‘It will be dismal,’ said the Curate; his face had lighted up for a moment, then rapidly clouded over again. ‘_I_ don’t know what you will do. You that have been always used to a luxurious town life----’
‘Not so luxurious--and not so exclusively town,’ Heathcote ventured to interpose, feeling a whimsical annoyance at this repetition of his own thoughts.
‘---- And who don’t know the people, nor understand what to do, and what not to do--it takes a long apprenticeship,’ said Charley, very gravely. ‘You see, an injudicious liberality would be very bad for them--it would pauperise instead of elevating. It is not everybody that knows what is good and what is bad in help. People unaccustomed to the kind of life do more harm than good.’
‘You don’t give me very much encouragement to settle down on my property and learn how to be a patriarch in my turn,’ said Mountford, with a laugh.
‘No, I don’t,’ said the Curate, his face growing longer and longer. The presence of Heathcote Mountford at Mount had smiled upon him for a moment. It would be better than nothing; it would imply some companionship, sympathy more or less, someone to take a walk with occasionally, or to have a talk with, not exclusively parochial; but when the Curate reflected that Heathcote at Mount would altogether do away with the likelihood of ‘the family’ coming back--that they could not rent the house for the summer, which was a hope he had clung to, if the present owner of it was in possession--Charley at once perceived that the immediate pleasure of a neighbour would be a fatal advantage, and with honest simplicity applied himself to the task of subduing his visitor’s new-born enthusiasm. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘it’s quite different making a new beginning, knowing nothing about it, from having been born here, and acquainted with the people all your life.’
‘Everybody must have known, however,’ said Heathcote, slightly piqued, ‘that the property would change hands some time or other, and that great alterations must be made.’
‘Oh yes, everybody knew that,’ said the Curate, with deadly seriousness; ‘but, you see, when you say a thing must happen some time, you never know when it will happen, and it is always a shock when it comes. The old Squire was a hearty man, not at all old for his years. He was not so old as my father, and I hope _he_ has a great deal of work left in him yet. And then it was all so sudden; none of us had been able to familiarise ourselves even with the idea that you were going to succeed, when in a moment it was all over, and you _had_ succeeded. I don’t mean to say that we are not very glad to have you,’ said Charley, with a dubious smile, suddenly perceiving the equivocal civility of all he had been saying; ‘it is a great deal better than we could have expected. Knowing them and liking them, you can have so much more sympathy with us about them. And as you wish them to come back, if that is possible----’