The Farringdons Part 3

But, in the form of porcine pies, Blesses a world that heard his cries, Yet heeded not those dying groans.

"Cousin Maria, please may I go to tea at Mrs. Bateson's with Christopher?" said Elisabeth one day, opening the library door a little, and endeavouring to squeeze her small person through as narrow an aperture as possible, as is the custom with children. She never called her playmate "Chris" in speaking to Miss Farringdon; for this latter regarded it as actually sinful to address people by any abbreviation of their baptismal names, just as she considered it positively immoral to partake of any nourishment between meals. "Mrs. Bateson has killed her pig, and there will be pork-pies for tea."

Miss Farringdon looked over her spectacles at the restless little figure. "Yes, my child; I see no reason why you should not. Kezia Bateson is a G.o.d-fearing woman, and her husband has worked at the Osierfield for forty years. I have the greatest respect for Caleb Bateson; he is a worthy man and a good Methodist, as his father was before him."

"He is a very ignorant man: he says Penny-lope."

"Says what, Elisabeth?"

"Penny-lope. I was showing him a book the other day about Penelope--the woman with the web, you know--and he called her Penny-lope. I didn't like to correct him, but I said Penelope afterward as often and as loud as I could."

"That was very ill-bred of you. Come here, Elisabeth."

The child came and stood by the old lady's chair, and began playing with a bunch of seals that were suspended by a gold chain from Miss Farringdon's waist. It was one of Elisabeth's little tricks that her fingers were never idle when she was talking.

"What have I taught you are the two chief ends at which every woman should aim, my child?"

"To be first a Christian and then a gentlewoman," quoted Elisabeth glibly.

"And how does a true gentlewoman show her good breeding?"

"By never doing or saying anything that could make any one else feel uncomfortable," Elisabeth quoted again.

"Then do you think that to display your own knowledge by showing up another person's ignorance would make that person feel comfortable, Elisabeth?"

"No, Cousin Maria."

"Knowledge is not good breeding, remember; it is a far less important matter. A true gentlewoman may be ignorant; but a true gentlewoman will never be inconsiderate."

Elisabeth hung her head. "I see."

"If you keep your thoughts fixed upon the people to whom you are talking, and never upon yourself, you will always have good manners, my child. Endeavour to interest and not to impress them."

"You mean I must talk about their things and not about mine?"

"More than that. Make the most of any common ground between yourself and them; make the least of any difference between yourself and them; and, above all, keep strenuously out of sight any real or fancied superiority you may possess over them. I always think that Saint Paul's saying, 'To the weak became I as weak,' was the perfection of good manners."

"I don't think I quite understand."

Miss Farringdon spoke in parables. "Then listen to this story. There was once a common soldier who raised himself from the ranks and earned a commission. He was naturally very nervous the first night he dined at the officers' mess, as he had never dined with gentlemen before, and he was afraid of making some mistake. It happened that the wine was served while the soup was yet on the table, and with the wine the ice. The poor man did not know what the ice was for, so took a lump and put it in his soup."

Elisabeth laughed.

"The younger officers began to giggle, as you are doing," Miss Farringdon continued; "but the colonel, to whom the ice was handed next, took a lump and put it in his soup also; and then the young officers did not want to laugh any more. The colonel was a perfect gentleman."

"It seems to me," said Elisabeth thoughtfully, "that you've got to be good before you can be polite."

"Politeness appears to be what goodness really is," replied Miss Farringdon, "and is an att.i.tude rather than an action. Fine breeding is not the mere learning of any code of manners, any more than gracefulness is the mere learning of any kind of physical exercise. The gentleman apparently, as the Christian really, looks not on his own things, but on the things of others; and the selfish person is always both unchristian and ill-bred."

Elisabeth gazed wistfully up into Miss Farringdon's face. "I should like to be a real gentlewoman, Cousin Maria; do you think I ever shall be?"

"I think it quite possible, if you bear all these maxims in mind, and if you carry yourself properly and never stoop. I can not approve of the careless manners of the young people of to-day, who loll upon easy-chairs in the presence of their elders, and who slouch into a room with constrained familiarity and awkward ease," replied Miss Farringdon, who had never sat in an easy-chair in her life, and whose back was still as straight as an arrow.

So in the afternoon of that day Christopher and Elisabeth attended Mrs.

Bateson's tea-party.

The Batesons lived in a clean little cottage on the west side of High Street, and enjoyed a large garden to the rearward. It was a singular fact that whereas all their windows looked upon nothing more interesting than the smokier side of the bleak and narrow street, their pigsties commanded a view such as can rarely be surpa.s.sed for beauty and extent in England. But Mrs. Bateson called her front view "lively" and her back view "dull," and congratulated herself daily upon the aspect and the prospect of her dwelling-place. The good lady's ideas as to what const.i.tutes beauty in furniture were by no means behind her opinions as to what is effective in scenery. Her kitchen was paved with bright red tiles, which made one feel as if one were walking across a coral reef, and was flanked on one side with a black oak dresser of unnumbered years, covered with a brave array of blue-and-white pottery. An artist would have revelled in this kitchen, with its delicious effects in red and blue; but Mrs. Bateson accounted it as nothing. Her pride was centred in her parlour and its mural decorations, which consisted princ.i.p.ally of a large and varied a.s.sortment of funeral-cards, neatly framed and glazed. In addition to these there was a collection of family portraits in daguerreotype, including an interesting representation of Mrs. Bateson's parents sitting side by side in two straight-backed chairs, with their whole family twining round them--a sort of Swiss Family Laoc.o.o.n; and a picture of Mr. Bateson--in the att.i.tude of Juliet and the attire of a local preacher--leaning over a balcony, which was overgrown with a semi-tropical luxuriance of artificial ivy, and which was obviously too frail to support him. But the masterpiece in Mrs.

Bateson's art-gallery was a soul-stirring ill.u.s.tration of the death of the revered John Wesley. This picture was divided into two compartments: the first represented the room at Wesley's house in City Road, with the a.s.sembled survivors of the great man's family weeping round his bed; and the second depicted the departing saint flying across Bunhill Fields burying-ground in his wig and gown and bands, supported on either side by a stalwart angel.

As Elisabeth had surmised, the entertainment on this occasion was pork-pie; and Mrs. Hankey, a near neighbour, had also been bidden to share the feast. So the tea-party was a party of four, the respective husbands of the two ladies not yet having returned from their duties at the Osierfield.

"I hope that you'll all make yourselves welcome," said the hostess, after they had sat down at the festive board. "Master Christopher, my dear, will you kindly ask a blessing?"

Christopher asked a blessing as kindly as he could, and Mrs. Bateson continued:

"Well, to be sure, it is a pleasure to see you looking so tall and strong, Master Christopher, after all your schooling. I'm not in favour of much schooling myself, as I think it hinders young folks from growing, and puts them off their vittles; but you give the contradiction to that notion--doesn't he, Mrs. Hankey?"

Mrs. Hankey shook her head. It was her rule in life never to look on the bright side of things; she considered that to do so was what she called "tempting Providence." Her theory appeared to be that as long as Providence saw you were miserable, that Power was comfortable about you and let you alone; but if Providence discovered you could bear more sorrow than you were then bearing, you were at once supplied with that little more. Naturally, therefore, her object was to convince Providence that her cup of misery was full. But Mrs. Hankey had her innocent enjoyments, in spite of the sternness of her creed. If she took light things seriously, she took serious things lightly; so she was not without her compensations. For instance, a Sunday evening's discourse on future punishment and the like, with ill.u.s.trations, was an unfailing source of pure and healthful pleasure to her; while a funeral sermon--when the chapel was hung with black, and the bereaved family sat in state in their new mourning, and the choir sang Vital Spark as an anthem--filled her soul with joy. So when Mrs. Bateson commented with such unseemly cheerfulness upon Christopher's encouraging appearance, it was but consistent of Mrs. Hankey to shake her head.

"You can never tell," she replied--"never; often them that looks the best feels the worst; and many's the time I've seen folks look the very picture of health just before they was took with a mortal illness."

"Ay, that's so," agreed the hostess; "but I think Master Christopher's looks are the right sort; such a nice colour as he's got, too!"

"That comes from him being so fair complexioned--it's no sign of health," persisted Mrs. Hankey; "in fact, I mistrust those fair complexions, especially in lads of his age. Why, he ought to be as brown as a berry, instead of pink and white like a girl."

"It would look hideous to have a brown face with such yellow hair as mine," said Christopher, who naturally resented being compared to a girl.

"Master Christopher, don't call anything that the Lord has made hideous.

We must all be as He has formed us, however that may be," replied Mrs.

Hankey reprovingly; "and it is not our place to pa.s.s remarks upon what He has done for the best."

"But the Lord didn't make him with a brown face and yellow hair; that's just the point," interrupted Elisabeth, who regarded the bullying of Christopher as her own prerogative, and allowed no one else to indulge in that sport unpunished.

"No, my love; that's true enough," Mrs. Bateson said soothingly: "a truer word than that never was spoken. But I wish you could borrow some of Master Christopher's roses--I do, indeed. For my part, I like to see little girls with a bit of colour in their cheeks; it looks more cheerful-like, as you might say; and looks go a long way with some folks, though a meek and quiet spirit is better, taking it all round."

"Now Miss Elisabeth does look delicate, and no mistake," a.s.sented Mrs.

Hankey; "she grows too fast for her strength, I'll be bound; and her poor mother died young, you know, so it is in the family."

Christopher looked at Elisabeth with the quick sympathy of a sensitive nature. He thought it would frighten her to hear Mrs. Hankey talk in that way, and he felt that he hated Mrs. Hankey for frightening Elisabeth.

But Elisabeth was made after a different pattern, and was not in the least upset by Mrs. Hankey's gloomy forebodings. She was essentially dramatic; and, unconsciously, her first object was to attract notice.

She would have preferred to do this by means of unsurpa.s.sed beauty or unequalled talent; but, failing these aids to distinction, an early death-bed was an advertis.e.m.e.nt not to be despised. In her mind's eye she saw a touching account of her short life in Early Days, winding up with a heart-rending description of its premature close; and her mind's eye gloated over the sight.

The hostess gazed at her critically. "She is pale, Mrs. Hankey, there's no doubt of that; but pale folks are often the healthiest, though they mayn't be the handsomest. And she is wiry, is Miss Elisabeth, though she may be thin. But is your tea to your taste, or will you take a little more cream in it?"

"It is quite right, thank you, Mrs. Bateson; and the pork-pie is just beautiful. What a light hand for pastry you always have! I'm sure I've said over and over again that I don't know your equal either for making pastry or for engaging in prayer."

Mrs. Bateson, as was natural, looked pleased. "I doubt if I ever made a better batch of pies than this. When they were all ready for baking, Bateson says to me, 'Kezia,' he says, 'them pies is a regular picture--all so smooth and even-like, you can't tell which from t'other.' 'Bateson,' said I, 'I've done my best with them; and if only the Lord will be with them in the oven, they'll be the best batch of pies this side Jordan.'"