The Pit Town Coronet Volume I Part 9

"'Pon my word," he said to Miss Hood, wearing this decoration as they took their habitual cup of tea together, "I really think that Stacey Dodd gets younger every day."

Miss Hood p.r.i.c.ked up her ears. Was the hale old gentleman going to make a fool of himself after all?

Old Mrs. Wurzel and the buxom Miss Grains sat in the little room at the vicarage, which was known to everybody as Mrs. Dodd's own room. The vicar's wife sat before a huge book, in front of her were little piles of copper money. She and her two visitors, and, of course, the vicar _ex-officio_, formed the committee of the village coal club. After much counting and recounting of the coppers, the total was p.r.o.nounced correct, and the real work for which the ladies had met was over. The window of the room commanded a view of the lovely old-fas.h.i.+oned garden, which had been the care and pride of many successive vicars of King's Warren. The close-shaven lawn had the inevitable sun dial in its centre.

The garden was not at its best, for the trees had not yet commenced to bud, but it was a fine clear day, and the trim little figure of the vicar's sister was seen briskly pacing up and down the well-kept walks.

"I don't think your sister-in-law seems to care so much for parish work as once she did, Mrs. Dodd," remarked the old lady to the vicar's wife.

"No, poor thing, I fear she has anxieties of her own just now, she seeks solitude a good deal."

"Is there any attachment, dear Mrs. Dodd?" said Mrs. Wurzel with interest.

"Oh, Mrs. Dodd, not an unrequited attachment?" burst forth the brewer's daughter. For that strapping young woman was romantic, and though the course of her own love ran smoothly enough, still she felt a sentimental interest in the woes of others, real or supposed. Her fat red cheeks would quiver with emotion, and be wet with briny tears, over the sorrows of Mr. Trollope's heroines. Fat people are always sentimental, though they may not seem so, and beneath Miss Grains' tightly-laced corset beat a sympathetic heart. "An unrequited attachment," she repeated, "is so very, very sad."

The vicar's wife answered her reprovingly, "You must not think, Miss Grains, that Mr. Dodd would allow his sister to form such a disgraceful thing as an unrequited attachment."

"Oh, but dear Mrs. Dodd, suppose she couldn't help it," said the artless maiden with a blush and a little sigh.

"No well-brought-up girl would allow herself to do so, my dear, she would have far too much self-respect."

The brewer's daughter blushed deeply, as she thought of the many heroes, real and imaginary, from Marmion down to the last curate but two, for each of whom she herself had felt an unrequited pa.s.sion, or a more than secret liking. But these hidden pa.s.sions were before young farmer Wurzel, in his blue tie and white hat, had proposed to her.

"Well, at all events, Miss Dodd is hardly a girl," she said defiantly.

"Miss Grains," retorted the vicar's wife, "every unmarried woman, even though not in the first bloom of youth, is a 'girl' till she marries.

Certainly Stacey Dodd is a 'girl'; and I have known cases, Miss Grains, in my experience, where flighty young ladies, though they may have been temporarily engaged, have remained 'girls' to the end of the chapter."

To this gruesome suggestion Miss Grains made no reply.

Old Mrs. Wurzel turned confidentially to the vicar's wife and said, "Is her engagement generally known?"

"Perhaps," replied the president of the coal club, "it would be premature to speak of it as an engagement, but it is talked of all over the village. I believe there has been an attachment for some years, the gentleman's attentions are very marked. In fact, I don't think I am betraying her confidence, when I say that the whole village seems to be aware of it. Of course, I mention no names. I should scorn to attempt to precipitate matters. It is a suitable match, I am happy to say, for both parties, but there is an obstacle, my dear; adverse interests are in the field. My sister-in-law is somewhat of a prude. I too was a prude, and I can understand her feelings."

Here Mrs. Wurzel peered at the vicaress with unfeigned surprise.

"It's not quite fair, you know, to Stacey," said Mrs. Dodd.

How was she to tell them, without mentioning his name, that the man who did not come to the point was the old squire himself, and yet she was anxious to do so?

At this moment the austere parlour maid entered the room. "Squire Warrender is in the drawing-room, madam," she announced. Never in her life had the vicar's wife been guilty of profanity till now, but the opportunity was too golden to be missed.

"Talk of the devil," she said. The four words spoke volumes. Her visitors took their leave, to spread the report over the village and parish of King's Warren.

Mrs. Dodd was a woman who, as we know, did her duty according to her lights. She was determined at all hazards to do her duty now, without flinching, to her sister-in-law, for she had already burnt her s.h.i.+ps, and she entered the drawing-room with the deliberate intention of bringing the old squire to the point.

The unsuspecting squire asked for the vicar, after shaking hands with the vicar's wife, and on being informed that his old friend was from home he innocently hoped that the vicar's sister was quite well.

"Ah," said Mrs. Dodd with a sigh, "we're a little concerned about Stacey."

"You should let Pestle see her," replied the sympathizing squire.

Now Dr. Pestle was the parish doctor, and he deservedly enjoyed the confidence of every soul in King's Warren.

"I fear, squire, hers is not a bodily affection," said Mrs. Dodd with a deep sigh.

"Good Gad! you don't mean to say her mind's giving way?" anxiously demanded the prosaic squire.

"Oh no, we fancy it's an affection of the heart."

"Impossible! at her age. Why she's fifty," emphatically a.s.serted the old gentleman.

"Not fifty, Mr. Warrender; Stacey Dodd is but forty-one."

"You don't say so. I should never have thought it."

The opening of the engagement had egregiously failed. At present the campaign seemed most unpromising. When a gentleman of mature years looks upon a lady as fifty, he can hardly be suspected of designs upon her virgin heart, or of a wish to destroy her peace of mind. Beaten in her attack on the outposts, Mrs. Dodd changed her strategy with that multiplicity of resource that always distinguishes the greatest generals--she determined at once to carry the war into the enemy's country.

"You must miss the girls very much, squire," she said as she took up a little painted hand-screen, to protect her complexion, on which she lavished much anxious care, from the fierce blaze of the fire. "Yes,"

she continued, "you must feel it very dull at The Warren now. Quite lonely, I fear."

"No," answered the squire cheerfully, "I have Miss Hood, you know, and we play bezique or backgammon of an evening."

"Ah," replied Mrs. Dodd severely, and horrible visions of those dangerous evenings flashed through the mind of the indignant woman. In her mind's eye she fancied the squire sitting at the backgammon board gazing at Miss Hood's shapely arm and hand, for though Miss Hood was the same age as her sister-in-law, she still had a very shapely arm and hand.

"Yes," said the squire, "and she reads me the girls' letters; they are a great consolation, for Georgie seems so thoroughly happy."

What more dangerous occupation for a hale old gentleman than to sit and listen by the hour to the written raptures of his daughter on the subject of married bliss, read to him by a lady of prepossessing appearance, by his own fireside, and after having partaken of at least three gla.s.ses of old port?

"I suppose," said the vicar's wife with a.s.sumed carelessness, "that Miss Hood will be leaving you soon?"

The squire's eye twinkled with suppressed merriment.

"Oh no," he said in a determined tone, "I couldn't afford to lose Miss Hood. For Lucy's sake," he added maliciously.

The lady fanned herself. There are limits to the endurance of long-suffering woman. Mrs. Dodd felt that she was being trampled on. The sensation was new to her, and unpleasant.

"You appear to cling to her, squire," she said.

"Naturally, naturally," answered the squire, "so do the girls. She has been more than a mother to them."

"Why not make her so in reality?" retorted the exasperated woman, losing her head. Here the fanning became more furious.

"The fact is, Mrs. Dodd," said the squire, "I have been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g myself up to that point for the last dozen years, but I am close on the age of the patriarchs, and I don't think she'd have me. If you are of a different opinion, Mrs. Dodd, I will reconsider the matter; of course it would be most appropriate. There's no fool like an old fool, I suppose."

Was the seemingly innocent squire referring to himself, or had this abominable old gentleman the temerity to allude to the wife of the vicar of King's Warren as "an old fool?" Who shall say?

"Do you seriously advise it?" went on her tormentor; "do you think I may dare to hope?"

But the vicar's wife answered him never a word.