Chapter 13

In a couple of months Langborough was astounded at the news of the Rector’s marriage with a Mrs. Leighton whom nobody in Langborough knew. The advertisement in the _Stamford Mercury_ said that the lady was the widow of Richard Leighton, Esq., and eldest daughter of the late Marmaduke Sutton, Esq. Langborough spared no pains to discover who she was. Mrs. Bingham found out that the Suttons were a Devonshire family, and she ascertained from an Exeter friend that Mr. Marmaduke Sutton was the son of an Honourable, and that Mrs. Leighton was consequently a high-born lady. She had married as her first husband a man who had done well at Cambridge, but who took to gambling and drink, and treated her with such brutality that they separated. At last he forged a signature and was transported. What became of his wife afterwards was not known. Langborough was not only greatly moved by this intelligence, but was much perplexed. Miss Tarrant’s estimate of the Doctor was once more reversed. She was decidedly of opinion that the marriage was a scandal. A woman who had consented to link herself with such a reprobate as the convict must have been from the beginning could not herself have possessed any reputation. Living apart, too, was next door to divorce, and who could associate with a creature who had been divorced? No doubt she was physically seductive, and the doctor had fallen a victim to her snares. Miss Tarrant, if she had not known so well what men are, would never have dreamed that Dr. Midleton, a scholar and a divine, could surrender to corporeal attractions. She declared that she could no longer expect any profit from his ministrations, and that she should leave the parish. Miss Tarrant’s friends, however, did not go quite so far, and Mrs. Harrop confessed to Mrs. Cobb that “she for one wouldn’t lay it down like Medes and Persians, that we should have nothing to do with a woman because her husband had made a fool of himself. I’m not a Mede nor a Persian, Mrs. Cobb. I say let us wait and see what she is like.”

Mrs. Bingham was of the same mind. She dwelt much to herself on the fact that Mrs. Midleton’s great-grandfather must have been a lord. She secretly hoped that as a wine merchant’s wife she might obtain admission into a “sphere,” as she called it, from which the other ladies in the town might be excluded. Mrs. Bingham already foretasted the bliss of an invitation to the rectory to meet Lady Caroline from Thaxton Manor; she already foretasted the greater bliss of not meeting her intimate friends there, and that most exquisite conceivable bliss of telling them afterwards all about the party.

Mrs. Midleton and her husband returned on a Saturday afternoon. The road from Thaxton cross-roads did not lie through the town: the carriage was closed and nobody saw her. When they came to the rectory the Doctor pointed to the verse in white paint on the wall, “It shall be taken out,” he said, “before to-morrow morning: to-morrow is Sunday.” He was expected to preach on that day and the church was crammed a quarter of an hour before the service began. At five minutes to eleven a lady and child entered and walked to the rector’s pew. The congregation was stupefied with amazement. Mouths were agape, a hum of exclamations arose, and people on the further side of the church stood up.

It was Mrs. Fairfax! Nobody had conjectured that she and Mrs. Leighton were the same person. It was unimaginable that a dressmaker should have had near ancestors in the peerage. It was more than a year and a half since she left the town. Mrs. Carter was able to say that not a single letter had been addressed to her, and she was almost forgotten.

A few days afterwards Mrs. Sweeting had a little note requesting her to take tea with the Rector and his wife. Nobody was asked to meet her. Mrs. Bingham had called the day before, and had been extremely apologetic.

“I am afraid, Mrs. Midleton, you must have thought me sometimes very rude to you.”

To which Mrs. Midleton replied graciously, “I am sure if you had been it would have been quite excusable.”

“Extremely kind of you to say so, Mrs. Midleton.”

Mrs. Cobb also called. “I’ll just let her see,” said Mrs. Cobb to herself; and she put on a gown which Mrs. Midleton as Mrs. Fairfax had made for her.

“You’ll remember this gown, Mrs. Midleton?”

“Perfectly well. It is not quite a fit on the shoulders. If you will let me have it back again it will give me great pleasure to alter it for you.”

By degrees, however, Mrs. Midleton came to be loved by many people in Langborough. Mr. Sweeting not long afterwards died in debt, and Mrs. Sweeting, the old housekeeper being also dead, was taken into the rectory as her successor, and became Mrs. Midleton’s trusted friend.

FOOTNOTES

{10} Since 1868 the _Reminiscences_ and his _Life_ have been published which put this estimate of him beyond all doubt. It is much to be regretted that a certain theory, a certain irresistible tendency to arrange facts so as to prove preconceived notions, a tendency more dangerous and unhistorical even than direct suppression of the truth or invention of what is not true, should have ruined Carlyle’s biography. Professor Norton’s edition of the _Reminiscences_ should be compared with Mr. Froude’s.

{34a} _Ethic_ pt. 1, def. 3.

{34b} Ibid., pt. 1, def. 6.

{34c} Ibid., pt. 1, prop. 11.

{36} _Ethic_, pt. 2, prop. 47.

{37a} Letter 56 (Van Vloten and Land’s ed.).

{37b} _Ethic_, pt. 1, coroll. prop. 25.

{37c} Ibid., pt. 5, prop. 24.

{37d} Ibid., pt. 1, schol. to prop. 17.

{38} _Ethic_, pt. 1, schol. to prop. 17.

{39} _Ethic_, pt. 2, prop. 13.

{40a} _Ethic_, pt. 1, coroll. 1, prop. 32.

{40b} Ibid., pt. 1, prop. 33.

{40c} Letter 56

{41a} Letter 21.

{41b} Letter 58.

{42a} _Ethic_, pt. 2, schol. prop. 49.

{42b} Ibid., pt. 4, coroll. prop. 63.

{43a} _Ethic_, pt. 5, or pp. 42.

{43b} “Agis being asked on a time how a man might continue free all his life; he answered, ‘By despising death.’” (Plutarch’s “Morals.” Laconic Apophthegms.)

{43c} _Ethic_, pt. 5, schol. prop. 4.

{44a} _Ethic_, pt. 4, coroll. prop. 64.

{44b} Ibid., pt. 4, schol. prop. 66.

{44c} Ibid., pt. 4, schol. prop. 50.

{45a} _Ethic_, pt. 4, prop. 46 and schol.

{45b} Ibid., pt. 3, schol. prop. 11.

{46} _Ethic_, pt. 4, schol. prop. 45.

{47} _Ethic_, pt. 5, props. 14–20.

{50} _Short Treatise_, pt. 2, chap. 22.

{52} _Ethic_, pt. 1, Appendix.

{54} _Ethic_, pt. 2, schol. 2, prop. 40.

{55a} _Ethic_, pt. 5, coroll. prop. 34.

{55b} Ibid., pt. 5, prop. 36.

{55c} Ibid., pt. 5, prop. 36, coroll.

{56a} _Ethic_, pt. 5, prop. 38.

{56b} _Short Treatise_, pt. 2, chap. 23.

{57a} Aristotle’s _Psychology_ (Wallace’s translation), p. 161.

{57b} Rabelais, _Pantagruel_, book 4, chap. 27.

{101} Hazlitt.

{103} Italics mine.—M. R.

{104a} Italics mine.—M. R.

{104b} Italics mine.—M. R.

{133} _Poetry of Byron chosen and arranged by Matthew Arnold_—1881.

{143} “_Adah_.—Peace be with him (Abel).

_Cain_.—But with _me_!”

{180} My aunt Eleanor was thought to be a bit of a pagan by the evangelical part of our family. My mother when speaking of her to me used to say, “Your heathen aunt.” She was well-educated, but the better part of her education she received abroad after her engagement, which took place when she was eighteen years old. She was the only member of our family in the upper middle class. Her husband was Thomas Charteris, junior partner in a bank.