“What a misapprehension it has been!” gasped Mrs. Jonas.
“Quite so—if you mean about me,” agreed Emma. “I like Mr. Lake very much; I respect him above every one in the world; but for anything else—such a notion never entered my head: and I am sure it would not enter his.”
Mrs. Jonas, bewildered, but intensely relieved, wished Emma good-afternoon civilly, and went away to enlighten the world. A reaction set in: hopes rose again to fever heat. If it was neither Emma Topcroft nor her mother, why, it must be somebody else, argued the ladies, old and young, and perhaps she was not chosen yet: and the next day they were running about the parish more than ever.
Seated in her drawing-room, in her own particular elbow-chair, in the twilight of the summer’s evening, was Miss Deveen. Near to her, telling a history, his voice low, his conscious face slightly flushed, sat the Rector of St. Matthew’s. The scent from the garden flowers came pleasantly in at the open window; the moon, high in the heavens, was tinting the trees with her silvery light. One might have taken them for two lovers, sitting there to exchange vows, and going in for romance.
Miss Deveen was at home alone. I was escorting that other estimable lady to a “penny-reading” in the adjoining district, St. Jude’s, at which the clergy of the neighbourhood were expected to gather in full force, including the Rector of St. Matthew’s. It was a special reading, sixpence admission, got up for the benefit of St. Jude’s vestry fire-stove, which wanted replacing with a new one. Our parish, including Cattledon, took up the cause with zeal, and would not have missed the reading for the world. We flocked to it in numbers.
Disappointment was in store for some of us, however, for the Rector of St. Matthew’s did not appear. He called, instead, on Miss Deveen, confessing that he had hoped to find her alone, and to get half-an-hour’s conversation with her: he had been wishing for it for some time, as he had a tale to tell.
It was a tale of love. Miss Deveen, listening to it in the soft twilight, could but admire the man’s constancy of heart and his marvellous patience.
In the West of England, where he had been curate before coming to London, he had been very intimate with the Gibson family—the medical people of the place. The two brothers were in partnership, James and Edward Gibson. Their father had retired upon a bare competence, for village doctors don’t often make fortunes, leaving the practice to these two sons. The rest of his sons and daughters were out in the world—Mrs. Topcroft was one of them. William Lake’s father had been the incumbent of this parish, and the Lakes and the Gibsons were ever close friends. The incumbent died; another parson was appointed to the living; and subsequently William Lake became the new parson’s curate, upon the enjoyable stipend of fifty pounds a-year. How ridiculously improvident it was of the curate and Emily Gibson to fall in love with one another, wisdom could testify. They did; and there was an end of it, and went in for all kinds of rose-coloured visions after the fashion of such-like poor mortals in this lower world. And when he was appointed to the curacy of St. Matthew’s in London, upon a whole one hundred pounds a-year, these two people thought Dame Fortune was opening her favours upon them. They plighted their troth solemnly, and exchanged broken sixpences.
Mr. Lake was thirty-one years of age then, and Emily was nineteen. He counted forty-five now, and she thirty-three. Thirty-three! Daisy Dutton would have tossed her little impertinent head, and classed Miss Gibson with the old ladies at the Alms Houses, who were verging on ninety.