Sketches by Boz, by Charles Dickens (1836) - Chapter 2

CHAPTER II—THE CURATE.  THE OLD LADY.  THE HALF-PAY CAPTAIN

    We commenced our last chapter with the beadle of our parish, because we are deeply sensible of the importance and dignity of his office.  We will begin the present, with the clergyman.  Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance, and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish, half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half, desponding with love.  Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish church on Sunday before; and never had the little round angels’ faces on Mr. Tomkins’s monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited.  He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners.  He parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Norman arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers), and had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity.  Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mammas on our new curate, and innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which, to do him justice, he readily accepted.  If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was increased tenfold, by his appearance in private circles.  Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading-desk rose in value; sittings in the centre aisle were at a premium: an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or money; and some people even went so far as to assert, that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens’, were detected, one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry!  He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection.  He got out of bed at half-past twelve o’clock one winter’s night, to half-baptise a washerwoman’s child in a slop-basin, and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds—the very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch-box on wheels, which the new curate had ordered for himself, to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather.  He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at once—the parish were charmed.  He got up a subscription for her—the woman’s fortune was made.  He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes, at an anti-slavery meeting at the Goat and Boots—the enthusiasm was at its height.  A proposal was set on foot for presenting the curate with a piece of plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the parish.  The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time; the contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but who should be the foremost to subscribe.  A splendid silver inkstand was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscription; the curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat and Boots; the inkstand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-churchwarden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all present—the very waiters were melted.
    One would have supposed that, by this time, the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity.  No such thing.  The curate began to cough; four fits of coughing one morning between the Litany and the Epistle, and five in the afternoon service.  Here was a discovery—the curate was consumptive.  How interestingly melancholy!  If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds.  Such a man as the curate—such a dear—such a perfect love—to be consumptive!  It was too much.  Anonymous presents of black-currant jam, and lozenges, elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was as completely fitted out with winter clothing, as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole: verbal bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the parish half-a-dozen times a day; and the curate was in the very zenith of his popularity.
    About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish.  A very quiet, respectable, dozing old gentleman, who had officiated in our chapel-of-ease for twelve years previously, died one fine morning, without having given any notice whatever of his intention.  This circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second.  He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling black hair: his dress was slovenly in the extreme, his manner ungainly, his doctrines startling; in short, he was in every respect the antipodes of the curate.  Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear him; at first, because he was so odd-looking, then because his face was so expressive, then because he preached so well; and at last, because they really thought that, after all, there was something about him which it was quite impossible to describe.  As to the curate, he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying that—that—in short, the curate wasn’t a novelty, and the other clergyman was.  The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one.  The curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in vain.  He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy.  Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church, and the chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday!
    The best known and most respected among our parishioners, is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was registered in the list of baptisms.  Our parish is a suburban one, and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it.  The house is her own; and it, and everything about it, except the old lady herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is in just the same state as when the old gentleman was living.  The little front parlour, which is the old lady’s ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness; the carpet is covered with brown Holland, the glass and picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow muslin; the table-covers are never taken off, except when the leaves are turpentined and bees’-waxed, an operation which is regularly commenced every other morning at half-past nine o’clock—and the little nicknacks are always arranged in precisely the same manner.  The greater part of these are presents from little girls whose parents live in the same row; but some of them, such as the two old-fashioned watches (which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared in the Royal Box at Drury Lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady’s possession for many years.  Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needlework—near the window in summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps, and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street-door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert yourself by talking.  If you call in the evening you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table, before her, of which ‘Sarah,’ who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour aloud.
    The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical tea-drinking with her, to which the child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence.  She seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one on either side; and when she drinks tea here, Sarah runs out first and knocks a double-knock, to prevent the possibility of her ‘Missis’s’ catching cold by having to wait at the door.  She is very scrupulous in returning these little invitations, and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Somebody-else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best china tea-service, and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors are received in the drawing-room in great state.  She has but few relations, and they are scattered about in different parts of the country, and she seldom sees them.  She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome fellow—so like the profile of his poor dear father over the sideboard, but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the head, that he has always been one of her greatest trials; and that indeed he once almost broke her heart; but it pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she would prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again.  She has a great number of pensioners: and on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old men and women in the passage, waiting for their weekly gratuity.  Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and hers are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society.  She subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by the pew-opener.  Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsey until the pew-opener has ushered the old lady into her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsey, and shut the door: and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving church, when she walks home with the family next door but one, and talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation by asking the youngest boy where the text was.
    Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the sea-coast, passes the old lady’s life.  It has rolled on in the same unvarying and benevolent course for many years now, and must at no distant period be brought to its final close.  She looks forward to its termination, with calmness and without apprehension.  She has everything to hope and nothing to fear.
    A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady’s next-door neighbours.  He is an old naval officer on half-pay, and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady’s domestic economy, not a little.  In the first place, he will smoke cigars in the front court, and when he wants something to drink with them—which is by no means an uncommon circumstance—he lifts up the old lady’s knocker with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table ale, handed over the rails.  In addition to this cool proceeding, he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own words, ‘a regular Robinson Crusoe;’ and nothing delights him better than to experimentalise on the old lady’s property.  One morning he got up early, and planted three or four roots of full-grown marigolds in every bed of her front garden, to the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually thought when she got up and looked out of the window, that it was some strange eruption which had come out in the night.  Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the works, which he put together again, by some undiscovered process, in so wonderful a manner, that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little one ever since.  Then he took to breeding silk-worms, which he would bring in two or three times a day, in little paper boxes, to show the old lady, generally dropping a worm or two at every visit.  The consequence was, that one morning a very stout silk-worm was discovered in the act of walking up-stairs—probably with the view of inquiring after his friends, for, on further inspection, it appeared that some of his companions had already found their way to every room in the house.  The old lady went to the seaside in despair, and during her absence he completely effaced the name from her brass door-plate, in his attempts to polish it with aqua-fortis.
    But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life.  He attends every vestry meeting that is held; always opposes the constituted authorities of the parish, denounces the profligacy of the churchwardens, contests legal points against the vestry-clerk, will make the tax-gatherer call for his money till he won’t call any longer, and then he sends it: finds fault with the sermon every Sunday, says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself, offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together, male and female; and, in short, conducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious manner.  The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand, and talks violent politics by the hour.  He is a charitable, open-hearted old fellow at bottom, after all; so, although he puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very well in the main, and she laughs as much at each feat of his handiwork when it is all over, as anybody else.