“But now tell me, my dear,” said old Mrs. Proctor, “who’s Mr. Wodehouse?”
With despairing calmness, the Rector approached his voice to her ear. “He’s a churchwarden!” cried the unfortunate man, in a shrill whisper.
“He’s what?—you forget I don’t hear very well. I’m a great deal deafer, Morley, my dear, than I was the last time you were in Devonshire. What did you say Mr. Wodehouse was?”
“He’s an ass!” exclaimed the baited Rector.
Mrs. Proctor nodded her head with a great many little satisfied assenting nods.
“Exactly my own opinion, my dear. What I like in your manner of expressing yourself, Morley, is its conciseness,” said the laughing old lady. “Just so—exactly what I imagined; but being an ass, you know, doesn’t account for him coming here so often. What is he besides, my dear?”
The Rector made spasmodic gestures towards the door, to the great amusement of his lively mother; and then produced, with much confusion and after a long search, his pocketbook, on a leaf of paper in which he wrote—loudly, in big characters—“He’s a churchwarden—they’ll hear in the kitchen.”
“He’s a churchwarden! And what if they do hear in the kitchen?” cried the old lady, greatly amused; “it isn’t a sin. Well, now, let me hear: has he a family, Morley?”
Again Mr. Proctor showed a little discomposure. After a troubled look at the door, and pause, as if he meditated a remonstrance, he changed his mind, and answered, “Two daughters!” shouting sepulchrally into his mother’s ear.
“Oh so!” cried the old lady—“two daughters—so, so—that explains it all at once. I know now why he comes to the Rectory so often. And, I declare, I never thought of it before. Why, you’re always there!—so, so—and he’s got two daughters, has he? To be sure; now I understand it all.”
The Rector looked helpless and puzzled. It was difficult to take the initiative and ask why—but the poor man looked so perplexed and ignorant, and so clearly unaware what the solution was, that the old lady burst into shrill, gay laughter as she looked at him.
“I don’t believe you know anything about it,” she said. “Are they old or young? are they pretty or ugly? Tell me all about them, Morley.”
Now Mr. Proctor had not the excuse of having forgotten the appearance of the two Miss Wodehouses: on the contrary, though not an imaginative man, he could have fancied he saw them both before him—Lucy lost in noiseless laughter, and her good elder sister deprecating and gentle as usual. We will not even undertake to say that a gleam of something blue did not flash across the mind of the good man, who did not know what ribbons were. He was so much bewildered that Mrs. Proctor repeated her question, and, as she did so, tapped him pretty smartly on the arm to recall his wandering thoughts.
“One’s one thing,” at last shouted the confused man, “and t’other’s another!” An oracular deliverance which surely must have been entirely unintelligible in the kitchen, where we will not deny that an utterance so incomprehensible awoke a laudable curiosity.
“My dear, you’re lucid!” cried the old lady, “I hope you don’t preach like that. T’other’s another!—is she so? and I suppose that’s the one you’re wanted to marry—eh? For shame, Morley, not to tell your mother!”
The Rector jumped to his feet, thunderstruck. Wanted to marry!—the idea was too overwhelming and dreadful—his mind could not receive it. The air of alarm which immediately diffused itself all over him—his unfeigned horror at the suggestion—captivated his mother. She was amused, but she was pleased at the same time. Just making her cheery outset on this second lifetime, you can’t suppose she would have been glad to hear that her son was going to jilt her, and appoint another queen in her stead.
“Sit down and tell me about them,” said Mrs. Proctor; “my dear, you’re wonderfully afraid of the servants hearing. They don’t know who we’re speaking of. Aha! and so you didn’t know what they meant—didn’t you? I don’t say you shouldn’t marry, my dear—quite the reverse. A man ought to marry, one time or another. Only it’s rather soon to lay their plans. I don’t doubt there’s a great many unmarried ladies in your church, Morley. There always is in a country place.”
To this the alarmed Rector answered only by a groan—a groan so expressive that his quick-witted mother heard it with her eyes.
“They will come to call on me,” said Mrs. Proctor, with fun dancing in her bright old eyes. “I’ll tell you all about them, and you needn’t be afraid of the servants. Trust to me, my dear—I’ll find them out. And now, if you wish to take a walk, or go out visiting, don’t let me detain you, Morley. I shouldn’t wonder but there’s something in the papers I would like to see—or I even might close my eyes for a few minutes: the afternoon is always a drowsy time with me. When I was in Devonshire, you know, no one minded what I did. You had better refresh yourself with a nice walk, my dear boy.”
The Rector got up well pleased. The alacrity with which he left the room, however, did not correspond with the horror-stricken and helpless expression of his face, when, after walking very smartly all round the Rectory garden, he paused with his hand on the gate, doubtful whether to retreat into his study, or boldly to face that world which was plotting against him. The question was a profoundly serious one to Mr. Proctor. He did not feel by any means sure that he was a free agent, or could assert the ordinary rights of an Englishman, in this most unexpected dilemma. How could he tell how much or how little was necessary to prove that a man had “committed himself”? For anything he could tell, somebody might be calculating upon him as her lover,
