Moreover, Mrs. Baines honestly believed, according to her lights--for like all the millions of her class and period she knew absolutely nothing about astronomy, geology, ethnology and history--that the Creator of the Universe preferred you should spend the Sunday afternoon in a small, stuffy back parlour with the blinds half down, reading the Bible or Baxter's sermons (or, if the spiritual appetite were very weak, an illustrated edition of _Pilgrim's Progress_) and continue this mortification of flesh and spirit until tea time (unless you taught in the Sunday-school). You should then wind up the Day of Rest with evening chapel, supper, more sermon-reading, and bed.
The only person disposed to be talkative during the meal was John Baines the younger. His mother, at all times glum, was more than ever inclined to silence. Lucy was oppressed by her frigid demeanour and vouchsafed very few remarks, other than those called for by politeness. As to Baines, senior, he was one of those short-necked, fleshy men who are born guzzlers, and his attention was too much concentrated on his food to permit of his joining in conversation during his Sunday dinner. As a set-off against abstention from alcohol he was inordinately greedy, and his large appetite was a constant source of suffering to him, for his wife took a grim delight in mortifying it. Only on Sundays was he allowed to eat his fill without her interference. Mrs. Baines always did the carving and helped everything, even the vegetables, which were placed in front of her, flanking the joint. The maid-of-all-work, Eliza, waited at table and was evidently the slave of her mistress's eye. The family dinner on Sundays was almost invariable in its main features, as far as circumstances permitted. A well-roasted round of beef, with baked potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, was succeeded by an apple or a treacle pudding, and a dessert of some fruit or nuts in season. Of one thing there was no lack and abundant variety--effervescing, non-alcoholic drinks: Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale, Gingerade; Lemonade, Citronade, Orangeade; Phosphozone, Hedozone, Pyrodone, Sparkling Cider and Perry Champagne: all the beverages compounded of carbonic acid, tartaric acid, citric acid, sugar, water, apple and pear juice, and flavouring essences.
The Apple champagne that John gallantly poured into Lucy's glass did not lighten her spirits or loosen her tongue. What could she find to say to that guzzling father whose face and hands were always close to his plate, except during the brief intervals between the courses when he threw himself back in his chair, blew his nose, wiped his greasy lips, and passed his fat forefinger round the corners of his gums to remove the wedges of food which had escaped deglutition? Or to the gloomy mother who ate her victuals with a sullen champing, and, beyond a few directions to the submissive servant, made no attempts to sustain conversation, only according to the garrulous descriptions of her son an occasional snappish "Oh! indeed----," "Pretty doings, I can see----," "Little good can come of _that_----," and so on? At length, when John's experiences in London had come to an end and the two dishes of cherries had replaced the treacle pudding, whilst the servant handed round in tumblers our own superlative Sparkling Cider, Lucy cleared her throat and said, "I suppose John will be leaving you very early to-morrow morning?"
"Eh?" returned Mrs. Baines, fixing her cold grey eyes on Lucy. She had heard perfectly well, but she thought it more consistent with dignity not to lend too ready an ear to the girl's remarks. Lucy repeated more distinctly her question.
"You had better ask _him_ all about it," replied John's mother. "I have other things to think about on the Lord's Day besides railway time-tables."
"Why? Are you coming to see me off, Lucy?" asked John.
"Well, yes; that is, if Mrs. Baines doesn't mind."
"_I_ mind?" exclaimed the angry woman in a strident voice. "What have _I_ got to do with it; I suppose railway stations are free to every one?"
"Yes," said Lucy, with an ache at the back of her throat and almost inclined then and there to break off her engagement. "But I thought you might like to have John all to yourself at the last. However, if you have no objection, I should much like to see him off, poor old fellow"--and Lucy gave his big-knuckled hand an affectionate pat--"I think I can manage it. Father has to come into Theale. He will drop me at the station and pick me up again, and school doesn't begin till nine. What time does your train go, John?"
"Twenty-five past seven. I shall get to London soon after nine. After going to the head-quarters of the Mission and getting my final instructions I shall drive straight down to the docks and go on board the _Godavery_.... The first place we stop at is Algiers, then Malta, then the Suez Canal and Aden. I expect this is just what _you'll_ have to do, Lucy, when you come out next spring."
Lucy smiled brightly. She had gradually grown into her engagement as she grew from girlhood to womanhood, constrained by John's bland assumption that the damsel he selected was bound to be his wife. But perhaps her main inducement was his fixed determination to become a missionary and her intense longing to see "foreign parts," the wonderful and the interesting world. She was just rallying her spirits to make some animated reply about Algiers when Mrs. Baines intervened and said there were limits to all things, and if they didn't wish to pass the whole of the Lord's Day eating, drinking, and talking they had better rise and let Eliza clear away. On hearing these words, Mr. Baines turned the last cherries into his plate and hastily biting them off and ejecting the stones, pushed his chair back with a sigh. Then, rising heavily, he stumbled into the armchair near the fireplace and composed himself for a nap. The maid began to clear away, longing to get back to her Sunday dinner and concealed novelette. Lucy went to put on her hat; John yawned and drummed his fingers on the window-pane; and Mrs. Baines seated herself stiffly in the armchair opposite her satiated husband, with a large brown Bible on her lap and two or three leaflets covered with small-print references to Scripture.
When John heard Lucy tripping downstairs he went to meet her, feeling instinctively that her re-appearance in the dining-room would draw some bitter comment from his mother. He put on his felt wide-awake, took a stout stick, and soon banged the front door on his sweetheart and himself in a way which sent a shiver through the frame of Mrs. Baines, who with an impatient sigh of disgust applied herself to a gloomy portion of the Old Testament.
Probably had John remained to keep her company she would have made no attempt to entertain him; but she would have applied herself with real interest to Scriptural exegesis. Of her class and of her time what little romance and intellectuality she had was put into Bible study. She believed the British--degenerate though they might appear as to Sabbath observance--were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes, who had been led by the prophet Jeremiah to Ireland in an unnecessary spurt of energy and had then returned in coracles to the more favoured Britain, Jeremiah--age being of no moment where the Divine purpose was concerned--having taken in marriage a daughter of the Irish king----
But ... the ingratitude of her only son, who could not give up to his mother's society his last Sunday afternoon in England! She choked with unshed tears and read verse after verse of the early part of Jeremiah without understanding one word, although she was told in her leaflets that the diatribes bore special reference to England in the latter part of the nineteenth century.... No, the thought of John wandering about the hayfields with Lucy--for, of course, that girl would lead him into the hayfields, perhaps throw hay at him--constantly rose before her, and once or twice a few hot tears dimmed her sight.... "The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the King: Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done?..."
She had devoted all the money she could save, all the time she could spare to the bringing-up of this boy. She had sent him to college and made him a gentleman. She had done her duty by him as a mother, and this was the return he made. He preferred to spend his last Sunday afternoon frolicking about the country with a feather-headed girl to passing it quietly by his mother's side, as he formerly used to do.... They might even have had a word of prayer together. Mrs. Baines was not usually a woman who encouraged outbursts of vocal piety outside the chapel, but on such an occasion as this.... She might not see him for another five years..
"And I said, after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not."--Now was it becoming for a grown man, a missionary who had occupied the pulpit at Salem Chapel in the morning, to go gallivanting about the meadows with a young woman in the afternoon? What would any of the congregation say who saw him? A nice spectacle, to be sure!-- "And the Lord said unto me, The back-sliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah..." "Let me see," reflected Mrs. Baines, trying to give her attention to her reading, "Judah represents the Church of England, and Israel is ... Israel is ... Baines! For goodness _sake_ don't snore like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself! _How_ you can reconcile it with your conscience to guzzle like a pig every Sunday at dinner and then pass the rest of the afternoon snoring and snoozing instead of reading your Bible, _I_ don't know."