Fraulein Hentig had been many years in the family, and had taken many parts; at present she was permanent housekeeper in the country, but had lately also recommenced old schoolroom duties on the adoption by Sir Wilton of his only brother’s only child. There was no nonsense about Fraulein Hentig. She told Sir William all that she had heard and all that she believed was true, without mincing facts or wincing at the expletives which more than once interrupted her tale. As it proceeded the fixed eyes lightened with a vindictive glitter; but the end found Sir Wilton scowling.
“I wish I’d been here! I wouldn’t have let them break his windows; no, I should have claimed the privilege of horsewhipping him with my own hands. I’d do it still if he were here; but he’ll never show his nose in Long Stow again. I suppose there’s no doubt the church was wilfully set fire to?”
“None at all from what I hear, Sir Wilton.”
“Is nobody suspected?”
“George Mellis was. They say he was in love with the girl, and he disappeared on Saturday night. However, it turns out that he was already in Lakenhall hours before the fire, and he never came back. It appears he went straight to the rectory when he heard the scandal, and almost as straight out of Long Stow when Mr. Carlton admitted everything. Already I hear that he has enlisted in London.”
“You don’t mean it! That’s another thing at that blackguard’s door; it’s a nice list! But it’s enough to send the whole parish to the dogs. By the way, you would get Lady Gleed’s letter?”
“Yes, Sir Wilton. I wrote last night to tell her ladyship that she might make her mind easy about her niece. She is very innocent, and when I told her the windows had been broken because Mr. Carlton had done something dishonourable, she was amazed of course, but she asked no more questions. I spoke at once to the servants, and I made Gwynneth promise not to go among the people at present; they have already typhoid fever in one of the cottages, and that was my excuse.”
“Excellent!” said Sir Wilton. “I won’t have her in and out of the cottages in any case, and I shall tell her so before I go. She’s much too young for that kind of nonsense. And she mustn’t read just exactly what she likes. She had a book in her hand just now — I couldn’t see what — but she seems inclined to fill her head with any folly. We must find a school for her, and meanwhile bring her up as we’ve brought up our own child.”
Fraulein Hentig smiled judiciously.
“They are already rather different characters,” she said. “But I will do my best, Sir Wilton.”
When the pair quitted the Italian garden, the gentleman hurrying to make other inquiries before dinner, while the German gentlewoman dropped behind, two brown eyes saw them from an upper window, whither the girl had carried her book in vain. Her attention had been intermittent before, but now she could not even try to read. The air was full of mystery, and the mystery was more absorbing than that in any book. It was also absolute and unfathomable in the girl’s mind. Yet her brain teemed with questions and surmises. She had come upstairs because she felt that they wanted her out of the way, her uncle and the good, slow, serious Fraulein. Yet that was not enough for them: they also must retire as far as possible for their talk. Of course Gwynneth knew what they had to talk about; but what was the dishonourable action that a clergyman could commit and that could not be so much as mentioned in her hearing? She was not thinking of “a clergyman” in the abstract. She was thinking of the man with the beautiful, sad face; of the passionate preacher with the voice that thrilled the senses and the words that filled the mind. She had heard him preach of sin and suffering with equal sympathy. Phrases came back to her. Now she understood. But what could he have done, that he should suffer so, and that a perfectly kind person like Fraulein Hentig should exult in his suffering?
Gwynneth was splendidly and terribly innocent, but all the more inquisitive on that account. She was unacquainted with the facts, yet not with the tragedy of life. In a tragic atmosphere she had been born and bred. Quentin Gleed had been fatally lacking in the politic virtues cultivated by his brother. He had deserted his wife and drunk himself to death within the memory of Gwynneth. The young girl recalled dim years of bitter scenes in a luxurious home, and vivid years of peace and poverty in a tiny cottage. And now her mother was gone also; the dear, independent, wilful little mother, who had taught her child all but the wickedness that was in the world! And that child sat at her bedroom window in the new home that never could be home to her; and the drooping sun could find no bottom to her dark and limpid eyes, no flaw upon her pure warm skin; and neither the cuckoo in the poplar, nor the thrush in the elm, nor the sparrows in the eaves just overhead, could tell her anything of the wickedness that was in even her small world.
IX
A DUEL BEGINS
Late in the afternoon of July 13, a Lakenhall fly rattled through Long Stow, and waited in the rain outside the rectory gate while one of the occupants ran up to the house. He was such a short time gone, and so few people were about in the wet, that the fly was on its way back to Lakenhall before the Long Stow folk realised that it was the rector who had upset prophecy by showing his nose among them in broad daylight. He had done no more, however, nor was anything further seen or heard of him during the month of July. It appeared that he had returned for some private papers only. The rectory was locked up by the squire’s orders, but the rector had forced his own study door, and his muddy footmarks were confined to that room. The same evening he went up to town — and disappeared. But his address was known in an official quarter. And all day and every day he might have been discovered in the reading room of the British Museum: a memorable figure, stooping amid mountains of architectural tomes, and drawing or copying plans in the few inches of table-land they left him, all with a nervous eagerness of face and hand not daily to be seen beneath that dispiriting dome.
Then the call came, and he was tried in the consistorial court of his own diocese, before the chancellor thereof, at the beginning of August. No need to record more than the fact. The proceedings were brief because the accused pleaded guilty and his own word was the only evidence against him. The sentence was that of suspension foreshadowed by the bishop. The Reverend Robert Carlton was formally suspended ab officio et beneficio for the period of five years.
The result was reported in the London papers; there was only matter for a few lines. “Mr. Carlton was suspended for five years” was the concluding sentence in The Times report; and that was good enough for Sir Wilton Gleed. It was a happy omen for the holidays, which began for him that very day. The family were already in the country. Sir Wilton took the last train to Lakenhall and drove himself home for good in the highest spirits. Four miles of the five were over his own acres, and every one of them was crumbling with rabbits in the rosy dusk. Later, the larkspur and peonies on the dinner-table were as the very breath and blush of the gorgeous English country; and a thrush sang its welcome through the open window, and a nightingale trilled the tired Londoner to sleep; but he dreamt of a pheasant that he had heard calling between Lakenhall and Long Stow.
In the country Sir Wilton was an early riser, and he was abroad next morning while the shadows of the elms still stretched to the house and quivered up its bare brick walls. The great lawn was dusted with a milky dew in which Sir Wilton positively wallowed in his water-tight boots; it was not his least delight to be in shooting-boots and knickerbockers and soft raiment once more. The first few minutes of the more excellent life produced an unseasonable geniality in the breast of Wilton Gleed. The man was a human being, and he longed for companionship in his joy. But Sidney never rose before he must, nor the gardeners either, it appeared. In the stable-yard a groom was encountered, but Sir Wilton had seen his face every day in town. He went out into the village, and naturally turned to the left. The cottage doors were open, and they were filled with homely figures that touched a cap or courtesied as he passed with a pleasant word for all. It was good to be back, to be a little king again. Sir Wilton pulled the cap over his eyes bec
ause the sun was in them, and admired the ripe wheat in the field beyond the post-office, the barley in the field beyond that. So he passed the Flint House on the other side with unruffled mind, and was passing the Flint House meadow before his thoughts took the inevitable turn which led to profane mutterings through shut teeth. But this morning it did not lead quite so far; this morning, with the scented air of England in his nostrils, and a twitter in the ears from every thatch, even Sir Wilton Gleed could find it in his heart to pity the sinner fallen from his high estate in what was paradise enough for the squire.
“Poor devil!” he said as he came to the rectory gate and saw the long grass within. It was sufficiently in key with the old quaint rectory, in its rags of ivy and its shawl of disreputable tiles. The windows were still broken and the shutters shut. Otherwise the picture was as alluring as its fellows to the lord of the manor. The trees that hid the church at midsummer would screen its ruins for many a day.
Sir Wilton entered to refresh his memory as to the minor damages, and they changed his mood. Who was to pay for twenty-nine panes of glass — no, he had missed a window — for thirty-three? He was a man who did not care to spend a penny without obtaining his pennyworth; but he was not clear as to his legal obligations; and he bristled at the idea of paying for the immorality of the parson and the excesses of his flock. He had paid enough in other ways. And there was the church. Who was to rebuild the church? They might expect him to do that once he began doing things; and the man fell into premature fuming between his love of the lavish and his detestation of expense. Meanwhile he had found a whole window, that of the study, and the door beside it stood ajar. This he pushed open as though the place belonged to him (his view in so many words), and stood still upon the threshold.
“Well, I’m damned!” he cried at last.
Robert Carlton sat asleep in his chair, his hands in his overcoat pockets, the collar turned up about his ears. His boots and trousers were brown and yellow with the dust of the district. In an instant he was on his feet, scared, startled, and abashed.
“So you’ve come back, have you?”
“An hour or two ago. I walked from Cambridge. I don’t know how you heard!”
“Heard? You must think me in a hurry for your society! No, this is an unexpected pleasure, and I use the words advisedly. It’s something to find you don’t come twice in broad daylight.”
“I have come on business, as before, but this time the business will occupy more than a few minutes. I wished to get it in train with as little fuss as possible. Then I was coming to see you, Sir Wilton.”
It was quietly spoken, without bitterness or defiance, but also without the abject humility which had trembled in the clergyman’s first words. The other made some attempt to modify his manner: nothing could put him in the wrong, but he realised that it might be as well to abstain from mere brutality. And what he had just heard implied a certain reassurance.
“I see,” said Gleed. “You have come to make arrangements about your furniture and effects. I am glad to hear it.”
“My furniture and effects?” queried Carlton. “What arrangements do you mean?”
“Well, you can’t leave them here, can you?”
“Why not, Sir Wilton?”
“Why not!” echoed the squire, turning from pink to purple with the two words. “Because you’ve been disgraced and degraded as you deserve; because you’re the hound you are; because you’ve been suspended for five years, and I won’t have you or your belongings cumber my ground for a single day of them! So now you know,” continued Gleed in lower tones, his venom spent. “I didn’t think it would be necessary to tell you my opinion of you; but you’ve brought it on yourself.”
Carlton bowed to that, but respectfully pointed out the difference between suspension and deprivation, his tone one of apology rather than of triumph.
“I don’t say which I deserved,” he added, “but I do thank God for the mercy He has shown me. This gives me another chance — in five years’ time. Meanwhile I am not only entitled to keep my furniture in the rectory. I believe I may live in it if I like.”
Gleed stood convulsed with wrath redoubled. He had been too busy in town to prime himself upon a point which could not arise before he went down to the country; and here it was, awaiting him. His disadvantage alone was enough to put him in a passion; but the last statement was monstrous in itself.
“I don’t believe it! I don’t believe a word you say! A man who can live a lie will tell nothing else!”
Carlton drew himself up, his nostrils curling.
“Better go and ask your solicitor,” he said. “I have forfeited the right — as you so well know — to the only possible reply.”
“Rights apart,” rejoined Gleed, his colour heightening by a shade, “do you mean to tell me you would seriously think of remaining on the very scene of your shame?”
“I didn’t say I would do anything. I said I believed I could.”
“You have done enough harm in the place; surely you wouldn’t come back to do more?”
“No; if I came at all, it would be to undo a little of the harm — to live it down, Sir Wilton, by God’s help!” said Carlton, and his voice shook. “But I do not mean to live here. I have spoken to the bishop, and his advice is against it, though he leaves me free to follow my own judgment. This afternoon I hoped to speak to you. There is another matter which is really a duty, so that I can be in no doubt as to what to do there. It will not involve my remaining on the spot, or obtruding myself in any way. But the church has been burnt down on my account, and I intend to rebuild it before the winter.”
“The church is mine!” said Gleed, savagely.
“I don’t want to contradict you, Sir Wilton; but you should really see your lawyer on all these points.”
“The land is mine!”
“Not the church land, Sir Wilton; and the rector is not only entitled, but he may be compelled, to restore and rebuild within certain limits. Your solicitor will turn up the Act and show it you in black and white. And after that I think you will hardly stand between me and my bounden duty.”
“I don’t recognise it as your duty. Your first duty is to resign the living lock-stock-and-barrel — if you’ve any sense of decency left; but you haven’t — not you, you infernal blackguard, you!”
Gleed was standing on the drive, his arms akimbo and his fists clenched, his flushed face thrust forward and his stockinged legs planted firmly apart. It was Carlton’s lithe figure which had been filling the doorway for some minutes; but at this he strode upon his adversary, and towered over him with a hand that itched.
“Why must you insult me?” he cried. “Do you think that’s the way to get me to do anything? Or are you bent upon having me up for assault? For heaven’s sake remember your own manhood, Sir Wilton, and respect mine; don’t trade too far upon my readiness to admit that I am all men choose to call me. Have a little pride! I am ready to take my punishment, and more. I will keep away from the place as much as possible. If I can let the rectory, that will be so much more money for the church. Don’t oppose me; if you can’t help me by your countenance (and I grant you it’s more than I have a right to expect), at least be neutral, and let me work out my own salvation in my own way. It will make no difference to the past. It may make all the difference in the future. God knows I can’t reinstate myself in His sight and in the hearts of men by building a church! But I can leave behind me a sign of my sorrow and my true penitence. I can leave behind me a name and an example, bad enough in all conscience, but yet not wholly vile to the very last. And think what even that would be to me! And think what it would be if I could but pave the way, not to forgiveness, but to some reconciliation with those whom I have loved but led amiss . . . Well, that may be too much to hope . . . no, I have no right to dream of that . . . but at least let me make the one material reparation in my power; let me do my duty! When it is done, if you and they will have no more of me, then you shall all be rid of me for good.”
“And what’s to become of the parish for the next five years?” he asked. “Who’s to pay a man to do your work?”
“There’s the stipend I cannot touch and would not if I could; a part of that will doubtless be set aside. Until the church is habitable, however, the case will probably be met by one of the curates coming over from Lakenhall and taking a service in the schoolroom.”
“And how do you know?” cried Sir Wilton, not unjustifiably.
“The bishop sent for me,” said Carlton — and his eyes fell. “I ventured to speak to him on the subject before I left. Do you think I don’t care what happens here in my absence? I hope the services will begin next Sunday — the building next week. I have worked the whole thing out. I could show you the figures and the plans. The new ones are ready, if you can call them new. I shall be my own architect as before for the transepts, but the rest shall be exactly as it was.”
“We’ll see about that,” said Sir Wilton grimly. He knew those melting eyes, that enthusiastic voice. They had brought their hundreds to this man’s feet before. They might do so again. Even the squire felt their power in his own despite.
“It is my one chance!” the voice went on in softer accents. “Do not ask me to forego it altogether; but I will keep in the background as much as you like; all I want to know is that the work is going on. Suppose I did resign, and you appointed another man. Why should he give towards the church? Why should he come where there is none? Let me build the new one first!”
Complete Works of E W Hornung Page 187
