"No; I do not know Mrs. Hammond," Miss Bonamy said with decision. "Good-day, Mr. Lindo." And she was gone; rather abruptly at last.

"That is odd--very odd," Lindo reflected as, continuing his walk, he turned to admire her graceful figure and the pretty carriage of her head. "I fancied that in these small towns every one knew every one. What sort of people are the Hammonds, I wonder? New, rich, and vulgar perhaps. It may be, and that would account for it. Yet Clode spoke highly of them."

Something which he did not understand in the girl's manner continued to pique the young man's curiosity after he had parted from her, and led him to dwell more intently upon her than upon the scenery, novel as this was to him. She had shown herself at one moment so frank, and at another so stiff and constrained, that it was equally impossible to ascribe the one att.i.tude to shyness or the other to a naturally candid manner. The rector considered the question so long, and found it so puzzling--and interesting--that on his return to town he had come to one conclusion only--that it was his immediate duty to call upon his church wardens. He had made the acquaintance of Mr. Harper, his own warden, at his induction. It remained therefore to call upon Mr. Bonamy, the peoples' warden. When he had taken his lunch, it seemed to him that there was no time like the present.

He had no difficulty in finding Mr. Bonamy's house, which stood in the middle of the town, about halfway down Bridge Street. It was a substantial, respectable residence of brick, not detached nor withdrawn from the roadway. It had nothing aristocratic in its appearance, and was known by a number. Its eleven windows, of which the three lowest rejoiced in mohair blinds, were sombre, its doorway was heavy. In a word, it was a respectable middle-cla.s.s house in a dull street in a country town--a house suggestive of early dinners and set teas. The rector felt chilled by its very appearance; but he knocked, and presently a maid-servant opened the door about a foot. "Is Mr. Bonamy at home?" he said.

"No, sir," the girl drawled, holding the door as if she feared he might attempt to enter by force, "he is not."

"Ah, I am sorry I have missed him," said the clergyman, handling his card-case. "Do you know at what time he is likely to return?"

"No, sir, I don't," replied the girl, who was all eyes for the strange rector; "but I expect Miss Kate does. Will you walk up-stairs, sir? and I will tell her."

"Perhaps I had better," he answered, pocketing his card-case. Accordingly he walked in, and followed the servant to the drawing-room, where she poked the sinking fire and induced a sickly blaze.

Left to himself--for Kate was not there--he looked round curiously, and as he looked the sense of disappointment which he had felt at sight of the house grew upon him. It was a cold, uncomfortable room. It had a set, formal look, which was not quaintness, nor harmony, and which was strange to the Londoner. It was so neat: every article in it had a place, and was in its place, and apparently never had been out of its place. There was a vase of chrysanthemums on the large centre table, but the rector thought they must be wax, they were so prim. There were other wax flowers--which he hated. He almost shivered as he looked at the four walls. He felt obliged to sit upright on his chair, and to place his hat exactly in the middle of a square of the carpet, and to ponder over the question of what the maid had done with the poker. For she had certainly not stirred the fire with the bright and shining thing which lay in evidence in the fender.

He was in the act of rising cautiously with the intention of solving this mystery, when the door opened and the elder sister came in, Daintry following her. "My father is not in, Mr. Lindo," Kate said, advancing to meet him, and shaking hands with him.

"No; so I learned down-stairs," he answered. "But I----"

The girl--she had scarcely turned from him--cut him short with an exclamation of dismay. "Oh, Daintry, you naughty girl!" she cried. "You have brought Snorum up."

"Well," said Daintry simply--a large white dog, half bull-dog, half terrier, with red-rimmed eyes and projecting teeth, had crept in at her heels--"he followed me."

"You know papa would be so angry if he found him here."

"But I only want him to see Mr. Lindo. You are unkind, Kate! You know he never gets a chance of seeing a stranger."

"You want to know if he likes me?" the rector said, laughing.

"That is it," she answered, nodding.

But Kate, though she laughed, was inexorable. She bundled the big dog out. "Do you know, she has two more like that, Mr. Lindo?" she said, apologetically.

"Snip and Snap," said Daintry. "But they are not like that. They are smaller. Jack gave me Snorum, and Snip and Snap are Snorum's sons."

"It is quite a genealogy," the rector said, smiling.

"Yes, and Jack was the Genesis. Genesis means beginning, you know," Daintry explained.

"Daintry, you must go down-stairs if you talk nonsense," Kate said imperatively. She was looking, the young man thought, prettier than ever in a gray and blue plaid frock and the neatest of collars and cuffs. As for Daintry, she shrugged her shoulders under the rebuke, and lolled in one of the stiff-backed chairs, her att.i.tude much like that of a vine clinging to a telegraph-post.

Her wilfulness had one happy effect, however. The rector in his amus.e.m.e.nt forgot the chill formality of the room and the dull respectability of the house's exterior. For half an hour he talked on without a thought of the gentleman whom he had come to see. Some inkling of the circ.u.mstances of the case which had entered his head before the sisters' appearance faded again, and in gazing on the pure animated faces of the two girls he quickly lost sight of the evidences of lack of taste which appeared in their surroundings. If Kate, on her side, forgot for a moment certain chilling realities and surrendered herself to the pleasure of the moment, it must be remembered that hitherto--in Claversham, at least--her experience of men had been confined to Dr. Gregg and his fellows, and also that none of us, even the wisest and proudest, are always on guard.

Mr. Bonamy not appearing, Reginald left at last, perfectly a.s.sured that the half-hour he had just spent was the pleasantest he had spent in Claversham. He went out of the house in a gentle glow of enthusiasm. The picture of Kate Bonamy, trim and neat, with her hair in a bright knot, and laughter softening her eyes, remained with him, and he walked half-way down the street lost in a delightful reverie.

He was aroused by the approach of a tall, elderly man who had just turned the corner before him, and was now advancing along the pavement with long, rapid strides. The stranger, who seemed about sixty, wore a wide-skirted black coat, and had a tall silk hat, from under which the gray hairs straggled thinly, set far back on his head. His figure was spare, his face sallow, his features prominent. His mouth was peevish, his eyes sharp and saturnine. As he walked he kept one hand in his trousers'-pocket, the other swung by his side. The rector looked at him a moment in doubt, and then stopped him. "Mr. Bonamy, I am sure?" he said, holding out his hand.

"Yes, I am," replied the other, fixing him with a penetrating glance. "And you, sir?"

"May I introduce myself? I have just called at your house, and, unluckily, failed to find you at home. I am Mr. Lindo."

"Oh, the new rector!" said Mr. Bonamy, putting out a cold hand, while the chill glitter of his eye lost none of its steeliness.

"Yes, and I am glad to have intercepted you," Lindo continued, with a little color in his cheek, and speaking quickly under the influence of his late enthusiasm, which as yet was proof against the lawyer's reserve. "For I have been extremely anxious to make your acquaintance, and, indeed, to say something particular to you, Mr. Bonamy."

The elder man bowed to hide a smile. "As church warden, I presume?" he said smoothly.

"Yes, and--and generally. I am quite aware, Mr. Bonamy," continued the rash young man in a fervor of frankness, "that you were not disposed to look upon my appointment--the appointment of a complete stranger, I mean--with favor."

"May I ask who told you that?" said Bonamy abruptly.

The young clergyman colored. "Well, I--perhaps you will excuse me saying how I learned it," he answered, beginning to see that he would have done better to be more reticent. There is no mistake which youth more often makes than that of arousing sleeping dogs, and trying to explain things which a wiser man would pa.s.s over in silence. Mr. Bonamy had his own reasons for regarding the parson with suspicion, and had no mind to be addressed in the indulgent vein. Nor was he propitiated when Lindo added, "I learned your feeling, if I may say so, by an accident."

"Then I think you should have kept knowledge so gained to yourself!" the lawyer retorted.

The rector started and turned crimson under the reproof. His dignity was new and tender, and the other's tone was offensive in the last degree. Yet the young man tried to control himself, and for the moment succeeded. "Possibly," he said, with some stiffness. "My only motive in mentioning the latter, however, was this, that I hope in a short time, by appealing to you for your hearty co-operation, to overcome any prejudices you may have entertained."

"My prejudices are rather strong," the lawyer answered grimly. "You are quite at liberty to try, however, Mr. Lindo. But I may as well warn you of one thing now, as frankness seems to be in fashion. I have just been told that you are meditating considerable changes in our church here. Now, I must tell you this, that I object to anything new--anything new, and not only to new inc.u.mbents!" with a smile which somewhat softened his last words.

"But who informed you," cried the rector in angry surprise, "that I meditated changes, Mr. Bonamy?"

"Ah!" the lawyer answered in his dryest and thinnest voice. "That is just what I cannot tell you. Let us say that I learned it--by accident, Mr. Lindo!" And his sharp eyes twinkled.

"It is not true, however!" the rector exclaimed.

"Is it not? Well," with a slight cough, "I am glad to hear it!"

Mr. Bonamy's tone as he made this admission, however, was such that it only irritated Lindo the more. "You mean that you do not believe me!" he cried, speaking so fiercely that Clowes the bookseller, who had been watching the interview from his shop-door, was able to repeat the words to a dozen people afterward. "I can a.s.sure you that it is so. I am not thinking of making any changes whatever--unless you consider the mere removal of the sheep from the churchyard a change!"

"I do. A great change," replied the church warden with grimness.

"But surely you do not object to it!" Lindo exclaimed in astonishment. "Every one must agree that in these days, and in town churchyards at any rate, the presence of sheep is unseemly."

"I do not agree to that at all!" Mr. Bonamy answered calmly. "Neither did Mr. Williams, the late rector, who had had long experience, act as if he were of that mind."

The present rector threw up his hands in disgust--in disgust and wonder. Remember, he was very young. The thing seemed to him so clear that he was a.s.sured the other was arguing for the sake of argument--a thing we all hate in other people--and he lost patience. "I do not think you mean what you say, Mr. Bonamy," he blurted out at last. He was much discomposed, yet he made an attempt to a.s.sume an air of severity which did not sit well upon him at the moment.

Mr. Bonamy grinned. "That you will see when you turn out the sheep, Mr. Lindo," he said. "For the present I think I will bid you good evening." and taking off his hat gravely--to the rector the gravity seemed ironical--he went his way.

Men take these things differently. To the lawyer there was nothing disturbing in such a pa.s.sage of arms as this. He was never so happy--Claversham knew it well--as in and after a quarrel. "Master Lindo thought to twist me round his finger, did he?" he muttered to himself as he stopped on his own doorstep and thrust the key into the lock. "He has found out his mistake now. We will have nothing new here--nothing new while John Bonamy is warden, at any rate, my lad! It is well, however," continued Mr. Bonamy with a backward glance, "that Clode gave me a hint in time. Set a beggar on horseback and he will ride--we know whither!" And the lawyer went in and slammed the door behind him.

Meanwhile, what is sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander. The younger man turned away, at the moment, indeed, in a white heat, full of wrath at the other's unreasonableness, folly, churlishness. But the comfortable warmth which this engendered pa.s.sed away quickly--alas! much too quickly--and long before Lindo reached the rectory, though the walk through the gray streets, where the shops were just being lighted, did not take him two minutes, a chill depression had taken its place. This was a fine beginning! This was a happy augury of his future administration of the parish! To have begun by quarrelling with his church warden--could anything have been worse? And the check had come so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and at a time when he had been on such good terms with himself, that he felt it the more sorely. He went into the house with his head bent, and was not best pleased to find Stephen Clode inquiring after him in the hall. He would rather have been alone.

The curate, as he came forward, did not fail to note that something was amiss, and a gleam of intelligence flashed for an instant across his dark face. "Come into the study," said the rector curtly. Since Clode was here, and could not be avoided, he felt it would be a relief to tell him all. And he did so, the curate listening and making no remark whatever, so that the rector presently looked at him in surprise. "What do you think of it?" he said, some impatience in his one. "It is unfortunate, is it not?"

"Well, I don't know," the curate answered, leaning forward in his chair, with his elbows on his knees and his eyes cast down upon the hat which he was slowly revolving between his hands. "I am not astonished, you know. What can you expect from a pig but a grunt?"

The rector got up, and, leaning his arm on the mantel-shelf, felt, if the truth be told, rather uncomfortable. "I do not understand you," he said at length.

"It is what I should have expected from Bonamy. That is all."

"Then you must think him a very ill-conditioned man!" Lindo retorted warmly, scarcely knowing whether the annoyance he felt was a reminiscence of his late conflict or caused by his companion's manner.

"Well, again, what else can you expect?" Clode replied sagely, looking up and shrugging his shoulders. "You know all about him, I suppose?"

"I know nothing," said the rector, frowning slightly.

"He is not a gentleman, you know," the curate answered, still looking up and speaking with languid indolence as if what he said must be known to everyone. "You have heard his history?"

"No, I have not."

"He was an office-boy with Adams & Rooke, the old solicitors here, swept out the office, and brought the coal, and so forth. He had his wits about him, and old Adams gave him his articles, and finally took him into partnership. Then the old men died off and it all came to him. He is well off, and has power of a sort in the town; but, of course," the curate added, getting up lazily and yawning--"well, people like the Hammonds do not visit with him."

There was silence in the room for a full minute. The rector had left the fireplace and, with his back to the speaker, was raising the lamp-wick. "Why did you not tell me this before?" he said at length, his voice hard.

"I did not see why I should prejudice you against the man before you saw him," replied the curate, with much reason. "Besides, I really was not sure whether you knew his history or not. I am afraid I did not give much thought to the matter."

"Umph!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE HAMMONDS' DINNER PARTY.

The new top, the new book, the bride--the first joy in the possession of each one of these fades, not gradually, but at a leap, as day fades in the tropics. A chip in the wood, the turning of the last page, the first selfish word, and the thing is done; ecstasy becomes sober satisfaction. It was so with the rector. The first glamour of his good fortune, of his new toy, died abruptly with that evening--with the quarrel with his church warden, and the discovery of the cause of that constraint which he had remarked in Kate Bonamy's manner from the first.

He was a conscientious man, and the failure of his good resolutions, his aspirations to be the perfect parish priest, fretted him. Moreover, he had to think of the future. He soon learned that Mr. Bonamy might not be a gentleman, and was indeed reputed to be a stubborn, queer-tempered curmudgeon; but he learned also that he had great influence in the town, though, except in the way of business, he a.s.sociated with few, and that he, Reginald Lindo, would have to reckon with him on that footing. The certainty of this and of the bad beginning he had made naturally depressed the young man, his customary good opinion of himself not coming to his aid at once. And, besides, he carried about with him--sometimes it came between him and his book, sometimes he saw it framed by the autumn landscape--the picture of Kate's pure proud face. At such moments he felt himself humiliated by the slights cast upon her. The Hammonds did not think her fit company for them! The Hammonds!

Not that he knew the Hammonds yet, or many others, the days which intervened between his induction and the dinner at the Town House being somewhat lonely days, during which he was much thrown back upon himself, and only felt by slow degrees the soothing influence of the routine work of his position. Of his curate, and of him only, he naturally saw much, and found it small comfort to learn from the Reverend Stephen that the fracas with Mr. Bonamy had not escaped the attention of the town, but was being made the subject of comment by many who were delighted to have so novel a subject as the new rector and his probable conduct.

He was sitting at breakfast a few days later--on the morning of the Hammonds' party--when Mrs. Baker announced an early visitor. "No, he is not a gentleman, sir," she said, "though he has on a black coat. A stranger to the town, I think, but he will not say what he wants, except to see you."

"I will come to him in the study," replied her master.

The housekeeper, however, going out, and taking a second glance at the caller, did not show him into the study, but instead, gave him a seat in the hall on the farther side from the coatstand. There the rector, when he came out, found him--a pale fat-faced man, dressed neatly and decorously, though his clothes were threadbare. He took him into the study, and asked him his business. "But first sit down," the rector added pleasantly, desiring to set the man at his ease.

The stranger sat down gingerly on the edge of a chair. For a moment there was a pause of seeming embarra.s.sment, and then, "I am body-servant, sir," he said abruptly, pa.s.sing his tongue across his lips, and looking up furtively to learn the effect of his announcement, "to the Earl of Dynmore."

"Indeed!" the rector replied, with a slight start. "Has Lord Dynmore returned to England, then?"

Again the man looked up slyly. "No, sir," he answered with deliberation, "I cannot say that he has, sir."

"You have brought some letter or message from him, perhaps?" the clergyman hazarded. The stranger seemed to have a difficulty in telling his own story.

"No, sir, if you will pardon me, I have come about myself, sir," the man explained, speaking a little more freely. "I am in a little bit of trouble, and I think you would help me, sir, if you heard the story."

"I am quite willing to hear the story," said the rector gravely. Looking more closely at the man, he saw that his neatness was only on the surface. His white cravat was creased, and his wrists displayed no linen. An air of seediness marked him in the full light of the windows, and, pale as his face was, it wore here and there a delicate flush. Perhaps the man's admission that he was in trouble helped the rector to see this.

"Well, sir, it was this way," the servant began. "I was not very well out there, sir, and his lordship--he is an independent kind of man--thought he would be better by himself. So he gave me my pa.s.sage-money and board wages for three months, and told me to come home and take a holiday until he returned to England. So far it was all right, sir."

"Yes?" said the rector.

"But on board the boat--I am not excusing what I did, sir; but there are others have done worse," continued the man, with another of his sudden upward glances--"I was led to play cards with a set of sharpers, and--and the end of it was that I landed at Liverpool yesterday without a halfpenny."

"That was bad."

"Yes, it was, sir. I do not know that I ever felt so bad in my life," replied the servant earnestly. "And now you know my position, sir. There are several people in the town--but they have no means to help me--who can tell you I am his lordship's valet, and my name Charles Felton."

"You want help, I suppose?"

"I have not a halfpenny, sir! I want something to live on until his lordship comes back."

His tone changed as he said this, growing hard and almost defiant. The rector noted the alteration, and did not like it. "But why come to me?" he said, more coldly than he had yet spoken. "Why do you not go to Lord Dynmore's steward, or agent, or his solicitor, my man?"

"They would tell of me," was the curt answer. "And likely enough I should lose my place."

"Still, why come to me?" Lindo persisted--chiefly to learn what was in the man's mind, for he had already determined what he would do.

"Because you are rector of Claversham, sir," the applicant retorted at last. And he rose suddenly and confronted the parson with an unpleasant smile on his pale face--"which is in my lord's gift, as you know, sir," he continued, in a tone rude and almost savage--a tone which considerably puzzled his companion, who was not conscious of having said anything offensive to the man. "I came here, sir, expecting to meet an older gentleman, a gentleman of your name, a gentleman known to me, and I find you--and I see you, do you see, where I expected to find him."

"You mean my uncle, I suppose?" said Lindo.

"Well, sir, you know best," was the odd reply, and the man's look was as odd as his words. "But that is how the case stands; and, seeing it stands so, I hope you will help me, sir. I do hope, on every account, sir, that you will see your way to help me."

The rector looked at the speaker with a slight frown, liking neither the man nor his behavior. But he had already made up his mind to help him, if only in grat.i.tude to his patron, whose retainer he was; and this, though the earl would never know of the act, nor possibly approve of it. The man had at least had the frankness to own the folly which had brought him to these straits, and Lindo was inclined to set down the oddity of his present manner to the fear and anxiety of a respectable servant on the verge of disgrace. "Yes," he said coldly, after a moment's thought, "I am willing to help you. Of course I shall expect you to repay me if and when you are able, Felton."

"I will do that," replied the man rather cavalierly.

"You might have added, 'and thank you, sir,'" the rector said, with a keen glance of reproof. He turned, as he spoke, to a small cupboard constructed between the bookshelves near the fireplace, and, opening it, took out a cash-box.

The man colored under his reproach, and muttered some apology, resuming, as by habit, the tone of respect which seemed natural to him. All the same he watched the clergyman's movements with great closeness, and appraised, even before it was placed in his hand, the sum which Lindo took from a compartment set apart apparently for gold. "I will allow you ten shillings a week--on loan, of course," Lindo said after a moment's thought. "You can keep yourself on that, I suppose? And, besides, I will advance you a sovereign to supply yourself with anything of which you have pressing need. That should be ample. There are three half sovereigns."

This time the man did thank him with an appearance of heartiness. But before he had said much the study door opened, and Stephen Clode came in, his hat in his hand. "Oh, I beg your pardon," the curate said, taking in at a glance the open cash-box and the stranger's outstretched hand, and preparing to withdraw. "I thought you were alone."

"Come in, come in!" said the rector, closing the money-box hastily, and with some embarra.s.sment, for he was not altogether sure that he had not done a foolish and quixotic thing. "Our friend here is going. You can send me your address, Felton. Good-day."

The man thanked him and, taking up his hat, went. "Some one out of luck?" said Clode.

"Yes."