Mrs. Mercer saw the smiles, and though she did not understand their full import divined something of their source. "Of course, dear," she said, "we know it is possible that Denis may be preferred to this living. In that case this offer would be of no use to him. We only thought that if he wasn't—! And my husband hasn't told you that there's a charming little house, big enough for all three of you."
"There was never really any chance of Denis's appointment here," said the Vicar, not without annoyance. "It was quite right to humour the poor old gentleman, as he so set his heart upon it; but Rhoda and Ethel are far too sensible to have any such ideas themselves; and it would be wrong too."
Rhoda had once boasted that there was nothing of the cat in her, but she enquired very sweetly, "And why wrong, Mr. Mercer?"
"My dear girl," said the Vicar, "you know as well as I do. It would be a job, and Bishops dare not perpetrate jobs in these days. And if you are inclined still to cherish hopes of that sort, as it is perhaps not altogether unnatural that you should, as you had to persuade your dear father of it for so long, let me tell you at once that the appointment has already been made, I am not at liberty to say in what quarter. But you will hear about it very soon."
It was Ethel who said, "Oh, really, Mr. Mercer! Did the Bishop tell you that himself?"
"You never told me, Albert, when you came back from the Palace yesterday," said Mrs. Mercer in an aggrieved voice.
"It was not the Bishop himself, of course," said the Vicar. "But I had it on the best authority. Please don't ask me any more. The conversation was confidential."
"It wasn't you it was offered to, dear, was it?" enquired his wife. "No, I'm sure you would have told me that. I suppose Mr. Burgoyne must have told you." Mr. Burgoyne was the Bishop's chaplain.
The Vicar, like most self-important but weak men, was incapable of keeping anything to himself under pressure, and when Rhoda said, as sweetly as before: "If you've told us as much as that I think you might tell us who the living has been offered to. Secrets are absolutely safe with us," he hummed and ha-ed, and then said: "Well, Burgoyne did not actually extract a promise from me to keep it to myself, but he gave me to understand,"—how grateful he was afterwards to have put it in that way—"that Leadbetter was to have it. It would be an appointment not altogether free from criticism. I believe that Leadbetter has never held a parochial charge, but he has been Precentor of the Cathedral for a great many years, and if good livings are to be given in that sort of way, which personally I think they should not be, I don't know that the Bishop can be greatly blamed for giving it to him."
"I think they should be given to men who have borne the burden and heat of the day in the poorer livings," said Mrs. Mercer with a sigh, for she had been encouraged to hope, and the hope was now dead. She didn't ask herself why her husband had left her for nearly twenty-four hours without telling her so. There were questions about him occasionally which she refrained from asking herself. She had asked him why he seemed so bent upon going over to Surley that afternoon, as they had previously decided to do something else. She would have demurred to going if she had known that this piece of news was to be imparted to Rhoda and Ethel.