Love and Money (26 page)

“How are you off for cash? Would you like your next quarter's salary in advance, eh?” suggested Councillor Starbotton, thrusting his hand into his breast pocket.

“No, no—we are amply provided. Are we not, Lucy?”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Lucy.

She spoke without enthusiasm, however. No household was ever more frugally and correctly managed than the Aquiles' and they always had a small sum of money laid by. But owing to Mr. Aquile's recent travels, modest though they were, and to chemists' bills—the doctor refused all payment—the present sum would not suffice, Lucy knew, to pay for more than few days' holiday for one person. She
dreaded the thought of her husband travelling alone. But there was no help for it; the Aquiles were not the people to anticipate salaries or take the charity of Councillors, while another appeal to the congregation was out of the question. Accordingly next morning Mr. Aquile left for Blackpool by himself.

He stayed at a modest boarding-house where he immediately became a great favourite, but he spent much of his time with a friend of his, a young minister from the neighbouring town of Hudley, who chanced to be holidaying with his wife and young children in lodgings not far away. It is from this minister, and from one of the guests in the boarding-house, that the events of these days in Blackpool are known.

As it chanced, strong winds from the west made the sea exceptionally rough during several days, and the two men took long walks beside it, enjoying the spectacle of wind and wave in conflict, and “talking,” as the Hudley minister said with discretion, “about old times.” Mr. Aquile as usual became a great favourite with his friend's children; he bought them both a small toy and paid for switchback rides for them. He also gave money to some little girls who were singing for a living on the promenade, and coming across a little boy who had fallen while carrying some groceries and was crying, helped to pick up the scattered articles and laid a penny “as a plaster” on the little fellow's bruised forehead.

Presently the Hudley family's holiday ended and they returned to Yorkshire. Mr. Aquile came with them to the station to see them off. He carried the little boy in his arms and was very helpful about the luggage; it seemed to his friend that he was better and more cheerful than when they had first met on the front; he hoped his own views about Resmond Street had been helpful to his dearly loved colleague. Mr. Aquile promised to send the minister's wife a poem they had discussed, and actually posted it off to her that afternoon.

Evening drew in; the sea rose.

Meanwhile in Annotsfield a meeting of the Deacons and
Managing Committee of Emmanuel Church was taking place. Councillor Starbotton had obtained a medical opinion on Mr. Aquile's health from his physician, who stated emphatically that the pastor required a year's holiday, out of Annotsfield and entirely free from care. He now reported this, and Mr. Aquile's illnesses and absences formed the subject of a lengthy and sympathetic discussion. To continue to pay Mr. Aquile's salary and to supply the pulpit during a year's absence would be a costly business, yet the original Resmond Street members all felt bound to that course. Younger members, who did not know quite so much about Mr. Aquile's services to Emmanuel, were restive about the dropping attendances at the services; they hinted that Mr. Aquile ought to retire on half pay and enable the church to secure a full-time pastor, some active and promising man. When the vote was taken, however, a large majority were in favour of agreeing to the advised holiday, paying Mr. Aquile his full salary, and supplying the pulpit out of church funds during his absence. It was decided to send Mr. Aquile a letter informing him of these discussions, as such a communication would tend to cheer him. The meeting broke up well pleased with itself, enjoying its own generosity and staunchness.

About the time the members were parting, Mr. Aquile, having dined at his modest “hydro” and had a few minutes' pleasant talk with some of his fellow-guests, went out for his customary stroll before going to bed—he was sleeping ill and the fresh air and exercise helped him.

A fierce westerly gale drove torn clouds across the face of the moon and lashed the sea to fury; great waves advanced upon the land in angry leaps till they towered black and gleaming in the moonlight, then thundered down upon the shore in a raging turmoil of white surf.

Mr. Aquile smiled in enjoyment of the magnificent spectacle, and climbed down the low cliff to the sandy beach in order to view more closely this wonderful work of God.

Next morning, Alderman Brigg on his way to his warehouse in Annotsfield encountered Councillor Starbotton walking hurriedly towards the railway station. He was so obviously a man stricken by grief that the Alderman was startled. He stopped.

“What's up, Councillor? Is it your Eliza?” he said, unpleasant visions of his grandson's wife dying in childbirth flocking to his mind.

“No. It's Mr. Aquile. He's been found dead on the Blackpool beach.”

“Never!”

“Aye, it's true. The Blackpool police wired the Annotsfield police, and they fetched me to tell poor Lucy. I'm off to Blackpool now to identify him and so on.”

There was a pause. The two men gazed at each other.

“I'll come with you, Fred,” said Alderman Brigg.

As the news of Mr. Aquile's death gradually spread through Annotsfield that morning the sensation was profound; the awful tidings struck the hearts of many like a physical blow. Pity for Lucy, grief for her husband, horror at the strange circumstances of his death, were expressed in a thousand Annotsfield homes, mills and offices that day, and not unnaturally a thousand speculations arose as to the manner of Mr. Aquile's end. His body had been found by fishermen on the morning following the storm, face downwards, half embedded in the sand. Because of his state of health, his failing mental powers, the possibility of suicide was widely canvassed.

But here Lucy performed her supreme service for her husband. At the inquest she stated outright, not shunning the dreaded word, that suicide was impossible, since such an act would be contrary to her husband's religious beliefs. She reported the odd fainting fits which had recently overtaken Mr. Aquile, referring to the attack he had sustained
on his last appearance in the Emmanuel pulpit. It was clear to her, she said, that he had fallen forward unconscious, not into her arms as so often before, but into the raging waves, which had drawn him back with them into eternity. This hypothesis was supported by the medical evidence, for the small amount of sea water discovered in the deceased's internal organs proved that he had been unconscious when drowned, unconscious when he entered the sea. There were some members of Emmanuel, however, who were so anxious that the verdict should not be suicide that they pressed for one of manslaughter. Mr. Aquile's purse was gone, and also the gold watch and albert chain presented to him on his wedding day. Because of the central bar in the watch chain, they thought it impossible that the sea should have washed chain and watch away. There was a bruise on Mr. Aquile's forehead. Could he not have been assaulted and robbed? Lucy did not think so. With a touch of dry humour she said that her husband was more likely to have converted a robber from his evil ways and taken a missionary subscription from him than to have allowed himself to be robbed. That the body when dead had been robbed, she easily believed; but she felt that any prosecution of the thief, if and when found, would have been displeasing to her husband, and accordingly she showed no zeal in discovering the malefactor, if any. Her calm good sense, her clarity and firmness, quietened public opinion and preserved her husband's reputation.

On the Sunday following the death of John Spencer Aquile, sermons were preached on his life and work in almost every pulpit in the town; the tributes from old and young, from every sect and denomination, were remarkable for their moving warmth and affection.

His funeral next day was an extraordinary affair, the account of which occupied five columns in the
Annotsfield Pioneer.
It was early discovered by the Emmanuel Deacons that the attendance at the service was likely to be large, and they therefore arranged that admission should be by ticket. This displeased Lucy, but she learned of it too late to make any alteration, and as things turned out, the provision was
probably a proper one, as otherwise those of nearest intimacy to Mr. Aquile might not have succeeded in entering the church, so great was the throng. No fewer than sixty-one ministers were present, while twenty-eight out of the thirty-three members of the choir, large numbers of Sunday School teachers—eight young men of whom carried the coffin—and scholars, many young people from the Christian Guild, and hundreds of the Emmanuel congregation, completely filled the church. Outside a large crowd of persons assembled, many of them wearing mourning. (It must be remembered that in those days, to leave one's work in the afternoon for anything less than a family bereavement, meant to lose half a day's pay; the sacrifice was considerable and indicated a very genuine feeling.) The first hymn began:

Calmly, calmly lay him down,
He hath fought a noble fight,
He hath battled for the right,
He hath won the fadeless crown.

The choir also rendered the Stainer anthem
What are these which are arrayed in white robes
very beautifully, and the address, by the ministerial friend who had married John Spencer Aquile to Lucy, even today after three-quarters of a century still throbs with deep and sincere emotion. It is not often that these rather stilted addresses end with the words:
Farewell, dear loving friend, till we meet again in the home of God,
but this was the tribute paid to John Spencer Aquile.

There was a rather long delay outside Emmanuel at the conclusion of the service, while the very large procession was marshalled by the Chief Constable of Annotsfield. Great numbers of people assembled along the line of route to the Annotsfield cemetery, and manifested deep sympathy as Lucy, with Councillor and Mrs. Starbotton, drove slowly past. Even the Church of England was not unmoved; the bell of the Annotsfield Parish Church was tolled, and as the procession passed the church gate, the vicar of Annotsfield
and another vicar of the Established Church came out, joined the sixty-one ministers aforesaid and proceeded with them to the cemetery.

As the huge cortège made the awkward turn down the hill to the gates of the cemetery, a solitary figure was seen standing at the opposite corner of the road. He stood motionless, in an attitude of deep respect, bareheaded, his silk hat in his hand. Tears rolled down his swarthy cheeks. It was Alderman Brigg.

So the
Annotsfield Pioneer
was probably not far wrong when it stated that all Annotsfield and all Nonconformist England mourned John Spencer Aquile.

Perhaps the only person, indeed, who did not lament his death was Lucy. With her firm faith in an after-life, she quite simply knew that now her husband's anguish of soul was over, his anxieties of conscience laid to rest.
The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God,
thought Lucy,
and there shall no torment touch them.
That John Spencer Aquile would be greeted by the Lord he served with the words
Well done, thou good and faithful servant,
was as certain to Lucy as her own love and loss.

Fifty years later, the Annotsfield Corporation expressed its desire to buy the Resmond Street chapel, pull it down and put municipal offices in its place. Since the Town Hall occupied the other side of Resmond Street, the site was convenient for this purpose, and the moribund condition of the chapel as a community justified the proposal. Faced with this impending dissolution, the small remaining congregation conceived the sensible and business-like notion of reuniting themselves with Emmanuel Church. Their pastor, at the suggestion of the originator of the idea, laid the suggestion tentatively before the pastor of Emmanuel, who in turn laid it before the members of his church. Emmanuel gave a cordial welcome to the scheme. United worship was conducted during several months, the service being taken on alternate Sundays by the Emmanuel and Resmond Street
pastors, according to the varying customs of the two congregations.

At the end of this time votes were taken on the project. The Emmanuel members decided without a single dissentient to proceed with the union scheme; at Resmond Street a similar motion was passed by a majority of eighty-five per cent. The joint committee appointed to draw up a scheme of union, dealing with financial provisions, change of name for Emmanuel, and so on, could not however agree. It was therefore decided that each church should formulate its own scheme, both schemes then to be submitted to an outside independent advisory body, for their judgment as to which would best serve the religious needs of Annotsfield. The advisory body sat, considered both schemes, made its recommendations. Emmanuel accepted these recommendations. Resmond Street refused. The Union movement thereupon terminated.

All this sounds very decorous and formal, but in point of fact these committees and resolutions and advisory bodies and so on conceal a personal struggle as bitter as that between Alderman Brigg and Councillor Starbotton in the old days. By this time of course Alderman Brigg and his wife, Councillor Starbotton and his wife and even his daughter Eliza Starbotton (Mrs. James Joshua Henry Brigg) were all dead, while Lucy was a small, bowed, silent old woman in her eighties, living obscurely on the income provided for their first pastor's widow long ago by Emmanuel. But James Joshua Henry Brigg, Eliza's widower, who had set in motion Mr. Aquile's tragedy by snatching his little daughter with such hate from Mr. Aquile's arms, was still very much alive, a cross-grained, disagreeable, tyrannical old man. Decidedly rich, for he had inherited his grandfather's wealth as he planned, he was now a Resmond Street Trustee and a power in all their deliberations. James Joshua Henry Brigg after all these years still hated Mr. Aquile and all his works, and so was fanatically, implacably opposed to the reunion scheme. In this he was supported by his daughter Alice (who was married to another wealthy manufacturer) but
strongly opposed by his son Henry. Henry had always been his mother's pet, said Resmond Street, and had never got on very well with his father—Eliza and James her husband had bickered a good deal, and Henry always took his mother's side in their disputes. This mutual hostility between James and his son had always been subdued to a decorous level, however, until the Resmond-Emmanuel reunion scheme came up for discussion.