Part 32 (1/2)

Northcote say much that was interesting either; but he looks clever, and that is always something.”

”So Mr. Northcote is Ursula's one,” said Mrs. Hurst, laughing. ”You are a perfect jewel, Janey, and I don't know how I should ever find out anything that's going on, but for you. Northcote! it is a new name in Carlingford. I wonder I have not heard of him already; or have you kept him entirely to yourself, and let n.o.body know that there was a new man in the place?”

There was a little pause here. The girls knew nothing about Northcote, except the one fact that he was a Dissenter; but as Mrs. Hurst was an excellent Churchwoman, much better than they were, who had, perhaps, been brought up too completely under the shadow of the Church to believe in it implicitly, they hesitated before p.r.o.nouncing before her that unfortunate name.

”I don't know whether you are aware,” Ursula said at last, with some slowness and reluctance, ”that papa's pupil is of a Dissenting family.

He is related, through his mother, to our cousins, the Dorsets.” (This fact Ursula put forth with a little triumph, as refuting triumphantly any ready conclusion as to the social standing of Dissenters.) ”I think Mr. Northcote came first to the house with Mr. Copperhead. He is a Dissenter too.”

”Why, Ursula,” cried Mrs. Hurst, ”not the man who attacked Reginald in the Meeting? It was all in the papers. He made a frightful violent speech about the College and the sinecure, and what a disgraceful thing it was that your brother, a young man, could accept it. You don't mean him?”

Ursula was struck dumb. She looked up at her questioner with her lips falling apart a little, with a look of mingled consternation and fear.

”Of course it can't be,” said the gossip, who was not ill-natured. ”You never read the papers, but your papa does, and so does Reginald. Oh, you may be sure it is some other Northcote, though I don't know the name.”

”Ursula doesn't like to tell you,” said Janey; ”but he's the Dissenting Minister, I know he is. Well! I don't care! He is just as good as anybody else. I don't go in for your illiberal ways of thinking, as if no one was worth talking to except in the Church. Mr. Northcote is very nice. I don't mind what you say. Do you mean to tell me that all those curates and people who used to plague our lives out were nicer? Mr.

Saunders, for instance; he is a real good Churchman, I have always heard people say--”

”Hold your tongue, Janey; you don't know anything about it,” said Mrs.

Hurst, whom this wonderful disclosure elevated into authority. ”A Dissenting Minister! Ah, me! what a thing it is for you poor girls to have no mother. I did not think your papa would have had so little consideration as to expose you to society like that. But men are so thoughtless.”

”I don't know what right you have to speak of exposing us to society like that,” cried Ursula, quivering all over with sudden excitement.

She felt as if some one had dug a knife into her, and turned it round in the wound.

”Men have so little consideration,” repeated Mrs. Hurst, ”especially when a girl is concerned. Though how your papa could have received a man who made such an a.s.sault upon him--even if he had pa.s.sed over the attack upon Reginald, he was attacked himself.”

”It must be a mistake,” said Ursula, growing pale. Her hands came together half-unconsciously, and clasped in a mute gesture of appeal.

”It is not possible; it cannot be true.”

”Well, it is very odd that your papa should show such charity, I allow.

I don't think it is in human nature. And Reginald, what does Reginald say? If it is that man, it will be the strangest thing I ever heard of.

But there could not be two Northcotes, Dissenting Ministers in Carlingford, could there? It is very strange. I can't think what your papa can have had in his head. He is a man who would do a thing for a deep reason, whether he liked it or not. How did this Mr. Northcote come first here?”

”Oh, it was through Mr. Copperhead,” said Janey. ”It was the first dinner-party we had. You should have seen the fright Ursula was in! And papa would not let me come to dinner, which was a horrid shame. I am sure I am big enough, bigger than Ursula.”

”If he came with the pupil, that makes it all quite plain. I suppose your papa did not want to quarrel with his pupil. What a predicament for him, if that was the case! Poor Mr. May! Of course, he did not want to be uncivil. Why, it was in the 'Gazette,' and the 'Express,' and all the papers; an account of the Meeting, and that speech, and then a leading article upon it. I always file the 'Express,' so you can see it if you like. But what an embarra.s.sment for your poor papa, Ursula, that you should have taken this man up! And Reginald, how could he put up with it, a touchy young man, always ready to take offence? You see now the drawback of not paying a little attention to what is going on round you.

How uncomfortable you must have made them! It might be very well to look over an offence, not to be unpleasant to the stranger; but that you should have thoughtlessly led this man on into the position of an intimate--”

”I did nothing of the sort,” cried Ursula, growing red and growing pale, starting up from her work with a sense of the intolerable which she could not restrain. ”What have I done to be spoken of so? I never led him on, or any one. What you say is cruel, very cruel! and it is not true.”

”Isn't it true that he was here last night, following you about, as Janey says? Oh, I know how these sort of things go on. But you ought to think of your papa's position, and you ought to think of Reginald. If it was to come to the Bishop's ears that St. Roque's Parsonage was a refuge for Dissenters! For I know who _your_ friend is, Ursula! That Tozer girl, another of them! Indeed, I a.s.sure you, it makes me feel very uncomfortable. And Reginald, just at the very beginning of his career.”

Ursula did not make any reply. She bent her head down over her work, so low that her flushed cheeks could scarcely be seen, and went on st.i.tching with energy and pa.s.sion such as needles and thread are seldom the instruments of; and yet how much pa.s.sion is continually worked away through needles and thread! Mrs. Hurst sat still for some time, looking at her, very little satisfied to keep silence, but feeling that she had discharged an efficient missile, and biting her lips not to say more to weaken its effect. When some time had pa.s.sed in this way, and it was apparent that Ursula had no intention of breaking the silence, her visitor got up and shook out her skirts with a little flutter of indignation.

”You are offended,” she said, ”though I must say it is very ill on your part to be offended. What motive can I have but your good, and regard for your poor dear papa? It is he that is always the victim, poor man, whether it is your vagaries he has to pay for, or Reginald's high-flying. Oh, yes; you may be as angry as you like, Ursula; but you will find out the difference if your encouragement of this Dissenter interferes with something better--a living for Reginald, perhaps, or better preferment for your poor papa.”

”Oh!” cried Janey, awe-stricken; ”but after all, it was not Ursula; it was papa himself. I think he must have done it to please Mr. Copperhead; for, Mrs. Hurst, you know Mr. Copperhead is very important. We have all to give in to him. He pays papa three hundred a-year.”

”Three thousand wouldn't make up for it if it spoilt all your career,”