CHAPTER IX.
THE REVEREND ISAAC DIXIE.
AT five o'clock next day, Cleve Verney was again in Cardyllian.
Outside "The Chancery" stood a "fly," only just arrived. The ReverendIsaac Dixie had come only a minute or two before, and was waiting in thechamber which was still called the state room.
The room is long and panelled with oak, and at the further end is thefire-place. The ceiling above the cornice slopes at each side with theroof, so as to give it quite a chapel-like effect; a high carved oakmantel-piece, and a carved wainscotting embedding in its panels asymmetrical system of cupboards, closed the perspective, and, as Cleveentered at the door in the further wall, gave effect to the solitaryfigure of the Reverend Isaac Dixie, who was standing with his back tothe fire-place on the threadbare hearthrug, waiting, with an angelicsmile, and beating time to a sacred melody, I am willing to believe,with his broad flat foot.
This clerical gentleman looked some six or seven and forty years old,rather tall than otherwise, broad, bland, and blue-chinned, smiling,gaitered, and single-breasted.
"Capital place to read out the Ten Commandments," exclaimed Cleve. "Gladto see you, old Dixie. It's a long time since we met."
The clergyman stepped forward, his chin a little advanced, his head alittle on one side, smiling rosily with nearly closed eyes, and with abroad hand expanded to receive his former pupil's greeting.
"I've obeyed the summons, you see; punctually, I hope. Delighted, mydear, distinguished young pupil, to meet you, and congratulate you onyour brilliant successes, delighted, my dear Cleve," murmured thedivine, in a mild rapture of affection.
"That's not so neat as the old speech, Dixie; don't you remember?" saidCleve, nevertheless shaking his great soft red hand kindly enough. "Whatwas it? Yes, you were to be my _tutamen_, and I your _dulce decus_.Wasn't that it?"
"Ha, yes, I may have said it; a little classic turn, you know; ha, ha!not altogether bad--not altogether? We have had many agreeableconversations--colloquies--you and I, Mr. Verney, together, in other andvery happy days," said the clergyman, with a tender melancholy smile,while his folded hands faintly smoothed one another over as if in adream of warm water and wash-balls.
"Do you remember the day I shied that awful ink-bottle at your head? byJove, it was as large as a tea-pot. If I had hit you that time, Dixie, Idon't think we'd ever have found a mitre to fit your head."
"Arch, arch--ha, ha! dear me! yes--I had forgot that--yes, quite--youwere always an arch boy, Cleve. Always arch, Mr. Verney.".
"Very arch--yes, it was what old Toler called the office bottle; do youremember? it weighed three or four pounds. I think you were glad it wasbroken; you never got one like it into the room again. I say if it hadcaught you on the head, what a deal of learning and other things theChurch would have lost!"
Whenever it was Cleve's pleasure to banter, the Reverend Isaac Dixietook it in good part. It was his ancient habit, so on this occasion hesimpered agreeably.
"It was in the little study at Malory. By-the-by, who are those peopleyou have put into Malory?" continued Cleve.
"Ha--the--the people who occupy the _house_?" asked the clergyman,throwing out a question to gain time.
"Come--who are they?" said Cleve, a little briskly, throwing himselfback in his seat at the same time, and looking in Dixie's face.
"Well, _I_'m the person responsible; in fact the lease is to me."
"Yes, I know that; go on."
"Well, I took it at the request of Miss Sheckleton, an elderly lady,whom----"
"Whom I don't care to hear about," interrupted Cleve. "There's an oldgentleman--there's a young lady; who are _they_? I want their names."
The Reverend Isaac Dixie was evidently a little puzzled. He coughed, helooked down, he simpered, and shook his head.
"You don't want to tell me, Dixie."
"There is _nothing_ I should not be most happy to tell my distinguishedpupil. I've been always frank, quite frank with you, Mr. Verney. I'venever had a secret."
Cleve laughed gently.
"You wrong me if you think I have," and the Rector of Clay dropped hiseyes and coloured a little and coughed. "But this is not mine--and therereally _is_ a difficulty."
"Insuperable?"
"Well, really, I'm _afraid_ that term expresses it but too truly,"acquiesced the clergyman.
"What a bore!" exclaimed Cleve.
"Shut the window, if it isn't too much trouble, like a dear old Dixie--athousand thanks."
"I assure you I would not say it," resumed the Rector of Clay, "if itwere not so--and I hope I'm in the habit of speaking truth--and thissecret, if so trifling a thing may be seriously so termed, is not mine,and therefore not at my disposal."
"Something in that, old Dixie. Have a weed?" he added, tendering hiscigars.
"Thanks, no; never smoke now," said he, closing his eyes, and liftinghis hand as if in a benediction.
"Oh, to be sure, your bishop--I forgot," said Cleve.
"Yes, a-ha; strong opinions--very able lecture; you have no doubt readit."
"With delight and terror. Death riding on a pipe-clay coloured horse.Sir Walter Raleigh, the man of sin, and the smoke of the Bottomless pit,smelling of cheroots. You used not to be such a fool, old Dixie. _I_'myour bishop now; I've said it, mind--and no one sees you," said Cleve,again offering his cigars.
"Well, well; anything, anything; thanks, just for _once, only_ once;"and he selected one, with a playful bashfulness.
"I'm your bishop--I don't forget. But you must wait till I'm--what d'yecall it?--_consecrated--there_, you need not laugh. Upon my honour, I'mserious; you shall have your choice; I swear you shall," said CleveVerney, who stood very near the title and estates of Verney, with alltheir comfortable advowsons appendant.
The Reverend Isaac Dixie smiled affably and meekly with prospectivegratitude, and said he softly--
"I'm only too happy to think my distinguished, and I may say, honouredpupil, should deem me fit for a weighty charge in the Church; and I maysay, although Clay has been considered a nice little thing, some yearsago, yet, since the vicar's--I must say, most unreasonable--claim hasbeen allowed, it is really, I should be ashamed to say how trifling inemolument; we have all our crosses to bear, my dear pupil, friend, and Imay say, patron--but it is good, nay, pleasant to me to have suffereddisappointments, since in their midst comes no trifling balm in theconfidence you are pleased to evidence in my humble fitness."
The clergyman was moved. A gleam of the red western sun through thewindow, across his broad, meek, and simpering countenance, helped theeffect of his blinking eyes, and he hastily applied his handkerchief.
"Isaac, Isaac, you shan't come that over me. I _don't_ think youfit--not a bit. I'm not an Aristides, only a bishop; and I don't pretendto more conscience than the rest." His eye rested on him with anunconscious disdain. "And for the life of me, I don't know why I intenddoing anything for you, except that I promised, and your name's lucky, Isuppose; you used to keep telling me, don't you remember, that all thepromises were to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? and you are Isaac, in themiddle--_medio tutissimus_--and I think Isaac is the queerest mixture ofJew and muff in the Old Testament, and--and--so on."
The sentence ended so because Cleve was now lighting his cigar. Theclergyman smiled affably, and even waggishly, as one who can bear to bequizzed, and has a confidence in the affection of the joker; and Clevesmoked on serenely and silently for a little.
"And those are really my intentions respecting you," he resumed; "butyou are to do as I bid you in the mean time, you know. I say, youmustn't snub your bishop; and, upon my honour, I'm perfectly serious,you shall never see my face again, nor hear of me more, if you don't,this minute, tell me everything you know about those people atMalory."
"Are you really _serious_, Mr. Verney?--_really_ so?"
"Yes, quite so; and I can keep my word, as you know. Who are they?"
"You are placing me in the most awkward possible position; pray considerwhether you re
ally _do_ make a point of it."
"I _do_ make a point of it."
"I, of course, keep _nothing_ from _you_, when you press it in that way;and beside, although it _is_ awkward, it is, in a measure _right_,inasmuch as you are connected with the property, I may say, and have aright to exact information, if you thus so insist upon it as a duty."
"Come, Dixie, who _are_ they!" said Cleve, peremptorily.
"Well, he's in some difficulties just now, and it is really vital thathis name should not be disclosed, so I entreat you won't mention it; andespecially you won't mention me as having divulged it."
"Certainly; of course I don't want to set the beaks on your friend. Ishan't mention his name, depend upon it, to mortal. I've just one reasonfor wishing to know, and I have brought you a journey, here and back, ofa hundred and forty miles, precisely to answer me this question, and I_will_ know."
"Well, Mr. Verney, my dear sir, I venture to wash my hands ofconsequences, and unfeignedly relying upon your promise, I tell you thatthe old gentleman now residing in very strict seclusion at Malory, isSir Booth----" he paused as if willing that Cleve should supply thesurname, and so, perhaps, relieve him of a part of the disclosure.
"Sir Booth _what_?"
"Don't you know?"
"_No_. You can't mean Sir Booth Fanshawe."
"Sir Booth--Sir Booth Fanshawe; yes," said the clergyman, looking downbashfully, "I _do_ mean Sir Booth Fanshawe."
"_By Jove!_ And don't you think it was rather a liberty, bringing SirBooth Fanshawe to occupy our house at Malory, after all that haspassed?" demanded Cleve Verney, rather sternly.
"Well, _no_, it really did _not_--I'm grieved if I have erred injudgment; but it never _did_ strike me in that light--never in thatpoint of view; and Sir Booth doesn't know who it belongs to. It neverstruck me to tell him, and I don't think he has an idea."
"_I_ don't care; but if my _uncle_ hears, _he_'ll not like it, I cantell you."
"I should not for any earthly consideration have made myself accessoryto anything that could possibly have given a moment's pain to myhonoured patron, the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney, or to my honouredpupil----"
"Why, yes, my uncle might do you a mischief; as for me, I don't care.Only I think it was rather cool, considering how savage he has alwaysbeen--what a lot of money he has cost us--getting up contests andpetitions, and vilifying us wherever he could. He has left no stoneunturned--but that's all over; and I think you've committed anindiscretion, because he hasn't a guinea left, and my sensible oldgrandmother will positively make you pay the rent, and that will be asunpleasant as sharing your tithes with the vicar."
"We are not all so wise as perhaps we should be in our generation," saidthe Reverend Isaac Dixie, with an apostolic simper that was plaintiveand simple. To quiet the reader's uneasiness, however, I may mentionthat this good man had taken particular care to secure himself againsta possible loss of a shilling in the matter. "And there are claims towhich it is impossible to be deaf--there is a voice that seems to say,turn not thou away."
"_Do_ stop that. You know very well that Booth Fanshawe was once a manwho could give you a lift; and you did not know, perhaps, that he isruined."
"Pardon me; but too well. It is to protect him against immediate andmelancholy consequences that I ventured, at some little risk, perhaps,to seek for him an asylum in the seclusion of Malory."
"Well, it wasn't all sentiment, my dear Dixie; there's a gold thread ofa ravelled tuft running through it somewhere; for whatever the romanceof Christianity may say, the practice of the apostles is, very much,nothing for nothing; and if old Fanshawe wasn't worth obliging, I daresay Hammerdon wrote or spoke to you. Come, your looks confess it."
"Lord Hammerdon, I have no hesitation in saying, did suggest----"
"There, that will do. Will you come over to Ware, and dine with me? I'msure old Jones can give you a bed."
The Reverend Isaac Dixie, however, could not come. There was to be areligious meeting in the morning at Clay school-house; the bishop wasto be there; and the rector was himself to move a resolution, and hadnot yet considered what he was to say.
So he stepped with a bland countenance and a deliberate stride into hisfly again; and from its window smirked sadly, and waved his hand to thefuture patron of Fridon-cum-Fleece, as he drove away; and the clergyman,who was not always quite celestial, and could, on safe occasions, besharp and savage enough, exploded in a coarse soliloquy over the money,and the day and the ease he had sacrificed to the curiosity of thatyoung man, who certainly _had_ some as _odious_ points as it had everbeen his lot to meet with.