“Good. That’s excellent,” said Andy, much relieved at not being obliged to start with a dismissal. “Now for the house.”
“Peas here,” said the man, passing a plot of ground, “and beans there. I bought the seed and sowed them on my own responsibility. ‘Whoever’s coming,’ says I to myself, ‘old or young, he’ll want peas and beans.’ ”
The words flowed in that delightful easy way which is of all human sounds the most comfortable, running into the heart like a cordial.
“Most thoughtful of you,” said Andy warmly.
And his fellow-curates in London had talked of the apathy of village people! He would tell them about this when he saw them. What working-man of their flock would buy peas and beans and sow them for love of the Church?
“I put a row of potatoes in too,” continued the man. “Says I to my wife, ‘Married or single, he’ll want potatoes.’ ”
“You’re married, then?” said Andy, as they reached the house door, wishful to show interest in the domestic concerns of this ardent churchman.
“Yes,” replied the man. “My wife can’t get about much, I’m sorry to say. Legs given way. But” – he gave a queer side look at Andy – “it isn’t that she’s lost power, so to speak: the power’s only moved from her legs into her tongue.”
Andy smiled back – and when two men enjoy together the immemorial joke about a woman’s tongue it is as good as a sign of freemasonry – then he said solemnly, “Very sad for you both, I am sure.”
“Yes,” said the man, immediately solemn too. “I’m sure I don’t know what we would do if it wasn’t for William.”
“William!” repeated Andy. “Why – what is your name?”
“Samuel Petch,” said the man.
“Then it will be young Sam Petch who has taken a situation at Millsby?” demanded Andy.
“I’m young Sam Petch. Father’s old Sam Petch. He’s eighty-one.”
“Oh!” said Andy.
And almost in silence he went over the Vicarage escorted by his pleasant and obliging guide, who said at every turn, “We ought to trim honeysuckle; I only waited until you came,” or “I put a few newspapers down here, because the sun seemed to be fading the paint.”
Andy tramped up and down stairs, and peered into cellars, and found no words in which to inform young Sam Petch that his services were not required.
How was it possible in face of that trustful confidence to say abruptly, “You are mistaken. You may remove your peas, beans, and potatoes, or I will pay for them. Even your wife’s legs are nothing to me, though I deplore them. You must depart”? Andy could not do it.
At last Sam Petch went back to lock up the opened rooms while the new Vicar stood alone at his own front door. It was rather a dignified door, with pillars where roses grew and five steps leading into the garden, and Andy’s heart swelled with a proud sense of possession. Here he would stand welcoming in the senior curate who had treated him like a rather stupid schoolboy. Here the aunt and cousins who could not remember that he was a man and a clergyman would take on a proper attitude of respect. Here the lady lay-helper who had so condescended to him in the London parish would be received, kindly, but – He held out a hand and rehearsed the greeting. The bland and prosperous Vicar on his own threshold. Quite equal to dealing with anything.
“A-hem!” coughed Sam Petch behind him.
“Ah – that you, Sam?” said Andy, turning very red and drawing in his hand. “We – er – we had better be moving on. I was just – er – exercising my arm.”
“Exercise splendid thing, sir,” said Sam, tactfully looking away. And while they walked down the road Andy said to himself that a man accustomed for two years to dealing with sharp Cockneys would find the simple villager a very easy problem. All he had to do was to wait until they reached the cottage at the next turning and then say, firmly but kindly, that he did not need Mr. Petch’s services.
The turning was two hundred yards away – one hundred and fifty —
“Here’s my poor wife at the gate,” said Sam. “Looked after the old Vicar like a mother, she did, until her legs went. It’s one of her bad days, but she was bent on saying a word of welcome to you as you went past.”
And of course Andy had to put it off a little longer while he took Mrs. Petch’s hand and bade her “Good morning.”
She placed her other hand on her heart, and began to speak quickly in a thin, high voice with a gasp in it.
“I’m done up, sir – waiting here so long for you – will you step in?”
So, of course, Andy went through the little garden in the wake of Mrs. Petch’s dragging footsteps.
“It’s such a comfort,” said Mrs. Petch, sitting limply, “to feel we’re settled again. Unsettledness is what tries the female nerves worse than anything, as you’ll no doubt find out some day, sir.”
Andy passed his hand across his brow. It was very difficult. But it was now or never. He rushed blindly at the fence with an incoherent —
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mrs. Petch, but I have – that is to say – your husband’s services will not be required.”
He mopped his brow, forgetful of all clerical dignity, while Mr. and Mrs. Petch looked at him and said nothing, and he felt as if red-hot worms were crawling about his unprotected person. Still they said nothing; and that was what made it so awful. At last a parrot screeched in the stillness.
“You – you have a relative to – er – fall back upon,” said poor Andy.
Mrs. Petch took a drink of water and passed a handkerchief across her eyes, then she asked faintly —
“What relative?”
“One named – er – William,” said Andy. “I understand – ”
“T-that’s William!” interrupted Mrs. Petch, pointing to the parrot; then she laughed hysterically and burst into tears. “We get five shillings a week from an old mistress of mine as long as the parrot lives. And for that my poor husband is to lose his place. Oh, it’s hard – it’s cruel hard.”
Andy stood up, rather upset, but determined now to go through with it.
“Look here,” he said. “That’s not the only reason. I gather that your husband is addicted to drink.” Andy paused and elevated his chin. “A clergyman’s household must be above reproach.”
“It’s not true,” said Mrs. Petch eagerly. “He’s always so much livelier than the other men at Gaythorpe that when he gets a glass and is a bit livelier still, they think he’s drunk.”
“Give me a chance, sir,” said Sam Petch, in a low tone, speaking at last.
And of all the winged words in any language which he could have chosen to shoot straight at Andy’s heart, those were most sure to hit the core of it.
A chance!
Oh, Andy’s young soul had been wrung during those two years in London by the sight of thousands who had never had a chance, or who had missed it, or had wilfully wasted it. The ragged horde of them with haggard eyes and dirty soft hands seemed to press about him in the flowery silence of the cottage doorway.
“All right,” he said, drawing a long breath. “I’ll give you a chance.”
“You shan’t have cause to regret it, sir,” said Sam Petch quietly, with a simple manliness that pleased Andy.
All the same, on leaving the cottage, he felt bound to pause at the door in order to deliver a further warning.
“I must ask you to adhere to the strict truth in all our dealings together,” he remarked austerely.
“He