CHAPTER I_The Bishop's Secret

E-text prepared by Annie McGuire, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg

Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

[Illustration: Book Cover]

THE BISHOP'S SECRET

FERGUS HUME,

Author of "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," "For the Defense," "The

Harlequin Opal," "The Girl from Malta," Etc.

Chicago and New York:

Rand, McNally & Company,

Publishers.

PREFACE.

In his earlier works, notably in "The Mystery of a Hansom Cab" and "The

Silent House in Pimlico," Mr. Hume won a reputation second to none for

plot of the stirring, ingenious, misleading, and finally surprising

kind, and for working out his plot in vigorous and picturesque English.

In "The Bishop's Secret," while there is no falling off in plot and

style, there is a welcome and marvelous broadening out as to the cast of

characters, representing an unusually wide range of typical men and

women. These are not laboriously described by the author, but are made

to reveal themselves in action and speech in a way that has, for the

reader, all the charm of personal intercourse with living people.

Mr. Hume's treatment of the peculiar and exclusive ecclesiastical

society of a small English cathedral city is quite worthy of Anthony

Trollope, and his leading character, Bishop Pendle, is equal to

Trollope's best bishop. The Reverend Mr. Cargrim, the Bishop's poor and

most unworthy protege, is a meaner Uriah Heep. Mrs. Pansey is the

embodiment of all shrewishness, and yields unlimited amusement. The

Gypsies are genuine--such as George Borrow, himself, would have pictured

them--not the ignorant caricatures so frequently drawn by writers too

lazy to study their subject.

Besides these types, there are several which seem to have had no exact

prototypes in preceding fiction. Such are Doctor Graham, "The Man with a

Scar," the Mosk family--father, mother, and daughter--Gabriel Pendle,

Miss Winchello, and, last but not least, Mr. Baltic--a detective so

unique in character and methods as to make Conan Doyle turn green with

envy.

All in all, this story is so rich in the essential elements of worthy

fiction--in characterization, exciting adventure, suggestions of the

marvelous, wit, humor, pathos, and just enough of tragedy--that it is

offered to the American public in all confidence that it will be

generally and heartily welcomed.

THE PUBLISHERS.

CHAPTER I

'ENTER MRS PANSEY AS CHORUS'

Of late years an anonymous mathematician has declared that in the

British Isles the female population is seven times greater than the

male; therefore, in these days is fulfilled the scriptural prophecy that

seven women shall lay hold of one man and entreat to be called by his

name. Miss Daisy Norsham, a veteran Belgravian spinster, decided, after

some disappointing seasons, that this text was particularly applicable

to London. Doubtful, therefore, of securing a husband at the rate of one

chance in seven, or dissatisfied at the prospect of a seventh share in a

man, she resolved upon trying her matrimonial fortunes in the country.

She was plain, this lady, as she was poor; nor could she rightly be said

to be in the first flush of maidenhood. In all matters other than that

of man-catching she was shallow past belief. Still, she did hope, by

dint of some brisk campaigning in the diocese of Beorminster, to capture

a whole man unto herself.

Her first step was to wheedle an invitation out of Mrs Pansey, an

archdeacon's widow--then on a philanthropic visit to town--and she

arrived, towards the end of July, in the pleasant cathedral city of

Beorminster, in time to attend a reception at the bishop's palace. Thus

the autumn manoeuvres of Miss Norsham opened most auspiciously.

Mrs Pansey, with whom this elderly worshipper of Hymen had elected to

stay during her visit, was a gruff woman, with a scowl, who 'looked all

nose and eyebrows.' Few ecclesiastical matrons were so well known in

the diocese of Beorminster as was Mrs Pansey; not many, it must be

confessed, were so ardently hated, for there were few pies indeed in

which this dear lady had not a finger; few keyholes through which her

eye did not peer. Her memory and her tongue, severally and combined, had

ruined half the reputations in the county. In short, she was a renowned

social bully, and like most bullies she gained her ends by scaring the

lives out of meeker and better-bred people than herself. These latter

feared her 'scenes' as she rejoiced in them, and as she knew the pasts

of her friends from their cradle upwards, she usually contrived, by a

pitiless use of her famous memory, to put to rout anyone so ill-advised

as to attempt a stand against her domineering authority. When her tall,

gaunt figure--invariably arrayed in the blackest of black silks--was

sighted in a room, those present either scuttled out of the way or

judiciously held their peace, for everyone knew Mrs Pansey's talent for

twisting the simplest observation into some evil shape calculated to get

its author into trouble. She excelled in this particular method of

making mischief. Possessed of ample means and ample leisure, both of

these helped her materially to build up her reputation of a

philanthropic bully. She literally swooped down upon the poor, taking

one and all in charge to be fed, physicked, worked and guided according

to her own ideas. In return for benefits conferred, she demanded an

unconditional surrender of free will. Nobody was to have an opinion but

Mrs Pansey; nobody knew what was good for them unless their ideas

coincided with those of their patroness--which they never did. Mrs

Pansey had never been a mother, yet, in her own opinion, there was

nothing about children she did not know. She had not studied medicine,

therefore she dubbed the doctors a pack of fools, saying she could cure

where they failed. Be they tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, Mrs

Pansey invariably knew more about their vocations than they themselves

did or were ever likely to do. In short, this celebrated lady--for her

reputation was more than local--was what the American so succinctly

terms a 'she-boss'; and in a less enlightened age she would indubitably

have been ducked in the Beorflete river as a meddlesome, scolding,

clattering jade. Indeed, had anyone been so brave as to ignore the

flight of time and thus suppress her, the righteousness of the act would

most assuredly have remained unquestioned.

Now, as Miss Norsham wanted, for her own purposes, to 'know the ropes,'

she was fortunate to come within the gloom of Mrs Pansey's silken robes.

For Mrs Pansey certainly knew everyone, if she did not know everything,

and whomsoever she chaperoned had to be received by Beorminster society,

whether Beorminster society liked it or not. All _protegees_ of Mrs

Pansey sheltered under the aegis of her terrible reputation, and woe to

the daring person who did not accept them as the most charming, the

cleverest, and in every way the most desirable of their sex. But in the

memory of man, no one had ever sustained battle against Mrs Pansey, and

so this feminine Selkirk remained monarch of all she surveyed, and ruled

over a community consisting mainly of canons, vicars and curates, with

their respective wives and offsprings. There were times when her

subjects made use of language not precisely ecclesiastic, and not

infrequently Mrs Pansey's name was mentally included in the Commination

Service.

Thus it chanced that Daisy, the spinster, found herself in Mrs Pansey's

carriage on her way to the episcopalian reception, extremely well

pleased with herself, her dress, her position, and her social guardian

angel. The elder lady was impressively gloomy in her usual black silk,

fashioned after the early Victorian mode, when elegance invariably gave

place to utility. Her headgear dated back to the later Georgian epoch.

It consisted mainly of a gauze turban twinkling with jet ornaments. Her

bosom was defended by a cuirass of cold-looking steel beads, finished

off at the throat by a gigantic brooch, containing the portrait and hair

of the late archdeacon. Her skirts were lengthy and voluminous, so that

they swept the floor with a creepy rustle like the frou-frou of a

brocaded spectre. She wore black silk mittens, and on either bony wrist

a band of black velvet clasped with a large cameo set hideously in pale

gold. Thus attired--a veritable caricature by Leech--this survival of a

prehistoric age sat rigidly upright and mangled the reputations of all

and sundry.

Miss Norsham, in all but age, was very modern indeed. Her neck was lean;

her arms were thin. She made up for lack of quality by display of

quantity. In her _decollete_ costume she appeared as if composed of

bones and diamonds. The diamonds represented the bulk of Miss Norsham's

wealth, and she used them not only for the adornment of her uncomely

person, but for the deception of any possible suitor into the belief

that she was well dowered. She affected gauzy fabrics and fluttering

baby ribbons, so that her dress was as the fleecy flakes of snow

clinging to a well-preserved ruin.

For the rest she had really beautiful eyes, a somewhat elastic mouth,

and a straight nose well powdered to gloss over its chronic redness. Her

teeth were genuine and she cultivated what society novelists term

silvery peals of laughter. In every way she accentuated or obliterated

nature in her efforts to render herself attractive.

Ichabod was writ large on her powdered brow, and it needed no great

foresight to foresee the speedy approach of acidulated spinsterhood.

But, to do her justice, this regrettable state of single blessedness was

far from being her own fault. If her good fortune had but equalled her

courage and energy she should have relinquished celibacy years ago.

'Oh, dear--dear Mrs Pansey,' said the younger lady, strong in adjectives

and interjections and reduplication of both, 'is the bishop very, very

sweet?'

'He's sweet enough as bishops go,' growled Mrs Pansey, in her deep-toned

voice. 'He might be better, and he might be worse. There is too much

Popish superstition and worship of idols about him for my taste. If the

departed can smell,' added the lady, with an illustrative sniff, 'the

late archdeacon must turn in his grave when those priests of Baal and

Dagon burn incense at the morning service. Still, Bishop Pendle has his

good points, although he _is_ a time-server and a sycophant.'

'Is he one of the Lancashire Pendles, dear Mrs Pansey?'

'A twenty-fifth cousin or thereabouts. He says he is a nearer relation,

but I know much more about it than he does. If you want an ornamental

bishop with good legs for gaiters, and a portly figure for an apron, Dr

Pendle's the man. But as a God-fearing priest' (with a groan), 'a

simple worshipper' (groan) 'and a lowly, repentant sinner' (groan), 'he

leaves much--much to be desired.'

'Oh, Mrs Pansey, the dear bishop a sinner?'

'Why not?' cried Mrs Pansey, ferociously; 'aren't we all miserable

sinners? Dr Pendle's a human worm, just as you are--as I am. You may

dress him in lawn sleeves and a mitre, and make pagan genuflections

before his throne, but he is only a worm for all that.'

'What about his wife?' asked Daisy, to avert further expansion of this

text.

'A poor thing, my dear, with a dilated heart and not as much blood in

her body as would fill a thimble. She ought to be in a hospital, and

would be, too, if I had my way. Lolling all day long on a sofa, and

taking glasses of champagne between doses of iron and extract of beef;

then giving receptions and wearing herself out. How he ever came to

marry the white-faced doll I can't imagine. She was a Mrs Creagth when

she caught him.'

'Oh, really! a widow?'

'Of course, of course. You don't suppose she's a bigamist even though

he's a fool, do you?' and the eyebrows went up and down in the most

alarming manner. 'The bishop--he was a London curate then--married her

some eight-and-twenty years ago, and I daresay he has repented of it

ever since. They have three children--George' (with a whisk of her fan

at the mention of each name), 'who is a good-looking idiot in a line

regiment; Gabriel, a curate as white-faced as his mother, and no doubt

afflicted as she is with heart trouble. He was in Whitechapel, but his

father put him in a curacy here--it was sheer nepotism. Then there is

Lucy; she is the best of the bunch, which is not saying much. They've

engaged her to young Sir Harry Brace, and now they are giving this

reception to celebrate having inveigled him into the match.'

'Engaged?' sighed the fair Daisy, enviously. 'Oh, do tell me if this

girl is really, really pretty.'

'Humph,' said the eyebrows, 'a pale, washed-out rag of a creature--but

what can you expect from such a mother? No brains, no style, no

conversation; always a simpering, weak-eyed rag baby. Oh, my dear, what

fools men are!'

'Ah, you may well say that, dear Mrs Pansey,' assented the spinster,

thinking wrathfully of this unknown girl who had succeeded where she had

failed. 'Is it a very, very good match?'

'Ten thousand a year and a fine estate, my dear. Sir Harry is a nice

young fellow, but a fool. An absentee landlord, too,' grumbled Mrs

Pansey, resentfully. 'Always running over the world poking his nose into

what doesn't concern him, like the Wandering Jew or the _Flying

Dutchman_. Ah, my dear, husbands are not what they used to be. The late

archdeacon never left his fireside while I was there. I knew better than

to let him go to Paris or Pekin, or some of those sinks of iniquity.

Cook and Gaze indeed!' snorted Mrs Pansey, indignantly; 'I would abolish

them by Act of Parliament. They turn men into so many Satans walking to

and fro upon the earth. Oh, the immorality of these latter days! No

wonder the end of all things is predicted.'

Miss Norsham paid little attention to the latter portion of this

diatribe. As Sir Harry Brace was out of the matrimonial market it

conveyed no information likely to be of use to her in the coming

campaign. She wished to be informed as to the number and the names of

eligible men, and forewarned with regard to possible rivals.

'And who is really and truly the most beautiful girl in Beorminster?'

she asked abruptly.

'Mab Arden,' replied Mrs Pansey, promptly. 'There, now,' with an

emphatic blow of her fan, 'she is pretty, if you like, though I daresay

there is more art than nature about her.'

'Who is Mab Arden, dear Mrs Pansey?'

'She is Miss Whichello's niece, that's who she is.'

'Whichello? Oh, good gracious me! what a very, very funny name. Is Miss

Whichello a foreigner?'

'Foreigner? Bah!' cried Mrs Pansey, like a stentorian ram, 'she belongs

to a good old English family, and, in my opinion, she disgraces them

thoroughly. A meddlesome old maid, who wants to foist her niece on to

George Pendle; and she's likely to succeed, too,' added the lady,

rubbing her nose with a vexed air, 'for the young ass is in love with

Mab, although she is three years older than he is. Mr Cargrim also likes

the girl, though I daresay it is money with him.'

'Really! Mr Cargrim?'

'Yes, he is the bishop's chaplain; a Jesuit in disguise I call him, with

his moping and mowing and sneaky ways. Butter wouldn't melt in his

mouth; oh, dear no! I gave my opinion about him pretty plainly to Dr

Graham, I can tell you, and Graham's the only man with brains in this

city of fools.'

'Is Dr Graham young?' asked Miss Norsham, in the faint hope that Mrs

Pansey's list of inhabitants might include a wealthy bachelor.

'Young? He's sixty, if you call that young, and in his second childhood.

An Atheist, too. Tom Payn, Colonel Ingersoll, Viscount Amberly--those

are his gods, the pagan! I'd burn him on a tar-barrel if I had my way.

It's a pity we don't stick to some customs of our ancestors.'

'Oh, dear me, are there no young men at all?'

'Plenty, and all idiots. Brainless officers, whose wives would have to

ride on a baggage-waggon; silly young squires, whose ideal of womanhood

is a brazen barmaid; and simpering curates, put into the Church as the

fools of their respective families. I don't know what men are coming

to,' groaned Mrs Pansey. 'The late archdeacon was clever and pious; he

honoured and obeyed me as the marriage service says a man should do. I

was the light of the dear man's eyes.'

Had Mrs Pansey stated that she had been the terror of the late

archdeacon's life she would have been vastly nearer the truth, but such

a remark never occurred to her. Although she had bullied and badgered

the wretched little man until he had seized the first opportunity of

finding in the grave the peace denied him in life, she really and truly

believed that she had been a model wife. The egotism of first person

singular was so firmly ingrained in the woman that she could not

conceive what a scourge she was to mankind in general; what a trial she

had been to her poor departed husband in particular. If the late

Archdeacon Pansey had not died he would doubtless have become a

missionary to some cannibal tribe in the South Seas in the hope that

his tough helpmate would be converted into 'long-pig.' But, unluckily

for Beorminster, he was dead and his relict was a mourning widow, who

constantly referred to her victim as a perfect husband. And yet Mrs

Pansey considered that Anthony Trollope's celebrated Mrs Proudie was an

overdrawn character.

As to Miss Norsham, she was in the depths of despair, for, if Mrs Pansey

was to be believed, there was no eligible husband for her in

Beorminster. It was with a heavy heart that the spinster entered the

palace, and it was with the courage born of desperation that she perked

up and smiled on the gay crowd she found within.