Under One Flag Part 37

"The reward I want is the renewal of my lease."

"That, as I have already told you, is--"

"Excuse me just one moment, sir. You see that?" Taking an envelope out of an inner pocket of his coat, Mr Boulter flourished it in the Dean's face. "I've a boy who lives in London, and writes for the papers; a smart chap he is, and well respected in his trade. I've written an account of how the Bishop preached a sermon on temperance in the cathedral--a fine sermon it was, I'm told by those who heard it--and of how he then walked straight out of the cathedral into my public-house, and put away a bottle of old port, and got so drunk that he forgot his bag and left it behind him, with the sermon which he had just been preaching on temperance inside of it. That account's in this envelope. I'm going to send it to my boy, and I'm going to tell him to turn it into money; and I'll lay you what odds you please--although I'm no more a betting man than you are--that, before a week is over, the tale will be told in every paper in England, ah! and known all the world over. You're going to take away my living. My grandfather kept 'The Rose and Crown' decent, my father kept it decent, and I've kept it decent; there's never been even so much as a shadow of a complaint made against me by the police, nor by no one. And yet you cathedral gentlemen have taken a sudden fad into your heads, and you're going to ruin me. Very well, ruin me! You think you're going to do good to the cause of temperance by shutting up 'The Rose and Crown.' What harm do you suppose will be done to the cause of temperance by that tale being told, as they do tell that sort of tale nowadays, in all the newspapers of the world? I guess the cause of temperance will not get over that tale for years--it will be always being told. At the very least, if I do have to go I will take care that somebody else goes with me. Now which is it to be--am I to have my lease renewed, or am I to post this envelope?"

The Dean hesitated.

"In any case, as you must be aware, Mr Boulter, the matter is not one which can be decided on the spur of the moment; the decision is not with me."

"Understand me, sir. If I go away from here without a promise of renewal, I post this letter. I know as well as you know that in the whole business your voice will be the ruling voice. You give me a bit of writing in which you undertake to do your best to get my lease renewed, and I will give you this envelope, with what's inside. And I will give you my promise never to breathe a word that the Bishop ever so much as came near my place. As for Miss Parkins, I know she won't speak unless she's forced. She's a religious girl; she thinks a lot of the Bishop, and she's too much shocked at the whole affair. I never saw a girl so upset. Now which is it to be?"

The Dean still hesitated--with sufficient cause.

"What term of renewal would you require?"

"The last lease was for ninety-nine years, and I want this lease to be for ninety-nine."

"Ninety-nine years, Mr Boulter?"

Mr Boulter did not get a promise of renewal for ninety-nine years, or anything like it, but he did get "a bit of writing." With that "bit of writing" in a secure division of his plethoric pocket-book he went away. The Dean was left to his reflections. The leather bag he held in one hand, the envelope which the landlord of "The Rose and Crown" had given him he held in the other. Putting down the bag, he tore the envelope into halves, then into quarters, and crossing the room he dropped the fragments in the fire which burned brightly in the grate.

"Terrible! terrible!" This he said as he watched the pieces of paper being consumed by the flames. Then he seemed to endeavour to pull himself together. "Well, I shall have to tell them. I must give reasons for the thing which I have done. The tale will have to travel so far, but"--the Dean pressed his lips together; few men's countenances were capable of a.s.suming a severer aspect than Dean Pettifer's--"I will make it my especial business to see that it goes no farther." He still seemed to hesitate before returning to the apartment in which his colleagues were awaiting him. "I must say that I never thought it of him. I have been always conscious that in his lat.i.tudinarianism there was a certain element of danger. But I never dreamed that he was capable of such a thing as this--no, never!"

It was with a distinctly unsatisfactory look upon his face that he made his reappearance in the little impromptu meeting. The criminatory leather bag he carried in his left hand. It is not impossible that those who were present became immediately conscious that with the Dean, since they had seen him last, all things had not gone well. The buzz of conversation, which had been audible as he opened the door, ceased upon his entrance, as though something in his bearing acted as a damper.

The somewhat awkward silence was broken by Canon Gorse.

"Well, was Boulter troublesome?"

The Dean laid the bag in front of him upon the table.

"He was." The Dean carefully wiped his gla.s.ses. There was a suggestion of curious expectation in the eyes which were fixed upon him. Their owners already perceived that there was something in the air. Was it possible that the landlord of "The Rose and Crown" had behaved in the manner which, in the estimation of some persons, is a natural characteristic of individuals of his cla.s.s, and had been guilty of actual violence in the sacred precincts of the Deanery? "He was troublesome in a sense for which, on this occasion, I will simply say that I was unprepared; and to such a degree that I have given him what amounts to a virtual undertaking that his lease shall be renewed."

This was evidently not the sort of thing for which his listeners had been waiting--one could see it by their faces. Some of them changed colour, and some of their jaws dropped open. Canon Gorse stared at the speaker, as if he found it difficult to believe that his own ears were capable of fulfilling their normal functions.

"Pettifer, impossible!" Perceiving that the word might seem too strong, he amended it. "That is to say, how do you mean?"

The Dean leaned over the table. His att.i.tude, indeed his whole manner, suggested severity tempered by sorrow.

"Before I say anything further I wish to have an understanding with all of you that not one word of what I am about to utter will be breathed by any one of you to any creature living--and by that I mean neither to your wives, nor to your daughters, nor to any member of your households--that it will be received as though it came to you under the seal of the confessional." There was silence. "If anyone feels himself, for any cause whatever, unable to give such a pledge, then I must respectfully ask that person at once to withdraw."

No one did withdraw. No one said either Ay or Nay. So it may be supposed that the pledge which the Dean required was unanimously given.

That the Dean understood that to be the case was evident. He held up the little leather bag in front of him as if it were some dreadful thing.

"This bag is the Bishop's--our beloved Bishop's bag. I know it, of my own knowledge, to be the bag which he had with him in the cathedral yesterday afternoon. It still contains the MS. of the sermon which the Bishop preached, and which we all rejoiced to hear. This bag has just been brought to me by the landlord of 'The Rose and Crown.' It was left, unintentionally left, on his premises by a person who, at the close of yesterday afternoon's service, went out of the Dean's door of the cathedral into one of Mr Boulter's private bars, and there and then consumed a bottle of port wine."

The Dean ceased. There again was silence--there well might be. The Dean again went on,--

"A son of Mr Boulter's is engaged on one of those scurrilous journals which are called society papers. Mr Boulter proposed to send this story up to his son to print. On the understanding that the matter shall be confined to his own breast, I have deemed it wisdom to give him, as I have said, what virtually amounts to an undertaking that his lease shall be renewed. That is all I have to say. You will feel with me that it is too much. May I ask you not to speak of this matter even among yourselves, but, as I shall do, to do your best to blot it from your minds? Let us, if we can, forget that this thing has ever been. And now, with your permission, I will wish you all good-day."

They went like a flock of sheep, although there was almost a suspicion of pathos in the manner of their parting. When they were gone the Dean set himself to perform a task of the exceeding delicacy of which, to say the least, he was fully conscious. He was not a man to palter with what he deemed his duty. He was certainly not a man to shrink from doing a thing merely because the thing was disagreeable. Therefore, scarcely had the last of his colleagues turned his back on the Deanery than he put the little leather bag into a larger bag, and, with that larger bag grasped firmly in his hand, he strode off to the Palace.

He was going to make it his business to see that without any further unnecessary loss of time the Bishop came into what was, undoubtedly, his own again.

He found his lordship in the library. The Bishop was dictating to his secretary, the Rev. John Budgen. The secretary was seated at a table; the Bishop took his ease in a capacious arm-chair. As the Dean entered, his lordship greeted him with that genial heartiness for which the Bishop of Boundersville is famed. Not a trace of guilty consciousness about him anywhere--not a trace! It was with a sort of shock that the Dean noticed that there was nothing of the kind.

"How do, Pettifer? I'm doing what I call my morning task of stone-breaking--writing letters, by proxy, to a lot of people who have more time on their hands than they know what to do with, and who, therefore, insist upon wasting mine. Anything particular to say to me?"

The Dean was, perhaps, too refined--the thing is possible. He was not only a fine scholar, he was a fine gentleman. He was of opinion that dignitaries, and particularly all dignitaries of the Church, should have the standard of manners which was peculiarly his own. The Bishop's heartiness, his rough-and-ready methods of expression, had always grated on his high-strung sensibilities; especially did they grate just then.

"I am bound to state, my lord, that what I have to say to you is of the first importance."

The Bishop looked at him a little quizzically. Possibly the Dean's exaggerated preciseness appealed to a sense which there is no reason why even a bishop should be without.

"Excuse me, Budgen; I'll ring when I'm ready." The secretary withdrew.

"Now, Pettifer, fire away. Who killed the cat, and which cat's been killed?"

Such a fashion of speech was actually offensive to the Dean. Perhaps the spirit of mischief still lingered in the Bishop's breast; perhaps, at times, the Bishop found the Dean almost as trying as the Dean found him. Under the circ.u.mstances such a bearing on the part of the Bishop shocked the Dean almost into speechlessness. He gazed at his spiritual superior in a manner which, unless he was mistaken, made his lordship wince. "Has your lordship not missed your lordship's sermon-bag?"

At the question his lordship plainly started.

"My sermon-bag, Pettifer? What do you mean?"

"My lord, I mean what I say."

The Bishop was perturbed. Rising from his chair, he began to fidget about the room. "Why do you ask?"

"Because it has been returned to me."

"Returned to you--no!"

"Yes, my lord; I have it here." The Dean produced the little bag from inside the larger one. He held it up in front of him as he had held it up in front of him at the impromptu meeting at the Deanery. "I will not ask how it came to stray from your lordship's keeping."

The Bishop looked at the Dean; the Dean looked straight at him. It was evident that his lordship was not completely at his ease.

"I perceive that you have heard the story."

"I regret, my lord, to say that I have."

The Bishop plainly flushed; perhaps he found the Dean's tone and manner slightly galling.

"Perhaps it was not quite the thing to do, but"--his lordship shrugged his shoulders--"what does it matter?"

The Dean, in his turn, winced.

"What does it matter, my lord? Surely your lordship knows that it matters."

"How did the bag come into your possession, Pettifer?"