THE CURIOSITY OF MR CARGRIM
Like that famous banquet, when Macbeth entertained unawares the ghost of
gracious Duncan, the bishop's reception broke up in the most admired
disorder. It was not Dr Pendle's wish that the entertainment should be
cut short on his account, but the rumour--magnified greatly--of his
sudden illness so dispirited his guests that they made haste to depart;
and within an hour the palace was emptied of all save its usual
inhabitants. Dr Graham in attendance on the bishop was the only stranger
who remained, for Lucy sent away even Sir Harry, although he begged hard
to stay in the hope of making himself useful. And the most unpleasant
part of the whole incident was, that no one seemed to know the reason of
Bishop Pendle's unexpected indisposition.
'He was quite well when I saw him last,' repeated poor Mrs Pendle over
and over again. 'And I never knew him to be ill before. What does it all
mean?'
'Perhaps papa's visitor brought him bad news,' suggested Lucy, who was
hovering round her mother with smelling-salts and a fan.
Mrs Pendle shook her head in much distress. 'Your father has no secrets
from me,' she said decisively, 'and, from all I know, it is impossible
that any news can have upset him so much.'
'Dr Graham may be able to explain,' said Gabriel.
'I don't want Dr Graham's explanation,' whimpered Mrs Pendle, tearfully.
'I dislike of all things to hear from a stranger what should be told to
myself. As your father's wife, he has no right to shut me out of his
confidence--and the library,' finished Mrs Pendle, with an aggrieved
afterthought.
Certainly the bishop's conduct was very strange, and would have upset
even a less nervous woman than Mrs Pendle. Neither of her children could
comfort her in any way, for, ignorant themselves of what had occurred,
they could make no suggestions. Fortunately, at this moment, Dr Graham,
with a reassuring smile on his face, made his appearance, and proceeded
to set their minds at ease.
'Tut! tut! my dear lady!' he said briskly, advancing on Mrs Pendle,
'what is all this?'
'The bishop--'
'The bishop is suffering from a slight indisposition brought on by too
much exertion in entertaining. He will be all right to-morrow.'
'This visitor has had nothing to do with papa's illness, then?'
'No, Miss Lucy. The visitor was only a decayed clergyman in search of
help.'
'Cannot I see my husband?' was the anxious question of the bishop's
wife.
Graham shrugged his shoulders, and looked doubtfully at the poor lady.
'Better not, Mrs Pendle,' he said judiciously. 'I have given him a
soothing draught, and now he is about to lie down. There is no occasion
for you to worry in the least. To-morrow morning you will be laughing
over this needless alarm. I suggest that you should go to bed and take a
stiff dose of valerian to sooth those shaky nerves of yours. Miss Lucy
will see to that.'
'I should like to see the bishop,' persisted Mrs Pendle, whose instinct
told her that the doctor was deceiving her.
'Well! well!' said he, good-humouredly, 'a wilful woman will have her
own way. I know you won't sleep a wink unless your mind is set at rest,
so you _shall_ see the bishop. Take my arm, please.'
'I can walk by myself, thank you!' replied Mrs Pendle, testily; and
nerved to unusual exertion by anxiety, she walked towards the library,
followed by the bishop's family and his chaplain, which latter watched
this scene with close attention.
'She'll collapse after this,' said Dr Graham, in an undertone to Lucy;
'you'll have a wakeful night, I fear.'
'I don't mind that, doctor, so long as there is no real cause for
alarm.'
'I give you my word of honour, Miss Lucy, that this is a case of much
ado about nothing.'
'Let us hope that such is the case,' said Cargrim, the Jesuit, in his
softest tones, whereupon Graham looked at him with a pronounced
expression of dislike.
'As a man, I don't tell lies; as a doctor, I never make false reports,'
said he, coldly; 'there is no need for your pious hopes, Mr Cargrim.'
The bishop was seated at his desk scribbling idly on his blotting-pad,
and rose to his feet with a look of alarm when his wife and family
entered. His usually ruddy colour had disappeared, and he was
white-faced and haggard in appearance; looking like a man who had
received a severe shock, and who had not yet recovered from it. On
seeing his wife, he smiled reassuringly, but with an obvious effort, and
hastened to conduct her to the chair he had vacated.
'Now, my dear,' he said, when she was seated, 'this will never do.'
'I am so anxious, George!'
'There is no need to be anxious,' retorted the bishop, in reproving
tones. 'I have been doing too much work of late, and unexpectedly I was
seized with a faintness. Graham's medicine and a night's rest will
restore me to my usual strength.'
'It's not your heart, I trust, George?'
'His heart!' jested the doctor. 'His lordship's heart is as sound as his
digestion.'
'We thought you might have been upset by bad news, papa.'
'I have had no bad news, Lucy. I am only a trifle overcome by late hours
and fatigue. Take your mother to bed; and you, my dear,' added the
bishop, kissing his wife, 'don't worry yourself unnecessarily.
Good-night, and good sleep.'
'Some valerian for your nerves, bishop--'
'I have taken something for my nerves, Amy. Rest is all I need just
now.'
Thus reassured, Mrs Pendle submitted to be led from the library by Lucy.
She was followed by Gabriel, who was now quite easy in his mind about
his father. Cargrim and Graham remained, but the bishop, taking no
notice of their presence, looked at the door through which his wife and
children had vanished, and uttered a sound something between a sigh and
a groan.
Dr Graham looked anxiously at him, and the look was intercepted by
Cargrim, who at once made up his mind that there was something seriously
wrong, which both Graham and the bishop desired to conceal. The doctor
noted the curious expression in the chaplain's eyes, and with bluff
good-humour--which was assumed, as he disliked the man--proceeded to
turn him out of the library. Cargrim--bent on discovering the
truth--protested, in his usual cat-like way, against this sudden
dismissal.
'I should be happy to sit up all night with his lordship,' he declared.
'Sit up with your grandmother!' cried Graham, gruffly. 'Go to bed, sir,
and don't make mountains out of mole-hills.'
'Good-night, my lord,' said Cargrim, softly. 'I trust you will find
yourself fully restored in the morning.'
'Thank you, Mr Cargrim; good-night!'
When the chaplain sidled out of the room, Dr Graham rubbed his hands and
turned briskly towards his patient, who was standing as still as any
stone, staring in a hypnotised sort of way at the reading lamp on the
desk.
'Come, my lord,' said he, touching the bishop on the shoulder, 'you must
take your composing draught and get to bed. You'll be all right in the
morning.'
'I trust so!' replied Pendle, with a groan.
'Of course, bishop, if you won't tell me what is the matter with you, I
can't cure you.'
'I am upset, doctor, that is all.'
'You have had a severe nervous shock,' said Graham, sharply, 'and it
will take some time for you to recover from it. This visitor brought you
bad news, I suppose?'
'No!' said the bishop, wincing, 'he did not.'
'Well! well! keep your own secrets. I can do no more, so I'll say
good-night,' and he held out his hand.
Dr Pendle took it and retained it within his own for a moment. 'Your
allusion to the ring of Polycrates, Graham!'
'What of it?'
'I should throw my ring into the sea also. That is all.'
'Ha! ha! You'll have to travel a considerable distance to reach the sea,
bishop. Good-night; good-night,' and Graham, smiling in his dry way,
took himself out of the room. As he glanced back at the door he saw that
the bishop was again staring dully at the reading lamp. Graham shook his
head at the sight, and closed the door.
'It is mind, not matter,' he thought, as he put on hat and coat in the
hall; 'the cupboard's open and the skeleton is out. My premonition was
true--true. AEsculapius forgive me that I should be so superstitious. The
bishop has had a shock. What is it? what is it? That visitor brought bad
news! Hum! Hum! Better to throw physic to the dogs in his case. Mind
diseased: secret trouble: my punishment is greater than I can bear. Put
this and that together; there is something serious the matter. Well!
well! I'm no Paul Pry.'
'Is his lordship better?' said the soft voice of Cargrim at his elbow.
Graham wheeled round. 'Much better; good-night,' he replied curtly, and
was off in a moment.
Michael Cargrim, the chaplain, was a dangerous man. He was thin and
pale, with light blue eyes and sleek fair hair; and as weak physically
as he was strong mentally. In his neat clerical garb, with a slight
stoop and meek smile, he looked a harmless, commonplace young curate of
the tabby cat kind. No one could be more tactful and ingratiating than
Mr Cargrim, and he was greatly admired by the old ladies and young girls
of Beorminster; but the men, one and all--even his clerical
brethren--disliked and distrusted him, although there was no apparent
reason for their doing so. Perhaps his too deferential manners and
pronounced effeminacy, which made him shun manly sports, had something
to do with his masculine unpopularity; but, from the bishop downward, he
was certainly no favourite, and in every male breast he constantly
inspired a desire to kick him. The clergy of the diocese maintained
towards him a kind of 'Dr Fell' attitude, and none of them had more to
do with him than they could help. With all the will in the world, with
all the desire to interpret brotherly love in its most liberal sense,
the Beorminster Levites found it impossible to like Mr Cargrim. Hence he
was a kind of clerical Ishmael, and as dangerous within as he looked
harmless without.
How such a viper came to warm itself on the bishop's hearth no one could
say. Mrs Pansey herself did not know in what particular way Mr Cargrim
had wriggled himself--so she expressed it--into his present snug
position. But, to speak frankly, there was no wriggling in the matter,
and had the bishop felt himself called upon to explain his business to
anyone, he could have given a very reasonable account of the election of
Cargrim to the post of chaplain. The young man was the son of an old
schoolfellow, to whom Pendle had been much attached, and from whom, in
the earlier part of his career, he had received many kindnesses. This
schoolfellow--he was a banker--had become a bankrupt, a beggar, finally
a suicide, through no fault of his own, and when dying, had commended
his wife and son to the bishop's care. Cargrim was then fifteen years of
age, and being clever and calculating, even as a youth, had determined
to utilise the bishop's affection for his father to its fullest extent.
He was clever, as has been stated; he was also ambitious and
unscrupulous; therefore he resolved to enter the profession in which Dr
Pendle's influence would be of most value. For this reason, and not
because he felt a call to the work, he entered holy orders. The result
of his wisdom was soon apparent, for after a short career as a curate in
London, he was appointed chaplain to the Bishop of Beorminster.
So far, so good. The position, for a young man of twenty-eight, was by
no means a bad one; the more so as it gave him a capital opportunity of
gaining a better one by watching for the vacancy of a rich preferment
and getting it from his patron by asking directly and immediately for
it. Cargrim had in his eye the rectorship of a wealthy, easy-going
parish, not far from Beorminster, which was in the gift of the bishop.
The present holder was aged and infirm, and given so much to indulgence
in port wine, that the chances were he might expire within a few months,
and then, as the chaplain hoped, the next rector would be the Reverend
Michael Cargrim. Once that firm position was obtained, he could bend
his energies to developing into an archdeacon, a dean, even into a
bishop, should his craft and fortune serve him as he intended they
should. But in all these ambitious dreams there was nothing of religion,
or of conscience, or of self-denial. If ever there was a square peg
which tried to adapt itself to a round hole, Michael Cargrim,
allegorically speaking, was that article.
With all his love for the father, Dr Pendle could never bring himself to
like the son, and determined in his own mind to confer a benefice on him
when possible, if only to get rid of him; but not the rich one of
Heathcroft, which was the delectable land of Cargrim's desire. The
bishop intended to bestow that on Gabriel; and Cargrim, in his sneaky
way, had gained some inkling of this intention. Afraid of losing his
wished-for prize, he was bent upon forcing Dr Pendle into presenting him
with the living of Heathcroft; and to accomplish this amiable purpose
with the more certainty he had conceived the plan of somehow getting the
bishop into his power. Hitherto--so open and stainless was Dr Pendle's
life--he had not succeeded in his aims; but now matters looked more
promising, for the bishop appeared to possess a secret which he guarded
even from the knowledge of his wife. What this secret might be, Cargrim
could not guess, in spite of his anxiety to do so, but he intended in
one way or another to discover it and utilise it for the furtherance and
attainment of his own selfish ends. By gaining such forbidden knowledge
he hoped to get Dr Pendle well under his thumb; and once there the
prelate could be kept in that uncomfortable position until he gratified
Mr Cargrim's ambition. For a humble chaplain to have the whip-hand of a
powerful ecclesiastic was a glorious and easy way for a meritorious
young man to succeed in his profession. Having come to this conclusion,
which did more credit to his head than to his heart, Cargrim sought out
the servant who had summoned the bishop to see the stranger. A full
acquaintance with the circumstances of the visit was necessary to the
development of the Reverend Michael's ingenious little plot.
'This is a sad thing about his lordship's indisposition, said he to the
man in the most casual way, for it would not do to let the servant know
that he was being questioned for a doubtful purpose.
'Yes, sir,' replied the man. ''Tis mos' extraordinary. I never knowed
his lordship took ill before. I suppose that gentleman brought bad news,
sir.'
'Possibly, John, possibly. Was this gentleman a short man with light
hair? I fancy I saw him.'
'Lor', no, Mr Cargrim. He was tall and lean as a rake; looked like a
military gentleman, sir; and I don't know as I'd call him gentry
either,' added John, half to himself. 'He wasn't what he thought he
was.'
'A decayed clergyman, John?' inquired Cargrim, remembering Graham's
description.
'There was lots of decay but no clergy about him, sir. I fancy I knows a
parson when I sees one. Clergymen don't have scars on their cheekses as
I knows of.'
'Oh, indeed!' said Cargrim, mentally noting that the doctor had spoken
falsely. 'So he had a scar?'
'A red scar, sir, on the right cheek, from his temple to the corner of
his mouth. He was as dark as pitch in looks, with a military moustache,
and two black eyes like gimblets. His clothes was shabby, and his looks
was horrid. Bad-tempered too, sir, I should say, for when he was with
his lordship I 'eard his voice quite angry like. It ain't no clergy as
'ud speak like that to our bishop, Mr Cargrim.'
'And his lordship was taken ill when this visitor departed, John?'
'Right off, sir. When I got back to the library after showing him out I
found his lordship gas'ly pale.'
'And his paleness was caused by the noisy conduct of this man?'
'Couldn't have bin caused by anything else, sir.'
'Dear me! dear me! this is much to be deplored,' sighed Cargrim, in his
softest manner. 'And a clergyman too.'
'Beggin' your pardon, sir, he weren't no clergyman,' cried John, who was
an old servant and took liberties; 'he was more like a tramp or a gipsy.
I wouldn't have left him near the plate, I know.'
'We must not judge too harshly, John. Perhaps this poor man was in
trouble.'
'He didn't look like it, Mr Cargrim. He went in and came out quite cocky
like. I wonder his lordship didn't send for the police.'
'His lordship is too kind-hearted, John. This stranger had a scar, you
say?'
'Yes, sir; a red scar on the right cheek.'
'Dear me! no doubt he has been in the wars. Good-night, John. Let us
hope that his lordship will be better after a night's rest.'
'Good-night, sir!'
The chaplain walked away with a satisfied smile on his meek face.
'I must find the man with the scar,' he thought, 'and then--who knows.'