The Way of All Flesh Part 9

This operation was carried on upon the ground in front of the cottage door, and while we were in the midst of it the cottager's little boy, a lad much about Ernest's age, trod upon one of the eggs that was wrapped up in paper and broke it.

"There now, Jack," said his mother, "see what you've done, you've broken a nice egg and cost me a penny--Here, Emma," she added, calling her daughter, "take the child away, there's a dear."

Emma came at once, and walked off with the youngster, taking him out of harm's way.

"Papa," said Ernest, after we had left the house, "Why didn't Mrs Heaton whip Jack when he trod on the egg?"

I was spiteful enough to give Theobald a grim smile which said as plainly as words could have done that I thought Ernest had hit him rather hard.

Theobald coloured and looked angry. "I dare say," he said quickly, "that his mother will whip him now that we are gone."

I was not going to have this and said I did not believe it, and so the matter dropped, but Theobald did not forget it and my visits to Battersby were henceforth less frequent.

On our return to the house we found the postman had arrived and had brought a letter appointing Theobald to a rural deanery which had lately fallen vacant by the death of one of the neighbouring clergy who had held the office for many years. The bishop wrote to Theobald most warmly, and a.s.sured him that he valued him as among the most hard-working and devoted of his parochial clergy. Christina of course was delighted, and gave me to understand that it was only an instalment of the much higher dignities which were in store for Theobald when his merits were more widely known.

I did not then foresee how closely my G.o.dson's life and mine were in after years to be bound up together; if I had, I should doubtless have looked upon him with different eyes and noted much to which I paid no attention at the time. As it was, I was glad to get away from him, for I could do nothing for him, or chose to say that I could not, and the sight of so much suffering was painful to me. A man should not only have his own way as far as possible, but he should only consort with things that are getting their own way so far that they are at any rate comfortable.

Unless for short times under exceptional circ.u.mstances, he should not even see things that have been stunted or starved, much less should he eat meat that has been vexed by having been over-driven or underfed, or afflicted with any disease; nor should he touch vegetables that have not been well grown. For all these things cross a man; whatever a man comes in contact with in any way forms a cross with him which will leave him better or worse, and the better things he is crossed with the more likely he is to live long and happily. All things must be crossed a little or they would cease to live--but holy things, such for example as Giovanni Bellini's saints, have been crossed with nothing but what is good of its kind,

CHAPTER XXIV

The storm which I have described in the previous chapter was a sample of those that occurred daily for many years. No matter how clear the sky, it was always liable to cloud over now in one quarter now in another, and the thunder and lightning were upon the young people before they knew where they were.

"And then, you know," said Ernest to me, when I asked him not long since to give me more of his childish reminiscences for the benefit of my story, "we used to learn Mrs Barbauld's hymns; they were in prose, and there was one about the lion which began, 'Come, and I will show you what is strong. The lion is strong; when he raiseth himself from his lair, when he shaketh his mane, when the voice of his roaring is heard the cattle of the field fly, and the beasts of the desert hide themselves, for he is very terrible.' I used to say this to Joey and Charlotte about my father himself when I got a little older, but they were always didactic, and said it was naughty of me.

"One great reason why clergymen's households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home or close about the house. The doctor is out visiting patients half his time: the lawyer and the merchant have offices away from home, but the clergyman has no official place of business which shall ensure his being away from home for many hours together at stated times. Our great days were when my father went for a day's shopping to Gildenham. We were some miles from this place, and commissions used to acc.u.mulate on my father's list till he would make a day of it and go and do the lot. As soon as his back was turned the air felt lighter; as soon as the hall door opened to let him in again, the law with its all-reaching 'touch not, taste not, handle not' was upon us again. The worst of it was that I could never trust Joey and Charlotte; they would go a good way with me and then turn back, or even the whole way and then their consciences would compel them to tell papa and mamma. They liked running with the hare up to a certain point, but their instinct was towards the hounds.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that the family is a survival of the principle which is more logically embodied in the compound animal--and the compound animal is a form of life which has been found incompatible with high development. I would do with the family among mankind what nature has done with the compound animal, and confine it to the lower and less progressive races. Certainly there is no inherent love for the family system on the part of nature herself. Poll the forms of life and you will find it in a ridiculously small minority. The fishes know it not, and they get along quite nicely. The ants and the bees, who far outnumber man, sting their fathers to death as a matter of course, and are given to the atrocious mutilation of nine-tenths of the offspring committed to their charge, yet where shall we find communities more universally respected? Take the cuckoo again--is there any bird which we like better?"

I saw he was running off from his own reminiscences and tried to bring him back to them, but it was no use.

"What a fool," he said, "a man is to remember anything that happened more than a week ago unless it was pleasant, or unless he wants to make some use of it.

"Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime. A man at five and thirty should no more regret not having had a happier childhood than he should regret not having been born a prince of the blood. He might be happier if he had been more fortunate in childhood, but, for aught he knows, if he had, something else might have happened which might have killed him long ago. If I had to be born again I would be born at Battersby of the same father and mother as before, and I would not alter anything that has ever happened to me."

The most amusing incident that I can remember about his childhood was that when he was about seven years old he told me he was going to have a natural child. I asked him his reasons for thinking this, and he explained that papa and mamma had always told him that n.o.body had children till they were married, and as long as he had believed this of course he had had no idea of having a child, till he was grown up; but not long since he had been reading Mrs Markham's history of England and had come upon the words "John of Gaunt had several natural children" he had therefore asked his governess what a natural child was--were not all children natural?

"Oh, my dear," said she, "a natural child is a child a person has before he is married." On this it seemed to follow logically that if John of Gaunt had had children before he was married, he, Ernest Pontifex, might have them also, and he would be obliged to me if I would tell him what he had better do under the circ.u.mstances.

I enquired how long ago he had made this discovery. He said about a fortnight, and he did not know where to look for the child, for it might come at any moment. "You know," he said, "babies come so suddenly; one goes to bed one night and next morning there is a baby. Why, it might die of cold if we are not on the look-out for it. I hope it will be a boy."

"And you have told your governess about this?"

"Yes, but she puts me off and does not help me: she says it will not come for many years, and she hopes not then."

"Are you quite sure that you have not made any mistake in all this?"

"Oh, no; because Mrs Burne, you know, called here a few days ago, and I was sent for to be looked at. And mamma held me out at arm's length and said, 'Is he Mr Pontifex's child, Mrs Burne, or is he mine?' Of course, she couldn't have said this if papa had not had some of the children himself. I did think the gentleman had all the boys and the lady all the girls; but it can't be like this, or else mamma would not have asked Mrs Burne to guess; but then Mrs Burne said, 'Oh, he's Mr Pontifex's child _of course_,' and I didn't quite know what she meant by saying 'of course': it seemed as though I was right in thinking that the husband has all the boys and the wife all the girls; I wish you would explain to me all about it."

This I could hardly do, so I changed the conversation, after rea.s.suring him as best I could.

CHAPTER XXV

Three or four years after the birth of her daughter, Christina had had one more child. She had never been strong since she married, and had a presentiment that she should not survive this last confinement. She accordingly wrote the following letter, which was to be given, as she endorsed upon it, to her sons when Ernest was sixteen years old. It reached him on his mother's death many years later, for it was the baby who died now, and not Christina. It was found among papers which she had repeatedly and carefully arranged, with the seal already broken. This, I am afraid, shows that Christina had read it and thought it too creditable to be destroyed when the occasion that had called it forth had gone by.

It is as follows--

"BATTERSBY, March 15th, 1841.

"My Two Dear Boys,--When this is put into your hands will you try to bring to mind the mother whom you lost in your childhood, and whom, I fear, you will almost have forgotten? You, Ernest, will remember her best, for you are past five years old, and the many, many times that she has taught you your prayers and hymns and sums and told you stories, and our happy Sunday evenings will not quite have pa.s.sed from your mind, and you, Joey, though only four, will perhaps recollect some of these things. My dear, dear boys, for the sake of that mother who loved you very dearly--and for the sake of your own happiness for ever and ever--attend to and try to remember, and from time to time read over again the last words she can ever speak to you. When I think about leaving you all, two things press heavily upon me: one, your father's sorrow (for you, my darlings, after missing me a little while, will soon forget your loss), the other, the everlasting welfare of my children. I know how long and deep the former will be, and I know that he will look to his children to be almost his only earthly comfort. You know (for I am certain that it will have been so), how he has devoted his life to you and taught you and laboured to lead you to all that is right and good. Oh, then, be sure that you _are_ his comforts. Let him find you obedient, affectionate and attentive to his wishes, upright, self-denying and diligent; let him never blush for or grieve over the sins and follies of those who owe him such a debt of grat.i.tude, and whose first duty it is to study his happiness.

You have both of you a name which must not be disgraced, a father and a grandfather of whom to show yourselves worthy; your respectability and well-doing in life rest mainly with yourselves, but far, far beyond earthly respectability and well-doing, and compared with which they are as nothing, your eternal happiness rests with yourselves. You know your duty, but snares and temptations from without beset you, and the nearer you approach to manhood the more strongly will you feel this. With G.o.d's help, with G.o.d's word, and with humble hearts you will stand in spite of everything, but should you leave off seeking in earnest for the first, and applying to the second, should you learn to trust in yourselves, or to the advice and example of too many around you, you will, you must fall. Oh, 'let G.o.d be true and every man a liar.' He says you cannot serve Him and Mammon. He says that strait is the gate that leads to eternal life. Many there are who seek to widen it; they will tell you that such and such self-indulgences are but venial offences--that this and that worldly compliance is excusable and even necessary. The thing _cannot be_; for in a hundred and a hundred places He tells you so--look to your Bibles and seek there whether such counsel is true--and if not, oh, 'halt not between two opinions,' if G.o.d is the Lord follow Him; only be strong and of a good courage, and He will never leave you nor forsake you. Remember, there is not in the Bible one law for the rich, and one for the poor--one for the educated and one for the ignorant. To _all_ there is but one thing needful. _All_ are to be living to G.o.d and their fellow-creatures, and not to themselves. _All_ must seek first the Kingdom of G.o.d and His righteousness--must _deny themselves_, be pure and chaste and charitable in the fullest and widest sense--all, 'forgetting those things that are behind,' must 'press forward towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of G.o.d.'

"And now I will add but two things more. Be true through life to each other, love as only brothers should do, strengthen, warn, encourage one another, and let who will be against you, let each feel that in his brother he has a firm and faithful friend who will be so to the end; and, oh! be kind and watchful over your dear sister; without mother or sisters she will doubly need her brothers' love and tenderness and confidence. I am certain she will seek them, and will love you and try to make you happy; be sure then that you do not fail her, and remember, that were she to lose her father and remain unmarried, she would doubly need protectors. To you, then, I especially commend her. Oh! my three darling children, be true to each other, your Father, and your G.o.d. May He guide and bless you, and grant that in a better and happier world I and mine may meet again.--Your most affectionate mother,

CHRISTINA PONTIFEX."

From enquiries I have made, I have satisfied myself that most mothers write letters like this shortly before their confinements, and that fifty per cent. keep them afterwards, as Christina did.

CHAPTER XXVI

The foregoing letter shows how much greater was Christina's anxiety for the eternal than for the temporal welfare of her sons. One would have thought she had sowed enough of such religious wild oats by this time, but she had plenty still to sow. To me it seems that those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not, and that thus in the event of a Resurrection and Day of Judgement, they will be the most likely to be deemed worthy of a heavenly mansion.

Perhaps a dim unconscious perception of this was the reason why Christina was so anxious for Theobald's earthly happiness, or was it merely due to a conviction that his eternal welfare was so much a matter of course, that it only remained to secure his earthly happiness? He was to "find his sons obedient, affectionate, attentive to his wishes, self-denying and diligent," a goodly string forsooth of all the virtues most convenient to parents; he was never to have to blush for the follies of those "who owed him such a debt of grat.i.tude," and "whose first duty it was to study his happiness." How like maternal solicitude is this!

Solicitude for the most part lest the offspring should come to have wishes and feelings of its own, which may occasion many difficulties, fancied or real. It is this that is at the bottom of the whole mischief; but whether this last proposition is granted or no, at any rate we observe that Christina had a sufficiently keen appreciation of the duties of children towards their parents, and felt the task of fulfilling them adequately to be so difficult that she was very doubtful how far Ernest and Joey would succeed in mastering it. It is plain in fact that her supposed parting glance upon them was one of suspicion. But there was no suspicion of Theobald; that he should have devoted his life to his children--why this was such a mere plat.i.tude, as almost to go without saying.

How, let me ask, was it possible that a child only a little past five years old, trained in such an atmosphere of prayers and hymns and sums and happy Sunday evenings--to say nothing of daily repeated beatings over the said prayers and hymns, etc., about which our auth.o.r.ess is silent--how was it possible that a lad so trained should grow up in any healthy or vigorous development, even though in her own way his mother was undoubtedly very fond of him, and sometimes told him stories? Can the eye of any reader fail to detect the coming wrath of G.o.d as about to descend upon the head of him who should be nurtured under the shadow of such a letter as the foregoing?

I have often thought that the Church of Rome does wisely in not allowing her priests to marry. Certainly it is a matter of common observation in England that the sons of clergymen are frequently unsatisfactory. The explanation is very simple, but is so often lost sight of that I may perhaps be pardoned for giving it here.

The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things must not be done in him which are venial in the week-day cla.s.ses. He is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other people. It is his _raison d'etre_. If his paris.h.i.+oners feel that he does this, they approve of him, for they look upon him as their own contribution towards what they deem a holy life. This is why the clergyman is so often called a vicar--he being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge. But his home is his castle as much as that of any other Englishman, and with him, as with others, unnatural tension in public is followed by exhaustion when tension is no longer necessary. His children are the most defenceless things he can reach, and it is on them in nine cases out of ten that he will relieve his mind.

A clergyman, again, can hardly ever allow himself to look facts fairly in the face. It is his profession to support one side; it is impossible, therefore, for him to make an unbia.s.sed examination of the other.

We forget that every clergyman with a living or curacy, is as much a paid advocate as the barrister who is trying to persuade a jury to acquit a prisoner. We should listen to him with the same suspense of judgment, the same full consideration of the arguments of the opposing counsel, as a judge does when he is trying a case. Unless we know these, and can state them in a way that our opponents would admit to be a fair representation of their views, we have no right to claim that we have formed an opinion at all. The misfortune is that by the law of the land one side only can be heard.

Theobald and Christina were no exceptions to the general rule. When they came to Battersby they had every desire to fulfil the duties of their position, and to devote themselves to the honour and glory of G.o.d. But it was Theobald's duty to see the honour and glory of G.o.d through the eyes of a Church which had lived three hundred years without finding reason to change a single one of its opinions.

I should doubt whether he ever got as far as doubting the wisdom of his Church upon any single matter. His scent for possible mischief was tolerably keen; so was Christina's, and it is likely that if either of them detected in him or herself the first faint symptoms of a want of faith they were nipped no less peremptorily in the bud, than signs of self-will in Ernest were--and I should imagine more successfully. Yet Theobald considered himself, and was generally considered to be, and indeed perhaps was, an exceptionally truthful person; indeed he was generally looked upon as an embodiment of all those virtues which make the poor respectable and the rich respected. In the course of time he and his wife became persuaded even to unconsciousness, that no one could even dwell under their roof without deep cause for thankfulness. Their children, their servants, their paris.h.i.+oners must be fortunate _ipso facto_ that they were theirs. There was no road to happiness here or hereafter, but the road that they had themselves travelled, no good people who did not think as they did upon every subject, and no reasonable person who had wants the gratification of which would be inconvenient to them--Theobald and Christina.