The letter which had summoned Harry to the parsonage had been from his mother, and had begged him to come to Clavering at once, as trouble had come upon them from an unexpected source. His father had quarrelled with Mr. Saul. The rector and the curate had had an interview, in which there had been high words, and Mr. Clavering had refused to see Mr. Saul again. Fanny also was in great trouble,—and the parish was, as it were, in hot water. Mrs. Clavering thought that Harry had better run down to Clavering, and see Mr. Saul. Harry, not unwillingly, acceded to his mother's request, much wondering at the source of this new misfortune. As to Fanny, she, as he believed, had held out no encouragement to Mr. Saul's overtures. When Mr. Saul had proposed to her,—making that first offer of which Harry had been aware,—nothing could have been more steadfast than her rejection of the gentleman's hand. Harry had regarded Mr. Saul as little less than mad to think of such a thing, but, thinking of him as a man very different in his ways and feelings from other men, had believed that he might go on at Clavering comfortably as curate in spite of that little accident. It appeared, however, that he was not going on comfortably; but Harry, when he left London, could not quite imagine how such violent discomfort should have arisen that the rector and the curate should be unable to meet each other. If the reader will allow me, I will go back a little and explain this.
The reader already knows what Fanny's brother did not know,—namely, that Mr. Saul had pressed his suit again, and had pressed it very strongly; and he also knows that Fanny's reception of the second offer was very different from her reception of the first. She had begun to doubt;—to doubt whether her first judgment as to Mr. Saul's character had not been unjust,—to doubt whether, in addressing her, he was not right, seeing that his love for her was so strong,—to doubt whether she did not like him better than she had thought she did,—to doubt whether an engagement with a penniless curate was in truth a position utterly to be reprehended and avoided. Young penniless curates must love somebody as well as young beneficed vicars and rectors. And then Mr. Saul pleaded his cause so well!
She did not at once speak to her mother on the matter, and the fact that she had a secret made her very wretched. She had left Mr. Saul in doubt, giving him no answer, and he had said that he would ask her again in a few days what was to be his fate. She hardly knew how to tell her mother of this till she had told herself what were her own wishes. She thoroughly desired to have her mother in her confidence, and promised herself that it should be so before Mr. Saul renewed his suit. He was a man who was never hurried or impatient in his doings. But Fanny put off the interview with her mother,—put off her own final resolution, till it was too late, and Mr. Saul came upon her again, when she was but ill-prepared for him.
A woman, when she doubts whether she loves or does not love, is inclined five parts out of six towards the man of whom she is thinking. When a woman doubts she is lost, the cynics say. I simply assert, being no cynic, that when a woman doubts she is won. The more Fanny thought of Mr. Saul, the more she felt that he was not the man for which she had first taken him,—that he was of larger dimensions as regarded spirit, manhood, and heart, and better entitled to a woman's love. She would not tell herself that she was attached to him; but in all her arguments with herself against him, she rested her objection mainly on the fact that he had but seventy pounds a year. And then the threatened attack, the attack that was to be final, came upon her before she was prepared for it!
They had been together as usual during the intervening time. It was, indeed, impossible that they should not be together. Since she had first begun to doubt about Mr. Saul, she had been more diligent than heretofore in visiting the poor and in attending to her school, as though she were recognizing the duty which would specially be hers if she were to marry such a one as he. And thus they had been brought together more than ever. All this her mother had seen, and seeing, had trembled; but she had not thought it wise to say anything till Fanny should speak. Fanny was very good and very prudent. It could not be but that Fanny should know how impossible must be such a marriage. As to the rector, he had no suspicions on the matter. Saul had made himself an ass on one occasion, and there had been an end of it. As a curate Saul was invaluable, and therefore the fact of his having made himself an ass had been forgiven him. It was thus that the rector looked at it.
It was hardly more than ten days since the last walk in Cumberly Lane when Mr. Saul renewed the attack. He did it again on the same spot, and at the same hour of the day. Twice a week, always on the same days, he was in the chapel up at this end of the parish, and on these days he could always find Fanny on her way home. When he put his head in at the little school door and asked for her, her mind misgave her. He had not walked home with her since, and though he had been in the school with her often, had always left her there, going about his own business, as though he were by no means desirous of her company. Now the time had come, and Fanny felt that she was not prepared. But she took up her hat, and went out to him, knowing that there was no escape.
"Miss Clavering," said he, "have you thought of what I was saying to you?" To this she made no answer, but merely played with the point of the parasol which she held in her hand. "You cannot but have thought of it," he continued. "You could not dismiss it altogether from your thoughts."
"I have thought about it, of course," she said.
"And what does your mind say? Or rather what does your heart say? Both should speak, but I would sooner hear the heart first."
"I am sure, Mr. Saul, that it is quite impossible."