under the gloom of seven tall chestnut-trees stood the village school. it was an antique building covered with roses and bounded towards the church by an old-fashioned garden, where the massed scarlet of an array of oriental poppies contrasted with the white roses on the walls. it was evening, and the western sun glittered on the casements through the shimmering foliage of the trees. children were playing over the graves in the church-yard, youth mocking at death. by the lych-gate stood a village abraham cogitating over his evening pipe.
in the “club-room” of the school-house mrs. mince, in a magenta blouse and a dark-blue skirt, was flicking the dust from the library shelves with a red-and-white duster. around her shone scriptural oleographs, texts, and a goodly horde of irreproachable books. over the fireplace hung a scroll depicting faith, hope, and charity footing it cheerily over emerald grass. some sylvan humorist had dowered charity with a pair of spectacles and a very obvious mustache.
mrs. mince was in the act of returning hints on heaven to its niche upon a shelf when the eldest miss snodley appeared before her, a celestial vision, bearing work-bag and bible. miss zinia snodley was an excessively thin little lady with prominent teeth, pince-nez, and a high forehead. her hair was dragged back tyrannically and fastened in a diminutive and irritable bob at the back of her head. she had a habit of tilting her sparrow’s beak of a nose in the air and of chirping volubly with a species of declamatory splutter.
she thrust out a thin hand, its fingers primly extended and pressed into line, and beamed excitably in the vicaress’s big and pallid face.
“such news, my dear! i am quite out of breath hurrying here to tell you all about it before the others came. such news!”
mrs. mince sat down with some deliberation; she knew the length of miss snodley’s despatches.
“quite romantic,” spluttered miss zinia. “he proposed to her in the gabingly rose-garden, you know. i heard all about it—”
“about what?” interjected the vicaress.
“young strong’s engagement, my dear.”
mrs. mince held up her duster.
“not to that woman!”
“there, i knew you would be amazed. they tell me ophelia fainted; frightful affectation in a great, strapping girl like that; but then, my dear, those big creatures are always so emotional. i told my cousin herbert years ago that i would never marry, and the poor fellow got engaged to a dissenter two months afterwards out of pique. men are so inferior in these days. and those gusset girls are shocking; they remind me of the pictures of that awful man rossetti. you should have known my grandfather; he was such a gentleman, and could quote latin like a native.”
mrs. mince adjusted the patent ventilator in the roof and remarked that the room seemed “stuffy.”
“of course i had foreseen the thing for weeks,” she said, with emphasis, not desirous of appearing too markedly impressed. “i expected the affair every day. mr. mince is very intimate with dear lord gerald.”
mrs. marjoy’s spectacles glittered in the doorway. the pair pounced upon her, both speaking at once, as though eager to claim precedence in the sensation. at the conclusion thereof mrs. marjoy displayed the deficiencies in her dental array.
“a mere matter of decency,” she observed, with superlative sagacity. “the gusset girl had to avoid a scandal. these society women are impossible. ask my husband; he’s a man of the world.”
it was the evening of “the guild” meeting, and the room was soon surcharged with the matrons of saltire. their work-bags, pamphlets, and gloves littered the deal table with its green baize cover. unfortunately these ladies were not unique, in that they were moved to be charitable to other women’s reputations only by active moral endeavor. spontaneously invidious, they only transcended their natural impulse towards mendacity by the power of spiritual pride. venus ruled the room that evening. many minutes passed before mrs. mince could reclaim her sisters from worldly discussion and direct their energies to the prescribed philanthropies of the hour.
after the concluding prayer the members of the saltire christian guild again reverted with ardor to matrimonial topics. mrs. jumble, saltire’s intellectual luminary, discussed the problem with certain of her more youthful disciples. mrs. jumble possessed a liking for epigrams; she revered the johnsonian spirit, and had embraced the dignity of a judge summing up evidence. moreover, her roman nose lent color to the latter illusion.
“marriage, miss ginge,” she said, addressing that simpering young lady—“marriage is a most serious and imposing circumstance, the mingling of two individualities in the alembic of love. to be frank, i consider paul something of a pedant. he was a fanatic who did not comprehend the full significance of woman in religious evolution. now, dear john would have made an admirable husband, so cultured, so reposeful, so victorian. never marry a fanatic, my dear, even though he be insane on the subject of potato-growing. fanatics are unpleasant persons to live with. as for the present example, after a thorough sifting of individual eccentricities i should expect this alliance to lead to prodigious domestic problems. the begetting of an unwieldy family is the fundamental error of matrimony. mr. strong is a poet, i believe. tin trumpets and sonneteering do not harmonize kindly. poets and artists are generally undisciplined beings. i could quote you a certain remark of giotto’s; but you are over young, miss ginge, to listen to realisms. candidly, i foresee a fiasco in the approaching marriage.”
there was one woman in saltire who aspired to a higher philosophy than that of a monthly nurse. to judith strong nothing was more repugnant than the subjection of a brother’s character to the tyranny of trivial tongues. for the prevalent physical estimate of marriage she had a superlative loathing, nor did she love the rustic oracles and their lore.
judith strong was one of those rare women blessed with superb instincts, instincts angel-winged towards heaven. her spiritual rosary was strung with no sordid stones. her aspirations were of the highest, her ideals begotten of the blood of christ. she had that power peculiar to women who are great of soul, the power of seeing beyond the curtain of the present and of gazing prophetic into eternal truth. men might deceive her; women never.
now ophelia gusset was a physical being, a mere houri; a rampant, worldly, yet lovely egotist. she believed in a life of sensations. while fanatics struggled on cloud-solemn sinai to take the tablets from the eternal hands, this fair and complacent pagan garlanded the golden calf, and stared into the mirror of pleasure to satiate her soul. nor was it a matter for amazement that judith strong thought of her future sister with forebodings and repugnance.
there are men whose destinies are balanced upon a woman’s influence; gabriel strong was such a man. his sister knew that he was too sensitive to the sensuous waves of life, too easily intoxicated by poetic exaltation of the senses. like many imaginative men, his fancies, wine-radiant bacchanals, overleaped his reason. wisdom walked not at his right hand, but pursued him afar off. a unique woman’s love, or a jesuitical discipline, were the two powers either of which could have steeled his manhood. he needed some ineffably tender and all-wise beatrice to absorb his soul. as it was, he was to partner a crude cressida in the perilous path of spiritual evolution. when the mob applauded and gabbled of gold and honor, judith lifted the curtain covering the hot egotism of this woman’s soul, and found no saving balm there, but a scourge.
as for john strong, his paternal satisfaction had waxed ecstatic over the fulfilment of his prophecies. he beamed on all creation, even as a man who had received a baronetcy, a seat in parliament, or some titanic legacy. so beneficent and seraphic was his humor that mr. mince seized the auspicious season, and ventured to persuade him to reseat saltire church and to retile the floor of the chancel.
various preliminaries had been amicably settled. lord gerald gusset was a cheery, mellow, and casual being. he was nothing of a prig with regard to his own nativity, and would welcome any man as a retainer, provided he possessed money, passable manners, and a good tailor. the saltire alliance was no mere sentimental affair. john strong had disbursed generously to his son’s profit; had engaged to buy the friary, an old manor-house in the neighborhood, and to allow gabriel five thousand a year. there was to be no legal settlement in the affair. lord gerald and john strong gossiped amicably over their port, and discussed details with a gentlemanly levity that suited the consideration of such sordid trifles. john strong was eager to promise; the lord not unwilling to receive. legalities were shouldered into dusty oblivion. john strong preferred a free hand, and was not above professing extreme generosity in order to obtain an unfettered monopoly of his son’s future. gabriel was still to be his son, paid and pampered out of the paternal pocket.
