Chapter XV: The Curate’s Trouble

After brooding over this disastrous letter for a long hour the curate summoned enough courage to arise and go to his wife and take counsel with her.

This was, indeed, a trouble that he dared not keep from her, even to spare her from anxiety; for it was absolutely necessary that they should take immediate measures for removal from the rectory and settlement in lodgings somewhere in the town before the arrival of the new incumbent; or, so at least it seemed to the curate in his dismayed state of mind.

He went directly into the back parlor, where the fire was burning cheerfully in the grate, the tea table was set, and Hetty resting in her low rocking-chair on the rug.

“Where is Jennie?” inquired the curate, dropping into another chair beside his wife.

“In her bedroom, putting her baby to sleep,” replied Hetty.

“Well, I am glad the child is not here just now. I have bad news to tell you, my dear.”

“Eh? Bad news? What is it, Jimmy? But, dear me, don’t look so dreadfully cast down! It cannot be such awfully bad news, since you, I, Jennie and the baby are all safe and sound in the house. But what, then, is your bad news?”

“I have lost my position here, and we shall have to leave the rectory,” replied Mr. Campbell in a tone of despair.

“Let me take a look at you?” said his wife, rising, giving him her hand, helping him to his feet, and surveying him all around. “Well, I don’t see that you have lost a limb, or any mental or bodily faculty, that you need look so woebegone! As for losing your position, of course you lost that when the old rector died; and as for leaving the rectory, we all knew that we should have to do that.”

“Yes, but not so soon. We shall have to vacate by the first of January.”

“Well, that gives us plenty of time to choose new lodgings. I would not ‘fash my beard’ about that, if I were you, Jimmy! But why must we move by that time?”

“Because my successor, or rather Dr. Orton’s successor, is appointed.”

“Already!”

“Yes, already.”

“Upon my word, there has been but little time lost! And you have received notice to quit?”

“Yes, in a letter from the new incumbent, which I found lying on my study table when I came in from the church.”

“Who is he, then?”

“‘Who is he?’ That is the very worst of all. Do you remember that fellow, Cassius Leegh, who used to come to Medge parsonage long ago and fasten on us for weeks?”

“I should think so!”

“He was the son of a small shopkeeper in the borough, London, studied for the ministry as a matter of pride and ambition; but, morally and spiritually, as unfit for the pulpit as a man can well be! I do not know how he has contrived to get himself inducted into this living, except upon the basis that he and the new squire are birds of a feather!”

“Stop!” exclaimed Hetty as a sudden light dawned on her mind—“I understand it all perfectly now! Don’t you know that this man, this so-called new squire of Haymore, married in New York a young lady by the name of Leegh?”

“I paid no attention to the name of the lady,” replied the curate.

“Well, naturally I did, being a woman, you know. And the bride’s name was Leegh! And surely you have heard Cassius Leegh speak of his beautiful sister Lamia, who was taken up by a wealthy New York family?”

“Why—yes—certainly!”

“That is it, then. This man Leegh, no doubt, sought out his brother-in-law and put in his plea for the living, even before Dr. Orton was dead, and so he has secured it, and lost no time in warning you out. But I wonder if he happened to mention your name to the ‘squire,’ for if so, the said squire, finding out that you were here, would scarcely venture to set foot within the place until you should be gone.”

“No,” said Mr. Campbell emphatically; “knowing the man as well as I do, I can say most positively that he has never mentioned my name to his patron, or even alluded to the fact that the late Dr. Orton left a temporary substitute to fill his pulpit, when he himself went away for his health, lest, you see, the knowledge of this fact should cause the squire to take more time in appointing Dr. Orton’s successor. Don’t you see?”

“Yes. To leave the absent squire to believe that the parish of Haymore was entirely destitute of a pastor, would, of course, hasten the patron, who wishes the good opinion of his people, to appoint an incumbent, and the most natural thing would be to appoint his brother-in-law. I wish he were a better man.”

“So do I, with all my heart!”

“Well! we are in Heaven’s hands. And as we must clear out by the first of January, and get into new lodgings somewhere or other, I will go out the first thing after breakfast to-morrow morning to look them up,” said Hetty cheerfully.

“Lodgings in this town!” ruefully grunted the curate.

“They needn’t be in this town. There are, no doubt, plenty of farmhouses in the surrounding country where we may get them very cheap, and very wholesome and pleasant.”

“Yes; but how are we to pay, even for the cheapest?”

“Jimmy Campbell! You a minister of the gospel, and have no more faith than to ask such a question! If you have lost your position here, and if we must leave the pleasant rectory, still we are three able-bodied people, who, if we do the best we can, and work at any honest thing our hands may find to do, will be helped by the Lord, and will do very well and pay our way.”

“Oh, Hetty, my dear, you have had no experience in a bitter struggle with the world!”

“If I have not, it is well, perhaps, that I should have. And I am ready to engage in the struggle, though I do not see why it need be a bitter one, but just a healthful one.”

“You have a healthful nature, dear, that is certain. As for me, I sometimes think I am falling weak in body and in mind,” sighed the curate.

“No, no, dear Jimmy; not weak, only overworked and weary. Why, you have not had a vacation for eighteen years, to my certain knowledge. So long a strain might have made an idiot or a ‘damp, unpleasant corpse’ of any man less strong and brave than yourself,” said the wife with affectionate fervor.

“It helps me to see your faith in me, dear,” he sighed as he took her hand and pressed it.

“As for me, Jimmy, I am glad that you will be obliged to rest for a few weeks or months. Don’t doubt. You must rest. It is our turn now. Mine and Jennie’s. We must work.”

“You! What in this world could you do?”

“A good many things. We—Jennie and I—could teach English and French, music and drawing, to young ladies, or A B C’s to little children. Failing that, we could take in dressmaking or plain sewing. Failing that, I could go out as sick nurse, and Jennie could do up fine laces.”

“Hetty, you talk wildly.”

“Not at all. Unless you preach wildly. I am only going to put into practice what you preach. You tell the artisans and agricultural laborers that work is worship.”

“I would not mind your teaching——” slowly began the curate.

“Of course you would not,” promptly assented his wife; “and I should prefer it. Teaching is, conventionally, considered a very ‘genteel’ occupation for a poor lady. And for that, and a few other unworthy reasons, I would rather teach than do anything else. But if I cannot get teaching to do I hope I am Christian enough to take whatever work I can get, whether it should be dressmaking, plain sewing, sick nursing, or—washing and ironing. There! Even that! I am ashamed of myself for even preferring a ‘genteel’ occupation to an humble one which is equally useful. But I won’t let my feelings govern me in this; and so sure as you have to leave your situation here, you shall take a rest after twenty years’ hard labor, and Jennie and I will go to work at whatever we can get to do.”

“Hetty, you amaze and distract me! You do, indeed!”

“Look here, Jim. I have not kept my eyes shut all my life, and this is what I have seen—many unsuccessful professional ‘gentlemen and ladies,’ who have not talent enough to climb where ‘there is more room higher up,’ or even to keep their footing on the level where they were born, but yet who will struggle, slip, flounder, suffer and sin where they are rather than take a step ‘lower down,’ as they would consider it, but where there is also ‘more room.’”

“I don’t quite follow you, Hetty.”

“This is what I mean: Take an illustration. A man may be an unsuccessful lawyer, but his knowledge of law would make him so much better a clerk that his chances of employment in that capacity would be much greater than those of other competitors. Another man may fail as a minister, but he might make all the better schoolmaster. A woman may fail as a teacher, but succeed as a nurse. And what I would both inculcate and practice is this: That when man or woman fails in the line of life they have been born into or chosen for themselves, and when they have neither the power to rise above the level or to keep their footing upon it, let them not give up in despair or struggle in vain, but step frankly down to an humbler and honester position. There is always some work of some sort to be got. He who said ‘Six days shalt thou labor’ will give work to every hand willing to take it, though it may not be the kind of work their pride would like best. As for me and my daughter, whatever our ‘hands find to do, we will do it with our might,’ whether we like it or not.”

“But, my dear, do you really not care about leaving this beautiful home?”

“Under the circumstances, I should not care to stay, even if we could. Should you? Reflect. The new squire will be here in a few days. You will have to denounce him as an impostor, a fraudulent claimant, a bigamous bridegroom. But it would take time to prove these charges. Could you stay in the parish and preach in the church during that time with any sort of peace to us all? No. Better that we should go away, and the sooner we go the better.”

“My dear, I shall easily prove the fellow to be a bigamist; but as his crime was committed in the United States of America, I cannot prosecute him for it here in England. Neither can I prove him to be a fraudulent claimant. I have been turning that matter over in my mind, and I do not even know that he is one.”

“What!” exclaimed Hetty with wide-open eyes. “You do not know him to be a fraudulent claimant when you know that his name is Kightly Montgomery, and that he calls himself Randolph Hay?”

“See here, my love. I know nothing of the conditions of inheritance that rule this estate. I know nothing of the history of the family or their intermarriages with other families. How should I, coming here a stranger from the south of England?”

“I should think it could not require much experience to teach you that when a man’s name is Kightly Montgomery and he calls himself Randolph Hay, he is a liar, swindler and an impostor.”

“But consider, dear, he may he next of kin and heir-at-law, and his name now have been legally changed as the condition of his inheritance. His mother or his grandmother may have been born a daughter of Hay, of Haymore. The estate may have ‘fallen to the distaff,’ as it is called—that is, to the female line, and so the heir through that line might be obliged to take the family name as the condition of his heirship. Now do you see?”

“Yes, I see what you mean. But your theory has so many ‘mays’ that it won’t do. As for me, I prefer to think the villain a fraudulent claimant as well as a bigamous bridegroom.”

They were interrupted by a ring at the doorbell.

Mr. Campbell went to answer it. It was his custom always, when at home, to do so, to save the steps of the rectory’s one elderly servant-woman.

There was a hanging lamp in the little hall between the parlor and the study that gave but a subdued light. They had no gas, and oil was dear, and economy necessary.

Mr. Campbell opened the door, expecting to see no one but the little old sexton. He saw, instead, the tallest and finest looking athlete he had ever seen in or out of a circus; but he could not distinguish his features.

“The Rev. Mr. Campbell?” said the stranger interrogatively.

“That is my name. What can I do for you?” inquired the curate, who, now that his eyes had got used to the obscurity, saw that the collossus was clothed from head to heel in an outlandish costume of dressed buckskin trimmed with fur, and that his stature was heightened, and his face shortened by the tall fur cap he wore pulled low down over his forehead and ears, for the night was cold.

“My name is Longman—Samson Longman, at your service, sir. I have been directed by the people at Chuxton to come to you, sir, for information concerning one Elizabeth Longman, widow——” The speaker’s voice trembled and broke.

“Your mother!” said the curate gravely. “She is well and happy as she can be, without the son she is always pining for and praying for.”

“Heaven be praised for that! And may the Lord forgive me. Where is she, sir, if you please?”

“With us here in the house, our cherished housekeeper, almost our mother——”

“Thank the Lord! Can I see her, sir, now, at once? I have come a long way to ask her forgiveness at last, and to stay with her forever.”

“Come into my study. We must prepare her for the sight of her son, for although she seems to be always expecting you, yet the sudden meeting might be too much for her,” said the curate as he closed the front door after the entrance of his visitor and led the way into the study.

“Now, Mr. Longman, sit down here at my desk and write a letter to your mother. It need be only a line or so, to give me the means of breaking the glad tidings safely to her ears,” said Mr. Campbell as he turned up the light of the study lamp and placed a chair for the visitor.

Longman obeyed like a child, and sat down and wrote his letter.

“Will that do?” he inquired as he put the sheet of paper into the curate’s hands.

“Yes! that will do very well. Now put it into an envelope and seal and direct it regularly,” said the curate when he had read and returned the letter.

Again Longman obeyed like a child, and when he had sealed the letter, arose and placed it in the hands of the curate.

“Resume your seat and wait for my return,” said Mr. Campbell as he left the study.

He went first into the parlor.

Hetty was still sitting there alone. Jennie was still with her baby in the bedroom.

“Who was that, Jim? A man come to serve you with a writ of eviction?” inquired Hetty mischievously.

“Hardly, my dear. But I am sure you will be happy to hear who it was.”

“Who was it, then?”

“Elspeth Longman’s prodigal son returned.”

“Oh-h-h, Jim!” exclaimed Hetty, jumping up, her face perfectly radiant with benevolent delight.

“Yes, dear. And now, if you please, I will take you to see him in the study, where you can talk to him while I go and break these ‘glad tidings of great joy’ to the poor, long-suffering mother.”

“Oh, yes! I would love to go! What is the boy like?”

“‘Boy?’ ‘Like?’ He is like the Apollo Belvedere, or like the Colossus of Rhodes. A superb, a stupendous fellow. But all dressed in hides like a North American Indian, or a prehistoric Norseman. But come and see!” said Mr. Campbell, leading the way to the study.

Hetty followed, now half anxious, half afraid to see the savage.

As they entered Longman, seeing the lady, arose, bowed and handed a chair with so much ease, dignity and grace that Mrs. Campbell was surprised, pleased and reassured.

“Mr. Longman, this lady is my wife. She will entertain you while I go to your mother,” said the curate.

Longman bowed more profoundly than before, and murmured something to the effect that he was most honored and grateful to be permitted to make the lady’s acquaintance; but the hunter was always shy in the society of gentlewomen.

Then Mr. Campbell, knowing that Hetty could give the prodigal son more satisfactory information about his mother in five minutes than any other creature could in five years, went out and left them together.

He passed through the parlor and opened the kitchen door. He saw Elspeth sitting before the stove, knitting, while she waited for her muffins to bake.

“Will you come into the parlor for a moment? I wish to speak to you, Mrs. Longman,” said the curate.

“Yes, sir,” replied the woman, rising and untying her kitchen apron, which she took off and hung over the back of her chair. Then she went into the parlor.

“Take Mrs. Campbell’s rocking-chair while we talk. Save your back whenever you can, Mrs. Longman.”

“Oh, no, sir, it better becomes me to stand in your reverence’s presence.”

“Pray, sit down. No, but I insist upon it. I have something to say to you which cannot be said in a minute.”

The widow sighed profoundly and sank into the easy-chair. She thought she knew what was coming. Without the least intention of eavesdropping, she had heard enough of the conversation that had that evening passed between the minister and his wife—and which, by the way, had never been intended to be concealed—to know that they expected to leave the rectory under such reverse of fortune as would compel them to use the closest economy in their domestic arrangements.

Therefore Elspeth thought that she had been summoned to the parlor to receive her “warning” or her discharge. And she felt not so sorry for herself in the prospect of losing a good home as for the curate and his wife on having to dispense with her services. She was turning over in her meek mind the question of how, without seeming presumptuous, she could offer to remain with them and serve them without wages, just so long as her strength and also her clothes and shoes should last, and if they could afford to keep her even on such easy terms as her board and lodging.

Mr. Campbell broke gently in upon her troubled thoughts by asking her:

“Have you ever received any letter from your son since he has been away, Mrs. Longman?”

“Not one, sir, though I feel sure in my mind that he has writ to me, maybe many letters, and they have all gone astray; and then what hurts me worst of all is that he may think I must have got some of his letters and as I was too mad at him and too unforgiving to answer any of them. And I don’t even know where to write to tell him any better.”

“But when at last you meet, face to face, then you can tell him.”

“Oh, yes, sir. And I know that we shall meet again. He who raised the widow’s son from his bier will hear the poor old widowed mother’s prayer, and bring her boy back. Though it seems long! Oh, it seems long! But all the while it comforts me to think that if I don’t know where he is, the Lord does! If I can’t see him, the Lord can! And I may pray to the Lord for my boy and He will hear me!”

“How old are you, Mrs. Longman?” was the curate’s next seemingly irrelevant question.

“Forty-three, sir; will be forty-four on the thirty-first of December. But I must look full sixty, my hair is so white, and my face so thin and wrinkly.”

“Well, you have good health, and you Yorkshire people are long-lived. You may live forty years longer yet—forty happy years with your son.”

“Oh, minister! what does your reverence mean? Have you heard anything? Have you got anything to tell me?” inquired the mother, startled by something in the curate’s tone or look, and speaking with repressed eagerness.

“Well, something has come. Have you anybody who would be likely to write a letter to you?”

“Nobody in the world, sir, except my boy, and I have never had a letter from him, as I told you.”

“Well, a letter has come for you. I did not give it at first, for fear it might startle you. I think it must be from your son.”

“Oh, give it to me, sir, please!—now, this moment!”

The curate handed the letter. The woman seized it, held it under the light of the lamp and devoured the superscription with ravenous eyes.

“Oh, yes! It is his writing! It is his own! Oh, thank the Lord! Oh, thank the Lord!” she cried, falling on her knees and sinking her head in the cushion of the chair. But she soon arose and drew her spectacles from her pocket and opened the letter and tried to read it; but the words ran together in dark lines before her disturbed vision, and she could not decipher them.

“Oh, sir, be so kind! Read it for me! Please do!”

“With pleasure,” said Mr. Campbell. And he took the letter, and omitting date, read as follows:

“‘MY BELOVED MOTHER——’”

“The darling boy!” ejaculated Elspeth in rapture.

“‘I have crossed the sea and come back to England——’”

“He is in England! In England! Oh, thank Heaven! Thank Heaven! Go on, sir! Please go on!” impatiently exclaimed Elspeth.

The curate smiled at her impetuosity and continued:

“‘To see your dear face again, and to beg your forgiveness, which I know you will grant me, though I know I do not deserve it——’”

“Ah, hear the noble fellow! Taking all the blame on himself, though I was more in fault nor him! But go on, sir! Pray go on!”

“‘I long to be with you, to stay with you all the rest of our lives; to work for you, and to try to make you happy and comfortable, and so atone for all the trouble I have caused you——’”

“Oh! the grand son! the noble boy! He will stay with me all the rest of my life! Oh, that will be joyful!” exclaimed Elspeth, clapping her hands and breaking into a camp meeting revival hymn, very appropriate, it is true:

“‘Oh! that will be joyful!
Joyful! Joyful! Joyful!
Oh! that will be joyful,
To meet and part no more!’

“It will be like heaven, sir! like heaven! to have my boy with me all the rest of my life! But do go on, sir! Forgive a poor mother’s impatience, and read me what else he says!” she cried, ready to turn from rapture to tears.

“There is not much more,” said Mr. Campbell. “Only this:

“‘Please, dearest mother, if you can pardon me, let me know when I can
come to see you. And believe me your sincerely penitent and evermore
loving and dutiful son,

“‘SAM.’”

“Oh! the darling of darlings! the angel of angels! Oh, please, dear minister, write for me directly, for I never can hold a pen in the hand that is trembling for joy and blessedness and gratitude, and tell him to come immediately. But, no! I will go to him! Where is he? I’ll get the Red Fox carryall and start for the station immediately. Truly, where shall I go? Tell me, minister, dear! Look at the letter! Where is it dated from?” she eagerly demanded.

“You will not have far to go. He is in this village,” said Mr. Campbell, smiling.

“In this village! Oh! then he is at the Red Fox! Let me get my bonnet and cloak!” she cried, rising to her feet.

“He is nearer to you than that,” said the minister. Then he drew the woman’s arm within his own and led her into the study.

“Mother!” exclaimed Longman, starting up and striding toward her with outstretched arms.

“Oh, my darling! my darling!” cried Elspeth, and she fell fainting on his bosom.

So much for the careful breaking of the news.

But she did not swoon to unconsciousness. She almost immediately recovered.

Then Longman seated her in the large armchair, and placed himself on the hassock at her feet. She put her arms over his shaggy head and smiled through her tears.

“Come!” said Hetty, laughing. “You and I are _de trop_ in a room with such a pair of lovers as these!” And she slipped her hand through her husband’s arm and dragged him from the room without the reunited pair—so absorbed in their meeting—seeing them go.