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Chronicles of Carlingford.
THE
PERPETUAL CURATE
MRS OLIPHANT
_ALLA PADRONA MIA;
ED A TE, SORELLA CARISSIMA!
CONSOLATRICI GENTILLISSIME
DELLA DESOLATA._
CHAPTER I.
Carlingford is, as is well known, essentially a quiet place. There is
no trade in the town, properly so called. To be sure, there are two or
three small counting-houses at the other end of George Street, in that
ambitious pile called Gresham Chambers; but the owners of these places
of business live, as a general rule, in villas, either detached or
semi-detached, in the North-end, the new quarter, which, as everybody
knows, is a region totally unrepresented in society. In Carlingford
proper there is no trade, no manufactures, no anything in particular,
except very pleasant parties and a superior class of people--a very
superior class of people, indeed, to anything one expects to meet
with in a country town, which is not even a county town, nor the seat
of any particular interest. It is the boast of the place that it has no
particular interest--not even a public school: for no reason in the
world but because they like it, have so many nice people collected
together in those pretty houses in Grange Lane--which is, of course, a
very much higher tribute to the town than if any special inducement had
led them there. But in every community some centre of life is necessary.
This point, round which everything circles, is, in Carlingford, found in
the clergy. They are the administrators of the commonwealth, the only
people who have defined and compulsory duties to give a sharp outline to
life. Somehow this touch of necessity and business seems needful even
in the most refined society: a man who is obliged to be somewhere at a
certain hour, to do something at a certain time, and whose public duties
are not volunteer proceedings, but indispensable work, has a certain
position of command among a leisurely and unoccupied community, not to
say that it is a public boon to have some one whom everybody knows and
can talk of. The minister in Salem Chapel was everything in his little
world. That respectable connection would not have hung together half so
closely but for this perpetual subject of discussion, criticism, and
patronage; and, to compare great things with small, society in Carlingford
recognised in some degree the same human want. An enterprising or
non-enterprising rector made all the difference in the world in Grange
Lane; and in the absence of a rector that counted for anything (and poor
Mr Proctor was of no earthly use, as everybody knows), it followed, as a
natural consequence, that a great deal of the interest and influence of
the position fell into the hands of the Curate of St Roque's.
But that position was one full of difficulties, as any one acquainted
with the real state of affairs must see in a moment. Mr Wentworth's
circumstances were, on the whole, as delicate and critical as can be
imagined, both as respected his standing in Carlingford and the place
he held in his own family--not to speak of certain other personal
matters which were still more troublesome and vexatious. These last of
course were of his own bringing on; for if a young man chooses to fall
in love when he has next to nothing to live upon, trouble is sure to
follow. He had quite enough on his hands otherwise without that
crowning complication. When Mr Wentworth first came to Carlingford,
it was in the days of Mr Bury, the Evangelical rector--his last
days, when he had no longer his old vigour, and was very glad of
"assistance," as he said, in his public and parish work. Mr Bury had a
friendship of old standing with the Miss Wentworths of Skelmersdale,
Mr Francis Wentworth's aunts; and it was a long time before the old
Rector's eyes were opened to the astounding fact, that the nephew of
these precious and chosen women held "views" of the most dangerous
complexion, and indeed was as near Rome as a strong and lofty
conviction of the really superior catholicity of the Anglican Church
would permit him to be. Before he found this out, Mr Bury, who had
unlimited confidence in preaching and improving talk, had done all he
could to get the young man to "work," as the good Rector called it,
and had voluntarily placed all that difficult district about the canal
under the charge of the Curate of St Roque's. It is said that the
horror with which, after having just written to Miss Leonora Wentworth
to inform her what "a great work" his young friend was doing among the
bargemen, Mr Bury was seized upon entering St Roque's itself for the
first time after the consecration, when the young priest had arranged
everything his own way, had a very bad effect on his health, and
hastened his end. And it is indeed a fact that he died soon after,
before he had time to issue the interdict he intended against Mr
Wentworth's further exertions in the parish of Carlingford. Then came
Mr Proctor, who came into the town as if he had dropped from the
skies, and knew no more about managing a parish than a baby; and
under his exceptional incumbency Mr Wentworth became more than ever
necessary to the peace of the community. Now a new _regime_ had been
inaugurated. Mr Morgan, a man whom Miss Wodehouse described as "in the
prime of life," newly married, with a wife also in the prime of life,
who had waited for him ten years, and all that time had been under
training for her future duties--two fresh, new, active, clergymanly
intellects, entirely open to the affairs of the town, and intent
upon general reformation and sound management--had just come into
possession. The new Rector was making a great stir all about him, as
was natural to a new man; and it seemed, on the whole, a highly
doubtful business whether he and Mr Wentworth would find Carlingford
big enough to hold them both.
"We could not have expected to begin quite without difficulties," said
Mrs Morgan, as she and her husband discussed the question in the
drawing-room of the Rectory. It was a pretty drawing-room, though Mr
Proctor's taste was not quite in accordance with the principles of
the new incumbent's wife: however, as the furniture was all new, and as
the former rector had no further need for it, it was of course, much the
best and most economical arrangement to take it as it stood--though the
bouquets on the carpet were a grievance which nothing but her high
Christian principles could have carried Mrs Morgan through. She looked
round as she spoke, and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head:
she, too, had her share of disagreeables. "It would not look like
Christ's work, dear," said the clergyman's wife, "if we had it all our
own way."
"My dear, I hope I am actuated by higher motives than a desire to have
it all my own way," said the Rector. "I always felt sure that Proctor
would make a mess of any parish he took in hand, but I did not imagine
he would have left it to anybody who pleased to work it. You may
imagine what my feelings were to-day, when I came upon a kind of
impromptu chapel in that wretched district near the canal. I thought
it a Little Bethel, you know, of course; but instead of that, I find
young Wentworth goes there Wednesdays and Fridays to do duty, and that
there is service on Sunday evening, and I can't tell what besides.
It may be done from a good motive--but such a disregard of all
constituted authority," said the Rector, with involuntary vehemence,
"can never, in my opinion, be attended by good results."
"Mr Wentworth, did you say?" said Mrs Morgan, upon whose female soul
the Perpetual Curate's good looks and good manners had not been
without a certain softening effect. "I am so sorry. I don't wonder you
are vexed; but don't you think there must be some mistake, William? Mr
Wentworth is so gentlemanly and nice--and of very good family, too.
I don't think he would choose to set himself in opposition to the
Rector. I think there must be some mistake." "It's a very aggravating
mistake, at all events," said Mr Morgan, rising and going to the
window. It was, as we have said, a very pretty drawing-room, and the
windows opened upon as pretty a bit of lawn as you could see, with one
handsome cedar sweeping its dark branches majestically over delicious
greensward; but some people did think it was too near George Street
and the railway. Just at that moment a puff of delicate white vapour
appeared over the wall, and a sudden express-train, just released from
the cover of the station, sprang with a snort and bound across the
Rector's view, very imperfectly veiled by the lime-trees, which were
thin in their foliage as yet. Mr Morgan groaned and retreated--out of
his first exaltation he had descended all at once, as people will do
after building all their hopes upon one grand event, into great
depression and vexation, when he found that, after all, this event did
not change the face of existence, but indeed brought new proofs of
mortality in the shape of special annoyances belonging to itself in
its train. "On the whole," said the Rector, who was subject to fits of
disgust with things in general, "I am tempted to think it was a
mistake coming to Carlingford; the drawbacks quite overbalance the
advantages. I did hesitate, I remember--it must have been my better
angel: that is, my dear," he continued, recollecting himself, "I would
have hesitated had it not been for you."
Here there ensued a little pause. Mrs Morgan was not so young as she
had been ten years ago, all which time she had waited patiently for
the Fellow of All-Souls, and naturally these ten years and the
patience had not improved her looks. There was a redness on her
countenance nowadays which was not exactly bloom; and it stretched
across her cheeks, and over the point of her nose, as she was
painfully aware, poor lady. She was silent when she heard this,
wondering with a passing pang whether he was sorry? But being a
thoroughly sensible woman, and above indulging in those little appeals
by which foolish ones confuse the calm of matrimonial friendship, she
did not express the momentary feeling. "Yes, William," she said,
sympathetically, casting her eyes again on the objectionable carpet,
and feeling that there _were_ drawbacks even to her happiness as the
wife of the Rector of Carlingford; "but I suppose every place has its
disadvantages; and then there is such good society; and a town like
this is the very place for your talents; and when affairs are in your
own hands--"
"It is very easy talking," said the vexed Rector. "Society and
everybody would turn upon me if I interfered with Wentworth--there's
the vexation. The fellow goes about it as if he had a right. Why,
there's a Provident Society and all sorts of things going on, exactly
as if it were his own parish. What led me to the place was seeing
some ladies in grey cloaks--exactly such frights as you used to make
yourself, my dear--flickering about. He has got up a sisterhood, I
have no doubt; and to find all this in full operation in one's own
parish, without so much as being informed of it! and you know I don't
approve of sisterhoods--never did; they are founded on a mistake."
"Yes, dear. I know I gave up as soon as I knew your views on that
subject," said Mrs Morgan. "I daresay so will the ladies here. Who
were they? Did you speak to them? or perhaps they belonged to St
Roque's."
"Nobody belongs to St Roque's," said the Rector, contemptuously--"it
has not even a district. They were the two Miss Wodehouses."
Mrs Morgan was moved to utter a little cry. "And their father is
churchwarden!" said the indignant woman. "Really, William, this is too
much--without even consulting you! But it is easy to see how _that_
comes about. Lucy Wodehouse and young Wentworth are--; well, I don't
know if they are engaged--but they are always together, walking and
talking, and consulting with each other, and so forth--a great deal
more than I could approve of; but that poor elder sister, you know,
has no authority--nor indeed any experience, poor thing," said the
Rector's wife; "that's how it is, no doubt." "Engaged!" said the
Rector. He gave a kindly glance at his wife, and melted a little.
"Engaged, are they? Poor little thing! I hope she'll be as good as you
have been, my dear; but a young man may be in love without interfering
with another man's parish. I can't forgive that," said Mr Morgan,
recovering himself; "he must be taught to know better; and it is very
hard upon a clergyman," continued the spiritual ruler of Carlingford,
"that he cannot move in a matter like this without incurring a storm
of godless criticism. If I were sending Wentworth out of my parish, I
shouldn't wonder if the 'Times' had an article upon it, denouncing me
as an indolent priest and bigot, that would neither work myself nor
let my betters work; that's how these fellows talk."
"But nobody could say such things of you," said Mrs Morgan, firing up.
"Of me! they'd say them of St Paul, if he had ever been in the
circumstances," said the Rector; "and I should just like to know what
he would have done in a parish like this, with the Dissenters on one
side, and a Perpetual Curate without a district meddling on the other.
Ah, my dear," continued Mr Morgan, "I daresay they had their troubles
in those days; but facing a governor or so now and then, or even
passing a night in the stocks, is a very different thing from a
showing-up in the 'Times,' not to speak of the complications of duty.
Let us go out and call at Folgate's, and see whether he thinks
anything can be done to the church."
"Dear, you wouldn't mind the 'Times' if it were your duty?" said the
Rector's wife, getting up promptly to prepare for the walk.
"No, I suppose not," said Mr Morgan, not without a thrill of importance;
"nor the stake," he added, with a little laugh, for he was not without a
sense of humour; and the two went out to the architect's to ascertain
the result of his cogitations over the church. They passed that sacred
edifice in their way, and went in to gaze at it with a disgust which
only an unhappy priest of high culture and aesthetic tastes, doomed to
officiate in a building of the eighteenth century, of the churchwarden
period of architecture, could fully enter into. "Eugh!" said Mr Morgan,
looking round upon the high pews and stifling galleries with an expressive
contraction of his features--his wife looked on sympathetic; and it was
at this unlucky moment that the subject of their late conference made
his appearance cheerfully from behind the ugly pulpit, in close
conference with Mr Folgate. The pulpit was a three-storeyed mass, with
the reading-desk and the clerk's desk beneath--a terrible eyesore to the
Rector and his wife.
"I can fancy the expediency of keeping the place in repair," said the
Curate of St Roque's, happy in the consciousness of possessing a
church which, though not old, had been built by Gilbert Scott, and
cheerfully unconscious of the presence of his listeners; "but to
beautify a wretched old barn like this is beyond the imagination of
man. Money can't do everything," said the heedless young man as he
came lounging down the middle aisle, tapping contemptuously with his
cane upon the high pew-doors. "I wonder where the people expected to
go to who built Carlingford Church? Curious," continued the young
Anglican, stopping in mid career, "to think of bestowing _consecration_
upon anything so hideous. What a pass the world must have come to,
Folgate, when this erection was counted worthy to be the house of God!
After all, perhaps it is wrong to feel so strongly about it. The walls
_are_ consecrated, though they are ugly; we can't revoke the blessing.
But no wonder it was an unchristian age."
"We have our treasure in earthen vessels," said Mr Morgan, somewhat
sternly, from where he stood, under shelter of the heavy gallery. Mr
Wentworth was shortsighted, like most people nowadays. He put up his
glass hastily, and then hurried forward, perhaps just a little
abashed. When he had made his salutations, however, he returned
undismayed to the charge.
"It's a great pity you have not something better to work upon," said
the dauntless Curate; "but it is difficult to conceive what can be
done with such an unhallowed type of construction. I was just saying
to Folgate--"
"There is a great deal of cant abroad on this subject," said Mr
Morgan, interrupting the young oracle. "I like good architecture, but
I don't relish attributing moral qualities to bricks and mortar. The
hallowing influence ought to be within. Mr Folgate, we were going to
call at your office. Have you thought of the little suggestions I
ventured to make? Oh, the drawings are here. Mr Wentworth does not
approve of them, I suppose?" said the Rector, turning sternly round
upon the unlucky Curate of St Roque's.
"I can only say I sympathise with you profoundly," said young
Wentworth, with great seriousness. "Such a terrible church must be a
great trial. I wish I had any advice worth offering; but it is my hour
for a short service down at the canal, and I can't keep my poor
bargees waiting. Good morning. I hope you'll come and give us your
countenance, Mrs Morgan. There's no end of want and trouble at
Wharfside."
"Is Mr Wentworth aware, I wonder, that Wharfside is in the parish of
Carlingford?" said the Rector, with involuntary severity, as the young
priest withdrew calmly to go to his "duty." Mr Folgate, who supposed
himself to be addressed, smiled, and said, "Oh yes, of course," and
unfolded his drawings, to which the clerical pair before him lent a
disturbed attention. They were both in a high state of indignation by
this time. It seemed indispensable that something should be done to
bring to his senses an intruder so perfectly composed and at his
ease.