This man's metallic; at a sudden blow
His soul rings hard. I cannot lay my palm,
Trembling with life, upon that jointed brass.
I shudder at the cold unanswering touch;
But if it press me in response, I'm bruised.
The next morning, when the Debarrys, including the rector, who had
ridden over to the Manor early, were still seated at breakfast,
Christian came in with a letter, saying that it had been brought by a
man employed at the chapel in Malthouse Yard, who had been ordered by
the minister to use all speed and care in the delivery.
The letter was addressed to Sir Maximus.
"Stay, Christian, it may possibly refer to the lost pocket-book," said
Philip Debarry, who was beginning to feel rather sorry for his factotum,
as a reaction from previous suspicions and indignation.
Sir Maximus opened the letter and felt for his glasses, but then said,
"Here, you read it, Phil: the man writes a hand like small print."
Philip cast his eyes over it, and then read aloud in a tone of
satisfaction:--
SIR,--I send this letter to apprise you that I have now in my
possession certain articles, which, last evening, at about
half-past seven o'clock, were found lying on the grass at the
western extremity of your park. The articles are =1=, a well-filled
pocket-book, of brown leather, fastened with a black ribbon and
with a seal of red wax; =2=, a small note-book, covered with gilded
vellum, whereof the clasp was burst, and from out whereof had
partly escaped a small chain, with seals and a locket attached, the
locket bearing on the back a device, and round the face a female
name.
Whereof I request that you will further my effort to place these
articles in the right hands, by ascertaining whether any person
within your walls claims them as his property, and by sending that
person to me (if such be found); for I will on no account let them
pass from my care save into that of one who, declaring himself to
be the owner, can state to me what is the impression on the seal,
and what the device and name upon the locket.
I am, sir, yours to command in all right dealing,
Malthouse Yard. Oct. 3, 1832. RUFUS LYON.
"Well done, old Lyon," said the rector; "I didn't think that any
composition of his would ever give me so much pleasure."
"What an old fox it is!" said Sir Maximus. "Why couldn't he send the
things to me at once along with the letter?"
"No, no, Max; he uses a justifiable caution," said the rector, a refined
and rather severe likeness of his brother, with a ring of fearlessness
and decision in his voice which startled all flaccid men and unruly
boys. "What are you going to do, Phil?" he added, seeing his nephew
rise.
"To write, of course. Those other matters are yours, I suppose?" said
Mr. Debarry, looking at Christian.
"Yes, sir."
"I shall send you with a letter to the preacher. You can describe your
own property. And the seal, uncle--was it your coat-of-arms?"
"No, it was this head of Achilles. Here, I can take it off the ring, and
you can carry it, Christian. But don't lose that, for I've had it ever
since eighteen hundred. I should like to send my compliments with it,"
the rector went on, looking at his brother, "and beg that since he has
so much wise caution at command, he would exercise a little in more
public matters, instead of making himself a firebrand in my parish, and
teaching hucksters and tape-weavers that it's their business to dictate
to statesmen."
"How did Dissenters, and Methodists, and Quakers, and people of that
sort first come up, uncle?" said Miss Selina, a radiant girl of
twenty, who had given much time to the harp.
"Dear me, Selina," said her elder sister, Harriet, whose forte was
general knowledge, "don't you remember 'Woodstock'? They were in
Cromwell's time."
"Oh! Holdenough, and those people? Yes; but they preached in the
churches; they had no chapels. Tell me, uncle Gus; I like to be wise,"
said Selina, looking up at the face which was smiling down on her with a
sort of severe benignity. "Phil says I'm an ignorant puss."
"The seeds of Nonconformity were sown at the Reformation, my dear, when
some obstinate man made scruples about surplices and the place of the
communion-table, and other trifles of that sort. But the Quakers came up
about Cromwell's time, and the Methodists only in the last century. The
first Methodists were regular clergymen, the more's the pity."
"But all those wrong things, why didn't government put them down?"
"Ah, to be sure," fell in Sir Maximus, in a cordial tone of
corroboration.
"Because error is often strong, and government is often weak, my dear.
Well, Phil, have you finished your letter?"
"Yes, I will read it to you," said Philip, turning and leaning over the
back of his chair with the letter in his hand.
There is a portrait of Mr. Philip Debarry still to be seen at Treby
Manor, and a very fine bust of him at Rome, where he died fifteen years
later, a convert to Catholicism. His face would have been plain but for
the exquisite setting of his hazel eyes, which fascinated even the dogs
of the household. The other features, though slight and irregular, were
redeemed from triviality by the stamp of gravity and intellectual
preoccupation in his face and bearing. As he read aloud, his voice was
what his uncle's might have been if it had been modulated by delicate
health and a visitation of self-doubt.
SIR,--In reply to the letter with which you have favored me this
morning, I beg to state that the articles you describe were lost
from the pocket of my servant, who is the bearer of this letter to
you, and is the claimant of the vellum note-book and the gold
chain. The large leathern pocket-book is my own property and the
impression on the wax, a helmeted head of Achilles, was made by my
uncle, the Reverend Augustus Debarry, who allows me to forward this
seal to you in proof that I am not making a mistaken claim.
I feel myself under deep obligation to you, sir, for the care and
trouble you have taken in order to restore to its right owner a
piece of property which happens to be of particular importance to
me. And I shall consider myself doubly fortunate if at any time you
can point out to me some method by which I may procure you as
lively a satisfaction as I am now feeling, in that full and speedy
relief from anxiety which I owe to your considerate conduct.
I remain, sir, your obliged and faithful servant,
PHILIP DEBARRY.
"You know best, Phil, of course," said Sir Maximus, pushing his plate
from him, by way of interjection. "But it seems to me you exaggerate
preposterously every little service a man happens to do for you. Why
should you make a general offer of that sort? How do you know what he
will be asking you to do? Stuff and nonsense! Tell Willis to send him a
few head of game. You should think twice before you give a blank check
of that sort to one of these quibbling, meddlesome Radicals."
"You are afraid of my committing myself to 'the bottomless perjury of an
et cetera,'" said Philip, smiling, as he turned to fold his letter. "But
I think I am not doing any mischief; at all events I could not be
content to say less. And I have a notion that he would regard a present
of game just now as an insult. I should, in his place."
"Yes, yes, you; but you don't make yourself a measure of Dissenting
preachers, I hope," said Sir Maximus, rather wrathfully. "What do you
say, Gus?"
"Phil is right," said the rector, in an absolute tone. "I would not deal
with a Dissenter, or put profits into the pocket of a Radical which I
might put into the pocket of a good Churchman and a quiet subject. But
if the greatest scoundrel in the world made way for me, or picked my hat
up, I would thank him. So would you, Max."
"Pooh! I didn't mean that one shouldn't behave like a gentleman," said
Sir Maximus, in some vexation. He had great pride in his son's
superiority even to himself; but he did not quite trust the dim vision
opened by Phil's new words and new notions. He could only submit in
silence while the letter was delivered to Christian, with the order to
start for Malthouse Yard immediately.
Meanwhile, in that somewhat dim locality the possible claimant of the
note-book and the chain was thought of and expected with palpitating
agitation. Mr. Lyon was seated in his study, looking haggard and already
aged from a sleepless night. He was so afraid lest his emotion should
deprive him of the presence of mind necessary to the due attention to
particulars in the coming interview, that he continued to occupy his
sight and touch with the objects which had stirred the depths, not only
of memory, but of dread. Once again he unlocked a small box which stood
beside his desk, and took from it a little oval locket, and compared
this with one which hung with the seals on the stray gold chain. There
was the same device in enamel on the back of both: clasped hands
surrounded with blue flowers. Both had round the face a name in gold
italics on a blue ground: the name on the locket taken from the drawer
was _Maurice_; the name on the locket which hung with the seals was
_Annette_, and within the circle of this name there was a lover's knot
of light brown hair, which matched a curl that lay in the box. The hair
in the locket which bore the name of Maurice was of a very dark brown,
and before returning it to the drawer Mr. Lyon noted the color and
quality of this hair more carefully than ever. Then he recurred to the
note-book: undoubtedly there had been something, probably a third name,
beyond the names _Maurice Christian_, which had themselves been rubbed
and slightly smeared as if by accident; and from the very first
examination in the vestry, Mr. Lyon could not prevent himself from
transferring the mental image of the third name in faint lines to the
rubbed leather. The leaves of the note-book seemed to have been recently
inserted; they were of fresh white paper, and only bore some
abbreviations in pencil with a notation of small sums. Nothing could be
gathered from the comparison of the writing in the book with that of the
yellow letters which lay in the box; the smeared name had been carefully
printed, and so bore no resemblance to the signature of those letters;
and the pencil abbreviations and figures had been made too hurriedly to
bear any decisive witness. "I will ask him to write--to write a
description of the locket," had been one of Mr. Lyon's thoughts; but he
faltered in that intention. His power of fulfilling it must depend on
what he saw in this visitor, of whose coming he had a horrible dread, at
the very time he was writing to demand it. In that demand he was obeying
the voice of his rigid conscience, which had never left him perfectly at
rest under his one act of deception--the concealment from Esther that he
was not her natural father, the assertion of a false claim upon her.
"Let my path be henceforth simple," he had said to himself in the
anguish of that night; "let me seek to know what is, and if possible to
declare it." If he was really going to find himself face to face with
the man who had been Annette's husband, and who was Esther's father--if
that wandering of his from the light had brought the punishment of a
blind sacrilege as the issue of a conscious transgression,--he prayed
that he might be able to accept all consequences of pain to himself. But
he saw other possibilities concerning the claimant of the book and
chain. His ignorance and suspicions as to the history and character of
Annette's husband made it credible that he had laid a plan for
convincing her of his death as a means of freeing himself from a
burdensome tie; but it seemed equally probable that he was really dead,
and that these articles of property had been a bequest, or a payment, or
even a sale, to their present owner. Indeed, in all these years there was
no knowing into how many hands such pretty trifles might have passed.
And the claimant might, after all, have no connection with the Debarrys;
he might not come on this day or the next. There might be more time left
for reflection and prayer.
All these possibilities, which would remove the pressing need for
difficult action, Mr. Lyon represented to himself, but he had no
effective belief in them; his belief went with his strongest feeling,
and in these moments his strongest feeling was dead. He trembled under
the weight that seemed already added to his own sin; he felt himself
already confronted by Annette's husband and Esther's father. Perhaps the
father was a gentleman on a visit to the Debarrys. There was no
hindering the pang with which the old man said to himself--
"The child will not be sorry to leave this poor home, and I shall be
guilty in her sight."
He was walking about among the rows of books when there came a loud rap
at the outer door. The rap shook him so that he sank into his chair,
feeling almost powerless. Lyddy presented herself.
"Here's ever such a fine man from the Manor wants to see you, sir. Dear
heart, dear heart! shall I tell him you're too bad to see him?"
"Show him up," said Mr. Lyon, making an effort to rally. When Christian
appeared, the minister half rose, leaning on an arm of his chair, and
said, "Be seated, sir," seeing nothing but that a tall man was entering.
"I've brought you a letter from Mr. Debarry," said Christian, in an
off-hand manner. The rusty little man, in his dismal chamber, seemed to
the Ulysses of the steward's room a pitiable sort of human curiosity, to
whom a man of the world would speak rather loudly, in accommodation to
an eccentricity which was likely to be accompanied with deafness. One
cannot be eminent in everything; and if Mr. Christian had dispersed his
faculties in study that would have enabled him to share unconventional
points of view, he might have worn a mistaken kind of boot, and been
less competent to win at _écarté_, or at betting, or in any other
contest suitable to a person of figure.
As he seated himself, Mr. Lyon opened the letter, and held it close to
his eyes, so that his face was hidden. But at the word "servant" he
could not avoid starting, and looking off the letter toward the bearer.
Christian, knowing what was in the letter, conjectured that the old man
was amazed to learn that so distinguished-looking a personage was a
servant; he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, balanced his
cane on his fingers, and began a whispering whistle. The minister
checked himself, finished the reading of the letter, and then slowly and
nervously put on his spectacles to survey this man, between whose fate
and his own there might be a terrible collision. The word "servant" had
been a fresh caution to him. He must do nothing rashly. Esther's lot was
deeply concerned.
"Here is the seal mentioned in the letter," said Christian.
Mr. Lyon drew the pocket-book from his desk, and after comparing the
seal with the impression, said, "It is right, sir: I deliver the
pocket-book to you."
He held it out with the seal, and Christian rose to take them, saying
carelessly, "The other things--the chain and the little book--are mine."
"Your name then is----"
"Maurice Christian."
A spasm shot through Mr. Lyon. It had seemed possible that he might hear
another name, and be freed from the worse half of his anxiety. His next
words were not wisely chosen, but escaped him impulsively.
"And you have no other name?"
"What do you mean?" said Christian, sharply.
"Be so good as to reseat yourself."
Christian did not comply. "I'm rather in a hurry, sir," he said,
recovering his coolness. "If it suits you to restore to me those small
articles of mine, I shall be glad; but I would rather leave them behind
than be detained." He had reflected that the minister was simply a
punctilious old bore. The question meant nothing else. But Mr. Lyon had
wrought himself up to the task of finding out, then and there, if
possible, whether or not this were Annette's husband. How could he lay
himself and his sin before God if he wilfully declined to learn the
truth? "Nay, sir, I will not detain you unreasonably," he said, in a
firmer tone than before. "How long have these articles been your
property?"
"Oh, for more than twenty years," said Christian, carelessly.
He was not altogether easy under the minister's persistence, but for
that very reason he showed no more impatience.
"You have been in France and in Germany?"
"I have been in most countries on the continent."
"Be so good as to write me your name," said Mr. Lyon, dipping a pen in
ink, and holding it out with a piece of paper.
Christian was much surprised, but not now greatly alarmed. In his rapid
conjectures as to the explanation of the minister's curiosity, he had
alighted on one which might carry advantage rather than inconvenience.
But he was not going to commit himself.
"Before I oblige you there, sir," he said, laying down the pen, and
looking straight at Mr. Lyon, "I must know exactly the reasons you have
for putting these questions to me. You are a stranger to me--an
excellent person, I dare say--but I have no concern about you farther
than to get from you those small articles. Do you still doubt that they
are mine? You wished, I think, that I should tell you what the locket is
like. It has a pair of hands and blue flowers on one side and the name
Annette round the hair on the other side. That is all I have to say. If
you wish for anything more from me, you will be good enough to tell me
why you wish it. Now then, sir, what is your concern with me?"
The cool stare, the hard challenging voice, with which these words were
uttered, made them fall like the beating cutting chill of heavy hail on
Mr. Lyon. He sank back in his chair in utter irresolution and
helplessness. How was it possible to lay bare the sad and sacred past in
answer to such a call as this? The dread with which he had thought of
this man's coming, the strongly-confirmed suspicion that he was really
Annette's husband, intensified the antipathy created by his gestures and
glances. The sensitive little minister knew instinctively that words
which would cost him efforts as painful as the obedient footsteps of a
wounded bleeding hound that wills a foreseen throe, would fall on this
man as the pressure of tender fingers falls on a brazen glove. And
Esther--if this man was her father, every additional word might help to
bring down irrevocable, perhaps cruel consequences on her. A thick mist
seemed to have fallen where Mr. Lyon was looking for the track of duty:
the difficult question, how far he was to care for consequences in
seeking and avowing the truth, seemed anew obscured. All these things,
like the vision of a coming calamity, were compressed into a moment of
consciousness. Nothing could be done to-day; everything must be
deferred. He answered Christian in a low apologetic tone.
"It is true, sir; you have told me all I can demand. I have no
sufficient reason for detaining your property further."
He handed the note-book and chain to Christian, who had been observing
him narrowly, and now said, in a tone of indifference, as he pocketed
the articles--
"Very good, sir. I wish you a good-morning."
"Good-morning," said Mr. Lyon, feeling, while the door closed behind his
guest, that mixture of uneasiness and relief which all procrastination
of difficulty produces in minds capable of strong forecast. The work
was still to be done. He had still before him the task of learning
everything that could be learned about this man's relation to himself
and Esther.
Christian, as he made his way back along Malthouse Lane, was thinking,
"This old fellow has got some secret in his head. It's not likely he can
know anything about me: it must be about Bycliffe. But Bycliffe was a
gentleman: how should he ever have had anything to do with such a seedy
old ranter as that?"