Part 2 (2/2)
”My heart is like other people's,” interrupted Faber. ”If a man wants help, and I've got it, what more natural than that we should come together?”
There was in the doctor an opposition to every thing that had if it were but the odor of religion about it, which might well have suggested doubt of his own doubt, and weakness b.u.t.tressing itself with a.s.sertion But the case was not so. What untruth there was in him was of another and more subtle kind. Neither must it be supposed that he was a propagandist, a proselytizer. Say nothing, and the doctor said nothing. Fire but a saloon pistol, however, and off went a great gun in answer--with no bravado, for the doctor was a gentleman.
”Mr. Faber,” said the minister, now turning toward him, and looking him full in the face, ”if you had a friend whom you loved with all your heart, would you be under obligation to a man who counted your friends.h.i.+p a folly?”
”The cases are not parallel. Say the man merely did not believe your friend was alive, and there could be no insult to either.”
”If the denial of his being in life, opened the door to the greatest wrongs that could be done him--and if that denial seemed to me to have its source in some element of moral antagonism to him--_could_ I accept--I put it to yourself, Mr. Faber--_could_ I accept a.s.sistance from that man? Do not take it ill. You prize honesty; so do I: ten times rather would I cease to live than accept life at the hand of an enemy to my Lord and Master.”
”I am very sorry, Mr. Drake,” said the doctor; ”but from your point of view I suppose you are right. Good morning.”
He turned Ruber from the minister's door, went off quickly, and entered his own stable-yard just as the rector's carriage appeared at the further end of the street.
CHAPTER III.
THE MANOR HOUSE.
Mr. Bevis drove up to the inn, threw the reins to his coachman, got down, and helped his wife out of the carriage. Then they parted, she to take her gift of flowers and b.u.t.ter to her poor relation, he to call upon Mrs. Ramshorn.
That lady, being, as every body knew, the widow of a dean, considered herself the chief ecclesiastical authority in Glaston. Her acknowledged friends would, if pressed, have found themselves compelled to admit that her theology was both scanty and confused, that her influence was not of the most elevating nature, and that those who doubted her personal piety might have something to say in excuse of their uncharitableness; but she spoke in the might of the matrimonial nimbus around her head, and her claims were undisputed in Glaston. There was a propriety, springing from quite another source, however, in the rector's turning his footsteps first toward the Manor House, where she resided. For his curate, whom his business in Glaston that Sat.u.r.day concerned, had, some nine or ten months before, married Mrs. Ramshorn's niece, Helen Lingard by name, who for many years had lived with her aunt, adding, if not to the comforts of the housekeeping, for Mrs. Ramshorn was plentifully enough provided for the remnant of her abode in this world, yet considerably to the style of her menage. Therefore, when all of a sudden, as it seemed, the girl calmly insisted on marrying the curate, a man obnoxious to every fiber of her aunt's ecclesiastical nature, and transferring to him, with a most unrighteous scorn of marriage-settlements, the entire property inherited from her father and brother, the disappointment of Mrs.
Ramshorn in her niece was equaled only by her disgust at the object of her choice.
With a firm, dignified step, as if he measured the distance, the rector paced the pavement between the inn and the Manor House. He knew of no cause for the veiling of an eyelash before human being. It was true he had closed his eyes to certain faults in the man of good estate and old name who had done him the honor of requesting the hand of his one child, and, leaving her to judge for herself, had not given her the knowledge which might have led her to another conclusion; it had satisfied him that the man's wild oats were sown: after the crop he made no inquiry. It was also true that he had not mentioned a certain vice in the last horse he sold; but then he hoped the severe measures taken had cured him. He was aware that at times he took a few gla.s.ses of port more than he would have judged it proper to carry to the pulpit or the communion table, for those he counted the presence of his Maker; but there was a time for every thing. He was conscious to himself, I repeat, of nothing to cause him shame, and in the tramp of his boots there was certainly no self-abas.e.m.e.nt. It was true he performed next to none of the duties of the rectors.h.i.+p--but then neither did he turn any of its income to his own uses; part he paid his curate, and the rest he laid out on the church, which might easily have consumed six times the amount in desirable, if not absolutely needful repairs. What further question could be made of the matter? the church had her work done, and one of her most precious buildings preserved from ruin to the bargain. How indignant he would have been at the suggestion that he was after all only an idolater, wors.h.i.+ping what he called _The Church_, instead of the Lord Christ, the heart-inhabiting, world-ruling king of heaven! But he was a very good sort of idolater, and some of the Christian graces had filtered through the roofs of the temple upon him--eminently those of hospitality and general humanity--even uprightness so far as his light extended; so that he did less to obstruct the religion he thought he furthered, than some men who preach it as on the house-tops.
It was from policy, not from confidence in Mrs. Ramshorn, that he went to her first. He liked his curate, and every one knew she hated him. If, of any thing he did, two interpretations were possible--one good, and one bad, there was no room for a doubt as to which she would adopt and publish. Not even to herself, however, did she allow that one chief cause of her hatred was, that, having all her life been used to a pair of horses, she had now to put up with only a brougham.
To the bra.s.s knocker on her door, the rector applied himself, and sent a confident announcement of his presence through the house. Almost instantly the long-faced butler, half undertaker, half parish-clerk, opened the door; and seeing the rector, drew it wide to the wall, inviting him to step into the library, as he had no doubt Mrs. Ramshorn would be at home to _him_. Nor was it long ere she appeared, in rather youthful morning dress, and gave him a hearty welcome; after which, by no very wide spirals of descent, the talk swooped presently upon the curate.
”The fact is,” at length said the memorial shadow of the dean deceased, ”Mr. Wingfold is not a gentleman. It grieves me to say so of the husband of my niece, who has been to me as my own child, but the truth must be spoken. It may be difficult to keep such men out of holy orders, but if ever the benefices of the church come to be freely bestowed upon them, that moment the death-bell of religion is rung in England. My late husband said so. While such men keep to barns and conventicles we can despise them, but when they creep into the fold, then there is just cause for alarm. The longer I live, the better I see my poor husband was right.”
”I should scarcely have thought such a man as you describe could have captivated Helen,” said the rector with a smile.
”Depend upon it she perceives her mistake well enough by this time,”
returned Mrs. Ramshorn. ”A lady born and bred _must_ make the discovery before a week is over. But poor Helen always was headstrong! And in this out-of-the-world place she saw so little of gentlemen!”
The rector could not help thinking birth and breeding must go for little indeed, if nothing less than marriage could reveal to a lady that a man was not a gentleman.
”n.o.body knows,” continued Mrs. Ramshorn, ”who or what his father--not to say his grandfather, was! But would you believe it! when I asked her _who_ the man was, having a right to information concerning the person she was about to connect with the family, she told me she had never thought of inquiring. I pressed it upon her as a duty she owed to society; she told me she was content with the man himself, and was not going to ask him about his family. She would wait till they were married! Actually, on my word as a lady, she said so, Mr. Bevis! What could I do? She was of age, and independent fortune. And as to grat.i.tude, I know the ways of the world too well to look for that.”
”We old ones”--Mrs. Ramshorn bridled a little: she was only fifty-seven!--”have had our turn, and theirs is come,” said the rector rather inconsequently.
”And a pretty mess they are like to make of it!--what with infidelity and blasphemy--I must say it--blasphemy!--Really you must do something, Mr. Bevis. Things have arrived at such a pa.s.s that, I give you my word, reflections not a few are made upon the rector for committing his flock to the care of such a wolf--a fox _I_ call him.”
”To-morrow I shall hear him preach,” said the parson.
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