I will not conclude this letter without expressing my opinion that gross as has been your lordship’s ignorance in giving away land which did not belong to you, your fault in that respect has been very trifling in comparison with the malice you have shown to a clergyman of your own church, settled in a parish partly belonging to yourself, in having caused the erection of this chapel on the special spot selected with no other object than that of destroying my personal comfort and that of my wife.
When he had finished his epistle he read it over more than once, and was satisfied that it would be vexatious to the Marquis. It was his direct object to vex the Marquis, and he had set about it with all his vigour. “I would skin him if I knew how,” he had said to Gilmore. “He has done that to me which no man should forgive. He has spoken ill of me, and calumniated me, not because he has thought ill of me, but because he has had a spite against me. They may keep their chapel as far as I am concerned. But as for his lordship, I should think ill of myself if I spared him.” He had his lordship on the hip, and he did not spare him. He showed the letter to his wife.
“Isn’t malice a very strong word?” she said.
“I hope so,” answered the Vicar.
“What I mean is, might you not soften it without hurting your cause?”
“I think not. I conscientiously believe the accusation to be true. I endeavour so to live among my neighbours that I may not disgrace them, or you, or myself. This man has dared to accuse me openly of the grossest immorality and hypocrisy, when I am only doing my duty as I best know how to do it; and I do now believe in my heart that in making these charges he did not himself credit them. At any rate, no man can be justified in making such charges without evidence.”
“But all that had nothing to do with the bit of ground, Frank.”
“It is part and parcel of the same thing. He has chosen to treat me as an enemy, and has used all the influence of his wealth and rank to injure me. Now he must look to himself. I will not say a word of him, or to him, that is untrue; but as he has said evil of me behind my back which he did not believe, so will I say the evil of him, which I do believe, to his face.” The letter was sent, and before the day was over the Vicar had recovered his good humour.
And before the day was over the news was all through the parish. There was a certain ancient shoemaker in the village who had carried on business in Devizes, and had now retired to spend the evening of his life in his native place. Mr. Bolt was a quiet, inoffensive old man, but he was a dissenter, and was one of the elders and trustees who had been concerned in raising money for the chapel. To him the Vicar had told the whole story, declaring at the same time that, as far as he was concerned, Mr. Puddleham and his congregation should, at any rate for the present, be made welcome to their chapel. This he had done immediately on his return from Salisbury, and before the letter to the Marquis was written. Mr. Bolt, not unnaturally, saw his minister the same evening, and the thing was discussed in full conclave by the Puddlehamites. At the end of that discussion, Mr. Puddleham expressed his conviction that the story was a mare’s nest from beginning to end. He didn’t believe a word of it. The Marquis was not the man to give away anything that did not belong to him. Somebody had hoaxed the Vicar, or the Vicar had hoaxed Mr. Bolt; or else—which Mr. Puddleham thought to be most likely—the Vicar had gone mad with vexation at the glory and the triumph of the new chapel.
“He was uncommon civil,” said Mr. Bolt, who at this moment was somewhat inclined to favour the Vicar.
“No doubt, Mr. Bolt; no doubt,” said Mr. Puddleham, who had quite recovered from his first dismay, and had worked himself up to a state of eloquent enthusiasm. “I dare say he was civil. Why not? In old days when we hardly dared to talk of having a decent house of prayer of our own in which to worship our God, he was always civil. No one has ever heard me accuse Mr. Fenwick of incivility. But will anyone tell me that he is a friend to our mode of worship? Gentlemen, we must look to ourselves, and I for one tell you that that chapel is ours. You won’t find that his ban will keep me out of my pulpit. Glebe, indeed! why should the Vicar have glebe on the other side of the road from his house? Or, for the matter of that, why should he have glebe at all?” This was so decisive that no one at the meeting had a word to say after Mr. Puddleham had finished his speech.
When the Marquis received his letter he was up in London. Lord Trowbridge was not much given to London life, but was usually compelled by circumstances—the circumstances being the custom of society as pleaded by his two daughters—to spend the months of May, June, and July at the family mansion in Grosvenor Square. Moreover, though the Marquis never opened his mouth in the House of Lords,
