Parson's Nine Read online

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  Noel Streatfeild

  PARSON’S NINE

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  Contents

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

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  Also by Noel Streatfeild

  and available from Bello

  The Whicharts

  Parson’s Nine

  A Shepherdess of Sheep

  It Pays to be Good

  Caroline England

  Luke

  The Winter is Past

  I Ordered a Table for Six

  Myra Carrol

  Grass in Piccadilly

  Mothering Sunday

  Aunt Clara

  Judith

  The Silent Speaker

  PART ONE

  The Vicarage

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Will one dozen of the large loaves and half a dozen of the small ones be sufficient for the Sunday school treat?”

  As she spoke, the head and shoulders of the youngest Miss Love were thrust suddenly round the Vicarage dining-room door. The faces of the Vicar’s seven eldest children looked at her reproachfully. They were making paper rings under their mother’s expert supervision, with which to decorate the house for Christmas, and detested being interrupted in such valuable work.

  “Look, Miss Love!” Esdras, the eldest, held up an armful of coloured papers. “Like a bowl of sweet peas they are.”

  Miss Love gave him the bright, tolerant smile she reserved for children, and the deserving poor.

  “I’ve never seen silver sweet peas,” she said, shaking her head at him.

  He turned a discouraged face to his mother.

  “Very like sweet peas, darling,” she whispered. “My husband’s in the study,” she added aloud, turning to Miss Love. “Perhaps he’ll remember how many loaves you all ate last year. I wasn’t about, you know.”

  Miss Love blushed at so open a reference to the fact that the Vicar’s wife had been invisible last Christmas, owing to Maccabeus her youngest, who put in an appearance about then.

  “No, no, of course not, how stupid of me; I’ll find the Vicar.” Her head was withdrawn, the door shut, and her footsteps heard scurrying across the passage outside. The twins, Baruch and Susanna, were sitting at their mother’s feet.

  “Why,” questioned Baruch, screwing up his face disdainfully, “does pussons walk in at our doors and look in at our windows, never knockin’ nor nuffin’?”

  His mother laughed.

  “Because this is a vicarage, I suppose.”

  Baruch carefully fixed a red ring through a gold one. “I doesn’t care for it much,” he said thoughtfully, “nor doesn’t Susanna.”

  “Nor do I much,” his mother whispered.

  The Vicar’s wife had been a Miss Catherine Johnson. In the Christmas of ’92, she had been taken to stay with her Great-aunt Selina. She was seventeen at that time, and very pretty, and if anyone had told her she was going to marry a parson, she wouldn’t have believed them, for in the privacy of her bedroom she had decided before a looking glass that she was the dashing type, and would appeal to a dashing man. But to Great-aunt Selina’s Christmas party there came the youngest son of an old friend. Lord Bristone wasn’t just any old friend, but the kind of important old friend mentioned frequently in conversation, friendship with whom leads to the writing of memoirs. David Churston was his youngest son. The youngest son of the Bristone family was a preordained parson, for they owned a snug and pleasant little living in a decent hunting neighbourhood, which was kept for him. For generations the youngest sons had been of the hardriding, three-bottle type, seldom, if ever, darkening their church doors. But David was different. He was a dreamy, spiritual young man, who actually wanted to become a parson; not because it was an easy job, providing a steady income, plus a nice house in a pleasant neighbourhood; but because he said he “felt a call.” This statement was so odd, and rather indecent somehow, that his father and his brothers hushed it up, fearing that if their neighbours heard it they would think he was “a bit on the queer side, you know!”

  David didn’t care a jot what anyone thought. He went up to Oxford, where he worked hard, which wasn’t done in their family. He took a good degree, which wasn’t done either. Went on to a theological college, and was in due course ordained deacon, in which capacity he was sent as assistant to another younger son, of whom he openly disapproved, and arrived home in the Christmas of ’92 a priest. An aged and distant cousin was in possession of the family living. David must wait with all the patience he could muster, for the old man to move out. It was at this moment that Great-aunt Selina bethought her of how nicely he would say grace before her Christmas turkey, and what an admirable match he would be for her great-niece, who, though very pretty, was penniless. David’s family, hearing of his invitation, pressed him to accept, well knowing that his pained eye at home fixed on the circling bottle would have a depressing and crushing effect on their Christmas conviviality.

  David looked at Catherine across the crackers, and after one look lost all appetite for Great-aunt Selina’s admirable Christmas fare. He simply sat and stared, and knew his world had changed. He became so distrait with the magic of her smile, that when he rose to say a grace at the end of the meal, he could only gasp, “For what we have received may the Lord make us—oh, may the Lord make us—” and couldn’t say any more. A most peculiar state of affairs, which caused Great-aunt Selina and Catherine’s mother to whisper hopeful things into each other’s ears. As for Catherine, she forgot she had ever heard the word dashing, and knew once and for all that the only type of man she could love was the spiritual, with his soul in his eyes. Since everybody approved of their marrying, and threw them together with that object, and since they loved each other more every time they met, they were married that summer. The aged cousin was dislodged from the family living in time for the event, and Catherine at the age of seventeen found herself a Vicar’s wife.

  In September of the following year she produced her first child, a boy. On the evening of the day on which he was born, she lay in a kind of happy torpor. She was so glad her baby had arrived. She had been so sick during most of the past nine months. So many hours of last night and that day had been spent in the agony of producing him. During the final hours she had been convinced she was going to die. Now to lie still, to see the room full of flowers, an attentive nurse hovering in the background, and a fine fat little boy to show for all her trouble. The door opened and David slipped in. He looked at her with tears in his eyes, then dropped on his knees and poured out his relief and thanks to Heaven, in a breathless whisper. Catherine laid one of her thin hands on his bent head. After a time he got to his feet feeling
calmer.

  “What shall we call him?” asked Catherine, smiling down at her son’s little head.

  David began a frantic search in his pockets.

  “I want to talk to you about that.” Triumphantly he produced a list. “I feel, darling, that God means our children to be a light before men. It’s always been a grief to me to feel how few people read the Apocrypha. So while I was waiting on my knees for news of you, I told God that we would call our little ones after those from whom the books are named, so that people speaking to our children will call the books to mind. Look, dear—”

  Catherine took the list he proffered: Esdras, Tobit, Sirach, Baruch, Manasses, Maccabeus, Judith, Esther, Susanna.

  “Nine, David?” she asked faintly.

  “Nine,” said David solemnly. “If God should so bless us.”

  That night the nurse scolded Catherine because her temperature had risen.

  “Your husband shouldn’t give you letters to read, that’s what’s done it,” she said severely, removing the pencilled list from under the pillow.

  God blessed them with nine exactly. He might have blessed them with a good many more, had not Catherine been possessed of a strong mind. For the major part of the last nine years she had felt ill. She had produced Esdras in September of ’94. Tobit in December ’95. Judith in the February of ’97. Esther, April ’98. Sirach, June ’99. Then in the August of 1900 she had saved time by producing twins, Baruch and Susanna. Manasses had arrived in October 1901, and Maccabeus, December 1902.

  When David came to have his first peep at Maccabeus, his wife fumbled under her pillow, and produced a crumpled half-sheet of paper.

  “There you are, David,” she said, handing it to him. “All nine produced in perfect condition, and in the right sex according to schedule—we’ve been lucky—I was sure Maccabeus would be a girl.”

  Her husband looked at the list in surprise. He had no idea she had kept it. He saw they had used up all the names.

  “You mean,” he said affectionately, “that if God should bless us further, I must find a new list.”

  “Oh no, I don’t,” Catherine answered quickly. “You needn’t bother, He won’t. The flesh may still be willing, but the spirit’s very weak.”

  Her husband looked at her in a way he had grown rather used to looking at her during the last nine years—a searching puzzled look, as though he were wondering where he had mislaid the simple Catherine he had married.

  “That,” he replied, as nearly sternly as he was capable of being with Catherine. “That depends on God.”

  “Oh no, it doesn’t,” said Catherine. “It’s going to depend on me.”

  Not caring for the tone of this conversation, he left the room, confident that whatever she did or said, the powers above couldn’t help loving his Catherine.

  In the years that followed he was surprised to notice that she had been right. Maccabeus was their last child.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Christmas ring-making was interrupted by the front door bell. The heads of all the children were raised hopefully. Was it the postman? Was he bringing parcels? They heard the heavy feet of Maud, the house-parlourmaid, go plod, plod, as she passed the door, her shoes squelching on the hall oilcloth. Now she was opening the front door. There was a pause. Was she showing someone in? She had shut the front door. No— she was alone! Her footsteps were coming back, thump, thump, up the passage. The children held their breaths. Was she going into the study? Was it only a message? No. She had passed the study door, she was coming into the dining-room, she was turning the door handle. It must be parcels. Fourteen eyes were turned hopefully on her as she came in, but it wasn’t a parcel that she had on the salver, but a telegram.

  “For you, ’m,” she said, presenting the orange envelope with the scared look that telegrams always brought to her face.

  Catherine quickly read the wire, jumped to her feet, and ran across to the study.

  “Excuse me interrupting you, David,” the children heard her say, “but Great-aunt Selina’s dead.”

  The children looked at each other. How frightfully exciting life was. Christmas, and somebody dead, both at once. Up till this moment their Great-great-aunt Selina was only a name to them, but dead she became suddenly interesting.

  “‘The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth,’” said Esdras.

  “But I don’t believe she was a damsel,” argued Tobit. “Damsels is girls. Great-great-aunt Selina was quite old, and rode about in a Bath chair pulled by a tiny donkey; mummy told me so.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Judith, her face red and shining with excitement. I’ve jus’ thought of somethin’. We’ll wear black like the James children at the Mill did when their mother died. Black with crêpe trimmings.”

  Their mother came in.

  “You’ll have to run up to the nursery, darlings; anyway, it’s almost your dinnertime. Your Great-great-aunt Selina is dead, and I’m afraid that means I’ll have to go away for two days, and won’t be back till Christmas Eve.”

  “Mummy, will we wear black?” asked Judith anxiously.

  “Black? Well, darling, I really don’t know; I haven’t thought about it. I expect daddy will think you ought to wear black sashes or something at parties.”

  “Crêpe do you mean?” said Judith hopefully.

  “Good gracious no, darling, not crape.”

  “No, I s’pose not,” agreed Judith gloomily. “I s’pose it takes at least a dead mother for crêpe.”

  In the nursery Maud was whispering to Nannie:

  “An’ they do say, pore ole thin’, as it’s a merciful relief. Before she died she couldn’t do a thin’ for ’erself, she—”

  “Tch, tch!” clicked Nannie. “Merciful relief or not, death is a sad business.”

  Tobit had been listening in surprise to these whispers.

  “Nannie,” he asked, “is death a bad thing? Like making a rude noise? Is that why you whispers about it?”

  Nannie, having no adequate reply to this, took refuge in anger.

  “Rude noise indeed!” she said. “I’ll thank you, Tobit, not to speak of those things in front of Maud, who has never heard of the like. Now run along and wash your hands for dinner.”

  A message was sent up to the nursery after tea, to say that as their mother was away, they were to go down to the study instead of to the drawing-room. Tobit, still puzzling over the shocked way in which grown-up people talked of being dead, and underneath somehow a little scared, tackled his father on the subject.

  “Daddy, is it wrong being dead?”

  David was tired. All day he had laboured up and down his parish, he had many sick people to visit, and he was fighting his annual fight against the spirit that would turn Christmas into an affair of food and presents, and nothing else. He was vividly conscious that what he said would remain in the minds of at any rate the elder children for life. It was so important how one looked at death. Why wasn’t Catherine here to help him, she explained things so much better than he did.

  He was saved by Susanna.

  “Don’t let’s talk of dead peoples,” she said. “Me an’ Baruch wants to play bears.”

  When, half an hour later, Maud came to the study, to say that the parish nurse was in the hall, she couldn’t make herself heard above the growlings of the bears, and the only bit of the Vicar visible was his hind portions protruding from under the table.

  Catherine travelled home on Christmas Eve, feeling terribly conscious that she had enjoyed herself. It was such fun meeting all the relations again, and the men, particularly her uncles, had seemed to consider her still pretty, and to have found her amusing. She hadn’t thought of herself like that for years. Yet one oughtn’t to enjoy a funeral, she thought, trying to feel ashamed. David would be terribly shocked if he knew. But there it was, she had enjoyed every minute of it. Even getting pleasure out of s
inging: “Now the Labourer’s task is o’er.” For to describe Great-aunt Selina, even when dead, as a labourer tickled her sense of humour. Great-aunt Selina, who had devoted her whole life to avoiding even the mildest work, unless securing two husbands for herself, and countless husbands for female relations, could come under that heading. The two days’ enjoyment had been rounded off by the most wonderful surprise, for when the will was read, she found she had been left a large sum of money, which, the lawyer explained to her, would bring her in about five hundred a year. Thinking of her five hundred a year while sitting in the corner of a first-class railway-carriage—first-class because she had paid excess on the return half of her second-class ticket since hearing of her legacy—she found herself humming from sheer happiness, but stopped abruptly on seeing the shocked eye of a ferocious female facing her, fixed in amazement on one who could hum while in deep mourning.

  On a piece of paper she worked out what her increased income would do, and found that even when she had sent Esdras and Tobit to an expensive preparatory school, and engaged a resident governess for the other children, there would still be money over for other things. Not only money to spare, thought Catherine thankfully, but time. No more dreadful mornings teaching, especially no more teaching arithmetic and grammar, subjects at which she was a perfect fool, and Esdras, Tobit, and Judith, especially Judith, painfully sharp. How she had come to dread Judith’s “I don’t quite understand, mummy, why—?” It was all very well for David to tell her she was silly to worry, they were only little children. David merely taught classics, and he enjoyed rubbing up his Latin and Greek on the boys. Now all that was over forever. She decided she would go on looking for a governess until she had found one who was so clever, that no question that any child could ask could floor her. She had just reached this pleasant point in her musings when she became aware of the conversation of two women at the other end of the carriage.

  “My dear,” said one, “we always go over at the end of January.”

  “Yes,” replied the other. “I wouldn’t miss the freesias and mimosa for the world.”