CHAPTER XIVCOMING EVENTS

The autumn days passed calmly at the parsonage of Haymore. The curate had his own care, but he kept it to himself.On that morning succeeding Jennie’s arrival, when Hetty had observed traces of unusual disturbance on the brow of her Jimmy and had ascribed it to the effect of some distressing deathbed scene of some parishioner and therefore had forborne to question him, the cause of the curate’s uneasiness was just this: He had, by that morning’s mail, received a letter from his rector at Cannes, speaking hopelessly of his own illness and predicting an early and fatal issue.

James Campbell would not disturb his wife and daughter with this news, though it troubled him deeply and for more reasons than one.

In the first place, he felt a warm affection for the venerable rector who had been his father’s classmate at Oxford, and who had remembered him when he could do him a service and put him into his present position.

In the second place, should the rector die soon, his successor would be appointed by the Squire of Haymore and would naturally dismiss him, James Campbell, from his curacy. And he and his family would have to go forth in the world, homeless, moneyless and almost friendless, in midwinter. What prospect lay before the three but destitution and indebtedness—practically, first, to go into the cheapest lodgings they could find; then to go into debt for their daily food as long as he might be able to get credit.

And after that—what?

He did not know.

Of course, he would try to get work again—another curacy, or a tutorship, or a secretaryship. But Jimmy knew by all his past experience and observation how difficult, how almost impossible it was for a man in his position, once out of employment, ever to get in again. If he could only know who was to be the successor of his dying rector, he might, at a proper time, try to gain his favor to be made his curate.

Well—he thought—“while he preacheth to others he must not himself be a castaway.” As Hetty had told him, he must “reck his own read.” He must do the best he could and leave the result to divine Providence. If he could only hold his present position. What a commodious house he had for his dear ones! What an affluent garden! What a spacious glebe! What a lovely home, taken altogether! What a paradisal one for his family! If he could only retainit by any amount of work—by doing double duty, tenfold duty in the parish! He would not shrink from any labor, any hardship, to retain this refuge for his beloved ones, he thought. Then his conscience reproached him—he was thinking too much of his own, too little of his parish; and besides, the idea of remaining in this sweet home was but a dream, for if even the successor of his dying rector should favor him so far as to retain him in the curacy, he could not continue to reside in the rectory—where, of course, the new rector would take up his abode—but would have to find a small house in the village suitable to his small salary as a curate. But even this last favor was highly improbable. The new rector would have some young clerical friend whom he would take as his curate. They always did, he remembered.

“Is there much sickness or suffering in the parish, Jimmy?” Hetty asked one day when they happened to be alone in the parlor together, Jennie being in her bedroom with her baby, and Elspeth in the kitchen over her cooking.

“Sickness? Why, no! Why do you ask?” inquired the curate.

“Is there any distress, then?”

“Why, no! They are all unusually well just now, and very hilarious over the prospect of the arrival of their new squire and his bride and all the high jinks of their reception. Why did you ask such questions, Hetty?”

“Because, Jimmy, you always look as solemn as a hearse!”

“Do I? Well, in view of coming events, I cannot be expected to look very merry, can I, Hetty?” he inquired, rather evasively.

“You refer to the expected arrival of the fraudulent claimant and bigamous husband, and your duty to strike him down,

“‘Even in his pitch of pride.’

But I don’t see why that should make you look so solemn. And Jennie home, too! And the dear baby! Oh, Jimmy, if you cannot appreciate the blessings around you and be grateful and happy in the midst of them, the Lord help you! though He certainly has a discouraging job of you, just now!”

“I preach to my people and weary them, no doubt. You preach to me and—avenge them!” laughed the Reverend James.

“Well, I am glad to see you laugh, even if it is at my expense,” said Hetty.

“What are you two quarreling about?” inquired Jennie, who had put her baby to sleep and now entered the parlor.

“As to which is the best preacher, your mother of myself,” answered the curate.

“Oh, mamma! out and out! I have often wished I could hear her in the pulpit!” laughed Jennie.

“That settles it! Hetty, you have gained the point!” said the Rev. James, as he strolled out of the parlor into his study.

His wife’s words had not been without their effect. He was just now surrounded with such bright blessings, living in such an atmosphere of love, peace, health, comfort, and happiness that nothing could be added to their blessedness; yet their very perfection troubled him, lest they should not be permanent. He could not enjoy this blessed time, because next month or next year might bring a change which might be for the worse.

Why, what base thanklessness and faithlessness was this! While he “preached to others” he was himself “a castaway.”

But he resolved that he would reform all this. He would take no anxious care for the future. He would do the best he could and leave the rest to the Lord.

From that day he presented a more cheerful aspect to his family.

The leading parishioners began to call on his daughter.

Partly from hearsay and partly from inference, they had got a mixed opinion about the status of the young woman. She was the wife—so they Lad heard—of one Capt. Kightly Montgomery, son of the late General the Honorable Arthur Montgomery, and grandson of the late and nephew of the present Earl of Engelwing; that the captain was now, of course, with his regiment in India, and that his young wife had come home with her infant on a long visit to her father, because the climate of India was so fatal to young children of European parentage.

Under these mingled impressions of truth and error they called to pay their respects to their pastor’s daughter.

From the village there came Mrs. and the Misses Leach, the doctor’s wife and daughters; Mrs. Drum, the lawyer’s mother, and the Misses Lesmore, the draper’s sisters, and several widows and maidens living on their annuities. From the country came Lady Nutt, of Nuttwood, the widow of a civil engineer who had been knighted for some special merit by the queen; the three Misses Frobisher, “ladies of a certain age,” co-heiresses of Frobisher Frowns, a queer and gloomy mansion on the moor, which stood against a bank crowned with dark evergreen trees that bent over the roof of the house, like towering brows on a human face—thence I suppose the quaint if not forbidding name.

These were all. Others of the county gentry belonging to that neighborhood were absentees.

Jennie as well as her mother was much pleased with the hearty, homely, cordial manners of these Yorkshire country people. But the better she liked the more she dreaded them!

“Oh, mamma!” she said, “I fear they cannot know my real position here! They cannot know that I am a forsaken wife! Why, yesterday old Lady Nutt patted my head and said:

“‘I can feel for you, my dear. I had a niece in the H. E. I. C.’s service, and she had to come home with her young children and leave them here with their grandmother while she went back to him. Do you intend to stay here with your child, or leave it here with your parents and join the captain in India?’

“Yes, mamma, in all innocence the dear old lady asked me that question! And my cheeks burned like fire as I answered her the truth and said, ‘I intend to stay here with my baby, my lady.’ She said, ‘That is right,’ and kissed me and went away before you came in.”

“She is a good old soul,” was Hetty’s only comment.

“Yes, mamma, but you have missed the point I wished to make. It is so embarrassing to have people call on me and make remarks that I must either correct by telling them plainly how I am situated, or else that I must pass unnoticed, as if they were true, and so, as it were, silently indorse a false view.”

“My dear, I don’t see how you can help yourself. Youcannot blow a trumpet before you proclaiming to all and sundry the wickedness of your husband in deserting you, his lawful wife, and marrying, feloniously, another woman! You cannot even tell that to your visitors in confidence. It would not become you to do so.”

“No, mamma, dear, I cannot; but some day some visitor will innocently ask me some straightforward, plain question, which will require an answer, involving a confession of my real position. Oh! what shall I do in such a case?”

“My dear child, wait until that day comes and that question is asked. That will be time enough to worry about it. Jennie! the secret of peace is the practice of faith. Do your present duty, bear your present burden, enjoy your present blessings, and leave the future to the Lord. You have nothing to do with it. For you it has not even an existence,” said Hetty.

Early in December news came in a letter from Mr. Randolph Hay, in Paris, to his bailiff, Mr. John Prowt, announcing the return of the squire, with his wife and a party of friends, to spend the Christmas holidays at the Hall. The house was to be made ready for them by the fifteenth of the month.

Again all the estate, all the village and all the surrounding country were agog with anticipations of the free festivities that should glorify the triumphal entry of the new squire upon his paternal estate.

Every one who came to call at the rectory talked of nothing but the expected event.

On the next Sunday morning the Rev. Mr. Campbell preached an awful warning from the text:

“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

And in the afternoon he preached a similar jeremiad from another text:

“I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.

“Yet he passed away, and lo! he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.”

In the course of the week there came dire news to the parish. A telegram from his attendant physician in Cannes announced to Mr. Campbell the death of his rector, the Rev. Dr. Orton, and added that his body would be broughtto the rectory to be interred under the chancel of the Haymore church.

The Rev. James Campbell had been prepared for this blow for many weeks, or at least he thought he had been so; yet when it fell it nearly overwhelmed him. He was grieved for the loss of his friend and he was perplexed for his household. At first he did not know what to do at all. He was not a man of resources. Should he immediately vacate the rectory with his family, and go to the village tavern, horrid, beery place, with a bar and taproom, or should he seek lodgings in the village, dreadful, little, stuffy rooms, in such a place, or should he remain at the rectory until the arrival of the family with the remains of the deceased?

At the church he must remain, of course; but at the rectory when the family of the late rector were returning with his remains.

The family of the late rector, by the way, consisted of an aged widow and a maiden daughter, both of whom were with him at Cannes, and two unmarried sons, one a professor at Oxford, and the other a popular preacher in London. The curate consulted his wife.

“Telegraph the widow and know her will before you take any step,” was Hetty’s advice, and Jimmy acted upon it.

In a few hours came a courteous answer from Miss Orton, saying, in effect, that Mr. Campbell was by no means to disturb himself or his family. That the delicate condition of the widow’s health must prevent her from leaving a sunny climate for a frosty one at this severe season; that the daughter would stay with her mother; that the remains of the deceased rector would be accompanied by his two sons, and taken directly from the train to the chancel of the church, where the second funeral services would be held on Friday, at 4 P. M. (the first having been held at Cannes), immediately after which the sons would leave for London and Oxford. So the curate’s family need not be disturbed in the rectory until the appointment of the new rector.

“‘Until the appointment of the new rector!’ How long reprieve would that be?” inquired the curate. And then he blamed himself for his selfishness in thinking so much of his own and his family’s interests, when he should be thinking only of his departed friend.

On Friday morning the parish church at Haymore wasdecked in solemn funeral array to receive the remains of its rector. The pulpit, altar and chancel were draped with crape. Places of business and schools were all closed for the day, and all the parishioners filled the church, many in deep mourning, and all the others with some badge of mourning on their dresses.

The wife and daughter of the curate sat in the rectory pew. There, later, they were joined by the two sons of the deceased rector.

The curate, in full vestments, waited the arrival of the casket, and, book in hand, went to meet it at the church door, through which, upon a bier of ebony, covered with a pall of black velvet, it was borne by six bearers, and marshaled it up the aisle and before the chancel, repeating the sublime words of our Lord:

“I am the resurrection and the life. He that liveth and believeth on me shall never die. And he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

When the bier, with the casket, was set down before the altar, and the chief mourners—the two sons of the deceased, who had followed it—had taken their seats in the rectory pew, then the funeral services, conducted by the curate, went on to their solemn ending.

At the close the parishoniers came out of their pews in an orderly manner, and passing on from the right to the left before the casket, took their last look at the mask of their deceased pastor.

At last the door of the crypt below the chancel was opened, and the pallbearers bore the casket down the narrow stairs and laid it in the leaden coffin and lifted it to the stone niche prepared to receive it.

Then the “dust to dust” was spoken, and the minister came up again, went to the altar, pronounced the benediction, and so dismissed the congregation.

As the two sons of the late rector came out of their pew they met and shook hands with the curate, but declined his invitation to the rectory, saying that they were about to return immediately to Cannes, to remain with their widowed mother for the few days in which they would absent themselves from their professional duties.

So they took leave of the curate and his wife and daughter,entered a carriage that was waiting, and drove off to their train.

The curate, leaving his parishioners talking together in groups in the churchyard, while the sexton was closing up the church, followed his wife and daughter through the gate in the wall that divided that cemetery from the rectory grounds.

He went directly to his study to compose himself before joining his wife and daughter in the parlor.

But what he found there did not tend to his composure. A letter, with a Paris postmark, was lying on the table. He dropped into a chair and took it. At first he thought it must be from Kightly Montgomery, whom he knew to be flourishing in Paris under the name of Randolph Hay; but a moment’s reflection assured him that the false claimant was not likely to know of the accident of James Campbell’s temporary charge of the Haymore parish.

He opened the letter, glanced at the signature, and saw that it was not a stranger’s, and then read as follows:

“Paris, December 13, 187—.

“Reverend and Dear Sir: I learned with extreme grief a few days ago of the lamented death of the late honored rector of Haymore. I immediately came over to the city to see my brother-in-law, Mr. Hay, and apply to him for the living which is in his gift. He has been pleased to bestow it on me. My induction will date from the first of January next. I do not wish to inconvenience you, but I should be obliged if you could vacate the rectory in time to have the house prepared for my reception. Mr. Randolph Hay and his wife will be going to Haymore Hall for the Christmas holidays with a party of friends, of which, at his invitation, I have the happiness to make one. We shall, therefore, soon meet at Haymore. With best respects to Mrs. Campbell, I remain, dear sir, very truly yours,

“Cassius Leegh.”

“Oh, my beloved helpless ones! What will become of you now?” moaned the curate, covering his eyes.

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