The Vicar opened the door half mechanically to let out Crump, and saw Mendham, his curate, coming up the pathway by the hedge of purple vetch and meadowsweet. At that his hand went up to his chin and his eyes grew perplexed. Suppose he _was_ deceived. The Doctor pa.s.sed the Curate with a sweep of his hand from his hat brim. Crump was an extraordinarily clever fellow, the Vicar thought, and knew far more of anyone"s brain than one did oneself. The Vicar felt that so acutely. It made the coming explanation difficult. Suppose he were to go back into the drawing-room, and find just a tramp asleep on the hearthrug.
Mendham was a cadaverous man with a magnificent beard. He looked, indeed, as though he had run to beard as a mustard plant does to seed.
But when he spoke you found he had a voice as well.
"My wife came home in a dreadful state," he brayed out at long range.
"Come in," said the Vicar; "come in. Most remarkable occurrence. Please come in. Come into the study. I"m really dreadfully sorry. But when I explain...."
"And apologise, I hope," brayed the Curate.
"And apologise. No, not that way. This way. The study."
"Now what _was_ that woman?" said the Curate, turning on the Vicar as the latter closed the study door.
"What woman?"
"Pah!"
"But really!"
"The painted creature in light attire--disgustingly light attire, to speak freely--with whom you were promenading the garden."
"My dear Mendham--that was an Angel!"
"A very pretty Angel?"
"The world is getting so matter-of-fact," said the Vicar.
"The world," roared the Curate, "grows blacker every day. But to find a man in your position, shamelessly, openly...."
"_Bother!_" said the Vicar aside. He rarely swore. "Look here, Mendham, you really misunderstand. I can a.s.sure you...."
"Very well," said the Curate. "Explain!" He stood with his lank legs apart, his arms folded, scowling at his Vicar over his big beard.
(Explanations, I repeat, I have always considered the peculiar fallacy of this scientific age.)
The Vicar looked about him helplessly. The world had all gone dull and dead. Had he been dreaming all the afternoon? Was there really an angel in the drawing-room? Or was he the sport of a complicated hallucination?
"Well?" said Mendham, at the end of a minute.
The Vicar"s hand fluttered about his chin. "It"s such a round-about story," he said.
"No doubt it will be," said Mendham harshly.
The Vicar restrained a movement of impatience.
"I went out to look for a strange bird this afternoon.... Do you believe in angels, Mendham, real angels?"
"I"m not here to discuss theology. I am the husband of an insulted woman."
"But I tell you it"s not a figure of speech; this _is_ an angel, a real angel with wings. He"s in the next room now. You do misunderstand me, so...."
"Really, Hilyer--"
"It is true I tell you, Mendham. I swear it is true." The Vicar"s voice grew impa.s.sioned. "What sin I have done that I should entertain and clothe angelic visitants, I don"t know. I only know that--inconvenient as it undoubtedly will be--I have an angel now in the drawing-room, wearing my new suit and finishing his tea. And he"s stopping with me, indefinitely, at my invitation. No doubt it was rash of me. But I can"t turn him out, you know, because Mrs Mendham----I may be a weakling, but I am still a gentleman."
"Really, Hilyer--"
"I can a.s.sure you it is true." There was a note of hysterical desperation in the Vicar"s voice. "I fired at him, taking him for a flamingo, and hit him in the wing."
"I thought this was a case for the Bishop. I find it is a case for the Lunacy Commissioners."
"Come and see him, Mendham!"
"But there _are_ no angels."
"We teach the people differently," said the Vicar.
"Not as material bodies," said the Curate.
"Anyhow, come and see him."
"I don"t want to see your hallucinations," began the Curate.
"I can"t explain anything unless you come and see him," said the Vicar.
"A man who"s more like an angel than anything else in heaven or earth.
You simply must see if you wish to understand."
"I don"t wish to understand," said the Curate. "I don"t wish to lend myself to any imposture. Surely, Hilyer, if this is not an imposition, you can tell me yourself.... Flamingo, indeed!"
XVI.
The Angel had finished his tea and was standing looking pensively out of the window. He thought the old church down the valley lit by the light of the setting sun was very beautiful, but he could not understand the serried ranks of tombstones that lay up the hillside beyond. He turned as Mendham and the Vicar came in.
Now Mendham could bully his Vicar cheerfully enough, just as he could bully his congregation; but he was not the sort of man to bully a stranger. He looked at the Angel, and the "strange woman" theory was disposed of. The Angel"s beauty was too clearly the beauty of the youth.
"Mr Hilyer tells me," Mendham began, in an almost apologetic tone, "that you--ah--it"s so curious--claim to be an Angel."
"_Are_ an Angel," said the Vicar.
The Angel bowed.
"Naturally," said Mendham, "we are curious."