THE CURATE HEARS THE NEWS.
Seldom, if ever, had the curate passed a week so harassing as that
which was ushered in by the bazaar, and was destined to end—though he
did not know this—in the colliery accident. During these seven days he
managed to run through a perfect gamut of feelings. He rose each day in
a different mood. One day he was hopeful, confident, assured of
success; the next fearful, despondent, inclined to give up all for
lost. One day he went about telling himself that the rector would not
resign; that he would not resign himself in his place; that people were
mad to say he would; that men do not resign livings so easily; that the
very circumstances of the case must compel the rector to stand his
ground. The next he saw everything in a different light. He appreciated
the impossibility of a man attacked on so many sides maintaining his
position for any length of time. One hour he bitterly regretted that he
had cut himself off from his chief, the next he congratulated himself
as sincerely on being untrammelled by any but a formal bond. Why,
people might even have expected him, had he strongly supported the
rector, to refuse the living!
He saw Laura several times during the week, but he did not open to her
the extent of his hopes and fears. He shrank from doing so out of a
natural prudent reticence; which after all meant only the refraining
from putting into words things perfectly understood. To some extent he
kept up between them the thin veil of appearances, which many who go
through life in closest companionship, preserve to the end, though each
has long ago found it transparent. But though he said nothing,
confining the tumult of his feelings to his own breast, he was not
blind, and he soon perceived that Laura shared his suspense, and was
watching the rector’s fortunes with an interest as selfish and an eye
as cold as his own. Which, far from displeasing him, rather increased
his ardor.
As the days passed by, however, bringing only the sickness of hope
deferred and tidings of the rector’s sturdy determination to hold what
he had got, the curate began, not in a mere passing mood, but, on
grounds of reason and calculation, to lose hope. Every tongue in the
town was wagging about Lindo. My lord was, or was supposed to be,
setting the engines of the law in motion. Mr. Bonamy was believed,
probably with less reason, to be contemplating an appeal to the bishop
and the Court of Arches. In a word, all the misfortunes which Clode had
foreseen were accumulating about the devoted head; and yet—and yet it
was a question whether the owner of the head was a penny the worse!
Perhaps some day he might be. The earl was a great man, with a long
purse, and he might yet have his way. But this was not likely to
happen, as the curate now began to see, until long after the Rev.
Stephen Clode’s connection with the parish and claim upon the living
should have become things of the past.
On the top of this conviction, which sufficiently depressed him, came
the news of the colliery accident—news which did not reach him until
late at night. It plunged him into the depth’s of despair. He cursed
the ill-luck which had withheld from him the opportunity of
distinguishing himself, and had granted it to the rector. He saw how
fatally the affair would strengthen the latter’s hands. And in effect
he gave up. He resigned himself to despair. He had not the spirit to go
out, but sat until long after noon, brooding miserably over the fire,
his table littered with unremoved breakfast things, and his mind in a
similar state of slovenly disorder. That was a day, a miserable day, he
long remembered.
About half-past two he made an effort to pull himself together.
Mechanically putting a book in his pocket, he took his hat and went
out, with the intention of paying two or three visits in his district.
He had pride enough left to excite him to the effort, and sufficient
sense to recognize its supreme importance. But, even so, before he
reached the street he was dreaming again—the old dreary dreams. He
started when a voice behind him said brusquely, “Going your rounds, I
see! Well, there is nothing like sticking to business, whatever is on
foot. Shall I have to congratulate you this time?”
He knew the voice and turned round, a scowl on his dark face. The
speaker was Gregg—Gregg wearing an air of unusual jauntiness and
gaiety. It fell from him, however, as he met the other’s eyes, leaving
him, metaphorically speaking, naked and ashamed. The doctor stood in
wholesome dread of the curate’s sharp tongue and biting irony, nor
would he have accosted him in so free-and-easy a manner now, had he not
been a little lifted above himself by something he had just learned.
“Congratulate me? What do you mean?” Clode replied, turning on him with
the uncompromising directness which is more “upsetting” to a man
uncertain of himself than any retort, however discourteous.
“What do I mean?” the doctor answered, striving to cover his
discomfiture with a feeble smile. “Well, no harm, at any rate, Clode. I
hope I shall have to congratulate you. But if you are going to——”
“On what?” interrupted the curate sternly. “On what are you going to
congratulate me?”
“Haven’t you heard the news?” Gregg said in surprise.
“What news? Of the pit accident?” Clode answered, restraining with
difficulty a terrible outburst of passion. “Why I should think there is
not a fool within three counties has not heard it by this time!”
He almost swore at the man, and was turning away, when something in the
doctor’s “No, no!” struck him, excited as he was, as peculiar. “Then
what is it?” he said, hanging on his heel, half curious and half in
scorn.
“You have not heard about the rector?”
The curate glared. “About the rector?” he said in a mechanical way. A
sudden stillness fell on his face and tone at mention of the name. “No,
what of him?” he continued, after another pause.
“You have not heard that he is resigning?” Gregg asked.
The curate’s eyes flashed with returning anger. “No,” he said grimly.
“Nor any one else out of Bedlam!”
“But it is so! It is true, I tell you!” the doctor answered in the
excitement of conviction. “I have just seen a man who had it from the
archdeacon, who left the rectory not an hour ago. He is going to resign
at once.”
The curate did not again deny the truth of the story. But he seemed to
Gregg, watching eagerly for some sign of appreciation, to take the news
coolly, considering how important it was to him. He stood silent a
moment, looking thoughtfully down the street, and then shrugged his
shoulders. That was all. Gregg did not see the little pulse which began
to beat so furiously and suddenly in his cheek, nor hear the buzzing
which for a few seconds rendered him deaf to the shrill cries of the
schoolboys playing among the pillars of the market hall.
“Mr. Lindo has changed his mind since yesterday, then,” Clode said at
last, speaking in his ordinary rather contemptuous tone.
“Yes, I heard he was talking big then,” replied the doctor, delighted
with his success. “Defying the earl, and all the rest of it. That was
quite in his line. But I never heard that much came of his talking.
However, you are bound to stick up for him, I suppose.”
The curate frowned a little at that—why, the doctor did not
understand—and then the two parted. Gregg went on his way to carry the
news to others, and Clode, after standing a moment in thought, turned
his steps toward the Town House. The sky had grown cloudy, the day cold
and raw. The leafless avenue and silent shrubberies through which he
strode presented but a wintry prospect to the common eye, but for him
the air was full of sunshine and green leaves and the songs of birds.
From despair to hope, from a prison to a palace, he had leapt at a
single bound. In the first intoxication of confidence he could even
spare a moment to regret that his hands were not _quite_ clean. He felt
a passing remorse for the doing of one or two things, as needless, it
now turned out, as they had been questionable. Nay, he could afford to
shudder, with a luxurious sense of danger safely passed, at the risks
he had been so foolish as to run; thanking Providence that his folly
had not landed him, as he now saw that it easily might have landed him,
in such trouble as would have effectually tripped up his rising
fortunes.
He reached the Town House in a perfect glow of moral worth and
self-gratulation; and he was already half-way across the drawing-room
before he perceived that it contained, besides Mrs. Hammond and her
daughter, a third person. The third person was the rector. Except in
church the two men had not met since the day of the bazaar, and both
were unpleasantly surprised. Lindo rose slowly from a seat in one of
the windows, and, without stepping forward, stood silently looking at
his curate, as one requiring an explanation, not offering a greeting;
while Clode felt something of a shock, for he discerned at once that
the situation would admit of no half measures. In the presence of Mrs.
Hammond, to whom he had expressed his view of the rector’s conduct, he
could not adopt the cautious apologetic tone which he would probably
have used had he met Lindo alone. He was fairly caught. But he was not
a coward, and before the tell-tale flush had well mounted to his brow
he had determined on his _rôle_.
Half-way across the room he stopped, and looked at Mrs. Hammond. “I
thought you were alone,” he said with an air of constraint, partly
real, partly assumed.
“There is only the rector here,” she answered bluntly. And then she
added, with a little spice of malice, for Mr. Clode had not been a
favorite with her since his defection, “I suppose you are not afraid to
meet him?”
“Certainly not,” the curate answered, thus challenged. And he turned
haughtily to meet the rector’s angry gaze. “I am not aware that I have
any need to be. I am glad to see that you are none the worse for your
gallant conduct last night,” he added with perfect _aplomb_.
“Thank you,” Lindo answered, choking down his indignation with an
effort. For a week—for a whole week—this, his chosen lieutenant, had
not been near him in his trouble! “I am much obliged to you,” he
continued, “but I am rather surprised that your anxiety on my account
did not lead you to come and see me at the rectory.”
“I called, and failed to find you,” Clode answered, sitting resolutely
down.
Lindo followed his example. “I believe you did once,” he replied
contemptuously. Had a friend been about to succeed him, he could have
borne even to congratulate him. But the thought of this man entering on
the enjoyment of all the good things he was resigning was well-nigh
unendurable. Though he knew that it would best consort with his dignity
to be silent, he could not refrain from pursuing the subject. “You
thought,” he went on, the same gibe in his tone, “that a non-committal
policy was best, I suppose?”
The curate for a moment sat silent, his dark face glowing with
resentment. “If you mean,” he said at last, neither Mrs. Hammond nor
her daughter venturing to interfere—the former because she thought he
was only getting his deserts, and the latter because she felt no call
to champion him at present—“if you mean that I did not wish to publish
my opinion, you are right, Mr. Lindo.”
“I think you published it sufficiently for your purpose’” the young
rector retorted with bitterness.
“Then why throw my non-committal policy in my teeth?” replied the
curate deftly. Thereby winning at least a logical victory.
Lindo sneered and grew, of course, twice as angry as before. “Very
neatly put!” he said. “I do not doubt that you would have got out of
your confession of faith—or lack of faith—as cleverly, if circumstances
had required it.”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before Miss Hammond rose in a
marked way and left the room; while Clode for a moment glared at him as
though he would resent the insult—for it was little less—in a practical
manner. Fortunately the curate’s, calculating brain told him that
nothing could be gained by this, and with an admirable show of patience
and forbearance he waved the words aside. “I really do not understand
you,” he said with a maddening air of superiority. “I cannot be blamed
for having formed an opinion of my own on a subject which affected me.
Then, having formed it, what was I to do? Publish it, or keep it to
myself? As a fact, I did not publish it.”
“Except by your acts,” said the rector.
“Take it that way, then,” the curate replied, still with patience. “Do
I gather that you would have had me, though I held an opinion adverse
to you, come to you as before, be about you, treat you in all respects
as if I were on your side? Is that your complaint? That I did not play
the hypocrite?”
The rector felt that he was fairly defeated and out-manœuvred; so much
so that Mrs. Hammond, whose sympathies were entirely on his side,
expected him to break into a furious passion. But the very skill and
coolness of his adversary acted as a warning and an example, and by a
mighty effort he controlled himself. He rose from his chair with
outward calmness, and, saying contemptuously, “Well, I am glad that I
know what your opinion is—an open foe is less dangerous than a secret
one,” he turned from Clode. Holding out his hand to his hostess, he
muttered some form of leave-taking, and walked out of the room with as
much dignity as he could muster. He had certainly had the worst of the
encounter.
And he felt very bitter about it, as he crossed the top of the town.
Whether the curate knew of his intention of resigning or not, his
conduct in turning upon him and openly expressing his disbelief in his
honesty was alike cruel and brutal. The man was false. The rector felt
sure of it. But the pain which he experienced on this account—the pain
of a generous man misunderstood and ill-requited—soon gave way to
self-reproach. He had brought the thing on himself by his indiscreet
passion. He had acted like a boy! He was not fit to be in a responsible
position.
While he was still full of this, chewing the cud of his imprudence, he
saw a slender figure, which he recognized, crossing the street a little
way before him. He knew it at the first glance. In a moment he
recognized the graceful lines, the half-proud, half-gentle carriage of
the head, the glint of the cold February sun in the fair hair. It was
Kate Bonamy; and the rector, as he increased his pace, became
conscious, with something like a shock, of the pleasure it gave him to
see her, though he had parted from her not twenty-four hours before. In
a moment he was at her side, and she, turning suddenly, saw him with a
start of glad surprise. “Mr. Lindo!” she stammered, holding out her
hand before he offered his, and uttering the first words which rose to
her lips, “I am so glad!”
She was thinking of the pit accident, of the risk and his safety, and
perhaps a little of his good name. And he understood. But he affected
not to do so. “Are you indeed, Miss Bonamy?” he answered. “Glad that I
am going?”
His eyes met hers, and then both his and hers fell. “No,” she said
gently and slowly. “But I am very glad, Mr. Lindo, that you have done
what seemed right to you without considering your own advantage.”
“I have done a great deal since I saw you yesterday,” he answered,
taking refuge in a jest.
“You have, indeed.”
“Including taking your advice.”
“I am quite sure you had made up your mind before you asked my
opinion,” she answered earnestly.
“No,” he said, “I am sure I had not. It was your hint which led me to
think the position out from the beginning. When I did so it struck me
that, irritated by Lord Dynmore’s words and manner, I had considered
the question only as it affected him and myself. Going on to think of
the parish, I came to the conclusion, that I was quite unfit for the
position.”
Kate started. The end of his sentence was a surprise to her. They were
walking along side by side now—very slowly—and she looked at him, mute
interrogation in her eyes.
“I am too young,” he said. “Your father, you know, was of that opinion
from the first.”
“Oh, but”—she answered hurriedly, “I——”
“You do not think so?” he said with a droll glance. “Well, I am glad of
that. What? You were not going to say that, Miss Bonamy?”
“No,” she answered, blushing. “I was going to say that my father’s
opinion might not now be the same, Mr. Lindo.”
“I expect it is. However, the opinion on which I acted was my own. I
have a very hasty temper, do you know. This very afternoon I have been
quarrelling, and have put my foot into it! I confess I thought when I
came here that I could manage. Now I see I am not fit for it—for the
living, I mean.”
“Perhaps,” she answered slowly and in a low voice, “you are the more
fit because you feel unfit.”
“Well, I do not think I dare act on that,” he cried gaily. “So you now
see before you, Miss Bonamy, a very humble personage—a kind of clerical
man-of-all-work out of place! You do not know an incumbent of easy
temper who wants a curate, do you?”
He spoke lightly, without any air of seeking or posing for admiration.
Yet there was a little inflection of bitterness in his voice which did
not escape her ear, and perhaps spoke to it—and to her heart—more
loudly, because it was not intended for either. She suddenly looked at
him, and her face quivered, and then she looked away. But he had seen
and understood. He marked the color rising to the roots of her hair,
and was as sure as if he had seen them that her eyes were wet with
tears.
And then he knew. He felt a sudden answering yearning toward her, a
forgetfulness of all her surroundings, and of all his surroundings save
herself alone. What a fool, what an ingrate, what a senseless clod he
had been, not to have seen months before—when it was in his power to
win her, when he might have asked for something besides her pity, when
he had something to offer her—that she was the fairest, purest, noblest
of women! Now, when it was too late, and he had sacrificed all to a
stupid conventionality, a social prejudice—what was her father to her
save the natural crabbed foil of her grace and beauty—now he felt that
he would give all, only he had nothing to give, to see her wide gray
eyes grow dark with tenderness, and—and love.
Yes, love. That was it. He knew now. “Miss Bonamy,” he said hurriedly.
“Will you——”
Kate started. “Here is my cousin,” she said quietly, and yet with
suspicious abruptness. “I think he is looking for me, Mr. Lindo.”