Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/504

492  at the well-to-do appearance of the congregation, for St. Clement's was in the poorest part of Wiltonbury, a suburb of newly-built cottages on its outskirts; but Mr. Morgan explained that most of them were not parishioners, but came from all parts of the town, showing what a grievous need there had been previously to its erection, for some receptacle for sound doctrine. The people who lived in the parish were mostly Dissenters, or did not go to any place of worship. And it was the pew-rents, he added, that made up the incumbent's income. Without them the charge would not be worth holding.

After dinner Arthur and his mother went to afternoon service at the cathedral. "I used to go here both morning and evening," said Mrs. Yorke as they walked home afterwards; "but Rebecca made such a point of my going to hear William, that I feel it a duty to attend St. Clement's in the morning; it is the curate preaches in the afternoon, you know. William has quite the gift of preaching, of course, and very striking and beautiful his sermons are; but I must say I prefer the cathedral service. There is a devotional aspect about it which you miss in the other, don't you think so? the cloistered aisles, you know, and the children clad in white casting up their souls to heaven — it imparts such a devotional feeling to the mind."

"Very much so — only I wish the little scamps had not pinched each other so during the service; and as for the lay vicars, they were the most thoroughly irreverent set of fellows I ever saw in my life. They could not have looked about them more if they had been singing at a music-hall."

"My dear Arthur, how can you talk in that way! You really have brought the most shocking notions with you from India. You need not bring tea just yet," she said to the maid as they entered the house; "perhaps," she added, by way of explanation to her son, "Mr. Rawlings or Mr. Chanter will look in presently. They do so occasionally of a Sunday afternoon to take a little rest after the labours of the day." But neither of these gentlemen paid her a visit on that evening. Yorke was much exercised in mind next morning whether, before starting for town to keep an appointment with his tailor, he should speak to his mother regarding her way of life. These men, young and middle-aged, dangling about her, must probably know that she had merely a life-interest in her comfortable little income; did she believe that they were really in love with her, or did she take them to be merely intending to carry on a flirtation? and if so, was an understanding of this sort decorous for a woman of her age? But he abstained from inviting any confidences on the subject, feeling that there would be no use in doing so. And he did not communicate the half-formed idea of persuading her to leave Wiltonbury for a while, and to travel with him or live elsewhere. After all, he could be with her only for a time, and why break up the home which satisfied her tastes? The things that jarred on his senses did not reach her. Above all, he felt that anything he might say would probably be communicated to Rawlings, who, he gathered from sundry remarks let fall by his mother, was the person she usually went to for advice, and might either lead to the man's making a declaration, or to some fresh impertinence on his part. But Yorke went back to London dull at heart, and feeling more lonely than ever. The vision of a home life had been dissipated by this short experience. What is there repulsive about me, he thought, that I can not only get no woman to love me, but that even my own mother and sister do not care a pin about me? A day or two afterwards he received a letter from his mother announcing the birth of another niece. "You will be rejoiced to hear, my dearest Arthur, that your fond mother's heart has been relieved at last from its anxieties by this happy event. It was a terrible night for me, as dear William, thinking my nerves might be upset, insisted on my going home and leaving Rebecca with the nurse and the doctor. How I got any sleep, I am sure I don't know. There is a very good account this afternoon, but I have not been allowed to see our precious invalid yet; and oh, my dear Arthur, I was almost forgetting to tell you that an invitation has just come for us to dine at the palace the day after to-morrow, with such a kind apology for the short invitation. I have accepted, of course, for both of us." But Yorke pleaded town engagements, and gave a similar excuse later on when informed that the Wiltonbury Club only awaited his return to give a public dinner in his honour. His visits to Wiltonbury were made henceforward for the most part at unexpected times, and the evenings spent on such occasions at the vicarage, which was safe from the intrusion of Rawlings and the other frequenters of the little house by the Close.