She might have been pew-opener for twenty years from the way in which she performed her duties, even trenching upon Mr Purkis’s dominion by frowning at small boys. It was a sight to see the way in which she performed her task, pouncing upon dubious-looking strangers who stood tasting their hats just inside the doors, and, as she could tell in a moment whether or not they were disposed to be generous, placing them in comfortably cushioned seats, where such miserable sinners could not fail to be eased in their consciences. Sometimes she morally took the poor things into custody, and then, like some savage warder, shut them up in cold wooden cells – in corners where it was dark, in black places just below the galleries, in spots beneath the organ, where they sat with a sensation as of liquid thunder being poured upon their heads, or behind pillars where they could not catch a glimpse of the reading-desk, and had to look round the corner at the pulpit. A select few she treated worse than all the rest, shutting them up in the great churchwarden’s pew, where they were completely out of sight, Mr Timson monopolising all the hassocks so as to peep over the edge.
A very moral hedgehog was Mrs Ruggles, treating the congregation as if they were so many little Pines intrusted to her charge, and evidently annoyed that she was not allowed, like Mr Purkis, a cane to use ad libitum. Had she been in office at a ritualistic church, brawlers would have paused ere they attempted to desecrate the structure. If you went into the church, she looked at you sidewise, and calculated your value in an instant; when, if you obeyed the glance of her eye, well; if not, she held up a finger at you, as if to say, “Come here, sir!” and then – stay away if you dared.
Why! the pew doors never screaked and scrawked when she opened them. She never shut in your coat-tails, or the voluminous folds of a lady’s dress; but she punished you severely if ever you attended St Runwald’s without books; for she would glide along the aisle like a religious ghost, and thrust a dreadful liver-coloured, dog’s-eared, S.P.C.K. prayer-book under your nose, so that you were obliged to take it, and then pay her sixpence as you went out for what you would rather not have had. For, if you had been accustomed all your life to a delicately bound diamond edition, it was not pleasant to stand up in good society holding the sore-edged, workhouse-looking book, while you dared not thrust it out of sight, for she was sure, in that case, to bring you another, to your lasting shame and confusion. It was almost a wonder that people so served ever entered the church again; and the probabilities are that they never would have done so, had not Jared Pellet drawn them thither with his music.
The best way to meet Mrs Ruggles was to be prepared with a pocket edition of the liturgy, when, if it were your custom to stand with hands joined and resting upon the pew-edge, under the impression that you were quite at home in the service, down she would come, for a certainty, her crackling stays heralding her approach. Then the plan was to be ready for her, and, as she rigidly made a thrust at you with the most disreputable book in her collection, ward off her attack with one of Jarkins & Potto’s little bijous.
The assertion cannot be authenticated, but it was said that Mrs Ruggles, soon after her appointment, went round to the bookstalls in Holywell Street, and bought up the old prayer-books out of the tea-chests, labelled, “All these at twopence;” and these brutal, loose-leaved, mildewed affairs she used to keep in a box in a corner pew ready to hand, making pounds out of them in the course of the year – a sort of private church-rate of her own.
It was almost startling to hear her, when it had grown too late for fresh comers, when the church was completely filled, and a portion of the congregation was sitting in aisle and nave upon camp-stools and chairs fetched out of the vestry. She would join then in litany and communion, startling the clerk, and getting right before him, so that the congregation would turn and look at her, in admiration or otherwise, but without ruffling in the least the perfect calm of her demeanour.
If a douceur was given to old Purkis, he bent a little, or touched his cocked-hat, or in some way gave you to understand that he was grateful; but not so Mrs Ruggles: she seemed to demand the money of you as a right, and you paid it under protest, feeling somehow obliged to do so, although, when she took it, she seemed to ignore you and your coin at one and the same time. Some people said that she must have paid fees to physicians in her day, and so have learned something of their ways; but how she ever continued to get the sixpences and shillings into her pocket, remains one of the great unsolved mysteries, for she never bent in the slightest degree.
Mr Purkis never took to her, for he declared her to be a woman without a soul for music, since she seemed to make a point of leaving all the dust and cobwebs she could about the organ loft, neglecting it shamefully; which the beadle said was not the thing, seeing who had been the means of getting her the post.
Volume One – Chapter Eighteen.
Official
“A most valuable woman, Timson,” the vicar said to the churchwarden; “most suitable person. You never see her flurried when a great many people are waiting for seats.”
“Never,” said Mr Timson, gruffly.
The conversation took place in the vicar’s snuggery, where he and his friend indulged in these unclerical comforts, pipes, gin-and-water, and cribbage.
“Very stiff and formal she is certainly,” said the vicar; “but, somehow, she never seems to give offence.”
“Yes, she does,” said Mr Timson, gruffly; “she offends me; I don’t like her. Wish Mother Nimmer was alive again.”
“Pooh! nonsense! stuff! prejudice!”
“Shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo!” ejaculated Mr Timson. “I haven’t a bit of prejudice in my whole body.”
“I mean,” said the vicar, taking not the slightest notice of the interruption, “she never seems to give offence about people’s sittings; for her’s is a delicate task, and one not easy to manage. I can assure you that I have not had a single complaint as yet, and they used to be constant in Mrs Nimmer’s time.”
“’Fraid of her,” suggested Mr Timson.
“I do wish that you would talk rationally, Timson,” said the vicar.
“Well, that is rationally,” said Mr Timson.
“The church fills uncommonly well now,” observed the vicar, after a pause, so as to start a fresh subject; for Mr Timson was looking red and choleric, and his short hair was standing up all over his head. “The people seem to like those historical sermons. I think I shall continue them.”
“I think I should,” said Timson, drily; “perhaps it might be as well, at the same time, to stop some of the music, or give Mr Pellet a holiday.”
“Why?” said the vicar, sharply.
“Make more room in the church,” said Timson.
“There, there! I won’t quarrel with you Timson,” said the vicar, with some asperity; “but I can understand your allusion, though I won’t notice it. But, to return to the subject, don’t you think that Mrs Ruggles’ salary might be a little raised?”
“No,” said Mr Timson, stoutly; “I don’t think anything of the kind. Why, what for, pray? when the woman has the same as poor old Mrs Nimmer, who was worth a dozen of her.”
“Well, Timson,” said the vicar, quietly, “if you are not disposed to discuss the matter in a liberal spirit, why it had better drop; at least, I think so.”
“So do I,” said the illiberal Timson; and consequently the matter did drop, with the advantage to Mrs Ruggles of making her appear an ill-used woman, much persecuted, in the vicar’s eyes.
For the old gentleman most thoroughly believed in her, from her conduct being so exemplary. Always the same quiet, prim woman, ready at proper times to do her duty; to arrange hassocks at a christening, or to point out the positions for the actors at a hymeneal