Deadham Hard Part 45

"I was on my way to The Hard," he began, "to express my regrets--offer my apologies would hardly be too strong a phrase--to your niece, Miss Verity, and to yourself. For I felt compelled, without any delay, to dissociate myself from the intemperate procedure of my colleague--of my curate. He has used, or rather misused, his official position, has grievously misused the privileges of the pulpit--the pulpit of our parish church--to attack the reputation of private individuals and resuscitate long-buried scandals."

The speaker was, unquestionably, greatly distressed. Miss Felicia, though more than ever bewildered, felt for him warmly. It pained her excessively to observe how his large hands clasped and unclasped, how his loose lips worked.

"Let me a.s.sure you," he went on, "though I trust that is superfluous--"

"I am certain it is, dear Dr. Horniblow," she feelingly declared.

"Thanks," he replied. "You are most kind, most indulgent to me, Miss Verity.--Superfluous, I would say, to a.s.sure you that my colleague adopted this deplorable course without my knowledge or sanction. He sprang it on me like a bomb-sh.e.l.l. As a Christian my conscience, as a gentleman my sense of fair play, condemns his action."

"Yes--yes--I sympathize.--I am convinced you are incapable of any indiscretion, any unkindness, in the pulpit or out of it. But why, my dear Canon, apologize to us? How can this unfortunate sermon affect me or my niece? How can the scandal you hint at in any respect concern us?"

"Because," he began, that mottling of purple increasingly deforming his amiable face.--And there words failed him, incontinently he stuck. He detested strong language, but--heavens and earth--how could he put it to her, as she gazed at him with startled, candid eyes, innocent of guile as those of a babe? Only too certainly no word had reached her of the truth. The good man groaned in spirit for, like Patch, he found himself in a place of quite unexampled tightness, and with no hope of shunting the immense discomfort of it on to alien shoulders such as had been granted the happier Patch.

"Because," he began again, only to suffer renewed agony of wordlessness.

In desperation he s.h.i.+fted his ground.

"You have heard, perhaps, that your niece, Miss Damaris, left the church before the conclusion of the sermon? I do not blame her"--

He waved a fatherly hand. Miss Verity acquiesced.

"Or rather was led out by--by Captain Faircloth--a young officer in the mercantile marine, whose abilities and successful advance in his profession this village has every reason to respect."

He broke off.

"Let us walk on towards The Hard. Pray let us walk on.--Has no rumour ever reached you, Miss Verity, regarding this young man?"

The wildest ideas flitted through Miss Felicia's brain.

--The figure in s.h.i.+ny oilskins--yet preposterous, surely?--After all, an affair of the heart--misplaced affection--Damaris?--Did this account for the apparent indifference?

--How intensely interesting; yet how unwise.--How--but she must keep her own counsel. The wind, now at her back, glued the blue coat inconveniently against and even between her legs, unceremoniously whisking her forward.

"Rumours--oh, none," she protested.

"None?" he echoed despairingly. "Pray let us walk on."

A foolish urgency on his part this, she felt, since she was already almost on the run.

"None that, by birth, Captain Faircloth is somewhat nearly related to your family--to your--your brother, Sir Charles, in fact?"

There, the incubus was off his straining chest at last! He felt easier, capable of manipulating the situation to some extent, smoothing down its rather terrible ascerbities.

"Such connections do," he hastened to add, "as we must regretfully admit, exist even in the highest, the most exalted circles.

Irregularities of youth, doubtlessly deeply repented of. I repeat sins of youth, at which only the sinless--and they, alas! to the shame of my s.e.x are lamentably few--can be qualified to cast a stone.--You, you follow me?"

"You mean me to understand"--

"Yes, yes--exactly so--to understand that this young man is reputed to be"--

"Thank you, my dear Canon--thank you," Felicia Verity here interposed quickly, yet with much simple dignity, for on a sudden she became singularly unflurried and composed.

"I do, I believe, follow you," she continued.--"You have discharged your difficult mission with a delicacy and consideration for which I am grateful; but I am unequal to discussing the subject in further detail just now.--To me, you know, my brother is above criticism. Whatever incidents may--may belong to former years, I accept without cavil or question, in silence--dear Dr. Horniblow--in silence. His wishes upon this matter--should he care to confide them to me--and those of my niece, will dictate my conduct to--towards my nephew, Captain Faircloth.--Believe me, in all sincerity, I thank you. I am very much indebted to you for the information you have communicated to me. It simplifies my position. And now," she gave him her hand, "will you pardon my asking you to leave me?"

Walking slowly--for he felt played out, pretty thoroughly done for, as he put it, and beat--back to the vicarage and his belated Sunday dinner:--

"And of such are the Kingdom of Heaven," James Horniblow said to himself--perhaps truly.

He also said other things, distinctly other things, in which occurred the name of Reginald Sawyer whose days as curate of Deadham were numbered. If he did not resign voluntarily, well then, pressure must, very certainly, be employed to make him resign.

Meanwhile that blue-coated, virginal member of the Kingdom of Heaven sped homeward at the top of her speed. She was conscious of immense upheaval. Never had she felt so alive, so on the spot. The portals of highest drama swung wide before her. She hastened to enter and pour forth the abounding treasures of her sympathy at the feet of the actors in this most marvellous piece. That her own part in it must be insignificant, probably not even a speaking one, troubled her not the least. She was out for them, not for herself. It was, also, characteristic of Miss Felicia that she felt in nowise shocked. Not the ethical, still less the social aspects of the drama affected her, but only its human ones. These dear people had suffered, and she hadn't known it. They suffered still. She enclosed them in arms of compa.s.sion.--If to the pure all things are pure, Felicia Verity's purity at this juncture radiantly stood the test. And that, not through puritanical shutting of the eyes or juggling with fact.

As she declared to Canon Horniblow, she accepted the incident without question or cavil--for her brother. For herself, any possibility of stepping off the narrow path of virtue, and exploring the alluring, fragrant thickets disposed to left of it and to right, had never, ever so distantly, occurred to her.

She arrived at The Hard with a bright colour and beating heart. Crossed the hall and waited at the drawing-room door. A man's voice was audible within, low-toned and grave, but very pleasant. It reminded her curiously of Charles--Charles long ago on leave from India, lightening the heavy conventionalities of Canton Magna with his brilliant, enigmatic, and--to her--all too fugitive presence. Harriet had never really appreciated Charles--though she was dazzled by his fame at intervals--didn't really appreciate him to this day. Well, the loss was hers and the gain indubitably Felicia's, since the elder sister's obtuseness had left the younger sister a free field.--At thought of which Felicia softly laughed.

Again she listened to the man's voice--her brother Charles's delightful young voice. It brought back the glamour of her girlhood, of other voices which had mingled with his, of dances, picnics, cricket matches, days with the hounds. She felt strangely moved, transported; also strangely shy--so that she debated retirement. Did not, of course, retire, but went into the drawing-room with a gentle rush, a dart between the stumpy pillars.

"I hoped that I should find you both," she said. "Yes," to Damaris'

solemn and enquiring eyes--"I happened to meet our good, kind Canon and have a little conversation with him. I hope"--to Faircloth--"you and I may come to know one another better, know one another as friends. You are not going?--No, indeed, you must stay to luncheon. It would grieve me--and I think would grieve my brother Charles also, if you refused to break bread in this house."

CHAPTER V

DEALING WITH EMBLEMS, OMENS AND DEMONSTRATIONS

Deadham resembled most country parishes in this, that, while revelling in internal dissensions, when attacked from without its inhabitants promptly sc.r.a.pped every vendetta and, for the time being, stood back to back against the world.

As one consequence of such parochial solidarity, the village gentry set in a steady stream towards The Hard on the Monday afternoon following the historic Sunday already chronicled. Commander and Mrs. Battye called. Captain and Mrs. Taylor called, bringing with them their daughter Louisa, a tight-lipped, well instructed High School mistress, of whom her parents stood--one couldn't but notice it--most wholesomely in awe. As is the youthful cuckoo in the nest of the hedge sparrow, so was Louisa Taylor to the authors of her being.--Mrs. Horniblow called also, flanked by her two girls, May and Doris--plain, thick-set, energetic, well-meaning young persons, whom their shrewd mother loved, sheltered, rallied, and cherished, while perfectly aware of their limitations as to beauty and to brains. Immediately behind her slipped in Mrs. Cripps. The doctor abstained, conscious of having put a match to the fuse which had exploded yesterday's astounding homiletic torpedo.

The whole affair irritated him to the point of detestable ill-temper.

Still, if only to throw dust in the public eye, the house of Cripps must be represented. He therefore deputed the job--like so many another ungrateful one--to his forlorn-looking and red-eyed spouse. This vote of confidence, if somewhat crudely proposed and seconded, was still so evidently sincere and kindly meant that Damaris and Miss Felicia felt constrained to accept it in good part.

Conversation ran upon the weather, the crops, the migratory wild fowl now peopling the Haven, the Royal Family--invariably a favourite topic this, in genteel circles furthest removed from the throne--in anecdotes of servants and of pets interspersed with protests against the rise in butcher Cleave's prices, the dullness of the newspapers and the surprising scarcity of eggs.--Ran on any and every subject, in short, save that of sermons preached by curates enamoured of the Decalogue.

Alone--saving and excepting Dr. Cripps--did the Miss Minetts fail to put in an appearance. This of necessity, since had not they, figuratively speaking, warmed the viper in their bosoms, cradled the a.s.sa.s.sin upon their hearth? They were further handicapped, in respect of any demonstration, by the fact of Theresa Bilson's presence in their midst.

Owing to the general combustion, Miss Felicia and the Peace Angel's joint mission had gone by the wall. Theresa was still an exile from The Hard, and doomed to remain so as the event proved. With that remarkable power--not uncommon in her s.e.x--of trans.m.u.ting fact, granted the healing hand of time, from defeat to personal advantage, she had converted her repulse by Sir Charles Verity into a legend of quite flattering quality.

She had left The Hard because--But--

"She must not be asked to give chapter and verse. The position had been _extremely_ delicate. Even now she could barely speak of it--she had gone through too much. To be more explicit"--she bridled--"would trench upon the immodest, almost. But just _this_ she _could_ say--she withdrew from The Hard three years ago, because she saw withdrawal would be best for _others_. Their peace of mind had been her object."

The above guarded confidences the Miss Minetts, hanging upon her lips, received with devout admiration and fully believed. And, the best of it was, Theresa had come by now, thanks to frequent rehearsal, fully to believe this version herself. At the present juncture it had its convenience, since she could declare her allegiance to her former employer unimpaired. Thereby was she at liberty to join in the local condemnation of Reginald Sawyer and his sermon. She did so with an a.s.sumption of elegant, if slightly hysterical, omniscience. This was not without its practical side. She regretted her inability to meet him at meals. In consequence the Miss Minetts proposed he should be served in his own sitting-room, until such time as it suited him to find another place of residence than the Grey House. For their allegiance went on all fours with Theresa's. It was also unimpaired. Propriety had been outraged on every hand; matters, heretofore deemed unmentionable, rushed into the forefront of knowledge and conversation; yet never had they actually enjoyed themselves so greatly. The sense of being a storm centre--inasmuch as they harboured the viper a.s.sa.s.sin--produced in them an unexampled militancy. Latent s.e.x-antagonism revealed itself.

The man, by common consent was down; and, being down, the Miss Minetts jumped on him, pounded him, if terms so vulgar are permissible in respect for ladies so refined. For every sin of omission, committed against their womanhood by the members of his s.e.x, they made him scapegoat--unconsciously it is true, but effectively none the less. From being his slaves they became his tormentors. Never was young fellow more taken aback. Such revulsions of human feeling are instructive--deplorable or diverting according as you view it.

Meanwhile that portion of the local gentry aforesaid, whom awkward personal predicament--as in the case of Dr. Cripps and the Miss Minetts--did not preclude from visiting The Hard, having called early on Monday afternoon also left early, being anxious to prove their civility of purest water, untainted by self-seeking, by ulterior greed of tea and cakes. It followed that Damaris found herself relieved of their somewhat embarra.s.sed, though kindly and well-intentioned, presence before sunset.

And of this she was glad, since the afternoon had been fruitful of interests far more intimate and vital in character.

While Captain and Mrs. Taylor, with their highly superior offspring Louisa, still held the floor, Damaris received a telegram from her father announcing a change of plans involving his immediate return.