The Nebuly Coat Part 11

"Dear Sir" (it began),

"I understood from you yesterday that the repairs to the north transept of Cullerne Minster are estimated to cost 7,800 pounds. This charge I should like to bear myself, and thus release for other purposes of restoration the sum already collected. I am also prepared to undertake whatever additional outlay is required to put the whole building in a state of substantial repair. Will you kindly inform Sir George Farquhar of this, and ask him to review the scheme of restoration as modified by these considerations? I shall be in Cullerne on Sat.u.r.day next, and hope I may find you at home if I call about five in the afternoon, and that you may then have time to show me the church.

"I am, dear sir,

"Very truly yours,

"Blandamer."

Westray had scanned the letter so rapidly that he knew its contents by intuition rather than by the more prosaic method of reading. Nor did he re-read it several times, as is generally postulated by important communications in fiction; he simply held it in his hand, and crumpled it unconsciously, while he thought. He was surprised, and he was pleased--pleased at the wider vista of activity that Lord Blandamer's offer opened, and pleased that he should be chosen as the channel through which an announcement of such gravity was to be made. He felt, in short, that pleasurable and confused excitement, that mental inebriation, which unexpected good fortune is apt to produce in any except the strongest minds, and went down to Mr Sharnall's room still crumpling the letter in his hand. The bloater was left to waste its sweetness on the morning air.

"I have just received some extraordinary news," he said, as he opened the door.

Mr Sharnall was not altogether unprepared, for Miss Joliffe had already informed him that a letter from Lord Blandamer had arrived for Mr Westray; so he only said "Ah!" in a tone that implied compa.s.sion for the lack of mental balance which allowed Westray to be so easily astonished, and added "Ah, yes?" as a manifesto that no sublunary catastrophe could possibly astonish him, Mr Sharnall. But Westray's excitement was cold-waterproof, and he read the letter aloud with much jubilation.

"Well," said the organist, "I don't see much in it; seven thousand pounds is nothing to him. When we have done all that we ought to do, we are unprofitable servants."

"It isn't only seven thousand pounds; don't you see he gives carte-blanche for repairs in general? Why, it may be thirty or forty thousand, or even more."

"Don't you wish you may get it?" the organist said, raising his eyebrows and shutting his eyelids.

Westray was nettled.

"Oh, I think it's mean to sneer at everything the man does. We abused him yesterday as a n.i.g.g.ard; let us have the grace to-day to say we were mistaken." He was afflicted with the over-scrupulosity of a refined, but strictly limited mind, and his conscience smote him. "I, at any rate, was quite mistaken," he went on; "I quite misinterpreted his hesitation when I mentioned the cost of the transept repairs."

"Your chivalrous sentiments do you the greatest credit," the organist said, "and I congratulate you on being able to change your ideas so quickly. As for me, I prefer to stick to my first opinion. It is all humbug; either he doesn't mean to pay, or else he has some plan of his own to push. _I_ wouldn't touch his money with a barge-pole."

"Oh no, of course not," Westray said, with the exaggerated sarcasm of a schoolboy in his tone. "If he was to offer a thousand pounds to restore the organ, you wouldn't take a penny of it."

"He hasn't offered a thousand yet," rejoined the organist; "and when he does, I'll send him away with a flea in his ear."

"That's a very encouraging announcement for would-be contributors,"

Westray sneered; "they ought to come forward very strongly after that."

"Well, I must get on with some copying," the organist said dryly; and Westray went back to the bloater.

If Mr Sharnall was thus pitiably wanting in appreciation of a munificent offer, the rest of Cullerne made no pretence of imitating his example. Westray was too elated to keep the good news to himself, nor did there appear, indeed, to be any reason for making a secret of it.

So he told the foreman-mason, and Mr Janaway the clerk, and Mr Noot the curate, and lastly Canon Parkyn the rector, whom he certainly ought to have told the first of all. Thus, before the carillon of Saint Sepulchre's played "New sabbath" [See Appendix at the end of the volume]

at three o'clock that afternoon, the whole town was aware that the new Lord Blandamer had been among them, and had promised to bear the cost of restoring the great minster of which they were all so proud--so very much more proud when their pride entailed no sordid considerations of personal subscription.

Canon Parkyn was ruffled. Mrs Parkyn perceived it when he came in to dinner at one o'clock, but, being a prudent woman, she did not allude directly to his ill-humour, though she tried to dispel it by leading the conversation to topics which experience had shown her were soothing to him. Among such the historic visit of Sir George Farquhar, and the deference which he had paid to the Rector's suggestions, occupied a leading position: but the mention of the great architect's name, was a signal for a fresh exhibition of vexation on her husband's part.

"I wish," he said, "that Sir George would pay a little more personal attention to the work at the minster. His representative, this Mr-- er--er--this Mr Westray, besides being, I fear, very inexperienced and deficient in architectural knowledge, is a most conceited young man, and constantly putting himself forward in an unbecoming way. He came to me this morning with an exceedingly strange communication--a letter from Lord Blandamer."

Mrs Parkyn laid down her knife and fork.

"A letter from Lord Blandamer?" she said in unconcealed amazement--"a letter from Lord Blandamer to Mr Westray!"

"Yes," the Rector went on, losing some of his annoyance in the pleasurable consciousness that his words created a profound sensation--"a letter in which his lordship offers to bear in the first place the cost of the repairs of the north transept, and afterwards to make good any deficiency in the funds required for the restoration of the rest of the fabric. Of course, I am very loth to question any action taken by a member of the Upper House, but at the same time I am compelled to characterise the proceeding as most irregular. That such a communication should be made to a mere clerk of the works, instead of to the Rector and duly appointed guardian of the sacred edifice, is so grave a breach of propriety that I am tempted to veto the matter entirely, and to refuse to accept this offer."

His face wore a look of sublime dignity, and he addressed his wife as if she were a public meeting. _Ruat coelum_, Canon Parkyn was not to be moved a hair's-breadth from the line traced by propriety and rect.i.tude.

He knew in his inmost heart that under no possible circ.u.mstances would he have refused any gift that was offered him, yet his own words had about them so heroic a ring that for a moment he saw himself dashing Lord Blandamer's money on the floor, as early Christians had flung to the wind that pinch of incense that would have saved them from the lions.

"I think I _must_ refuse this offer," he repeated.

Mrs Parkyn knew her husband intimately--more intimately, perhaps, than he knew himself--and had an additional guarantee that the discussion was merely academic in the certainty that, even were he really purposed to refuse the offer, she would not _allow_ him to do so. Yet she played the game, and feigned to take him seriously.

"I quite appreciate your scruples, my dear; they are just what anyone who knew you would expect. It is a positive affront that you should be told of such a proposal by this impertinent young man; and Lord Blandamer has so strange a reputation himself that one scarcely knows how far it is right to accept anything from him for sacred purposes. I honour your reluctance. Perhaps it _would_ be right for you to decline this proposal, or, at any rate, to take time for consideration."

The Rector looked furtively at his wife. He was a little alarmed at her taking him so readily at his word. He had hoped that she would be dismayed--that she could have brought proper arguments to bear to shake his high resolve.

"Ah, your words have unwittingly reminded me of my chief difficulty in refusing. It is the sacred purpose which makes me doubt my own judgment. It would be a painful reflection to think that the temple should suffer by my refusing this gift. Maybe I should be yielding to my own petulance or personal motives if I were to decline. I must not let my pride stand in the way of higher obligations."

He concluded in his best pulpit manner, and the farce was soon at an end. It was agreed that the gift must be accepted, that proper measures should be taken to rebuke Mr Westray's presumption, as _he_ had no doubt induced Lord Blandamer to select so improper a channel of communication, and that the Rector should himself write direct to thank the n.o.ble donor. So, after dinner, Canon Parkyn retired to his "study,"

and composed a properly fulsome letter, in which he attributed all the n.o.blest possible motives and qualities to Lord Blandamer, and invoked all the most unctuously conceived blessings upon his head. And at teatime the letter was perused and revised by Mrs Parkyn, who added some finishing touches of her own, especially a preamble which stated that Canon Parkyn had been informed by the clerk of the works that Lord Blandamer had expressed a desire to write to Canon Parkyn to make a certain offer, but had asked the clerk of the works to find out first whether such an offer would be acceptable to Canon Parkyn, and a peroration which hoped that Lord Blandamer would accept the hospitality of the Rectory on the occasion of his next visit to Cullerne.

The letter reached Lord Blandamer at Fording the next morning as he sat over a late breakfast, with a Virgil open on the table by his coffee-cup. He read the Rector's stilted periods without a smile, and made a mental note that he would at once send a specially civil acknowledgment. Then he put it carefully into his pocket, and turned back to the _Di patrii indigetes et Romule Vestaque Mater_ of the First Georgic, which he was committing to memory, and banished the invitation so completely from his mind that he never thought of it again till he was in Cullerne a week later.

Lord Blandamer's visit, and the offer which he had made for the restoration of the church, formed the staple of Cullerne conversation for a week. All those who had been fortunate enough to see or to speak to him discussed him with one another, and compared notes. Scarcely a detail of his personal appearance, of his voice or manner escaped them; and so infectious was this interest that some who had never seen him at all were misled by their excitement into narrating how he had stopped them in the street to ask the way to the architect's lodgings, and how he had made so many striking and authentic remarks that it was wonderful that he had ever reached Bellevue Lodge at all that night. Clerk Janaway, who was sorely chagrined to think that he should have missed an opportunity of distinguished converse, declared that he had felt the stranger's grey eyes go through and through him like a knife, and had only made believe to stop him entering the choir, in order to convince himself by the other's masterful insistence that his own intuition was correct. He had known all the time, he said, that he was speaking to none other than Lord Blandamer.

Westray thought the matter important enough to justify him in going to London to consult Sir George Farquhar, as to the changes in the scheme of restoration which Lord Blandamer's munificence made possible; but Mr Sharnall, at any rate, was left to listen to Miss Joliffe's recollections, surmises, and panegyrics.

In spite of all the indifference which the organist had affected when he first heard the news, he showed a surprising readiness to discuss the affair with all comers, and exhibited no trace of his usual impatience with Miss Joliffe, so long as she was talking of Lord Blandamer. To Anastasia it seemed as if he could talk of nothing else, and the more she tried to check him by her silence or by change of subject, the more bitterly did he return to the attack.

The only person to exhibit no interest in this unhappy n.o.bleman, who had outraged propriety by offering to contribute to the restoration of the minster, was Anastasia herself; and even tolerant Miss Joliffe was moved to chide her niece's apathy in this particular.

"I do not think it becomes us, love, young or old, to take so little notice of great and good deeds. Mr Sharnall is, I fear, discontented with the station of life to which it has pleased Providence to call him, and I am less surprised at _his_ not always giving praise where praise should be given; but with the young it is different. I am sure if anyone had offered to restore Wydcombe Church when I was a girl--and specially a n.o.bleman--I should have been as delighted, or nearly as delighted, as if he--as if I had been given a new frock." She altered the "as if he had given me" which was upon her tongue because the proposition, even for purposes of ill.u.s.tration, that a n.o.bleman could ever have offered her a new frock seemed to have in itself something of the scandalous and unfitting.

"I should have been delighted, but, dear me! in those days people were so blind as never to think of restorations. We used to sit in quite _comfortable_ seats every Sunday, with cushions and ha.s.socks, and the aisles were paved with flagstones--simple worn flagstones, and none of the caustic tiles which look so much more handsome; though I am always afraid I am going to slip, and glad to be off them, they are so hard and shiny. Church matters were very behindhand then. All round the walls were tablets that people had put up to their relations, white caskets on black marble slates, and urns and cherubs' heads, and just opposite where I used to sit a poor lady, whose name I have forgotten, weeping under a willow-tree. No doubt they were very much out of place in the sanctuary, as the young gentleman said in his lecture on 'How to make our Churches Beautiful' in the Town Hall last winter. He called them 'mural blisters,' my dear, but there was no talk of removing them in my young days, and that was, I dare say, because there was no one to give the money for it. But now, here is this good young n.o.bleman, Lord Blandamer, come forward so handsomely, and I have no doubt at Cullerne all will be much improved ere long. We are not meant to _loll_ at our devotions, as the lecturer told us. That was his word, to '_loll_'; and they will be sure to take away the baize and ha.s.socks, though I do hope there will be a little strip of _something_ on the seats; the bare wood is apt to make one ache sometimes. I should not say it to anyone else in the world but you, but it _does_ make me ache a little sometimes; and when the caustic is put down in the aisle, I shall take your arm, my dear, to save me from slipping. Here is Lord Blandamer going to do all this for us, and you do not show yourself in the least grateful. It is not becoming in a young girl."

"Dear aunt, what would you have me do? I cannot go and thank him publicly in the name of the town. That would be still more unbecoming; and I am sure I hope they will not do all the dreadful things in the church that you speak of. I love the old monuments, and like _lolling_ much better than bare forms."

So she would laugh the matter off; but if she could not be induced to talk of Lord Blandamer, she thought of him the more, and rehea.r.s.ed again and again in day-dreams and in night-dreams every incident of that momentous Sat.u.r.day afternoon, from the first bars of the overture, when he had revealed in so easy and simple a way that he was none other than Lord Blandamer, to the ringing down of the curtain, when he turned to look back--to that glance when his eyes had seemed to meet hers, although she was hidden behind a blind, and he could not have guessed that she was there.

Westray came back from London with the scheme of restoration reconsidered and amplified in the light of altered circ.u.mstances, and with a letter for Lord Blandamer in which Sir George Farquhar hoped that the munificent donor would fix a day on which Sir George might come down to Cullerne to offer his respects, and to discuss the matter in person.

Westray had looked forward all the week to the appointment which he had with Lord Blandamer for five o'clock on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon, and had carefully thought out the route which he would pursue in taking him round the church. He returned to Bellevue Lodge at a quarter to five, and found his visitor already awaiting him. Miss Joliffe was, as usual, at her Sat.u.r.day meeting, but Anastasia told Westray that Lord Blandamer had been waiting more than half an hour.

"I must apologise, my lord, for keeping you waiting," Westray said, as he went in. "I feared I had made some mistake in the time of our meeting, but I see it _was_ five that your note named." And he held out the open letter which he had taken from his pocket.

"The mistake is entirely mine," Lord Blandamer admitted with a smile, as he glanced at his own instructions; "I fancied I had said four o'clock; but I have been very glad of a few minutes to write one or two letters."

"We can post them on our way to the church; they will just catch the mail."

"Ah, then I must wait till to-morrow; there are some enclosures which I have not ready at this moment."

They set out together for the minster, and Lord Blandamer looked back as they crossed the street.

"The house has a good deal of character," he said, "and might be made comfortable enough with a little repair. I must ask my agent to see what can be arranged; it does not do me much credit as landlord in its present state."