disappeared on Saturday night. However, it turns out that he was already
in Lakenhall hours before the fire, and he never came back. It appears
he went straight to the rectory when he heard the scandal, and almost as
straight out of Long Stow when Mr. Carlton admitted everything. Already
I hear that he has enlisted in London."
"You don't mean it! That's another thing at that blackguard's door; it's
a nice list! But it's enough to send the whole parish to the dogs. By
the way, you would get Lady Gleed's letter?"
"Yes, Sir Wilton. I wrote last night to tell her ladyship that she might
make her mind easy about her niece. She is very innocent, and when I
told her the windows had been broken because Mr. Carlton had done
something dishonourable, she was amazed of course, but she asked no more
questions. I spoke at once to the servants, and I made Gwynneth promise
not to go among the people at present; they have already typhoid fever
in one of the cottages, and that was my excuse."
"Excellent!" said Sir Wilton. "I won't have her in and out of the
cottages in any case, and I shall tell her so before I go. She's much
too young for that kind of nonsense. And she mustn't read just exactly
what she likes. She had a book in her hand just now--I couldn't see
what--but she seems inclined to fill her head with any folly. We must
find a school for her, and meanwhile bring her up as we've brought up
our own child."
Fraulein Hentig smiled judiciously.
"They are already rather different characters," she said. "But I will do
my best, Sir Wilton."
When the pair quitted the Italian garden, the gentleman hurrying to make
other inquiries before dinner, while the German gentlewoman dropped
behind, two brown eyes saw them from an upper window, whither the girl
had carried her book in vain. Her attention had been intermittent
before, but now she could not even try to read. The air was full of
mystery, and the mystery was more absorbing than that in any book. It
was also absolute and unfathomable in the girl's mind. Yet her brain
teemed with questions and surmises. She had come upstairs because she
felt that they wanted her out of the way, her uncle and the good, slow,
serious Fraulein. Yet that was not enough for them: they also must
retire as far as possible for their talk. Of course Gwynneth knew what
they had to talk about; but what was the dishonourable action that a
clergyman could commit and that could not be so much as mentioned in her
hearing? She was not thinking of "a clergyman" in the abstract. She was
thinking of the man with the beautiful, sad face; of the passionate
preacher with the voice that thrilled the senses and the words that
filled the mind. She had heard him preach of sin and suffering with
equal sympathy. Phrases came back to her. Now she understood. But what
could he have done, that he should suffer so, and that a perfectly kind
person like Fraulein Hentig should exult in his suffering?
Gwynneth was splendidly and terribly innocent, but all the more
inquisitive on that account. She was unacquainted with the facts, yet
not with the tragedy of life. In a tragic atmosphere she had been born
and bred. Quentin Gleed had been fatally lacking in the politic virtues
cultivated by his brother. He had deserted his wife and drunk himself to
death within the memory of Gwynneth. The young girl recalled dim years
of bitter scenes in a luxurious home, and vivid years of peace and
poverty in a tiny cottage. And now her mother was gone also; the dear,
independent, wilful little mother, who had taught her child all but the
wickedness that was in the world! And that child sat at her bedroom
window in the new home that never could be home to her; and the drooping
sun could find no bottom to her dark and limpid eyes, no flaw upon her
pure warm skin; and neither the cuckoo in the poplar, nor the thrush in
the elm, nor the sparrows in the eaves just overhead, could tell her
anything of the wickedness that was in even her small world.
IX
A DUEL BEGINS
Late in the afternoon of July 13, a Lakenhall fly rattled through Long
Stow, and waited in the rain outside the rectory gate while one of the
occupants ran up to the house. He was such a short time gone, and so few
people were about in the wet, that the fly was on its way back to
Lakenhall before the Long Stow folk realised that it was the rector who
had upset prophecy by showing his nose among them in broad daylight. He
had done no more, however, nor was anything further seen or heard of him
during the month of July. It appeared that he had returned for some
private papers only. The rectory was locked up by the squire's orders,
but the rector had forced his own study door, and his muddy footmarks
were confined to that room. The same evening he went up to town--and
disappeared. But his address was known in an official quarter. And all
day and every day he might have been discovered in the reading room of
the British Museum: a memorable figure, stooping amid mountains of
architectural tomes, and drawing or copying plans in the few inches of
table-land they left him, all with a nervous eagerness of face and hand
not daily to be seen beneath that dispiriting dome.
Then the call came, and he was tried in the consistorial court of his
own diocese, before the chancellor thereof, at the beginning of August.
No need to record more than the fact. The proceedings were brief because
the accused pleaded guilty and his own word was the only evidence
against him. The sentence was that of suspension foreshadowed by the
bishop. The Reverend Robert Carlton was formally suspended _ab officio
et beneficio_ for the period of five years.
The result was reported in the London papers; there was only matter for
a few lines. "Mr. Carlton was suspended for five years" was the
concluding sentence in _The Times_ report; and that was good enough for
Sir Wilton Gleed. It was a happy omen for the holidays, which began for
him that very day. The family were already in the country. Sir Wilton
took the last train to Lakenhall and drove himself home for good in the
highest spirits. Four miles of the five were over his own acres, and
every one of them was crumbling with rabbits in the rosy dusk. Later,
the larkspur and peonies on the dinner-table were as the very breath and
blush of the gorgeous English country; and a thrush sang its welcome
through the open window, and a nightingale trilled the tired Londoner to
sleep; but he dreamt of a pheasant that he had heard calling between
Lakenhall and Long Stow.
In the country Sir Wilton was an early riser, and he was abroad next
morning while the shadows of the elms still stretched to the house and
quivered up its bare brick walls. The great lawn was dusted with a milky
dew in which Sir Wilton positively wallowed in his water-tight boots;
it was not his least delight to be in shooting-boots and knickerbockers
and soft raiment once more. The first few minutes of the more excellent
life produced an unseasonable geniality in the breast of Wilton Gleed.
The man was a human being, and he longed for companionship in his joy.
But Sidney never rose before he must, nor the gardeners either, it
appeared. In the stable-yard a groom was encountered, but Sir Wilton had
seen his face every day in town. He went out into the village, and
naturally turned to the left. The cottage doors were open, and they were
filled with homely figures that touched a cap or courtesied as he passed
with a pleasant word for all. It was good to be back, to be a little
king again. Sir Wilton pulled the cap over his eyes because the sun was
in them, and admired the ripe wheat in the field beyond the post-office,
the barley in the field beyond that. So he passed the Flint House on the
other side with unruffled mind, and was passing the Flint House meadow
before his thoughts took the inevitable turn which led to profane
mutterings through shut teeth. But this morning it did not lead quite so
far; this morning, with the scented air of England in his nostrils, and
a twitter in the ears from every thatch, even Sir Wilton Gleed could
find it in his heart to pity the sinner fallen from his high estate in
what was paradise enough for the squire.
"Poor devil!" he said as he came to the rectory gate and saw the long
grass within. It was sufficiently in key with the old quaint rectory, in
its rags of ivy and its shawl of disreputable tiles. The windows were
still broken and the shutters shut. Otherwise the picture was as
alluring as its fellows to the lord of the manor. The trees that hid the
church at midsummer would screen its ruins for many a day.
Sir Wilton entered to refresh his memory as to the minor damages, and
they changed his mood. Who was to pay for twenty-nine panes of
glass--no, he had missed a window--for thirty-three? He was a man who
did not care to spend a penny without obtaining his pennyworth; but he
was not clear as to his legal obligations; and he bristled at the idea
of paying for the immorality of the parson and the excesses of his
flock. He had paid enough in other ways. And there was the church. Who
was to rebuild the church? They might expect him to do that once he
began doing things; and the man fell into premature fuming between his
love of the lavish and his detestation of expense. Meanwhile he had
found a whole window, that of the study, and the door beside it stood
ajar. This he pushed open as though the place belonged to him (his view
in so many words), and stood still upon the threshold.
"Well, I'm damned!" he cried at last.
Robert Carlton sat asleep in his chair, his hands in his overcoat
pockets, the collar turned up about his ears. His boots and trousers
were brown and yellow with the dust of the district. In an instant he
was on his feet, scared, startled, and abashed.
"So you've come back, have you?"
"An hour or two ago. I walked from Cambridge. I don't know how you
heard!"
"Heard? You must think me in a hurry for your society! No, this is an
unexpected pleasure, and I use the words advisedly. It's something to
find you don't come twice in broad daylight."
"I have come on business, as before, but this time the business will
occupy more than a few minutes. I wished to get it in train with as
little fuss as possible. Then I was coming to see you, Sir Wilton."
It was quietly spoken, without bitterness or defiance, but also without
the abject humility which had trembled in the clergyman's first words.
The other made some attempt to modify his manner: nothing could put him
in the wrong, but he realised that it might be as well to abstain from
mere brutality. And what he had just heard implied a certain
reassurance.
"I see," said Gleed. "You have come to make arrangements about your
furniture and effects. I am glad to hear it."
"My furniture and effects?" queried Carlton. "What arrangements do you
mean?"
"Well, you can't leave them here, can you?"
"Why not, Sir Wilton?"
"Why not!" echoed the squire, turning from pink to purple with the two
words. "Because you've been disgraced and degraded as you deserve;
because you're the hound you are; because you've been suspended for five
years, and I won't have you or your belongings cumber my ground for a
single day of them! So now you know," continued Gleed in lower tones,
his venom spent. "I didn't think it would be necessary to tell you my
opinion of you; but you've brought it on yourself."
Carlton bowed to that, but respectfully pointed out the difference
between suspension and deprivation, his tone one of apology rather than
of triumph.
"I don't say which I deserved," he added, "but I do thank God for the
mercy He has shown me. This gives me another chance--in five years'
time. Meanwhile I am not only entitled to keep my furniture in the
rectory. I believe I may live in it if I like."
Gleed stood convulsed with wrath redoubled. He had been too busy in town
to prime himself upon a point which could not arise before he went down
to the country; and here it was, awaiting him. His disadvantage alone
was enough to put him in a passion; but the last statement was monstrous
in itself.
"I don't believe it! I don't believe a word you say! A man who can live
a lie will tell nothing else!"
Carlton drew himself up, his nostrils curling.
"Better go and ask your solicitor," he said. "I have forfeited the
right--as you so well know--to the only possible reply."
"Rights apart," rejoined Gleed, his colour heightening by a shade, "do
you mean to tell me you would seriously think of remaining on the very
scene of your shame?"
"I didn't say I would do anything. I said I believed I could."
"You have done enough harm in the place; surely you wouldn't come back
to do more?"
"No; if I came at all, it would be to undo a little of the harm--to live
it down, Sir Wilton, by God's help!" said Carlton, and his voice shook.
"But I do not mean to live here. I have spoken to the bishop, and his
advice is against it, though he leaves me free to follow my own
judgment. This afternoon I hoped to speak to you. There is another
matter which is really a duty, so that I can be in no doubt as to what
to do there. It will not involve my remaining on the spot, or obtruding
myself in any way. But the church has been burnt down on my account, and
I intend to rebuild it before the winter."
"The church is mine!" said Gleed, savagely.
"I don't want to contradict you, Sir Wilton; but you should really see
your lawyer on all these points."
"The land is mine!"
"Not the church land, Sir Wilton; and the rector is not only entitled,
but he may be compelled, to restore and rebuild within certain limits.
Your solicitor will turn up the Act and show it you in black and white.
And after that I think you will hardly stand between me and my bounden
duty."
"I don't recognise it as your duty. Your first duty is to resign the
living lock-stock-and-barrel--if you've any sense of decency left; but
you haven't--not you, you infernal blackguard, you!"
Gleed was standing on the drive, his arms akimbo and his fists clenched,
his flushed face thrust forward and his stockinged legs planted firmly
apart. It was Carlton's lithe figure which had been filling the doorway
for some minutes; but at this he strode upon his adversary, and towered
over him with a hand that itched.
"Why must you insult me?" he cried. "Do you think that's the way to get
me to do anything? Or are you bent upon having me up for assault? For
heaven's sake remember your own manhood, Sir Wilton, and respect mine;
don't trade too far upon my readiness to admit that I am all men choose
to call me. Have a little pride! I am ready to take my punishment, and
more. I will keep away from the place as much as possible. If I can let
the rectory, that will be so much more money for the church. Don't
oppose me; if you can't help me by your countenance (and I grant you
it's more than I have a right to expect), at least be neutral, and let
me work out my own salvation in my own way. It will make no difference
to the past. It may make all the difference in the future. God knows I
can't reinstate myself in His sight and in the hearts of men by building
a church! But I can leave behind me a sign of my sorrow and my true
penitence. I can leave behind me a name and an example, bad enough in
all conscience, but yet not wholly vile to the very last. And think what
even that would be to me! And think what it would be if I could but pave
the way, not to forgiveness, but to some reconciliation with those whom
I have loved but led amiss . . . Well, that may be too much to hope
. . . no, I have no right to dream of that . . . but at least let me
make the one material reparation in my power; let me do my duty! When
it is done, if you and they will have no more of me, then you shall all
be rid of me for good."
Gleed wavered, partly because in mere personality he was no match for
the other, partly because the prospect of a new church for nothing made
its own appeal to the man who had counted the cost of the broken
windows. His mind ran over the pecuniary scheme and detected a flaw.
"And what's to become of the parish for the next five years?" he asked.
"Who's to pay a man to do your work?"
"There's the stipend I cannot touch and would not if I could; a part of
that will doubtless be set aside. Until the church is habitable,
however, the case will probably be met by one of the curates coming over
from Lakenhall and taking a service in the schoolroom."
"And how do _you_ know?" cried Sir Wilton, not unjustifiably.
"The bishop sent for me," said Carlton--and his eyes fell. "I ventured
to speak to him on the subject before I left. Do you think I don't care
what happens here in my absence? I hope the services will begin next
Sunday--the building next week. I have worked the whole thing out. I
could show you the figures and the plans. The new ones are ready, if you
can call them new. I shall be my own architect as before for the
transepts, but the rest shall be exactly as it was."
"We'll see about that," said Sir Wilton grimly. He knew those melting
eyes, that enthusiastic voice. They had brought their hundreds to this
man's feet before. They might do so again. Even the squire felt their
power in his own despite.
"It is my one chance!" the voice went on in softer accents. "Do not ask
me to forego it altogether; but I will keep in the background as much as
you like; all I want to know is that the work is going on. Suppose I did
resign, and you appointed another man. Why should he give towards the
church? Why should he come where there is none? Let me build the new one
first!"
"Has it come to letting? I understood I couldn't prevent you?"
"No more you can; although----"
"We'll see!" cried Gleed. "That's quite enough for me. We'll see!"
"But, Sir Wilton----"
"Damn your 'buts,' sir!" shouted the other, shaking with rage. "You
disgrace the parish, and you won't leave it. You come back, and set
yourself against me, and think you can do what you like after doing what
you've done. By God, it's monstrous! There's not a man in the country
who won't agree with me; you'll find that out to your cost. Build the
church, would you? I'll see you further! Law or no law, I'll have you
out of this! I'll hound you out of it! I'll have you torn in pieces if
you stay!"
"I have already told you I don't intend to stay," said Carlton quietly.
"I only intend to rebuild the church."
"All right! You try! You try!"
And with his fixed eyes flashing, and his fresh face aged with anger,
but scored with implacable resolve, Sir Wilton Gleed swung on his heel,
and so down the drive with every step a stamp.
X
THE LETTER OF THE LAW
In the village he met Tom Ivey, but passed him with a savage nod, and
was some yards further on when a thought smote him so that he spun round
in his stride.
"That you, Ivey?" he called. "I wasn't thinking; you're the very man I
wanted to see. How are you, eh?"
"Nicely, thank you, Sir Wilton," said Tom, coming up.
"Plenty of work, I hope?"
"Well, not just lately, Sir Wilton."
"Good! I may have some for you. I'll see you about it this evening or
to-morrow; meanwhile keep yourself free. By the way, how's your mother?"
"Very sadly, Sir Wilton. I sometimes fare to think she's not long for
this world."
"Nonsense, man! What's the matter with her?"
Tom hardly knew. That was old age, _he_ thought. Then the house was that
old and small; sometimes she fared to stifle for want of air. And this
Tom said doggedly, for a reason.
"Ah!" cried Sir Wilton, his fixed eye brightening. "Wasn't there a
question of repairs some time since?"
"There was, Sir Wilton."
"Well, I'll reconsider it. We must do what we can to make the old lady
comfortable for the winter. I'll come and see her, and I'll see you
again about the other matter. Keep yourself free meanwhile. Don't you
let any of those Lakenhall fellows snap you up!"
And Sir Wilton went on chuckling, but again turned quickly and called
the other back.
"By the way, Tom, who _were_ those fellows you used to work for in
Lakenhall?"
"Tait & Taplin, Sir Wilton."
A note was taken of the names.
"The only builders in the town, eh?"
"Well, Sir Wilton, there's old Isaac Hoole, the stonemason."
"A stonemason, by Jove!" and down went his name. "What other builders
and stonemasons have we in the district--near enough to undertake some
work here? I'm not thinking of the job I've got for you, Tom."
Ivey thought of three within fifteen miles, and several at greater
distances, but doubted whether any of the latter would accept a contract
so far afield. Their names were taken, nevertheless, and Sir Wilton
stared his hardest as he put his pocket-book away.
"I shall want you all the same," he said, "and I shall expect to get you
when I want you. Understand? If anybody else offers you a job, remember
you've got one. And I'll see your mother this morning."
Tom went his way with his honest wits in a knot. He could not conceive
what was coming. Ten minutes ago he had found a note slipped under the
door in the night, and he was going straight to the rectory without his
breakfast. Had Sir Wilton been there before him, and was he going to
rebuild the church? Then what had the reverend to say to it, now that he
was suspended for five years? And what in the world could he have to say
to Tom Ivey?
He said nothing at all until they had shaken hands, and nothing then
about the fire; it is with the hand alone that men pay their big debts
to men, and Robert Carlton did not weaken his thanks with words.
"Have you got a job, Tom?" were his first.
"I have and I haven't, sir," said Ivey.
"You're not free to take one from me?"
"I wish I was, sir!" cried Tom, impulsively (he was not so sure about it
on reflection); and in his simplicity he explained why he was not free.
"But perhaps that's the same job, sir?" he added, hopefully.
Carlton shook his head, and looked wistfully on the friendly face; a few
words (he knew his power) and the very man he wanted would be on his
side against all odds. But he must not begin by dividing the village
into factions; he must fight his own battle, with mercenaries from
neutral ground, or none at all.
"Where was it you served your time, Tom?" he asked at length.
"Tait & Taplin's, sir, in Lakenhall."
"Thanks. I won't keep you, Tom. It will do you no good to be seen up
here."
He held out his hand with a dismal smile. It was the other's turn to
wring hard. "I care nothing about that, sir! We've been shoulder to
shoulder once already; my mind don't go no further back than that; and
we'll be shoulder to shoulder again!"
Carlton found flour and tea in the store-room, and in the fowl-house two
new-laid eggs. He cooked his first breakfast with the sun pouring
through the open kitchen window upon six weeks' dirt and dust. He was
not a man of very hearty habit, but he had learnt of old the evil of
exercise upon too light a diet. His pony was fattening in the glebe; but
a fastidious sense of fitness forbade him to drive, and between nine and
ten he set out for Lakenhall on foot.
It was an ordeal for the first half-mile: the sunlight flooding the
village felt like limelight turned on him alone. Some children
courtesied as though nothing was changed; their elders stared at him
without further sign; only one shouted after him, he knew not who or
what. He reached the open country with a raging pulse, thinking only
upon circuitous ways back; but three solitary miles restored his nerve.
And in Lakenhall it was only every other passer who stopped and turned
and stared. Entering the town he was nearly run over by a dogcart. It
was Sir Wilton driving, and Carlton caught the gleam of his eye even as
he leapt to one side for his life, but mistook its significance until he
was within sight of Tait & Taplin's. Then it occurred to him, and he
entered fully prepared.
"No, thank you, sir--not for us! We've heard of you, and we don't deal
with your sort. Do you hear, or do you want to hear more?"
Carlton searched in vain for another builder, and only got the name of
a stonemason by going into the cemetery and looking at the newer
gravestones. He had then to discover where the man lived, and he was
ashamed to ask questions in shops. He was still scouring the town, and
it was afternoon, when a gig was pulled up in the middle of the road.
"So you're back? Well, you look better than you did."
"I am," said Carlton, "thanks to you."
"Who are you looking for?"
"Hoole, the stonemason."
"Jump up and I'll drive you there."
The tone was too humane for Carlton.
"Thank you, doctor, but I like walking."
"Then find him for yourself, and be damned to you!"
And Marigold drove on, red to the hoar of his eighty years; but, as
Carlton stood watching him out of sight with vain compunction, the old
doctor turned in his seat and pointed up an alley with his whip in
passing.