Volume 2 — CHAPTER XXIII. THE RECTOR COMMITS HIMSELF.

Arthur was not far wrong when he averred that his sister Rhoda was the last girl in the world to make a successful début in London society. Shyness—being entirely uncomprehended and believed in—is too often there mistaken for stupidity, or, at best, for a disinclination to be pleased and to be “jolly.” Looking beneath the surface is too long a process for the superficial observers of the present day; summary condemnation takes little time, and lynch-law, in the shape of something very like ostracism, is speedily pronounced. So Rhoda Vavasour—whose mother had been guilty of that terrible social blunder, namely, the non-keeping up of her connections—found herself, although rather pretty and decidedly “nice,” quite thrown away in the West-end world. Under these circumstances, and feeling—gentle though she was, and humble-minded—a little mortified and délaissée, Rhoda’s heart naturally turned again towards the man who, being but a country rector, looked up to, loved, and appreciated her. For her—almost partnerless, and left, whether at ball, opera, or party, a good deal to her own resources and reflections—the memory of George Wallingford, together with her pleasant country duties and avocations, was as a gleam of summer sunshine, a green oasis in the peopled desert of her uncongenial life. When, before her departure from Gillingham, the rector, meeting her by chance as she was leaving the door of a poor dependent on her kindness, stopped his horse, and by a few meaning words, and looks more suggestive still, conveyed to her the knowledge that neither time nor absence would erase her image from his heart, he of course committed this disloyal act with eyes wide open to its impropriety. He knew, ay better than did Arthur Vavasour, that he was, in thus secretly tampering with a young girl’s affections, committing a sin against his neighbour. That sin might not, viewed abstractedly, be so heinous as that which Rhoda’s brother was, with equal audacity, committing; but in reality the one man’s guilt was little inferior to the other; both yielded to such temptation as was within their reach, and the consequence in either case was the punishment that had been so deservedly incurred.

Lady Millicent, whose motives for passing the season in London could scarcely be called motherly ones, troubled herself little about her elder daughter’s pallid cheeks and languid movements.

“Rhoda was always pasty,” was her answer to Lady Guernsey, when that kind friend endeavoured to draw her attention to the small amount of interest taken by the débutante in the amusements that were offered to her; “Rhoda never had more colour than a boiled fowl. And in London I don’t see how she is to get rosier; unless, indeed,” correcting herself a little spitefully, “she were to employ the same tricks that other girls do; and that, I need not tell you, is not in Rhoda’s line.”

“I cannot help fancying,” Lady Guernsey said after a pause, during which she was wondering a little nervously how her hint would be taken,—“I cannot help fancying that Rhoda may have taken a fancy, may have seen someone who—”

Lady Millicent drew herself up indignantly. “I should have imagined,” she said, “that you had seen enough of Rhoda, enough too of my mode of bringing up, to render such a surmise—ahem—impossible. My daughter has never left my roof but once; and that, my dear Lady Guernsey, was when you kindly invited her to Gawthorpe. I should be distressed to think that while with you, and under Lord Guernsey’s protection, she should have met with anyone who, I mean—pray allow me to proceed—anyone who had clandestinely gained her affections, and thus put a bar—for I could not tolerate anything underhand—to my receiving him as a son-in-law.”

Lady Guernsey could not restrain a smile at this indignant outburst against one who was in point of fact a myth. Preparing to rise from the sofa, on which the two chaperones had taken refuge from the crowd and heat of a “delightful” ball, she said courteously:

“You must forgive me for my guess, and believe that nothing but our deep interest in dear Rhoda could have called it forth. As to her having seen anyone in the shape of a lover at Gawthorpe, that, I can assure you, was out of the question. Anything more dull than we were last Christmas, you would hardly believe. The death of poor Guernsey’s sister made gaiety out of the question; but the children, all things considered, seemed to enjoy themselves; and I am only grieved to see your girl looking so dull and altered.”

She put out her hand to her country neighbour as she spoke, and Lady Millicent, whose thoughts had already wandered away to law-courts, will-cases, and appeals, returned her goodnight with apparent cordiality.

Meanwhile—for absence, as is universally acknowledged, is apt to increase les grandes passions, while it has a directly contrary effect upon minor ones—meanwhile the rector of Switcham, in that pretty but dull study of his, sat ruminating, sometimes by the hour together, on the perfections of Rhoda Vavasour; on their mutual attachment (for George Wallingford felt as assured of the young girl’s love as if she had told him the sweet truth in words), and on the maddening possibility that in London, in the midst of the gay and exciting scenes of which he had heard and read so much, some man less faint of heart or more attractive than himself, might step between him and his love, and thus deprive him of all that made life dear and valuable. The idea that such might, by some terrible contingency, be the case, was, as I have just said, very distracting to the rector; so distracting, that his usually well-balanced mind tottered a little on its throne, and the judgments and resolves—so calm habitually, and prudent—of sensible George Wallingford, gave token of the emotion that was going on within his breast.

That it would be an act little short of insanity to request of Lady Millicent Vavasour the hand of her daughter in marriage, Rhoda’s clerical lover would, no later than three days before, have been quite willing to acknowledge; but, whether it is true that quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat, or that the man as well as “the woman who deliberates is lost,” it is needless to inquire, the fact remaining the same—namely, that poor George Wallingford, believing his position could not be worse, and might by some strange freak of Fortune be bettered by his desperate act, arrived at the somewhat rash resolution of proposing himself to Lady Millicent Vavasour as the future husband of her daughter.

The determination was no sooner arrived at than it was acted upon. Alone with his own thoughts, his own fears, and the hopes which the last tender smile which he had seen on Rhoda’s quivering lip had raised within his heart, the unfortunate young rector, unable to endure suspense, rushed madly to his fate. Alas for him, poor fellow!—where was at that crisis of his life the outspoken, sensible, hard-headed college friend, who with a strong grip—painful, perhaps, but salutary—would have plucked him from the edge of the abyss, and with a “Don’t make a fool of yourself, old fellow!” would have given wholesome counsel, and have staved off much of the unhappiness soon to be recorded?

The letter on which—as he touchingly explained to the sympathising Lady Millicent—the happiness of his future life depended was written just four days after the departure of the Castle family for London. Under what circumstances it was received, how Lady Millicent behaved on its perusal, and the consequences resulting from its perpetration, will form subject-matter for another chapter.