Part 62 (2/2)
”My dear,” said the squire, sitting down by her bedside, ”I want to tell you what Sir Omicron said as he went away.”
”Well?” said her ladys.h.i.+p, sitting up and looking frightened.
”I don't know how you may take it, Bell; but I think it very good news:” the squire never called his wife Bell, except when he wanted her to be on particularly good terms with him.
”Well?” said she again. She was not over-anxious to be gracious, and did not reciprocate his familiarity.
”Sir Omicron says that you should have Thorne back again, and upon my honour, I cannot but agree with him. Now, Thorne is a clever man, a very clever man; n.o.body denies that; and then, you know--”
”Why did not Sir Omicron say that to me?” said her ladys.h.i.+p, sharply, all her disposition in Dr Thorne's favour becoming wonderfully damped by her husband's advocacy.
”I suppose he thought it better to say it to me,” said the squire, rather curtly.
”He should have spoken to myself,” said Lady Arabella, who, though she did not absolutely doubt her husband's word, gave him credit for having induced and led on Sir Omicron to the uttering of this opinion. ”Doctor Thorne has behaved to me in so gross, so indecent a manner! And then, as I understand, he is absolutely encouraging that girl--”
”Now, Bell, you are quite wrong--”
”Of course I am; I always am quite wrong.”
”Quite wrong in mixing up two things; Doctor Thorne as an acquaintance, and Dr Thorne as a doctor.”
”It is dreadful to have him here, even standing in the room with me.
How can one talk to one's doctor openly and confidentially when one looks upon him as one's worst enemy?” And Lady Arabella, softening, almost melted into tears.
”My dear, you cannot wonder that I should be anxious for you.”
Lady Arabella gave a little snuffle, which might be taken as a not very eloquent expression of thanks for the squire's solicitude, or as an ironical jeer at his want of sincerity.
”And, therefore, I have not lost a moment in telling you what Sir Omicron said. 'You should have Thorne back here;' those were his very words. You can think it over, my dear. And remember this, Bell; if he is to do any good no time should be lost.”
And then the squire left the room, and Lady Arabella remained alone, perplexed by many doubts.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
Mr Oriel
I must now, shortly--as shortly as it is in my power to do it--introduce a new character to my reader. Mention has been made of the rectory of Greshamsbury; but, hitherto, no opportunity has offered itself for the Rev Caleb Oriel to come upon the boards.
Mr Oriel was a man of family and fortune, who, having gone to Oxford with the usual views of such men, had become inoculated there with very High-Church principles, and had gone into orders influenced by a feeling of enthusiastic love for the priesthood. He was by no means an ascetic--such men, indeed, seldom are--nor was he a devotee. He was a man well able, and certainly willing, to do the work of a parish clergyman; and when he became one, he was efficacious in his profession. But it may perhaps be said of him, without speaking slanderously, that his original calling, as a young man, was rather to the outward and visible signs of religion than to its inward and spiritual graces.
He delighted in lecterns and credence-tables, in services at dark hours of winter mornings when no one would attend, in high waistcoats and narrow white neckties, in chanted services and intoned prayers, and in all the paraphernalia of Anglican formalities which have given such offence to those of our brethren who live in daily fear of the scarlet lady. Many of his friends declared that Mr Oriel would sooner or later deliver himself over body and soul to that lady; but there was no need to fear for him: for though sufficiently enthusiastic to get out of bed at five a.m. on winter mornings--he did so, at least, all through his first winter at Greshamsbury--he was not made of that stuff which is necessary for a staunch, burning, self-denying convert. It was not in him to change his very sleek black coat for a Capuchin's filthy ca.s.sock, nor his pleasant parsonage for some dirty hole in Rome. And it was better so both for him and others. There are but few, very few, to whom it is given to be a Huss, a Wickliffe, or a Luther; and a man gains but little by being a false Huss, or a false Luther,--and his neighbours gain less.
But certain lengths in self-privation Mr Oriel did go; at any rate, for some time. He eschewed matrimony, imagining that it became him as a priest to do so. He fasted rigorously on Fridays; and the neighbours declared that he scourged himself.
Mr Oriel was, as it has been said, a man of fortune; that is to say, when he came of age he was master of thirty thousand pounds. When he took it into his head to go into the Church, his friends bought for him the next presentation to the living at Greshamsbury; and, a year after his ordination, the living falling in, Mr Oriel brought himself and his sister to the rectory.
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