“It is very irregular,” the Bishop admitted, “but I must confess that your case interests me greatly. Of course I cannot admit you to ordination until you have passed through the regular theological curriculum. Yet I find you singularly apt for one without proper training.”
He brooded a while, fixing the candidate with a clear darkly burning eye.
“It struck me that you were a trifle vague upon some of the Articles of Religion, and the Table of Kindred and Affinity. You must remember that these articles are not to be subjected to your own sense or comment, but must be taken in the literal and grammatical meaning. However, you show outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace. It so happens that I know of a small chapel, in the country, that has been closed for lack of a minister. I can put you in charge there as lay reader.”
Gissing's face showed his elation.
“And wear a cassock?” he cried.
“Certainly not,” said the Bishop sternly. “Not even a surplice. You must remember you have not been ordained. If you are serious in your zeal, you must work your way up gradually, beginning at the bottom.”
“I have seen some of your cloth with a little purple dickey which looks very well in the aperture of the waistcoat,” said Gissing humbly. “How long would it take me to work up to that?”
Bishop Borzoi, who had a sense of humour, laughed genially.
“Look here,” he said. “It's a fine afternoon: I'll order my car and we'll drive out to Dalmatian Heights. I'll show you your chapel, and tell you exactly what your duties will be.”
Gissing was startled. Dalmatian Heights was only a few miles from the Canine Estates. If the news should reach Mr. Poodle…
“Sir Bishop,” he said nervously, “I begin to fear that perhaps after all I am unworthy. Now about those Articles of Religion: I may perhaps have given some of them a conjectural and commentating assent. Possibly I have presumed too far—”
The Bishop was already looking forward to a ride into the country with his unusual novice.
“Not at all, not at all,” he said cheerily. “In a mere lay reader, a slight laxity is allowable. You understand, of course, that you are expressly restricted from the pulpit. You will have to read the lessons, conduct the service, and may address the congregation upon matters not homiletic nor doctrinal; preaching and actual entry into the pulpit are defended. But I see excellent possibility in you. Perform the duties punctually in this very lowly office, and high ranks of service in the church militant will be open.”
He put on a very fine shovel-hat, and led the way to his large touring car.
It was a very uncomfortable ride for Gissing. A silk hat is the least stable apparel for swift motoring, and the chauffeur drove at high speed. The Bishop, leaning back in the open tonneau, crossed one delicately slender shank over another, gazed in a kind of ecstasy at the countryside, and talked gaily about his days as a young curate. Gissing sat holding his hat on. He saw only too well that, by the humiliating oddity of chance, they were going to take the road that led exactly past his own house. He could only hope that Mrs. Spaniel and the various children would not be visible, for explanations would be too complicated. Desperately he praised the view to be obtained on another road, but Bishop Borzoi was too interested in his own topic to pay much attention.
“By the way,” said the latter, as they drew near the familiar region, “I must introduce you to Miss Airedale. She lives in the big place on the hill over there. Her family always used to attend what I will now call your chapel; she is a very ardent churchgoer, and it was a sincere grief to her when the place had to be closed. You will find her a great aid and comfort; not only that, she is — what one does not always find in the devouter members of her sex — young and beautiful. I think I understood you to say you are a bachelor?”
They were approaching the last turning at which it was still possible to avoid the fatal road, and Gissing's attention was divided.
“Yes, after a fashion,” he replied. “Bishop, do you know that road down into the valley? The view is really superb — Yes, that road — Oh, no, I am a bachelor—”
It was too late. The chauffeur, unconscious of this private crisis, was spinning along the homeward way. With a tender emotion Gissing saw the spires of the poplar trees, the hemlocks down beyond the pond, the fringe of woods that concealed the house until you were quite upon it—
The car swerved suddenly and the driver only saved it by a quick and canny manoeuvre from going down the bank. He came to a stop, and almost from underneath the rear wheels appeared a scuffling dusty group of youngsters who had been playing in the road. There they were — Bunks, Groups, and Yelpers (inordinately grown!) and two of the Spaniels. Their clothes were deplorable, their faces grimed, their legs covered with burrs, their whole demeanour was ragamuffin and wild: yet Gissing felt a pang of pride to see his godchildren's keen, independent bearing contracted with the rowdier, disreputable look of the young Spaniels. Quickly he averted his head to escape recognition. But the urchins were all gaping at the Bishop's shovel hat.
“Hot dog!” cried Yelpers “Some hat!”
To his horror, Gissing now saw Mrs. Spaniel, hastening in alarm down from the house, spilling potatoes from her apron as she ran. He hurriedly urged the driver to proceed.
“What terrible looking children,” observed the Bishop, who seemed fascinated by their stare. “Really, my good sister,” he said to Mrs. Spaniel, who was now panting by the running board; “you must keep them off the road or someone will get hurt.”
Gissing was looking for an imaginary object on the floor of the car. To his great relief he heard the roar of the motor as they started again. But he sat up a little too soon. A simultaneous roar of “Daddy!” burst from the trio.
“What was that they were shouting at us?” inquired the Bishop, looking back.
Gissing shook his head. He was too overcome to speak.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The little chapel at Dalmatian Heights sat upon a hill, among a grove of pines, the most romantic of all trees. Life, a powerful but clumsy dramatist, does not reject the most claptrap “situations,” which a sophisticated playwright would discard as too obvious. For this sandy plateau, strewn with satiny pine-needles, was the very horizon that had looked so blue and beckoning from the little house by the pond. Not far away was the great Airedale estate, which Gissing had known only at an admiring distance — and now he was living there as an honoured guest.
The Bishop had taken him to call upon the Airedales; and they, delighted that the chapel was to be re-opened, had insisted upon his staying with them. The chapel, in fact, was a special interest with Mr. Airedale, who had been a leading contributor toward its erection. Gissing was finding that life seemed to be continually putting him into false positions; and now he discovered, somewhat to his chagrin, that the lovely little shrine of St. Spitz, whose stained windows glowed like rubies in its cloister of dark trees, was rather a fashionable hobby among the wealthy landowners of Dalmatian Hills. It had been closed all summer, and they had missed it. The Bishop, in his airy and indefinite way, had not made it quite plain that Gissing was only a lay reader; and in spite of his embarrassed disclaimers, he found himself introduced by Mr. Airedale to the country-house clique as the new “vicar.”
But at any rate it was lucky that the Airedales had insisted on taking him in as a guest; for he had learned from the Bishop (just as the latter was leaving) that there was no stipend attached to the office of lay reader. Fortunately he still had much of the money he had saved from his salary as General Manager. And whatever sense of anomaly he felt was quickly assuaged by the extraordinary comfort and novelty of his environment. In the great Airedale mansion he experienced for the first time that ultimate triumph of civilization — a cup of tea served in bed before breakfast, with slices of bread-and-butter of tenuous and amazing fragile thinness. He was pleased, too, with the deference paid him as a representative of the cloth, even though it compelled him to a solemnity he did not inwardly feel. But most of all, undoubtedly, he was captivated by the loveliness and warmth of Miss Airedale.