Читать книгу Jutland Cottage - Angela Margaret Thirkell - Страница 5

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The stately measured ritual of a great King’s last journey took its appointed course. His mortal remains lay in state in his parish church, among his people, watched and guarded by his people, while his royal daughter was proclaimed as Queen. His mortal remains were guarded and escorted by his soldiers from King’s Cross Station to Westminster Hall where he lay in royal state while his Lords, his Commons, and his people moved endlessly past him. On a February day, the day after St. Valentine’s Day, his mortal remains were drawn by his Royal Navy, guarded by his Army, raised shoulder high to the train by men of the King’s Company of the Grenadier Guards, and so taken to be laid in the Chapel of the Knights of the Garter in his royal home of Windsor Castle, followed by four Royal Dukes and by three Queens and a Princess Royal, veiled in black. Then the young Queen took up the burden of royalty among the prayers of her people and life went on.

In Greshamsbury the departure of the nice dull Greens was followed by the excitement of the new Rector’s arrival, heralded by his housekeeper Mrs. Hicks, the mother of the head housemaid at Northbridge Rectory. Greshamsbury was not quite sure whether it was going to approve a foreigner like Mrs. Hicks, but when it transpired that her late husband’s aunt was a cousin of an old man whose grandfather had been employed about the stables at Greshamsbury Park all barriers fell. Luckily Canon Fewling was not much of a tea-drinker, so Mrs. Hicks was able to entertain her new-found connections on a generous scale and was considered to have paid her footing and be one of themselves. This liberty was then extended to the new Rector who found, not altogether in his displeasure, that his parishioners meant to use him as a kind of William Whiteley or Universal Provider and to bring every trouble to him, from the loss of ration books to complaints about false teeth that didn’t seem not to bite proper somehow, and enquiries as to how to address a letter to Uncle Tom who went to Australia or one of them places in 1898 and had never been heard of since. But to all this the Rector was well accustomed, and such was his kindly disposition that he really enjoyed it.

“You know, Leslie,” he said to his churchwarden some weeks after his arrival when his house had got into shape and his church services were at any rate not less well attended than his predecessor’s, “it is really a great advantage not to be married,” to which John Leslie replied he wasn’t a good judge himself, as he had married quite young and had always found it a good thing.

“You don’t look much like an old married man,” said the Rector generously. “And certainly your wife doesn’t. It is ridiculous to think of her with three almost grown-up boys. She might almost be their sister.”

“You know I was married before,” said John Leslie, feeling, as so many people did, that Canon Fewling was interested by everything that touched human life. “Gay was her name. She died very young and we had no child. Perhaps as well. One doesn’t know. And then Mary came to Rushwater—my people’s place—and brought peace into my life again. Look here, Fewling, I have answered a question about myself. Will you listen to a question from me? Do you ever consider marrying? No business of mine really.”

The Rector laid his strong capable hands on his skirted knees—for he had just come away from the church where he always wore his cassock, though for ordinary life he wore ordinary clothes—and was silent.

“Look here, I’m sorry,” said John Leslie. “Take it as not said.”

“Not at all,” said the Rector cheerfully. “I’m not a professional celibate if that’s what you mean. But I’ve never felt that anyone thought enough of me to want to marry me. I have always been fairly poor till lately, which was against me. And really, Leslie, if you knew how female church workers can persecute a priest, you would be surprised. I remember sometimes, during the war, with the black-out, I used to beg Mrs. Villars, the Vicar’s wife at Northbridge and a delightful woman, to walk home with me from tea-parties as a kind of chaperon—to take me into protective custody as it were. If one had wished to fall in love with a happily married woman with grown-up sons, one might have done worse,” said the Rector, who appeared to be enjoying emotion recollected in tranquillity. “But she never thought of me. And I must say,” he added with a frankness that his churchwarden found touching and amusing, “I don’t see why anyone should. Just look at me.”

“Not romantic perhaps, Tubby,” said John Leslie, “but an extremely good fellow and, what’s more, a very good churchman, which appeared to please the Rector, though we are pretty sure that he and his churchwarden put rather different interpretations upon the last words.

“What exactly do you mean, or rather think you mean, by your last words, Leslie?” said the Rector.

John Leslie, after a pause for reflection, said he didn’t quite know himself, but he thought the Rector had done most wisely in giving the village—or almost town now, alas—the kind of morning service it wanted.

“I am delighted that you think they want it,” said the Rector. “I sometimes miss St. Sycorax, you know. It was rather a dark church and the candles looked so well in it and I did like incense. Villars gave them the other service, and he was most kind in giving me a pretty free hand. But I do feel that a priest ought to think of what his parishioners would like. I took a good deal of pains, you know, before I came here, to find what your Greshamsbury people wanted, and I felt it was my duty to give it to them. And there is always the early celebration,” he added, half to himself. “And I am really grateful, Leslie, truly grateful, that I have been given room to deny myself. One isn’t in my place for oneself, you know. It doesn’t do to strive to wind ourselves too high for sinful man beneath the sky.”

“What’s that?” said John.

“Only a bit of another verse out of ‘New every morning is the love,’ ” said the Rector. “It never got into Hymns Ancient and Modern, I don’t know why. One does think of lots of queer things, and when you are a priest you really must try to please your people.”

“Even to a Children’s Corner?” said John Leslie with some malice.

“No!” said his Rector. “Come rack, come rope, NO. I say, Leslie, are you going to the Carters’ on Sunday? Crofts is coming over to take the evening service here, you know, and I’m taking his at Southbridge.”

“That seems very suitable,” said John Leslie. “He was a full Colonel and you were——”

“Only as far as Commander,” said the Rector a little wistfully. “Perhaps if I’d stayed in the Navy till I was an Admiral I might have made a better parson,” at which words John Leslie told his Rector not to be a fool, and it was arranged that on the following Sunday the Rector would, after the morning service, drive the Leslies over to Southbridge that they might the better appreciate and glorify his expensive car.

We hope that some of our readers were at Southbridge School, or have had sons or grandsons or nephews there, for it has, through a friendship of many years’ standing, become so familiar to us that we take it for granted. Perhaps it will be enough to say, as we have said before, that it was an old foundation which after a poorish time in the middle of last century under the Rev. J. J. Damper (better known by his little volume of Perambulations in Palestine, long since deservedly out of print, and author of the Carmen Southbridgiense with its refrain of

Alma Mater, Alma Mater,

None than thou wilt ere be greater)

had been pulled up by a succession of good Headmasters, and recently by Mr. Birkett, father of the beautiful Rose Fairweather. Mr. Birkett had retired some years previously to the Dower House near Worsted on the branch line from Winter Overcotes. His place had been taken by Everard Carter, who had married Kate Keith, a sister of Mrs. Noel Merton, and had three delightful children. He had gone quietly at first, but gradually the old order had changed, giving place to the new so gently that few people observed or resented it, and on every Speech Day the School was able to show a fine array of distinguished Old Boys.

The lunch on this Sunday was to be of a friendly nature, with not more than ten guests, though the dining-room table with the leaf in it could accommodate as many as fourteen, and after lunch the Leslies proposed to take their sons out for a long walk on the downs. When the morning service at Greshamsbury was over Canon Fewling proudly introduced the Leslies to his car, which Mary had not yet seen.

“Now if you will sit in front, Mrs. Leslie,” he said, “you can tell me, if you will, when I am driving too quickly for you. I am afraid I have once or twice gone rather fast, but I can assure you that I am very careful,” and he helped her into the front seat, a kind of help for which one is never really grateful, for whether your host drags you up from inside or pushes you up from outside you are apt to arrive all askew on your seat, with your legs twisted, or one arm behind your back, or even to plunge on all fours against the steering-wheel.

“What I would really like,” said Canon Fewling, taking the turn of Greshamsbury High Street practically on one wheel, “would be to drive a racing car at Goodwood. It would be almost as good as a destroyer.”

Mary Leslie said, “What fun, but wouldn’t the Bishop object?” and as neither speaker knew exactly what a Bishop’s powers were in the case of one of his clergy taking part in motor races the conversation came to an end. It was a fine day and the country in its winter bareness had an austere beauty which summer visitors do not know. Skirting the grounds of Boxall Hill, once an appanage of Greshamsbury Hall, now an appanage of the Barsetshire County Council, they crossed the main road above Stogpingum and began to mount the downs by the line of Gundric’s Fossway, and when Canon Fewling suggested that they should take the rough track over Great Hump no one gainsaid him. At the top of the hill the car was allowed to stop and take breath in the thin keen higher air. The county lay spread round them. Barchester, even on a Sunday, now lay under a thin veil of smoke which a north-west wind was bringing from the city and from Mr. Adams’s works at Hogglestock, but a ray of sun had caught the spire of the Cathedral, gleaming white over the city. To the east the rich country of the Woolram valley was in cold sunshine. To the south the downland stretched away to its last barrier, beyond which lay the sea. To the west it sloped with grazing land and arable land to the water-meadows of the river, where lay Southbridge, the end of their journey. Looking before them and to east and west, that lovely land of down and water-meadow had hardly changed in the last hundred years, and many of the villages were still images of what they had been.

“You know,” said John Leslie, who was on the County Council, where he made himself extremely useful by never speaking unless he knew more about the subject in hand than the other speakers, “they are talking about an aerodrome down Allington way,” which depressed his hearers and led to a short and highly uninformed discussion as to whether, in the event of such interference, the rates would go up or down.

“But there’s one thing,” said Canon Fewling hopefully. “The illegitimate birthrate can’t be much higher than it is,” to which there did not seem to be any reply. From the north came the long sound of a bell, almost dying as it reached them.

“One o’clock by the Cathedral,” said Canon Fewling. “We mustn’t be late,” and he drove as fast as was reasonable on a Sunday morning in almost empty side-roads down into the river valley and so to Southbridge School, and drew up with a flourish at the door of the Headmaster’s House.

Here they were welcomed by Everard Carter and his wife, she who was Kate Keith. No one who met Kate Carter for the first time would have guessed that she had been married for some fifteen years. Time is perhaps one of the most confusing things ever invented, and if anyone had asked Kate how long she had been Everard’s wife she would probably have had to count on her fingers and been just as surprised at the result as we are, until she looked at Miss Angela Carter and Masters Bobbie and Philip Carter and realised that Bobbie, her eldest, had gone to his public school and her other children were rapidly ageing. But to us, who have seen Kate at intervals ever since we first met her, she is still the Kate we first knew.

“It is only a small party, Mrs. Leslie,” said Kate Carter. “Just Mr. and Mrs. Birkett and Mrs. Feeder, who is the mother of one of our masters and lives in Editha. You will like her,” which remark is apt to make one take a determined hatred of the person mentioned, but, coming from Kate Carter, had to be believed because she was not only very kind but also very truthful.

“I ought to explain,” said Everard Carter, seeing Canon Fewling’s eye glazing with want of comprehension, “that Editha is the end cottage in Wiple Terrace down in the village. Not a female guest,” by which explanation the Canon was considerably relieved. Then in came Mr. and Mrs. Birkett, whom Canon Fewling already knew, and everyone had another glass of sherry, till Mrs. Feeder arrived, a spare elderly woman in black, with a black ribbon round her bony throat, who must have looked at thirty exactly the same as she did at sixty-odd and would doubtless at eighty-odd if spared.

“I’ve heard of you,” said Mrs. Feeder, fixing Canon Fewling with an Ancient Mariner eye by which even his naval courage was daunted. “You were in the Mediterranean.”

Canon Fewling said that was so, secretly terrified of having made an admission which seemed somehow to bring him under Mrs. Feeder’s displeasure.

“That’s all right,” said Mrs. Feeder. “So was the School Matron’s nephew. He raced jerboas with Mr. Shergold, the Senior Housemaster here.”

“Not Shergold in the old Gridiron?” said Canon Fewling.

Mrs. Feeder said, “The same. And,” she added, holding out her sherry glass, “we’ll have one on that. Fill up, Padre,” all of which would have frightened most clergymen, even Honorary Canons, out of their wits. But Canon Fewling, with the greatest good-nature, refilled Mrs. Feeder’s glass and assisted her to drink the toast with the dregs of his own, and they all went in to lunch, where Kate Carter very prettily asked Canon Fewling to say grace, which he did in two words of the Roman tongue.

Talk, as is but reasonable with two sets of Headmasters past and present, their wives, and the mother of an assistant master, was largely technical, but so is sea-talk. Canon Fewling got on very well with Mrs. Birkett, especially when he expressed his admiration for her beautiful daughter Rose Fairweather.

“She rang me up to tell me all about it,” said Mrs. Birkett. “She liked you so much and is looking forward to Sundays at Greshamsbury,” which interested Canon Fewling, who said he was delighted to hear it, as somehow he had not imagined Mrs. Fairweather as much of a churchgoer.

“I know she doesn’t look like one,” said her mother sympathetically, “but she has always been very good in that way, in spite of which she was never engaged to a clergyman.”

That, said Canon Fewling, was a striking non sequitur, and then wondered if he was being pedantic, but Mrs. Birkett, well used to the conversation of her husband’s friends, who were mostly educated in the higher sense, said that though Rose had been very troublesome as a girl, getting engaged to anyone and everyone beginning with the Art Master at Barchester High School when she was sixteen, she had never tried her hand on a clergyman, and then wondered whether she had gone too far. But Canon Fewling, well up to date by now in the history of the diocese, said it made him think of the notorious Signora Vesey Neroni, daughter of Dr. Stanhope, a practically non-resident divine in the middle of the nineteenth century, about whom there were such extraordinary stories. Mrs. Birkett, delighted to find someone who knew the history of Barchester, said he must get the Dean to tell him more about it, as his, the Dean’s, grandfather had known most of the people concerned. Canon Fewling asked who the Dean’s grandfather was.

“Oh, a clergyman called Crawley,” said Mrs. Birkett. “There was some kind of trouble with the Palace people, as there always has been in Barchester, but he came out of it all right, and Mr. Grantly at Edgewood is his grandson—or is it great-grandson? Time and generations are so confusing, and the older you get the more confusing they are. I sometimes feel so like my own mother that it is quite difficult to remember who I am. You will find it so presently,” she added, looking very kindly at the Canon, and then they were claimed by their neighbours.

As soon as lunch was over the party adjourned to the drawing-room where the men, freed from the shackles of tradition and etiquette, were able to talk to one another, reinforced by the arrival of the School Chaplain, better known as Holy Joe, burning to discuss with Canon Fewling the Bishop of Barchester’s letter to The Times about extending to our Russian friends an understanding which should transcend all national politics. Canon Fewling, quite rightly, said he felt that as a parish priest he ought not to question his superior officer’s point of view in public, which statement made his views so plain that a most delightful and unloving conversation took place about the present incumbent. From this talk John Leslie presently withdrew himself as he and his wife were taking their two younger sons for a walk on the downs, and the party began to break up.

“Oh, Canon Fewling,” said Kate Carter, who had been out of the room for a few moments, “that was Mrs. Crofts, our Vicar’s wife, ringing up to say would you come to tea at the Vicarage, and the Leslies too, but I know their boys are giving them tea in their House. What shall I say?”

Canon Fewling said he would be delighted.

“And after the service I hope you will come and have a glass of sherry with me,” said Mrs. Feeder, to which Canon Fewling replied that as he was driving the Leslies home he must be bound by what they wished to do but would like to come if it suited them.

“They will probably go to our service in the School Chapel,” said the Headmaster, so it was agreed that the Leslies should be asked to come on to Mrs. Feeder’s afterwards, and the party dispersed.

If Canon Fewling, or his host and hostess, had at all wondered how to fill the afternoon, which indeed was almost past by now, everything was decided by an S O S from Mr. Shergold, the Senior Housemaster, asking if Canon Fewling would come over to his House before he went to tea at the Vicarage and talk naval shop, which invitation was gladly accepted.

Kate Carter, who always thought of others and for others, said really Canon Fewling had better go over to Mr. Shergold’s House fairly soon because naval men always had so many things to talk about, which suggestion, softly and kindly made, was tantamount to a semi-royal command. So Canon Fewling took leave of the Carters, repeated to the Birketts his admiration of their lovely daughter and went away to Mr. Shergold’s House accompanied, not altogether to his pleasure, by the School Chaplain, who insisted on showing him the way; and as the Canon did not know Southbridge School this was truly an act of kindness, though slightly marred by the Chaplain insisting upon showing his guest the really revolting interior of the hideous School Chapel which, as our readers know, was designed by the same architect who had designed Pomfret Towers and combined darkness and inconvenience to an unparalleled degree, not to speak of the hideous east window (Munich 1850 style) and the Gothic pitch-pine stalls and panelling. But a consecrated building none the less, Canon Fewling reminded himself, and then gratefully was absorbed into Mr. Shergold’s House for a happy talk about naval occasions, but did not forget to go over to the Vicarage, where tea was early so that the Vicar might have plenty of time to go over to Greshamsbury and take the evening service.

Here he was received by Bateman, formerly batman to Colonel the Reverend Edward Crofts, and taken into the large, ill-proportioned drawing-room, which had been made warm and comfortable though not beautiful by its present owners. Apart from some handsome Indian curtains and some good family portraits in the schools of Raeburn and Lawrence which looked very well on the walls and had the additional merit of distracting the eye from the far too high cornice, there was nothing of note about the room, the fact being that neither the Vicar nor his wife minded in the least what their surroundings were like. An attitude for which, in these days, there is something to be said.

“This is very good of you, Fewling,” said the Vicar. “I don’t think you know my wife,” and Canon Fewling said he was delighted to meet her and had long known and admired her bird-drawings. For Mrs. Crofts, through the medium of Mr. Wickham, the Noel Mertons’ agent, himself a bigoted bird-lover, had met his uncle Mr. Johns, the well-known publisher, who had subsequently made a comfortable and steady income for her and for himself by reproductions of her exquisite bird-studies, rather stylised, but with a deep sympathy for the glitter of a bird’s eye, the rounded hardness of its shoulders, the grip of its feet on the twig and the delicate shading of its feathers.

Mrs. Croft’s rather harsh features softened with pleasure at what was obviously genuine homage to her work, and then she thanked Canon Fewling for his exchange of pulpits.

“The thanks should be mine,” said Canon Fewling. “Your husband will give Greshamsbury something valuable. I shall do my best here.”

“They are all right,” said Mrs. Crofts, alluding to her husband’s parishioners. “I have asked Admiral Phelps, the Vicar’s warden, to tea and his very nice wife and daughter. What are yours like?”

Canon Fewling said nothing could be more agreeable than his warden John Leslie and his delightful wife. The other warden, Mr. Umbleby, also seemed a very good sort. Then the Vicar claimed his guest and the two reverend gentlemen fell into delightful small-church gossip till tea was brought in simultaneously with the arrival of Admiral Phelps, Mrs. Phelps and Miss Phelps. Admiral Phelps was a small, spare, dry-faced man. His two ladies looked so capable that Canon Fewling, having had more than enough of capable women at Northbridge, nearly got under the table in his fright. But this piece of escapism was not necessary, for the Admiral, pouncing upon a junior officer of the Royal Navy, at once dragged him into naval shop and retailed for Canon Fewling’s benefit a very long story about his losing struggle with their Lordships of the Admiralty to get posted to an active job in the late war.

“A.R.P. was the end of it,” said the Admiral, sadly and without rancour. “But I kept my fellows here on their toes. Our black-out was the best in the country. How did you do in Northbridge?”

“I was only an air-raid warden, sir,” said Canon Fewling, metaphorically saluting the quarter-deck. “But we managed a nice little wardens’ post. Underground it was and I fitted it up like a cabin. Unfortunately we never got a bomb at Northbridge, but I believe our little dug-out would have stood anything short of a direct hit. We had bunks for sleeping, and portholes—not real, of course, but they looked well—and I got the wheel of the old Scrapiron when she was broken up and hung a Union Jack over it, and a splendid ventilating system.”

“By jove, I wish I’d seen it,” said Admiral Phelps. “But, my dear fellow, I must tell you about our black-out here. It was really my wife’s idea and Margot’s—that’s my girl,” he added, looking proudly at his large spinster daughter of uncertain age. “It was a thick curtain across the inside of the door and you went through it; and then there was another curtain, only the way you went through it wasn’t opposite the way you went through the first curtain, if I make myself clear, so that the light from the hall, which was really our sitting-room, only we usually had naval men on leave sleeping there, could not possibly get through.”

Canon Fewling, though not quite grasping the Admiral’s safety device, said it sounded excellent; and then, of course, the two men fell into naval talk again, in which they were joined by Miss Phelps, who had no nonsense about her and would have been good-looking if she had ever taken the faintest trouble about her looks. But a habit of considering all junior ranks as younger brothers had discouraged what possible suitors she may have had, and Southbridge had mentally written her off as a permanent spinster.

“You know, Canon Fewling,” said Miss Phelps, “we really did miss the war. There was so much to do. Mummy and I often slept on the floor because we had so many boys here on leave, and it made one feel one was really doing something,” with which rather addled statement Canon Fewling wholly agreed, saying that the nights he had spent in his little A.R.P. shelter were apart from the Royal Navy—among the happiest hours of his life. Miss Phelps then described in detail the hens, ducks, rabbits and goats that she and her mother had kept, thus appreciably reducing the tonnage required for food from overseas.

“I can’t tell you,” said Canon Fewling earnestly, “how much I admire you for knowing all about animals. My housekeeper, who is a very nice woman from Northbridge, says I ought to keep hens, but I don’t know how to begin. She could buy them for me, she says, from a cousin of hers, but then there is the question of hen-houses and food. They need a pail of some kind of mixture that smells rather unpleasant, don’t they? I seem to remember the smell when I was a boy.”

“Oh, you get used to it,” said Miss Phelps, looking at Canon Fewling with a tolerant eye, as a rather grown-up kind of sub-Lieutenant who needed assistance. “Where do you live in Greshamsbury? In the Vicarage?” which question was not so unreasonable as it sounds, since all over England the houses where the clergy used to live have been disestablished for lay use because the incumbent cannot afford to live there.

Canon Fewling said he did, only it was a Rectory, and there was a bit of land at the end of the garden that would do nicely for fowls, or so his housekeeper said.

“Well now,” said Miss Phelps, putting her hands in her jacket pockets, a habit formed by putting her hands in the pockets of the trousers which she had worn pretty well day and night during the war, “I’d better come over and have a look. What you want is a few layers to start with and some broodies and the right kind of eggs. I could sell you some. They’re really good.”

“That is most kind of you,” said Canon Fewling, grateful, though slightly alarmed by Miss Phelps’s size and self-confidence.

“I say, Irons!” said Miss Phelps in a loud voice. “Sorry, Padre,” she added, noticing that her guest was perplexed. “It’s only father. He was with the destroyers in the Iron class. He was a Lieutenant in the Flatiron and Commander of the Scrapiron and Captain of the Andiron and was with the Gridiron on her trials.”

“What is it, Margot?” said her father, answering her hail.

“Look here, Irons,” said his daughter. “The Padre wants to start hens. I could take some over on my bicycle, and there are some bits of wood and wire I could tie on behind. I’ll see that you get the right sort of birds, Padre. Who is your housekeeper?”

“Her name is Hicks, from Northbridge,” said Canon Fewling. “She looked after me in lodgings there.”

“Oh, the Hickses are all right,” said Miss Phelps. “I’ll let you know as soon as I have a free day and bring everything over and have a talk with Mrs. Hicks.”

Canon Fewling thanked her with real gratitude tempered by a doubt as to whether his housekeeper would approve, and asked if she would like to go over the church, which offer Miss Phelps accepted with pleasure, saying that she would come over early as she had never seen Greshamsbury Church and loved poking about in those old places. Then, her thoughts taking a sudden turn, she asked which came first, Canon Fewling or Colonel Crofts.

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” said Canon Fewling. “If you mean is a Rector more important than a Vicar, or the other way round, there’s not much difference. Where there is a Vicar it usually means that the church was originally dependent on some larger community who put in a priest to do the work. The name Rector is a bit more independent than Vicar,” to which Miss Phelps replied that she got him; and in Scotland, where she had a lot of cousins, the Universities had Rectors, which showed. And if this was a rather muddled kind of understanding, that is all that most of us can manage. Then Colonel Crofts said he must be getting over to Greshamsbury and begging his temporary locum tenens to remain at the Vicarage till it was time for the evening service, he went away.

“It is very nice to have you here, Canon Fewling,” said Mrs. Crofts, when her husband had gone. “I hope you will find our church all right. There is one step going up to the pulpit that is rather higher than the others, so be careful. My husband is used to it, of course, but I always warn people.”

Canon Fewling asked if it could be altered.

“Well, I suppose it could,” said Mrs. Crofts, “but it comes in an awkward place, where the steps go round the corner. We did have Guy Barton over to look at it—do you know him? he is rather an authority on church work and married the Archdeacon’s daughter over Plumstead way—and he said it would be a pity to alter it, as it would cost a good deal and there was no need for anyone to fall down unless they wanted to. Our man Bateman—he was Edward’s batman in the war, which makes it rather confusing—will show you where you can dress in plenty of time if you want to make any change,” but though she was as a rule rather self-confident in her role of parson’s wife, there was a hesitation in her voice as she looked at Canon Fewling’s new and resplendent clerical suit.

“How thoughtful of you,” said Canon Fewling. “I came over as you see me, in my ordinary clothes. I hope you won’t think me foolish, but though I wear a cassock in church, I gathered that Southbridge prefers an ordinary suit outside, so I came as I am. It is rather a good suit, I think,” he added with a kind of shy pride that amused and touched his hostess. “You know, Mrs. Crofts, the Old Adam dies hard in one. When I go from the Rectory to the church at Greshamsbury on rainy days, with a priest’s cloak over my cassock, I sometimes like to pretend that I am in the Navy again and wearing my officer’s cloak on a wet rough night after spending a few hours ashore.”

Mrs. Crofts said it was a delightful and romantic thought.

“Do you really find it romantic?” said Canon Fewling. “I am so glad, because I do too, only being a little on the stout side—my friends always call me Tubby—I wonder if I am like the people that say they have no sins,” and he paused, realising that almost speaking aloud to himself he was perhaps not making himself quite clear to others.

“Do you mean you are deceiving yourself?” said Mrs. Crofts. “Of course not, Canon Fewling. I rather wish sometimes that Edward had a cloak. But he was a Full Colonel in the Indian Army and I don’t think he would quite like it. If he could wear his belt and his sword——” and her voice trailed away.

Canon Fewling said he didn’t know if there was any law against wearing a belt and a sword, and after all lots of the people in the Pilgrim’s Progress had swords.

“And sometimes, you know,” he went on, finding, as most people did, that Mrs. Crofts was an unusually good listener, “I like to feel I am still in a ship. Not during the service, of course, but when I go into the church sometimes at night, alone, I pretend I am the officer on duty. Do you think it foolish?”

Mrs. Crofts had an almost uncomfortable choke in her throat as she assured him that she didn’t, adding that when her husband, as he often did, went to his church alone late in the evening she felt that he was still a soldier looking for where his duty lay.

“I should like to tell you something,” said Canon Fewling, who had taken a quick and trustful liking to the Vicar’s wife.

Mrs. Crofts waited intently but did not speak.

“It is the last chapter of the Book of Revelation,” said Canon Fewling, “when we read that there shall be no more sea. I don’t want to be selfish about my own feelings and I expect your husband has night fears too, if he thinks of swords being beaten into ploughshares. But whoever wrote such things about the sea had missed a great deal in his life.”

Mrs. Crofts, casting about as to how she might comfort her guest, said probably St. John sometimes got tired of living on an island and wished he could get back to the mainland and his words about no more sea were what people now would call wishful thinking. Much to her pleasure, this quite silly remark had a very cheering effect on her guest, who thanked her earnestly and said it was a lesson to him not to lose faith.

“And it has just occurred to me, Mrs. Crofts,” said Canon Fewling, his kind round face again itself, “that Kipling has a very good poem about that very thing and how the mariners will be allowed to keep their sea for ever. And he was a prophet, you know, though most people haven’t noticed it.”

And now it was time for Canon Fewling to prepare for Evensong, so Bateman, Colonel Croft’s old servant who so confusingly had been his batman, took him away, the rest of the company following a little later. The church was quite well filled by villagers, various people from the School who preferred the church to the School Chapel and a sprinkling of outsiders. Admiral Phelps was doing his duty about the church. His wife and daughter were singing valiantly in the choir, for Barsetshire is not a naturally musical county and one or two people who are not afraid to open their mouths and sing out are a great help.

Mrs. Crofts whose thoughts, although she was a clergyman’s wife, were just as truant and rebellious as anyone else’s, found herself wondering how a stout and not very tall middle-aged parson who had once held a commission in His Majesty’s Navy could suddenly become so commanding and important. But it was all too difficult and the only thing to do was to submit oneself, in everything, to a Will greater than one’s own small imaginings. The mere act of kneeling, the very sound of the noble English as the service came to its close, calmed her spirit and she prayed rather incoherently and very sincerely for Canon Fewling to be very happy, though she did not feel equal to pointing out to her Maker any specific way of bringing this about. So absorbed was she in her wrestlings that the little congregation had left the church when she lifted her head from her bowed hands and went out into the churchyard.

Here she found a small crowd surrounding Canon Fewling, among them two old friends, Miss Hampton, the well-known writer of powerful and best-selling novels, and her friend Miss Bent, which two ladies had lived for many years in Adelina Cottage at the end of Wiple Terrace in the village. Them she asked to come back to the Vicarage for a few moments and then they could all go down to Mrs. Feeder’s party together. So they walked across, followed by Canon Fewling who was deep in talk with Admiral Phelps, and were soon in the Vicarage drawing-room, where Bateman had kept a roaring fire going for them.

“Well, Mrs. Crofts, we missed your husband this evening,” said Miss Hampton, whose mannish tweed suit, felt hat, thick stockings and heavy brogues were highly suitable for a chill spring evening. “But we had a very good service. Introduce me, Mrs. Crofts.”

“Oh, Canon Fewling,” said Mrs. Crofts, tearing him away in virtue of her position as Vicar’s wife from Admiral Phelps, “I do so want you to know Miss Hampton, an old inhabitant of Southbridge and a great friend of ours. Canon Fewling, Miss Hampton—and her friend Miss Bent.”

“Good of you to come,” said Miss Hampton, grasping Canon Fewling’s hand with the grip that every boy in the School envied. “Don’t like to see the church empty. And you gave us a good sermon. Like a good sermon with meat in it. This is My Friend,” and she brought Miss Bent forward.

“Hardly as many people in church as one would like to see,” said Miss Bent, holding Canon Fewling’s hand and making no move to release it. “Still, it’s better than those hikers who giggled last Sunday.”

“Hikers!” said Miss Hampton with profound scorn, and before anyone could get a word in she continued, “If my dear father had seen me in trousers, or shorts, and uplift brassières in church, he would have sent me to bed.”

“And would you have gone?” said Mrs. Crofts.

“Certainly,” said Miss Hampton. “Discipline. Duty. Those were father’s watchwords. Canon Fewling knows what I mean. England Expects.”

“Your father must have been a gentleman of strong character,” said Canon Fewling.

“How right you are, Canon Fewling,” said Miss Hampton. “He liked a woman to be a woman. He would have beaten me with a strap if he had seen me in trousers like those girls wore. I have always honoured my father, and I’ve never worn anything but coats and skirts all my life. No need to prove all things if you know what is good when you start. That’s what St. Paul didn’t know. Would know it now if he were alive.”

“Hampton has to pay fifty guineas for her suits now,” said Miss Bent with mournful pride. “But I always say money is worth as much as it will buy. And what is money worth now?”

“Nothing,” said Miss Hampton. “So I spend it,” she added, gradually drawing the whole company into her orbit. “I’ve been saving all my life for my nephews whom I educated. What’s the good of saving now? None. So Bent and I went to Mixo-Lydia for the skiing in February, and I am buying a lot of drink. Bound to go up again, you know. Bent got her suit in Mixo-Lydia, Canon Fewling. Like it?”

Canon Fewling as a sailor was equipped with a ready-made character for gallantry, but for once found himself quite at a loss. His defection was ably covered by Mrs. Crofts, who nearly fell over herself in her admiration of Miss Bent’s Mixo-Lydian attire, though as a matter of fact its embroidered baggy blouse, its full skirt of gay peasant weave, the brightly coloured handkerchief that was tied over Miss Bent’s unkempt grizzling locks, her necklaces and bracelets of coloured wooden beads, were so exactly like what she always wore that only the eye of faith, or the tact of a good clergy-wife, could have noticed any difference.

“I suppose we are going to Mrs. Feeder’s party,” said Miss Hampton. “Bent and I will walk down with you. Is that your car, Canon Fewling, down by the Vicarage gate? When did you get it?”

Canon Fewling said he got her just after Christmas and was still running her in quietly, but she could do seventy on her head.

“Stout fellow,” said Miss Hampton approvingly, at which Mrs. Crofts, though not possessing a very keen sense of humour, nearly had the giggles. “Times are hard. That’s why Bent and I have decided to buy a new car too. Spend, dear man, spend. That’s the way to show any Government what you think. Here am I, working and slaving all my life for my four nephews, all to find it’s no good. So I decided to buy a new car and tell my accountant to charge it as literary expenses.”

“I really feel quite a thrill when I think of it,” said Miss Bent, raising eyes of worship to Miss Hampton. “Hampton can’t drive, and I haven’t driven for some time, but I’ll soon get the hang of it again,” which interested such of her hearers as had always thought (in all honour) of Miss Hampton as the competent male and Miss Bent the clinging vine. “It is a Parkinson-Greely 1949 model. They are better than the later model and have the inferential distributor above the magneto, not below.”

Though the world was reeling round her, Mrs. Crofts kept her balance and asked what they were going to call it.

“If you could tell us that, dear woman,” said Miss Hampton, “we should be delighted. We have thought in vain for a suitable name.”

“Hampton thought Wiple, as we live in Wiple Terrace,” said Miss Bent, “but we felt it might annoy Mr. Traill and Mr. Feeder who, after all, live in The Terrace too. My idea was, I think, a better one, but Hampton won’t hear of it.”

Canon Fewling politely enquired what name Miss Bent had chosen.

“Hampton Court,” said Miss Bent proudly.

A complete silence followed while her audience collected their wits.

“Can’t be done,” said Miss Hampton in a firm voice, but with a wistful look in her eyes. “Not fair to Bent. She has been typing my new book all this summer and I owe her too much. I cannot take advantage of her generosity.”

“Hampton is Weak about me,” said Miss Bent. “It is Give and Take between us. If I Give, can she not Take? And have I not had the privilege of being the first to see her new book? It has left me quite literally Stunned by its power,” and Miss Bent flung her arms wide so that her Mixo-Lydian necklaces and bracelets clashed, the better to express her feelings.

Canon Fewling, with a horrid feeling that he might be intruding upon the rites of the Bona Dea and be torn to pieces in the Vicarage garden, asked what the new book was to be called.

“Tell them, Bent,” said Miss Hampton.

“It is, quite simply, Crooked Insect,” said Miss Bent reverently, to which her audience could find no better reply than “How nice.”

“There will be some who will not find it nice,” said Miss Bent grimly. “Let them. It will do them good. A poniard will go to many a heart when that book is published. Hampton, we must be going. Churchill is in the garden,” and she tapped at the french window. A short-legged dog with shaggy black hair, a head far too large for his body and mournful eyes, came trotting across the lawn and was let in.

“Dear me, is he Churchill now? I thought——” said Mrs. Crofts and then paused, for as the dog had had a new name every year since the war began and often more than one name in a year that all heroes might be suitably commemorated, his friends were sometimes a little behind the times.

“Who else could he be?” said Miss Hampton. “The wheel has come full circle. Our great Prime Minister is under the shadow of the Little Man, but we, fearlessly, pay our homage; as of old, so today. Come along, Churchill.”

“Oh, Miss Hampton,” said Mrs. Crofts. “About your car. I was only wondering, as you don’t like Hampton Court for a name——”

Miss Hampton was heard to murmur, “Domine, non sum digna,” or, as Canon Fewling afterwards affirmed, “Domina, non sum dignus.”

“—I just thought,” continued Mrs. Crofts, “that there is Littlehampton and Northampton and——”

“Minchinhampton,” said Canon Fewling, who though he had rather lost the track of the conversation was very ready to support his hostess.

“—and Minchinhampton, of course,” said Mrs. Crofts. “So I just thought, I mean only an idea, what about Benthampton?”

“Eureka!” exclaimed Miss Hampton.

“And,” said Canon Fewling, who was afraid he was going to laugh, “you could always contract it to Bampton. There are some very good lectures at Oxford called the Bampton lectures.”

“My thanks, dear man,” said Miss Hampton, extending her hand and grasping Canon Fewling’s in a way that made him, though an ex-officer of the Royal Navy, almost utter an exclamation of anguish. “How I wish my father had known you. Come, let us be going,” and she strode down the hill towards the village, Miss Bent and the dog in her train.

“Never say that village life is dull,” said Canon Fewling, enchanted by the scene we have just described.

“I didn’t,” said Mrs. Crofts.

“There is going to be plenty of it at Greshamsbury, I think,” said Canon Fewling; “but though I am already bursting with local pride, I don’t think we are as good as you.”

“I am sure you aren’t,” said Mrs. Crofts. “Admiral, are you and your wife going to Mrs. Feeder’s party? We can all walk down together.”

The Admiral and Mrs. Phelps were already engaged to go to the School, but Miss Phelps said she was invited to Editha and would love to come with them, so they walked down the little hill and along the village street as far as a row of four two-storied cottages in mellow red brick, with a wide strip of grass lying between them and the road. They had been erected by a Mr. Wiple, a small master builder of the neighbourhood, as a monument to his four daughters, Adelina, Maria, Louisa and Editha, calling each cottage after one of them. They were surmounted in the middle by a kind of long low gable (if we make ourselves clear) in stucco, on which the words “Wiple Terrace 1820” are still faintly visible. The property now belongs to Paul’s College, who also own the Vicarage and the living, and has always been run in a very friendly way, the tenant of longest standing having a shadowy claim to pre-eminence, which position has now for many years been held by Miss Hampton and Miss Bent, the tenants of Adelina. At Maria lives Mr. Traill and at Louisa Mr. Feeder, both assistant masters at the School, while Editha at the far end has been tenanted for some years by Mrs. Feeder, the widowed mother of Mr. Feeder. In Mrs. Feeder the ladies of Adelina had at once recognised a kindred spirit in the matter of drink and there was altogether a strong spirit of cameraderie in the terrace.

Mrs. Feeder’s cottage, Editha, was the nearest to the Vicarage. The front door was open.

“I do hope,” said Mrs. Crofts, as they walked up the path of the little front garden, “the door hasn’t been open for long. We shall be frozen,” but when they reached the house they found another door a yard or so down the passage.

“Shall I ring?” said Canon Fewling; but before Mrs. Crofts could answer, Mrs. Feeder herself, holding a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, appeared from inside.

“Come in,” said Mrs. Feeder. “I had this extra door put in to keep the house warmer. Good idea, what?”

As the passage was very narrow it was impossible to make introductions and the party followed Mrs. Feeder into the drawing-room, or living-room as one pleases to call it, in which through smoke and above the chink of bottles could be seen and heard seven or eight people.

“You know them all,” said Mrs. Feeder, waving her cigarette towards the company. “Here’s my boy. He does the drinks. Look after them, darling,” and she flattened herself to make way for Mr. Feeder, who advanced with a large tray.

“I’m so sorry I can’t shake hands, but there isn’t anywhere to put the tray,” said Mr. Feeder. “What can I offer you? I’m afraid we’re a bit low because Miss Hampton threw a party on Friday and the Red Lion was pretty well cleared out. French, It, gin, bitters, whisky, rum, orange, a spot of brandy, lime, and the fixings. Give it a name.”

Thus adjured, the new visitors were unable—as one always is when faced with a generous choice of drinks now—to make any decision.

“Come on, Mrs. Crofts, give it a name,” said Mr. Feeder, which, of course, compelled the Vicar’s wife in an access of selfconsciousness to ask for gin and It, though disliking both the drink and the expression.

“If I could just have a small whisky and soda,” said Canon Fewling.

“I say, you are sensible,” said Miss Phelps admiringly. “Father always says you can’t go wrong with whisky. Same for me, please. Here, don’t drown it. Mr. Traill, come and talk to Canon Fewling.”

Thus adjured, the tenant of Maria shoved his way through the crowd, or rather through the crowded room which could not have held more than twelve people at the most in comfort and was rapidly approximating to the Black Hole of Calcutta.

“This is Mr. Traill who lives in Maria and has a frightfully good gramophone,” said Miss Phelps, pleased to be able to present something nice to the guest. “He and Mr. Feeder, who has a wireless, have awful rows about it; don’t you, Mr. Traill?”

“Feeder has the rows, not me,” said Mr. Traill, as heedless of grammar as the Monks and Friars of Rheims.

“Well, you have the gramophone, not him,” said Miss Phelps with considerable spirit and equal lack of grammar, “and anyway this is Canon Fewling who took the service this evening.”

“How do you do, sir,” said Mr. Traill. “I say, I don’t know if it’s etiquette or not, but I did enjoy your service. I had to scoot off the minute it was over to help Feeder with the drinks. The Vicar’s awfully good too of course, but it makes a change to see something fresh.”

Canon Fewling, well accustomed to people who were incapable of expressing in words what they might be feeling, took these remarks as they were meant, but not so Miss Phelps, who turned upon Mr. Traill and told him not to be an ass and get Canon Fewling another drink. Mr. Traill, slightly abashed, asked if Canon Fewling would like the same again.

“No more, thank you,” said Canon Fewling. “But if I might have the pleasure of greeting my hostess? I met her at lunch and I don’t want to seem discourteous, but I simply can’t get at her,” and indeed the room was by now so tightly packed that movement was almost impossible. Mr. Traill, eager to give pleasure, began a slow process of worming himself through the crowd.

“He didn’t mean not to be polite,” said Miss Phelps suddenly, or so Canon Fewling thought, looking like a little girl who is lost at a children’s party and would like to go home. “Please excuse him.”

“But, my dear Miss Phelps, there was nothing to excuse,” said Canon Fewling. “If we could just get out into the passage for a moment perhaps we could hear what we were saying. I like Mr. Traill so much. By the way—you will forgive my interest and not treat it as curiosity, I beg—I notice that there is much less use of Christian names here than one usually meets.”

“Oh, you mean me saying Mr. Feeder and Mr. Traill,” said Miss Phelps. “Well, you see, there are millions more surnames than Christian names. You’ve only got to look at the telephone book to see that, so really it’s easier to know who people are that way. I mean there are quite a lot of masters at Southbridge who have the same Christian name—I don’t mean they all have the same name, but quite a lot have the same name as another one, so I call them Mr. Whatever the name is. They don’t mind.”

“And what about you?” said Canon Fewling, who had by now managed to back himself and Miss Phelps to the end of the little passage where at least they did not have to strain their voices.

“Me?” said Miss Phelps. “Oh, I see. You mean them not calling me Margot. Oh well, I’m older than quite a lot of them and anyway I’ve always lived here ever since father retired and I expect they think I’m a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud. A kind of universal aunt. That’s all. Let’s go back and I’ll see if I can get at Mrs. Feeder for you,” and she began to shove herself into the room, followed by her guest.

By this time Mr. Traill had with some difficulty cut out the hostess from the ruck and punted her into position near the door, so that Canon Fewling was able to say how much he had enjoyed the party and was afraid he must be going, as he was giving the Leslies a lift home from the School, and hoped to see her and her son at Greshamsbury when his house was fit for visitors.

“I’ll come with you a bit of the way,” said Miss Phelps, taking him in tow again. “I’ve got to go back, anyway, to get the parents’ supper. Irons doesn’t much like drink parties. There’s too much noise and he gets tired. We live at Jutland Cottage. It used to be The Hollies, but father was in the Battle of Jutland so he called it that.”

The walk was not long and was enlivened by Miss Phelps with descriptions of local celebrities, such as old Propett, who was sexton when Colonel Crofts first came to the Vicarage and had lived in very squalid sin with an old woman for over sixty years and died a few years previously, largely of too much drink consumed during that period; and how the old woman had died on the same day owing to drinking all the port which good Samaritans had sent him; and how on his disgraceful and dirty death-bed he had extracted from Colonel Crofts a promise that Bateman, Colonel Croft’s old soldier servant now acting as gardener and sexton, should not ring the passing bell for him because he had rung it man and boy for sixty year and didn’t want no one else to ring it; and how Colonel Crofts, having given his word, rang the bell himself, ninety-two strokes. By which time they had got to Jutland Cottage.

“You couldn’t stay to supper, could you?” said Miss Phelps. “Irons does so love to talk to naval men.”

Torn between two duties, Canon Fewling thought for a moment and then said he would like it of all things, but he had promised to take the Leslies back by a certain hour and it was getting late.

“But if your mother would allow me,” he said, “may I come over on a special visit soon? I should love to hear your father talk about his experiences. And you are, very kindly, going to let me know about some hens, aren’t you?”

“Rather,” said Miss Phelps, who had inherited from both her parents a strong impulse to assist and from her mother a distinct pleasure in managing other people’s affairs. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can get over. It rather depends on the parents. If Irons gets one of his bad days, or mother is very tired, I’m done. The village nurse is awfully good, but she’s busy and I must stick to the ship,” and with a hearty handshake she went into Jutland Cottage and Canon Fewling went on to the School. Here he collected the Leslies and drove them back with all due care. Of course they asked him to come in for a drink and of course he accepted, for he liked people and never needed much sleep; though to do him justice he was quick in feeling when his hosts were tired and rarely outstayed his welcome.

“And I hope you had a pleasant time with your boys,” he said, when they were settled with beer (John Leslie and the Rector) and an orange drink (Mary Leslie).

Mary said, “Very nice indeed,” only Minor now walked too fast for her and she was afraid that Minimus soon would do the same.

“I used to get rather impatient with them when they were small, because they couldn’t walk as fast as I did,” said their mother, “and now they get rather bored with me because I can’t walk as fast as they do. I suppose it happens to everyone.”

“You will have to grow old along with me, my love,” said her husband.

“One of the silliest things Browning ever said,” his wife answered with some spirit. “I don’t think the best is yet to be in the least. If the last for which the first was made is just getting feebler and sillier, I really don’t think much of it. What about you, Tubby?”

“Do you know,” said Canon Fewling, with the engaging candour that sat so well upon him, “I hardly ever think about it. I suppose I ought to, but I’m an ordinary kind of chap and really I find so much to do all the time that I don’t worry much about what will happen later. I do trust that at the end I shan’t at any rate be worse than I was at the beginning, but meanwhile there doesn’t seem to be much time for philosophy. Cheerfulness will break in, as that old friend of Dr. Johnson’s said.”

“I expect you are right, Tubby,” said Mary Leslie, who was tidying some papers and sewing and other odds and ends which lay on a large round table. Canon Fewling, looking towards her, noticed a number of capital letters strewn on the table, such as used to be in vogue for the game called Word Making and Word Taking.

“I used to have some letters like that when I was a little boy,” said Canon Fewling. “We played games with them and made anagrams. May I play with them before you put them away? What a charming set. We had one just like it when I was a boy—ivory squares with the capital letter on one side and the little letter on the other. My mother started my education with them.”

As he spoke he collected the letters and began to make words, idly.

“It’s a pity one can’t make an anagram out of Fewling,” he said. “I tried every way. Is Leslie any good? I can nearly get LISLES, but I’m not sure if that’s fair. Ladies do, I believe, have lisle stockings, but I doubt whether they talk about Lisles,” and Mary said she was sorry but she didn’t think they did.

“I’ll try something else,” said Canon Fewling. “Surnames are nearly always awkward. I might try books. That very remarkable woman Miss Hampton was talking about her new book.”

“What is it to be called?” said Mary Leslie.

“Crooked Insect,” said Canon Fewling, collecting the letters as he spoke and arranging them in their correct order, the better to get his bearings. Mary and John looked on ready, as lookers-on always are, to make unnecessary and irritating suggestions.

“CROOKED INSECT,” said the Rector, aloud to himself, hoping, as we all do, thereby to promote thought, while he looked carefully at the letters. “C-R-O-O-K-E-D and then I-N-S-E-C-T. Oh my——I mean, Oh my hat! What a woman!”

“What on earth is the matter, Tubby?” said Mary Leslie.

“I’ve only just seen it,” said the Rector, gazing with a kind of respectful horror at the letters in front of him.

“Come on, Tubby,” said John Leslie. “It can’t be as bad as all that. Out with it. Think of Nelson.”

Thus adjured, Canon Fewling pointed to the second word.

“You see that,” he said.

“Well, what about it?” said his host.

“If,” said the Rector, fixing his hosts with a firm and resolute countenance, “if you make INSECT crooked, what do you get?”

“Dear Tubby, do talk sense,” said Mary Leslie.

“I am,” said the Rector. “Look at INSECT. Make it crooked. Change the letters. You only have to change the place of two of them.”

“My God, Tubby, you are right!” said John Leslie, beginning to laugh, while his wife indignantly asked what there was to laugh at. “What a woman! If the Free Church press tumble to it, there’ll be trouble with the circulating libraries,” at which point his wife suddenly saw light and fell away into unmatronly giggles.

“They won’t. It takes the Church of England to see a thing like that,” said Canon Fewling proudly, at which his host and hostess laughed more than ever.

“Well, after that I’d better go home,” said the Rector. “I liked Miss Hampton immensely when I met her and now I really respect her. Good night. It has been a delightful day.”

The Leslies thanked him for taking and returning them in his car and he drove away to his house. The Leslies tidied the room and put the letters away.

“John,” said his wife as they were going upstairs, “do you think Tubby is likely to get married? I don’t like to think of him alone. He is such a good fellow.”

“He won’t get married to Miss Hampton, nor to Miss Bent neither too,” said her husband, quoting from the now forgotten but once by us and our contemporaries fondly loved Follies.

His wife said with dignity that she wasn’t thinking of that in the least.

“He is far more likely to fall in love with Rose Fairweather,” said John. “I’ve yet to meet the man who hasn’t.”

“You didn’t, darling,” said his wife.

“Well, I didn’t when I was young, because I never met her, and anyway I’m years older than she is,” said John. “But now they have come to live here, beware,” to which his wife replied that he was a goose and to hurry up and go to bed because tomorrow was Monday.