Dr. Wortle's School Part 11

"Sin! I despise the fear of sin which makes us think that its contact will soil us. Her sin, if it be sin, is so near akin to virtue, that I doubt whether we should not learn of her rather than avoid her."

"A woman should not live with a man unless she be his wife." Mrs.

Wortle said this with more of obstinacy than he had expected.

"She was his wife, as far as she knew."

"But when she knew that it was not so any longer,--then she should have left him."

"And have starved?"

"I suppose she might have taken bread from him."

"You think, then, that she should go away from here?"

"Do not you think so? What will Mrs. Stantiloup say?"

"And I am to turn them out into the cold because of a virago such as she is? You would have no more charity than that?"

"Oh, Jeffrey! what would the Bishop say?"

"Cannot you get beyond Mrs. Stantiloup and beyond the Bishop, and think what Justice demands?"

"The boys would all be taken away. If you had a son, would you send him where there was a schoolmaster living,--living----. Oh, you wouldn't."

It is very clear to the Doctor that his wife's mind was made up on the subject; and yet there was no softer-hearted woman than Mrs. Wortle anywhere in the diocese, or one less likely to be severe upon a neighbour.

Not only was she a kindly, gentle woman, but she was one who always had been willing to take her husband's opinion on all questions of right and wrong. She, however, was decided that they must go.

On the next morning, after service, which the schoolmaster did not attend, the Doctor saw Mr. Peac.o.c.ke, and declared his intention of telling the story to Mr. Puddicombe. "If you bid me hold my tongue," he said, "I will do so. But it will be better that I should consult another clergyman. He is a man who can keep a secret." Then Mr. Peac.o.c.ke gave him full authority to tell everything to Mr. Puddicombe. He declared that the Doctor might tell the story to whom he would. Everybody might know it now. He had, he said, quite made up his mind about that. What was the good of affecting secrecy when this man Lefroy was in the country?

In the afternoon, after service, Mr. Puddicombe came up to the house, and heard it all. He was a dry, thin, apparently unsympathetic man, but just withal, and by no means given to harshness. He could pardon whenever he could bring himself to believe that pardon would have good results; but he would not be driven by impulses and softness of heart to save the faulty one from the effect of his fault, merely because that effect would be painful. He was a man of no great mental calibre,--not sharp, and quick, and capable of repartee as was the Doctor, but rational in all things, and always guided by his conscience. "He has behaved very badly to you," he said, when he heard the story.

"I do not think so; I have no such feeling myself."

"He behaved very badly in bringing her here without telling you all the facts. Considering the position that she was to occupy, he must have known that he was deceiving you."

"I can forgive all that," said the Doctor, vehemently. "As far as I myself am concerned, I forgive everything."

"You are not ent.i.tled to do so."

"How--not ent.i.tled?"

"You must pardon me if I seem to take a liberty in expressing myself too boldly in this matter. Of course I should not do so unless you asked me."

"I want you to speak freely,--all that you think."

"In considering his conduct, we have to consider it all. First of all there came a great and terrible misfortune which cannot but excite our pity. According to his own story, he seems, up to that time, to have been affectionate and generous."

"I believe every word of it," said the Doctor.

"Allowing for a man's natural bias on his own side, so do I. He had allowed himself to become attached to another man's wife; but we need not, perhaps, insist upon that." The Doctor moved himself uneasily in his chair, but said nothing. "We will grant that he put himself right by his marriage, though in that, no doubt, there should have been more of caution. Then came his great misfortune. He knew that his marriage had been no marriage. He saw the man and had no doubt."

"Quite so; quite so," said the Doctor, impatiently.

"He should, of course, have separated himself from her. There can be no doubt about it. There is no room for any quibble."

"Quibble!" said the Doctor.

"I mean that no reference in our own minds to the pity of the thing, to the softness of the moment,--should make us doubt about it. Feelings such as these should induce us to pardon sinners, even to receive them back into our friends.h.i.+p and respect,--when they have seen the error of their ways and have repented."

"You are very hard."

"I hope not. At any rate I can only say as I think. But, in truth, in the present emergency you have nothing to do with all that. If he asked you for counsel you might give it to him, but that is not his present position. He has told you his story, not in a spirit of repentance, but because such telling had become necessary."

"He would have told it all the same though this man had never come."

"Let us grant that it is so, there still remains his relation to you. He came here under false pretences, and has done you a serious injury."

"I think not," said the Doctor.

"Would you have taken him into your establishment had you known it all before? Certainly not. Therefore I say that he has deceived you. I do not advise you to speak to him with severity; but he should, I think, be made to know that you appreciate what he has done."

"And you would turn him off;--send him away at once, out about his business?"

"Certainly I would send him away."

"You think him such a reprobate that he should not be allowed to earn his bread anywhere?"

"I have not said so. I know nothing of his means of earning his bread.

Men living in sin earn their bread constantly. But he certainly should not be allowed to earn his here."

"Not though that man who was her husband should now be dead, and he should again marry,--legally marry,--this woman to whom he has been so true and loyal?"

"As regards you and your school," said Mr. Puddicombe, "I do not think it would alter his position."

With this the conference ended, and Mr. Puddicombe took his leave. As he left the house the Doctor declared to himself that the man was a strait-laced, fanatical, hard-hearted bigot. But though he said so to himself, he hardly thought so; and was aware that the man's words had had effect upon him.

Part IV.

CHAPTER X.

MR. PEAc.o.c.kE GOES.

THE Doctor had been all but savage with his wife, and, for the moment, had hated Mr. Puddicombe, but still what they said had affected him. They were both of them quite clear that Mr. Peac.o.c.ke should be made to go at once. And he, though he hated Mr. Puddicombe for his cold logic, could not but acknowledge that all the man had said was true. According to the strict law of right and wrong the two unfortunates should have parted when they found that they were not in truth married. And, again, according to the strict law of right and wrong, Mr. Peac.o.c.ke should not have brought the woman there, into his school, as his wife. There had been deceit.

But then would not he, Dr. Wortle himself, have been guilty of similar deceit had it fallen upon him to have to defend a woman who had been true and affectionate to him? Mr. Puddicombe would have left the woman to break her heart and have gone away and done his duty like a Christian, feeling no tugging at his heart-strings. It was so that our Doctor spoke to himself of his counsellor, sitting there alone in his library.

During his conference with Lefroy something had been said which had impressed him suddenly with an idea. A word had fallen from the Colonel, an unintended word, by which the Doctor was made to believe that the other Colonel was dead, at any rate now. He had cunningly tried to lead up to the subject, but Robert Lefroy had been on his guard as soon as he had perceived the Doctor's object, and had drawn back, denying the truth of the word he had before spoken. The Doctor at last asked him the question direct. Lefroy then declared that his brother had been alive and well when he left Texas, but he did this in such a manner as to strengthen in the Doctor's mind the impression that he was dead. If it were so, then might not all these crooked things be made straight?