Deadham Hard Part 20

Faircloth rose to his feet.

"Time's up"--he said. "I must go. Here is farewell to the most beautiful day of my life.--But see, Damaris"--

And he knelt down, in front of her.

"Leave your shoes and stockings cast away on the Bar and thereby open the door--for some people--on to the kingdom of heaven, if you like. But don't, don't, if you've the smallest mercy for my peace of mind ever wander about there again alone. I've a superst.i.tion against it. Something unhappy will come of it. It isn't right. It isn't safe. When--when I called you and you answered me through the mist, I had a horrible fear I was too late. You see I care--and the caring, after to-day, very certainly will not grow less. Take somebody, one of your women, always, with you. Promise me never to be out by yourself."

Wondering, inexpressibly touched, Damaris put her hands on his shoulders.

His hands sprang to cover them.

"Of course, I promise," she said.

And, closing her eyes, put up her lips to be kissed.

Then the rattle of the gla.s.s door on to the garden as it shut. In the room a listening stillness, a great all-invading emptiness. Finally Hordle, with the tea-tray, and--

"Mrs. Cooper, if it isn't troubling you, Miss, would be glad to have the house-books to pay, as she's walking up the village after tea."

CHAPTER XII

CONCERNING A SERMON WHICH NEVER WAS PREACHED AND OTHER MATTERS OF LOCAL INTEREST

Before pa.s.sing on to more dignified matters, that period of nine days demands to be noted during which the inhabitants of Deadham, all very much agog, celebrated the wonder of Miss Bilson's indisputable disappearance and Damaris Verity's reported adventure.

Concerning the former, Dr. Horniblow, good man, took himself seriously to task, deploring his past action and debating his present duty.

"It is no use, Jane," he lamented to his wife. The two had retired for the night, darkness and the bedclothes covering them. "I am very much worried about my share in the matter."

"But, my dear James, you really are overscrupulous. What share had you?"

The clerical wife does not always see eye to eye with her spouse in respect of his female parishioners, more particularly, perhaps, the unmarried ones. Mrs. Horniblow loved, honoured, and--within reasonable limits--obeyed her James; but this neither prevented her being shrewd, nor knowing her James, after all, to be human. Remembrance of Theresa, heading the Deadham procession during the inspection of Harchester Cathedral, sandwiched in between him and the Dean, still rankled in her wifely bosom.

"I overpersuaded Miss Bilson to accompany us on the choir treat. I forgot she must not be regarded as an entirely free agent. She has shown interest in parish work and really proved very useful and obliging. Her acquaintance with architecture--the technical terms, too--is unusually accurate for a member of your s.e.x."

"Her business is teaching," said the lady.

"And I can't but fear I have been instrumental in her loss of an excellent position."

"If her learning is as remarkable as you consider it, she will doubtless soon secure another."

"Ah! you're prejudiced, my love. One cannot but be struck, at times, by the harshness with which even women of high principle, like yourself, judge other women."

"Possibly the highness of my principles may be accountable for my judgments--in some cases."

"Argument is very unrestful," the vicar remarked, turning over on his side.

"But there would be an end of conversation if I always agreed with you."

"Tut--tut," he murmured. Then with renewed plaintiveness--"I cannot make up my mind whether it is not my duty, my chivalrous duty, to seek an interview with Sir Charles Verity and explain--put the aspects of the case to him as I see them."

"Call on him by all means. I'll go with you. We ought, in common civility, to enquire for Damaris after this illness of hers. But don't explain or attempt to enlarge on the case from your own point of view.

Sir Charles will consider it an impertinence. It won't advantage Miss Bilson and will embroil you with the most important of your parishioners.

The wisdom of the serpent is permitted, on occasion even recommended."

"A most dangerous doctrine, Jane, most dangerous, save under authority."

"What authority can be superior to that under which the recommendation was originally given?"

"My love, you become slightly profane.--I implore you don't argue--and at this hour! When a woman touches on exegesis, on theology "--

"All I know upon those subjects you, dear, have taught me."

"Ah! well--ah! well"--the good man returned, at once mollified and suspicious. For might not the compliment be regarded as something of a back-hander? "We can defer our decision till to-morrow. Perhaps we had better, as you propose, call together. I need not go straight to the point, but watch my opportunity and slip in a word edgeways."

He audibly yawned--the hint, like the yawn, a broad one. The lady did not take it, however. So far she had held her own; more--had nicely secured her ends. But further communications trembled upon her tongue.

The word is just--literally trembled, for they might cause anger, and James' anger--it happened rarely--she held in quite, to herself, uncomfortable respect.

"I fear there is a good deal of objectionable gossip going about the village just now," she tentatively commenced.

"Then pray don't repeat it to me, my love"--another yawn and an irritable one. "Gossip as you know is abhorrent to me."

"And to me--but one needs to be forearmed with the truth if one is to rebut it conclusively. Only upon such grounds should I think of mentioning this to you."

She made a dash.

"James, have you by chance ever heard peculiar rumours about young Darcy Faircloth's parentage?"

"In mercy, Jane--what a question!--and from you! I am inexpressibly shocked."

"So was I, when--I won't mention names--when such rumours were hinted to me. I a.s.sured the person with whom I was talking that I had never heard a word on the subject. But she said, 'One can't help having eyes.'"

"Or, some of you, noses for carrion."

Here he gave her the advantage. She was not slow to make play with it.

"Now it is my turn to be shocked," she said--"and not, I think, James, without good cause."

"Yes, I apologize," the excellent man answered immediately. "I apologize; but to have so foul a suggestion of parochial scandal let loose on me suddenly, flung in my teeth, as I may say--and by you! I was taken off my guard and expressed myself coa.r.s.ely. Yes, Jane, I apologize."

"Then I have you authority for contradicting these rumours?"

The Vicar of Deadham groaned in the darkness, and rustled under the bedclothes. His perplexity was great on being thus confronted by the time-honoured question as to how far, in the interests of public morality, it is justifiable for the private individual roundly to lie.

Finally he banked on compromise, that permanently presiding genius of the Church of England 'as by law established.'