MRS. FAIRFAX

The town of Langborough in 1839 had not been much disturbed since the beginning of the preceding century.  The new houses were nearly all of them built to replace others which had fallen into decay; there were no drains; the drinking-water came from pumps; the low fever killed thirty or forty people every autumn; the Moot Hall still stood in the middle of the High Street; the newspaper came but once a week; nobody read any books; and the Saturday market and the annual fair were the only events in public local history.  Langborough, being seventy miles from London and eight from the main coach-road, had but little communication with the outside world.  Its inhabitants intermarried without crossing from other stocks, and men determined their choice mainly by equality of fortune and rank.  The shape of the nose and lips and colour of the eyes may have had some influence in masculine selection, but not much: the doctor took the lawyer’s daughter, the draper took the grocer’s, and the carpenter took the blacksmith’s.  Husbands and wives, as a rule, lived comfortably with one another; there was no reason why they should quarrel.  The air of the place was sleepy; the men attended to their business, and the women were entirely apart, minding their household affairs and taking tea with one another.  In Langborough, dozing as it had dozed since the days of Queen Anne, it was almost impossible that any woman should differ so much from another that she could be the cause of passionate preference.

One day in the spring of 1839 Langborough was stirred to its depths.  No such excitement had been felt in the town since the run upon the bank in 1825, when one of the partners went up to London, brought down ten thousand pounds in gold with him by the mail, and was met at Thaxton cross-roads by a post-chaise, which was guarded into Langborough by three men with pistols.  A circular printed in London was received on that spring day in 1839 by all the respectable ladies in the town stating that a Mrs. Fairfax was about to begin business in Ferry Street as a dressmaker.  She had taken the only house to be let in Ferry Street.  It was a cottage with a front and back sitting-room, and belonged to an old lady in Lincoln, who inherited it from her brother, who once lived in it but had been dead forty years.  Before a week had gone by four-fifths of the population of Langborough had re-inspected it.  The front room was the shop, and in the window was a lay-figure attired in an evening robe of rose-coloured silk, the like of which for style and fit no native lady had ever seen.  Underneath it was a card—“Mrs. Fairfax, Milliner and Dressmaker.”  The circular stated that Mrs. Fairfax could provide materials or would make up those brought to her by her customers.

Great was the debate which followed this unexpected apparition.  Who Mrs. Fairfax was could not be discovered.  Her furniture and the lay-figure had come by the waggon, and the only information the driver could give was that he was directed at the “George and Blue Boar” in Holborn to fetch them from Great Ormond Street.  After much discussion it was agreed that Mrs. Bingham, the wife of the wine merchant, should call on Mrs. Fairfax and inquire the price of a gown.  Mrs. Bingham was at the head of society in Langborough, and had the reputation of being very clever.  It was hoped, and indeed fully expected, that she would be able to penetrate the mystery.  She went, opened the door, a little bell sounded, and Mrs. Fairfax presented herself.  Mrs. Bingham’s eyes fell at once upon Mrs. Fairfax’s dress.  It was black, with no ornament, and constructed with an accuracy and grace which proved at once to Mrs. Bingham that its maker was mistress of her art.  Mrs. Bingham, although she could not entirely desert the linendraper’s wife, whose husband was a good customer for brandy, had some of her clothes made in London when she stayed with her sister in town, and, to use her own phrase, “knew what was what.”

“Mrs. Fairfax?”

A bow.

“Will you please tell me what a gown would cost made somewhat like that in the window?”

“For yourself, madam?”

“Yes.”

“Pardon me; I am afraid that colour would not suit you.”

Mrs. Bingham was a stout woman with a ruddy complexion.

“One colour costs no more than another?”

“No, madam: twelve guineas; that silk is expensive.  Will you not take a seat?”

“I am afraid you will find twelve guineas too much for anybody here.  Have you nothing cheaper?”

Mrs. Fairfax produced some patterns and fashion-plates.

“I suppose the gown in the window is your own make?”

“My own make and design.”

“Then you are not beginning business?”

“I hope I may say that I thoroughly understand it.”

The door leading into the back parlour opened, and a little girl about nine or ten years old entered.

“Mother, I want—”

Mrs. Fairfax, without saying a word, gently led the child into the parlour again.

“Dear me, what a pretty little girl!  Is that yours?”

“Yes, she is mine.”

Mrs. Bingham noticed that Mrs. Fairfax did not wear a widow’s cap, and that she had a wedding-ring on her finger.

“You will find it rather lonely here.  Have you been accustomed to solitude?”

“Yes.  That silk, now, would suit you admirably.  With less ornament it would be ten guineas.”

“Thank you: I must not be so extravagant at present.  May I look at something which will do for walking?  You would not, I suppose, make a walking-dress for Langborough exactly as you would have made it in London?”

“If you mean for walking about the roads here, it would differ slightly from one which would be suitable for London.”

“Will you show me what you have usually made for town?”

“This is what is worn now.”

Mrs. Bingham was baffled but not defeated.  She gave an order for a walking-dress, and hoped that Mrs. Fairfax might be more communicative.

“Have you any introductions here?”

“None whatever.”

“It is rather a risk if you are unknown.”

“Perhaps you have been exempt from risks: some people are obliged constantly to encounter them.”

“‘Exempt,’ ‘encounter,”’ thought Mrs. Bingham: “she must have been to a good school.”

“When will you be ready to try on?”

“On Friday,” and Mrs. Fairfax opened the door.

As Mrs. Bingham went out she noticed a French book lying on a side table.

The day following was Sunday, and Mrs. Fairfax and her daughter were at church.  They sat at the back, and all the congregation turned on entering, looked at them, and thought about them during the service.  They went out as soon as it was over, but Mrs. Harrop, wife of the ironmonger, and Mrs. Cobb, wife of the coal merchant, escaped with equal promptitude and were close behind them.

“There isn’t a crease in that body,” said Mrs. Harrop.

On Monday Mrs. Bingham was at the post-office.  She took care to be there at the dinner hour, when the postmaster’s wife generally came to the counter.

“A newcomer, Mrs. Carter.  Have you seen Mrs. Fairfax?”

“Once or twice, ma’am.”

“Has she many letters?”

The door between the office and the parlour was open.

“I’ve no doubt she will have, ma’am, if her business succeeds.”

“I wonder where she lived before she came here.  It is curious, isn’t it, that nobody knows her?  Did you ever notice how her letters are stamped?”

“Can’t say as I have, ma’am.”

Mrs. Carter shut the parlour door.  “The smell of those onions,” she whispered to her husband, “blows right in here.”  She then altered her tone a trifle.

“One of ’em, Mrs. Bingham, had the Portsmouth postmark on it; but this is in the strictest confidence, and I should never dream of letting it out to anybody but you, but I don’t mind you, because I know you won’t repeat it, and if my husband was to hear me he’d be in a fearful rage, for there was a dreadful row when I told Lady Caroline at Thaxton Manor about the letters Miss Margaret was getting, and it was found out that it was me as told her, and some gentleman in London wrote to the Postmaster-General about it.”

“You may depend upon me, Mrs. Carter.”  Mrs. Bingham considered she had completely satisfied her conscience when she imposed an oath of secrecy on Mrs. Harrop, who was also self-exonerated when she had imposed a similar oath on Mrs. Cobb.

A fortnight after the visit to the post-office there was a tea-party.  Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, the grocer’s wife, and Miss Tarrant, an elderly lady, living on a small annuity, but most genteel, were invited to Mrs. Bingham’s.  They began to talk of Mrs. Fairfax directly they had tasted the hot buttered toast.  They had before them the following facts: the carrier’s deposition that the goods came from Great Ormond Street; the lay-figure and what it wore; Mrs. Fairfax’s prices; the little girl; the wedding-ring but no widow’s weeds; the Portsmouth postmark; the French book; Mrs. Bingham’s new gown, and lastly—a piece of information contributed by Mrs. Sweeting and considered to be of great importance, as we shall see presently—that Mrs. Fairfax bought her coffee whole and ground it herself.  On these facts, nine in all, the ladies had to construct—it was imperative that they should construct it—an explanation of Mrs. Fairfax, and it must be confessed that they were not worse equipped than many a picturesque and successful historian.  At the request of the company, Mrs. Bingham went upstairs and put on the gown.

“Do you mind coming to the window, Mrs. Bingham?” asked Mrs. Harrop.

Mrs. Bingham rose and went to the window.  Her guests also rose.  She held her arms down and then held them up, and was surveyed from every point of the compass.

“I thought it was a pucker, but it’s only the shadow,” observed Mrs. Harrop.

Mrs. Cobb stroked the body and shook the skirt.  Not a single depreciatory criticism was ventured.  Excepting the wearer, nobody present had seen such a masterpiece.  But although for half a lifetime we may have beheld nothing better than an imperfect actual, we recognise instantly the superiority and glory of the realised Ideal when it is presented to us.  Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, and Miss Tarrant became suddenly aware of possibilities of which they had not hitherto dreamed.  Mrs. Swanley, the linendraper’s wife, was degraded and deposed.

“She must have learned that in London,” said Mrs. Harrop.

“London! my dear Mrs. Harrop,” replied Mrs. Bingham, “I know London pretty well, and how things are cut there.  I told you there was a French book on the table.  Take my word for it, she has lived in Paris.  She must have lived there.”

“Where is Great Ormond Street, Mrs. Bingham?” inquired Mrs. Sweeting.

“A great many foreigners live there; it is somewhere near Leicester Square.”

Mrs. Bingham knew nothing about the street, but having just concluded a residence in Paris from the French book, that conclusion led at once to a further conclusion, clear as noonday, as to the quality of the people who inhabited Great Ormond Street, and consequently to the final deduction of its locality.

“Did you not say, Mrs. Sweeting, that she buys her coffee whole?” added Mrs. Bingham, as if inspiration had flashed into her.  “If you want additional proof that she is French, there it is.”

“Portsmouth,” mused Mrs. Cobb.  “You say, Mrs. Bingham, there are a good many officers there.  Let me see—1815—it’s twenty-four years ago since the battle.  A captain may have picked her up in Paris.  I’ll be bound that, if she ever was married, she was married when she was sixteen or seventeen.  They are always obliged to marry those French girls when they are nothing but chits, I’ve been told—those of them, leastways, that don’t live with men without being married.  That would make her about forty, and then he found her out and left her, and she went back to Paris and learned dressmaking.”

“But he writes to her from Portsmouth,” said Mrs. Bingham, who had not been told that the solitary letter from Portsmouth was addressed in a man’s handwriting.

“He may not have broken with her altogether,” replied Mrs. Cobb.  “If he isn’t a downright brute he’ll want to hear about his daughter.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Sweeting, twitching her eyes as she was wont to do when she was about to give an opinion which she knew would disturb any of her friends, “you may talk as you like, but the last thing Swanley made for me looked as if it had been to the wash and hung on me to dry.  French or English, captain or no captain, I shall go to Mrs. Fairfax.  Her character’s got nothing to do with her cut.  Suppose she is divorced; judging from that body of yours, Mrs. Bingham, I shan’t have to send back a pelisse half a dozen times to get it altered.  When it comes to that you get sick of the thing, and may just as well give it away.”

Mrs. Sweeting occupied the lowest rank in this particular section of Langborough society.  As a grocer Mr. Sweeting was not quite on a level with the coal dealer, who was a merchant, nor with the ironmonger, who repaired ploughs, and he was certainly below Mr. Bingham.  Miss Tarrant, never having been “connected with trade”—her father was chief clerk in the bank—considered herself superior to all her acquaintances, but her very small income prevented her from claiming her superiority so effectively as she desired.

“Mrs. Sweeting,” she said, “I am surprised at you!  You do not consider what the moral effect on the lower orders of patronising a female of this kind will be, probably an abandoned woman.  The child, no doubt, was not born in wedlock.  We are sinners ourselves if we support sinners.”

“Miss Tarrant,” retorted Mrs. Sweeting, “I’m the respectable mother of five children, and I don’t want any sermons on sin except in church.  If it wasn’t a sin of Swanley to charge me three guineas for that pelisse, and wouldn’t take it back, I don’t know what sin.”

Mrs. Bingham, although she was accustomed to tea-table disputes, and even enjoyed them, was a little afraid of Mrs. Sweeting’s tongue, and thought it politic to interfere.

“I agree with you entirely, Mrs. Sweeting, about the inferiority of Mrs. Swanley to this newcomer, but we must consider Miss Tarrant’s position in the parish and her responsibilities.  She is no doubt right from her point of view.”

So the conversation ended, but Mrs. Fairfax’s biography, which was to be published under authority in Langborough, was now rounded off and complete.  She was a Parisian, father and mother unknown, was found in Paris in 1815 by Captain Fairfax, who, by her intrigues and threats of exposure, was forced into a marriage with her.  A few years afterwards he had grounds for a divorce, but not wishing a scandal, consented to a compromise and voluntary separation.  He left one child in her custody, as it showed signs of resemblance to its mother, to whom he gave a small monthly allowance.  She had been apprenticed as a dressmaker in Paris, had returned thither in order to master her trade, and then came back to England.  In a very little time, so clever was she that she learned to speak English fluently, although, as Mrs. Bingham at once noticed, the French accent was very perceptible.  It was a good, intelligible, working theory, and that was all that was wanted.  This was Mrs. Fairfax so far as her female neighbours were concerned.  To the men in Langborough she was what she was to the women, but with a difference.  When she went to Mr. Sweeting’s shop to order her groceries, Mr. Sweeting, notwithstanding the canonical legend of her life, served her himself, and was much entangled by her dark hair, and was drawn down by it into a most polite bow.  Mr. Cobb, who had a little cabin of an office in his coal-yard, hastened back to it from superintending the discharge of a lighter, when Mrs. Fairfax called to pay her little bill, actually took off his hat, begged her to be seated, and hoped she did not find the last lot of coals dusty.  He was now unloading some of the best Wallsend that ever came up the river, and would take care that the next half ton should not have an ounce of small in it.

“You’ll find it chilly where you are living, ma’am, but it isn’t damp, that’s one comfort.  The bottom of your street is damp, and down here in a flood anything like what we had fourteen years ago, we are nearly drowned.  If you’ll step outside with me I’ll show you how high the water rose.”  He opened the door, and Mrs. Fairfax thought it courteous not to refuse.  He walked to the back of his cabin bareheaded, although the morning was cold, and pointed out to her the white paint mark on the wall.  She, dropped her receipted bill in the black mud and stooped to pick it up.  Mr. Cobb plunged after it and wiped it carefully on his silk pocket-handkerchief.  Mrs. Cobb’s bay window commanded the whole length of the coal-yard.  In this bay window she always sat and worked and nodded to the customers, or gossiped with them as they passed.  She turned her back on Mrs. Fairfax both when she entered the yard and when she left it, but watched her carefully.  Mr. Cobb came into dinner, but his wife bided her time, knowing that, as he took snuff, the handkerchief would be used.  It was very provoking, he was absent-minded, and forgot his usual pinch before he sat down to his meal.  For three-quarters of an hour his wife was afflicted with painfully uneasy impatience, and found it very difficult to reply to Mr. Cobb’s occasional remarks.  At last the cheese was finished, the snuff-box appeared, and after it the handkerchief.

“A pretty mess that handkerchief is in, Cobb.”  She always called him simply “Cobb.”

“Yes, it was an a-a-accident.  I must have a clean one.  I didn’t think it was so dirty.”

“The washing of your snuffy handkerchiefs costs quite enough as it is, Cobb, without using them in that way.”

“What way?” said Mr. Cobb weakly.

“Oh, I saw it all, going out without your hat and standing there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper.  I wonder what the lightermen thought of you.”

It will already have been noticed that the question what other people thought was always the test which was put in Langborough whenever anything was done or anything happened not in accordance with the usual routine, and Mrs. Cobb struck at her husband’s conscience by referring him to his lightermen.  She continued—

“And you know what she is as well as I do, and if she’d been respectable you’d have been rude to her, as you generally are.”

“You bought that last new gown of her, and you never had one as fitted you so well.”

“What’s that got to do with it?  You may be sure I knew my place when I went there.  Fit?  Yes, it did fit; them sort of women, it stands to reason, are just the women to fit you.”

Mr. Cobb was silent.  He was a mild man, and he knew by much experience how unprofitable controversy with Mrs. Cobb was.  He could not forget Mrs. Fairfax’s stooping figure when she was about to pick up the bill.  She caused in all the Langborough males an unaccustomed quivering and warmth, the same in each, physical, perhaps, but salutary, for the monotony of life was relieved thereby and a deference and even a grace were begotten which did not usually distinguish Langborough manners.  Not one of Mrs. Fairfax’s admirers, however, could say that she showed any desire for conversation with him, nor could any direct evidence be obtained as to what she thought of things in general.  There was, to be sure, the French book, and there were other circumstances already mentioned from which suspicion or certainty (suspicion, as we have seen, passing immediately into certainty in Langborough) of infidelity or disreputable conduct followed, but no corroborating word from her could be adduced.  She attended to her business, accepted orders with thanks and smiles, talked about the weather and the accident to the coach, was punctual in her attendance at church, calm and inscrutable as the Sphinx.  The attendance at church was, of course, set down to “business considerations,” and was held to be quite consistent with the scepticism and loose morality deducible from the French book and the unground coffee.

 

In speaking of the male creatures of the town we have left out Dr. Midleton.  He was forty-eight years old, and had been rector twenty years.  He had obtained high mathematical honours at Cambridge, and became a tutor in a grammar school, but was soon presented by his college with the living of Langborough.  He was tall, spare, clean-shaven, grey-eyed, dark-haired, thin-faced, his lips were curved and compressed, and he stooped slightly.  He was a widower with no children, and the Rectory was efficiently kept in order by an aged housekeeper.  Tractarianism had not arisen in 1839, but he was High Church and an enemy to all kinds of fanaticism, apt to be satirical, even in his sermons, on the right of private judgment to interpret texts as it pleased in ignorance of Hebrew and Greek.  He was respected and feared more than any other man in the parish.  He had a great library, and had taken up archæology as a hobby.  He knew the history of every church in the county, and more about the Langborough records than was known by the town clerk.  He was chairman of a Board of Governors charged with the administration of wealthy trust for alms and schools.  When he first took office he found that this trust was controlled almost entirely by a man named Jackson, a local solicitor, whose salary as clerk was £400 a year and who had a large private practice.  The alms were allotted to serve political purposes, and the headmaster of the school enjoyed a salary of £800 a year for teaching forty boys, of whom twenty were boarders.  Mr. Midleton—he was Mr. Midleton then—very soon determined to alter this state of things.  Jackson went about sneering at the newcomer who was going to turn the place upside down, and having been accustomed to interfere in the debates in the Board-room, interrupted the Rector at the third or fourth meeting.

“You’ll get yourself in a mess if you do that, Mr. Chairman.”

“Mr. Jackson,” replied the Rector, rising slowly, “it may perhaps save trouble if I remind you now, once for all, that I am chairman and you are the clerk.  Mr. Bingham, you were about to speak.”

It was Dr. Midleton who obtained the new Act of Parliament remodelling the trust, whereby a much larger portion of its funds was devoted to education.  Jackson died, partly from drink and partly from spite and vexation, and the headmaster was pensioned.  The Rector was not popular with the middle class.  He was not fond of paying visits, but he never neglected his duty, and by the poor was almost beloved, for he was careless and intimate in his talk with them and generous to real distress.  Everybody admired his courage.  The cholera in 1831 was very bad in Langborough, and the people were in a panic at the new disease, which was fatal in many cases within six hours after the first attack.  The Rector through that dark time was untouched by the contagious dread which overpowered his parishioners, and his presence carried confidence and health.  On the worst day, sultry, stifling, with no sun, an indescribable terror crept abroad, and Mr. Cobb, standing at his gate, was overcome by it.  In five minutes he had heard of two deaths, and he began to feel what were called “premonitory symptoms.”  He carried a brandy flask in his pocket, brandy being then considered a remedy, and he drank freely, but imagined himself worse.  He was about to rush indoors and tell Mrs. Cobb to send for the surgeon, when the Rector passed.

“Ah, Mr. Cobb!  I was just about to call on you; glad to see you looking so well when there’s so much sickness.  We shall want you on the School Committee this evening,” and then he explained some business which was to be discussed.  Mr. Cobb afterwards was fond of telling the story of this interview.

“Would you believe it?” said he.  “He spoke to me about nothing much but the trust, but somehow my stomach seemed quieter at once.  The sinking—just here, you know—was dreadful before he came up, and the brandy was no good.  It was a something in his way that did it.”

Dr. Midleton was obliged to call on Mrs. Fairfax as a newcomer.  He found Mrs. Harrop there, and Mrs. Fairfax asked him to step into the back parlour, into which no one in Langborough had hitherto been admitted.  Gowns were tried on in the shop, the door being bolted and the blind drawn.  Dr. Midleton found four little shelves of books on the cupboard by the side of the fireplace.  Some were French, but most of them were English.  Although it was such a small collection, his book-lover’s instinct compelled him to look at it.  His eyes fell upon a Religio Medici, and he opened it hastily.  On the fly-leaf was written “Mary Leighton, from R. L.”  He had just time, before its owner entered, to replace it and to muse for an instant.

“Richard Leighton of Trinity: it is not a common name, but it cannot be he—have lost sight of him for years; heard he was married, and came to no good.”

He was able to watch her for a minute as she stood by the table giving some directions to her child, who was sent on an errand.  In that minute he saw her as she had not been seen by anybody in Langborough.  To Mrs. Bingham and her friends Mrs. Fairfax was the substratum of a body and skirt, with the inestimable advantage over a substratum of cane and padding that a scandalous history of it could be invented and believed.  To Langborough men, married and single, she was a member of “the sex,” as women were called in those days, who possessed in a remarkable degree the power of exciting that quivering and warmth we have already observed.  Dr. Midleton saw before him a lady, tall but delicately built, with handsome face and dark brown hair just streaked with grey, and he saw also diffused over every feature a light which in her eyes, forward-looking and earnest, became concentrated into a vivid, steady flame.  The few words she spoke to her daughter were sharply cut, a delightful contrast in his ear to the dialect to which he was accustomed, distinguished by its universal vowel and suppression of the consonants.  How he inwardly rejoiced to hear the sound of the second “t” in the word “distinct,” when she told her little messenger that Mr. Cobb had been “distinctly” ordered to send the coals yesterday.  He remained standing until the child had gone.

“Pray be seated,” she said.  She went to the fireplace, leaned on the mantelpiece, and poked the fire.  The attitude struck him.  She was about to put some coals in the grate, but he interfered with an “Allow me,” and performed the office for her.  She thanked him simply, and sat down opposite to him, facing the light.  She began the conversation.

“It is good of you to call on me; calling on people, especially on newcomers must be an unpleasant part of a clergyman’s duty.”

“It is so, madam, sometimes—there are not many newcomers.”

“It is an advantage in your profession that you must generally be governed by duty.  It is often easier to do what we are obliged to do, even if it be disagreeable, than to choose our path by our likes and dislikes.”

The bell rang, and Mrs. Fairfax went into the shop.

“Who can she be?” said the Doctor to himself.  Such an experience as this he had not known since he had been rector.  Langborough did not deal in ideas.  It was content to affirm that Miss Tarrant now and then gave herself airs, that Mrs. Sweeting had a way of her own, that Mr. Cobb lacked spirit and was downtrodden by his wife.

She returned and sat down again.

“You know nobody in these parts, Mrs. Fairfax?”

“Nobody.”

“Yours is a bold venture, is it not?”

“It is—certainly.  A good many plans were projected, of which this was one, and there were equal difficulties in the way of all.  When that is the case we may almost as well draw lots.”

“Ah, that is what I often say to some of the weaker sort among my parishioners.  I said it to poor Cobb the other day.  He did not know whether he should do this or do that.  ‘It doesn’t matter much,’ said I, ‘what you do, but do something.  Do it, with all your strength.’”

The Doctor was thoroughly Tory, and he slid away to his favourite doctrine.

“Our ancestors, madam, were not such fools as we often take them to be.  They consulted the sortes or lots, and at the last election—we have a potwalloping constituency here—three parts of the voters would have done better if they had trusted to the toss-up of a penny instead of their reason.”

Mrs. Fairfax leaned back in her chair.  Dr. Midleton noticed her wedding-ring, and also a handsome sapphire ring.  She spoke rather slowly and meditatively.

“Life is so complicated; so few of the consequences of many actions of the greatest moment can be foreseen, that the belief in the lot is not unnatural.”

“You have some books, I see—Sir Thomas Browne.”  He took down the volume.

“Leighton!  Leighton! how odd!  Was it Richard Leighton?”

“Yes.”

“Really; and you knew him?”

“He was a friend of my brother.”

“Do you know what has become of him?  He was at Cambridge with me, but was younger.”

“I have not seen him for some time.  Do you mind if I open the window a little?”

“Certainly not.”

She stood at the window for a moment, looking out on the garden, with her hand on the top of the sash.  The Doctor had turned his chair a little and his eyes were fixed on her there with her uplifted arm.  A picture which belonged to his father instantly came back to him.  He recollected it so well.  It represented a woman watching a young man in a courtyard who is just mounting his horse.  We are every now and then reminded of pictures by a group, an attitude, or the arrangement of a landscape which, thereby, acquires a new charm.

Suddenly the shop bell rang again, and Mrs. Fairfax’s little girl rushed into the parlour.  She had fallen down and cut her wrist terribly with a piece of a bottle containing some hartshorn which she had to buy at the druggist’s on her way home from Mr. Cobb’s.  The blood flowed freely, but Mrs. Fairfax, unbewildered, put her thumb firmly on the wrist just above the wound and instructed the doctor how to use his pocket-handkerchief as a tourniquet.  As he was tying it, although such careful attention to the operation was necessary, he noticed Mrs. Fairfax’s hands, and he almost forgot himself and the accident.

“There is glass in the wrist,” she said.  “Will you kindly fetch the surgeon?  I do not like to leave.”

He went at once, and fortunately met him in his gig.

On the third day after the mishap Dr. Midleton thought he ought to inquire after the child.  The glass had been extracted and she was doing well.  Her mother was at work in the back-parlour.  She made no apology for her occupation, but laid down her tools.

“Pray go on, madam.”

“Certainly not.  I am afraid I might make a mistake with my scissors if I were to listen to you; or, worse, if I were to pay attention to them I should not pay attention to you.”

He smiled.  “It is an art, I should think, which requires not only much attention but practice.”

She evaded the implied question.  “It is difficult to fit, but it is more difficult to please.”

“That is true in my own profession.”

“But you are not obliged to please.”

“No, not obliged, I am happy to say.  If my parishioners do not hear the truth I have no excuse.  It must be rather trying to the temper of a lady like yourself to humour the caprices of the vulgar.”

“No; they are my customers, and even if they are unpleasant they are so not to me personally but to their servant, who ceases to be their servant when she ceases to be employed upon their clothes.”

“You are a philosopher, madam; that sentiment is worthy of Epictetus.”

“I have read Epictetus in Mrs. Carter’s translation.”

“You have read Epictetus?  That is remarkable!  I should think no other woman in the county has read him.”  He leaned forward a little and his face was lighted up.  “I have a library, madam, a large library; I should like to show it to you, if—if it can be managed without difficulty.”

“It will give me great pleasure to see it some day.  It must be a delightful solace to you in a town like this, in which I daresay you have but few friends.  I suppose, though, you visit a good deal?”

“No; I do not visit much.  I differ from my brother Sinclair in the next parish.  He is always visiting.  What is the consequence?—gossip and, as I conceive, a loss of dignity and self-respect.  I will go wherever there is trouble or wherever I am wanted, but I will not go anywhere for idle talk.”

“I think you are right.  A priest should not make himself cheap and common.  He should be representative of sacred interests superior to the ordinary interests of life.”

“I am grateful to you, madam, very grateful to you for these observations.  They are as just as they are unusual.  I sincerely hope that we—”  But there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”  It was Mrs. Harrop.  “Your bell rang, Mrs. Fairfax, but maybe you didn’t hear it as you were engaged in conversation.  Good morning, Dr. Midleton.  I hope I don’t intrude?”

“No, you do not.”

He bowed to the ladies, and as he went out, the parlour-door being open, he moved the outer door backwards and forwards.

“It would be as well, Mrs. Fairfax, to have a bell hung there which would act properly.”

“I don’t know quite what Dr. Midleton means,” said Mrs. Harrop when he had gone.  “The bell did ring, loud enough for most people to have heard it, and I waited ever so long.”

He walked down the street with his customary firm step, and met Mr. Bingham who stopped him, half smiling and not quite at his ease.

“We are sorry, Doctor, you did not give Hutchings your vote for the almshouse last Thursday; we expected you would have gone with us.”

“You expected?  Why?”

“Well, you see, sir, Hutchings has always worked hard for our side.”

“I am astonished, Mr. Bingham, that you should suppose that I will ever consent to divert the funds of a trust for party purposes.”

Mr. Bingham, although he had just determined to give the Doctor a bit of his mind, felt his strength depart from him.  His sentences lacked power to stand upright and fell sprawling.  “No offence, Doctor, I merely wanted you to know—not so much my own views—difficulty to keep our friends together.  Short—you know Tom Short—was saying to me he was afraid—”

“Pay no attention to fools.  Good morning.”

The Doctor came in that night from a vestry meeting to which he went after dinner.  The clock was striking nine, the chimes played their tune, and as the last note sounded the housekeeper and servants filed into the study for prayers.  Prayers over they rose and went out, and he sat down.  His habits were becoming fixed and for some years he had always read in the evening the friends of his youth.  No sermon was composed then; no ecclesiastical literature was studied.  Pope and Swift were favourites and, curiously enough, Lord Byron.  His case is not uncommon, for it often happens that men who are forced into reserve or opposition preserve a secret, youthful, poetic passion and are even kept alive by it.  On this particular evening, however, Pope, Byron, and Swift remained on his shelves.  He meditated.

“A wedding-ring on her finger; no widow’s weeds; he may nevertheless be dead—I believe I heard he was—and she has discontinued that frightful disfigurement.  Leighton had the thickest crop of black hair I ever saw on a man: what thick, black hair that child has!  A lady; a reader of books; nobody to be compared with her here.”  At this point he rose and walked about the room for a quarter of an hour.  He sat down again and took up an important paper about the Trust.  He had forgotten it and it was to be discussed the next day.  His eyes wandered over it but he paid no attention to it; and somewhat disgusted with himself he went to bed.

Mrs. Fairfax had happened to tell him that she was fond of walking soon after breakfast before she opened her shop, and generally preferred the lane on the west side of the Common.  From his house the direct road to the lane lay down the High Street, but about a fortnight after that evening in his study he found himself one morning in Deadman’s Rents, a narrow, dirty alley which led to the east side of the Common.  Deadman’s Rents was inhabited by men who worked in brickyards and coalyards, who did odd jobs, and by washerwomen and charwomen.  It contained also three beershops.  The dwellers in the Rents were much surprised to see the Doctor amongst them at that early hour, and conjectured he must have come on a professional errand.  Every one of the Deadman ladies who was at her door—and they were generally at their doors in the daytime—vigilantly watched him.  He went straight through the Rents to the Common, whereupon Mrs. Wiggins, who supported herself by the sale of firewood, jam, pickles, and peppermints, was particularly disturbed and was obliged to go over to the “Kicking Donkey,” partly to communicate what she had seen and partly to ward off by half a quartern of rum the sinking which always threatened her when she was in any way agitated.  When he reached the common it struck him that for the first time in his life he had gone a roundabout way to escape being seen.  Some people naturally take to side-streets; he, on the contrary, preferred the High Street; it was his quarter-deck and he paraded it like a captain.  “Was he doing wrong?” he said to himself.  Certainly not; he desired a little intelligent conversation and there was no need to tell everybody what he wanted.  It was unfortunate, nevertheless, that it was necessary to go through Deadman’s Rents in order to get it.  He soon saw Mrs. Fairfax and her little girl in front of him.  He overtook her, and she showed no surprise at seeing him.

“I have been thinking,” said he, “about what you told me”—this was a reference to an interview not recorded.  “I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop should have been impertinent to you.”

“You need not be annoyed.  The import of a word is not fixed.  If anything annoying is said to me, I always ask myself what it means—not to me but to the speaker.  Besides, as I have told you before, shop insolence is nothing.”

“You may be justified in not resenting it, but Mrs. Harrop cannot be excused.  I am not surprised to find that she can use such language, but I am astonished that she should use it to you.  It shows an utter lack of perception.  Your Epictetus has been studied to some purpose.”

“I have quite forgotten him.  I do not recollect books, but I never forget the lessons taught me by my own trade.”

“You have had much trouble?”

“I have had my share: probably not in excess.  It is difficult for anybody to know whether his suffering is excessive: there is no means of measuring it with that of others.”

“Have you no friends with whom you can share it?”

“I have known but one woman intimately, and she is now dead.  I have known two or three men whom I esteemed, but close friendship between a woman and a man, unless he is her husband, as a rule is impossible.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I am certain of it.  I am speaking now of a friendship which would justify a demand for sympathy with real sorrows.”

They continued their walk in silence for the next two or three minutes.

“We are now near the end of the lane.  I must turn and go back.”

“I will go with you.”

“Thank you: I should detain you: I have to make a call on business at the White House.  Good morning.”

They parted.

Dr. Midleton presently met Mrs. Jenkins of Deadman’s Rents, who was going to the White House to do a day’s washing.  A few steps further he met Mr. Harrop in his gig, who overtook Mrs. Fairfax.  Thus it came to pass that Deadman’s Rents and the High Street knew before nightfall that Dr. Midleton and Mrs. Fairfax had been seen on the Common that morning.  Mrs. Jenkins protested, that “if she was to be burnt alive with fuz-faggits and brimstone, nothink but what she witnessed with her own eyes should pass her lips, whatsomever she might think, and although they were a-walkin’—him with his arm round her waist—she did not see him a-kissin’ of her—how could she when they were a hundred yards off?”

The Doctor prolonged his stroll and reached home about half-past eleven.  A third of his life had been spent in Langborough.  He remembered the day he came and the unpacking of his books.  They lined the walls of his room, some of them rare, all of them his friends.  Nobody in Langborough had ever asked him to lend a single volume.  The solitary scholar never forsook his studies, but at times he sighed over them and they seemed a little vain.  They were not entirely without external effect, for Pope and Swift in disguise often spoke to the vestry or the governors, and the Doctor’s manners even in the shops were moulded by his intercourse with the classic dead.  Their names, however, in Langborough were almost unknown.  He had now become hardened by constant unsympathetic contact.  Suddenly a stranger had appeared who was an inhabitant of his own world and talked his own tongue.  The prospect of genuine intercourse disclosed itself.  None but those who have felt it can imagine the relief, the joyous expansion, which follow the discovery after long years of imprisonment with decent people of a person before whom it is unnecessary to stifle what we most care to express.  No wonder he was excited!

But the stranger was a woman.  He meditated much that morning on her singular aptitude for reflection, but he presently began to dream over figure, hair, eyes, hands.  A picture in the most vivid colours painted itself before him, and he could not close his eyes to it.  He was distressed to find himself the victim of this unaccustomed tyranny.  He did not know that it is impossible for a man to love a woman’s soul without loving her body.  There is no such thing as a spiritual love apart from a corporeal love, the one celestial and the other earthly, and the spiritual love begets a passion peculiar in its intensity.  He was happily diverted by Mr. Bingham, who called about a coming contested election for the governorships.

Next week there was another tea-party at Mrs. Cobb’s.  The ladies were in high spirits, for a subject of conversation was assured.  If there had been an inquest, or a marriage, or a highway robbery before one of these parties, or if the contents of a will had just been made known, or still better, if any scandal had just come to light, the guests were always cheerful.  Now, of course, the topic was Dr. Midleton and Mrs. Fairfax.

“When I found him in that back parlour,” said Mrs. Harrop, “I thought he wasn’t there to pay the usual call.  Somehow it didn’t seem as if he was like a clergyman.  I felt quite queer: it came over me all of a sudden.  And then we know he’s been there once or twice since.”

“I don’t wonder at your feeling queer, Mrs. Harrop,” quoth Mrs. Cobb.  “I’m sure I should have fainted; and what brazen boldness to walk out together on the Common at nine o’clock in the morning.  That girl who brought in the tea—it’s my belief that a young man goes after her—but even they wouldn’t demean themselves to be seen at it just after breakfast.”

“You don’t mean to say as your Deborah encourages a man, Mrs. Cobb!  I don’t know what we are a-comin’ to.  You’ve always been so particular, and she seemed so respectable.  I am sorry.”

Mrs. Cobb did not quite relish Mrs. Harrop’s pity.

“You may be sure, Mrs. Harrop, she was respectable when I took her, and if she isn’t I shan’t keep her.  I am particular, more so than most folk, and I don’t mind who knows it.”  Mrs. Cobb threw back her cap strings.  The denial that she minded who knew it may not appear relevant, but desiring to be spiteful she could not at the moment find a better way of showing her spite than by declaring her indifference to the publication of her virtues.  If there was no venom in the substance of the declaration there was much in the manner of it.  Mrs. Bingham brought back the conversation to the point.

“I suppose you’ve heard what Mrs. Jenkins says?  Your husband also, Mrs. Harrop, met them both.”

“Yes he did.  He was not quite in time to see as much as Mrs. Jenkins saw, and I’m glad he didn’t.  I shouldn’t have felt comfortable if I’d known he had.  A clergyman, too! it is shocking.  A nice business, this, for the Dissenters.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Bingham, “what are we to do?  I had thought of going to her and giving her a bit of my mind, but she has got that yellow gown to make.  What is your opinion, Miss Tarrant?”

“I would not degrade myself, Mrs. Bingham, by any expostulations with her.  I would have nothing more to do with her.  Could you not relieve her of the unfinished gown?  Mrs. Swanley, I am sure, under the circumstances would be only too happy to complete it for you.”

“Mrs. Swanley cannot come near her.  I should look ridiculous in her body and one of Swanley’s skirts.”

“As to the Doctor,” continued Miss Tarrant, “I wonder that he can expect to maintain any authority in matters of religion if he marries a dressmaker of that stamp.  It would be impossible even if her character were unimpeachable.  I am astonished, if he wishes to enter into the matrimonial state, that he does not seek some one who would be able to support him in his position and offer him the sympathy which a man who has had a University education might justifiably demand.”

Mrs. Sweeting had hitherto listened in silence.  Miss Tarrant provoked her.

“It’s all a fuss about nothing, that’s my opinion.  What has she done that you know to be wrong?  And as to the Doctor, he’s got a right to please himself.  I’m surprised at you, Miss Tarrant, for you’ve always stuck for him through thick and thin.  As for that Mrs. Jenkins, I’ll take my Bible oath that the last time she washed for me she stunk of gin enough to poison me, and went away with two bits of soap in her pocket.  You may credit what she says: I don’t, and never demean myself to listen to her.”

The ladies came to no conclusion.  Mrs. Bingham said that she had suggested a round robin to Dr. Midleton, but that her husband decidedly “discountenanced the proposal.”  Within a fortnight the election of governors was to take place.  There was always a fight at these elections, and this year the Radicals had a strong list.  The Doctor, whose term of office had expired, was the most prominent of the Tory and Church candidates, and never doubted his success.  He was ignorant of all the gossip about him.  One day in that fortnight he might have been seen in Ferry Street.  He went into Mrs. Fairfax’s shop and was invited as before into the back parlour.

“I have brought you a basket of pears, and the book I promised you, the Utopia.”  He sat down.  “I am afraid you will think my visits too frequent.”

“They are not too frequent for me: they may be for yourself.”

“Ah! since I last entered your house I have not seen any books excepting my own.  You hardly know what life in Langborough is like.”

“Does nobody take any interest in archæology?”

“Nobody within five miles.  Sinclair cares nothing about it: he is Low Church, as I have told you.”

“Why does that prevent his caring about it?”

“Being Low Church he is narrow-minded, or, perhaps it would be more correct to say, being narrow-minded he is Low Church.  He is an indifferent scholar, and occupies himself with his religious fancies and those of his flock.  He can reign supreme there.  He is not troubled in that department by the difficulties of learning and is not exposed to criticism or contradiction.”

“I suppose it is a fact of the greatest importance to him that he and his parishioners have souls to be saved, and that in comparison with that fact others are immaterial.”

“We all believe we have souls to be saved.  Having set forth God’s way of saving them we have done all we ought to do.  God’s way is not sufficient for Sinclair.  He enlarges it out of his own head, and instructs his silly, ignorant friends to do the same.  He will not be satisfied with what God and the Church tell him.”

“God and the Church, according to Dr. Midleton’s account, have not been very effective in Langborough.”

“They hear from me, madam, all I am commissioned to say, and if they do not attend I cannot help it.”

“I have read your paper in the Archæological Transactions on the history of Langborough Abbey.  It excited my imagination, which is never excited in reading ordinary histories.  In your essay I am in company with the men who actually lived in the time of Henry the Second and Henry the Eighth.  I went over the ruins again, and found them much more beautiful after I understood something about them.”

“Yes: exactly what I have said a hundred times: knowledge is indispensable.”

“If you had not pointed it out, I should never have noticed the Early English doorway in the Chapter-house, so distinct in style from the Refectory.”

“You noticed the brackets of that doorway: you noticed the quatrefoils in the head?  The Refectory is later by three centuries, and is exquisite, but is not equal to the Chapter-house.”

“Yes, I noticed the brackets and quatrefoils particularly.  If knowledge is not necessary in order that we may admire, its natural tendency is to deepen our admiration.  Without it we pass over so much.  In my own small way I have noticed how my slight botanical knowledge of flowers by the mere attention involved increases my wonder at their loveliness.”

There was the usual interruption by the shop-bell.  How he hated that bell!  Mrs. Fairfax answered it, closing the parlour door.  The customer was Mrs. Bingham.

“I will not disturb you now, Mrs. Fairfax.  I was going to say something about the black trimming you recommended.  I really think red would suit me better, but, never mind, I will call again as I saw the Doctor come in.  He is rather a frequent visitor.”

“Not frequent: he comes occasionally.  We are both interested in a subject which I believe is not much studied in Langborough.”

“Dear me! not dressmaking?”

“No, madam, archæology.”

Mrs. Bingham went out once more discomfited, and Mrs. Fairfax returned to the parlour.

“I am sure I am taking up too much of your time,” said the Doctor, “but I cannot tell you what a privilege it is to spend a few minutes with a lady like yourself.”

Mrs. Fairfax was silent for a minute.

“Mrs. Bingham has been here, and I think I ought to tell you that she has made some significant remarks about you.  Forgive me if I suggest that we should partially, at any rate, discontinue our intercourse.  I should be most unhappy if your friendship with me were to do you any harm.”

The Doctor rose in a passion, planting his stick on the floor.

“When the cackling of the geese or the braying of the asses on Langborough Common prevent my crossing it, then, and not till then, will my course be determined by Mrs. Bingham and her colleagues.”

He sat down again with his elbow on the arm of the chair and half shading his eyes with his hand.  His whole manner altered.  Not a trace of the rector remained in him: the decisiveness vanished from his voice; it became musical, low, and hesitating.  It was as if some angel had touched him, and had suddenly converted all his strength into tenderness, a transformation not impossible, for strength is tenderness and tenderness is strength.

“I shall be forty-nine years old next birthday,” he said.  “Never until now have I been sure that I loved a woman.  I was married when I was twenty-five.  I had seen two or three girls whom I thought I could love, and at last chose one.  It was the arbitrary selection of a weary will.  My wife died within two years of her marriage.  After her death I was thrown in the way of women who attracted me, but I wavered.  If I made up my mind at night, I shrank back in the morning.  I thought my irresolution was mere cowardice.  It was not so.  It was a warning that the time had not come.  I resolved at last that there was to be no change in my life, that I would resign myself to my lot, expect no affection, and do the duty blindly which had been imposed upon me.  But a miracle has been wrought, and I have a perfectly clear direction: with you for the first time in my life I am sure.  You have known what it is to be in a fog, unable to tell which way to turn, and all at once the cold, wet mist was lifted, the sun came out, the fields were lighted up, the sea revealed itself to the horizon, and your road lay straight before you stretching over the hill.  I will not shame myself by apologies that I am no longer young.  My love has remained with me.  It is a passion for you, and it is a reverence for a mind to which it will be a perpetual joy to submit.”

“God pardon me,” she said after a moment’s pause, “for having drawn you to this!  I did not mean it.  If you knew all you would forgive me.  It cannot, cannot be!  Leave me.”  He hesitated.  “Leave me, leave me at once!” she cried.

He rose, she took his right hand in both of hers: there was one look straight into his eyes from her own which were filling with tears, a half sob, her hands after one more grasp fell, and he found that he had left the house.  He went home.  How strange it is to return to a familiar chamber after a great event has happened!  On his desk lay a volume of Cicero’s letters.  The fire had not been touched and was almost out: the door leading to the garden was open: the self of two hours before seemed to confront him.  When the tumult in him began to subside he was struck by the groundlessness of his double assumption that Mrs. Fairfax was Mrs. Leighton and that she was free.  He had made no inquiry.  He had noticed the wedding-ring, and he had come to some conclusion about it which was supported by no evidence.  Doubtless she could not be his: her husband was still alive.  At last the hour for which unconsciously he had been waiting had struck, and his true self, he not having known hitherto what it was, had been declared.  But it was all for nothing.  It was as if some autumn-blooming plant had put forth on a sunny October morning the flower of the year, and had been instantaneously blasted and cut down to the root.  The plant might revive next spring, but there could be no revival for him.  There could be nothing now before him but that same dull duty, duty to the dull, duty without enthusiasm.  He had no example for his consolation.  The Bible is the record of heroic suffering: there is no story there of a martyrdom to monotony and life-weariness.  He was a pious man, but loved prescription and form: he loved to think of himself as a member of the great Catholic Church and not as an isolated individual, and he found more relief in praying the prayers which millions had before him than in extempore effusion; humbly trusting that what he was seeking in consecrated petitions was all that he really needed.  “In proportion as your prayers are peculiar,” he once told his congregation in a course of sermons on Dissent, “they are worthless.”  There was nothing, though, in the prayer-book which met his case.  He was in no danger from temptation, nor had he trespassed.  He was not in want of his daily bread, and although he desired like all good men to see the Kingdom of God, the advent of that celestial kingdom which had for an instant been disclosed to him was for ever impossible.

The servant announced Mrs. Sweeting, who was asked to come in.

“Sit down, Mrs. Sweeting.  What can I do for you?”

“Well, sir, perhaps you may remember—and if you don’t, I do—how you helped my husband in that dreadful year 1825.  I shall never forget that act of yours, Dr. Midleton, and I’d stick up for you if Mrs. Bingham and Mrs. Harrop and Mrs. Cobb and Miss Tarrant were to swear against you and you a-standing in the dock.  As for that Miss Tarrant, there’s that a-rankling in her that makes her worse than any of them, and if you don’t know what it is, being too modest, forgive me for saying so, I do.”

“But what’s the matter, Mrs. Sweeting?”

“Matter, sir!  Why, I can hardly bring it out, seeing that I’m only the wife of a tradesman, but one thing I will say as I ain’t like the serpent in Genesis, a-crawling about on its belly and spitting poison and biting people by their heels.”

“You have not yet told me what is wrong.”

“Dr. Midleton, you shall have it, but recollect I come here as your friend: leastways I hope you’ll forgive me if I call myself so, for if you were ill and you were to hold up your finger for me not another soul should come near you night nor day till you were well again or it had pleased God Almighty to take you to Himself.  Dr. Midleton, there’s a conspiracy.”

“A what?”

“A conspiracy: that’s right, I believe.  You are acquainted with Mrs. Fairfax.  To make a long and a short of it, they say you are always going there, more than you ought, leastways unless you mean to marry her, and that she’s only a dressmaker, and nobody knows where she comes from, and they ain’t open and free: they won’t come and tell you themselves; but you’ll be turned out at the election the day after to-morrow.”

“But what do you say yourself?”

“Me, Dr. Midleton?  Why, I’ve spoke up pretty plainly.  I told Mrs. Cobb it would be a good thing if you were married, provided you wouldn’t be trod upon as some people’s husbands are, and I was pretty well sure you never would be, and that you knew a lady when you saw her better than most folk; and as for her being a dressmaker what’s that got to do with it?”

“You are too well acquainted with me, Mrs. Sweeting, to suppose I should condescend to notice this contemptible stuff or alter my course to please all Langborough.  Why did you take the trouble to report it to me?”

“Because, sir, I wouldn’t for the world you should think I was mixed up with them; and if my husband doesn’t vote for you my name isn’t Sweeting.”

“I am much obliged to you.  I see your motives: you are straightforward and I respect you.”

Mrs. Sweeting thanked him and departed.  His first feeling was wrath.  Never was there a man less likely to be cowed.  He put on his hat and walked to his committee-room, where he found Mr. Bingham.

“No doubt, I suppose, Mr. Bingham?”

“Don’t know, Doctor; the Radicals have got a strong candidate in Jem Casey.  Some of our people will turn, I’m afraid, and split their votes.”

“Split votes! with a fellow like that!  How can there be any splitting between an honest man and a rascal?”

“There shouldn’t be, sir, but—” Mr. Bingham hesitated—“I suppose there may be personal considerations.”

“Personal considerations! what do you mean?  Let us have no more of these Langborough tricks.  Out with it, Bingham!  Who are the persons and what are the considerations?”

“I really can’t say, Doctor, but perhaps you may not be as popular as you were.  You’ve—” but Mr. Bingham’s strength again completely failed him, and he took a sudden turn—“You’ve taken a decided line lately at several of our meetings.”

The Doctor looked steadily at Mr. Bingham, who felt that every corner of his pitiful soul was visible.

“The line I have taken you have generally supported.  That is not what you mean.  If I am defeated I shall be defeated by equivocating cowardice, and I shall consider myself honoured.”

The Doctor strode out of the room.  He knew now that he was the common property of the town, and that every tongue was wagging about him and a woman, but he was defiant.  The next morning he saw painted in white paint on his own wall—

“My dearly beloved, for all you’re so bold,
To-morrow you’ll find you’re left out in the cold;
And, Doctor, the reason you need not to ax,
It’s because of a dressmaker—Mrs. F—fax.”

He was going out just as the gardener was about to obliterate the inscription.

“Leave it, Robert, leave it; let the filthy scoundrels perpetuate their own disgrace.”

The result of the election was curious.  Two of the Church candidates were returned at the top of the poll.  Jem Casey came next.  Dr. Midleton and the other two Radical and Dissenting candidates were defeated.  There were between seventy and eighty plumpers for the two successful Churchmen, and about five-and-twenty split votes for them and Casey, who had distinguished himself by his coarse attacks on the Doctor.  Mr. Bingham had a bad cold, and did not vote.  On the following Sunday the church was fuller than usual.  The Doctor preached on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.  He did not allude directly to any of the events of the preceding week, but at the close of his sermon he said—“It has been frequently objected that we ought not to spend money on missions to the heathen abroad as there is such a field of labour at home.  The answer to that objection is that there is more hope of the heathen than of many of our countrymen.  This has been a nominally Christian land for centuries, but even now many deadly sins are not considered sinful, and it is an easier task to save the savage than to convince those, for example, whose tongue, to use the words of the apostle, is set on fire of hell, that they are in danger of damnation.  I hope, therefore, my brethren, that you will give liberally.”

On Monday Langborough was amazed to find Mrs. Fairfax’s shop closed.  She had left the town.  She had taken a post-chaise on Saturday and had met the up-mail at Thaxton cross-roads.  Her scanty furniture had disappeared.  The carrier could but inform Langborough that he had orders to deliver her goods at Great Ormond Street whence he brought them.  Mrs. Bingham went to London shortly afterwards and called at Great Ormond Street to inquire for Mrs. Fairfax.  Nobody of that name lived there, and the door was somewhat abruptly shut in her face.  She came back convinced that Mrs. Fairfax was what Mrs. Cobb called “a bad lot.”

“Do you believe,” said she, “that a woman who gives a false name can be respectable?  We want no further proof.”

Nobody wanted further proof.  No Langborough lady needed any proof if a reputation was to be blasted.

“It’s an alibi,” said Mrs. Harrop.  “That’s what Tom Cranch the poacher did, and he was hung.”

“An alias, I believe, is the correct term,” said Miss Tarrant.  “It means the assumption of a name which is not your own, a most discreditable device, one to which actresses and women to whose occupation I can only allude, uniformly resort.  How thankful we ought to be that our respected Rector’s eyes must now be opened and that he has escaped the snare!  It was impossible that he could be permanently attracted by vice and vulgarity.  It is singular how much more acute a woman’s perception often is than a man’s.  I saw through this creature at once.”

 

Eighteen months passed.  The doctor one day was unpacking a book he had bought at Peterborough.  Inside the brown paper was a copy of the Stamford Mercury, a journal which had a wide circulation in the Midlands.  He generally read it, but he must have omitted to see this number.  His eye fell on the following announcement—“On the 24th June last, Richard Leighton, aged 44 years.”  The notice was late, for the date of the paper was the 18th November.  The next afternoon he was in London.  He had been to Great Ormond Street before and had inquired for Mrs. Fairfax, but could find no trace of her.  He now called again.

“You will remember,” he said, “my inquiry about Mrs. Fairfax: can you tell me anything about Mrs. Leighton?”  He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out five shillings.

“She isn’t here: she went away when her husband died.”

“He died abroad?”

“Yes.”

“Where has she gone?”

“Don’t know quite: her friends wouldn’t have anything to do with her.  She said she was going to Plymouth.  She had heard of something in the dressmaking line there.”

He handed over his five shillings, procured a substitute for next Sunday, and went to Plymouth.  He wandered through the streets but could see no dressmaker’s shop which looked as if it had recently changed hands.  He walked backwards and forwards on the Hoe in the evening: the Eddystone light glimmered far away on the horizon; and the dim hope arose in him that it might be a prophecy of success, but his hope was vain.  It came into his mind that it was not likely that she would be there after dusk, and he remembered her preference for early exercise.  The first morning was a failure, but on the second—it was sunny and warm—he saw her sitting on a bench facing the sea.  He went up unobserved and sat down.  She did not turn towards him till he said “Mrs. Leighton!”  She started and recognised him.  Little was spoken as they walked home to her lodgings, a small private house.  On her way she called at a large shop where she was employed and obtained leave of absence until after dinner.

“At last!” said the doctor when the door was shut.

She stood gazing in silence at the dull red cinder of the dying fire.

“You put the advertisement in the Stamford Mercury?” he said.

“Yes.”

“I did not see it until a day or two ago.”

“I had better tell you at once.  My husband, whom you knew, was convicted of forgery, and died at Botany Bay.”  Her eyes still watched the red cinders.

The Doctor’s countenance showed no surprise, for no news could have had any power over the emotion which mastered him.  The long, slow years were fulfilled.  Long and slow and the fulfilment late, but the joy it brought was the greater.  Youthful passion is sweet, but it is not sweeter than the discovery when we begin to count the years which are left to us, and to fear there will be nothing in them better than in those which preceded them that for us also love is reserved.

Mrs. Leighton was obliged to go back to her work in the afternoon, but she gave notice that night to leave in a week.

In a couple of months Langborough was astounded at the news of the Rector’s marriage with a Mrs. Leighton whom nobody in Langborough knew.  The advertisement in the Stamford Mercury said that the lady was the widow of Richard Leighton, Esq., and eldest daughter of the late Marmaduke Sutton, Esq.  Langborough spared no pains to discover who she was.  Mrs. Bingham found out that the Suttons were a Devonshire family, and she ascertained from an Exeter friend that Mr. Marmaduke Sutton was the son of an Honourable, and that Mrs. Leighton was consequently a high-born lady.  She had married as her first husband a man who had done well at Cambridge, but who took to gambling and drink, and treated her with such brutality that they separated.  At last he forged a signature and was transported.  What became of his wife afterwards was not known.  Langborough was not only greatly moved by this intelligence, but was much perplexed.  Miss Tarrant’s estimate of the Doctor was once more reversed.  She was decidedly of opinion that the marriage was a scandal.  A woman who had consented to link herself with such a reprobate as the convict must have been from the beginning could not herself have possessed any reputation.  Living apart, too, was next door to divorce, and who could associate with a creature who had been divorced?  No doubt she was physically seductive, and the doctor had fallen a victim to her snares.  Miss Tarrant, if she had not known so well what men are, would never have dreamed that Dr. Midleton, a scholar and a divine, could surrender to corporeal attractions.  She declared that she could no longer expect any profit from his ministrations, and that she should leave the parish.  Miss Tarrant’s friends, however, did not go quite so far, and Mrs. Harrop confessed to Mrs. Cobb that “she for one wouldn’t lay it down like Medes and Persians, that we should have nothing to do with a woman because her husband had made a fool of himself.  I’m not a Mede nor a Persian, Mrs. Cobb.  I say let us wait and see what she is like.”

Mrs. Bingham was of the same mind.  She dwelt much to herself on the fact that Mrs. Midleton’s great-grandfather must have been a lord.  She secretly hoped that as a wine merchant’s wife she might obtain admission into a “sphere,” as she called it, from which the other ladies in the town might be excluded.  Mrs. Bingham already foretasted the bliss of an invitation to the rectory to meet Lady Caroline from Thaxton Manor; she already foretasted the greater bliss of not meeting her intimate friends there, and that most exquisite conceivable bliss of telling them afterwards all about the party.

Mrs. Midleton and her husband returned on a Saturday afternoon.  The road from Thaxton cross-roads did not lie through the town: the carriage was closed and nobody saw her.  When they came to the rectory the Doctor pointed to the verse in white paint on the wall, “It shall be taken out,” he said, “before to-morrow morning: to-morrow is Sunday.”  He was expected to preach on that day and the church was crammed a quarter of an hour before the service began.  At five minutes to eleven a lady and child entered and walked to the rector’s pew.  The congregation was stupefied with amazement.  Mouths were agape, a hum of exclamations arose, and people on the further side of the church stood up.

It was Mrs. Fairfax!  Nobody had conjectured that she and Mrs. Leighton were the same person.  It was unimaginable that a dressmaker should have had near ancestors in the peerage.  It was more than a year and a half since she left the town.  Mrs. Carter was able to say that not a single letter had been addressed to her, and she was almost forgotten.

A few days afterwards Mrs. Sweeting had a little note requesting her to take tea with the Rector and his wife.  Nobody was asked to meet her.  Mrs. Bingham had called the day before, and had been extremely apologetic.

“I am afraid, Mrs. Midleton, you must have thought me sometimes very rude to you.”

To which Mrs. Midleton replied graciously, “I am sure if you had been it would have been quite excusable.”

“Extremely kind of you to say so, Mrs. Midleton.”

Mrs. Cobb also called.  “I’ll just let her see,” said Mrs. Cobb to herself; and she put on a gown which Mrs. Midleton as Mrs. Fairfax had made for her.

“You’ll remember this gown, Mrs. Midleton?”

“Perfectly well.  It is not quite a fit on the shoulders.  If you will let me have it back again it will give me great pleasure to alter it for you.”

By degrees, however, Mrs. Midleton came to be loved by many people in Langborough.  Mr. Sweeting not long afterwards died in debt, and Mrs. Sweeting, the old housekeeper being also dead, was taken into the rectory as her successor, and became Mrs. Midleton’s trusted friend.