The New Rector

by Stanley John Weyman

“A promise. The earl had promised his old friend that he should have this living. Lord Dynmore told me so himself, the last time I saw him. That would be nearly a year ago, when poor Williams was already ailing.”

“Well, that I supposed to be the case,” Clode answered, his tone one of disappointment. “But I do not quite see how I was affected by it—more, I mean, than others, archdeacon.”

“That is what I am going to tell you, only it must not go farther,” the archdeacon answered. “Lord Dynmore told me of this promise à propos of a resolution he had just come to—namely, that, subject to it, he intended in future to give his livings (he has seven in all, you know) to the curate, wherever the latter had been two years at least in the parish, and stood well with it. I am not sure that I agree with him; but he is a conscientious man, though an odd one, and he had formed the opinion that that was the right course. So, come now, if anything should happen to Lindo you would certainly drop into it. I am not quite sure,” added the archdeacon confidentially, “though no one likes Lindo better than I do, that yours would not have been the better appointment.”

The curate disclaimed this so warmly and loyally that the archdeacon was more than ever pleased with him; and, half-past seven striking, they parted at the door of the reading-room on the best of terms with one another. The archdeacon crossed to his supper and speech, and the curate turned into his rooms, and, throwing himself into the big leather chair before the fire, fixed his eyes on the glowing coals, and began to think—to apply what he had just heard to what he had known before.

A living? He had got to get a living. And without capital to invest in one, or the favor of a patron, how was it to be done? The bishop? He had no claim there. He had not been long enough in the diocese, and he knew nothing of the bishop’s wife. There was only one living he could get, only one living upon which he had a claim, and that was Claversham. It all came back to that—with this added, that he had now a stronger motive than ever for ejecting Lindo from it, and the absolute knowledge to boot that, Lindo ejected, he would be his successor.

Stephen Clode’s face grew dark and gloomy as he reached this stage in his reflections. He believed that the rector was enjoying what he had no right to enjoy, but still he would fain have had no distinct part in depriving him of it. He would have much preferred to stand by and, save by a word here and there, by little acts scarcely palpable, and quite incapable of proof—do nothing himself to injure him. He knew what loyalty was, and would fain have been loyal in big things at least. But he did not see how it could be done. He fancied that the stir against the rector was dying away. Bonamy had not moved. Gregg was a coward, and of this matter of the “Free Foresters” he thought nothing. Probably they would return to their allegiance another year, and among the poor the rector’s liberality would soon make friends for him. Altogether, the curate, getting up and walking the room restlessly and with a knitted brow, was forced to the conviction that, if he would be helped, he must help himself, and that now was the time. The iron must be struck before it cooled. Something must be done.

But what? Clode’s mind reverted first to the discharged servant, and discussed more than one way in which he might be used. There was an amount of danger, however, in tampering with him which the thinker’s astuteness did not fail to note, and which led him presently to determine to leave Felton alone. Perhaps he had made as much capital out of him as could be made with safety.

From him the curate’s thoughts passed naturally to the packet of letters in the cupboard at the rectory, the letters which he had once held in his hand, and which he could not but believe would prove the rector’s knowledge of the fraud he was committing. Those letters! Clode, walking up and down the room, pishing and pshawing from time to time, could not disentangle his thoughts from them. The narrow chance which had prevented him reading them before somehow made him feel the more certain of their value now—the more anxious to hold them again in his hands.

Were they still in the cupboard, he wondered. He had retained, not with any purpose, but in pure inadvertence, the key which he had mentioned to the rector; and he had it now. He took it from the mantel-shelf, toyed with it, dropped it into his pocket. Then he took up his hat, and was going abruptly from the room when the little servant who waited on him met him. She was bringing up his simple dinner. The curate’s first impulse was to order it to be taken down and kept warm for him. His second, to resume his seat and eat it hastily. When he had finished—he could not have said an hour later what he had had—he took his hat again and went out.

Two minutes saw him at the rectory door, where he was just in time to meet the rector going out. Lindo’s face flushed as he saw who his visitor was, and there was more than a suspicion of haughtiness in his tone as he greeted him. “Good-evening,” he said. “Do you want to see me, Mr. Clode?”