THE RÔLE CONTINUED
Mr. Sutton slept as ill on the night of his resignation as he had ever
slept in his life. And many times as he tossed and turned on his bed he
repented at leisure the step which he had taken in haste. Acting upon
no previous determination, he had sacrificed in the heat of temper his
whole professional future. He had staked his all; and he had done no
good even to the cause he had at heart. The act would not bear thinking
upon; certainly it would not bear the cold light of early reflection.
And many, many times as he sighed upon his uneasy pillow did he wish,
as so many have wished before and since, that he could put back the
clock. Had he left the room five minutes earlier, had he held his
tongue, however ungraciously, had he thought before he spoke, he had
done as much for Henrietta and he had done no harm to himself. And he
had been as free as he was now, to seek his end by other means.
For he had naught to do now but seek that end. He had not Mr. Pitt’s
nose in vain: he was nothing if he was not stubborn. And while
Henrietta might easily have had a more discreet, she could hardly have
had a more persevering, friend. Amid the wreck of his own fortunes,
with his professional future laid in ruins about him, he clung
steadfastly to the notion of righting her, and found in that and in the
letter in his book, his only stay. At as early an hour as he considered
decent, he would apply to Mr. Hornyold, lay the evidence before the
Justice, and press for the girl’s release.
Unfortunately, he lay so long revolving the matter that at daybreak he
fell asleep. The house was busy and no one gave a thought to him, and
ten had struck before he came down and shamefacedly asked for his
breakfast. Mrs. Gilson put it before him, but with a word of girding at
his laziness; which the good woman could not stomach, when half the
countryside were on foot searching for the boy, and when the unhappy
father, after a night in the saddle, had left in a postchaise to follow
up a clue at Keswick. Blameworthy or not, Mr. Sutton found the delay
fatal. When he called on Mr. Hornyold, the Justice was not at home. He
had left the house and would not return until the following day.
Sutton might have anticipated this check, but he had not; and he walked
back to the inn, plunged to the very lips in despondency. The activity
of the people about him, their eagerness in the search, their
enthusiasm, all reflected on him and sank him in his own esteem. Yet if
he would, he could not share in these things or in these feelings. He
stood outside them; his sympathies were fixed, obstinately fixed,
elsewhere. And, alas, in the only direction in which he desired to
proceed, and in which he discerned a possible issue, he was brought to
a full stop.
He was in the mood to feel small troubles sorely, and as he neared the
inn he saw that Mrs. Gilson was standing at the door. It vexed him, for
he felt that he cut a poor figure in the landlady’s eyes. He knew that
he seemed to her a sorry thing, slinking idly about the house, while
others wrought and did. He feared her sharp tongue and vulgar tropes,
and he made up his mind to pass by the house as if he did not see her.
He was in the act of doing this, awkwardly and consciously, with his
eyes averted—when she called to him.
“If you’re looking for Squire Clyne,” she said, in very much the tone
he expected, “he’s gone these three hours past and some to that!”
“I was not,” he said.
“Oh!” she answered with sarcasm, “I suppose you are looking for the
boy. You will not find him, I’m afraid, on the King’s highroad!”
“I was not looking for him,” he answered churlishly.
“More shame to you!” Mrs. Gilson cried, with a spark in her eye. “More
shame to you! For you should be!”
He flamed up at that, after the passionate manner of such men when
roused. He stopped and faced her, trembling a little.
“And to whom is it a shame,” he cried, “that wicked, foul injustice is
done? To whom is it a shame that the innocent are sent to herd with the
guilty? To whom is it a shame—woman!—that when there is good, clear
evidence put before their eyes, it is not read? Nor used? The boy?”
vehemently, “the boy? Is he the only one to be considered, and sought
and saved? Is his case worse than hers? I too say shame!”
Mrs. Gilson stared. “Lord save the man!” she cried, as much astonished
as if a sheep had turned on her, “with his shames and his whoms! He’s
as full of words as a Wensleydale of mites! I don’t know what you are
in the pulpit, your reverence, but on foot and in the road, Mr.
Brougham was naught to you!”
“He’d not the reason,” the chaplain answered bitterly. And brought down
by her remark—for his passion was of the shortest—he turned, and was
moving away, morose and despondent, when the landlady called after him
a second time, but in a more friendly tone. Perhaps curiosity, perhaps
some new perception of the man moved her.
“See here, your reverence,” she said. “If you’ve a mind to show me this
fine evidence of yours, I’m not for saying I’ll not read it. Lord knows
it’s ill work going about like a hen with an egg she can’t lay. So if
you’ve a mind to get it off your mind, I’ll send for my glasses, and be
done with it.”
“Will you?” he replied, his face flushing with the hope of making a
convert. “Will you? Then there, ma’am, there it is! It’s the letter
that villain sent to her to draw her to meet him that night. If you
can’t see from that what terms they were on, and that she had no choice
but to meet him, I—but read it! Read it!”
She called for her glasses and having placed them on her nose, set the
nose at such an angle that she could look down it at the page. This was
Mrs. Gilson’s habit when about to read. But when all was arranged her
face fell. “Oh dear!” she said, “it’s all bits and scraps, like a
broken curd! Lord save the man, I can’t read this. I canna make top nor
tail of it! Here, let me take it inside. Truth is, I’m no scholar in
the open air.”
The chaplain, trembling with eagerness, set straight three or four bits
of paper which he had deranged in opening the book. Then, not trusting
it out of his own hands, he bore the book reverently into the
landlady’s snuggery, and set it on the table. Mrs. Gilson rearranged
her nose and glasses, and after gazing helplessly for a few moments at
the broken screed, caught some thread of sense, clung to it
desperately, and presently began to murmur disjointed sentences in the
tone of one who thought aloud.
“Um—um—um—um!”
Had the chaplain been told a fortnight before that he would wait with
bated breath for an old woman’s opinion of a document, he would have
laughed at the notion. But so it was; and when a ray of comprehension
broke the frowning perplexity of Mrs. Gilson’s face, and she muttered,
“Lord ha’ mercy! The villain!” still more when an April cloud of
mingled anger and pity softened her massive features—the chaplain’s
relief was itself a picture.
“A plague on the rascal!” the good woman cried. “He’s put it so as to
melt a stone, let alone a silly child like that! I don’t know that if
he’d put it so to me, when I was a lass, I’d have told on him. I don’t
think I would!”
“It’s plain that she’d no understanding with him!” Mr. Sutton cried
eagerly. “You can see that, ma’am!”
“Well, I think I can. The villain!”
“It’s quite clear that she had broken with him!”
“It does look so, poor lamb!”
“Poor lamb indeed!” Mr. Sutton replied with feeling. “Poor lamb
indeed!”
“Yet you’ll remember,” Mrs. Gilson answered—she was nothing if not
level-headed—“he’d the lad to think of! He’d his boy to think of! I am
sure my heart bled for him when he went out this morning. I doubt he’d
not slept a wink, and——”
“Do you think she slept either?” the chaplain asked, something
bitterly; and his eyes glowed in his pale face. “Do you consider how
young she is and gently bred, ma’am? And where they’ve sent her, and to
what?”
“Umph!” the landlady replied, and she rubbed her ponderous cheek with
the bowl of a punch-ladle, and looked, frowning, at the letter. The
operation, it was plain, clarified her thoughts; and Mr. Sutton’s
instinct told him to be mute. For a long minute the distant clatter of
Modest Ann’s tongue, and the clink of pattens in the yard, were the
only sounds that broke the lemon-laden silence of the room. Perhaps it
was the glint of the fire on the rows of polished glass, perhaps the
sight of her own well-cushioned chair, perhaps only a memory of
Henrietta’s fair young face and piled-up hair that wrought upon the
landlady. But whatever the cause she groaned. And then, “He ought to
see this!” she said. “He surely ought! And dang me, he shall, if he
leaves the house to-night! After all, two wrongs don’t make a right.
He’s to Keswick this morning, but an hour after noon he’ll be back to
learn if there’s news. It’s only here he can get news, and if he has
not found the lad he’ll be back! And I’ll put it on his plate——”
“God bless you!” cried Mr. Sutton.
“Ay, but I’m not saying he’ll do anything,” the landlady answered
tartly. “If all’s true the young madam has not behaved so well that
she’ll be the worse for smarting a bit!”
“She’ll be much obliged to you,” said the chaplain humbly.
“No, she’ll not!” Mrs. Gilson retorted. “Nor to you, don’t you think
it! She’s a Tartar or I’m mistaken. You’ll be obliged, you mean!” And
she looked at the parson over her glasses as if she were appraising him
in a new character.
“I’ve been to Mr. Hornyold,” he said, “but he was out and will not be
back until to-morrow.”
“Ay, he’s more in his boots than on his knees most days,” the landlady
answered. “But what I’ve said, I’ll do, that’s flat. And here’s the
coach, so it’s twelve noon.”
She tugged at the cord of the yard bell, and its loud jangle in a
twinkling roused the house to activity and the stables to frenzy. The
fresh team were led jingling and prancing out of the yard, the ostlers
running beside them. Modest Ann and her underling hastened to show
themselves on the steps of the inn, and Mrs. Gilson herself passed into
the passage ready to welcome any visitor of consequence.
Mr. Bishop and two Lancashire officers who had been pushing the quest
in the Furness district descended from the outside of the coach. But
they brought no news; and Sutton, as soon as he learned this, did not
linger with them. The landlady’s offer could not have any immediate
result, since Clyne was not expected to return before two; and the
chaplain, to kill time, went out at the back, and climbed the hill. He
walked until he was tired, and then he turned, and at two made his way
back to the inn, only to learn that Clyne had not yet arrived. None the
less, the short day already showed signs of drawing in. There was snow
in the sky. It hung heavy above Langdale Pikes and over the long ragged
screes of Bow Fell. White cushions of cloud were piled one on the other
to the northward, and earth and sky were alike depressing. Weary and
despondent, Sutton wandered into the house, and sitting down before the
first fire he found, he fell fast asleep.
He awoke with a confused murmur of voices in his ears. The room was
dark save for the firelight; and for a few seconds he fancied that he
was still alone. The men whose talk he heard were in another part of
the house, and soothed by their babble and barely conscious where he
was, he was sinking away again when a harsh word and a touch on his
sleeve awoke him. He sprang up, startled and surprised, and saw that
Captain Clyne, his face fitfully revealed by the flame, was standing on
the other side of the hearth. He was in his riding boots and was
splashed to the waist.
His face was paler than usual, and his pose told of fatigue.
“Awake, man, awake!” he repeated. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“No, I—I was dozing,” the chaplain faltered, as he put back his chair.
“Just so,” Clyne answered drily. “I wish I could sleep. Well, listen
now. I have been back an hour, and I have read this.” He laid his hand
on an object on the table, and Sutton with joy saw that the object was
the book which he had left with Mrs. Gilson. “I am sorry,” Clyne
continued in a constrained tone, “that I did not read it last evening.
I was wrong. But—God help me, I think I am almost mad! Anyway I have
read it now, and I credit it, and I think that—she has been harshly
treated. And I am here to tell you,” a little more distinctly, “that
you can arrange the matter to your satisfaction, sir.”
Sutton stared. “Do you mean,” he said, “that I may arrange for her
release?”
“I have settled that,” Clyne answered. “Mr. Hornyold is not at home,
but I have seen Mr. Le Fleming, and have given bail for her appearance
when required; and here is Le Fleming’s order for her release. I have
ordered a postchaise to be ready and it will be at the door in ten
minutes.”
“But then—all is done?” the chaplain said.
“Except fetching her back,” Clyne answered. “She must come here. There
is nowhere else for her to go. But I leave that to you, since her
release is due to you. I have done her an injustice, and done you one
too. But God knows,” he continued bitterly, “not without provocation.
Nor willingly, nor knowingly.”
“I am sure of that,” the chaplain answered meekly.
“Yes. Of course,” Clyne continued, awkwardly, “I shall not consider
what you said to me as said at all. On the contrary, I am obliged to
you for doing your duty, Mr. Sutton, whatever the motive.”
“The motive——”
“I do not say,” stiffly, “that the motive was an improper one. Not at
all. I cannot blame you for following up my own plan.”
“I followed my feelings,” Mr. Sutton replied, with a fresh stirring of
resentment.
“Exactly. And therefore it seems to me that as she owes her release to
your exertions, it is right that you should be the one to communicate
the fact to her, and the one to bring her away.”
The chaplain saw that his patron, persuaded that there was more between
them than he had supposed, fell back on the old plan; that he was
willing to give him the opportunity of pushing his suit. And the blood
rushed to his face. If she could be brought—if she could be brought to
look favourably on him! Ah, then indeed he was a happy man, and the
dark night of despondency would be followed by a morn of joy. But with
the quickness of light his thoughts passed over the various
occasions—they were very few—on which he had addressed her. And—and an
odd thing happened. It happened, perhaps, because with the chaplain the
matter was no longer a question of ambition, but of love. “You have no
news?” he said.
“None. And Nadin,” with bitterness, “seems to be at the end of his
resources.”
“Then, Captain Clyne,” Sutton replied impulsively, “there is but one
way! There is but one thing to be done. It is not I, but you, who must
bring Miss Damer back. She may still speak, but not for me!”
“And certainly not for me!” Clyne answered, his face flushing at the
recollection of his violence.
“For you rather than for any one!”
“No, no!”
“Yes,” the chaplain rejoined firmly. “I do not know how I know it,” he
continued with dignity, “but I know it. For one thing, I am not blind.
Miss Damer has never given me a word or a look of encouragement. If she
thanks me,” he spoke with something like a tear in his eye, “it will be
much—the kind of thanks you, Captain Clyne, give the servant that
lacquers your boots, or the dog that fetches your stick. But you—with
you it will be different.”
“She has no reason to thank me,” Clyne declared.
“Yet she will.”
“No.”
“She will!” Sutton answered fervently—he was determined to carry out
his impulsive act of unselfishness. “And, thank you or not thank you,
she may speak. She will speak, when released, if ever! She is one who
will do nothing under compulsion, nothing under durance. But she will
do much—for love.”
Clyne looked with astonishment at the chaplain. He, like Mrs. Gilson,
was appraising him afresh, was finding something new in him, something
unexpected. “How do you know?” he asked, his cheeks reddening.
There were for certain tears in Mr. Sutton’s eyes now.
“I don’t know how I know,” he said, “but I do. I know! Go and fetch
her; and I think, I think she will speak.”
Clyne thought otherwise, and had good reason to think otherwise; a
reason which he was ashamed to tell his chaplain. But in the face of
his own view he was impressed by Sutton’s belief. The suggestion was at
least a straw to which he could cling. Failing other means—and the
ardour of his assistants in the search was beginning to flag—why should
he not try this? Why should he not, threats failing, throw himself at
the girl’s feet, abase himself, humble himself, try at least if he
could not win by prayer and humility what she had refused to force.
It was a plan little to the man’s taste; grievous to his pride. But for
his son’s sake, for the innocent boy’s sake, he was willing to do even
this. Moreover, with all his coldness, he had sufficient nobility to
feel that he owed the girl the fullest amends in his power. He had laid
hands on her. He had treated her—no matter what the
provocation—cruelly, improperly, in a manner degrading to her and
disgraceful to himself. His face flushed as he recalled the scene and
his violence. Now it was hers to triumph, hers to blame: nor his to
withhold the opportunity.
“I will go,” he said, after a brief perturbed silence. “I am obliged to
you for your advice. You think that there is a chance she will speak?”
“I do,” Sutton answered manfully. “I do.” And he said more to the same
purpose.
But later, when the hot fit ebbed, he wondered at himself. What had
come over him? Why had he, who had so little while his patron had so
much, given up his ewe lamb, his one chance? Reason answered, because
he had no chance and it was wise to make a virtue of necessity. But he
knew that, a day or two before, he would have snapped his fingers at
reason, he would have clung to his forlorn hope, he would have made for
his own advantage by the nearest road. What then had changed him? What
had caused him to set the girl’s happiness before his own, and
whispered to him that there was only one way by which, smirched and
discredited as she was, she whom he loved could reach her happiness? He
did not answer the question, perhaps he did not know the answer. But
wandering in the darkness by the lake-side, with the first snowflakes
falling on his shoulders, he cried again and again, “God bless her! God
bless her!” with tears running down his pale, insignificant face.