Robert Elsmere by Mrs. Humphry Ward (best classic literature txt) 📕

it wur too late to go back.'

Mrs. Thornburgh stood transfixed, something of her fresh pink color slowly deserting her face as she realized the enormity of the catastrophe. And was it possible that there was the faintest twinkle of grim satisfaction on the face of that elderly minx, Sarah?

Mrs. Thornburgh, however, did, not stay to explore the recesses of Sarah's mind, but ran with little pattering, undignified steps across the front garden and down the steps to where Mr. Backhouse, the carrier, stood, bracing himself for self-defense.

'Ya may weel fret, mum,' said Mr. Backhouse, interrupting the flood of her reproaches, with the comparative _sang-froid_ of one who knew that, after all, he was the only carrier on the road, and that the vicarage was five miles from the necessaries of life; 'it's a bad job, and I's not goin' to say it isn't. But; ya jest look 'ere, mum, what's a man to du wi' a daft thingamy like _that_, as caan't teak a plain order, and spiles a poor man's business as caan't help hissel'?'

And Mr. Backhouse pointed with withering scorn to a small, shrunken old man, who sat dangling his legs on the shaft of the cart, and whose countenance wore a singular expression of mingled meekness and composure, as his partner flourished an indignant finger toward him.

'Jim,' cried Mrs. Thornburgh reproachfully, 'I did think you would have taken more pains about my order!'

'Yis, mum,'said the old man, placidly, 'ya might 'a' thowt it. I's reet sorry, but ya caan't help these things _sum_times--an' it's naw gud hollerin' ower 'em like a mad bull. Aa tuke yur bit paper to Randall's and aa laft it wi' 'em to mek up, an' than, aa weel, aa went to a frind, an' ee _may_ hev giv' me a glass of yale, aa doon't say ee _dud_--but ee may, I ween't sweer. Hawsomiver, aa niver thowt naw mair aboot it, nor mair did John, so _ee_ needn't taak--till we wur jest two mile from 'ere. An' ee's a gon' on sence! My! an' a larroping the poor beast like onything.'

Mrs. Thornburgh stood aghast at the calmness of this audacious recital. As for John, he looked on, surveying his brother's philosophical demeanor at first with speechless wrath, and then with an inscrutable mixture of expressions, in which, however, any one accustomed to his weather-beaten countenance would have probably read a hidden admiration.

'Weel, aa niver!' he exclaimed, when Jim's explanatory remarks had come to an end, swinging himself up on to his seat and gathering up the reins. 'Yur a boald 'un to tell the missus theer to hur feeace as how ya wur' tossicatit whan yur owt ta been duing yur larful business. Aa've doon wi' yer. Aa aims to please ma coostomers, an' aa caan't abide sek wark. Yur like an oald kneyfe, I can mak' nowt o' ya', nowder back nor edge.'

Mrs. Thornburgh wrung her fat short hands in despair, making little incoherent laments and suggestions as she saw him about to depart, of which John at last gathered the main purport to be that she wished him to go back to Whinborough for her precious parcel.

He shook his head compassionately over the preposterous state of mind betrayed by such a demand, and with a fresh burst of abuse of his brother, and an assurance to the vicar's wife that he meant to 'gie that oald man nawtice when he got haum; he wasn't goan to hev his bisness spiled for nowt by an oald ijiot wi' a hed as full o' yale as a hayrick's full o' mice,' he raised his whip and the clattering vehicle moved forward; Jim meanwhile preserving through all his brother's wrath and Mrs. Thornburgh's wailings the same mild and even countenance, the meditative and friendly aspect of the philosopher letting the world go 'as e'en it will.'

So Mrs. Thornburgh was left gasping, watching the progress of the lumbering cart along the bit of road leading to the hamlet at the head of the valley, with so limp and crestfallen an aspect that even the gaunt and secretly jubilant Sarah was moved to pity.

'Why, missis, we'll do very well. I'll hev some scones in t'oven in naw time, an' theer's finger biscuits, an' wi' buttered toast an' sum o' t'best jams, if they don't hev enuf to eat they ought to.' Then, dropping her voice, she asked with a hurried change of tone, 'Did ye ask un' hoo his daater is?'

Mrs. Thornburgh started. Her pastoral conscience was smitten. She opened the gate and waved violently after the cart. John pulled his horse up, and with a few quick steps she brought herself within speaking, or rather shouting, distance.

'How's your daughter to-day, John?'

The old man's face peering round the oilcloth hood of the cart was darkened by a sudden cloud as he caught the words. His stern lips closed. He muttered something inaudible to Mrs. Thornburgh and whipped up his horse again. The cart started off, and Mrs. Thornburgh was left staring into the receding eyes of 'Jim the Noodle,' who, from his seat on the near shaft, regarded her with a gaze which had passed from benevolence into a preternatural solemnity.

'He's sparin' ov 'is speach, is John Backhouse,' said Sarah grimly, as her mistress returned to her. 'Maybe ee's aboot reet. It's a bad business au' ee'll not mend it wi' taakin.'

Mrs. Thornburgh, however, could not apply herself to the case of Mary Backhouse. At any other moment it would have excited in her breast the shuddering interest, which, owing to certain peculiar attendant circumstances, it, awakened in every other woman in Long Whindale. But her mind--such are the limitations of even clergymen's wives--was now absorbed by her own misfortune. Her very cap-strings seemed to hang limp with depression, as she followed Sarah dejectedly into the kitchen, and gave what attention she could to, those second-best arrangements so depressing to the idealist temper.

Poor soul! All the charm and glitter of her little social adventure was gone. When she once more emerged upon the lawn, and languidly readjusted her spectacles, she was weighed down by the thought that in two hours Mrs. Seaton would be upon her. Nothing of this kind ever happened to Mrs. Seaton. The universe obeyed her nod. No carrier conveying goods to her august door ever got drunk or failed to deliver his consignment. The thing was inconceivable. Mrs. Thornburgh was well aware of it.

Should William be informed? Mrs. Thornburgh had a rooted belief in the brutality of husbands in all domestic crises, and would have preferred not to inform him. But she had also a dismal certainty that the secret would burn a hole in her till it was confessed-bill and all. Besides--frightful thought!--would they have to eat up all those _meringues_ next day?

Her reflections at last became so depressing that, with a natural epicurean instinct, she tried violently to turn her mind away from them. Luckily she was assisted by a sudden perception of the roof and chimneys of Burwood, the Leyburns' house, peeping above the trees to the left. At sight of them a smile overspread her plump and gently wrinkled face. She fell gradually into a train of thought, as feminine as that in which she had been just indulging, but infinitely more pleasing.

For, with regard to the Leyburns, at this present moment Mrs. Thornburgh felt herself in the great position of tutelary divinity or guardian angel. At least if divinities and guardian angels do not concern themselves with the questions to which Mrs. Thornburgh's mind was now addressed, it would clearly have been the opinion of the vicar's wife that they ought to do so.

'Who else is there to look after these girls, I should like to know,' Mrs. Thornburgh inquired of herself, 'if I don't do it? As if girls married themselves! People may talk of their independence nowadays as much as they like--it always has to be done for them, one way or another. Mrs. Leyburn, poor lackadaisical thing! is no good whatever. No more is Catherine. They both behave as if husbands tumbled into your mouth for the asking. Catherine's too good for this world--but if she doesn't do it, I must. Why, that girl Rose is a beauty--if they didn't let her wear those ridiculous mustard-colored things, and do her hair fit to frighten the crows! Agnes too--so ladylike and well mannered; she'd do credit to any man. Well, we shall see, we shall see!'

And Mrs. Thornburgh gently shook her gray curls from side to side, while, her eyes, fixed on the open spare room window, shone with meaning.

'So eligible, too--private means, no encumbrances, and as good as gold.'

She sat lost a moment in a pleasing dream.

'Shall I bring oot the tea to you theer, mum?' called Sarah gruffly, from the garden door. 'Master and Mr. Elsmere are just coomin' down t' field by t' stepping-stones.' Mrs. Thornburgh signalled assent and the tea-table was brought. Afternoon tea was by no means a regular institution at the vicarage of Long Whindale, and Sarah never supplied it without signs of protest. But when a guest was in the house Mrs. Thornburgh insisted upon it; her obstinacy in the matter, like her dreams of cakes and confections, being part of her determination to move with the times, in spite the station to which Providence had assigned her.

A minute afterward the vicar, a thick-set gray-haired man of sixty, accompanied by a tall younger man in clerical dress, emerged upon the lawn.

'Welcome sight!' cried Mr. Thornburgh; 'Robert and I have been coveting that tea for the last hour. You guessed very well, Emma, to have it just ready for us.'

'Oh, that was Sarah. She saw you coming down to the stepping-stones,' replied his wife, pleased, however, by any talk of appreciation from her mankind, however small. 'Robert, I hope you haven't been walked off your legs?'

'What, in this air, cousin Emma? I could walk from sunrise to sundown. Let no one call me an invalid any more. Henceforth I am a Hercules.'

And he threw himself on the rug which Mrs. Thornburgh's motherly providence had spread on the grass for him, with a smile and a look of supreme physical contentment, which did indeed almost efface the signs of recent illness in the ruddy boyish face.

Mrs. Thornburgh studied him; her eye caught first of all by the stubble of reddish hair which as he shook off his hat stood up straight and stiff all over his head with an odd wildness and aggressiveness. She involuntarily thought, basing her inward comment on a complexity of reasons-'Dear me, what a pity; it spoils his appearance!'

'I apologize, I apologize, cousin Emma, once for all,' said the young, man, surprising her glance, and despairingly smoothing down his recalcitrant locks. 'Let us hope that mountain air will quicken the pace of it before it is necessary for me to present a dignified appearance at 'Murewell.'

He looked up at her with a merry flash in his gray eyes, and her old face brightened visibly as she realized afresh that in spite of the grotesqueness of his cropped hair, her guest was a most attractive creature. Not that he could boast much in the way of regular good looks: the mouth was large, the nose of no particular outline, and in general the cutting of the face, though strong and characteristic, had a bluntness and _naivete_ like a vigorous unfinished sketch. This bluntness of line, however, was balanced by a great delicacy of tint--the pink and white complexion of a girl, indeed--enhanced by the bright reddish hair, and