Thomas Wingfold, Curate | Page 6

knew little to the contrary, while Helen knew nothing.
One who had only chanced to get a glimpse of her in her own room, as
in imagination my reader has done, would hardly have recognised her
again in the drawing-room. For in her own room she was but as she
appeared to herself in her mirror--dull, inanimate; but in the
drawing-room her reflection from living eyes and presences served to
stir up what waking life was in her. When she spoke, her face dawned
with a clear, although not warm light; and although it must be owned
that when it was at rest, the same over-stillness, amounting almost to
dulness, the same seeming immobility, ruled as before, yet, even when
she was not speaking, the rest was often broken by a smile--a genuine
one, for although there was much that was stiff, there was nothing
artificial about Helen. Neither was there much of the artificial about her
cousin; for his good-nature, and his smile, and whatever else appeared
upon him, were all genuine enough--the only thing in this respect not
quite satisfactory to the morally fastidious man being his tone in
speaking. Whether he had caught it at the university, or amongst his
father's clerical friends, or in the professional society he now
frequented, I cannot tell, but it had been manufactured
somewhere--after a large, scrolly kind of pattern, sounding well-bred
and dignified. I wonder how many speak with the voices that really
belong to them.
Plainly, to judge from the one Bascombe used, he was accustomed to
lay down the law, but in gentlemanly fashion, and not as if he cared a
bit about the thing in question himself. By the side of his easy carriage,
his broad chest, and towering Greek-shaped head, Thomas Wingfold
dwindled almost to vanishing--in a word, looked nobody. And besides
his inferiority in size and self-presentment, he had a slight hesitation of

manner, which seemed to anticipate, if not to court, the subordinate
position which most men, and most women too, were ready to assign
him. He said, "Don't you think?" far oftener than "I think" and was
always more ready to fix his attention upon the strong points of an
opponent's argument than to re-assert his own in slightly altered phrase
like most men, or even in fresh forms like a few; hence--self-assertion,
either modestly worn like a shirt of fine chain-armour, or gaunt and
obtrusive like plates of steel, being the strength of the ordinary
man--what could the curate appear but defenceless, therefore weak, and
therefore contemptible? The truth is, he had less self-conceit than a
mortal's usual share, and was not yet possessed of any opinions
interesting enough to himself to seem worth defending with any
approach to vivacity.
Bascombe and he bowed in response to their introduction with proper
indifference, after a moment's solemn pause exchanged a sentence or
two which resembled an exercise in the proper use of a foreign
language, and then gave what attention Englishmen are capable of
before dinner to the two ladies--the elder of whom, I may just mention,
was dressed in black velvet with heavy Venetian lace, and the younger
in black silk, with old Honiton. Neither of them did much towards
enlivening the conversation. Mrs. Ramshorn, whose dinner had as yet
gained in interest with her years, sat peevishly longing for its arrival,
but cast every now and then a look of mild satisfaction upon her
nephew, which, however, while it made her eyes sweeter, did not much
alter the expression of her mouth. Helen improved, as she fancied, the
arrangement of a few green-house flowers in an ugly vase on the table.
At length the butler appeared, the curate took Mrs. Ramshorn, and the
cousins followed--making, in the judgment of the butler as he stood in
the hall, and the housekeeper as she peeped from the baise-covered
door that led to the still-room, as handsome a couple as mortal eyes
need wish to see. They looked nearly of an age, the lady the more
stately, the gentleman the more graceful, or, perhaps rather, ELEGANT,
of the two.
CHAPTER IV.

THEIR TALK.

During dinner, Bascombe had the talk mostly to himself, and rattled
well, occasionally rebuked by his aunt for some remark which might to
a clergyman appear objectionable; nor as a partisan was she altogether
satisfied with the curate that he did not seem inclined to take clerical
exception. He ate his dinner, quietly responding to Bascombe's
sallies--which had usually more of vivacity than keenness, more of
good spirits than wit--with a curious flickering smile, or a single word
of agreement. It might have seemed that he was humouring a younger
man, but the truth was, the curate had not yet seen cause for opposing
him.
How any friend could have come to