“You don’t know where; and here is a nice old-fashioned house all ready for you to step into, and an income,” cried Ursula, her tone deepening to mark the capital letter; “an Income, quite sure and ready—without any difficulty, without any trouble, all if you say yes. Oh, only think what a comfort for us all to be able to rush to you when we are in trouble! Think of Johnnie and Robin; and that delightful wainscoted room for your study, with the bookcases all ready—and plenty of money to buy books.” This being the highest point to which Ursula could reach, she dropped down after it into an insinuating half whisper, “And plenty of work to do; dear Reginald, plenty of work in the parish, you may be sure, if you will only help the Rector; or here where you are working already, and where you may be sure nobody will think of paying you. Oh, Reginald, there is plenty, plenty of work.”
The young man was already beginning to melt. “Do you think so?” he said.
“Think!” cried Janey, “I am sure you may do all papa’s work for him and welcome, if that is all. For my part I think you are very silly, both Ursula and you. Work! Pay is far better if you weren’t such a pair of simpletons. After all, he has a little reason to be angry. Good gracious! why shouldn’t you take it? Someone else will, if you won’t. I would in a minute, and so would Ursula if we could. And why should you be so much grander than anybody else? I think it is quite childish for my part.”
“Reginald, never mind her, she is only a child and doesn’t understand (‘Child yourself,’ cried Janey). I don’t understand very well, but still I can see what you want. Oh, you might find such quantities of work, things nobody is ever found to do. What do the fellows do at Oxford that they get that money for? I have heard you say you would be very glad to get a fellowship—”
“That is different, that is a reward of scholarship.”
“Well, and so is this too,” said Ursula; “it is (I am sure) because the old men knew you were one that would be kind. You were always kind, Reginald, that is what it is for.”
“The old men have nothing to do with it,” he said, shaking his head, “it is the Corporation, and they are—”
“Very rich men, Reginald dear, a great many of them, very sensible! what does it matter about their education? And then you would be a really educated man, always ready to do anything that was wanted in Carlingford. Don’t you see that was their meaning? They pay you for that which is not work, but they will find you plenty of work they don’t pay for. That is what they mean; and oh, Reginald, to run over to you there in that pretty wainscoted room, and to have you coming in to us every day, and to know that you were there to stand by us!”
Here once more Ursula began to cry. As for Janey, she made a dash at the writing-table and brought him paper and pens and ink, “Say yes, say yes,” she cried; “oh, Reginald, if it was only to spite papa!”
XVI
The New Gentleman
It seems difficult to imagine what connection there could be between Phoebe Beecham’s appearance in Grange Lane and the interview which took place there between her and the “new gentleman,” and Mr. May’s sudden onslaught upon his family, which ended in Reginald’s acceptance of the chaplaincy. But yet the connection was very distinct. Not even the Mays, in their excitement over the appearance of a stranger in Carlingford, could be more surprised than Phoebe was when her solitary walk was interrupted by the apparition across the street of a known person, a face familiar to her in other regions. “Mr. Northcote!” she cried, with a little start of surprise. As for the stranger, he made but two steps across Grange Lane in his delight at the sight of her. Not that he was Phoebe’s lover, or possessed by any previous enthusiasm for the girl whom he had met about half-a-dozen times in his life, and of whom he knew little more than that she was the daughter of a “brother clergyman;” for both Mr. Beecham and he were in the habit of using that word, whether appropriate or inappropriate. This was the explanation of the white necktie and the formal dress which had puzzled Ursula.
Horace Northcote was not of Mr. Beecham’s class. He was not well-to-do and genial, bent upon keeping up his congregation and his popularity, and trying to ignore as much as he could the social superiority of the Church without making himself in any way offensive to her. He was a political Nonconformist, a vigorous champion of the Disestablishment Society, more successful on the platform than in the pulpit, and strenuously of opinion in his heart of hearts that the Church was the great drawback to all progress in England, an incubus of which the nation would gladly be rid. His dress was one of the signs of his character and meaning. Strong in a sense of his own clerical position, he believed in uniform as devoutly as any Ritualist, but he would not plagiarise the Anglican livery and walk about in a modified soutane and round hat like “our brethren in the Established Church,” as Mr. Beecham kindly called them. To young Northcote they were not brethren, but enemies, and though he smiled superior at the folly which stigmatised an M.B. waistcoat, yet he scorned to copy. Accordingly his frock coat was not long, but of the extremest solemnity of cut and hue,
