Dr. Wortle's School Part 18

Peac.o.c.ke had been ugly, because there would not then have been so much danger about the school.

"I'm just going up to see her," said the Doctor, as soon as he got home,--"just to ask her what she wants."

"I don't think she wants anything," said Mrs. Wortle, weakly.

"Does she not? She must be a very odd woman if she can live there all day alone, and not want to see a human creature."

"I was with her yesterday."

"And therefore I will call to-day," said the Doctor, leaving the room with his hat on.

When he was shown up into the sitting-room he found Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke with a newspaper in her hand. He could see at a glance that it was a copy of the 'Broughton Gazette,' and could see also the length and outward show of the very article which he had been discussing with Mr. Puddicombe. "Dr.

Wortle," she said, "if you don't mind, I will go away from this."

"But I do mind. Why should you go away?"

"They have been writing about me in the newspapers."

"That was to be expected."

"But they have been writing about you."

"That was to have been expected also. You don't suppose they can hurt me?" This was a false boast, but in such conversations he was almost bound to boast.

"It is I, then, am hurting you?"

"You;--oh dear, no; not in the least."

"But I do. They talk of boys going away from the school."

"Boys will go and boys will come, but we run on for ever," said the Doctor, playfully.

"I can well understand that it should be so," said Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke, pa.s.sing over the Doctor's parody as though unnoticed; "and I perceive that I ought not to be here."

"Where ought you to be, then?" said he, intending simply to carry on his joke.

"Where indeed! There is no where. But wherever I may do least injury to innocent people,--to people who have not been driven by storms out of the common path of life. For this place I am peculiarly unfit."

"Will you find any place where you will be made more welcome?"

"I think not."

"Then let me manage the rest. You have been reading that dastardly article in the paper. It will have no effect upon me. Look here, Mrs.

Peac.o.c.ke;"--then he got up and held her hand as though he were going, but he remained some moments while he was still speaking to her,--still holding her hand;--"it was settled between your husband and me, when he went away, that you should remain here under my charge till his return. I am bound to him to find a home for you. I think you are as much bound to obey him,--which you can only do by remaining here."

"I would wish to obey him, certainly."

"You ought to do so,--from the peculiar circ.u.mstances more especially.

Don't trouble your mind about the school, but do as he desired. There is no question but that you must do so. Good-bye. Mrs. Wortle or I will come and see you to-morrow." Then, and not till then, he dropped her hand.

On the next day Mrs. Wortle did call, though these visits were to her an intolerable nuisance. But it was certainly better that she should alternate the visits with the Doctor than that he should go every day.

The Doctor had declared that charity required that one of them should see the poor woman daily. He was quite willing that they should perform the task day and day about,--but should his wife omit the duty he must go in his wife's place. What would all the world of Bowick say if the Doctor were to visit a lady, a young and a beautiful lady, every day, whereas his wife visited the lady not at all? Therefore they took it turn about, except that sometimes the Doctor accompanied his wife. The Doctor had once suggested that his wife should take the poor lady out in her carriage. But against this even Mrs. Wortle had rebelled. "Under such circ.u.mstances as hers she ought not to be seen driving about," said Mrs.

Wortle. The Doctor had submitted to this, but still thought that the world of Bowick was very cruel.

Mrs. Wortle, though she made no complaint, thought that she was used cruelly in the matter. There had been an intention of going into Brittany during these summer holidays. The little tour had been almost promised.

But the affairs of Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke were of such a nature as not to allow the Doctor to be absent. "You and Mary can go, and Henry will go with you."

Henry was a bachelor brother of Mrs. Wortle, who was always very much at the Doctor's disposal, and at hers. But certainly she was not going to quit England, not going to quit home at all, while her husband remained there, and while Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke was an inmate of the school. It was not that she was jealous. The idea was absurd. But she knew very well what Mrs. Stantiloup would say.

CHAPTER II.

'EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS.'

BUT there arose a trouble greater than that occasioned by the 'Broughton Gazette.' There came out an article in a London weekly newspaper, called 'Everybody's Business,' which nearly drove the Doctor mad. This was on the last Sat.u.r.day of the holidays. The holidays had been commenced in the middle of July, and went on till the end of August. Things had not gone well at Bowick during these weeks. The parents of all the four newly-expected boys had--changed their minds. One father had discovered that he could not afford it. Another declared that the mother could not be got to part with her darling quite so soon as he had expected. A third had found that a private tutor at home would best suit his purposes.

While the fourth boldly said that he did not like to send his boy because of the "fuss" which had been made about Mr. and Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke. Had this last come alone, the Doctor would probably have resented such a communication; but following the others as it did, he preferred the fourth man to any of the other three. "Miserable cowards," he said to himself, as he docketed the letters and put them away. But the greatest blow of all,--of all blows of this sort,--came to him from poor Lady Anne Clifford. She wrote a piteous letter to him, in which she implored him to allow her to take her two boys away.

"My dear Doctor Wortle," she said, "so many people have been telling so many dreadful things about this horrible affair, that I do not dare to send my darling boys back to Bowick again. Uncle Clifford and Lord Robert both say that I should be very wrong. The Marchioness has said so much about it that I dare not go against her. You know what my own feelings are about you and dear Mrs. Wortle; but I am not my own mistress. They all tell me that it is my first duty to think about the dear boys'

welfare; and of course that is true. I hope you won't be very angry with me, and will write one line to say that you forgive me.--Yours most sincerely,

"ANNE CLIFFORD."

In answer to this the Doctor did write as follows;--

"MY DEAR LADY ANNE,--Of course your duty is very plain,--to do what you think best for the boys; and it is natural enough that you should follow the advice of your relatives and theirs.--Faithfully yours,

"JEFFREY WORTLE."

He could not bring himself to write in a more friendly tone, or to tell her that he forgave her. His sympathies were not with her. His sympathies at the present moment were only with Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke. But then Lady Anne Clifford was not a beautiful woman, as was Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke.

This was a great blow. Two other boys had also been summoned away, making five in all, whose premature departure was owing altogether to the virulent tongue of that wretched old Mother Shipton. And there had been four who were to come in the place of four others, who, in the course of nature, were going to carry on their more advanced studies elsewhere.

Vacancies such as these had always been pre-occupied long beforehand by ambitious parents. These very four places had been pre-occupied, but now they were all vacant. There would be nine empty beds in the school when it met again after the holidays; and the Doctor well understood that nine beds remaining empty would soon cause others to be emptied. It is success that creates success, and decay that produces decay. Gradual decay he knew that he could not endure. He must shut up his school,--give up his employment,--and retire altogether from the activity of life. He felt that if it came to this with him he must in very truth turn his face to the wall and die. Would it,--would it really come to that, that Mrs.

Stantiloup should have altogether conquered him in the combat that had sprung up between them?

But yet he would not give up Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke. Indeed, circ.u.mstanced as he was, he could not give her up. He had promised not only her, but her absent husband, that until his return there should be a home for her in the school-house. There would be a cowardice in going back from his word which was altogether foreign to his nature. He could not bring himself to retire from the fight, even though by doing so he might save himself from the actual final slaughter which seemed to be imminent. He thought only of making fresh attacks upon his enemy, instead of meditating flight from those which were made upon him. As a dog, when another dog has got him well by the ear, thinks not at all of his own wound, but only how he may catch his enemy by the lip, so was the Doctor in regard to Mrs.

Stantiloup. When the two Clifford boys were taken away, he took some joy to himself in remembering that Mr. Stantiloup could not pay his butcher's bill.

Then, just at the end of the holidays, some good-natured friend sent to him a copy of 'Everybody's Business.' There is no duty which a man owes to himself more clearly than that of throwing into the waste-paper basket, unsearched and even unopened, all newspapers sent to him without a previously-declared purpose. The sender has either written something himself which he wishes to force you to read, or else he has been desirous of wounding you by some ill-natured criticism upon yourself. 'Everybody's Business' was a paper which, in the natural course of things, did not find its way into the Bowick Rectory; and the Doctor, though he was no doubt acquainted with the t.i.tle, had never even looked at its columns. It was the purpose of the periodical to amuse its readers, as its name declared, with the private affairs of their neighbours. It went boldly about its work, excusing itself by the a.s.sertion that Jones was just as well inclined to be talked about as Smith was to hear whatever could be said about Jones. As both parties were served, what could be the objection?

It was in the main good-natured, and probably did most frequently gratify the Joneses, while it afforded considerable amus.e.m.e.nt to the listless and numerous Smiths of the world. If you can't read and understand Jones's speech in Parliament, you may at any rate have mind enough to interest yourself with the fact that he never composed a word of it in his own room without a ring on his finger and a flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole. It may also be agreeable to know that Walker the poet always takes a mutton-chop and two gla.s.ses of sherry at half-past one. 'Everybody's Business' did this for everybody to whom such excitement was agreeable. But in managing everybody's business in that fashion, let a writer be as good-natured as he may and let the principle be ever so well-founded that n.o.body is to be hurt, still there are dangers. It is not always easy to know what will hurt and what will not. And then sometimes there will come a temptation to be, not spiteful, but specially amusing. There must be danger, and a writer will sometimes be indiscreet. Personalities will lead to libels even when the libeller has been most innocent. It may be that after all the poor poet never drank a gla.s.s of sherry before dinner in his life,--it may be that a little toast-and-water, even with his dinner, gives him all the refreshment that he wants, and that two gla.s.ses of alcoholic mixture in the middle of the day shall seem, when imputed to him, to convey a charge of downright inebriety. But the writer has perhaps learned to regard two gla.s.ses of meridian wine as but a moderate amount of sustentation. This man is much flattered if it be given to be understood of him that he falls in love with every pretty woman that he sees;--whereas another will think that he has been made subject to a foul calumny by such insinuation.

'Everybody's Business' fell into some such mistake as this, in that very amusing article which was written for the delectation of its readers in reference to Dr. Wortle and Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke. The 'Broughton Gazette' no doubt confined itself to the clerical and highly moral views of the case, and, having dealt with the subject chiefly on behalf of the Close and the admirers of the Close, had made no allusion to the fact that Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke was a very pretty woman. One or two other local papers had been more scurrilous, and had, with ambiguous and timid words, alluded to the Doctor's personal admiration for the lady. These, or the rumours created by them, had reached one of the funniest and lightest-handed of the contributors to 'Everybody's Business,' and he had concocted an amusing article,--which he had not intended to be at all libellous, which he had thought to be only funny. He had not appreciated, probably, the tragedy of the lady's position, or the sanct.i.ty of that of the gentleman. There was comedy in the idea of the Doctor having sent one husband away to America to look after the other while he consoled the wife in England.

"It must be admitted," said the writer, "that the Doctor has the best of it. While one gentleman is gouging the other,--as cannot but be expected,--the Doctor will be at any rate in security, enjoying the smiles of beauty under his own fig-tree at Bowick. After a hot morning with '_tupto_' in the school, there will be 'amo' in the cool of the evening."

And this was absolutely sent to him by some good-natured friend!

The funny writer obtained a popularity wider probably than he had expected. His words reached Mrs. Stantiloup, as well as the Doctor, and were read even in the Bishop's palace. They were quoted even in the 'Broughton Gazette,' not with approbation, but in a high tone of moral severity. "See the nature of the language to which Dr. Wortle's conduct has subjected the whole of the diocese!" That was the tone of the criticism made by the 'Broughton Gazette' on the article in 'Everybody's Business.' "What else has he a right to expect?" said Mrs. Stantiloup to Mrs. Rolland, having made quite a journey into Broughton for the sake of discussing it at the palace. There she explained it all to Mrs. Rolland, having herself studied the pa.s.sage so as fully to appreciate the virus contained in it. "He pa.s.ses all the morning in the school whipping the boys himself because he has sent Mr. Peac.o.c.ke away, and then amuses himself in the evening by making love to Mr. Peac.o.c.ke's wife, as he calls her." Dr. Wortle, when he read and re-read the article, and when the jokes which were made upon it reached his ears, as they were sure to do, was nearly maddened by what he called the heartless iniquity of the world; but his state became still worse when he received an affectionate but solemn letter from the Bishop warning him of his danger. An affectionate letter from a bishop must surely be the most disagreeable missive which a parish clergyman can receive. Affection from one man to another is not natural in letters. A bishop never writes affectionately unless he means to reprove severely. When he calls a clergyman his "dear brother in Christ,"

he is sure to go on to show that the man so called is altogether unworthy of the name. So it was with a letter now received at Bowick, in which the Bishop expressed his opinion that Dr. Wortle ought not to pay any further visits to Mrs. Peac.o.c.ke till she should have settled herself down with one legitimate husband, let that legitimate husband be who it might. The Bishop did not indeed, at first, make reference by name to 'Everybody's Business,' but he stated that the "metropolitan press" had taken up the matter, and that scandal would take place in the diocese if further cause were given. "It is not enough to be innocent," said the Bishop, "but men must know that we are so."