Both Mr Outhouse and his wife were especially timid in taking upon themselves the cares of other people. Not on that account is it to be supposed that they were bad or selfish. They were both given much to charity, and bestowed both in time and money more than is ordinarily considered necessary even from persons in their position. But what they gave, they gave away from their own quiet hearth. Had money been wanting to the daughters of his wife’s brother, Mr Outhouse would have opened such small coffer as he had with a free hand. But he would have much preferred that his benevolence should be used in a way that would bring upon him no further responsibility and no questionings from people whom he did not know and could not understand.
The Rev. Oliphant Outhouse had been Rector of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East for the last fifteen years, having married the sister of Sir Marmaduke Rowley then simply Mr Rowley, with a colonial appointment in Jamaica of 120 pounds per annum twelve years before his promotion, while he was a curate in one of the populous borough parishes. He had thus been a London clergyman all his life; but he knew almost as little of London society as though he had held a cure in a Westmoreland valley. He had worked hard, but his work had been altogether among the poor. He had no gift of preaching, and had acquired neither reputation nor popularity. But he could work, and having been transferred because of that capability to the temporary curacy of St. Diddulph’s out of one diocese into another, he had received the living from the bishop’s hands when it became vacant.
A dreary place was the parsonage of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East for the abode of a gentleman. Mr Outhouse had not, in his whole parish, a parishioner with whom he could consort. The greatest men around him were the publicans, and the most numerous were men employed in and around the docks. Dredgers of mud, navvies employed on suburban canals, excavators, loaders and unloaders of cargo, cattle drivers, whose driving, however, was done mostly on board ship — such and such like were the men who were the fathers of the families of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East. And there was there, not far removed from the muddy estuary of a little stream that makes its black way from the Essex marshes among the houses of the poorest of the poor into the Thames, a large commercial establishment for turning the carcasses of horses into manure. Messrs Flowsem and Blurt were in truth the great people of St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East; but the closeness of their establishment was not an additional attraction to the parsonage. They were liberal, however, with their money, and Mr Outhouse was disposed to think, custom perhaps having made the establishment less objectionable to him than it was at first, that St. Diddulph’s-in-the-East would be more of a Pandemonium than it now was, if by any sanitary law Messrs Flowsem and Blurt were compelled to close their doors. ‘Non olet,’ he would say with a grim smile when the charitable cheque of the firm would come punctually to hand on the first Saturday after Christmas.
But such a house as his would be, as he knew, but a poor residence for his wife’s nieces. Indeed, without positively saying that he was unwilling to receive them, he had, when he first heard of the breaking up of the house in Curzon Street, shewn that he would rather not take upon his shoulders so great a responsibility. He and his wife had discussed the matter between them, and had come to the conclusion that they did not know what kind of things might have been done in Curzon Street. They would think no evil, they said; but the very idea of a married woman with a lover was dreadful to them. It might be that their niece was free from blame. They hoped so. And even though her sin had been of ever so deep a dye, they would take her in if it were indeed necessary. But they hoped that such help from them might not be needed. They both knew how to give counsel to a poor woman, how to rebuke a poor man, how to comfort, encourage, or to upbraid the poor. Practice had told them how far they might go with some hope of doing good and at what stage of demoralisation no good from their hands was any longer within the scope of fair expectation. But all this was among the poor. With what words to encourage such a one as their niece Mrs Trevelyan, to encourage her or to rebuke her, as her conduct might seem to make necessary, they both felt that They were altogether ignorant. To them Mrs Trevelyan was a fine lady. To Mr Outhouse, Sir Marmaduke had ever been a fine gentleman, given much to worldly things, who cared more for whist and a glass of wine than for anything else, and who thought that he had a good excuse for never going to church in England because he was called upon, as he said, to show himself in the governor’s pew always once on Sundays, and frequently twice, when he was at the seat of his government. Sir Marmaduke manifestly looked upon church as a thing in itself notoriously disagreeable. To Mr Outhouse it afforded the great events of the week. And Mrs Outhouse would declare that to hear her husband preach was the greatest joy of her life. It may be understood therefore that though the family connection between the Rowleys and the Outhouses had been kept up with a semblance of affection, it had never blossomed forth into cordial friendship.
When therefore the clergyman of St. Diddulph’s received a letter from his niece, Nora, begging him to take her into his parsonage till Sir Marmaduke should arrive in the course of the spring, and hinting also a wish that her uncle Oliphant should see Mr Trevelyan and if possible arrange that his other niece should also come to the parsonage, he was very much perturbed in spirit. There was a long consultation between him and his wife before anything could be settled, and it may be doubted whether anything would have been settled, had not Mr Trevelyan himself made his way to the parsonage, on the second day of the family conference. Mr and Mrs Outhouse had both seen the necessity of sleeping upon the matter. They had slept upon it, and the discourse between them on the second day was so doubtful in its tone that more sleeping would probably have been necessary had not Mr Trevelyan appeared and compelled them to a decision.
‘You must remember that I make no charge against her,’ said Trevelyan, after the matter had been discussed for about an hour.
‘Then why should she not come back to you?’ said Mr Outhouse, timidly.
‘Some day she may if she will be obedient. But it cannot be now. She has set me at defiance; and even yet it is too clear from the tone of her letter to me that she thinks that she has been right to do so. How could we live together in amity when she addresses me as a cruel tyrant?’
‘Why did she go away at first?’ asked Mrs Outhouse.
‘Because she would compromise my name by an intimacy which I did not approve. But I do not come here to defend myself, Mrs Outhouse. You probably think that I have been wrong. You are her friend; and to you, I will not even say that I have been right. What I want you to understand is this. She cannot come back to me now. It would not be for my honour that she should do so.’
‘But, sir would it not be for your welfare, as a Christian?’ asked Mr Outhouse.
‘You must not be angry with me, if I say that I will not discuss that just now. I did not come here to discuss it.’
‘It is very sad for our poor niece,’ said Mrs Outhouse. ‘It is very sad for me,’ said Trevelyan, gloomily ‘very sad, indeed. My home is destroyed; my life is made solitary; I do not even see my own child. She has her boy with her, and her sister. I have nobody.’
‘I can’t understand, for the life of me; why you should not live together just like any other people,’ said Mrs Outhouse, whose woman’s spirit was arising in her bosom. ‘When people are married, they must put up with something at least, most always.’ This she added, lest it might be for a moment imagined that she had had any cause for complaint with her Mr Outhouse.
‘Pray excuse me, Mrs Outhouse; but I cannot discuss that. The question between us is this: can you consent to receive your two nieces till their father’s return and if so, in what way shall I defray the expense of their living? You will of course understand that I willingly undertake the expense not only of my wife’s maintenance and of her sister’s also, but that I will cheerfully allow anything that may be required either for their comf............