The Nebuly Coat Part 18

It was full two hours later that Westray came quickly into the organist's room at Bellevue Lodge.

"I beg your pardon, Sharnall," he said, "for leaving you so cavalierly.

You must have thought me rude and inappreciative; but the fact is I was so startled that I forgot to tell you why I went. While you were playing I happened to look up at that great crack over the south transept arch, and saw something very like recent movement. I went up at once to the scaffolding, and have been there ever since. I don't like it at all; it seems to me that the crack is opening, and extending.

It may mean very serious mischief, and I have made up my mind to go up to London by the last train to-night. I must get Sir George Farquhar's opinion at once."

The organist grunted. The wound inflicted on his susceptibility had rankled deeply, and indignation had been tenderly nursed. A piece of his mind was to have been given to Westray, and he regretted the very reasonableness of the explanation that robbed him of his opportunity.

"Pray don't apologise," he said; "I never noticed that you had gone. I really quite forgot that you had been there."

Westray was too full of his discovery to take note of the other's annoyance. He was one of those excitable persons who mistake hurry for decision of action.

"Yes," he said, "I must be off to London in half an hour. The matter is far too serious to play fast-and-loose with. It is quite possible that we shall have to stop the organ, or even to forbid the use of the church altogether, till we can sh.o.r.e and strut the arch. I must go and put my things together."

So, with heroic promptness and determination, he flung himself into the last train, and spent the greater part of the night in stopping at every wayside station, when his purpose would have been equally served by a letter or by taking the express at Cullerne Road the next morning.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

The organ was not silenced, nor was the service suspended. Sir George came down to Cullerne, inspected the arch, and rallied his subordinate for an anxiety which was considered to be unjustifiable. Yes, the wall above the arch _had_ moved a little, but not more than was to be expected from the repairs which were being undertaken with the vaulting.

It was only the old wall coming to its proper bearings--he would have been surprised, in fact, if no movement had taken place; it was much safer as it was.

Canon Parkyn was in high good-humour. He rejoiced in seeing the pert and officious young clerk of the works put in his proper place; and Sir George had lunched at the Rectory. There was a repet.i.tion of the facetious proposal that Sir George should wait for payment of his fees until the tower should fall, which acquired fresh point from the circ.u.mstance that all payments were now provided for by Lord Blandamer.

The ha-ha-ing which accompanied this witticism palled at length even upon the robust Sir George, and he winced under a dig in the ribs, which an extra gla.s.s of port had emboldened the Canon to administer.

"Well, well, Mr Rector," he said, "we cannot put old heads on young shoulders. Mr Westray was quite justified in referring the matter to me. It _has_ an ugly look; one needs _experience_ to be able to see through things like this." And he pulled up his collar, and adjusted his tie.

Westray was content to accept his Chief's decision as a matter of faith, though not of conviction. The black lightning-flash was impressed on his mental retina, the restless cry of the arches was continually in his ear; he seldom pa.s.sed the transept-crossing without hearing it. But he bore his rebuke with exemplary resignation--the more so that he was much interested in some visits which Lord Blandamer paid him at this period.

Lord Blandamer called more than once at Bellevue Lodge in the evenings, even as late as nine o'clock, and would sit with Westray for two hours together, turning over plans and discussing the restoration. The architect learnt to appreciate the charm of his manner, and was continually astonished at the architectural knowledge and critical power which he displayed. Mr Sharnall would sometimes join them for a few minutes, but Lord Blandamer never appeared quite at his ease when the organist was present; and Westray could not help thinking that Mr Sharnall was sometimes tactless, and even rude, considering that he was beholden to Lord Blandamer for new pedals and new bellows and a water-engine _in esse_, and for the entire repair of the organ _in posse_.

"I can't help being 'beholden to him,' as you genteelly put it," Mr Sharnall said one evening, when Lord Blandamer had gone. "I can't _stop_ his giving new bellows or a new pedal-board. And we do want the new board and the additional pipes. As it is, I can't play German music, can't touch a good deal of Bach's organ work. Who is to say this man nay, if he chooses to alter the organ? But I'm not going to truckle to anyone, and least of all to him. Do you want me to fall flat on my face because he is a lord? Pooh! we could all be lords like him. Give me another week with Martin's papers, and I'll open your eyes. Ay, you may stare and sniff if you please, but you'll open your eyes then. _Ex oriente lux_--that's where the light's coming from, out of Martin's papers. Once this Confirmation over, and you'll see. I can't settle to the papers till that's done with. What do people want to confirm these boys and girls for? It only makes hypocrites of wholesome children. I hate the whole business. If people want to make their views public, let them do it at five-and-twenty; then we should believe that they knew something of what they were about."

The day of the Bishop's visit had arrived; the Bishop had arrived himself; he had entered the door of Bellevue Lodge; he had been received by Miss Euphemia Joliffe as one who receives an angel awares; he had lunched in Mr Sharnall's room, and had partaken of the cold lamb, and the Stilton, and even of the cider-cup, to just such an extent as became a healthy and good-hearted and host-considering bishop.

"You have given me a regular Oxford lunch," he said. "Your landlady has been brought up in the good tradition." And he smiled, never doubting that he was partaking of the ordinary provision of the house, and that Mr Sharnall fared thus sumptuously every day. He knew not that the meal was as much a set piece as a dinner on the stage, and that cold lamb and Stilton and cider-cup were more often represented by the bottom of a tin of potted meat and--a gill of cheap whisky.

"A regular Oxford lunch." And then they fell to talking of old days, and the Bishop called Mr Sharnall "Nick," and Mr Sharnall called the Bishop of Carum "John"; and they walked round the room looking at pictures of college groups and college eights, and the Bishop examined very tenderly the little water-colour sketch that Mr Sharnall had once made of the inner quad; and they identified in it their own old rooms, and the rooms of several other men of their acquaintance.

The talk did Mr Sharnall good; he felt the better for it every moment.

He had meant to be very proud and reserved with the Bishop--to be most dignified and coldly courteous. He had meant to show that, though John Willis might wear the gaiters, Nicholas Sharnall could retain his st.u.r.dy independence, and was not going to fawn or to admit himself to be the mental inferior of any man. He had meant to _give_ a tirade against Confirmation, against the neglect of music, against rectors, with perhaps a back-thrust at the Bench of Bishops itself. But he had done none of these things, because neither pride nor reserve nor a.s.sertiveness were possible in John Willis's company. He had merely eaten a good lunch, and talked with a kindly, broad-minded gentleman, long enough to warm his withered heart, and make him feel that there were still possibilities in life.

There is a bell that rings for a few strokes three-quarters of an hour before every service at Cullerne. It is called the Burgess Bell--some say because it was meant to warn such burgesses as dwelt at a distance that it was time to start for church; whilst others will have it that Burgess is but a broken-down form of _expergiscere_--"Awake! awake!"-- that those who dozed might rise for prayer. The still air of the afternoon was yet vibrating with the Burgess Bell, and the Bishop rose to take his leave.

If it was the organist of Cullerne who had been ill at ease when their interview began, it was the Bishop of Carisbury who was embarra.s.sed at the end of it. He had asked himself to lunch with Mr Sharnall with a definite object, and towards the attainment of that object nothing had been done. He had learnt that his old friend had fallen upon evil times, and, worse, had fallen into evil courses--that the failing which had ruined his Oxford career had broken out again with a fresh fire in advancing age, that Nicholas Sharnall was in danger of a drunkard's judgment.

There had been lucid intervals in the organist's life; the plague would lie dormant for years, and then break out, to cancel all the progress that had been made. It was like a "race-game" where the little leaden horse is moved steadily forward, till at last the die falls on the fatal number, and the racer must lose a turn, or go back six, or, even in the worst issue, begin his whole course again. It was in the forlorn hope of doing something, however little, to arrest a man on the downward slope that the Bishop had come to Bellevue Lodge; he hoped to speak the word in season that should avail. Yet nothing had been said. He felt like a clerk who has sought an interview with his princ.i.p.al to ask for an increase of salary, and then, fearing to broach the subject, pretends to have come on other business. He felt like a son longing to ask his father's counsel in some grievous sc.r.a.pe, or like an extravagant wife waiting her opportunity to confess some heavy debt.

"A quarter past two," the Bishop said; "I must be going. It has been a great pleasure to recall the old times. I hope we shall meet again soon; but remember it is your turn now to come and see me. Carisbury is not so very far off, so do come. There is always a bed ready for you.

Will you walk up the street with me now? I have to go to the Rectory, and I suppose you will be going to the church, will you not?"

"Yes," said Mr Sharnall; "I'll come with you if you wait one minute. I think I'll take just a drop of something before I go, if you'll excuse me. I feel rather run down, and the service is a long one. You won't join me, of course?" And he went to the cupboard.

The Bishop's opportunity was come.

"Don't, Sharnall. Don't, Nick," he said; "don't take that stuff.

Forgive me for speaking openly, the time is so short. I am not speaking professionally or from the religious standpoint, but only just as one man of the world to another, just as one friend to another, because I cannot bear to see you going on like this without trying to stop you.

Don't take offence, Nick," he added, as he saw the change of the other's countenance; "our old friends.h.i.+p gives me a right to speak; the story you are writing on your own face gives me a right to speak. Give it up.

There is time yet to turn; give it up. Let me help you; is there nothing I can do to help?"

The angry look that crossed Mr Sharnall's face had given way to sadness.

"It is all very easy for you," he said; "you've done everything in life, and have a long row of milestones behind you to show how you've moved on. I have done nothing, only gone back, and have all the milestones in front to show how I've failed. It's easy to twit me when you've got everything you want--position, reputation, fortune, a living faith to keep you up to it. I am n.o.body, miserably poor, have no friends, and don't believe half we say in church. What am I to do? No one cares a fig about me; what have I got to live for? To drink is the only chance I have of feeling a little pleasure in life; of losing for a few moments the dreadful consciousness of being an outcast; of losing for a moment the remembrance of happy days long ago: that's the greatest torment of all, Willis. Don't blame me if I drink; it's the _elixir vitae_ for me just as much as for Paracelsus." And he turned the handle of the cupboard.

"Don't," the Bishop said again, putting his hand on the organist's arm; "don't do it; don't touch it. Don't make success any criterion of life; don't talk about 'getting on.' We shan't be judged by how we have got on. Come along with me; show you've got your old resolution, your old will-power."

"I _haven't_ got the power," Mr Sharnall said; "I can't help it." But he took his hand from the cupboard-door.

"Then let me help it for you," said the Bishop; and he opened the cupboard, found a half-used bottle of whisky, drove the cork firmly into it, and put it under his arm inside the lappet of his coat. "Come along."

So the Bishop of Carisbury walked up the High Street of Cullerne with a bottle of whisky under his left arm. But no one could see that, because it was hid under his coat; they only saw that he had his right arm inside Mr Sharnall's. Some thought this an act of Christian condescension, but others praised the times that were past; bishops were losing caste, they said, and it was a sad day for the Church when they were found a.s.sociating openly with persons so manifestly their inferiors.

"We must see more of each other," the Bishop said, as they walked under the arcade in front of the shops. "You must get out of this quag somehow. You can't expect to do it all at once, but we must make a beginning. I have taken away your temptation under my coat, and you must make a start from this minute; you must make me a promise _now_. I have to be in Cullerne again in six days' time, and will come and see you. You must promise me not to touch anything for these six days, and you must drive back with me to Carisbury when I go back then, and spend a few days with me. Promise me this, Nick; the time is pressing, and I must leave you, but you must promise me this first."

The organist hesitated for a moment, but the Bishop gripped his arm.

"Promise me this; I will not go till you promise."

"Yes, I promise."

And lying-and-mischief-making Mrs Flint, who was pa.s.sing, told afterwards how she had overheard the Bishop discussing with Mr Sharnall the best means for introducing ritualism into the minster, and how the organist had promised to do his very best to help him so far as the musical part of the sendee was concerned.

The Confirmation was concluded without any contretemps, save that two of the Grammar School boys incurred an open and well-merited rebuke from the master for appearing in gloves of a much lighter slate colour than was in any way decorous, and that this circ.u.mstance reduced the youngest Miss Bulteel to such a state of hysteric giggling that her mother was forced to remove her from the church, and thus deprive her of spiritual privileges for another year.

Mr Sharnall bore his probation bravely. Three days had pa.s.sed, and he had not broken his vow--no, not in one jot or t.i.ttle. They had been days of fine weather, brilliantly clear autumn days of blue sky and exhilarating air. They had been bright days for Mr Sharnall; he was himself exhilarated; he felt a new life coursing in his veins. The Bishop's talk had done him good; from his heart he thanked the Bishop for it. Giving up drinking had done him no harm; he felt all the better for his abstinence. It had not depressed him at all; on the contrary, he was more cheerful than he had been for years. Scales had fallen from his eyes since that talk; he had regained his true bearings; he began to see the verities of life. How he had wasted his time! Why _had_ he been so sour? why _had_ he indulged his spleen? why _had_ he taken such a jaundiced view of life? He would put aside all jealousies; he would have no enmities; he would be broader-minded--oh, so much broader-minded; he would embrace all mankind--yes, even Canon Parkyn.

Above all, he would recognise that he was well advanced in life; he would be more sober-thinking, would leave childish things, would resolutely renounce his absurd infatuation for Anastasia. What a ridiculous idea--a crabbed old s.e.xagenarian harbouring affection for a young girl! Henceforth she should be nothing to him--absolutely nothing. No, that would be foolish; it would not be fair to her to cut her off from all friends.h.i.+p; he could feel for her a fatherly affection--it should be paternal and nothing more. He would bid adieu to all that folly, and his life should not be a whit the emptier for the loss. He would fill it with interests--all kinds of interests, and his music should be the first. He would take up again, and carry out to the end, that oratorio which he had turned over in his mind for years--the "Absalom." He had several numbers at his fingers' ends; he would work out the ba.s.s solo, "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" and the double chorus that followed it, "Make ready, ye mighty; up and bare your swords!"

So he discoursed joyfully with his own heart, and felt above measure elated at the great and sudden change that was wrought in him, not recognising that the clouds return after the rain, and that the leopard may change his spots as easily as man may change his habits. To change a habit at fifty-five or forty-five or thirty-five; to ordain that rivers shall flow uphill; to divert the relentless sequence of cause and effect--how often dare we say this happens? _Nemo repente_--no man ever suddenly became good. A moment's spiritual agony may blunt our instincts and paralyse the evil in us--for a while, even as chloroform may dull our bodily sense; but for permanence there is no sudden turning of the mind; sudden repentances in life or death are equally impossible.

Three halcyon days were followed by one of those dark and lowering mornings when the blank life seems blanker, and when the gloom of nature is too accurately reflected in the nervous temperament of man. On healthy youth climatic influences have no effect, and robust middle age, if it perceive them, goes on its way steadfast or stolid, with a _cela pa.s.sera, tout pa.s.sera_. But on the feeble and the failing such times fall with a weight of fretful despondency; and so they fell on Mr Sharnall.

He was very restless about the time of the mid-day meal. There came up a thick, dark fog from the sea, which went rolling in great ma.s.ses over Cullerne Flat, till its fringe caught the outskirts of the town. After that, it settled in the streets, and took up its special abode in Bellevue Lodge; till Miss Euphemia coughed so that she had to take two ipecacuanha lozenges, and Mr Sharnall was forced to ring for a lamp to see his victuals. He went up to Westray's room to ask if he might eat his dinner upstairs, but he found that the architect had gone to London, and would not be back till the evening train; so he was thrown upon his own resources.

He ate little, and by the end of the meal depression had so far got the better of him, that he found himself standing before a well-known cupboard. Perhaps the abstemiousness of the last three days had told upon him, and drove him for refuge to his usual comforter. It was by instinct that he went to the cupboard; he was not even conscious of doing so till he had the open door in his hand. Then resolution returned to him, aided, it may be, by the reflection that the cupboard was bare (for the Bishop had taken away the whisky), and he shut the door sharply. Was it possible that he had so soon forgotten his promise--had come so perilously near falling back into the mire, after the bright prospects of the last days, after so lucid an interval? He went to his bureau and buried himself in Martin Joliffe's papers, till the Burgess Bell gave warning of the afternoon service.

The gloom and fog made way by degrees for a drizzling rain, which resolved itself into a steady downpour as the afternoon wore on. It was so heavy that Mr Sharnall could hear the indistinct murmur of millions of raindrops on the long lead roofs, and their more noisy splash and spatter as they struck the windows in the lantern and north transept.

He was in a bad humour as he came down from the loft. The boys had sung sleepily and flat; Jaques had murdered the tenor solo with his strained and raucous voice; and old Janaway remembered afterwards that Mr Sharnall had never vouchsafed a good-afternoon as he strode angrily down the aisle.

Things were no better when he reached Bellevue Lodge. He was wet and chilled, and there was no fire in the grate, because it was too early in the year for such luxuries to be afforded. He would go to the kitchen, and take his tea there. It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Miss Joliffe would be at the Dorcas meeting, but Anastasia would be in; and this reflection came to him as a ray of sunlight in a dark and lowering time. Anastasia would be in, and alone; he would sit by the fire and drink a cup of hot tea, while Anastasia should talk to him and gladden his heart. He tapped lightly at the kitchen-door, and as he opened it a gusty buffet of damp air smote him on the face; the room was empty. Through a half-open sash the wet had driven in, and darkened the top of the deal table which stood against the window; the fire was but a smouldering ash. He shut the window instinctively while he reflected. Where could Anastasia be? She must have left the kitchen some time, otherwise the fire would not be so low, and she would have seen that the rain was beating in. She must be upstairs; she had no doubt taken advantage of Westray's absence to set his room in order. He would go up to her; perhaps there was a fire in Westray's room.