Part 18 (1/2)
”Yes, it's me,” he answered cheerily. ”I certainly didn't think that I should ever get an appointment in your country.”
”But how is it?” I cried, after I had explained to my mother how we had been chums at Wadham.
”I never thought you'd go in for the Church.”
”Nor did I,” he admitted, laughing. ”But I'm curate of Duddington, and this is my first visit to your mother. I had no idea that this was your home. There are many Cleeves, you know.”
He was a merry, easy-going fellow, this old college companion of mine, a veritable giant in stature, fair, with a long, drooping moustache that a cavalry officer might have envied, broad shouldered, burly, a magnificent type of an Englishman. As he stood there towering above me, he looked strangely out of place in his long, black coat and clerical collar. An officer's uniform would have suited him better.
I had left Oxford a couple of terms before he had, and on going abroad lost sight of him. He had been accredited by all as a coming man on account of his depth of learning. When I had last seen him, some six years before, he was living in Lincoln's Inn, and reading for the Bar.
I referred to that occasion when we had met in the Strand, and he replied--
”Yes, but I preferred the Church. My uncle, you know, is Bishop of Galway.”
Then I recollected that such was the case. He had no doubt been induced to go in for a clerical life by this relative. Maternal uncles are responsible for a good deal in shaping a man's career.
”Well, you're always welcome to Tixover, my dear old fellow,” I said, ”and I'm sure my mother will always be very pleased to see you.”
”Of course,” she said, smiling sweetly. ”Any friend of Clifton's is always welcome here. I hope you won't treat us formally, Mr Yelverton, but look in and see us whenever you can spare time.”
Yelverton thanked her warmly, and as I took my tea I began to chat about the parish, about the shortcomings of his predecessor, an abominable young prig who lisped, flirted outrageously, thought of nothing but tennis, and whose sermons were distinct specimens of oratorical rubbish.
To all the countryside he was known as ”Mother's darling,” an appellation earned by the fact that his mother, a fussy old person, used to live with him and refer to him as her ”dear boy.”
But Jack Yelverton was of an entirely different stamp--a manly, good-humoured, even-tempered fellow who had no ”side,” and whose face and figure showed him to be designed as a leader among men. At college he had been noted for his careful judgment, his close and diligent studies of abstruse subjects, and his remarkable grasp of things which even the Dons found difficult. Yet he was an inveterate practical joker, and more than once got into an ugly sc.r.a.pe, from which, however, he always managed to ingeniously wriggle out.
I was extremely glad to find my old friend installed in Duddington, for during the years that had pa.s.sed I had often wondered what had become of him. More than once poor Roddy, who had been one of us at Wadham, had expressed a wish that we could find him, for we had all three been closest friends in the old days. And yet he had actually been appointed our curate and spiritual adviser, and had come to visit Tixover without knowing it was my home.
We laughed heartily over the situation.
He told me how he had taken lodgings with Mrs Walker, a cheerful old soul who lived at a pleasant cottage halfway up the village street, an old-fas.h.i.+oned place with a flower-garden in front and a little paved walk leading up to the rustic porch. a.s.sisted by her daughter, old Mrs Walker had lodged curates in Duddington for many years, knew all their wants, and was well versed in the diplomatic treatment of callers, and the means by which her lodger could be prevented from being disturbed when working at his sermon.
We chatted on for half an hour, and when he rose to leave he invited me to walk up to the village after dinner, and have a smoke with him.
”My rooms are not palatial, you know, my dear fellow,” he said, ”but I can give you a good cigar, if you'll come.”
”Certainly; I shall be delighted,” I answered, and we parted.
Soon after eight that evening I knocked at Mrs Walker's door, and was ushered by her daughter into the small, clean, but rather shabbily-furnished best room. It smelt strongly of the geraniums, which grew high in a row before the window, and as I entered Jack Yelverton rose and greeted me cheerily, giving me his easy chair, taking down a box of cigars from the shelf, and producing a surrept.i.tious bottle of whiskey, a syphon, and a couple of gla.s.ses from a little cupboard in the wall.
”I'm jolly glad you've come,” he said, when he had reseated himself, and I had got my weed under way. ”The surprise to-day has indeed been a pleasant one. Lots of times I have thought of you, and wondered where and how you were. But in the world men drift apart, and even the best resolutions of correspondence made at college are mostly broken.
However, it is a very pleasant meeting this, for I feel already that I'm among friends.”
”Of course you are, old chap,” I answered. ”My people will always be pleased to see you. Like yourself, I'm awfully glad we've met. But you're the very last man I should have imagined would have gone in for the Church. It isn't your first appointment, I suppose?”
”No,” he answered reflectively, gazing at the end of his cigar. ”It came about in this way. I studied for a couple of years at Lincoln's Inn, but somehow I didn't care much for the law, and one day it occurred to me that with my knowledge of theology I might have a chance of doing good among my fellow-men. I don't know what put it into my head, I'm sure, but straight away I saw my uncle the Bishop, and the result was that very soon afterwards I was appointed curate at Framlingham, in Suffolk. This disappointed me. I felt that I ought to work in one of the overcrowded cities; that I might, with the income my father had left me, alleviate the sufferings of some of the deserving poor; that I might be the means of effecting some good in the world. At last I was successful in obtaining an appointment under the Vicar of Christ Church, Commercial Street, Spitalfields, where I can tell you I had plenty of opportunity for doing that which I had set my mind upon. A curate's life in the East End isn't very pleasant if he does his duty, and mine was not a very salubrious locality. The air of the slums is poisonous.
For three years I worked there,” he went on after a slight pause. ”Then I exchanged to St Peter's, Walworth, and then, owing to ill-health, I was compelled to come here, into the country again. That's briefly been my life since we parted.”
”Well,” I said, convinced of his earnestness of purpose in the life he had adopted, for a man does not seek an appointment in a London slum unless he feels a strong incentive to work in the interests of his fellow-men, ”you'll get all right very soon here, I hope. The air is fresh, your parish isn't very large, and old Layton, the rector, is an easy-going old chap--one of the old school.”