the news, Harry broke out with 
 it at once.
 
 234 BASSET 
 
 " That's all right," says INIark, with a 
 good deal of amusement in his eyes, and 
 taking a chair by his hostess, " I met them 
 driving into Dilchester as I was riding 
 home from there, a couple of hours ago." 
 
 Pollie, who had her lace veil thrown back 
 over her bonnet, and a very prettj- excited 
 colour in her cheeks, answered impulsively, 
 " Then you ought to have stopped them! " 
 
 "Like a highwaj^man ? " says Mark; and 
 then added, " Why? It is the best thing 
 that could have happened for everybody — 
 except Railton." 
 
 When Harry took in the meaning of this 
 speech, it offended his invincible good nature. 
 " Anyhow, she's a deuced pretty girl," he 
 said, rather crossly, in his usual phrase. " I 
 don't see that Railton comes off so badly." 
 
 " I hope he don't," says old Peter, who 
 had been eating steadily, and fell at once to 
 eating steadil}^ again. 
 
 " Well, here's health to the bride and 
 bridegroom, whoever they are, and I am 
 precious glad I don't have to make that 
 speech," saj^s the incurable optimist at the 
 head of the table; and he drank to the good 
 fortunes of Sir John and INIy Lady. 
 
 Presently, when old Grant and Harry
 
 MY LADY 235 
 
 were plying the willing Tommy with good 
 things, and enjoying the naivete of the 
 questions and surmises on his too fluent 
 tongue, Mrs. Latimer turned to Spencer. 
 
 " I am not so surprised as I thought I 
 was at first," she said. " Y'ou know — last 
 Friday, I think it was — I saw Ann walking 
 alone with Sir John, in the Rectory lane." 
 
 " Why didn't you stop them? " asks 
 Spencer. 
 
 " Well," answered Pollie, slowly, " at first 
 I thought Sir John was you." 
 
 Spencer looked at her for a minute; then 
 considered the wine at the bottom of his 
 glass ; drank it ; and said nothing. 
 
 When he presently left the Manor, he 
 turned his steps, as a matter of habit, to the 
 Benets'. But he saw no one, old Jeannie 
 being upstairs in her petticoat, pinning the 
 gala bonnet into a muslin bag, exceedingly 
 wrathful with Ann for having caused her to 
 buy it under false pretences ; while the Doctor 
 was with Miss Pilkington. 
 
 The worst of having no selfish personal 
 history of one's own, is that one takes to heart 
 much too deeply the affairs of other persons. 
 
 When old Benet took Rachel's hot, thin 
 hand between his, and — best form of sym-
 
 236 BASSET 
 
 pathy — let her pour out to him as much as 
 she wished to say, without leading her on to 
 say that which she might wish hereafter she 
 had not said, she reproached herself sharply 
 that she had thought him ill-bred and had 
 indulged a strong objection to his untidy 
 eyebrows. He was so kind and sensible, and 
 when she had recovered herself a little and 
 declared loyally that if Ann liked Sir John 
 better than Lionel she w^as not wrong to 
 marry him, agreed so stoutly saying, " Of 
 course not, of course not," that she felt 
 relieved, believing the opinion of outsiders 
 would not be greatly against her niece. 
 
 But, not the less, when he left her, she 
 turned on her pillow and wept again. Old, 
 poor, without definite occupation, she knew to 
 the full the disadvantages of the spinsterhood 
 Ann had been so anxious to avoid, and had 
 never blamed her for avoiding it. The deceit 
 towards herself she could abundantly pardon. 
 But her warm and generous nature revolted 
 against the callousness which had been ready 
 to exchange, at a week's notice, ardour and 
 devotion — for a better establishment; and 
 her heart bled for the poor boy at the 
 Chantry, whom she had liked — better than 
 Ann could like anybody.
 
 MY LADY 237 
 
 In the yellow barouche, on the way home 
 from the church, neither Lionel nor his 
 mother had uttered a word. Mrs. Darbisher 
 put her hand on the boy's knee for a moment, 
 but he did not even notice it. 
 
 At the house, he went straight uj^stairs to 
 his rooms in a silence that frightened her. 
 She had the wit not to follow him. After 
 a while, and some consultation, she thank- 
 fully ordered the chaise to take her brother- 
 in-law and young Chisholm to Dilchester, on 
 the first stage of their journe}^ home. 
 
 At the customary Chantry dinner-hour — 
 six o'clock — the bell rang as usual. 
 
 His mother did not think Lionel would 
 appear, but he did — with a very fair 
 semblance of his usual manner. She helped 
 him by running on vaguely during the meal 
 about things she had seen, or not seen, in the 
 newspaper, till the servants had left the 
 room. 
 
 Then Lionel poured himself out a glass of 
 port, and looked across at her with a vague 
 irritation as if he wished she would leave him 
 alone. Instead, she took a chair closer to 
 him, and put a hand, not timid and deprecat- 
 ing as usual, but firm and fond, upon his. 
 In a moment he had shaken it off, pushed
 
 238 BASSET 
 
 away the glass and plate in front of him with 
 a rough movement, and with his head leaning 
 upon his hands, broke, from his hot, sore 
 heart, into a passion of abuse of Railton. 
 
 The man was a scoundrel and reprobate, 
 an artful seducer of innocence — a damned 
 liar, and a profligate! A week ago — no, not 
 a week, only a few days — Lionel knew for 
 certain that Ann cared for him; and then 
 that — that Judas — says Lionel, concentrating 
 his misery and bitterness into the epithet — 
 deceived and persuaded her. 
 
 INIrs. Darbisher gathered her courage and 
 said, for her, decidedly, " Only, Buppy dear, 
 the right sort of woman couldn't possibly 
 have been persuaded. If she really cared for 
 you she never would have listened to him for 
 a second." 
 
 The poor boy w^as so bruised and hurt 
 himself, he could not hel^D bruising and hurt- 
 ing, in revenge. 
 
 " You're glad then, I suppose," he said 
 with a sneer and a sob. " You don't care 
 what it means — to me." 
 
 Before the words were out of his mouth, 
 he was stricken with the consciousness of the 
 tears on her face, and with the sudden knowl- 
 edge that the face itself had grown sunken
 
 MY LADY 239 
 
 and thinner. She looked at him for a 
 minute, and then got up and left him, and 
 in her chair, Lionel found a wet ball of a 
 handkerchief. 
 
 It was a somewhat gentler and calmer 
 person who joined her in the parlour at tea- 
 time. 
 
 As he entered the room the servant was 
 bringing lights, and with them a small parcel, 
 directed to Lionel. He opened it mechan- 
 ically, and there, on the table before them, on 
 white velvet backgrounds, lay the family 
 rubies, gorgeously and gaudily reset to please 
 the tastelessness of the bride. Mrs. Dar- 
 bisher, who had simplj^ liked the old settings 
 for their associations, and whose own taste 
 was not better than that of most people in 
 her day, gave an exclamation of admiration. 
 Lionel, who knew better, looked at the jewels 
 — the stones were not really fine, and had 
 owed, it seemed, almost all their beautj^ to 
 the quaint delicacy of that old-world setting 
 — and puslied them away with a laugh of 
 contempt. 
 
 At once, suddenly, he and his mother be- 
 gan to talk, and as they talked, far into the 
 July evening, it transpired that she had seen 
 many things to which he had been blind — that
 
 240 BASSET 
 
 she had been positively wiser than himself; 
 while, when she spoke of the forebodings and 
 anxieties which had been in her mind, it 
 dawned upon him that he had been actually 
 selfish and self-absorbed; and he realized — 
 that realization often only brought, too late, 
 by death — that in spite of her annoying 
 idiosyncrasies he really loved her well. 
 
 Before they parted that night they under- 
 stood each other better than they had done 
 for years. 
 
 A few days later, Spencer's horse elected 
 to go lame. 
 
 Early one morning, he came up to the 
 Chantry, and it was soon arranged that 
 Lionel, whose sensitive pride had confined 
 him entirely to the Chantry grounds since 
 the debacle, should drive Spencer on his 
 rounds. For the first few days Lionel did 
 all the talking; and his companion — let the 
 wound bleed. But after a time, it was put 
 into the boy's mind — presumably by Spencer, 
 though he had certainly never said so — that 
 it was unworthy a man of Lionel's brains and 
 calibre to go whining after a woman — that 
 there were great things to achieve in the 
 ^vorld, out of the reach of her making or mar- 
 ring. Gradually, they began to talk less of
 
 MY LADY 241 
 
 Ann and Sir John — and more of Lionel's 
 future. 
 
 Presently, of an evening, Darbisher would 
 come to Myrtle Cottage and announce his 
 positive, vain young literary judgments; in 
 short, show signs of a return to that pleasant 
 self-esteem which is the mother of much 
 cheerfulness. Spencer listened, and threw in 
 a word now and again; sometimes stretched 
 out his long arm for a book out of his shelf 
 and passed it to Lionel. Lionel perceived, 
 though he could not remember it had ever 
 actually been said, that Spencer thought he 
 had chances of literary success, and that the 
 chances were not worth much without a good 
 deal of reading — and experience. 
 
 " What about travelling? " says Spencer. 
 " Study a foreign literature — in its own 
 country? " 
 
 " There's my mother," answers Darbisher, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 wSpencer took the favourable opportunity 
 of a professional visit to Mrs. Darbisher — 
 whom sleeplessness and worry had made 
 really ill — to suggest that it would be a good 
 thing if she and Lionel went abroad. She 
 was a chattering fool in Mark's judgment of 
 her; and when she doubtfully agreed as to
 
 242 BASSET 
 
 the benefit Lionel might derive, and then 
 entered into vague, diverting surmises as to 
 the drawbacks of foreign parts, he felt scorn- 
 ful of her. However, he had come with a 
 purpose, and meant to achieve it. 
 
 When Lionel joined them presently, and 
 said gravely, " ^Nly mother does not like any- 
 thing that is not perfectly British," Spencer, 
 who believed in the value of a good bold lie 
 when necessary to deceive the patient, roundly 
 declared that British customs were practically 
 universal on the Continent; that he had 
 never beheld Frenchmen eating snails; and 
 that — this in the 'forties — ]Mrs. Darbisher 
 would be certain of getting a delicious cup of 
 tea anywhere she liked. 
 
 Behind Lionel's back, ^Nlrs. Darbisher 
 caught ^Mark's eye, and winked her own 
 solemnly. After that wink, Mark liked her 
 much better. The next day, visiting her 
 again, he again reassured her as to the 
 comforts and security of the Continent; but 
 there was a twitch now at the corners of his 
 own humorous mouth; and he respected 
 her, seeing she did not believe him, thought 
 her chances of safety bad, and of enjoyment 
 nil, and yet was going to take them, for 
 Lionel's sake.
 
 MY LADY 243 
 
 Before they left Basset, she made a fare- 
 well visit to Rachel Pilkington, whom she had 
 not seen since the great dcnoument. 
 
 Mrs. Darbisher's mental giddiness and 
 aptitude for verbal quips and cranks was by 
 now — to Harry Latimer's especial satisfac- 
 tion — almost restored. She kissed Rachel on 
 both cheeks, sank suddenly, by great good 
 luck on to an armchair instead of the floor, 
 not having taken any bearings first, and 
 ejaculated, when she recovered her breath 
 (she had walked from the Chantry), "Well, 
 that was a pretty kettle of fish, wasn't it?" 
 
 Rachel, with a very kind, distressed face, 
 said, just as she had said to Dr. Benet, that 
 she was indeed terribly sorry for Lionel, but 
 that it was right Ann should follow the 
 dictates of her heart. 
 
 "Heart!" says INIrs. Darbisher, looking 
 at Rachel with a queer, quizzical expression. 
 " Well, Buppy isn't going to break his, so 
 she can do what she likes with hers. And T 
 dare say it k very pleasant to be called my 
 lady. Where are they now?" 
 
 JNIiss Pilkington produced a letter from a 
 reticule, and prudently read aloud such parts 
 only as described, safely, and tediously, the 
 monuments and sights of London.
 
 244 BASSET 
 
 Very shortly afterwards, there drove 
 through Basset the cumbered travelhng 
 carriage jMiss Pilkington and Ann had once 
 beheld from their windows, with the same 
 young horseman riding at the side. Only 
 now, his handsome face was less ingenuous, 
 confident, and satisfied; he had lost some of 
 the eager and generous trust of 3'outh, and 
 gained in its place — a poor exchange indeed 
 — prudence and knowledge of life. But 
 now, too, when his mother's flighty head 
 popped out of the window, he stopped to 
 listen to her erratic and meandering remarks 
 Avith an air less annoyed and inattentive; and 
 it may even be that, as his patience increased, 
 she made smaller demands upon it. 
 
 So that Ann Thornbery had had her use 
 and her meaning. 
 
 The Darbishers being safely out of the 
 Chantry, Basset was not entirely surjDrised to 
 hear, before the end of that exciting summer, 
 that Sir John and liis bride intended to come 
 back to it. 
 
 In point of fact, about the beginning of 
 September, its blinds were pulled up again; 
 Adoli^he, the French cook, various female 
 servants, and great quantities of luggage were 
 driven through the village; and Lady Railton
 
 MY LADY . 245 
 
 wrote Rachel a little note to say they were 
 returning on Thursday, and she should run 
 down on Friday morning to kiss her aunt 
 and tell her all they had been doing. Miss 
 Pilkington prepared a homily for the bride's 
 benefit — as in duty bound, and not at all 
 liking the task — but, after all, it was Sir 
 John who came, in his wife's place. 
 
 Ann was busy, he said, unpacking her frills 
 and furbelows, and had sent him instead. 
 He took a chair in Miss Pilkington's small 
 parlour — where he and Ann had spent a 
 certain Sunday afternoon, whispering very 
 softly, with Sarah keeping guard without — 
 and was easy and at home at once. His 
 sarcastic and ugly face softened as he talked. 
 Of the past he hardly said anything, except 
 to make a vague apology for the trouble 
 and anxiety late events must have caused 
 Miss Pilkington. But he inquired after her 
 health with a genuine kindness and sympathy, 
 and had an air of finding her society pleasant 
 and restful. It is certain, at least, that, after 
 his first visit, that old fool Rachel never 
 again believed the stories that were told to 
 his discredit, and had in his character and 
 goodness the faith which can remove moun- 
 tains — of proof.
 
 246 BASSET 
 
 As he was leaving, he asked her to dine at 
 the Chantry on the following day. " How 
 very good of Ann!" says fervent Rachel, 
 taking it as a message. 
 
 When Sir John got back he told Ann 
 what he had done, and she observed, not ill- 
 temperedly, but in a voice rather more sur- 
 prised than delighted, "Have you? How 
 ver}^ soon! " 
 
 It cannot be said that Rachel exactly 
 enjoyed that dinner, at which she was the 
 only guest. To be sure, Ann's manner was 
 her usual amiable and pretty manner; and 
 Rachel was gratified to see a Pilkington in 
 a Pilkington's proper place^that is, at the 
 head of a substantial house and of many 
 servants. That her niece was alreadj^ per- 
 fectly assured and easy in that position, was 
 as it should be; but, all the same, that 
 assio'ance seemed to set the little, insignifi- 
 cant aunt below the salt; and the most 
 unworldly of human creatures realized that 
 night the advantages of the wealth she had 
 not, and the position she had only thought 
 she had. 
 
 Sir John, indeed, did something to restore 
 her self-esteem — and so her content — by re- 
 calling the evenings he had enjoyed at her
 
 MY LADY 247 
 
 father's hospitable table in old days, and 
 asking after, or telling her of, various friends 
 he had met there. 
 
 A few days later, he again gratified her 
 by calling at the White Cottage, and planting 
 a large basket of peaches and nectarines on 
 her table, said firmly, " From Ann, with her 
 best love." 
 
 IMiss Pilkington, looking up to express 
 her gratitude — always much warmer than 
 the occasion demanded, — thought his face 
 certainly extremely sardonic, and, as such, 
 belying his nature. He stopped and talked 
 to her for half an hour; and when he had 
 left, Rachel remembered that, except that 
 once, he had never mentioned Ann's name. 
 
 That evening, as he sat stretched lazily 
 in a deej) chair in his mother's parlour, he 
 watched his wife very attentively out of his 
 narrow, bright eyes, as she was working at 
 Lady Lucy's table. 
 
 When was it that he had first known that 
 this was no bird, fluttering under his hand, to 
 his heart; that it was not she who had been 
 caught unawares in the snare of the fowler? 
 The bitterest irony of such mistakes is that 
 one realizes them so soon, and yet just not 
 soon enough. In the early days of the honey-
 
 248 BASSET 
 
 moon he had found out how quietly and simply 
 clever Ann had been. He was finding out 
 now every day what an irreproachable wife 
 she was going to make him; how much she 
 had his interests — since they were identical 
 with her own — at heart; how she would 
 make him take his proper ])\sice in the 
 County; be duly magnificent, without undue 
 extravagance; and spend his money sensibly 
 and suitably in entertaining his equals. 
 
 Presently he asked her to sing, and with 
 perfect readiness and good nature, she 
 divested the harj) of its brown holland 
 clothes, and sang, " Angels ever bright and 
 fair," with exactly the same expression, and 
 only looking less angelic because she was 
 more handsomely dressed, as she had sung 
 it at the JNIanor. 
 
 Her husband, who had not changed his 
 negligent attitude, watched her closely all 
 the time. How easily, and how short a 
 time ago, the singer and song had cajoled 
 him! 
 
 In due course, things came about just as 
 he had anticipated. Ann, having had the 
 Chantry pew nicely redecorated and up- 
 holstered, her husband followed her into it 
 on Sunday morning — in fact, on Sunday
 
 MY LADY 249 
 
 mornings — rather indolently, a few paces 
 behind her, and with his eyes lazy and 
 cynical. He drove with her to call on the 
 County in a new landaulette with a couple of 
 handsome greys — the County, whom he had 
 neglected for years, and who received him as 
 the prodigal— reformed by Ann. 
 
 He soon found out that she would be 
 much at Basset, because there she was lady- 
 paramount — the only really wealthy and well- 
 dressed woman in the place — while in town 
 there were hundreds of other baronets' ladies, 
 richer and finer. The frank admiration in 
 Pollie Latimer's ej^es of her lovely clothes, 
 and Harry's palpable delight in her lovely 
 face, were a more acceptable homage than 
 the careless approval of strangers. Even the 
 uncompromising hostility of Mrs. Benet's 
 countenance, when Sir John and his bride 
 met that lady one day in the village, was 
 also really a comiDliment — indifference is the 
 only insult. 
 
 It was on the very tip of Mrs. Benet's 
 tongue, as she afterwards confessed, to in- 
 quire of the pair if they had had any news 
 of Lionel Darbisher — and she refrained solely 
 to oblige Dick. As it was, as they turned 
 away, Ann certainly had some justification
 
 250 BASSET 
 
 for saying, rather warmly for her, " That is 
 the rudest old woman I ever saw!" 
 
 Fortunately, in marriage, as with St. 
 Denis and his head, " ce n'est que le premier 
 pas qui coute," in the sense that, beside the 
 first six months of an ill-assorted union, the 
 next sixty j^ears are comparatively easy. 
 
 With Sir John there was really a grim and 
 ironical satisfaction in finding himself turned 
 into a well-regulated domestic character; 
 Ann s wa3% wliich, gentlj^ obstinate, she 
 always took, was, after all, nearly alwaj^s the 
 right way; and he had the satisfaction of 
 knowing that he held the final trump card of 
 decision and mastery — if it were ever worth 
 while to use it. 
 
 In a very short time, he took to spending 
 one or two evenings a week with old Grant 
 at the Rector}^ Now he was absolutely and 
 finall}' her own, Ann fortunately saw no use 
 in her husband's dancing attendance on her 
 — excejit in public — and was not eocigeante. 
 
 So Peter and John sat together in Peter's 
 rarely dusted study, and smoked, and said 
 little. No allusion to Sir John's marriage, 
 scarcely even Ann's name, ever passed Peter's 
 lips. Had he grasped, dull and limited as he 
 was, that the situation was not merely one
 
 MY LADY 251 
 
 where it was impossible to offer sympathy, 
 but one where it was impossible to show 
 there was the smallest occasion for such an 
 offer? Or was it simply that he was like old 
 Rover — Rover, with his black, cold nose and 
 shaggy head rubbing in one's hand — a good 
 comforter because he coiild not speak? Per- 
 haps the escapades of their past made a bond 
 between the two men; and both knew they 
 had no future. 
 
 The Parson was the battered hulk, which 
 had once taken a short and prosperous 
 voyage — to Ed Dorado. Beside him, on a 
 quiet shore, there might well lie, in undis- 
 turbed neglect, the wreck of the fine ship 
 which had foundered through a defect in 
 the rudder.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 AN ENDING 
 
 The winter after the elopement set in early, 
 rigorous and dull. The Chantrj^ blinds were 
 pulled down again, and Sir John and JNIy 
 Lady retreated to the bald, blank, family 
 mansion in Norfolk — it being still the fashion 
 to fight, not flee, the British climate — Lord 
 Brougham ha\dng but just invented Cannes 
 for the benefit of the upper classes. 
 
 At the jNIanor, JNIrs. Latimer evolved a 
 new salad dressing and a fresh stitch in 
 wool-work; advanced to the irregular verbs 
 in Latin — Tommy being five, and already 
 in declensions; and subscribed to the 
 Quarterly, feeling dimly apologetic towards 
 Harry for that assumption of intelligence. 
 
 Things at the Rectory went on as usual; 
 they always went on as usual. 
 
 Absolutely the only on dit of Basset was 
 that old Doctor was doing less work and the 
 young one was doing more. 
 
 It was certainly at a much earher hour 
 252
 
 AN ENDING 253 
 
 of an afternoon that Richard descended from 
 the gig, laid the reins across Neck-or- 
 Nothing's sleeping back, and came up the 
 flagged path to meet his wife. 
 
 " You're getting lazy, Dick," she said on 
 one such occasion, as they returned to the 
 house together; and he answered, in his thick, 
 cheerful, old voice, "I'm getting uncommonly 
 fond of my own fireside, Jeannie." 
 
 Another day, when she had divested him of 
 the rugs, coats, and comforters which turned 
 him into a bundle entirely filling their little 
 hall, a sudden thought struck her. 
 
 " Why, Dick! " she said, with a sharp note 
 in her voice, " you're thinner than you used 
 to be." 
 
 " And you're fatter, Jeannie," says Dick, 
 with his blue eye twinkling at her. But 
 Jeannie was not to be distracted into by- 
 paths by animadversions on her figure, to 
 which she was perfectly indifferent. 
 
 " I shall fatten you up," she said, decidedly, 
 as if he had been a prize fowl. And, lo! 
 the next morning at breakfast there was a 
 slimy substance floating on the Doctor's tea, 
 which, on questioning, he found to be the 
 yolk of an egg, recommended in the manu- 
 script Recipe-book — which had descended
 
 254 BASSET 
 
 from Jeannie's aunt — as being a capital secret 
 remedy for debility and emaciation, and not 
 likely to be detected by the patient " unless 
 of a suspicious character." Dr. Benet cried 
 off that panacea; but the prodigality with 
 which cream and butter were inserted into 
 his puddings, Jeannie would certainly have 
 thought sinful in a less excellent cause. 
 
 One evening, when Spencer was sitting 
 with them as usual, old Benet left the dining- 
 parlour for a few minutes to see a patient in 
 the surgery. Jeannie looked up from her 
 novel. " Do you think Dick's getting thin? " 
 she said, her shrewd eyes fixed keenly on 
 JMark's face. 
 
 There was a moment's pause. " I think 
 he's getting old," said JNIark. 
 
 "Old!" answered Jeannie, very sharply. 
 " He's sixty-nine — that isn't old." 
 
 " David thought it was," replied Spencer. 
 
 Mrs. Benet gave a snort, as if to say 
 she had no opinion of the opinion of the 
 Psalmist. 
 
 " To tell you the truth," said Spencer, 
 after they had both been silent a few minutes 
 behind their books, " I think the Doctor 
 wants a few days' holiday." 
 
 In the era of stage-coaches and expensive
 
 AN ENDING 255 
 
 travelling it was not merely convenient but 
 necessary to think that, in a general way, 
 one's complaints healed as well and as quickly 
 in one's native place as anywhere else; and 
 perhaps they did. 
 
 Since his marriage the Doctor had never 
 slept out of his home for a single night. 
 There had been an epoch, not long ago, 
 when he ailed somewhat, and it had been 
 his wife's great ambition to get him away 
 for a week or two. With that end in view, 
 she had a netted purse upstairs, mysteriously 
 labelled " Pig," containing a few guineas 
 derived from the sale of the inmates of the 
 sty in the back-garden, and forming a Change 
 of Air Fund. 
 
 She thought of that fund now, shut her 
 eyes, did a short sum in her head — small, 
 but serviceable exceedingly, was Jeannie's 
 arithmetic — and said, very decidedly, " Dick 
 shall go." 
 
 Mark entered into the plan with a warmth 
 he did not often show, and the quick decision 
 and mastery natural to him. He had, it 
 appeared, a doctor friend in Cavendish 
 Square — name, Adams — who would not only 
 be delighted to have Dr. Benet as his guest, 
 but to show him the sights of London
 
 256 BASSET 
 
 in general, and such things in particular as 
 would appeal to them both professionally. 
 
 When old Benet returned from the 
 surgery and this plan for his welfare was 
 communicated to him, though he laughed 
 a little and said, " I dare say, Jeannie! it is 
 very easy to dispose of me like that," he 
 did not raise the objections to it his wife 
 had expected. 
 
 After fixing a very firm eye on both his 
 face and Spencer's, she said, " I believe you 
 two have been putting your heads together 
 and have arranged this alread}^ behind my 
 back." 
 
 Spencer, who, as a far more accomplished 
 deceiver than old Benet, knew when honesty 
 was the best policy, replied, " I did suggest 
 it to the Doctor, but he said he wouldn't 
 leave you." 
 
 Mrs. Benet went off at the tangent, as 
 Mark, perhaps, had hoped. 
 
 "Leave me!" she cried, very indignantly. 
 " Does the man suppose some one will run off 
 with me?" (Indeed, to look at ]Mrs. Benet, 
 this appeared a remote contingency.) " I 
 shall get my cleaning done, and be thankful 
 to do it;" and in her mental vision, Jeannie 
 saw a satisfactory picture of the furniture
 
 AN ENDING 257 
 
 in the back-garden, and herself and INIaggie 
 enthusiasticallj^ scrubbing every floor in the 
 house; throwing in, if there was time, a 
 little amateur whitewashing of ceilings as 
 well. 
 
 After that, the arrangements for the visit 
 went on apace. Spencer did not appear 
 to hurry them; but he certainly removed 
 obstacles from their path. He evinced great 
 sanguineness as to the recovery of a certain 
 bad case Dr. Richard had been doubtful of 
 leaving; and went so far as to express, what 
 perhaps he always felt, a good deal of con- 
 fidence in his own professional powers. 
 
 Once Jeannie said to her old man, rather 
 severely, " And why, pray, is this Dr. Adams 
 so anxious to entertain you in his house when 
 he has never seen you?" 
 
 Richard, with his chuckle, made answer, 
 " Why, that's the reason, Jeannie; he 
 wouldn't be so anxious if he had seen me." 
 
 " Don't you eat unwholesome food late at 
 night to please him" says Jeannie, beholding 
 her lord in fancy at the rich man's table. 
 " And tell him I give you milk and an egg 
 beaten up with brandy before you go to bed. 
 I shan't send any of your thin underclothing, 
 so you can't put on your summer shirts — by
 
 258 BASSET 
 
 mistake/' she added, nodding at him mean- 
 ingly. 
 
 Richard gave all the promises required. 
 " But I don't like leaving j^ou, Jeannie," he 
 said, " I'm never comfortable away from you 
 —that's the truth." 
 
 It was their last evening, and they were 
 cording the luggage in the dining-room. JNIrs. 
 Benet said "Nonsense!" very loudly and 
 firmly; and went immediately into the 
 kitchen, for more cord. 
 
 The next morning when, in the cold and 
 early dawn, the gig was waiting to convey the 
 traveller to Dilchester, there to meet the 
 London coach, INIrs. Benet had wrapped him 
 up in so many and so stout layers of coats 
 and shawls that he could scarceh^ stretch over 
 himself to kiss her. His good old face, 
 coming up out of the bandages, struck her 
 suddenly and anew as thin and white. Cer- 
 tainly, Dick wanted a holiday! She gave 
 his shoulder a resounding smack, and said, 
 '' Now, mind you enjoy yourself; " slipped a 
 large flask of very sound port wine into one 
 of his outer pockets, came with him down the 
 garden path, waved at him with great vigour 
 and cheerfulness till he had disappeared from 
 sight, and then returned briskly to the dining-
 
 AN ENDING 259 
 
 room, which she began to clean with immense 
 energy, taking no heed of two large tears 
 rmming down her fat cheeks. 
 
 Spencer constantly came in to see her; 
 and she read extracts to him from her old 
 man's letters. 
 
 Mark also heard from his partner; but 
 he did not offer to read aloud any part of 
 these communications; they were, he said, 
 entirely professional. Not once, but several 
 times, he roused INIrs. Benet's ire by again 
 rather pointedly alluding to her husband 
 as old. 
 
 " I suppose," says Jeannie, not without 
 snappishness, " you think any one over thirty- 
 five is in his dotage." (Thirty-five was 
 Silencer's precise age.) 
 
 " That's just about it," says Mark, laugh- 
 ing. And he looked at her almost com- 
 passionately. 
 
 The fortnight came to an end at last. On 
 a murky, raining evening — it was now No- 
 vember — Neck-or-Nothing brought his master 
 from Dilchester. 
 
 In the narrow little hall it was too dark to 
 see anything clearly; but when the Doctor, 
 unwrapped, came into the living-room, bright 
 with fire and candles, and his wife looked up
 
 26o BASSET 
 
 into his face — a sudden dreadful premonition 
 closed its icy hand ujDon her heart. 
 
 Had he foreseen, and arranged for, her 
 penetration? He said instantly that he had 
 found the journey cold and long, and that 
 he was vCrj^ tired. She gave him his supper 
 — how much energy and pleasure she had put 
 into its preparation — and asked him some of 
 the questions she had been longing to ask for 
 a fortnight about Dr. Adams' character and 
 cuisine. But the answers fell on a mind quite 
 j)re-absorbed. 
 
 Over their tea, Richard told her how much 
 pleasanter he found their own homely house 
 and ways than the solid magnificence of 
 Cavendish Square, and leant forward to pat 
 her hand in the old fashion. She turned 
 away at once to fetch their books — the 
 Doctor's marker was still in " INIidshipman 
 Easy " in the i^lace where he had left off 
 a fortnight before — and they sat and read as 
 usual; only, now and then, he looked up to 
 tell her of something he had done or seen on 
 his visit. 
 
 At nine o'clock he said that, as he was so 
 tired, he would go to bed; and a look of 
 relief stole into her eyes. 
 
 She and IM aggie warmed the bed briskly
 
 AN ENDING 261 
 
 and thoroughly with the warming-pan, and 
 when the Doctor was cosily settled in it — 
 with his nightcap, in the shape of a jelly-bag, 
 with a red tassel on the top, surmounting his 
 simple, sensible face — Jeannie brought him 
 a hot drink of no little potency, and saw him 
 finish it to the last drop. 
 
 Then she went downstairs, put on her 
 clogs, the same old shawl and bonnet in 
 which, months earlier, she had gone to nurse 
 Spencer, took the family gingham umbrella, 
 and walked quickly, in a black and streaming 
 rain, to Myrtle Cottage. Before her hand 
 reached the knocker, Mark was at the door — 
 almost as if he had expected her. She went 
 into his sitting-room without a word, took the 
 first chair she saw, leaning her dripping 
 umbrella against her ample skirts, and then 
 said firmly, " What's the matter with my old 
 man?" 
 
 Spencer looked at her keen and penetrat- 
 ing eyes, at the rough bare hand, as steady as 
 a rock, upon her knee; and told her. 
 
 She listened intently, without interrupting 
 by a single question. 
 
 When he had finished, she said, " Does 
 Dick know all this himself?" 
 
 " He's too shrewd not to know — as much
 
 262 BASSET 
 
 as we do," answered Spencer. He did not 
 add how many times during the last few 
 weeks he had wished the Doctor had been 
 indeed the fool, he (Spencer) had once been 
 fool enough to think him. 
 
 A coal fell out of the fire on to the hearth, 
 and Jeannie turned her old head with a 
 frown, as if the noise jarred on her. 
 
 "Is there anything to be done?" she said 
 huskily. 
 
 It had, of course, often been Spencer's 
 duty — and a duty, alas ! to which he had never 
 grown hardened — to scourge and flay with 
 the truth; but he had never found that duty 
 more difficult than to-night. 
 
 " Nothing — that can bring about his re- 
 covery," he said; knowing that it was more 
 merciful to hit hard once than to hit soft 
 often. " Dr. Adams has had him under close 
 observation for a fortnight, and he came to 
 the same conclusion. But everything that 
 science can do to ease him, will be 
 done." 
 
 " And that's very little," says old Jeannie, 
 with great bitterness. 
 
 " It's more every day," answered jMark. 
 
 He knew much better than to offer her 
 any advice as to her own conduct, and the
 
 AN ENDING 263 
 
 necessity for cheerfulness. He could let the 
 counsel of her own heart stand. 
 
 Presently, when the rivulet from her um- 
 brella had nearly reached one of Spencer's 
 large feet, she got up, and said, in a voice 
 not greatly different from her usual voice — 
 
 " Well, I supx^ose it's getting late." 
 
 Spencer saw her out of the door into the 
 dark night, and then forced his attention 
 upon the book he had been reading when she 
 came. 
 
 When Jeannie reached home, she sent 
 Maggie to bed, locked up the house, and 
 uj^stairs, shading the candle with her capable 
 hand, looked in at the bed-curtains on her 
 husband. Calm, regular snores announced 
 he was asleep, and in sleep the face looked 
 less drawn and changed. She performed her 
 simjDle toilette very softly, and — lying awake 
 by the good, night-capped head, which for 
 forty years had rested near her own with but 
 one fortnight's interruption — swallowed sobs 
 in her aching throat, and when the winter 
 dawn came, " slejit for sorrow." 
 
 Dr. Adams came down from London the 
 next week to see his patient; and by that 
 time all Basset knew of the loss which over- 
 shadowed them.
 
 264 BASSET 
 
 Hopeful Harry could by no manner of 
 means bring bimself to believe in such a 
 calamity, and said to Pollie that he had 
 always thought Spencer with liis long face 
 a deuce of a killjoy, and how could any doc- 
 tor see what was going on inside you? 
 
 Still, the " riddle of the painful earth " did 
 perplex him for a few minutes as he rode into 
 Dilchester; until he met a brother squire — a 
 cheerful soul — and forgot, as we all forget, 
 to find life tolerable. 
 
 As for Pollie, she went straight into the 
 kitchen to make her famous calf's-foot jelly, 
 with a shadow in her eyes, and a protest in 
 her ardent heart — Why? 
 
 Spencer also had found that question con- 
 fronting him as he strained every nerve and 
 power to find a remed}^; and knew, all the 
 time, in his soul, there was none. 
 
 JNIrs. Latimer had left the jelly on the 
 Benets without asking to see them, knowing 
 — whether by instinct or experience — those 
 who greatly suffer would fain suffer alone. 
 
 Rachel Pilkington, less wise, with tears 
 in her eyes and bubbhng sympathy in her 
 heart — good measure, pressed down and 
 running over — expressed it to INIrs. Benet 
 with an emotion and fen'our which, as en-
 
 AN ENDING 265 
 
 danserins to old Jeannie's stern and difficult 
 self-control, enraged her with Miss Pilking- 
 ton, and made her manner exceeding gruff 
 and abrupt. 
 
 Lady Railton wrote a really kind little 
 note to JNIrs. Benet, of whom she had cer- 
 tainly had no reason to be fond. 
 
 Sir John, unknown to his wife, sent a very 
 handsome cheque to Peter Grant, directing 
 his cousin to spend it for the Doctor's com- 
 fort without revealing its source. Peter, 
 having tramped into Dilchester, purchased 
 a few strangely selected comforts for the 
 sufferer, and presented them to Mrs. Benet 
 with so much guilty embarrassment that she 
 began to think he had stolen them; whereas 
 Peter was really one of those unlucky persons 
 who are transparently honest, not from 
 principle, but because they cannot help it. 
 
 Of all the village, it was the old Doctor 
 himself who took the most calmly the fate he 
 had foreseen long before a word of his appre- 
 hension had passed his lips. For three or 
 four weeks after his return from London, he 
 was well enough to see some of his patients, 
 and saw them. 
 
 But gradually he attended fewer, and 
 fewer still.
 
 2 66 BASSET 
 
 Presently he took to breakfasting in bed. 
 For a time he was able, when he came down, 
 to walk round the little garden, with his old 
 plaid about his shoulders, look at the cabbage 
 stalks with the November frost on them, 
 the pigs in the sty, and the chickens, which 
 he ruefully wished would lay even fewer 
 eggs than they did, since Jeannie manfully 
 insisted on his eating them all. Not, indeed, 
 that she greatly worried him by feeding him 
 up; Spencer had told her that would be 
 very futile. But how could she help some- 
 times, when for a day or two he did look 
 better and eat better, hoping against hope 
 and knowledge that, after all, there might be 
 a mistake somewhere, as Richard himself, 
 with all his inborn genius for diagnosis, had 
 made mistakes in his time? 
 
 For a long while he could enjoy their 
 cosy evenings as heretofore; chuckle a little 
 over the latest INIarrj^at or Dickens, as 
 Jeannie mended the house linen, or looked 
 above Lady Blessington, deep into the heart 
 of the fire. 
 
 She roused herself from one such reverie 
 to say, " Dick! you ought to have told me at 
 once — when j^ou first felt ill. You hadn't any 
 business to deceive me."
 
 AN ENDING 267 
 
 He recalled his thoughts slowly from his 
 book, and answered simply, " It was the first 
 time, Jeannie." 
 
 There was no necessity to add that it 
 would be the last. 
 
 Another night, it was old Richard who fell 
 into reverie. Jeannie, making him a very 
 warm new night-shirt, was really absorbed in 
 " seam and gusset and band." Her old man 
 got up and stood by the fire — a short, and 
 not heroic figure — and looked down at her. 
 
 " It's been a very good world for us, 
 Jeannie," he said. " And the parsons say 
 the next'll be better." 
 
 " Much they know about it that we don't," 
 says Jeannie, hoarsely, stitching for life, and 
 not raising her head from the work. 
 
 " And j^et, j^ou know," says the Doctor, 
 putting his hand firmly on her shoulder as 
 she sewed doggedly, " though I have seen 
 more suffering and sin than most men see, I 
 suppose, yet I think that if this world can be 
 so happy, there maj^ well be a happier yet; " 
 and his old hand stroked her stout arm softly, 
 and settled on the fingers with the needle in 
 them, which tried to go on working all the 
 same, while the worker fought for her self- 
 control.
 
 268 BASSET 
 
 " And the one thing we always wanted, 
 we have now," old Richard went on, " a son 
 in our old age." 
 
 At that moment, with a bang and a clatter 
 of crockerj'-, Maggie entered with the tea- 
 tray, wearing — in obedience to a command of 
 Spencer's that she was not to cry and look 
 dismal — a broad, set, fatuous smile, which he 
 never saw Avithout reflecting on the wisdom 
 of minding one's own business. 
 
 Jeannie got up at once to busy herself 
 with the tea-making, with her head turned 
 away from her lord; bade him, shortly and 
 grumpily, sit down and enjoy his tea 
 properh^ ; arranged a shawl round his worsted- 
 stockinged legs — draughts were the only ven- 
 tilation of the day, and very thorough and 
 searching they could be — and with an air of 
 stern displeasure, which Richard did not mis- 
 interpret, drank her own tea by his side. 
 
 When the cups were put back on the tray, 
 she collected her forces, and said, in a voice 
 that suppressed feeling made harsh, what she 
 had been struggling to say for many evenings. 
 
 " Richard, you're to tell me what you'd 
 like me to do — afterwards." 
 
 He looked at her under the shagg}'' eye- 
 brows to which Rachel Pilkington objected.
 
 AN ENDING 269 
 
 and said at once, " Why, you'll know that, 
 Jeannie, when the time comes. You always 
 know." 
 
 Then, lighting by sure instinct on the 
 only consolation he could give her, he added 
 simply, " You'll be glad — presently — Jeannie, 
 I should go first. I should have missed you 
 worse than you could miss me." 
 
 That Jeannie said " No! " very loudly and 
 suddenly, did not turn him from his point. 
 
 " Yes, old woman, yes," he said, nodding 
 and looking at her with his wise, blue eyes. 
 " Why, we're always more dependent on you 
 than you are on us. You've said so many a 
 time." 
 
 Jeannie said briefly, " You're more 
 cheated," and having come to the end of her 
 tether for the time, took up the night-shirt 
 and sewed at it again, defiantly. 
 
 Sometimes, Spencer came in in the even- 
 ings; but less often than of yore, and for a 
 shorter time. 
 
 As the days went on, the old Doctor could 
 do less: and less still. He suffered not 
 greatly — never so greatly, he knew very well, 
 as Jeannie suffered to see him suffer. He 
 did not disguise from her either that suffer- 
 ing or the fact that his malady made quick
 
 2 70 BASSET 
 
 progress. What use? The boy, "winged 
 Cupid," is " j^ainted blind " justly, no doubt; 
 but the old, tried affection, which has lived 
 the day and slept the night at one's side these 
 forty years — which knows, by heart, every 
 look of the face, every tone of the voice — 
 there is no deceiving. 
 
 If Sj)encer did not disturb their evenings, 
 he was often with them in the day, in all such 
 brief intervals as his double practice left him. 
 Quiet and resolute, he brought with him an 
 atmosphere of confidence. He had his plans 
 for the doctor's easing well laid, and kept 
 Mrs. Benet more than busy in helloing him 
 to carry them out. 
 
 The day soon came- — sooner than Spencer, 
 or he himself, had foreseen — when old Richard 
 could not rise from his bed. Dr. Adams 
 came down again from London, and as he 
 bade JNIrs. Benet good-bye, said to her — with 
 all his experience in finding cheerful state- 
 ments it was the best he could think of — 
 " Well, you have a first-class man in Spencer 
 — too good for a country village " ; and he 
 liked her the better (she had appeared to him 
 as a repellent old woman) when she answered, 
 " So was my husband — much too good." 
 
 Soon it became necessary that some one
 
 AN ENDING 271 
 
 should sit up at nights with the sick man. 
 As it greatly distressed him if his wife missed 
 her usual rest, she went to bed, and since 
 Richard so much wished it, tried to sleep 
 and sometimes succeeded, while, first of all, 
 Spencer took her place in the Doctor's room. 
 But he had his work to do in the day, and 
 an aide-de-camp was necessary. 
 
 A deep pleasure and satisfaction glowed 
 in Peter Grant's dim old soul when he was 
 chosen for this responsible office. He attired 
 himself for the part in an ancient greatcoat 
 and muffler. In an agony of apprehension 
 lest he should sleep at his post, he sat, in his 
 stocking-feet, on a very hard, straight-backed 
 chair near the door, in order that the nipping 
 blast which blew under it should make the 
 feet so cold that sleep would be impossible. 
 He wrote, and pinned on the Doctor's bed- 
 curtains, a large foolscap sheet of instruc- 
 tions — slightly mis-spelt— as to the hours the 
 patient was to take medicine or nourishment. 
 When it became necessary to put coals on the 
 fire, the creaking of the boards under the 
 weight of his great person caused him suffer- 
 ing it certainly did not inflict on the Doctor. 
 
 Perhaps it was not professional that, 
 having put on the coals with his fingers, he
 
 272 BASSET 
 
 should leave five large black marks on the 
 bedcover when he next administered a dose; 
 and the kettle on the hob, in readiness to 
 make a cup of tea when required, seemed to 
 tip over if he so much as looked at it. 
 
 But in place of the calm, efficient, de- 
 tached attitude of the trained and hired nurse, 
 this one brought a zeal, an affection, a dumb 
 sympatlw, which professionalism must needs 
 lack, and which doubtless reached old Richard 
 in his bed and warmed and comforted him. 
 When there was anything unusual to be done, 
 the patient sat up, put his old head — still in 
 the red-tasselled nightcap and with but a 
 shrunken face underneath — through the cur- 
 tains, and told the nurse what to do. And 
 the nurse verj^ likely would have done it 
 better, had he been less desperately anxious 
 to do well. 
 
 Old Rover always accompanied Peter to 
 his night-watch and lay outside the bedroom, 
 as he lay in the vestry during service. When 
 he scratched at the door, as he did in church, 
 Peter followed the same method of procedure 
 — put his head out, shook his fist, and said 
 "Hush!" ver}^ deeply and menacingly. 
 
 What thoughts the Parson thought, as 
 he sat there watching the dawn come slowly
 
 AN ENDING 273 
 
 in at the curtained window, and listening 
 to the breathings of the dying man and the 
 noises of the fire — who knows? 
 
 Perhaps his whole dull mind was busy 
 goading his body to keep awake. Perhaps he 
 vaguely reflected how, when his own time 
 came, the books he must show his INIaker 
 would be but neglected and ill-kept accounts 
 beside this man's. 
 
 It is certain that he never offered the 
 Doctor any spiritual ministrations. 
 
 Once, when Richard expressed a wish to 
 be read to, the Parson creaked downstairs — it 
 was the middle of the night — for " Snarley- 
 yow," and took up that narrative at the spot 
 at which he found the Doctor's marker. The 
 listener laughed feebly once or twice, till 
 he fell into a brief sleep ; and Peter blundered 
 over the long words, and finally broke the 
 sleep by dropping the book off his knee on 
 to the floor with a thud. But as for praying 
 with him — the. Parson's humble heart could 
 never have been persuaded that Richard 
 Benet needed his prayers. The Doctor's life 
 — that life of simple devotion to duty — would 
 surely better plead and avail. 
 
 By the early morning, when Spencer and 
 Mrs. Benet came to relieve guard, the night-
 
 274 BASSET 
 
 nurse had generally reduced the sick-room 
 to an extraordinary state of chaos. Spencer's 
 dark eyes began to gleam as they caught 
 ]Mrs. Benet's indignant orbs, when she dis- 
 covered that Peter's heav)^ form had crunched 
 up the leg of a chair, and his clumsy hands 
 broken a cup and saucer; and they both 
 began to laugh a little — perhaps, like Figaro, 
 that they might not weep. 
 
 For, indeed, the end was coming — pain- 
 fully. 
 
 One day, Pollie, bringing a fresh instal- 
 ment of calf's-foot jelly, found the door 
 opened to her by Mrs. Benet herself, and the 
 old woman silently signed to her visitor to 
 come into the sitting-room. There was a 
 bright fire burning on the hearth, and the 
 large-faced Dutch clock in the corner ticked 
 its loud, companionable tick as usual; but 
 the Doctor's old horsehair chair, with the 
 threadbare arms, the home-made bookcase 
 on the wall where his four or five well- 
 thumbed literary friends stood cheek by 
 jowl, and his old plaid simply suspended on 
 a nail behind the door, conveyed the cold 
 and desolate sense of a missing presence. 
 
 The two women sat down together on 
 the sofa, and the younger took off her great
 
 AN ENDING 275 
 
 bonnet and laid it on her laj), and put her 
 soft and compassionate face for a moment 
 against Jeannie's stout, wrinkled cheek, and 
 tightly held one of the old woman's hands. 
 
 Had Pollie known before situations in life 
 which have neither words nor tears? 
 
 In a few minutes, the two were in the 
 kitchen, turning the jelly out of its mould 
 and Pollie was earnestly recommending 
 Maggie to keej^ it in a cool j^lace till it was 
 needed, and telling JNIrs. Benet that Harry 
 was waiting about at home, instead of shoot- 
 ing pheasants, ready and anxious to ride into 
 Dilchester at any moment to fetch what 
 might be wanted. 
 
 But the Doctor was fast passing beyond 
 human wants. 
 
 That same evening, in a very cold, brief 
 twilight, when Spencer had just left, and 
 old Grant had not yet arrived to take up 
 his sentinelship, Richard signed to his wife 
 to sit beside him; and she sat there, in 
 their old, companionable silence, watching 
 the thin ghost of the face she had known. 
 After a time, he asked for a little of the beef- 
 tea — her good beef-tea, which she always 
 made with her own hands. When she put 
 an extra shawl over his feet, he thanked
 
 276 BASSET 
 
 her with his eyes, and murmured something 
 that sounded hke his favourite, contented 
 phrase, " Very comfortable, Jeannie, very 
 comfortable." 
 
 Then, holding her faithful hand, he passed 
 quietly to where, if he were Richard Benet 
 still, he would but love her better. 
 
 In those days, everything that could be 
 done, in the way of mourning and funeral 
 arrangements, to make the survivors more 
 wretched, was done, most conscientiously. 
 
 Eliza Pilkington, dej)uted to choose in 
 Dilchester poor old Jeannie's weeds, did her 
 best, and worst. But, perhaj^s, even a bonnet 
 hugely and grotesquely black, and the dis- 
 comfort of a panoply of a stiff, sticky 
 material called bombazine, had their uses. 
 For Jeannie believed they did old Richard 
 honour; just as she believed the expensive, 
 heav}^ funeral — with its plumes and hatch- 
 ments, mutes imperfectly sober and of a 
 jocularity ill-concealed, the great pall of 
 velvet on the coffin, and the church hung 
 with black — did him honour too. 
 
 Xor, perhaps, was it wholly a misfortune 
 for her that it was the custom of the day to 
 have even more eating and drinking at 
 funerals than at weddings, and that she was
 
 AN ENDING 277 
 
 compelled, with Maggie's help — and with 
 what an empty and aching heart! — to be bak- 
 ing, for several days, pies and puddings for 
 the friends and mourners. To be sure Pollie 
 and Mrs. Jones helped greatly; and Miss 
 Pilkington's sour Sarah, moved and kind for 
 the nonce, brought in home-made cakes. 
 
 But it was not till the funeral service was 
 actually going on that old Jeannie found " a 
 little leisure for grief " ; and sitting in her 
 bedroom, with her hands clasped on her black 
 lap, and her eyes dim and sorrowful, lived 
 through — something better than she had sup- 
 posed possible — the blankest moments of her 
 life. 
 
 After all, what " had been, had been, and 
 she had had her hour." 
 
 On the following Sunday morning she 
 went, as it was de rigueur she should go, to 
 church. 
 
 The great cold building was still solemnly 
 draped in black; there were black hangings, 
 much tasselled, in the Doctor's pew, and by 
 Jeannie's side the tall, dark figure of the son 
 of her old age. Hard by were Harry and 
 Pollie; and Tommy, in the thrilling excite- 
 ment and interest of his first mourning suit. 
 The whole church was full of people similarly
 
 278 BASSET 
 
 arrayed; who had mostly loved the old Doc- 
 tor faithfully and well; and a few who suf- 
 fered the more at his loss, perhaps, that they 
 had not loved him stauncher and better. 
 Sir John had staj^ed at the Rectory in order 
 to be present at the funeral (the Chantry 
 being shut up), and was also in his place 
 to-day. 
 
 Poor Peter, knowing an original funeral 
 sermon would be expected of him, had set ink, 
 quills, and manuscript before him on his table 
 in his study, and spent hours gazing des- 
 perately at them, just as he had done when 
 he first took Orders — and with the same re- 
 sult. If he had not lost, by disuse, the feeble 
 power he had ever had of expressing himself, 
 the very strength of his feelings would have 
 made him dumb; and the faltering, gruff 
 tones in which he delivered bought hanalites 
 were really a better witness to his affection 
 and sorrow, than the suitable and sonorous 
 phrases in wliich a Parson Pilkington might 
 have borne testimony to a friend. 
 
 Rachel, indeed, with her sensitive face 
 flushed and her ej'es full of tears, could not 
 help whispering to Pollie, as they came out 
 of church together, that she thought INIr. 
 Grant's sermon dreadfully inadequate; but
 
 AN ENDING 279 
 
 that shrewder woman, old Jeaniiie, made no 
 such mistake. 
 
 For a few days, Spencer did not intrude 
 even his presence on his friend's grief. On 
 the evening of the fourth day after the 
 funeral he apj)eared in the parlour at her five 
 o'clock dinner time, with a newspaper parcel, 
 exuding under-clothes, beneath his arm; hav- 
 ing left snowy coat and hat in the hall. He 
 put down the parcel on the sofa, and said 
 simply, " I've come to dinner." 
 
 " You can't. There isn't enough," answers 
 Mrs. Benet, shortly, just beginning her meal. 
 
 " Plenty," says Spencer, with the old light 
 coming into his deep eyes; and he lifted up 
 the cover of the dish in front of her, and sat 
 down in his usual place at her side. Maggie 
 brought in an extra knife, fork, and plate; 
 and, after a time, as the diners talked 
 together, the harsh, sad lines on old Jeannie's 
 face relaxed a little. 
 
 When the table was cleared, Spencer put 
 his parcel on it, inserted a large forefinger 
 through a still larger hole in a sock, and said, 
 " Not a soul has touched them for six weeks, 
 except the stitches in time I put in myself." 
 
 " And they are worse than nothing," 
 answers Mrs. Benet ; and in a few minutes she
 
 2 8o BASSET 
 
 fetched her serviceable workbox and began to 
 darn, while Spencer took — deliberately and as 
 if by intention — the Doctor's armchair; and 
 the two sat in silence, with the Dutch clock 
 ticking accompaniment to their thoughts. 
 
 After a while, Sj^encer said, " Shall you 
 stay on here? " 
 
 He knew the contents of the Doctor's 
 brief and very simple will, w hich had left his 
 little all absolutely and without restriction to 
 the wdfe whom he had trusted as his own soul, 
 and which had expressed no further direction 
 or W'ish. 
 
 "Why not?" said Mrs. Benet, briefly. 
 
 After a time, he asked, " And what will 
 you do? " 
 
 " Keep house," says Jeannie, with a catch 
 in her breath. 
 
 In a long pause they both thought, in 
 their different fashions, how, if it be the best 
 thing in the w^orld for the woman to keep 
 house for the man she loves, it is the dreariest 
 of all dreary and selfish things to live to 
 keep house for herself alone. 
 
 About seven o'clock Spencer rose to go; 
 and Jeannie, darning, raised her head. 
 
 " Shall you be in to-morrow? " 
 
 " Every day," says Spencer.
 
 AN ENDING 281 
 
 Mrs. Benet observed that he had better 
 leave liis shirts behind him, as their condition 
 was disgraceful; and as he was going out of 
 the door, she called to him to mind and see 
 that lazy, slatternly thing — this was her 
 usual synonym for the proprietress of Myrtle 
 Cottage — warmed his bed with the warming- 
 pan on these cold nights. So that Spencer, 
 walking quickl)^ home in the darkness, knew 
 his visit had attained its object. 
 
 When, presently, Mrs. Benet went to 
 Spencer's parcel to find another shirt, her 
 hand fell upon something hard. 
 
 There, brand-new, piping hot from the 
 Dilchester circulating library, was the first of 
 the three volumes of a novel such as her soul 
 had loved. In it, there was a slip of paper 
 in Spencer's handwriting — " Some of your 
 trash " — Mrs. Benet's deplorable taste in fic- 
 tion having long been a joke between them. 
 
 There was a smile on her fat, sad face, 
 though her lips trembled, as, standing, she 
 opened the book. 
 
 The atmosphere of dukes and diamonds, 
 in which she had always delighted, closed 
 slowly round her. By the time the Earl, who 
 was the son of a Baronet had begun propos- 
 ing to the Viscountess, Mrs. Benet had sunk
 
 2 82 BASSET 
 
 down on her chair, still reading — with a 
 threaded needle stuck perilously into her bom- 
 bazine bodice — and had found for the moment 
 the distraction from sorrow which, in its time 
 and place, is better than all resolution.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A BEGINNING 
 
 One snowy morning, before the grass was 
 green on Dr. Richard's grave — or rather, 
 before the Dilchester stonemason had per- 
 petrated above it a marble abomination rep- 
 resenting two angels flying to Heaven with 
 a funeral urn (Tommy Latimer took them to 
 be portraits of Dr. and Mrs. Benet) — Basset 
 was startled by the news that its sole remain- 
 ing medical attendant was about to leave it, 
 for a partnership with the great Dr. Adams 
 and a house in Wimpole Street. 
 
 It was further reported that Mrs. Benet 
 was to accompany him and live with him; at 
 the same time, by his suggestion, keeping on 
 her little home in Basset, and occasionally 
 returning to it. 
 
 Miss Pilkington, meeting Harry Latimer 
 in the village, expressed herself as greatly 
 distressed at the prospect of another change 
 of doctors. When the always consolatory 
 Harry replied that should she be in London 
 
 283
 
 2 84 BASSET 
 
 she could still consult Spencer, she answered, 
 with much earnestness and naivete — 
 
 " Oh no, Mr. Latimer. One could never 
 believe the opinion of anybody one knew 
 personally was worth two guineas." 
 
 Old Grant was as much perturbed by the 
 news as he had it in him to be perturbed 
 about anything; called on Spencer one 
 evening expressly to lament and congratulate ; 
 sat for two hours, smoking mournfully, and 
 quite forgot to do either. 
 
 Very early on a February morning — a 
 morning of a chill, thin air, with the first 
 exquisite scent in it of the coming spring — 
 Spencer and ]Mrs. Benet left Basset in the 
 JNIanor chaise, on the first stage of their 
 journey. 
 
 Harry, whose excellent spirits were not 
 damjDed even by early rising, came to see 
 the travellers drive away. jNIiss Pilkington 
 and Sarah were at the door of the White 
 Cottage, waving good-bye. ]M aggie was 
 weeping loudly, as INIaggies will. oNIrs. Benet 
 fiercely winked back the tears in her own 
 eyes, sharply reproved INIaggie for hers, and 
 kissed her. Spencer attended to the luggage 
 and the cobs almost in silence. 
 
 They drove off to the accompaniment of
 
 A BEGINNING 285 
 
 Harry's cheerful bon voyages and au revoirs 
 — of course, in honest English. Steady 
 columns of smoke were rising from the 
 chimneys of the Manor as they passed it; and 
 within, its mistress was already busy with the 
 duties of her day and life. 
 
 Many living people can remember having 
 consulted, in the 'forties and 'fifties, the well- 
 known Dr. Mark Spencer of Wimpole Street, 
 who, after the death of his partner, Adams, 
 which occurred shortly, specialized in the 
 nervous diseases then just coming into 
 vogue. 
 
 Most of Spencer's patients agreed that he 
 brought to his work a judgment as brilliant 
 as it was quick; that though he was not 
 genius doing what it must, he was talent 
 doing what it can — to the utmost limits of 
 endeavour. Mrs. Benet had several times in- 
 formed him that, in her oj^inion, he was not 
 nearly so good at telling people when they 
 had nothing the matter with them as her old 
 Dick would have been; and, in point of fact, 
 for the patients whose complaints caused 
 them little suffering and their friends a great 
 deal, Spencer had but a scanty patience. 
 For imselfish, genuine sufferers he kept a 
 sympathy and a resourcefulness in remedy
 
 286 BASSET 
 
 M'hich some of them still gratefully re- 
 member. 
 
 Every now and then a nomadic light — 
 Mrs. Benet soon learnt to recognize it — 
 came into his eyes; and, having packed the 
 carpet-bag of the epoch, he went into far 
 countries — to learn, in that age of insularity 
 and prejudice, the lessons of other peoples 
 and other minds. 
 
 Xo one will be surprised to hear that his 
 faithful friend always put into the carpet-bag 
 a small case of her own patent remedies 
 against disease, with her own written instruc- 
 tions as to their use; while nothing but a 
 luck}^ ignorance of foreign tongues prevented 
 her forewarning the chambermaids at the 
 hotels at which Spencer proj^osed to stay, to 
 warm his beds and air his clothes. 
 
 But if she could not direct his travels she 
 very successfully managed his house. The 
 leisurely, dismal man, who always opens the 
 door in the consulting physician's establish- 
 ment, under her rule received Spencer's 
 victims, if not with cheerfulness, at least 
 with promptitude. When the traveller re- 
 turned from his foreign wanderings, he found 
 always, not only his house swept and gar- 
 nished and the fires ablaze, but that kind.
 
 A BEGINNING 287 
 
 homely face, under its monstrosity of a 
 widow's cap, to greet him in the hall, and a 
 sound, welcoming smack on his back from 
 a strong hand. 
 
 It is true that, when the long and pro- 
 found mourning of those days no longer gave 
 him a welcome excuse for not having dinner- 
 parties, Mrs. Benet was hardly so successful 
 as a hostess at the end of his table. Spencer 
 used to laugh when he woke up in the middle 
 of the night, after such a festivit}^ and re- 
 called her habit of declining always to let 
 the cavalier on her right carve the joint for 
 her, and never speaking a word to him until 
 she had herself finished that operation — and 
 not always then. 
 
 After they had been in town about a year, 
 the Darbishers settled near them — Lionel now 
 doing modestly well as a writer, and likely 
 to do better. 
 
 The wounds of self-love are often slower 
 to heal than the wounds of love; and, but 
 for the humiliating circumstances of her re- 
 jection of him, Lionel would almost entirely 
 have forgotten Ann Thornbery. When, on 
 the first occasion he and his mother dined in 
 Wimpole Street, Mrs. Darbisher streamed 
 absently into the room —
 
 2 88 BASSET 
 
 " A Lawne about the shoulders thrown 
 Into a fine distraction — " 
 
 and impulsively kissed a total stranger on 
 both cheeks — mistaking her for one of the 
 dearest Sophys or Janes of her girlhood — 
 Lionel bore the incident with a most credit- 
 able show of equanimity. When her sallies 
 set the table in a roar, he joined in it — if 
 a trifle faint-heartedl)^ — instead of sitting 
 stiff, red and self-conscious behind his high, 
 fashionable stock, as in old days. 
 
 Presently, Mrs. Benet, having returned 
 alone for a few weeks to Basset, brought 
 back the news that there was an heir at 
 the Chantry; that twice a week a tutor 
 from Dilchester sui^plemented Mrs. Latimer's 
 efforts with Tommy's education; that Harry 
 had had his periodical attack of gout, and, 
 when its first natural petulance was over, 
 felt, as usual, perfectly certain he was never 
 going to have another. 
 
 " You can't help liking that man, try as 
 you may," said INIrs. Benet, as if she had 
 tried. 
 
 Sj^encer had not asked after his friends at 
 the ^lanor. Mrs. Benet told him without 
 asking. She used to read aloud to him —
 
 A BEGINNING 289 
 
 sometimes as he sat in his consulting room 
 in the intervals of patients — the letters, 
 much crossed, which Pollie wrote to her; 
 and Spencer listened without comment. 
 
 From time to time, he sent Mrs. Latimer 
 French books — she was learning French, 
 with Harry's hearty approval, as he thought 
 it a finicking, feminine language unworthy 
 a man and a Briton, and so eminently suited 
 to one's wife. If there was anything to say 
 about the books, Spencer sent a message in 
 one of the long and detailed epistles in which 
 Mrs. Benet replied to Pollie's, and recounted 
 the events of her own, and of Mark's life. 
 
 It was three years before Spencer saw 
 Basset again. 
 
 Mrs. Benet had preceded him thither, and 
 the season was early spring. He walked from 
 Dilchester — as he had walked when he had 
 first entered the village, solitary and dis- 
 pirited, filled with the gloomy forebodings of 
 shattered health, and the determination to be 
 master of such a melancholy and of his fate. 
 The ordinary observer would have said that 
 he was not less lonely now. But he walked 
 along at a quick, swinging pace, with eyes 
 keen and observant, and certainly with noth- 
 ing about him of the listlessness of depression.
 
 290 BASSET 
 
 It was a lovely evening, and the setting 
 sun lay softl}^ on the tranquil place. 
 
 The five years since he had first seen it had 
 wrought scarcely any change. There were 
 the old stocks, and the green; and the slimy 
 i3ond, which Spencer had solemnly warned 
 his patients not to drink, and which they 
 were still drinking, with more or less im- 
 punity. There, with its rose-covered porch, 
 was the rustic inn, looking perfectly pastoral 
 and innocent. Spencer remembered, with a 
 smile, what pains he had been at to assure 
 his friends that it was guilty — guiltier than 
 the pond — of many of their sicknesses and 
 sorrows; and how just a few, perhaps, had 
 beheved him. At that very moment, Farmer 
 Finch, who, by all the rights of medical 
 science, ought long ago to have been dead — 
 and was better — rumbled past in his gig. 
 There was the church, gaunt and bare, and 
 the untidy grave-yard, where Finch's sheep 
 were sometimes turned in to graze, and where 
 Richard Benet lay, awaiting the call to nobler 
 and wider work. 
 
 The Manor gates had been newly painted; 
 the Rectory gates certainly had not. 
 
 Sir John Railton was coming down the 
 lane which led to the village from the Chan-
 
 A BEGINNING 291 
 
 try. He greeted Spencer in his easy, pleas- 
 ant fashion, seemed really glad to see him, 
 and congratulated him on his success in his 
 career. As he spoke of it — almost always 
 when he spoke to Spencer — a kind of con- 
 tempt came into his clever eyes^ — contempt 
 for himself, that, having double this man's 
 opportunity, and not less than this man's 
 intellect, he had achieved nothing, and would 
 achieve nothing, for ever. But Spencer 
 noticed that when he asked after the heir, a 
 new expression of great gentleness came on 
 to Sir John's harsh face. 
 
 They parted near the White Cottage. At 
 Dr. Richard's house there was old Jeannie 
 just as of yore, with her skirt turned up 
 and her feet in clogs, tending the border of 
 arriving flowers on either side of the flagged 
 pathway. 
 
 The next morning, Spencer went to the 
 Rectory and found Peter Grant engaged in 
 mending, very inefficiently, the roof of a 
 potting shed through which Tommy Latimer 
 had made a sudden and unpremeditated 
 descent on the previous day. 
 
 Peter and Mark had not exchanged a 
 letter or a word for three years; but they 
 took up their friendship exactly where and as
 
 292 BASSET 
 
 they had left it. In two mmutes, Spencer 
 had his coat off, and was working at the 
 repairs quickly and keenly. At the end of 
 an hour, during which they had spoken sel- 
 dom, and very likely said everything there 
 was to be said, jNIark pulled on the coat 
 again, looked uj) at the roof of the shed, 
 remarked " Not so bad," nodded at Peter, 
 and went his way. 
 
 The Parson stood looking after him. In 
 the three years, Peter seemed to have grown 
 but little older and something shabbier. Of 
 fate and his household, he expected less and 
 less. The congregations had grown slightly 
 better when the Latimers presented the 
 church with a stove. The Table and puljjit 
 hangings had fallen into rags, past all mend- 
 ing. Peter's character was also past mending, 
 perhaps. Now and then INIaria, bustling and 
 worried, descended upon him unexpectedly, 
 just to see that his cook was still thoroughly 
 married and that he had been doing nothing 
 foolish as regards his will. Indeed, he had 
 not. He knew the claims of JNIaria's hungry 
 and stolid brood, and that Tommy Latimer 
 only wanted liis friendship. 
 
 That night, INIrs. Benet told INIark how, 
 calling at Miss Pilkington's a few days be-
 
 A BEGINNING 293 
 
 fore, she had discovered that descendant of 
 the Norman Pylkes sitting on the floor of her 
 little parlour, with Sir John in an attitude 
 hardly more dignified, both wholly absorbed 
 in entertaining John Railton, the younger — 
 also seated on the floor and crowing with glee 
 as that foolish Rachel caused to prance to- 
 wards him her two much-cherished little 
 statuettes of Lords Brougham and Mel- 
 bourne. When the younger John flung 
 Melbourne from him into the fender, Mrs. 
 Benet declared that absolutely the only thing 
 about the breakage which worried Miss Pil- 
 kington was the necessity of truthfully ac- 
 counting for it to Sarah, without incrimi- 
 nating the breaker. 
 
 Rachel had, in fact, found her niche in 
 life, though it was a small one, and she was 
 late in finding it at all. 
 
 At the end of this little scene on the 
 parlour floor. Lady Railton came in, im- 
 maculately fair and sweet as ever and beauti- 
 fully dressed for driving, having left the 
 landaulette and the greys outside. She looked 
 down at Sir John — who was on all fours 
 and heated — and at her aunt, whose cap was 
 awry, with her little, cool, detached smile. 
 Rachel, instead of feeling foolish, as she
 
 294 BASSET 
 
 would once have felt in such a situation, 
 simply said, with spirit, " You had better 
 come and play too, Ann." 
 
 Mrs. Benet left at that juncture. It was 
 her uncharitable conviction that that girl 
 was too dressed out to play at anything but 
 the fine lad}"; but she had to add in justice 
 that she had seen the greys pawing the 
 ground without for another ten minutes and 
 that she could not be certain that Ann only 
 loved the' heir — as a creditable aj^pendage to 
 herself. 
 
 At the end of Sjiencer's fourth day in 
 Basset, Harr}' Latimer returned from a few 
 days' visit to a neighbouring squire, and 
 Spencer walked up to pa}^ his respects at the 
 Manor. 
 
 That seemed unchanged too, or little 
 changed. Dim and Tim came out to greet 
 him, loudl}" and affectionately, as of old. 
 There was still the strong sense of their 
 mistress' personality about her fragrant and 
 orderly rooms. In the drawing-room, she 
 had worked a new fender-stool and a pole- 
 screen. On the manteli)iece the shepherd still 
 piped to the shepherdess, and the alabaster 
 lady in her glass shade held her dainty hand- 
 kerchief and gown. On the inlaid ormolu
 
 A BEGINNING 295 
 
 table there lay still " The Castle of Indo- 
 lence," " Marmion " in a shiny tartan bind- 
 ing, and " The Books of Beauty," with their 
 soft verses. Only now, evident and un- 
 ashamed, there lay beside them the current 
 number of the Quarterly, " so savage and 
 tartarl3%" and the serene " Pensees " of 
 Vauvenargues which Spencer himself had 
 only lately sent INIrs. Latimer from town. 
 
 When she came into the room, though 
 there was light and colour in her face, 
 Spencer saw at once that the three years, 
 which had left not a trace of their passage 
 on Lady Railton's delicate smoothness, had 
 written the unmistakable lines of thought and 
 care round Pollie's eyes, and that the eyes 
 themselves were graver. 
 
 But he knew, too, that it was not the face 
 of an unhapj)y woman into which he looked. 
 
 She began to talk quickly and eagerly, in 
 her old fashion, pausing sometimes as if she 
 were trying not to forget any of the many 
 things she had long waited to say. Spencer, 
 in Ids old fashion, said but little; but when 
 PoUie recalled that little, she realized that 
 he had spoken advisedly with his lips. 
 
 Very soon, of course, they came to the 
 subject of Tommy. Pollie told JNIark her
 
 296 BASSET 
 
 plans for his future, all the time using the 
 plural number as if Harry's affection for the 
 child were as great as her own; and, indeed, 
 it was only in quality it differed. 
 
 Then Harry came in (Tommy was at 
 Parson Grant's, testing the amateur mending 
 of the potting-shed roof with his boot) , bring- 
 ing with him, as he always brought, a fine 
 sense of the open, and that excellent joie-de- 
 "civre, not perhaps in itself a virtue, but 
 surely akin to one when persisted in to dull 
 middle-age, in our grey world. 
 
 The two men went round the grounds to- 
 gether. But it was JNIrs. Latimer alone who 
 — with the keen wind blowing her curls about 
 her face, and the slight smallness of her 
 figure hidden under her old fur pelerine — ac- 
 companied Spencer down the drive to the 
 gate. 
 
 As they w^alked, she said, " I suppose you 
 will not be very often in Basset? You 
 generally travel when you get away? " And 
 she added, with half a sigh, " I have 
 thought sometimes I should like to travel 
 too." 
 
 After a minute, he answered, " In books, 
 you can. After all, you know, the world we 
 dream is better than the world we see."
 
 A BEGINNING 297 
 
 She thought that over and said, " Yes," 
 slowly. 
 
 Then Spencer added, " Somebody said — I 
 forget who it was — that if one had one's duty 
 and a dream, one had enough for life." 
 
 Pollie thought again, and then lifted her 
 clear face, and said — 
 
 " I think that is true." 
 
 In a moment, Spencer had raised his hat 
 and was gone. 
 
 That night, as he and Mrs. Benet sat, as 
 they had sat so often, in her shabby, com- 
 fortable parlour, by the side of a fire which 
 the east wind without made excusable and 
 pleasant, Spencer, reading, found Jeannie's 
 eyes fixed so long and intently upon him that 
 at last he looked up, with the old twinkle 
 in his own, and said — 
 
 " Is there anything wrong with my face? " 
 
 Mrs. Benet replied ambiguously that it 
 was much as usual; did a little more darning; 
 and fell to studying him attentively again. 
 
 " Should you call yourself a happy man? " 
 she asked. 
 
 Spencer seemed to weigh his words; then 
 he said — 
 
 " I would not change places with any one 
 I know; " and, after a pause, " Would you? "
 
 298 BASSET 
 
 " Certainly not," answered old Jeannie; 
 " but then— I've had Dick." 
 
 Spencer did not tell her whether his own 
 content lay only in the blessedness of having 
 found his right work in the world. But, as 
 she stretched across him to reach her mend- 
 ing wool from the table, she laid her rough 
 old hand, firmly and fondly for a moment, on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 After all, she had his secret. 
 
 THE END
 
 
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