But such was the report of her riches, that sir Wilton and lady Ann were both ready to welcome her as a daughter-in-law. Sir Wilton was delighted with her gaiety and the sharp readiness of her clever retort. All he regretted in her lack of an English education was that her speech was not quite that of a lady—on which point sir Wilton had not always been so fastidious. For the rest, intellectual development was of so little interest to him that he never suspected Barbara of having more than a usual share of intellect to develop. She was just the wife for the future baronet, he was once heard to say—though how he came once to say it I cannot think, for never before had he betrayed a consciousness that he would not be the present baronet for ever and ever. So long as he did not feel the approach of death, he would never think of dying, and then he would do his best to forget it. He seemed sometimes to grudge his son the dainty little wife Barbara would make him: “The rascal will be the envy of the clubs!” he said.
CHAPTER XVIII. MRS. WYLDER.
Mr. Wylder was lord of the manor, and chief land-owner, though his family had never been the most influential, in the parish next that in which lay Mortgrange. He was not much fitted for an English squire. He wished to stand well with his neighbours, but lacked the geniality which is the very body, the outside expression of humanity. Proud of his family, he had the peculiar fault of the Goth—that of arrogance, with its accompanying incapacity for putting oneself in the place of another. Mr. Wylder possessed a huge inability of conceiving the manner in which what he did or said must affect the person to whom he did or said it. So entirely was he thus disqualified for social interchange, that he remained supremely satisfied in his consequent isolation, hardly recognized it, and never doubted himself a perfect gentleman. Had any diffidence enabled him to perceive the reflection of himself in the mirroring minds of those around him, his self-opinion might have been troubled; but when he did begin to discover that the neighbours did not desire his company, he set it down to stupid prejudice against him because he had been so long absent from the country. He did not hunt, and when he went out shooting, which was seldom, he went alone, or with a game-keeper only. In fact he was so careless, that most men who had once shot with him, ever after gave him a wide berth when they saw him with a gun in his hand. On one occasion he shot his wife's twin in the calf of the leg; which, however, made her think no worse of his shooting, for she could never be persuaded he had not done it intentionally.
For a short time before leaving Australasia, the family had spent money in one of its larger cities, and had been a good deal followed; but neither there nor in England did they find that wealth could do everything. A few other qualities, not by any means of the highest order, are required by nearly all social agglomerations, and with some of these Mrs. Wylder was as scantily equipped as her husband with others.
Resenting the indifference of his neighbours, and not caring to remove it, Mr. Wylder betook himself to the exercise of certain constructive faculties, not unfrequently developed in circumstances in which a man has to be his own Jack-of-all-trades: finding a certain old manor-house which he had haunted as a boy, chiefly for the sake of its attendant goose-berries and apples, unoccupied and fallen into decay, he set about restoring it with his own hands. But it had not occurred to him that, although even in England it is not necessary, as they did at Lagado, in building to begin with the roof, in England especially is it necessary in repairing to begin with the roof. While the floors were rotting away, he would be busy panelling the walls, regardless of a drop falling steadily in the middle of the bench at which he was working.
The clergyman of the parish, one Thomas Wingfold, a man who loved his fellow, and would fain give him of the best he had, a man who was a Christian first, which means a man, and then a churchman, had now, for almost three years, often puzzled brain and heart together to find what could be done for these his new parishioners—from the world's point of view the first, yet in reality as insignificant as any he had; and not yet did he know how to get near them. He had not yet seen a glimmer of religion in the man, and had seen more than a glimmer of something else in the woman. Between him and either of them their common humanity had not yet shown a spark. What he had seen of the girl he liked, but he had not seen much.
It was a fine frosty day in February, about twelve o'clock, when Mr. Wingfold walked up the avenue of Scotch firs to call on Mrs. Wylder. He was dressed like any country gentleman in a tweed suit, carried a rather strong stick, and wore a soft felt hat, looking altogether more of a squire than a clergyman—for which his parishioners mostly liked him the better. Pious people in general seem to regard religion as a necessary accompaniment of life; to Wingfold it was life itself; with him religion must be all, or could be nothing. He did not accept the good news of God; he strained it to his heart, and was jubilant over it. He was a rather square-looking man, with projecting brows, and a grizzled beard. The upper part of his face would look dark while a smile was hovering about his mouth; at another time his mouth would look solemn, almost severe, while a radiance, as from some white cloud nobody could see, illuminated his forehead. He generally walked with his eyes on the ground, but would every now and then straighten his back, and gaze away to the horizon, as if looking for the far-off sails of help. He was noted among his farmers for his common sense, as they called it, and among the gentry for a certain frankness of speech, which most of them liked.
He rang the door-bell of the Hall, and asked if Mrs. Wylder was at home. The man hesitated, looked in the clergyman's face, and smiling oddly, answered, “Yes, sir.”
“Only you don't think she will care to see me!”