THE CLERGY.
Several weeks after this passed very quietly over the Old Wood Lodge and
its new inhabitants. They saw “Mr Louis,” always a rapid and sudden
apparition, pass now and then before their windows, and sometimes
received again that slight passing courtesy which nobody could return,
as it was addressed to nobody, and only disclosed a certain careless yet
courteous knowledge on the part of the young prince that they were
there; and they saw the Rector on the quiet country Sabbath-days in his
ancient little church, with its old heavy arches, and its new and dainty
restorations, “intoning” after the loftiest fashion, and preaching
strange little sermons of subdued yet often vehement and impatient
eloquence--addresses which came from a caged and fiery spirit, and had
no business there. The Winterbourne villagers gaped at his Reverence as
he flung his thunderbolts over their heads, and his Reverence came down
now and then from a wild uncertain voyage heavenward, down, down, with
a sudden dreary plunge, to look at all the blank rustical faces,
slumberous or wondering, and chafe himself with fiery attempts to come
down to their level, and do his duty to his rural flock. With a certain
vague understanding of some great strife and tumult in this dissatisfied
and troubled spirit, Agnes Atheling followed him in the sudden outbursts
of his natural oratory, and in the painful curb and drawing-up by which
he seemed to awake and come to himself. Though she was no student of
character, this young genius could not restrain a throb of sympathy for
the imprisoned and uncertain intellect beating its wings before her very
eyes. Intellect of the very highest order was, without question, errant
in that humble pulpit--errant, eager, disquieted--an eagle flying at the
sun. The simpler soul of genius vaguely comprehended it, and rose with
half-respectful, half-compassionating sympathy, to mark the conflict.
The family mother was not half satisfied with these preachings, and
greatly lamented that the only church within their reach should be so
painfully “high,” and so decidedly objectionable. Mrs Atheling’s soul
was grieved within her at the tall candlesticks, and even the “severe”
Apostles in the windows were somewhat appalling to this excellent
Protestant. She listened with a certain dignified disapproval to the
sermons, not much remarking their special features, but contenting
herself with a general censure. Marian too, who did not pretend to be
intellectual, wondered a little like the other people, and though she
could not resist the excitement of this unusual eloquence, gazed blankly
at the preacher after it was over, not at all sure if it was right, and
marvelling what he could mean. Agnes alone, who could by no means have
told you what he meant--who did not even understand, and certainly could
not have explained in words her own interest in the irregular
prelection--vaguely followed him nevertheless with an intuitive and
unexplainable comprehension. They had never exchanged words, and the
lofty and self-absorbed Rector knew nothing of the tenants of the Old
Wood Lodge; yet he began to look towards the corner whence that
intelligent and watching face flashed upon his maze of vehement and
uncertain thought. He began to look, as a relief, for the upward glance
of those awed yet pitying eyes, which followed him, yet somehow, in
their simplicity, were always before him, steadfastly shining in the
calm and deep assurance of a higher world than his. It was not by any
means, at this moment, a young man and a young woman looking at each
other with the mutual sympathy and mutual difference of nature; it was
Genius, sweet, human, and universal, tender in the dews of youth--and
Intellect, nervous, fiery, impatient, straining like a Hercules after
the Divine gift, which came to the other sleeping, as God gives it to
His beloved.
The Curate of Winterbourne was the most admirable foil to his reverend
principal. This young and fervent churchman would gladly have sat in the
lower seat of the restored sedilia, stone-cold and cushionless, at any
risk of rheumatism, had not his reverence the Rector put a decided
interdict upon so extreme an example of rigid Anglicanism. As it was,
his bland and satisfied youthful face in the reading-desk made the
strangest contrast in the world to that dark, impetuous, and troubled
countenance, lowering in handsome gloom from the pulpit. The common
people, who held the Rector in awe, took comfort in the presence of the
Curate, who knew all the names of all the children, and was rather
pleased than troubled when they made so bold as to speak to him about a
place for Sally, or a ’prenticeship for John. His own proper place in
the world had fallen happily to this urbane and satisfied young
gentleman. He was a parish priest born and intended, and accordingly
there was not a better parish priest in all Banburyshire than the
Reverend Eustace Mead. While the Rector only played and fretted over
these pretty toys of revived Anglicanism, with which he was not able to
occupy his rapid and impetuous intellect, they sufficed to make a
pleasant reserve of interest in the life of the Curate, who was by no
means an impersonation of intellect, though he had an acute and
practical little mind of his own, much more at his command than the mind
of Mr Rivers was at his. And the Curate preached devout little sermons,
which the rustical people did not gape at; while the Rector, out of all
question, and to the perception of everybody, was, in the most emphatic
sense of the words, the wrong man in the wrong place.
So far as time had yet gone, the only intercourse with their neighbours
held by the Athelings was at church, and their nearest neighbours were
those clerical people who occupied the Old Wood House. Mr Rivers was
said to have a sister living with him, but she was “a great invalid,”
and never visible; and on no occasion, since his new parishioners
arrived, had the close Venetian blinds been raised, or the house opened
its eyes. There it stood in the sunshine, in that most verdant of trim
old gardens, which no one ever walked in, nor, according to appearances,
ever saw, with its three rows of closed windows, blankly green, secluded
and forbidding, which no one within ever seemed tempted to open to the
sweetest of morning breezes, or the fragrant coolness of the night.
Agnes, taking the privilege of her craft, was much disposed to suspect
some wonderful secret or mystery in this monkish and ascetic
habitation; but it was not difficult to guess the secret of the Rector,
and there was not a morsel of mystery in the bland countenance of
smiling Mr Mead.
By this time Mrs Atheling and her children were alone. Papa had
exhausted his holiday, and with a mixture of pleasure and unwillingness
returned to his office duties; and Mamma, though she had so much
enjoyment of the country, which was “so good for the children,” began to
sigh a little for her other household, to marvel much how Susan used her
supremacy, and to be seized with great compunctions now and then as to
the cruelty “of leaving your father and Charlie by themselves so long.”
The only thing which really reconciled the good wife to this desertion,
was the fact that Charlie himself, without any solicitation, and in fact
rather against his will, was to have a week’s holiday at Michaelmas, and
of course looked forward in his turn to the Old Wood Lodge. Mrs Atheling
had made up her mind to return with her son, and was at present in a
state of considerable doubt and perplexity touching Agnes and Marian,
Bell and Beau. The roses on the cheeks of the little people had
blossomed so sweetly since they came to the country, Mrs Atheling almost
thought she could trust her darlings to Hannah, and that “another month
would do them no harm.”