The Vicar's Daughter - George MacDonald (read dune txt) 📗

if they were deprived of them. A gift of that sort can only do them good. But I would rather give a workman a gold watch than a leg of mutton. By a present you mean a compliment; and none feel more grateful for such an acknowledgment of your human relation to them, than those who look up to you as their superior.”

Once, when she was talking thus, I ventured to object, for the sake of hearing her further.

“But,” I said, “sometimes the most precious thing you can give a man is just that compassion which you seem to think destroys the value of a gift.”

“When compassion itself is precious to a man,” she answered, “it must be because he loves you, and believes you love him. When that is the case, you may give him any thing you like, and it will do neither you nor him harm. But the man of independent feeling, except he be thus your friend, will not unlikely resent your compassion, while the beggar will accept it chiefly as a pledge for something more to be got from you; and so it will tend to keep him in beggary.”

“Would you never, then, give money, or any of the necessaries of life, except in extreme, and, on the part of the receiver, unavoidable necessity?” I asked.

“I would not,” she answered; “but in the case where a man cannot help himself, the very suffering makes a way for the love which is more than compassion to manifest itself. In every other case, the true way is to provide them with work, which is itself a good thing, besides what they gain by it. If a man will not work, neither should he eat. It must be work with an object in it, however: it must not be mere labor, such as digging a hole and filling it up again, of which I have heard. No man could help resentment at being set to such work. You ought to let him feel that he is giving something of value to you for the money you give to him. But I have known a whole district so corrupted and degraded by clerical alms-giving, that one of the former recipients of it declared, as spokesman for the rest; that threepence given was far more acceptable than five shillings earned.”

A good part of the little time I could spare from my own family was now spent with Miss Clare in her work, through which it was chiefly that we became by degrees intimate with Lady Bernard. If ever there was a woman who lived this outer life for the sake of others, it was she. Her inner life was, as it were, sufficient for herself, and found its natural outward expression in blessing others. She was like a fountain of living water that could find no vent but into the lives of her fellows. She had suffered more than falls to the ordinary lot of women, in those who were related to her most nearly, and for many years had looked for no personal blessing from without. She said to me once, that she could not think of any thing that could happen to herself to make her very happy now, except a loved grandson, who was leading a strange, wild life, were to turn out a Harry the Fifth,—a consummation which, however devoutly wished, was not granted her; for the young man died shortly after. I believe no one, not even Miss Clare, knew half the munificent things she did, or what an immense proportion of her large income she spent upon other people. But, as she said herself, no one understood the worth of money better; and no one liked better to have the worth of it: therefore she always administered her charity with some view to the value of the probable return,—with some regard, that is, to the amount of good likely to result to others from the aid given to one. She always took into consideration whether the good was likely to be propagated, or to die with the receiver. She confessed to frequent mistakes; but such, she said, was the principle upon which she sought to regulate that part of her stewardship.

I wish I could give a photograph of her. She was slight, and appeared taller than she was, being rather stately than graceful, with a commanding forehead and still blue eyes. She gave at first the impression of coldness, with a touch of haughtiness. But this was, I think, chiefly the result of her inherited physique; for the moment her individuality appeared, when her being, that is, came into contact with that of another, all this impression vanished in the light that flashed into her eyes, and the smile that illumined her face. Never did woman of rank step more triumphantly over the barriers which the cumulated custom of ages has built between the classes of society. She laid great stress on good manners, little on what is called good birth; although to the latter, in its deep and true sense, she attributed the greatest � priori value, as the ground of obligation in the possessor, and of expectation on the part of others. But I shall have an opportunity of showing more of what she thought on this subject presently; for I bethink me that it occupied a great part of our conversation at a certain little gathering, of which I am now going to give an account.

 

CHAPTER XXII.

MY SECOND DINNER-PARTY.

 

For I judged that I might now give another little dinner: I thought, that, as Percivale had been doing so well lately, he might afford, with his knowing brother’s help, to provide, for his part of the entertainment, what might be good enough to offer even to Mr. Morley; and I now knew Lady Bernard sufficiently well to know also that she would willingly accept an invitation from me, and would be pleased to meet Miss Clare, or, indeed, would more likely bring her with her.

I proposed the dinner, and Percivale consented to it. My main object being the glorification of Miss Clare, who had more engagements of one kind and another than anybody I knew, I first invited her, asking her to fix her own day, at some considerable remove. Next I invited Mr. and Mrs. Morley, and next Lady Bernard, who went out very little. Then I invited Mr. Blackstone, and last of all Roger—though I was almost as much interested in his meeting Miss Clare as in any thing else connected with the gathering. For he had been absent from London for some time on a visit to an artist friend at the Hague, and had never seen Miss Clare since the evening on which he and I quarrelled—or rather, to be honest, I quarrelled with him. All accepted, and I looked forward to the day with some triumph.

I had better calm the dread of my wifely reader by at once assuring her that I shall not harrow her feelings with any account of culinary blunders. The moon was in the beginning of her second quarter, and my cook’s brain tolerably undisturbed. Lady Bernard offered me her cook for the occasion; but I convinced her that my wisdom would be to decline the offer, seeing such external influence would probably tend to disintegration. I went over with her every item of every dish and every sauce many times,—without any resulting sense of security, I confess; but I had found, that, odd as it may seem, she always did better the more she had to do. I believe that her love of approbation, excited by the difficulty before her, in its turn excited her intellect, which then arose to meet the necessities of the case.

Roger arrived first, then Mr. Blackstone; Lady Bernard brought Miss Clare; and Mr. and Mrs. Morley came last. There were several introductions to be gone through,—a ceremony in which Percivale, being awkward, would give me no assistance; whence I failed to observe how the presence of Miss Clare affected Mr. and Mrs. Morley; but my husband told me that Judy turned red, and that Mr. Morley bowed to her with studied politeness. I took care that Mr. Blackstone should take her down to dinner, which was served in the study as before.

The conversation was broken and desultory at first, as is generally the case at a dinner-party—and perhaps ought to be; but one after another began to listen to what was passing between Lady Bernard and my husband at the foot of the table, until by degrees every one became interested, and took a greater or less part in the discussion. The first of it I heard was as next follows.

“Then you do believe,” my husband was saying, “in the importance of what some of the Devonshire people call havage?”

“Allow me to ask what they mean by the word,” Lady Bernard returned.

“Birth, descent,—the people you come of,” he answered.

“Of course I believe that descent involves very important considerations.”

“No one,” interposed Mr. Morley, “can have a better right than your ladyship to believe that.”

“One cannot nave a better right than another to believe a fact, Mr. Morley,” she answered with a smile. “It is but a fact that you start better or worse according to the position of your starting-point.”

“Undeniably,” said Mr. Morley. “And for all that is feared from the growth of levelling notions in this country, it will be many generations before a profound respect for birth is eradicated from the feelings of the English people.”

He drew in his chin with a jerk, and devoted himself again to his plate, with the air of a “Dixi.” He was not permitted to eat in peace, however.

“If you allow,” said Mr. Blackstone, “that the feeling can wear out, and is wearing out, it matters little how long it may take to prove itself of a false, because corruptible nature. No growth of notions will blot love, honesty, kindness, out of the human heart.”

“Then,” said Lady Bernard archly, “am I to understand, Mr. Blackstone, that you don’t believe it of the least importance to come of decent people?”

“Your ladyship puts it well,” said Mr. Morley, laughing mildly, “and with authority. The longer the descent”—

“The more doubtful,” interrupted Lady Bernard, laughing. “One can hardly have come of decent people all through, you know. Let us only hope, without inquiring too closely, that their number preponderates in our own individual cases.”

Mr. Morley stared for a moment, and then tried to laugh, but unable to determine whereabout he was in respect of the question, betook himself to his glass of sherry.

Mr. Blackstone considered it the best policy in general not to explain any remark he had made, but to say the right thing better next time instead. I suppose he believed, with another friend of mine, that “when explanations become necessary, they become impossible,” a paradox well worth the consideration of those who write letters to newspapers. But Lady Bernard understood him well enough, and was only unwinding the clew of her idea.

“On the contrary, it must be a most serious fact,” he rejoined, “to any one who like myself believes that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children.”

“Mr. Blackstone,” objected Roger, “I can’t imagine you believing such a manifest injustice.”

“It has been believed in all ages by the best of people,” he returned.

“To whom possibly the injustice of it never suggested itself. For my part, I must either disbelieve that, or disbelieve in a God.”

“But, my dear fellow, don’t you see it is a fact? Don’t you see children born with the sins of their parents nestling in their very bodies? You see on which horn of your own dilemma you would impale yourself.”

“Wouldn’t you rather not believe in