"But I am not fond of fine people--nor have I so many acquaintances."

"Oh, you Oxford dons know everybody. They all pa.s.s through your hands.

Come along, it will be quite a pleasure for my wife to see you.

Adelaide, I am bringing you some one who will be a surprise to you as well as a pleasure. Mr. Mildmay, our new rector, my dear."

"Our new rector!" Mrs. Ascott said, with a subdued outcry of surprise.

She was seated in a corner of a large light room with three or four large windows looking out upon a charming lawn and garden, beyond which appeared the tufted undulations of the common, and the smooth green turf and white posts of the race-ground. With a house like this, looking out upon so interesting a spot, no one need be surprised that Mrs. Ascott's fine friends "kept her up," and that for at least one week in the year she was as popular and sought after as any queen. Though it was only one week in the year, it had a certain influence upon her manners. She lived all the year through in a state of reflected glory from this brief but ever-recurring climax of existence. The air of conferring a favour, the look of gracious politeness, yet preoccupation, which suited a woman over-balanced by the claims of many candidates for her hospitality, never departed from her. She gave that little cry of surprise just as she would have done had her husband brought a stranger to her to see if she could give him a bed for the race week. "I am delighted to make Mr.

Mildmay's acquaintance," she said; "but, my dear, I thought there was going to be an effort made for poor Mr. St. John?" This was in a lower tone, as she might have said, "But there is only one spare room, and that I have promised to Mr. St. John." Her husband laughed.

"I told you, my dear, that was nonsense. What do ladies know of such matters? They talked of some foolish pet.i.tion or other to the Lord Chancellor, as if the Lord Chancellor had anything to do with it! You may be very thankful you had me behind you, my dear, to keep you from such a foolish mistake. No; Mr. Mildmay has it, and I am very glad. The dons have done themselves credit by their choice, and we are in great luck. I hope you will not be like your predecessor, Mr. Mildmay, and take a dislike to the parish. We must do our best, Adelaide, to prevent that."

"Indeed, I hope so," said the lady. "I am sure I am delighted. I think I have met some relations of yours, Mr. Mildmay--the Hamptons of Thornbury? Yes; I felt sure I had heard them mention you. You recollect, Henry, they lunched with us here the year before last, on the cup day?

They came with Lady Teddington--charming people. And you know all the Teddingtons, of course? What a nice family they are! We see a great deal of Lord Charles, who is often in this neighbourhood. His dear mother is often rather anxious about him. I fear--I fear he is just a little disposed to be what you gentlemen call fast."

"We gentlemen don't mince our words," said her husband; "rowdy young scamp, that is what I call him; bad lot."

"You are very severe, Henry--very severe--except when it is a favourite of your own. How glad I am we are getting some one we know to the rectory. When do you take possession, Mr. Mildmay? We shall be quite near neighbours, and will see a great deal of you, I hope."

"I do not feel quite sure, since I have been here, whether I will come to the rectory at all," said Mildmay. "Mr. St. John was so hasty in his announcement, that I feel myself a swindler coming here under false pretences. I have not made up my mind whether I will accept the living or not."

"Since you have been here? Then you don't like the place," said Mr.

Ascott. "I must say I am surprised. I think you are hasty, as well as St. John. Poor Chester, to be sure, did not like it, but that was because he thought it did not agree with him. The greatest nonsense! it is as healthy a place as any in England; it has a hundred advantages.

Perhaps this sort of thing mayn't suit you as a clergyman," he said, waving his hand towards the distant race-course; "but it gives a great deal of life to the place."

"And so near town," said Mrs. Ascott; "and such nice people in the neighbourhood! Indeed, Mr. Mildmay, you must let us persuade you; you must really stay."

"Come, now," cried her husband, "let's talk it over. What's your objection? Depend upon it, Adelaide, it is those pets of yours, the St.

John's who have been putting nonsense into his head."

"Poor things, what do they know!" said Mrs. Ascott, with a sigh. "But indeed, Mr. Mildmay, now that we have seen you, and have a chance of some one we can like, with such nice connections, we cannot let you go."

This was all very flattering and pleasant. "You are extremely kind,"

said Mildmay. "I must put it to the credit of my relations, for I have no right to so much kindness. No, it is not any objection to the place.

It is a still stronger objection. I heard Mrs. Ascott herself speak of some effort to be made for Mr. St. John----"

"I--what did I say?" cried the lady. "Mr. St. John? Yes, I was sorry, of course; very sorry."

"It was all nonsense," said the husband. "I told her so. She never meant it; only what could she say to the girls when they appealed to her? She is a soft-hearted goose--eh, Adelaide? One prefers women to be so. But as for old St. John, it is sheer nonsense. Poor old fellow! yes, I am sorry for him. But whose fault is it? He knew Chester's life was not worth _that_; yet he has hung on, taking no trouble, doing nothing for himself. It is not your part or our part to bother our minds for a man who does nothing for himself."

"That is true enough," said Mildmay; "but his long services to the parish, his age, his devotion to his work--it does not seem right. I don't say for you or for me, but in the abstract----"

"Devotion?" said Mr. Ascott. "Oh yes; he has done his work well enough, I suppose. That's what is called devotion when a man dies or goes away.

Yes, oh yes, we may allow him the credit of that, the poor old fogey, but--yes, oh yes, a good old fellow enough. When you have said that, there's no more to say. Perhaps in the abstract it was a shame that Chester should have the lion's share of the income, and St. John all the work; but that's all over; and as for any hesitation of yours on his account----"

"It may be foolish," said the young man, "but I do hesitate--I cannot help feeling that there is a great wrong involved--to Mr. St. John, of course, in the first place--but without even thinking of any individual, it is a sort of thing that must injure the Church; and I don't like to be the instrument of injuring the Church."

"Tut--tut--tut!" said Mr. Ascott; "your conscience is too tender by far."

"Mr. Mildmay," said the lady sweetly, "you must not expect me to follow such deep reasoning. I leave that to superior minds; but you ought to think what a great thing it is for a parish to have some one to look up to--some one the poor people can feel to be really their superior."

"Not a poor beggar of a curate," cried her husband. "There, Adelaide!

you have hit the right nail on the head. That's the true way to look at the subject. Poor old St. John! I don't say he's been well treated by destiny. He has had a deal of hard work, and he has stuck to it; but, bless you! how is a man like that to be distinguished from a Dissenting preacher, for instance? Of course, he's a clergyman, in orders and all that, as good as the Archbishop of Canterbury; but he has no position--no means--nothing to make him the centre of the parish, as the clergyman ought to be. Why, the poorest labourer in the parish looks down upon the curate. 'Parson's just as poor as we is,' they say. I've heard them. He has got to run up bills in the little shops, and all that, just as they have. He has no money to relieve them with when they're out of work. The farmers look down upon him. They think nothing of a man that's poor; and as for the gentry----"

"Stop, Henry," said Mrs. Ascott; "the gentry have always been very kind to the St. Johns. We were always sorry for the girls. Poor things! their mother was really quite a lady, though I never heard that she had anything. We were all grieved about this last sad affair, when he married the governess; and I should always have made a point of being kind to the girls. That is a very different thing, however, Mr.

Mildmay," she added, with a sweet smile, "from having a clergyman whom one can really look up to, and who will be a friend and neighbour as well as a clergyman. You will stay to luncheon? I think I hear the bell."

CHAPTER XIII.

WHAT THE GIRLS COULD DO.

Mildmay left the house of the Ascotts hurriedly at this intimation. He thought them pleasant people enough--for who does not think those people pleasant who flatter and praise him?--but he would not allow himself to be persuaded out of his determination to return to the rectory. I must add however that his mind was in a more confused state than ever as he skirted the common by the way the curate had taken him on the previous night. There were two sides to every question; that could not be gainsaid. To leave Brentburn after pa.s.sing twenty years here in arduous discharge of all the rector's duties, but with the rank and remuneration only of the curate, was an injury too hard to contemplate to Mr. St.

John; but then it was not Mildmay's fault that he should interfere at his own cost to set it right. It was not even the fault of the parish.

It was n.o.body's fault but his own, foolish as he was, neglecting all chances of "bettering himself." If a man would do nothing for himself, how could it be the duty of others, of people no way connected with him, scarcely knowing him, to do it for him? This argument was unanswerable; nothing could be more reasonable, more certain; and yet--Mildmay felt that he himself was young, that the rectory of Brentburn was not much to him one way or the other. He had wanted it as the means of living a more real life than that which was possible to him in his college rooms; but he had no stronger reason, no special choice of the place, no conviction that he could do absolute good here; and why should he then take so lightly what it would cost him nothing to reject, but which was everything to the curate? Then, on the other hand, there was the parish to consider. What if--extraordinary as that seemed--it did not want Mr.

St. John? What if really his very poverty, his very gentleness, made him unsuitable for it? The argument seemed a miserable one, so far as the money went; but it might be true. The Ascotts, for instance, were the curate's friends; but this was their opinion. Altogether Mr. Mildmay was very much perplexed on the subject. He wished he had not come to see for himself, just as an artist has sometimes been sorry for having consulted that very troublesome reality, Nature, who will not lend herself to any theory. If he had come without any previous inspection of the place, without any knowledge of the circ.u.mstances, how much better it would have been! Whereas now he was weighed down by the consideration of things with which he had really nothing to do. As he went along, full of these thoughts, he met the old woman whom he had first spoken to by the duck-pond on the day before, and who had invited him to sit down in her cottage. To his surprise--for he did not at first recollect who she was--she made him a curtsy, and stopped short to speak to him. As it was in the full blaze of the midday sunshine, Mildmay would very gladly have escaped--not to say that he was anxious to get back to the rectory, and to finish, as he persuaded himself was quite necessary, his conversation with Cicely. Old Mrs. Joel, however, stood her ground. She had an old-fashioned large straw bonnet on her head, which protected her from the sun; and besides, was more tolerant of the sunshine, and more used to exposure than he was.

"Sir," she said, "I hear as you're the new gentleman as is coming to our parish. I am a poor woman, sir, the widow o' Job Joel, as was about Brentburn church, man and boy, for more than forty year. He began in the choir, he did, and played the fiddle in the old times; and then, when that was done away with, my husband he was promoted to be clerk, and died in it. They could not ezackly make me clerk, seeing as I'm nothing but a woman; but d.i.c.k Williams, as is the s.e.xton, ain't married, and I've got the cleaning of the church, and the pew-opening, if you please, sir; and I hope, sir, as you won't think it's nothing but justice to an old servant, to let me stay?"

"What do you think of Mr. St. John going away?" asked Mildmay abruptly.

The old woman stared, half alarmed, and made him another curtsy, to occupy the time till she could think how to answer. "Mr. St. John, sir?

He's a dear good gentleman, sir; as innocent as a baby. When he's gone, sir, they will find the miss of him," she said, examining his face keenly to see how he meant her to answer, which is one of the highest arts of the poor.

"If he goes away, after being here so long, why shouldn't you be sent away, too?" said Mildmay. He felt how absurd was this questioning, as of an oracle, which came from the confused state of his own mind, not from any expectation of an answer; and then he could not but smile to himself at the idea of thus offering up a victim to the curate's _manes_.

Mrs. Joel was much startled. "Lord bless us!" she said, making a step backwards. Then commanding herself, "It weren't Mr. St. John, sir, as gave me my place; but the rector hisself. Mr. St. John is as good as gold, but he ain't not to say my master. Besides, there's a many as can do the parson's work, but there ain't many, not in this parish, as could do mine. Mr. St. John would be a loss--but me, sir----"

Here she made another curtsy, and Mildmay laughed in spite of himself.

"You--would be a greater loss?" he said. "Well, perhaps so; but if there are any good reasons why he should leave, there must be the same for you."

"I don't see it, sir," said Mrs. Joel promptly. "The parson's old, and he's a bit past his work; but I defy any one in the parish to say as the church ain't as neat as a new pin. Mr. St. John's getting a bit feeble in the legs; he can't go long walks now like once he could. Me! I may be old, but as for my mop and my duster, I ain't behind n.o.body. Lord bless you! it's a very different thing with Mr. St. John from what it is with me. He's got those girls of his to think upon, and those little children. What's he got to do with little children at his age? But I've n.o.body but myself to go troubling _my_ brains about. I thinks o' my work, and nought else. You won't get another woman in the parish as will do it as cheap and as comfortable as me."

"But don't you think," said Mildmay--whose conduct I cannot excuse, and whose only apology is that his mind was entirely occupied with one subject--"don't you think it is very hard upon Mr. St. John at his age, to go away?"

Mrs. Joel found herself in a dilemma. She had no desire to speak ill of the curate, but if she spoke too well of him, might not that annoy the new rector, and endanger her own cause? She eyed him very keenly, never taking her eyes off his face, to be guided by its changes. "Between gentlefolks and poor folks," she said at last, philosophically, "there's a great gulf fixed, as is said in the Bible. They can't judge for us, nor us for them. He's a deal abler to speak up for hisself, and settle for hisself, than the likes o' me; and I reckon as he could stay on if he'd a mind to; but me, sir, it's your pleasure as I've got to look to,"

said the old woman, with another curtsy. This oracle, it was clear, had no response or guidance to give.

"Well," he said, carelessly, "I will speak to Miss St. John--for I don't know about the parish; and if she approves----"

A gleam of intelligence came into the keen old eyes which regarded him so closely; the old face lighted up with a twinkle of mingled pleasure, and malice, and kindness. "If that's so, the Lord be praised!" she cried; "and I hope, sir, it's Miss Cicely; for if ever there was a good wife, it's her dear mother as is dead and gone; and Miss Cicely's her very breathing image. Good morning to you, and G.o.d bless you, sir, and I hope as I haven't made too bold."

What does the old woman mean? Mildmay said to himself bewildered. He repeated the question over and over again as he pursued his way to the rectory. What was it to him that Cicely St. John was like her mother?

The curate, too, had insisted upon this fact as if it was of some importance. What interest do they suppose me to take in the late Mrs.

St. John? he said, with great surprise and confusion to himself.

Meanwhile, the girls in the rectory had been fully occupied. When their father went out, they held a council of war together, at which indeed Mab did not do much more than question and a.s.sent, for her mind was not inventive or full of resource as Cicely's was. It was she, however, who opened the consultation. "What were you saying to Mr. Mildmay in the garden?" said Mab. "You told him something. He did not look the same to-day as he did last night."