The Farringdons Part 4

"And so they are," said Elisabeth; "they are perfectly lovely."

"I'm glad you fancy them, my love; take some more, deary, it'll do you good."

"No, thanks; I'd rather have a wig now." And Elisabeth helped herself to one of the three-cornered cakes, called "wigs," which are peculiar to Mers.h.i.+re.

"You always are fortunate in your pigs," Mrs. Hankey remarked; "such fine hams and such beautiful roaded bacon I never see anywhere equal to yours. It'll be a sad day for you, Mrs. Bateson, when swine fever comes into the district. I know no one as'll feel it more."

"Now you must tell us all about your niece's wedding, Mrs. Hankey," Mrs.

Bateson said--"her that was married last week. My word alive, but your sister is wonderful fortunate in settling her daughters! That's what I call a well-brought-up family, and no mistake. Five daughters, and each one found peace and a pious husband before she was five-and-twenty."

"The one before last married a Churchman," said Mrs. Hankey apologetically, as if the union thus referred to were somewhat morganatic in its character, and therefore no subject for pride or congratulation.

"Well, to be sure! Still, he may make her a good husband."

"He may or he may not; you never can tell. It seems to me that husbands are like new boots--you can't tell where they're going to pinch you till it's too late to change 'em. And as for creaking, why, the boots that are quietest in the shop are just the ones that fairly disgrace you when you come into chapel late on a Sunday morning, and think to slip in quietly during the first prayer; and it is pretty much the same with husbands--those that are the meekest in the wooing are the most masterful to live with."

"What was the name of the Churchman your niece married?" asked Mrs.

Bateson. "I forget."

"Wilkins--Tom Wilkins. He isn't a bad fellow in some respects--he is steady and sober, and never keeps back a farthing of his wages for himself; but his views are something dreadful. I can not stand them at any price, and so I'm forever telling his wife."

"Dear me! That's sad news, Mrs. Hankey."

"Would you believe it, he don't hold with the good old Methodist habit of telling out loud what the Lord has done for your soul? He says religion should be acted up to and not talked about; but, for my part, I can't abide such closeness."

"Nor I," agreed Mrs. Bateson warmly; "I don't approve of treating the Lord like a poor relation, as some folks seem to do. They'll go to His house and they'll give Him their money; but they're fairly ashamed of mentioning His Name in decent company."

"Just so; and that's Tom Wilkins to the life. He's a good husband and a regular church-goer; but as for the word that edifieth, you might as well look for it from a naked savage as from him. Many a time have I said to his wife, 'Tom may be a kind husband in the time of prosperity, as I make no doubt he is--there's plenty of that sort in the world; but you wait till the days of adversity come, and I doubt that then you'll be wis.h.i.+ng you'd not been in such a hurry to get married, but had waited till you had got a good Methodist!' And so she will, I'll be bound; and the sooner she knows it the better."

Mrs. Bateson sighed at the gloomy prospect opening out before young Mrs.

Wilkins; then she asked:

"How did the last daughter's wedding go off? She married a Methodist, surely?"

"She did, Mrs. Bateson; and a better match no mother could wish for her daughter, not even a d.u.c.h.ess born; he's a chapel-steward and a master-painter, and has six men under him. There he is, driving to work and carrying his own ladders in his own cart, like a lord, as you may say, by day; and there he is on a Thursday evening, letting and reletting the pews and sittings after service, like a real gentleman. As I said to my sister, I only hope he may be spared to make Susan a good husband; but when a man is a chapel-steward at thirty-four, and drives his own cart, you begin to think that he is too good for this world, and that he is almost ripe for a better one."

"You do indeed; there's no denying that."

"But the wedding was beautiful: I never saw its equal--never; and as for the prayer that the minister offered up at the end of the service, I only wish you'd been there to hear it, Mrs. Bateson, it was so interesting and instructive. Such a lot of information in it about love and marriage and the like as I'd never heard before; and when he referred to the bridegroom's first wife, and drew a picture of how she'd be waiting to welcome them both, when the time came, on the further sh.o.r.e--upon my word, there wasn't a dry eye in the chapel!" And Mrs.

Hankey wiped hers at the mere remembrance of the scene.

"But what did Susan say?" asked Elisabeth, with great interest. "I expect she didn't want another wife to welcome them on the further sh.o.r.e."

"Oh! Miss Elisabeth, what a naughty, selfish little girl you are!"

exclaimed Susan's aunt, much shocked. "What would Miss Farringdon think if she heard you? Why, you don't suppose, surely, that when folks get to heaven they'll be so greedy and grasping that they'll want to keep everything to themselves, do you? My niece is a good girl and a member of society, and she was as pleased as anybody at the minister's beautiful prayer."

Elisabeth was silent, but unconvinced.

"How is your sister herself?" inquired Mrs. Bateson. "I expect she's a bit upset now that the fuss is all over, and she hasn't a daughter left to bless herself with."

Mrs. Hankey sighed cheerfully. "Well, she did seem rather low-spirited when all the mess was cleared up, and Susan had gone off to her own home; but I says to her, 'Never mind, Sarah, and don't you worry yourself; now that the weddings are over, the funerals will soon begin.'

You see, you must cheer folks up a bit, Mrs. Bateson, when they're feeling out of sorts."

"You must indeed," agreed the lady of the house, feeling that her guest had hit upon a happy vein of consolation; "it is dull without daughters when you've once got accustomed to 'em, daughters being a sight more comfortable and convenient than sons, to my mind."

"Well, you see, daughters you can teach to know theirselves, and sons; you can't. Though even daughters can never rest till they've got married, more's the pity. If they knowed as much about men as I do, they'd be thanking the Lord that He'd created them single, instead of forever fidgeting to change the state to which they were born."

"Well, I holds with folks getting married," argued Mrs. Bateson; "it gives 'em something to think about between Sunday's sermon and Thursday's baking; and if folks have nothing to think about, they think about mischief."

"That's true, especially if they happen to be men."

"Why do men think about mischief more than women do?" asked Elisabeth, who always felt hankerings after the why and wherefore of things.

"Because, my dear, the Lord made 'em so, and it is not for us to complain," replied Mrs. Hankey, in a tone which implied that, had the role of Creator been allotted to her, the idiosyncrasies of the male s.e.x would have been much less marked than they are at present. "They've no sense, men haven't; that's what is the matter with them."

"You never spoke a truer word, Mrs. Hankey," agreed her hostess; "the very best of them don't properly know the difference between their souls and their stomachs; and they fancy that they are a-wrestling with their doubts, when really it is their dinners that are a-wrestling with them.

Now take Bateson hisself, and a kinder husband or a better Methodist never drew breath; yet so sure as he touches a bit of pork, he begins to worn hisself about the doctrine of Election till there's no living with him."

"That's a man all over, to the very life," said Mrs. Hankey sympathetically; "and he never has the sense to see what's wrong with him, I'll be bound."

"Not he--he wouldn't be a man if he had. And then he'll sit in the front parlour and engage in prayer for hours at a time, till I says to him, 'Bateson,' says I, 'I'd be ashamed to go troubling the Lord with a prayer when a pinch o' carbonate o' soda would set things straight again.'"

"And quite right, Mrs. Bateson; it's often a wonder to me that the Lord has patience with men, seeing that their own wives haven't."

"And to me, too. Now Bateson has been going on like this for thirty years or more; yet if there's roast pork on the table, and I say a word to put him off it, he's that hurt as never was. Why, I'm only too glad to see him enjoying his food if no harm comes of it; but it's dreary work seeing your husband in the Slough of Despond, especially when it's your business to drag him out again, and most especially when you particularly warned him against going in."

Mrs. Hankey groaned. "The Bible says true when it tells us that men are born to give trouble as the sparks fly upward; and it is a funny Providence, to my mind, as ordains for women to be so bothered with 'em.

At my niece's wedding, as we were just speaking about, 'Susan,' I says, 'I wish you happiness; and I only hope you won't live to regret your marriage as I have done mine.' For my part, I can't see what girls want with husbands at all; they are far better without them."

"Not they, Mrs. Hankey," replied Mrs. Bateson warmly; "any sort of a husband is better than none, to my mind. Life is made up of naughts and crosses; and the folks that get the crosses are better off than those that get the naughts, though that husbands are crosses I can't pretend to deny; but I haven't patience with single women, I haven't--they have nothing to occupy their minds, and so they get to talking about their health and such-like fal-lals."

"Saint Paul didn't hold with you," said Mrs. Hankey, with reproach in her tone; "he thought that the unmarried women minded the things of the Lord better than the married ones."

"Saint Paul didn't know much about the subject, and how could he be expected to, being only a bachelor himself, poor soul? But if he'd had a wife, she'd soon have told him what the unmarried women were thinking about; and it wouldn't have been about the Lord, I'll be bound. Now take Jemima Stubbs; does she mind the things of the Lord more than you and I do, Mrs. Hankey, I should like to know?"

"I can't say; it is not for us to judge."

"Not she! Why, she's always worrying about that poor little brother of hers, what's lame. I often wish that the Lord would think on him and take him, for he's a sore burden on Jemima, he is. If you're a woman you are bound to work for some man or another, and to see to his food and to bear with his tantrums; and, for my part, I'd rather do it for a husband than for a father or a brother. There's more credit in it, as you might say."

"There's something in that, maybe."

"And after all, in spite of the botheration he gives, there's something very cheerful in having a man about the house. They keep you alive, do men. The last time I saw Jemima Stubbs she was as low as low could be.

'Jemima,' I says, 'you are out of spirits.' 'Mrs. Bateson,' says she, 'I am that. I wish I was either in love or in the cemetery, and I don't much mind which.'"

"Did she cry?" asked Elisabeth, who was always absorbingly interested in any one who was in trouble. With her, to pity was to love; and it was difficult for her ever to love where she did not pity. Christopher did not understand this, and was careful not to appeal to Elisabeth's sympathy for fear of depressing her. Herein, both as boy and man, he made a great mistake. It was not as easy to depress Elisabeth as it was to depress him; and, moreover, it was sometimes good for her to be depressed. But he did unto her as he would she should do unto him; and, when all is said and done, it is difficult to find a more satisfactory rule of conduct than this.

"Cry, lovey?" said Mrs. Bateson; "I should just think she did--fit to break her heart."