“I am very glad, dear. I feared you might have doubts about leaving the parish.”
“After all,” said Mary, “we have done everything we could for the parish; and perhaps a little novelty would be good for them now. Uncle Hugh will be very particular in choosing a very good man to succeed you. And we have done everything we could; perhaps a new curate who is a novelty may be better for the parish too.”
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRST CHANGE.
THERE was a good deal of difficulty made among the relations about this removal. The ladies particularly were very decided on the subject. Who would look after Mary? who would see that she did not do too much, that she took proper nourishment, that she had from time to time a new gown, if she went away? “She will never think of these things for herself,” said Mrs. Prescott at the Hall to Mrs. Prescott at the Rectory. “She will give everything to the children. She will think of him and them, and never of herself.”
“But I don’t see what we can do,” said the clergyman’s wife. “We cannot keep them here against their will. It is a far better income than Hugh can afford to give. And with children coming so fast, they will soon have to think of education and all that. I don’t like it any more than you do,” added the clerical lady, “but what can we do?”
They, however, all felt that Mary’s satisfaction in the change was ungrateful and almost unnatural.
“You will never know the advantages you have had till you go away,” her aunt said to her. “You have always had some one to refer to, some one to take you out a little and make you forget your cares. But among strangers it will be different. You don’t know how different it will be.”
Perhaps Mary was a little ungrateful. She did not estimate at their due value the dinners at the Hall to which she and the curate had often gone quite unwillingly, though the givers of these entertainments thought it was a great thing for the young couple to have somebody who was always ready to ask them. Young couples are apt to be ungrateful in this way, to think little of the home invitations, and to prefer their own company to that of their relatives; and Mary had not been better than others in this respect. She and Mr. Asquith had said to each other that it was a bore when they went to the Hall to dine. They had said to each other that their evenings at home were much more delightful. Though Mary at this period would not have believed it possible, yet there were moments in later years when they would have found it very agreeable to return to those old dinners at the Hall: but of that she was at present quite unaware. She was, indeed, it must be allowed, a little too exultant and happy about her move. To think that this advancement had been offered to the curate, such an important post, so much superior to anything that could have been hoped for at this early stage, elated her beyond measure. And the increased income was a great thing. Giving up at once, and with great ease, the idea of training young servants to such perfection that people should come far and near to compete for a maid who had been with Mrs. Asquith, which was her first ideal, Mary rejoiced in the prospect of getting a real servant, a woman who knew her work, “a thorough good maid-of-all-work,” she said with importance, as if she had been speaking of a groom of the chambers. “Oh, the relief it will be just to tell her what has to be done, without having to show her everything!” Mrs. Asquith said.