THE VICAR OF VALE LESTON.
'Cushions and cloth an' books, takin' the old church right roun',
Surplice, shovel, and broom, they would na ha' fetch'd half-a-crown,
Commandments to boot. They was the only good lookin' things
Wi' yellow cherubs between 'em, and nout but heads and wings.
Parson Myles was a hunter, and could gallop through a prayer,
Right straight ahead over anything, an' stop him who dare.'
Rev. W. Heygate.
There was to be a meeting about the paving of the town: Mr. Underwood, though only twenty-eight, was a town-councillor, and decidedly an influence in himself, as well as through the Pursuivant. He had so worked his way up, that his fellow-citizens accepted him as one of themselves; and his birth and breeding gave him a power which they felt without in the least acknowledging. Besides, his conscientious journalising made him always thoroughly get up his subjects; and he threw himself into the merits and history of asphalt and flag-stones with that 'all his might' with which he did whatsoever his hand found to do.
He was busy on an article to prepare the way for the meeting, when Lance, who had been making selections from London papers, laid the last sheet of the 'Times' on his desk, and silently pointed to the obituary:—
'On the 4th, at Torquay, aged 37, the Reverend Fulbert Bowles Underwood, Vicar of Vale Leston Abbas, only son of Fulbert Underwood, Esquire, of Vale Leston Priory.'
'I see,' quoth Felix.
Five minutes' waiting while he wrote.
'I say, does it go into Pur?'
'Certainly not. What matters it to any one here?'
That was all Lance could get out of Felix; and after a time came the second delivery of the post. All the letters lay in a heap on the office table, just when, as Lance mentally termed him, the longest-windedest, button-holderest of all the municipality walked in to bestow his opinion on the paving question upon Mr. Underwood; and Lance not only had to retreat from the important conclave, but was occupied himself by a succession of customers for a quarter of an hour after its conclusion. When he made another rush into the office, he found Felix still writing away at the paving stones, but with a good deal of red in his cheeks, and a letter lying by his side.
'Read that, Lance,' he said, 'but don't speak till this is done.'
Lance read:—
Vale Leston Priory, May 7th.
MY DEAR MR. FELIX UNDERWOOD,I write by desire of my poor friend Mr. Underwood, to acquaint you with the death of his son, your cousin, the Vicar, at Torquay, on the 4th of this month. The melancholy event had long been anticipated, as there had been a complete break-up of constitution; and I for one never expected to see him return home alive when he went to Torquay with his wife last winter. Mr. Underwood has felt the loss deeply, though not with the same acuteness as if he had not had such long preparation, and it had not taken place at a distance. He has become much more feeble since you saw him five years ago, when certainly you left a lasting impression. He wishes you to be present at the funeral, with any of your brothers to whom it may be convenient. The time is fixed for next Friday, the 10th, at eleven o'clock. Your rooms will be ready for you on Monday; and if you will mention your train, you shall be met at Church Ewe or Ewmouth. It seems premature to mention it, but Mr. Underwood is so anxious that no time should be lost, that he desires me to intimate to you, that if you can procure immediate Ordination, he will present you to the Vicarage. I do not take this to be as simple a matter as he does, but under the circumstances, and with your studious turn, I should think it quite possible for you to be ready before the Vicarage lapses, and the poor old Squire has evidently set his heart on it, and planned it ever since he gave up hope of his son's life. Congratulations would be out of place at this moment, but I trust that the succession is now secure.
Remember me to my friend Mr. Lancelot—I trust that headaches are with him a thing of the past—and believe me,
Yours very truly,
H. STAPLES.
Lance made all manner of contortions with his visage, read and re-read, indulged in a suppressed war-dance, and finally merged all other sensations in an agony of impatience, as still Felix's eyes and pen continued to travel over his sheet; and not a muscle of his face moved until the last was handed to little Lightfoot, and sent off to the press.
'That's done,' then he said.
'You may well be on the board of paving-stones!' cried Lance. 'Nothing but one of them could have gone on so.'
'It had to be done.'
'I could as soon have done it as flown.'
'Not if you never let your mind loose from it. Now for the letter. Stay, we'll take it up to Cherry. I'll just say a word to Lamb.'
Felix's courtesy to his subordinates always went a great way. The noontide lull of business was beginning to set in, but Cherry and Stella looked up from their lessons in amaze as both brothers came in; and Cherry mutely clasped her hands, and with the word Edgar fluttering on her lips, but as both faces plainly indicated no, she rallied instantly, saying, 'What wonder of wonders is it?'
'Nothing very surprising,' said Felix gravely. 'It is that poor old Fulbert, at Vale Leston, has lost his son, and wants me to go to the funeral.'
'That's not all,' added Lance. 'What do you think of his wanting this here Giant to get himself ordained, and take the Vicarage on the spot?'
'Felix, you could not—not in time.'
'Nor at all. That is not to be thought of; but I shall go through London, take Clement down with me, and see if I cannot get the living for him; but let me read you the letter—I could barely glance at it.'
He read; and Cherry broke out, 'The succession secure! Does that mean to you?'
'I am heir-at-law,' said Felix quietly; 'and it was entailed on me in case his son had no children.'
'He takes it coolly, doesn't he?' said the far more elated Lance, 'but then he's had plenty of preparation.'
'You don't mean that you've known about this?'
'I knew the estate had been entailed on me to prevent this poor man from alienating it.'
'You knew, and you never told anyone, and went on as usual!'
'How would you have had me go on?' he asked, with a certain provoking meekness, that sent her into a laugh, while Lance, catching Stella's wondering eyes, practically answered the question by locking her fingers in his, and whirling her round in a sort of impromptu choric dance, chanting:—
'Wrong shall be right,
And right shall be might,
When—'
('bless me, what a plague three syllables are!')
'When Felix' right and Felix' might
Shall meet upon Vale Leston height!'
'It is not a height,' interposed Felix.
'The King shall have his own again then,' amended Lance. 'No, I have it. The enchantment is over, and the Frog-prince is about to resume his proper shape!'
'Lance, considering—'
'Blunderbore, considering the extraordinary relief and disburthening of my mind, after labouring under this secret five years come August, if it were not profane, I should compare myself to Christian when the pack dropped off his back!'
'But why was it a secret?'
'For two reasons, Whiteheart,' said Felix. 'First because there was nothing to tell; and secondly, because that "nothing" might have turned several heads. Still, I believe you would have known it long ago, if I had not been ashamed after binding over Lance.'
'Please, may I understand?' entreated Stella, in rather a melancholy voice, as she found her usual mode of observation quite inadequate.
'Understand, my Star! Yes,' said Lance; 'understand that we were all of us kicked out—all of us that were there to kick, that is to say—from the jolliest place in all the world; and now things are coming right, and Felix is going to be a fine old English gentleman who had a great estate! I declare it makes me so poetical I can't get on!'
'You'd better come to me, Stella,' interposed Felix. 'Nothing is going to happen now, my dear. It is only this. The old house where we elder ones were born was meant to belong to my mother, but there was a flaw in the will that left it her, and so it went to the more direct heir; and my father would not go to law because he did not think it right when he could not afford it, and especially as he was a clergyman.'
'O Felix!' cried Cherry eagerly.
'Yes; I have a copy of the letter. And now, the poor old gentleman who had it has lost his son, and has sent me a kind message, as if he wished me to go back there; but that will not be in his life-time, so we need not talk about it. There is nothing to make any change now.'
'No?' asked Cherry, disappointed.
'Of course not. Expectations are not good sustenance. The reversion is possibly very distant, and there may be some mistake about it, after all.'
'Well! one ought to be prepared,' said Cherry; 'but oh! to see you at home—home—yes, Vale Leston is home! O Felix, what it will be!'
'Don't set yourself on wishing it,' said Felix anxiously. 'Remember Pur and the business are our dependence or independence, and most likely are far better and safer for us.'
'Pshoo!' shouted Lance; 'I won't have you talk book!'
'May I tell Wilmet?' entreated Cherry.
'No harm in that; meantime I must get things in train, and then walk over to explain matters to Mr. Froggatt; and as soon as I can get away to-morrow I shall go up to town, and make Clement come on with me.'
'O Fee, one moment! Are we to go into mourning?' Then, as he held up his hand, 'It means more than you think. It shows how much we hold by the connection; and if I understand you, you wish nothing so little as to have it trumpeted about that Mr. Underwood has great expectations.'
'As prudently stated as W.W. could have done it! It must turn on the degree of connection.'
'Is he as near as Tom Underwood was?'
'The same on my mother's side. Yes, put on black ribbons; but, as you say, don't trumpet the thing. Don't begin about it, but if any one asks, explain how it stands.'
The heir-expectant was gone; and Lance, after waiting to indulge in another pantomime of exultation, ran after him, humming:—
'Oh, to see him back again!'
By the middle of the next day Felix was able to leave home, after having seen the Froggatts, whom he treated with as much deference and attention as if he were still accountable to them. The reception of his communication made him glad that he had been silent when the chances were more remote, for though Mrs. Froggatt was ready to cry for gladness at the notion of his taking his own proper place as a gentleman, and had a farmer's daughter's respect for the squirearchy, her husband feared that empty anticipation would spoil Felix for a tradesman, and be injurious to the business, which he viewed with tender pride and solicitude. So he lectured on the uncertainty of prospective fortunes, and the folly of reckoning on them, till it was evident that his confidence would have been sorely shattered had the bare notion been whispered five years earlier. Indeed, his comfort seemed compromised by finding that Felix would not be the permanent property of the business, and he was almost displeased, as if he thought he had allowed it to pass into his hands on false pretences. It was vexatious and disappointing; but he had to be left to recover the first shock, which, after all, proved his love and value for the young man.
Felix did not reach Whittingtonia till late; and on inquiry at the clergy-house, heard that Mr. Underwood was not at home, but the Vicar was. To him therefore Felix went in his study, not sorry to ask his advice. Clement, who would not receive priest's orders for some weeks, was over young for the charge of an utterly neglected parish; but it was dangerous to let the presentation pass by, since only a brother could satisfactorily co-operate in dealing with the old ancestral sacrileges, in case he should ever come in for the property himself.
Mr. Fulmort never spoke while Felix told his story; and the bell for Evensong had begun by the time it closed. Then he said, 'I am very glad, heartily glad. I have been watching Clement, and I see he is not tough enough yet for our work. When a young fellow, of such a length too, can't eat after any hard day's work, instead of being ravenous, he is sure to break down the first time he takes cold or catches an illness, and then he is done for. I should have had to drive him away elsewhere, at least for some years, poor fellow, though none has ever been more like a son to me. Yes, of course he is too young, but he is not the sort of stuff that falls into slackness, and that is more fatal than any amount of blunders and foolishness.'
The last words startled Felix. He had been so anxious to place Clement at Vale Leston, that he had thought of no drawbacks till he was roused to a foreboding of that dour uncompromising rigidity, left to itself, sowing dissensions, becoming a hard master to them all—nay, not improbably alienating the old Squire, and overthrowing all their prospects! Such a future passed before Felix in his transit across the quadrangle, and was met, but not disposed of, by the sense that it was right and just that Clement should be put forward, 'Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.' He had put Clement into his own place to console his father for his own secession to secular work; and if devotion, blamelessness, and earnestness were recommendations, they were not lacking. 'And if he do give offence, and all be left to Marilda,' thought Felix, 'let it go. It would only be for conscience sake. Poverty is better than riches! and I may have to show that I believe so. I only hope that the boy will not do the thing in some pig-headed way, in which it would be hard to back him up.'
Misgivings vanished for the time when his brother was in sight. It was not easy to make him out in the deep perspective of the choir. Felix only knew that a fair-haired head above the average line must be his; but when he came forward to the Eagle, whence he was to read the Second Lesson, and afterwards give his lecture, he was in full view. In his lankiest hobbedy-hoy days, Clement had always looked his best surpliced; and now, with the cassock beneath, the stole over one shoulder, and his black-and-white hood, his figure had a certain dignity, and his voice gave Felix a thrill. The mixture of hereditary tone and unconscious imitation were such that when he shut his eyes he could believe himself a boy at St Oswald's, listening to his father; and even when he looked up the illusion was hardly dispelled, for the half-light brought out the similar moulding of the features, and a hectic tinting. He gave a careful little discourse, evidently one of a series, and the allegory of the Wilderness life with much more depth and poetry than the elder brother had expected.
He had taken care to place himself out of direct view of the young preacher, and his appearance in the quadrangle was an immense surprise to Clement. 'Felix! you here! nothing the matter? What's that? Not poor Edgar?' as his eye fell on Felix's new hat and hat-band.
'No, no—this is for the younger Fulbert of Vale Leston. I have more to say to you.'
'Come in to supper, then. Have you seen the Vicar? Do you stay the night? That's jolly! Here, Fred, you've not seen my brother!'
Fred Somers was known to be Clement's friend. With one of the natures that prefers external to home friendship, Clement had at first bestowed his affection on poor Harry Lamb, and since upon this companion, who had been his predecessor by half a year in everything, and in whom Felix was diverted to see his complete contrast. Mr. Somers was at least five inches below Clement's six feet one and a half, and was a dark, plump, merry little man, who looked as if the Vicar never need scruple about getting any amount of work out of him; and Clement, with a hand on his shoulder, looked perfectly happy, and as if working at St Matthew's side by side with him were all he desired. And very overgrown and boyish Clement looked too at that supper, a very merry one. There were the six clergy, fourteen choir boys, and sundry chance-helpers, mostly talking eagerly, with a good deal of laughter at old and new jokes. Felix, seated by the Vicar, thought Clement far more at his ease, more playful and familiar, than ever he had seen him at home, and infinitely less on his dignity than he ever allowed himself to be with Lance and Bernard.
After supper, the two brothers repaired to Clement's tiny private room, uncarpeted, with a table, two Windsor chairs, and a book-case; and then, when the elder had explained, the younger flatly refused to have anything to do with Vale Leston Abbas.
'I!' he said, 'go to a fat easy-going country living when the need is so urgent here? I to stand alone when I want years of training? It would be enough to ruin me!'
'But the place, Clement. This parish will never be ill-supplied while Mr. Fulmort lives; but people have souls down in the country.'
Clement had not much feeling for souls whose bodies he had never realised; but he answered, 'Very bad for the souls to have an inexperienced priest.'
'Quite true; but observe, it is not the choice between you and such a clergyman as you would select, but between you and no one knows who—certainly a person who could not help in the complication of family and Church property, as only a brother could do.'
'That is all in the clouds,' said Clement. 'I have made up my mind to ten years' service here, and I intend to keep to it.'
'The Vicar says you have not strength for it.'
'Then I shall go on without it.'
'Till you kill yourself.'
'The best end one could come to.'
'No, not if there be a leading of Providence elsewhere.'
'I observe that Providence is generally said to lead in the direction of ease and £ s.d. No, Felix, I am much obliged, but even if this old man would appoint a vicar of decided opinions like mine, I cannot allow myself to be led aside into a path of wealth and luxury contrary to all I had marked out for myself.'
'Are people always meant to do all they have marked out for themselves?' said Felix, as he heard the frequent first person singular.
'When it is the line of self-abnegation.'
Felix could not help smiling, and muttering between his teeth, 'Is it?' Then he added, 'At any rate you will come down to the funeral and see the old place?'
'No! I will not raise false expectations to be disappointed.'
The idea of baffled expectations excited by that long white-faced lad! Even Felix was beginning to console himself, and think Clement might be doing the best for them all, when they were summoned to the Oratory by the evening prayer-bell. As good-nights were spoken at the foot of the stairs, the Vicar asked Felix, 'Have you prevailed?'
'No, sir. Perhaps you will talk to him?'
Mr. Fulmort nodded, and Felix went to his own room. In the morning the Vicar told him that he had not made much impression, but that he had actually made it matter of obedience that Clement should go to Vale Leston with his brother, and not consider his decision as made till he had thoroughly seen the place.
And thus it was that Felix, in different company and different mood from when he had last seen his birthplace, found himself stopping at a little station called Church Ewe, about three miles short of Ewmouth; and there a smart servant came up with his finger to his cockaded hat, and took possession of the two little black bags.
'The beginning of greatness!' observed Clement, who was very benignant towards Felix's prospects, though he would accept none for himself, as they ensconced themselves in the great barouche with the pair of horses.
Felix shook his head. He wanted to hold himself as loose as possible from gazing on the place as an inheritance, at the same time as he greatly desired to see Clement smitten with it, almost as much from jealousy for the old home as with a view to the future.
Their way brought them in on the opposite side from the Ewmouth road; so that the first view was from high ground, whence the lovely encircling valley, the slopes of wood inclosing it, the purple moorland above them, the grey sheen of the river, the high-arched bridge, the noble church, and grand old ancestral-looking priory, partly veiled by fine trees, in the delicate glory of early summer, lay outstretched before them, the shimmer of the sea, and a few white sails far in the distance.
That sense of the eye satisfying the heart, and being as it were at rest and at home, which he had felt at the sight five years before, and never at any other, came over Felix; and exulting in the loveliness, he looked eagerly to see the effect on Clement, but the smooth young face was carefully guarded against relaxing, the light blue eye was steadily set as unmarking anything. Felix was provoked, and then wondered whether the Deacon were like the Moslem who refused to dwell at Damascus, lest he should have his Paradise only on earth. A little local information elicited nothing but civil indifferent answers, that inspired a desire to shake that inanimate figure.
Driving up through the park, beauteous with chestnut blossom, they were shown into the library; and there Mr. Staples came to them, cordially shaking hands, but, as Felix fancied, somewhat critically scanning that long straight coat with the little cross at the button-hole.
'The Squire is tolerable,' he answered to Felix's inquiry. 'I think it is coming out in gout. He will dine with you. It does him good to see people.'
'And Mrs. Underwood?'
'Came yesterday. Mother and brother here too. Ladies dine together upstairs.'
'Are you staying here?'
'No; but I am over as much as I can. The old Squire wants someone, and I don't fancy leaving him too much to Smiles—he's the curate, and has been trying to worm himself in. Will you come to your rooms? Dinner at seven.'
To Felix it was like meeting an old friend to tread the black stair, and the long panelled corridors, all windows on one side, the other hung with portraits, the Underwood red cheeks and blue eyes staring round, and coarse like Marilda. Mr. Staples popped Clement into one wainscotted room, and left him there, but shut himself in with Felix.
'So that's your clerical brother?'
'An excellent hard-working devoted fellow.'
'But very—?'
'Well, rather!'
'And it is quite out of the question for yourself?'
'Entirely so. Even if I thought it right, it could not be done.'
'I thought so, and told the Squire. Unlucky, for things are a good deal involved; and you would find the vicarage income handy, while as for this—why he is a mere boy!'
'So he feels himself. He is conscious of his want of experience, and it would be an infinite relief to him to see it in good hands.'
'Mrs. Fulbert and her mother declare that the Squire promised poor Fulbert to give it to her brother, Harry Shaw, whom you'll see here to-night; but he swears he did no such thing; and on the whole, I think Smiles would have a better chance—he's an obsequious chap, who has been very attentive to the old man all the winter, half their spy, half his toady. However, the Squire would never let either of them have it while there's a parson left with Underwood blood in his veins!'
All the quaint old bedrooms in this passage opened one into the other, and Felix unlocked the door between himself and Clement to communicate the information received, but it apparently took no effect.
The dinner-party was dismal and incongruous enough. Obsequious was a word that exactly depicted little, sleek, low-voiced Mr. Smiles, who though presiding at one end of the table, seemed ready to emulate Baillie M'Wheeble's posture; and the rival candidate, Mr. Henry Shaw, was a red-faced, punchy man, hardly distinguishable in appearance or manner from his farmer kindred, and, as soon became apparent, with such principles as he had, diametrically opposed to those of Clement, who, with his refined countenance and form, looked as if he belonged to some other world.
Mr. Underwood was wheeled in in his chair. He was not a man to give way, but rather to try to talk sorrow down; and the curate and Mr. Staples, knowing his humour, set county politics going, and all joined with a fervour, not to say violence, that struck the brothers as unsuitable. It was more than the Squire, between deafness and the burthen of grief, could follow; he grew abstracted, and presently rousing himself, turned to Clement to ask what had just passed at the other end of the table.
'That the bribery petition will fail, sir,' repeated Clement, bending with the naturally kind and courteous manner due to age, infirmity, and sorrow, and speaking in a clear sweet modulated tone, that evidently struck the old man more than the words.
'You have the family voice,' he said, looking up at him. 'Why, you are a mere lad! You don't tell me you are in Orders?'
'I was ordained Deacon last summer, sir,' said Clement colouring deeply at having to say it loud enough to attract everyone's attention.
'Ah! eh! And your age?'
'Four-and-twenty last March.'
'You don't look eighteen,' said the Squire, with that still infantine face close to him, reddening most youthfully. 'Where's your curacy?'
'At St Matthew's, Whittingtonia,' said Clement impressively, and casting his eyes round, as if, thought Felix, he were making a confession of faith and looking for persecution; but, half to the elder brother's relief, half to his diversion, they had got into a world where there was no thermometer of London churches, and no one knew what the avowal implied. Mr. Smiles asked if it were a Bethnal Green district; and Mr. Shaw observed, loud enough for the Squire to hear, that London parishes were not the places for plain straightforward men, no one was looked at who wasn't got up like a swell to please the ladies; and then they both united in rallying the youthful curate about tea-parties and pretty young ladies; but Clement was as impervious to ridicule on that score as if his head had been cowled and tonsured, and he bore it well, simply and gravely replying that he was too much occupied to go into society. He volunteered no dangerous topic, but showed much more good sense and forbearance than Felix had ventured to give him credit for in the curt answers he was compelled to make; but the old gentleman did not hear these, and began again.
'You've a sister married—eh?'
'Two,' said Clement, for Felix was too far off to be audible and as further information was looked for, 'one to Major Harewood, and the other to Sir Adrian Vanderkist.'
If Felix did for a moment feel that it sounded better than if they had married the butcher and the baker, Mr. Shaw took care to qualify the announcement with, 'Sporting baronet, ain't he? Got three horses at Epsom, I think!'
'What's that?' demanded Mr. Underwood. 'Your sister's husband on the turf?'
'I am sorry to say he is,' said Clement gravely.
'Not getting into scrapes? Any danger of his going on too fast?'
'I think not, Sir.' Felix felt he must shout, knowing well that Clement's regret was directed rather to racing in the abstract, than to any pecuniary peril, and for the first time feeling bound to defend Sir Adrian as a brother-in-law. 'He is a prudent man, and not likely to go beyond his means.'
Which was true. He was not exceeding present means. The evil was the future of the little girls, now four in number; but Clement looked reproachful at the answer he had to repeat to his neighbour, who relapsed into silence for a little while, then asked again, 'Who said one of them had married into a marching regiment?'
Mr. Staples laughed, and came to the rescue this time. 'Regiments never march but when young ladies marry into them; but it is not true in this case, Sir. Major Harewood is in the Royal Engineers, and has an appointment at Woolwich.—Didn't you tell me so?' turning to Felix. 'Have you heard anything from him of this new gun?'—which gun was safely wielded through the remainder of the meal.
After dinner, the Squire went back to his room, desiring Felix to come with him.
He looked much older than before, and made no more effort at cheeriness; as he sighed, settled himself, and signed Felix to a chair near him and his great fire.
'So!' he said. 'So things come round! Why did you not bring the nice little lad that was here before?'
'He and I cannot both leave home together, Sir. He is my right hand in the business.'
'You've not brought him up to your business?'
'I could not help it. That sun-stroke put him back in his studies, and he could not bear to be idle.'
'You must find some gentlemanly line for him; not too old, eh? You give it up, of course, you've thought better of my proposal—eh?'
'Quite impossible, Sir, thank you,' said Felix. 'You are very kind, but I am totally unfit. My education was stopped at sixteen.'
'Don't tell me you can't get through what Harry Shaw there did! Besides, what do we want of a scholar? I'd rather have a man of sense!'
'No Bishop would or could ordain me within the time.'
'Staples did say the Bishops had got more crotchetty now-a-days. How long would they insist on for preparation? I'd get little Smiles to hold it for the time.'
'It is impossible, Sir, thank you, in every way—even if I could think it right.'
'Right? It is not right the things should be separated. I've been crippled by it all my life, and cursed my folly in setting my face against the Church; and you'll hardly get the property in so good a condition as I did. Why, you're bookish already, and look like one of the cloth. Fit! you're fitter by a long chalk than Harry there! Come! think better of it. I'd not mind the cost if they insist on a turn at the University.'
'Thank you, Sir,' said Felix; 'but I cannot do it. It is against my conscience.' And as he saw that this was incomprehensible, he thought he had better bring forward a palpable testimony to the impracticability. 'Besides, I must go on with my work. There are too many of us for me to give over.'
'Many! The lad hasn't been fool enough to marry?'
'No, no, Sir; but there are two, a little brother and sister, at home, and two more at school, besides Geraldine and Lancelot.'
'All depending on you?'
'The four youngest entirely so; Geraldine earns a good deal with her painting, and Lance quite makes his own maintenance; but I could not leave them, nor break up the home.'
Six brothers and sisters were more than any one could adopt on the spot, and Mr. Underwood felt the cogency of the argument. 'Then you absolutely must keep up this confounded trade of yours till the breath is out of my body!'
'I hope to keep it up a long time yet, Sir,' said Felix; 'I have been very happy in it.'
'And—and—there's no other way?'
'Certainly not, Sir, thank you. All I have is embarked in it; and while things stand as they do, I should not be justified in making any change.'
Whatever Felix's kindred might think of his occupation, they were always forced to feel the dignity of his industry and independence. Here was this young man, under thirty, and looking younger than he was, talking of half-a-dozen of young brothers and sisters as a reason, not for accepting help, but for being let alone to maintain them; and actually showing a brother, a clergyman, scholar, and gentleman, visibly superior to what his kinsman had brought there to meet him. This was not a young heir to adopt, foster, and command, but a man to address upon equal terms, and Mr. Underwood put his next suggestion with less of authority. 'If it were not just absolute trade—retail, ain't it? It will be against you when you come here, you see. Could not you get out of it into Kedge and Underwood's firm? That would sound better.'
'Yes, Sir, but I could not throw over my business without a great loss; and it would be undertaking what I don't understand, instead of what I do.'
'Besides,' added the Squire, going on with his talk, 'with your expectations, family, place, and all, that girl of Tom's would jump at you!'
Felix shook his head decidedly, though unable to help a little inward laugh at this revival of Alda's old manoeuvre.
'By-the-by,' continued the old gentleman, 'what's become of your brother that Tom bred up?'
'We knew of him last in Australia, Sir.'
'Next to you, is he or this tall lad you have here?'
'He is older than Clement'
'Poor Tom made too much of him—eh? Well, young men will be young men,' said Mr. Underwood, too full of his own sorrows to think about Edgar; 'but they come round at last:' and therewith he fell into a talk about his own son, whose illness and death he proceeded to dwell upon, as he found he had a kind and attentive auditor; and this lasted till the butler came to wheel him off to his bed.
Felix and Clement paid an early visit to the church next morning, and found it in a course of being muffled in black. 'Seventy-five yards there allys was for every Underwood on 'em,' said Abednego Tripp, who had become much more shaky and feeble, had resigned his market-boat to Kerenhappuch's husband, and was hobbling about the church in a mixed, but on the whole a pleasant and exulting, frame of mind, by no means partaking of the intense disgust with which Clement beheld the sanctuary invaded by the paraphernalia of human woe.
Dr. May, unasked, brought Bernard over to the funeral, which was at twelve o'clock. Neither the father nor the widow attended it; but the incongruity of Edward Underwood's sons acting as chief mourners was prevented by the nearer claims of the Shaw brothers-in-law. The farmer tenants came; but the lack of neighbouring clergy and even gentry struck the brothers in contrast with the overflowing numbers who had flocked to their father's grave, so far from his ancestral home, showing how much more the man can be than the position.
Bernard was staring about him with little endeavour for appearances; and at the first moment that speech was possible, even while the hat-bands were coming off, he looked up in the face of Clement with open eyes, and said, 'My eyes! this is no end of a place! Is it what is to come to us?' Clement hushed him seriously and vigorously, but without much effect. 'Did you know 'twas like this?' he persisted, gazing round.
'I never thought about it. Hush!'
'Why, 'tis twice as jolly a house as Abbotstoke! And the woods! And the river! One might shoot every day, and fish the rest, and be always boating besides!' exclaimed Bernard, enthusiastically, but happily under his breath. 'And ain't there a hunter worth £120 here? Where is he, Clem?'
'How should I know?'
'You've been here all night and this morning, haven't you?' said Bernard, as if he had not thought even Tina capable of such indifference. 'I'll get down to the stables, and find out.'
While Clement was trying to stop him, the summons to a lugubrious luncheon did so more effectually. There Bernard had the opportunity of fraternizing with a Shaw nephew of his own age, and none of the malice of his seniors, who imparted the melancholy fact that the hunter-colt was sold, but undertook to show off the stables; but fate was too strong for Bear, he was captured by his eldest brother, and told that while Dr. May's horse was coming round, Mr. Underwood would like to see him.
The wish was far from mutual, and Bernard was as sulky as his namesake; but sulkiness might pass on such an occasion for decorous solemnity; and Bernard was always one of the show specimens—a big, well-grown, straight-limbed boy, with a handsome Underwood face, not of the girlishly rosy tinting of his brother's, but glowing with a hardy healthy sunburnt hue, and he could not but answer with a sort of glum awe-struck civility the few questions asked him, as to his age, and where he was at school, and then whether he had ever been rabbitting.
'Only once;' and Bernard's face lost its sulkiness. 'Marilda's gone and let her shooting!'
'And you like it?'
Bernard's lips only said 'yes,' but his blue eyes danced.
'Well, some of these days, you must come over and have a day with the keeper, when your brother is settled here.'
The eager face of anticipation fell, and out came at unawares, 'But that won't be till you are dead;' and then the boy began colouring to the ears.
'No, no, I don't mean this brother; but what's his name—the young parson? When he is here, you must come over. And here—' As the Doctor came in to take leave, Bernard found in his hand 'tip' that exceeded even the great days of Ferdinand's munificence!
He sprang out to Clement, who was standing in the porch. 'Oh! I say, Clem, what a splendiferous go this is!'
Again, all he got was a scandalized hush.
'I don't mean that. He told me himself! I'm to come over to shoot rabbits, and all that is delicious, when you are a clergyman here! Hurrah!'
'Hold your tongue, Bernard,' said Clement, with a voice of subdued impatience, 'and don't talk nonsense.'
'But you are going to be a clergyman here,' persisted Bernard. 'He said so.'
'That does not make it the fact.'
'O Clem, you'd never be so viciously spiteful as not to come! Think of the rabbits and the salmon, and a licence by-and-by!'
'Come, Bernard,' said Dr. May's cheery voice behind; then, as he shook hands with Clement, 'You must find your way over to Stoneborough when you are settled here. Our church is a sort of rival to yours.'
'Not mine,' protested Clement; but the Doctor was in a hurry, and was off. Business was to be done with the family lawyer, and Felix got a hint that he might be wanted after a time, so he betook himself to a nook in the cloister, redolent with old memories, and began a letter to Mr. Audley. Clement, as he really believed with malice prepense, put himself entirely out of reach by starting off for a walk with Mr. Smiles, who, detecting that the London clergyman's mind was far from made up to bury himself in a dull, secluded, straggling country parish, had kindly volunteered to show him the beauties of the scenery.
Nearly two hours had passed, when a tall shadow came across the arch, and Clement's low eager voice asked, 'Have you any money about you?'
'Just about enough to get home with. Why?'
'How near is Ewmouth?'
'Nearly four miles. What are you after?'
'I can do it before dinner;' and the long legs seemed about to move off.
'Stay, Clement! What?'
'I must raise enough to get a bottle of port. There's a child sinking in typhus. Don't detain me, Felix. I find there's no help for it. I must have this place,' he added, as if throwing a tub to the whale to effect his escape.
'Stop, ask for some here.'
'No use. Squire forbids all giving in that quarter.'
'What do you mean to do?'
'I must dispose of—of—of—Well, it must be this,' touching his little cross, Ferdinand's gift, and nearly his favourite possession.
'Come! It won't do to make your début at Ewmouth by disposing of your jewelry. I left myself a margin of half-a-crown, and if we walk from the station, that will save two shillings more.'
'That will do,' said Clement. 'Thank you, Fee, you shall have it again. I had given all I had about me in the other hovel. The woman is waiting in the churchyard. I'll send her off, and then tell you.'
Felix accompanied him through the beautiful summer garden to the rough rugged churchyard, where a lean woman in tattered drab-coloured garments by no means accorded with the paradisaical notion of Vale Leston. Her distress was so genuine that she scarcely thanked Clement; but assuring him she could now get what she wanted, she walked off.
Clement sighed, and looked up at the great massive church, not with Felix's pitying love, but like a mighty burthen.
'Well, Clem!'
'Well! I see it must be done.'
'I am very glad.'
'I am sure I am very sorry,' said Clement, with a simplicity new in him.
Before any more could pass, a servant came in search of them to summon them to Mr. Underwood's room. He looked worn and sorrowful, but there was a certain look of pleasure at the entrance of the two young men; and he made a sort of introduction of them to the lawyer, Mr. Wilder, a London solicitor, then turning to Felix, he once more asked if he still declined all idea of eventually taking the living.
'Certainly I do, thank you, Sir.'
'So,' said Mr. Underwood, 'as is only just, the offer is passed on to your brother.'
Clement bowed his head, colouring crimson, and the tears coming into his eyes, as with a trembling lip he answered, 'Thank you, Sir; I will do my best, God helping me.'
It was curious how this weight of responsibility was extinguishing self-consciousness, and making a man of him. The tone of his reply seemed to surprise both Squire and lawyer; and the former said, in an old man's tone of encouragement, 'That is well. No one can say more. Now give us your full name, that we may get on with the formalities.'
'Edward Clement Underwood, B.A., St. Cadoc's.'
'Edward?'
'It is my first name, but I have never been so called.'
'Edward! Strange it should so come about! Well, you may do pretty well here. Small tithes commuted for £420—(Rather a contrast, thought Felix, to the recent difficulty of raising a few shillings!)—a fair provision for a young man; if you are content not to launch out, nor be in a hurry to marry.'
'Certainly not,' said Clement, with an emphasis that made everybody look up to see whether he showed any tokens of having met with a disappointment in love; but if his cheeks were redder than usual, lip and eye were steady and resolute enough.
'I hope not,' proceeded his patron: 'it is the worst thing a young man can do to get his neck into the noose before he has had time to look about him. And there's the Vicarage—been used to enlarge our stable room—will have to be rebuilt altogether; so you had best let your horse keep your residence for the present, and come and look after the old man. I would not be much of a burden to you; but this is a big house, and it is getting lonesome.'
'I will do whatever I can to be a comfort to you, Sir,' said Clement earnestly. 'It is very kind in you, and I will certainly come first to you. Only, Sir, I ought to warn you that I have been bred up in a very stringent school of principles, and that if I come here, I shall feel it my duty to do my best to carry them out.'
Mr. Underwood smiled at the lawyer. 'How exactly boys get the trick of their father. I could think this twenty years back! Well, changes for the worse there can't be! Ungrateful set of drunken poaching rascals as ever lived! And as to the church, what notions you may bring there won't do me much harm, so long as you don't bring it about your ears. Only, look you, Edward, a word in your ear. Don't let Jane—Mrs. Fulbert, I mean—cajole you into doing up the Vicarage for her.'
'Very well, Sir,' said Clement dreamily.
'You had better stay on a few days and look about you; I'd send you over to see the Bishop.'
'No, Sir, thank you, I must get back to-morrow. I have little enough time to prepare for my Ordination, but I will come down as soon after as Mr. Fulmort can make it convenient to spare me.'
'Ay, and little Smiles will see to the duty meantime; but I say, Edward, you are inexperienced, and he is a dirty little dog. Don't let him expect anything from you till you've read in. He's got his quarter, and 'tis the churchwarden's business to provide.'
Felix hoped other people did not find Clement's face so intelligible as he did when this turned out to be the warning to inexperience. There was little more to be done, and the conference broke up to give the Squire time to rest before dinner.
'And now, my dear Vicar,' said Felix, linking his arm into his brother's, and leading him to a walk beneath a wisteria-covered wall, 'let me hear what brought you to this laudable resolution.'
'I wish it may be laudable,' said poor Clement, brushing away a couple of great tear-drops; 'I only know I have taken leave of all comfort or ease of mind for life, and I suppose that may be right!'
'I thought,' said Felix, a little hurt, 'that my father's objection to this place was its perfect ease.'
'A good deal has gone to the bad since his time,' said Clement, 'and well it may! I could think of nothing but the traffic in Babylon the Great of "the souls of men," and wonder whether I was sharing in it! Not a word as to my fitness or unfitness, not an attempt at inquiry! I might be the veriest disgrace to my Orders for what they cared, so long as my name is Underwood!'
'And, Edward!' said Felix, 'I can't but be touched to see how the poor old man feels it an act of restitution. It is the best he knows, Clem, his first step, and I am glad you have not baulked him of it.'
'It is a vicious and rotten system altogether,' said Clement, 'and I am not sure how far one is justified in submitting to it.'
'And now, without going into the question of lay-patronage, what brought you to submit to it?'
'I'll tell you, Felix. I set out to walk with Smiles, to see the place, and set Shaw so far on his way home. We went on beyond the village street, where all looks smooth and fair—all roses and gable-ends—like the model place you fancy it, and maybe it was in Father's time. On by the little river—'
'The Leston. Isn't it beautiful?'
'It is like places I saw in Wales. Well, there is another little ravine running down to meet that—very wild—a show place.'
'Blackstone Gulley. Isn't there a quarry?'
'Indeed there is; and such a set of hovels round it, run up in a hollow without a notion of health or comfort! It seems the demand for the stone is uncertain; so these wretched quarrymen are half their time poaching and pilfering, a villainous ferocious lot, that do all the harm in the neighbourhood—in fact, the Squire flew into a rage at the very name. He had forbidden anything from his house to be given to them; and even the Miss Hepburns were afraid to go among them. What are you laughing at, Felix?'
'Because I see why Mr. Smiles took you that way. Go on.'
'He took us to the best point of view, but told us we had better not go down, as typhus was raging there. I offered to wait if he had any one to visit; and behold! it was against the principles of both to go unless they were sent for. Mr. Shaw said it was making oneself too common, and Mr. Smiles had to consider Mrs. Smiles and the children. By that time we had been seen, and a woman sallied out to speak to him; and would you believe it, he tried to warn her off with "You see I have gentlemen with me! I always tell you to go to Mr. Tripp!" Then it struck me that I need not stand on the etiquette our Vicar is always so particular about, since it is nobody's parish just now, and I had the offer; so I offered to go and see what she wanted. Smiles said a good deal about the deceitfulness of the women, and the danger of venturing when the men were at home, as if one had never been down a court in Whittingtonia.'
'And was it very bad?'
'Bad, yes. Except that there's clear air and water outside, it is as miserable as anything I ever saw in town, and more squalid and savage. Four huts with cases of typhus! Though after all, it is not worse than our district is in the winter; and it is by tens, while that is by hundreds. Moreover, Ewmouth is getting into this parish, building fast on this side. When I saw and heard those two men, and knew the place would be turned over to one or other of them, I could not leave it to such a fate!'
'Quite right; and not at all what the curate expected.'
'I had thought,' continued Clement, 'that such clergy had become extinct; but I suppose nothing of a better stamp would have put up with the poor man we buried to-day. I had imagined the choice only lay between me and some one who, if without my advantages, would be superior in experience and weight; but now I see the alternative: it is plain that it is a call, though why—why it should have come to me, I cannot think.'
'Perhaps,' said Felix, 'because we are especially bound to fight against the evil our family has allowed to accumulate.'
'At my age, and all alone! I say, Felix,' after a pause, 'can one get the key of the church?'
'The door into the cloister used not to be kept locked,' said Felix, turning in that direction; and then, struck by the loveliness of the lights and shadows, and the banksias trailing over the cloister tracery, he could not help exclaiming, 'There's no place like it! You will grow very fond of it, Clem!'
'I dare say I shall,' said Clement, to whose eyes the beauty seemed to go for nothing, and who was quite past his usual heed to keeping up his dignity with his brothers; 'I dare say I shall when I have worked here a little while; but I had rather have had the dingiest cell in the clergy-house and Fred Somers. Just as I had got back, when we thought we should have such a time of it—working together there, for life perhaps!'
'You might have him for a curate.'
'Fred! He'd never come to "easy duty in a romantic country and eligible neighbourhood,"' indignantly quoted Clement; 'and for my part, with only a population of eight hundred, if I were to set up a curate, I should just give myself over to be a fat, double-chinned, easy-going incumbent!'
'You're a good way from that,' said Felix, looking at the tall slight being by his side; 'but I think you are right. I am as sorry for you as can be, Clem, when I think of your pleasant evenings at the clergy-house, and what it will be with that poor old man; but you see he ought to be cared for as well as the parish, and there is no one but you who can do it.'
'I must try!' said Clement, with something of a gasp.
'Well,' said Felix, who had by this time reached the door, 'I do feel obliged to you, Clement. This helps me immensely.'
It was a great consolation to Clement that one person at least did not congratulate him on the preferment that weighed on him so sorely; but after he had spent some time alone in the church, he had mastered himself, and was quite satisfactory all the evening. Their dinner companions were the widow and her mother. The former did not look very much crushed, though she carried a large pocket-handkerchief; and her mother declared that nothing could have brought her down but her desire to be acquainted with her cousins. Felix could not help thinking of the pic-nic; and before long he perceived the drama that was being enacted. Her great object was evidently to stay on, and continue the ruler of the Priory; and Mr. Underwood was equally desirous to get her, not only out of the house, but out of the village; but he could not quite tell her so on the day of the funeral, and hints neither of them would take. Then she fastened upon Clement, and discoursed to him about her charities, and her regrets that during her dear Fulbert's long decline she could do so little; only she knew things were in such excellent hands with the Miss Hepburns, good old ladies, perfectly devoted, treasures for any parish; but for herself—she was only too much at liberty now, she should be delighted to go the round of the parish with him, and introduce him to her own peculiar pets!
Clement could not snub direct; but he only bowed, he did not commit himself; only in all simplicity he did ask about these charities, and only succeeded in raising a mist of words, in which the desirableness of not destroying self-dependence, and the pauperizing tendency of liberality, were the prominent ideas.
Clement ventured a question about Blackstone Gulley; but Mrs. Underwood hurriedly cautioned him under her breath not to say a word about it before the Squire, it excited him so fearfully—the people were such desperate poachers and thieves, and did such wanton mischief! They were evidently viewed as quite out of the pale of humanity.
Little did the lady imagine that they were the chief attraction to the Vicar-elect!
The brothers had to be off so early the next morning, that they made their farewells that night. Mrs. Underwood hospitably told Clement they would be better acquainted; but when he took leave with the old Squire, his hand was held fast, while the broken eager voice entreated, 'You'll soon be back—you'll come soon? You shall have the study, and any rooms in the house you like.—Been down to the stables? Just say which saddle-horse you like best; I'll have him kept for you.'
'Thank you, Sir, but I am a very good walker.' (Felix was glad he did not say he could not ride—a degeneracy in an Underwood that plainly had not occurred to the Squire.)
'Nonsense! Can't get about in this country without a horse. Mind, I didn't mean that you should keep it for yourself. Take a look, if you have not yet, and say which of the two.'
'The quietest!' exclaimed Clement, in a tone nearly of entreaty, diverting to his elder brother, who had had enough pony-back before his eighth year, with a little subsequent refreshment on Mr. Audley's horse, to give him a pitying disdain for anxieties on that score.
'Eh? You are a steady-going parson—don't want a showy beast? That's as young parsons are now-a-days. Well, you shall have the chestnut, very good to ride or drive. Write, I say, as soon as you can fix your day. You might see the Bishop in town. Only don't,' lowering his voice, 'leave me long alone with Jane.'
Just after the hot water had been brought to the brothers' rooms the next morning, there was a simultaneous knocking at the door of communication, and then an equally simultaneous turning of the handles, which was of course ineffectual, till Felix let go, and Clement got it open; and they stood laughing at each other, each holding an envelope, one addressed to F. Underwood, Esquire, the other to the Reverend Edward Underwood, each containing a cheque for £10, and scrawled on the flap of each—'To cover expenses of journey. F.U.'
'Expenses of journey—poor old man!' said Felix. 'It would go some way to a special train!'
'I suppose this is myself,' said Clement.
'Ah, you'll have to resign yourself to be Edward for the rest of your days.'
'Do you mean to take it?'
'Impossible not to let him have the pleasure of it. Poor man, depend upon it he is wishing it had been my father all the time. And it might have been—' Felix's face quivered and contracted. 'No, it won't do to think of that. But, Clem, look here—we won't exactly walk from Paddington; but deducting the one pound five that this really has cost me, you shall take the rest of mine for Blackstone Gulley.'
'It must have cost you more.'
'No, for I was coming to town any way. Did I not tell you that I am to meet poor Edgar's creditors on Cherry's behalf, and settle with them?'
'Poor Cherry! It has been a noble thing for her to have carried out, but one cannot but feel it wasted.'
'No,' said Felix, 'she will never feel it so. Whatever she may do for the future, she will be able to feel that she has been just before she was generous. Remember, she will have sent our name home again cleared of debt. I am proud to owe that to her! Now, whichever of us is ready first must write the old man a grateful note, and we will both sign it.'
'Stay, Felix! I can't have you giving this to my people. I shall have plenty.'
'In time, but I don't expect you will have much in hand for some time; and if the Squire is so furious against these people, you won't like to ask him. Besides, they are my people, in a way, as well as yours; and if this is really the earnest of my inheritance, I should like it to go to them.'