The Cost of Kindness | Page 3

the end of another five
Mrs. Pennycoop stopped, not for want of words, but for want of breath.
The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe replied in a voice that, to his own
surprise, was trembling with emotion. Mrs. Pennycoop had made his
task harder for him. He had thought to leave Wychwood-on-the-Heath
without a regret. The knowledge he now possessed, that at all events
one member of his congregation understood him, as Mrs. Pennycoop
had proved to him she understood him, sympathized with him--the
knowledge that at least one heart, and that heart Mrs. Pennycoop's, had
warmed to him, would transform what he had looked forward to as a
blessed relief into a lasting grief.
Mr. Pennycoop, carried away by his wife's eloquence, added a few
halting words of his own. It appeared from Mr. Pennycoop's remarks
that he had always regarded the Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe as the
vicar of his dreams, but misunderstandings in some unaccountable way
will arise. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe, it appeared, had always
secretly respected Mr. Pennycoop. If at any time his spoken words
might have conveyed the contrary impression, that must have arisen
from the poverty of our language, which does not lend itself to subtle
meanings.
Then following the suggestion of tea, Miss Cracklethorpe, sister to the
Rev. Augustus--a lady whose likeness to her brother in all respects was
startling, the only difference between them being that while he was
clean-shaven she wore a slight moustache--was called down to grace
the board. The visit was ended by Mrs. Pennycoop's remembrance that
it was Wilhelmina's night for a hot bath.
"I said more than I intended to," admitted Mrs. Pennycoop to George,
her husband, on the way home; "but he irritated me."
Rumour of the Pennycoops' visit flew through the parish. Other ladies
felt it their duty to show to Mrs. Pennycoop that she was not the only
Christian in Wychwood-on-the-Heath. Mrs. Pennycoop, it was feared,
might be getting a swelled head over this matter. The Rev. Augustus,
with pardonable pride, repeated some of the things that Mrs.
Pennycoop had said to him. Mrs. Pennycoop was not to imagine herself

the only person in Wychwood-on-the-Heath capable of generosity that
cost nothing. Other ladies could say graceful nothings--could say them
even better. Husbands dressed in their best clothes and carefully
rehearsed were brought in to grace the almost endless procession of
disconsolate parishioners hammering at the door of St. Jude's parsonage.
Between Thursday morning and Saturday night the Rev. Augustus,
much to his own astonishment, had been forced to the conclusion that
five-sixths of his parishioners had loved him from the first without
hitherto having had opportunity of expressing their real feelings.
The eventful Sunday arrived. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe had
been kept so busy listening to regrets at his departure, assurances of an
esteem hitherto disguised from him, explanations of seeming
discourtesies that had been intended as tokens of affectionate regard,
that no time had been left to him to think of other matters. Not till he
entered the vestry at five minutes to eleven did recollection of his
farewell sermon come to him. It haunted him throughout the service.
To deliver it after the revelations of the last three days would be
impossible. It was the sermon that Moses might have preached to
Pharaoh the Sunday prior to the exodus. To crush with it this
congregation of broken-hearted adorers sorrowing for his departure
would be inhuman. The Rev. Augustus tried to think of passages that
might be selected, altered. There were none. From beginning to end it
contained not a single sentence capable of being made to sound
pleasant by any ingenuity whatsoever.
The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe climbed slowly up the pulpit steps
without an idea in his head of what he was going to say. The sunlight
fell upon the upturned faces of a crowd that filled every corner of the
church. So happy, so buoyant a congregation the eyes of the Rev.
Augustus Cracklethorpe had never till that day looked down upon. The
feeling came to him that he did not want to leave them. That they did
not wish him to go, could he doubt? Only by regarding them as a
collection of the most shameless hypocrites ever gathered together
under one roof. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe dismissed the
passing suspicion as a suggestion of the Evil One, folded the
neatly-written manuscript that lay before him on the desk, and put it

aside. He had no need of a farewell sermon. The arrangements made
could easily be altered. The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe spoke from
his pulpit for the first time an impromptu.
The Rev. Augustus Cracklethorpe wished to acknowledge himself in
the wrong. Foolishly founding his judgment upon the evidence of a few
men, whose names there would be no need to mention, members