THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT
“Thou Ghost,” I said, “and is thy name To-day?—
Yesterday’s son, with such an abject brow!—
And can To-morrow be more pale than thou?”
While yet I spoke, the silence answered: Yea,
Henceforth our issue is all grieved and grey....
—ROSSETTI (_The House of Life_).
The morning after Master Simon’s death was filled for Parson Tutterville
with sadder and more responsible duties than any in his experience.
Before a stormy scarlet sun had well cleared the eastern line of the
hill he was standing with Mr. Webb (the country practitioner) by the
body of his life-long friend, and listening to the professional verdict
on the obvious fact.
The medical man, a not particularly sagacious specimen of his order, who
had for many years treated Master Rickart’s pursuits with the contempt
of prejudice, discovered no specific symptoms of any known toxic,
declared the death to be perfectly natural and announced his intention
of so certifying it. This decision was, in the circumstances, too
desirable not to be accepted with alacrity.
Leaving Ellinor at the head of the truckle-bed whereon lay the shrunken
figure with the waxen, silver-bearded face—the one so pitiably small
under the white sheet, the other so startlingly great with the peace of
the striving thinker who has attained Truth at last—the Doctor of
Divinity led the Doctor of Medicine away, and hurried him from the side
of the dead to that of the living patient. As he mounted the weary
stairs, his mind was uncomfortably haunted by the remembrance of
Ellinor’s haggard and wistful eyes, of her unnatural composure. She had
not shed a tear, though the rector’s own eyes had overflowed at the
sound of Barnaby’s sobs. With dry lips she had told him a brief, bald
story:
“My father was making experiments all day with his new extract. I
divided the sleeping draught between him and David. Barnaby called me in
the night. I found my father dead. When I tried to rouse David, I could
not. He lies in a deep sleep in the observatory.”
His insistent questions could draw no further detail from her. It was
almost like a lesson learnt off by heart; each time she replied in
exactly the same words.
Mr. Webb, who had been almost brutally superficial upon the cause of his
old antagonist’s death, became extremely learned and involved over Sir
David’s case. But the parson, accustomed by his calling to the sight of
the sick, was happily able to see for himself that David’s sleep, though
abnormally profound, was restful; he promptly took it upon himself to
interfere when the doctor offered to proceed to blistering and
blood-letting as a rousing treatment.
Somewhat unceremoniously he insisted on his withdrawal; and, returning
himself to the observatory, stood gazing at his friend for some time
before determining on the step of sending a post-boy into Bath for a
more noted physician. As the divine was thus pondering, David suddenly
opened his eyes, saw and recognised him, without surprise; smiled and
fell asleep again. And Dr. Tutterville felt greatly reassured. Whatever
the cup may have contained that Ellinor had divided between the
star-dreamer and the simpler, here it was evident that nature was
working her own cure and that no other physician was needed.
Upon this the parson carefully piloted Dr. Webb out of the tower-wing
and delivered him to Giles to be ministered unto as the hour required.
Then he sent a note to his good lady, bidding her come and take up her
post by David’s couch until he could himself relieve her watch. His
heart was much eased.
He was on his way to bring his consoling report to Ellinor, when, at a
corner of the passage, he heard his name called in a hoarse whisper,
and, looking round, beheld Lady Lochore, ghastly-faced, in her flaming
brocade dressing-gown.
“How is it with——” she cried. Something seemed to click in her throat,
she could not pronounce the name. But Dr. Tutterville thought that her
twitching hand pointed towards the laboratory door. He shook his head.
“Alas, I fear there is nothing to be done!”
Her lips framed the word:
“Dead!”
Then she swayed and he had to uphold her.
“Come, come!” said he soothingly, yet shuddering all over his
comfortable flesh to feel what skeleton attenuation lay between his
hands. “My dear child, do not give way to this. There is nothing, there
can be really nothing alarming about the passing away of one who has
attained the allotted span. Poor Simon!”
She reared herself with extraordinary energy to fix eyes full of fierce
questioning upon him. He went on:
“Thank God, I can quite reassure you about David—”
“David!”
She echoed the name with what was almost a shriek; then caught the end
of her hanging sleeve and thrust it to her mouth, as if to keep any
further sound from escaping.
“Did you not know?” asked the rector. “We were in much anxiety, but
whatever noxious drug was——” he stopped unwilling to raise the question.
He saw a terror come into those strange fixed eyes. Quite bewildered
himself, he proceeded again, trying to reassure the woman:
“David’s in no danger, thank Heaven!”
Dropping her hand, Lady Lochore turned upon the astonished rector a
countenance of such fury that he stepped back hastily as from a
madwoman.
“Thank Heaven!” she repeated with a laugh, that made his blood run cold.
The next instant she turned and fled from him, once more stopping her
mouth with her sleeve; in spite of which the sound of her hysterical
mirth continued to echo back to him down the vaulted passage after she
had turned the corner. The rector remained lost in thought.
“She is very ill—dying!” he told himself. “Lord, thy hand is heavy on
this house!”
Even in the secrecy of his soul he was loth to search into the weird
feeling now encompassing him, that there was more than illness in Lady
Lochore’s face.
The parson hoped that, under the reaction of the good news he brought
her, Ellinor might obtain the relief of tears. But in this he was
disappointed.
“Thank you,” she said, in a whisper; and sat down again upon the bench
from which, upon his entrance, she had risen rigidly and as if bracing
herself for a final blow. Her clenched hands relaxed; while the left lay
passive on her knee, she began with the right absently to pat and fondle
the folds of sheet that lay over her father’s cold breast.
Dr. Tutterville looked at her in puzzled silence. The action was full of
a woman’s tenderness, yet he intuitively felt that the thoughts behind
the faintly drawn brow, under the marble composure, were not occupied
with a daughter’s sorrow. He felt he had been denied a confidence of
vital importance. Strange things had taken place in the house, of which
he had yet no explanation. Gently he laid the warm comfort of his clasp
upon the woman’s hand and stayed its futile caress.
“Dear child, what is it? Can I not help?”
She started, and flung a swift look at his wise and grave face. There
came a sort of fear also in her eyes. Fear into the true eyes of
Ellinor! Then she fell back into her abstraction.
“Thank you,” she repeated in a slow dreamy tone. “I can wait.”
He was pondering over the inexplicable word, when a new call drew him to
other cares. “Two gentlemen,” a servant informed him, “had driven over
from Bath and were demanding to see Sir David. They had not seemed
satisfied on being told that Sir David was not well enough to receive
visitors.” Visitors for Sir David! So unwonted an event these ten years
that even the rector was moved to curiosity as he hastened to wait on
the callers.
Pacing the library were found an elderly man of military bearing and
haughty countenance, in befrogged coat and smart Hessians, and a slight,
fair youth—in the extreme of the fashion, with an eyeglass on a black
ribband, miraculous kerseymeres, a velvet waistcoat embroidered with
gold and silver roses, and a fob with more seals and watches than any
one person could require. The elder stranger turned to the younger with
a sarcastic smile as the door opened; and then, with a slight bow,
addressed the new-comer.
“Sir David Cheveral, I presume,” he began, and stopped short.
His eyes rested in amaze upon the clerical silk hose; ran swiftly up to
the long clerical waistcoat, over its gentle undulation across the
unmistakable neckband, to stop at last with angry insolent stare upon
the clerical countenance, handsome, dignified and self-possessed despite
a fasting morning and unshaven chin. Then he flung another quizzical
look at the younger man and shrugged his shoulders; whereat the latter
gave vent to a shrill titter and vowed with a lisp that in all his life,
by gad, he had never come across anything so rich!
“To whom have I the honour—?” asked Dr. Tutterville.
“Before we waste our breath, sir, and take you away from the thoughts of
your next sermon, one word.” Thus the military gentleman, with the tone
of one in superior form of courtesy mockingly addressing an inferior
species. “Do you represent here Sir David Cheveral?” he asked.
“Sir David,” said the parson, with that serene ignoring of impertinence
which is its best rebuke, “is unable this morning, either to receive
visitors himself or to instruct a delegate.”
For a third time the visitors exchanged looks.
“A curious indisposition, evidently,” remarked the elder, slapping his
Hessians with his cane. “Cursed curious!”
“Deuced opportune, by gad!” added the younger.
“No, sir,” said Dr. Tutterville, turning so suddenly and severely upon
the youth that he started back a couple of paces. “No, young man, not
opportune. There is death in this house, and the master of it is wanted
for more important matters than either you or your friend can possibly
have to communicate—I wish you good morning.” And he wheeled upon his
heel with an elastic bounce.
Before he had reached the door, however, the strident voice of the
well-booted visitor arrested him:
“Tis, of course, your trade, sir, to preach the peace. But the mere
gentleman is prejudiced in favour of honour being considered first.
However, if Sir David Cheveral, who cannot but have been prepared for
our visit, has deputed you in the interest of holy peace, perhaps you
will kindly bestow upon us now sufficient of your reverend time to
enable us to gather what form of apology Sir David——”
The reverend Horatio again turned round, this time slowly, and showed to
this trivial sneering pair a Jove-like countenance, which the wrath of
natural humanity and the reprobation of the church combined to empurple.
He allowed the weight of his silent rebuke to press upon them
sufficiently long for their grins to give place to looks of anger. Then
he spoke. And although under the silk meshes of his stockings the very
muscles were quivering with the intensity of his feelings, never in hall
or pulpit had the parson delivered himself to better effect. Yet his
discourse was extremely brief:
“Gentlemen—forgive me if, not having the advantage of your acquaintance,
I am forced to address you thus indeterminedly—as regards the honour of
Sir David Cheveral, my kinsman:
_Falsus Honor juvat et mendax infamia terret
Quem nisi mendosum et mendacem?_
You may possibly fail to follow me. I will translate liberally: The
dog—aye, and the puppy—may bark at the moon, it will not affect her
brightness.... As regards an apology, I will take upon myself to allow
you to convey this one to your principal, whoever he may be, convinced
from what I know of Sir David that he will not repudiate the form of
it:—If, as I gather, he is called upon to give a lesson in honourable
dealing to some friend of yours, he regrets having to postpone that duty
for a short while. The delay, allow me to assure you, will but the
better enable him to fulfil his part when the time comes. You will find
paper and all that is necessary upon yonder table. You can write your
communication to Sir David, and I will undertake to see that it is
delivered at a fitting moment.”
“’Pon my soul,” said the elder ambassador, turning to his satellite as
the door closed upon the clergyman’s dignified exit—“that’s a game old
cock!”
“Dog! by Jove—aye, and puppy!” growled the younger man.
On the other side of the oak the rector had halted, rubbing his
unusually bristly chin, and uncomfortably mindful of certain remarks
from the still small voice within concerning next Sunday’s sermon that
was to be upon the beatitude: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
“I will change my text,” thought the rector. “It were a sorry thing for
a scholar and a clergyman if there were no issues from such accidental
straits! ‘Ye shall smite them hip and thigh!’ Yes, that will do. That
will meet the case.”
The excellent gentleman had scarcely settled this delicate point with
his conscience when he was intercepted by Mrs. Geary. The lady was in a
high state of indignation, first at a death having actually been allowed
to take place in a house where she was guest, secondly and especially at
Lady Lochore having locked herself up in her own apartments and rudely
denied her admittance. She now demanded instant means of departure for
herself and her daughter; for her man and her maid. This the rector,
with joy, promised to provide forthwith; and even suggested that the
remaining gentlemen of the party might make use of the same conveyance
with both pleasure and profit to all concerned. But even as he was
congratulating himself upon an easy riddance of at least one difficulty,
he was plunged into a far deeper state of perturbation by a most
unexpected word:
“Mr. Herrick has already gone,” sniffed Priscilla, who stood at her
mother’s elbow. Her face was swollen with crying; she spoke in a small
vindictive voice which drew the parson’s attention to her in mild
surprise.
Mrs. Geary tossed her head:
“I am glad to hear it,” she remarked icily, “and I am surprised you
should have suggested his accompanying us.”
“My dear madam,” protested the rector, who found the look of meaning in
the lady’s protuberant eye exceedingly discomforting. “My dear madam?”
“After last night’s scandal,” said she in her deepest bass.
“Last night’s scandal!” he echoed.
“Hush!” she cried, “I will not have the innocence of my child further
contaminated——”
“Contaminated, madam!”
“Contaminated, sir! Ask Mrs. Marvel, Dr. Tutterville! Ask your niece!”
She brushed past, hustling Priscilla before her.
“A most unpleasant female,” thought the parson, endeavouring to dismiss
Mrs. Geary from his mind. But she had left a disturbing impression,
which was presently to be heightened. In response to a message,
courteous, but firm, informing him at what hour the chaise would await
him, Mr. Villars next presented himself before the rector and
interrupted him in the midst of some of his sad business details.
“Sir?” said the parson, at the same time arresting by a gesture the
withdrawing of the bailiff with whom he was then in consultation. “In
what can I be of service?”
“My dear Dr. Tutterville, I came to offer my services to you.”
“You are vastly obliging, Mr. Villars. The best service friends can
render a house of mourning is to leave it to itself.”
“Sad business—sad business this! Deyvilish!”
“Good-bye, sir, I trust you may have a pleasant journey. Good-bye.”
“One word, dear and reverend sir. How is—how is Mrs. Marvel?”
“Bearing up fairly well, I thank you.”
“I am rejoiced. Rejoiced. After so many emotions! Ah, I was going to
suggest that it might perhaps be of some advantage, some advantage,
perhaps, to Mrs. Marvel, were I to defer my departure for a day or two.
I would gladly do so if——”
“I cannot conceive,” interrupted Dr. Tutterville, “any circumstance that
would make this probable.”
Mr. Villars hemmed meaningly, looked at the bailiff’s stolid
countenance, and winked importantly at the rector. But as the latter
remained unresponsive, Mr. Villars proceeded with a point of acrimony in
his tone:
“No doubt Mrs. Marvel has already given satisfactory explanation of last
night’s——”
“Sir,” interposed Dr. Tutterville, opening the study door, “you force me
to remark that my time is valuable.”
“Your wife’s niece, sir, I understand.”
“Mr. Villars, the chaise will be ready in half an hour.”
“Dr. Tutterville, you are making a mistake. I might have been of some
use. Of use, sir, as a witness, in this unfortunate scandal——”
“Mr. Villars, I am a clergyman, and this is a house of mourning. But——”
Mr. Villars slipped suddenly like an eel through the half-open door; for
there was something ominously unclerical both in the parson’s eye and in
the twitching of his right hand. But as Horatio Tutterville sat down to
his table and beckoned once more to the bailiff, the word scandal
weighed heavily on his heart.
Half an hour later, the comforting vision of Madam Tutterville’s round
countenance rose upon his cold distress like a ruddy sunrise over a
winter scene. But, though she brought him upon a fair tray, crowned with
a most fragrant aroma, restoratives for the inner man as well as
excellent tidings of her patient in his tower, she had a further budget
of news which was to add considerably to the burden of his day.
“My dear doctor,” she said with effusion, and for once unscripturally,
“I came the instant I received your note. David is sleeping like a lamb.
You need have no anxiety there. I shall instantly return to him. But
there is no use in the world in your making yourself ill too. You were
off without bite or sup this morning, and not one has thought of making
you so much as a cup of tea! The world is a vastly selfish place, and I
am surprised at Ellinor. Drink this coffee, my dear doctor. I have
prepared some likewise for David—’tis a sovereign restorative. Nay, and
you must eat too.”
The rector smiled faintly. The prospect was in sooth not ungrateful. And
now that his attention was drawn to it, the unusual vacuity within
became painfully obvious.
“Excellent Sophia!” he murmured.
Her coffee was always incomparable. It may be a moot point whether, in
moments of man’s trouble, the woman who ministers to the
creature-comforts is not the truer helpmate than the transcendental
consoler.
Madam Tutterville watched her lord partake in silence. That in itself
was a notable thing. She showed little of her usual satisfaction in his
appetite; and that was ominous. Her whole person was clouded over with
an anxiety which could not be attributed to her brother’s death; a trial
indeed she had promptly dismissed with two tears and one text. As soon
as the rector appeared sufficiently fortified, Madam Tutterville drew a
deep breath; no more odious task could be assigned to her than that of
having to bring trouble to her Horatio.
“It is my duty to tell you, doctor, that there have been several calls
for you this morning. I went through the village to ascertain for myself
and I found indeed some cases of serious illness. The widow Green died
suddenly last night. Joe (the hedger) has gone raving mad; it took four
men to bind him with ropes and lock him in a barn. I heard his screams
myself. Mossmason seems struck with a kind of palsy. Penelope Jones and
old——”
“In God’s name,” cried the reverend Horatio, springing to his feet,
“stop, woman, or I shall go crazy myself! What can have happened? How
have we all sinned against Heaven to be thus stricken upon the same
day!”
Madam Tutterville pursed her mouth for an awful whisper:
“They say,” she breathed, “that poor Simon went all round the place
yesterday with some of his dreadful little bottles.”
The rector clapped his hands on his knees:
“Then have we indeed been mad to let him have his way so long!” For an
instant the learned man looked helplessly at his wife: “What is to be
done?”
“A doctor,” she murmured.
“A doctor—Sophia, you’re a woman in a thousand. Not that noodle we’ve
had here just now, but the best opinion from Bath. I shall despatch a
post-boy. My poor simple flock!”
He had reached the door when she caught him by the skirts of his coat.
“They are raging against poor Simon in the village, and against Ellinor.
It might well end in a riot. Had you not better warn constables and the
headborough?”
He turned upon his heel in fresh dismay. Then resuming courage:
“Nay, nay, I must see what I can do myself first!”
But Madam Tutterville looked unconvinced.
“I believe they would tear Ellinor in pieces, were she to go out among
them to-day. I have had to warn her. Horatio—Horatio, have you seen
Ellinor?”
Dr. Tutterville nodded. For some undefined reasons he would have given
worlds not to be obliged to discuss Ellinor just now. He tried to slip
his portly person through the door, but the hand of his spouse was still
restraining.
“Do you think she could have been given any of that dreadful stuff too?
She is so strange in her manner. And the servants are saying such
extraordinary things—not that I would allow them to do so before me—but
I could not help hearing.”
With one mute look of reproach the rector wrenched himself away.
“Lord, Lord,” he was saying to himself in a grim spirit of prophecy, as
he hurried towards the stables: “There will be but too much time I fear
by and by, for the drawing to light of poor Ellinor’s affairs whatever
they may be.”
Love is the crown of life: a life without love is a life wasted. Not
necessarily must the love that crowns be that of lovers: love of saint
for God, of soldier for captain, of comrade for comrade, of student for
master, of partisan for King; or, again, love for the abstract object,
of artist for art; of patriot for country, of philanthropist for the
cause, of seekers for science—one such great love in a life is
sufficient to fill it to the brim, to absorb all its energy. But how few
are capable of the passion that shall crown them heroes or saints,
leaders of thought or of men! Though every man and every woman avidly
claim to possess in the full the power of natural love, _the real lover
is a genius_. And genius, of its essence, is rare. To nearly all it is
given to strum the tune, to how few is it given to bring forth the full
harmony!
Ellinor had one of those rare natures especially designed for the
heights and the deeps of love. It had been for many years her curse that
some indefinable charm, quite apart from her beauty and strength,
should, wherever she went, make her the desire of men’s eyes. But she
herself had passed as untouched by the flame, through her too early
marriage and the ordeals to which she had been recklessly exposed, as
true gold through the test-furnace.
Now, like a wave that has been gathering from the fulness of the ocean’s
bosom, the great waters had broken over her and were sweeping her on.
As she sat by her father’s body she tried to force the image of her loss
upon her mind—in vain. One single idea absorbed her; the whole energy of
her being was with David. Anon she recalled every instant of his
fantastic wooing of the previous night. Anon she would be seized with an
agony of terror about his present condition. Again she would float away
in a vague warm dream of the moment when he should awaken.... Awaken and
remember! People addressed her, and she answered mechanically; but, even
while answering, forgot the speaker’s presence.
When Madam Tutterville came to conduct her to her room that night,
Ellinor was aware that she had walked through a group of whispering and
pointing servants; and she was indifferent. She felt that the good lady
herself was looking at her with strange, anxious gaze; and she merely
smiled vaguely back. Her soul was in the tower.
Madam Tutterville wore a grave countenance.
“Have you nothing to say to me, Ellinor?” she asked at length.
Ellinor hesitated a second; she wanted to beg for a share in the watch
by David’s side; wanted to hear repeated once more the last reassuring
news. But the deeper the passion the more closely the woman draws the
veil about her; she could not even speak his name.
“Nothing, dear aunt,” she answered.
Madam Tutterville shook her head in troubled fashion, sighed and
withdrew.