Parson Jack walked home with a volume of Gilbert's _Survey_ and another
of the _Parochial History of Cornwall_ under his arm, and Parker's
_Glossary_ in his skirt pocket. He began that evening with the
_Parochial History_, article "Langona," and smoked his pipe over it till
midnight in a sort of rapture it would be hard to analyse. In fact, no
doubt it was made up of that childish delight which most men feel on
reading in print what they know perfectly well already. "The eastern
end of the north aisle is used as a vestry, and the eastern end of the
south aisle is impropriated to the church-warden's use." Yes, that was
right. And the inscription on the one marble tablet was correctly
given, and the legend over the south porch: "_Ego sum Janua, per me qui
intrabit Servabitur_" But the delight of recognition was mixed with
that of discovery. The lower part of the tower was Early English, the
upper Perpendicular (a pause here, and a reference to Parker); the nave,
too, Perpendicular. Ah, then, it could only have been the upper part--
the belfry--which fell in and destroyed the nave. What was the date?--
1412. And they both had been rebuilt together--on the call of Edmund
Stafford, Bishop of Exeter--in the August of that year. He read on, the
familiar at each step opening new bypaths into the unguessed. But the
delight of delights was to hug, while he read, his purpose to change all
this story of ruin, to give it a new and happier chapter, to stand out
eminent among the forgotten Vicars of Langona. . . .
The book slid from his knee to the floor with a crash. He picked it up
carefully, turned down the lamp, laughed to himself, and went off to
bed, shivering but happy.
He awoke to fresh day-dreams. Day-dreams filled the next week with
visions of the church in all its destined beauty. To be sure, they were
extravagant enough, fantasies in which flying buttresses and flamboyant
traceries waltzed around solid Norman and rigid Perpendicular,
nightmares of undigested Parker. But they kept Parson Jack happy.
He had not forgotten to answer Messrs. Cudmore's letter, thanking them
for their information, and adding that he proposed to pay a visit to
Plymouth, and would call upon Major Bromham, with that gentleman's
leave, and discuss the legacy. They replied that their client was just
then in the north of Devon on a shooting-party, but would return to
Plymouth by an afternoon train on the following Wednesday and grant Mr.
Flood an interview.
The tone of this letter, as of the previous one, was unmistakably cold,
but Parson Jack read nothing more in it than professional formality.
On the Wednesday, however, when he reached Plymouth, he presented
himself at Messrs. Cudmore's office, and was admitted to see the head of
the firm, the manner of his reception began to puzzle him.
"Mr.--ah--Flood?" began Mr. Cudmore senior, with the faintest possible
bow. "Our client, Major Bromham, is not returning until late this
afternoon--by the four-forty train, in fact. I myself dictated the
letter in reply to yours, and fancied I had made it explicit."
"Oh, quite. I called merely in the hope that you would give me some
further information about my brother's will; since, apart from this
legacy, I know nothing."
"You must excuse me, but I prefer to leave that to the Major. In any
case, the will is to be proved without delay, and may then, as you know,
be inspected for a shilling."
Parson Jack, guileless man that he was, had a way of putting a straight
question. "I want to know," said he quietly, "why on earth you are
treating me like this?"
"My dear sir--" began the lawyer. But Parson Jack cut him short.
"I, for my part, will be plain with you. I ask to see the will simply
because I know nothing of my brother's property, and wish to see how his
wife and children are provided for. There is nothing extraordinary in
that, surely?"
"H'm"--the lawyer pondered, eyeing him. Clearly there was something in
this shabbily dressed clergyman which countered his expectations.
"The person who could best satisfy you on this point would be Mrs.
Flood herself; but I take it you have no desire to see her personally."
"Mrs. Flood? Do you mean my brother's wife?"
"Certainly."
"But--but is she here--in Plymouth?" Parson Jack's eyes opened wide.
"I presume so. Hoe Terrace, she informs me, has been her address for
these eight years. But of course you are aware--"
"Aware, sir? I am aware of nothing. Least of all am I aware of any
reason why I should not call upon her. Hoe Terrace, did you say?
What number?"
"Thirty-four. You will bear in mind that I have not advised--"
"Oh, dear me, no; you have advised nothing. Good-morning, Mr. Cudmore!"
And Parson Jack, fuming, found himself in the street.
He filled and lit his pipe, to soothe his humour. But he forgot that
the clergy of Plymouth do not as a rule smoke clay pipes in the public
streets, and the attention he excited puzzled and angered him yet
further. He set it down to his threadbare coat and rustic boots.
It was in no sweet mood that he strode up Hoe Terrace, eyeing the
numbers above the doors, and halted at length to knock out his pipe
before a house with an unpainted area-railing, to which a small boy in
ragged knickerbockers was engaged in attaching with a string the tail of
a protesting puppy.
"I shouldn't do that if I were you," said Parson Jack, rapping the bowl
of his pipe against his boot-heel.
"I don't suppose you would," retorted the small boy. "But then there's
some parsons wouldn't smoke a clay."
Before Parson Jack could discover a repartee the door opened and a young
man with a weak chin and bright yellow boots came out laughing, followed
by a good-looking girl, who turned on the step to close the door behind
her. Although in black, she was outrageously over-dressed. An enormous
black feather nodded above her "picture" hat, and with one hand she held
up her skirt, revealing a white embroidered petticoat deplorably stained
with mud.
In the act of turning she caught sight of the small boy, and at once
began to rate him.
"Haven't I told you fifty times to let that dog alone? Go indoors this
instant and get yourself cleaned! For my part, I don't know what
Tillotson means, letting you out of school so early."
"I haven't been to school," the boy announced, catching at a dirty sheet
of newspaper which fluttered against the railing, and nonchalantly
folding it into a cocked hat.
"Your mumps have been all right for a week. There's not the slightest
risk of infection, and you know it. You don't tell me you've persuaded
mother--"
"I haven't said a word to her," the boy interrupted. "It isn't mumps;
it's these breeches. If you can't find time to darn 'em, I'm not going
to school till somebody can."
The young man tittered, and the girl--with a toss of her head and a
glance at Parson Jack, who was pretending to tie his boot-lace--accepted
defeat.
"Where did you pick up that puppy?" asked Parson Jack, after watching
the pair up the street.
"What's that to you?"
"Nothing at all; only I'm a judge of wire-haired terriers, and he has a
touch of breed somewhere. Well, if you won't answer that question, I'll
try you with another. Is that Gertrude--or Ada?" He nodded up the
street.
"That's Ada. Gertrude is indoors, trimming a hat. You seem to know a
heap about us."
"Not much; but I'm going to call and find out more if I can. You're
Richard, I suppose?"
"Dick, for short. Ring the bell, if you like, and I'll run round and
open the door. Only don't say I didn't warn you." This sounded like an
absurd echo of the lawyer, and set Parson Jack smiling. "We don't
subscribe to anything, or take any truck in parsons; and the slavey has
a whitlow on her finger, and mother's having fits over the cooking.
But come in, if you want to."
"Thank you, I will."
While Parson Jack ascended to the front door and rang at the bell, Dick
skipped down the area steps, and presently opened to him with a mock
start of surprise. "Beg your pardon," said he, "but I took you for the
rates, or the broker's man." He winked as he ushered in the visitor.
The running click of a sewing-machine sounded above stairs, and up from
the basement floated an aroma of fried onions, and filled the passage.
"First turning to the right!" admonished the boy, and stepping past him,
to the head of the basement stairs, called down: "Mother! I say,
mother, here's a gentleman to see you!"
"Then," came the answer, "tell Gerty to step down and find out what he
wants. I'm busy."
Parson Jack discreetly shut the door, and fell to studying the not
over-clean drawing-room, which was tricked out with muslin draperies,
cheap Japanese fans, photographs--mostly of officers in the uniform of
the Royal Marines--and such artistic trifles as painted tambourines,
sabots, drain-pipes, and milking-stools. In one wicker-chair--the
wicker daubed with royal-red enamel--lay a banjo; in another was curled
a sleeping terrier--indubitable mother of the puppy outside. Near the
door stood a piano with a comic opera score on the music-rest, open at
No. 12, "I'm a Cheery Fusileery--O!" and on its rosewood top an ash-tray
full of cigarette-ends and a shaded lamp the base of which needed
wiping.
The terrier awoke, yawned, and was waddling down from its couch to make
friends, when Master Dick returned.
"Mother wants to know who you are and what's your business.
Gerty wouldn't come down when she heard you weren't Jack Phillips."
"Then tell your mother that I am your uncle, John Flood. That will
satisfy her, perhaps."
"Whe--ew!" Dick took him in from top to toe, in a long incredulous
stare; but turned and went without another word.
It may have been five minutes before the door opened and Mrs. Flood
entered, with an air nicely balanced between curiosity, _hauteur_, and
injured innocence--a shabby-genteel woman, in a widow's cap and a black
cashmere gown which had been too near the frying-pan.
"Good morning."
Mrs. Flood bowed stiffly, not to say stonily, folded her wrists
accurately in front of her, over her waistband, and waited.
"I am John Flood, you know--poor Lionel's brother. I have just come
from Cudmore & Cudmore's, the solicitors, to talk with you, if I may,
about this will. It seems that I have a legacy, but beyond this I know
nothing, and indeed until Messrs. Cudmore wrote I wasn't even aware of
an illness."
Mrs. Flood's eyes seemed to answer, if such a thing could be said in a
ladylike way, that he might tell that to the Marines. But, without
relenting their hostility, she took occasion to mop them.
"It was a cruel will," she murmured. "My husband and I had differences;
in fact, we have lived apart for many years. Still--" She broke off.
"You know, of course, that he went wrong--took to living with natives
and adopted their horrible ways--in the end, I believe, turned Hindu."
"God bless my soul! But he used to write regularly--up to the end."
"No doubt." The two words were full of spiteful meaning, though what
that meaning was Parson Jack could not guess.
"His letters gave no hint of--of this."
Again Mrs. Flood's bitter smile gave him--politely--the lie.
"He drank, too," she went on, after a cold pause. "I had always
supposed it was the one thing those natives didn't do. We thought of
contesting the will on the ground of undue influence and his mind being
gone."
"Did Lionel leave them much, then?"
"'Them'?" she queried.
"His friends over there--the natives."
"He left nothing but this legacy of five thousand pounds, and the
residue in equal shares to his poor family." Here her handkerchief came
into play again. "Only, as it turns out, there isn't any residue--
scarcely a penny more when all is realised--except the pension, of
course." Unmasking her batteries with sudden spite, she added, "Even
between you I couldn't be robbed of _that!_"
Parson Jack controlled himself. He was genuinely sorry for the woman.
But either cheek showed a red spot and his voice shook a little as he
answered, "This is a trifle gratuitous, then--your talk about undue
influence."
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating," replied Mrs. Flood, with a
small and vicious titter; not because she believed him to be guilty or
that it would do any good, but simply because her instinct told her it
would hurt.
"That seems to close the discussion." Parson Jack bowed with honest, if
clumsy, dignity. "I am sorry, madam, for what you have told me; but my
regrets had better be expressed to Major Bromham."
"_Regrets_, indeed!" sniffed Mrs. Flood.
And these were the last words he ever heard from her. A minute later he
found himself in the street, walking towards the Hoe and drawing deep
breaths as his lungs felt the sea-breeze. He had not the least notion
of his direction; but as he went he muttered to himself; and for a
parson's his words sounded deplorably like swearing.
"Hi! hi!" called a shrill voice behind him. He swung right about and
found himself frowning down upon Master Dick.
"How did you like it?" inquired that youngster, panting. "She's a
caution, the mater; but it wasn't a patch on what I've heard her promise
to give you if ever she sets eyes on you."
"Indeed? How do you know, pray?"
"Why, I listened at the door, of course," was the unabashed reply.
"But I don't believe a word of it, you know," he added reassuringly.
"A word of what?"
"That rot about undue influence."
"I thank you. Did you follow me to tell me this?"
"Well, I dunno. Yes, I guess I did. You're a white man; I saw that at
once, though you _do_ smoke a clay pipe."
"Thank you again for the reminder." Parson Jack pulled out his clay and
filled it. "So I'm a white man?"
Dick nodded. "I'm not saying anything about the legacy. That's hard
lines on us, of course; but I believe you. There's no chance of my
being a gentleman now, like you; but"--with a wry grin--"I'm not the
sort of chap to bear malice."
They had walked on through the gate leading to the Hoe, and were in full
view now of the splendid panorama of the Sound.
"And why shouldn't you be a gentleman?" asked Parson Jack, halting and
cocking down an eye upon this queer urchin.
"Well, there's a goodish bit against it, you'll allow. You saw what
we're like at home." He looked up at Parson Jack frankly enough, but
into his speech there crept a strange embarrassment, too old for his
years. "I mean, you saw enough without my telling you; and I mustn't
give the show away."
"No, to be sure," assented Parson Jack. "Dick, you've the makings of a
good fellow," he added musingly.
But the boy's eyes had wandered to the broad sheet of water below.
"Crikey, there she goes!" he cried, and jerked his arm towards an
unwieldy battle-ship nosing her way out of the Hamoaze, her low bows
tracing a thin line of white. For half a minute they stood watching
her.
"She's ugly enough, in all conscience," commented Parson Jack.
"She's a holy terror. But perhaps you don't believe in turrets. Nor do
I, to _that_ extent. It's tempting Providence."
"In what way?"
"Top-hamper," said Dick shortly. "But she's a terror all the same."
"What's her name, I wonder?"
"Sakes! You don't say you don't know the old _Devastation?_ Why, it's
fifteen years or so since they launched her at Portsmouth, and I hear
tell she'll have to be reconstructed, though even then I guess they
won't trust her far at sea. She has no speed, either, for these days.
Oh, she's a holy fraud!" And Master Dick poured in a broadside of
expert criticism as the monster felt her way and slowly headed around
the Winter Buoy into the Smeaton Pass.
"Nevertheless, you wouldn't object to be on board of her?"
"Don't!" The boy's eyes had filled on a sudden. "You mayn't mean it,
but it--it hurts."
Four hours later, in the early dusk, Parson Jack stepped into the
street, after shaking hands with Major Bromham at the door. What is
more, the Major stood bareheaded in the doorway for some moments, and
stared after him. Dick had echoed Lawyer Cudmore once that day; it was
now the Major's turn to echo Dick.
"That's a white man," he muttered to himself. "Curiously like his
brother, too--in the days before he went wrong. But Lionel Flood had a
soft strake in him, and India found it out. This parson seems tougher--
result of hard work and plain living, no doubt."
His musings at this point grew involved, and he frowned. "Says he knew
nothing of Lionel's affairs--offers to show me all the letters to prove
it; but this behaviour of his is proof enough. Deuced handsome
behaviour, too. I wonder if he can afford it? Gad, what a pack of
falsehoods that woman has poured into me! She always had a gift of
circumstantial lying. I believe, if Lionel had kept a tight rein on her
and shown her the whip now and then--but what's the use of speculating?
Anyway, it's rough on the Parson, and if I hadn't to consider Dick and
the girls--"
Dusk had given way to gaslight, and Parson Jack still paced the streets,
intending but still deferring to find a dinner and a night's lodging.
He had shaken hands with Major Bromham in a mood of curious exaltation.
He had decided almost without a struggle. To his mind the question was
a clear one of right and wrong, and no argument helped it. Still, a man
does not renounce five thousand pounds every day of his life; and, when
he does, has some right to pat his conscience on the back. He derived
some pleasure, too, from picturing the pretty gratitude with which his
beneficiaries would hear Major Bromham's message. He did not know Mrs.
Flood.
But . . . his church? He had forgotten it, or almost forgotten; and the
recollection came upon him like a blow. He halted beneath a gas-lamp in
dismay; not in resentment at the shattering of his dream, for he
scarcely thought of himself; not in doubt, for he had done rightly, and
his church could not be restored at the expense of right; but in sheer
dismay before the blank certainty that now his church must fall.
Nothing could save it. He must go home to it, live with it, watch it to
the inevitable end. He put out a hand against the iron pillar, and of a
sudden felt faint, almost sick. As a matter of fact, he had eaten
nothing since his early breakfast.
A few doors down the street the bright lamp of a tavern--the Sword and
Flag--caught his eye. He tottered in and asked for a glass of brandy.
It did him good, and he called for another. Some soldiers entering,
with a girl or two, and finding a clergyman seated with his glass in
this not over-reputable den, began to chaff. He answered gently and
good-naturedly, but with a slight stutter--enough to hint at fun ahead;
and they improved upon the hint. By nine o'clock Parson Jack was silly
drunk; at eleven, when the premises were closed, the police found him
speechless; and the rest of the night he spent in the borough lock-up.