“Was there not some queer man at Cullerne who thought he was kept out of his rights, and should be in my place—who thought, I mean, he ought to be Lord Blandamer?”
The question was full of indifference, and there was a little smile of pity on his face; but the clerk remembered how Mr. Sharnall had said something about a strutting peacock, and that there were no real Blandamers left, and was particularly ill at ease.
“Oh yes,” he answered after a moment’s pause, “there was a poor doited body who, saving your presence, had some cranks of that kind; and, more by token, Mr. Sharnall lived in the same house with him, and so I dare say he has got touched with the same craze.”
Lord Blandamer took out a cigar instinctively, and then, remembering that there was a lady present, put it back into his case and went on:
“Oh, he lived in the same house with Mr. Sharnall, did he? I should like to hear more of this story; it naturally interests me. What was his name?”
“His name was Martin Joliffe,” said the clerk quickly, being surprised into eagerness by the chance of telling a story; and then the whole tale of Martin, and Martin’s father and mother and daughter, as he had told it to Westray, was repeated for Lord Blandamer.
The night was far advanced before the history came to an end, and the local policeman walked several times up and down Governour’s Lane, and made pauses before Mr. Janaway’s house, being surprised to see a window lighted so late. Lord Blandamer must have changed his intention of going by train, for the gates of Cullerne station had been locked for hours, and the boiler of the decrepit branch-line engine was cooling in its shed.
“It is an interesting tale, and you tell tales well,” he said, as he got up and put on his coat. “All good things must have an end, but I hope to see you again ere long.” He shook hands with hostess and host, drained the pot of beer that had been fetched from a public-house, with a “Here’s to poverty in a plughole, and a man with a wooden leg to trample it down,” and was gone.
A minute later the policeman, coming back for yet another inspection of the lighted window, passed a man of middle height, who wore a loose overcoat, with the cape tossed lightly over the left shoulder. The stranger walked briskly, and hummed an air as he went, turning his face up to the stars and the windswept sky, as if entirely oblivious of all sublunary things. A midnight stranger in Governour’s Lane was even more surprising than a lighted window, and the policeman had it in his mind to stop him and ask his business. But before he could decide on so vigorous a course of action, the moment was past, and the footsteps were dying away in the distance.
The clerk was pleased with himself, and proud of his success as a storyteller.
“That’s a clever, understanding sort of chap,” he said to his wife, as they went to bed; “he knows a good tale when he hears one.”
“Don’t you be too proud of yourself, my man,” answered she; “there’s more in that tale than your telling, I warrant you, for my lord to think about.”
X
The extension of the scheme of restoration which Lord Blandamer’s liberality involved, made it necessary that Westray should more than once consult Sir George Farquhar in London. On coming back to Cullerne from one of these visits on a Saturday night, he found his meal laid in Mr. Sharnall’s room.
“I thought you would not mind our having supper together,” Mr. Sharnall said. “I don’t know how it is, I always feel gloomy just when the winter begins, and the dark sets in so soon. It is all right later on; I rather enjoy the long evenings and a good fire, when I can afford a good one, but at first it is a little gloomy. So come and have supper with me. There is a good fire tonight, and a bit of driftwood that I got specially for your benefit.”
They talked of indifferent subjects during the meal, though once or twice it seemed to Westray that the organist gave inconsequential replies, as though he were thinking of something else. This was no doubt the case, for, after they had settled before the fire, and the lambent blue flames of the driftwood had been properly admired, Mr. Sharnall began with a hesitating cough:
“A rather curious thing happened this afternoon. When I got back here after evening-service, who should I find waiting in my room but that Blandamer fellow. There was no light and no fire, for I had thought if we lit the fire late we could afford a better one. He was sitting at one end of the window-seat, damn him!”—(the expletive was caused by Mr. Sharnall remembering that this was Anastasia’s favourite seat, and his desire to reprobate the use of it by anyone else)—“but got up, of course, as I came in, and made a vast lot of soft speeches. He must really apologise for such an intrusion. He had come to see Mr. Westray, but found that Mr. Westray had unfortunately been called away. He had taken the liberty of waiting a few minutes in Mr. Sharnall’s room. He was anxious to have a few moments’ conversation with Mr. Sharnall, and so on, and so on. You know how I hate palaver, and how I disliked—how I dislike” (he corrected himself)—“the man; but he took me at a disadvantage, you see, for here he was actually in my room, and one cannot be so rude in one’s own room as one can in other people’s. I felt responsible, too, to some extent for his having had to wait without fire or light,
