Volume Ii Part 12 (1/2)
”I mean to live for the next twenty years, my dear, and if Puffin intends to put up with twenty years of Lucy Warrender for the sake of this living, though it is a fat one, I shall consider that the labourer will have been worthy of his hire.”
”Don't be profane, John,” said the lady reprovingly.
”To do Puffin justice, I don't think he is mercenary. Lucy has probably turned his head.”
”John, Mr. Puffin is not of an inflammable nature.”
”All curates are of an inflammable nature, my dear; why you turned my head in your time.”
”I trust, Mr. Dodd, that my mental qualities attracted you, and not mere physical beauty.”
”Of course, my dear, of course; but you were a monstrous fine woman then, and for the matter of that, you are still, Cecilia,” said the vicar, as he helped himself to a third gla.s.s of his '47 port.
His wife smiled and smoothed her cap ribbons.
”Don't exceed, John,” she said, with a warning gesture, ”or Mr. Puffin may not have to wait twenty years for his preferment after all. You must admonish him, John; a man of his principles, his pretended principles, is not suited for married life. He told me himself, that ever since his ordination he has a.s.sumed what he calls a priestly garb. I ask you, John, how could he be married in a ca.s.sock? How could he go on his honeymoon in it?”
”Well, he could leave it off, my dear.”
”But he has declared to me that he never would leave it off. How often has he sneered at ordinary clerical attire, though he has never dared to suggest that you should masquerade in, what he calls, proper ecclesiastical costume.”
”There may be reasons, my dear; he may have bandy legs.”
”His legs are perfectly indifferent to me, Mr. Dodd. If he wishes to marry, he should dress like other people.”
”You should suggest that to Lucy Warrender, my dear.”
”If I thought for a moment, Mr. Dodd, that there was a possibility of his being the means of rescuing the girl by his own self-sacrifice, I should not say one word; if he has a taste for martyrdom, it would not be for me to interfere; but I know that Lucy is only wickedly encouraging him for the sake of winning the bet of a new bonnet from her cousin's husband. You must warn and admonish him, John, or he must go.
Stacey would have been a far more suitable partner for him.”
”Why didn't you suggest it, my dear?”
”It is not my duty to secure a husband for my sister-in-law, Mr. Dodd.”
”You thought it was, in the squire's case, Cecilia.”
But the vicar's wife let the taunt pa.s.s by unnoticed.
”If you don't admonish him, John, I must. It will be a thankless office, for the wretched man seems bent on his own destruction.”
”Well, he has chosen a particularly pleasant form of suicide, Cecilia.”
”Flippancy, Mr. Dodd, is not becoming in a clergyman,” said his wife with a ruffled air, ”and it is not good taste for a clergyman to openly express his admiration for his female paris.h.i.+oners to his wife, and so violate the sanct.i.ty of his own fireside.”
”I'm not going to make or meddle in the matter, Mrs. Dodd,” said her husband.
”'Tis a vicar's duty to protect his curate, Mr. Dodd.”
”Not when the curate is perfectly well able to take care of himself, my dear. Besides, there is another point of view; Lucy might do worse.”