Scenes of Clerical Life: Chapter 26

Chapter 26

That was the last terrible crisis of temptation Janet had to pass
through. The goodwill of her neighbours, the helpful sympathy of the
friends who shared her religious feelings, the occupations suggested to
her by Mr. Tryan, concurred, with her strong spontaneous impulses towards
works of love and mercy, to fill up her days with quiet social
intercourse and charitable exertion. Besides, her constitution, naturally
healthy and strong, was every week tending, with the gathering force of
habit, to recover its equipoise, and set her free from those physical
solicitations which the smallest habitual vice always leaves behind it.
The prisoner feels where the iron has galled him, long after his fetters
have been loosed.

There were always neighbourly visits to be paid and received; and as the
months wore on, increasing familiarity with Janet's present self began to
efface, even from minds as rigid as Mrs. Phipps's, the unpleasant
impressions that had been left by recent years. Janet was recovering the
popularity which her beauty and sweetness of nature had won for her when
she was a girl; and popularity, as every one knows, is the most complex
and self-multiplying of echoes. Even anti-Tryanite prejudice could not
resist the fact that Janet Dempster was a changed woman--changed as the
dusty, bruised, and sun-withered plant is changed when the soft rains of
heaven have fallen on it--and that this change was due to Mr. Tryan's
influence. The last lingering sneers against the Evangelical curate began
to die out; and though much of the feeling that had prompted them
remained behind, there was an intimidating consciousness that the
expression of such feeling would not be effective--jokes of that sort had
ceased to tickle the Milby mind. Even Mr. Budd and Mr. Tomlinson, when
they saw Mr. Tryan passing pale and worn along the street, had a secret
sense that this man was somehow not that very natural and comprehensible
thing, a humbug--that, in fact, it was impossible to explain him from the
stomach and pocket point of view. Twist and stretch their theory as they
might, it would not fit Mr. Tryan; and so, with that remarkable
resemblance as to mental processes which may frequently be observed to
exist between plain men and philosophers, they concluded that the less
they said about him the better.

Among all Janet's neighbourly pleasures, there was nothing she liked
better than to take an early tea at the White House, and to stroll with
Mr. Jerome round the old-fashioned garden and orchard. There was endless
matter for talk between her and the good old man, for Janet had that
genuine delight in human fellowship which gives an interest to all
personal details that come warm from truthful lips; and, besides, they
had a common interest in good-natured plans for helping their poorer
neighbours. One great object of Mr. Jerome's charities was, as he often
said, 'to keep industrious men an' women off the parish. I'd rether given
ten shillin' an' help a man to stand on his own legs, nor pay
half-a-crown to buy him a parish crutch; it's the ruination on him if he
once goes to the parish. I've see'd many a time, if you help a man wi' a
present in a neeborly way, it sweetens his blood--he thinks it kind on
you; but the parish shillins turn it sour--he niver thinks 'em enough.'
In illustration of this opinion Mr. Jerome had a large store of details
about such persons as Jim Hardy, the coal-carrier, 'as lost his hoss'.
and Sally Butts, 'as hed to sell her mangle, though she was as decent a
woman as need to be'; to the hearing of which details Janet seriously
inclined; and you would hardly desire to see a prettier picture than the
kind-faced white-haired old man telling these fragments of his simple
experience as he walked, with shoulders slightly bent, among the
moss-roses and espalier apple-trees, while Janet in her widow's cap, her
dark eyes bright with interest, went listening by his side, and little
Lizzie, with her nankeen bonnet hanging down her back, toddled on before
them. Mrs. Jerome usually declined these lingering strolls, and often
observed, 'I niver see the like to Mr. Jerome when he's got Mrs. Dempster
to talk to; it sinnifies nothin' to him whether we've tea at four or at
five o'clock; he'd go on till six, if you'd let him alone--he's like off
his head.' However, Mrs. Jerome herself could not deny that Janet was a
very pretty-spoken woman: 'She aly's says, she niver gets sich pikelets'
as mine nowhere; I know that very well--other folks buy 'em at
shops--thick, unwholesome things, you might as well eat a sponge.'

The sight of little Lizzie often stirred in Janet's mind a sense of the
childlessness which had made a fatal blank in her life. She had fleeting
thoughts that perhaps among her husband's distant relatives there might
be some children whom she could help to bring up, some little girl whom
she might adopt; and she promised herself one day or other to hunt out a
second cousin of his--a married woman, of whom he had lost sight for many
years.

But at present her hands and heart were too full for her to carry out
that scheme. To her great disappointment, her project of settling Mrs.
Pettifer at Holly Mount had been delayed by the discovery that some
repairs were necessary in order to make the house habitable, and it was
not till September had set in that she had the satisfaction of seeing her
old friend comfortably installed, and the rooms destined for Mr. Tryan
looking pretty and cosy to her heart's content. She had taken several of
his chief friends into her confidence, and they were warmly wishing
success to her plan for inducing him to quit poor Mrs. Wagstaff's dingy
house and dubious cookery. That he should consent to some such change was
becoming more and more a matter of anxiety to his hearers; for though no
more decided symptoms were yet observable in him than increasing
emaciation, a dry hacking cough, and an occasional shortness of breath,
it was felt that the fulfilment of Mr. Pratt's prediction could not long
be deferred, and that this obstinate persistence in labour and
self-disregard must soon be peremptorily cut short by a total failure of
strength. Any hopes that the influence of Mr. Tryan's father and sister
would prevail on him to change his mode of life--that they would perhaps
come to live with him, or that his sister at least might come to see him,
and that the arguments which had failed from other lips might be more
persuasive from hers--were now quite dissipated. His father had lately
had an attack of paralysis, and could not spare his only daughter's
tendance. On Mr. Tryan's return from a visit to his father, Miss Linnet
was very anxious to know whether his sister had not urged him to try
change of air. From his answers she gathered that Miss Tryan wished him
to give up his curacy and travel, or at least go to the south Devonshire
coast.

'And why will you not do so?' Miss Linnet said; 'you might come back to
us well and strong, and have many years of usefulness before you.'

'No,' he answered quietly, 'I think people attach more importance to such
measures than is warranted. I don't see any good end that is to be served
by going to die at Nice, instead of dying amongst one's friends and one's
work. I cannot leave Milby--at least I will not leave it voluntarily.'

But though he remained immovable on this point, he had been compelled to
give up his afternoon service on the Sunday, and to accept Mr. Parry's
offer of aid in the evening service, as well as to curtail his weekday
labours; and he had even written to Mr. Prendergast to request that he
would appoint another curate to the Paddiford district, on the
understanding that the new curate should receive the salary, but that Mr.
Tryan should co-operate with him as long as he was able. The hopefulness
which is an almost constant attendant on consumption, had not the effect
of deceiving him as to the nature of his malady, or of making him look
forward to ultimate recovery. He believed himself to be consumptive, and
he had not yet felt any desire to escape the early death which he had for
some time contemplated as probable. Even diseased hopes will take their
direction from the strong habitual bias of the mind, and to Mr. Tryan
death had for years seemed nothing else than the laying down of a burden,
under which he sometimes felt himself fainting. He was only sanguine
about his powers of work: he flattered himself that what he was unable to
do one week he should be equal to the next, and he would not admit that
in desisting from any part of his labour he was renouncing it
permanently. He had lately delighted Mr. Jerome by accepting his
long-proffered loan of the 'little chacenut hoss;' and he found so much
benefit from substituting constant riding exercise for walking, that he
began to think he should soon be able to resume some of the work he had
dropped.

That was a happy afternoon for Janet, when, after exerting herself busily
for a week with her mother and Mrs. Pettifer, she saw Holly Mount looking
orderly and comfortable from attic to cellar. It was an old red-brick
house, with two gables in front, and two clipped holly-trees flanking the
garden-gate; a simple, homely-looking place, that quiet people might
easily get fond of; and now it was scoured and polished and carpeted and
furnished so as to look really snug within. When there was nothing more
to be done, Janet delighted herself with contemplating Mr. Tryan's study,
first sitting down in the easy-chair, and then lying for a moment on the
sofa, that she might have a keener sense of the repose he would get from
those well-stuffed articles of furniture, which she had gone to Rotherby
on purpose to choose.

'Now, mother,' she said, when she had finished her survey, 'you have done
your work as well as any fairy-mother or god-mother that ever turned a
pumpkin into a coach and horses. You stay and have tea cosily with Mrs.
Pettifer while I go to Mrs. Linnet's. I want to tell Mary and Rebecca the
good news, that I've got the exciseman to promise that he will take Mrs.
Wagstaff's lodgings when Mr. Tryan leaves. They'll be so pleased to hear
it, because they thought he would make her poverty an objection to his
leaving her.'

'But, my dear child.' said Mrs. Raynor, whose face, always calm, was now
a happy one, 'have a cup of tea with us first. You'll perhaps miss Mrs.
Linnet's tea-time.'

'No, I feel too excited to take tea yet. I'm like a child with a new
baby-house. Walking in the air will do me good.'

So she set out. Holly Mount was about a mile from that outskirt of
Paddiford Common where Mrs. Linnet's house stood nestled among its
laburnums, lilacs, and syringas. Janet's way thither lay for a little
while along the high-road, and then led her into a deep-rutted lane,
which wound through a flat tract of meadow and pasture, while in front
lay smoky Paddiford, and away to the left the mother-town of Milby. There
was no line of silvery willows marking the course of a stream--no group
of Scotch firs with their trunks reddening in the level sunbeams--nothing
to break the flowerless monotony of grass and hedgerow but an occasional
oak or elm, and a few cows sprinkled here and there. A very commonplace
scene, indeed. But what scene was ever commonplace in the descending
sunlight, when colour has awakened from its noonday sleep, and the long
shadows awe us like a disclosed presence? Above all, what scene is
commonplace to the eye that is filled with serene gladness, and brightens
all things with its own joy?

And Janet just now was very happy. As she walked along the rough lane
with a buoyant step, a half smile of innocent, kindly triumph played
about her mouth. She was delighting beforehand in the anticipated success
of her persuasive power, and for the time her painful anxiety about Mr.
Tryan's health was thrown into abeyance. But she had not gone far along
the lane before she heard the sound of a horse advancing at a walking
pace behind her. Without looking back, she turned aside to make way for
it between the ruts, and did not notice that for a moment it had stopped,
and had then come on with a slightly quickened pace. In less than a
minute she heard a well-known voice say, 'Mrs. Dempster'; and, turning,
saw Mr. Tryan close to her, holding his horse by the bridle. It seemed
very natural to her that he should be there. Her mind was so full of his
presence at that moment, that the actual sight of him was only like a
more vivid thought, and she behaved, as we are apt to do when feeling
obliges us to be genuine, with a total forgetfulness of polite forms. She
only looked at him with a slight deepening of the smile that was already
on her face. He said gently, 'Take my arm'; and they walked on a little
way in silence.

It was he who broke it. 'You are going to Paddiford, I suppose?'

The question recalled Janet to the consciousness that this was an
unexpected opportunity for beginning her work of persuasion, and that she
was stupidly neglecting it.

'Yes,' she said, 'I was going to Mrs. Linnet's. I knew Miss Linnet would
like to hear that our friend Mrs. Pettifer is quite settled now in her
new house. She is as fond of Mrs. Pettifer as I am--almost; I won't admit
that any one loves her _quite_ as well, for no one else has such good
reason as I have. But now the dear woman wants a lodger, for you know she
can't afford to live in so large a house by herself. But I knew when I
persuaded her to go there that she would be sure to get one--she's such a
comfortable creature to live with; and I didn't like her to spend all the
rest of her days up that dull passage, being at every one's beck and call
who wanted to make use of her.'

'Yes,' said Mr. Tryan, 'I quite understand your feeling; I don't wonder
at your strong regard for her.'

'Well, but now I want her other friends to second me. There she is, with
three rooms to let, ready furnished, everything in order; and I know some
one, who thinks as well of her as I do, and who would be doing good all
round--to every one that knows him, as well as to Mrs. Pettifer, if he
would go to live with her. He would leave some uncomfortable lodgings,
which another person is already coveting and would take immediately; and
he would go to breathe pure air at Holly Mount, and gladden Mrs.
Pettifer's heart by letting her wait on him; and comfort all his friends,
who are quite miserable about him.'

Mr. Tryan saw it all in a moment--he saw that it had all been done for
his sake. He could not be sorry; he could not say no; he could not resist
the sense that life had a new sweetness for him, and that he should like
it to be prolonged a little--only a little, for the sake of feeling a
stronger security about Janet. When she had finished speaking, she looked
at him with a doubtful, inquiring glance. He was not looking at her; his
eyes were cast downwards; but the expression of his face encouraged her,
and she said, in a half-playful tone of entreaty,--'You _will_ go and
live with her? I know you will. You will come back with me now and see
the house.'

He looked at her then, and smiled. There is an unspeakable blending of
sadness and sweetness in the smile of a face sharpened and paled by slow
consumption. That smile of Mr. Tryan's pierced poor Janet's heart: she
felt in it at once the assurance of grateful affection and the prophecy
of coming death. Her tears rose; they turned round without speaking, and
went back again along the lane.

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