PERPLEXITY.
Henry Arkell had ample leisure that night for reflection. He got into a
newly-built house, whose doors were not yet in, glad of even that
shelter. The precise object of what he had seen he did not presume to
guess; but, that some bad deed had been transacted, there could be no
doubt. And what ought to be his course in it?--it was _that_ that was
puzzling him. He could not go to Mr. Wilberforce, the incumbent of the
church, and denounce George Prattleton--as he would have done had this
stranger, Rolls, been the sole offender. Of all the people in
Westerbury, that it should have been George Prattleton!--the brother of
that kind man from whom his family had received so many obligations.
Gratitude towards Mr. Prattleton seemed to demand his silence as to
George; and Henry Arkell had an almost ultra sense of the sin of
ingratitude.
There was no one of whom he could take counsel; his father was still
absent, and he did not like to betray what he had seen to others. Once,
the thought crossed him to ask Travice Arkell; but he knew how vexed
George Prattleton would be; and he came to the final resolution of
speaking to George himself. The mystery of locking him in seemed to be
clear now. He supposed George had done it to get possession of the key,
not knowing he was in the church.
With the first glimmering dawn of morning--not very early, you know, in
November--Henry was hovering about the precincts of the clerk's house.
He had no particular business there; but he was restless, and thought he
might, by good luck, see or find out something, and he could not hope
yet to get in at the master's. Hunt came out to fasten back his
shutters.
"What's it you, sir?" exclaimed the old man, in surprise. "You be abroad
betimes."
"Ay. How's the rheumatism?"
"Be you going to pay for that chaney saucer you broke?" asked Hunt,
allowing the rheumatism to drop into abeyance.
"What saucer?"
"Why that chaney saucer. It was on the floor with the cat's milk, when
you flung the key in last night and broke it. The missis is as vexed as
can be--she have had it for years; and if it were cracked a bit, it did
for our cat."
"I never broke it," returned Henry. "At least," he added, recollecting
himself, and afraid of making some admission that might excite
inquiries, "I did not know that I did."
"No, you weren't perlite enough to stop and see what damage you'd done;
you made off as fast as your legs would take you. Here's the pieces on
the dresser," added the clerk; "you can come and look at the smash
you've made. The missis began a talking of getting 'em jined. 'Jine
seven pieces,' says I; 'it would cost more nor a new one of the best
chaney; and run out then.'"
He hobbled indoors as fast as he could for his lameness, and Henry
followed him. The church key hung on its nail in the niche. Henry stared
at it with open eyes; he did not expect to see it there. Had George
Prattleton returned it to the clerk in the middle of the night? and was
the old man an accomplice? But, as he gazed, his keen eye detected
something not familiar in its aspect, and he raised his hand and turned
the wards into the light. It was _not_ the church key, though it closely
resembled it.
He went into the kitchen: the old man was putting the broken pieces in a
row. "There they be, sir; you can count 'em for yourself; and they
ought to be replaced with a new one. A common delf would be better than
none, for we be short of saucers, and the missis don't like a animal to
drink out of the same as us Christians."
"You shall have a saucer," said Henry, somewhat dreamily. "Who threw in
the key?"
"Who threw it in?" echoed the clerk.
"I meant to ask what time it was thrown in."
"Why, about five, or a little after: we was at tea. Didn't you know what
time it was, yourself, with the clock going the quarters and the halves
in your ears while you was at the organ? The missis----Who's that!"
The "who's that!" referred to a thumping at the house door, which Henry
Arkell had closed when he came in. The clerk went and opened it. It was
Lewis. Henry recognised his voice, and drew back out of sight.
Now, however uncomfortably Henry Arkell had passed the night, the author
of his misfortune had passed it more so. Conscience, especially at the
midnight hours, does indeed make cowards of us all, and it had made a
miserable one of the senior Lewis. Not that he repented of what he had
done, for the ill in itself, or from a better feeling towards his
schoolfellow; but he feared the consequences. Suppose Henry Arkell,
locked up with the dead, should die of fright, or turn mad? Lewis
remembered to have heard of such things. Suppose he should, by a
superhuman effort, reach one of the high and narrow windows, and,
impelled by terror, propel himself through it and be killed? Why he,
Lewis, would be hung; or, at the very least, transported for life. These
flights of imagination, conveniently suppressing themselves during the
evening, worked him into a state of indescribable dread and agitation,
when alone at night. How he lay through it he could not tell, and as
soon as the master's servants were astir, he got up and sneaked out of
the house, with the intention of looking after Arkell, and what the
night might have brought forth for him, administering first of all a
preliminary beating to his brother as an instalment of what he would
get, if he opened his mouth to tell of Arkell's absence.
"Why, what do you want?" uttered the clerk, when he saw Lewis. "We shall
have the whole rookery of you college gents here presently."
Lewis paid no attention to what the words might imply; indeed, it may be
questioned if he heard them, so great was his state of suspense and
agitation. "Old fellow," said he, "I want the key of the church. Do lend
it me: I'll bring it back to you directly."
"The key of the church!" returned the clerk; "you'll come and ask me
for my house next. No, no, young master; I have not got the rector's
orders to trust it to any but the two what practises. What do you want
in the church?"
"Only to look after something that's left there. It's all right. I won't
keep it five minutes."
"No, that you won't, sir, for you won't get it. If the master says you
may have it, well and good; but you must get his orders first."
Lewis was desperate. He saw the key hanging in its place, rushed
forward, took it from the hook, and made off with it in defiance.
"I won't have this," uttered the discomfited old man. "One a breaking
our cat's saucer, and t'other a thieving off the key in my very face!
I'll complain to Mr. Wilberforce. Sir, what do that senior Lewis want in
the church? He looked as resolute as a lion, and his breath was a
panting. What's he after?"
"It is beyond my comprehension," replied Henry, who was preparing to
depart, more mystified than before. "If Lewis can get out, I can get
in," he thought to himself, "and by dint of some great good luck, they
may not have missed me."
Calling out a good morning to Hunt, he hastened away in the direction of
the master's, wondering much what Lewis wanted in the church, but not
believing it could have reference to his own incarceration.
The next actor on the scene was George Prattleton. He softly entered the
clerk's passage, and stretched his hand up to the niche. But there he
halted as if dumbfounded, and a key which he held he dropped back into
his pocket again.
"What the mischief has been at work now?" muttered he. "How can the old
man's eyes have been so quick? I must face the matter boldly, and
persuade him his eyes are wrong. Hunt," cried he, aloud, pushing open
the kitchen door, "where's the key of the church?"
"Where indeed, sir!" grumbled Hunt. "One of them senior college rebels
have just been in and clawed it. But I promise him he won't do it twice:
Mr. Wilberforce shall know the tricks they play me, now I'm old. Did you
want it, sir?"
"No," returned George Prattleton, carelessly. "I saw it was not on its
nail, that's all. I came to know the hour fixed for the funeral. Mr.
Prattleton desired me to ascertain, and I looked in last evening, but
you were out."
"The missis told me you had been, sir, but I had only just stepped out
for our supper beer. Three o'clock to-day is the hour, sir: I thought
the missis told you."
At this juncture, in came Lewis, very pale. "Hunt, this is not the key;
it won't undo it; and----"
Lewis stopped in consternation, for his eyes had fallen on Mr. George
Prattleton. The latter took the key from his unresisting hand.
"If Hunt is to let you college boys have the key at will, and you get
tampering with the lock, no wonder it will not undo it. I had better
keep it for him," he added, slipping it into his own pocket. "What did
you want with the key, Lewis?"
Lewis did not answer.
"Here, Hunt, I'll give you up possession," continued Mr. Prattleton,
putting the key on the hook; "but you know if any damage is done to the
church, through your allowing indiscriminate entrance to these college
gentlemen, you will be held responsible."
"_I_ allow 'em!" returned the indignant clerk. "But Mr. Wilberforce
shall settle it."
"That's not the church key," said Lewis, staring at the one just hung
up.
Mr. Prattleton heard the assertion with equanimity, and began whistling
a popular air as he left the house. Hunt just glanced upwards, and saw
it was the veritable church key. "It is the key," he said. "What do you
mean?"
"It must have been my shaking hand then," debated Lewis. "Old Hunt must
know the key, and George Prattleton too. Hunt," he added, aloud, "you
will lend me the key again for five minutes."
"No, sir," raved out the old clerk, "and I hope you'll be flogged for
having took it in defiance, though you be a senior, and a'most six foot
high."
He pushed Lewis out at the door as he spoke, fearing another act of
defiance, and closed it.
Lewis stood in irresolution; his terror for the fate of Henry Arkell was
strong upon him. He flew after George Prattleton.
"Will you do me a favour?" he panted, completely out of breath in his
haste and agitation. "I want to get into the church, and Hunt has turned
obstinate about the key. Will you get it from him for me?"
Mr. Prattleton stopped and gazed at him. "You cannot want anything in
the church, Lewis. What are you up to?"
"Do get the key for me," he entreated, unable to help betraying his
emotion. "I must go in; I _must_, Mr. Prattleton. It may be a matter of
life or death."
"You are ill, Lewis; you are agitated. What is all this?"
"I am not ill. I only want to get into the church."
"For what purpose?"
"It's a little private matter of my own."
"You can tell me what it is."
"No, I cannot do that."
"Then I cannot help you."
Lewis was pushed to his wits' end. George Prattleton was walking on, but
turned again and waited. He was not free from some inward wonder and
agitation himself, remembering his own adventure of the past night.
"If I trust a secret to you, will you promise, on your honour, not to
tell it again?" asked Lewis. "It's nothing much; only a lark, concerning
one of us college boys."
"Oh, I'll promise," readily answered George Prattleton, who was rarely
troubled with scruples of any sort, and used to be fond of "larks"
himself; rather too much so.
"Well, then, I locked Harry Arkell in the church last night, and I want
to go and see after him, for fear he should be dead of fright, or
something of that, you know."
"In there all night? in the church all night?" stammered George
Prattleton, as if he could not take in the meaning of the words.
"He went in to practise after school yesterday evening, and I turned the
key upon him, and took it back to old Hunt's, and he has been in there
ever since, fastened up with the ghosts. I did it only for a lark, you
know."
George Prattleton's arms dropped powerless by his side, and his face
turned of some livid colour between white and green. Would the previous
night's exploit--_his_ exploit--come out to the world through this
miserable fellow's ill-timed "joke?" But all they could do now was to
see after Henry Arkell.
They went back to the clerk's, and George Prattleton took the key from
the hook.
"Something has been dropped in the church, Hunt," he carelessly said;
"I'll go myself with Lewis, and see that he meddles with nothing."
"Something dropped in the church?" repeated the old man; "then, I
suppose, that was what the other college gent has been after; though he
didn't say nothing of it. He was here afore I had opened our shutters."
"Which of them was that?" asked George Prattleton, pausing, with the key
in his hand.
"It were Mr. Arkell, sir; him what goes in to practise on the organ. He
were in yesterday practising, and he flung the key back when he'd done,
and broke our cat's chaney saucer, and then made off. I've been a
showing him the mischief he went and done."
"Was that Mr. Arkell, do you say? Has Arkell been here this morning?"
"Why, it ain't two minutes since, sir. He cut up that way as if he was
going straight home."
And as the man spoke, there flashed into George Prattleton's mind the
little episode that had so startled him and his friend Rolls in the
night--the finding of the church door open, when they had surely locked
it. It must have been then that Henry Arkell got out of the church. How
much had he witnessed of the scene in the vestry? had he recognised him,
George Prattleton?
George Prattleton exchanged a look with Lewis, and hung the key up
again, making some vague remark to the clerk, that Mr. Arkell had
probably found what they were about to look for, if he had been to
practise so recently as yesterday evening. Shutting the door behind him,
he walked away with Lewis, whose senses were in a state of hopeless
perplexity.
"He has got out, you hear, Lewis."
"But how could he get out?" returned Lewis. "He's not a fairy, to get
through the keyhole, and he couldn't have got down from the windows!
It's an impossibility."
"These apparent 'impossibilities' turn out sometimes to have been the
most straightforward trifles in the world," observed George Prattleton,
carelessly. "How do we know but old Hunt may have gone into the church
himself last evening, to dust it, or what not? It is----"
"But then, Arkell would have come home," debated the perplexed Lewis,
who truly thought some incomprehensible magic must have been at work.
"Well, Lewis, I don't think it much signifies how he got out, provided
he is out; and were I you, I should not inquire too closely into
particulars. You had better keep as quiet as you can in the matter;
that's my advice to you; Mr. Wilberforce might not be disposed to treat
your exploit as a 'joke,' should it come to his ears."
"But nobody knows it was me," said Lewis, eagerly.
"Just so: therefore your policy should be to keep still. As you please,
though, of course."
"You won't tell of me, Mr. Prattleton?"
"Not I, faith! It's no affair of mine; but I'd not recommend you to
attempt it again, Lewis. Good morning; I'm going into the town."
So early had they been abroad, and all this taken place, that it was not
yet very much past seven, and when Henry Arkell reached the master's
house, some of the boys were only going out of it for morning school.
The hour for assembling was seven, but in the winter season some
irregularity in arriving was winked at, for the best of all possible
reasons, that the masters were late themselves; and it was often half
past before the senior boy called over the roll. Henry went upstairs to
give his face a wash; the man-servant saw him going up, but supposed he
had only returned for something he might have forgotten. Neither of the
Lewises was in the room, and he found his own bed tumbled as if he had
slept in it. This of course had been Lewis's care; but Henry wondered at
it. If Lewis had done it out of good nature, that his absence should not
be observed, he must have changed greatly. It must be remembered that he
knew nothing of Lewis's having locked him in the church; he supposed
that must have been George Prattleton; but what he had seen tied his
tongue from inquiring.
Jocelyn had done calling the roll when Henry got to the college hall. It
was so unusual a thing for him to be marked late, that Jocelyn heaved
his eyebrows in a sort of lazy surprise. Presently Jocelyn asked him in
an undertone where he had been the previous evening.
"You missed me, then?" said Henry.
"Missed you!--we couldn't help missing you; you had not got back at
bed-time. I suppose you were at the deanery--and got home at eleven?
It's fine to be you! How's Miss Beauclerc?"
"As well as usual," replied Henry, with a nod and a laugh, to keep up
the deception. Jocelyn's assumed idea was the most convenient one that
could have been taken up.
Henry threw his eyes round the school in search of the Lewises. Surely
_they_ must know of his night's absence. The elder one he could not see;
but the younger was at his desk with a red and sullen face, the effects
of the private beating. He sat down to his lessons, with what courage he
had, after his vigil; and presently, happening to look up, he saw Lewis
senior.
Lewis senior was stealthily regarding him over the corner of a desk,
with as much inward curiosity as though he had risen from the dead.
Lewis was in a perplexed state of mystification yet. There Arkell was,
sure enough; alive, and apparently well. He had not become an idiot;
that, Lewis could see; he had not parted with his arms and legs. How
_had_ he got out? But the relief, to find him thus, was so great to
Lewis's mind, that his spirits rose to a reckless height; and he was
insolent to Jocelyn when the latter spoke to him about coming in after
the roll was called.
At breakfast time Henry went in search of George Prattleton, but could
not see him; the probability was that Mr. George had gone to bed again,
and was taking out his night's rest by daylight. He sought him again at
dinner-time, and then he had gone out; the two Prattleton boys thought
to the billiard rooms. In the afternoon, however, as Henry was passing
through the cloisters to the school, after service in the cathedral, he
met him.
George Prattleton listened with an air of apparent incredulity to the
tale; Henry had got locked up in the church, and seen him and a stranger
go into the church at midnight, or thereabouts!--_him_, George
Prattleton! Mr. George denied it _in toto_; and expressed his belief
that Henry must have been dreaming.
"It's of no use talking like that, George Prattleton," said Henry, in a
vexed tone. "You know quite well you were there. I saw the same man with
you in the Grounds, the previous night, when I was going home after the
audit-dinner."
"You must have seen double, then! I don't know whom you are talking of.
Had you been drinking?"
"It won't do, George Prattleton. I was in full possession of both my
sight and senses. You know whom I mean. His name's Rolls."
"Did he tell you his name?"
"No; but you did. I heard you call him by his name two or three times in
the church last night. I want to know what I am to do about it."
"I don't know any Rolls; and I was not in the church last night; and my
full persuasion is--if you really were locked in, as you say--that you
fell asleep and dreamt this story."
"Now look you here, George Prattleton; if you persist in this line of
denial, I shall be obliged to tell Mr. Wilberforce. I don't like to do
it; your family and mine are intimate, and we have received many
kindnesses from them, and I assure you I'd almost rather cut my tongue
out than speak. But I can't let things go on at this uncertainty. Do you
know what that Rolls did?"
"What did he do?" was the mocking rejoinder.
"He cut a leaf out of the register book."
"No?" shouted George Prattleton, the words scaring him to seriousness.
"I declare he did. When the candle went out, you thought it went out of
itself, didn't you; well, he blew it out. I saw him blow it, and he
called out, 'What a beast of a candle,' and said it was the damp put it
out, and he got you to go for the matches. Was it not so?"
"Well?" said George Prattleton, too much alarmed to heed the half
admission.
"Well, you had no sooner gone than he somehow got the candle alight
again; I didn't see how, I suppose he had matches; and he took out a
penknife, and put what looked like a thin board behind the leaf he was
looking at, and cut it out. I say I'm not sure! but it's transportation
for life to rob a church register."
George Prattleton wound his arm round one of the cloister pillars: face,
heart, senses, alike scared. To give him his due, he would no more have
countenanced a thing like this than he would have committed murder. All
denial to Henry was over; and he felt half dead as he glanced forward to
future consequences, and their effect upon his own reputation.
"You saw all this! Why on earth did you not pounce in upon him? or help
me when I got back with the matches?"
"Because I was bewildered--frightened, if you will; and it all passed so
quickly. I knew afterwards that it was what I ought to have done; but
one can't do always the right thing at the right time."
"He put the leaf in his pocket, you say? It may not be destroyed. I----"
"Do you know what it related to?" interrupted Henry.
"Yes; to some old tithe cause--a dispute in a family he knows; people of
the name of Whiffam," answered George Prattleton. "Some trifling cause,
he said."
"Well, it's an awfully dangerous thing to do, let it relate to ever so
trifling a cause," observed Henry. "Who is this Rolls? Do you know him
well?"
"Three days back I did not know him from Adam," was the candid
admission. "We met at the billiard rooms; and, somehow, we got thick
directly. That night, when you saw us in the grounds, he was sounding me
on this very thing--whether I could not get him a sight of the
register."
"What's to be done about it?" asked Henry.
"_I_ don't know," returned George Prattleton, flinging up his hands.
"It ought to be told to Mr. Wilberforce!"
"Be still, for heaven's sake! Would you ruin me? You must give me your
promise, Henry Arkell, not to betray this; now, before we part."
"I don't wish to betray it; I'd do anything rather than bring trouble
upon you. But it _ought_ to be told."
"Nobody living may be the worse for what Rolls has done; nobody may ever
hear of it more. Of course I shall charge him with his duplicity, and
get the leaf back from him, if it is not destroyed, and replace it in
the book. In that case, nobody can be the worse. Give me your promise."
Henry did not see what else he could do. If the leaf could be got back,
and replaced, to speak of the abstraction might be productive of
needless, gratuitous harm to George Prattleton. He put his hand into
George's.
"You have my promise," he said; "but on one condition. I will never
speak of this, so long as I am unaware of any urgent necessity existing
for its disclosure. But should that necessity come, then I shall ask you
to release me from my promise; and if you decline, _I_ shall consider
myself no longer bound by it."
"Very well; a bargain," said George Prattleton, after a pause. "And now
I'm after that scoundrel Rolls. I'll tell _you_ a secret before I
go--tit for tat. Do you know how you got fastened in the church?"
"I suppose you did it, not knowing I was there."
"Not I. It was Lewis."
"Lewis!"
"Lewis senior. For a lark, he said, but I expect he owed you some
grudge. By the way, though, I promised him I'd not speak of this; he
told it me in confidence. I forgot that."
"I'll not speak of it. I can't, if I am to keep the other a secret. It
was only the difficulty of accounting for my getting out of the church,
that kept me from asking Hunt how I got locked in."
They parted. Mr. George Prattleton went in search of his friend Rolls,
and Henry tore along the cloisters with all his might, anticipating he
knew not what of reprimand from the head master for lingering on his
way from college. It was close upon four o'clock, and his desk had some
Greek to do yet; but the afternoon lessons were less regularly performed
in winter than in summer.