No, Willis never knew any music, but he loved a fugue. Ah, the fugues they had! And then a voice crossed Mr. Sharnall’s memory, saying, “When I am here myself, I beg that there may be no more fugue.” “No more fugue”—there was a finality in the phrase uncompromising as the “no more sea” of the Apocalyptic vision. It made Mr. Sharnall smile bitterly; he woke from his daydream, and was back in the present.
Oh yes, he knew very well that it was his old friend when he first saw on whom the choice had fallen for the Bishopric. He was glad Willis was coming to see him. Willis knew all about the row, and how it was that Sharnall had to leave Oxford. Ay, but the Bishop was too generous and broad-minded to remember that now. Willis must know very well that he was only a poor, out-at-elbows old fellow, and yet he was coming to lunch with him; but did Willis know that he still—He did not follow the thought further, but glanced in a mirror, adjusted his tie, fastened the top button of his coat, and with his uncertain hands brushed the hair back on either side of his head. No, Willis did not know that; he never should know; it was never too late to mend.
He went to the cupboard, and took out a bottle and a tumbler. Only very little spirit was left, and he poured it all into the glass. There was a moment’s hesitation, a moment while enfeebled willpower was nerving itself for the effort. He was apparently engaged in making sure that not one minim of this most costly liquor was wasted. He held the bottle carefully inverted, and watched the very last and smallest drop detach itself and fall into the glass. No, his willpower was not yet altogether paralysed—not yet; and he dashed the contents of the glass into the fire. There was a great blaze of light-blue flame, and a puff in the air that made the windowpanes rattle; but the heroic deed was done, and he heard a mental blast of trumpets, and the acclaiming voice of the Victor Sui. Willis should never know that he still—because he never would again.
He rang the bell, and when Miss Euphemia answered it she found him walking briskly, almost tripping, to and fro in the room. He stopped as she entered, drew his heels together, and made her a profound bow.
“Hail, most fair chastelaine! Bid the varlets lower the drawbridge and raise the portcullis. Order pasties and souse-fish and a butt of malmsey; see the great hall is properly décored for my Lord Bishop of Carisbury, who will take his ambigue and bait his steeds at this castle.”
Miss Joliffe stared; she saw a bottle and an empty tumbler on the table, and smelt a strong smell of whisky; and the mirth faded from Mr. Sharnall’s face as he read her thoughts.
“No, wrong,” he said—“wrong this once; I am as sober as a judge, but excited. A Bishop is coming to lunch with me. You are excited when Lord Blandamer takes tea with you—a mere trashy temporal peer; am I not to be excited when a real spiritual lord pays me a visit? Hear, O woman! The Bishop of Carisbury has written to ask, not me to lunch with him, but him to lunch with me. You will have a Bishop lunching at Bellevue Lodge.”
“Oh, Mr. Sharnall! pray, sir, speak plainly. I am so old and stupid, I can never tell whether you are joking or in earnest.”
So he put off his exaltation, and told her the actual facts.
“I am sure I don’t know, sir, what you will give him for lunch,” Miss Joliffe said. She was always careful to put in a proper number of “sirs,” for, though she was proud of her descent, and considered that so far as birth went she need not fear comparison with other Cullerne dames, she thought it a Christian duty to accept fully the position of landlady to which circumstances had led her. “I am sure I don’t know what you will give him for lunch; it is always so difficult to arrange meals for the clergy. If one provides too much of the good things of this world, it seems as if one was not considering sufficiently their sacred calling; it seems like Martha, too cumbered with much serving, too careful and troubled, to gain all the spiritual advantage that must come from clergymen’s society. But, of course, even the most spiritually-minded must nourish their bodies, or they would not be able to do so much good. But when less provision has been made, I have sometimes seen clergymen eat it all up, and become quite wearied, poor things! for want of food. It was so, I remember, when Mrs. Sharp invited the parishioners to meet the deputation after the Church Missionary Meeting. All the patties were eaten before the deputation came, and he was so tired, poor man! with his long speech that when he found there was nothing to eat he got quite annoyed. It was only for a moment, of course, but I heard him say to someone, whose name I forget, that he had much better have trusted to a ham-sandwich in the station refreshment-room.
“And
