CHAPTER XIV
COMING EVENTS
The autumn days passed calmly at the parsonage of Haymore. The curate had his own care, but he kept it to himself. On that morning succeeding Jennie’s arrival, when Hetty had observed traces of unusual disturbance on the brow of her Jimmy and had ascribed it to the effect of some distressing deathbed scene of some parishioner and therefore had forborne to question him, the cause of the curate’s uneasiness was just this: He had, by that morning’s mail, received a letter from his rector at Cannes, speaking hopelessly of his own illness and predicting an early and fatal issue.
James Campbell would not disturb his wife and daughter with this news, though it troubled him deeply and for more reasons than one.
In the first place, he felt a warm affection for the venerable rector who had been his father’s classmate at Oxford, and who had remembered him when he could do him a service and put him into his present position.
In the second place, should the rector die soon, his successor would be appointed by the Squire of Haymore and would naturally dismiss him, James Campbell, from his curacy. And he and his family would have to go forth in the world, homeless, moneyless and almost friendless, in midwinter. What prospect lay before the three but destitution and indebtedness—practically, first, to go into the cheapest lodgings they could find; then to go into debt for their daily food as long as he might be able to get credit.
And after that—what?
He did not know.
Of course, he would try to get work again—another curacy, or a tutorship, or a secretaryship. But Jimmy knew by all his past experience and observation how difficult, how almost impossible it was for a man in his position, once out of employment, ever to get in again. If he could only know who was to be the successor of his dying rector, he might, at a proper time, try to gain his favor to be made his curate.
Well—he thought—“while he preacheth to others he must not himself be a castaway.” As Hetty had told him, he must “reck his own read.” He must do the best he could and leave the result to divine Providence. If he could only hold his present position. What a commodious house he had for his dear ones! What an affluent garden! What a spacious glebe! What a lovely home, taken altogether! What a paradisal one for his family! If he could only retain it by any amount of work—by doing double duty, tenfold duty in the parish! He would not shrink from any labor, any hardship, to retain this refuge for his beloved ones, he thought. Then his conscience reproached him—he was thinking too much of his own, too little of his parish; and besides, the idea of remaining in this sweet home was but a dream, for if even the successor of his dying rector should favor him so far as to retain him in the curacy, he could not continue to reside in the rectory—where, of course, the new rector would take up his abode—but would have to find a small house in the village suitable to his small salary as a curate. But even this last favor was highly improbable. The new rector would have some young clerical friend whom he would take as his curate. They always did, he remembered.
“Is there much sickness or suffering in the parish, Jimmy?” Hetty asked one day when they happened to be alone in the parlor together, Jennie being in her bedroom with her baby, and Elspeth in the kitchen over her cooking.