Dr Benson drove over daily from King's Hampton to attend Sir Thomas
Candlish, and, to do Dr Benson justice, he made a very good
professional job of the injury to the young baronet, both from his own
and the ordinary point of view.
Tom Candlish protested, but the doctor was inexorable.
"No, sir," he said, "injuries like yours require time. Nature must be
able to thoroughly mend the damage done. I could have helped her to
patch you up--to cobble you, so to speak; but the tender spot would
break out again. I must do my work thoroughly."
"But your drives over here--your bill will be monstrous."
"Large, but not monstrous, my dear sir," said Dr Benson, smiling; "and
what are a few pounds compared to your valuable life?"
Tom Candlish lay thinking that there was something in this, and that it
was far better to pay even a hundred pounds than to have been carried to
the Candlish mausoleum, and without paying out North for the injuries he
had received.
"How's North?" he said.
"Oh, very well, I believe. Dr North and I do not meet very often. A
clever young man, though--a very clever young man."
"Humph! Don't believe in him," said Tom Candlish. "But he has been
very ill."
"Little touch of sunstroke, or something of that kind, sir. I saw his
patients for two days only; then he was about again."
"Humph!" ejaculated Tom Candlish. "Doctor, I'm low to-day; I must have
some champagne."
"My dear sir! out of the question."
"Brandy, then!"
"Worse and worse."
"But I'm sinking. This cursed low feeling is horrible."
"Well, well!" said the doctor smoothly, as, after a moment's
consideration, he felt that the wine would only throw his patient back
for a few days, and give him a longer period for attendance; "perhaps a
drop--say, half a glass--would not hurt you, but I would not exceed half
a glass; champagne glass, mind. Good morning."
Dr Benson took his departure, perfectly aware that the young baronet
would be exceedingly ill the next morning; and so he was, for Tom
Candlish had a medical sanction for taking a little champagne; and the
butler produced the bottle--one of many dozens laid in by Squire Luke,
who had purchased them through a friend as a special brand.
It was a special brand of paraffin quality, well doctored with Hambro'
spirit; and as, after the first glass, Tom Candlish argued that the rest
would be wasted or drunk by the servants, an opened bottle of the
effervescent wine being useless if not utilised at once, he, in spite of
the protestations of the butler, finished the bottle, and threw himself
back for another week.
At the Rectory, matters had settled down somewhat, the hours gliding by
without any discovery being made; and, after the first excitement and
dread, Leo began to feel that she would soon be able to resume her
meetings with her lover.
North had ceased to call at the Rectory, and they had not yet come face
to face. But this troubled Leo less and less. As the days had passed
on, and the _eclaircissement_ had halted, so had her strength of mind
and feeling of defiance increased.
"He dare not face me after his brutal treatment of poor Tom," she had
said; "and he knows the contempt in which I hold him. He cannot be so
pitiful as to tell Hartley, intimate as he and my brother are. I have
nothing to fear."
She feared, though, all the same, though she did not know from whence
the stroke she anticipated would fall. Dally was extremely pert, but
then she always had been. She could know nothing; and in a defiant
spirit, Leo settled herself down in a fool's paradise, eagerly waiting
for the recovery of the squire.
The one policeman from King's Hampton had been over and discoursed with
the one policeman of Duke's Hampton _re_ the sacrilege at the church,
and they had taken into their counsel the one policeman stationed at
Chidley Beauwells, a village five miles away, but they had made nothing
out of that. There was the attack, though, upon the squire, which
seemed very promising, and the trio waited upon him as soon as he was
pronounced well enough to be seen.
The injury must have had an acerbating effect upon Tom Candlish, for, to
use the constables' words, they came down out of the bedroom with fleas
in their ears; and after having a horn of ale apiece, went back to the
village.
Their way was by the churchyard, where Moredock was sunning himself by
leaning over the wall, so that the heat could play well upon his back,
and he entered into conversation with the three myrmidons of the law in
a questioning spirit.
"Wouldn't give you any information, would he?"
"No," said he of King's Hampton. "Told us to go to--you know."
"No, I don't," said Moredock grimly, as if the allusion to this
knowledge at his time of life was unsavoury. "But why wouldn't he tell
you? Don't he want who it was caught?"
"Said it was nothing of the kind," said he of Chidley Beauwells.
"Yes," said the Duke's Hampton man; "said it was an accident, old boy--a
fall."
"Hi! Yes. I s'pose it would be," said Moredock drily. "Squire had a
nasty accident before--a fall. Some people do have accidents of that
sort."
"Well," said the Duke's Hampton policeman, "we've done our duty, and
that's enough for us."
"Ay," said Moredock. "You've done your dooty, and that's enough for
you."
They parted, and Moredock chuckled.
"Bats is nothing and moles is telescopes to 'em. Uniforms seems to make
constables blind. Well, all the better for me. Hallo! where's carrier
going to-day? Doctor's, p'raps, with some new stuff."
The carrier was, however, not going to the doctor's, but passed on.
"Don't quite know what to make of him," muttered Moredock. "That crack
o' the head don't seem to have healed up, for he looks queer sometimes.
I don't like the look of things, somehow; but we shall see--we shall
see. Why don't Dally come down, too? I wanted to know how things is
going there, and she ought to ha' got that shirt made by now.
"Hi! hi! hi!" the old man laughed. "Make me two noo best shirts o' fine
linen as a man may be proud on. Ill wind as blows nobody any good."
The old man went chuckling away, as he thought over the two new Sunday
shirts he was to have made out of the surplice, which, after unpicking
and cutting off edgings, he had washed and dried and handed as so much
new material to Dally to make up, long immunity from detection having
made him daring enough to trust the linen to the very place that, to an
ordinary observer, would have seemed most dangerous.
But the shirts were not made yet, for Dally had declared it to be all
bother, and had put the roll of linen in her drawer, inspired by a
feeling that gran'fa couldn't live much longer, and then the linen would
do for her.
Oddly enough, as Moredock mused upon the whiteness and coolness of the
coming undergarments, the carrier stopped at the Rectory gate, and
delivered a parcel, carriage paid by North Midland Railway to King's
Hampton station, but sixpence to pay for the ten miles by cart.
"Dear me!" said Salis, turning over the package, which was evidently a
box done up in very stout brown paper. "`The Reverend Hartley Salis,
Duke's Hampton Rectory, Warwickshire. By N.M. Rail and Thompson,
carrier. Carriage paid to King's Hampton.' Well, that's plain enough,
Mary."
"Yes, dear; it's evidently for you."
"Yes, evidently for me; eh, Leo?"
"Yes," said Leo, looking up from her book for a moment, and dropping her
eyes again without displaying any further interest.
"It's very curious," said Salis, rather excitedly. "`From Irish and
Lawn, robe makers, Southampton Street.' Why, surely--bless my soul, I
never sent. I--"
He busily cut the string, and opened the paper and the neatly-tied box
within, to find, as, after reading the label, he had expected, that the
contents consisted of a new surplice of the finest quality with a note
pinned thereto, and written within, in a tremulous, disguised hand:
"From an admirer."
The word "admirer" had been lightly scratched across, and "constant
attendant" placed above.
Salis looked at the note, and then at his sister Mary, colouring with
excitement as ingenuously as a girl.
"Why, Mary," he said, "who could have sent this? Do you know?"
Mary shook her head, but her eyes brightened with pleasure, as she felt
how gratified her brother would be.
"Did not you and Leo contrive this as a surprise?"
Mary shook her head again, and Leo looked up languidly.
"What is it?" she said. "A present? No," she added, with a frown, as
she saw what it was, and lowered her eyes to her book to read apparently
with great interest.
"Then it must be one of North's tricks," cried Salis. "It's very kind
and thoughtful of him, but I cannot think of letting him give me such a
present as this. Look, Mary, dear. It is his writing disguised, is it
not?"
Mary's hand trembled a little as she took the note and glanced at it, to
detect the writer at once from a peculiarity which had not been
concealed.
"Well," cried Salis, "I am right?"
Mary shook her head again.
"No, Hartley, it is certainly not Mr North's writing."
"Then, in the name of all that's wonderful, whose is it? The people
would not subscribe for it. Besides, it says `from a constant
attendant.' Why, good heavens! it cannot be from--"
Mary glanced at Leo, who was intent upon her reading, and then looked
back at her brother, with a half-mischievous and amused smile, as she
nodded her head.
"You think so, too," he exclaimed, in a whisper. "Oh!"
There was a look of trouble and perplexity in his face that was
intensely droll, for, though no name had been mentioned, both had hit
upon the donor; and as the trouble deepened in the curate's face, Mary
stretched out her hand to him, and he took it, and sat down by her side.
"It's impossible," he whispered. "I could not think of taking it. How
could she be so foolish?"
"It seems cruel to call it foolish," said Mary gently. "The idea was
prompted by a very kindly feeling."
"Of course, of course; but, my dear Mary, it is putting me in a false
position."
"Not if you treat it as an anonymous gift."
"How can I, when I feel certain that she sent it?"
"But even if you are, I think you might keep it, Hartley. See how
common it is for ladies of a congregation to present the curate with
slippers or braces."
"Yes," said Salis drily; "and all out of gratitude to their spiritual
teacher. Bless 'em, they throw their gifts, and the weak man thinks
they are bladders to enable him to float lightly along the social
current of air, when, lo! and behold, he finds, poor weak, fluttering
butterfly, that one of the fair naturalists has stuck a pin through him,
right into the cork, and he is `set up' for life."
"Nonsense, you vain coxcomb!"
"No, my dear Mary, I am not a vain man; but I can generally tell which
way the wind blows. I have a certain duty to perform in connection with
my two sisters--a sort of paternal role to play, and consequently I am
rather afraid of Mrs Berens."
"Hartley, dear!"
"Yes, Mary. This surplice is going to be paid for by H. Salis, clerk in
holy orders, ill as he can afford to do it, or it is going back to the
donor."
"But what can she do with it if your idea is correct?"
"Cut it up to make little garments for the poor children, if she likes.
Bother the woman: I wish she would go."
Volume 2, Chapter XXI.