The New Rector

"It is," the rector answered slowly, as if the words were wrung from him. And he, too, stood looking up at it as if he were fascinated.

"A man might grow old in it," murmured Mr. Bonamy. There was a slight, but very unusual, flush on his parchment-colored face, and his eyes, when he turned with an abrupt movement to his companion, did not rise above the latter"s waistcoat. "Comfortably too, I should say," he added querulously, rattling the money in his pockets. "I think if I were you I would reconsider my determination. I think I would, do you know? As it is, what you have told me will not go any farther. You did one foolish thing last night. I would not do another to-day, if I were you, Mr. Lindo."

And he turned abruptly away--his head down, his coat-tails swinging, and both his hands thrust deep into his trouser-pockets--such a shrewd, angular, ungainly figure as only a small country town can show. He left the rector standing before his rectory in a state of profound surprise and bewilderment. The young man felt something very like a lump in his throat as he turned to go in. He discerned that the lawyer had meant to do a kind, nay, a generous action; and yet if there was a man in the world whom he had judged incapable of such magnanimity it was Mr. Bonamy! He went in not only touched, but ashamed. Here, if he had not already persuaded himself that the world was less ill-conditioned than he had lately thought it, was another and a surprising lesson!

Meanwhile Mr. Bonamy went home, and finding his family already at breakfast, sat down to the meal in a very snappish humor. The girls were quick to detect the cloud on his brow, and promptly supplied his wants, forbearing, whatever their curiosity, to make any present attempt to satisfy it. Jack was either less observant or more hardy. He remarked that Mr. Bonamy was late, and elicited only a grunt. A further statement that the morning was more like April than February gained no answer at all. Still undismayed, Jack tried again, plunging into the subject which the three had been discussing before the lawyer entered. "Did you hear anything of Lindo, sir?" he asked, b.u.t.tering his toast.

"I saw him," the lawyer said curtly.

"Was he ail right?"

"More right than he deserved to be!" Mr. Bonamy snarled. "What right had he down the pit at all? Gregg did not go."

"More shame to Gregg, I think!" Jack said.

Mr. Bonamy prudently shifted his ground, and got back to the rector. "Well, all I can say is that a more foolish, reckless, useless piece of idiocy I never heard of in my life!" he declared in a tone of scorn.

"I call it glorious!" said Daintry, looking dreamily across the table and slowly withdrawing an egg-spoon from her mouth. "I shall never say anything against him again."

Mr. Bonamy looked at her for an instant as if he would annihilate her. And then he went on with his breakfast.

Apparently, however, the outburst had relieved him, for presently he began on his own account.

"Has your friend any private means?" he asked, casting an ungracious glance at the barrister, and returning at once to his b.u.t.tered toast.

"Who? Lindo, do you mean?" Jack replied in surprise.

"Yes."

"Something, I should say. Perhaps a hundred a year. Why?"

"Because, if that is all he has," the lawyer growled, b.u.t.tering a fresh piece of toast and frowning at it savagely, "I think that you had better see him and prevent him making a fool of himself. That is all."

His tone meant more than his words expressed. Kate"s eyes sought Jack"s in alarm, only to be instantly averted. Though she had the urn before her, she turned red and white, and had to bury her face in her cup to hide her discomposure. Yet she need not have feared. Mr. Bonamy was otherwise engaged, and as for Jack, her embarra.s.sment told him nothing of which he was not already aware. He knew that his service was and must be a thankless and barren service--that to him fell the empty part of the slave in the triumph. Had he not within the last few hours--when the news that the rector had descended the Big Fit to tend the wounded and comfort the dying first reached the town, and a dozen voices were loud in his praise--had he not seen Kate"s face now bright with triumph and now melting with tender anxiety. Had he not felt a bitter pang of jealousy as he listened to his friend"s praises? and had he not crushed down the feeling manfully, bravely, heroically, and spoken as loudly, ay, and as cordially after an instant"s effort, as the most fervent?

Yes, he had done all this and suffered all this, being one of those who believe that Loyalty is still the same, Whether it win or lose the game: True as the dial to the sun, Although it be not shone upon.

And he was not going to flinch now. He put no more questions to Mr. Bonamy, but, when breakfast was finished, he got up and went out. It needed not the covert glance which he shot at Kate as he disappeared, to a.s.sure her that he was going about her unspoken errand.

Five minutes saw him face to face with the rector on the latter"s hearth-rug. Or, rather, to be accurate, five minutes saw him staring irate and astonished at his host while Lindo, with one foot on the fender and his eyes on the fire, seemed very willing to avoid his gaze. "You have made up your mind to resign!" Jack exclaimed, in accents almost awe-stricken. "You are joking!"

But the rector, still looking down, shook his head. "No, Jack, I am not," he said slowly. "I am in earnest."

"Then may I ask when you came to this extraordinary resolution?" the barrister retorted. "And why?"

"Last night; and because--well, because I thought it right," was the answer. "You thought it right?"

Jack"s tone was a fine mixture of wonder, contempt, and offence. It made Lindo wince, but it did not shake his resolution. "Yes," he said firmly. "That is so."

"And that is all you are going to tell me, is it? You put yourself in my hands a few days ago. You took my advice and acted upon it, and now, without a word of explanation, you throw me over! Good heavens! I have no patience with you!" Jack added, beginning to walk up and down the room. "Is not the position the same to-day as yesterday? Tell me that."

"Well," the rector began, turning and speaking slowly, "the truth is----"

"No!" cried the barrister, interrupting him ruthlessly. "Tell me this first. Is not the position the same to-day as yesterday?"

"It is, but the view I take of it is different," the young clergyman answered earnestly. "Let me explain, Jack. When I agreed with you a few days ago that the proper course for me to follow, the course which would most fitly a.s.sert my honesty and good faith, was to retain the living in spite of threats and opposition, I had my own interests and my own dignity chiefly in view. I looked upon the question as one solely between Lord Dynmore and myself; and I felt, rightly as I still think, that, as a man falsely accused by another man, I had a right to repel the charge by the only practical means in my power--by maintaining my position and defying him to do his worst."

He paused.

"Well," said Jack drily.

But the rector did not continue at once, and when he did speak it was with evident effort. He first went back to the fire, and stood gazing into it in the old att.i.tude, with his head slightly bowed and his foot on the fender. The posture was one of humility, and so unlike the man, that it struck Jack and touched him strangely. At last Lindo did continue. "Well," he said slowly, "that was all right as far as it went. My mistake lay in taking too narrow a view. I thought only of myself and Lord Dynmore, when I should have been thinking of the parish and of--a word I know you are not very fond of--the Church. I should have remembered that with this accusation hanging over me I could not hope to do much good among my people; and that to many of them I should seem an interloper, a man clinging obstinately to something not his own nor fairly acquired. In a word, I ought to have remembered that for the future I should be useless for good and might, on the other hand, become a stumbling-block and occasion for scandal--both inside the parish and outside. You see what I mean, I am sure."

"I see," quoth Jack contemptuously, "that you need a great many words to make out your case. What I do not think you have considered is the inference which will be drawn from your resignation--you will be taken to have confessed yourself in the wrong."

"I cannot help that."

"Will not that be a scandal?"

"It will, at any rate, be one soon forgotten."

"Now, I tell you what!" Jack exclaimed, standing still and confronting the other with the air of a man bent on speaking his mind though the heavens should fall. "This is just a piece of absurd Quixotism, Lindo. You are a poor man, without means and without influence; and you are going, for the sake of a foolish idea--a mere speculative scruple--to give up an income and a house and a useful sphere of work such as you will never get again! You are going to do that, and go back--to what? To a miserable curacy--don"t wince, my friend, for that is what you are going to do--and an income one-fifth of that which you have been spending for the last six months! Now the sole question is, are you quite an idiot?"

"You are pretty plain-spoken," said the rector, smiling feebly.

"I mean to be!" was Jack"s uncompromising retort. "I have asked you, and I want an answer--are you a fool?"

"I hope not."

"Then you will give up this fool"s notion?" Jack replied viciously.

But the rector"s only answer was a shake of the head. He did not look round. Had he done so, he would have seen that, though Jack"s keen face was flushed with anger and annoyance, his eyes were moist and wore an expression at variance with his tone.

He missed that, however; and Jack made one more attempt. "Look here," he said bluntly; "have you considered that if you stop you will find your path a good deal smoothed by last night"s work?"

"No, I have not," the rector answered stubbornly.

"Well, you will find it so, you may be sure of that! Why, man alive!" Jack continued with vehemence, "you are going to be the hero of the place for the time. No one will believe anything against you, except, perhaps, Gregg and a few beasts of his kind. Whereas, if you go now, do you know who will get your berth?"

"No."

Jack rapped out the name. "Clode! Clode, and no one else, I will be bound!" he said. "And you do not love him."

The rector had not expected the reply. He started, and, removing his foot from the fender, turned sharply so as to face his friend. "No," he said slowly, "I do not think I do like him. I consider that he has behaved badly, Jack. He has not stood by me as he should have done, or as I would have stood by him had our positions been reversed. I do not think he has called here once since the bazaar, except on business, and then I was out. I had planned, indeed, to see him to-day and ask him what it meant, and, if I found he had come to an adverse opinion in my matter, to give him notice. But now----"

"You will make him a present of the living instead," Jack said grimly.

"I do not know why he should get it," the rector answered, with a frown, "more than any one else."

"It is the common report that he will," Jack retorted. "As for that, however----"

But why follow him through all the resources of his art? He put forth every effort--perhaps against his own better judgment, for a man will do for his friend what he will not do for himself--to persuade the rector to recall his decision. And he failed. He succeeded, indeed, in wringing the young clergyman"s heart and making him wince at the thought of his barren future and his curate"s triumph; but there his success ended. He made no progress toward inducing him to change his mind; and presently he found that all the arguments he advanced were met by a set formula, to which the rector seemed to cling as in self-defence.

"It is no good, Jack," he answered--and if he said it once, he said it half a dozen times--"it is no good! I cannot take any one"s advice on this subject. The responsibility is mine, and I cannot shift it! I must try to do right according to my own conscience!"

Jack did not know that the words were Kate"s, and that every time the rector repeated them he had Kate in his mind. But he saw that they were unanswerable; and when he had listened to them for the sixth time he took up his hat in a huff. "Well, have our own way!" he said. "After all, you are right. It is your business and not mine. Give Clode the living if you like!"

And he went out sharply.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CURATE HEARS THE NEWS.

Seldom, if ever, had the curate pa.s.sed a week so hara.s.sing 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, a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed by, however, bringing only the sickness of hope deferred and tidings of the rector"s st.u.r.dy determination to hold what he had got, the curate began, not in a mere pa.s.sing 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 acc.u.mulating 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 pa.s.sion. "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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed, 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 role.

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 a.s.sumed.

"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 circ.u.mstances 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-man[oe]uvred; so much so that Mrs. Hammond, whose sympathies were entirely on his side, expected him to break into a furious pa.s.sion. 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 pa.s.sion. 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?"