CHAPTER V
AN UNFORESEEN CASE
"I wish to goodness," remarked the Reverend Sigismund Taylor rubbing the bridge of his nose with a corner of the Manual, "that the Vicar had never introduced auricular confession. It may be in accordance with the practice of the Primitive Church, but--one does meet with such very curious cases. There"s nothing the least like it, in the Manual."
He opened the book and searched its pages over again. No, the case had not been foreseen. It must be included in those which were "left to the discretion of the priest."
"It"s a poor Manual," said Mr. Taylor, throwing it down and putting his hands in the pocket of his ca.s.sock. "Poor girl! She was quite distressed, too. I must have something to tell her when she comes next week."
Mr. Taylor had, in face of the difficulty, taken time to consider, and the penitent had gone away in suspense. To represent oneself as a dressmaker--well, there was nothing very outrageous in that; it was unbecoming, but venial, to tell sundry fibs by way of supporting the a.s.sumed character--the Manual was equal to that; but the rest of the disclosure was the crux. Wrong, no doubt, was the conduct--but how wrong? That made all the difference. And then there followed another question: What ought to be done? She had asked for advice about that also, and, although such counsel was not strictly inc.u.mbent on him, he felt that he ought not to refuse it. Altogether he was puzzled. At eight-and-twenty one cannot be ready for everything; yet she had implored him to consult n.o.body else, and decide for her himself. "I"ve such trust in you," she had said, wiping away an incipient teardrop; and, although Mr. Taylor told her that the individual was nothing and the Office everything, he had been rather gratified. Thinking that a turn in the open air might clear his brain and enable him better to grapple with this very th.o.r.n.y question, he changed his ca.s.sock for a long tailed coat, put on his wide awake, and, leaving the precincts of St. Edward Confessor, struck across Park Lane and along the Row. He pa.s.sed several people he knew, both men and women: Mrs. Marland was there, attended by two young men, and, a little farther on, he saw old Lord Thrapston tottering along on his stick. Lord Thrapston hated a parson, and scowled at poor Mr. Taylor as he went by. Mr. Taylor shrank from meeting his eye, and hurried along till he reached the Serpentine, where he stood still for a few minutes, drinking in the fresh breeze.
But the breeze could not blow his puzzle out of his brain. Was it a crime, or merely an escapade? What had she said to the young man? What had her feelings been or become towards the young man? Moreover, what had she caused the young man"s feelings to be for her? When he came to think it over, Mr. Taylor discovered, with a shock of surprise, that on all these distinctly material points the confession had been singularly incomplete. He was ashamed of this, for, of course, it was his business to make the confession full and exhaustive. He could only plead that, at the moment, it had seemed thorough and candid--an unreserved revelation. Yet those points did, as a fact, remain obscure.
"I wish I knew a little more about human nature," sighed Mr. Taylor: he was thinking of one division of human nature, and it is likely enough that he knew next to nothing of it.
A hand clapped him on the shoulder, and, with a start, he turned round.
A tall young man, in a new frock-coat and a faultless hat, stood by him, smiling at him.
"What, Charlie, old fellow!" cried Taylor; "where do you spring from?"
Charlie explained that he was up in town for a month or two.
"It"s splendid to meet you first day! I was going to look you up," he said.
Sigismund Taylor and Charlie had been intimate friends at Oxford, although Charlie was, as time counts there, very considerably the junior. For the last two or three years they had hardly met.
"But what are you up for?"
"Oh, well, you see, my uncle wants me to get called to the Bar, or something, so I ran tip to have a look into it."
"Will that take a month?"
"Look here, old fellow, I"ve got nothing else to do--I don"t see why I shouldn"t stretch it to three months. Besides, I want to spend some time with my ancestors."
"With your ancestors?"
"In the British Museum: I"m writing a book about them. Queer lot some of them were, too. Of course I"m specially interested in Agatha Merceron; but I suppose you never heard of her."
Mr. Taylor confessed his ignorance, and Charlie, taking his arm, walked him up and down the bank, while he talked on his pet subject. Agatha Merceron was always interesting, and just now anything about the Pool was interesting; for there was one reason for his visit to London which he had not disclosed. Nettie Wallace had, when he met her one day, incautiously dropped a word which seemed to imply that the other Agatha was often in London. Nettie tried to recall her words; but the mischief was done, and Charlie became more than ever convinced that he would grow rusty if he stayed always at Langbury Court. In fact, he could suffer it no longer, and to town he went.
For a long while Sigismund Taylor listened with no more than average interest to Charlie"s story, but it chanced that one word caught his notice.
"She comes out of the temple," said Charlie, in the voice of hushed reverence with which he was wont to talk of the unhappy lady.
"Out of where?" asked Mr. Taylor.
"The temple. Oh, I forgot, the temple is--" and Charlie gave a description which need not be repeated.
Temple! temple! Where had he heard of a temple lately? Mr. Taylor cudgelled his brains. Why--why--yes, she had spoken of a temple. She said they met in a temple. It was a strange coincidence: the word had struck him at the time. But then everybody knows that, at a certain period, it was common enough to put up these little cla.s.sical erections as a memorial or merely as an ornament to pleasure-grounds. It must be a mere coincidence. But--Mr. Taylor stopped short.
"What"s up?" asked Charlie, who had finished his narrative, and was now studying the faces of the ladies who rode past.
"Nothing," answered Mr. Taylor.
And really it was not much--taken by itself, entirely unworthy of notice; even taken in conjunction with the temple, of no real significance, that he could see. Still, it was a whimsical thing that, as had just struck him, Charlie"s spectre should be named Agatha. But it came; to nothing: how could the name of Charlie"s spectre have anything to do with that of his penitent?
Presently Charlie, too, fell into silence. He beat his stick moodily against his leg and looked glum and absent.
"Ah, well," he said at last, "poor Agatha was hardly used: she paid part of the debt we owe woman."
Mr. Taylor raised his brows and smiled at this gloomily misogynistic sentiment. He had the perception to grasp in a moment what it indicated. His young friend was, or had lately been, or thought he was likely to be, a lover, and an unhappy one. But he did not press Charlie. Confessions were no luxury to him.
Presently they began to walk back, and Charlie, saying he had to dine with Victor b.u.t.ton, made an appointment to see Taylor again, and left him, striking across the Row. Taylor strolled on, and, finding Mrs.
Marland still in her seat, sat down by her. She was surprised and pleased to hear that Charlie was in town.
"I left him at home in deep dumps. You"ve never been to Langbury Court, have you?"
Taylor shook his head.
"Such a sweet old place! But, of course, rather dull for a young man, with n.o.body hut his mother and just one or two slow country neighbors."
"Oh, a run "ll do him good."
"Yes; he was quite moped;" and Mrs. Marland glanced at her companion.
She wanted only a very little encouragement to impart her suspicions to him. It must, in justice to Mrs. Marland, be remembered that she had always found the simplest explanation of Charlie"s devotion to the Pool hard to accept, and the most elaborate demonstration of how a Canadian canoe may be upset unconvincing.
"You"re a great friend of his, aren"t you?" pursued Mrs. Marland. "So I suppose there"s no harm in mentioning my suspicions to you. Indeed, I daresay you could be of use to him--I mean, persuade him to be wise.
I"m afraid, Mr. Taylor, that he is in some entanglement."
"Dear, dear!" murmured Mr. Taylor.
"Oh, I"ve no positive proof, but I fear so--and a very undesirable entanglement, too, with someone quite beneath him. Yes, I think I had better tell you about it."
Mr. Taylor sat silent and, save for a start or two, motionless while his companion detailed her circ.u.mstantial evidence. Whether it was enough to prove Mrs. Marland"s case or not--whether, that is, it is inconceivable that a young man should go to any place fourteen evenings running, and upset a friend of his youth out of a canoe, except there be a lady involved, is perhaps doubtful; but it was more than enough to show Mr. Sigismund Taylor that the confession he had listened to was based upon fact, and that Charlie Merceron was the other party to those stolen interviews, into whose exact degree of heinousness he was now inquiring. This knowledge caused Mr. Taylor to feel that he was in an awkward position.
"Now," asked Mrs. Marland, "candidly, Mr. Taylor, can you suppose anything else than that our friend Charlie was carrying on a very p.r.o.nounced flirtation with this dressmaker?"
"Dressmaker?"
"Her friend was, and I believe she was too. Something of the kind, anyhow."
"You--you never saw the--the other person?"
"No; she kept out of the way. That looks bad, doesn"t it? No doubt she was a tawdry vulgar creature. But a man never notices that!"
At this moment two people were seen approaching. One of them was a man of middle height and perhaps five-and-thirty years of age; he was stout and thick-built; he had a fat face with bulging cheeks; his eyes were rather like a frog"s; he leant very much forward as he walked, and swayed gently from side to side with a rolling swagger; and as his body rolled, his eye rolled too, and he looked this way and that with a jovial leer and a smile of contentment and amus.e.m.e.nt on his face. The smile and the merry eye redeemed his appearance from blank ugliness, but neither of them indicated a spiritual or exalted mind.
By his side walked a girl, dressed, as Mrs. Marland enviously admitted, as really very few women in London could dress, and wearing, in virtue perhaps of the dress, perhaps of other more precious gifts, an air of a.s.sured perfection and dainty disdain. She was listening to her companion"s conversation, and did not notice Sigismund Taylor, with whom she was well acquainted.