The Professor would undoubtedly have felt confirmed in the harsh
judgment which he had passed upon Bob Annesley's wife if he could have
seen her at the meet on the following morning. Mrs. Harrington was a
finished horsewoman, and never looked to so great advantage as in the
saddle. Upon the present occasion she rode a fidgety chestnut mare,
the property of Captain White, and the ease with which she managed her
rather troublesome mount won her a great deal of admiration from the
local members of the hunt. As for the officers of the 27th, they were
too well accustomed to Polly Harrington's dexterity to pay her any
compliments on that score; but they clustered round her as usual, and
smiled amiably at her smart sayings, and told her that she was in rare
form that morning. Bob hovered in the background, looking woebegone.
The neighborhood of Lichbury does not bear a very high character among
hunting men, blank days being of by no means rare occurrence
thereabouts, but there is always a fox at Lingham Gorse, and it was at
Lingham Gorse that a fox was found on the particular morning with
which we are concerned. The whole crowd got away together, and kept
together for the first five minutes, going at racing speed across the
short turf of the downs at the foot of which Lichbury stands. On this
the northern side, the gradual slopes of these hills form as good and
safe galloping ground as any one could wish for; but their southern
face is very different, falling away in precipitous chalk quarries and
sharp declivities unwelcome to timid riders, and it was after crossing
the backbone of the ridge that the field began to scatter right and
left, only a few adventurous spirits riding straight ahead and
trusting in Providence.
Among these was Mrs. Harrington. She was followed by Annesley and
Captain White, the latter of whom was watching her headlong progress a
little anxiously, and wishing, perhaps, that his chestnut mare were
safe in her stable. It was not, however, any fear on the mare's
account that caused him to rein in suddenly and ejaculate "Good God!"
About a furlong ahead, a row of posts and rails had come into view,
immediately beyond which--as every one who knew the country was well
aware--was a chalk cliff some two hundred feet in depth. It seemed
incredible that any human being, whether familiar with the country or
not, should ride at such a fence, for there was nothing but sky
visible upon the other side of it; but Mrs. Harrington was making
straight for it now, and it was the discovery that she was doing so
that called forth Captain White's exclamation. He raised his hand to
his mouth and sent a warning shout after her, and Bob, who saw the
danger at the same moment, shouted too; but Mrs. Harrington did not
appear to hear either of them, and, indeed, it was already too late
for warnings to be of any avail. For an instant horse and rider rose
dark against the gray sky, then vanished; and to those who waited
there, helpless and horror-struck, it seemed as if some minutes
elapsed before the dull crash came which told them that poor Polly
Harrington had taken her last leap.
"Awful thing!--most shocking sight I ever saw in my life!" Captain
White said, describing the catastrophe, some months afterwards, to an
old brother officer. "But she must have been killed like a flash of
lightning--there's some comfort in that. And, though I wouldn't say so
to any one else, I can't help thinking that the poor woman's death was
about the best thing that could have happened. Fancy her having got
Bob Annesley to marry her on the sly! Only shows what fools fellows
are, eh? You've heard that he's engaged to that pretty Miss Cecil now,
haven't you? It isn't given out yet, of course, and I suppose they'll
have to let a year go by before they announce it formally; but
everybody knows about it down in these parts."
Probably many less plain-spoken persons than Captain White agreed with
him in thinking the unfortunate harpy's death the best thing that
could have happened; but it may be hoped that Bob Annesley was not
consciously among the number. The suddenness and the ghastly nature of
the calamity gave him a shock from which his elastic spirits took a
long time to recover; but he began to be more cheerful again after
meeting Canon Stanwick, and putting into words a dread which he had
not liked to mention to other friends.
"I say," he asked hesitatingly, and keeping his eyes upon the ground,
"do you believe--do you believe that--_she did it on purpose?_"
The Professor evaded the question so cleverly that his interrogator
quite imagined that he had answered it.
"I do not think," he said gravely, "that we have any right whatever to
cast such an aspersion as that upon her memory."
ARCHDEACON HOLDEN'S
TRIBULATION.
She was so frail and small that the country squires who came in at the
one stopping-place and left the train at the next, and talked of petty
sessions and highway-boards in a strong slow way, like men with a
tight grasp of a slippery subject, felt fatherly towards her; and so
fair that their sons found out new and painful ways of sitting which
hid dirty boots, and strange modes of propping their guns which
employed hands suddenly gifted with a sense of over-abundance; and so
dainty, yet withal bright of eye and lip, that a gentleman who got in
one stage from Stirhampton, and knew her, was tormented by his fancy;
which pictured her as a sparkling gem in its nest of jeweller's satin.
Altogether so frail and fair and dainty was this passenger; and yet in
the flush of her young beauty and fearless nature, there was about her
so imperious a charm that they all, though they might travel with her
but three miles--it was a dreadful train--and exchange with her not
three words, became her slaves. And the gentleman who knew her
grovelled before her in spirit to an extent unbecoming in a man, much
more in a clergyman and a curate.
She was popular, too. For though she parted from him at the door of
the carriage, she fell in almost at once with another who knew her.
His business, as far as any save chatting with her was apparent,
seemed to be about the book-stall. And after she had gone laughing
from him, and the servant who met her--and was equally her slave with
all the others, though he was more like a bishop and a father of the
Church than they promised ever to be--had taken her luggage in charge,
she met yet another, who blushed, and bowed, and smiled, and stammered
before her after his kind. With him she was very merry until their
roads diverged--if he had any road which was not of the nature of the
last one's business. And then she tripped on just as gayly with a very
tall acquaintance--they were all of one sex--and after him with
another, who took up the walking where his predecessor left off, just
for all the world as if she were a royal letter, and they were those
old Persian post-runners, who made so little of "parasangs," and whose
roads seemed always to be through "Paradises." But this last one
brought her to the rectory gates, and--much lamenting--left her.
There was only Granny in the drawing-room when Dorothy ran upstairs.
Granny, who was eighty-seven, and with a screen at her back and a
wood-fire toasting her old toes, could tell wonderful tales of the
great war. Who had heard "Clarissa" read aloud _coram puellis_, and at
times shocked a mealy-mouthed generation by pure plain-speaking. She
was the Archdeacon's grandmother; but to Dorothy what relation she
was, or whether she was any relation, not all Stirhampton could
tell--though it spent itself in guessing, and dallied to some extent
with a suggestion that she was Dorothy's great-great aunt; not,
however, committing itself to this, nor altogether breaking with a
rival theory, that they were first cousins three times removed.
Whatever she was, Dorothy hugged her a score of times, and the tiny
old lady said, "God bless you, my dear," half as many, and was going
on to her full number, when the Archdeacon himself came in. He, too,
smiled upon seeing the girl, and smoothed his ruffled brow, and tried
to be as if the drawing-room--when he was in it--were all his world.
For this was a part of the Archdeacon's system, and he was of note
through four dioceses as a man of system. So he patted the girl's
hair, and said kindly:
"Well, my dear, I trust you have had a pleasant visit?"
"Oh, charming! and yet I am so glad to be at home again! But,
guardian, what is the matter?"
The Archdeacon was vexed and pleased. Vexed that his attempt had not
succeeded, and pleased that he could now tell his trouble. "The
matter, my dear?" he said, taking a turn up and down the room; "why, I
am greatly annoyed and put out. I never knew such a thing happen
before."
Granny clasped her hands upon the arms of her chair in sudden
excitement. "It isn't overdrawn, George, is it?" she said, nervously.
"Overdrawn!" he replied, cheerfully, "not at all." There had been a
time when he was not an archdeacon, or a rector, or even in orders,
but only a hard-reading undergraduate, when Granny's banking account
had been with great difficulty kept above zero. Then it was her
bugbear; now the family fortunes were as solidly substantial as the
comfortable red brick rectory itself; but Granny found some difficulty
in laying her bogey. "Not at all. Not so bad as that," he said,
cheerfully; "but very annoying, nevertheless. I was writing my
Sunday evening sermon this afternoon--as I always do, you know, on
Friday--when Whiteman came running in to me at five minutes after
four, and said there was no one at the church to take the four o'clock
service. Of course I had to break off and go. The congregation had to
wait fully ten minutes. It is not so much the inroad upon my time,
though that is not unimportant, as the lack of system, that I deplore.
Maddy and Moser"--they were the married curates, and took charge of
the two chapels of ease--"are, of course, engaged elsewhere; but
surely one of the other five might have been here. It is a piece of
gross carelessness on the part of some one."
Dorothy nodded and looked gravely into the teapot. "And I saw Mr. Gray
on my way from the station!" she said.
"Ah, just so. You did not meet any of the others?"
"Yes, I think I did," she replied, with a great show of candor. "Of
course I saw Mr. Bigham by the Church Club and Mr. Brune in Wych
Street."
"Brune is the culprit, I expect. I do not think it would be Charles
Emerson's fault, because he is unwell."
"Unwell!" cried the girl, impulsively. "Indeed, he is quite ill; I
never saw any one look so bad."
"Oh! and where may you have seen _him?_" asked the Archdeacon,
stopping suddenly in his promenade of the room, and facing her.
Dorothy bit her tongue to punish it. There is nothing so dangerous as
a half-confidence. It so often leads, will-he-nill-he, to a whole one.
"He got into the train at Bromfield. He had walked out there," she
said, meekly. Surprisingly meekly for her.
"Quite so. And may I ask whereabouts you met his brother?"
"Met his brother?"
"Yes, my dear," said the Archdeacon, suavely. "Met his brother, Mr.
Philip Emerson?"
"Let me see," murmured Dolly, with a vast pretence of considering,
though her little ears were scarlet by this time. "Where did I meet
Mr. Philip? Of course, I met him at the station. But however did you
know?" she asked, with the utmost effrontery.
"When one sheep, Dorothy, jumps over a gap, all the flock follow. Four
of my curates being so busily engaged meeting my ward, I had little
doubt but that the fifth was as well occupied."
Unseen by him, she made a face at Granny, who was understood to say
that boys would be boys.
"And sheep, sheep!" retorted the Archdeacon, with sharpness.
"They did not tell me that they had come to meet me," said Dolly,
rebelliously. She did not like that proverb--or whatever it was--about
sheep.
The Archdeacon frowned. "No," he said, severely, "but I do not doubt
that you would have been better pleased with them if they had. Let me
speak to you seriously, Dorothy. I cannot--I really cannot--have you
distracting these young men in this way. I observed before you left
several little matters of this kind--little laxities, and a want of
energy and punctuality, on their part that were due, I fear, to your
influence."
"Little laxities!" murmured she, "I never heard of such things." But
he put her aside with a grand wave of his hand.
"I am not inclined to say it is altogether your fault. You cannot help
your looks or your youth, but you can avoid being a hindrance instead
of an assistance in the parish. I must not suffer,"--he was working
himself into a well-regulated passion--"my arrangements to be
disorganized even by you. I will not and I cannot say, were this to go
on, what steps it might not be my duty, however painful, to take."
After uttering this tremendous threat the Archdeacon walked hastily
across the room, and, turning, looked to see what effect it had had
upon his ward. She was playing with her tea-spoon, tapping petulantly
with her foot, reddening, and pouting, and glancing for sympathy at
Granny; behaving altogether like a naughty school-girl under reproof.
He took another turn, feeling that he did well--thoroughly well, to be
angry; and looked again. She had risen, and was leaving the room. He
could only see her back. I don't know what it was--perhaps he could
not tell himself--in the pose of her little head and her shoulders, or
whether it was something quite outside her--which made him step after
her, and touch her shoulder gently.
"There, there!" he said, staying her kindly. "My scolding has not been
very dreadful, Dorothy. We must be good friends again. Will you please
to give me my second cup, and then I will go back and finish--my other
sermon."
Granny looked surprised, and Dorothy laughed as brightly as if there
were not and never had been in the world such a thing as a tear. For
the Archdeacon rarely made a joke, even a little one. Jokes cannot be
made upon system, and Archdeacon Holden had found system so good a
thing that any pursuit which did not admit of it was apt to be out of
favor with him. He was gifted with great powers of organization, and
these he had used well, and found sufficient, so that by their means,
without being a great preacher or a small controversialist, without
inventing a new doctrine, or reviving an old argument, he had risen to
preferment. He was little more than thirty when he was presented to
the living of Stirhampton; and though the parish was overpopulated and
under-churched, he reduced it in ten years to such a condition that it
ranked as a model and its rector as a great man, often consulted by
the heads of the Church upon parochial matters. Moreover, men talked
of him as of one likely to rise higher.
In person he was a tall, well-favored man, in the prime of life, with
hair just beginning to be flecked with gray. He had nothing of the
ascetic in his appearance, though his manners were cold and reserved;
but he was liberal, and had good nature and good temper, as well as
good parts. These qualities, however, the strict formality of his
habits, and his rigid adherence to rule, hid in a great measure from
all who were not well acquainted with the man.
To Dorothy he had been almost a father; and would perhaps have come to
be looked upon entirely in that light, but that he was betrayed from
time to time by little things. For instance, what do fathers--ordinary
allowance-making, bill-paying fathers--know of their girl's dresses?
The smallest chit in the nursery will tell you, nothing. And Carrie
and Edie are so persuaded of this that they will flaunt their new
seal-skins--which have not been paid for, and are absurdly
inconsistent with papa's allowance--under his very nose, without the
slightest tremor; and Flo will wear three new dresses in a quarter
with as little chance of being prematurely found out in her
extravagance, as if they were three new pairs of mittens. But in this
respect the Archdeacon was not Dorothy's father. For not only did he
observe during the few days which followed his scolding that she had
not forgotten it; that she went sadly--or seemed to go sadly--about
the house, and shunned his visitors with a pensive air, leaving Mr.
Maddy, who was over fifty, and had seven children, to pour out his own
tea. Not only did he note this, but when Dorothy appeared at breakfast
upon the fourth morning with a demure face and downcast eyes, he
marked the novelty of her quaker-like gray dress, with its plain
collar and cuffs, as quickly as did Granny.
"That is very becoming, Dorothy," he remarked, pleasantly. He wished
to be upon the old footing with her. To tell you the truth, he was
tired of that going sadly. The house seemed as soberly dull as when
she was away. And of late he had come to think it was rather a dull
house. She had been away a good deal.
"Becoming!" cried Dolly, to his surprise, in a piteous voice. "And I
had thought that this would do."
"Would do, my dear? What do you mean? So it does. It seems to me to do
excellently." He was slightly taken aback.
"But I thought you said it was becoming?" she cried, querulously. "You
did, too. I heard it quite plainly."
"Well, my dear, and what more would you wish me to say? It is--it is
very becoming."
He tried to speak in a tone at once critical and archidiaconal, such a
tone as the palaeontologist adopts when he admires a bone of the
pliocene mammoth in the case of a rival collector, or as paterfamilias
uses when praising--to order--his girl's bonnets. He did not
altogether succeed. The ribs of that primitive animal, though they
have pretty curves enough, do not preen themselves before a mirror
with a little fluttering blush, and bright backward glances, and
quick-straying dainty fingers adjusting here and defining there; nor
do they form together a picture such as none but paterfamilias
himself--no _locum tenens_, for instance--can look on with a perfectly
even pulse-beat. The Archdeacon felt that his tone was not quite the
tone he had, so to speak, commissioned, and swallowed half a cup of
hot coffee at a gulp.
"Oh, dear!" he cried, hastily.
"Oh, dear!" echoed the girl, stamping her foot in a pet. "Then I don't
know what to do. I am sure I thought this would please you, and I
should not be likely to--to do what you said I did in this. But now I
shall not know what to do."
And she ran out of the room, leaving her guardian in a state of much
doubt as to whether she were laughing or crying; and perplexed, too,
by uncertainty whether that gray dress sprang from a conscientious
endeavor after sedateness, a real desire to improve--for oft the habit
doth proclaim the mind--or from a freakish, wicked, contrary, wilful,
teasing spirit, such as old Mrs. Fretchett had told him inhabited the
bodies of young girls.
Alas! he was soon driven to be of old Mrs. Fretchett's opinions. There
was no more sedateness, no more going sadly, after this; nor ever did
scolding seem more entirely thrown away than that extempore sermon
upon the day of Dolly's return. She was gayer, prettier, more
heedless, more flighty than of old. The drawing-room was never
free from curates now, whose business might indeed be with the
Archdeacon; but by the time he was ready to talk it over, to audit
their accounts, or sign their checks, the gentlemen were always
upstairs, and--_difficilis descensus Olympi_. There were rumors of
disagreements among the black-coated ones. The parish districts--and
especially their lady visitors--declared that they were neglected; the
rector never got a quiet cup of tea in his own house, nor even a quiet
placid moment; for the sounds of young people laughing and, as Mrs.
Fretchett called it, "fribbling" upstairs would float down to him
working in his study, and then he would pish and pshaw, and move his
chair impatiently. And no wonder. It meant that the parish was taking
its chance; it meant that his system was breaking down. He knew it
did. He told himself he did well to be angry. And he did thoroughly
well; but after all it gave him small satisfaction. He began to feel
more sore, and think more seriously about the matter every day. He
could not have the work of ten years and more undone in this absurd
fashion. Some remedy must be found. He might get rid of all the
curates in a body, for violent diseases call for violent remedies; but
that might not turn out a remedy. Or Dorothy might be--well, not
dismissed exactly--but disposed of out of the way in some sort or
other. The more Archdeacon Holden thought it over, the more he was
forced to the opinion that his duty lay in this direction. And then
something happened which brought matters to a head.
It was on the day of the Grammar School sports, which were held by his
permission in the large field at the back of the rectory, where the
old town wall, running round two sides of the enclosure, afforded a
capital place, of vantage for such spectators as did not wish to enter
the ground. It was past five o'clock, and the sports were over. Of
course the Archdeacon had attended them; and then he had retired to
his study, and was thinking of going upstairs to tea, when a renewal
of the shouting in the rear of the house attracted his attention.
Wondering what this might be he mounted to the drawing-room, and
finding only Granny there, fenced in as usual with her screen, walked
to the further window which overlooked the field. The sports, to all
appearance, had been resumed, late as it was; for though the ground
was almost clear, a crowd was fast collecting upon the wall, and he
could make out figures--it was just growing dusk--moving quickly round
the ropes, which had not been taken away. One, two, three, four, five
black figures moving swiftly in single file.
"I am afraid this won't do. I don't think that this can be allowed,"
he was beginning, shaking his head slowly, under the impression that
the town boys had taken advantage of the place and occasion to get up
a little impromptu competition of their own. "I don't think--good
heavens!"
Granny awoke upon the instant, the Archdeacon's voice rang out so loud
in anger and reprobation. "What is it?" the old lady said, weakly,
feeling for her stick. "What is it, my dear? I hope it is not much.
You know it is very near quarter day, George, very near, and some
money will be paid in then. Dear me, dear me!"
Even in his wrathful astonishment the Archdeacon tried to say gently,
"It is not that, Granny. It is nothing of any consequence. I shall be
back in a moment."
And then he ran downstairs. Nothing of any consequence indeed; three
steps at a time, and so, bare-headed and his skirts flying behind him,
reached the terrace, taking no notice of a couple of maids in the
hall, who were looking through a window and giggling, and who fled at
his approach. On the terrace, with a charming hood over her head, was
Dorothy, looking down into the field, and now laughing and now
clapping a pair of little gloved hands in great delight, a white rose
on the wall before her. He scarce looked at her, but peered into the
dusk. Yes, his eyes had not played him false. The five athletes
speeding round the roped circle were his five curates, and none
others.
"Isn't it fun?" cried Dorothy at his side, all unconscious of his
feelings. "The boys were nothing to them, they look so funny in their
long coats. They are walking a mile, and the winner is to have this
rose. Don't you think Mr. Bigham is gaining?"
The Archdeacon was speechless. He glared at this mocker, and then at
the crowd upon the wall opposite--the cheering, shouting, growing
crowd--and breathed hard. Funny! Fun! Had the girl lost all sense of
decorum? He would waste no words upon her; but he ran down the steps
and strode across the grass as swiftly as his dignity, a little
impaired by haste and passion, would permit. Fortunately the
competitors were just then at the near side of the circle. But, for
that very reason, by the time he approached the ropes, the walkers,
who had only eyes for one another and that slender figure on the
terrace, had passed the point nearest to him, and were speeding away
quite unconscious of their superior's presence. He thought he should
cut off the last man, and increased his pace. He called to him and
waved his hand. But Mr. Brune, intent upon the business before him,
and going steadily like a machine heel and toe, his elbows well in,
and his eyes upon the small of his predecessor's back, neither saw nor
heard him. The Archdeacon was excited and provoked. In the heat of the
moment he followed, still calling to him; and, being quite fresh,
began to overhaul Mr. Brune. He did not hear a louder shout rise from
the crowd upon the wall; he did not hear his ward clapping her hands
in a perfect ecstasy of delight; he did not--indeed he could not--hear
the giggling of the maids at the hall window. But all these people and
everybody else thought that he had joined in the "parsons' race."
Some, like Dorothy, thought it was very nice "and liberal" of him; and
more, like Mrs. Fretchett, who had a fine view from her window,
thought it very odd of him. And the faster he pressed on to catch
Brune, becoming with every stride more and more angry, the more the
crowd upon the wall shouted, and Dolly clapped, and Brune increased
his speed, and the maids giggled; until at length the Archdeacon,
beginning to suspect that his own position was far from dignified, and
a glimmer of the light in which he was being viewed by others dawning
upon him, broke into a run, and the crowd into a shout of reprobation
of his unfairness; and then at last he laid his hand upon Mr. Brune's
shoulder.
"Stop, Mr. Brune," he gasped; "stop! This is most unseemly. Do you
hear? Most unseemly! I exceedingly disapprove of this--this
disgraceful exhibition. Do you see the people, sir?"
This at last brought Mr. Brune to a standstill. He was a pitiable
object as, hot, dishevelled, and panting, his tie awry and his collar
rumpled, he stared, dumfounded, into his superior's flushed and
indignant face. He tremulously wiped his brow, and by a tremendous
effort recovered his eyeglasses from between his shoulders, where they
had been swinging rhythmically. He put them on and looked round. Then
he became aware of the spectators who had gathered since he and his
fellows had, in quite a private way, started on their little frolic,
and the affair became apparent to him in its true colors. For, left to
themselves, and unperverted by Dolly and unreasoning rivalry, there
were no curates anywhere of more proper ideas than the Archdeacon's.
Brune dropped his glasses, quite crushed; but, seeing the necessity
for action, revived. He did what the Archdeacon should have done at
first. He jumped over the ropes and ran across to stay the others.
Their rector did not wait to speak with them then, but, still
frowning, stalked back to the terrace, striving to recover his
self-possession upon his way. With but partial success, for as he
mounted the steps, "Oh, guardian!" cried a merry laughing voice from
above him, "what is the matter? Why did you stop? I am sure you would
have beaten them all if you had gone on as well as you started. You
walked capitally. And why have they all stopped?"
"Because they have come to their senses," he said, hoarsely, striving
vainly to repress his passion. "Have you ever heard of Circe, girl?"
Dolly only stared. This tone at any rate she had never heard before.
"Because my parish is not large enough to contain her foolish rout and
their senseless tricks. They were walking for a rose, were they?" he
continued, bitterly. What he had said already seemed to have hurt the
girl not one whit, only surprised her; and he was terribly
exasperated. "I suppose that is but a pretty figure of speech, and
stands for yourself. I am surprised you have so much modesty. It is
fitting and maidenly in my ward to offer herself as the prize of a
public walking match."
Her face turned white in the dusk. "How dare you!" she cried, starting
back as if he had struck her. He had hurt her at last, if that was
what he wished to do. "How dare you!" she cried, passionately. But
this time there came a quiver in her voice and a catching of her
breath, and before he could be ready for this change of front she was
gone, and he heard her sobbing bitterly as she passed through the
hall. Only the white rose lay where she had flung it.
He went into his study and sat down very miserably, thinking, no
doubt, over the state of the parish, and of what Mrs. Fretchett would
say, and took no tea that evening. Only at one time or another, before
nine o'clock prayers, he saw all the five curates. At dinner he was
very silent, looking from time to time curiously at Dolly, who was
silent too, attending chiefly to Granny's wants, and avoiding his eyes
with a conscious shrinking, new in her and strangely painful to him.
But the Archdeacon had made up his mind, and before twenty-four hours
were over had put it before Dorothy. First, however, he had asked her
pardon quite formally for what he had said in his haste; and the
strange look which pained him had passed from the girl's face, as
melts a shadow cast by a cloud that was before the sun, and suddenly,
even as we look up, is not. And then he had gone on to speak seriously
to her of the state of his parish, touching upon the report of the
previous day's doings, which was already abroad, and which Dolly, with
some temper and as much justice, set down to Mrs. Fretchett.
"Well, my dear," the Archdeacon answered pleasantly, though in a tone
which made her look sharply at him, "she and I are--well, old enough
to remember that you are young, and, as Granny says, young folks will
be young. Still I am bound to take care that the interests of my
parish come first. It must not suffer through any one, even through
you. And suffer it does, Dolly; which brings me to the other matter.
An opportunity offers--I may say, three opportunities--of solving our
difficulty. I have told you that you are too thoughtless for a
clergyman's daughter, but I think you would make a good and true
clergyman's wife."
Crash! Dorothy had dropped the paperweight with which she was playing.
He let her stoop to pick it up, which she did clumsily, and was long
about it, and then he went on. "I have had three proposals for your
hand, my dear. I do not know that this _embarras de richesses_ is
altogether to your credit, but so it is. Three of your fellow-culprits
of yesterday, Philip Emerson, Mr. Bigham, and Mr. Brune are anxious to
press their suits. They all have some means, and are young men of
whom, notwithstanding that little affair, I can approve."
She was drawing outlines on her work-table with one white forefinger.
"I don't think I want to marry either of them," she murmured with much
indifference, considering the effect of an imaginary landscape with
her head on one side.
The Archdeacon frowned. "They think that you have given them reason to
hope."
"They cannot all think that!" she retorted, pouting scornfully. And
the worst of it was that he could not controvert this.
"Philip Emerson, Dorothy, seemed in particular to fancy he had
received some encouragement."
"Oh," said Dolly, "I should like to ask him what he meant; I don't
think he would dare to say it to my face. Perhaps he meant this!" She
went on contemptuously, rummaging in her work-basket--
"For all I can remember he may have given it to me. One of them did, I
know. Isn't it nonsense?"
She held a crumpled scrap of paper towards her guardian, and he took
it with the air of a man accepting service of a writ. "Am I to read
it?" he asked stiffly.
"Of course--I suppose he intended it to be read."
And the Archdeacon holding it gingerly, just as if it were the royal
invitation before mentioned, read a few lines--
"Ah, great gray eyes, that, in my true love's face,
Tell of the pure and noble soul within;
One look in your calm depths I fain would trace,
I fain would win."
and threw it down with a contemptuous "pshaw!" He looked through the
window for a moment before he spoke again; then with a great show of
cheerfulness he said, "Now, my dear, let us be serious, which of them
would you like to see yourself?"
"Which of them!" she answered impatiently. "None of them--ever! I hate
them! That is, I mean that I don't want to marry them."
"I shall not let you give that answer without thought. It seems to me
that you must have encouraged one or the other of them. You must take
a fortnight to think it over."
"I won't have a minute!" she cried angrily.
"A clear fortnight," he repeated with some sternness. "If you are then
resolved, I shall be the last to force you to marry against your will.
I have, indeed, no legal power over you. I am not your father."
"No, you are not," she replied sullenly.
That pained the Archdeacon more than all that had gone before. It was
not only thoughtless, it was ungracious, it was ungrateful, and it
hardened his heart so that he spoke out what was in his thoughts.
"Quite so," he began. "I was only going to say that if at the end of
the time you found yourself unable to embrace----"
"I am a woman, if I am your ward," suddenly and spitefully.
"--to embrace this opportunity," shot out the clergyman, very red in
the face, "then I should have to make an alteration in my household;
in what direction, you will, no doubt, be able to guess."
She bent over her work and made no reply, so that he felt a cruel
satisfaction that he had at last managed to cow her. Then, as there
seemed no more to be said, the Archdeacon went downstairs and tried to
feel content with his partial success. One way or another the
difficulty would now be settled. And this being so, if he sighed over
the consideration of this comfortable fact, we may presume that the
sigh was one of relief.
The gravity which on a sudden fell upon the rectory folk was not
unmarked by Stirhampton. But Stirhampton felt no surprise at it.
Stirhampton well understood the cause of it. What wonder, asked
Stirhampton, if the Archdeacon looked perplexed, and Miss Dorothy
gloomy, and the curates anxious? What wonder, indeed, when as sure as
eggs were what they seemed to be--and there they generally were--the
Court of Arches had its eyes upon Stirhampton, and sentences of
suspension were in the air, and there was even talk of unfrocking!
so that much discussion was raised in town circles as to the details
of that ceremony, and whether a cook's cleaver did, or did not,
figure in it, and if it did, in what particular way it was used? What
wonder, indeed? though those who knew best whispered that the race
for the girl's hand (oh, those giggling eavesdropping maids!),
disgraceful as it was in men of their calling and the Archdeacon's
age, might--observe--_might_ have been overlooked. "But when it came,"
said these, "to the Archdeacon, in his chagrin at being outstripped by
younger men, striking Mr. Brune, and knocking his own curate over the
ropes, so that the very crowd cried shame! that was indeed going a
little too far. There could be no winking at that, be the authority
ever so favorable to him."
Still there are always froward people who will have no fire where
others have been the first to espy the smoke. There were these at
Stirhampton, men who were rude and said it was all fiddle-de-dee when
Mrs. Fretchett said it was _scandalum magnatum_--a plain and
unmannerly contradiction--and made themselves otherwise unpleasant.
But even these grew silent after a time, when a very weighty fact came
to be known. Two official letters--missives were the more proper
word--of most threatening appearance had been delivered at the
rectory. Their envelopes had been stamped with the name of an august
street, and bore also in the left-hand bottom corner a distinguished
title. On one had been a twopenny stamp. Timid people scanned the
rector with curious pity, and such upon the whole was the effect of
this postal intelligence that the doctrine of _scandalum magnatum_
gained almost universal credence; even the froward ones grew serious
and thought it over.
It was probably from a feeling of delicacy that they refrained from
carrying their surmises to the Archdeacon. To the curates some hints
were given, but what with their obtuseness--they scarcely seemed to
understand--and a fretful touchy disposition, noticeable in young men,
nothing came of these hints.
Of all the rectory folk, it was Dolly only who (oh, those giggling,
tattling maids!) came to hear of the rumor. It distressed her beyond
measure. She could not feel sure that it was untrue. Nay, she knew
that one part was true, for had she not seen the Archdeacon read one
and the other of the letters mentioned, and immediately thereafter
fall into deep thought. Ever since he had been grave and preoccupied.
Her ideas upon unfrocking--though the cleaver was not one of
them--were sufficiently terrible, and grew more and more vivid and
daunting the longer she dwelt upon them. Yet there was not between
herself and her guardian such an amount of confidence as made it easy
for her to speak to him upon such a subject.
So poor Dorothy knew not what to think. She had her own little
distresses, we know; but they were forgotten in this greater
apprehension that she had brought grief and disgrace upon the
Archdeacon. And when, about the end of the fortnight, he bade her come
to his study, she thought of them only as of matters to be put aside,
if mentioned, as quickly as possible, as matters of no importance in
the face of the blow she felt was about to fall.
Archdeacon Holden was writing steadily. He looked up at her entrance
to point with a faint smile to a chair, and then went on with his
work. She fancied that there was something strange and new in his air;
she marked under the paper-weight the letters about which all the town
was talking; at her elbow she spied an envelope addressed to the Dean
and Chapter of W----, the patron of the living, and Dorothy felt sick
at heart.
Whether he was or was not aware of the direction of her thoughts, he
folded his letter slowly, willing, perhaps, to put off as long as
possible the evil day when something must be told. It was not until he
had risen and approached the fireplace, so that his back was towards
her, that he said pleasantly:
"Well, Dorothy, we will talk of your affairs first."
"They will not occupy you long," was her quiet answer; what were these
things to her now? "I have made up my mind, or rather it is unchanged.
If I have thoughtlessly caused pain to Mr. Emerson and the others, I
am sorry; but I cannot marry any of them."
He did not speak for a moment. Perhaps his thoughts had gone off to
his own matters, for his hand shook a little as he adjusted the
date-case over the mantelpiece. "You are quite sure, my dear?" he said
at last. There was no displeasure in his tone.
"I am quite sure."
"Well, that would have been an embarrassing answer, Dorothy, if things
still stood as they were," he said. "But they do not; and any change I
am going to make will be the result of another cause. I have some news
for you. I am going to leave Stirhampton, and you are the first person
to whom I have told the fact. You will not do my parish much more
harm, my dear, for in a few weeks at most I shall be without one."
His back was towards her, and so he could not see the current of grief
and trouble that flashed from Dolly's heart to Dolly's face. He waited
for the eager, happy words of congratulation that should have come;
for the touch at which he should turn to meet the bright, animated
face that would smile on him for a moment, and then flit joyfully
upstairs to Granny. He waited for these things, wondering if his
elevation could bring him any other pleasure to compare with this. And
then, instead, he heard behind him a quick, low sob, and turned, with
a sinking of the heart, to find the girl crying bitterly, her face
cast forward in utter self-abandonment upon her arms, and her whole
frame quivering with the sharpness of her sorrow.
His heart sank with a natural foreboding. But surely it must have been
a singularly affectionate one, or where otherwise lay hidden the
source of that deep feeling which welled up in the simple words wrung
from him by the sight of her distress. "My darling, my darling, only
tell me what it is!" he cried, stroking her fair hair and striving to
comfort her. "Tell me your trouble. Don't you know I would give my
life to save you pain, Dolly? Don't hurt me like this, but look up and
tell me. What is it, my darling?"
But for a time, though she heard him, she would not be comforted, and
his words even seemed to give a fresh impulse to her grief. At last,
amid half-stifled sobs, with her face still hidden, Dolly made him
understand what she had heard and what she had feared, and what she
had supposed him to mean when he said he was about to leave
Stirhampton; and poured out, too, her own self-reproach, while he
stood over her and listened, and now touched the bowed head, and now
smiled grimly at the rumor of that unfrocking. And when he came to
answer her, he did it in a score of words that dried her eyes
effectually, and made her turn her flushed, pitiful, tear-stained face
upon him, a glorious smile of pure happiness irradiating it that
somehow made his heart leap up like a boy's--and then ache as those
deserve to ache who play the boy when old enough to know better.
"It is a mistake," was all he said; "I am leaving here, but not in
disgrace, Dolly. I have accepted the Bishopric of the new see of
Deringham. What a silly, loving, little girl it is! You may read the
letter, my dear." And while Dolly, in radiant dishevelment, was
striving to tell him her pleasure, he took an envelope from his
pocket and held it out. Dolly seized it eagerly and opened it, and
found within it not at all what the Archdeacon had thought was in
it. The envelope contained no statesman's autograph, or courtly
to-apron-inviting note from Downing Street, but only a white rose, a
dried rose, flattened, but still sweet and fragrant. Almost as soon
as the girl's fingers touched it the Archdeacon was aware of his
mistake--surely a very curious mistake--and snatched it from her with
some confused words and a reddening brow. But Dolly had seen it--had
certainly seen it; and somehow it brought back to her memory the day
of the curates' race; so that when the Archdeacon brusquely put
another letter into her hand, she read it with her eyes, and not her
mind. As for the Archdeacon, he sought the window, and hemmed and
hawed, and at last said, hastily, without turning, "There, there, my
dear, I think there is no more to be said. Will you kindly go and tell
Granny?" and so affected to select a volume from a shelf of the Early
Fathers.
But Dorothy did not move. She sat stooping forward, passing the hem of
her much-bedabbled handkerchief through her fingers.
"Are you sure that you have told me all you wish to tell me?" she
asked, slowly.
Her guardian started. "I think so," he answered, and plunged
recklessly at a volume of Origen, or it might be St. Anthony, perhaps.
"Then why," cried Dolly, starting up and facing him, with crimson
cheeks, "why did you call me your darling just now? You had no right
to do it--no right, though you are my guardian, to say that--if you
are going to say nothing more! If you want me, why don't you ask for
me! Philip could, and Mr. Brune, and the other! I hate a coward. Why
cannot you say, if--you--want me?"
There are men who have seen Deans in their shirt-sleeves, playing
billiards. And there is one still living--chiefly on the fact--who
once was last in a three-legged race in double harness with a Duke. So
it is undeniable that great men do unbend at times to a surprising
extent. But that the Archdeacon at the point of the story we have
reached unbent in the manner much hinted at in Stirhampton, I shall
ask no reader to believe. The more as the real facts which have been
told fully explain the disorder of lace and neck-ribbon, the softness
of eye, and crimson of cheek, which Granny noticed about the girl when
she ran in upon her, all smiles and tears, knocking down the screen,
and hugging the little old lady into a state of deep alarm.
Which took, of course, the old direction. But the Archdeacon came
upstairs in time to anticipate the usual question. "No," he said,
putting his hand on the kneeling girl's head, "the balance is all
right, Granny--except in years. There is a heavy overdraft of those
against me."
"And I will honor it," said Dolly, gravely, and took his hand and
kissed it. As for what followed--we had better put up Granny's screen
again. This the man of system, who had no taste for jests? But then it
is just possible that Dolly did not mean it for a jest. The curates?
Mr. Philip Emerson, Mr. Brune, and Mr. Bigham? Indeed I cannot say
what became of them. I should suppose they died prematurely of broken
hearts. But the next time that I visit Deringham I will call at the
Palace and ask the Bishop.