Such a blessed exemption, however, was not to be hoped for. When the
Rector was solemnly sent for from his very study to visit a poor man
who was not expected to live many days, he put his prayer-book under
his arm, and went off doggedly, feeling that now was the crisis. He
went through it in as exemplary a manner as could have been desired, but
it was dreadful work to the Rector. If nobody else suspected him, he
suspected himself. He had no spontaneous word of encouragement or
consolation to offer; he went through it as his duty with a horrible
abstractness. That night he went home disgusted beyond all possible
power of self-reconciliation. He could not continue this. Good evangelical
Mr Bury, who went before him, and by nature loved preaching, had
accustomed the people to much of such visitations. It was murder to the
Fellow of All-Souls.
That night Mr Proctor wrote a long letter to his dear cheery old mother,
disclosing all his heart to her. It was written with a pathos of which
the good man was wholly unconscious, and finished by asking her advice
and her prayers. He sent it up to her next morning on her breakfast
tray, which he always furnished with his own hands, and went out to
occupy himself in paying visits till it should be time to see her, and
ascertain her opinion. At Mr Wodehouse's there was nobody at home but
Lucy, who was very friendly, and took no notice of that sad encounter
which had changed his views so entirely. The Rector found, on inquiry,
that the woman was dead, but not until Mr Wentworth had administered to
her fully the consolations of the church. Lucy did not look superior, or
say anything in admiration of Mr Wentworth, but the Rector's conscience
supplied all that was wanting. If good Miss Wodehouse had been there
with her charitable looks, and her disefficiency so like his own, it
would have been a consolation to the good man. He would have turned
joyfully from Lucy and her blue ribbons to that distressed dove-coloured
woman, so greatly had recent events changed him. But the truth was, he
cared nothing for either of them nowadays. He was delivered from those
whimsical distressing fears. Something more serious had obliterated
those lighter apprehensions. He had no leisure now to think that
somebody had planned to marry him; all his thoughts were fixed on
matters so much more important that this was entirely forgotten.
Mrs Proctor was seated as usual in the place she loved, with her
newspapers, her books, her work-basket, and silver-headed cane at
the side of her chair. The old lady, like her son, looked serious.
She beckoned him to quicken his steps when she saw him appear at the
drawing-room door, and pointed to the chair placed beside her, all ready
for this solemn conference. He came in with a troubled face, scarcely
venturing to look at her, afraid to see the disappointment which he had
brought upon his dearest friend. The old lady divined why it was he did
not lift his eyes. She took his hand and addressed him with all her
characteristic vivacity.
"Morley, what is this you mean, my dear? When did I ever give my son
reason to distrust me? Do you think I would suffer you to continue in
a position painful to yourself for my sake? How dare you think such a
thing of me, Morley? Don't say so? you didn't mean it; I can see it in
your eyes."
The Rector shook his head, and dropped into the chair placed ready
for him. He might have had a great deal to say for himself could she
have heard him. But as it was, he could not shout all his reasons and
apologies into her deaf ear.
"As for the change to me," said the old lady, instinctively seizing upon
the heart of the difficulty, "that's nothing--simply nothing. I've not
had time to get attached to Carlingford. I've no associations with the
place. Of course I shall be very glad to go back to all my old friends.
Put that out of the question, Morley."
But the Rector only shook his head once more. The more she made light of
it, the more he perceived all the painful circumstances involved. Could
his mother go back to Devonshire and tell all her old ladies that her
son had made a failure in Carlingford? He grieved within himself at the
thought. His brethren at All-Souls might understand _him_; but what could
console the brave old woman for all the condolence and commiseration to
which she would be subject? "It goes to my heart, mother," he cried in
her ear.
"Well, Morley, I am very sorry you find it so," said the old lady;
"very sorry you can't see your way to all your duties. They tell me the
late rector was very Low Church, and visited about like a Dissenter, so
it is not much wonder you, with your different habits, find yourself a
good deal put out; but, my dear, don't you think it's only at first?
Don't you think after a while the people would get into your ways, and
you into theirs? Miss Wodehouse was here this morning, and was telling
me a good deal about the late rector. It's to be expected you should
find the difference; but by-and-by, to be sure, you might get used to
it, and the people would not expect so much."
"Did she tell you where we met the other day?" asked the Rector, with a
brevity rendered necessary by Mrs Proctor's infirmity.
"She told me--she's a dear confused good soul," said the old lady--"about
the difference between Lucy and herself, and how the young creature was
twenty times handier than she, and something about young Mr Wentworth of
St Roque's. Really, by all I hear, that must be a very presuming young
man," cried Mrs Proctor, with a lively air of offence. "His interference
among your parishioners, Morley, is really more than I should be
inclined to bear."
Once more the good Rector shook his head. He had not thought of that aspect
of the subject. He was indeed so free from vanity or self-importance,
that his only feeling in regard to the sudden appearance of the
perpetual curate was respect and surprise. He would not be convinced
otherwise even now. "He can do his duty, mother," he answered, sadly.
"Stuff and nonsense!" cried the old lady. "Do you mean to tell me a boy
like that can do his duty better than my son could do it, if he put his
mind to it? And if it is your duty, Morley, dear," continued his mother,
melting a little, and in a coaxing persuasive tone, "of course I know
you _will_ do it, however hard it may be."
"That's just the difficulty," cried the Rector, venturing on a longer
speech than usual, and roused to a point at which he had no fear of the
listeners in the kitchen; "such duties require other training than mine
has been. I can't!--do you hear me, mother?--I must not hold a false
position; that's impossible."
"You shan't hold a false position," cried the old lady; "that's the only
thing that _is_ impossible--but, Morley, let us consider, dear. You are
a clergyman, you know; you ought to understand all that's required of
you a great deal better than these people do. My dear, your poor father
and I trained you up to be a clergyman," said Mrs Proctor, rather
pathetically, "and not to be a Fellow of All-Souls."
The Rector groaned. Had it not been advancement, progress, unhoped-for
good fortune, that made him a member of that learned corporation? He
shook his head. Nothing could change the fact now. After fifteen years'
experience of that Elysium, he could not put on the cassock and surplice
with all his youthful fervour. He had settled into his life-habits long
ago. With the quick perception which made up for her deficiency, his
mother read his face, and saw the cause was hopeless; yet with female
courage and pertinacity made one effort more.
"And with an excellent hard-working curate," said the old lady--"a
curate whom, of course, we'd do our duty by, Morley, and who could take
a great deal of the responsibility off your hands; for Mr Leigh, though
a nice young man, is not, I know, the man _you_ would have chosen for
such a post; and still more, my dear son--we were talking of it in jest
not long ago, but it is perfect earnest, and a most important matter--with
a good wife, Morley; a wife who would enter into all the parish work,
and give you useful hints, and conduct herself as a clergyman's wife
should--with such a wife----"
"Lucy Wodehouse!" cried the Rector, starting to his feet, and forgetting
all his proprieties; "I tell you the thing is impossible. I'll go back
to All-Souls."
He sat down again doggedly, having said it. His mother sat looking at
him in silence, with tears in her lively old eyes. She was saying within
herself that she had seen his father take just such a "turn," and that
it was no use arguing with them under such circumstances. She watched
him as women often do watch men, waiting till the creature should come
to itself again and might be spoken to. The incomprehensibleness of
women is an old theory, but what is that to the curious wondering
observation with which wives, mothers, and sisters watch the other
unreasoning animal in those moments when he has snatched the reins out
of their hands, and is not to be spoken to! What he will make of it in
those unassisted moments, afflicts the compassionate female understanding.
It is best to let him come to, and feel his own helplessness. Such was
Mrs Proctor's conclusion, as, vexed, distressed, and helpless, she leant
back in her chair, and wiped a few tears of disappointment and vexation
out of her bright old eyes.
The Rector saw this movement, and it once more excited him to speech.
"But you shall have a house in Oxford, mother," he cried--"you shan't go
back to Devonshire--where I can see you every day, and you can hear all
that is going on. Bravo! that will be a thousand times better than
Carlingford."
It was now Mrs Proctor's turn to jump up, startled, and put her hand on
his mouth and point to the door. The Rector did not care for the door;
he had disclosed his sentiments, he had taken his resolution, and now
the sooner all was over the better for the emancipated man.
Thus concluded the brief incumbency of the Reverend Morley Proctor. He
returned to Oxford before his year of grace was over, and found
everybody very glad to see him; and he left Carlingford with universal
good wishes. The living fell to Morgan, who wanted to be married, and
whose turn was much more to be a working clergyman than a classical
commentator. Old Mrs Proctor got a pretty house under shelter of the
trees of St Giles's, and half the under-graduates fell in love with the
old lady in the freshness of her second lifetime. Carlingford passed
away like a dream from the lively old mother's memory, and how could
any reminiscences of that uncongenial locality disturb the recovered
beatitude of the Fellow of All-Souls?
Yet all was not so satisfactory as it appeared. Mr Proctor paid for his
temporary absence. All-Souls was not the Elysium it had been before that
brief disastrous voyage into the world. The good man felt the stings of
failure; he felt the mild jokes of his brethren in those Elysian fields.
He could not help conjuring up to himself visions of Morgan with his new
wife in that pretty rectory. Life, after all, did not consist of books,
nor were Greek verbs essential to happiness. The strong emotion into
which his own failure had roused him; the wondering silence in which he
stood looking at the ministrations of Lucy Wodehouse and the young
curate; the tearful sympathetic woman as helpless as himself, who had
stood beside him in that sick chamber, came back upon his recollection
strangely, amidst the repose, not so blessed as heretofore, of All-Souls.
The good man had found out that secret of discontent which most men find
out a great deal earlier than he. Something better, though it might be
sadder, harder, more calamitous, was in this world. Was there ever human
creature yet that had not something in him more congenial to the thorns
and briars outside to be conquered, than to that mild paradise for which
our primeval mother disqualified all her children? When he went back to
his dear cloisters, good Mr Proctor felt that sting: a longing for the
work he had rejected stirred in him--a wistful recollection of the
sympathy he had not sought.
And if in future years any traveller, if travellers still fall upon
adventures, should light upon a remote parsonage in which an elderly
embarrassed Rector, with a mild wife in dove-coloured dresses, toils
painfully after his duty, more and more giving his heart to it, more and
more finding difficult expression for the unused faculty, let him be
sure that it is the late Rector of Carlingford, self-expelled out of the
uneasy paradise, setting forth untimely, yet not too late, into the
laborious world.
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
Contemporary spellings have been retained even when inconsistent or
unusual. A small number of obvious typographical errors have been
corrected, and missing punctuation has been silently added