An Open Verdict · I

CHAPTER IMRS. DULCIMER HAS HER VIEWS.

‘Sir Kenrick would be a splendid match for her’, said the Vicar’s wife.

‘As poor as Job, and as proud as Lucifer,’ retorted the Vicar, without lifting his eyes from a volume of his favourite Bishop Berkeley.

It was the Vicar’s way in these tête-à-tête conversations by the domestic hearth. He read, and his wife talked to him. He could keep his attention on the most intricate chain of argument, and yet never answer Mrs. Dulcimer’s speculative assertions or vague questionings away from the purpose. This was the happy result of long habit. The Vicar loved his books, and his wife loved the exercise of her tongue. His morning hours were sacred. He studied or read as he pleased till dinner-time, secure from feminine interruption. But the evening was a privileged time for Mrs. Dulcimer. She brought a big workbasket, like an inverted beehive, into the library directly after dinner, and established herself in the arm-chair opposite the Vicar’s, ready for a comfortable chat. A comfortable chat meant a vivacious monologue, with an occasional remark from Mr. Dulcimer, who came in now and then like a chorus. He had his open book on the reading easel attached to his chair, and turned the leaves with a languid air, sometimes as if out of mere absence of mind; but he was deep in philosophy, or metaphysics, or theology, or antiquarianism, for the greater part of his time; and his inward ear was listening to the mystic voices of the dead, while his outward ear gave respectful attention to Mrs. Dulcimer’s critical observations upon the living.

‘As poor as Job, and as proud as Lucifer,’ repeated the Vicar, with his eye upon a stiffish passage in Berkeley.

‘I call it a proper pride,’ said Mrs. Dulcimer. ‘And as for poverty, she would have money enough for both. And then he has the estate.’

‘Mortgaged up to the hilt.’

‘And the title.’

‘Now do you really believe, Selina, that those three letters of the alphabet, S I R, prefixed to a man’s name, can give him the smallest possible distinction in the estimate of any of his fellow-creatures not lunatic?’

‘What is the use of talking in that high and mighty way, Clement? I know that Mary Turner, an insignificant little thing with red hair and a speckly skin, who was at school with me at the Misses Turk’s, at Great Yafford, was very much looked up to by all the girls because her uncle was a baronet. He lived a long way off, and he never took any notice of her, that we could find out; but he was a baronet, and we all felt as if there was a difference in her on that account. I don’t pretend to say that we were not very ridiculous for thinking so, but still you know a school is only the world in little—and the world sets a high value on titles. I should like to see Beatrix mistress of Culverhouse Castle.’

‘Her father’s money would be convenient for paying off the mortgages, no doubt, provided Mr. Harefield approved of the marriage. Rather a difficult old gentleman, I fancy.’

‘Difficult!’ cried Mrs. Dulcimer; ‘he’s detestable! a wicked old tyrant. If it were not for our friendship Beatrix’s life would be unendurable.’

‘Do you really think we are any good to her?’ inquired the Vicar, in his dreamily uncertain way, as of a man who was too doubtful about the groundwork of existence to feel any certainty about its minor details.

This was his Bishop Berkeley mood, his mind varying in hue and tone according to the book he was reading. Just now he felt that mind was paramount over matter, and was hardly disposed to interest himself warmly in a young woman who might have no existence except in his own idea of her.

‘My dear, our house is the only notion of home the poor child has,—the only place where she meets pleasant people, or hears and sees pleasant things. How can we fail to improve and develop her? I am sure, without egotism, I may say that I have been a God-send to that motherless girl. Think how farouche she was when she first came to us.’

‘Yes, she was a wild, untamed kind of creature,’ assented the Vicar. ‘Beautiful as a portrait by Rembrandt though, with that tawny skin of hers. I call her la belle sauvage. She always reminds me of Pocahontas.’

‘Now wouldn’t it be a blessing, Clement, if we could see her well married—married to a man of position, you know—and an honourable-minded man, like Kenrick? You know you always said he was honourable. You could always believe him.’

‘True, my love. Kenrick had his good qualities. He was not a lad that my heart ever warmed to, but I believe he did his work honestly, and he never told me a lie.’

‘Then don’t you think,’ urged the enthusiastic Selina, ‘that he would make Beatrix Harefield an excellent husband?’

‘My dear,’ said the Vicar, gravely, ‘you are the best natured of women; but I am afraid you do a great deal of harm.’

‘Clement!’

‘Yes, my love. Good-nature in the abstract is undoubtedly beautiful; but an active good-nature, always on the alert to do some service to its fellow-creatures, is of all attributes the most dangerous. Even the attempt of this good man, Bishop Berkeley, to found a college in the Bermudas resulted in waste of time and money. He would have done better had he stayed at his Irish Deanery. The man who does least harm in the world is your calmly selfish person who goes through life by the narrow path of a rational self-indulgence, and never turns aside to benefit or interfere with the rest of the human race.’

‘One of your dreadful paradoxes, Clement. How does that agree with St. Paul’s definition of charity?’

‘My love, St. Paul’s charity is a supremely passive virtue. It suffereth long, is not easily provoked, is not puffed up, thinketh no evil—all which qualities are compatible with strict neutrality as to one’s fellow-creatures’ affairs.’

‘Suffereth long—and is kind, you left that out, Clement.’

‘Kindness there I take to imply a mental state, and not a pushing, exacting benevolence,’ replied the Vicar. ‘Charity poketh not its nose into its neighbour’s business—maketh not matches—busieth not itself with the conduct of other people’s lives—and never doeth any harm. Good-nature does no end of mischief—in a perfectly well-meaning way.’

The Vicar spoke with some soreness. Poor Mrs. Dulcimer’s good-nature, and sometimes misdirected energy, had been getting her into trouble for the last twenty years. Everybody liked her; everybody dreaded and abhorred her good-nature. She had no children of her own, and was always full of good advice for the mothers of her acquaintance. She knew when babies ought to be weaned, and when they were sickening for the measles. She tried to heal family quarrels, and invariably made the breach wider. She loved match-making, but her matches, when brought to the triumphant conclusion of licence or wedding cake, seldom stood the test of a few years’ matrimony. She was so eager to do the best for the young men and women of her acquaintance, that she generally brought ill-assorted people together, taking too broad a view of the fitness of things, on the ground of income, family, age, and such vulgar qualifications, and ignoring those subtle differences which set an eternal mark of separation upon certain members of the human family.