They met one day by accident. Helen was out moping in the long broad walk: which was beginning to be shady now, for May was all but in, and the trees were putting on their foliage. At the end of it she came to a standstill, leaning on the gate. The waters of the lake, out yonder, were blue as the unruffled sky. With a faint cry, she started aside, for Charles Leafchild stood before her.
Being a parson, and tacitly on honour to Sir John, he might have been expected to pa.s.s on his way without stopping; but Helen"s hand was already stretched out over the gate. He could but shake it.
"You are not looking well," he said after a moment"s silence. "I am sorry to see it."
What with his unexpected presence, and what with her mind"s general discomfort, Helen burst into tears. Mr. Leafchild kept her hand in his.
"I have a bad headache to-day," said Helen, by way of excuse for her tears. "It has been gloomy weather lately."
"Gloomy within and without," he a.s.sented, giving a meaning to her words that she had not meant to imply. "But in every cloud, you know, however dark it may be, there is always a silver lining."
"We can"t always see it," returned Helen, drying her tears.
"No; we very often cannot. But we may trust that it is there--and be patient."
"I think it sometimes happens that we never see it--that all is gloomy to the end, the end of life. What then?"
"Then we may be sure that it is best for us it should be so. G.o.d directs all things."
Helen sighed: she had not learnt the love and faith and submission that made up the sum of Mr. Leafchild"s life, bringing into it so strange a peace.
"Is it true that you are going to leave?" she asked. "We heard it mentioned."
"Yes: when I shall be fully ordained. Mr. Singleton has to take his nephew. It was an old promise--that he should come to him for his first year, just as I have. I think I shall go to Worcester."
"To Worcester?"
"I have been offered a curacy there by one of the minor canons whose living is in the town, and I feel inclined to take it. The parish is large and has a good many of the very poor in it."
Helen made a face. "But would you like that? You might be frightfully overworked."
"It is what I should like. As to the work--it is done for our Master."
He shook hands with her again, and left, the cheery smile still on his face, the thoughtful light in his steadfast eyes. And never a word of love, you see, had pa.s.sed.
It was, I take it, about a fortnight after this, that there went walking one afternoon to Whitney Hall, a tall, portly, defiant-looking gentleman in gold-rimmed spectacles and a laced-up clerical hat. By the way he turned his head here and there, and threw his shoulders about as he strode along, you might have taken him for a bishop at least, instead of a canon--but canons in those days were a great deal more self-important than bishops are in these. It was the Reverend Dr. Leafchild. A real canon was he, a great man in his own cathedral, and growing rich on his share of its substantial revenues: your honorary canons with their empty t.i.tle and non-stipends had not sprung into fashion then. In his pompous manner, and he had been born pompous, Dr. Leafchild asked to see Sir John Whitney.
After Mr. Leafchild"s interview with Sir John in February, he had written to his father and told him all about it, asking him whether he thought he could not help him later to a living, so that he might have a chance of winning Helen. But for Helen"s being a baronet"s daughter and the connection one that even the canon might be proud of, he would have turned a deaf ear: as it was, he listened. But Dr. Leafchild never did things in a hurry; and after some correspondence with his son (and a great deal of grumbling, meant for his good), he had now come into Worcestershire for the purpose of talking over the affair with Sir John.
The upshot was, that Sir John gave in, and sanctioned the engagement.
There was an excellent living somewhere down in the North--eight hundred pounds a-year, a handsome house, and some land--the next presentation to which the canon could command. He had intended it for his eldest son; but he, by some lucky chance, had just obtained a better preferment, and the doctor could promise it to Charles. The present inc.u.mbent was old and ailing; therefore, in all probability, it would very speedily fall in. The canon added that he might settle on the young people a small sum at their marriage, say a hundred a-year, or so; and he also hinted that Charles might stand a chance of better preferment later--say a snug canonry. So Sir John shook hands heartily upon the bargain, invited the canon to stay dinner, and sent for Charles.
For the next six weeks who so happy as the curate and Helen? They came over to us at d.y.k.e Manor (for we had gone back there) for a day or two, and we learnt to like him with our whole hearts. What a good, earnest, warm-natured man he was; and oh, how unselfish!
I remember one evening in particular when they were out together, pacing the field-path. Helen had his arm, and he was talking to her in what seemed an uncommonly solemn manner: for his hand was lifted now and then in earnestness, and both were gazing upwards. It was a beautiful sky: the sun had set in splendour, leaving crimson and gold clouds behind it, the evening star twinkled in the deepening canopy. Mrs. Todhetley sent me to them. A poor woman had come up for broth for her sick son, one of our labourers. She was in great distress: a change had taken place in him for the worse, he was calling for the clergyman to come to him before he died: but Mr. Holland was out that evening--gone to Evesham.
"Johnny, I--I think Mr. Leafchild would go," said the mater. "Do you mind asking him?"
Hardly any need to ask. At the first word he was hastening to the woman and walking away with her. Helen"s eyes, gazing at the sky still, were wet with tears.
"Is it not beautiful, Johnny?"
"Very." It was a glorious sunset.
"But I never saw it as I see it now. He is teaching me many things. I cannot hope to be ever as he is, Johnny, not half as good; but I think in time he will make me a little like him."
"You have a happy life before you."
"Yes--I hope so," she said hesitatingly. "But sometimes a feeling makes itself heard within me--that one who is so entirely fitted for the next world may not long be left in this."
II.
It was autumn weather--October. A lot of us were steaming over to Worcester in the train. Miss Whitney from Cheltenham, and a friend of hers--a maiden lady as ancient as herself, one Miss Conaway, of Devonshire--were staying at the Hall. Miss Conaway did not know Worcester, and was now being taken to see it--especially the cathedral.
Lady Whitney, Helen, Anna, and I made up the party, and we filled the carriage. My being with them arose from chance: I had come over accidentally that morning to Whitney Hall. Of course Helen hoped to see something besides the cathedral her curate. For in June Mr. Leafchild, then in priest"s orders, entered on his new curacy at Worcester, there to stay until the expected living should fall in.
"How is he?" I asked Helen, bending over the arm of the seat that divided us.
"Working himself to death," she whispered back to me, her tone a cross one.
"He said he was glad there would be plenty of work, you know. And it is a large parish."
"But he need not let it put _everything_ else out of his head."
"Meaning you?"
"I have not heard from him for more than a week. Papa had a letter from Dr. Leafchild this morning. He said in it that Charles, when he last wrote, complained of being poorly."
"A great many curates do get very overtaxed."
"Oh, and what do you think?" went on Helen. "He is actually beginning to have scruples about taking that living, on the score that there"ll be hardly any work to do."
"But--he will take it!"
"Yes, I suppose he _will_, because of me; but it will go against the grain, I fancy. I do think one may have too strict a conscience."
It was past one o"clock when we reached Worcester. Lady Whitney complained in the train of having started too late. First of all there was luncheon to be taken at the Star: that brought it to past two. Then various other things had to be done: see the cathedral, and stay the afternoon service, go over the china works at Diglis, and buy a bundle of articles at the linen-draper"s. All these duties over, they meant to invade Mr. Leafchild"s lodgings in Paradise Row.
They took the draper"s to begin with, the whole of them trooping in, one after another, like sheep into a pen: and I vow that they only came out again when the bell was going for three-o"clock service. Helen was not in a genial mood: at this rate there would not be much time left for visiting the curate.
"It was Aunt Ann"s fault," she grumbled to me--"and mamma"s. They were a good half-hour looking at the stuff for the children"s winter frocks.
Aunt Ann maintained that cashmere was best, mamma held to merino. All the shelves they had taken down! I would not be a linen-draper"s shopman for the world."
Just in time, were we, to get into our seats before the procession of clergy and choristers came in. The chanter that afternoon was Mr.
Leafchild"s rector: I knew him to speak to. But there"s no s.p.a.ce to linger upon details.
A small knot of people, ourselves and others, had collected in the transept after service, waiting for one of the old bedesmen to do the honours of the cathedral, when the chanter came down the steps of the south aisle, after disrobing in the vestry.