Johnny Ludlow Second Series Part 69

The curate did not seem in the least put out, but talked back again, quietly and freely. I sat balancing the tongs over the fender and listening.

"Miss Rymer is not my equal, you say," observed Sale. "I don't know that. Her father was a curate's son: I am a curate's son. Circ.u.mstances, it would seem, kept Mr. Rymer down in the world. Perhaps they will keep me down--I cannot tell."

"But you are a gentleman in position, a clergyman; Rymer served customers," retorted Mr. Tanerton, harping upon that _bete noire_ of his, the chemist's shop. "Can't you perceive the difference? A gentleman ought to be a gentleman."

"Thomas Rymer was a gentleman, as I hear, in mind and manners and conduct; educated, and courteous, and----"

"He was one of the truest gentlemen I ever met," I could not help putting in, though it interrupted the curate. "For my part, when speaking with him I forgot the counter he served at."

"And a true Christian, I was about to say," added Mr. Sale.

There was a pause. Herbert Tanerton, who had been fidgeting in his chair, spoke:

"Am I mistaken in a.s.suming that your acceptance of this chaplaincy depends upon Miss Rymer?"

"No, you are not mistaken," said Sale, readily. "It does depend upon her. If she will go with me--my wife--I shall accept it; if she will not, I remain at home."

"Margaret is as nice as her father was; she is exactly like him," I said. "Were I you, Mr. Sale, I should just take her out of the place and end it."

"But if she won't come with me?" returned he, with a half-smile.

"She is wanted at home," observed Herbert Tanerton, casting a severe look at me with his cold light eyes. "That shop could not get on without her." But Sale interrupted:

"I cannot imagine why the son is not at home to attend to things. It is his place to be there doing it, not his sister's. He is inclined to be wild, it is said, and given to roving."

"Wildness is not Benjamin Rymer's worst fault, or roving either," cried the Rector, in his hardest voice, though he dropped it to a low key. And forthwith he opened the ball, and told the unfortunate story in a very few words. I let the tongs fall with a rattle.

"I would not have mentioned this," pursued he, "but that I consider it lies in my duty to tell you of it. To any one else it would never be allowed to pa.s.s my lips; it never has pa.s.sed them since Mr. Rymer disclosed it to me a day or two before he died. Margaret Rymer may be desirable in herself; but there's her position, and--there's _this_. It is for your own sake I have spoken, Mr. Sale."

Sale had sat still and quiet while he listened. There was nothing outward to show that the tale affected him, but instinct told me that it _did_. Just a question or two he put, as to the details, and then he rose to leave.

"Will you not let it sway you?" asked the Rector, perseveringly, as he held out his hand to his curate. And I was sure he thought he had been doing him the greatest good in the world.

"I cannot tell," replied Mr. Sale.

He went out, walked across the garden, and through the gate to the field, with his head down. A dreadful listlessness--as it seemed to me--had taken the place of his brisk bearing. Just for a minute I stood in the parlour where I was, feeling as though I had had a shower of ice thrown down upon me and might never be warm again. Saying a short good-morning, I rushed out after him, nearly upsetting Mrs. Tanerton in the hall, and a basin of soup she was carrying in on a plate. How cruel it seemed; how cruel! Why can't people let one another alone? He was half-way across the field when I overtook him.

"Mr. Sale, I want to tell you--I ought to tell you--that the story, as repeated to you by Mr. Tanerton, bears a worse aspect than the reality would warrant. It is true that Benjamin Rymer did change the note in the letter; but that was the best and the worst of it. He had become mixed up with some reckless men when at Tewkesbury, and they persuaded him to get the stolen note changed for a safe one. I am sure he repented of it truly. When he came home later to his father's, he had left all his random ways and bad companions behind him. n.o.body could be steadier than he was; kind to Margaret, considerate to his father and mother, attentive to business, and reading hard all his spare time. It was only through an ill fellow coming here to hunt him up--one Cotton, who was the man that induced him to play the trick with the note--that he was disturbed again."

"How disturbed?"

"He grew frightened, I mean, and went away. That fellow Cotton deserved hanging. When he found that Ben Rymer would have nothing more to do with him, or with the rest of the bad lot, he, in revenge, told Jelf, the landlord of the Plough and Harrow (where Cotton ran up a score, and decamped without paying), saying that it was Ben Rymer who had changed the note--for, you see, it had always remained a mystery to Timberdale.

Jelf--he is dead now--was foolish enough to let Ben Rymer know what Cotton had said, and Ben made off in alarm. In a week's time Mr. Rymer was dead. He had been ailing in mind and body for a long while, and the new fear finished him up."

A pause ensued. Sale broke it. "Did Miss Rymer know of this?"

"Of Ben and the bank-note? I don't believe she knows of it to this hour."

"No, I feel sure she does not," added Sale, speaking more to himself than to me. "She is truth and candour itself; and she has repeatedly said to me she cannot tell why her brother keeps away; cannot imagine why."

"You see," I went on, "no one knows of it, except myself, but Squire Todhetley and Mr. Tanerton. We should never, never think of bringing it up, any one of us; Mr. Tanerton only spoke of it, as he said, because he thought he ought to tell you; he will never speak of it again. Indeed, Mr. Sale, you need not fear it will be known. Benjamin Rymer is quite safe."

"What sort of a man is he, this Benjamin?" resumed Sale, halting at the outer gate of the field as we were going through it. "Like the father, or like the mother?"

"Like the mother. But not as vulgar as she is. Ben has been educated; she was not; and though he does take after her, there's a little bit of his father in him as well. Which makes a great difference."

Without another word, Mr. Sale turned abruptly off to the right, as though he were going for a country ramble. I shut the gate, and made the best of my way home, bearing back the message from the Rector and Grace--that they would come and help eat the codfish.

The Reverend Isaac Sale was that day sorely exercised in mind. The story he had heard shook his equanimity to the centre. To marry a young lady whose brother stood a chance of being prosecuted for felony looked like a very black prospect indeed; but, on the other hand, Margaret at least was innocent, and he loved and respected her with his whole heart and soul. Not until the evening was his mind made up; he had debated the question with himself in all its bearings (seated on the stump of a snowy tree); and the decision he arrived at, was--to take Margaret all the same. He _could not_ leave her.

About nine o'clock he went to Mrs. Rymer's. The shop was closed, and Mr.

Sale entered by the private door. Margaret sat in the parlour alone, reading; Mrs. Rymer was out. In her soft black dress, with its white frilling at the throat, Margaret did not look anything like her nearly twenty years. Her mild brown eyes and tale-telling cheeks lighted up at the entrance of the curate. Letting her nervous little hand meet his strong one, she would have drawn a chair forward for him, but he kept her standing by him on the hearthrug.

"I have come this evening to have some final conversation with you, Margaret, and I am glad your mother is out," he began. "Will you hear me, my dear?"

"You know I am always glad to hear you," she said in low, timid tones.

And Mr. Sale made no more ado, but turned and kissed her. Then he released her hand, sat down opposite to her on the other side of the hearth, and entered on his argument.

It was no more, or other, than she had heard from him before--the whole sum and substance of it consisted of representations why he must accept this chaplaincy at the Bahamas, and why she must accompany him thither.

In the midst of it Margaret burst into tears.

"Oh, Isaac, why prolong the pain?" she said. "You know I _cannot_ go: to refuse is as painful to me as to you. Don't you see that I have no alternative but to remain here?"

"No, I do not see it," replied Mr. Sale, stoutly. "I think your mother could do without you. She is an active, bustling woman, hardly to be called middle-aged yet. It is not right that you should sacrifice yourself and your prospects in life. At least, it seems to me that it is not."

Margaret's hand was covering her face; the silent tears were dropping.

To see him depart, leaving her behind, was a prospect intensely bitter.

Her heart ached when she thought of it: but she saw no hope of its being otherwise.

"It is a week and a day since I told you that the promotion was at length offered me," resumed Mr. Sale, "and we do not seem to be any nearer a decision than we were then. I have kept it to myself and said nothing about it abroad, waiting for you to speak to me, Margaret; and the Rector--to whom I at length spoke yesterday--is angry with me, and says I ought to have told him at once. In three days from this--on Thursday next--I _must_ give an answer: accept the post, or throw it up."

Margaret took her hand from her face. Mr. Sale could see how great was the conflict at work within her.

"There is nothing to wait for, Isaac. I wish there was. You must go by yourself, and leave me."

"I have told you that I will not. If you stay here, I stay."

"Oh, pray don't do that! It would be so intense a disappointment to you to give it up."

"The greatest disappointment I have ever had in life," he answered. "You must go with me."

"I wish I could! I wish I could! But it is impossible. My duty lies here, Isaac. I wish you could see that fact as strongly as I see it. My poor father always enjoined me to do my duty, no matter at what personal cost."

"It is your brother's duty to be here, Margaret; not yours. Where is he?"

"In London, I believe," she replied, and a faint colour flew into her pale face. She put up her handkerchief to hide it.