The New Rector. Weyman Stanley John

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ anyone else, perhaps from her half an hour before, he would have resented mention of the matter. Now he did not seem to mind. "Something of the kind," he said, laughing.

      "About the sheep in the churchyard, was it not?" she continued.

      "Yes."

      "Well, will you pardon me saying something?" Resting both her hands on the raised lid of the piano, she looked up at him, and it must be confessed that he thought he had never seen eyes so soft and brilliant before. "It is only this," she said earnestly. "That I hope you will not give way to him. He is a wretched, cross-grained, fidgety man and full of crotchets. You know all about him, of course?" she added, a slight ring of pride in her voice.

      "I know that he is my church warden," said the rector, half in seriousness.

      "Yes!" she replied. "That is just what he is fit for!"

      "You think so?" Lindo retorted, smiling. "Then you really mean that I should be guided by him? That is it?"

      She looked brightly at him for a moment. "I think you will be guided only by yourself," she murmured; and, blushing slightly, she nodded and left him to go to another guest.

      They were all in the same tale. "He is a rude overbearing man, Mr. Lindo," Mrs. Hammond said roundly, even her good nature giving place to the odium theologicum. "And I cannot imagine why Mr. Williams put up with him so long."

      "No indeed," said the archdeacon's wife, complacently smoothing down her skirt. "But that is the worst of a town parish. You have this sort of people."

      Mrs. Hammond looked for the moment as if she would have liked to deny it. But under the circumstances this was impossible. "I am afraid we have," she admitted gloomily. "I hope Mr. Lindo will know how to deal with him."

      "I think the archdeacon would," said the other lady, shaking her head sagely.

      But, naturally enough, the archdeacon was more guarded in his expressions. "It is about removing the sheep from the churchyard, is it not?" he said, when he and Lindo happened to be left standing together and the subject came up. "They have been there a long time, you know."

      "That is true, I suppose," the rector answered. "But," he continued rather warmly-"you do not approve of their presence there, archdeacon?"

      "No, certainly not."

      "Nor do I. And, thinking the removal right, and the responsibility resting upon me, ought I not to undertake it?"

      "Possibly," replied the older man. "But pardon me making a suggestion. Is not the thing of so little importance that you may, with a good conscience, prefer quiet to the trouble of raising it?"

      "If the matter were to end there, I think so," replied the new rector, with perhaps too strong an assumption of wisdom in his tone. "But what if this be only a test case? – if to give way here means to encourage further trespass on my right of judgment? The affair would bear a different aspect then, would it not?"

      "Oh, no doubt. No doubt it would."

      And that was all the archdeacon, who was a cautious man and knew Mr. Bonamy, would say. But it will be observed that the rector had both altered his standpoint and done another thing which most people find easy enough. He had discovered an answer to his own arguments.

      CHAPTER VIII

      TWO SURPRISES

      On the evening of the Hammonds' party, Mr. Clode sat alone in his room, trying to compose himself to work. His lamp burned brightly, and his tea kettle-he had already sent down his frugal dinner an hour or more-murmured pleasantly on the hob. But for some reason Mr. Clode could do no work. He was restless, gloomy, ill-satisfied. The suspicions which had been aroused in his breast on the evening of the rector's arrival had received, up to to-day at least, no confirmation; but they had grown, as suspicions will, feeding on themselves, and with them had grown the jealousy which had fostered them into being. The curate saw himself already overshadowed by his superior, socially and in the parish; and this evening felt this the more keenly that, as he sat in his little room, he could picture perfectly the gay scene at the Town House, where, for nearly two years, not a party had taken place without his presence, no festivity had been arranged without his co-operation. The omission to invite him to-night, however natural it might seem to others, had for him a tremendous significance; so that from a jealousy that was general he leapt at once to a jealousy more particular, and conjured up a picture of Laura-with whose disposition he was not unacquainted-smiling on the stranger, and weaving about him the same charming net which had caught his own feet.

      At this thought Clode sprang up with a passionate gesture and began to walk to and fro, his brow dark. He felt sure that Lindo had no right to his cure, but he knew also that the cure was a freehold, and that to oust the rector from it something more than a mere mistake would have to be shown. If the rector should turn out to be very incompetent, if he should fall on evil times in the parish, then indeed he might find his seat untenable when the mistake should be discovered; and with an eye to this the curate had already dropped a word here and there-as, for instance, that word which had reached Mr. Bonamy. But Clode was not satisfied with that now. Was there no shorter, no simpler course possible? There was one. The rector might be shown to have been aware of the error when he took advantage of it. In that case his appointment would be vitiated, and he might be compelled to forego it.

      Naturally enough, the curate had scarcely formulated this to himself before he became convinced-in his present state of envy and suspicion-of the rector's guilt. But how was he to prove it? As he walked up and down the room, chafing and hot-eyed, he thought of a way in which proof might be secured. The letters which had passed between Lindo and Lord Dynmore's agents in regard to the presentation, must surely contain some word, some expression sufficient to have apprised the young man of the truth-that the living was intended not for him but for his uncle. A look at those letters, if they were in existence, might give Stephen Clode, mere curate though he was, the whip-hand of his rector!

      He had another plan in his mind, of which more presently, and probably he would have pursued the idea which has just been mentioned no farther if his eye had not chanced to light at the moment on a small key hanging upon a nail by the fireplace. Clode looked at the key, and his face flushed. He stood thinking and apparently hesitating, the lamp throwing his features into strong relief, while a man might count twenty. Then he sat down with an angry exclamation and plunged into his work. But in less than a minute he lifted his head. His glance wandered again to the key; and, getting up suddenly, he took it down, put on his hat, and went out.

      His lodgings were over the stationer's shop, but he could go in and out through a private passage. He saw, as he passed, however; that there was a light in the shop, and he opened the side door. "I am going to the rectory to consult a book, Mrs. Wafer," he said, seeing his landlady dusting the counter. "You can leave my lamp alight. I shall want nothing more to-night, thank you."

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, СКАЧАТЬ