Sidebottom was not at ease in her mind after the suggestion thrown out by Philip that the business might suffer if so much capital were suddenly withdrawn from it. She recalled how it had been when her brother Nicholas had insisted on taking out of it his share – how angry Jeremiah had been; how, for awhile, the stability of the firm had been shaken, and how crippled it had been for some years. She remembered how that her share of the profits had been reduced, and she had no desire to meet with a recurrence of this shrinkage. When Nicholas made that great call on the resources of the firm, there was Jeremiah in the office, thoroughly experienced, and he was able, through his ability and knowledge, to pull through; but it was another matter now with Philip, a raw hand, in authority.
Then, again, Mrs. Sidebottom knew her brother Jeremiah had contemplated a large outlay in new and improved machinery. To keep up with the times, abreast with other competitors, it was necessary that this costly alteration should be made. But could it be done if four or five thousand pounds were sacrificed to a caprice?
'Philip is such a fool!' she muttered. 'He inherits some of his father's obstinacy, as well as his carelessness about money. Nicholas no sooner got money in his hands than he played ducks and drakes with it; and Philip is bent on doing the same. Four thousand pounds to that minx, Salome! There goes the church bell. When will Lamb be in?'
Mrs. Sidebottom lit a bedroom candle, and went upstairs to dress for dinner. Whilst ascending, she was immersed in thought, and suddenly an idea occurred to her which made her quicken her steps. Instead of dressing for dinner, she put on her bonnet. The church bell had diverted her thoughts into a new channel. When dressed to go out, she rang for the parlourmaid. 'Susan,' she said, 'I had forgotten. This is a holy day. I believe, I am morally certain, it is a saint's day, and appointed by the Church to make us holy. We must deny ourselves. So put off dinner half an hour. I am going to church – to set an example.'
Mrs. Sidebottom was not an assiduous church-goer. She attended on Sundays to do the civil to the parson, but was rarely or never seen within the sacred walls on week days. Consequently her announcement to Susan, that she was about to assist at divine worship that evening, and that dinner was to be postponed accordingly, surprised the domestic and surprised and angered the cook, who did not object to unpunctuality in herself, but resented it in her master and mistress.
'If Salome is not at church,' said Mrs. Sidebottom to herself, 'I shall be taken with faintness; fan myself with my pocket-handkerchief, to let the congregation see I am poorly, and will come away at the Nunc Dimittis.'
But Mrs. Sidebottom tarried in church through the Nunc Dimittis, professed her adhesion to the Creed, and declared her transgressions. As she listened to the lessons, her mind reverted to the quenilles. 'They will be done to chips!' she sighed, and then forgetting herself, intoned, 'A – men.' At the prayers she thought of the shoulder of mutton, and in the hymn hovered in soul over the marmalade-pudding. Probably, if the hearts of other worshippers that evening had been revealed, they would not have been discovered more wrapped in devotion than that of Mrs. Sidebottom. In the life of St. Modwenna, Abbess of Stoke-on-Trent, we read that this holy woman had the faculty of seeing the prayers of her nuns dancing like midges under the choir roof; they could not pierce the vault, being deficient in the boring organ, which is true devotion. It is perhaps fortunate we have not the same gift. On that evening a row of tittering girls sought to attract the attention and engross the admiration of the choristers. Five young ladies, hating each other as rivals, sought by their attendance to catch the curate, who was unmarried. Old Bankes was there, because he hoped to sell two bags of potatoes to the parson. Mary Saunders was there, because some unpleasant stories had circulated concerning her character, and she hoped to smother them by appearing at church on week days. Mr. Gruff was there, to find fault with the parson's conduct of the service, and Mrs. Tomkins attended to see who were present.
When the service was concluded, Mrs. Sidebottom came out of church beside Salome, who had been seated in front of her. She at once addressed her.
'My dear Miss Cusworth, how soothing it is to have week-day prayer. I have had so much of the world forced on me of late, that I felt I must for the good of my soul to fly to the sanctuary.'
'There is always service on Thursday evening.'
'My goodness! – is this not a saint's day? I thought it was, and I have been so devout, too. You don't mean to tell me there is no special call for it? – and these saints – they are perfectly fascinating creatures.'
Mrs. Sidebottom could talk what she called 'goody' when there was need for it; she generally talked it when chance led her into a poor man's cottage. As children are given lollipops by their elders, so the poor, she thought, must be given 'goody talk' by their superiors. She put on her various suits of talk as occasion offered. She had her scandal suit and her pious suit, and her domestic-worry suit and her political suit – just like those picture-books children have, whose one face does for any number of transformation garments, and the same head figures now as a bronze, then as Nell Gwynne, as a Quakeress, or as a tight-rope dancer.
The author at one time knew a bedridden man who had two suits of conversation – the one profane, abusive, brutal, the other pious, sanctified, and seasoned with salt. When his cottage-door was open, the passer heard some such exclamations as these as he approached, addressed to the wife: 'Now then, you – toad!' Then a reference to her eyes best left unquoted. 'If I could only get at you, I'd skin you!' Then a change. 'Fetch me my Boible; O my soul, be joyful, raise the sacred hanthem! Bah! I thought 'twas the parson's step, and he'd give me a shilling! Now then, you gallopading kangaroo!' This, of course, was an extreme case, and Mrs. Sidebottom was far too well-bred to go to extremities.
'I was so glad you came in when you did,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'I was really feeling somewhat faint. I feared I would have been forced to leave at the Nunc Dimittis, and I was just fanning myself with my handkerchief, on which was a drop of eau de Cologne, when you came in, and a whiff of cool air from the door revived me, so I was able to remain. I am so thankful! The hymn afforded me such elevating thoughts! I felt as if I had wings of angels, which I could spread, and upward fly!'
'I was late – I could not get away earlier.'
'And I am grateful to be able to walk back with you. You will allow me to take your arm. I am still shaken with my temporary faintness. I have, I fear, been overdone. I have had so much to try me of late. But when the bell rang, I was drawn towards the sacred building. Upon my word, I thought it was a saint's day, and it was a duty as well as a pleasure to be there. I am so glad I went; and now I am able to walk back with you, and after public worship – though the congregation was rather thin – the mind is turned to devotion, and the thoughts are framed, are, in fact, just what they ought to be, you know. I have wanted for some time to speak to you, and tell you how grieved I was that I was forced to give your mother notice to leave. I had no thought of being inconsiderate and unkind.'
'I am aware of that,' answered Salome quietly. 'Mr. Philip Pennycomequick has already told mamma that the notice was a mere formality. The explanation was a relief to us, as mamma was somewhat hurt. She had tried to do her best for dear Mr. Pennycomequick.'
'You will have to induce her to forgive me. What is religion for, and churches built, and organs, and hot-water apparatus, and all that sort of thing, but to cultivate in us the forgiving spirit. I am, myself, the most placable person in the world, and after singing such a hymn as that in which I have just joined, I could forgive Susan if she dropped the silver spoons on the floor and dinted them.'
No one would have been more astonished than Mrs. Sidebottom if told that she was artificial, that she affected interests, sympathies, to which she was strange. At the time that she talked she felt what she said, but the feeling followed the expression, did not originate it.
'My dear Miss Cusworth,' she went on, 'I am not one to bear a grudge. I never could. When my poor Sidebottom was alive,
