CHAPTER XL.

For many weeks the poor Curate had been indeed alone; for so long had his old companions, hope and cheerfulness, deserted him; for so long had he gone mechanically about his old pursuits, feeling that the glory had departed from them, and sat in the stormy autumn evenings by a hearth where only the vacant pedestals reminded him of the wonted presence of household gods.

Time, of whose lapse heretofore he had taken little note, became now a dull, remorseless enemy. The Curate, when he woke, would sometimes shudder at the prospect of the many-houred day between him and the grateful oblivion of sleep; for the day, formerly so busy, was now to him but a long tract of weary, reiterated sorrows.

Though he still spent many hours in his garden, it was lamentable to see the change there. Weeds sprung unregarded side by side with his choicest flowers—worms revelled in his tenderest buds—and the caterpillars were so numerous as to form quite an army of occupation. His books, too, were blank to him—the pages he used to love seemed meaningless. His only remaining consolation was his pipe.

See, then, the Curate sitting in the twilight in his elbow-chair, in an attitude at once listless and uncomfortable, his waist bent sharply in, his head drooping, one leg gathered under the seat, the other straddling toward the fire, his right hand shading his eyes, while the elbow rests on the table—the left holding the bowl of his pipe, while the elbow rests on the arm of his chair. Frequently he takes the mouthpiece from his lips, sighs heavily, and forgets to smoke—then, with a shake of the head, he again sucks comfort from his meerschaum. There is a tap at the door, which opens slowly—Jennifer looks in at him, and then draws near.

Jennifer stopt—looked at him—sighed—then drew a little closer—sighed again. The Curate, fancying she had come on some of her accustomed visits of inspection (for of late she had found frequent excuses for entering, such as to dust his books, to stir his fire, to draw his curtains), took no notice of her, but continued to pursue his train of thought. Presently he, too, sighed; it was echoed so sympathetically by Mrs Greene, that her suspiration sounded like a gust coming down the chimney. Finding that the Curate, as usual, pursued the plan which is popularly attributed to apparitions in their intercourse with human beings, and was not likely to speak till spoken to, Jennifer, with a little cough, came round between the table and the fire, and stirred the latter. Being thus quite close to the Curate, with the table in her rear, and her master’s chair close to her left hand, she commenced.

“I’m vexed to see you so down, Mr Young. I’m afraid you’re not satisfied in your mind. You used to be a far cheerfuller gentleman than what you are now.”

Mr Young, rousing himself, looked up with an assumed briskness.

“It’s my way, Mrs Greene—only my way.”

“No, sir,” said Jennifer, peremptorily, “’tis not your way, asking your pardon. There’s something on your mind. Perhaps it’s me—perhaps things have not gone according to your wishes in the house. If it’s me, sir, say so, I beg.”

“You, Mrs Greene—impossible. I’m quite sensible of your kind attention to my comforts, I assure you,” protested the Curate.

“Because,” said Jennifer, heedless of his disclaimer, and going on as if he had not uttered it—“because, if so, I wish to say one word. I only wish to remark, sir, that whatever fault there is of that kind, ’tis not a fault according to my will. My wish is, and always has been, to serve you to the utmost of my”—

“Mrs Greene!” began the Curate, touching her on the arm with the extended stem of his meerschaum, to check her volubility for a moment, “my good soul”—

——“To the utmost of my ability,” went on Jennifer, with a slight faltering in her voice. “If laying down my life could have served you, Mr Young, I’m sure”— Here Jennifer whimpered.

“Faithful creature!” thought the Curate, “what an interest she takes in me! My dear Mrs Greene,” said he, “your doubts wrong me very much; but this proof of your care for me is exceedingly gratifying”—which was perhaps an unconscious fib, for the Curate felt more embarrassment than gratification.

“And after all my trials and efforts, thinking only how I could please you, to see you—oh—oh—” and Jennifer broke down again, and in the excess of her agitation sat down on a chair near her. And though to sit down in his presence was a quite unusual proceeding on her part, yet the Curate was so heedless of forms, that if she had seated herself on the mantelpiece, he would possibly have thought it merely a harmless eccentricity.

“Calm yourself, Mrs Greene,” entreated the Curate. “These doubts of my regard are quite unfounded; be assured I fully appreciate your value.”

“But in that case,” said Jennifer, pursuing her own hypothesis with great perseverance, “in that case I must quit you whatever it costs me. And I hope you could find them, Mr Young, as would serve you better.”

“Don’t talk of quitting me, Mrs Greene,” said the Curate soothingly. “This is all mere creation of your fancy. I am perfectly satisfied—more than satisfied with you.”

“No, sir—I’ve seen it—I’ve seen it this some time. You don’t look upon me like what you used. ’Tisn’t any longer, ‘Mrs Greene, do this,’ and ‘Mrs Greene, do that,’ and the other. You can do without Mrs Greene now. And perhaps,” said Jennifer, “’tis better I was—gone” (the last word almost inaudible).

“Really, Mrs Greene, this is quite unnecessary. You are paining yourself and me to no purpose. Be persuaded”—(and the Curate took Jennifer’s hand)—“be persuaded of my sense of your merits.”

Jennifer wiped her eyes; then starting and looking round over her shoulder, “O sir,” said she, “if anybody should catch us!—what would they say?”

“Catch us, Mrs Greene,” said the Curate, hastening to withdraw his hand; but Jennifer clutched it nervously.

“Stop!” said Jennifer, “there’s a step—and that maid’s got such a tongue! No, ’twas my fancy—the maid’s asleep in the kitchen. O, sir—yes, what would they say?—people is so scandalous. They’ve been talking already.”

“Talking!” exclaimed Mr Young, withdrawing his hand with a jerk. “What can you mean, Mrs Greene? Talking of what?”

“O yes!” said Jennifer. “They’ve been remarking, the busy ones has, how it comes that a lone woman like me could live so long with a single gentleman. Many’s the bitter thought it gave me.”

“Good heavens, Mrs Greene!” cried the Curate, pushing his chair, which ran on castors, away with a loud creak, “really this is all very strange and unexpected.”

“And more than that,” pursued Jennifer, “they’ve said concerning my looks——but I couldn’t repeat what they said, further than to mention that they meant I wasn’t old nor ugly—which perhaps I’m not. And they know what a good wife I made to Samuel” (this was the deceased shipmaster’s Christian appellation)—“never, as Mrs Britton that keeps the grocery said to me last Wednesday, never was a better. And when ’twas named to me what they’d been saying, I thought—O good gracious!—I thought I should have sunk into the hearth.”

“Gracious goodness!” exclaimed Mr Young, starting from his chair, and pacing the room in great perturbation. “How extremely infamous! Why, ’tis like a terrible nightmare. To spread false reports—to drive me to part with a valuable servant—’tis atrocious! I’m afraid, Mrs Greene, you really had better go to-morrow. I need not say how I regret it, but what you have told me renders it imperative.”

“I wish it mayn’t be too late, sir,” said Jennifer, putting her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Too late!—too late for what?” inquired the Curate.

“And where do you think I’m to get another place? Who’ll take in a lone woman, whose character have been breathed upon? Oh, that ever I should have seen Lanscote parsonage!” cried Jennifer, choking.

“But, Mrs Greene,” said the agitated Curate, stopping in his walk to lean his hands on the table, and looking earnestly at her, “it shall be my care, as it is my duty, to prove the falsehood of these reports. You shall not suffer on my account, believe me. If necessary, I’ll expose the wicked slander from the pulpit.”

This wouldn’t have suited Jennifer at all. The Curate was going off quite on the wrong track, and she made a last effort to bring him into the right direction.

“And my—my—my feelings,” sobbed she, “ain’t they to be considered? Oh, that ever I should be a weak foolish woman! Oh, that ever I should have been born with a weak trustful heart!”

“I daresay ’twill be painful to leave a place where you have lived long, and a master who I hope has been kind to you,” said the Curate. (Jennifer lifted up her voice here, and writhed in her chair.) “No doubt it will, for you have an excellent heart, Mrs Greene. But what you have said convinces me of the necessity of it. And you shall be no loser; until you can suit yourself with a place, I’ll continue your salary as usual.”

“Salary!” cried Jennifer, starting from her chair. “Oh, that I should be talked to like a hireling! God forgive you, Mr Young. Well, it’s over now. I’ll consider what you’ve said, Mr Young, and I’ll try—try to bring my mind to it.”

Jennifer rose—sobbed a little—looked at her chair as if she had a mind to sit down again, and then prepared to depart. In her way out of the room, she passed close to the Curate, and paused, almost touching him, with her handkerchief to her eyes. “If ever he’d say the word, he’d say it now,” thought Jennifer, weeping copiously. But Mr Young, far from availing himself of the proximity to take her hand, or say anything even of comfort, far less of a tenderer nature, retreated with great alacrity to his original post near the fire, and Jennifer had no alternative but to walk onward out of the room.

She left him, roused, certainly, most effectually from his melancholy; but the change was not for the better. The poor shy Curate was exactly the man to feel the full annoyance of such reports as, according to Jennifer, were in circulation. He fancied himself an object of derision to all Lanscote—how could he hope to do any good among parishioners who said scandalous things of him and his housekeeper? How could he hope to convince them of his innocence? How preserve his dignity in the pulpit, with the consciousness that a whole congregation were looking at him in a false light?

Jennifer’s demeanour next day was sad and subdued. After breakfast she came into the room, and, without lifting her eyes, said that she thought she had better go next Wednesday. “On Wednesday,” said Jennifer, “Miss Rosa’s coming, and then, with your leave, I’ll quit, Mr Young.”

The Curate highly approved of this; he knew he could not feel easy till she was out of the house, and meanwhile he absented himself from it as much as possible.

It was fortunate for the Curate that the period of her stay was so short, for she took care it should be far from pleasant. She personally superintended the making of his bed, which she caused to slope downwards towards the feet, and at one side, so that the hapless occupant was perpetually waking from a dream in which he had been sliding over precipices; and, reascending to his pillow for another precarious slumber, would be again woke by finding his feet sticking out from beneath the clothes, and his body gradually following them. He got hairs in his butter, and plenty of salt in his soup; his tea, the only luxury of the palate that he really cared about, and that rather on intellectual than sensual grounds, grew weaker and weaker; his toast simultaneously got tougher; and he was kept the whole time on mutton-chops, which, from their identity of flavour, appeared to have been all cut from the same patriarchal ram.

Wednesday arrived. The Curate, leaning over his garden gate, saw the carriage from the Heronry coming down the lane. It drew up at the parsonage; in it were Lady Lee, Orelia, and Rosa, all in black, and all looking very sad. Rosa, rising to take leave of her friends, underwent innumerable embraces.

Orelia was the calmest of the three, but even her grandeur and stateliness quite gave way in parting. “Good-bye, Rosalinda,” was all she could trust herself to say, as Rosa alighted.

The Curate had intended to say a great deal to Hester, but it had all vanished from his mind, and remained unexpressed, unless a long pressure of the hand could convey it. Lady Lee gave several things in charge to the Curate to execute, and delivered a purse to him, the contents of which were to be distributed among various pensioners in the village; then she told the coachman to drive on.

“Write at least three times a-week, Rosalinda,” cried Orelia, putting a tearful face over the hood of the carriage, “or never hope for forgiveness.”

They were gone. A white handkerchief waved from the side, and another from the top of the carriage, till it disappeared, and the Curate and his sister slowly turned into the house—the last remnant of the once joyous party assembled at the Heronry.

What a hard thing was life! What a cruel thing was fate, that they could not all be left as they were! Their happiness did no harm to any one—nay, good to many—yet it was inexorably scattered to the winds for ever. So thought the Curate; and so felt Rosa, though perhaps her feelings did not shape themselves into thoughts.

But there was no time just then to indulge their grief. Scarcely had the carriage departed, when its place was taken by a vehicle of altogether different description. A donkey-cart, destined to convey away Jennifer’s chattels, and driven by a small boy, drew up at the gate, producing a kind of practical anti-climax. Then Jennifer, attired in bonnet and shawl, entered, and announced, in an austere and steady voice, that she was ready to hand over her keys of office to the still weeping Rosa.

“Now, Miss,” said Jennifer sharply, “if you could make it convenient to come at once, I should be obliged.”

“Go with Mrs Greene, my child,” said the Curate. When Jennifer found she had failed in her grand design on the Curate, and must quit the parsonage, she did not continue to affect regret at her departure; and having easily and at once secured the coveted post at Monkstone, through the influence of Mr Randy, she felt the change was likely to be for the better. She might, therefore, have been expected to quit her present abode, if with some natural regret, yet at perfect peace and charity with all the household. Jennifer’s disposition did not, however, admit of this. She felt enraged at the Curate because of the failure of her design upon him, and resolved to be of as little use as possible in the last moments of her expiring authority. “He’ll be wishing me back again before a week’s over his head,” said Jennifer to herself, with infinite satisfaction.

In vain Rosa protested against being dragged into every corner of the house, and having every bit of household property set before her eyes. In vain she assured Mrs Greene that both her brother and herself were perfectly satisfied of the correctness of everything. “’Twas a satisfaction to herself,” Jennifer said, “to show everything;” and it really was, for the extreme bewilderment and ignorance of Rosa on all points of housekeeping afforded Jennifer the keenest gratification. The Heronry, where Rosa’s chief business had been to amuse herself, was a very bad school to learn anything of the sort.

Accordingly, Jennifer did not spare her the enumeration of a single kitchen implement, pot of jam, nor article of linen.

“The bed and table linen’s all in this press,” said Jennifer, opening a large one of walnut wood in the spare bedroom.

“These are the sheets, I suppose, Mrs Greene,” Rosa remarked, wishing to show an interest in the matter.

“Bless you, they’re the tablecloths!” returned Jennifer, with a glance of disdain.

“Oh, to be sure! And these are towels?” resumed Rosa.

“Napkins,” said Jennifer, with calm superiority. “Mr Young’s shirts, and collars, and bands, and neckcloths, is all in these two drawers. Do you understand much about clear-starching, Miss?”

“N—n—no; I am afraid not much,” said Rosa.

“Ah, ’twould be just as well you should, perhaps, because the washerwoman requires a deal of looking after. She can be careless and impudent, too, when she dares, especially when she’s in drink. She never ventured upon any tricks with _me_, though.”

The thought of this terrible washerwoman made Rosa tremble, while Jennifer secretly exulted in the thought of seeing the Curate in limp collars and a crumpled shirt.

“There,” said the ex-housekeeper, locking up the press, and handing the key to Rosa; “I advise you, Miss, to take out everything that’s wanted yourself. The girl’s hands is generally dirty, and, besides, in taking out one thing she drags all the rest out upon the floor. Oh, she’s a nice one, that girl!—the work I’ve had to manage her! Well, Miss, I hope you’ll keep an eye upon her, that’s all.”

Having thus rendered Rosa as uncomfortable as possible at the prospect before her, Jennifer at length prepared to depart. Opening the door of the sitting-room, she said to the Curate, “The young lady’s seen everything, and is quite satisfied. Well, good-bye, and wishing you well, sir.” But the benediction was quite contradicted by the ferocity of her look and tone.

“Good-bye, good-bye, my good Mrs Greene,” said the Curate, who could not help regarding Jennifer as a martyr. “I wish you all success and happiness; I hope you won’t fret too much after the parsonage, Mrs Greene.”

“Ho, no,” said Jennifer, with an ironical little laugh; “it’s not likely.”

“I’m heartily glad of that,” said the Curate, who would not have detected irony even in Dean Swift; “and I hope you’ll soon get another and as good a place.”

“I’ve got one,” said Jennifer, “as good a one as ever I could wish.”

“Indeed! that is fortunate,” said the Curate; “and when do you go to it then?”

“I’m going now,” said Jennifer. “Ho, bless you! as soon as ’twas known I was going to leave this, I had more offers than enough. I took Monkstone,” said Jennifer, “being ’twas near my friends in the village. Wishing you good-bye, sir,”—here she dropt a curtsey, and closed the door. The boy had already conveyed her trunks and bandboxes to the donkey-cart. Jennifer marched past the window (from whence the Curate was watching this exodus) in austere majesty, and never deigned to turn her head. Then she, the boy, the donkey-cart, and the bandboxes, all went in procession down the road, leaving Rosa sole superintendant of the Curate’s household.