WHEN Mr. Osborne found himself alone—the impromptu committee which had hastily discussed the emergency having melted away, with the understanding that nothing could be done for this morning, that the holiday must be permitted, and a more formal meeting held in the afternoon at which some expedient might be settled upon—he stood for a moment at the door of the schoolhouse looking out upon the emancipated children, and making up his mind what to do. There was one thing very clear, and that was that the Rector ought to know. The curate stood and meditated with many things in his mind. He had not gone to the Rectory for some weeks, not since that disastrous moment when Florence had spoken her mind. His heart leaped up in his bosom, and began to beat in a most wild, unclerical, and unjustifiable way, when he saw that it was his duty to go now, and that there was no one else to do it for him. Jim had gone off in attendance upon Lady William, which was wholly unnecessary, seeing she had already her daughter and Swinford with her; but the fact that he had gone was evident, and more immediately important than to decide whether he had any right to go. And there was nobody but the curate to fulfil this necessary duty. Miss Grey even, the feminine curate, who ought to have been the first to undertake that mission, had melted away with the rest, going off to her district—as if her district for once could not wait! Mr. Osborne looked round him for help, but found none. At last he buttoned up his coat, which was the same as the Scriptural preparation of girding his loins, and went forth, hesitating no longer, but walking with a firm foot, light and swift, up the village street, resolved to do his duty. His duty was clearly to beard the lion in his den: no, not the Rector—the Rector was no lion to this critical young man: the lion whom he felt himself called upon to beard was a person of very different appearance from that of the respectable middle-aged clergyman who was Mr. Osborne’s ecclesiastical superior, and whom, with the instinct of the new generation, the curate was disposed to estimate lightly. It was a very different kind of lion indeed—a lion probably in a white gown, with pretty brown locks a little astray on her forehead, with a pair of mild brown eyes, that could indeed shine with sacred fire, as when she dared to discourse to a consecrated priest upon his duty—his duty! which was, first of all, by all laws, both of Nature and the Church, to hold her in subjection and ordain for her what she was to do—a case which she had taken upon herself to reverse. It would be difficult to say why Mr. Osborne should have concluded that this dangerous animal was the one he would see at the Rectory and not the true spiritual ruler of the parish himself, or even the ruler-ess, at whose pretensions the curate would have snapped his fingers. No, curiously enough, it was of neither of these that he thought. He felt absolutely certain, by what means I cannot tell, that it was Florence he would see—Florence, who had so offended him that he had all but insulted her sister and herself in the sight of the whole parish about their duet: and now he would have to face her—probably alone. To all ordinary calculations nothing could be more improbable than this—that circumstances should conjoin in such a concatenation accordingly as that nobody should be in the Rectory to receive Mr. Osborne but Florence; that her father should be out—a man always in his study till luncheon; and her mother out—a woman devoted to housekeeping and the cares of her family; and even Emmy out, with whom Mr. Osborne had no controversy. Only that spitfire, that little dictator, that feminine meddler, who had taken upon her to give advice to a priest! Such a contingency was not to be looked for by any of the laws of probability; and yet Mr. Osborne felt certain this was how it would be. His heart would not have beat so, his cheek taken such a colour, his head been held so high, if it had been the Rector he expected to see. He knew he should see her, and no one else; and he strode along accordingly, with sensations which were somewhere between those which moved David when he went out to meet Goliath and those which might be supposed to inspire a Forlorn Hope.
He did, however, everything he could to persuade himself that, after all, this was an ordinary visit upon parish business to the Rector. He went in by the parish door, which, as has been said, was a swinging door, always open in case any shy and shame-faced parishioner should wish to communicate with the spiritual authorities; but Mr. Plowden was not in his study, as Mr. Osborne foresaw. As he came out of that room, pretending to himself that he was disappointed—which he was not—he met one of the servants, who informed him (what he had discovered without her aid) that her master was out, and missis was out, and Mr. Jim was out, but she thought there was some one in the drawing-room, one of the young ladies, if that would do. Mr. Osborne could not say to Mary Jane that that would not do, that it was the last thing he wished, though he had been sure of it all along. All that he did was to nod his head rather impatiently in reply, and push past Mary Jane. No, he would not have himself announced by the maid, as if it were quite a usual matter. He waved her away, and went on by himself and opened the drawing-room door. How his heart beat, and what a wrathful shining was in his eyes!
And of course his previsions were quite true, true in every particular: there she sat, looking as if—as if, according to the old wives, butter would not melt in her mouth. Not with the air of a lion to be boarded in his den. Oh no! much more like a lamb—in the white dress which (even that detail!) the unfortunate curate had foreseen, looking so peaceable and innocent, so—so—sweet, confound her! Oh no, the curate did not say that. It is I who say it, in the impossibility of finding words to express his sentiments. It all surged upon him now—much worse even than he had expected! the abominable impertinence and presumption of her, the sweetness of her, the everything he liked best, conjoined with that intolerable something which he could not endure. Poor curate! He had foreseen it all—but not so bad, not quite so bad as it turned out. She was seated close by the window, at one side of the large table which had been thrust into a corner, but not put away, as being so convenient for work—with a good deal of white stuff about, cotton from which she was cutting out various shapes, of which I do not pretend that Mr. Osborne recognised more than the purpose of them, which was for the sewing class evidently in the first place, and the comfort of its members after that. A clergyman—if not celibate, which, perhaps, is the best—but Mr. Osborne had regretfully allowed the difficulties of it some months before this—could not well behold in visions a wife more suitably employed. Florence was so busy that it did not occur to her to turn round when the door opened. She was singing to herself in a sort of undertone as she planned out, and pinned, and cut, not thinking of any visitor. It piqued Mr. Osborne extremely, as if it were a special little defiance thrown out at himself, that she should be singing at her work.
Oh, then he was revenged for the moment! Florence started so that she nearly jumped from her chair, and the scissors with which she was cutting out so carefully gave a long and jagged gash into the cotton like a wound, and the cheeks and pretty white throat which were under his gaze suddenly turned red to the edge of the white dress as if with some relay dye.
‘Mr. Osborne!’ she said, with a half-terrified look.
‘I am afraid I startled you. I came to see the Rector—to tell him of a most extraordinary incident.’
Florence uttered a quavering, troubled ‘O—oh!’ and then she said, dropping her scissors, ‘I hope it is not bad news.’
‘Oh, not to any of us,’ said the curate hurriedly, ‘to the parish, perhaps; but I am not even sure of that.’
When Florence heard it was only the parish that was threatened, she calmed down immediately; her ‘O—oh!’ repeated, was in quite a different tone. ‘My father is out,’ she said, ‘and so, I am afraid, are mamma and Emmy. It is very seldom,’ said Florence, feeling herself almost on her defence, ‘that I am the only one at home; but I can tell papa—anything——’
Anything? How was it that it occurred to both of them instinctively that there might be things which Florry could not tell papa—which it would be Mr. Osborne’s duty to say in his own person? If there is anything that it is specially embarrassing to think of, at any given moment, that, one may be sure, is the thing that comes into one’s head. Anything? If the curate wanted to ask Mr. Plowden for his daughter, for example, which was a thing that did not seem unlikely some time ago, though not now—oh, certainly, not now! This thought in all its ramifications went like lightning through the minds of both, and made each—thinking nothing could be further from the ideas of the other—more confused than words can say.
‘It is to ask,’ said the curate, recovering himself, ‘that the Rector would call together the education committee at once, if he does not mind. A wonderful thing has occurred. The schoolmistress, without giving any notice or warning, without a word to any one, has gone away. When the children went to school this morning the door was locked, and she was gone.’
‘The schoolmistress? Mrs. Brown?’
‘I don’t know how she was appointed,’ said the curate; ‘I was away at the time for my holiday; nor who is responsible for her, nor what recommendations she had. I had never any confidence in her, for my own part. She did not at all seem fitted for such a sphere.’
Florence felt that this was an assault upon her father’s judgment, and immediately stood to her guns.
‘She was an excellent teacher; the girls would do anything for her, and the inspector said there was such an improvement.’
‘She was not a woman to have charge of the moral training of all those girls.’
‘Oh, their moral training! But it was for the standards that she was there.’
‘We need not quarrel over that,’ said the curate, as who should say, we have plenty of subjects to quarrel upon, ‘the thing is that she is gone. I was going to say bag and baggage; but that would not be correct, for her boxes are left all fastened up—directed to a distant railway station. She has not even left an address.’
‘How very odd!’ Florence said. And then there was a little pause: there is nothing so dangerous as a pause in certain positions of affairs.
Mr. Osborne stood in front of the window, and when he came to the end of a sentence looked out upon the garden. Florence, except when she was speaking and was obliged to raise her eyes to him now and then, kept them upon her work. She had not asked him to sit down—partly from inadvertence, partly from embarrassment—and both of them cast furtive glances at the gate, longing for somebody to come. Did they long for somebody to come? At last the silence became so very appalling that Florence rushed into it, not knowing what might come of that too eloquent pause.
‘I am to tell papa that there is to be a meeting of the education——’
‘I hope you don’t think I would send my Rector a message like that? That, if he thinks well, there ought, perhaps, to be a meeting—for something must be done at once; the children are all about’—Mr. Osborne added, sinking into a more confidential tone—‘we cannot keep the girls’ school shut.’
‘No,’ said Florence, ‘oh no; do you know of any one? There is Anderson’s wife, the schoolmaster. He wanted her to get it, but now she has the infant school. At the worst, don’t you think for a day or two we ladies, perhaps? If you can’t hear of any one, I could take the reading and spelling, and perhaps the writing. Having the copylines makes that easy, though, of course, I don’t write well enough myself.’
‘You might do it, Miss Plowden; you don’t mind what trouble you put yourself to—’ He had to pull up sharply, or he did not know what he might have said. His voice began to grow rather soft in spite of himself, which was a thing that could not be permitted to be. ‘We might think of Mrs. Anderson,’ he said; ‘as for the other ladies, I don’t think it would do. It is useless trusting to amateurs.’
‘Yes,’ said Florence, with humility. ‘I never thought, of course, that I could be much good, or any of us, only for a stop-gap for the moment. Mrs. Anderson would be the most hopeful thing, perhaps.’
‘I did not mean to imply that you would be no good. Quite the reverse. I meant——’
‘Oh! I know, I know, Mr. Osborne,’ said Florry. ‘We need not stand upon compliments; we are only trying to think what’s best for the children.’
That was all—what was best for the children—nothing more.
He stood looking out of the window, and Florence pinned her paper patterns to new folds of the white cotton. And there was again a pause—which Florry this time did not try to break. It was he who began. ‘Your brother,’ he said, suddenly but harshly, ‘was so good about that ridiculous entertainment of mine; I should never have got those men to come but for him.’
‘Jim?’ said Florence. ‘I am very glad; he liked to help; but I don’t see why you should call it a ridiculous entertainment.’
‘I felt it so,’ cried the curate fiercely. ‘What is the good of such attempts? Perhaps if they went on, like the public-house, every night, a warm bright place, with ladies to sing, and——’
‘Dance!’ said Florry, with unsteady laughter, ‘as Miss Grey said. Well, then, you must start a working-man’s club, Mr. Osborne, and then you can have it every night, and there will always be a nice bright, light place to sit in, and games, you know, and papers——’
‘And beer?’
‘I have heard people say,’ said Florence, ‘that it is best to let them have whatever they would have if it was natural. But I am rather on your side about that, and so is mamma.’
‘On my side?’ said the curate, with a faintness in his voice.
‘About the temperance. But, on the other hand, papa says it is not having no beer, but having just as much as is good, that is temperance.’
‘None is good,’ cried Mr. Osborne impulsively.
‘Well,’ said Florence, with judicial calm, ‘I have said that I think I am on your side.’
A pause again, and Florence went on with her work steadily. Nobody came—the May sunshine fell over the lawn without a shadow to break it. Would they never come back, Florry asked herself? And yet the present situation was not without its charm. All his displeasure was oozing out of his fingers’ ends, all his unwillingness to be dictated to by a girl. He thought he would like it if she would dictate to him again, and tell him what was his duty. No; he did not think this, he only felt it vaguely—touched, he could not tell why, by her avowal of being on his side. Was he not her spiritual superior, and was it not her duty, as soon as she heard his sentiments on the subject, to be on his side? But somehow he did not feel so sure of that position, and rather wanted to hear her unbiassed opinion and what she would say.
‘Your brother has been a great help to me,’ he said again.
He would not for the world have reminded her of what she had said that day. And, of course, she had said nothing in so many words about her brother. He was by no means sure that it was not a mean thing thrusting this forward to make her think she was obliged to him, but yet—when a man is at his wits’ end, what can he say?
‘We have all been so glad to see that Jim was beginning—to take an interest——’
‘And he knows so much,’ pursued the curate, ‘more than I do. If we were to get up a club, he might do almost anything he pleased with the men. I have to thank you, Miss Florence,’ he went on, finding as he proceeded that it was necessary to be definite if he was to make any impression, ‘for giving me a hint——’
‘I don’t think I gave you any hint,’ said Florence, dropping her scissors; while she stooped for them she went on, saying quickly: ‘We know what we owe to you; we all feel it. One can’t talk of such things, Mr. Osborne, and I was very bold and disagreeable once; but if you think I don’t thank you from my heart——’
‘Florence!’ said the curate.
‘Oh, I don’t mind, call me whatever you like. You had a good right to be angry, and I took a great deal, a very great deal upon me—but if you knew how we all thanked you from the bottom of our hearts.’
‘Florence!’ the curate said again; he had got down on his knee on the carpet to look for the scissors too—they were strange scissors to disappear like that—scissors are not round things like a ring or a reel of cotton to run into a corner; yet they eluded both these people who were looking for them, and who, not finding them, suddenly somehow looked at each other, probably for the first time since that day.
I think it highly probable that these young people forgot from that moment that there was a girls’ school in Watcham at all, much more that the mistress had ran away from it, or that there was any occasion for moving heaven and earth, as Mr. Osborne had intended when he entered the Rectory, to get a substitute for Mrs. Brown.