The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 45 (1/3)

XLV

While Mr. Frank Wentworth’s affairs were thus gathering to a crisis, other events likely to influence his fate were also taking place in Carlingford. Breakfast had been served a full half-hour later than usual in the Rectory, which had not improved the temper of the household. Everything was going on with the most wonderful quietness in that well-arranged house; but it was a quietness which would have made a sensitive visitor uncomfortable, and which woke horrible private qualms in the mind of the Rector. As for Mrs. Morgan, she fulfilled all her duties with a precision which was terrible to behold: instead of taking part in the conversation as usual, and having her own opinion, she had suddenly become possessed of such a spirit of meekness and acquiescence as filled her husband with dismay. The Rector was fond of his wife, and proud of her good sense, and her judgment, and powers of conversation. If she had been angry and found fault with him, he might have understood that mode of procedure; but as she was not angry, but only silent, the excellent man was terribly disconcerted, and could not tell what to do. He had done all he could to be conciliatory, and had already entered upon a great many explanations which had come to nothing for want of any response; and now she sat at the head of the table making tea with an imperturbable countenance, sometimes making little observations about the news, perfectly calm and dignified, but taking no part in anything more interesting, and turning off any reference that was made to her in the most skilful manner. “Mr. Morgan knows I never take any part in the gossip of Carlingford,” she said to Mr. Proctor, without any intention of wounding that good man; and he who had been in the midst of something about Mr. Wentworth came to an abrupt stop with the sense of having shown himself as a gossip, which was very injurious to his dignity. The late Rector, indeed, occupied a very uncomfortable position between the married people thus engaged in the absorbing excitement of their first quarrel. The quiet little arrows, which Mrs. Morgan intended only for her husband, grazed and stung him as they passed, without missing at the same time their intended aim; and he was the auditor, besides, of a great deal of information intended by the Rector for his wife’s benefit, to which Mrs. Morgan paid no manner of attention. Mr. Proctor was not a man of very lively observation, but he could not quite shut his eyes to the position of affairs; and the natural effect upon his mind, in the circumstances, was to turn his thoughts towards his mild Mary, whom he did not quite recognise as yet under her Christian name. He called her Miss Wodehouse in his heart even while in the act of making comparisons very unfavourable to the Rector’s wife, and then he introduced benevolently the subject of his new rectory, which surely must be safe ground.

“It is a pretty little place,” Mr. Proctor said, with satisfaction: “of course it is but a small living compared to Carlingford. I hope you will come and see me, after⁠—it is furnished,” said the bashful bridegroom: “it is a nuisance to have all that to look after for one’s self⁠—”

“I hope you will have somebody to help you,” said Mrs. Morgan, with a little earnestness; “gentlemen don’t understand about such things. When you have one piece of furniture in bad taste, it spoils a whole room⁠—carpets, for instance⁠—” said the Rector’s wife. She looked at Mr. Proctor so severely that the good man faltered, though he was not aware of the full extent of his guiltiness.

“I am sure I don’t know,” he said: “I told the man here to provide everything as it ought to be; and I think we were very successful,” continued Mr. Proctor, with a little complacency: to be sure, they were in the dining-room at the moment, being still at the breakfast-table. “Buller knows a great deal about that sort of thing, but then he is too ecclesiological for my taste. I like things to look cheerful,” said the unsuspicious man. “Buller is the only man that could be reckoned on if any living were to fall vacant. It is very odd nowadays how indifferent men are about the Church. I don’t say that it is not very pleasant at All Souls; but a house of one’s own, you know⁠—” said Mr. Proctor, looking with a little awkward enthusiasm at his recently-married brother; “of course I mean a sphere⁠—a career⁠—”

“Oh, ah, yes,” said Mr. Morgan, with momentary gruffness; “but everything has its drawbacks. I don’t think Buller would take a living. He knows too well what’s comfortable,” said the suffering man. “The next living that falls will have to go to someone out of the college,” said Mr. Morgan. He spoke with a tone of importance and significance which moved Mr. Proctor, though he was not rapid in his perceptions, to look across at him for further information.

“Most people have some crotchet or other,” said the Rector. “When a man’s views are clear about subscription, and that sort of thing, he generally goes as far wrong the other way. Buller might go out to Central Africa, perhaps, if there was a bishopric of Wahuma⁠—or what is the name, my dear, in that Nile book?”

“I have not read it,” said Mrs. Morgan, and she made no further remark.

Thus discouraged in his little attempt at amity, the Rector resumed after a moment, “Wentworth’s brother has sent in his resignation to his bishop. There is no doubt about it any longer. I thought that delusion had been over, at all events; and I suppose now Wentworth will be provided for,” said Mr. Morgan, not without a little anxiety.

“No; they are all equally crotchety, I think,” said Mr. Proctor. “I know about them, through my⁠—my connection with the Wodehouses, you know. I should not wonder, for my own part, if he went after his brother, who is a very intelligent man, though mistaken,” the late Rector added, with respect. “As for Frank Wentworth, he is a little hotheaded. I had a long conversation the other night with the elder brother. I tried to draw him out about Burgon’s book, but he declined to enter into the question. Frank has made up his mind to stay in Carlingford. I understand he thinks it right on account of his character being called in question here; though, of course, no one in his senses could have had any doubt how that would turn out,” said Mr. Proctor, forgetting that he himself had been very doubtful about the Curate. “From what I hear, they are all very crotchety,” he continued, and finished his breakfast calmly, as if that settled the question. As for Mrs. Morgan, even this interesting statement had no effect upon her. She looked up suddenly at one moment as if intending to dart a reproachful glance at her husband, but bethought herself in time, and remained passive as before; not the less, however, was she moved by what she had just heard. It was not Mr. Wentworth she was thinking of, except in a very secondary degree. What occupied her, and made her reflections bitter, was the thought that her husband⁠—the man to whom she had been faithful for ten weary years⁠—had taken himself down off the pedestal on which she had placed him. “To make idols, and to find them clay,” she said plaintively in her own mind. Women were all fools to spend their time and strength in constructing such pedestals, Mrs. Morgan thought to herself with bitterness; and as to the men who were so perpetually dethroning themselves, how were they to be designated? To think of her William, of whom she had once made a hero, ruining thus, for a little petty malice and rivalry, the prospects of another man! While these painful reflections were going through her mind, she was putting away her tea-caddy, and preparing to leave the gentlemen to their own affairs. “We shall see you at dinner at six,” she said, with a constrained little smile, to Mr. Proctor, and went upstairs with her key-basket in her hand without taking any special notice of the Rector. Mr. Leeson was to come to dinner that day legitimately by invitation, and Mrs. Morgan, who felt it would be a little consolation to disappoint the hungry Curate for once, was making up her mind, as she went upstairs, not to have the All Souls pudding, of which he showed so high an appreciation. It almost seemed to her as if this spark of ill-nature was receiving a summary chastisement, when she heard steps ascending behind her. Mrs. Morgan objected to have men lounging about her drawing-room in the morning. She thought Mr. Proctor was coming to bestow a little more of his confidence upon her, and perhaps to consult her about his furnishing; and being occupied by her own troubles, she had no patience for a tiresome, middle-aged lover, who no doubt was going to disappoint and disenchant another woman. She sat down, accordingly, with a sigh of impatience at her worktable, turning her back to the door. Perhaps, when he saw her inhospitable attitude, he might go away and not bother her. And Mrs. Morgan took out some stockings to darn, as being a discontented occupation, and was considering within herself what simple preparation she could have instead of the All Souls pudding, when, looking up suddenly, she saw, not Mr. Proctor, but the Rector, standing looking down upon her within a few steps of her chair. When she perceived him, it was not in nature to refrain from certain symptoms of agitation. The thoughts she had been indulging in brought suddenly a rush of guilty colour to her face; but she commanded herself as well as she could, and went on darning her stockings, with her heart beating very loud in her breast.

“My dear,” said the Rector, taking a seat near her, “I don’t know what it is that has risen between us. We look as if we had quarrelled; and I thought we had made up our minds never to quarrel.” The words were rather soft in their signification, but Mr. Morgan could not help speaking severely, as was natural to his voice; which was perhaps, in the present case, all the better for his wife.

“I don’t know what you may consider quarrelling, William,” said Mrs. Morgan, “but I am sure I have never made any complaint.”

“No,” said the Rector; “I have seen women do that before. You don’t make any complaint, but you look as if you disapproved of everything. I feel it all the more just now because I want to consult you; and, after all, the occasion was no such⁠—”

“I never said there was any occasion. I am sure I never made any complaint. You said you wanted to consult me, William?” Mrs. Morgan went on darning her stockings while she was speaking, and the Rector, like most other men, objected to be spoken to by the lips only. He would have liked to toss the stocking out of the window, though it was his own, and the task of repairing it was one of a devoted wife’s first duties, according to the code of female proprieties in which both the husband and wife had been brought up.

“Yes,” said the Rector, with a sigh. “The truth is, I have just got a letter from Harry Scarsfield, who was my pet pupil long ago. He tells me my father’s old rectory is vacant, where we were all brought up. There used to be a constant intercourse between the Hall and the Rectory when I was a lad. They are very nice people the Scarsfields⁠—at least they used to be very nice people; and Harry has his mother living with him, and the family has never been broken up, I believe. We used to know everybody about there,” said Mr. Morgan, abandoning himself to recollections in a manner most mysterious to his wife. “There is the letter, my dear,” and he put it down upon her table, and began to play with the reels of cotton in her workbox unconsciously, as he had not done for a long time; which, unawares to herself, had a softening influence upon Mrs. Morgan’s heart.

“I do not know anything about the Scarsfields,” she said, without taking up the letter, “and I cannot see what you have to do with this. Does he wish you to recommend someone?” Mrs. Morgan added, with a momentary interest; for she had, of course, like other people, a relation in a poor living, whom it would have been satisfactory to recommend.

“He says I may have it if I have a mind,” said the Rector curtly, betraying a little aggravation in his tone.

“You, William?” said Mrs. Morgan. She was so much surprised that she laid down her stocking and looked him straight in the face, which she had not done for many days; and it was wonderful how hard she found it to keep up her reserve, after having once looked her husband in the eyes. “But it is not much more than six months since you were settled in Carlingford,” she said, still lost in amazement. “You cannot possibly mean to make a change so soon? and then the difference of the position,” said the Rector’s wife. As she looked at him, she became more and more aware of some meaning in his face which she did not understand; and more and more, as it became necessary to understand him, the reserves and self-defences of the first quarrel gave way and dispersed. “I don’t think I quite know what you mean,” she said, faltering a little. “I don’t understand why you should think of a change.”

“A good country living is a very good position,” said the Rector; “it is not nearly so troublesome as a town like Carlingford. There is no Dissent that I know of, and no⁠—” (here Mr. Morgan paused for a moment, not knowing what word to use)⁠—“no disturbing influences: of course I would not take such a step without your concurrence, my dear,” the Rector continued; and then there followed a bewildering pause. Mrs. Morgan’s first sensation after the astonishment with which she heard this strange proposal was mortification⁠—the vivid shame and vexation of a woman when she is obliged to own to herself that her husband has been worsted, and is retiring from the field.

“If you think it right⁠—if you think it best⁠—of course I can have nothing to say,” said the Rector’s wife; and she took up her stocking with a stinging sense of discomfiture. She had meant that her husband should be the first man in Carlingford⁠—that he should gain everybody’s respect and veneration, and become the ideal parish-priest of that favourite and fortunate place. Every kind of good work and benevolent undertaking was to be connected with his name, according to the visions which Mrs. Morgan had framed when she came first to Carlingford, not without such a participation on her own part as should entitle her to the milder glory appertaining to the good Rector’s wife. All these hopes were now to be blotted out ignominiously. Defeat and retreat and failure were to be the conclusion of their first essay at life. “You are the best judge of what you ought to do,” she said, with as much calmness as she could muster, but she could have dropped bitter tears upon the stocking she was mending if that would have done any good.

“I will do nothing without your consent,” said the Rector. “Young Wentworth is going to stay in Carlingford. You need not look up so sharply, as if you were vexed to think that had anything to do with it. If he had not behaved like a fool, I never could have been led into such a mistake,” said Mr. Morgan, with indignation, taking a little walk to the other end of the room to refresh himself. “At the same time,” said the Rector, severely, coming back after a pause, “to show any ill-feeling would be very unchristian either on your side or mine. If I were to accept Harry Scarsfield’s offer, Proctor and I would do all we could to have young Wentworth appointed to Carlingford. There is nobody just now at All Souls to take the living; and however much you may disapprove of him, my dear,” said Mr. Morgan, with increasing severity, “there is nothing that I know to be said against him as a clergyman. If you can make up your mind to consent to it, and can see affairs in the same light as they appear to me, that is what I intend to do⁠—”