"Well," said Mrs. Sweeting, twitching her eyes as she was wont to do when she was about to give an opinion which she knew would disturb any of her friends, "you may talk as you like, but the last thing Swanley made for me looked as if it had been to the wash and hung on me to dry.

French or English, captain or no captain, I shall go to Mrs. Fairfax.

Her character's got nothing to do with her cut. Suppose she IS divorced; judging from that body of yours, Mrs. Bingham, I shan't have to send back a pelisse half a dozen times to get it altered. When it comes to that you get sick of the thing, and may just as well give it away."

Mrs. Sweeting occupied the lowest rank in this particular section of Langborough society. As a grocer Mr. Sweeting was not quite on a level with the coal dealer, who was a merchant, nor with the ironmonger, who repaired ploughs, and he was certainly below Mr. Bingham. Miss Tarrant, never having been "connected with trade"--her father was chief clerk in the bank--considered herself superior to all her acquaintances, but her very small income prevented her from claiming her superiority so effectively as she desired.

"Mrs. Sweeting," she said, "I am surprised at you! You do not consider what the moral effect on the lower orders of patronising a female of this kind will be, probably an abandoned woman. The child, no doubt, was not born in wedlock. We are sinners ourselves if we support sinners."

"Miss Tarrant," retorted Mrs. Sweeting, "I'm the respectable mother of five children, and I don't want any sermons on sin except in church. If it wasn't a sin of Swanley to charge me three guineas for that pelisse, and wouldn't take it back, I don't know what sin."

Mrs. Bingham, although she was accustomed to tea-table disputes, and even enjoyed them, was a little afraid of Mrs. Sweeting's tongue, and thought it politic to interfere.

"I agree with you entirely, Mrs. Sweeting, about the inferiority of Mrs.

Swanley to this newcomer, but we must consider Miss Tarrant's position in the parish and her responsibilities. She is no doubt right from her point of view."

So the conversation ended, but Mrs. Fairfax's biography, which was to be published under authority in Langborough, was now rounded off and complete. She was a Parisian, father and mother unknown, was found in Paris in 1815 by Captain Fairfax, who, by her intrigues and threats of exposure, was forced into a marriage with her. A few years afterwards he had grounds for a divorce, but not wishing a scandal, consented to a compromise and voluntary separation. He left one child in her custody, as it showed signs of resemblance to its mother, to whom he gave a small monthly allowance. She had been apprenticed as a dressmaker in Paris, had returned thither in order to master her trade, and then came back to England. In a very little time, so clever was she that she learned to speak English fluently, although, as Mrs. Bingham at once noticed, the French accent was very perceptible. It was a good, intelligible, working theory, and that was all that was wanted. This was Mrs. Fairfax so far as her female neighbours were concerned. To the men in Langborough she was what she was to the women, but with a difference.

When she went to Mr. Sweeting's shop to order her groceries, Mr.

Sweeting, notwithstanding the canonical legend of her life, served her himself, and was much entangled by her dark hair, and was drawn down by it into a most polite bow. Mr. Cobb, who had a little cabin of an office in his coal-yard, hastened back to it from superintending the discharge of a lighter, when Mrs. Fairfax called to pay her little bill, actually took off his hat, begged her to be seated, and hoped she did not find the last lot of coals dusty. He was now unloading some of the best Wallsend that ever came up the river, and would take care that the next half ton should not have an ounce of small in it.

"You'll find it chilly where you are living, ma'am, but it isn't damp, that's one comfort. The bottom of your street is damp, and down here in a flood anything like what we had fourteen years ago, we are nearly drowned. If you'll step outside with me I'll show you how high the water rose." He opened the door, and Mrs. Fairfax thought it courteous not to refuse. He walked to the back of his cabin bareheaded, although the morning was cold, and pointed out to her the white paint mark on the wall. She, dropped her receipted bill in the black mud and stooped to pick it up. Mr. Cobb plunged after it and wiped it carefully on his silk pocket-handkerchief. Mrs. Cobb's bay window commanded the whole length of the coal-yard. In this bay window she always sat and worked and nodded to the customers, or gossiped with them as they pa.s.sed. She turned her back on Mrs. Fairfax both when she entered the yard and when she left it, but watched her carefully. Mr. Cobb came into dinner, but his wife bided her time, knowing that, as he took snuff, the handkerchief would be used. It was very provoking, he was absent- minded, and forgot his usual pinch before he sat down to his meal. For three-quarters of an hour his wife was afflicted with painfully uneasy impatience, and found it very difficult to reply to Mr. Cobb's occasional remarks. At last the cheese was finished, the snuff-box appeared, and after it the handkerchief.

"A pretty mess that handkerchief is in, Cobb." She always called him simply "Cobb."

"Yes, it was an a-a-accident. I must have a clean one. I didn't think it was so dirty."

"The washing of your snuffy handkerchiefs costs quite enough as it is, Cobb, without using them in that way."

"What way?" said Mr. Cobb weakly.

"Oh, I saw it all, going out without your hat and standing there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper. I wonder what the lightermen thought of you."

It will already have been noticed that the question what other people thought was always the test which was put in Langborough whenever anything was done or anything happened not in accordance with the usual routine, and Mrs. Cobb struck at her husband's conscience by referring him to his lightermen. She continued -

"And you know what she is as well as I do, and if she'd been respectable you'd have been rude to her, as you generally are."

"You bought that last new gown of her, and you never had one as fitted you so well."

"What's that got to do with it? You may be sure I knew my place when I went there. Fit? Yes, it did fit; them sort of women, it stands to reason, are just the women to fit you."

Mr. Cobb was silent. He was a mild man, and he knew by much experience how unprofitable controversy with Mrs. Cobb was. He could not forget Mrs. Fairfax's stooping figure when she was about to pick up the bill.

She caused in all the Langborough males an unaccustomed quivering and warmth, the same in each, physical, perhaps, but salutary, for the monotony of life was relieved thereby and a deference and even a grace were begotten which did not usually distinguish Langborough manners.

Not one of Mrs. Fairfax's admirers, however, could say that she showed any desire for conversation with him, nor could any direct evidence be obtained as to what she thought of things in general. There was, to be sure, the French book, and there were other circ.u.mstances already mentioned from which suspicion or certainty (suspicion, as we have seen, pa.s.sing immediately into certainty in Langborough) of infidelity or disreputable conduct followed, but no corroborating word from her could be adduced. She attended to her business, accepted orders with thanks and smiles, talked about the weather and the accident to the coach, was punctual in her attendance at church, calm and inscrutable as the Sphinx. The attendance at church was, of course, set down to "business considerations," and was held to be quite consistent with the scepticism and loose morality deducible from the French book and the unground coffee.

In speaking of the male creatures of the town we have left out Dr.

Midleton. He was forty-eight years old, and had been rector twenty years. He had obtained high mathematical honours at Cambridge, and became a tutor in a grammar school, but was soon presented by his college with the living of Langborough. He was tall, spare, clean- shaven, grey-eyed, dark-haired, thin-faced, his lips were curved and compressed, and he stooped slightly. He was a widower with no children, and the Rectory was efficiently kept in order by an aged housekeeper.

Tractarianism had not arisen in 1839, but he was High Church and an enemy to all kinds of fanaticism, apt to be satirical, even in his sermons, on the right of private judgment to interpret texts as it pleased in ignorance of Hebrew and Greek. He was respected and feared more than any other man in the parish. He had a great library, and had taken up archaeology as a hobby. He knew the history of every church in the county, and more about the Langborough records than was known by the town clerk. He was chairman of a Board of Governors charged with the administration of wealthy trust for alms and schools. When he first took office he found that this trust was controlled almost entirely by a man named Jackson, a local solicitor, whose salary as clerk was 400 pounds a year and who had a large private practice. The alms were allotted to serve political purposes, and the headmaster of the school enjoyed a salary of 800 pounds a year for teaching forty boys, of whom twenty were boarders. Mr. Midleton--he was Mr. Midleton then--very soon determined to alter this state of things. Jackson went about sneering at the newcomer who was going to turn the place upside down, and having been accustomed to interfere in the debates in the Board-room, interrupted the Rector at the third or fourth meeting.

"You'll get yourself in a mess if you do that, Mr. Chairman."

"Mr. Jackson," replied the Rector, rising slowly, "it may perhaps save trouble if I remind you now, once for all, that I am chairman and you are the clerk. Mr. Bingham, you were about to speak."

It was Dr. Midleton who obtained the new Act of Parliament remodelling the trust, whereby a much larger portion of its funds was devoted to education. Jackson died, partly from drink and partly from spite and vexation, and the headmaster was pensioned. The Rector was not popular with the middle cla.s.s. He was not fond of paying visits, but he never neglected his duty, and by the poor was almost beloved, for he was careless and intimate in his talk with them and generous to real distress. Everybody admired his courage. The cholera in 1831 was very bad in Langborough, and the people were in a panic at the new disease, which was fatal in many cases within six hours after the first attack.

The Rector through that dark time was untouched by the contagious dread which overpowered his parishioners, and his presence carried confidence and health. On the worst day, sultry, stifling, with no sun, an indescribable terror crept abroad, and Mr. Cobb, standing at his gate, was overcome by it. In five minutes he had heard of two deaths, and he began to feel what were called "premonitory symptoms." He carried a brandy flask in his pocket, brandy being then considered a remedy, and he drank freely, but imagined himself worse. He was about to rush indoors and tell Mrs. Cobb to send for the surgeon, when the Rector pa.s.sed.

"Ah, Mr. Cobb! I was just about to call on you; glad to see you looking so well when there's so much sickness. We shall want you on the School Committee this evening," and then he explained some business which was to be discussed. Mr. Cobb afterwards was fond of telling the story of this interview.

"Would you believe it?" said he. "He spoke to me about nothing much but the trust, but somehow my stomach seemed quieter at once. The sinking-- just HERE, you know--was dreadful before he came up, and the brandy was no good. It was a something in his way that did it."

Dr. Midleton was obliged to call on Mrs. Fairfax as a newcomer. He found Mrs. Harrop there, and Mrs. Fairfax asked him to step into the back parlour, into which no one in Langborough had hitherto been admitted. Gowns were tried on in the shop, the door being bolted and the blind drawn. Dr. Midleton found four little shelves of books on the cupboard by the side of the fireplace. Some were French, but most of them were English. Although it was such a small collection, his book- lover's instinct compelled him to look at it. His eyes fell upon a Religio Medici, and he opened it hastily. On the fly-leaf was written "Mary Leighton, from R. L." He had just time, before its owner entered, to replace it and to muse for an instant.

"Richard Leighton of Trinity: it is not a common name, but it cannot be he--have lost sight of him for years; heard he was married, and came to no good."

He was able to watch her for a minute as she stood by the table giving some directions to her child, who was sent on an errand. In that minute he saw her as she had not been seen by anybody in Langborough. To Mrs.

Bingham and her friends Mrs. Fairfax was the substratum of a body and skirt, with the inestimable advantage over a substratum of cane and padding that a scandalous history of it could be invented and believed.

To Langborough men, married and single, she was a member of "the s.e.x,"

as women were called in those days, who possessed in a remarkable degree the power of exciting that quivering and warmth we have already observed. Dr. Midleton saw before him a lady, tall but delicately built, with handsome face and dark brown hair just streaked with grey, and he saw also diffused over every feature a light which in her eyes, forward-looking and earnest, became concentrated into a vivid, steady flame. The few words she spoke to her daughter were sharply cut, a delightful contrast in his ear to the dialect to which he was accustomed, distinguished by its universal vowel and suppression of the consonants. How he inwardly rejoiced to hear the sound of the second "t" in the word "distinct," when she told her little messenger that Mr.

Cobb had been "distinctly" ordered to send the coals yesterday. He remained standing until the child had gone.

"Pray be seated," she said. She went to the fireplace, leaned on the mantelpiece, and poked the fire. The att.i.tude struck him. She was about to put some coals in the grate, but he interfered with an "Allow me," and performed the office for her. She thanked him simply, and sat down opposite to him, facing the light. She began the conversation.

"It is good of you to call on me; calling on people, especially on newcomers must be an unpleasant part of a clergyman's duty."

"It is so, madam, sometimes--there are not many newcomers."

"It is an advantage in your profession that you must generally be governed by duty. It is often easier to do what we are obliged to do, even if it be disagreeable, than to choose our path by our likes and dislikes."

The bell rang, and Mrs. Fairfax went into the shop.

"Who can she be?" said the Doctor to himself. Such an experience as this he had not known since he had been rector. Langborough did not deal in ideas. It was content to affirm that Miss Tarrant now and then gave herself airs, that Mrs. Sweeting had a way of her own, that Mr.

Cobb lacked spirit and was downtrodden by his wife.

She returned and sat down again.

"You know n.o.body in these parts, Mrs. Fairfax?"

"n.o.body."

"Yours is a bold venture, is it not?"

"It is--certainly. A good many plans were projected, of which this was one, and there were equal difficulties in the way of all. When that is the case we may almost as well draw lots."

"Ah, that is what I often say to some of the weaker sort among my parishioners. I said it to poor Cobb the other day. He did not know whether he should do this or do that. 'It doesn't matter much,' said I, 'what you do, but do something. DO it, with all your strength.'"

The Doctor was thoroughly Tory, and he slid away to his favourite doctrine.

"Our ancestors, madam, were not such fools as we often take them to be.

They consulted the sortes or lots, and at the last election--we have a potwalloping const.i.tuency here--three parts of the voters would have done better if they had trusted to the toss-up of a penny instead of their reason."

Mrs. Fairfax leaned back in her chair. Dr. Midleton noticed her wedding-ring, and also a handsome sapphire ring. She spoke rather slowly and meditatively.