Among the letters which the postman brought to Bellevue Lodge on the
morning following these remarkable events was an envelope which
possessed a dreadful fascination. It bore a little coronet stamped in
black upon the flap, and "Edward Westray, Esquire, Bellevue Lodge,
Cullerne," written on the front in a bold and clear hand. But this was
not all, for low in the left corner was the inscription "Blandamer." A
single word, yet fraught with so mystical an import that it set
Anastasia's heart beating fast as she gave it to her aunt, to be taken
upstairs with the architect's breakfast.
"There is a letter for you, sir, from Lord Blandamer," Miss Joliffe
said, as she put down the tray on the table.
But the architect only grunted, and went on with ruler and compass at
the plan with which he was busy. Miss Joliffe would have been more than
woman had she not felt a burning curiosity to know the contents of so
important a missive; and to leave a nobleman's letter neglected on the
table seemed to her little short of sacrilege.
Never had breakfast taken longer to lay, and still there was the letter
lying by the tin cover, which (so near is grandeur to our dust)
concealed a simple bloater. Poor Miss Joliffe made a last effort ere
she left the room to bring Westray to a proper appreciation of the
situation.
"There is a letter for you, sir; I think it is from Lord Blandamer."
"Yes, yes," the architect said sharply; "I will attend to it presently."
And so she retired, routed.
Westray's nonchalance had been in part assumed. He was anxious to show
that he, at any rate, could rise superior to artificial distinctions of
rank, and was no more to be impressed by peers than peasants. He kept
up this philosophic indifference even after Miss Joliffe left the room;
for he took life very seriously, and felt his duty towards himself to be
at least as important as that towards his neighbours. Resolution lasted
till the second cup of tea, and then he opened the letter.
"Dear Sir" (it began),
"I understood from you yesterday that the repairs to the north
transept of Cullerne Minster are estimated to cost 7,800 pounds. This
charge I should like to bear myself, and thus release for other
purposes of restoration the sum already collected. I am also prepared
to undertake whatever additional outlay is required to put the whole
building in a state of substantial repair. Will you kindly inform Sir
George Farquhar of this, and ask him to review the scheme of
restoration as modified by these considerations? I shall be in
Cullerne on Saturday next, and hope I may find you at home if I call
about five in the afternoon, and that you may then have time to show
me the church.
"I am, dear sir,
"Very truly yours,
"Blandamer."
Westray had scanned the letter so rapidly that he knew its contents by
intuition rather than by the more prosaic method of reading. Nor did he
re-read it several times, as is generally postulated by important
communications in fiction; he simply held it in his hand, and crumpled
it unconsciously, while he thought. He was surprised, and he was
pleased--pleased at the wider vista of activity that Lord Blandamer's
offer opened, and pleased that he should be chosen as the channel
through which an announcement of such gravity was to be made. He felt,
in short, that pleasurable and confused excitement, that mental
inebriation, which unexpected good fortune is apt to produce in any
except the strongest minds, and went down to Mr Sharnall's room still
crumpling the letter in his hand. The bloater was left to waste its
sweetness on the morning air.
"I have just received some extraordinary news," he said, as he opened
the door.
Mr Sharnall was not altogether unprepared, for Miss Joliffe had already
informed him that a letter from Lord Blandamer had arrived for Mr
Westray; so he only said "Ah!" in a tone that implied compassion for the
lack of mental balance which allowed Westray to be so easily astonished,
and added "Ah, yes?" as a manifesto that no sublunary catastrophe could
possibly astonish him, Mr Sharnall. But Westray's excitement was
cold-waterproof, and he read the letter aloud with much jubilation.
"Well," said the organist, "I don't see much in it; seven thousand
pounds is nothing to him. When we have done all that we ought to do, we
are unprofitable servants."
"It isn't only seven thousand pounds; don't you see he gives
carte-blanche for repairs in general? Why, it may be thirty or forty
thousand, or even more."
"Don't you wish you may get it?" the organist said, raising his eyebrows
and shutting his eyelids.
Westray was nettled.
"Oh, I think it's mean to sneer at everything the man does. We abused
him yesterday as a niggard; let us have the grace to-day to say we were
mistaken." He was afflicted with the over-scrupulosity of a refined,
but strictly limited mind, and his conscience smote him. "I, at any
rate, was quite mistaken," he went on; "I quite misinterpreted his
hesitation when I mentioned the cost of the transept repairs."
"Your chivalrous sentiments do you the greatest credit," the organist
said, "and I congratulate you on being able to change your ideas so
quickly. As for me, I prefer to stick to my first opinion. It is all
humbug; either he doesn't mean to pay, or else he has some plan of his
own to push. _I_ wouldn't touch his money with a barge-pole."
"Oh no, of course not," Westray said, with the exaggerated sarcasm of a
schoolboy in his tone. "If he was to offer a thousand pounds to restore
the organ, you wouldn't take a penny of it."
"He hasn't offered a thousand yet," rejoined the organist; "and when he
does, I'll send him away with a flea in his ear."
"That's a very encouraging announcement for would-be contributors,"
Westray sneered; "they ought to come forward very strongly after that."
"Well, I must get on with some copying," the organist said dryly; and
Westray went back to the bloater.
If Mr Sharnall was thus pitiably wanting in appreciation of a
munificent offer, the rest of Cullerne made no pretence of imitating his
example. Westray was too elated to keep the good news to himself, nor
did there appear, indeed, to be any reason for making a secret of it.
So he told the foreman-mason, and Mr Janaway the clerk, and Mr Noot
the curate, and lastly Canon Parkyn the rector, whom he certainly ought
to have told the first of all. Thus, before the carillon of Saint
Sepulchre's played "New sabbath" [See Appendix at the end of the volume]
at three o'clock that afternoon, the whole town was aware that the new
Lord Blandamer had been among them, and had promised to bear the cost of
restoring the great minster of which they were all so proud--so very
much more proud when their pride entailed no sordid considerations of
personal subscription.
Canon Parkyn was ruffled. Mrs Parkyn perceived it when he came in to
dinner at one o'clock, but, being a prudent woman, she did not allude
directly to his ill-humour, though she tried to dispel it by leading the
conversation to topics which experience had shown her were soothing to
him. Among such the historic visit of Sir George Farquhar, and the
deference which he had paid to the Rector's suggestions, occupied a
leading position: but the mention of the great architect's name, was a
signal for a fresh exhibition of vexation on her husband's part.
"I wish," he said, "that Sir George would pay a little more personal
attention to the work at the minster. His representative, this Mr--
er--er--this Mr Westray, besides being, I fear, very inexperienced and
deficient in architectural knowledge, is a most conceited young man, and
constantly putting himself forward in an unbecoming way. He came to me
this morning with an exceedingly strange communication--a letter from
Lord Blandamer."
Mrs Parkyn laid down her knife and fork.
"A letter from Lord Blandamer?" she said in unconcealed amazement--"a
letter from Lord Blandamer to Mr Westray!"
"Yes," the Rector went on, losing some of his annoyance in the
pleasurable consciousness that his words created a profound
sensation--"a letter in which his lordship offers to bear in the first
place the cost of the repairs of the north transept, and afterwards to
make good any deficiency in the funds required for the restoration of
the rest of the fabric. Of course, I am very loth to question any
action taken by a member of the Upper House, but at the same time I am
compelled to characterise the proceeding as most irregular. That such a
communication should be made to a mere clerk of the works, instead of to
the Rector and duly appointed guardian of the sacred edifice, is so
grave a breach of propriety that I am tempted to veto the matter
entirely, and to refuse to accept this offer."
His face wore a look of sublime dignity, and he addressed his wife as if
she were a public meeting. _Ruat coelum_, Canon Parkyn was not to be
moved a hair's-breadth from the line traced by propriety and rectitude.
He knew in his inmost heart that under no possible circumstances would
he have refused any gift that was offered him, yet his own words had
about them so heroic a ring that for a moment he saw himself dashing
Lord Blandamer's money on the floor, as early Christians had flung to
the wind that pinch of incense that would have saved them from the
lions.
"I think I _must_ refuse this offer," he repeated.
Mrs Parkyn knew her husband intimately--more intimately, perhaps, than
he knew himself--and had an additional guarantee that the discussion was
merely academic in the certainty that, even were he really purposed to
refuse the offer, she would not _allow_ him to do so. Yet she played
the game, and feigned to take him seriously.
"I quite appreciate your scruples, my dear; they are just what anyone
who knew you would expect. It is a positive affront that you should be
told of such a proposal by this impertinent young man; and Lord
Blandamer has so strange a reputation himself that one scarcely knows
how far it is right to accept anything from him for sacred purposes. I
honour your reluctance. Perhaps it _would_ be right for you to decline
this proposal, or, at any rate, to take time for consideration."
The Rector looked furtively at his wife. He was a little alarmed at her
taking him so readily at his word. He had hoped that she would be
dismayed--that she could have brought proper arguments to bear to shake
his high resolve.
"Ah, your words have unwittingly reminded me of my chief difficulty in
refusing. It is the sacred purpose which makes me doubt my own
judgment. It would be a painful reflection to think that the temple
should suffer by my refusing this gift. Maybe I should be yielding to
my own petulance or personal motives if I were to decline. I must not
let my pride stand in the way of higher obligations."
He concluded in his best pulpit manner, and the farce was soon at an
end. It was agreed that the gift must be accepted, that proper measures
should be taken to rebuke Mr Westray's presumption, as _he_ had no
doubt induced Lord Blandamer to select so improper a channel of
communication, and that the Rector should himself write direct to thank
the noble donor. So, after dinner, Canon Parkyn retired to his "study,"
and composed a properly fulsome letter, in which he attributed all the
noblest possible motives and qualities to Lord Blandamer, and invoked
all the most unctuously conceived blessings upon his head. And at
teatime the letter was perused and revised by Mrs Parkyn, who added
some finishing touches of her own, especially a preamble which stated
that Canon Parkyn had been informed by the clerk of the works that Lord
Blandamer had expressed a desire to write to Canon Parkyn to make a
certain offer, but had asked the clerk of the works to find out first
whether such an offer would be acceptable to Canon Parkyn, and a
peroration which hoped that Lord Blandamer would accept the hospitality
of the Rectory on the occasion of his next visit to Cullerne.
The letter reached Lord Blandamer at Fording the next morning as he sat
over a late breakfast, with a Virgil open on the table by his
coffee-cup. He read the Rector's stilted periods without a smile, and
made a mental note that he would at once send a specially civil
acknowledgment. Then he put it carefully into his pocket, and turned
back to the _Di patrii indigetes et Romule Vestaque Mater_ of the First
Georgic, which he was committing to memory, and banished the invitation
so completely from his mind that he never thought of it again till he
was in Cullerne a week later.
Lord Blandamer's visit, and the offer which he had made for the
restoration of the church, formed the staple of Cullerne conversation
for a week. All those who had been fortunate enough to see or to speak
to him discussed him with one another, and compared notes. Scarcely a
detail of his personal appearance, of his voice or manner escaped them;
and so infectious was this interest that some who had never seen him at
all were misled by their excitement into narrating how he had stopped
them in the street to ask the way to the architect's lodgings, and how
he had made so many striking and authentic remarks that it was wonderful
that he had ever reached Bellevue Lodge at all that night. Clerk
Janaway, who was sorely chagrined to think that he should have missed an
opportunity of distinguished converse, declared that he had felt the
stranger's grey eyes go through and through him like a knife, and had
only made believe to stop him entering the choir, in order to convince
himself by the other's masterful insistence that his own intuition was
correct. He had known all the time, he said, that he was speaking to
none other than Lord Blandamer.
Westray thought the matter important enough to justify him in going to
London to consult Sir George Farquhar, as to the changes in the scheme
of restoration which Lord Blandamer's munificence made possible; but Mr
Sharnall, at any rate, was left to listen to Miss Joliffe's
recollections, surmises, and panegyrics.
In spite of all the indifference which the organist had affected when he
first heard the news, he showed a surprising readiness to discuss the
affair with all comers, and exhibited no trace of his usual impatience
with Miss Joliffe, so long as she was talking of Lord Blandamer. To
Anastasia it seemed as if he could talk of nothing else, and the more
she tried to check him by her silence or by change of subject, the more
bitterly did he return to the attack.
The only person to exhibit no interest in this unhappy nobleman, who had
outraged propriety by offering to contribute to the restoration of the
minster, was Anastasia herself; and even tolerant Miss Joliffe was moved
to chide her niece's apathy in this particular.
"I do not think it becomes us, love, young or old, to take so little
notice of great and good deeds. Mr Sharnall is, I fear, discontented
with the station of life to which it has pleased Providence to call him,
and I am less surprised at _his_ not always giving praise where praise
should be given; but with the young it is different. I am sure if
anyone had offered to restore Wydcombe Church when I was a girl--and
specially a nobleman--I should have been as delighted, or nearly as
delighted, as if he--as if I had been given a new frock." She altered
the "as if he had given me" which was upon her tongue because the
proposition, even for purposes of illustration, that a nobleman could
ever have offered her a new frock seemed to have in itself something of
the scandalous and unfitting.
"I should have been delighted, but, dear me! in those days people were
so blind as never to think of restorations. We used to sit in quite
_comfortable_ seats every Sunday, with cushions and hassocks, and the
aisles were paved with flagstones--simple worn flagstones, and none of
the caustic tiles which look so much more handsome; though I am always
afraid I am going to slip, and glad to be off them, they are so hard and
shiny. Church matters were very behindhand then. All round the walls
were tablets that people had put up to their relations, white caskets on
black marble slates, and urns and cherubs' heads, and just opposite
where I used to sit a poor lady, whose name I have forgotten, weeping
under a willow-tree. No doubt they were very much out of place in the
sanctuary, as the young gentleman said in his lecture on `How to make
our Churches Beautiful' in the Town Hall last winter. He called them
`mural blisters,' my dear, but there was no talk of removing them in my
young days, and that was, I dare say, because there was no one to give
the money for it. But now, here is this good young nobleman, Lord
Blandamer, come forward so handsomely, and I have no doubt at Cullerne
all will be much improved ere long. We are not meant to _loll_ at our
devotions, as the lecturer told us. That was his word, to `_loll_'; and
they will be sure to take away the baize and hassocks, though I do hope
there will be a little strip of _something_ on the seats; the bare wood
is apt to make one ache sometimes. I should not say it to anyone else
in the world but you, but it _does_ make me ache a little sometimes; and
when the caustic is put down in the aisle, I shall take your arm, my
dear, to save me from slipping. Here is Lord Blandamer going to do all
this for us, and you do not show yourself in the least grateful. It is
not becoming in a young girl."
"Dear aunt, what would you have me do? I cannot go and thank him
publicly in the name of the town. That would be still more unbecoming;
and I am sure I hope they will not do all the dreadful things in the
church that you speak of. I love the old monuments, and like _lolling_
much better than bare forms."
So she would laugh the matter off; but if she could not be induced to
talk of Lord Blandamer, she thought of him the more, and rehearsed again
and again in day-dreams and in night-dreams every incident of that
momentous Saturday afternoon, from the first bars of the overture, when
he had revealed in so easy and simple a way that he was none other than
Lord Blandamer, to the ringing down of the curtain, when he turned to
look back--to that glance when his eyes had seemed to meet hers,
although she was hidden behind a blind, and he could not have guessed
that she was there.
Westray came back from London with the scheme of restoration
reconsidered and amplified in the light of altered circumstances, and
with a letter for Lord Blandamer in which Sir George Farquhar hoped that
the munificent donor would fix a day on which Sir George might come down
to Cullerne to offer his respects, and to discuss the matter in person.
Westray had looked forward all the week to the appointment which he had
with Lord Blandamer for five o'clock on the Saturday afternoon, and had
carefully thought out the route which he would pursue in taking him
round the church. He returned to Bellevue Lodge at a quarter to five,
and found his visitor already awaiting him. Miss Joliffe was, as usual,
at her Saturday meeting, but Anastasia told Westray that Lord Blandamer
had been waiting more than half an hour.
"I must apologise, my lord, for keeping you waiting," Westray said, as
he went in. "I feared I had made some mistake in the time of our
meeting, but I see it _was_ five that your note named." And he held out
the open letter which he had taken from his pocket.
"The mistake is entirely mine," Lord Blandamer admitted with a smile, as
he glanced at his own instructions; "I fancied I had said four o'clock;
but I have been very glad of a few minutes to write one or two letters."
"We can post them on our way to the church; they will just catch the
mail."
"Ah, then I must wait till to-morrow; there are some enclosures which I
have not ready at this moment."
They set out together for the minster, and Lord Blandamer looked back as
they crossed the street.
"The house has a good deal of character," he said, "and might be made
comfortable enough with a little repair. I must ask my agent to see
what can be arranged; it does not do me much credit as landlord in its
present state."
"Yes, it has a good many interesting features," Westray answered; "you
know its history, of course--I mean that it was an old inn."
He had turned round as his companion turned, and for an instant thought
he saw something moving behind the blind in Mr Sharnall's room. But he
must have been mistaken; only Anastasia was in the house, and she was in
the kitchen, for he had called to her as they went out to say that he
might be late for tea.
Westray thoroughly enjoyed the hour and a half which the light allowed
him for showing and explaining the church. Lord Blandamer exhibited
what is called, so often by euphemism, an intelligent interest in all
that he saw, and was at no pains either to conceal or display a very
adequate architectural knowledge. Westray wondered where he had
acquired it, though he asked no questions; but before the inspection was
ended he found himself unconsciously talking to his companion of
technical points, as to a professional equal and not to an amateur.
They stopped for a moment under the central tower.
"I feel especially grateful," Westray said, "for your generosity in
giving us a free hand for all fabric work, because we shall now be able
to tackle the tower. Nothing will ever induce me to believe that all is
right up there. The arches are extraordinarily wide and thin for their
date. You will laugh when I tell you that I sometimes think I hear them
crying for repair, and especially that one on the south with the jagged
crack in the wall above it. Now and then, when I am alone in the church
or the tower, I seem to catch their very words. `The arch never
sleeps,' they say; `we never sleep.'"
"It is a romantic idea," Lord Blandamer said. "Architecture is poetry
turned into stone, according to the old aphorism, and you, no doubt,
have something of the poet in you."
He glanced at the thin and rather bloodless face, and at the high
cheekbones of the water-drinker as he spoke. Lord Blandamer never made
jokes, and very seldom was known to laugh, yet if anyone but Westray had
been with him, they might have fancied that there was a whimsical tone
in his words, and a trace of amusement in the corners of his eyes. But
the architect did not see it, and coloured slightly as he went on:
"Well, perhaps you are right; I suppose architecture does inspire one.
The first verses I ever wrote, or the first, at least, that I ever had
printed, were on the Apse of Tewkesbury Abbey. They came out in the
_Gloucester Herald_, and I dare say I shall scribble something about
these arches some day."
"Do," said Lord Blandamer, "and send me a copy. This place ought to
have its poet, and it is much safer to write verses to arches than to
arched eyebrows."
Westray coloured again, and put his hand in his breast-pocket. Could he
have been so foolish as to leave those half-finished lines on his desk
for Lord Blandamer or anyone else to see? No, they were quite safe; he
could feel the sharp edge of the paper folded lengthways, which
differentiated them from ordinary letters.
"We shall just have time to go up to the roof-space, if you care to do
so," he suggested, changing the subject. "I should like to show you the
top of the transept groining, and explain what we are busy with at
present. It is always more or less dark up there, but we shall find
lanterns."
"Certainly, with much pleasure." And they climbed the newel staircase
that was carried in the north-east pier.
Clerk Janaway had been hovering within a safe distance of them as they
went their round. He was nominally busy in "putting things straight"
for the Sunday, before the church was shut up; and had kept as much out
of sight as was possible, remembering how he had withstood Lord
Blandamer to the face a week before. Yet he was anxious to meet him, as
it were, by accident, and explain that he had acted in ignorance of the
real state of affairs; but no favourable opportunity for such an
explanation presented itself. The pair had gone up to the roof, and the
clerk was preparing to lock up--for Westray had a key of his own--when
he heard someone coming up the nave.
It was Mr Sharnall, who carried a pile of music-books under his arm.
"Hallo!" he said to the clerk, "what makes _you_ so late? I expected to
have to let myself in. I thought you would have been off an hour ago."
"Well, things took a bit longer to-night than usual to put away." He
broke off, for there was a little noise somewhere above them in the
scaffolding, and went on in what was meant for a whisper: "Mr Westray's
taking his lordship round; they're up in the roof now. D'ye hear 'em?"
"Lordship! What lordship? D'you mean that fellow Blandamer?"
"Yes, that's just who I do mean. But I don't know as how he's a fellow,
and he _is_ a lordship; so that's why I call him a lordship and not a
fellow. And mid I ask what he's been doing to set _your_ back up? Why
don't you wait here for him, and talk to him about the organ? Maybe,
now he's in the giving mood, he'd set it right for 'ee, or anyways give
'ee that little blowin'-engine you talk so much about. Why do 'ee
always go about showin' your teeth?--metaforally, I mean, for you
haven't that many real ones left to make much show--why ain't you like
other folk sometimes? Shall I tell 'ee? 'Cause you wants to be young
when you be old, and rich when you be poor. That's why. That makes 'ee
miserable, and then you drinks to drown it. Take my advice, and act
like other folk. I'm nigh a score of years older than you, and take a
vast more pleasure in my life than when I was twenty. The neighbours
and their ways tickle me now, and my pipe's sweeter; and there's many a
foolish thing a young man does that age don't give an old one the chanst
to. You've spoke straight to me, and now I've spoke straight to you,
'cause I'm a straight-speaking man, and have no call to be afraid of
anyone--lord or fellow or organist. So take an old man's word: cheer
up, and wait on my lord, and get him to give 'ee a new organ."
"Bah!" said Mr Sharnall, who was far too used to Janaway's manner to
take umbrage or pay attention to it. "Bah! I hate all Blandamers. I
wish they were as dead and buried as dodos; and I'm not at all sure they
aren't. I'm not at all sure, mind you, that this strutting peacock has
any more right to the name of Blandamer than you or I have. I'm sick of
all this wealth. No one's thought anything of to-day, who can't build a
church or a museum or a hospital. `So long as thou doest well unto
_thyself_, men will speak good of thee.' If you've got the money,
you're everything that's wonderful, and if you haven't, you may go rot.
I wish all Blandamers were in their graves," he said, raising his thin
and strident voice till it rang again in the vault above, "and wrapped
up in their nebuly coat for a shroud. I should like to fling a stone
through their damned badge." And he pointed to the sea-green and silver
shield high up in the transept window. "Sunlight and moonlight, it is
always there. I used to like to come down and play here to the bats of
a full moon, till I saw _that_ would always look into the loft and haunt
me."
He thumped his pile of books down on a seat, and flung out of the
church. He had evidently been drinking, and the clerk made his escape
at the same time, being anxious not to be identified with sentiments
which had been so loudly enunciated that he feared those in the roof
might have overheard them.
Lord Blandamer wished Westray good-night at the church-door, excusing
himself from an invitation to tea on the ground of business which
necessitated his return to Fording.
"We must spend another afternoon in the minster," he said. "I hope you
will allow me to write to make an appointment. I am afraid that it may
possibly be for a Saturday again, for I am much occupied at present
during the week."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clerk Janaway lived not far from the church, in Governor's Lane. No one
knew whence its name was derived, though Dr Ennefer thought that the
Military Governour might have had his quarters thereabouts when Cullerne
was held for the Parliament. Serving as a means of communication
between two quiet back-streets, it was itself more quiet than either,
and yet; for all this, had about it a certain air of comfort and
well-being. The passage of vehicles was barred at either end by old
cannon. Their breeches were buried in the ground, and their muzzles
stood up as sturdy iron posts, while the brown cobbles of the roadway
sloped to a shallow stone gutter which ran down the middle of the lane.
Custom ordained that the houses should be coloured with a pink wash; and
the shutters, which were a feature of the place, shone in such bright
colours as to recall a Dutch town.
Shutter-painting was indeed an event of some importance in Governour's
Lane. Not a few of its inhabitants had followed the sea as fishermen or
smack-owners, and when fortune so smiled on them that they could retire,
and there were no more boats to be painted, shutters and doors and
window-frames came in to fill the gap. So, on a fine morning, when the
turpentine oozing from cracks, and the warm smell of blistering varnish
brought to Governour's Lane the first tokens of returning summer, might
have been seen sexagenarians and septuagenarians, and some so strong
that they had come to fourscore years, standing paint-pot and
paint-brush in hand, while they gave a new coat to the woodwork of their
homes.
They were a kindly folk, open of face, and fresh-complexioned, broad in
the beam, and vested as to their bodies in dark blue, brass-buttoned
pilot coats. Insuperable smokers, inexhaustible yarn-spinners, they had
long welcomed Janaway as a kindred spirit--the more so that in their
view a clerk and grave-digger was in some measure an expert in things
unseen, who might anon assist in piloting them on that last cruise for
which some had already the Blue Peter at the fore.
A myrtle-bush which grew out of a hole in the cobbles was carefully
trained against the front of a cottage in the middle of the row, and a
brass plate on the door informed the wayfarer and ignorant man that "T.
Janaway, Sexton," dwelt within. About eight o'clock on the Saturday
evening, some two hours after Lord Blandamer and Westray had parted, the
door of the myrtle-fronted cottage was open, and the clerk stood on the
threshold smoking his pipe, while from within came a cheerful, ruddy
light and a well-defined smell of cooking; for Mrs Janaway was
preparing supper.
"Tom," she called, "shut the door, and come to thy victuals."
"Ay," he answered, "I'll be with 'ee directly; but gi'e me a minute. I
want to see who this is coming up the lane."
Someone that the clerk knew at once for a stranger had entered the
little street at the bottom. There was half a moon, and light enough to
see that he was in search of some particular house; for he crossed from
one side of the lane to the other, and peered at the numbers on the
doors. As he came nearer, the clerk saw that he was of spare build, and
wore a loose overcoat or cape, which fluttered in the breeze that blew
at evening from the sea. A moment later Janaway knew that the stranger
was Lord Blandamer, and stepped back instinctively to let him pass. But
the open door had caught the attention of the passer-by; he stopped, and
greeted the householder cheerily.
"A beautiful night, but with a cold touch in the air that makes your
warm room look very cheerful." He recognised the clerk's face as he
spoke, and went on: "Ah, ha! we are old friends already; we met in the
minster a week ago, did we not?"
Mr Janaway was a little disconcerted at the unexpectedness of the
meeting, and returned the salutation in a confused way. The attempt
which he had made to prevent Lord Blandamer from entering the choir was
fresh in his memory, and he stammered some unready excuses.
Lord Blandamer smiled with much courtesy.
"You were quite right to stop me; you would have been neglecting your
duty if you had not done so. I had no idea that service was going on,
or I should not have come in; you may make your mind quite easy on that
score. I hope you will have many more opportunities of finding a place
for me in Cullerne Church."
"No need to find any place for _you_, my Lord. You have your own seat
appointed and fixed, as sure as Canon Parkyn, and your own arms painted
up clear on the back of it. Don't you trouble for that. It is all laid
down in the statutes, and I shall make the very same obeisance for your
lordship when you take your seat as for my Lord Bishop. `Two
inclinations of the body, the mace being held in the right hand, and
supported on the left arm.' I cannot say more fair than that, for only
royalties have three inclinations, and none of them has ever been to
church in my time--no, nor yet a Lord Blandamer neither, since the day
that your dear father and mother, what you never knew, was buried."
Mrs Janaway drummed with her knuckles on the supper-table, in amazement
that her husband should dare to stand chattering at the door when she
had told him that the meal was ready. But, as the conversation revealed
by degrees the stranger's identity, curiosity to see the man whose name
was in all Cullerne mouths got the better of her, and she came
curtseying to the door.
Lord Blandamer flung the flapping cape of his overcoat over the left
shoulder in a way that made the clerk think of foreigners, and of
woodcuts of Italian opera in a bound volume of the _Illustrated London
News_ which he studied on Sunday evenings.
"I must be moving on," said the visitor, with a shiver. "I must not
keep you standing here; there is a very chill air this evening."
Then Mrs Janaway was seized with a sudden temerity.
"Will your lordship not step in and warm yourself for a moment?" she
interposed. "We have a clear fire burning, if you will overlook the
smell of cooking."
The clerk trembled for a moment at his wife's boldness, but Lord
Blandamer accepted the invitation with alacrity.
"Thank you very much," said he; "I should be very glad to rest a few
minutes before my train leaves. Pray make no apology for the smell of
cookery; it is very appetising, especially at supper-time."
He spoke as if he took supper every evening, and had never heard of a
late dinner in his life; and five minutes later he sat at table with Mr
and Mrs Janaway. The cloth was of roughest homespun, but clean; the
knives and forks handled in old green horn, and the piece-of-resistance
tripe; but the guest made an excellent meal.
"Some folk think highly of squash tripe or ribband tripe," the clerk
said meditatively, looking at the empty dish; "but they don't compare,
according to my taste, with cushion tripe." He was emboldened to make
these culinary remarks by that moral elevation which comes to every
properly-constituted host, when a guest has eaten heartily of the viands
set before him.
"No," Lord Blandamer said, "there can be no doubt that cushion tripe is
the best."
"Quite as much depends upon the cooking as upon the tripe itself,"
remarked Mrs Janaway, bridling at the thought that her art had been
left out of the reckoning; "a bad cook will spoil the best tripe. There
are many ways of doing it, but a little milk and a leek is the best for
me."
"You cannot beat it," Lord Blandamer assented--"you cannot beat it"--and
then went on suggestively: "Have you ever tried a sprig of mace with
it?"
No, Mrs Janaway had never heard of that; nor, indeed, had Lord
Blandamer either, if the point had been pushed; but she promised to use
it the very next time, and hoped that the august visitor would honour
them again when it was to be tasted.
"'Tis only Saturday nights that we can get the cushion," she went on;
"and it's well it don't come oftener, for we couldn't afford it. No
woman ever had a call to have a better husband nor Thomas, who spends
little enough on hisself. He don't touch nothing but tea, sir, but
Saturday nights we treat ourselves to a little tripe, which is all the
more convenient in that it is very strengthening, and my husband's
duties on Sunday being that urgent-like. So, if your lordship is fond
of tripe, and passing another Saturday night, and will do us the honour,
you will always find something ready."
"Thank you very much for your kind invitation," Lord Blandamer said; "I
shall certainly take you at your word, the more so that Saturday is the
day on which I am oftenest in Cullerne, or, I should say, have happened
to be lately."
"There's poor and poor," said the clerk reflectively; "and _we're_ poor,
but we're happy; but there's Mr Sharnall poor and unhappy. `Mr
Sharnall,' says I to him, `many a time have I heard my father say over a
pot of tenpenny, "Here's to poverty in a plug-hole, and a man with a
wooden leg to trample it down;" but you never puts your poverty in a
plug-hole, much less tramples it down. You always has it out and airs
it, and makes yourself sad with thinking of it. 'Tisn't because you're
poor that you're sad; 'tis because you _think_ you're poor, and talk so
much about it. You're not so poor as we, only you have so many
grievances.'"
"Ah, you are speaking of the organist?" Lord Blandamer asked. "I fancy
it was he who was talking with you in the minster this afternoon, was it
not?"
The clerk felt embarrassed once more, for he remembered Mr Sharnall's
violent talk, and how his anathema of all Blandamers had rang out in the
church.
"Yes," he said; "poor organist was talking a little wild; he gets took
that way sometimes, what with his grievances, and a little drop of the
swanky what he takes to drown them. Then he talks loud; but I hope your
lordship didn't hear all his foolishness."
"Oh dear no; I was engaged at the time with the architect," Lord
Blandamer said; but his tone made Janaway think that Mr Sharnall's
voice had carried further than was convenient. "I did not hear what he
said, but he seemed to be much put out. I chatted with him in the
church some days ago; he did not know who I was, but I gathered that he
bore no very good will to my family."
Mrs Janaway saw it was a moment for prudent words. "Don't pay no
manner of attention to him, if I may make so bold as to advise your
lordship," she said; "he talks against my husband just as well. He is
crazy about his organ, and thinks he ought to have a new one, or, at
least, a waterworks to blow it, like what they have at Carisbury. Don't
pay no attention to him; no one minds what Sharnall says in Cullerne."
The clerk was astonished at his wife's wisdom, yet apprehensive as to
how it might be taken. But Lord Blandamer bowed his head graciously by
way of thanks for sage counsel, and went on:
"Was there not some queer man at Cullerne who thought he was kept out of
his rights, and should be in my place--who thought, I mean, he ought to
be Lord Blandamer?"
The question was full of indifference, and there was a little smile of
pity on his face; but the clerk remembered how Mr Sharnall had said
something about a strutting peacock, and that there were no real
Blandamers left, and was particularly ill at ease.
"Oh yes," he answered after a moment's pause, "there was a poor doited
body who, saving your presence, had some cranks of that kind; and, more
by token, Mr Sharnall lived in the same house with him, and so I dare
say he has got touched with the same craze."
Lord Blandamer took out a cigar instinctively, and then, remembering
that there was a lady present, put it back into his case and went on:
"Oh, he lived in the same house with Mr Sharnall, did he? I should
like to hear more of this story; it naturally interests me. What was
his name?"
"His name was Martin Joliffe," said the clerk quickly, being surprised
into eagerness by the chance of telling a story; and then the whole tale
of Martin, and Martin's father and mother and daughter, as he had told
it to Westray, was repeated for Lord Blandamer.
The night was far advanced before the history came to an end, and the
local policeman walked several times up and down Governour's Lane, and
made pauses before Mr Janaway's house, being surprised to see a window
lighted so late. Lord Blandamer must have changed his intention of
going by train, for the gates of Cullerne station had been locked for
hours, and the boiler of the decrepit branch-line engine was cooling in
its shed.
"It is an interesting tale, and you tell tales well," he said, as he got
up and put on his coat. "All good things must have an end, but I hope
to see you again ere long." He shook hands with hostess and host,
drained the pot of beer that had been fetched from a public-house, with
a "Here's to poverty in a plug-hole, and a man with a wooden leg to
trample it down," and was gone.
A minute later the policeman, coming back for yet another inspection of
the lighted window, passed a man of middle height, who wore a loose
overcoat, with the cape tossed lightly over the left shoulder. The
stranger walked briskly, and hummed an air as he went, turning his face
up to the stars and the wind-swept sky, as if entirely oblivious of all
sublunary things. A midnight stranger in Governour's Lane was even more
surprising than a lighted window, and the policeman had it in his mind
to stop him and ask his business. But before he could decide on so
vigorous a course of action, the moment was past, and the footsteps were
dying away in the distance.
The clerk was pleased with himself, and proud of his success as a
story-teller.
"That's a clever, understanding sort of chap," he said to his wife, as
they went to bed; "he knows a good tale when he hears one."
"Don't you be too proud of yourself, my man," answered she; "there's
more in that tale than your telling, I warrant you, for my lord to think
about."