Fenn George Manville
A Little World

Volume Two – Chapter Five.
Timson’s Consistency

Jared Pellet was right. Mr Gray was in a sad way about the affair, for it was a problem that he was not likely to solve. At first he had made a point of keeping the matter secret, but as months slipped by, and no discovery was made, he ceased to be reticent. Nothing was learned as to the cause, but the effect was plain enough – the money still went. He held long consultations with Mr Timson, and together, more than before, they set to and suspected everybody connected with the church, beginning, jestingly, with themselves, and then going downwards through the other churchwardens, Jared, the clerk, Purkis, Mrs Ruggles, Ichabod Gunniss, and the bellringers, who never entered the church. But, though every one was suspected in turn, no accusation was made; for, said the vicar —

“Timson, I would not, in my weak, short sighted way, be guilty of an act of injustice to any man!”

“Why not set the police to work?” said Mr Timson. “A detective would furridge the matter out.”

“No,” said the vicar, “I don’t like the idea. I would not care if they’d rob me, Timson, but they will not; and this business is something I really cannot get over. If I put more in the box to make up what I reckon may be the deficiency, it seems to make no difference; and though your advice may be good, I don’t feel as if I could take it. I have acted upon some of your hints, but still we don’t find anything out.”

Mr Timson shook his head, and said, “Just so,” which might have meant anything.

After smoking a pipe or two, the churchwarden always left, declaring that he had got hold of the right end of the thread, and that he intended following up the clue, telling it mysteriously, and promising news by his next visit; for, being old and single, the vicar thought it no shame to play nightly at cribbage with his churchwarden, and in his company to smoke long clay pipes and drink whisky and water. But the only result of Mr Timson’s clue-following was the getting of himself into a tangle, and, to the vicar’s great disgust, he would seriously settle the offence upon a fresh head each time.

“I tell you what it is, Timson,” he one day exclaimed, pettishly, after listening for some time to the rumbling of the churchwarden’s mountain, and then being rewarded with no grand discovery, but a very mouse of an information, – “I tell you what it is, Timson, you are getting into your dotage.”

“No, I ain’t,” said Timson, gruffly; for Mr Timson’s life had two phases – as Mr Timson, tea-dealer, and Mr Timson, vicar’s churchwarden. In trade he metaphorically wore his apron fastened by a brass heart and a steel hook, and said, “Sir” to the world at large; while, as Mr Timson, the worthy old bachelor, who could have retired from business any day, and who smoked pipes and played cribbage at his own or the vicar’s residence, he was another man, and as sturdy and independent as an Englishman need be. “No, I ain’t,” he said, gruffly. “I’m sure now as can be that it’s old Purkis – a fat, canting, red-faced, hypocritical old sinner.”

“Don’t be so aggravating, Timson,” said the vicar. “How can you accuse him!”

“Why what does he mean by always hanging about the boxes, and polish, polish, polishing them till the steel-work grows quite thin?”

“That proves nothing,” said the vicar.

“Don’t it?” exclaimed the churchwarden. “It proves that he has always been hanging about, till the money tempted him, and he could not resist it.”

“Nonsense!” said the vicar, crossly, as he broke a piece off his pipe. “Why, the very last time you were here, you were quite sure that it was Pellet.”

“Well, and so I’ll be bound to say that it was,” said Timson. “I was sure of it last week, only you would not have it that I was right.”

“Of course not,” said the vicar, “when you declared only two days before that it was the organ-boy, whom you had caught spending money. How much did he spend, by the by?”

“Well, only a halfpenny at a potato-can, certainly,” said Timson; “but he must have been flush of money.”

“Pish!” ejaculated the vicar, contemptuously, – “nonsense!”

“Ah! you may say ‘Pish,’” exclaimed Timson, angrily; “but it isn’t nonsense. The money goes, don’t it? and they’re all in it, every man jack of ’em. It’s a regular conspiracy.”

“I never in all my experience met with a less consistent man than you are, Timson,” said the vicar. “I believe you would accuse me as soon as look at me, and then give some one else into custody for the theft.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” grumbled Mr Timson. “We should have found it all out by this time, only you will be so obstinate. I’d soon find it out if I had my way.”

“I do wish you would have a little more charity in you, Timson,” continued the vicar, taking up and dealing the cards. “I honestly believe that if it had not been for me, you would have made two or three homes wretched by accusing people of the theft.”

“No business to steal poor-box money, then,” said Mr Timson, through his nose, for his hands being occupied with his cards, his lips were tightly closed over the waxy end of his pipe. “It was Pellet, I’m sure.”

“No more Pellet than it was Purkis,” said the vicar. “I never knew a more quiet, respectable man.”

“Nor a better organist, if he wouldn’t be so long-winded,” said Mr Timson, coolly.

“Nor a better organist,” acquiesced the vicar. “Fifteen – six, and six are a dozen,” he continued, throwing down his cards.

“Three, and one for his nob,” said Mr Timson, following the example of his host; “and that’s what I should give him, Mr Gray, if I knew who it was.”

“Humph!” ejaculated the vicar, thoughtfully.

But in spite of his thoughtfulness he came no nearer to his point, and in the course of time the Rev. John Gray was distant, and then, in manner, apologetic, to all the church officials. He even went so far as to send the little asthmatical old razor-faced clerk a present, so as to set his own mind at rest for having judged him hastily. He had fresh locks placed upon the boxes – locks with cunningly-devised keys, which the maker assured him it was impossible to imitate; but a fortnight had not elapsed before the boxes were plundered again – the culprit apparently growing bolder with success.

The vicar grew more and more anxious. He was in dread now that the communion-plate might be taken, and, lest a raid should be made upon it, he watched it himself to and from the churchwarden’s house.

At times, too, Mr Gray would feel almost disposed to take his friend’s advice, and call in the aid of the police; but even then he did not feel certain of success, and he shrank from such stringent measures on account of the publicity they would entail; besides, he wished to discover the culprit himself, and take him to task, for he considered that his own conscience would be sufficient punishment so soon as he was detected.

In Duplex Street, the vicar’s words were well taken into consideration, and the whole affair was canvassed with animation, Tim Ruggles the while listening attentively, and giving his opinion when asked, otherwise perfectly silent, until, to use his own words, “he was set going.”

“I like clergymen sometimes,” said Tim, “and sometimes I don’t; but this vicar of ours seems a man worth knowing. Mrs Ruggles says, sir, it’s a pleasure to have anything to do for him, and she’s a great judge of character, sir. But there are some parsons I never could like, for they’re as easy and plausible as country solicitors, and that’s saying a great deal. But really it does seem a wonder that this little matter is not found out I’ll talk to Mrs Ruggles about it again to-night – wonderful woman – I like to hear her opinion; full of point and keenness. Authority for saying so,” muttered Tim, beneath his breath, for he had been taking himself to task for his frequent usage of this his favourite expression.

Conversation was here stayed by a terrible vocal explosion up-stairs, accompanied by cries for mother, the cause being that a juvenile member of the Pellet family had choked himself with an angular fragment of pudding, given to him by Mrs Jared to keep him out of mischief – a cold heavy pudding of a most economical texture, frequently made in Jared’s establishment, and called by him “extinguisher” from its wondrous power of putting out appetite to the last faint spark.

A due amount of patting and shaking sufficed to place the little sufferer in his normal state; and mother and father once more descended, to find Tim Ruggles ready for starting homeward, after exhibiting a newly-made pair of trousers – his first – upon the young gentleman for whom they were intended.

“Yes, sir,” said Tim, taking up, in a most unexpected manner, the principal subject of the evening’s conversation, “I’ll have a long talk to Mrs Ruggles about it; and if I might ask it as a favour of you and Mrs Pellet, sir, please don’t send anything any more for little Pine. I’m so much obliged, and thank you kindly; but Mrs Ruggles, sir, is a little bit particular upon some points, and just perhaps the least touch proud. I know you won’t be offended with me for telling you.”

Mrs Jared, who had on several occasions sent little delicacies that she thought the child might fancy – poor-people’s delicacies – promised, and Tim left; and probably from the sharp look-out kept by Mrs Ruggles after the conversation she had with her husband, for quite a month the vicar enjoyed peace of mind, from a feeling that the poor-box had not been disturbed.

“And a good job, too,” said Mr Timson, one evening; “for I’m quite sick of hearing sermons and texts about pieces of money – ‘render unto Caesar,’ or ‘current money of the merchant,’ or Achan’s covetousness, or the Judas pieces of silver. You know they only did harm, acting like charity-sermons, and making people get money ready, expecting to see a plate held at the door, and then, only naturally, dropping it into the poor-box, so as to give more plunder to the thief, who has been laughing at you all the time.”

“For shame, Timson!” said the old clergyman, sternly. “Don’t you think that even thieves have consciences?”

“Humph! well, I don’t know,” said Timson, “perhaps they have, but they don’t keep them from stealing. But I thought you said you would keep the subject out of your sermons?”

The vicar did not reply, but his eyes twinkled, and a dry little crease or two appeared at the corners of his mouth.

Volume Two – Chapter Six.
Mrs Jared’s Management

No doubt, if little Patty had been more highly educated, more refined, and had no more engrossing occupations than reading and paying visits, she too would have worn a Mariana-like aspect, and sighed more frequently. But though she often wept in secret, hers was so busy a life that she had but little time to mourn, and though she sighed to herself, and suffered too most keenly, her cheeks somehow would not grow pale or less sound, and the sorrow was hidden away deeply in her heart.

Mrs Jared knew a great deal, and kept finding out more and more; but the subject was tabooed, and though her tender heart yearned to condole with Patty and try to comfort her, yet long talks with Jared had schooled her to be silent, and poor Patty had no comforter save Janet, and even with her she refrained from fully opening her heart.

“Poor girl! I know she feels it keenly,” said Mrs Jared to her husband on one occasion.

“Not she,” said Jared. “It must be nearly forgotten by this time.”

“Did I forget you, years ago?” said Mrs Jared, severely.

“Too good a memory, my dear,” said Jared, smiling.

“Then don’t talk such nonsense,” said his wife. “What ideas you men do have of women’s hearts, just because now and then you meet with some silly, flighty, coquettish thing, not without a heart, certainly, but with one that is worthless. Do you suppose that all girls’ hearts are counterfeit coin?”

“Not I!” said Jared; “but it won’t do. It is just as I thought at the time, and it always is the case with those red-hot sanguine fellows. All very well at first, but they cool down gradually, and then it’s all over. You see we hear nothing at all of him now.”

“I’m afraid he’s ill,” said Mrs Jared; “there must be something wrong.”

“Wrong! well, yes, I suppose so,” said Jared; “if it’s wrong to get rich, it was wrong of him to talk to our poor girl in the way he did; and it’s wrong of her to dream of it, if she still does, and it was wrong of you to expect that anything would ever come of it but sorrow, and it was wrong – ”

“Wrong of you to go on talking in that way,” said Mrs Jared, impetuously; “and, for my part, I don’t believe that it is as you say. There’s some misfortune or something happened to him, or – ”

“Don’t, for goodness’ sake, talk in that way to her,” said Jared, “or you’ll complete the mischief. It’s as well as it is, and the sooner she forgets it all, the better. Nothing could ever have come of it, and I should never have given my consent, even if he had kept to his professed determination. Richard would always have been against it; and, goodness knows, there’s estrangement enough between us without our doing anything to increase the distance. Look at us: poor people, with poor-people friends, – old Purkis and Tim Ruggles, and those aristocrats in Decadia; and then look at Richard and his – ”

“Richard’s a selfish – ”

“Hush! don’t, please, dear,” said Jared, with a pained look; and he laid his hand gently upon his wife’s lips, when, smoothing her forehead, she exclaimed —

“Well, I won’t then; but it does make me angry when I think of his money, and then of how poor we are, while somehow the poorer we get, the more tiresome the children grow. You’ve no conception how cross they are at times.”

“Haven’t I?” said Jared, drily.

“No,” said Mrs Jared, impetuously; “how can you have?”

“Did you wash the little ones this morning, my dear?” said Jared.

“Wash them! Why, of course; at least Patty did, the same as usual.”

“Notice anything peculiar between their shoulders, either of you – any strange sprouting growth?”

“Goodness, gracious! no,” exclaimed Mrs Pellet, with a shudder. “Why, what do you mean? Surely there’s no dreadful infectious thing about for which they are sickening? Surely Patty has brought home nothing from that dreadful place of Wragg’s? What do you mean?”

“Oh! nothing,” said Jared, coolly; “only you seemed under the impression that the little ones were, or ought to be, angels, and I was anxious to hear of the advent of sprouting wings.”

“Stuff!” ejaculated Mrs Jared; and then, directly after, “just look here at Totty’s boots.”

“Well, they are on the go,” said Jared, turning the little leather understandings in his hands.

“On the go!” said his wife; “why they’re quite gone. It does seem such a thing when he’s rolling in riches!”

“Who? Totty?” said Jared, innocently.

“Stuff!” said Mrs Jared, in her impetuous way. “Why, Richard, to be sure. He could buy oceans of boots, and never feel the loss.”

“Very true,” said Jared, without pausing to think what number of pairs would form oceans. “But then, my dear, he’d have no Tottys to put in them.”

“And a good thing, too,” said Mrs Jared, “seeing what an expense they are.”

“I don’t know that, my dear,” said Jared, softly. “They are an expense certainly, and it does seem hard upon us; but I don’t know, after all, but what ours is the happier home.”

“The man came for the poor-rate to-day,” said Mrs Jared, melting, but still frigid.

“That’s nothing new, my dear,” said Jared; “he’s always coming. Our little ones are healthy and strong and happy.”

“Have you thought about the rent being nearly due?” said Mrs Jared, who would not give in yet.

“Yes,” said Jared; “I have thought about it, for I never get a chance of forgetting it, my dear. It always seems to me that there are eight quarters in poor-people’s years. But, as I was saying about the children, they are happy and merry, and the doctor comes seldom – that is,” he said, with a comical look, “with exceptions, my dear – with exceptions.”

Mrs Jared tried to knit her brows and frown, but she could not, for the corner of a smile would peep out at one angle of her mouth; and, somehow or other, as they sat alone by the fire that night, Jared’s arm crept round his wife’s waist, and her head went down upon his shoulder.

“Plenty,” said Jared, “certainly; but I don’t think you would like to part with any one of them.”

“Oh! how can you!” ejaculated Mrs Jared; and she quite shivered at the thought.

“And I never saw you obliged to make chest-warmers for them because they were delicate, or compelled to get cod-liver oil for them because they were thin and weak, and – ”

“Oh! don’t talk so, pray,” exclaimed Mrs Jared. “That poor child! it gives me the heartache to see her, when Ruggles brings her with him. I’d give almost anything to have the poor little thing here for the short time she’s for this world.”

“Think she’s so bad as that?” said Jared.

“Oh! yes; her poor little bones show so dreadfully. I don’t think she’s neglected, for Ruggles is too good-hearted for that; but that horrid woman would almost keep her from getting well. Now, if we had her with ours, and – ”

“Didn’t you say the collector called to-day?” said Jared.

“Yes,” said his wife; – “had her here with ours, and Patty and I attended well to her, she might get through the winter, and – what did you say?”

“I didn’t speak,” said Jared. “I was only thinking about the rent.”

“And, besides,” said Mrs Jared, “as she is so young – ”

“How much would a pair of boots cost for Totty?” said Jared.

“Really, it is too bad!” exclaimed Mrs Jared; “and I can’t help thinking about the poor little thing.”

“And how well and hearty our own are, even if we are poor,” said Jared.

So Mrs Jared sighed, and contrived to put a patch on the side of Totty’s boots, and they lasted another week.

Volume Two – Chapter Seven.
Between Friends

For quite a month, as far as the vicar could tell, the poor-boxes had rest, and Mr Timson’s ears were not so much troubled with the objectionable money texts. Divers games of cribbage were played, and divers pipes and glasses of gin-and-water enjoyed, as the late robberies were discussed. During these discussions the vicar would enlighten his crony upon the subject of the various plans he had adopted to see whether the boxes had been opened.

The matter was also freely discussed at Purkis’s and Ruggles’s, as well as at Duplex Street; the same verdict being arrived at in each house – namely, that it was very strange.

Mrs Purkis thought she could fit the cap on the right head if she had to do with the matter, and Mr Purkis told her to hold her tongue. Mrs Ruggles, too, gave a sidewise look at her husband, and told him that it was not her business, but she could give a very shrewd guess at the culprit; though, when pressed on the subject, she only nipped her lips very tightly, and said, “Never mind.”

As for Mrs Jared, she only declared it to be very sad, and then the matter was allowed to drop.

The vicar, too, seemed to have almost forgotten the matter, until one morning when he hurried into Mr Timson’s counting-house, looking so much put out that the churchwarden directly guessed what was the matter, and before his friend could say a word, exclaimed —

“You don’t mean it, sir?”

“But I do mean it, Mr Timson,” said the vicar; “and really,” he continued poking at the inkstand with the ferule of his umbrella – “and really, I should be glad if you would not treat this matter so lightly, sir. It grieves me very, very deeply, Mr Timson, I can assure you.”

“Mind the ink, sir,” said Mr Timson, placing the bright metal stand out of his visitor’s reach. “I don’t treat it lightly, sir. It’s no joke, and I’m as much put out as yourself. You don’t think I want the poor-boxes robbed, do you, sir?” and he spoke with a puffing snort between every two or three words, as if getting warm.

“Now don’t be rash, Timson – don’t be rash. I’m not angry; only, really, you know, it is so worrying, so aggravating – deuced aggravating, I should say, if I were a layman, Timson, I should indeed. There, there! now don’t bristle up, there’s a good fellow; but tell me what to do.”

“Take that umbrella ferule out of my ink, that’s what you’d better do,” said Timson, gruffly; for, in an absent fashion, the vicar was still thrusting at the metal stand, to the great endangering of an open book or two upon the table.

“There, there, there!” said the vicar, impatiently, as he placed the obnoxious ferule upon the floor, and pressed it down there with both hands. “Now, then, tell me, Timson, what had I better do?”

“How the devil should I know what you ought to do?” exclaimed Mr Timson, for he was out of temper that morning with business matters connected with a sudden rise in teas, just at a time when his stock was low, in consequence of his having anticipated a fall, and the vicar, in his impatient mood, had applied the match which exploded Mr Timson’s wrath, when, metaphorically taking off his apron, he spoke up.

“Don’t swear, Timson,” said the vicar, sternly; “‘Swear not,’ – you know the rest.”

“Shoo – shoo – shoo – shoo – shoo – shoo – shoo!” ejaculated Mr Timson. “Who did swear?”

“Why you did, sir,” said the vicar; “and don’t deny it.”

“But I didn’t,” exclaimed the churchwarden; “and I won’t be spoken to like that in my own house. Because we have been friends all these years, John Gray, you presume upon it, and abuse me. I didn’t swear; I only said, ‘How the devil should I know?’ and I say it again. Shoo – shoo – shoo! the devil’s in the poor-box.”

“If you make use of such language, Levi Timson, I must leave your office,” said the vicar, severely.

“What language? – what language?” exclaimed the churchwarden.

“Why, such as yours, sir,” retorted the vicar; “introducing the father of evil every moment.”

“Not I! – not I!” exclaimed Timson. “Introduce him! Not I. Who brought him into the room? Who began it? Who said it first?”

“But only in a modified form,” said the vicar, humbly; “I qualified it strongly with an ‘if.’ But I was wrong, extremely wrong, Timson; and there! I beg your pardon, Timson. I was put out and annoyed, and spoke hastily,” and he held out his hand.

“No, sir; no, sir; you don’t beg mine,” said Timson, taking the vicar’s hand. “I beg yours, sir. I know I spoke hastily, for I was angry and put out, for teas are gone up, confound ’em!”

“But I was in the wrong, Timson,” said the vicar. “As a clergyman, I ought to have governed myself, and known better than to be hasty.”

“I won’t give up in my own premises, sir,” exclaimed Timson. “Now, don’t smile, sir; they’re mine, bought and paid for, and there are the writings in that safe. I was in the wrong; but teas are up horribly this morning, and I’d been reckoning on their going down.”

Peace was ratified at once, for the two old men shook hands very solemnly for quite a minute.

“I’d give something, though, to find out about that money,” said the vicar, “for, you see, it’s going again.”

“I can assure you, sir,” said the churchwarden, “that I’ve slept night after night with those poor-boxes in bed with me, and yet I can’t see through the thing anyhow. By the way, I have read of such things. You don’t happen to be a somnambulist, do you? You haven’t been of a night and emptied the poor-boxes in your dreams, scraping together a store, and hidden it away for your heirs, administrators, executors, and assigns to find out?” and as the old man spoke, he glanced round the room, as if seeking a likely spot for such a purpose.

“No, Timson, no,” replied the vicar, smiling sadly. “You were present when my will was signed; and if there’s anything more than is set down on that piece of parchment, I freely give it to you, old friend.”

“Verbal gifts don’t go down with executors, sir,” said Timson, with his eyes twinkling; “and besides, I don’t think it would be the thing for me to stick to a hoard that you had filched from your own poor-box.”

“There, there, there!” ejaculated the vicar. “You are talking nonsense, Timson.”

“Mr Gray, sir,” said the churchwarden, seriously, and with some feeling, “a glass of sherry with you, sir; and, though toasts have nearly gone out, I shall drink to your long life.

“Yes,” continued the churchwarden, after a busy little pause, “it is a good glass of sherry. It is one of my weak points to have a decent glass in the house, and I don’t know anything that I like better.”

“Except a glass of hot toddy,” said the vicar, smiling.

“Well, well, well, sir,” said Timson; “suppose we put that aside, or we shall be getting into cribbage and pipes, and all sorts of other weak points.”

“True,” said the vicar; “but really, Timson, I’m not ashamed of those little weaknesses, even if I am a clergyman. I’m a very humble old fellow, with few friends, and fewer relatives. I don’t belong to society, Timson, but keep to my quiet, old-fashioned, country ways, which I brought up with me out of Lincolnshire. I’m not a fashionable parson, Timson, but I try to do my best for those amongst whom I have to teach.”

“You do, sir, you do,” said the churchwarden, warmly; “and you make me disgusted with myself for being put out with your anxiety about this poor-box. Now let’s set to and go over it all, quietly and methodically. What’s to be done?”

“I don’t know – I don’t know,” said the vicar, despondingly; “but we shall find him out to a certainty some day.”

“Him!” exclaimed the churchwarden, – “him, sir?”

“Well, yes; him, or her, or it. I would not care if I could get just an inkling of who it could be. But I’m determined upon one thing, Timson, and that is, if there is much more of it, I will do away with the poor-boxes altogether, and preach an extra charity-sermon every quarter;” and the vicar tucked his umbrella beneath his arm, as if ready to go.

“But I say, sir,” exclaimed Mr Timson, “I would not bear it in mind quite so much.”

“What do you mean, Timson?” said the vicar.

“Texts, sir, texts!” said Mr Timson, drily.

“Well, Timson, I won’t – I won’t, really; though, between ourselves – as friends – as old friends you know – I don’t mind telling you, that I had been making up the heads of a discourse for next Sunday upon the parable of the lost piece of money. But I’ll take your advice, and try something else.”

“Do!” said his friend, “and let the matter rest. Don’t show that you notice it, sir; be quite quiet, and we shall put them off their guard; I’ve my suspicions yet!”

“No, you have not, Timson,” said the vicar, laughing, “not you. You’re not a suspicious man, and never were.”

“Nor you neither,” said the tea-dealer, shaking hands. “Good morning.”

And as his old friend went through the busy portion of the house, raising his hat in reply to the salute of clerks and warehousemen, the churchwarden muttered to himself, “A thorough gentleman!”

An opinion from which some people differed.