CHAPTER IV
The Local Colour
The Reverend Charles Brabazon, magnetic Vicar of the adjacent Village,had as strong a personality as one could wish to encounter in real life.He did what he liked with a congregation largely composed of the motleyworldlings of Witching Hill. Small solicitors and west-end tradesmen,bank officials, outside brokers, first-class clerks in Governmentoffices, they had not a Sunday soul to call their own, these hard-headedholders of season tickets to Waterloo.
Throughout the summer they flocked to church when their hearts were onthe river; in the depths of winter they got up for early celebration onthe one morning when they might have lain abed. Their most obsequiousdevotions did not temper the preacher's truculence, any more than hisstrongest onslaught discouraged their good works. They gave of theirsubstance at his every call, and were even more lavish on their owninitiative. Thus, in my second summer at Witching Hill, the Vicarage waspractically rebuilt out of the pockets of parishioners; and we had nodifficulty in providing a furnished substitute on the favourite woodlandside of Mulcaster Park.
Great was the jealousy in Witching Hill Road, but futile the flutteringof our Queen Anne dovecots; for we saw very little more of the Vicar forhaving him in our midst. He was always either immured in his study, orelse hurrying to or from some service or parochial engagement; andalthough he had a delightful roadside manner, and the same fine smilefor high and low, he would stop to speak to neither on his way. Out ofchurch, in fact, Mr. Brabazon preserved a wise aloofness which onlyserved to emphasise the fierce intimacy of his pulpit utterances, andcombined with his contempt of popularity to render him by far the mostpopular figure in the neighbourhood.
It goes without saying that this remarkable man was a High Churchmanand a celibate. His house was kept, and his social short-comings madegood, by two Misses Brabazon, each as unlike him as possible in her ownway. Miss Ruth, who was younger, added to her brother's energy asympathetic charm and a really good voice which made her the darling ofthe Parish Hall and humbler edifices. Miss Julia's activities were moresedentary and domestic, as perhaps became the least juvenile of thetrio, and so it was that I saw most of her. We had a whole day togetherover the inventory, and it was Miss Julia who interviewed me abouteverything else connected with the house. She was never short with me onthose occasions, never ungracious or (what is worse) unduly gracious,but she had always a pleasant word, and nearly always an innocent littlejoke as well. Innocence and jocosity were two of her leadingcharacteristics; another was a genuine but ingenuous literary faculty.This she exercised in editing the _Parish Magazine_, and supplying itwith moral serials which occasionally reached volume form under theauspices of the Religious Tract Society.
On an evening late in April, when the cuckoo was wound up in the woodbehind Mulcaster Park, and most of the beds in front were flowering forthe first time, a gaunt figure came to the gate of the temporaryvicarage and beckoned to me passing on the other side of the road. Itwas Miss Julia, and I found her looking gently humorous and knowingacross the gate.
"The trees are coming out so beautifully," she began, "in the groundsbehind these gardens. I was wondering if it would be possible to procurea permit to go over them, Mr. Gillon."
"Do you mean for yourself, Miss Brabazon?"
"Well, yes, as a matter of fact I do."
As she spoke I could not but notice that she glanced ever so slightlytowards the house behind her, and that her voice had fallen to a murmur,while a mottled colouring appeared between the lines of her guilelessvisage.
"I'm afraid I can't do anything," I said. "But the Vicar could, MissBrabazon!" I added with conviction. "A line from him to Sir ChristopherStainsby----"
I stopped because Miss Julia shook her head so decidedly.
"That would never do, Mr. Gillon. Sir Christopher is such a very rabidDissenter."
"So I have heard," I admitted, thinking rather of what I had seen. "ButI don't believe he's as narrow as you think."
"I couldn't trouble the Vicar about it, in any case," said MissBrabazon, hurriedly. "I shouldn't even like him to know that I hadtroubled you, Mr. Gillon. He's such a severe critic that I never tellhim what I'm writing until it's finished."
"Then you are writing something about Witching Hill House, MissBrabazon?"
"I was thinking of it. I haven't begun. But I never saw any place that Ifelt such a desire to write about. The old house in the old woods, say ahundred years ago! Don't you think it an ideal scene for a story, Mr.Gillon?"
"It depends on the story you want to tell," said I, sententiously.
A strange light was burning in the weak eyes of Miss Julia. It mightalmost have been a flicker of the divine fire. But now she dropped herworn eyelids, and gazed into the road with the dreamy cunning of theborn creator.
"I should have quite a plot," she decided. "It would be ... yes, itwould be about some extraordinary person who lived in there, in the woodand the house, only of course ages and ages ago. I think I should makehim--in fact I'm quite sure he would be--a very wicked person, though ofcourse he'd have to come all right in the end."
"You must be thinking of the man who really did live there."
"Who was that?"
"The infamous Lord Mulcaster."
"Really, Mr. Gillon? I don't think I ever heard of him. Of course I knowthe present family by name; aren't these Delavoyes connected with themin some way?"
I explained the connection as I knew it, which was not very thoroughly.But I unfortunately said enough to cause a rapid fall in poor MissJulia's mottled countenance.
"Then I must give up the idea of that story. They would think I meanttheir ancestor, and that would never do. I'm sorry, because I never feltso inclined to write anything before. But I'm very glad you told me, Mr.Gillon."
"But they wouldn't mind a bit, Miss Brabazon! They're not in the leastsensitive about him," I assured her.
"I couldn't think of it," replied Miss Julia, haughtily. "It would be inthe very worst of taste."
"But Uvo would love it. He's full of the old villain. He might help youif you'd let him. He's at the British Museum at this moment, gettingdeeper and deeper into what he calls the family mire."
"I happen to see him coming down the road," observed Miss Julia, dryly."I must really beg that you will not refer to the subject again, Mr.Gillon."
But in her voice and manner there was a hesitating reluctance thatemboldened me to use my own judgment about that, especially when UvoDelavoye (whose mother and sister were keen Brabazonians) himselfintroduced the topic on joining us, with a gratuitous remark about his"unfilial excavations in Bloomsbury."
"I've opened up a new lazar-house this very day," he informed us, withshining eyes, when Miss Julia had shown an interest in spite of herself.
"By the way," I cut in, "don't you think it would all make magnificentmaterial for a novel, Uvo?"
"If you could find anybody to publish it!" he answered, laughing.
"You wouldn't mind if he was put into a book--and the place as well?"
"_I_ wouldn't, if nobody else didn't! Why? Who's thinking of doing usthe honour?"
Dear Miss Julia coughed and laughed with delicious coyness. My libertyhad been condoned.
"Was it you, Miss Brabazon?" cried Uvo, straightening his face with thenerve that never failed him at a climax.
"Well, it was and it wasn't," she replied, exceeding slyly. "I did thinkI should like to write a little story about Witching Hill House, and putin rather a bad character; at least he would begin by being ratherundesirable, perhaps. But I was forgetting that the place had been inyour family, Mr. Delavoye. I certainly never knew, until Mr. Gillon toldme, that one of the Lords Mulcaster had been--er--perhaps--no betterthan he ought to have been."
"To put it mildly," said Delavoye, with smiling face and shrieking eyes."You may paint the bad old hat as black as mine, Miss Brabazon, andstill turn him out a saint compared with the villain of the case I'vebeen reading up to-day. So you really needn't worry about anyb
ody'ssusceptibilities. Lay on the local colour inches deep! You won't makethe place as red as the old gentleman painted it in blood and wine!"
"Really, Mr. Delavoye!" cried Miss Julia, jocosely shocked. "You mustn'tforget that my story would only appear in our _Parish Magazine_--unlessthe R.T.S. took it afterwards."
"My rude forefather in a Religious Tract!"
"Of course I should quite reform him in the end."
"You'd have your work cut out, Miss Brabazon."
"I ought to begin with _you_, you know!" said Miss Julia, shaking afacetious finger in Uvo's face. "I'm afraid you're rather an irreverentyoung man, and I don't know what the Vicar would say if he heard us."She threw another deliciously guilty glance towards the house. "But ifyou really mean what you say, and you're sure Mrs. Delavoye and yoursister won't mind either----"
"Mind!" he interrupted. "Forgive me, Miss Brabazon, but how _could_ theybe sensitive about the last head but five of a branch of the familywhich doesn't even recognise our existence?"
"Very well, then! I'll take you at your word, and the--the blood andthunder," whispered Miss Julia, as though they were bad words, "be onyour own head, Mr. Delavoye!"
Thereafter, in a quivering silence, Uvo took me home with him, andstraight up into his own room, where he first shut door and windowwithout a word. Never since have I heard man laugh quite so loud andlong as he did then.
"But you don't see the point!" he arrogated through his tears, because Imade rather less noise.
"What is it, then?"
"I told you I'd opened up a new sink to-day?"
"You said something of the sort."
"It was a sink of fresh iniquity. I came across it in an old collectionof trials; it isn't as much as mentioned in any memoir of the oldreprobate, nor yet in the many annals of Witching Hill. Yet he oncefigured in one of the most disgraceful cases on record."
The case was all that, as Delavoye summed it up for my benefit. Thearch-villain of the piece was of course his scandalous progenitor, aidedand abetted by a quite unspeakable crew. There was a sorely distressedheroine in humble life--a poor little milliner from Shoreditch--butbecause it was all too true, there had been no humble hero to wreakpoetic vengeance on the miscreant.
"Not a nursery story, I grant you! But there were some good touches inthe version I struck," said Delavoye, producing his museum note-book."One or two I couldn't help taking down. 'In obedience to the custom ofthe times,' for instance, 'the young lord proceeded to perform the grandtour; and it is reported that having sailed from Naples toConstantinople, he there imbibed so great an admiration for the mannersof the Turks, that on his return to England in 1766, he caused anoutlying portion of his family mansion to be taken down, and to berebuilt in the form of a harem.'"
"Rot!"
"I took it down word for word. I've often wondered how the TurkishPavilion got its name; now we know all about it, and why it had a tunnelconnecting it with the house."
"Poor little milliner!"
"I believe you, Gilly. Listen to this, when she was a prisoner in histown house, before they spirited her out here--'Looking out of thewindow at about eight o'clock, she observed a young woman passing, towhom she threw out her handkerchief, which was then heavy with tears,intending to attract her attention and send to her father forassistance.'"
"Because the handkerchief was marked?"
"And so heavy with her tears that she could throw it like atennis-ball!"
The note-book was put away. There was an end also of our hilarity.
"And this dear old girl," said Uvo, with affectionate disrespect,"thinks she's a fit and proper writer to cope with that immortal skunk!False Sextus in a parish magazine! Proud Tarquin done really proud atlast!"
It was on the tip of my tongue to make it quite clear to Uvo that MissJulia had not wittingly proposed to write about his ancestor at all;that apparently she had never heard of his existence before thatevening, and that it was her own original idea to make Witching HillHouse the haunt of some purely imaginary scoundrel. But I knew my Uvowell enough by this time to hold my tongue, and at least postpone thetiresome discussion of a rather stale point on which we were neverlikely to agree.
But I stayed to supper at No. 7; and Uvo kept me till the small hours,listening to further details of his last researches, and to the farragoof acute conjecture, gay reminiscence and vivid hearsay which hisreading invariably inspired. It was base subject-metal that did notgain a certain bright refinement in his fiery mind, or fall from hislips with a lively ring; and that night he was at his best about thingswhich have an opposite effect on many young men. It must have been afterone when I left him. I saw the light go out behind the cheap stainedglass in the front door, and I heard Uvo going upstairs as I departed.The next and only other light I passed, in the houses on that side ofthe road, was at the top of the one which was now the Vicarage. Thencealso came an only sound; it was the continuous crackle of a typewriter,through the open window of the room which I knew Miss Julia hadappropriated as her own.
That end of the Estate had by this time a full team of tenants, whereasI had two sets of painters and paperhangers to keep up to the mark inWitching Hill Road. This rather came between me and my friends inMulcaster Park, especially as my Mr. Muskett lived in their road, andhis house had eyes and a tongue. So it happened that I saw no more ofMiss Julia Brabazon until she paid me a queer little visit at my officeone afternoon about five o'clock. She was out of breath, and herflurried manner quickened my ear to the sound of her brother's bellsringing in the distance for week-day evensong.
"I thought I'd like to have one word with you, Mr. Gillon, about mystory," she panted, with a guilty shrinking from the sheet of glassbehind her. "It will be finished in a few days now, I'm thankful to say.I've been so hard at work upon it, you can't think!"
"Oh, yes, I can," said I; for there seemed to be many more lines on thesimple, eager countenance; the drollery had gone out of it, and itsheightened colouring had an unhealthy, bluish tinge.
"I'm afraid I have been burning the midnight oil a little," she admittedwith a sort of coy bravado. "But there seems so much to do during theday, and everything is so quiet at night, unless it's that wretchedtypewriter of mine! But I muffle the bell, and luckily my brother andsister are sound sleepers."
"You must be keen, Miss Brabazon, to turn night into day."
"Keen? I never enjoyed writing half so much. It's no effort; the storysimply writes itself. I don't feel as if it were a story at all, butsomething that I see and hear and have just got to get down as fast asever I can! I feel as if I really knew that old monster we were talkingabout the other day. Sometimes he quite frightens me. And that's whyI've come to you, Mr. Gillon. I almost fear I'm making him too great ahorror after all!"
It was impossible not to smile. "That would be a difficult matter, fromall I hear, Miss Brabazon."
"I meant from the point of view of his descendants in general, and thesedear Delavoyes in particular. Rather than hurt their feelings, Mr.Gillon, I need hardly tell you I'd destroy my story in a minute."
"That would be a thousand pities," said I, honestly thinking of herwasted time.
"I'm not so sure," said Miss Julia, doubtfully. "I sometimes think, whenI read the newspapers, that there are bad people enough in the worldwithout digging up more from their graves. Yet at other times I don'tfeel as if I were doing that either. It's more as though this wicked oldwretch had come to life of his own accord and insisted on being writtenabout. I seem to feel him almost at my elbow, forcing me to write down Idon't know what."
"But that sounds like inspiration!" I exclaimed, impressed by the goodfaith patent in the tired, ingenuous, serio-comic face.
"I don't know what it is," replied Miss Julia, "or whether I'm writingsense or nonsense. I never like to look next day. I only know that atthe time I quite frighten myself and--make as big a fool of myself asthough I were in my poor heroine's shoes--which is so absurd!" Shelaughed uneasily, her colour slightly heightened. "But I only me
ant toask you, Mr. Gillon, whether you honestly and truly think that theDelavoyes won't mind? You see, he really was their ancestor, and I domake him a most odious creature."
"But I don't suppose you give his real name?"
"Oh, dear, no. That would never do. I call him the Duke of Doehampton,and the story is called 'His Graceless Grace.' Isn't it a good title,Mr. Gillon?"
I lied like a man, but was still honest enough to add that I thought iteven better as a disguise. "I feel sure, Miss Brabazon, that you areworrying yourself unnecessarily," I took it upon myself to assert; butindeed her title alone would have reassured me, had I for a momentshared her conscientious qualms.
"I am so glad you think so," said Miss Julia, visibly relieved. "Still,I shall not offer the story anywhere until Mr. Delavoye has seen orheard every word of it."
"I thought it was for your own _Parish Magazine_?"
Miss Julia at last obliged me with her most facetious and mostconfidential smile.
"I am not tied down to the _Parish Magazine_," said she. "There arehigher fields. I am not certain that 'His Graceless Grace' is altogethersuited to the young--the young parishioner, Mr. Gillon! I must read itover and see. And--yes--I shall invite Mr. Delavoye to come and hear it,before I decide to send it anywhere at all."
The reading actually took place on an evening in May, when the Vicar hadaccompanied his younger sister up to Exeter Hall; and at the last momentI also received a verbal invitation, delivered and inspired by thatrascal Uvo, who declared that I had let him in for the infliction andmust bear my share. More justly, he argued that the pair of us mightsucceed in keeping each other awake, whereas one alone would infalliblydisgrace himself; and we had solemnly agreed upon a system ofwatch-and-watch, by the alternate quarter-of-an-hour, before wepresented ourselves at the temporary vicarage after supper.
Miss Julia received us in stiff silk that supplied a sort of sibilantobbligato to a nervous welcome; and her voice maintained a secretivepitch, even when the maid had served coffee and shut the door behindher, lending a surreptitious air to the proceedings before they could besaid to have begun. It was impossible not to wonder what the Vicar wouldhave said to see his elderly sister discoursing profane fiction to apair of heathens who seldom set foot inside his church.
He would scarcely have listened with our resignation; for poor MissJulia read as badly as she wrote, and never was story opened withclumsier ineptitude than hers. We had sheet upon typewritten sheet aboutthe early life and virtuous vicissitudes of some deplorably dull youngfemale in the east end of London; and in my case slumber was imminentwhen the noble villain made his entry in the cinnamon waistcoat of thepicture at Hampton Court. At that I tried to catch Uvo's eye, but it wasalready fixed upon the reader's face with an intensity which soonattracted her attention.
"Isn't that your idea of him, Mr. Delavoye?" asked Miss Julia,apprehensively.
"Well, yes, it is; but it was Sir Godfrey Kneller's first," said Uvo,laughing. "So you took the trouble to go all the way over there to studyhis portrait, Miss Brabazon?"
"What portrait? All the way over where, Mr. Delavoye?"
Uvo entered into particulars which left the lady's face a convincingblank. She had seen no portrait; it was years since she had been throughthe galleries at Hampton Court, and then without a catalogue. Uvoseemed to experience so much difficulty in crediting this disclaimer,that I asked whether cinnamon had not been a favourite colour with thebloods of the eighteenth century. On his assent the reading proceeded ina slightly altered voice, in which I thought I detected a note of notunnatural umbrage.
But far greater coincidences were in store, and those of such acharacter that it was certainly difficult to believe that they wereanything of the sort. Considered as an attempt at dramatic narrative,the story was, of course, beneath criticism. It was all redundantdescription, gratuitous explanations, facetious turns to serioussentences, and declared intentions which entirely spoilt the effect oftheir due fulfilment. Bored to extinction with the heroine, who onlybecame interesting on the villain's advent, as his predestined prey, wethenceforth heard no more of her until his antecedents had been setforth in solid slabs of the pluperfect tense. These dwelt with stolidsolemnity upon the distinctions and debaucheries of his Universitycareer, and then all at once on the effect of subsequent travel upon acynical yet impressionable mind. In an instant both of us wereattending, and even I guessed what was coming, and what had happened.Probably by half-forgotten hearsay, our dear good lady had tapped thesame muddy stream as Uvo Delavoye, and some of the mud had silted into amind too innocent to appreciate its quality.
"Debased and degraded by the wicked splendours of barbaric courts, theunprincipled young nobleman had decided not only to 'do in Turkey as theTurkeys did,' but to initiate the heathen institution of polygamy amonghis own broad acres on his return to England, home, and only too muchbeauty!... Poor, innocent, confiding Millicent; little did she dream,when he asked her to be his, that he only meant 'one of the many'; thatthe place awaiting her was but her niche in the _seraglio_ which he hadwickedly had built, in a corner of his stately grounds, on some Easternmodel."
Delavoye looked at me without a trace of amusement, but rather inalarmed recognition of the weirdly sustained parallel between rascalfact and foolish fiction. But as yet we had only scratched the thin iceof the situation; soon we were almost shuddering from our knowledge ofthe depths below.
The unhappy heroine had repulsed the advances of the villain in thestory as in the actual case; in both she was from the same locality(where, however, our Vicar had held his last curacy); in both, enticedinto his lordship's coach and driven off at a great rate to his Londonmansion, where the first phase of her harrowing adventures ensued. Soinnocently were these described that we must have roared over them byourselves; but there was no temptation to smile under the rosy drollnose of poor Miss Julia, by this time warmed to her work, and reelingoff her own interminable periods with pathetic zest. Yet even her jocoseand sidelong style could no longer conceal an interest which had becomemore dramatic than she was aware. Just as it first had taken charge ofher pen, so her story had now gained undisputed command of the poorlady's lips; and she was actually reading it far better than at first,as if subconsciously stimulated by our rapt attention, thoughmercifully ignorant of its uncomfortable quality. I speak only formyself, and it may be that as a very young man I took the whole businessmore seriously than I should to-day. But I must own there were somebeads upon my forehead when Delavoye relieved the tension by jumping tohis feet in unrestrained excitement.
"I'm glad you like that," said Miss Julia, with a pleased smile,"because I thought it was good myself. Her handkerchief would have hername on it, you see; and she was able to throw it out of the window likea stone, at the feet of the first passer-by, because it was so heavywith her tears. Of course she hoped the person who picked it up wouldsee the name and----"
"Of course!" cried Uvo, cavalierly. "It was an excellent idea--I alwaysthought so."
Miss Julia eyed him with a puzzled smirk.
"How could you always think a thing I've only just invented?" she askedacutely.
"Well, you see, it's happened in real life before to-day," he faltered,seeing his mistake.
"Like a good deal of my story, it appears?"
"Like something in every story that was ever written. Truth, youknow----"
"Quite so, Mr. Delavoye! But I saw you looking at Mr. Gillon a minuteago as though something else was familiar to you both. And I should justlike to know what it was."
"I'm sure I've forgotten, Miss Brabazon."
"It wasn't the part about the--the Turkish building in the grounds--Isuppose?"
"Yes," said Uvo, turning honest in desperation.
"And where am I supposed to have read about that?"
"I'm quite certain you never read it at all, Miss Brabazon!"
Now Miss Julia had lost neither her temper nor her smile, and she hadnot been more severe on Delavoye than his unsatisfactory manner invit
ed.But the obvious sincerity of his last answer appeased her pique, and sheleant forward in sudden curiosity.
"Then there is a book about him, Mr. Delavoye?"
"Not exactly a book."
"I know!" she cried. "It's the case you'd been reading the othernight--isn't it?"
"Perhaps it is."
"Was he actually tried--that Lord Mulcaster?"
The wretched Uvo groaned and nodded.
"What for, Mr. Delavoye?"
"His life!" exclaimed Uvo, moistening his lips. Miss Julia beamed andpuckered with excitement.
"How very dreadful, to be sure! And had he actually committed a murder?"
"I've no doubt he had," said Uvo, eagerly. "I wouldn't put anything pasthim, as they say; but in those days it wasn't necessary to take life inorder to forfeit your own. There were lots of other capital offences.The mere kidnapping of the young lady, exactly as you describe it----"
"But did he really do such a thing?" demanded Miss Julia.
And her obviously genuine amazement redoubled mine.
"Exactly as you have described it," repeated Delavoye. "He travelled inthe East, commenced Bluebeard on his return, fished his Fatima likeyours out of some little shop down Shoreditch way, and even drove her toyour own expedient of turning her tears to account!"
And he dared to give me another look--shot with triumph--while MissJulia supported an invidious position as best she might.
"Wait a bit!" said I, stepping in at last. "I thought I gathered fromyou the other day, Miss Brabazon, that you felt the reality of yourstory intensely?"
"I did indeed, Mr. Gillon."
"It distressed you very much?"
"I might have been going through the whole thing."
"It--it even moved you to tears?"
"I should be ashamed to say how many."
"I daresay," I pursued, smiling with all my might, "that even yourhandkerchief was heavy with them, Miss Brabazon?"
"It was!"
"Then so much for the origin of _that_ idea! It would have occurred toanybody under similar circumstances."
Miss Julia gave me the smile I wanted. I felt I had gone up in herestimation, and sent Delavoye down. But I had reckoned without hisgenius for taking a dilemma by the horns.
"This is an old quarrel between Gillon and me, Miss Brabazon. I holdthat all Witching Hill is more or less influenced by the wicked oldwizard of the place. Mr. Gillon says it's all my eye, and simply willnot let belief take hold of him. Yet your Turkish building actuallyexisted within a few feet of where we're sitting now; and suppose thevery leaves on the trees still whisper about it to those who have earsto hear; suppose you've taken the whole thing down almost at dictation!I don't know how your story goes on, Miss Brabazon----"
"No more do I," said Miss Brabazon, manifestly impressed and not at alloffended by his theory. "It's a queer thing--I never should have thoughtof such a thing myself--but I certainly did dash it all off as ifsomebody was telling me what to say, and at such a rate that my mind'sstill a blank from one page to the next."
She picked the script out of her lap, and we watched her bewilderedface as it puckered to a frown over the rustling sheets.
"I shouldn't wonder," said Delavoye a little hastily, "if his nexteffort wasn't to subvert her religious beliefs."
"To make game of them!" assented Miss Julia in scandalised undertones."'The demoniacal Duke now set himself to deface and destroy the beautyof holiness, to cast away the armour of light, and to put upon him thetrue colours of an aristocratic atheist of the deepest dye.'"
"Exactly what he did," murmured Uvo, with another look at me. It was nota look of triumph unalloyed; it was at least as full of vividapprehension.
"I shall cross that out," said Miss Julia decidedly. "I don't know whatI was thinking of to write anything like that. It really makes me almostafraid to go on."
Uvo shot out a prompt and eager hand.
"Will you let me take it away to finish by myself, Miss Brabazon?"
"I don't think I can. I must look and see if there's anything more likethat."
"But it isn't your fault if there is. You've simply been inspired towrite the truth."
"But I feel almost ashamed."
And the typewritten sheets rustled more than ever as she raised themonce more. But Delavoye jumped up and stood over her with a stiff lip.
"Miss Brabazon, you really must let me read the rest of it to myself!"
"I must see first whether I can let anybody."
"Let me see instead!"
Heaven knows how she construed his wheedling eagerness! There was amoment when they both had hold of the MS., when I felt that my friendwas going too far, that his obstinate persistence could not fail to beresented as a liberty. But it was just at such moments that there was asmack of greatness about Uvo Delavoye; given the stimulus, he couldcarry a thing off with a high hand and the light touch of a born leader;and so it must have been that he had Miss Julia coyly giggling when Ifully expected her to stamp her foot.
"You talk about our curiosity," she rallied him. "You men are just asbad!"
"I have a right to be curious," returned Uvo, in a tone that surprisedme as much as hers. "You forget that your villain was once the head ofour clan, and that so far the fact is quite unmistakable."
"But that's just what I can't understand!"
"Yet the fact remains, Miss Brabazon, and I think it ought to count."
"My dear young man, that's my only excuse for this very infliction!"cried Miss Julia, with invincible jocosity. "If you'd rather it weredestroyed, I shall be quite ready to destroy it, as Mr. Gillon knows.But I should like you to hear the whole of it first."
"And I could judge so much better if I read the rest to myself!"
And still he held his corner of the MS., and she hers with an equaltenacity, which I believe to have been partly reflex and instinctive,but otherwise due to the discovery that she had written quite serenelyabout a blasphemer and an atheist, and not for a moment to any otherqualm or apprehension whatsoever. And then as I watched them their eyeslooked past me with one accord; the sheaf of fastened sheets flutteredto the ground between them; and I turned to behold the Vicar standinggrim and gaunt upon the threshold, with a much younger and still morescandalised face peeping over his shoulder.
"I didn't know that you were entertaining company," observed the Vicar,bowing coldly to us youths. "Are you aware that it's nearly midnight?"
Miss Julia said she never could have believed it, but that she must havelost all sense of time, as she had been reading something to us.
"I'm sure that was very kind, and has been much appreciated," said theVicar, with his polar smile. "I suppose this was what you were reading?"
And he was swooping down on the MS., but Delavoye was quicker; andquicker yet than either hand was the foot interposed like lightning bythe Vicar.
"You'll allow me?" he said, and so picked the crumpled sheets from underit. Uvo bowed, and the other returned the courtesy with ironicinterest.
In quivering tones Miss Julia began, "It's only something I've been----"
"Considering for the _Parish Magazine_," ejaculated Uvo. "Miss Brabazondid me the honour of consulting me about it."
"And may I ask your responsibility for the _Parish Magazine_, Mr.Delavoye?"
"It's a story," continued Uvo, ignoring the question and looking hard atMiss Julia--"a local story, evidently written for local publication, thescene being laid here at Witching Hill House. The principal character isthe very black sheep of my family who once lived there."
"I'm aware of the relationship," said the Vicar, dryly unimpressed.
"It's not one that we boast about; hence Miss Brabazon's kindness intrying to ascertain whether my people or I were likely to object to itspublication."
"Well," said the Vicar, "I'm quite sure that neither you nor your peoplewould have any objection to Miss Brabazon's getting to bed bymidnight."
He returned to the door, which he held wide open with urbane
frigidity."Now, Julia, if you'll set us an example."
And at the door he remained when the bewildered lady, delivered from anembarrassment that she could not appreciate, and committed to asubterfuge in which she could see no point, had flown none the lessreadily, with a hectic simper and a whistle of silk.
"Now, gentlemen," continued the Vicar, "it's nearly midnight, as I'vesaid more than once."
"I was to take the story with me, to finish it by myself," explainedUvo, with the smile of a budding ambassador.
"Oh, very well," rejoined the Vicar, shutting the door. "Then we mustkeep each other a minute longer. I happen myself to constitute the finalcourt of appeal in all matters connected with the _Parish Magazine_.Moreover, Mr. Delavoye, I'm a little curious to see the kind ofcomposition that merits a midnight discussion between my sister and twoyoung men whose acquaintance I myself have had so little opportunity ofcultivating."
He dropped into a chair, merely waving to us to do the same; andDelavoye did; but I remained standing, with my eyes on the reader'sface, and I saw him begin where Miss Julia had left off and the MS. hadfallen open. I could not be mistaken about that; there was the mark ofhis own boot upon the page; but the Vicar read it without wincing at thepassage which his sister had declared her intention of crossing out. Hisbrows took a supercilious lift; his cold eyes may have grown a littleharder as they read; and yet once or twice they lightened with a humanrelish--an icy twinkle--a gleam at least of something I had not thoughtto see in Mr. Brabazon. Perhaps I did not really see it now. If you looklong enough at the Sphinx itself, in the end it will yield somesemblance of an answering look. And I never took my eyes from theVicar's granite features, as typewritten sheet after sheet was turned sosoftly by his iron hand, that it might have been some doctrinalpamphleteer who claimed his cool attention.
When he had finished he rose very quietly and put the whole MS. behindthe grate. Then I remembered that Delavoye also was in the room, and Isignalled to him because the Vicar was stooping over the well-laid grateand striking matches. But Delavoye only shook his head, and sat where hewas when Mr. Brabazon turned and surveyed us both, with the firewoodcrackling behind his clerical tails.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Delavoye," said he; "but I think you willagree that this is a case for the exercise of my powers in connectionwith our little magazine. The stupendous production now perishing in theflames was of course intended as a practical joke at our expense."
"And I never saw it!" cried Uvo, scrambling to his feet. "Of course, ifyou come to think of it, that's the whole and only explanation--isn'tit, Gillon? A little dig at the Delavoyes as well, by the way!"
"Chiefly at us, I imagine," said the Vicar dryly. "I rather suspect thatthe very style of writing is an attempt at personal caricature. Thetaste is execrable all through. But that is only to be expected of theanonymous lampooner."
"Was there really no name to it, Mr. Brabazon?"
The question was asked for information, but Uvo's tone was that ofrighteous disgust.
"No name at all. And one sheet of type-writing is exactly like another.My sister had not read it all herself, I gather?"
"Evidently not. And she only read the first half to us."
"Thank goodness for that!" cried the Vicar, off his guard. "The wholeimpertinence," he ran on more confidentially, "is so paltry, so vulgar,so egregiously badly done! It's all beneath contempt, and I shall notdescend to the perpetrator's level by attempting to discover who he is.Neither shall I permit the matter to be mentioned again in my household.And as gentlemen I look to you both to resist the ventilation of a mostungentlemanly hoax."
But the promise that we freely gave did not preclude us from returningat once to No. 7, and there and then concocting a letter to Miss Julia,which I slipped into the letter-box of the makeshift vicarage as thebirds were waking in the wood behind Mulcaster Park.
It was simply to say that Uvo was after all afraid that his kith and kinreally might resent the publication of her thrilling but painful tale oftheir common ancestor; and therefore he had taken Miss Brabazon at herword, and the MS. was no more. Its destruction was really demanded bythe inexplicable fact that the story was the true story of adiscreditable case in which the infamous Lord Mulcaster had actuallyfigured; and the further fact that Miss Brabazon had neverthelessinvented it, so far as she personally was aware, would have constitutedanother and still more interesting case for the Psychical ResearchSociety, but for the aforesaid objections to its publication in anyshape or form.
All this made a document difficult to draw up, and none too convincingwhen drawn; but that was partly because the collaborators were alreadydivided over every feature of the extraordinary affair, which indeedafforded food for argument for many a day to come. But in the meantimeour dear Miss Julia accepted sentence and execution with a gentle andeven a jocose resignation which made us both miserable. We did not evenknow that there had been any real occasion for the holocaust for whichwe claimed responsibility, or to what extent or lengths the unconsciousplagiarism had proceeded. Delavoye, of course, took the view thatcoincided with his precious theory, whereas I argued from Mr. Brabazon'scoolness that we had heard the worst.
But the Vicar always was cool out of the pulpit; and it was almost apity that we rewarded his moderation by going to church the next Sunday,for I never shall forget his ferocious sermon on the modern purveyor ofpernicious literature. He might have been raving from bitter experience,as Delavoye of course declared he was. But there is one redeeming pointin my recollection of his tirade. And that is a vivid and consolingvision of the elder Miss Brabazon, listening with a rapt and unconsciousserenity to every burning word.