1.
“CARWITHIEL, Oc, 18 .”
“MY DEAR TAFFY, Your
letter was full of news, and I read it over
twice: once to myself, and again after dinner
to George and Sir Harry. We pictured you
dining in the college hall. Thanks to your
description, it was not very difficult: the long
tables, the silver tankards, the dark panels
and the dark pictures above, and the dons on
the dais, aloof and very sedate. It reminded
me of Ivanhoe I don’t know why; and
no doubt if ever I see Magdalen, it will not
be like my fancy in the least. But that’s
how I see it; and you at a table near the bottom
of the hall, like the youthful squire in the story-books the
one, you know, who sits at the feast below the salt
until he is recognised and forced to step up and take
his seat with honour at the high table.
I began to explain all this to George, but
found that he had dropped asleep in his chair.
He was tired out after a long day with the pheasants.”
“I shall stay here for a week
or two yet, perhaps. You know how I hate
Tredinnis. On my way over, I called at the Parsonage
and saw your mother. She was writing that
very day, she said, and promised to send my
remembrances, which I hope duly reached you.
The Vicar was away at the church, of course.
There is great talk of the Bishop coming in
February, when all will be ready. George
sends his love; I saw him for a few minutes at breakfast
this morning, before he started for another day with
the pheasants.”
“Your friend,”
“HONORIA.”
2.
“CARWITHIEL, No, 18 .”
“MY DEAR TAFFY, Still
here, you see! I am slipping this into a parcel
containing a fire-screen which I have worked with my
very own hands; and I trust you will be able
to recognise the shield upon it and the Magdalen
lilies. I send it, first, as a birthday
present; and I chose the shield well, I
dare say that going in for a demy-ship is a
matter-of-fact affair to you, who have grown
so exceedingly matter-of-fact; but to me it seems a
tremendous adventure; and so I chose a shield for
I suppose the dons would frown if you wore a
cockade in your college cap. I return to
Tredinnis to-morrow; so your news, whatever it is,
must be addressed to me there. But it is
safe to be good news.”
“Your friend,”
“HONORIA.”
3.
“TREDINNIS, No, 18 .”
“MOST HONOURED SCHOLAR, Behold
me, an hour ago, a great lady, seated in lonely
grandeur at the head of my own ancestral table.
This is the first time I have used the dining-room;
usually I take all my meals in the morning-room,
at a small table beside the fire. But
to-night I had the great table spread and the
plate spread out, and wore my best gown, and solemnly
took my grandfather’s chair and glowered at the
ghost of a small girl shivering at the far end
of the long white cloth. When I had enough
of this (which was pretty soon) I ordered up
some champagne and drank to the health of Theophilus
John Raymond, Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford.
I graciously poured out a second glass for the
small ghost at the other end of the table; and
it gave her the courage to confess that she,
too, in a timid way, had taken an interest in you
for years, and hoped you were going to be a great man.
Having thus discovered a bond between us, we
grew very friendly; and we talked a great deal
about you afterwards in the drawing-room, where
I lost her for a few minutes and found her hiding
in the great mirror over the fire-place a
habit of hers.”
“It is time for me to practise
ceremony, for it seems that George and I are
to be married some time in the spring. For my
part I think my lord would be content to wait
longer; for so long as he is happy and sees
others cheerful he is not one to hurry or worry.
But Sir Harry is the impatient one: and has
begun to talk of his decease. He doesn’t
believe in it a bit, and at times when he composes
his features and attempts to be lugubrious I
have to take up a book and hide my smiles. But
he is clever enough to see that it worries George.”
“I saw both your father and mother
this morning. Mr. Raymond has been kept
to the house by a chill; nothing serious: but
he is fretting to be out again and at work in
that draughty church. He will accept no
help; and the mistress of Tredinnis has no right
to press it on him. I shall never understand
men and how they fight. I supposed that
the war lay between him and my grandfather.
But it seems he was fighting an idea all the while;
for here is my grandfather beaten and dead and gone;
and still the Vicar will give no quarter.
If you had not assured me that your demy-ship
means eighty pounds a year, I could believe
that men fight for shadows only. Your mother
and grandmother are both well. . . .”
It was a raw December afternoon within
a week of the end of term and Taffy had
returned from skating in Christ Church meadow, when
he found a telegram lying on his table. There
was just time to see the Dean, to pack, and to snatch
a meal in hall, before rattling off to his train.
At Didcot he had the best part of an hour to wait
for the night-mail westward.
“Your father
dangerously ill. Come at once.”
There was no signature. Yet
Taffy knew who had ridden to the office with that
telegram. The flying dark held visions of her,
and the express throbbed westward to the beat of Aide-de-camp’s
gallop. Nor was he surprised at all to find her
on the platform at Truro Station. The Tredinnis
phaeton was waiting outside.
He seemed to her but a boy after all,
as he stepped out of the train in the chill dawn:
a wan-faced boy, and sorely in need of comfort.
“You must be brave,” said
she, gathering up the reins as he climbed to the seat
beside her.
Surely yes; he had been telling himself
this very thing all night. The groom hoisted
in his portmanteau, and with a slam of the door they
were off. The cold air sang past Taffy’s
ears. It put vigour into him, and his courage
rose as he faced his shattered prospects, shattered
dreams. He must be strong now for his mother’s
sake; a man to work and be leant upon.
And so it was that whereas Honoria
had found him a boy, Humility found him a man.
As her arms went about him in her grief, she felt
his body, that it was taller, broader; and knew in
the midst of her tears that this was not the child
she had parted from seven short weeks ago, but a man
to act and give orders and be relied upon.
“He called for you . . . many
times,” was all she could say.
For Taffy had come too late.
Mr. Raymond was dead. He had aggravated a slight
chill by going back to his work too soon, and the
bitter draughts of the church had cut him down within
sight of his goal. A year before he might have
been less impatient. The chill struck into his
lungs. On December 1st he had taken to his bed,
and he never rallied.
“He called for me?”
“Many times.”
They went up the stairs together and
stood beside the bed. The thought uppermost
in Taffy’s mind was “He called
for me. He wanted me. He was my father
and I never knew him.”
But Humility in her sorrow groped
amid such questions as these, “What has happened?
Who am I? Am I she who yesterday had a husband
and a child? To-day my husband is gone and my
child is no longer the same child.”
In her room old Mrs. Venning remembered
the first days of her own widowhood, and life seemed
to her a very short affair, after all.
Honoria saw Taffy beside the grave.
It was no season for out-of-door flowers, and she
had rifled her hothouses for a wreath. The exotics
shivered in the north-westerly wind; they looked meaningless,
impertinent, in the gusty churchyard. Humility,
before the coffin left the house, had brought the
dead man’s old blue working-blouse, and spread
it for a pall. No flowers grew in the Parsonage
garden; but pressed in her Bible lay a very little
bunch, gathered, years ago, in the meadows by Honiton.
This she divided and, unseen by anyone, pinned the
half upon the breast of the patched garment.
On the evening after the funeral and
for the next day or two she was strangely quiet, and
seemed to be waiting for Taffy to make some sign.
Dearly as mother and son loved one another, they had
to find their new positions, each toward each.
Now Taffy had known nothing of his parents’
income. He assumed that it was little enough,
and that he must now leave Oxford and work to support
the household. He knew some Latin and Greek;
but without a degree he had little chance of teaching
what he knew. He was a fair carpenter, and a more
than passable smith. . . . He revolved many schemes,
but chiefly found himself wondering what it would
cost to enter an architect’s office.
“I suppose,” said he, “father left
no will?”
“Oh yes, he did,” said
Humility, and produced it: a single sheet of
foolscap signed on her wedding day. It gave her
all her husband’s property absolutely whatever
it might be.
“Well,” said Taffy, “I’m
glad. I suppose there’s enough for you
to rent a small cottage, while I look about for work?”
“Who talks about your finding
work? You will go back to Oxford, of course.”
“Oh, shall I?” said Taffy, taken aback.
“Certainly; it was your father’s wish.”
“But the money?”
“With your scholarship there’s
enough to keep you there for the four years.
After that, no doubt, you will be earning a good income.”
“But ” He
remembered what had been said about the lace-money,
and could not help wondering.
“Taffy,” said his mother,
touching his hand, “leave all this to me until
your degree is taken. You have a race to run
and must not start unprepared. If you could
have seen his joy when the news came of the
demy-ship!”
Taffy kissed her and went up to his
room. He found his books laid out on the little
table there.
4.
“TREDINNIS, February
13, 18 .”
“MY DEAR TAFFY, I
have a valentine for you, if you care to accept
it; but I don’t suppose you will, and indeed
I hope in my heart that you will not.
But I must offer it. Your father’s
living is vacant, and my trustees (that is to say,
Sir Harry; for the other, a second cousin of mine who
lives in London, never interferes) can put in
someone as a stop-gap, thus allowing me to present
you to it when the time comes, if you have any
thought of Holy Orders. You will understand
exactly why I offer it; and also, I hope, you will
know that I think it wholly unworthy of you.
But turn it over in your mind and give me your
answer.”
“George and I are to be married
at the end of April. May is an unlucky
month. It shall be a week even a fortnight earlier,
if that fits in with your vacation, and you care
to come. See how obliging I am! I
yield to you what I have refused to Sir Harry.
We shall try to persuade the Bishop to come and open
the church on the same day.”
“Always your friend,”
“HONORIA.”
5.
“TREDINNIS, February
21. 18 .”
“My Dear Taffy, No,
I am not offended in the least; but very glad.
I do not think you are fitted for the priesthood;
but my doubts have nothing to do with your doubts,
which I don’t understand, though you tried
to explain them so carefully. You will
come through them, I expect. I don’t
know that I have any reasons that could be put
on paper: only, somehow, I cannot see
you in a black coat and clerical hat.”
“You complain that I never write
about George. You don’t deserve
to hear, since you refuse to come to our wedding.
But would you talk, if you happened to
be in love? There, I have told you more
than ever I told George, whose conceit has to
be kept down. Let this console you.”
“Our new parson, when he comes,
is to lodge down in Innis Village. Your
mother but no doubt she has told you stays
in the Parsonage while she pleases. She
and your grandmother are both well. I
see her every day: I have so much to learn, and
she is so wise. Her beautiful eyes but
oh, Taffy, it must be terrible to be a widow!
She smiles and is always cheerful; but the
look in them! How can I describe it?
When I find her alone with her lace-work, or
sometimes (but it is not often) with her hands
in her lap, she seems to come out of her silence with
an effort, as others withdraw themselves from talk.
I wonder if she does talk in those silences of
hers. Another thing, it is only a few weeks
now since she put on a widow’s cap, and
yet I cannot remember her can scarcely
picture her without it. I am
sure that if I happened to call one day when
she had laid it aside, I should begin to talk quite
as if we were strangers.”
“Believe me, yours
sincerely,”
“HONORIA.”
But the wedding, after all, did not
take place until the beginning of October, a week
before the close of the Long Vacation; and Taffy,
after all, was present. The postponement had
been enforced by many delays in building and furnishing
the new wing at Carwithiel; for Sir Harry insisted
that the young couple must live under one roof with
him, and Honoria (as we know) hated the very stones
of Tredinnis.
The Bishop came to spend a week in
the neighbourhood; the first three days as Honoria’s
guest. On the Saturday he consecrated the work
of restoration in the church, and in the afternoon
held a confirmation service. Taffy and Honoria
knelt together to receive his blessing. It was
the girl’s wish. The shadow of her responsibility
to God and man lay heavy on her during the few months
before her marriage: and Taffy, already weary
and dispirited with his early doubtings, suffered
her mood of exaltation to overcome him like a wave
and sweep him back to rest for a while on the still
waters of faith. Together they listened while
the Bishop discoursed on the dead Vicar’s labours
with fluency and feeling; with so much feeling, indeed,
that Taffy could not help wondering why his father
had been left to fight the battle alone.
On the Sunday and Monday two near
parishes claimed the Bishop. On the Tuesday he
sent his luggage over to Carwithiel, whither he was
to follow after the wedding service, to spend a day
or two with Sir Harry. It had been Honoria’s
wish that George should choose Taffy for his best
man; but George had already invited one of his sporting
friends, a young Squire Philpotts from the eastern
side of the Duchy; and as the date fell at the beginning
of the hunting season, he insisted on a “pink”
wedding. Honoria consulted the Bishop by letter.
“Did he approve of a ‘pink’ wedding
so soon after the bride’s confirmation?”
The Bishop saw no harm in it.
So a “pink” wedding it
was, and the scarlet coats made a lively patch of
colour in the gray churchyard: but it gave Taffy
a feeling that he was left out in the cold.
He escorted his mother to the church, and left her
for a few minutes in the Vicarage pew. The bridegroom
and his friends were gathered in a showy cluster by
the chancel step, but the bride had not arrived, and
he stepped out to help in marshalling the crowd of
miners and mine-girls, fishermen, and mothers with
unruly children a hundred or so in all,
lining the path or straggling among the graves.
Close by the gate he came on a girl who stood alone.
“Hullo, Lizzie you here?”
“Why not?” she asked, looking at him sullenly.
“Oh, no reason at all.”
“There might ha’ been
a reason,” said she, speaking low and hurriedly.
“You might ha’ saved me from this, Mr.
Raymond; and her too; one time, you might.”
“Why, what on earth is the matter?”
He looked up. The Tredinnis carriage and pair
of grays came over the knoll at a smart trot, and
drew up before the gate.
“Matter?” Lizzie echoed
with a short laugh. “Oh, nuthin’.
I’m goin’ to lay the curse on her, that’s
all.”
“You shall not!” There was no time to
lose.
Honoria’s trustee the
second cousin from London, a tall, clean-shaven man
with a shiny bald head, and a shiny hat in his hand had
stepped out and was helping the bride to alight.
What Lizzie meant Taffy could not tell; but there must
be no scene. He caught her hand. “Mind I
say you shall not!” he whispered.
“Lemme go you’re creamin’
my fingers.”
“Be quiet then.”
At that moment Honoria passed up the
path. Her wedding gown almost brushed him as
he stood wringing Lizzie’s hand. She did
not appear to see him; but he saw her face beneath
the bridal veil, and it was hard and white.
“The proud toad!” said
Lizzie. “I’m no better’n dirt,
I suppose, though from the start she wasn’ above
robbin’ me. Aw, she’s sly ...
Mr. Raymond, I’ll curse her as she comes out,
see if I don’t!”
“And I swear you shall not,”
said Taffy. The scent of Honoria’s orange-blossom
seemed to cling about them as they stood.
Lizzie looked at him vindictively.
“You wanted her yourself, I know.
You weren’t good enough, neither. Let
go my fingers!”
“Go home, now. See, the people have all
gone in.”
“Go’st way in too, then, and leave me
here to wait for her.”
Taffy shut his teeth, let go her hand,
and taking her by the shoulders, swung her round face
toward the gate.
“March!” he commanded,
and she moved off whimpering. Once she looked
back. “March!” he repeated, and followed
her down the road as one follows and threatens a mutinous
dog.
The scene by the church gate had puzzled
Honoria, and in her first letter (written from Italy)
she came straight to the point, as her custom was:
“I hope there is nothing between
you and that girl who used to be at Joll’s.
I say nothing about our hopes for you, but you have
your own career to look to; and as I know you are too
honourable to flatter an ignorant girl when you
mean nothing, so I trust you are too wise to
be caught by a foolish fancy. Forgive a
staid matron (of one week’s standing) for writing
so plainly, but what I saw made me uneasy without
cause, no doubt. Your future, remember,
is not yours only. And now I shall trust
you, and never come back to this subject.”
“We are like children abroad,
George’s French is wonderful, but not
so wonderful as his Italian. When he goes to
take a ticket he first of all shouts the name
of the station he wishes to arrive at (for some
reason he believes all foreigners to be deaf),
then he begins counting down francs one by one, very
slowly, watching the clerk’s face.
When the clerk’s face tells him he has
doled out enough, he shouts ‘Hold hard!’
and clutches the ticket. It takes time;
but all the people here are friends with him
at once especially the children, whom he
punches in the ribs and tells to ‘buck
up.’ Their mothers nod and smile
and openly admire him; and I well, I am
happy and want everyone else to be happy.”