“I’m sure you wouldn’t have a leg to stand upon,” said the member of the Chapter.
“I don’t see that at all,” said Gilmore. “If the land is common to the parish, the Marquis of Trowbridge cannot give it to a part of the parishioners because he is Lord of the Manor.”
“For such a purpose I should think he can,” said Mr. Chamberlaine.
“And I’m quite sure he can’t,” said Mr. Quickenham. “All the same, it may be very difficult to prove that he hasn’t the right; and in the meantime there stands the chapel, a fact accomplished. If the ground had been bought and the purchasers had wanted a title, I think it probable the Marquis would never have got his money.”
“There can be no doubt that it is very ungentlemanlike,” said Mr. Chamberlaine.
“There I’m afraid I can’t help you,” said Mr. Quickenham. “Good law is not defined very clearly here in England; but good manners have never been defined at all.”
“I don’t want anyone to help me on such a matter as that,” said Mr. Chamberlaine, who did not altogether like Mr. Quickenham.
“I dare say not,” said Mr. Quickenham; “and yet the question may be open to argument. A man may do what he likes with his own, and can hardly be called ungentlemanlike because he gives it away to a person you don’t happen to like.”
“I know what we all think about it in Salisbury,” said Mr. Chamberlaine.
“It’s just possible that you may be a little hypercritical in Salisbury,” said Quickenham.
There was nothing else discussed and nothing else thought of in the Vicarage. The first of June had been the day now fixed for the opening of the new chapel, and here they were already in April. Mr. Fenwick was quite of opinion that if the services of Mr. Puddleham’s congregation were once commenced in the building they must be continued there. As long as the thing was a thing not yet accomplished it might be practicable to stop it; but there could be no stopping it when the full tide of Methodist eloquence should have begun to pour itself from the new pulpit. It would then have been made the House of God—even though not consecrated—and as such it must remain. And now he was becoming sick of the grievance, and wished that it was over. As to going to law with the Marquis on a question of Common-right, it was a thing that he would not think of doing. The living had come to him from his college, and he had thought it right to let the Bursar of Saint John’s know what was being done; but it was quite clear that the college could not interfere or spend their money on a matter which, though it was parochial, had no reference to their property in the parish. It was not for the college, as patron of the living, to inquire whether certain lands belonged to the Marquis of Trowbridge or to the parish at large, though the Vicar no doubt, as one of the inhabitants of the place, might raise the question at law if he chose to find the money and could find the ground on which to raise it. His old friend the Bursar wrote him back a joking letter, recommending him to put more fire into his sermons and thus to preach his enemy down.
“I have become so sick of this chapel,” the Vicar said to his wife that night, “that I wish the subject might never be mentioned again in the house.”
“You can’t be more sick of it than I am,” said his wife.
“What I mean is, that I’m sick of it as a subject of conversation. There it is, and let us make the best of it, as Quickenham says.”
“You can’t expect anything like sympathy from Richard, you know.”
“I don’t want any sympathy. I want simply silence. If you’ll only make up your mind to take it for granted, and to put up with it—as you had to do with the frost when the shrubs were killed, or with anything that is disagreeable but unavoidable, the feeling of unhappiness about it would die away at once. One does not grieve at the inevitable.”
“But one must be quite sure that it is inevitable.”
“There it stands, and nothing that we can do can stop it.”
“Charlotte says that she is sure Richard has got something in his head. Though he will not sympathise, he will think and contrive and fight.”
“And half ruin us by his fighting,” said the husband. “He fancies the land may be common land, and not private property.”
“Then of course the chapel has no right to be there.”
“But who is to have it removed? And if I could succeed in doing so, what would be said to me for putting down a place of worship after such a fashion as that?”
“Who could say anything against you, Frank?”
“The truth is, it is Lord Trowbridge who is my enemy here, and not the chapel or Mr. Puddleham. I’d have given the spot for the chapel, had they wanted it, and had I had the power to give it. I’m annoyed because Lord Trowbridge should know that he had got the better of me. If I can only bring myself to feel—and you too—that there is no better in it, and no worse, I shall be annoyed no longer. Lord Trowbridge cannot really touch me; and could he, I do not know that he would.”
“I know he would.”
“No, my dear. If he suddenly had the power to turn me out of the living I don’t believe he’d do it—any more than I would him out of his estate. Men indulge in little injuries who can’t afford to be wicked enough for great injustice. My dear, you will do me a great favour—the greatest possible kindness—if you’ll give up all outer, and, as far as possible, all inner hostility to the chapel.”
“Oh, Frank!”
“I ask it as a great favour—for my peace of mind.”
“Of
