Arrest the Bishop?

by Peck,Winifred

  “Yes, I’m doing that!” said Bobs more cheerfully. “But”—relapsing—“it’s having to do with people like—”

  “You only come across a prize specimen like Ulder once in a thousand, my boy.”

  “I didn’t even mean him alone. I don’t want to be disloyal,” said Bobs, proceeding naturally to be so at once, “but I can’t help noticing the cowardice of our—our leaders. I love the Bip, but he’d do anything to avoid a row. Canon Wye is good at getting up a scrap, but he funks the issue. With the Registrar and the Diocesan Board generally one lives in a sort of Trollope atmosphere of stuffy offices, crammed with seals and tapes, red-faced, casual, prejudiced lawyers catching at eighteenth-century regulations to prove some unimportant point and afraid, yes, afraid to take action against a man like Ulder, because of the scandal. There’s some crisis about his visit, Dick, I’m sure. The Bip pocketed his letter and, as I told you, he and the other two big-wigs were closeted together. Hullo, that’s the Bishop’s bell! Wait a minute! Yes, Dick, as I told you …” Bobs had limped to his room and came back perturbed. “The Bishop wants you for a consultation with the Chancellor and Canon Wye. You’re marked for M.I. and an adjutant’s job in the Church all right, my son!”

  III

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  “To give light to them which sit in darkness” were the words which echoed oddly in Dick’s mind as he entered the shadowy study. It was an absurd and topsy-turvy idea for a humble candidate for the priesthood to entertain of his fathers in God, but under the low hand lamp by the dismal fire the Bishop, more like a death mask of St. Joseph than ever, the saturnine stillness of Canon Wye and the obvious perturbation in Chancellor Chailly’s rubicund face, suggested a huddled party of alarmed pilgrims in the Valley of the Shadow of disgrace. If only Dick were a Greatheart instead of his very everyday self!

  “We have sent for you, Dick, because we feel the need of advice, and you have been in our dealings with Ulder from the first. You know—” and here the Bishop felt obliged to recapitulate the full story of Mr. Ulder’s exposure and disgrace. Dick’s thoughts wandered a little, but he woke with a start as the Bishop fumbled among his papers and handed one to the young man. “I received this communication only this afternoon. I had no time to think of the proper course to take, no time at least for any decision with my friends here before dinner, and now this wretched Ulder arrives! You realize doubtless that he has come to give us fresh trouble. He feels himself in so strong a position that he had the insolence to expect my hospitality and bring his luggage. No doubt he was thrown out of the hotel at Evelake! And now, how can I help myself, how can any of us? To some extent we are in his power. Yes, read this”:—

  “My dear Bishop,

  I am writing to ask that your Lordship will be so good as to give me a private interview on a personal matter which I venture to believe is even more important to you than it is to me.

  As you may know, I have not been happy in my work since the unfortunate events of five years ago, and I gather that there is a movement afoot to secure my resignation from my present small charge. My own desire is to leave the scene of so much injustice and so many cruel suspicions and make a fresh start in America, not necessarily as a clergyman. But there are financial difficulties, and it is these I wish to discuss with you in, I hope, a spirit of mutual accommodation. Under certain conditions my resignation would be forthcoming and this would ease your official position and that of the churchwardens. And in your case there might be a personal reason why you might feel it desirable to provide some substantial inducement to persuade me to leave this country and forget all I have suffered and all I have known here.”

  “I received an appeal of the same nature,” said the Chancellor, crossing and uncrossing his legs uneasily. “But with me he was even more explicit. Two thousand is the price of silence.”

  “He named that sum to me in a letter couched in similar terms.” It seemed as if Canon Wye’s thin lips could hardly bear to open on so unsavoury a subject.

  “But, forgive me, sir, nothing could be clearer. He’s threatened blackmail in three different letters. He won’t have a leg to stand on in Court, for of course you’ll all hand these letters to the police?”

  “Impossible … impossible … think of the scandal in the Church.” The three might have been singing a catch, thought Dick as the words poured out.

  “Very little, indeed, my lord. In such cases the names are never divulged.”

  “Everyone will recognize Ulder’s diocese,” pointed out Canon Wye.

  “Still, even so he’ll get far more mud than he throws!”

  “What will that matter to him in America?”

  “Well, that’s true, I suppose, but if he’s prosecuted for blackmail he’ll never get there!”

  “I can’t trust to the secrecy of the Court,” intervened the Bishop, his forehead sunk on his hand. “Dear old Verrall, whom you’ll remember, Dick, died a year ago and a fellow called Mack was appointed Chief Constable from the ranks, by this deplorable new scheme. He is a violent Dissenter, no mere agnostic, but a real enemy of the Church and Cathedral and all they stand for. He would gloat over the flaws in our case and give it all possible publicity.”

  “I don’t agree, my lord. I’ve heard a lot of him and I’m sure with him it would be justice first always, and prejudice a long way behind. In any case he could have no animus about the personal affairs of you and—and your daughter. Mack—and the outer world—will no doubt criticize the original hushing up of Ulder’s affairs, if it gets into the news, but that sort of thing is soon forgotten, and our Church has never claimed to be infallible.”

  “We can’t let it go to the Courts.” The Chancellor reiterated his remark, deaf to Dick’s arguments.

  “I agree that it’s out of the question,” snapped Canon Wye.

  “He must be silenced,” agreed the Bishop.

  “Well then, my lord,” said Dick rising, “there’s no more to be said. You mean to pay up and be fleeced for the rest of your lives?”

  “Ah, but he’s going to America!”

  “There’s a mail,” said Dick dryly, “and a British scandal-loving public in the States, all ready for a plausible Irish tale-teller!”

  “But can you not think of some other expedient, you who have been so much more in touch with crime and criminals in your recent career?” asked Canon Wye.

  “Yes, sir, but that was different!” Dick faced the three older men firmly but respectfully. “In any action I was given all the facts as far as they were available. If you’ll forgive me for saying so, I don’t feel the same in this case. You must each of you have further reasons for yielding to these preposterous demands.”

  “It was a shot in the dark,” Dick told Bobs much later, “except as far as the Bishop was concerned—Judith saw to that. But I felt that the other two were scared for their own reasons, not only for the Church. And my bluff worked!”

  That it certainly did, for after gazing enquiringly at his friends, the Bishop said heavily: “Well, well, you’re right, Dick, and it pays a tribute to your insight. Gentlemen, I suggest that we should all lay our cards on the table!”

  Meanwhile upstairs poor Mrs. Broome kept watch. Her drawing-room seemed too far from the invalids, so she established herself in the sitting-room, which, with her own and husband’s bedrooms, formed the most charming suite on the first floor of the old wing. She was worn out after a long interview with Judith in which all her feelings as wife, stepmother, churchwoman, President of the Evelake M.U., G.F.S. and Purity League were outraged. She must talk to her Mark, and her Mark did not appear. The whole household seemed indeed to be walking backwards and forwards past her door to the Bridge, but she did not like to look out and seem to spy on her guests. Once she was sure of the Bishop’s step, but it was the Chancellor whom she saw at Ulder’s door. Then she heard the sound of clinking glasses: that was Soames putting out the ten o’clock tray of drinks on the table in the Bridge passage: it was the hospitable
custom to leave one in this neutral territory between the old and new wings, but she wished she had arranged differently to-night, in view of the two invalids—if the candidates talked loudly over their nightcaps of whisky or beer on the way to bed, she must really go—but no, it was all right. They were evidently a nice, abstemious set, or perhaps they had been warned of the invalids, for they were going almost at once to their new wing bedrooms, quietly enough. Now the Chancellor was leaving Mr. Ulder’s room!—and, oh dear, how he banged the door! As if he were in a bad temper. Soames was still fussing about, but surely everyone would be in their rooms in a minute, and she could at last go to settle poor Mr. Ulder off for the night. But, even as she thought so, she heard the quick martial step of Canon Wye outside her room, and yet another knock on Mr. Ulder’s door. It was really monstrous that they could not leave the invalid alone! She had changed out of her black evening gown into a really old-fashioned tea gown, a trailing affair of purple velvet and lace, worn only in the family circle as a rule, but she really must warn the Canon not to make a visitation!

  “Canon Wye, I really think Mr. Ulder—Oh dear, what are you doing?” Mrs. Broome faced the Canon with some severity as he stood over the tray outside St. Ursula’s open door, taller, thinner and more inquisitorial than ever in his black cassock.

  “Ulder asked me to get him a drink—he feels tired.” The Canon, a confirmed celibate, froze into anger at Mrs. Broome’s implied rebuke.

  “But, my dear Canon, he must not have it! The doctor said that on no account was any stimulant to be given him to-night, certainly not before his last dose! And I am quite sure that Dr. Lee would say the poor man should be left in peace!”

  “He sent a message that he must see me. I will not stay with him more than five minutes, Mrs. Broome.”

  “Well, I shall come in five minutes then, and settle him for the night. Where is the Bishop?”

  “Talking to the Chancellor in his room, I think: they suggested that I should join them shortly.”

  Five minutes! It was not worth her while to collect the papers which she had left in the drawing-room, decided Mrs. Broome. She would go on with her list of diocesan Christmas cards—they were late already and it was a duty which she took seriously. She had only just reached the rural deans when she saw that the time limit had come and rose briskly. She must remember, when her invalids had settled down, to fetch the list of these addresses from the drawing-room.

  Canon Wye was not the person to instruct the candidates in the visitation of the sick, she reflected with annoyance, as she heard Mr. Ulder’s door bang noisily and met him striding, tall, self absorbed and fierce-eyed down the passage. Nevertheless, true to her hospitable tradition she stopped to bid him good night, and was enquiring into his comforts and the condition of his fire when to her horror she saw another figure steal swiftly up to Mr. Ulder’s door. It was Judith of all people, Judith who had emerged from her room and ran to the invalid, intent no doubt on some desperate appeal or some urgent cajolery. How like the foolish child to imagine her wiles would have any effect! How like her, too, to ignore every instinct of propriety and decorum! Mrs. Broome almost ran in her haste to get her step-daughter out of the room and smuggled away before any one could see her, and then stopped dead in the Bridge passage at a sound above her. Someone was moving about at the head of the stairs which led from the Bridge to the passage of the new wing where the candidates slept. One of them was certainly on the alert and he might unluckily have seen her step-daughter.

  “Is anything wanted up there?” she called sharply, as a faint scuttle showed that the unknown watcher was retreating.

  “Oh no, no thank you, Mrs. Broome!” The red-haired, untidy head, sharp face and blinking eyes of little Mr. Staples appeared round the corner. (“A Christian perhaps, but a gentleman never,” had been the Chancellor’s unchristian comment on this candidate for the priesthood.) “I just thought I heard a door banging in the wind and that I—I had better close it in case it kept people awake.”

  “All the doors will be shut before we settle down,” smiled Mrs. Broome a little perplexedly. “I’m sorry you were disturbed. Have you everything you want?” She was speaking in a lowered voice, but trusted that its sound would reach Judith and make her retreat. She had had enough of explanations and scenes to-night!

  “Indeed, indeed yes—every comfort—every luxury—only too much when one remembers …” But Mrs. Broome’s memory that Mr. Staples was said to be Red in his sympathies made her move on with a hurried good night. And only just in time too, for, as she approached, Judith rushed out of St. Ursula, and began recklessly filling up a glass from the whisky decanter.

  “Judith!” Mrs. Broome was so seldom roused to anger that her reproofs were usually effective, but she had not expected her subdued word of admonition to have such an effect. Judith started and dropped the glass, which fell into a thousand splinters, and pattered away at full speed in her feathered mules, her turquoise satin dressing-gown flying round her.

  Had she really managed to rouse Mr. Ulder at all, wondered Mrs. Broome as she looked softly into the invalid’s room. It was only as she stood by the bed that she caught a faint murmur of: “Whisky!” Should she give him some stimulant after all, for his pulse was alarming? And what about the doctor’s pilule? He seemed about to sleep—but no! Suddenly an agonized groan came as she reached the door, and putting on the bed lamp, she saw the sharp face wet with sweat, the ugly mouth and secretive eyes twisted in agony. She had placed the tiny bottle on one of the shelves of the ugly Victorian oak dressing-table, and in a moment she had shaken out a tiny capsule, and, lifting the patient’s head, persuaded him to swallow it with a little water.

  “There, there,” she said encouragingly. “It will ease you quite soon, the doctor says! Yes, hold my hand, or, stay, let me rub your heart gently! Does that ease it?” She wiped his forehead. “And let us try a whiff of these salts,” for a terrible spasm shook the patient. “Ah, that’s better, I can see! Really better!” For the face was relaxing. “Now lie quite still and I’ll stay with you and say something!” Mrs. Broome before her marriage had engaged frequently in visits to hospitals and was of the simple faith which knows no false modesty. Only it was a little difficult to offer prayers for repentant sinners, for, as that look of quite anonymous agony passed, Mr. Ulder’s face resumed its usual mocking, inquisitive, sardonic stare. “The Lord is my Shepherd—”

  That most personal yet most universally applicable psalm, came naturally to her lips, and really as she spoke of the Valley of the Shadow her patient’s breathing did seem to grow easier and his hand relaxed its hold of hers. “Good night,” she murmured as she saw Mr. Ulder’s eyes close and his body relax. His head was turned a little into the pillow now, and something in his attitude made unimaginative Mrs. Broome see him for a moment as he must have been in his innocent childhood. “God bless and pardon and keep you,” she whispered as she prepared to go. She never told any one but her husband of that moment, but she was glad to remember it years later, when the shadows closed round her own life.

  “No one shall come in now, I’ll make sure, and you shall have a splendid rest,” were her last words as she left the bedside. Those bright observant eyes were still following her, but the drug would do its work soon. She even fancied that she heard a word of thanks to cheer her as she opened the door, and found herself, to her surprise, face to face with Soames, at Moira’s door.

  “Having heard a crash, madam, I came upstairs to remove any traces of an accident,” said Soames glibly, before his mistress could speak.

  “But were you in Moira’s room?” Mrs. Broome was puzzled at such unusual diligence, but the glass had certainly gone and her glance fell on a dustpan full of broken pieces at the top of Soames’ stair. Perhaps he was to prove biddable after all, in spite of his shortcomings to-night, but he had no business to disturb Moira.

  “Yes, madam, she called out to know what the smash was and to clear it up, and I happened to hear in the pantry.
I just looked in to tell her all traces had been removed.”

  Mrs. Broome turned and made her way to Judith’s room with a lump in her throat. How little they all truly appreciated the faithful devotion of Moira and her kind! Would she herself, on the threshold of a severe operation, trouble about a few pieces of glass in the passage, rouse herself from a drugged sleep and organize a clearance? Nothing would have been further from her thoughts, but then these Moiras of a vanishing generation with their deep narrow sense of external order and propriety had no share in her own mental and spiritual anxieties over those they loved. To Moira Judith was perfection and above criticism, whereas to her stepmother she was a tragic insoluble problem.

  Long years of experience should have taught Mrs. Broome that the problem would certainly prove elusive now, but hope springs eternal in the breasts of Presidents of Girls’ Friendly and Young Women’s Christian societies. She entered Judith’s room with loving words of caution on her lips, only to find, of course, that her bird had flown. Sounds of laughter in Sue’s room next door made her accept defeat inevitably when she looked in. For how could she tackle the question of Judith’s divorce or Mr. Ulder’s blackmail when the girl herself was sitting on the fireside rug like a child of twelve, chatting with Sue who, in bed in her white nightgown, her cheek distended by a chocolate, the Daisy Chain of Miss Yonge on her quilt, looked more like a child of seven? Mrs. Broome recognized with shame that she was being drawn into most frivolous conjectures of the two girls about the probable night wear of the old tabbies (as Judith would call them) in the Cathedral Close, before she pulled herself together and turned away.

  “I must have a long talk with you to-morrow, Ju dear,” was her only tribute to her earlier designs. “And you should go to bed now and let Sue go to sleep!”