‘True.’ But deuced early, thought he, to be talking of that.
‘What were Paul’s duties?’
‘You know them as well as I,’ answered Marden, a trifle stiffly. ‘Multifarious. Paul does . . . Paul did everything except what his mother did.’
‘What he did I can do,’ said Father Gandy. ‘No, listen. This is a thought I have long had maturing. I came to this household twenty years ago, as tutor to yourself and chaplain to the family. But now you need no tutor, and could make shift, I dare wager, without a chaplain. It is often in my mind that I am a lazy fellow, and you have done me the honour to confess that you are not a man of fortune.’
‘Enough of that,’ said Marden, almost roughly. ‘I shall find it hard to forgive you, Father Raphe, if you abuse my confidence so far as to suppose that I could let you leave me . . .’
‘That was not my thought, and is not,’ said Father Gandy, with a half-bantering smile. ‘What I venture to propose is that I should ease my conscience at the expense of your comfort. Give me leave to be, in future, not a priest but a lay brother. Nay, I am serious, Jack. Call it a whim if you like, but it’s something more. It is my wish to wear the habit of humility, and scrub floors to the glory of God.’
‘Reverend sir,’ cried Marden in a tone of decision, ‘I cannot entertain so improper a notion . . .’
‘Say rather: Brother Raphe,’ said Raphe Gandy. ‘For I am resolved to have my way.’
CHAPTER 3
TWO TRAVELLERS: AND OF THE PEBBLE THEY FLUNG INTO THE POOL
The knocking on the tavern door startled the company. They sat staring with mouths agape, and something like alarm stirred among them when the knock was not immediately followed by an entry. Who could it be so timid as to await permission, or so arrogant as to demand ceremonious ushering-in? A woman? No, the rapping was peremptory, the work of no woman. A stranger certainly, for not even Coachy Timms himself could remember the last time a visitor had stood waiting to be admitted. This was an event, and they were alert with curiosity, all but Gipsy Noke, who thought ruefully of his unfinished song. He alone was angry with the stranger, telling himself that he cared not who it might be. This silence, emphasised by the ticking clock, quickened by the vibration of expectancy, endured for perhaps ten seconds, or less, and then the rapping was repeated, the potman went shuffling across the sanded floor, and at the same moment the door was flung open from the outside and a stranger came striding in. He was a lean swaggering fellow, muffled in a handsome cloak and wearing a three-cornered beaver-hat. His most conspicuous feature was a large Roman nose, surmounted by heavy eyebrows that made a continuous arch from under which two deep-set eyes flashed scornfully.
It pleased this gentleman to fly into a towering rage.
‘God blind ye,’ cried he. ‘Why in thunder do you keep me standing at your door! Speak, fellow!’ he shouted at the trembling potman. ‘Is this a company of mutes?’
The landlord hurried forward, and bowed obsequiously. ‘Good evening, sir. Was your worship requiring anything?’
‘My worship,’ said the stranger bitterly, ‘is requiring a meal, a roof, and a bed, if such things are to be had in this benighted place.’
A shrill but not unmusical noise interrupted this dialogue. Coachy Timms was enjoying a joke.
‘Benighted, sir, now that’s a very true word, sir. Because why, says you. Because the sun be garn down, says I. Now that be the sooth of it in these parts. When sun goo down, then tis night-time. Tis haply otherways where you come from, sir?’
The stranger, affecting not to hear these remarks, addressed himself to Bailey. ‘Are you the landlord here, my good man?’
‘At your service, sir.’
‘Then be good enough to see to the horses. On one of them you’ll find a lady. To be plain with you, my sister. Do you hear, landlord?’
‘Will the lady be taking a meal, sir, same as yourself?’
‘To be sure she will. Do you expect her to take her supper from a nosebag with the horses?’
This sally so greatly amused its author as to put him at once into a better humour. ‘Get along, old blockhead,’ he said gaily, slapping the landlord on the back, ‘persuade your good woman to prepare a meal for us, the best she can muster. And I will go bring the lady in.’ The better to display his magnificence, he removed his hat, revealing a stylish wig tied at the nape with a black ribbon.
Mr Bailey, being a somewhat timid man with an excessive respect for the gentry, was slightly confused by the variety of his instructions, and stood like a dog at a fair, not knowing which way to run: whether to set about stabling the horses or to rouse his wife from her kitchen and set her busying herself in the preparation of a meal. He was a man of sensibility, reflective by nature, distrustful of impulse. Having allowed this stranger to begin teaching him his duty as host, he seemed as unable to disregard his tutor’s orders as to execute them. But, the stranger offering no further remarks, but swaggering out into the road, the landlord was left with no alternative but to collect his own wits and obey their prompting. He followed his imperious guest, saw the lady assisted to the ground, and taking the two horses by their bridles led them round the house to the stables, which were approached from the other side. In his brief absence the potman had warned Mrs Bailey of what was toward, and Bailey returned to find that the gentleman and his sister had been conducted by that resourceful woman to the private parlour, where, by the intervention of a stout oak door, their ears would be protected from the conversation of low persons. No sooner, however, had Mr Bailey resumed his seat by the fire, with perhaps some hope of hearing what remained of the unfinished song, than that same oak door was opened, and a voice summoned him.
‘Ask the company to drink our health, my good man,’ commanded the stranger.
Mr Bailey, protesting that his honour was too kind, received sundry silver coins and came back into the public room with a respectful smile still lingering about his lips. ‘A pleasant enough gentleman,’ he remarked, ‘if you know how to manage him. And what if he does talk like a playactor—there’s room for all sorts in the world, surely? When first he came he was all for damning us and swearing and blaspheming, but when he saw I wasn’t a man to be treated so, did ye mark the change in him, neighbours? It comes of knowing how to handle folk. I claim no credit for it.
Why, we’re as thick as thieves now, he and I. We might have been born brothers.’
‘Thieves,’ said Coachy Timms, ‘is a good word and a true. But if you was yarnder gennelman’s brother, Mus Bailey, I’d as lief be pullen your nose as drinken good ale in your parlour. And talken of saucy coxcombs,’ went on Coachy, raising his voice a little, ‘talken of fine gennelmen with more money than manners, and more manners than arnesty, and more arnesty than looks, God help ’em; and talken of a gimsy jackass as comes asken beds of arnest folk when what he do need is a halter, twould do me good, neighbours, and twould do my heart good, and twould give my old eyes a rare cantle of joy, to have such in the shafts before me, harnessed tight and true, and drive him on his hands and knees down Glatting road in flood.’
‘He sartain sure do make a countable gurt hoe about naun,’ said Mykelborne. ‘And now we’ll haply have the dregs of our song, Gipsy. Always so be there’s no bawdry to it, for tis too late an hour for bawdry.’