THE BISHOP FINDS A MAN
The Bishop was again visiting at Surley Park. He found his niece's house
a restful place of retirement, and his wife had confided to Ella
Carruthers that it was such a relief to the dear man to get away from
the clergy sometimes.
He was not, however, to be spared the question of the clergy upon this
visit, for the Graftons were coming over to consult him about one for
Abington, and he had been given due warning that it would be so. A
private patron does not always consult his Bishop over his appointments,
and it was supposed that his Lordship would not be averse from giving
his advice in this instance.
Grafton came over to tea, with Caroline and Beatrix. There were to be
guests at the Abbey that evening, or the consultation would have taken
place over the dinner table.
Tea was in the garden, which spread in wide cedar-decked lawns round the
great white house. The Bishop had a lovely garden of his own, in which
he could taste the sweets of retirement. But there was a remoteness
about this spreading country garden, with the fields and woods all
around it, which he could not get in the high-walled pleasaunce of his
palace. He sighed with contentment as he sank down into a large cane
chair by the tea table, and said:
"You have a lovely place here, my dear. I sometimes wish that I had set
out to be a country gentleman, and dealt with beasts instead of with
men."
"You have to deal with both as a landowner," said Ella, "and the men are
sometimes more difficult than the beasts."
"The men _are_ beasts sometimes," said the Bishop's wife, who prided
herself upon her plain speaking.
"Now, my dear," he said, "we are going to forget all the disputes that
beset us as long as we are here, and believe that none of them ever come
to disturb the peace of such a place as Surley. Isn't your friend
Grafton coming over to see me, Ella? Ah! but here he is with two of
those nice girls. What pretty creatures they are! It's a pleasure to
look at them."
The Graftons were coming across the wide lawn. They were indeed
pleasant-looking objects of the countryside, Grafton in his
smart-looking blue flannel suit, the girls in their pretty summer
frocks. Presently they were all chatting and laughing over the tea
table, and the Bishop was liking them more than ever for the friendly
way in which they treated him, and the absence from their demeanour of
that paralysing awe which so often irked him on similar occasions.
Tea was over, and Grafton had just introduced the subject about which he
had come, when a tall clerical figure was seen advancing across the
lawn.
"There's my friend Leadbetter come to see me," said the Bishop. "Do you
mind talking over the question before him? He has been in the Diocese
much longer than I have, and might be able to help us."
"I don't mind a bit," said Grafton, "but I don't know Mr. Leadbetter
yet. I haven't had time to call on him."
The introductions were made. Mr. Leadbetter seemed rather vague as to
who the Graftons were; but he seemed to be rather vague about everything
except the absorbing subject of Church music. He was a tall thin man,
with a pair of short-sighted eyes that peered mildly through big
spectacles. His new parishioners had not quite made up their minds what
to make of him yet, but those who had had anything to do with him had
found him thoughtful and friendly, and were inclined to accept him as an
adequate substitute for the old Rector who had lived among them for so
long, and whose ways they had known so well.
"We were just beginning to talk about a new Vicar for Abington," said
the Bishop, when Mr. Leadbetter had settled in a chair and had accepted
a cigarette, which he afterwards surreptitiously got rid of when it had
gone out three times, and both ends were in a shockingly untidy state.
"Ah, yes, Abington," he said, "I called at Abington Vicarage the other
day. I remember that the note of the doorscraper was C sharp. Mercer is
going, he told me. A very agreeable man--Mercer. You will be sorry to
lose him, Mr. Grafton."
Beatrix caught the Bishop's eye. There was a twinkle in it which made
her want to kiss him. She refrained from this exhibition, but felt she
had found a true friend.
"I know who you are, now, of course," said Mr. Leadbetter. "I remember
that Mercer mentioned your name when he came over to ask me if I thought
there was any chance of his being preferred to this living."
There was a short pause, and then everybody, including the Bishop,
laughed. Mr. Leadbetter looked surprised for a moment, and then smiled
deprecatingly. "Now I remember," he said, "perhaps you won't be sorry to
lose him, after all."
This was all that was said about the retiring Vicar of Abington.
"I haven't many friends among the clergy," said Grafton. "One or two of
my friends at Cambridge went into the Church, but I have lost track of
them mostly, and I can't think of one who would be likely to want to
come here. There is not much to offer, though I should be prepared to
add to the stipend for a man who couldn't afford to take it as it is."
He told them to what figure he would be willing to raise it, and the
Bishop said that it would give a wider field of choice, as they need not
think only about men who had money of their own.
"What sort of a man would you like to have there?" he asked. "Don't
tell any one that I asked that question, Leadbetter."
"Certainly not," said the Rector of Surley. "I never make trouble for my
Diocesan."
Grafton did not quite see why the question should not have been asked.
"All questions of High and Low, and that sort of thing, I leave to you,"
he said. "The sort of man I should like to have would be one who would
get on well with his parishioners, and help to keep us all together."
"Is that the sort of man you want, my dear?" asked the Bishop, turning
his beneficent gaze upon Caroline. "I suppose you take an interest in
the people around you."
"What you really want is a Christian," said the Bishop's wife
uncompromisingly. "I suppose there are a few in the Diocese, though I
can't say I have met many of them."
"My dear, my dear!" expostulated the Bishop.
Caroline answered his question. "We haven't been here very long," she
said, "but we have made a great many friends among our people. We should
like to do a lot for them, and we would help anybody who came there to
look after them."
"That is a most laudable statement from a Squire's daughter," said the
Bishop. "What sort of things do you want to do for your people?"
"She has all sorts of plans," said Ella. "We have talked them over
together. I want to do something of the same sort here when I get to
know Mr. Leadbetter more." She threw a look at the mild gentleman, who
was just then meditating the final relinquishment of his cigarette. "But
there are more people at Abington than there are at Surley."
"Do you mean blankets and coal?" asked the Bishop's wife, "or do you
mean Chamber music and lectures on literature?"
Mr. Leadbetter raised himself in his chair. "Ah! Chamber music!" he
said, with a gleam of satisfaction behind his spectacles. "If only we
could manage some Chamber music!"
"Not a bit of use," said the Bishop's wife. "A nigger minstrel
entertainment would go down much better."
"Caroline wants to teach the children Morris dancing and all that sort
of thing," said Grafton. "They have it in the village where my
brother-in-law lives, and everybody enjoys it immensely."
Caroline leaned forward. "Anything which will make us all happy
together," she said. "There are a lot of things which can be done that
we should all like doing, and that would go of themselves if they were
once started."
Grafton looked at her fondly. "I believe they would all do anything for
her, already," he said, "but she doesn't want them to feel that she is
patronising them. She wants to play with them just as she has played
with her friends in London. That's it, isn't it, Cara?"
"Yes, it's to make us friends," she said.
"I think that healthy amusement is a very good thing for people in a
country parish," said the Bishop's wife, "but you must have somebody to
lead. Is that what you want your new Vicar to do? If so I should think
he would be quite willing to do it. I have never found the clergy
unwilling to lead in anything."
"I should say the same about the wives of the clergy," said the Bishop,
with another twinkle in his eye, "I think we must find a married Vicar
for Abington."
"You didn't find a married Rector for Surley," said his niece, with
another provocative look at Mr. Leadbetter, who met it with bland
unconsciousness.
"Music is a great thing to bring people together," he said, "and I
suppose dancing too. But I have never danced, myself."
The eyes of Beatrix and the Bishop met again, and this time she had
great difficulty in preventing herself from embracing him.
"That will only be a part of what we should want to do," Caroline said;
"but it would be rather important to have the clergyman on our side. If
you want to get people together, he is the best man to do it, and he
ought to know them better than anybody."
"Yes, he _ought_ to," said the Bishop's wife.
"He does, if he is the right sort of man," said the Bishop. "I think any
incumbent might think himself fortunate in having you to help him in his
work, my dear."
Caroline's face fell a little, and the Bishop noticed it. Afterwards he
asked his niece why it was.
She thought for a moment, and then looked up with a smile. "To tell you
the truth, Uncle," she said, "and to risk your displeasure, Caroline and
I are rather fed up with the talk of a clergyman's _work_. I won't say
anything about this place, but at Abington it seemed to mean nothing but
interference, and trying to bring people into line all round. Caroline
refused to go visiting, as she was asked to do. Of course she does go to
see people, just as much perhaps as if she set out to do it as a regular
duty, in the way that the Coopers did here, and never ceased talking
about and patting themselves on the back for it. But she likes to go
where they know she comes as a friend, and will be pleased to see her.
She hates to think of that sort of thing as work."
"I don't know why you should think you risk my displeasure in telling me
that, my dear," said the Bishop.
A week later the Graftons were invited to dine at the Bishop's Palace.
The invitation was sent to Caroline by the Bishop's wife, who indicated
in a few terse sentences that a clergyman would be there on inspection,
but didn't know it, and was not to know it. If he didn't suit he could
go back where he came from, and nobody would be any the worse. Probably
her way of putting it had not been authorised by the Bishop, who,
however, took Grafton into his library on their arrival, and told him
that he thought he had found him the right man.
"He is quite young," he said, "and has not long been married. He has
been working hard in a very poor part of London, and I fancy that his
health won't stand it much longer. His father was an old friend of mine,
and if you like him I think I can persuade him to come to you. He hasn't
any money of his own, but what you mentioned the other day will be
enough for him. His name is Gerald Prescott."
They went up to the drawing-room, where a little group was standing by
one of the windows, admiring the view of the garden, with the piled
masonry of the Cathedral rising above the trees which enclosed it. There
were four of them. Ella Carruthers and her aunt were talking together
apart. The first impression of the group was one of happy youth. They
were all talking and laughing together, as if none of them had a care in
the world. They were Caroline, the Bishop's chaplain whom she knew
already, and Prescott and his wife, with both of whom she had
established relations almost upon the first words of introduction.
Grafton's first impression of the man to whom he had been invited to
extend his patronage was of one hardly more than a boy. He was very
fair, with untidy hair crowning a smooth fresh face, and though his
smile was frequent and pleased there was rather a pathetic look as of a
tired child about his eyes. His wife looked older than he, though she
was actually a few years younger, and not marked by the physical
weariness that showed in him. She had rosy cheeks and dark alert eyes,
in which there was a motherly look very noticeable when she turned them
upon her husband.
Caroline was immensely taken with both of them, they were so simple and
so confiding, and so unlike any young couple she had ever met before.
Both of them belonged to her world; that was evident by a score of
little signs. But they seemed to be quite detached from it, and indeed
to have lost interest in it. Their interests were based upon a broad
humanity which took no count of social grades. If the Bishop had
bethought himself of his niece's protest against the perpetual talk of a
clergyman's 'work,' in producing this particular clergyman for
inspection, he was abundantly justified by Prescott's conversation. He
and his wife both talked of the life they were living, the people they
knew, and the things they did, in the same way as they might have talked
if he had been an artist, for instance, living in Chelsea. There was the
big church in the background, which would correspond to the studio, and
what went on there, not to be too much talked about; and all around it
the atmosphere of struggle, and tears, and laughter, and the miraculous
events that shake the lives of those whose existence is based upon no
material certainties, but based all the firmer upon an immoveable trust
in a providence that may at any time bring something exciting and
beneficial to pass, and at the worst will never let you quite down. The
richness of it all was amazing. Instead of the picture of mean streets
and drab and sordid lives, into which a man descended from serener
heights to fight with poverty and crime, there was a crowded stage of
characters of infinite variety, playing with the big things of life
which are hidden under a mass of little things in the secured places,
but playing with them as the gods might play with them, who must have
the biggest toys to amuse them.
"You seem to have a lot of most disreputable acquaintances," said the
Bishop's wife, when Prescott had been telling them stories about his
friends.
"Oh, yes, we have," he said, with a bright smile. "All the respectable
ones go to chapel. But they're so dull that we don't try to get them
away. There's no proselytising in our parish."
Caroline began to be afraid, as the life and the pursuits of these young
people disclosed themselves, that Abington, with its sparser, more
monotonous life, would scarcely attract them, or satisfy them if they
came there. But Prescott, who was sitting next to her at dinner, said to
her in a low voice: "How do you think she's looking? She's always lived
in the country; she's apt to get a little run down in a town."
Caroline reassured him, after a glance at his wife, who looked the
picture of health and vigour, and he seemed relieved. "Of course she
loves it all," he said. "But it keeps her so on the go. It's very
distracting, a town life. Both of us enjoy getting out into the country
sometimes. You seem to belong to yourself more."
It was exactly what she had said of herself, finding a town life of such
different quality from his distracting for self-possession. "Would you
live in the country if you had the choice?" she hazarded.
"I'd live anywhere with her," he said, jerking his head towards his wife
with a boyish gesture. "But if I had to choose between the two, for
myself, I'd choose a town, because there's more to do. We both of us
like to have plenty to do."
After dinner, before the men came up, Caroline sat with Viola Prescott
in the window-seat from which they could see the dark mass of the
Cathedral rising above the trees into the velvet purple night, and she
asked the same question, in a tone that gave Caroline a tightening of
the throat.
"He's enjoying every moment of this," she said, "and he wanted just such
a change. We haven't been away together since just after Christmas. Do
you think he looks _very_ tired? It has been so hot in London."
"I think he looks as if he wants a change," said Caroline. "Fresh air,
perhaps, and not quite so much to do."
She sighed. "I was afraid you would say that," she said. "The Bishop
said it too. He's a lovely sort of Bishop, isn't he? So human, and so
kind, and not too churchy. It would be rather peaceful to be in his
Diocese."
"Would you like to live in the country?" Caroline asked her.
"_I_ should love it. I always did live in the country before we were
married. I used to go and stay with an aunt in London sometimes, and was
always glad to get back. I don't care about London amusements. But we
don't have to bother ourselves with them in our part of London. I do
like that, better than I thought I should, because you see people in a
more natural way than at the other end of London. Gerry feels like that
too. I can hardly ever drag him up to see our relations, and they hardly
ever come to see us."
"I feel just the same, about our part of London," said Caroline. "I've
persuaded father to give up our house there, because I like living in
the country much better. It's partly because of the people, as you say.
You get to know all sorts better, in the country. I have a lot of
friends among the people in our village, just as you have in your
parish, though they live rather quieter lives than yours seem to, and
are not so--well, so disreputable."
Both of them laughed, with a glance at the Bishop's wife. "They're not
really disreputable," Viola said; "only most of them don't know whether
they are going to have anything to eat to-morrow, or the next day. So
they have to keep cheerful while they _have_ got enough. Still, it is
rather a rackety life. I think I should like to be among quieter people,
for a change; and of course one does miss the sweet air and the peace of
the country. I wouldn't mind a bit for myself if I didn't think Gerry
ought to have a rest. He isn't very strong, poor darling, and he works
too hard."
It was the first time that work had been mentioned.
"And he _will_ invite such a lot of people to meals," she went on; "and
there isn't always enough for them. And then of course _he_ goes
without."
"I expect you do too, if there isn't enough," said Caroline, smiling at
her.
"Oh, I'm as strong as a horse," she said. "But we haven't got much
money, you know, and housekeeping _is_ rather difficult sometimes."
The Bishop's wife sailed over to them. "Are you persuading her to make
her husband come to Abington?" she asked. "She _ought_ to. He can't
stand _that_ life much longer."
Caroline looked up at her in some confusion.
"Oh, I know nothing was to be said about it till after you had seen
whether you liked them or not," she said. "But of course you like them.
I do myself, though I should like to smack them both and send them to
bed."
"We want a Vicar at Abington," said Caroline. "Father is the patron of
the living. Do persuade your husband to come there."
Viola's eyes filled with tears, and she took Caroline's hand. "Oh, my
dear, it's just what I should love for him," she said. "He'll get enough
to eat, and time to rest sometimes."
So when the men came up they found it all settled for them.