第2章 THE SON'S VETO(2)

She had hardly thought of that.'Oh,yes--I suppose!'she said.

'Everything will be just as usual,I imagine?'

He walked beside her towards her mother's.Presently his arm stole round her waist.She gently removed it;but he placed it there again,and she yielded the point.'You see,dear Sophy,you don't know that you'll stay on;you may want a home;and I shall be ready to offer one some day,though I may not be ready just yet.

'Why,Sam,how can you be so fast!I've never even said I liked 'ee;and it is all your own doing,coming after me!'

'Still,it is nonsense to say I am not to have a try at you like the rest.'He stooped to kiss her a farewell,for they had reached her mother's door.

'No,Sam;you sha'n't!'she cried,putting her hand over his mouth.

'You ought to be more serious on such a night as this.'And she bade him adieu without allowing him to kiss her or to come indoors.

The vicar just left a widower was at this time a man about forty years of age,of good family,and childless.He had led a secluded existence in this college living,partly because there were no resident landowners;and his loss now intensified his habit of withdrawal from outward observation.He was still less seen than heretofore,kept himself still less in time with the rhythm and racket of the movements called progress in the world without.For many months after his wife's decease the economy of his household remained as before;the cook,the housemaid,the parlour-maid,and the man out-of-doors performed their duties or left them undone,just as Nature prompted them--the vicar knew not which.It was then represented to him that his servants seemed to have nothing to do in his small family of one.He was struck with the truth of this representation,and decided to cut down his establishment.But he was forestalled by Sophy,the parlour-maid,who said one evening that she wished to leave him.

'And why?'said the parson.

'Sam Hobson has asked me to marry him,sir.'

'Well--do you want to marry?'

'Not much.But it would be a home for me.And we have heard that one of us will have to leave.'

A day or two after she said:'I don't want to leave just yet,sir,if you don't wish it.Sam and I have quarrelled.'

He looked up at her.He had hardly ever observed her before,though he had been frequently conscious of her soft presence in the room.

What a kitten-like,flexuous,tender creature she was!She was the only one of the servants with whom he came into immediate and continuous relation.What should he do if Sophy were gone?

Sophy did not go,but one of the others did,and things went on quietly again.

When Mr.Twycott,the vicar,was ill,Sophy brought up his meals to him,and she had no sooner left the room one day than he heard a noise on the stairs.She had slipped down with the tray,and so twisted her foot that she could not stand.The village surgeon was called in;the vicar got better,but Sophy was incapacitated for a long time;and she was informed that she must never again walk much or engage in any occupation which required her to stand long on her feet.As soon as she was comparatively well she spoke to him alone.

Since she was forbidden to walk and bustle about,and,indeed,could not do so,it became her duty to leave.She could very well work at something sitting down,and she had an aunt a seamstress.

The parson had been very greatly moved by what she had suffered on his account,and he exclaimed,'No,Sophy;lame or not lame,I cannot let you go.You must never leave me again!'

He came close to her,and,though she could never exactly tell how it happened,she became conscious of his lips upon her cheek.He then asked her to marry him.Sophy did not exactly love him,but she had a respect for him which almost amounted to veneration.Even if she had wished to get away from him she hardly dared refuse a personage so reverend and august in her eyes,and she assented forthwith to be his wife.

Thus it happened that one fine morning,when the doors of the church were naturally open for ventilation,and the singing birds fluttered in and alighted on the tie-beams of the roof,there was a marriage-service at the communion-rails,which hardly a soul knew of.The parson and a neighbouring curate had entered at one door,and Sophy at another,followed by two necessary persons,whereupon in a short time there emerged a newly-made husband and wife.

Mr.Twycott knew perfectly well that he had committed social suicide by this step,despite Sophy's spotless character,and he had taken his measures accordingly.An exchange of livings had been arranged with an acquaintance who was incumbent of a church in the south of London,and as soon as possible the couple removed thither,abandoning their pretty country home,with trees and shrubs and glebe,for a narrow,dusty house in a long,straight street,and their fine peal of bells for the wretchedest one-tongued clangour that ever tortured mortal ears.It was all on her account.They were,however,away from every one who had known her former position;and also under less observation from without than they would have had to put up with in any country parish.

Sophy the woman was as charming a partner as a man could possess,though Sophy the lady had her deficiencies.She showed a natural aptitude for little domestic refinements,so far as related to things and manners;but in what is called culture she was less intuitive.

She had now been married more than fourteen years,and her husband had taken much trouble with her education;but she still held confused ideas on the use of 'was'and 'were,'which did not beget a respect for her among the few acquaintances she made.Her great grief in this relation was that her only child,on whose education no expense had been and would be spared,was now old enough to perceive these deficiencies in his mother,and not only to see them but to feel irritated at their existence.