Our Friend the Charlatan | Page 6

a proof of kindness, altogether refused

spiritual comfort, and would speak of nothing but the future of his
children. Straightway Mr. Lashmar became the practical consoler,
lavish of kindly forethought. Only when he came forth did he ask
himself whether he could possibly fulfil half of what he had
undertaken.
"It is easier," he reflected, "to make promises for the world to come. Is
it not also better? After all, can I not do it with a clearer conscience?"
He walked slowly, worrying about this and fifty other things, feeling a
very Atlas under the globe's oppression. Rig way took him across a
field in which there was a newly bourgeoned copse; he remembered
that, last spring, he had found white violets about the roots of the trees.
A desire for their beauty and odour possessed him; he turned across the
grass. Presently a perfume guided him to a certain mossy corner where
pale sweet florets nestled amid their leaves. He bent over them, and
stretched his hand to pluck, but in the same moment checked himself;
why should he act the destroyer in this spot of perfect quietness and
beauty?
"Dyce would not care much about them," was another thought that
came into his mind.
He rose from his stooping posture with ache of muscles and creaking of
joints. Alas for the days when he ran and leapt and knew not pain!
Walking slowly away, he worried himself about the brevity of life.
By a stile he passed into the highroad, at the lower end of the long
village of Alverholme. He had an appointment with his curate at the
church school, and, not to be unpunctual, he quickened his pace in that
direction. At a little distance behind him was a young lady whom he
had not noticed; she, recognizing the vicar, pursued with light, quick
step, and soon overtook him.
"How do you do, Mr. Lashmar!"
"Why--Miss Bride!" exclaimed the vicar. "What a long time since we
saw you! Have you just come?"
"I'm on a little holiday. How are you? And how is Mrs. Lashmar?"
Miss Bride had a soberly decisive way of speaking, and an aspect
which corresponded therewith; her figure was rather short,
well-balanced, apt for brisk movement; she held her head very straight,
and regarded the world with a pair of dark eyes suggestive of anything
but a sentimental nature. Her grey dress, black jacket, and felt hat

trimmed with a little brown ribbon declared the practical woman, who
thinks about her costume only just as much as is needful; her
dark-brown hair was coiled in a plait just above the nape, as if neatly
and definitely put out of the way. She looked neither more nor less than
her age, which was eight and twenty. At first sight her features struck
one as hard and unsympathetic, though tolerably regular; watching her
as she talked or listened, one became aware of a mobility which gave
large expressiveness, especially in the region of the eyebrows, which
seemed to move with her every thought. Her lips were long, and
ordinarily compressed in the line of conscious self-control. She had a
very shapely neck, the skin white and delicate; her facial complexion
was admirably pure and of warmish tint.
"And where are you living, Miss Bride?" asked Mr. Lashmar, regarding
her with curiosity.
"At Hollingford; that is to say, near it. I am secretary to Lady Ogram--I
don't know whether you ever heard of her?"
"Ogram? I know the name. I am very glad indeed to hear that you have
such a pleasant position. And your father? It is very long since I heard
from him."
"He has a curacy at Liverpool, and seems to be all right. My mother
died about two years ago."
The matter-of-fact tone in which this information was imparted caused
Mr. Lashmar to glance at the speaker's face. Though very little of an
observer, he was comforted by an assurance that Miss Bride's features
were less impassive than her words. Indeed, the cold abruptness with
which she spoke was sufficient proof of feeling roughly subdued.
Some six years had now elapsed since the girl's father, after acting for a
short time as curate to Mr. Lashmar, accepted a living in another
county. The technical term, in this case, was rich in satiric meaning; Mr.
Bride's incumbency quickly reduced him to pauperism. At the end of
the first twelvemonth in his rural benefice the unfortunate cleric made a
calculation that he was legally responsible for rather more than twice
the sum of money represented by his stipend and the offertories. The
church needed a new roof; the parsonage was barely habitable for long
lack of repairs; the church school lost its teacher through default of
salary--and so on. With endless difficulty Mr. Bride escaped