"I quite agree with you, Lady Caroline," said Mr. Biscoe. "Sound scholar, Mr. Joyce, clear head, well grounded, and quick at picking up--good fellow, too!"
"I'm sure," said Lord Hetherington, "I've grown so accustomed to him, I shall feel like--what's-his-name--fish out of water without him."
"I dare say we shall manage to exist when Mr. Joyce has left us," said the countess; "we scrambled on somehow before, and I really don't see the enormous improvement since he came."
Nobody commented on this, and the conversation dropped. Lady Hetherington was cross and disappointed. She expected to have found her sister-in-law very much annoyed at the fact of Mr. Joyce's departure, whereas, in place of visible grief or annoyance, there was a certain air of satisfaction about Lady Caroline which was dreadfully annoying to the countess.
Two days after, Joyce left for London, Marian's letter, on Lady Caroline's advice, and in accordance with his own feelings, remaining without notice.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
POOR PAPA'S SUCCESSOR.
It has been seen that Mr. Creswell's marriage with Marian Ashurst was sufficiently popular amongst the farmer class at Helmingham, but it was by no means so warmly received in other grades of society. Up at the Park, for instance, the people could scarcely restrain their indignation. Sir Thomas Churchill had always been accustomed to speak of "my neighbour, Mr. Creswell," as a "highly respectable man, sprung, as he himself does not scruple to own, from the people," chirrupped the old Sir Thomas, whose great-grandfather had been a tanner in Brocksopp,--"but eminently sound in all his views, and a credit to the--ahem!--commercial classes of the community." They sat together on the magistrates' bench, met on committees of charitable associations, and suchlike, and twice a year solemnly had each other to dinner to meet a certain number of other county people on nights when there was a moon, or, at least, when the calendar showed that there ought to have been one. In the same spirit old Lady Churchill, kindliest of silly old women, had been in the habit of pitying Marian Ashurst. "That charmin' girl, so modest and quiet; none of your fly-away nonsense about her, and clever, ain't she? I don't know about these things myself, but they tell me so; and to have to go into lodgin's, and all that! father a clergyman of the Church of England too!"--staunch old lady, never moving about without the Honourable Miss Grimstone's Church-service, in two volumes, in her trunk--"it really does seem too bad!" But when the news of the forthcoming marriage began to be buzzed about, and penetrated to the Park, Sir Thomas did not scruple to stigmatise his neighbour as an old fool, while my lady had no better opinion of Miss Ashurst than that she was a "forward minx." What could have so disturbed these exemplary people? Not, surely, the low passions of envy and jealousy? Sir Thomas Churchill, a notorious roué in his day, who had married the plainest-headed woman in the county for her money, all the available capital of which he had spent, could not possibly be envious of the fresh young bride whom his old acquaintance was bringing home? And Lady Churchill, to whom the village gossips talked incessantly of the intended redecoration of Woolgreaves, the equipages and horses which were ordered, the establishment which was about to be kept up, the position in parliament which was to be fought for, and, above all, the worship with which the elderly bridegroom regarded the juvenile bride-elect--these rumours did not influence her in the bitter depreciation with which she henceforth spoke of the late schoolmaster's daughter? Of course not! The utterances of the baronet and his lady were prompted by a deep regard to the welfare of both parties, and a wholesome regret that they had been prompted to take a step which could not be for the future happiness of either, of course.
Mr. Benthall, who, it will be recollected, had succeeded the late Mr. Ashurst at the Helmingham school, and was comparatively new to the neighbourhood, took but little interest in the matter, so far as Miss Ashurst was concerned. He had a bowing acquaintance with her, but he had neither had the wish nor the opportunity of getting on more familiar terms. Had she married any one else but Mr. Creswell, it would not have mattered one jot to the Rev. George Benthall; but, as it happened, Mr. Benthall had a certain amount of interest in the doings of the household at Woolgreaves, and the marriage of the chief of that household promised to be an important event in Mr. Benthall's life.
You could scarcely have found a greater difference between any two men than between James Ashurst and his successor. When James Ashurst received his appointment as head-master at Helmingham, he looked upon that appointment as the culmination of his career. Mr. Benthall regarded the head-mastership as merely a steppingstone to something better. Mr. Ashurst threw his whole soul into his work. Mr. Benthall was content to get people to think that he was very hard-working and very much interested in his duties, whereas he really cared nothing about them, and slipped through them in the most dilettante fashion. He did not like work; he never had liked it. At Oxford he had taken no honours, made no name, and when he was nominated to Helmingham, every one wondered at the selection except those who happened to know that the fortunate man was godson to one of the two peers who were life-governors of the school. Mr. Benthall found the Helmingham school in excellent order. The number of scholars never had been so large, the social status of the class which furnished them was undeniably good, the discipline had been brought to perfection, and the school had an excellent name in the county. It had taken James Ashurst years to effect this, but once achieved, there was no necessity for any further striving. Mr. Benthall was a keen man of the world, he found the machine in full swing, he calculated that the impetus which had been given to it would keep it in full swing for two or three years, without the necessity for the smallest exertion on his part, and during these two or three years he would occupy himself in looking out for something better. What that something better was to be he had not definitely determined. Not another head-mastership, he had made up his mind on that point; he never had been particularly partial to boys, and now he hated them. He did not like parochial duty, he did not like anything that gave him any trouble. He did like croquet-playing and parsonical flirtation, cricket and horse exercise. He liked money, and all that money brings; and, after every consideration, he thought the best and easiest plan to acquire it would be to marry an heiress.