"But she herself was conspicuous in parochial work? Is it a fact that
she played the organ in church?"
"It is."
The fact was noted, the pen laid down; and the little old man, who
looked only great across his desk, leant back in his chair.
"I am exceedingly anxious that you should have fair play. Let me say
plainly that these are not my first inquiries into the matter. I am
informed--I wish to know with what truth--that the young woman
disappeared for several months before her death?"
"It is quite true."
"And returned to give birth to her child?"
"And to die!" said Carlton, in his grim determination neither to shield
nor to spare himself in any of his answers. But his hands were clenched,
and his white face glistened with his pain.
The bishop watched him with an eye grown mild with understanding, and a
heart hot with mercy for the man who had no mercy on himself. But the
tight mouth never relaxed, and the peculiar voice was unaltered when it
broke the silence. It was the voice of justice, neither kind nor unkind,
severe nor lenient, only grave, deliberate, matter-of-fact.
"My next question is dictated by information received, or let me say by
suspicions communicated. It is a vital question; do not answer unless
you like. It is, however, a question that will infallibly arise
elsewhere. Were you, or were you not, privy to this poor young woman's
disappearance?"
"Before God, my lord, I was not!"
"I understand that her parents had no idea where she was until the very
end. Had you none either?"
"No more than they had. We were equally in the dark. We believed that
she had gone to stay with a friend from the village--a young woman who
had married from service, and was settled near London. It was several
weeks before we discovered that her friend had never seen her."
"And all this time you did not suspect her condition?"
"Yes; then I did; but not before."
"She made no communication before she went away?"
"None whatever to me--none whatever, to my knowledge."
"And this was early in the year?"
"She left Long Stow in January, and we had no news of her till the
middle of June, when strangers communicated with her father."
Again the bishop leant over his foolscap.
"Did you ever offer her marriage?" he asked abruptly.
"Repeatedly!"
The clear eyes looked up.
"Did you not tell her father this?"
"No; I couldn't condescend to tell him," said Carlton, flushing for the
first time. "My lord, I have made no excuses. There are none to make.
That was none at all."
His lordship regarded the changed face with no further change in his
own.
"So you loved her," he said softly, after a pause.
"Ah! if only I had loved her more!"
"If excuse there could be . . . love . . . is some."
It was the old man murmuring, as old men will, all unknown to the bishop
and the judge.
"But I want no excuses!" cried Carlton, wildly. "And let me be honest
now, whatever I have been in the past; if I deceived myself and others,
let me undeceive myself and you! Oh, my lord, that wasn't love! It's the
bitterest thought of all, the most shameful confession of all. But love
must be something better; that can't be love! It was passion, if you
like; it was a passion that swept me away in the pride of my strength;
but, God forgive me, it was not love!"
He hid his face in his writhing hands; and, with those wild eyes off
him, the bishop could no longer swallow his compassion. The lines of his
mouth relaxed, and lo, the mouth was beautiful. A tender light suffused
the aged face, and behold, the face was gentle beyond belief.
"Love is everything," the old man said; "but even passion is something,
in these cold days of little lives and little sins. And honesty like
yours is a great deal, Robert Carlton, though your sin be as scarlet,
and the Blood of our Blessed Lord alone can make you clean."
Carlton looked up swiftly, a new solicitude in his eyes.
"In me it was scarlet: not in her. She loved . . . she loved. Oh, to
have loved as well--to have that to remember! . . . She thought it would
spoil my life; and I never guessed it was that! But now I know, I know!
It was for my sake she went away . . . poor child . . . poor mistaken
heroine! She died for me, and I cannot die for her. Isn't that hard? I
can't even die for her!"
His bodily weakness betrayed itself in his swimming eyes; in the night
of his agony no tear had dimmed them before men. But his will was not
all gone. With clenched fists, and locked jaw, and beaded brow, he
fought his weakness, while the good bishop sat with his head on his
hand, and closed eyes, praying for a brother in the valley of despair.
When he opened his eyes, it was as though his prayer was heard; for
Robert Carlton was bearing himself with a new bravery; and the
incongruous unquenched fires, which had caused surprise at the outset of
the interview, burnt brightly as before in the younger eyes. The old man
met them with a sad, grave scrutiny. But the lines of his mouth remained
relaxed. And, when he spoke again, his voice was very gentle.
"You may think that I have put you to unnecessary pain," he said, "when
I give you fair warning that your case must form the subject of further
proceedings in another place. But I had heard that your conduct was
indefensible, root and branch, from beginning to end. Of that I am now
able to form my own opinion. Yet my individual opinion can make no
difference in the result, since absolute deprivation I had never
contemplated in your case, and it is only the extreme penalty which
rests with me. On the other hand, it will be my duty to set the
ecclesiastical law in motion; and the ecclesiastical law must take its
course. I take it that you do not propose to defend your case?"
A grim light flickered for an instant in Robert Carlton's eyes. "Have I
defended it hitherto, my lord?"
"Then there can only be one result; and you must make up your mind, as
you have doubtless already done, to suspension for a term of years. If
word of mine can lessen that term, it shall be spoken in your favour,
both out of consideration of the great work that you were doing, and
have done, and in view of certain circumstances which our conversation
has brought to light."
"But can you want me back in the Church?" cried Carlton; and his heart
beat high with the question; but turned heavier than before in the
interval of prudent deliberation which preceded any answer.
"I would punish no man beyond the letter of the law," declared the
bishop at length, "even if it were in my power to do so. The Act debars
suspended clergymen from all exercise of their divine calling and from
all pecuniary enjoyment of their benefice until the term of such
suspension is up. I would not, if I could, prolong the period of
disability by throwing further let or hindrance in the way of an erring
brother who repents him truly of his sin. I would rather say, 'Come back
to your work, live down the past, and, by your example in the years that
may be left you, pluck up the tares that your bad example has surely
sown. Retrieve all but the irretrievable. Undo what you can.'"
Carlton's eyes melted in gratitude too great for speech, but plain as
the benediction which his trembling lips left eloquently unsaid.
"That," continued the bishop, "is what I should say to you--because I
think we understood each other. You have not sought to palliate your
offence; nor are you the man to misconstrue the little I may have said
concerning the offence itself. What is there to be said? You know well
enough that I lament it as I lament its mournful result, and deplore it
as I deplore the blot on the whole body of Christ's Church militant here
on earth. You have committed a great sin, against humanity, against God,
and against your Church; yet he would commit a greater who sought on
that account to hound you from that Church for ever. Courage, brother!
Pray without ceasing. Look forward, not back; and do not despair.
Despair is the devil's best friend; better give way to deadly sin than
to deadlier despair! Remember that you have done good work for God in
days gone by; and live for that brighter day when you have purged your
sin, and may be worthy to work for Him again."
"And meanwhile?" whispered Carlton, for fear of shouting it in his
passionate anxiety. "Is there nothing I may do meanwhile--among my own
poor people--before the tares come up?"
"If you are suspended you will be unable to hold any service; and I
hardly think you will care to go among your parishioners while that is
so."
"But I shall not be forbidden my own parish?"
"Not forbidden."
"Nor my rectory?"
"No; so far as I am aware, at least, you retain your right to reside
there; but I can hardly think that it would be expedient."
"And the church! They must have their church back again. Who is going to
rebuild it for them?"
Carlton was on his feet in the last excitement. The bishop regarded him
with puzzled eyebrows.
"I have heard nothing on that subject as yet; it is a little early, is
it not? But I have no doubt that it will be a matter for subscription
among themselves."
"Among my poor people?"
"With substantial aid, I should hope, from men of substance in the
neighbourhood."
"But why should they pay?" cried Carlton, impetuously. "The church was
not burnt down for my neighbours' sins, nor for the sins of the parish,
but for mine alone . . . Oh, my lord, if I could but go back among my
people, and be their servant, I who was too much their master before! I
was not quite dependent--thank God, I had a little of my own--but every
penny should be theirs!"
And the profligate priest stood upright before his bishop--his white
hands clasped, his white face shining, his burning eyes moist--zealot
and suppliant in one.
"You desire to spend your income----"
"No, no, my capital!"
"On the poor of your parish? I--I fail to understand."
"And I scarcely dare make you!" confessed Carlton, his full voice
failing him. "I so fear your disapproval; and I could set my face
against all the world, but against you never, much less after this
morning . . . Oh, my lord, I have set my poor people a dastardly
example, and brought cruel shame upon my cloth; for its sake and for
theirs, if not for my own, let me at least leave among them a tangible
sign and symbol of my true repentance. I have the chance! I have such a
chance as God alone in His infinite mercy could vouchsafe to a miserable
sinner. My church at Long Stow has been burnt down through me--through
my sin--to punish me----"
"Are you sure of that, Mr. Carlton?"
"I know it, my lord. And I want to do what only seems to me my bounden
and my obvious duty, and to do it soon."
The bishop looked enlightened but amazed.
"You would rebuild the church out of your own pocket? Is that really
your wish?"
"It is my prayer!"
VIII
THE LORD OF THE MANOR.
Wilton Gleed owed his success in life to a natural bent for the politic
virtues, and to the quality of energy unalloyed by enterprise. He was a
man of much shrewdness and extraordinary tenacity, but absolutely no
initiative; so he had taken his opportunities and held his ground
without running a risk that he could remember. Not a self-made man, he
was, however, the son of one who had made himself by dint of that very
enterprise which was lacking in Wilton Gleed. The father had seen a
certain want and filled it to the satisfaction of the wide world; the
son had extended the business without meddling with the product of the
firm. Monopolies die hard. Gleed & Son did nothing to deserve a swift
demise. They just stalked behind the times, and appeared to thrive on a
sublime contempt of competition. And those who knew him best were the
most surprised when Wilton Gleed turned the great concern into a limited
liability company, and made a fortune out of the transaction alone; it
was the most daring thing that he had ever done.
The reason for the step may be related as characteristic of the man. Age
had given the firm a certain aristocracy of degree--not of kind--even
age could not soften the fact that Gleed & Son sold things in tins. And
the tins it was that turned plain Gleed & Son into Gleed & Son, Limited.
Some innovator was making tins with cunning openers attached; the lesser
firms jumped at the improvement. The lesser firms were already doing
Gleeds' some slight damage in their go-ahead little way; but the worst
they could all do together was as nothing compared with the extra
expenditure of an appreciable fraction of a farthing per tin on an
output of millions in the year. Wilton Gleed could not face the
immediate hole in his profits. He had never taken a risk in his life,
and was not going to begin. He had increased his expenses by going into
Parliament, and he was not such a fool as to play tricks with his
income. He faced the situation as though it were ruin staring him in the
face, and lost a discernible measure of flesh before his big resolve. It
was all he did lose over the ultimate operation. He retired into private
and public life with more money than he knew how to spend.
The average man is at his best as host, and in that capacity Wilton
Gleed was popular among his friends. He was an excellent sportsman of
the selfish sort; cherished a contempt for the various games which
involve playing for one's side; but was a first-rate shot, a fine
fisherman, and a good rider spoilt by his great principle of refusing
the risks. To shoot and dine with him was to see Gleed at his very best.
He was a bald little man, with silver-sandy moustache and close-cropped
whiskers; but his full-blooded face was still pink with health, his
fixed eye unerring as ever, his step elastic as the heather he loved to
tread. Gun in hand, in his tweeds and gaiters, and with his cap pulled
well over his head, Wilton Gleed never passed the prime of life; it was
late in the evening before he collected the years blown away on the
moor; and in its way the evening was as delectable as the day. The
dinner was a good one, and the host abandoned himself to its joys with a
schoolboy's ardour. Irreproachable champagne flowed like water, more
especially at the head of the table. Gleed carried it like a gentleman,
also the port that followed, though a little inclined to be garrulous
about the latter. As he sipped and gossiped, and settled the Eastern
Question in two words, and Mr. Gladstone's hash in one, the skin would
shine as it tightened on the bald head, and the always intent eye would
fix the listener beyond the needs of the conversation. It was very
seldom, however, that a syllable slid out of place, or that Wilton Gleed
went to bed looking quite his age.
For some years he had leased various shootings in the autumn, spending
the other seasons at a lordly but suburban retreat inherited from his
father, with an occasional swoop abroad--the correct place at the
correct time--less for enjoyment than for other reasons. Gun, rod, and
cellar were what he did enjoy, and of these delights he vowed to have
his fill after getting out of Gleeds with unexpected spoils. A sporting
estate was in the market within two hours and a half of town; and for
forty thousand pounds Wilton Gleed became squire of Long Stow, patron of
an excellent living, and a large landowner in a country where he had a
nucleus of friends and soon made more. As Member of Parliament for that
division of London in which Gleeds had employed hundreds of hands for
half a hundred years, he at the same time bought a house in town, and
let the place outside. Subtler investments followed. The man was
becoming a gambler in his old age; but he played his own game with
ineradicable care and foresight, and rose Sir Wilton Gleed when his side
lost in the General Election of 1880. It was only a knighthood, and Sir
Wilton might have entertained justifiable hopes of his baronetcy; but
one or the other had been a moral certainty for some time.
It was in Hyde Park Place that Sir Wilton first heard of the Long Stow
scandal and its immediate sequel. The news came in a few dry lines from
Sidney, by the first post on the Monday morning, June 26, 1882. It fell
like a firebrand in a keg of gunpowder. Sir Wilton, however, had even
better reasons than were obvious for his paroxysm of rage and
indignation; personal mortification was not the least of his emotions.
He would have gone down by the next train to "horsewhip the hound within
an inch of his life," but the cur had taken refuge in Lakenhall
Infirmary, "with very little the matter with him," in Sidney's words.
And just then the House was an Aceldama which no good soldier could
desert for a night, with the Government satisfactorily on the spit
between Phoenix Park and Alexandria, and the Opposition creeping up vote
by vote. Sir Wilton decided to run down on the Wednesday for twenty-four
hours, and talked of having the rectory furniture thrown into the street
if the rector was not there to take it and himself away for good. Sir
Wilton had his own impression as to his powers as patron of the living,
and he very naturally swore that he would "have that blackguard out of
it" within the week. A friend at the Carlton put him right on the point.
"You can't do that, Gleed. A living's like nothing else. My lord gives,
but my lord can't take away."
"Then what on earth am I to do?"
"Get him inhibited and make him resign. It will come to the same thing."
The fire was in all the newspapers, with the hint of a scandal at the
end of the paragraph. Among those who spoke to Sir Wilton on the subject
was a jaunty politician who had never yet recognised him at the club.
"Sir Wilton Gleed, I think? I fancy we have met before?"
"Indeed, my lord?"
It was the noble who had chosen to forget the circumstance hitherto;
to-day he was all courtesy and confidential concern. What was this about
the church that had been burnt down? He had heard it was on the other's
estate. Sir Wilton professed to know no more as yet than the papers told
him.
"I ask because it reads to me----don't you know? Some scandal----what?
And I'm sorry to say--fellow Carlton--sort of connection of mine."
"To be sure," said Sir Wilton. "I remember hearing it."
"Odd fish, I'm afraid. Here in town for years, at that ritualistic shop
across the park--forget my own name next. Might have had a good time if
he'd liked. Never went out. Preferred the mews. Made a specialty of
footmen and fellows. Had a night club somewhere, where he taught 'em to
box, and brought my own man home himself one night with an eye like
your boot. It was about the only time we met. Remember hearing he could
preach, though; only hope he hasn't been making a fool of himself down
there!"
"I hope not also," said the discreet knight; "but I am going down
to-morrow, so I shall hear."
He went down very grim: for Robert Carlton had not only been a thorn in
his side that twelve-month past; he actually stood for the one false
move, of importance, which Sir Wilton Gleed was conscious of having made
in all his life. Yet he had taken no step with more complete confidence
and self-approval. A gentleman and man of brain, reported by Lady Gleed
and their daughter, and duly admitted by himself, to be the best
preacher they had ever heard; a man of family into the bargain, and not
such a distant cadet as the head of that family implied; could any
combination have promised a more suitable successor to the venerable
sportsman who had scorned white ties and caught his death coursing in
mid-winter with Dr. Marigold? And yet the fellow had proved a perfect
pest from the beginning. He had gone his own gait with a quiet
independence only less exasperating than his personal courtesy and
deference in every quarrel. In fact there had been no regular quarrel:
the squire had only been rather rude to the rector's face, and very
abusive behind his back. Nor was Sir Wilton's annoyance in the least
surprising. Devoid himself of a single religious conviction, but the
natural enemy of change, he viewed the inevitable, but too immediate,
innovations in the light of a personal affront; but when his own
expostulations were met with polite argument on a subject which he had
never studied, and he found himself at issue with a cleverer and a
stronger man, who put him in the illogical position of objecting in the
country to what his family approved in town, then there was no
alternative for the squire but to withdraw from the unequal field and
wait upon revenge. Too politic to break with one who after all had more
followers than foes, and who speedily made himself the first person in
the parish, Sir Wilton very naturally hated his man the more for those
very considerations which induced him to curb his tongue. But his
disappointment was manifold. It was not as if the fellow had proved
personally congenial to himself. He preferred teaching the lads cricket
to shooting with the squire, and he was a poor diner-out. His
predecessor had shot almost (but not quite) as well as Sir Wilton
himself, and had the harder head of the two for port. Carlton was not
even in touch with his own people. There was no advantage in the man at
all.
But now the end was in sight--the incredibly premature and disgraceful
end. Sir Wilton went down grim enough, but much less angry and indignant
than he supposed. Most of his wrath was the accumulation of months, free
for expression at last. He was, however, a good and clean citizen
according to his lights, and he did undoubtedly feel the rightful
indignation with which the story from Long Stow was calculated to
inspire many a worse man. Arrived at Lakenhall, where the stanhope was
waiting for him, he asked but one question on the way to Long Stow, and
then drove straight past the hall to the church. Here he got down, and
examined the black ruins with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders
very square and a fixed glare of mingled rage and exultation. Then he
walked past the broken windows, and the stanhope met him at the rectory
gate. He drove home without a word. His one question had elicited the
fact that the rector was still in the infirmary.
The village street cut clean through the high-walled hall garden, and
the brown-brick hall itself stood as near the road as the mansion in
Hyde Park Place, and was the uglier building of the two, from the dormer
windows in the steep slates to the portico with the painted pillars.
Within was the depressing atmosphere of a great house all but empty. Sir
Wilton hurried through a twilit drawing-room in deadly order, and forth
by a French window into a pleasaunce of elms and plane-trees whose
shadows lay sharp as themselves upon the shaven sward. A girl was coming
across the grass to meet him, a girl at the awkward age, with her dark
hair in a plait and her black dress neither long nor short. Sir Wilton
brushed her cheek with his bleached moustache.
"Where's Fraulein?" he said.
"In the schoolroom, I think, uncle."
"I want to speak to her. I'm only down for the night and shall be busy.
I'll be looking round the garden, tell her."
And he walked away from the house, treading vigorously on the cropped
grass; and presently a little middle-aged lady, with a plain, shrewd
face, flitted over it in her turn. She found Sir Wilton between the four
yew hedges and the mathematical parterres of the Italian garden at the
further end of the lawn. He shook hands with her, but gave free rein,
for the second time in five minutes, to his idiosyncrasy of hard
staring.
Fraulein Hentig had been many years in the family, and had taken many
parts; at present she was permanent housekeeper in the country, but had
lately also recommenced old schoolroom duties on the adoption by Sir
Wilton of his only brother's only child. There was no nonsense about
Fraulein Hentig. She told Sir William all that she had heard and all
that she believed was true, without mincing facts or wincing at the
expletives which more than once interrupted her tale. As it proceeded
the fixed eyes lightened with a vindictive glitter; but the end found
Sir Wilton scowling.
"I wish I'd been here! I wouldn't have let them break his windows; no, I
should have claimed the privilege of horsewhipping him with my own
hands. I'd do it still if he were here; but he'll never show his nose in
Long Stow again. I suppose there's no doubt the church was wilfully set
fire to?"
"None at all from what I hear, Sir Wilton."
"Is nobody suspected?"