As he approached his house, he saw the elder Heve, vicar of Saint
Peter's, coming away from it, a natty clerical figure in a straw hat of
peculiar shape. Recently this man had called once or twice; not
professionally, for Darius was neither a churchman nor a parishioner,
but as a brother of Dr Heve's, as a friendly human being, and Darius
had been flattered. The Vicar would talk about Jesus with quiet
half-humorous enthusiasm. For him at any rate Christianity was grand
fun. He seemed never to be solemn over his religion, like the
Wesleyans. He never, with a shamed, defiant air, said, "I am not
ashamed of Christ," like the Wesleyans. He might have known Christ
slightly at Cambridge. But his relations with Christ did not make him
conceited, nor condescending. And if he was concerned about the welfare
of people who knew not Christ, he hid his concern in the politest
manner. Edwin, after being momentarily impressed by him, was now
convinced of his perfect mediocrity; the Vicar's views on literature had
damned him eternally in the esteem of Edwin, who was still naive enough
to be unable to comprehend how a man who had been to Cambridge could
speak enthusiastically of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Moreover, Edwin despised
him for his obvious pride in being a bachelor. The Vicar would not say
that a priest should be celibate, but he would, with delicacy, imply as
much. Then also, for Edwin's taste, the parson was somewhat too
childishly interested in the culture of cellar-mushrooms, which was his
hobby. He would recount the tedious details of all his experiments to
Darius, who, flattered by these attentions from the Established Church,
took immense delight in the Vicar and in the sample mushrooms offered to
him from time to time.
Maggie stood in the porch, which commanded the descent into Bursley; she
was watching the Vicar as he receded. When Edwin appeared at the gate,
she gave a little jump, and he fancied that she also blushed.
"Look here!" he exclaimed to himself, in a flash of suspicion. "Surely
she's not thinking of the Vicar! Surely Maggie isn't after all!" He
did not conceive it possible that the Vicar, who had been to Cambridge
and had notions about celibacy, was thinking of Maggie. "Women are
queer," he said to himself. (For him, this generalisation from facts
was quite original.) Fancy her staring after the Vicar! She must have
been doing it quite unconsciously! He had supposed that her attitude
towards the Vicar was precisely his own. He took it for granted that
the Vicar's attitude was the same to both of them, based on a polite and
kindly but firm recognition that there could be no genuine sympathy
between him and them.
"The Vicar's just been," said Maggie.
"Has he? ... Cheered the old man up at all?"
"Not much." Maggie shook her head gloomily.
Edwin's conscience seemed to be getting ready to hint that he ought not
to go to London.
"I say, Mag," he said quietly, as he inserted his stick in the
umbrella-stand. She stopped on her way upstairs, and then approached
him.
"Mr Orgreave wants me to go to London with him and Mrs Orgreave." He
explained the whole project to her.