“Does he know of your application to me?”
“Why, no, Sir Robert, of course not! I could not have had the face to tell any one I as much as wished to make it. Except Mr. Brandon. I spoke to him because I wanted him to come instead of me.”
Sir Robert smiled. “And he would not come, I suppose?”
“Oh dear, no: he asked me whether I thought we lived in Utopia. He said I might come if I chose—that what would be only laughed at in a silly boy like me, might be deemed impertinence in him.”
The interview came to an end. Anne said she hoped I should dine with them while I was in town—and Mr. Brandon also, Sir Robert added; and with that I came out. Came out just as wise as I had gone in; for never a word of hope did Sir Robert give. For all he intimated to the contrary, the living might be already in the hands of the Canon of St. Paul’s.
Two events happened the next day, Saturday. The funeral of the Rector, and the departure of Miss Cattledon for Chelmsford, in Essex. An aunt of hers who lived there was taken dangerously ill, and sent for her by telegram. Mr. Brandon came up to dine with us in the evening—— But that’s neither here nor there.
I sat in Miss Deveen’s pew at church with herself on the Sunday morning; she wore black silk out of respect to the late Rector. Mr. Lake and the young deacon, who had a luxuriant crop of yellow hair, had put on black gloves. The church was full; all the world and his wife seemed to have come to it; and the parsons’ surplices stood on end with starch.
Mr. Lake was in the reading-desk; it caused, I think, some surprise—could that yellow-haired nonentity of a young dandy be going to preach? He stood at the communion-table, looking interesting, and evidently suffering from a frightful cold: which cold, as we found later, was the reason that Mr. Lake took nearly all the service himself.
What a contrast they were! The simpering, empty-faced young deacon, who was tall and slender as a lamp-post, and had really not much more brains than one; and the thoughtful, earnest, middle-aged priest, with the sad look on his gentle face. Nothing could be more impressive than his reading of the prayers; they were prayed, not read: and his voice was one of those persuasive, musical voices you don’t often hear. If Sir Robert Tenby could but hear this reading! I sighed, as Mr. Lake went through the Litany.