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THE RECTORY.
The curate had been in the study all the morning. Three times had his
wife softly turned the handle of his door, but finding it locked, had
re-turned the handle yet more softly, and departed noiselessly. Next
time she knocked--and he came to her pale-eyed, but his face almost
luminous, and a smile hovering about his lips: she knew then that either
a battle had been fought amongst the hills, and he had won, or a
thought-storm had been raging, through which at length had descended the
meek-eyed Peace. She looked in his face for a moment with silent
reverence, then offered her lips, took him by the hand, and, without a
word, led him down the stair to their mid-day meal. When that was over,
she made him lie down, and taking a novel, read him asleep. She woke him
to an early tea--not, however, after it, to return to his study: in the
drawing-room, beside his wife, he always got the germ of his
discourse--his germon, he called it--ready for its growth in the pulpit.
Now he lay on the couch, now rose and stood, now walked about the room,
now threw himself again on the couch; while, all the time his wife
played softly on her piano, extemporizing and interweaving, with an
invention, taste, and expression, of which before her marriage she had
been quite incapable.
The text in his mind was, "_Ye can not serve God and Mammon_." But not
once did he speak to his wife about it. He did not even tell her what
his text was. Long ago he had given her to understand that he could not
part with her as one of his congregation--could not therefore take her
into his sermon before he met her in her hearing phase in church, with
the rows of pews and faces betwixt him and her, making her once more one
of his flock, the same into whose heart he had so often agonized to pour
the words of rousing, of strength, of consolation.
On the Saturday, except his wife saw good reason, she would let no one
trouble him, and almost the sole reason she counted good was trouble: if
a person was troubled, then he might trouble. His friends knew this, and
seldom came near him on a Saturday. But that evening, Mr. Drew, the
draper, who, although a dissenter, was one of the curate's warmest
friends, called late, when, he thought in his way of looking at sermons,
that for the morrow must be now finished, and laid aside like a parcel
for delivery the next morning. Helen went to him. He told her the rector
was in the town, had called upon not a few of his parishioners, and
doubtless was going to church in the morning.
"Thank you, Mr. Drew. I perfectly understand your kindness," said Mrs.
Wingfold, "but I shall not tell my husband to-night."
"Excuse the liberty, ma'am, but--but--do you think it well for a wife to
hide things from her husband?"
Helen laughed merrily.
"Assuredly not, as a rule," she replied. "But suppose I knew he would be
vexed with me if I told him some particular thing? Suppose I know now
that, when I do tell him on Monday, he will say to me, 'Thank you, wife.
I am glad you kept that from me till I had done my work,'--what then?"
"All right then," answered the draper.
You see, Mr. Drew, we think married people should be so sure of each
other that each should not only be content, but should prefer not to
know what the other thinks it better not to tell. If my husband
overheard any one calling me names, I don't think he would tell me. He
knows, as well as I do, that I am not yet good enough to behave better
to any one for knowing she hates and reviles me. It would be but to
propagate the evil, and for my part too, I would rather not be told."
"I quite understand you, ma'am," answered the draper.
"I know you do," returned Helen, with emphasis.
Mr. Drew blushed to the top of his white forehead, while the lower part
of his face, which in its forms was insignificant, blossomed into a
smile as radiant as that of an infant. He knew Mrs. Wingfold was aware
of the fact, known only to two or three beside in the town, that the
lady, who for the last few months had been lodging in his house, was his
own wife, who had forsaken him twenty years before. The man who during
that time had passed for her husband, had been otherwise dishonest as
well, and had fled the country; she and her daughter, brought to
absolute want, were received into his house by her forsaken husband;
there they occupied the same chamber, the mother ordered every thing,
and the daughter did not know that she paid for nothing. If the ways of
transgressors are hard, those of a righteous man are not always easy.
When Mr. Drew would now and then stop suddenly in the street, take off
his hat and wipe his forehead, little people thought the round smiling
face had such a secret behind it. Had they surmised a skeleton in his
house, they would as little have suspected it masked in the handsome,
well-dressed woman of little over forty, who, with her pretty daughter
so tossy and airy, occupied his first floor, and was supposed to pay him
handsomely for it.
The curate slept soundly, and woke in the morning eager to utter what he
had.
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