The second, and to my mind lesser, misfortune to have befallen the parish is that a young woman has disappeared. Dido Puddifer has not been seen since early this morning when her mother, Mrs. Glossop, went to a neighbour’s house to borrow a nutmeg grater. Mrs. Glossop left Dido walking up and down in the orchard with her baby at her breast, but when she returned the baby was lying in the wet grass and Dido was gone.
I accompanied Mrs. Edmond to the cottage to pay a visit of sympathy to the family, and as we were coming back Mrs. Edmond said, “The worst of it is that she is a very pretty girl, all golden curls and soft blue eyes. I cannot help but suppose some passing scoundrel has taken a fancy to her and made her go along with him.”
“But does it not seem more likely,” said I, “that she went with him of her own accord? She is uneducated, illiterate, and probably never thought seriously upon ethical questions in her life.”
“I do not think you quite understand,” said Mrs. Edmond, “No girl ever loved home and husband more than Dido. No girl was more delighted to have a baby of her own. Dido Puddifer is a silly, giddy sort of girl, but she is also as good as gold.”
“Oh!” said I, with a smile, “I daresay she was very good until today, but then, you know, temptation might never have come her way before.”
But Mrs. Edmond proved quite immoveable in her prejudice in favour of Dido Puddifer and so I said no more. Besides, she soon began to speak of a much more interesting subject — my own future.
“My sister-in-law’s wealth, Mr. Simonelli, causes her to overrate the needs of other people. She imagines that no one can exist upon less than seven hundred pounds a year, but you will do well enough. The living is fifty pounds a year, but the farm could be made to yield twice, thrice that amount. The first four or five years you must be frugal. I will see to it that you are supplied with milk and butter from Upperstone-farm, but by midsummer, Mr. Simonelli, you must buy a milch-cow of your own.” She thought a moment. “I daresay Marjory Hollinsclough will let me have a hen or two for you.”
This morning Rectory-lane was knee-deep in yellow and brown leaves. A silver rain like smoke blew across the churchyard. A dozen crows in their clerical dress of decent black were idling among the graves. They rose up to flap about me as I came down the lane like a host of winged curates all ready to do my bidding.
There was a whisper of sounds at my back, stifled laughter, a genteel cough, and then: “Oh! Mr. Simonelli!” spoken very sweetly and rather low.
I turned.
Five young ladies; on each face I saw the same laughing eyes, the same knowing smiles, the same rain-speckled brown curls, like a strain of music taken up and repeated many different ways. There were even to my befuddled senses the same bonnets, umbrellas, muslins, ribbons, repeated in a bewildering variety of colours but all sweetly blending together, all harmonious. All that I could have asserted with any assurance at that moment was that they were all as beautiful as angels. They were grouped most fetchingly, sheltering each other from the rain with their umbrellas, and the composure and dignity of the two eldest were in no way compromised by the giggles of the two youngest.
The tallest — she who had called my name — begged my pardon. To call out to someone in the lane was very shocking, she hoped I would forgive her but, “… Mama has entirely neglected to introduce us and Aunt Edmond is so taken up with the business about poor Dido that … well, in short, Mr. Simonelli, we thought it best to lay ceremony aside and introduce ourselves. We are made bold to do it by the thought that you are to be our clergyman. The lambs ought not to fear the shepherd, ought they, Mr. Simonelli? Oh, but I have no patience with that stupid Dr. Prothero! Why did he not send you to us earlier? I hope, Mr. Simonelli, that you will not judge Allhope by this dull season!” And she dismissed with a wave of her hand the sweetest, most tranquil prospect imaginable; woods, hills, moors, and streams were all deemed entirely unworthy of my attention. “If only you had come in July or August then we might have shewn you all the beauties of Derbyshire, but now I fear you will find it very dull.” But her smile defied me to find any place dull where she was to be found. “Yet,” she said, brightening, “perhaps I shall persuade Mama to give a ball. Do you like dancing, Mr. Simonelli?”
“But Aunt Edmond says that Mr. Simonelli is a scholar,” said one of her sisters with the same sly smile. “Perhaps he only cares for books.”
“Which books do you like best, Mr. Simonelli?” demanded a Miss Gathercole of the middle size.
“Do you sing, Mr. Simonelli?” asked the tallest Miss Gathercole.
“Do you shoot, Mr. Simonelli?” asked the smallest Miss Gathercole, only to be silenced by an older sister. “Be quiet, Kitty, or he may shoot you.”
Then the two eldest Miss Gathercoles each took one of my arms and walked with me and introduced me to my parish. And every remark they uttered upon the village and its inhabitants betrayed their happy conviction that it contained nothing half so interesting or delightful as themselves.
I dined this evening at Upperstone House. Two courses. Eighteen dishes in each. Brown Soup. Mackerel. Haricot of mutton. Boiled Chicken particularly good. Some excellent apple tarts. I was the only gentleman present.
Mrs. Edmond was advising me upon my farm. “… and when you go to buy your sheep, Mr. Simonelli, I shall accompany you. I am generally allowed to be an excellent judge of livestock.”
“Indeed, madam,” said I, “that is most kind, but in the meantime I have been thinking that there is no doctor nearer than Buxton, and it seems to me that I could not do better than advertise my services as a physician. I dare say you have heard reports that I attended Mrs. Hollyshoes.”
“Who is Mrs. Hollyshoes?” asked Mrs. Edmond.
“The wife of the gentleman who owns Allhope House.”
“I do not understand you, Mr. Simonelli. There is no Allhope House here.”
“Whom do you mean, Mr. Simonelli?” asked the eldest Miss Gathercole.
I was vexed at their extraordinary ignorance but, with great patience, I gave them an account of my meeting with John Hollyshoes and my visit to Allhope House. But the more particulars I gave, the more obstinately they declared that no such person and no such house existed.
“Perhaps I have mistaken the name,” I said — though I knew that I had not.
“Oh! You have certainly done that, Mr. Simonelli!” said Mrs. Gathercole.
“Perhaps it is Mr. Shaw he means,” said the eldest Miss Gathercole, doubtfully.
“Or John Wheston,” said Miss Marianne.
They began to discuss whom I might mean, but one by one every candidate was rejected. This one was too old, that one too young. Every gentleman for miles around was pronounced entirely incapable of fathering a child, and each suggestion only provided further dismal proofs of the general decay of the male sex in this particular part of Derbyshire.
I have discovered why Mrs. Gathercole was so anxious to have a rich, married clergyman. She fears that a poor, unmarried one would soon discovery that the quickest way to improve his fortune is to marry one of the Miss Gathercoles. Robert Yorke (the clergyman whom Mrs. Gathercole mentioned on my first evening in Allhope as having £600 a year) was refused the living because he had already shown signs of being in love with the eldest Miss Gathercole. It must therefore be particularly galling to Mrs. Gathercole that I am such a favourite with all her daughters. Each has something she is dying to learn, and naturally I am to tutor all of them: French conversation for the eldest Miss Gathercole, advanced Italian grammar for Miss Marianne, the romantic parts of British History for Henrietta, the bloodthirsty parts for Kitty, Mathematics and Poetry for Jane.