a hundred times as many students as she could teach; her system of
examinations had extended to the very limits of the British Empire, and
her certificates of proficiency were coveted in every quarter of the
globe.
In the examination of these students, Mr. Batchel, who had considerable
experience in teaching, was annually employed. Papers from all parts
of the world were to be found littered about his study, and the
examination of these papers called for some weeks of strenuous labour
at every year's end. As the weeks passed, he would anxiously watch
the growth of a neat stack of papers in the corner of the room, which
indicated the number to which marks had been assigned and reported to
Cambridge. The day upon which the last of these was laid in its place
was a day of satisfaction, second only to that which later on brought
him a substantial cheque to remunerate him for his labours.
During this period of special effort, Mr. Batchel's servants had their
share of its discomforts. The chairs and tables they wanted to dust and
to arrange, were loaded with papers which they were forbidden to touch;
and although they were warned against showing visitors into any room
where these papers were lying, Mr. Batchel would inconsiderately lay
them in every room he had. The privacy of his study, however, where the
work was chiefly done, was strictly guarded, and no one was admitted
there unless by Mr. Batchel himself.
Imagine his annoyance, therefore, when he returned from an evening
engagement at the beginning of the month of January, and found a
stranger seated in the study! Yet the annoyance was not long in
subsiding. The visitor was a lady, and as she sat by the lamp, a glance
was enough to shew that she was young, and very beautiful. The interest
which this young lady excited in Mr. Batchel was altogether unusual,
as unusual as was the visit of such a person at such a time. His
conjecture was that she had called to give him notice of a marriage,
but he was really charmed by her presence, and was quite content to
find her in no haste to state her errand. The manner, however, of the
lady was singular, for neither by word nor movement did she show that
she was conscious of Mr. Batchel's entry into the room.
He began at length with his customary formula "What can I have the
pleasure of doing for you?" and when, at the sound of his voice, she
turned her fine dark eyes upon him, he saw that they were wet with
tears.
Mr. Batchel was now really moved. As a tear fell upon the lady's cheek,
she raised her hand as if to conceal it--a brilliant sapphire sparkling
in the lamp-light as she did so. And then the lady's distress, and
the exquisite grace of her presence, altogether overcame him. There
stole upon him a strange feeling of tenderness which he supposed to
be paternal, but knew nevertheless to be indiscreet. He was a prudent
man, with strict notions of propriety, so that, ostensibly with a view
to giving the lady a few minutes in which to recover her composure,
he quietly left the study and went into another room, to pull himself
together.
Mr. Batchel, like most solitary men, had a habit of talking to himself.
"It is of no use, R. B.," he said, "to pretend that you have retired on
this damsel's account. If you don't take care, you'll make a fool of
yourself." He took up from the table a volume of the encyclopedia in
which, the day before, he had been looking up Pestalozzi, and turned
over the pages in search of something to restore his equanimity. An
article on Perspective proved to be the very thing. Wholly unromantic
in character, its copious presentment of hard fact relieved his mind,
and he was soon threading his way along paths of knowledge to which he
was little accustomed. He applied his remedy with such persistence that
when four or five minutes had passed, he felt sufficiently composed to
return to the study. He framed, as he went, a suitable form of words
with which to open the conversation, and took with him his register
of Banns of Marriage, of which he thought he foresaw the need. As he
opened the study-door, the book fell from his hands to the ground, so
completely was he overcome by surprise, for he found the room empty.
The lady had disappeared; her chair stood vacant before him.
Mr. Batchel sat down for a moment, and then rang the bell. It was
answered by the boy who always attended upon him.
"When did the lady go?" asked Mr. Batchel.
The boy looked bewildered.
"The lady you showed into the study before I came."
"Please, sir, I never shown anyone into the study; I never do when
you're out."
"There was a lady here," said Mr. Batchel, "when I returned."
The boy now looked incredulous.
"Did you not let someone out just now?"
"No, sir," said the boy. "I put the chain on the front door as soon as
you came in."
This was conclusive. The chain upon the hall-door was an ancient and
cumbrous thing, and could not be manipulated without considerable
effort, and a great deal of noise. Mr. Batchel released the boy, and
began to think furiously. He was not, as the reader is well aware,
without some experience of the supranormal side of nature, and he knew
of course that the visit of this enthralling lady had a purpose. He was
beginning to know, however, that it had had an effect. He sat before
his fire reproducing her image, and soon gave it up in disgust because
his imagination refused to do her justice. He could recover the details
of her appearance, but could combine them into nothing that would
reproduce the impression she had first made upon him.
He was unable now to concentrate his attention upon the examination
papers lying on his table. His mind wandered so often to the other
topic that he felt himself to be in danger of marking the answers
unfairly. He turned away from his work, therefore, and moved to another
chair, where he sat down to read. It was the chair in which she herself
had sat, and he made no attempt to pretend that he had chosen it on any
other account. He had, in fact, made some discoveries about himself
during the last half-hour, and he gave himself another surprise when
he came to select his book. In the ordinary course of what he had
supposed to be his nature, he would certainly have returned to the
article on Perspective; it was lying open in the next room, and he
had read no more than a tenth part of it. But instead of that, his
thoughts went back to a volume he had but once opened, and that for
no more than two minutes. He had received the book, by way of birthday
present, early in the preceding year, from a relative who had bestowed
either no consideration at all, or else a great deal of cunning, upon
its selection. It was a collection of 17th century lyrics, which Mr.
Batchel's single glance had sufficed to condemn. Regarding the one
lyric he had read as a sort of literary freak, he had banished the book
to one of the spare bedrooms, and had never seen it since. And now,
after this long interval, the absurd lines which his eye had but once
lighted upon, were recurring to his mind:
"Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize
Reserved for your victorious eyes";
and so far from thinking them absurd, as he now recalled them, he went
upstairs to fetch the book, in which he was soon absorbed. The lyrics
no longer seemed unreasonable. He felt conscious, as he read one after
another, of a side of nature that he had strangely neglected, and was
obliged to admit that the men whose feelings were set forth in the
various sonnets and poems had a fine gift of expression.
"Thus, whilst I look for her in vain,
Methinks I am a child again,
And of my shadow am a-chasing.
For all her graces are to me
Like apparitions that I see,
But never can come near th' embracing."
No! these men were not, as he had formerly supposed, writing with
air, and he felt ashamed at having used the term "freak" at their
expense.
Mr. Batchel read more of the lyrics, some of them twice, and one of
them much oftener. That one he began to commit to memory, and since the
household had retired to rest, to recite aloud. He had been unaware
that literature contained anything so beautiful, and as he looked again
at the book to recover an expression his memory had lost, a tear fell
upon the page. It was a thing so extraordinary that Mr. Batchel first
looked at the ceiling, but when he found that it was indeed a tear from
his own eye he was immoderately pleased with himself. Had not she also
shed a tear as she sat upon the same chair? The fact seemed to draw
them together.
Contemplation of this sort was, however, a luxury to be enjoyed in
something like moderation. Mr. Batchel soon laid down his lyric and
savagely began to add up columns of marks, by way of discipline; and
when he had totalled several pages of these, respect for his normal
self had returned with sufficient force to take him off to bed.
The matter of his dreams, or whether he dreamed at all, has not been
disclosed. He awoke, at any rate, in a calmer state of mind, and such
romantic thoughts as remained were effectually dispelled by the sight
of his own countenance when he began to shave. "Fancy you spouting
lyrics," he said, as he dabbed the brush upon his mouth, and by the
time he was ready for breakfast he pronounced himself cured.
The prosaic labours awaiting him in the study were soon forced upon his
notice, and for once he did not regret it. Amongst the letters lying
upon the breakfast table was one from the secretary who controlled the
system of examination. The form of the envelope was too familiar to
leave him in doubt as to what it contained. It was a letter which, to a
careful man like Mr. Batchel, seemed to have the nature of a reproof,
inasmuch as it probably asked for information which it had already
been his duty to furnish. The contents of the envelope, when he had
impatiently torn it open, answered to his expectation--he was formally
requested to supply the name and the marks of candidate No. 1004, and
he wondered, as he ate his breakfast, how he had omitted to return
them. He hunted out the paper of No. 1004 as soon as the meal was over.
The candidate proved to be one Lubrietta Bodria, of whom, of course,
he had never heard, and her answers had all been marked. He could not
understand why they should have been made the subject of enquiry.
He took her papers in his hand, and looked at them again as he stood
with his back to the fire, having lit the pipe which invariably
followed his breakfast, and then he discovered something much harder to
understand. The marks were not his own. In place of the usual sketchy
numerals, hardly decipherable to any but himself, he saw figures which
were carefully formed; and the marks assigned to the first answer, as
he saw it on the uppermost sheet, were higher than the maximum number
obtainable for that question.
Mr. Batchel laid down his pipe and seated himself at the table. He was
greatly puzzled. As he turned over the sheets of No. 1004 he found
all the other questions marked in like manner, and making a total of
half as much again as the highest possible number. "Who the dickens,"
he said, using a meaningless, but not uncommon expression, "has been
playing with this; and how came I to pass it over?" The need of the
moment, however, was to furnish the proper marks to the secretary at
Cambridge, and Mr. Batchel proceeded to read No. 1004 right through.
He soon found that he had read it all before, and the matter began to
bristle with queries. It proved, in fact, to be a paper over which he
had spent some time, and for a singularly interesting reason. He had
learned from a friend in the Indian Civil Service that an exaggerated
value was often placed by ambitious Indians and Cingalese upon a
European education, and that many aspiring young men declined to
take a wife who had not passed this very examination. It was to Mr.
Batchel a disquieting reflection that his blue pencil was not only
marking mistakes, but might at the same time be cancelling matrimonial
engagements, and his friend's communication had made him scrupulously
careful in examining the work of young ladies in Oriental Schools. The
matter had occurred to him at once as he had examined the answers of
Lubrietta Rodria. He perfectly remembered the question upon which her
success depended. A problem in logic had been answered by a rambling
and worthless argument, to which, somehow, the right conclusion was
appended: the conclusion might be a happy guess, or it might have been
secured by less honest means, but Mr. Batchel, following his usual
practice, gave no marks for it. It was not here that he found any cause
for hesitation, but when he came to the end of the paper and found that
the candidate had only just failed, he had turned back to the critical
question, imagined an eligible bachelor awaiting the result of the
examination, and then, after a period of vacillation, had hastily put
the symbol of failure upon the paper lest he should be tempted to bring
his own charity to the rescue of the candidate's logic, and unfairly
add the three marks which would suffice to pass her.
As he now read the answer for the second time, the same pitiful thought
troubled him, and this time more than before; for over the edge of
the paper of No. 1004 there persistently arose the image of the young
lady with the sapphire ring. It directed the current of his thoughts.
Suppose that Lubrietta Rodria were anything like that! and what if the
arguments of No. 1004 were worthless! Young ladies were notoriously
weak in argument, and as strong in conclusions! and after all, the
conclusion was correct, and ought not a correct conclusion to have its
marks? There followed much more to the same purpose, and in the end Mr.
Batchel stultified himself by adding the necessary three marks, and
passing the candidate.
"This comes precious near to being a job," he remarked, as he entered
the marks upon the form and sealed it in the envelope, "but No. 1004
must pass, this time." He enclosed in the envelope a request to know
why the marks had been asked for, since they had certainly been
returned in their proper place. A brief official reply informed him
next day that the marks he had returned exceeded the maximum, and must,
therefore, have been wrongly entered.
"This," said Mr. Batchel, "is a curious coincidence."
Curious as it certainly was, it was less curious than what immediately
followed. It was Mr. Batchel's practice to avoid any delay in returning
these official papers, and he went out, there and then, to post his
envelope. The Post Office was no more than a hundred yards from his
door, and in three minutes he was in his study again. The first object
that met his eye there was a beautiful sapphire ring lying upon the
papers of No. 1004, which had remained upon the table.
Mr. Batchel at once recognised the ring. "I knew it was precious near a
job," he said, "but I didn't know that it was as near as this."
He took up the ring and examined it. It looked like a ring of great
value; the stone was large and brilliant, and the setting was of fine
workmanship. "Now what on earth," said Mr. Batchel, "am I to do with
this?"
The nearest jeweller to Stoneground was a competent and experienced
tradesman of the old school. He was a member of the local Natural
History Society, and in that capacity Mr. Batchel had made intimate
acquaintance with him. To this jeweller, therefore, he carried the
ring, and asked him what he thought of it.
"I'll give you forty pounds for it," said the jeweller.
Mr. Batchel replied that the ring was not his. "What about the make of
it?" he asked. "Is it English?"
The jeweller replied that it was unmistakably Indian.
"You are sure?" said Mr. Batchel.
"Certain," said the jeweller. "Major Ackroyd brought home one like it,
all but the stone, from Puna; I repaired it for him last year."
The information was enough, if not more than enough, for Mr. Batchel.
He begged a suitable case from his friend the jeweller, and within
an hour had posted the ring to Miss Lubrietta Rodria at the European
College in Puna. At the same time he wrote to the Principal the letter
whose answer is embodied in the preface to this narrative.
Having done this, Mr. Batchel felt more at ease. He had given Lubrietta
Rodria what he amiably called the benefit of the doubt, but it should
never be said that he had been bribed.
The rest of his papers he marked with fierce justice. A great deal of
the work, in his zeal, he did twice over, but his conscience amply
requited him for the superfluous labour. The last paper was marked
within a day of the allotted time, Mr. Batchel shortly afterwards
received his cheque, and was glad to think that the whole matter was at
an end.
* * * * *
That Lubrietta had been absent from India whilst her relatives and
attendants were trying to restore her to consciousness, he had good
reason to know. His friends, for the most part, took a very narrow view
of human nature and its possibilities, so that he kept his experience,
for a long time, to himself; there were personal reasons for not
discussing the incident. The reader has been already told upon what
understanding it is recorded here.
There remains, however, an episode which Mr. Batchel all but managed
to suppress. Upon the one occasion when he allowed himself to speak of
this matter, he was being pressed for a description of the sapphire
ring, and was not very successful in his attempt to describe it. There
was no reason, of course, why this should lay his good faith under
suspicion. Few of us could pass an examination upon objects with which
we are supposed to be familiar, or say which of our tables have three
legs, and which four.
One of Mr. Batchel's auditors, however, took a captious view of the
matter, and brusquely remarked, in imitation of a more famous sceptic,
"I don't believe there's no sich a thing."
Mr. Batchel, of course, recognised the phrase, and it was his eagerness
to establish his credit that committed him at this point to a last
disclosure about Lubrietta. He drew a sapphire ring from his pocket,
handed it to the incredulous auditor, and addressed him in the manner
of Mrs. Gamp.
"What! you bage creetur, have I had this ring three year or more to be
told there ain't no sech a thing. Go along with you."
"But I thought the ring was sent back," said more than one.
"How did you come by it?" said all the others.
Mr. Batchel thereupon admitted that he had closed his story prematurely.
About six weeks after the return of the ring to Puna he had found it
once again upon his table, returned through the post. Enclosed in the
package was a note which Mr. Batchel, being now committed to this part
of the story, also passed round for inspection. It ran as follows:--
"Accept the ring, dear one, and wear it for my sake. Fail not
to think sometimes of her whom you have made happy.--L. R."
"What on earth am I to do with this?" Mr. Batchel had asked himself
again. And this time he had answered the question, after the briefest
possible delay, by slipping the ring upon his fourth finger.
The book of Lyrics remained downstairs amongst the books in constant
use. Mr. Batchel can repeat at least half of the collection from memory.
He knows well enough that such terms as "dear one" are addressed to
bald gentlemen only in a Pickwickian sense, but even with that sense
the letter gives him pleasure.
He admits that he thinks very often of "her whom he has made happy,"
but that he cannot exclude from his thoughts at these times an
ungenerous regret. It is that he has also made happy a nameless
Oriental gentleman whom he presumptuously calls "the other fellow."
VI.
THE ROCKERY.
The Vicar's garden at Stoneground has certainly been enclosed for more
than seven centuries, and during the whole of that time its almost
sacred privacy has been regarded as permanent and unchangeable. It has
remained for the innovators of later and more audacious days to hint
that it might be given into other hands, and still carry with it no
curse that should make a new possessor hasten to undo his irreverence.
Whether there can be warrant for such confidence, time will show. The
experiences already related will show that the privacy of the garden
has been counted upon both by good men and worse. And here is a story,
in its way, more strange than any.
By way of beginning, it may be well to describe a part of the garden
not hitherto brought into notice. That part lies on the western
boundary, where the garden slopes down to a sluggish stream, hardly a
stream at all, locally known as the Lode. The Lode bounds the garden
on the west along its whole length, and there the moor-hen builds her
nest, and the kingfisher is sometimes, but in these days too rarely,
seen. But the centre of vision, as it were, of this western edge lies
in a cluster of tall elms. Towards these all the garden paths converge,
and about their base is raised a bank of earth, upon which is heaped a
rockery of large stones lately overgrown with ferns.
Mr. Batchel's somewhat prim taste in gardening had long resented
this disorderly bank. In more than one place in his garden had wild
confusion given place to a park-like trimness, and there were not a
few who would say that the change was not for the better. Mr. Batchel,
however, went his own way, and in due time determined to remove the
rockery. He was puzzled by its presence; he could see no reason why a
bank should have been raised about the feet of the elms, and surmounted
with stones; not a ray of sunshine ever found its way there, and none
but coarse and uninteresting plants had established themselves. Whoever
had raised the bank had done it ignorantly, or with some purpose not
easy for Mr. Batchel to conjecture.
Upon a certain day, therefore, in the early part of December, when
the garden had been made comfortable for its winter rest, he began,
with the assistance of his gardener, to remove the stones into another
place.
We do but speak according to custom in this matter, and there are few
readers who will not suspect the truth, which is that the gardener
began to remove the stones, whilst Mr. Batchel stood by and delivered
criticisms of very slight value. Such strength, in fact, as Mr. Batchel
possessed had concentrated itself upon the mind, and somewhat neglected
his body, and what he called help, during his presence in the garden,
was called by another name when the gardener and his boy were left to
themselves, with full freedom of speech.
There were few of the stones rolled down by the gardener that Mr.
Batchel could even have moved, but his astonishment at their size soon
gave place to excitement at their appearance. His antiquarian tastes
were strong, and were soon busily engaged. For, as the stones rolled
down, his eyes were feasted, in a rapid succession, by capitals of
columns, fragments of moulded arches and mullions, and other relics of
ecclesiastical building.
Repeatedly did he call the gardener down from his work to put these
fragments together, and before long there were several complete lengths
of arcading laid upon the path. Stones which, perhaps, had been
separated for centuries, once more came together, and Mr. Batchel,
rubbing his hands in excited satisfaction, declared that he might
recover the best parts of a Church by the time the rockery had been
demolished.
The interest of the gardener in such matters was of a milder kind. "We
must go careful," he merely observed, "when we come to the organ." They
went on removing more and more stones, until at length the whole bank
was laid bare, and Mr. Batchel's chief purpose achieved. How the stones
were carefully arranged, and set up in other parts of the garden, is
well known, and need not concern us now.
One detail, however, must not be omitted. A large and stout stake of
yew, evidently of considerable age, but nevertheless quite sound, stood
exposed after the clearing of the bank. There was no obvious reason for
its presence, but it had been well driven in, so well that the strength
of the gardener, or, if it made any difference, of the gardener and Mr.
Batchel together, failed even to shake it. It was not unsightly, and
might have remained where it was, had not the gardener exclaimed, "This
is the very thing we want for the pump." It was so obviously "the very
thing" that its removal was then and there decided upon.