On that same evening he saw the Vicar. Fenwick had returned from Salisbury, tired, dispirited, and ill at ease, and was just going in to dress for dinner, when Gilmore met him at his own stable-door, and told him what had occurred.
“Then, after all, my wife was right and I was wrong,” said Fenwick.
“Right about what?” Gilmore asked.
“She said that Lord Trowbridge would spread these very lies. I confess that I made the mistake of believing him to be a gentleman. Of course I may use your information?”
“Use it just as you please,” said Gilmore. Then they parted, and Gilmore, who was on horseback, rode home.
XLVIII
Mary Lowther Returns to Bullhampton
A month went by after the scenes described in the last chapter, and summer had come at Bullhampton. It was now the end of May, and, with the summer, Mary Lowther had arrived. During the month very little progress had been made with the case at Heytesbury. There had been two or three remands, and now there was yet another. The police declared that this was rendered necessary by the absence of Sam Brattle—that the magistrates were anxious to give all reasonable time for the production of the man who was out upon bail—and that, as he was undoubtedly concerned in the murder, they were determined to have him. But they who professed to understand the case, among whom were the lawyer from Devizes and Mr. Jones of Heytesbury, declared that no real search had been made for Brattle because the evidence in regard to the other men was hitherto inefficient. The remand now stood again till Tuesday, June the 5th, and it was understood that if Brattle did not then appear the bail would be declared to have been forfeited.
Fenwick had written a very angry letter to Lord Trowbridge, to which he had got no answer, and Lord Trowbridge had written a very silly letter to the bishop, in replying to which the bishop had snubbed him. “I am informed by my friend, Mr. Gilmore,” said the Vicar to the Marquis, “that your lordship has stated openly that I have made visits to a young woman in Salisbury which are disgraceful to me, to my cloth, and to the parish of which I am the incumbent. I do not believe that your lordship will deny that you have done so, and I, therefore, call upon you at once to apologise to me for the calumny, which, in its nature, is as injurious and wicked as calumny can be, and to promise that you will not repeat the offence.” The Marquis, when he received this, had not as yet written that letter to the bishop on which he had resolved after his interview with Gilmore—feeling, perhaps, some qualms of conscience, thinking that it might be well that he should consult his son—though with a full conviction that, if he did so, his son would not allow him to write to the bishop at all—possibly with some feeling that he had been too hard upon his enemy, the Vicar. But, when the letter from Bullhampton reached him, all feelings of doubt, caution, and mercy, were thrown to the winds. The tone of the letter was essentially aggressive and impudent. It was the word calumny that offended him most, that, and the idea that he, the Marquis of Trowbridge, should be called upon to promise not to commit an offence! The pestilent infidel at Bullhampton, as he called our friend, had not attempted to deny the visits to the young woman at Salisbury. And the Marquis had made fresh inquiry which had completely corroborated his previous information. He had learned Mrs. Stiggs’s address, and the name of Trotter’s Buildings, which details were to his mind circumstantial, corroborative, and damnatory. Some dim account of the battle at the Three Honest Men had reached him, and the undoubted fact that Carry Brattle was maintained by the Vicar. Then he remembered all Fenwick’s old anxiety on behalf of the brother, whom the Marquis had taught himself to regard as the very man who had murdered his tenant. He reminded himself, too, of the murderer’s present escape from justice by aid of this pestilent clergyman; and thus became convinced that in dealing with Mr. Fenwick, as it was his undoubted duty to do, he had to deal with one of the very worst of the human race. His lordship’s mind was one utterly incapable of sifting evidence—unable even to understand evidence when it came to him. He was not a bad man. He desired nothing that was not his own, and remitted much that was. He feared God, honoured the Queen, and loved his country. He was not self-indulgent. He did his duties as he knew them. But he was an arrogant old fool, who could not keep himself from mischief—who could only be kept from mischief by the aid of some such master as his son. As soon as he received the Vicar’s letter he at once sat down and wrote to the bishop. He was so sure that he was right, that he sent Fenwick’s letter to the bishop, acknowledging what he himself had said at Heytesbury, and justifying it altogether by an elaborate account of the Vicar’s wickedness. “And now, my lord, let me ask you,” said he, in conclusion, “whether you deem this a proper man to have the care of souls in the large and important parish of Bullhampton.”
The bishop felt himself to be very much bullied. He had no doubt whatsoever about his
