Chapter VI: A Family Picture

The year drew to its close, and society at Combhaven, which possessed something of that capacity for adapting itself to circumstances which is characteristic of society in wider circles, had got accustomed to the idea of Joshua Haggard’s marriage; and, if not altogether reconciled to his union, had become, at any rate, resigned to the inevitable.

‘It’s a blessed mercy for Mr. Haggard that he’s got a sister to look after his house and keep the furniture polished, and see that the bottoms of the loaves and broken pieces don’t get thrown to the fowls,’ remarked careful housewives to each other in the friendly loquacity of the tea-table, ‘or else things would go to wrack and ruin altogether, I should think, with a young wife like that.’

‘And so pretty, too,’ sighed a matron, gently shaking the stiffest of caps, as if prettiness were a crime.

‘Pretty and useless, no doubt, poor thing. And he seems so foolishly fond of her. I’m sure to see them out walking together you’d think they were sweethearts that had only just begun to keep company,’ remarked Mrs. Pycroft, of the First and Last, whose conversations with her husband after marriage had been chiefly of a didactic or argumentative character.

Once, and once only, had Joshua--whose style of preaching was more personal and familiar than that which obtained at this time in the Established Church, where the chaff of abstruse doctrine was but sparsely qualified with the grain of moral teaching and Gospel truth--approached indirectly the subject of his marriage.

He had been quoting Richard Baxter’s _Call to the Unconverted_, and, suddenly diverging from the theology of the preacher, enlarged upon the man and his life.

‘It was in many ways a life of trial, yet in all ways a life full of blessing,’ he said; ‘nor do I count it the smallest of graces which Providence bestowed upon this great and good man that, at forty-seven years of age, he was blessed in the affection of a wife of three-and-twenty. He had come to that time of life without having ever known the sweetness of domestic happiness. But it pleased God that he should be the instrument of this dear girl’s conversion, and that her heart should go forth to him who had brought her the message of salvation. There were some, perchance, in those evil days who were scandalised by this marriage; for it had been a part of Baxter’s creed that for ministers to marry was barely lawful. But Heaven smiled upon this wedded pair, who were verily married in the Lord; and Baxter has told us that he found in his wife a helpmeet, a comforter in all his sorrows, the sharer of his prison, and always the helper to his joy.’

Before the year was ended Naomi had become completely reconciled to her father’s marriage. She had suffered faint thrills of pain just at first, when she saw Cynthia draw her chair near Joshua’s, and perhaps sit with her hand in his, while he read the evening Scriptures. She had felt it just a little hard to see her father’s eyes rest with such ineffable love upon the face of the stranger; but she had schooled her heart to submit to this loss--if loss it could be called--since her father was more affectionate to his children than he had been before his marriage. She had subdued all human jealousy, and had taught herself to be glad that her father had won so fair and faithful a companion. There was something indescribably touching in the young wife’s childlike affection for her husband, her intense belief in him, her unbounded admiration for his talents and powers as preacher and teacher, her implicit faith in his judgment. If flattery be a pleasant poison, Joshua was in a fair way to be poisoned by the sweetest of all flatteries--the exaggerated estimate which springs from womanly love. Love with a woman of this temper is but another name for worship; and Cynthia’s love had begun in a spiritual idolatry which had set Joshua but a little way below the saints and apostles he had taught her to reverence. In a man so truthful as Joshua closer communion revealed no flaw, familiarity was not followed by disillusion. After two months of married life the husband still occupied the pedestal upon which Cynthia had elevated the teacher; but, although she had suffered no disappointment in the man himself, her vivid and romantic mind began to find something wanting in his surroundings. The atmosphere of her daily life was depressing; the young eager spirit yearned for work of some kind, and was flung back upon the dull blank of idleness. She sighed for keener air, a wider horizon, yet scarcely knew what she desired. She had secret aspirations for her husband, and rebelled against that commonplace trade which occupied one half of his life--that buying and selling and getting gain, which seemed to her enthusiastic mind a practical denial of the Gospel which the trader preached on Sundays, the lesson which he taught his flock on weekdays. These divided duties, this solicitous service to a worldly master, struck her as out of joint with her husband’s sacred character. To her, who had known no other church than this Dissenting community, and who hardly knew that they were Dissenters, Joshua was as holy as if Episcopal hands had been laid upon him, and she was troubled by the incongruity between the trader and the priest. Yet, seeing that Joshua saw no harm in his calling, that he held honest trade as an honourable office, she dared not lift up her voice in remonstrance, and accepted the shop as one of those things which, like aunt Judith, were an inevitable element in her life.

Christmas brought cheerful thoughts and friendly relations between the minister and his flock. Presents rained upon Joshua at this season, and those stiffnecked members of his congregation who had lifted the nose at his marriage, atoned for their unfriendly feeling by the fattest of turkeys and youngest of geese. Christmas was a season of much eating and drinking at Combhaven; and even Methodism forgot to be ascetic, and gorged itself with beef and pudding, with a riotous delight in the good things of this mortal life that would have made William Law’s hair stand on end. The Established Church woke up from its comfortable doze, and sang carols on Christmas-eve; the ecclesiastical feeling for colour displayed itself in sprigs of holly, stuck here and there in convenient places by the hands of beadle and pew-opener; and a dole of bread, provided by the bequest of the virtuous dame Margery Hawker, of this parish, was meted out to five-and-twenty poor women on Christmas morning. New bonnets, modelled upon the coal-scuttle of the period, were to be seen above the high oaken pews of St. Mary Magdalene, and enlivened the crowded congregation at Little Bethel. It was altogether a season of pleasant thoughts and general contentment, a season which seemed very sweet to Naomi, as she walked in the leafless woods with the lover who was so soon to be her husband. Early in March, before the birds had pecked the crocuses to death, before the daffodils had begun their fairy dances in the windy afternoons, Naomi and Oswald were to be married at the gray old parish church. It was a wonderful thing to think of. Naomi was to be a great lady, and live at the Grange, and have that pretty morning-room, with its dainty bookcases, and neat duodecimo edition of the old poets, bound in white vellum, for her very own. She was to belong to the old Squire and his son. The gardens and the park, where the cattle browsed, and the beautiful mysterious wood, with its glades and dells and lopsided old trees, and knolls and thickets, which one could never quite know by heart, were to be hers--a part of her life, inseparable from all her future years.

‘You will let me go to chapel, Oswald?’ she asked earnestly; ‘you will never try to keep me away from Little Bethel?’

‘My dearest, I would rather go there with you than hinder your going. You shall be free, my dear. These things are more to you than they are to me. It would be hard if I were to oppose my prejudices to your deep-rooted faith. And who shall say whether John Wesley’s creed is right or wrong? It is a comfortable doctrine most assuredly that sin brings us closer to Christ, and that the deeper we sink in the mire the nearer we are to the stars.’

‘O Oswald, you don’t understand. It is our consciousness of sin that brings us to the Fount of grace, not the sin.’

They were very happy at this Christmastide. It was one of those green yules to which popular prejudice accredits the filling of churchyards, although the _Times_ obituary goes far to prove the good old-fashioned Christmas, with his icicle diadem and his mantle of snow, Death’s sterner coadjutor. Blackbirds were merry in the woods at evensong, and mistaken dog-violets struggled into untimely bloom under the shelter of tall hedges. Oswald dined with his father upon the great festival, and, as soon as he decently could do so, stole away from the fire-lit dining-room, leaving the old Squire asleep in his big arm-chair, where he would in all likelihood slumber peacefully until bed-time, when he would awake with wonderful briskness to go his round of the lower chambers, and see that every bolt was duly drawn against thieves and burglars, for although half a dozen spoons and forks, and a pair of salt-cellars with corpulent bodies and attenuated legs comprised the utmost display of silver that ever decorated the Squire’s table, there was a goodly store of old tankards, venison-dishes, soup-tureens, and smaller plate stowed away in the great oak closet in old Mr. Pentreath’s bedroom.

Oswald walked straight to the minister’s house--but not quite so fast as he had been accustomed to walk in the same direction. The air was wondrously mild; the western sky a pale primrose; the wooded horizon-line bluer than it is wont to be. It was a winter twilight that might tempt a man to linger, and Oswald was full of thought. Early in March--so soon--for him, as for Naomi, that approaching marriage was an event to be contemplated with wonder, almost with disbelief. His apprenticeship, which at the beginning had seemed to him as long as Jacob’s, was nearly ended. His patience and truth and constancy were to have their reward.

‘Dear girl!’ he said to himself, thinking of his betrothed. ‘She is the best and noblest of women; where could I find so perfect a wife? I do not believe there is a flaw in her goodness. I always feel myself a better man when I am with her. Yes, that is what a wife ought to be.’

And then in his low legato tones he repeated that familiar verse of Wordsworth’s--

‘A perfect woman, nobly planned’--

from a poem which seems to concentrate in thirty lines all that can ever be said or sung in praise of womankind.

He could see the ruddy firelight shining in the minister’s best parlour as he came round the bend of the road. It was tea-time, and they were all assembled there, no doubt--aunt Judith in her best gown, which was such an excellent fit across the chest as to be faintly suggestive of a strait waistcoat; Naomi sitting in her favourite corner with the red light flickering upon her glossy hair, and those deep dark eyes of hers full of grave thoughts; and on the other side of the hearth that childlike face and figure, the very type of innocent and guileless maidenhood, Oswald’s idea of Goethe’s Gretchen, nestling close to Joshua’s side, looking up at him now and then with worshipping eyes.

Oswald saw the family scene afar off, as if it had been a mirage-picture. He turned the handle of the door and went in. The passage was dimly lighted by an oil-lamp. He knocked at the parlour-door by way of ceremony, and the minister’s deep voice bade him enter. Yes, the scene was just as his imagination had shown it to him--aunt Judith seated at the tea-board, the old brown Bible at Joshua’s right hand, Cynthia’s fair hair looking like palest gold in the uncertain light, Naomi’s dark head drooping thoughtfully, Jim screwed as close as possible to the fire, stooping to roast chestnuts between the bars--a peaceful home-picture. They all looked up and gave him welcome, but Naomi’s gratified smile was worth all the rest.

‘I did not think you would be able to come,’ she exclaimed.

‘Luckily for me my father indulged in a heavier dinner than usual and fell asleep immediately after it. But I should have contrived to come under any circumstances. I hope I am in time for a cup of your excellent tea, Miss Haggard? It is not every one can make such tea as yours.’

‘Every one hasn’t been making tea in the same pot for five-and-twenty years,’ replied aunt Judith, obviously mollified by this compliment. ‘You want to know your pot and to know your tea if it’s to be worth drinking.’

Miss Haggard dispensed the beverage with an abnormal stiffness peculiar to festive occasions and best gowns. Social gatherings of a cheerful nature did not induce aunt Judith to unbend. On occasions of this kind she assumed a spinal inflexibility which, in her mind, was the surest indication of a virtuous bringing-up and a polite education. And this backboard politeness was accepted at Combhaven, where Miss Haggard was considered ‘quite the lady.’

‘I don’t know what’s coming to the women in this place,’ said aunt Judith presently, when there was a pause in the conversation, ‘but I think they must have set their hearts on spending money one against the other. I counted four new bonnets in chapel this morning, without counting Mrs. Spradgers’s, that had been fresh trimmed, and she only had it in October, for I sold her the ribbon for it--a lovely maroon with an orange spot.’

‘I hope you had something better to do in chapel than count the new bonnets and think badly of your neighbours, Judith,’ remonstrated Joshua.

‘I’ve got eyes in chapel as well as out of chapel,’ answered Judith, ‘and there’s times when the most serious-minded Christian can use ’em--while the hymn’s being given out, for instance; our time’s our own then, I should think. All I can say is, that if milliners’ made-up bonnets--drawn silk trumpery that one heavy shower will spoil--don’t bring Combhaven to ruin, nothing else will. There’s Mrs. Flitton, that I’ve sold many a serviceable straw to in days gone by, decked out in a velvet cottage with a bird of Paradise from Barnstaple. It was luxury of this kind that led to the French king losing his head when we were young folks, Joshua. I’ve heard you say as much many a time, so don’t deny it.’

‘If you thought less of your neighbours’ shortcomings, Judith--’

‘I can’t help thinking of them when I’ve got fourteen straw bonnets, best quality, left out of last summer’s stock. The shape will be old next year, I daresay. Fashions change so quick nowadays. I shall have to sell ’em to the servant-girls, half-price.’

‘How you do worry about a few shillings, aunt!’ cried Jim, in a disgusted tone. ‘We make more on our side of the shop in a day than you can lose on your side in a week.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Pert. When your father loses money by _my_ department I hope he’ll tell me so. I haven’t heard of it yet.’

‘Then why do you make such a fuss about half a dozen straw bonnets? You _said_ you were going to lose by ’em.’

‘If I lose by my bonnets I shall come home upon my ribbons, you may be sure, Mr. James; and when you know the grocery business as well as I know the drapery, you may take me to task, not sooner.’

‘We won’t talk any more about the shop this evening, Judith,’ said Joshua. ‘We may be too assiduous in business.’

‘The Bible tells us not to be slothful,’ replied the aggrieved Judith; ‘but I daresay it vexes Mrs. Haggard to hear such talk. She’d have liked to have married a bishop, with his carriage and pair.’

This was a hit at Cynthia’s dislike to the shop, which the girl had revealed involuntarily upon one or two occasions.

‘I should be glad if my husband had nothing to distract his thoughts from his chapel and his schools,’ answered Cynthia. ‘Any man can keep a shop. It seems a hard thing that his time should be taken up with selling grocery.’

‘Does it seem a hard thing that he’s got a comfortable home and money in the bank, and a fortune to give his daughter?’ demanded aunt Judith. ‘He wouldn’t have got those out of Little Bethel.’

Cynthia sighed. She fancied it would have been far happier to have wandered with her husband from village to village, tending him and comforting him in his pilgrimage, than to lead this prosperous life in a settled home, where there was so much to draw his mind away from his great work. And was it for the sake of a substantial house and daily food, for money heaped up in the bank, that the teacher consented so to limit his sphere of usefulness--nay, in a manner to hide his light under a bushel? Naomi had talked to Cynthia of that missionary life which seemed so glorious to her, and the younger girl had caught the enthusiasm of the elder. She felt as if her husband’s true vocation lay far away beyond the wide strange seas, among the races that had never heard of the Christian’s God.

Happily for household peace upon this festive occasion the clearing away of the tea-things, and the retirement of Judith to wash them, put an end to a discussion that had tended towards unpleasantness.

Naomi and Oswald were able to enjoy their quiet talk on one side of the hearth, while Joshua read one of his favourite Puritan divines on the other, Cynthia sitting by him in meek silence, full of sweet thoughts and dreamy aspirations after an unknown good. James went on roasting his chestnuts, which ever and anon exploded with a fizz and a splutter, to his own delight and the consternation of the assembly.

‘How pretty she is!’ whispered Oswald to Naomi, contemplating Cynthia’s thoughtful face during a pause in his talk. He watched her with the same pleasure and interest he might have felt in the contemplation of a pretty child--something soft and sweet and helpless, which he looked down upon from the altitude of his mature years.

‘Yes, she is very pretty and very good. My father is quite happy in his marriage.’

‘Why does she never come with us in our walks? It must be dull for her of an afternoon, when your father is out.’

‘She goes for a walk with Jim sometimes.’

‘But why not with us?’

‘I don’t know. She’s very shy. I rather think she’s afraid of you.’

‘Afraid of me! O, that’s too ridiculous.’

‘She thinks you a very fine gentleman.’

‘That’s delightful! You know how much of the fine gentleman there is about me, Naomi. I am afraid she must be rather silly.’

‘O no, indeed. She is wonderfully bright and quick in everything.’

‘Is she? I should hardly have thought her so. We are talking of you, Mrs. Haggard,’ pursued Oswald, abandoning his confidential, half-whispering tone; ‘I have been asking Naomi why you never join us in our afternoon rambles. Perhaps you don’t care for woods and hills?’

‘Yes I do,’ answered Cynthia; ‘I am very fond of this beautiful place. It is prettier than anything I ever saw before.’

‘I should think so,’ said aunt Judith sharply. ‘It’s bare enough in the mining country where you come from, I’ve always heard say.’

‘You should come with us sometimes, Mrs. Haggard,’ said Oswald.

‘Yes,’ said Joshua, looking up from his book. ‘It would be better for you to go out-of-doors oftener, Cynthia. I find you sitting reading or working in the parlour every afternoon when I come home to tea.’

‘There’s nothing so bad as poring over a book for a young woman’s spine,’ said aunt Judith. ‘Mrs. Haggard will be round-shouldered before she’s thirty if she doesn’t take care.’

Judith’s backbone was her tower of strength. Years might creep on, the insidious approach of age might show itself in a sprinkling of gray hairs among the dark ones--by crow’s-feet at the corners of the eyes--but Judith’s spine defied the assailant Time. It straightened itself against the enemy, and at eight-and-forty Miss Haggard was more erect than she had been at eighteen.

‘Yes, my love, you must really have more air and exercise,’ said Joshua.

Cynthia gave a faint sigh. She was very happy, on such an evening as this, in her husband’s company, sitting next him, stealing her hand into his now and then, or leaning against his shoulder to read a page or so of the book he was reading; but there were times in her life when she felt as if she belonged to no one. Thus it was that she had taken to pore over books, or to sit long at some laborious piece of plain needlework. There was so little for her to do; she was never happier than when Joshua allowed her to go and sit in some stuffy cottage, beside the bed of sickness or decrepitude, and read the Book she loved. She felt then that she too had her mission in the world, and that she was in some wise worthy of the husband who had chosen her.

Not a festive Christmas evening this for those who have been wont to associate the occasion with cheery family circles, merry children, old-fashioned games, cards, forfeits, and snapdragon--the good old traditional Christmas immortalised by Washington Irving and Charles Dickens. A pack of cards had never been seen in Mr. Haggard’s house, and forfeits or snapdragon he would have accounted childish folly. His children had never been gratified with such empty delights. In the day when he took up John Wesley as his guide and model, he put away from him all small pleasures, all sensual gratifications. At heart he was an ascetic, and it grated a little upon his sense of right to see the board loaded with cold turkey and chine and plum-pudding upon this particular evening. He would have been happier eating his dry bread and hard cheese, and feeling that he was denying himself while all the rest of the world were feasting and revelling. There was a touch of the Pharisee’s spiritual pride here, perhaps; but the pride had its source in that idea of calling and special grace which was implanted in the preacher’s heart. Had he not been chosen and elected in the days of his youth, when he first felt himself called to do God’s work? He could name the day and hour. It was no slow awakening to solemn truths, no gradual leavening of the human mind with spiritual grace; but a sudden and absolute conversion--an instantaneous call to righteousness. Yesterday a child of wrath, to-day the heir of salvation, a citizen of heaven, an inhabitant of eternity. Wondrous, mysterious had been this Pentecostal season; he looked back at it with love and pride. How pitiful a price had he paid for so great a treasure, in surrendering the transient pleasures of this world!

And now Heaven had rewarded him with the sweetest of all earthly blessings--the blessed joys of home.

He looked at his daughter, happy by her lover’s side; at his son, healthy, intelligent, active, dutiful; at his useful sister, rough and bitter, like medicinal herbs, but a faithful servant; at his wife, dearest of all; and thanked God for these manifold blessings.