RECOUNTS A STRANGE SCENE IN CHURCH
Unfortunately life does not stand still for any one of us; and since
she had left Arthur’s office, poor Winifred Pontifex had been carried
through a maze of bewildering incidents, some of them, no doubt,
trivial in themselves, but others of prime importance to the proper
understanding of this narrative.
It is, of course, easy enough to resolve on a course of heroic action,
when hope beats high within us and self sacrifice stands out before us
irradiated by the glories of all its early brilliancy and beauty. It
is, unfortunately, quite another thing to pursue it when the cold
night has passed, when the early glow has worn off, and when, in the
end, we see nothing stretch out before us but a long clear path of
duty and renunciation.
For the first few hours, Winifred found life at St. Sepulchre’s
Vicarage exceedingly pleasant. The Reverend Duncan Kilroy’s wife was
all that Vera’s maid had led her to expect--a gentle, quiet, dove-like
little woman, who never seemed to have got over the wonderful and
beautiful thing that had happened to her when she married the
loud-voiced and pompous Duncan. At first sight, it was obvious that
she had no more an opinion of her own on household matters than she
had on the Church and religion--the greasy, ever-perspiring Duncan
ruled those with as much assiduity as he toadied to the richer members
of his congregation. Happily, she took at once to poor tear-stained
Winifred, and, for the first night, at least, the poor distracted
girl’s lot was as tolerable as, perhaps, it well could be in such
melancholy circumstances.
Next morning at breakfast a change came over the household--or rather
over the seemingly exceedingly shallow and preposterous mind of the
Reverend Duncan Kilroy. The day happened to be a Sunday; and at first
Winifred was inclined to attribute this change of his to the weight of
an exceedingly heavy undischarged amount of eloquence, that, as the
day wore on, would naturally right itself.
As the meal progressed, however, Mr. Kilroy seemed to forget her
presence, and extracted from an inner pocket a letter and a folded
newspaper, the former of which he began to read carefully. Some day
some subtle psychologist will explain why, when a communication like
this affects ourselves, our eyes are drawn irresistibly towards it.
For the moment it may be enough to record that in some curious way,
Winifred felt that this letter had an important bearing on her own
comfort: and when the Reverend Duncan turned over the note-paper with
a heavy frown, she was startled to see a signature which she had very
good reason to fear--that of Ventris Blake.
“Humph!” said Mr. Kilroy to his wife finally laying down the letter
and removing his eye-glasses with a good deal of deliberation. “This
is very curious, my dear Matilda Jane, very curious. I really don’t
know what to say to it. I suppose I must do what the man asks, but
really, with such an aristocratic congregation as mine, it is quite
unusual to resort to sensational methods, better suited to the Church
Army and our dear lamented brother Mr. Haweis.”
The little brow-beaten woman looked anxiously in the direction of her
lord and master. “To what do you refer, Duncan darling?” she cooed,
sympathetically. “I saw you had a letter from our good friend Mr.
Ventris Blake, but, of course, I have no idea what he had to say to
you.”
Mr. Kilroy coughed furtively. Then, with a quick glance from under his
hairless eyebrows at Winifred, he cleared his voice ostentatiously and
began: “Perhaps my dear Matilda Jane, the fairest thing for me to do,
is to read you this rather puzzling communication. It runs as
follows:--
“My Very Dear Friend,--
“In an hour of darkness and affliction like mine, it may seem rather
worldly and thoughtless of me to write to you on such a purely earthly
matter as the maintenance of my own good name. Yet, when I come to
recollect those long and intimate talks we had in happy days doomed
alas! it seems never to return again, I feel I shall not be
misunderstood by you at least--nay, even more, I might have helped by
your prayers, your advocacy, and your advice.”
For a second an indescribable sense of nausea seized poor Winifred, as
she heard this horrible hypocrisy from a man she knew to be a most
unutterable scoundrel. A wild longing started up within her to cry
aloud and denounce him; but a quick glance at the fat pendulous jaw of
the Reverend Duncan, whose voice now seemed broken with emotion, and
at the silent flood of tears that were flowing from the poor,
sympathetic little Mrs. Kilroy warned her how useless would be her
protest, and with a great effort she restrained herself, and heard the
clergyman proceed:--
“As no doubt you have seen from the daily papers, my poor, dear wife,
has been cruelly killed at Scarborough. Indeed, I remember now, what a
beautiful letter you wrote to me about this most awful occurrence.
What, however, you cannot have seen, is the Saturday-night edition of
the Sunday paper which I enclose with this, and from which you will
gather, that as the days wear on, the mysteries connected with this
terrible crime will only deepen. Please read the report with great
care, and if you can, in your sermon, say something strong and kind
and helpful about the great bereavement that has made my home and my
heart desolate, no friend in London will be more thankful to you
to-day than
“Your devoted,
“Ventris Blake.”
“Poor man! poor man!” muttered Mrs. Kilroy, directly the reading of
this extraordinary effusion came to an end, and the Reverend Duncan
laid down the note beside his plate, and once again exchanged a look
with Winifred, whose face now looked cold and stern. “Do tell me what
the cheap Sunday paper says about the crime. I remember poor, darling
Mrs. Blake very well, and I always thought she was a very nice and
sweet woman.”
Mr. Kilroy blew his nose vigorously with the large red pocket
handkerchief which he always scrupulously affected, and, picking up
one of the least known of the Sunday papers--which, truth to relate,
was practically the sole property of Mr. Ventris Blake, and always
directly inspired by him, with all his little nasty personalities,
innuendoes and suggestions, against which even the best people were
powerless, because the concern was so heavily encumbered with mortgage
debentures--he read aloud as follows:--
“THE TERRIBLE AFFAIR AT SCARBOROUGH.
“MYSTERY UPON MYSTERY.
“At a late hour last night, news of the most surprising nature reached
this office, about the murder of Aimée Blake, which it is not too
much to say, has stirred fashionable London to the most profound
depths since the intelligence was first flashed across England by our
youthful but ever enterprising contemporary, _The Moon_.
“Naturally, at this point, we have to speak with a great deal of
reserve, for up to the present the police have made no move in the
direction indicated, and by our informant, it is thought doubtful
whether Scotland Yard is acquainted with the extraordinary development
we show, as under:--
“We are assured, on very good authority, that the murdered woman was
not really the wife of Ventris Blake, the beneficent millionaire of
Park Lane. But, some five years ago, when she was a poor and
struggling artist in Northamptonshire--when her pictures would not
sell in the provincial town in which she had taken up her quarters,
and where, like most provincial towns, the art of Portraiture was very
largely at a discount--she was married secretly to a certain wealthy
house-agent in the city of London, who promptly deserted her and later
gave out that he was dead, whereas, he was very much alive and
betrothed to a very charming girl, whose beauty was the talk of last
year’s Drawing-Room.
“Next week we hope to have more to say about this Romance in High
Life. Meanwhile, we venture to offer our sympathies to Mr. Ventris
Blake, who seems to us to have been very cruelly used all the way
round.”
The Reverend Duncan Kilroy, folded the paper up very carefully and
restored it to his pocket. Then he took up his cup of coffee and
drained it slowly. “Of course,” said he reflectively. “I see what Mr.
Blake wishes me to do--it is to make some allusion to this event in
the course of my sermon, and to beg his friends amongst the
congregation to withhold any judgment they might be inclined to form
until at least these new particulars leak out. The thing he proposes
is irregular, very irregular, but when I recollect the thousands of
pounds the poor dear fellow has spent in the parish, I can well
understand his anxiety to be put right with my people.”
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Kilroy stoutly. “Really Duncan, you ought to
waive a point in this matter, and oblige him, for you know he once
obliged you.” And even the Reverend Duncan had the grace to blush at
this reminder of how he bled Ventris Blake of two thousand pounds to
get himself out of the clutch of a certain unscrupulous money-lender.
“Well, well,” he said quickly, “I must trust to the words that are
given me at the time to say the right thing and to make a right
impression. I suppose, Miss Pontifex,” he went on, turning to where
sat Winifred, too disgusted to raise even a word of protest against
the foul calumnies on her sweetheart, “you will honour us with your
presence in the Vicarage pew this morning. I am sure my friend Mr.
Langford would wish that a niece of his should take advantage of all
spiritual occasions that present themselves to her--and even my poor
little address may do something to assist you in realising the
importance of the new career you have undertaken in this household,
and give you strength to bear all the afflictions that are the common
lot of we poor mortals.” And with something between a groan and a
grunt he applied himself to the huge plateful of porridge in front of
him, and left poor Winifred alone with her troubles.
Luckily Monica soon distracted her attention, with her little childish
wants--and almost before the girl had time to realise the hideous
trial she was destined to bear, she found herself in the front pew in
the fashionable church of St. Sepulchre, listening to a sweet-voiced
young curate, who read the beautiful morning service of the English
Church, with all the fiery passion of a boy who has been recently
ordained, and who feels very keenly the sacred responsibility of his
calling. As the minutes slipped on too, the organ notes that rose and
fell in the Gregorian setting of the psalms, brought balm to her
troubled spirits, and for a time, the weight of anxiety seemed to
press no longer upon her, and she found herself joining with strange
prayerful earnestness, in that eternal cry of the stricken Psalmist:--
Lord I cry unto thee; make haste unto me; give ear
Unto my voice, when I cry unto thee.
Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense;
And the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Mine eyes are unto Thee, oh God the Lord: in Thee is my
Trust; leave not my soul destitute.
Hence, by the time the sermon was reached, her mood was one of peace,
yet exaltation, and almost without a tremor she saw the Reverend
Duncan Kilroy climb into the pulpit and begin his discourse.
As usually happened at St. Sepulchre’s, there was a rustle of skirts
and the shuffle of feet, as the fashionable crowd settled themselves
down for a meditation that would be totally undisturbed by any of the
Reverend Duncan’s laboured commonplaces. This time, however, he had
got a genuine surprise for them, for, without waiting to give out his
text, he leaned impressively over the front of the pulpit, and spoke
apparently with great feeling:--
“My dear friends,--I cannot begin this discourse without I express to
you the profound detestation and horror felt by the terrible calamity
that has fallen upon our good parishioner, Mr. Ventris Blake. Happily,
by the latest reports, I see that the shame and the horror of the
tragedy of his wife may to some degree be removed from him. Pray
heaven it is indeed so, and that the story I read to-day that Mrs.
Blake was not really his wife at all--”
He stopped suddenly. Somebody had risen in front of him.
“That is a wicked lie,” suddenly cried a woman’s voice at the back of
the church; and before the congregation could recover from the
profound astonishment into which they had fallen by Mr. Kilroy’s own
innovation, they were horrified to see the young woman, clad from head
to foot in black, run swiftly down the aisle and up the stairs of the
pulpit, when she caught the clergyman tightly by the surplice.
“That’s a lie,” she repeated fiercely, “and you, Duncan Kilroy, know
it. How dare you stand there. Come down at once!”
Of course the sensation created by this strange woman’s sudden
appearance on the pulpit-stairs at a fashionable church like St.
Sepulchre’s, at the height of a Sunday morning’s service, was
tremendous. Half the congregation rose, horrified, to their
feet--there was a sound of shrieks and of cries, during which several
ladies, including Mrs. Kilroy, fainted--then a hub-bub of eager,
excited conversation, followed by a rush of church-wardens and
sidesmen to the East-end, to secure the offender.
The strange woman, however, did not lose her self-possession, but,
with a look of some wild creature, she turned away from the cowering
wretch in the pulpit above her, and faced the noisy little crowd of
fat and prosperous-looking church officials, that puffed and panted
about her.
“Do not touch me,” she cried, with an imperious wave of her arm. “I
have done no more than my duty, and I am not ashamed of one word I
have said to you. That is the man,” pointing to the cowering
clergyman, whose face now was horribly grey with fear; “that is the
scoundrel you ought to drag to judgment. _He knows_ he lies to you,
when he says that poor Aimée Blake was not the wife of Ventris Blake
at all. _He knows_ when he gets your sympathy for that man in Park
Lane, he is taking part in a crime to ruin a fellow creature that
never did him a moment’s harm. Look at him!” her voice now rising to a
shriek, “he dare not deny my words, he cannot; call on him, not me, to
explain.” And with a magnificent gesture as of an outraged queen, she
swept all the startled crowd away from her path, and, before anybody
could stretch out a finger, she had stepped swiftly out of the church.
No doubt, she would have been followed, and questioned, if not given
into custody, had not the condition of poor Duncan Kilroy at this
point claimed the entire congregation’s attention. By this time, he
had recovered some semblance of his composure; and advancing to the
front of the pulpit, he had raised his arm and attempted to offer some
words of explanation, but although his mouth moved, and his muscles
twitched, his flock were terrified to see he could not utter a single
word.
Of course Winifred had started to her feet with the rest of the
congregation, immediately the woman sprang so fiercely at her
employer, but when she found herself swept down the main aisle by the
pressure of the crowd, who ran in various directions to fetch water
and chairs for different terrified old ladies and their own minister,
an irresistible desire seized her to follow this strange creature
herself and to learn what mystery it was that had driven her to so
outrageous a course as to denounce the Reverend Duncan Kilroy in his
own church.
“After all,” she reasoned quickly, “it is my duty to follow up this
clue for the sake of the man I love. To me it is quite obvious that
this woman has not risked so much as this without some remarkable
motive. Certainly she must know a great deal more about Ventris Blake
and Mr. Kilroy than she has just told the congregation. At all events,
she spoke out very nobly and bravely for Arthur, and maybe, when she
sees who I am, she may show me how I could help Arthur too.”
While these thoughts were flashing like lightning through Winifred’s
brain, her feet were carrying her almost unconsciously in the
direction of the open street, so that, by the time she had reached
this last conclusion, she was rejoiced to discover herself in
Piccadilly, where, away in the direction of the Circus she could see
the strange woman she wanted to speak to, hurrying out of sight.
Just at that moment too a hansom happened to pass, and signalling the
driver, Winifred, careless of what Mrs. Kilroy or the world might say
of her, jumped into this cab and told the driver to track down this
stranger--and she would give him half a sovereign.
Encouraged by the bribe, the man lashed his horse, and, in two or
three minutes, had succeeded in coming upon the strange woman in
Shaftesbury Avenue, where she was evidently intent on finding some
street she had been told about, but had never previously been to--in
Soho.
Luckily the driver proved to be a discreet whip, and, as soon as he
drew level with the person he had been sent in search of, he allowed
his horse’s gallop to drop into a walk; and thus, until the Palace
Theatre was reached, the two women--the one so eager to escape
attention, the other so anxious to learn her secret--proceeded on the
same path. No sooner, however, did they get level with Compton Street,
than the strange woman made a quick turn to the left, and, advancing
rapidly towards the end of the street, she drew up in front of a
cheap-looking Italian café, decked out in white paint and gold that
had long since grown dirty and faded, on which, in bold staring
letters was inscribed the name of the Café Faustina.
For a moment, but only for a moment, she hesitated at the entrance,
then without looking round, she pushed her way through the swing
doors, and disappeared entirely from sight.
Now, intensely eager to bring the affair to a conclusion, Winifred
sprang out of the hansom and handed the driver the half sovereign she
had promised him. At any other time, in any other circumstances, her
natural reserve would have prevented her taking any strong line like
this, and she would have stood for some time on the pavement,
faltering helplessly. As it was, however, she realised what tremendous
issues hung upon her dexterity and promptness, and, nerved by the
thought that she was doing this for the man whom she loved more dearly
than her own life, she too pushed open the swing doors and entered the
café.
As chance would have it, the woman she had followed so eagerly was
seated at a small marble-topped table, her face buried in her hands,
apparently sobbing violently. Far away, at the end of the restaurant,
could be seen two or three foreign-looking waiters, busily preparing
in a recess,--and only Winifred could see that this strange creature
was in tears.
With a tense movement of the hands and shoulders, Winifred advanced to
the place where this woman was seated, and sat down in front of her.
For several minutes, the stranger did not seem conscious of her
presence, but, bit by bit, her sobs grew less violent, and finally,
when a waiter advanced with a tray full of tea things, which she had
evidently ordered the instant she entered the café, she recovered her
composure with an effort and sat up and faced Winifred.
Curiously enough, she betrayed no excitement on seeing the girl in
front of her, looking at her with great, anxious pleading eyes. On the
contrary, her expression seemed softened, and she stretched out a
caressing hand and touched Winifred gently on the arm.
“Ah! Miss Pontifex,” she said, in a low penetrating voice, that
revealed at once the owner was a trained actress, “so it was you who
followed me all the way from St. Sepulchre’s this morning, was it? I
knew somebody had come after me, but, truth to tell, I was too upset
to worry about you, or even to look who you were.
“Ah!” she went on, after another pause, “we women are strange
creatures, aren’t we? First we resolve that nothing on earth shall
prevail on us to pursue a certain line of action. Then the mere fact
that we have resolved not to do it makes the idea burn and burn within
us, until we feel we must do this thing, or perish. Lastly, in one mad
moment, we do it--do it with all the power and passion we are capable
of; and what happens? Why we sit down and cry, like tired children,
when their toys, like men’s love, have proved mere folly and they
wonder how they ever came to see any beauty in those painted figures.”
“Perhaps,” put in Winifred gently, “it is not all so black as you
think. Somehow, it always seems to me that when a person does a thing
that is right, the thing itself brings its own consolation, however
tired or upset you may be as the result of your effort to do good.”
The strange woman raised her face to Winifred’s and smiled faintly. It
was not what the world might call a pretty face--perhaps, there was
too much fire in those dark brown eyes, too much passion about the
finely chiselled mouth and chin--too much breadth and depth in the
forehead, over which the hair had been arranged with many a dainty
touch and artifice. But, notwithstanding that the features spoke of
the artificial life on the stage and a heart too quickly torn by wild
whirling gusts of affection and emotion, it was a face which another
woman would instinctively trust; and even as she looked, Winifred felt
that in this strange wild creature she had found a very sincere
friend.
“We must stop these idle speculations, though,” said the woman softly,
“after all, you did not come here to talk to me of the Higher
Moralities, did you, Miss Pontifex? You wanted to hear something
personal and immediate, that I could tell you, didn’t you? Now, what
is it, let us come to the point.” And she gave the girl in front of
her, a quick, enquiring look.
“I quite admit that,” returned Winifred promptly, bravely encountering
the scrutinising look that had been cast upon her. “As you seem to
know my name, no doubt you will know that I am very keenly interested
in the case Mr. Kilroy mentioned, for I am engaged to Mr. Arthur
Hudson.”
“I know, I know,” repeated the woman slowly, and then she added, in an
accent that was almost a prayer: “Poor girl, poor girl.”
Winifred’s lips trembled, but she went on steadily with the
conversation. “Do you mind,” she said, still very gently, “telling me,
in confidence, why you got up in the church just now and openly
accused Mr. Kilroy of telling a falsehood? He is not a strong man,
perhaps, maybe he is not a good man, but I didn’t think that he was
quite a bad man.”
“He is--a very bad man,” snapped the woman fiercely. “He is one of
Ventris Blake’s most dangerous puppets. Take my advice, get out of
that house as soon as you can; the place is accursed, and sooner or
later that man’s sins will rise to judgment.”
“But can’t you tell me precisely what he has done wrong in connection
with this murder of Mrs. Blake,” persisted Winifred, half terrified by
the tornado of denunciation she had brought upon herself. “After all,
nobody can do any good unless you give them the facts.”
“There is really no need to give anybody any facts,” declaimed the
woman fiercely, “let them look into that man’s private life, and they
will discover all that there is to be known. But they won’t, I know
they won’t, for a millionaire is behind him, and what money can do in
London to-day is enough to make the heart of every good woman break,
for practically not even the best and wisest seem free from its
influence.”
“But,” queried Winifred, still more puzzled, “how is it you know that
Mr. Kilroy’s statement, that this poor woman was not the wife of
Ventris Blake, was a lie?”
“Well, I do, and that is sufficient,” the strange woman rejoined
sharply. “What is more, at the right moment, I intend to prove it, so
neither you nor Mr. Hudson need have any fears about that certificate
of that sham marriage at Peterborough. I will take care that you are
cleared of all the odium that may arise from that.”
The woman spoke with such intense conviction that even Winifred felt
that her words could be absolutely relied upon, and almost before she
knew what she was doing, she had caught up her hands and pressed them
warmly as an earnest of her heartfelt gratitude.
Then, unconscious of the fact that over an hour had passed since she
sped out of the church in hot pursuit of this woman who had dared to
go right to the pulpit-steps to denounce the vicar, poor Winifred
stepped out quickly in the direction of St. Sepulchre’s gates. By this
time, however, all the excitement had died down, the congregation had
dispersed to their homes, there to discuss the scandal and shame of
this remarkable occurrence, and on a conspicuous board had been
written the warning-notice:--“In consequence of the sudden and
regrettable indisposition of the Vicar, the Reverend Duncan Kilroy,
M.A., D.D., there will be no service this evening in this church.”
Even in the Vicarage there was externally no reminder of the turbulent
scene that had so recently engulfed at least one of its principal
inmates. On the contrary, everything seemed to be managed so as to
give the impression that the incident had practically no lasting
importance. Thus, when Winifred entered, Mrs. Kilroy and Monica were
just sitting down to dinner, and when Winifred herself took her place
at the table, Mrs. Kilroy simply contented herself by saying her
husband was not at all well, and then fell to discussing such
commonplaces of life as the weather, cookery, and the difficulty of
getting good voices in a London church choir.
Nevertheless, although everything appeared on the surface to go
forward very much as usual, Winifred was conscious of a certain
difference in Mrs. Kilroy’s attitude towards her. The old frank trust
and good humour seemed to have vanished, and, in their place had come
a subtle suggestion of resentment--a suggestion that in some vague,
mysterious way, Winifred herself had been responsible for the trouble
that had all at once fallen upon that household, and that sooner the
black cloud was removed by the agency of the girl herself, the more
tolerable would the domestic atmosphere become.
Winifred herself, however, was plunged in a series of melancholy
reflections of her own. For one thing, she was genuinely concerned
that she had heard no recent news of Arthur, and the paragraph which
Mr. Kilroy had read that morning about his being linked up with the
murdered woman, filled her mind with a score of serious misgivings.
More than that, try how she would, she could not rid herself of the
vivid impression which the strange woman had made upon her mind; and
again and again, she asked herself whether she ought not to take
careful notice of the advice that had been given to her, and to flee
altogether from that roof, under which Ventris Blake appeared to
exercise so potent a spell.
It was therefore, with a feeling of positive relief, that she saw a
maid appear, and go to Mrs. Kilroy with a request from the Vicar that
she should ask Miss Pontifex to come to him to his library for a few
minutes’ private conversation. True, she had now conceived the
greatest distrust and dislike of this smug greasy-looking parson, but
nevertheless she recognised that he had considerable influence upon
her future, and that it might be unwise to make an open enemy of him
before she got to know exactly how much he could do to clear the good
name of her sweetheart.
When she entered his room, she found him huddled up in a great
armchair, close to the fire, a great red Turkish rug wrapped about his
knees and the set expression of an early Christian martyr going
resignedly to the stake, about his face.
With a feeble little plaintive cough, which seemed to rack his frame
in inverse ratio to its loudness, he motioned her to a seat on the
other side of the fireplace. For two or three minutes they sat thus,
without a word being spoken. Then, he passed a fat flabby hand
dramatically across his forehead, and in imagination, threw back a
long curling lock that might years ago have been long enough to fall
across his temples.
“This is a sad business, Miss Pontifex,” he murmured at length,
carefully pumping up a sigh. “Very sad business. Can you explain it?”
Winifred looked puzzled. “I don’t quite understand,” said she. “Do you
refer to the incident in Church, or,” she added maliciously, “to the
bereavement sustained by Mr. Ventris Blake?”
The man winced. “I mean,” he exclaimed, slowly “your connection with
that terrible depraved creature that dared this morning to defame the
sanctuary of the Most High.”
“My connection,” repeated Winifred incredulously, “why I have never
seen the woman before in my life.”
“Indeed,” exclaimed Mr. Kilroy cynically, “then perhaps you will
explain how it came about that you were seen by my verger to race out
of the church after that abandoned creature, to jump into a hansom,
and to follow her up Shaftesbury Avenue, and finally to sit closeted
with her for some fifteen or twenty minutes in a dirty little café in
Soho.”
Winifred’s blood boiled at the tone the man had adopted towards her.
There was something hidden in its depths that seemed to rouse all the
latent pride and delicacy of feeling and sense of right treatment that
is instinctive in every good woman’s nature; and for once she ceased
to be the quiet, gentle, self-sacrificing girl, ever ready to lay
aside her own prejudices to help a suffering fellow mortal, and became
the quiet and resolute woman, quick, condemnatory, eager, critical.
“Are we not both labouring under some misapprehension, Mr. Kilroy,”
she began, in that low, penetrating voice of hers, that somehow made
the man in front of her writhe unconsciously. “As a matter of fact, I
don’t think there is any necessity for me to explain anything that
happened this morning to you, and certainly, I shall not do so unless
you give me a certain amount of satisfaction. First and foremost, I
should like to ask you what you mean by taking up the cause of a
scoundrel like Ventris Blake, in the manner you have done? It is all
very well to pretend the man has been rich and beneficent in his
church offerings--there are hundreds of men like that in London, yet
decent members of your cloth, wouldn’t soil their fingers with shaking
the hand of such creatures, who would be better employed paying back
their ill-gotten thousands to the countless widows and children they
have ruined.”
“Mr. Ventris Blake is a friend of mine,” the man answered feebly, “he
is misunderstood, of course. So are heaps of other noble and
charitable souls. I believe in him, I know his worth.”
“That may be,” proceeded Winifred steadily. “That does not say that
when he calls upon you to take as governess, a girl you have never
seen before, you should do so, and simply turn yourself into a cheap
vehicle for conveying insults from this very noble and
self-sacrificing creature direct to her, when she is powerless to
avenge them.”
“What do you mean,” gasped the clergyman, going very white.
“I mean,” proceeded Winifred steadily, “that I know very well all that
has happened between you and Mr. Ventris Blake. I mean, I know that he
ordered you to give me this situation, and that you dared not refuse
him. I mean, I know that he sent that letter to you this morning, and
that cruel paragraph in the newspaper, purposely that you should read
them aloud to me at the breakfast table, which you did, without a
thought of the terrible pain which you might inflict upon me. Now, I
want to ask, how does this stand with your prayers and litany, when
you call upon your God to defend the fatherless children and widows. I
am a fatherless child--and I am not receiving from you the common
consideration that I might expect from the ordinary man of the world,
who has been bruised and battered by commercial life, but who still
retains some recollection of the early lessons in chivalry he learned
at his mother’s knee.”
“It is false,” Mr. Kilroy whimpered--but the girl was now standing
over him, and her indignation was something terrible to witness.
“It is true,” she repeated firmly, “quite, quite true, and you know
it, only you are such a pitiful coward that you dare not admit it even
to me. Nor is that the worst of the questions I have to put to you.
What did that woman in the church mean when she denounced you in
public, as one who knew Ventris Blake was married to that poor
murdered woman, and yet for some private sinister purpose of his own,
did not scruple to pretend that this was not the fact?”
“I refuse to answer,” snapped Duncan Kilroy, rising too, and feeling
that he had stood more than he could stand again.
“Go to your room at once, and think over the vile and wicked things
you have said to me, and remember that although I may forgive you, and
not avenge myself, your punishment will come sure and swift and
complete enough.”
“It is like you to threaten,” sneered Winifred, now roused to fever
heat, “threats like these are the stock-in-trade of men of your kind,
but to anybody who knows as I do that the world is founded on right
and justice, and that in the long run good always triumphs over evil,
they are both futile and foolish. I will go to my room as you tell me,
but it will not be to meditate on the home truths I have told to you,
for I see it is useless to hope for any good out of you. Understand,
I will not stay in this house to be made a target for Mr. Blake’s
brutal witticisms. I shall go upstairs and pack my things, and leave
the house at once.” Saying which she swept out of the room, and
marched up to the nursery where she flung herself on her knees in
front of her trunks, and began in a quick and methodical fashion, to
pack away her things.
Thus engaged in an exercise that soothed her overwrought nerves and
brought back to her mind the peace and dignity she had lost in the
library, she did not hear a stealthy footstep ascending the stairs of
the nursery, from the floor beneath. Indeed it was only when the
Reverend Duncan Kilroy himself stood in the doorway, that she was
conscious that she had been followed, and then she turned swiftly and
found herself faced by a man almost beside himself with mortification
and rage.
“You think,” he hissed, his face purple with passion. “You think I
shall permit you, Miss Pontifex, to go out into the world and sow any
falsehoods you like about me amongst the people I have a right to
regard as my friends. In that, I can assure you, you are much
mistaken. I have no intention of permitting you to play ducks and
drakes with my good name, even if you choose to do so with your
own--so please consider yourself a prisoner until you come to a better
frame of mind.” And saying that, he suddenly shut the door, turned the
key, and fled down the stairs, leaving Winifred fast under lock and
key in a room, the windows of which, were tightly barred with iron.
Meanwhile, the Sunday papers had hurried out a special edition. Even
then, the newsboys were tearing up and down Piccadilly, shouting: “The
Murder of a Millionaire’s Wife! Extraordinary development! Arrest of a
well-known London house-agent. A terrible scandal in high-life
feared.” Meanwhile too, Paul Renishaw was knocking vainly at the door
of the Vicarage in the hope of seeing Miss Pontifex. Winifred was a
prisoner, and was doomed to undergo some very bitter experiences
before she escaped from the clutches of the Reverend Duncan Kilroy,
M.A., D.D.