Lifes Little Ironies | Page 3

vicar
knew not which. It was then represented to him that his servants
seemed to have nothing to do in his small family of one. He was struck
with the truth of this representation, and decided to cut down his
establishment. But he was forestalled by Sophy, the parlour-maid, who
said one evening that she wished to leave him.
'And why?' said the parson.
'Sam Hobson has asked me to marry him, sir.'
'Well--do you want to marry?'
'Not much. But it would be a home for me. And we have heard that one
of us will have to leave.'
A day or two after she said: 'I don't want to leave just yet, sir, if you
don't wish it. Sam and I have quarrelled.'

He looked up at her. He had hardly ever observed her before, though he
had been frequently conscious of her soft presence in the room. What a
kitten-like, flexuous, tender creature she was! She was the only one of
the servants with whom he came into immediate and continuous
relation. What should he do if Sophy were gone?
Sophy did not go, but one of the others did, and things went on quietly
again.
When Mr. Twycott, the vicar, was ill, Sophy brought up his meals to
him, and she had no sooner left the room one day than he heard a noise
on the stairs. She had slipped down with the tray, and so twisted her
foot that she could not stand. The village surgeon was called in; the
vicar got better, but Sophy was incapacitated for a long time; and she
was informed that she must never again walk much or engage in any
occupation which required her to stand long on her feet. As soon as she
was comparatively well she spoke to him alone. Since she was
forbidden to walk and bustle about, and, indeed, could not do so, it
became her duty to leave. She could very well work at something
sitting down, and she had an aunt a seamstress.
The parson had been very greatly moved by what she had suffered on
his account, and he exclaimed, 'No, Sophy; lame or not lame, I cannot
let you go. You must never leave me again!'
He came close to her, and, though she could never exactly tell how it
happened, she became conscious of his lips upon her cheek. He then
asked her to marry him. Sophy did not exactly love him, but she had a
respect for him which almost amounted to veneration. Even if she had
wished to get away from him she hardly dared refuse a personage so
reverend and august in her eyes, and she assented forthwith to be his
wife.
Thus it happened that one fine morning, when the doors of the church
were naturally open for ventilation, and the singing birds fluttered in
and alighted on the tie-beams of the roof, there was a marriage-service
at the communion-rails, which hardly a soul knew of. The parson and a
neighbouring curate had entered at one door, and Sophy at another,

followed by two necessary persons, whereupon in a short time there
emerged a newly-made husband and wife.
Mr. Twycott knew perfectly well that he had committed social suicide
by this step, despite Sophy's spotless character, and he had taken his
measures accordingly. An exchange of livings had been arranged with
an acquaintance who was incumbent of a church in the south of London,
and as soon as possible the couple removed thither, abandoning their
pretty country home, with trees and shrubs and glebe, for a narrow,
dusty house in a long, straight street, and their fine peal of bells for the
wretchedest one-tongued clangour that ever tortured mortal ears. It was
all on her account. They were, however, away from every one who had
known her former position; and also under less observation from
without than they would have had to put up with in any country parish.
Sophy the woman was as charming a partner as a man could possess,
though Sophy the lady had her deficiencies. She showed a natural
aptitude for little domestic refinements, so far as related to things and
manners; but in what is called culture she was less intuitive. She had
now been married more than fourteen years, and her husband had taken
much trouble with her education; but she still held confused ideas on
the use of 'was' and 'were,' which did not beget a respect for her among
the few acquaintances she made. Her great grief in this relation was that
her only child, on whose education no expense had been and would be
spared, was now old enough to perceive these deficiencies in his
mother, and not only to see them but to feel irritated at their existence.