“It was very kind of you to come yesterday,” she said; “Lucy and I were very grateful. We have not many relatives, and my dear father—”
“Yes,” said the late Rector, again embarrassed by the tears which choked her voice, “he was very much respected: that must be a consolation to you. And he had a long life—and—and I suppose, on the whole, a happy one,” said Mr. Proctor, “with you and your sister—”
“Oh, Mr. Proctor, he had a great deal to put up with,” said Miss Wentworth, through her tears. She had, like most simple people, an instinctive disinclination to admit that anybody was or had been happy. It looked like an admission of inferiority. “Mamma’s death, and poor Tom,” said the elder sister. As she wiped her eyes, she almost forgot her own little feminine flutter of expectancy in respect to Mr. Proctor himself. Perhaps it was not going to happen this time, and as she was pretty well assured that it would happen one day or another, she was not anxious about it. “If I only knew what to do about Tom,” she continued, with a vague appeal in her voice.
Mr. Proctor got up from his chair and walked to the window. When he had looked out he came back, rather surprising Miss Wodehouse by his unlooked-for movements. “I wanted very much to have a little conversation with you,” he said, growing again very red. “I daresay you will be surprised—but I have accepted another living, Miss Wodehouse;” and here the good man stopped short in a terrible state of embarrassment, not knowing what next to say.
“Yes?” said Miss Wodehouse, interrogatively. Her heart began to beat quicker, but perhaps he was only going to tell her about the new work he had undertaken; and then she was a woman, and had some knowledge, which came by nature, how to conduct herself on an occasion such as this.
“I don’t know whether you recollect,” said Mr. Proctor—“I shall never forget it—one time when we all met in a house where a woman was dying—I mean your sister and young Wentworth, and you and I;—and neither you nor I knew anything about it,” said the late Rector, in a strange voice. It was not a complimentary way of opening his subject, and the occurrence had not made so strong an impression upon Miss Wodehouse as upon her companion. She looked a little puzzled, and, as he made a pause, gave only a murmur of something like assent, and waited to hear what more he might have to say.
“We neither of us knew anything about it,” said Mr. Proctor—“neither you how to manage her, nor I what to say to her, though the young people did. I have always thought of you from that time. I have thought I should like to try whether I was good for anything now—if you would help me,” said the middle-aged lover. When he had said this he walked to the window, and once more looked out, and came back redder than ever. “You see we are neither of us young,” said Mr. Proctor; and he stood by the table turning over the books nervously, without looking at her, which was certainly an odd commencement for a wooing.
“That is quite true,” said Miss Wodehouse, rather primly. She had never disputed that fact by word or deed, but still it was not pleasant to have the statement thus thrust upon her without any apparent provocation. It was not the sort of thing which a woman expects to have said to her under such circumstances. “I am sure I hope you will do better—I mean be more comfortable—this time,” she continued, after a pause, sitting very erect on her seat.
“If you will help me,” said Mr. Proctor, taking up one of the books and reading the name on it, which was lucky for him, for it was Miss Wodehouse’s name, which he either had forgotten or never had known.
And here they came to a dead stop. What was she to say? She was a little affronted, to tell the truth, that he should remember more distinctly than anything else her age, and her unlucky failure on that one occasion. “You have just said that I could not manage,” said the mild woman, not without a little vigour of her own; “and how then could I help you, Mr. Proctor? Lucy knows a great deal more about parish work than I do,” she went on in a lower tone; and for one half of a second there arose in the mind of the elder sister a kind of wistful half envy of Lucy, who was young, and knew how to manage—a feeling which died in unspeakable remorse and compunction as soon as it had birth.
“But Lucy would not have me,” said the late Rector; “and indeed I should not know what to do with her if she would have me;—but you—It is a small parish, but it’s not a bad living. I should do all I could to make you comfortable. At least we might try,” said Mr. Proctor, in his most insinuating tone. “Don’t you think we might try? at least it would do—” He was going to say “no harm,” but on second thoughts rejected that expression. “At least I should be very
