“That’ll do, Mrs. Fringe, that’ll do. You can leave those flowers a little longer.”
“I ought to let you know, sir, that old Jimmy Pringle has gone off wandering again. I saw Witch-Bessie at his door when I went to the shop this morning and she told me he was talking and talking, as badly as ever he did. Far gone, poor old sinner, Witch-Bessie said he was.”
“He is a religious minded man, I believe, at bottom,” said the clergyman.
“He be stark mad, sir, if that’s what you mean! As to the rest, they say his carryings on with that harlotry down in Yeoborough was a disgrace to a Christian country.”
“I know,” said Clavering, “I know, but we all have our temptations, Mrs. Fringe.”
“Temptations, sir?” and the sandy complexioned female snorted with contempt. “And is those as takes no drop of liquor, and looks at no man edgeways, though their own lawful partner be a stiff corpse of seven years’ burying, to be put in the same class with them as goes rampaging with harlotries?”
“He has repented, Mrs. Fringe, he has repented. He told me so himself when I met him last week.”
“Repented!” groaned the indignant woman; “he repents well who repents when he can’t sin no more. His talk, if you ask me, sir, is more scandalous than religious. Witch-Bessie told me she heard him say that he had seen the Lord Himself. I am not a learned scholar like you, sir, but I know this, that when the Lord does go about the earth he doesn’t visit hoary old villains like Jimmy Pringle — except to tell them they be damned.”
“Did he really say that?” asked the clergyman, feeling a growing interest in Mr. Pringle’s revelations.
“Yes, sir, he did, sir! Said he met God, — those were his very words, and indecent enough words I call them! — out along by Captain Whiffley’s drive-gate. You should have heard Witch-Bessie tell me. He frightened her, he did, the wicked old man! God, he said, came to him, as I might come to you, sir, quite ordinary and familiar-like.’ Jimmy,’ said God, all sudden, as if he were a person passing the time of day, ‘I have come to see you, Jimmy.’
‘“And who may you be, Mister?’ said the wicked old man, just as though the Lord above were a casual decent-dressed gentleman.
‘“I am God, Jimmy,’ said the Vision. ‘And I be come to tell ’ee how dearly I loves ’ee, spite of Satan and all his works.’ Witch-Bessie told me,” Mrs. Fringe continued, “how as the old man said things to her as she never thought to hear from human lips, so dreadful they were.”
“And what happened then?” asked Clavering eagerly.
“What happened then? Why God went away, he said, in a great cloud of roaring fire, and he was left alone, all dazed-like. Did you ever hear such a scimble-scamble story in your life, sir? And all by Captain Whiffley’s drive-gate!”
“Well, Mrs. Fringe,” said the clergyman, “I think we must postpone the rest of this interesting conversation till supper-time. I have several things I want to do.”
“I know you have, sir, I know you have. It isn’t easy to find out from all them books ways and means of keeping young ladies like Miss Gladys in the path of salvation. How does she get on, sir, if I might be so bold? I fear she don’t learn her catechism as quiet and patient as I used to learn mine, under old Mr. Ravelin, God forgive him!”
“Oh, I think Miss Romer is quite as good a pupil as you used to be, Mrs. Fringe,” said Clavering, rising and gently ushering her out of the door.
“She’s as good as some of these new-fangled village hussies, anyway,” retorted the irrepressible lady, turning on the threshold. “They tell me that Lucy Vare was off again last night with that rascally Tom Mooring. She’ll be in trouble, that young girl, before she wants to be.”
“I know, I know,” sighed the clergyman sadly, fumbling with the door handle.
“You don’t know all you ought to know, sir, if you’ll pardon my boldness,” returned the woman, making a step backwards.
“I know, because I saw them!” shouted Clavering, closing the door with irritable violence.
“Goodness me!” muttered Mrs. Fringe, returning to her kitchen, “if the poor young man knew what this parish was really like, he wouldn’t talk so freely about ‘seeing’ people!”
Left to himself, Clavering moved uneasily round his room, taking down first one book and then, another, and looking anxiously at his shelves as if seeking something from them more efficient than eloquent words.
“As soon as she comes,” he said to himself, “I shall take her across to the church.”
He had not long to wait. The door at the end of the garden-path clicked. Light-tripping steps followed, and Gladys Romer’s well-known figure made itself visible through the open window. He hastened out to meet her, hoping to forestall the hospitable Mrs. Fringe. In this, however, he was unsuccessful. His house-keeper was already in the porch, taking from the girl her parasol and gloves. How these little things, these chance-thrown little things, always intervene between our good resolutions and their accomplishment! He ought to have been ready in his garden, on the watch for her. Surely he had not intentionally remained in his room? No, it was the fault of Mrs. Fringe; of Mrs. Fringe and her stories about Jimmy Pringle and God. He wished that “a roaring cloud of fire” would rise between him and this voluptuous temptress. But probably, priest though he was, he lacked the faith of that ancient reprobate. He stood aside to let her enter. The words “I think it would be better if we went over to the church,” stuck, unuttered, to the roof of his mouth. She held out her white ungloved hand, and then, as soon as the door was closed, began very deliberately removing her hat.
He stood before her smiling, that rather inept smile, which indicates the complete paralysis of every faculty, except the faculty of admiration. He could hardly now suggest a move to the church. He could not trouble her to re-assume that charming hat. Besides, what reason could he give? He did, however, give a somewhat ambiguous reason for following out Vennie’s heroic plan on another — a different — occasion. In the tone we use when allaying the pricks of conscience by tacitly treating that sacred monitor as if its intelligence were of an inferior order: “One of these days,” he said, “we must have our lesson in the church. It would be so nice and cool there, wouldn’t it?”
There was a scent of burning weeds in the front-room of the old vicarage, when master and neophyte sat down together, at the round oak table, before the extended works of Pusey and Newman. Sombre were the bindings of these repositories of orthodoxy, but the pleasant afternoon sun streamed wantonly over them and illumined their gloom.
Gladys had seated herself so that the light fell caressingly upon her yellow hair and deepened into exquisite attractiveness the soft shadows of her throat and neck. Her arms were sleeveless; and as she leaned them against the table, their whiteness and roundness were enhanced by the warm glow.
The priest spoke in a low monotonous voice, explaining doctrines, elucidating mysteries, and emphasizing moral lessons. He spoke of baptism. He described the manner in which the Church had appropriated to her own purpose so many ancient pagan customs. He showed how the immemorial heathen usages of “immersion” and “ablution” had become, in her hands, wonderful and suggestive symbols of the purifying power of the nobler elements. He used words that he had come, by frequent repetition, to know by heart. In order that he might point out to her passages in his authors which lent themselves to the subject, he brought his chair round to her side.
The sound of her gentle breathing, and the terrible attraction of her whole figure, as she leant forward, in sweet girlish attention to what he was saying, maddened the poor priest.