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Updated: June 3, 2025
'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 title, 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.
"So Peacocke isn't going to take the curacy?" This was said to the Doctor by Mr. Pearson, the squire, in the course of those two or three days of which we are speaking. Mr. Pearson was an old gentleman, who did not live often at Bowick, being compelled, as he always said, by his health, to spend the winter and spring of every year in Italy, and the summer months by his family in London.
But you have been with him an hour and a half." "Since I left him I have walked all round by Bowick Lodge. I had something to think of before I could talk to you, something to decide upon, indeed, before I could return to the house." "What have you decided?" she asked. Her voice was altogether changed.
"Such having been the case, I do not think that I should have found it necessary to write to you at all had not Carstairs persevered with me till I promised to do so. He was willing, he said, not to go to Bowick on condition that I would write to you on the subject.
She did at first somewhat imprudently endeavour to spread a rumour abroad that the Doctor had become enslaved by the lady's beauty. But even those hostile to Bowick could not accept this. The Doctor certainly was not the man to put in jeopardy the respect of the world and his own standing for the beauty of any woman; and, moreover, the Doctor, as we have said before, was over fifty years of age.
Stantiloup, to whom all the affairs of Bowick had been of consequence since her husband had lost his lawsuit, and who had not only heard much, but had inquired far and near about Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke, declared diligently among her friends, with many nods and winks, that there was something "rotten in the state of Denmark."
When they parted after the interview in the study, the Doctor, no doubt, had so expressed himself as rather to dissuade his usher from telling his secret than to encourage him to do so. He had been free in declaring that the telling of the secret should make no difference in his assistant's position at Bowick. But in all that, he had acted from his habitual impulse.
Peacocke would not at first consent to act as curate in the parish. He did, however, after a time perform a portion of the Sunday services. When he first came to Bowick he had declared that he would undertake no clerical duty. Education was his profession, and to that he meant to devote himself exclusively.
And he was angry with himself in that he had made such a promise. It had been a rule of life with him never to take advice. The Bishop had his powers, within which he, as Rector of Bowick, would certainly obey the Bishop; but it had been his theory to oppose his Bishop, almost more readily than any one else, should the Bishop attempt to exceed his power.
When she had been at Bowick about three months, a boy's leg had been broken, and she had nursed him, not only with assiduity, but with great capacity. The boy was the youngest son of the Marchioness of Altamont; and when Lady Altamont paid a second visit to Bowick, for the sake of taking her boy home as soon as he was fit to be moved, her ladyship made a little mistake.
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