Part 24 (1/2)

Phoebe clasped her hands in dismay, which was partially real. ”The typical churchman,” she said, with a glance at Reginald's figure, which was not displeasing to him, ”and the typical Dissenter! and what am I to do between them? Oh, I wish you would go away.”

”Not an inch,” said the young champion. Phoebe was frightened, but she was delighted. ”I shall introduce him to you,” she said threatening.

”I don't mind,” he replied; ”nothing on earth should induce me to fly.”

CHAPTER XXV.

TEA.

Now here was a business! The typical Anglican and the typical Dissenter, as Phoebe said, with only that clever young woman to keep them from flying at each other's throats; the one obstinately holding his place by her side (and Phoebe began to have a slight consciousness that, being without any chaperon, she ought not to have kept Reginald May at her side; but in the Tozer world, who knew anything of chaperons?), the other advancing steadily, coming up the Lane out of the glow of the sunset, showing square against it in his frock-coat and high hat, formal and demagogical, not like his rival. The situation pleased Phoebe, who liked to ”manage;” but it slightly frightened her as well, though the open door behind, and the long garden with its clouds of crocuses, was a city of refuge always within reach.

”Is it really you, Mr. Northcote?” she said. ”You look as if you had dropped out of that lovely sunset I have been watching so long--and I thought you were at the other end of the world.”

”I have been at the other end of England, which comes to the same thing,” said Northcote, in a voice which was harsh by nature, and somewhat rough with cold; ”and now they have sent me back to Salem Chapel, to take Mr. Thorpe's place for three months. They asked for me, I believe; but that you must know better than I do.”

It was not in the nature of man not to be a little proud in the circ.u.mstances, and it is quite possible that he considered Phoebe to have something to do with the flattering request.

”No, I have not heard; but I am glad,” said Phoebe; ”and if it is not wicked to say so, I am glad Mr. Thorpe is to be away. Let us hope it will do him good. I am sure it will do the rest of us good, at all events.”

Northcote made no answer; but he looked at the other, and several questions began to tremble on his lips. That this was a Churchman did not immediately occur to him; for, indeed, various young pastors of his own body put on the livery which he himself abjured, and the sight of it as a servile copy filled him with a certain contempt.

”Mr. May has been stopped in his way by the beauty of the skies,” said Phoebe, rather enjoying the position as she got used to it. ”Mr.

Northcote--Mr. May. It is not easy to pa.s.s such an exhibition as that, is it?--and given to us all for love, and nothing for reward,” she added; for she was a well read young woman, and did not hesitate to suffer this to appear.

And then there was a momentary pause. Northcote was confused, it must be allowed, by thus coming face to face, without previous warning, with the man whom he had so violently a.s.sailed. Reginald had the best of it in every way, for he was the man injured, and had it in his power to be magnanimous; and he had the advantage of full warning, and had prepared himself. Besides, was not he the superior by every social rule? And that consciousness is always sweet.

”If Mr. Northcote is new to Carlingford, he will probably not know what a fine point of view we have here. That, like so many other things,”

said Reginald, pointedly, ”wants a little personal experience to find it out.”

”For that matter, to see it once is as good as seeing it a hundred times,” said Northcote, somewhat sharply; for to give in was the very last thing he thought of. A little glow of anger came over him. He thought Phoebe had prepared this ordeal for him, and he was vexed, not only because she had done it, but because his sense of discomfiture might afford a kind of triumph to that party in the connection which was disposed, as he expressed it, to ”toady the Church.”

”Pardon me, I don't think you can judge of anything at a first view.”

”And, pardon me, I think you see everything most sharply and clearly at a first view,” said the Nonconformist, who was the loudest; ”certainly in all matters of principle. After a while, you are persuaded against your will to modify this opinion and that, to pare off a little here, and tolerate a little there. Your first view is the most correct.”

”Well,” said Phoebe, throwing herself into the breach, ”I am glad you don't agree, for the argument is interesting. Will you come in and fight it out? You shall have some tea, which will be pleasant, for it shall be hot. I really cannot stay out any longer; it is freezing here.”

The new-comer prepared to follow; but Reginald hesitated. Pride whispered that to go into the house of Tozer, the b.u.t.terman, was something monstrous; but then it might be amusing. This ”Dissenting fellow,” no doubt, was a drawback; but a kind of angry antagonism and disdain half-attracted him even to the Dissenting fellow. It might be well, on the whole, to see what kind of being such a person was. All curious phenomena are attractive to a student. ”The proper study of mankind is man,” Reginald said to himself. Before he had got through this little argument with himself, Phoebe had gone in, and Northcote, whose disgust at the interposition of an adversary had no such softening of curiosity, followed her abruptly, without any of those graces which are current in society. This rudeness offended the other, who was about to walk on indignant, when Phoebe turned back, and looked out at him from the open door.

”Are not you coming, Mr. May?” she said softly, looking at him with the least little shrug of her shoulders.

Reginald yielded without further resistance. But he felt fully that to see him, the chaplain of the old College, walking down through Tozer's garden, between the two rows of closed-up crocuses which glimmered ghostly by the side of the path, was one of the strangest sights in the world.

Phoebe, to tell the truth, was a little confused as to where to convey her captive, out of whom she meant to get a little amus.e.m.e.nt for the long winter afternoon. For a girl of her active mind, it may easily be imagined that a succession of long days with Mrs. Tozer was somewhat monotonous. She did her duty like a hero, and never complained; but still, if a little amus.e.m.e.nt was possible, it was worth having. She carried in her two young men as naughty boys carry stag-beetles, or other such small deer. If they would fight it would be fun; and if they would not fight, why, it might be fun still, and more amusing than grandmamma. She hesitated between the chilly drawing-room, where a fire was lighted, but where there was no evidence of human living, and the cozy parlour, where Mrs. Tozer sat in her best cap, still wheezy, but convalescent, waiting for her tea, and not indisposed to receive such deputations of the community as might come to ask for her. Finally, Phoebe opened the door of that sanctuary, which was dazzling with bright fire-light after the gloom outside. It was a very comfortable interior, arranged by Phoebe to suit her own ideas rather than those of grandmamma, though grandmamma's comfort had been her chief object. The tea-things were sparkling upon the table, the kettle singing by the fire, and Mrs.

Tozer half-dozing in the tranquillity and warmth.

”Grandmamma, I have brought Mr. May and Mr. Northcote to see you,” she said.

The poor old lady almost sprang from her chair in amazement.