God's Good Man - Marie Corelli (i want to read a book .txt) š
- Author: Marie Corelli
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Walden smiled, but forbore to continue conversation on this somewhat personal theme. He retired into his own study, there to concoct the stiffest, most clerical, and most formal note to Miss Vancourt that he could possibly devise. He had the very greatest reluctance to attempt such a task, and sat with a sheet of notepaper before him for some time, staring at it without formulating any commencement. Then he began: āThe Rev. John Walden presents his compliments to Miss Vancourt, and begs to inform herāā
No, that would never do! āBegs to inform herā sounded almost threatening. The Rev. John Walden might ābeg to inform herā that she had no business to wear pink shoes with high heels, for example. He destroyed one half sheet of paper, put the other half economically aside to serve as a stray leaflet for āchurch memoranda,ā and commenced in a different strain.
āDear Madam,ā
āDear Madam!ā He looked at the two words in some annoyance. They were very ugly. Addressed to a person who wore pink shoes, they seemed singularly abrupt. And if Miss Vancourt should chance to resemble in the least her ancestress, Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, they were wholly unsuitable. A creditor might write āDear Madamā to a customer in application for an outstanding bill,ā but to Mary Elia Adelgisa one would surely begin,āAh!ānow how would one begin? He paused, biting the end of his penholder. Another half sheet of notepaper was wasted, and equally another half sheet devoted to āchurch memoranda.ā Then he began:
āDear Miss Vancourt,ā
At this, he threw down his pen altogether. Too familiar! By all the gods of Greece, whom he had almost believed in even while studying Divinity at Oxford, a great deal too familiar!
āIt is just as if I knew her!ā he said to himself in vexation. āAnd I donāt know her! And whatās more, I donāt want to know her! If it were not for this business of the Five Sisters, I wouldnāt go near her. Positively I wouldnāt!ā
A mellow chime from the old eight-day clock in the outer hall struck on the silence. Three oāclock! The train by which Miss Vancourt would arrive, was timed to reach Riversford station at three,āif it was not late, which it generally was. Nebbie, who had been snoozing peacefully near the study window in a patch of sunlight, suddenly rose, shook himself, and trotted out on to the lawn, sniffing the air with ears and tail erect. Walden watched him abstractedly.
āPerhaps he scents a future enemy in Miss Vancourtās dog, Plato!ā And this whimsical idea made him smile. āHe is quite intelligent enough. He is certainly more intelligent than I am this afternoon, for I cannot write even a commonplace ordinary note to a commonplace ordinary woman!ā Here a sly brain-devil whispered that Miss Vancourt might possibly be neither commonplace nor ordinary,ābut he put the suggestion aside with a āGet thee behind me, Satanā inflexibility. āThe fact is, I had better not write to her at all. Iāll send Bainton with a verbal message; he is sure to give a quaint and pleasant turn to it,āhe knew her father, and I didnāt;āit will be much better to send Bainton.ā
Having made this resolve, his brow cleared, and he was more satisfied. Tearing up the last half sheet of wasted note-paper he had spoilt in futile attempts to address the lady of the Manor, he laughed at his failures.
āEven if it were etiquette to use the old Roman form of correspondence, which some people think ought to be revived, it wouldnāt do in this case,ā he said. āImagine it! āJohn Walden to Maryllia Vancourt,āGreeting!ā How unutterably, how stupendously ridiculous it would look!ā
He shut all his writing materials in his desk, and following Nebbie out to the lawn, seated himself with a volume of Owen Meredith in his hand. He was soon absorbed. Yet every now and again his thoughts strayed to the Five Sisters, and with persistent fidelity of detail his mindās eye showed him the grassy knoll so soft to the tread, where the doomed trees stood proudly and gracefully, clad just at this season all in a glorious panoply of young green,āwhere, as the poet whose tender word melodies he was reading might have said of the surroundings:
āFor moisture of sweet showers, All the grass is thick with flowers.ā
āYes, I shall send Bainton up to the Manor with a civil message,ā he musedāāand he canāand certainly willāadd anything else to it he likes. Of course the lady may be offended,āsome women take offence at anythingābut I donāt much care if she is. My conscience will not reproach me for having warned her of the impending destruction of one of the most picturesque portions of her property. But personally, I shall not write to her, nor will I go to see her. I shall have to pay a formal call, of course, in a week or two,ābut I need not go inside the Manor for that. To leave my card, as minister of the parish, will be quite sufficient.ā
He turned again to the volume in his hand. His eyes fell casually on a verse in the poem of āResurrectionā:
āThe world is filled with folly and sin; And Love must cling where it can, I say,āFor Beauty is easy enough to win, But one isnāt loved every day.ā
He sighed involuntarily. Then to banish an unacknowledged regret, he began to criticise his author.
āIf the world and the ambitions of diplomatic service had not stepped in between Lord Lytton and his muse, he would have been a fine poet,ā he said half aloud;āāA pity he was not born obscurely and in povertyāhe would have been wholly great, instead of as now, merely greatly gifted. He missed his true vocation. So many of us do likewise. I often wonder whether I have missed mine?ā
But this idea brooked no consideration. He knew he had not mistaken his calling. He was the very man for it. Many of his āclothā might have taken a lesson from him in the whole art of unselfish ministration to the needs of others. But with all his high spiritual aim, he was essentially human, and pleasantly conscious of his own failings and obstinacies. He did not hold himself as above the weaker brethren, but as one with them, and of them. And through the steady maintenance of this mental attitude, he found himself able to participate in ordinary emotions, ordinary interests and ordinary lives with small and outlying parishes in the concerns of the people committed to their charge. It is not too much to say that though he was in himself distinctly reserved and apart from the average majority of men, the quiet exercise of his influence over the village of St. Rest had resulted in so attracting and fastening the fibres of love and confidence in all the hearts about him to his own, that anything of serious harm occurring to himself, would have been considered in the light of real fatality and ruin to the whole community. When a clergyman can succeed in establishing such complete trust and sympathy between himself and his parishioners, there can be no question of his fitness for the high vocation to which he has been ordained. When, on the contrary, one finds a village or town where the inhabitants are split up into small and quarrelsome sects, and are more or less in a state of objective ferment against the minister who should be their ruling head, the blame is presumably more with the minister than with those who dispute his teaching, inasmuch as he must have fallen far below the expected standard in some way or other, to have thus incurred general animosity.
āIf all fails,ā mused Walden presently, his thoughts again reverting to the Five Sistersā question,āāIf Bainton does his errand awkwardly,āif the lady will not see him,āif any one of the thousand things do happen that are quite likely to happen, and so spoil all chance of interceding with Miss Vancourt to spare the trees,āwhy then I will go myself to-morrow morning to the scene of intended massacre before six oāclock. I will be there before an axe is lifted! And if Bainton meant anything at all by his hint, others will be there too! Yes!āI shall go,āin fact it will be my duty to go in case of a row.ā
A smile showed itself under his silver-brown moustache. The idea of a row seemed not altogether unpleasant to him. He stooped and patted his dog playfully.
āNebuchadnezzar!ā he said, with mock solemnity; whereat Nebbie, lying at his feet, opened one eye, blinked it lazily and wagged his tailāāNebuchadnezzar, I think our presence will be needed to-morrow morning at an early hour, in attendance on the Five Sisters! Do you hear me, Nebuchadnezzar?ā Again Nebbie blinked. āGood! That wink expresses understanding. We shall have to be there, in case of a row.ā
Nebbie yawned, stretched out his paws, and closed both eyes in peaceful slumber. It was a beautiful afternoon;āāsufficient for the day was the evil thereofā according to Nebbie. The Reverend John turned over a few more pages of Owen Meredith, and presently came to the conclusion that he would go punting. The decision was no sooner arrived at than he prepared to carry it out. Nebbie awoke with a start from his doze to see his master on the move, and quickly trotted after him across the lawn to the river. Here, the sole occupant of the shining stream was a maternal swan, white as a cloud on the summit of Mont Blanc, floating in stately ease up and down the water, carrying her young brood of cygnets on her back, under the snowy curve of her arching wings. Walden unchained the punt and sprang into it,āNebbie dutifully following,āand then divested himself of his coat. He was just about to take the punting pole in hand, when Baintonās figure suddenly emerged from the shrubbery.
āOff on the wild wave, Passon, are ye?ā he observed,āāWell, itās a fine day for it! Māappen you aināt seen the corpses of four rats anywhere around? No? Then I āspect their lovinā relations must haā been anā ate āem up, which may be their pertikler way of doinā funerals. I nabbed āem all last night in the new traps of my own invention. mebbe the lilies will be all the better for their loss. Iāll be catchinā some more this eveninā. Lord; Passon, if you was to āold out offers of a shillinā a head, the rats āud be gone in no time,āanā the lilies too!ā
Walden absorbed in getting his punt out, only smiled and nodded acquiescingly.
āThe train must haā been poonctual,ā went on Bainton, staring stolidly at the shining water. āAmazinā poonctual for once in its life. For a one āoss fly, goinā at a one āoss fly pace, āas jesā passed through the village, and is jiggitinā up to the Manor this very minute. I sāpose Miss Vancourtās inside it.ā
Walden paused,āpunt-pole in hand.
āYes, I suppose she is,ā he rejoined. āCome to me at six oāclock, Bainton. I shall want you.ā
āVery good, sir!ā
The pole splashed in the water,āthe punt shot out into the clear stream,āNebbie gave two short barks, as was his custom when he found himself being helplessly borne away from dry land,āand in a few seconds Walden had disappeared round one of the bends of the river. Bainton stood ruminating for a minute.
āJest a one āoss fly, goinā at a one āoss fly pace!ā he repeated, slowly;āāItās a cheap way of cominā āome
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