Chapter 42

"Perhaps not,"--said Roxmouth, quietly--"But I can hardly refuse to accept the witness of my own eyes and ears." And, attended by an almost breathless silence on the part of his auditors, he related with an air of patient endurance and compassionate regret, his own account of the interview between Maryllia and Walden in the picture- gallery, exaggerating something here, introducing a suggestive insinuation there, suppressing the simplicity of the true facts, and inserting falsehood wherever convenient, till he had succeeded in placing Walden's good name at Miss Tabitha's cat-like mercy for her to rend and pounce upon to the utmost extent of her own jaundiced rage and jealous venom.

Nothing could equal or surpass Sir Morton's amazement and wrath as he listened to the narration. His eyes seemed to literally start out of his head,--his throat swelled visibly till a fat ridge of flesh lolled over the edge of his stiff shirt-collar, and he threw in various observations of his own with regard to Walden, such as 'Sniveling puppy!' 'Canting rascal!' 'Elderly humbug!' 'Sneaking upstart,' which were quite in accordance with his native good taste and refinement of speech. And when at last his stock of expletives became, for the time being, exhausted, and when Miss Tabitha's dumb viciousness had, like an invisible sculptor's chisel, carved sudden deep lines in her face as fitting accompaniments to the deepening malice of her thoughts, they all rose from the luncheon table and went their several ways in their several moods of disconcerted confusion, impotence and vexation, in search of fresh means to gain new and unexpected ends. Roxmouth, reluctantly yielding to the earnest persuasions of Longford, walked with him into the village of St. Rest, and made enquiries at the post-office as to whether Miss Vancourt's sudden departure was known there, or whether any instructions had been left as to the forwarding of her letters. But the postmistress, Mrs. Tapple, breathing hard and curtseying profoundly to the 'future Dook' declared she ''adn't heard nothink,' and ''adn't 'ad no orders.' Miss Vancourt's letters and telegrams all went up to the Manor as usual. Whereupon, still guided by the astute Longford, Roxmouth so far obeyed Maryllia's parting suggestion as to go and 'kindly call' upon Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby at the Manor itself. The beautiful old house looked the same as usual; there were no shutters up, no blinds drawn, in any of the windows,--nothing indicated absence on the part of the reigning mistress of the fair domain; and even the dog Plato was comfortably snoozing according to daily custom, on the sun-baked flag-stones in the Tudor court. Primmins opened the door to them with his usual well-trained and imperturbable demeanour.

"Miss Vancourt is not at home?" began Roxmouth tentatively.

"Miss Vancourt has left for the Continent, my lord," replied Primmins, sedately.

Longford exchanged a swift glance with his patron. The latter gave a slight, weary shrug of his shoulders.

"Miss Bourne."--began Longford then.

"Miss Bourne and Mr. Gigg have also left," said Primmins.

"I suppose Miss Vancourt went with them?"

"No, sir."

This was baffling.

"Lady Wicketts is staying here, I believe,"--murmured Roxmouth--"Can I--er?"

"Her ladyship has the neuralgy and is lying down, my lord," and an acute observer might have noticed the tremor of a wink in Primmins' eye--"Miss Fosby is in the drawing-room."

With a profound sigh Roxmouth glanced at Longford. That gentleman smiled a superior smile.

"We should like to see Miss Fosby."

Primmins at once threw open the door more widely.

"This way, if you please!"

In another moment they were ushered into the presence of Miss Fosby, who, laying aside her embroidery, rose with punctilious ceremony to receive them.

"Lady Wicketts is not well,"--she said, in tenderly lachrymose accents--"Dear Lady Wicketts! She is always so good!--always thinking of other people and doing such kind things!--she fatigues herself, and she is so delicate--ah!--so very delicate! She is suffering from neuralgia, I am sorry to say!"

"Don't mention it,"--said Roxmouth, hastily--"We would not disturb her for the world! The fact is, we called to see Miss Vancourt---"

"Yes?" queried Miss Fosby, gently, taking up her embroidery again, and carefully setting her needle into the petal of a rosebud she was designing--"Dear girl! She left here yesterday."

"Rather sudden, wasn't it?" said Longford.

Miss Fosby looked up placidly, and smiled. She had a touch of humour about her as well as much 'early Victorian' sentiment, and she was just now enjoying herself.

"I think not! Young women like change and travel. Maryllia has always been accustomed to go abroad in August. The first time Lady Wicketts and I ever met her, she was travelling with her aunt. Oh no, I don't think it is at all sudden!"

"Where has she gone?" asked Roxmouth, affecting as much ease and lightness of manner as he could in putting the question.

Miss Fosby smiled a little more.

"I really don't know,"--she replied, with civil mildness--"I fancy she has no settled plans at all. She has kindly allowed Lady Wicketts and myself the use of the Manor for three weeks."

"Till she returns?" suggested Longford.

This time Miss Fosby laughed.

"Oh no! When WE leave it, the Manor is to be shut up again for quite a long time--probably till next summer."

"Miss Bourne has gone with her friend, I suppose?" "No,"--and Miss Fosby sought carefully among her embroidery silks for some special tint of colour--"Little Cicely and Monsieur Gigue, her master, went away together only this morning."

"Well, I suppose Miss Vancourt's letters will he forwarded on somewhere!"--said Eoxmouth, unguardedly. Miss Fosby's back stiffened instantly.

"Really, my lord, I know nothing about that,"--she said, primly-- "Nor should I even make it my business to enquire." There was an awkward pause after this, and though Longford skilfully changed the subject of conversation to generalities, the rest of the interview was fraught with considerable embarrassment. Miss Fosby was not to be 'drawn.' She was distinctly 'old-fashioned,'--needless therefore to add that she was absolutely loyal to her absent friend and hostess.

Leaving the Manor, Lord Roxmouth and his tame pussy sought for information in other quarters with equal futility. The agent, Mr. Stanways, 'knew nothing.' His orders were to communicate all his business to Miss Vancourt's solicitors in London. Finally the last hope failed them in Julian Adderley. They found that young gentleman as much taken aback as themselves by the news of Maryllia'a departure. He had been told nothing of it. A note from Cicely Bourne had been brought to him that morning by one of the gardeners at the Manor--and he showed this missive to both Roxmouth and Longford with perfect frankness. It merely ran: "Goodbye Moon-calf! Am going away. No time to see you for a fond farewell! Hope you will be famous before I come back. Enclosed herewith is my music to your 'Little Eose Tree,' GOBLIN."

This, with the accompanying manuscript score of the song alluded to was all the information Julian could supply,--and his own surprise and consternation at the abrupt and unexpected termination of his pleasant visits to the Manor, were too genuine to be doubted.

"It is positively remote!" he said, staring vaguely at his visitors- -"Too remote for realisation! Mr. Walden has gone away too."

Roxmouth started.

"Mr. Walden?"

"Yes." And Julian looked surprised at the other's hasty tone,--"But only to see his Bishop. He will preach here as usual on Sunday."

"Are you sure of that?" asked Longford, sharply scanning Julian's flabby face, green-grey eyes and ruddy locks with sudden suspicion-- "Or is it only a blind?"

"A blind?" And Adderley lifted his shoulders to the lobes of his ears and spread out his hands in flat amazement,--"What do you mean, most obscure Marius? For what purpose should a blind be used? Mr. Walden is the last person in the world to wish to cover his intentions, or disguise his motives. He is the sincerest man I ever met!"

Longford glanced at his patron for instructions. Was Adderley to be told of the 'amorous entanglement' of Miss Vancourt? Roxmouth frowned at him warningly, and he understood his cue.

"Well, if you hear any news from the Manor, you can let us know,"-- he said--"You are quite aware of the position---"

"Quite!" murmured Julian, lazily.

"And if you want to get on, you will hardly find a better friend than Lord Roxmouth,"--pursued Longford, with meaning emphasis--"He has made many a man famous!"

"Oh, my dear Longford!-pray do not speak of these things!"-- interrupted Roxmouth, with an air of gentlemanly humility. "Merit always commands my interest and attention--and Mr. Adderley's talent as a poet--naturally--!" Here he waved his hand and allowed the sentence to finish itself.

Julian looked at him thoughtfully.

"Thanks! I THINK I see what you mean!"--he said slowly--"But I'm afraid I am not a useful person. I never have been useful in my life--neither to myself, nor to anybody else. To be useful would be new--and in some cases, fresh,"--here he smiled dubiously--"Yes-- very fresh!--and delightful! But I fear--I very much fear that I shall always 'lack advancement' as Hamlet says--I can never accommodate myself to other people's plans. You will excuse my inabilities?"

Roxmouth flushed angrily. He understood. So did Marius Longford-- resolving in his own mind that whenever, IF ever, a book of poems appeared by Julian Adderley, he would so maul and pounce upon it in the critical reviews, that there should not be a line of it left unmangled or alive. They parted with him, however, on apparently excellent terms.

Returning to Badsworth Hall they found no further news awaiting them than they had themselves been able to obtain. Sir Morton's fussy enquiries had brought no result--Miss Tabitha had scoured the neighbourhood in her high dogcart, calling on the Ittlethwaites and Mandeville Porehams, all in vain. Nobody knew anything. Nobody had heard anything. The sudden exit of Maryllia from the scene took everyone by surprise. And when Miss Pippitt began to hiss a scandalous whisper concerning John Walden, and a possible intrigue between him and the Lady of the Manor, the 'county' sat up amazed. Here indeed was food for gossip! Here was material for 'local' excitement!

"Old Tabitha's jealous!--that's what it is!" said Bruce Ittlethwaite of Ittlethwaite Park, to his maiden sisters,--"Ha-ha-ha! Old green- and-yellow Tabitha is afraid she'll lose her pet parson! Dammit! A pretty woman always starts this kind of nonsense. If it wasn't the clergyman, it would be somebody else--perhaps Sir Morton himself--or perhaps me! Ha-ha-ha! Dammit!"

"I don't believe a word of it!" declared the eldest Miss Ittlethwaite,--"I do not attend Mr. Walden's services myself, but I am quite sure he is an excellent man--and a perfect gentleman. Nothing that Tabitha Pippitt can ever say, will move me on that point!"

"I always had my suspicions!"--said Mrs. Mandeville Poreham, severely, when she in her turn heard the news--"I heard that Miss Vancourt had insisted--positively INSISTED on Mr. Walden's visiting her nearly every day, and I trembled for him! MY girls have gone quite crazy about Miss Vancourt ever since they met her at Sir Morton Pippitt's garden-party, but _I_ have NEVER changed my opinion. MY poor mother always taught me to be firm in my convictions. And Miss Vancourt is a designing person. There's no doubt of it. She affects the innocence of a child--but I doubt whether I have ever met anyone QUITE so worldly and artful!"

So the drops of petty gossip began to trickle,--very slowly at first, and then faster and faster, as is their habitude in the effort to wear away the sparkling adamant of a good name and unblemished reputation. The Reverend Putwood Leveson, vengefully brooding over the wrongs which he considered he had sustained at the hands of Walden, as well as Julian Adderley, rode to and fro on his bicycle from morn till dewy eye, perspiring profusely, and shedding poisonous slanders almost as freely as he exuded melted tallow from his mountainous flesh, aware that by so doing he was not only ingratiating himself with the Pippitts, but also with Lord Roxmouth, through whose influence he presently hoped to 'get a thing or two.' Mordaunt Appleby, the Riversford brewer, and his insignificant spouse, irritated at never having had the chance to 'receive' Lord Roxmouth, were readily pressed into the same service and did their part of scandal-mongering with right good-will and malignant satisfaction. And in less than forty-eight hours' time there was no name too bad for the absent Maryllia; she was 'mixed up' with John Walden,--she had 'tried to entangle him'--there had been 'a scene with him at the Manor,'--she was 'forward,' 'conceited'--and utterly lost to any sense of propriety. Why did she not marry Lord Roxmouth? Why, indeed! Many people could tell if they chose! Ah yes!--and with this, there were sundry shakings of the head and shruggings of the shoulders which implied more than whole volumes of libel.

But while the county talked, the village listened, sagaciously incredulous of mere rumour, quiescent in itself and perfectly satisfied that whoever else was wrong, 'Passon Walden' in everything he did, said, or thought, was sure to be right. Wherefore, until they heard their 'man o' God's' version of the stories that were being so briskly circulated, they reserved their own opinions. The infallibility of the Supreme Pontiff was not more securely founded in the Roman Catholic Ritual than the faith of St. Rest in the 'gospel according to John.'

XXVII

Meanwhile Walden himself, ignorant of all the 'local' excitement so suddenly stirred up in his tiny kingdom, had arrived on a three days' visit at the house, or to put it more correctly, at the palace, of his friend Bishop Brent. It was, in strict reality a palace, having been in the old days one of the residences of Henry VII. Much of the building had been injured during the Cromwellian period, and certain modern repairs to its walls had been somewhat clumsily executed, but it still retained numerous fine old mullioned windows, and a cloistered court of many sculptured arches still eminently beautiful, though grey and crumbling under the touch of the melancholy vandal, Time. The Bishop's study had formerly been King Henry's audience chamber, and possessed a richly-wrought ceiling of interlaced oak rafters, and projecting beams smoothly polished at the ends and painted with royal emblems, from which projections no doubt, in early periods, many a banner of triumph had floated and many a knightly pennon. Bishop Brent was fond of this room, and carefully maintained its ancient character in the style of its furniture and general surroundings. The wide angle-nook and high carved chimney-piece, supported by two sculptured angel-figures of heroic size, was left unmodernised, and in winter the gaping recess was filled with great logs blazing cheerily as in olden times, but in summer, as now, it served as a picturesque setting for masses of rare flowers which, growing in pots, or cut freshly and set in crystal vases, were grouped together with the greatest taste and artistic selection of delicate colouring, forming, as it seemed, a kind of blossom-wreathed shrine, above which, against the carved chimney itself, hung a wonderfully impressive picture of the Virgin and Child. Placed below this, and slightly towarde the centre of the room, was the Bishop's table-desk and chair, arranged so that whenever he raised his head from his work, the serene soft eyes of Mary, Blessed among Women, should mystically meet his own. And here just now he sat at evening, deep in conversation with John Walden, who with the perfect unselfishness which was an ingrained part of his own nature, had for the time put aside or forgotten all his own little troubles, in order to listen to the greater ones of his friend. He had been shocked at the change wrought in seven years on Brent's form and features. Always thin, he had now become so attenuated as to have reached almost a point of emaciation,--his dark eyes, sunk far back under his shelving brows, blazed with a feverish brilliancy which gave an almost unearthly expression to his pale drawn features, and his hand, thin, long, and delicate as a woman's, clenched and unclenched itself nervously when he spoke, with an involuntary force of which he was himself unconscious.

"You have not aged much, Walden!" he said, thoughtfully regarding his old college chum's clear and open countenance with a somewhat sad smile--"Your eyes are the same blue eyes of the boy that linked his arm through mine so long ago and walked with me through the sleepy old streets of 'Alma Mater!' That time seems quite close to me sometimes--and again sometimes far away--dismally, appallingly, far away!"

He sighed. Walden looked at him a little anxiously, but for the moment said nothing.

"You give me no response,"--continued Brent, with sudden querulousness--"Since you arrived we have been talking nothing but generalities and Church matters. Heavens, how sick I am of Church matters! Yet I know you see a change in me. I am sure you do--and you will not say it. Now you never were secretive--you never said one thing and meant another--so speak the truth as you have always done! I AM changed, am I not?"

"You are,"--replied Walden, steadily--"But I cannot tell how, or in what way. You look ill and worn out. You are overworked and overwrought--but I think there is something else at the root of the evil;--something that has happened during the last seven years. You are not quite the man you were when you came to consecrate my church at St. Rest."

"St. Rest!" repeated the Bishop, musingly--"What a sweet name it is- -what a still sweeter suggestion! Rest--rest!--and a saint's rest too!--that perfect rest granted to all the martyrs for Christ!--how safe and peaceful!--how sure and glorious! Would that such rest were mine! But I see nothing ahead of me but storm and turmoil, and stress of anguish and heartbreak, ending in--Nothingness!"

Walden bent a little more forward and looked his friend full in the eyes.

"What is wrong, Harry?" he asked, with exceeding gentleness.

At the old schoolboy name of bygone years, Brent caught and pressed his hand with strong fervour. A smile lighted his eyes.

"John, my boy, everything is wrong!" he said--"As wrong as ever my work at college was, before you set it right. Do you think I forget! Everything is wrong, I tell you! I am wrong,--my thoughts are wrong,--and my conscience leaves me no peace day or night! I ought not to be a Bishop--for I feel that the Church itself is wrong!"

John sat quiet for a minute. Then he said--

"So it is in many ways. The Church is a human attempt to build humanity up on a Divine model, and it has its human limitations. But the Divine model endures!"

Brent threw himself back in his chair and closed his eyes.

"The Divine model endures--yes!" he murmured--"The Divine foundation remains firm, but the human building totters and is insecure to the point of utter falling and destruction!" Here, opening his eyes, he gazed dreamily at the pictured face of the Madonna above him. "Walden, it is useless to contend with facts, and the facts are, that the masses of mankind are as unregenerate at this day as ever they were before Christ came into the world! The Church is powerless to stem the swelling tide of human crime and misery. The Church in these days has become merely a harbour of refuge for hypocrites who think to win conventional repute with their neighbours, by affecting to believe in a religion not one of whose tenets they obey! Blasphemy, rank blasphemy, Walden! It is bad enough in all conscience to cheat one's neighbour, but an open attempt to cheat the Creator of the Universe is the blackest crime of all, though it be unnamed in the criminal calendar!"

He uttered these words with intense passion, rising from his seat, and walking up and down the room as he spoke. Walden watched his restless passing to and fro, with a wistful look in his honest eyes. Presently he said, smiling a little--

"You are my Bishop--and I should not presume to differ from you, Brent! YOU must instruct ME,--not I you! Yet if I may speak from my own experience---"

"You may and you shall!"--replied Brent, swiftly--"But think for a moment, before you speak, of what that experience has been! One great grief has clouded your life--the loss of your sister. After that, what has been your lot? A handful of simple souls set under your charge, in the loveliest of little villages,--souls that love you, trust you and obey you. Compared to this, take MY daily life! An over-populated diocese--misery and starvation on all sides,--men working for mere pittances,--women prostituting themselves to obtain food--children starving--girls ruined in their teens--and over it all, my wretched self, a leading representative of the Church which can do nothing to remedy these evils! And worse than all, a Church in which some of the clergy themselves who come under my rule and dominance are more dishonourable and dissolute than many of the so- called 'reprobates' of society whom they are elected to admonish! I tell you, Walden, I have some men under my jurisdiction whom I should like to see soundly flogged!--only I am powerless to order the castigation--and some others who ought to be serving seven years in penal servitude instead of preaching virtue to people a thousand times more virtuous than themselves!"

"I quite believe that!" said Walden, smiling--"I know one of them!"

The Bishop glanced at him, and laughed.

"You mean Putwood Leveson?" he said--"He seems a mischievous fool-- but I don't suppose there is any real harm in him, is there?"

"Real harm?"--and John flared up in a blaze of wrath--"He is the most pernicious scoundrel that ever masqueraded in the guise of a Christian!"

The Bishop paused in his walk up and down, and clasping his hands behind his back, an old habit of his, looked quizzically at his friend. A smile, kindly and almost boyish, lightened the grey pallor of his worn face.

"Why, John!" he said--"you are actually in a temper! Your mental attitude is evidently that of squared fists and 'Come on!' What has roused the slumbering lion, eh?"

"It doesn't need a lion to spring at Leveson,"--said Walden, contemptuously--"A sheep would do it! The tamest cur that ever crawled would have spirit enough to make a dash for a creature so unutterably mean and false and petty! I may as well admit to you at once that I myself nearly struck him!"

"You did?" And Bishop Brent's grave dark eyes flashed with a sudden suspicion of laughter.

"I did. I know it was not Churchman-like,--I know it was a case of 'kicking against the pricks.' But Leveson's 'pricks' are too much like hog's bristles for me to endure with patience!"

The Bishop assumed a serious demeanour.

"Come, come, let me hear this out!" he said--"Do you mean to tell me that you--YOU, John--actually struck a brother minister?"

"No--I do not mean to tell you anything of the kind, my Lord Bishop!" answered Walden, beginning to laugh. "I say that I 'nearly' struck him,--not quite! Someone else came on the scene at the critical moment, and did for me what I should certainly have done for myself had I been left to it. I cannot say I am sorry for the impulse!"

"It sounds like a tavern brawl,"--said the Bishop, shaking his head dubiously--"or a street fight. So unlike you, Walden! What was it all about?"

"The fellow was slandering a woman,"--replied Walden, hotly-- "Poisoning her name with his foul tongue, and polluting it by his mere utterance--contemptible brute! I should like to have horsewhipped him---"