So saying, the Squire led the way into the house; he had been much appalled by the first hint of this threatened calamity, and was seriously distressed and anxious still; but he was the father of many sons, and the misfortunes or blunders of one could not occupy all his heart. And even the Curate, as he followed his father into the house, felt that Louisa’s words, so calmly repeated, “Of course, the Rectory will go to you,” went tingling to his heart like an arrow, painfully recalling him, in the midst of his anxiety, to a sense of his own interests and cares. Gerald was coming up the avenue at the moment slowly, with all the feelings of a man going to the stake. He was looking at everything round as a dying man might, not knowing what terrible revolution of life might have happened before he saw them again—
“He looked on hill, and sea, and shore,
As he might never see them more.”
Life was darkened over to his preoccupied eyes, and the composure of nature jarred upon him, as though it were carelessness and indifference to the fate which he felt to be coming in the air. He thought nothing less than that his father and brother were discussing him with hearts as heavy and clouded as his own; for even he, in all his tolerance and impartiality, did not make due account of the fact, that every man has his own concerns next to him, close enough to ameliorate and lighten the weight of his anxieties for others. The prospect was all gloom to Gerald, who was the sufferer; but the others found gleams of comfort in their own horizon, which threw reflected lights upon his; for perfect sympathy is not, except in dreams. There was quite a joyful little commotion at the luncheon table when Frank’s arrival was discovered; and his sisters were kissing him, and his young brothers shaking his hand off, while Gerald came slowly up, with preoccupied, lingering steps, underneath the murmurous limes. All kinds of strange miseries were appearing to him as he pursued his way. Glimpses of scenes to come—a dark phantasmagoria of anticipated pain. He saw his wife and his children going away out of their happy house; he saw himself severed from all human ties, among alien faces and customs, working out a hard novitiate. What could he do? His heart, so long on the rack, was aching with dull throbs of anguish, but he did not see any way of escape. He was a priest by all the training, all the habits of his life; how could he give up that service to which he was called before everything, the most momentous work on earth? For ease, for happiness, for even sacred love, could he defraud God of the service he had vowed, and go back to secular work just at the moment when the true meaning of ecclesiastical work seemed dawning upon him? He had decided that question before, but it came back and back. His eyes were heavy with thought and conflict as he went up to his father’s house. All this was wearing out his strength, and sapping his very life. The sooner it was over the better would it be for all.
XVIII
Very little came, as was natural, of the talk in the library, to which the entire afternoon was devoted. The Squire, in his way, was as great an interruption to the arguments of the Curate as was poor Louisa in hers; and Gerald sat patiently to listen to his father’s indignant monologue, broken as it was by Frank’s more serious attacks. He was prepared for all they could say to him, and listened to it, sometimes with a kind of wondering smile, knowing well how much more strongly, backed by all his prejudices and interests, he had put the same arguments to himself. All this time nobody discussed the practicability of the matter much, nor what steps he meant to take: what immediately occupied both his father and brother was his determination itself, and the reasons which had led him to it, which the Squire, like Louisa, could not understand.
“If I had made myself disagreeable,” said Mr. Wentworth; “if I had remonstrated with him, as Leonora urged me to do; if I had put a stop to the surplice and so forth, and interfered with his decorations or his saints’ days, or anything, it might have been comprehensible. But I never said a syllable on the subject. I give you my word, I never did. Why couldn’t he have sent down for Louisa now, and dined at the Hall, as usual, when any of my sons come home? I suppose a man may change his religion, sir, without getting rid of his natural affections,” said the Squire, gazing out with puzzled looks to watch Gerald going slowly down the avenue. “A man who
