The Bishop's Secret Part 48

'All men of sense are, Pendle. They are the salt of the earth, the oxygen in the moral atmosphere. If it wasn't for my common sense, bishop,' said the doctor, with a twinkle, 'I believe I should be weak enough to come and hear you preach.'

Dr Pendle laughed. 'I am afraid the age of miracles is past, my friend.

As a bishop, I should reprove you, but--'

'But, as a good, sensible fellow, you'll take my advice. Well, well, bishop, I have had more obstinate patients than my college chum.

Good-day, good-day,' and the little doctor skipped out of the library with a gay look and a merry nod, leaving the bishop relieved and smiling, and devoutly thankful for the solution of his life's riddle. At that moment the n.o.ble verse of the Psalmist was in his mind and upon his lips--'G.o.d is our refuge and our strength: a very present help in trouble.' Bishop Pendle was proving the truth of that text.

So the exiled lover was permitted to return to Beorminster, and very pleased he was to find himself once more in the vicinity of his beloved.

After congratulating the bishop on his recovered cheerfulness and placidity, George brought forward the name of Mab, and was pleased to find that his father was by no means so opposed to the match as formerly. Dr Pendle admitted again that Mab was a singularly charming young lady, and that his son might do worse than marry her. Late events had humbled the bishop's pride considerably; and the knowledge that George was nameless, induced him to consider Miss Arden more favourably as a wife for the young man. She was at least a lady, and not a barmaid like Bell Mosk; so the painful fact of Gabriel setting his heart so low made George's superior choice quite a brilliant match in comparison. On these grounds, the bishop intimated to Captain Pendle that, on consideration, he was disposed to overlook the rumours about Miss Arden's disreputable father and accept her as a daughter-in-law. It was with this joyful news that George, glowing and eager, as a lover should be, made his appearance the next morning at the Jenny Wren house.

'Thank G.o.d the bishop is reasonable,' cried Miss Which.e.l.lo, when George explained the new position. 'I knew that Mab would gain his heart in the end.'

'She gained mine in the beginning,' said Captain George, fondly, 'and that, after all, is the princ.i.p.al thing.'

'What! your own heart, egotist! Does mine then count for nothing?'

'Oh!' said George, slipping his arm round her waist, 'if we begin on that subject, my litany will be as long as the Athanasian Creed, and quite as devout.'

'Captain Pendle!' exclaimed Miss Which.e.l.lo, scandalised both by embrace and speech--both rather trying to a religious spinster.

'Miss Which.e.l.lo,' mimicked the gay lover, 'am I not to be received into the family under the name of George?'

'That depends on your behaviour, Captain Pendle. But I am both pleased and relieved that the bishop consents to the marriage.'

'Aunty!' cried Mab, reddening a trifle,'don't talk as though it were a favour. I do not look upon myself as worthless, by any means.'

'Worthless!' echoed George, gaily; 'then is gold mere dross, and diamonds but pebbles. You are the beauty of the universe, my darling, and I your lowest slave.' He threw himself at her feet. 'Set your pretty foot on my neck, my queen!'

'Captain Pendle,' said Miss Which.e.l.lo, striving to stifle a laugh, 'if you don't get up and behave properly I shall leave the room.'

'If you do, aunty, he will get worse,' smiled Mab, ruffling what the barber had left of her lover's hair. 'Get up at once, you--you mad Romeo.'

George rose obediently, and dusted his knees. 'Juliet, I obey,' said he, tragically; 'but no, you are not Juliet of the garden; you are Cleopatra! Semiramis! the most imperious and queenly of women. Where did you get your rich eastern beauty from, Mab? What are you, an Arabian princess, doing in our cold grey West? You are like some dark-browed queen! A daughter of Bohemia! A Romany sorceress!'

Mab laughed, but Miss Which.e.l.lo heaved a quick, impatient sigh, as though these eastern comparisons annoyed her. George was unconsciously making remarks which cut her to the heart; and almost unable to control her feelings, she muttered some excuse and glided hastily from the room.

With the inherent selfishness of love, neither George nor Mab paid any attention to her emotion or departure, but whispered and smiled and caressed one another, well pleased at their sweet solitude. George spent one golden hour in paradise, then unwillingly tore himself away. Only Shakespeare could have done justice to the pa.s.sion of their parting.

Kisses and sighs, last looks, final handclasps, and then George in the sunshine of the square, with Mab waving her handkerchief from the open cas.e.m.e.nt. But, alas! workaday prose always succeeds Arcadian rhyme, and with the sinking sun dies the glory of the day.

With his mind hanging betwixt a mental heaven and earth, after the similitude of Mahomet's coffin, George walked slowly down the street, until he was brought like a shot eagle to the ground by a touch on the shoulder. Now, as there is nothing more annoying than such a bailiff's salute, George wheeled round with some vigorous language on the tip of his tongue, but did not use it when he found himself facing Sir Harry Brace.

'Oh, it's you!' said Captain Pendle, lamely. 'Well, with your experience, you should know better than to pull up a fellow unawares.'

'You talk in riddles, my good George,' said Harry, staring, as well he might, at this not very coherent speech.

'I have just left Miss Arden,' explained George, quite unabashed, for he did not care if the whole world knew of his love.

'Oh, I beg your pardon, I understand,' replied Brace, with a broad smile; 'but you must excuse me, old chap. I am--I am out of practice lately, you see. "My love she is in Germanee," as the old song says. I wish to speak with you.'

'All right. Where shall we go?'

'To the club. I must see you privately.'

The Beorminster Club was just a short distance down the street, so George followed Harry into its hospitable portals and finally accepted a comfortable chair in the smoking-room, which, luckily for the purpose of Brace, was empty at that hour. The two young men each ordered a cool hock-and-soda and lighted two very excellent cigarettes which came out of the pocket of extravagant George. Then they began to talk, and Harry opened the conversation with a question.

'George,' he said, with a serious look on his usually merry face, 'were you on Southberry Heath on the night that poor devil was murdered?'

'Oh, yes,' replied Captain Pendle, with some wonder at the question. 'I rode over to the gipsy camp to buy a particular ring from Mother Jael.'

'For Miss Arden, I suppose?'

'Yes; I wished for a necromantic symbol of our engagement.'

'Did you hear or see anything of the murder?'

'Good Lord, no!' cried the startled George, sitting up straight. 'I should have been at the inquest had I seen the act, or even heard the shot.'

'Did you carry a pistol with you on that night?'

'As I wasn't riding through Central Africa, I did not. What is the meaning of these mysterious questions?'

Brace answered this query by slipping his hand into his breast-pocket and producing therefrom a neat little pistol, toy-like, but deadly enough in the hand of a good marksman. 'Is this yours?' he asked, holding it out for Captain Pendle's inspection.

'Certainly it is,' said George, handling the weapon; 'here are my initials on the b.u.t.t. Where did you get this?'

'It was found by Mother Jael near the spot where Jentham was murdered.'

Captain Pendle clapped down the pistol on the table with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of amazement. 'Was he shot with this, Harry?'

'Without doubt!' replied Brace, gravely. 'Therefore, as it is your property, I wish to know how it came to be used for that purpose.'

'Great Scott, Brace! you don't think that I killed the blackguard?'

'I think nothing so ridiculous,' protested Sir Harry, testily.

'You talk as if you did, though,' retorted George, smartly.

'I thrashed that Jentham beast for insulting Mab, but I didn't shoot him.'

'But the pistol is yours.'

'I admit that, but--Good Lord!' cried Captain Pendle, starting to his feet.

'What now?' asked Brace, turning pale and cold on the instant.

'Gabriel! Gabriel! I--I gave this pistol to him.'

'You gave this pistol to Gabriel? When? Where?'