Much petting had somewhat spoiled him, and it annoyed him now, as he sat sipping his tea, to observe that the ladies were far from displeased with his tidings. “If he is a young man, he is sure not to be evangelical,” said Mrs. Hammond decisively. “That is well. That is a comfort, at any rate.”
“He will play tennis, I dare say,” said Laura.
“And Mr. Bonamy will be kept in some order now,” Mrs. Hammond continued. “Not that I am blaming you, Mr. Clode,” she added graciously — indeed, the curate was a great favorite with her, “but in your position you could do nothing with a man so impracticable.”
“He really will be an acquisition,” cried Laura gleefully, her brown eyes shining in the firelight. And she made her tiny lace handkerchief into a ball and flung it up — and did not catch it, for, with all her talk of lawn-tennis, she was no great player. Her rôle lay rather in the drawing-room. She was as fond of comfort as a cat, and loved the fire with the love of a dog, and was, in a word, pre-eminently feminine, delighting to surround herself with all such things as tended to set off this side of her nature. “But now,” she continued briskly, when the curate had recovered her handkerchief for her, “tell me what you think of him. Is he nice?”
“Certainly; I should say so,” the curate answered, smiling.
But, though he smiled, he became silent again. He was reflecting, with well-hidden bitterness, that Lindo would not only override him in the parish, but would be his rival in the particular inner clique which he affected — perhaps his rival with Laura. The thought awoke the worst nature of the man. Up to this time, though he had not been true, though he had kept back at Claversham details of his past history which a frank man would have avowed, though in the process of assimilating himself to his new surroundings he had been over-pliant, he had not been guilty of any baseness which had seemed to him a baseness, which had outraged his own conscience. But, as he reflected on the wrong which this young stranger was threatening to do him, he felt himself capable of much.
“Mrs. Hammond,” he said suddenly, “may I ask if you have destroyed Lord Dynmore’s letter which you showed me last week?”
“Destroyed Lord Dynmore’s letter!” Laura answered, speaking for her mother in a tone of comic surprise. “Do you think, sir, that we get peers’ autographs every day of the week?”
“No,” Mrs. Hammond said, waving aside her daughter’s flippancy and speaking with some stateliness. “It is not destroyed, though such things are not so rare with us as Laura pretends. But why do you ask?”
“Because the rector was not sure when Lord Dynmore meant to return to England,” Clode explained readily. “And I thought he mentioned the date in his letter to you, Mrs. Hammond.”
“I do not think so,” said Mrs. Hammond.
“Might I look?”
“Of course,” was the answer. “Will you find it, Laura? I think it is under the malachite weight in the other room.”
It was, sitting there in solitary majesty. Laura opened it, and took the liberty of glancing through it first. Then she gave it to him. “There, you unbelieving man,” she said, “you can look. But he does not say a word about his return.”
The curate read rapidly until he came to one sentence, and on this his eye dwelt a moment. “I hear with regret,” it ran, “that poor Williams is not long for this world. When he goes I shall send you an old friend of mine. I trust he will become an old friend of yours also.” Clode barely glanced at the rest of the letter, but, as he handed it back, he informed himself that it was dated in America two days before Mr. Williams’s death.
“No,” he admitted, “I was wrong. I thought he had said when he would return.”
“And you are satisfied?” said Laura.
“Perfectly,” he answered. “Perfectly!” with a little unnecessary emphasis.
He lingered long enough to give them a personal description of the new-comer — speaking always of him in words of praise — and then he took his leave. As his hand met Laura’s, his face flushed ever so slightly and his dark eyes glowed; and the girl, as she turned away, smiled furtively, knowing well, though he had never spoken, that she was the cause of this. So she was, but in part only. At that moment the curate saw something besides Laura — he saw across a narrow strait of trouble the fairer land of preferment, his footing on which once gained he might pretend to her and to many other pleasant things at present beyond his reach.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BONAMYS AT HOME.
Lindo made his first exploration of the neighborhood, not on the day after his arrival, which was taken up with his induction by the archdeacon and with other matters, but on the day after that. He chose to avoid the streets, in which he felt somewhat shy, so polite were the attentions and so curious the glances of his parishioners; and he selected instead a lane which, starting from the churchyard, seemed to plunge at once into the country. It was a pleasant lane. It lay deep sunk in a cutting through the sandstone rock — a cutting first formed, perhaps, when the great stones for the building of the church were dragged up that way. He paused halfway down the slope to look about him curiously, and was still standing when some one came round the corner before him. It was Kate Bonamy. He saw the girl’s cheek — she was alone — flush ever so slightly as their eyes met; and he noticed, too, that to all appearance she would have passed him with a bow had he not placed himself in her way. “Come,” he said, laughing frankly as he held out his hand, “you must not cut me, Miss Bonamy! Let me tell you, you have quite the aspect of an old friend, for until now I have not seen one face since I came here that was not absolutely new to me.”
“It must feel strange, no doubt,” she murmured.
“It is. I feel strange!” he replied. “I want you to tell me where this road goes to, if you please. I am so strange, I do not even know that.”
“Kingsford Carbonel,” she answered briefly.
“Ah! The archdeacon lives there, does he not?”
“Yes.”
“And the distance, please, is —— ?”
“Three miles.”
“Thank you,” he said. “Really you are as concise as a mile-stone, Miss Bonamy. And now let me remind you,” he continued — there was an air of “I am going on this moment” about her, which provoked him to detain her the longer— “that you have not yet asked me what I think of Claversham.”
“I would rather ask you in a month’s time,” Kate answered quietly, holding out her hand to take leave. “Though it is already reported in the town that you will only stay a year, Mr. Lindo.”
“I shall only stay a year!” the rector repeated in astonishment.
“Certainly,” she answered, smiling, and relapsing for a moment into the pleasant frankness of that day at Oxford— “only a year; your days are already numbered.”
“What do you mean?” he said point-blank.
“Have you never heard the old tradition that as many times as a clergyman sounds the bell at his induction, so many years will he remain in the living? And the report in Claversham is that you rang it only once.”
“You did not hear it yourself?” he said, catching her eyes suddenly, a lurking smile in his own.
Her color rose faintly. “I am not sure,” she said. Then, meeting his eyes boldly, she added in a different tone, “Yes, I did hear it.”
“Only once?”
She nodded.
“Oh, that is sad,” he answered. “Well, the tradition is new to me. If I had known it,” he added, laughing, “I should have tolled the bell at least fifty times. Clode should have instructed me; but I suppose he thought I knew. I remember now that the archdeacon did say something afterward, but I did not understand the reference. You know the archdeacon, Miss Bonamy, I suppose?”
“No,” said Kate, growing stiff again.
“Do you not? Well, at any rate you can tell me where Mrs. Hammond lives. She has kindly asked me to dine with her on Tuesday. I put my acceptance in my pocket, and thought I would deliver it myself when I came ba
ck from my walk.”
“Mrs. Hammond lives at the Town House,” Kate answered. “It is the large house among the trees by the top of the town. You cannot mistake it.”
“Shall I have the pleasure of meeting you there?” he asked, holding out his hand at last.
“No; I do not know Mrs. Hammond,” Miss Bonamy said with decision. “Good-day, Mr. Lindo.” And she was gone; rather abruptly at last.
“That is odd — very odd,” Lindo reflected as, continuing his walk, he turned to admire her graceful figure and the pretty carriage of her head. “I fancied that in these small towns every one knew every one. What sort of people are the Hammonds, I wonder? New, rich, and vulgar perhaps. It may be, and that would account for it. Yet Clode spoke highly of them.”
Something which he did not understand in the girl’s manner continued to pique the young man’s curiosity after he had parted from her, and led him to dwell more intently upon her than upon the scenery, novel as this was to him. She had shown herself at one moment so frank, and at another so stiff and constrained, that it was equally impossible to ascribe the one attitude to shyness or the other to a naturally candid manner. The rector considered the question so long, and found it so puzzling — and interesting — that on his return to town he had come to one conclusion only — that it was his immediate duty to call upon his church wardens. He had made the acquaintance of Mr. Harper, his own warden, at his induction. It remained therefore to call upon Mr. Bonamy, the peoples’ warden. When he had taken his lunch, it seemed to him that there was no time like the present.
He had no difficulty in finding Mr. Bonamy’s house, which stood in the middle of the town, about halfway down Bridge Street. It was a substantial, respectable residence of brick, not detached nor withdrawn from the roadway. It had nothing aristocratic in its appearance, and was known by a number. Its eleven windows, of which the three lowest rejoiced in mohair blinds, were sombre, its doorway was heavy. In a word, it was a respectable middle-class house in a dull street in a country town — a house suggestive of early dinners and set teas. The rector felt chilled by its very appearance; but he knocked, and presently a maid-servant opened the door about a foot. “Is Mr. Bonamy at home?” he said.
“No, sir,” the girl drawled, holding the door as if she feared he might attempt to enter by force, “he is not.”
“Ah, I am sorry I have missed him,” said the clergyman, handling his card-case. “Do you know at what time he is likely to return?”
“No, sir, I don’t,” replied the girl, who was all eyes for the strange rector; “but I expect Miss Kate does. Will you walk up-stairs, sir? and I will tell her.”
“Perhaps I had better,” he answered, pocketing his card-case. Accordingly he walked in, and followed the servant to the drawing-room, where she poked the sinking fire and induced a sickly blaze.
Left to himself — for Kate was not there — he looked round curiously, and as he looked the sense of disappointment which he had felt at sight of the house grew upon him. It was a cold, uncomfortable room. It had a set, formal look, which was not quaintness, nor harmony, and which was strange to the Londoner. It was so neat: every article in it had a place, and was in its place, and apparently never had been out of its place. There was a vase of chrysanthemums on the large centre table, but the rector thought they must be wax, they were so prim. There were other wax flowers — which he hated. He almost shivered as he looked at the four walls. He felt obliged to sit upright on his chair, and to place his hat exactly in the middle of a square of the carpet, and to ponder over the question of what the maid had done with the poker. For she had certainly not stirred the fire with the bright and shining thing which lay in evidence in the fender.
He was in the act of rising cautiously with the intention of solving this mystery, when the door opened and the elder sister came in, Daintry following her. “My father is not in, Mr. Lindo,” Kate said, advancing to meet him, and shaking hands with him.
“No; so I learned down-stairs,” he answered. “But I — —”
The girl — she had scarcely turned from him — cut him short with an exclamation of dismay. “Oh, Daintry, you naughty girl!” she cried. “You have brought Snorum up.”
“Well,” said Daintry simply — a large white dog, half bull-dog, half terrier, with red-rimmed eyes and projecting teeth, had crept in at her heels— “he followed me.”
“You know papa would be so angry if he found him here.”
“But I only want him to see Mr. Lindo. You are unkind, Kate! You know he never gets a chance of seeing a stranger.”
“You want to know if he likes me?” the rector said, laughing.
“That is it,” she answered, nodding.
But Kate, though she laughed, was inexorable. She bundled the big dog out. “Do you know, she has two more like that, Mr. Lindo?” she said, apologetically.
“Snip and Snap,” said Daintry. “But they are not like that. They are smaller. Jack gave me Snorum, and Snip and Snap are Snorum’s sons.”
“It is quite a genealogy,” the rector said, smiling.
“Yes, and Jack was the Genesis. Genesis means beginning, you know,” Daintry explained.
“Daintry, you must go down-stairs if you talk nonsense,” Kate said imperatively. She was looking, the young man thought, prettier than ever in a gray and blue plaid frock and the neatest of collars and cuffs. As for Daintry, she shrugged her shoulders under the rebuke, and lolled in one of the stiff-backed chairs, her attitude much like that of a vine clinging to a telegraph-post.
Her wilfulness had one happy effect, however. The rector in his amusement forgot the chill formality of the room and the dull respectability of the house’s exterior. For half an hour he talked on without a thought of the gentleman whom he had come to see. Some inkling of the circumstances of the case which had entered his head before the sisters’ appearance faded again, and in gazing on the pure animated faces of the two girls he quickly lost sight of the evidences of lack of taste which appeared in their surroundings. If Kate, on her side, forgot for a moment certain chilling realities and surrendered herself to the pleasure of the moment, it must be remembered that hitherto — in Claversham, at least — her experience of men had been confined to Dr. Gregg and his fellows, and also that none of us, even the wisest and proudest, are always on guard.
Mr. Bonamy not appearing, Reginald left at last, perfectly assured that the half-hour he had just spent was the pleasantest he had spent in Claversham. He went out of the house in a gentle glow of enthusiasm. The picture of Kate Bonamy, trim and neat, with her hair in a bright knot, and laughter softening her eyes, remained with him, and he walked half-way down the street lost in a delightful reverie.
He was aroused by the approach of a tall, elderly man who had just turned the corner before him, and was now advancing along the pavement with long, rapid strides. The stranger, who seemed about sixty, wore a wide-skirted black coat, and had a tall silk hat, from under which the gray hairs straggled thinly, set far back on his head. His figure was spare, his face sallow, his features prominent. His mouth was peevish, his eyes sharp and saturnine. As he walked he kept one hand in his trousers’-pocket, the other swung by his side. The rector looked at him a moment in doubt, and then stopped him. “Mr. Bonamy, I am sure?” he said, holding out his hand.
“Yes, I am,” replied the other, fixing him with a penetrating glance. “And you, sir?”
“May I introduce myself? I have just called at your house, and, unluckily, failed to find you at home. I am Mr. Lindo.”
“Oh, the new rector!” said Mr. Bonamy, putting out a cold hand, while the chill glitter of his eye lost none of its steeliness.
“Yes, and I am glad to have intercepted you,” Lindo continued, with a little color in his cheek, and speaking quickly under the influence of his late enthusiasm, which as yet was proof against the lawyer’s reserve. “For I have been extremely anxious to make your acquaintance, and, indeed, to say something particular to you, Mr. Bonamy.”
The elder man bowed to hide a smile. “As church warden, I presume?” he said smoothly.
“Yes, and — and generally. I am quite aware, Mr. Bonamy,” continued the rash young man in a fervor of frankness, “that you were not disposed to look upon my appointment — the appointment of a complete stranger, I mean — with favor.”
“May I ask who told you that?” said Bonamy abruptly.
The young clergyman colored. “Well, I — perhaps you will excuse me saying how I learned it,” he answered, beginning to see that he would have done better to be more reticent. There is no mistake which youth more often makes than that of arousing sleeping dogs, and trying to explain things which a wiser man would pass over in silence. Mr. Bonamy had his own reasons for regarding the parson with suspicion, and had no mind to be addressed in the indulgent vein. Nor was he propitiated when Lindo added, “I learned your feeling, if I may say so, by an accident.”
“Then I think you should have kept knowledge so gained to yourself!” the lawyer retorted.
The rector started and turned crimson under the reproof. His dignity was new and tender, and the other’s tone was offensive in the last degree. Yet the young man tried to control himself, and for the moment succeeded. “Possibly,” he said, with some stiffness. “My only motive in mentioning the latter, however, was this, that I hope in a short time, by appealing to you for your hearty co-operation, to overcome any prejudices you may have entertained.”
“My prejudices are rather strong,” the lawyer answered grimly. “You are quite at liberty to try, however, Mr. Lindo. But I may as well warn you of one thing now, as frankness seems to be in fashion. I have just been told that you are meditating considerable changes in our church here. Now, I must tell you this, that I object to anything new — anything new, and not only to new incumbents!” with a smile which somewhat softened his last words.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 21