Let it, at least, be written down; we shall know how
to value such stuff.
Material for this gossip, then, is brought into the
kitchens, the cottages, and the bar-parlours by Mr.
Marrapit’s domestic staff.
Mrs. Armitage, his cook, has given tales of his “grimness”
to the cottages where her comfortable presence is
welcomed on Sunday and Thursday afternoons. She
believes, however, that he must be a “religious
gentleman,” because (so she says) “he talks
like out of the Bible.”
This would seem to bear out Mr. William Wyvern’s
allusion to the minor prophet element of his character.
It is the habit of Clara and Ada, his maids, squeezing
at the gate from positions dangerous to modesty into
which their ardent young men have thrust them—it
is their habit, thus placed, to excuse themselves
from indelicate embraces by telling alarming tales
of Mr. Marrapit’s “carrying on”
should they be late. He is a “fair old
terror,” they say.
The testimony of Mr. Fletcher, his gardener, gloomy
over his beer in the bar-parlours, seems to support
the “stinginess” that the vicar has determined
in Mr. Marrapit’s character. Mr. Fletcher,
for example, has lugubriously shown what has to be
put up with when in the service of a man who had every
inch of the grounds searched because a threepenny
bit had been dropped. “It’s ’ard—damn
’ard,” Mr Fletcher said on that occasion.
“I’m a gardener, I am; not a treasure-’unter.”
Murmurs of sympathy chorused endorsement of this view.
Finally there are the words of Frederick, son of Mrs.
Armitage, and assistant to Fletcher, whose pleasure
it is to set on end the touzled hair of the youth
of Paltley Hill by obviously exaggerated stories of
Mr. Marrapit’s grim rule.
“’E’s a tryant,” Frederick
has said.
Such is an epitome of the kitchen gossip concerning
Mr. Marrapit; it is wholesome to be away from such
tattling, and personally to approach the lawn whereon
its subject sits.
This lawn, a delectable sight on this fine July afternoon,
is set about with wire netting to a height of some
six feet. By the energies of Mr. Fletcher and
Frederick the sward is exquisitely trimmed and rolled;
and their labours join with the wire netting to make
the lawn a safe and pleasant exercise ground for Mr.
Marrapit’s cats.
Back in the days of Mr. Marrapit’s first occupancy
of Herons’ Holt, this man was a mighty amateur
breeder of cats, and a rare army of cats possessed.
Regal cats he had, queenly cats, imperial neuter cats;
blue cats, grey cats, orange cats, and white cats—cats
for which nothing was too good, upon which too much
money could not be spent nor too much love be lavished.
Latterly, with tremendous wrenchings of the heart,
he had disbanded this galaxy of cats. Changes
in his household were partly the cause of this step.
The coming of his nephew, George, had seriously upset
