Poor Arthur Wilkinson was in a very unhappy frame of mind when he left the party at Parker's, and, indeed, as he went to bed that night he was in a state not to be envied; but, nevertheless, when the end of the week came, he was able to enter the parsonage with a cheerful step, and to receive his mother's embrace with a smiling face. God is good to us, and heals those wounds with a rapidity which seems to us impossible when we look forward, but which is regarded with very insufficient wonder when we look backward.
Before he left Oxford he had seen the head of his college and the tutor; and had also felt himself bound to visit the tradesmen in whose black books he was written down as a debtor. None of these august persons made themselves so dreadful to him as he had expected. The master, indeed, was more than civil—was almost paternally kind, and gave him all manner of hope, which came as balm poured into his sick heart. Though he had failed, his reputation and known acquirements would undoubtedly get him pupils; and then, if he resided, he might probably even yet have a college fellowship, though, no doubt, not quite immediately. The master advised him to take orders, and to remain within the college as long as the rules permitted. If he should get his fellowship, they would all be delighted to have him as one of their body; there could—so thought the master—be no doubt that he might in the meantime maintain himself at the University by his pupils. The tutor was perhaps not quite so encouraging. He was a working man himself, and of a harder temperament than his head. He thought that Wilkinson should have got a first, that he had owed it to his college to do so, and that, having failed to pay his debt, he should not be received with open arms—at any rate just at first. He was therefore cool, but not generous. "Yes; I am sorry too; it is a pity," was all he said when Wilkinson expressed his own grief. But even this was not so bad as Arthur had expected, and on the whole he left his college with a lightened heart.
Nor were his creditors very obdurate. They did not smile so sweetly on him as they would have done had his name been bruited down the High Street as that of a successful University pet. Had such been his condition, they would have begged him not to distress their ears by anything so unnecessarily mundane as the mention of his very small account. All that they would have wanted of him would have been the continuation of his favours. As it was, they were very civil. Six months would do very well. Oh! he could not quite undertake to pay it in six months, but would certainly do so by instalments in two years. Two years was a long time, certainly; would not Mr. Wilkinson senior prefer some quicker arrangement? Oh! Mr. Wilkinson senior could do nothing! Ah! that was unfortunate! And so the arrangement for two years—with interest, of course—was accepted. And thus Mr. Wilkinson junior began the swimming-match of life, as so many others do, with a slight millstone round his neck. Well; it may be questioned whether even that is not better than an air-puffed swimming-belt.
When he got home, his mother and sisters hung about him as they always had done, and protected him in some measure from the cold serenity of the vicar. To his father he said little on the subject, and his father said as little to him. They talked, indeed, by the hour as to the future; and Arthur, in spite of his having resolved not to do so, told the whole story of his debts, and of his arrangement for their payment.
"Perhaps I could do something in the spring," said Mr. Wilkinson.
"Indeed, father, you shall do nothing," said the son. "I had enough, and should have lived on it; as I did not, I must live the closer now." And so that matter was settled.
In a very few days Arthur found himself going into society with quite a gay heart. His sisters laughed at him because he would not dance; but he had now made up his mind for the church, and it would, he thought, be well for him to begin to look to those amusements which would be befitting his future sacerdotal life. He practised singing, therefore, fasted on Fridays, and learnt to make chessmen with a lathe.
But though his sisters laughed at him, Adela Gauntlet, the daughter of the neighbouring vicar at West Putford, did not laugh. She so far approved that by degrees she almost gave over dancing herself. Waltzes and polkas she utterly abandoned; and though she did occasionally stand up for a quadrille, she did it in a very lack-a-daisical way, as though she would have refused that also had she dared to make herself so peculiar. And thus on the whole Arthur Wilkinson enjoyed himself that winter, in spite of his blighted prospects, almost as well as he had on any previous winter that he remembered.
Now and again, as he walked along the little river bank that ran with so many turnings from Hurst Staple down to West Putford, he would think of his past hopes, and lament that he could talk of them to no one. His father was very good to him; but he was too cold for sympathy. His mother was all affection, and kindly suggested that, perhaps, what had happened was for the best: she kindly suggested this more than once, but her imagination carried her no further. Had she not four daughters, hitherto without husbands, and also, alas! without portions? Was it not enough for her to sympathize with them? As for his sisters—his sisters were well enough—excellent girls; but they were so gay, so light-hearted, so full of fun and laughter, that he could not talk to them of his sorrows. They were never pensive, nor given to that sober sadness which is prone to sympathy. If, indeed, Adela Gauntlet had been his sister—! And so he walked along the river to West Putford.
He had now fully made up his mind to go into the church. While yet thinking of high academical honours, and the brighter paths of ambition, he also had dreamed of the bar. All young men I believe do, who have high abilities, a taste for labour, and scanty fortune. Senior wranglers and double-firsts, when not possessed of means for political life, usually find their way to the bar. It is on the bench of judges, not on the bench of bishops, that we must look for them in after life. Arthur, therefore, had thought of the joys of a Chancery wig, and had looked forward eagerly to fourteen hours' daily labour in the purlieus of Lincoln's Inn. But when, like many another, he found himself disappointed in his earliest hopes, he consoled himself by thinking that after all the church was the safer haven. And when he walked down to West Putford there was one there who told him that it was so.
But we cannot follow him too closely in these early days. He did go into the church. He did take pupils at Oxford, and went abroad with two of them in the long vacation. After the lapse of the year, he did get his fellowship; and had by that time, with great exertion, paid half of that moiety of his debt which he had promised to liquidate. This lapse in his purposed performance sat heavy on his clerical conscience; but now that he had his fellowship he would do better.
And so somewhat more than a year passed away, during which he was but little at Hurst Staple, and very little at West Putford. But still he remembered the sweetly-pensive brow that had suited so well with his own feelings; and ever and again, he heard from one of the girls at home, that that little fool, Adela Gauntlet, was as bad as a parson herself, and that now she had gone so far that nothing would induce her to dance at all.
So matters stood when young Wilkinson received at Oxford a letter desiring his instant presence at home. His father had been stricken by paralysis, and the house was in despair. He rushed off, of course, and arrived only in time to see his father alive. Within twenty-four hours after his return he found himself the head of a wailing family, of whom it would be difficult to say whether their wants or their griefs were most heartrending. Mr. Wilkinson's life had been insured for six hundred pounds; and that, with one hundred a year which had been settled on the widow, was now the sole means left for the maintenance of her and her five children;—the sole means excepting such aid as Arthur might give.
"Let us thank God that I have got the fellowship," said he to his mother. "It is not much, but it will keep us from starving."
But it was not destined that the Wilkinsons should be reduced even to such poverty as this. The vicarage of Hurst Staple was in the gift of the noble family of Stapledean. The late vicar had been first tutor and then chaplain to the marquis, and the vicarage had been conferred on him by his patron. In late years none of the Wilkinsons had seen anything of the Stapledean family. The marquis, though not an old man, was reported to be very eccentric, and very cross. Though he had a beautiful seat in the neighbourhood—not in the parish of Hurst Staple, but in that of Deans Staple, which adjoins, and which was chiefly his property—he never came to it, but lived at a much less inviting mansion in the north of Yorkshire. Here he was said to reside quite alone, having been separated from his wife; whereas, his children had separated themselves from him. His daughters were married, and his son, Lord Stanmore, might more probably be found under any roof in the country than that of his father.
The living had now to be given away by the marquis, and the Wilkinson family, who of late years had had no communication with him, did not even think of thinking of it. But a fortnight after the funeral, Arthur received a letter with the postmark of Bowes on it, which, on being opened, was found to be from Lord Stapledean, and which very curtly requested his attendance at Bowes Lodge. Now Bowes Lodge was some three hundred miles from Hurst Staple, and a journey thither at the present moment would be both expensive and troublesome. But marquises are usually obeyed; especially when they have livings to give away, and when their orders are given to young clergymen. So Arthur Wilkinson went off to the north of England. It was the middle of March, and the east wind was blowing bitterly. But at twenty-four the east wind does not penetrate deep, the trachea is all but invulnerable, and the left shoulder knows no twinges.
Arthur arrived at the cold, cheerless village of Bowes with a red nose, but with eager hopes. He found a little inn there, but he hardly knew whether to leave his bag or no. Lord Stapledean had said nothing of entertaining him at the Lodge—had only begged him, if it were not too much trouble, to do him the honour of calling on him. He, living on the northern borders of Westmoreland, had asked a man in Hampshire to call on him, as though their houses were in adjacent streets; but he had said nothing about a dinner, a bed, or given any of those comfortable hints which seem to betoken hospitality.
"It will do no harm if I put my bag into the gig," said Arthur; and so, having wisely provided for contingencies, he started for Bowes Lodge.
Wisely, as regarded probabilities, but quite uselessly as regarded the event! Hardy as he was, that drive in the gig from Bowes did affect him unpleasantly. That Appleby road has few sheltered spots, and when about three miles from Bowes he turned off to the right, the country did not improve. Bowes Lodge he found to be six miles from the village, and when he drove in at the gate he was colder than he had been since he left Hurst Staple.
There was very little that was attractive about the house or grounds. They were dark and sombre, and dull and dingy. The trees were all stunted, and the house, of which half the windows were closed, was green with the effects of damp. It was large enough for the residence of a nobleman of moderate pretensions; but it had about it none of that spruce, clean, well-cared-for appearance which is common to the country-houses of the wealthy in England.
When he descended from the gig he thought that he might as well leave his bag there. The sombre-looking servant in black clothes who opened the door made no inquiry on the subject; and, therefore, he merely told his Jehu to drive into the yard and wait for further orders.
His lordship was at home, said the sombre, dingy servant, and in half a minute Arthur found himself in the marquis's study and in the marquis's presence, with his nose all red and moist, his feet in an agony of cold, his fingers benumbed, and his teeth chattering. He was barely allowed time to take off his greatcoat, and, as he did so, he felt almost disinclined to part with so good a friend.
"How do you do, Mr. Wilkinson?" said the marquis, rising from his chair behind the study table, and putting out the ends of his fingers so as to touch the young clergyman's hand. "Pray take a seat." And Arthur seated himself—as, indeed, he had no alternative—on a straight-backed old horsehair-bottomed chair which stood immediately under a tall black book-case. He was miles asunder from the fire; and had he been nearer to it, it would have availed him but little; for the grate was one of those which our grandfathers cleverly invented for transmitting all the heat up the chimney.
The marquis was tall, thin, and gray-haired. He was, in fact, about fifty; but he looked to be at least fifteen years older. It was evident from his face that he was a discontented, moody, unhappy man. He was one who had not used the world over well; but who was quite self-assured that the world had used him shamefully. He was not without good instincts, and had been just and honest in his dealings—except in those with his wife and children. But he believed in the justness and honesty of no one else, and regarded all men as his enemies—especially those of his own flesh and blood. For the last ten years he had shut himself up, and rarely appeared in the world, unless to make some statement, generally personal to himself, in the House of Lords, or to proffer, in a plaintive whine to his brother peers, some complaint as to his neighbour magistrates, to which no one cared to listen, and which in latter years the newspapers had declined to publish.
Arthur, who had always heard of the marquis as his father's old pupil, was astonished to see before him a man so aged. His father had been only fifty-five when he died, and had appeared to be a hale, strong man. The marquis seemed to be worn out with care and years, and to be one whose death might be yearly expected. His father, however, was gone; but the marquis was destined to undergo yet many more days of misery.
"I was very sorry to hear of your father's sudden death," said Lord Stapledean, in his cold, thin voice.
"It was very sudden, my lord," said Arthur, shuddering.
"Ah—yes; he was not a prudent man;—always too fond of strong wine."
"He was always a temperate man," said the son, rather disgusted.
"That is, he never got drunk. I dare say not. As a parish clergyman, it was not likely that he should. But he was an imprudent man in his manner of living—very."
Arthur remained silent, thinking it better to say nothing further on the subject.
"I suppose he has not left his family well provided for?"
"Not very well, my lord. There is something—and I have a fellowship."
"Something!" said the marquis, with almost a sneer. "How much is this something?" Whereupon Arthur told his lordship exactly the extent of his mother's means.
"Ah, I thought as much. That is beggary, you know. Your father was a very imprudent man. And you have a fellowship? I thought you broke down in your degree." Whereupon Arthur again had to explain the facts of the case.
"Well, well, well. Now, Mr. Wilkinson, you must be aware that your family have not the slightest claim upon me."
"Your lordship is also aware that we have made none."
"Of course you have not. It would have been very improper on your part, or on your mother's, had you done so—very. People make claims upon me who have been my enemies through life, who have injured me to the utmost of their power, who have never ceased striving to make me wretched. Yes, these very people make claims on me. Here—here is a clergyman asking for this living because he is a friend of Lord Stanmore—because he went up the Pyramids with him, and encouraged him in all manner of stupidity. I'd sooner—well, never mind. I shan't trouble myself to answer this letter." Now, as it happened that Lord Stanmore was a promising young nobleman, already much thought of in Parliament, and as the clergyman alluded to was known by Arthur to be a gentleman very highly reputed, he considered it best to hold his tongue.
"No one has a claim on me; I allow no one to have such claims. What I want I pay for, and am indebted for nothing. But I must put some one into this living."
"Yes; your lordship must of course nominate some one." Wilkinson said so much, as the marquis had stopped, expecting an answer.
"I can only say this: if the clergymen in Hampshire do their duty as badly as they do here, the parish would be better off without a parson."
"I think my father did his duty well."
"Perhaps so. He had very little to do; and as it never suited me to reside there, there was never any one to look after him. However, I make no complaint. Here they are intolerable—intolerable, self-sufficient, impertinent upstarts, full of crotchets of their own; and the bishop is a weak, timid fool; as for me, I never go inside a church. I can't; I should be insulted if I did. It has however gone so far now that I shall take permission to bring the matter before the House of Lords."
What could Wilkinson say? Nothing. So he sat still and tried to drive the cold out of his toes by pressing them against the floor.
"Your father certainly ought to have made some better provision," continued Lord Stapledean. "But he has not done so; and it seems to me, that unless something is arranged, your mother and her children will starve. Now, you are a clergyman?"
"Yes, I am in orders."
"And can hold a living? You distinctly understand that your mother has no claim on me."
"Surely none has been put forward, Lord Stapledean?"
"I don't say it has; but you may perhaps fancy by what I say that I myself admit that there is a claim. Mind; I do no such thing. Not in the least."
"I quite understand what you mean."
"It is well that you should. Under these circumstances, if I had the power, I would put in a curate, and pay over the extra proceeds of the living for your mother's maintenance. But I have no such power."
Arthur could not but think that it was very well his lordship had no such power. If patrons in general were so privileged there would be, he thought, but little chance for clergymen.
"As the law stands I cannot do that. But as you are luckily in orders, I can put you in—on this understanding, that you shall regard the income as belonging rather to your mother and to your sisters than to yourself."
"If your lordship shall see fit to present me to the living, my mother and sisters will of course want nothing that I can give them."
"Ah—h—h—h, my young friend! but that will not be sufficient for me. I must have a pledge from you—your word as a gentleman and a clergyman, that you take the living on an understanding that the income is to go to your father's widow. Why should I give you five hundred pounds a year? Eh? Tell me that. Why should I nominate a young man like you to such a living? you, whom I never saw in my life? Tell me that."
Arthur Wilkinson was a man sufficiently meek in spirit, as ordinary meekness goes—the ordinary meekness, that is, of a young clergyman of the Church of England—but he was not quite inclined to put up with this.
"I am obliged, my lord, to say again that I have not asked for so great a favour from you. Indeed, till I received your letter desiring me to come here, I had no other thought of the living than that of vacating the house whenever your nominee should present himself."
"That's all very well," said Lord Stapledean; "but you must be a very unnatural son if on that account you refuse to be the means of providing for your unfortunate mother and sisters."
"I refuse! why, my lord, I regard it as much my duty to keep my mother and sisters from want as my father did. Whether I am to have this living or no, we shall live together; and whatever I have will be theirs."
"That's all very well, Mr. Wilkinson; but the question I ask you is this: if I make you vicar of Hurst Staple, will you, after deducting a fair stipend for yourself as curate—say one hundred and fifty pounds a year if you will—will you make over the rest of the income to your mother as long as she lives?"
This was a question to which Wilkinson found it very difficult to give a direct answer. He hardly knew whether he would not be guilty of simony in making such a promise, and he felt that at any rate the arrangement would be an improper one.
"If you knew," said he, at last, "the terms on which my mother and I live together, you would perceive that such a promise is not needed."
"I shall not the less think it necessary to exact it. I am putting great trust in you as it is, very great trust; more so perhaps than I am justified in doing." His lordship here alluded merely to the disposition of the vicarial tithes, and not at all to the care of souls which he was going to put into the young man's hands.
Arthur Wilkinson again sat silent for awhile.
"One would think," said his lordship, "that you would be glad to have the means of securing your mother from beggary. I imagined that you would have been in some measure gratified by my—my—my good intentions towards your family."
"So I am, my lord; so I am. But I doubt whether I should be justified in giving such a pledge."
"Justified! you will make me almost doubt, Mr. Wilkinson, whether I shall be justified in putting the living into your hands; but, at any rate, I must have an answer."
"What time can you allow me to consider my answer?"
"What time! It never struck me that you could require time. Well; you can let me have your decision to-morrow morning. Send it me in writing, so that I may have it before ten. The post goes out at twelve. If I do not hear from you before ten, I shall conclude that you have refused my offer." And so speaking the marquis got up from his chair.
Arthur also got up, and promised that he would send a letter over from Bowes the first thing on the following morning.
"And tell the messenger to wait for an answer," said his lordship; "and pray express yourself definitely, so that there may be no doubt." And then, muttering something as to his hope that the inn was comfortable, and saying that the state of his health prohibited him from entertaining visitors, the marquis again put out his fingers, and Arthur soon found himself in the gig on his journey to Bowes.
He intended returning to town on the following day by the twelve-o'clock mail, of which Lord Stapledean had spoken. But before that he had a difficult task to perform. He had no friend to consult, no one of whom he could ask advice, nothing to rely on but his own head and his own heart. That suggestion as to simony perplexed him. Had he the right, or could he have it, to appropriate the income of the living according to terms laid down by the lay impropriator? At one time he thought of calling on the old clergyman of the parish and asking him; but then he remembered what the marquis had said of the neighbouring parsons, and felt that he could not well consult one of them on any matter in which his lordship was concerned.
In the evening he considered the matter long and painfully, sitting over a cup of some exquisitely detestable concoction called tea by the Bowesian landlady. "If he had only left me to myself," thought Arthur, "I should do at least as much as that for them. It is for them that I want it; as for myself, I should be more comfortable at Oxford." And then he thought of West Putford, and Adela Gauntlet. This arrangement of Lord Stapledean's would entirely prevent the possibility of his marrying; but then, the burden of his mother and sisters would prevent that equally under any circumstances.
It would be a great thing for his mother to be left in her old house, among her old friends, in possession of her old income. As regarded money, they would all be sufficiently well provided for. For himself, his fellowship and his prescribed stipend would be more than enough. But there was something in the proposition that was very distasteful to him. He did not begrudge the money to his mother; but he did begrudge her the right of having it from any one but himself.
But yet the matter was of such vital moment. Where else was he to look for a living? From his college in the course of years he might get one; but he could get none that would be equal in value to this of Hurst Staple, and to his fellowship combined. If he should refuse it, all those whom he loved would in truth suffer great privation; and that privation would not be rendered more endurable by the knowledge that such an offer had been refused.
Thus turning the matter over painfully in his mind, he resolved at last to accept the offer of the marquis. The payment after all was to be made to his own mother. The funds of the living were not to be alienated—were not, in truth, to be appropriated otherwise than they would have been had no such conditions as these been insisted on. And how would he be able to endure his mother's poverty if he should throw away on her behalf so comfortable a provision? He determined, therefore, to accept the goods the gods had provided him, clogged though they were with alloy, like so many other gifts of fortune; and accordingly he wrote a letter to Lord Stapledean, in which he stated "that he would accept the living, subject to the stipulations named—namely, the payment to his mother, during her life, of three hundred and fifty pounds per annum out of the tithes." To this he received an answer from the marquis, very short and very cold, but nevertheless satisfactory.
The presentation to the living was, in fact, made in his favour, and he returned home to his family laden with good news. The dear old vicarage would still be their own; the trees which they had planted, the flower-beds which they had shaped, the hives which they had put up, would not go into the hands of strangers. And more than this, want no longer stared them in the face. Arthur was welcomed back with a thousand fond caresses, as one is welcomed who bringeth glad tidings. But yet his heart was sad. What should he now say to Adela Gauntlet?