The Doctor prolonged his stroll and reached home about half-past eleven. A third of his life had been spent in Langborough. He remembered the day he came and the unpacking of his books. They lined the walls of his room, some of them rare, all of them his friends. Nobody in Langborough had ever asked him to lend a single volume. The solitary scholar never forsook his studies, but at times he sighed over them and they seemed a little vain. They were not entirely without external effect, for Pope and Swift in disguise often spoke to the vestry or the governors, and the Doctor’s manners even in the shops were moulded by his intercourse with the classic dead. Their names, however, in Langborough were almost unknown. He had now become hardened by constant unsympathetic contact. Suddenly a stranger had appeared who was an inhabitant of his own world and talked his own tongue. The prospect of genuine intercourse disclosed itself. None but those who have felt it can imagine the relief, the joyous expansion, which follow the discovery after long years of imprisonment with decent people of a person before whom it is unnecessary to stifle what we most care to express. No wonder he was excited!
But the stranger was a woman. He meditated much that morning on her singular aptitude for reflection, but he presently began to dream over figure, hair, eyes, hands. A picture in the most vivid colours painted itself before him, and he could not close his eyes to it. He was distressed to find himself the victim of this unaccustomed tyranny. He did not know that it is impossible for a man to love a woman’s soul without loving her body. There is no such thing as a spiritual love apart from a corporeal love, the one celestial and the other earthly, and the spiritual love begets a passion peculiar in its intensity. He was happily diverted by Mr. Bingham, who called about a coming contested election for the governorships.
Next week there was another tea-party at Mrs. Cobb’s. The ladies were in high spirits, for a subject of conversation was assured. If there had been an inquest, or a marriage, or a highway robbery before one of these parties, or if the contents of a will had just been made known, or still better, if any scandal had just come to light, the guests were always cheerful. Now, of course, the topic was Dr. Midleton and Mrs. Fairfax.
“When I found him in that back parlour,” said Mrs. Harrop, “I thought he wasn’t there to pay the usual call. Somehow it didn’t seem as if he was like a clergyman. I felt quite queer: it came over me all of a sudden. And then we know he’s been there once or twice since.”
“I don’t wonder at your feeling queer, Mrs. Harrop,” quoth Mrs. Cobb. “I’m sure I should have fainted; and what brazen boldness to walk out together on the Common at nine o’clock in the morning. That girl who brought in the tea—it’s my belief that a young man goes after her—but even they wouldn’t demean themselves to be seen at it just after breakfast.”
“You don’t mean to say as your Deborah encourages a man, Mrs. Cobb! I don’t know what we are a-comin’ to. You’ve always been so particular, and she seemed so respectable. I am sorry.”
Mrs. Cobb did not quite relish Mrs. Harrop’s pity.
“You may be sure, Mrs. Harrop, she was respectable when I took her, and if she isn’t I shan’t keep her. I am particular, more so than most folk, and I don’t mind who knows it.” Mrs. Cobb threw back her cap strings. The denial that she minded who knew it may not appear relevant, but desiring to be spiteful she could not at the moment find a better way of showing her spite than by declaring her indifference to the publication of her virtues. If there was no venom in the substance of the declaration there was much in the manner of it. Mrs. Bingham brought back the conversation to the point.
“I suppose you’ve heard what Mrs. Jenkins says? Your husband also, Mrs. Harrop, met them both.”
“Yes he did. He was not quite in time to see as much as Mrs. Jenkins saw, and I’m glad he didn’t. I shouldn’t have felt comfortable if I’d known he had. A clergyman, too! it is shocking. A nice business, this, for the Dissenters.”