“VIVE LE ROI!”
It was at the beginning of the second week in October that Mr. Williams
died; and, the weather in those parts being peculiarly fine and bright
for the time of year, men stood about in the churchyard with bare
heads, and caught no colds. And it continued so for some days after the
funeral. But not everywhere. Upon a morning, some three perhaps after
the ceremony at Claversham, a young gentleman sat down to his
breakfast, only a hundred and fifty miles away, under such different
conditions—a bitter east wind, a dense fog, and a general murkiness of
atmosphere—that one might have supposed his not over-plentiful meal to
be laid in another planet.
The air in the room—a meagrely furnished, much littered room, was
yellow and choking, and the candles burned dimly in the midst of yellow
halos. The fire seemed to be smouldering, and the owner of the room had
to pay some attention to it before he sat down and found a letter lying
beside his plate. He glanced at it doubtfully. “I do not know the
handwriting,” he muttered, “and it is not a subscription, for they
never come in an east wind. I am afraid it is a bill.”
The letter was addressed to the Rev. Reginald Lindo, St. Barnabas
Mission House, 383 East India Dock Road, London, E. After scrutinizing
it for a moment, he pulled a candle toward him and tore open the
envelope.
He read the letter slowly, his teacup at his lips, and, though he was
alone, his face grew crimson. When he had finished it he turned back
and read it again, and then flung it down and, starting up, began to
walk the room. “What a boy I am!” he muttered. “But it is almost
incredible. Upon my honor it is almost incredible!”
He was still at the height of his excitement, now sitting down to take
a mouthful of breakfast and now leaping up to pace the room, when his
housekeeper entered and said that a woman from Tamplin’s Rents wanted
to see him.
“What does she want, Mrs. Baxter?” he asked.
“Husband is dying, sir,” the old lady replied briefly.
“Do you know her at all?”
“No, sir. She is as poor a piece as I have ever seen. She says that she
could not have come out, for want of clothes, if it had not been for
the fog. And they are not particular here, as I know—the hussies!”
“Say that I shall be ready to go with her in less than five minutes,”
the young clergyman answered. “And here! Give her some tea, Mrs.
Baxter. The pot is half full.”
He bustled about; but nevertheless the message and the business he was
now upon had sobered him, and as he buttoned up the letter in his
breast-pocket, his face was grave. He was a tall young man, fair, with
regular features, and curling hair cut rather short. His eyes were blue
and pleasantly bold; and in his every action and in his whole carriage
there was a great appearance of confidence and self-possession. Taking
a book and a small case from a side-table, he put on his overcoat and
went out. A moment, and the dense fog swallowed him up, and with him
the tattered bundle of rags, which had a husband, and very likely had
nothing else in the world of her own. Tamplin’s Rents not affecting us,
we may skip a few hours, and then go westward with him as far as the
Temple, which in the East India Dock Road is considered very far west
indeed by those who have ever heard of it.
Here he sought a dingy staircase in Fig-tree Court, and, mounting to
the second floor, stopped before a door which was adorned by about a
dozen names, painted in white on a black ground. He knocked loudly,
and, a small boy answering his summons with great alacrity and
importance, our friend asked for Mr. Smith, and was promptly ushered
into a room about nine feet square, in which, at a table covered with
papers and open books, sat a small, dark-complexioned man, very keen
and eager in appearance, who looked up with an air of annoyance.
“Who is it, Fred?” he said impatiently, moving one of the candles,
which the fog still rendered necessary, although it was high noon. “I
am engaged at present.”
“Mr. Lindo to see you, sir,” the boy announced, with a formality very
funny in a groom of the chambers about four feet high.
The little man’s countenance instantly changed, and he jumped up
grinning. “Is it you, old boy?” he said. “Sit down, old fellow! I
thought it might be my own solicitor, and it is well to be prepared,
you know.”
“But you are not really busy?” said the visitor, looking at him
doubtfully.
“Well, I am and I am not,” replied Mr. Smith; and, deftly tipping aside
the books, he disclosed some slips of manuscript. “It is an article for
the ‘Cornhill,’” he continued; “but whether it will ever appear there
is another matter. You have come to lunch, of course? And now, what is
your news?”
He was so quick and eager that he reminded people who saw him for the
first time of a rat. When they came to know him better, they found that
a stauncher friend than Jack Smith was not to be found in the Temple.
With this he had the reputation of being a clever, clear-headed man,
and his sound common-sense was almost a proverb. Observing that Lindo
did not answer him, he repeated, “Is anything amiss, old fellow?”
“Well, not quite amiss,” Lindo answered, his face flushing a little.
“But the fact is”—taking the letter from the breast-pocket—“that I have
had the offer of a living, Jack.”
Smith leaped up and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “By Jove! old
man,” he exclaimed heartily, “I am glad of it! Right glad of it! You
must have had enough of that slumming. But I hope it is a better living
than mine,” he continued, with a comical glance round the tiny room.
“Let us have a look! What is it? Two hundred and a house?”
Lindo handed the letter to him. It was written from Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, and was dated the preceding day. It ran thus:
“Dear Sir:—We are instructed by our client, the Right Honorable the
Earl of Dynmore, to invite your acceptance of the living of Claversham
in the county of Warwick, vacant by the death on the 15th instant of
the Rev. John Williams, the late incumbent. The living, of which his
lordship is the patron, is a town rectory, of the approximate value of
810_l_ per annum and a house. Our client is travelling in the United
States, but we have the requisite authorities to proceed in due form
and without delay, which in this matter is prejudicial. We beg to have
the pleasure of receiving your acceptance at as early a date as
possible,
“And remain, dear Sir,
“Your obedient servants,
“Gearns & Baker.
“To the Rev. Reginald Lindo, M.A.”
The barrister read this letter with even greater surprise than seemed
natural, and, when he had done, looked at his companion with wondering
eyes. “Claversham!” he ejaculated. “Why, I know it well!”
“Do you? I have never heard you mention it.”
“I knew old Williams!” Jack continued, still in amaze. “Knew him well,
and heard of his death, but little thought you were likely to succeed
him. My dear fellow, it is a wonderful piece of good fortune!
Wonderful! I shake you by the hand! I congratulate you heartily! But
how did you come to know the high and mighty earl? Unbosom yourself, my
dear boy!”
“I do not know him—do not know him from Adam!” replied the young
clergyman gravely.
“You don’t mean it?”
“I do. I have never seen him in my life.”
Jack Smith whistled. “Are you sure it is not a hoax?” he said, with a
serious face.
“I think not,” the rector-elect replied. “Perhaps I have given you a
wrong impression. I have had nothing to do with the earl; but my uncle
was his tutor.”
“Oh!” said Smith slowly, “that makes all the difference. What uncle?”
“You have heard me speak of him. He was vicar of St. Gabriel’s,
Aldgate. He died about a year ago—last October, I think. Lord Dynmore
and he were good friends, and my uncle used often to stay at his place
in Scotland. I suppose my name must have come up some time when they
were talking.”
“Likely enough,” assented the lawyer. “But for the earl to remember it,
he must be one in a hundred!”
“It is certainly very good of him,” Lindo replied, his cheek flushing.
“If it had been a small country living, and my uncle had been alive to
jog his elbow, I should not have been so much surprised.”
“And you are just twenty-five!” Jack Smith observed, leaning back in
his chair, and eyeing his friend with undisguised and whimsical
admiration. “You will be the youngest rector in the Clergy List, I
should think! And Claversham! By Jove, what a berth!”
A queer expression of annoyance for a moment showed itself in Lindo’s
face. “I say, Jack, stow that!” he said gently, and with a little
shamefacedness. “I mean,” he continued, smoothing down the nap on his
hat, “that I do not want to look at it altogether in that way, and I do
not want others to regard it so.”
“As a berth, you mean?” Jack said gravely, but with a twinkle in his
eyes.
“Well, from the loaves and fishes point of view,” Lindo commenced,
beginning to walk up and down the room. “I do not think an officer,
when he gets promotion, looks only at the increase in his pay. Of
course I am glad that it is a good living, and that I shall have a
house, and a good position, and all that. But I declare to you, Jack,
believe me or not as you like, that if I did not feel that I could do
the work as I hope, please God, to do it, I would not take it up—I
would not, indeed. As it is, I feel the responsibility. I have been
thinking about it as I walked down here, and upon my honor for a while
I thought I ought to decline it.”
“I would not do that!” said Gallio, dismissing the twinkle from his
eye, and really respecting his old friend, perhaps, a little more than
before. “You are not the man, I think, to shun either work or
responsibility. Did I tell you,” he continued in a different tone,
“that I had an uncle at Claversham?”
“No,” said Lindo, surprised in his turn.
“Yes, and I think he is one of your church wardens. His name is Bonamy,
and he is a solicitor. His London agent is my only client,” Jack said
jerkily.
“And he is one of the church wardens! Well, that is strange—and jolly!”
“Umph! Don’t you be too sure of that!” retorted the barrister sharply.
“He is a—well, he has been very good to me, and he is my uncle, and I
am not going to say anything against him. But I am not quite sure that
I should like him for my church warden. _Your_ church warden! Why, it
is like a fairy tale, old fellow!”
And so it seemed to Lindo when, an hour later, the small boy, with the
same portentous gravity of face, let him out and bade him good-day. As
the young parson started eastward, along Fleet Street first, he looked
at the moving things round him with new eyes, from a new standpoint,
with a new curiosity. The passers-by were the same, but he was changed.
He had lunched, and perhaps the material view of his position was
uppermost, for those in the crowd who specially observed the tall young
clergyman noticed in his bearing an air of calm importance and a strong
sense of personal dignity, which led him to shun collisions, and even
to avoid jostling his fellows, with peculiar care. The truth was that
he had all the while before his eyes, as he walked, an announcement
which was destined to appear in the “Guardian” of the following week:
“The Rev. Reginald Lindo, M.A., St. Barnabas’ Mission, London, to be
Rector of Claversham. Patron, the Earl of Dynmore.”