“I don’t know what you call temptations,” said Mrs. Pigeon; “licking the dust under the feet of a Church parson! and after speaking up so bold against young May and them old cheats at the College. I wish he was gone from here, that’s what I wish, and our old pastor (if we can’t get none better) back again. He was one as knew his place, and wouldn’t have set his foot inside one of them Parsonages. Parsonages, indeed! kept up with our money. If ever there was an iniquity on this earth it’s a State Church, and all the argufying in the world won’t put that out of me.”
It happened that Northcote was in the poulterer’s shop, talking to the poulterer himself at this moment, and he heard the conclusion of this speech delivered with much unction and force. Such sentiments would have charmed him three months ago, and probably he would have thought this uneducated but strenuous partisan an extremely intelligent woman. He hurried away now with an uncomfortable smile. If an opinion is the right opinion, why should it have an air of absurdity thrown upon it by being thus uttered in ungrammatical language by a poulterer’s wife? Truth is the same by whomsoever stated; but yet, was not dogmatism on any subject the sign of an inexperienced and uncultivated, or a rude and untutored mind? What did this woman know of the Parsonage, which she supposed she helped to pay for? What had he himself known three months ago of Reginald May, whom he had assaulted so savagely? This Church family, which Mrs. Pigeon knew no better than to abuse, with what divine charity it had received himself, notwithstanding his public sin against it. When he thought of that public sin, Northcote’s countenance glowed with shame, and it continued to glow with a more agreeable warmth when he escaped into thought of the goodness which the Mays had shown him. Had there ever been such goodness? Was there ever so sweet a home of the heart as that faded, homely drawing-room? His heart beat high, his steps quickened; they carried him down Grange Lane in a path so often trod that he felt there must be a special track of his own under the garden walls, going Parsonage way.
XXXII
Lovemaking
Mrs. Sam Hurst had been a long time out of Carlingford; she had been paying visits among her friends, with whom, though the young Mays would never believe it, she was very popular, for she was not ill-natured in her gossip, and she was often amusing in the fullness of her interest in other people. It was April when she came back, and the early warmth and softness of the spring were beginning to be felt in Grange Lane; the doors of the houses began to be left open, and the girls at the Parsonage had taken to running out and in without their hats, gleaming through the little shrubbery in front, and round to the back garden. One evening it was so mild that they all (which comprehensive term, sometimes extended to “the whole party,” began to be commonly used among them with that complacence in the exclusiveness of their little coterie, which every “set” more or less feels) came downstairs in a body, and wandered about among the laurel-bushes in the spring moonlight. There was Ursula and Mr. Northcote, Phoebe and Reginald, and Clarence Copperhead, with Janey behind, who followed where they went, but did not enjoy the ceremony. It was bad enough in the drawing-room; but moonlight, who cared about moonlight? Janey said to herself indignantly. She was the only one who looked up to Mrs. Hurst’s window, where there was a faint light, and when the voices became audible Janey perceived someone come behind the curtain and look out. The girl was divided between her faithful family feud against Mrs. Hurst, and a vague sense of satisfaction in her presence as a Marplot, who one way or other would infallibly interfere.
“She will say something to papa,” said Janey, her heart involuntary rising at the thought, though at the same time she shivered to think of the treachery involved to all the tenets of the family. Janey sat on the steps and listened to the others talking. No one pointed out the stars to her, or followed her about as Reginald followed Phoebe. As for Mr. Copperhead, Janey thought he was almost as lonely as she was. He had lighted his cigar, and was strolling up and down, interrupting both of the other pairs occasionally, breaking into the midst of Northcote’s astronomical lecture abruptly, and stopping Phoebe herself in the middle of a sentence. Janey, watching sharply from the steps, noticed, as a spectator has it in her power to do, that whereas Northcote was extremely impatient of the interruption, and discovered immediately that the stars could be seen better from another spot, Phoebe took it quite sweetly, and addressed herself to him as she went on, which Reginald did not like, Janey was sure. Were they in love with each other? the girl asked herself—was this how it was managed? When the moon went under a cloud for a moment Clarence Copperhead’s vast shirtfront made a kind of substitute down below. Janey lost the other two among the bushes, but she always beheld that orb of white moving backward and forward with two dark figures near. She felt sure Reginald did not want to have him in such close neighbourhood; but Phoebe’s voice went on talking to both alike. Janey was half-pleased, and half-indignant. She had a jealous dislike, such as most girls have, to see her brother engrossed by anyone, but no more
