MR. SILK.
The Reverend Nahum Silk, B.A., sometime of St. Alban's Hall, Oxford, had
first arrived in America as a missioner seeking a sphere of labour in
General Oglethorpe's new colony of Georgia. He was then (1733-4) a
young man, newly admitted to priest's orders, and undergoing what he
took to be a crisis of the soul. Sensual natures, such as his, not
uncommonly suffer in youth a combustion of religious sentiment.
The fervour is short-lived, the flame is expelled by its own blast, and
leaves a house swept and garnished, inviting devils.
For the hard fare of Georgia he soon began to seek consolations, and
early in the second year of his ministry a sufficiently gross scandal
tumbled him out of the little colony. Lacking the grit to return to
England and face out his relatives' displeasure, he had drifted
northwards to Massachusetts, and there had picked up with a slant of
luck. A number of godly and well-to-do citizens of Boston had recently
banded themselves into an association for supplying religious
opportunities to the seamen frequenting the port, and to the Committee
Mr. Silk commended himself by a hail-fellow manner and a shrewdness of
speech which, since it showed through a coat of unction, might be
supposed to mean shrewdness in grain. Cunning indeed the man could be,
for his short ends; but his shrewdness began and ended in a trick of
talking, and in the conduct of life he trimmed sail to his appetites.
His business of missioner (or, as he jocosely put it, Chaplain of the
Fleet) soon brought him to the notice of Captain Vyell, Collector of
Customs, with whom by the same trick of speech (slightly adapted) he
managed to ingratiate himself, scenting the flesh-pots. For he belonged
to the tribe to whom a patron never comes amiss. Captain Vyell was
amused by the man; knew him for a sycophant; but tolerated him at table
and promoted him (in Batty Langton's phrase) to be his trencher
chaplain. He and Langton took an easy malicious delight, over their
wine, in shocking Mr. Silk with their free thought and seeing how
"the dog swallowed it."
The dog swallowed his dirty puddings very cleverly, and with just so
much show of protest as he felt to be due to his Orders. He had the
accent of an English gentleman and enough of the manner to pass muster.
But the Collector erred when he said that "Silk was only a beast in his
cups," and he erred with a carelessness well-nigh wicked when he made
the man Dicky's tutor.
This step had coincided with the relegation of Ruth and Miss Quiney to
Sabines; but whether by chance or of purpose no one but the Collector
could tell. Of his intentions toward the girl he said nothing, even to
Batty Langton. Very likely they were not clear to himself. He knew
well enough how fast and far gossip travelled in New England; and
doubted not at all that his adventure at Port Nassau had within a few
days been whispered and canvassed throughout Boston. His own grooms, no
doubt, had talked. But he could take a scornful amusement in baffling
speculation while he made up his own mind. In one particular only he
had been prompt--in propitiating Miss Quiney. On reaching home, some
hours ahead of the girl, he had summoned Miss Quiney to his library and
told her the whole story. The interview on her part had been
exclamatory and tearful; but the good lady, with all her absurdities,
was a Christian. She was a woman too, and delighted to serve an
overmastering will. She had left him with a promise to lay her
conscience in prayer before the Lord; and, next morning, Ruth's beauty
had done the rest.
"Good-morning, Miss Josselin!" Ruth started and glanced up the slope
with a shiver. The voice of Mr. Silk always curdled her flesh.
"La! la!" went on Mr. Silk, nodding down admiration. "What a group to
startle!--Cupid extracting a thorn from the hand of Venus--or (shall we
say?) the Love god, having wounded his mother in sport, kisses the
scratch to make it well. Ha, ha!"
"Shall I continue, sir?" said Ruth, recovering herself. "The pair are
surprised by a satyr who crept down to the spring to bathe his aching
head--"
"Hard on me, as usual!" Mr. Silk protested, climbing down the slope.
"But 'tis the privilege of beauty to be cruel. As it happens, I drank
moderately last night, and I come with a message from the Diana of these
groves. Miss Quiney wishes to communicate to you some news I have had
the honour to bring in a letter from Captain Vyell--or, as we must now
call him, Sir Oliver."
"Sir Oliver?" echoed Ruth, not understanding at all.
"The _Fish-hawk_ arrived in harbour this morning with the English
mail-bags; and the Collector has letters informing him that his uncle,
Sir Thomas Vyell, is dead after a short illness--the cause, jail fever,
contracted while serving at Launceston, in Cornwall, on the Grand Jury."
"Captain Vyell succeeds?"
"To the title and, I believe, to very considerable estates. His uncle
leaves no male child."
"Dicky had not told me of this."
"--Because," explained the boy, "I didn't know what it meant, and I
don't know now. Papa told me this morning that his uncle was dead, home
in England; but I'd never heard of him, and it slipped out of my mind.
Can titles, as you call them, be passed on like that? And if papa died,
should I get one? Or would it go to Uncle Harry?"
"It would go to your uncle," said Mr. Silk. "Now run along to the house
and tell Miss Quiney that I have found the pair of you. She was getting
anxious."
Dicky hesitated. He knew that Ruth had a horror of his tutor.
"Yes, run," she commanded, reading his glance. "We follow at once."
The boy scrambled up the slope. Mr. Silk looked after him and chuckled.
"Dicky don't know yet that there are two sides to a blanket."
Getting no answer--for she had turned and was stooping to pick up her
book--he went on, "Vyell had a letter, among others, from the widow,
Lady Caroline; and that, between ourselves, is the cause of my errand.
She writes that she is taking a trip across here, to restore her nerves,
and is bringing her daughter for company. The daughter, so near as I
gather, is of an age near-about Vyell's. See?"
"I am afraid I do not." Ruth had recovered her book and her composure.
A rose-flush showed yet on either cheek, but it lay not within Mr.
Silk's competence to read so delicate a signal. "Will you explain?"
"Well"--he leered--"it did occur to me there might be some cleverness in
the lady's search after consolation. Her daughter and our Collector
being cousins--eh? At any rate, that's her first thought; to bring the
girl--woman, if you prefer it--over and renew acquaintance with the
heir. Must be excused if I misjudge her. Set it down to zeal for you,
Miss Josselin."
"Willingly, Mr. Silk--if your zeal for me did not outrun my
understanding."
"Yet you're clever. But you won't persuade me you don't see the
difficulty. . . . Er--how shall I put it? The Collector--we'll have to
get used to calling him Sir Oliver--is as cool under fire as any man
this side of the Atlantic; fire of criticism, I mean. There's a limit
though. He despises Colonial opinion--that's his pose; takes pride in
despising it, encouraged by Langton. But England? his family?--that's
another matter. An aunt--and that aunt an earl's daughter--If you'll
believe me, Miss Josselin, I'm a man of family and know the sort.
They're incredible. And the younger lady, if I may remind you, called
Diana; which--er--may warn us that she, too, is particular about these
things." Here Mr. Silk, having at length found his retort upon her
similitude of the satyr, licked his lips.
Ruth drew up and stood tapping her foot. "May I beg to be told exactly
what has happened, sir?"
"What has happened? What has happened is that Vyell is placing Sabines
at the disposal of his aunt and cousin for so long as they may honour
Boston with their presence. He sends the Quiney word to pack and hold
herself in readiness for a flitting. Whither? I cannot say; nor can he
yet have found the temporary nest for you. But doubtless you will hear
in due course. May I offer you my arm?"
"I thank you, no. Indeed we will part here, unless you have further
business in the house--and I gather that your errand there is
discharged. . . . One question--Captain Vyell sent his message by a
letter, which Miss Quiney no doubt will show to me. Did he further
commission you with a verbal one? You had better," she added quietly,
"be particular about telling me the truth; for I may question him, and
for a discovered falsehood he is capable of beating you."
"What I have said," stammered the clergyman, "was--er--entirely on my
own responsibility. I--I conceived you would find it sympathetic--
helpful perhaps. Believe me, Miss Josselin, I have considerable
feeling for you and your--er--position."
"I thank you." She dismissed him with a gentle curtsy. "I feel almost
sure you have been doing your best."