Free The Daughters of Mrs Peacock by Gerald Bullet

pun. She, with the help of a fourteen-year-old daughter, and an overgrown lad from the village who was nominally the gardener but spent much of his time scrubbing floors and carrying coals, did all the work of the large half-empty vicarage. Several unmarried ladies of suitable age were suspected of aspiring to the position of vicaress, but had to content themselves with humbler offices: running the Bible class and the sewing guild, organizing ‘sales of work’ for the relief of the deserving poor, and decorating the church at harvest festivals. Julia herself, with no ulterior motive, took part in these activities; and the time could not be far distant when her sisters would be drawn into them.
    Dr Witherby, a comparative newcomer to the district,was a tall man but from the habit of much courteous bending had acquired a slight stoop. The effect of his large aquiline features was softened by a nimbus of red beard surrounding them from ear to ear, chin and upper lip being clean-shaven, and by a pair of bushy and extremely mobile and expressive eyebrows which, had he been deprived of the power of speech, would alone have been adequate for all emotional occasions: in his chess-sessions with Mr Peacock they came much into play, sometimes rising so high as to threaten contact with his mass of brown, unkempt hair. He did not however rely on them exclusively for the expression of his varying moods: in moments of unprofessional relaxation he had a vein of sardonic talk that was highly congenial to Mr Peacock. It was characteristic of him, whether to call it tact or cunning is a moot point, that with Mrs Peacock and her like his manner was more ceremonious, lacking nothing of the sober, smiling gravity expected of a physician: he had in fact, it might almost be said, as many manners as he had patients, from Colonel Beckoning’s lady, of Manor Park, to old Mrs Bateson in her cottage. Despite his eccentric appearance, which suggested a tragic actor rather than a medical man, he was well regarded by rich and poor, alike. And perhaps, thought Julia in her new role of matchmaker, he was not too old after all: Sarah would be all the better for a steadying influence.
    The Vicar was quite another story. He had held his office from time immemorial, had christened them, all three, prepared them for confirmation, and was now rapidly declining into senility. His conduct of the churchservices had become a nervous embarrassment to the more percipient among his congregation. His speech grew more slow and uncertain with every week that passed, and at any moment, they felt, he might forget what he was at and precipitate a minor scandal in God’s house. Only stubbornness, and a bitter resolve not to be ousted by Mr Pardew whose youth and vigour he resented, prevented his retiring. It was whispered in the village that the curate had much to put up with in the way of sulks and snubs from his vicar, even to the indignity of having to receive his salary from the hands of Mrs Budge. This was unproven, but everyone remembered that dreadful Sunday morning when Mr Pardew, mounting the pulpit sermon in hand, had been silently but testily recalled and displaced by the feeble formidable old man, who then proceeded to preach for forty weary minutes on the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.
And the greatest of these is charity.
Was it malice or mere absentmindedness? Mr Pardew himself would admit to no doubt on the point. An unfortunate misunderstanding, he insisted. Distressing, yes; but he, not the Vicar, was to blame. It is possible that he had profited from the sermon, though like others he had heard it often enough before. It is equally possible that he knew that no one would believe him. This episode, though not consciously recalled, was part of the background of Julia’s reflections. It was manifest that the Vicar, greatly as he needed a wife, if only to rescue him from Mrs Budge, was not a marriageable proposition.
    This attempt on