A MERE INTERLUDE
CHAPTER I
The traveller in school-books, who vouched in dryest tones for the
fidelity to fact of the following narrative, used to add a ring of
truth to it by opening with a nicety of criticism on the heroine's
personality. People were wrong, he declared, when they surmised that
Baptista Trewthen was a young woman with scarcely emotions or
character. There was nothing in her to love, and nothing to hate--so
ran the general opinion. That she showed few positive qualities was
true. The colours and tones which changing events paint on the faces
of active womankind were looked for in vain upon hers. But still
waters run deep; and no crisis had come in the years of her early
maidenhood to demonstrate what lay hidden within her, like metal in a
mine.
She was the daughter of a small farmer in St. Maria's, one of the
Isles of Lyonesse beyond Off-Wessex, who had spent a large sum, as
there understood, on her education, by sending her to the mainland
for two years. At nineteen she was entered at the Training College
for Teachers, and at twenty-one nominated to a school in the country,
near Tor-upon-Sea, whither she proceeded after the Christmas
examination and holidays.
The months passed by from winter to spring and summer, and Baptista
applied herself to her new duties as best she could, till an
uneventful year had elapsed. Then an air of abstraction pervaded her
bearing as she walked to and fro, twice a day, and she showed the
traits of a person who had something on her mind. A widow, by name
Mrs. Wace, in whose house Baptista Trewthen had been provided with a
sitting-room and bedroom till the school-house should be built,
noticed this change in her youthful tenant's manner, and at last
ventured to press her with a few questions.
'It has nothing to do with the place, nor with you,' said Miss
Trewthen.
'Then it is the salary?'
'No, nor the salary.'
'Then it is something you have heard from home, my dear.'
Baptista was silent for a few moments. 'It is Mr. Heddegan,' she
murmured. 'Him they used to call David Heddegan before he got his
money.'
'And who is the Mr. Heddegan they used to call David?'
'An old bachelor at Giant's Town, St. Maria's, with no relations
whatever, who lives about a stone's throw from father's. When I was
a child he used to take me on his knee and say he'd marry me some
day. Now I am a woman the jest has turned earnest, and he is anxious
to do it. And father and mother says I can't do better than have
him.'
'He's well off?'
'Yes--he's the richest man we know--as a friend and neighbour.'
'How much older did you say he was than yourself?'
'I didn't say. Twenty years at least.'
'And an unpleasant man in the bargain perhaps?'
'No--he's not unpleasant.'
'Well, child, all I can say is that I'd resist any such engagement if
it's not palatable to 'ee. You are comfortable here, in my little
house, I hope. All the parish like 'ee: and I've never been so
cheerful, since my poor husband left me to wear his wings, as I've
been with 'ee as my lodger.'
The schoolmistress assured her landlady that she could return the
sentiment. 'But here comes my perplexity,' she said. 'I don't like
keeping school. Ah, you are surprised--you didn't suspect it.
That's because I've concealed my feeling. Well, I simply hate
school. I don't care for children--they are unpleasant, troublesome
little things, whom nothing would delight so much as to hear that you
had fallen down dead. Yet I would even put up with them if it was
not for the inspector. For three months before his visit I didn't
sleep soundly. And the Committee of Council are always changing the
Code, so that you don't know what to teach, and what to leave
untaught. I think father and mother are right. They say I shall
never excel as a schoolmistress if I dislike the work so, and that
therefore I ought to get settled by marrying Mr. Heddegan. Between
us two, I like him better than school; but I don't like him quite so
much as to wish to marry him.'
These conversations, once begun, were continued from day to day; till
at length the young girl's elderly friend and landlady threw in her
opinion on the side of Miss Trewthen's parents. All things
considered, she declared, the uncertainty of the school, the labour,
Baptista's natural dislike for teaching, it would be as well to take
what fate offered, and make the best of matters by wedding her
father's old neighbour and prosperous friend.
The Easter holidays came round, and Baptista went to spend them as
usual in her native isle, going by train into Off-Wessex and crossing
by packet from Pen-zephyr. When she returned in the middle of April
her face wore a more settled aspect.
'Well?' said the expectant Mrs. Wace.
'I have agreed to have him as my husband,' said Baptista, in an off-
hand way. 'Heaven knows if it will be for the best or not. But I
have agreed to do it, and so the matter is settled.'
Mrs. Wace commended her; but Baptista did not care to dwell on the
subject; so that allusion to it was very infrequent between them.
Nevertheless, among other things, she repeated to the widow from time
to time in monosyllabic remarks that the wedding was really
impending; that it was arranged for the summer, and that she had
given notice of leaving the school at the August holidays. Later on
she announced more specifically that her marriage was to take place
immediately after her return home at the beginning of the month
aforesaid.
She now corresponded regularly with Mr. Heddegan. Her letters from
him were seen, at least on the outside, and in part within, by Mrs.
Wace. Had she read more of their interiors than the occasional
sentences shown her by Baptista she would have perceived that the
scratchy, rusty handwriting of Miss Trewthen's betrothed conveyed
little more matter than details of their future housekeeping, and his
preparations for the same, with innumerable 'my dears' sprinkled in
disconnectedly, to show the depth of his affection without the
inconveniences of syntax.
