“Well, well, I don’t suppose we are going to talk Latin all through lunch,” interrupted his wife. “You can do precisely as you please about asking him.”
The Rector contented himself with the permission, however ungraciously accorded, and found himself a little later in Mr. Sharnall’s room.
“Mrs. Parkyn was hoping that she might have prevailed on you to lunch with us on the day of the Confirmation. She was only waiting for the Bishop’s acceptance to send you an invitation; but we hear now,” he said in a dubitative and tentative way—“we hear now that it is possible that the Bishop may be lunching with you.”
There was a twitch about the corners of Canon Parkyn’s mouth. The position that a Bishop should be lunching with Mr. Sharnall in a common lodging-house was so exquisitely funny that he could only restrain his laughter with difficulty.
Mr. Sharnall gave an assenting nod.
“Mrs. Parkyn was not quite sure whether you might have in your lodgings exactly everything that might be necessary for entertaining his lordship.”
“Oh dear, yes,” Mr. Sharnall said. “It looks a little dowdy just this minute, because the chairs are at the upholsterers to have the gilt touched up; we are putting up new curtains, of course, and the housekeeper has already begun to polish the best silver.”
“It occurred to Mrs. Parkyn,” the Rector continued, being too bent on saying what he had to say to pay much attention to the organist’s remarks—“it occurred to Mrs. Parkyn that it might perhaps be more convenient to you to bring the Bishop to lunch at the Rectory. It would spare you all trouble in preparation, and you would of course lunch with us yourself. It would be putting us to no inconvenience; Mrs. Parkyn would be glad that you should lunch with us yourself.”
Mr. Sharnall nodded, this time deprecatingly.
“You are very kind. Mrs. Parkyn is very considerate, but the Bishop has signified his intention of lunching in this house; I could scarcely venture to contravene his lordship’s wishes.”
“The Bishop is a friend of yours?” the Rector asked.
“You can scarcely say that; I do not think I have set eyes on the man for forty years.”
The Rector was puzzled.
“Perhaps the Bishop is under some misconception; perhaps he thinks that this house is still an inn—the Hand of God, you know.”
“Perhaps,” said the organist; and there was a little pause.
“I hope you will consider the matter. May I not tell Mrs. Parkyn that you will urge the Bishop to lunch at the Rectory—that you both”—and he brought out the word bravely, though it cost him a pang to yoke the Bishop with so unworthy a mate, and to fling the door of select hospitality open to Mr. Sharnall—“that you both will lunch with us?”
“I fear not,” the organist said; “I fear I must say no. I shall be very busy preparing for the extra service, and if I am to play ‘See the Conquering Hero’ as the Bishop enters the church, I shall need time for practice. A piece like that takes some playing, you know.”
“I hope you will endeavour to render it in the very best manner,” the Rector said, and withdrew his forces re infecta.
The story of Mr. Sharnall’s mental illusions, and particularly of the hallucination as to someone following him, had left an unpleasant impression on Westray’s mind. He was anxious about his fellow-lodger, and endeavoured to keep a kindly supervision over him, as he felt it to be possible that a person in such a state might do himself a mischief. On most evenings he either went down to Mr. Sharnall’s room, or asked the organist to come upstairs to his, considering that the solitude incident to bachelor life in advancing years was doubtless to blame to a large extent for these wandering fancies. Mr. Sharnall occupied himself at night in sorting and reading the documents which had once belonged to Martin Joliffe. There was a vast number of them, representing the accumulation of a lifetime, and consisting of loose memoranda, of extracts from registers, of manuscript-books full of pedigrees and similar material. When he had first begun to examine them, with a view to their classification or destruction, he showed that the task was distinctly uncongenial to him; he was glad enough to make any excuse for interruption or for invoking Westray’s aid. The architect, on the other hand, was by nature inclined to archaeologic and genealogic studies, and would not have been displeased if Mr. Sharnall had handed over to him the perusal of these papers entirely. He was curious to trace the origin of that chimera which had wasted a whole life—to discover what had led Martin originally to believe that he had a claim to the Blandamer peerage. He found, perhaps, an additional incentive in an interest which he was beginning unconsciously to take in Anastasia Joliffe, whose fortunes might be supposed to be affected by these investigations.
But in a little while Westray noticed a change in the organist’s attitude as touching the papers. Mr. Sharnall evinced a dislike to the architect examining them further; he began himself to devote a good deal more time and attention to their study, and he kept them jealously under lock and key. Westray’s nature led him to resent anything that suggested suspicion; he at once ceased to concern
