Dr. Wortle's School Part 20

"I have seen one of the proprietors and the editor," said the lawyer, "and they are quite willing to apologise. I really do believe they are very sorry. The words had been allowed to pa.s.s without being weighed. Nothing beyond an innocent joke was intended."

"I dare say. It seems innocent enough to them. If soot be thrown at a chimney-sweeper the joke is innocent, but very offensive when it is thrown at you."

"They are quite aware that you have ground to complain. Of course you can go on if you like. The fact that they have offered to apologise will no doubt be a point in their favour. Nevertheless you would probably get a verdict."

"We could bring the Bishop into court?"

"I think so. You have got his letter speaking of the 'metropolitan press'?"

"Oh yes."

"It is for you to think, Dr. Wortle, whether there would not be a feeling against you among clergymen."

"Of course there will. Men in authority always have public sympathy with them in this country. No man more rejoices that it should be so than I do. But not the less is it necessary that now and again a man shall make a stand in his own defence. He should never have sent me that paper."

"Here," said the lawyer, "is the apology they propose to insert if you approve of it. They will also pay my bill,--which, however, will not, I am sorry to say, be very heavy." Then the lawyer handed to the Doctor a slip of paper, on which the following words were written;--

"Our attention has been called to a notice which was made in our impression of the -- ultimo on the conduct of a clergyman in the diocese of Broughton. A joke was perpetrated which, we are sorry to find, has given offence where certainly no offence was intended. We have since heard all the details of the case to which reference was made, and are able to say that the conduct of the clergyman in question has deserved neither censure nor ridicule. Actuated by the purest charity he has proved himself a sincere friend to persons in great trouble."

"They'll put in your name if you wish it," said the lawyer, "or alter it in any way you like, so that they be not made to eat too much dirt."

"I do not want them to alter it," said the Doctor, sitting thoughtfully.

"Their eating dirt will do no good to me. They are nothing to me. It is the Bishop." Then, as though he were not thinking of what he did, he tore the paper and threw the fragments down on the floor. "They are nothing to me."

"You will not accept their apology?" said the lawyer.

"Oh yes;--or rather, it is unnecessary. You may tell them that I have changed my mind, and that I will ask for no apology. As far as the paper is concerned, it will be better to let the thing die a natural death. I should never have troubled myself about the newspaper if the Bishop had not sent it to me. Indeed I had seen it before the Bishop sent it, and thought little or nothing of it. Animals will after their kind. The wasp stings, and the polecat stinks, and the lion tears its prey asunder. Such a paper as that of course follows its own bent. One would have thought that a bishop would have done the same."

"I may tell them that the action is withdrawn."

"Certainly; certainly. Tell them also that they will oblige me by putting in no apology. And as for your bill, I would prefer to pay it myself. I will exercise no anger against them. It is not they who in truth have injured me." As he returned home he was not altogether happy, feeling that the Bishop would escape him; but he made his wife happy by telling her the decision to which he had come.

CHAPTER IV.

"IT IS IMPOSSIBLE."

THE absence of Dr. and Mrs. Wortle was peculiarly unfortunate on that afternoon, as a visitor rode over from a distance to make a call,--a visitor whom they both would have been very glad to welcome, but of whose coming Mrs. Wortle was not so delighted to hear when she was told by Mary that he had spent two or three hours at the Rectory. Mrs. Wortle began to think whether the visitor could have known of her intended absence and the Doctor's. That Mary had not known that the visitor was coming she was quite certain. Indeed she did not really suspect the visitor, who was one too ingenuous in his nature to preconcert so subtle and so wicked a scheme. The visitor, of course, had been Lord Carstairs.

"Was he here long?" asked Mrs. Wortle anxiously.

"Two or three hours, mamma. He rode over from b.u.t.tercup where he is staying, for a cricket match, and of course I got him some lunch."

"I should hope so," said the Doctor. "But I didn't think that Carstairs was so fond of the Momson lot as all that."

Mrs. Wortle at once doubted the declared purpose of this visit to b.u.t.tercup. b.u.t.tercup was more than half-way between Carstairs and Bowick.

"And then we had a game of lawn-tennis. Talbot and Monk came through to make up sides." So much Mary told at once, but she did not tell more till she was alone with her mother.

Young Carstairs had certainly not come over on the sly, as we may call it, but nevertheless there had been a project in his mind, and fortune had favoured him. He was now about nineteen, and had been treated for the last twelve months almost as though he had been a man. It had seemed to him that there was no possible reason why he should not fall in love as well as another. Nothing more sweet, nothing more lovely, nothing more lovable than Mary Wortle had he ever seen. He had almost made up his mind to speak on two or three occasions before he left Bowick; but either his courage or the occasion had failed him. Once, as he was walking home with her from church, he had said one word;--but it had amounted to nothing.

She had escaped from him before she was bound to understand what he meant.

He did not for a moment suppose that she had understood anything. He was only too much afraid that she regarded him as a mere boy. But when he had been away from Bowick two months he resolved that he would not be regarded as a mere boy any longer. Therefore he took an opportunity of going to b.u.t.tercup, which he certainly would not have done for the sake of the Momsons or for the sake of the cricket.

He ate his lunch before he said a word, and then, with but poor grace, submitted to the lawn-tennis with Talbot and Monk. Even to his youthful mind it seemed that Talbot and Monk were brought in on purpose. They were both of them boys he had liked, but he hated them now. However, he played his game, and when that was over, managed to get rid of them, sending them back through the gate to the school-ground.

"I think I must say good-bye now," said Mary, "because there are ever so many things in the house which I have got to do."

"I am going almost immediately," said the young lord.

"Papa will be so sorry not to have seen you." This had been said once or twice before.

"I came over," he said, "on purpose to see you."

They were now standing on the middle of the lawn, and Mary had a.s.sumed a look which intended to signify that she expected him to go. He knew the place well enough to get his own horse, or to order the groom to get it for him. But instead of that, he stood his ground, and now declared his purpose.

"To see me, Lord Carstairs!"

"Yes, Miss Wortle. And if the Doctor had been here, or your mother, I should have told them."

"Have told them what?" she asked. She knew; she felt sure that she knew; and yet she could not refrain from the question.

"I have come here to ask if you can love me."

It was a most decided way of declaring his purpose, and one which made Mary feel that a great difficulty was at once thrown upon her. She really did not know whether she could love him or not. Why shouldn't she have been able to love him? Was it not natural enough that she should be able?

But she knew that she ought not to love him, whether able or not. There were various reasons which were apparent enough to her though it might be very difficult to make him see them. He was little more than a boy, and had not yet finished his education. His father and mother would not expect him to fall in love, at any rate till he had taken his degree. And they certainly would not expect him to fall in love with the daughter of his tutor. She had an idea that, circ.u.mstanced as she was, she was bound by loyalty both to her own father and to the lad's father not to be able to love him. She thought that she would find it easy enough to say that she did not love him; but that was not the question. As for being able to love him,--she could not answer that at all.

"Lord Carstairs," she said, severely, "you ought not to have come here when papa and mamma are away."

"I didn't know they were away. I expected to find them here."

"But they ain't. And you ought to go away."

"Is that all you can say to me?"

"I think it is. You know you oughtn't to talk to me like that. Your own papa and mamma would be angry if they knew it."

"Why should they be angry? Do you think that I shall not tell them?"

"I am sure they would disapprove it altogether," said Mary. "In fact it is all nonsense, and you really must go away."

Then she made a decided attempt to enter the house by the drawing-room window, which opened out on a gravel terrace.

But he stopped her, standing boldly by the window. "I think you ought to give me an answer, Mary," he said.

"I have; and I cannot say anything more. You must let me go in."

"If they say that it's all right at Carstairs, then will you love me?"