The Bishop's Secret

by Fergus Hume

  CHAPTER XXIX

  THE CONFESSION OF BISHOP PENDLE

  Mr Cargrim was very much out of temper, and Baltic was the cause of hisunchristian state of mind. As the employer of the so-called missionaryand actual inquiry agent, the chaplain expected to be informed of everyfresh discovery, but with this view Baltic did not concur. In his solemnway he informed Cargrim that he preferred keeping his information andmethods and suspicions to himself until he was sure of capturing theactual criminal. When the man was lodged in Beorminster Jail--when hiscomplicity in the crime was proved beyond all doubt--then Balticpromised to write out, for the edification of his employer, a detailedaccount of the steps taken to bring about so satisfactory a result. Andfrom this stern determination all Cargrim's arguments failed to movehim.

  This state of things was the more vexatious as Cargrim knew that theex-sailor had seen Mother Jael, and shrewdly suspected that he hadobtained from the beldam valuable information likely to incriminate thebishop. Whether his newly-found evidence did so or not, Baltic gravelydeclined to say, and Cargrim was furious at being left in ignorance. Hewas particularly anxious that Dr Pendle's guilt should be proved withoutloss of time, as Mr Leigh of Heathcroft was sinking rapidly, and on anyday a new rector might be needed for that very desirable parish.Certainly Cargrim, as he fondly imagined, had thwarted Gabriel'scandidature by revealing the young man's love for Bell Mosk to thebishop. Still, even if Gabriel were not nominated, Dr Pendle had plainlyinformed Cargrim that he need not expect the appointment, so thechaplain foresaw that unless he obtained power over the bishop beforeLeigh's death, the benefice would be given to some stranger. It was nowonder, then, that he resented the silence of Baltic and felt enraged athis own impotence. He almost regretted having sought the assistance of aman who appeared more likely to be a hindrance than a help. For once,Cargrim's scheming brain could devise no remedy.

  Lurking about the library as usual, Mr Cargrim was much astonished toreceive a visit from Dr Graham. Of course, the visit was to the bishop,but Cargrim, being alone in the library, came forward in his silky,obsequious way to receive the new-comer, and politely asked what hecould do for him.

  'You can inform the bishop that I wish to see him, if you please,' saidGraham, with a perfectly expressionless face.

  'His lordship is at present taking a short rest,' replied Cargrim,blandly, 'but anything I can do--'

  'You can do nothing, Mr Cargrim. I wish for a private interview with DrPendle.'

  'Your business must be important.'

  'It is,' retorted Graham, abruptly; 'so important that I must see thebishop at once.'

  'Oh, certainly, doctor. I am sorry to see that you do not look well.'

  'Thank you; I am as well as can be expected.'

  'Really! considering what, Dr Graham?'

  'Considering the way I am kept waiting here, Mr Cargrim,' after whichpointed speech there was nothing left for the defeated chaplain but toretreat as gracefully as he could. Yet Cargrim might have known, frompast experience, that a duel of words with sharp-tongued Dr Graham couldonly end in his discomfiture. But in spite of all his cunning he usuallyburnt his fingers at a twice-touched flame.

  Extremely curious to know the reason of Graham's unexpected visit andhaggard looks, Cargrim, having informed the bishop that the doctor waswaiting for him, attempted to make a third in the interview by glidingin behind his superior. Graham, however, was too sharp for him, andafter a few words with the bishop, intimated to the chaplain that hispresence was not necessary. So Cargrim, like the Peri at the Gates ofParadise, was forced to lurk as near the library door as he dared, andhe strained his ears in vain to overhear what the pair were talkingabout. Had he known that the revelation of Bishop Pendle's secret formedthe gist of the interview, he would have been even more enraged than hewas. But, for the time being, Fate was against the wily chaplain, and,in the end, he was compelled to betake himself to a solitary and sulkywalk, during which his reflections concerning Graham and Baltic were thereverse of amiable. As a defeated sneak, Mr Cargrim was not a credit tohis cloth.

  Dr Pendle had the bewildered air of a man suddenly roused from sleep,and was inclined to be peevish with Graham for calling at so untoward atime. Yet it was five o'clock in the afternoon, which was scarcely asuitable hour for slumber, as the doctor bluntly remarked.

  'I was not asleep,' said the bishop, settling himself at hiswriting-table. 'I simply lay down for half-an-hour or so.'

  'Worn out with worry, I suppose?'

  'Yes,' Dr Pendle sighed; 'my burden is almost greater than I can bear.'

  'I quite agree with you,' replied Graham, 'therefore I have come to helpyou to bear it.'

  'That is impossible. To do so, you must know the truth, and--God helpme!--I dare not tell it even to you.'

  'There is no need for you to do so, Pendle. I know your secret.'

  The bishop twisted his chair round with a rapid movement and stared atthe sympathetic face of Graham with an expression of blended terror andamazement. Hardly could his tongue frame itself to speech.

  'You--know--my--secret!' stuttered Pendle, with pale lips.

  'Yes, I know that Krant did not die at Sedan as we supposed. I know thathe returned to life--to Beorminster--to you, under the name of Jentham!Hold up, man! don't give way,' for the bishop, with a heavy sigh, hadfallen forward on his desk, and, with his grey head buried in his arms,lay there silent and broken down in an agony of doubt, and fear andshame.

  'Play the man, George Pendle,' said Graham, who knew that the father wasmore virile than the son, and therefore needed the tonic of words ratherthan the soothing anodyne of medicine. 'If you believe in what youpreach, if you are a true servant of your God, call upon religion, uponyour Deity, for help to bear your troubles. Stand up manfully, myfriend, and face the worst!'

  'Alas! alas! many waters have gone over me, Graham.'

  'Can you expect anything else if you permit yourself to sink without aneffort?' said the doctor, rather cynically; 'but if you cannot gainstrength from Christianity, then be a Stoic, and independent ofsupernatural aid.'

  The bishop lifted his head and suddenly rose to his full height, untilhe towered above the little doctor. His pale face took upon itself acalmer expression, and stretching out his arm, he rolled forth a textfrom the Psalms in his deepest voice, in his most stately manner: 'InGod is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength, and my refugeis in God.'

  'Good!' said Graham, with a satisfied nod; 'that is the proper spirit inwhich to meet trouble. And now, Pendle, with your leave, we willapproach the subject with more particularity.'

  'It will be as well,' replied the bishop, and he spoke collectedly andgravely, with no trace of his late excitement. When he most needed it,strength had come to him from above; and he was able to discuss the sorematter of his domestic troubles with courage and with judgment.

  'How did you learn my secret, Graham?' he asked, after a pause.

  'Indirectly from Gabriel.'

  'Gabriel,' said the bishop, trembling, 'is at Nauheim!'

  'You are mistaken, Pendle. He returned to Beorminster this morning, andas he was afraid to speak to you on the subject of Jentham, he came toask my advice. The poor lad is broken down and ill, and is now lying inmy consulting-room until I return.'

  'How did Gabriel learn the truth?' asked Pendle, with a look of pain.

  'From something his mother said.'

  The bishop, in spite of his enforced calmness, groaned aloud. 'Does sheknow of it?' he murmured, while drops of perspiration beaded hisforehead and betrayed his inward agony. 'Could not that shame be sparedme?' 'Do not be hasty, Pendle, your wife knows nothing.'

  'Thank God!' said the bishop, fervently; then added, almost immediately,'You say my wife. Alas! alas! that I dare not call her so.'

  'It is true, then?' asked Graham, becoming very pale.

  'Perfectly true. Krant was not killed. Krant returned here under thename of Jentham. My wife is not my wife! My children are illegitimate;they have no n
ame; outcasts they are. Oh, the shame! Oh, the disgrace!'and Dr Pendle groaned aloud.

  Graham sympathised with the man's distress, which was surely naturalunder the terrible calamity which had befallen him and his. GeorgePendle was a priest, a prelate, but he was also a son of Adam, andliable, like all mortals, the strongest as the weakest, to moments ofdoubt, of fear, of trembling, of utter dismay. Had the evil come uponhim alone, he might have borne it with more patience, but when it partedhim from his dearly-loved wife, when it made outcasts of the children hewas so proud of, who can wonder that he should feel inclined to cry withJob, 'Is it good unto Thee that Thou should'st oppress!' Nevertheless,like Job, the bishop held fast his integrity.

  Yet that he might have some comfort in his affliction, that one pangmight be spared to him, Graham assured him that Mrs Pendle was ignorantof the truth, and related in full the story of how Gabriel had come toconnect Jentham with Krant. Pendle listened in silence, and inwardlythanked God that at least so much mercy had been vouchsafed him. Then inhis turn he made a confidant of his old friend, recalled the early daysof his courtship and marriage, spoke of the long interval of peace andquiet happiness which he and his wife had enjoyed, and ended with adetailed account of the disguised Krant's visit and threats, and theanguish his re-appearance had caused.

  'You remember, Graham!' he said, with wonderful self-control, 'howalmost thirty years ago I was the Vicar of St Benedict's in Marylebone,and how you, my old college friend, practised medicine in the sameparish.'

  'I remember, Pendle; there is no need for you to make your heart ache byrecalling the past.'

  'I must, my friend,' said the bishop, firmly, 'in order that you mayfully understand my position. As you know, my dear wife--for I stillmust call her so--came to reside there under her married name of MrsKrant. She was poor and unhappy, and when I called upon her, as thevicar of the parish, she told me her miserable story. How she had lefther home and family for the sake of that wretch who had attracted herweak, girlish affections by his physical beauty and fascinating manners;how he treated her ill, spent the most of her money, and finally lefther, within a year of the marriage, with just enough remaining out ofher fortune to save her from starvation. She told me that Krant had goneto Paris, and was serving as a volunteer in the French army, while she,broken down and unhappy, had come to my parish to give herself to Godand labour amongst the poor.'

  'She was a charming woman! She is so now!' said Graham, with a sigh. 'Ido not wonder that you loved her.'

  'Loved, sir! Why speak in the past tense? I love her still. I shallalways love that sweet companion of these many happy years. From thetime I saw her in those poor London lodgings I loved her with all thestrength of my manhood. But you know that, being already married, shecould not be my wife. Then, shortly after the surrender of Sedan, thatletter came to tell her that her husband was dead, and dying, had askedher pardon for his wicked ways. Alas! alas! that letter was false!'

  'We both of us believed it to be genuine at the time, Pendle, and youwent over to France after the war to see the man's grave.'

  'I did, and I saw the grave--saw it with its tombstone, in a littleAlsace graveyard, with the name Stephen Krant painted thereon in blackGerman letters. I never doubted but that he lay below, and I looked farand wide for the man, Leon Durand, who had written that letter at therequest of his dying comrade. I ask you, Graham, who would havedisbelieved the evidence of letter and tombstone?'

  'No one, certainly!' replied Graham, gravely; 'but it was a pity thatyou could not find Leon Durand, so as to put the matter beyond alldoubt.'

  'Find him!' echoed the bishop, passionately. 'No one on earth could havefound the man. He did not exist.'

  'Then who wrote the letter?'

  'Krant himself, as he told me in this very room, the wicked plotter!'

  'But his handwriting; would not his wife have--'

  'No!' cried Pendle, rising and pacing to and fro, greatly agitated, 'theman disguised his hand so that his wife should not recognise it. He didnot wish to be bound to her, but to wander far and wide, and live hisown sinful life. That was why he sent the forged letter to make Amybelieve that he was dead. And she did believe, the more especially afterI returned to tell how I had seen his grave. I thought also that he wasdead. So did you, Graham.'

  'Certainly,' assented Graham, 'there was no reason to doubt the fact.Who would have believed that Krant was such a scoundrel?'

  'I called him that when he came to see me here,' said Dr Pendle, with apassionate gesture. 'Old man and priest as I am, I could have killed himas he sat in yonder chair, smiling at my misery, and taunting me with myposition.'

  'How did he find out that you had married Mrs Krant?'

  'By going back to the Marylebone parish. He had been wandering all overthe face of the earth, like the Cain he was; but meeting with no goodfortune, he came back to England to find out Amy, and, I suppose, robher of the little money he had permitted her to keep. He knew of heraddress in Marylebone, as she had told him where she was going before hedeserted her.'

  'But how did he learn about the marriage?' asked Graham, again.

  'I cannot tell; but he knew that his wife, after his desertion, devotedherself to good works, so no doubt he went to the church and asked abouther. The old verger who saw us married is still alive, so I suppose hetold Krant that Amy was my wife, and that I was the Bishop ofBeorminster. But, however he learned the truth, he found his way here,and when I came into this room during the reception I found him waitingfor me.'

  'How did you recognise a man you had not seen?'

  'By a portrait Amy had shown me, and by the description she gave me ofhis gipsy looks and the scar on his cheek. He had not altered at all,and I beheld before me the same wicked face I had seen in the portrait.I was confused at first, as I knew the face but not the name. When hetold me that he was Stephen Krant, that my wife was really his wife,that my children had no name, I--I--oh, God!' cried Pendle, covering hisface with his hands, 'it was terrible! terrible!'

  'My poor friend!'

  The bishop threw himself into a chair. 'After close on thirty years,' hemoaned, 'think of it, Graham--the shame, the horror! Oh, God!'