“Mr. Fenwick,” said the lord, “we have taken advice, and we find the thing ought to be done—and to be done instantly. The leading men of the congregation are quite of that view.”
“They are of course unwilling to oppose your noble father, my lord,” said the minister.
“And to tell you the truth, Mr. Fenwick,” continued Lord St. George, “you might be put, most unjustly, into a peck of troubles if we did not do this. You have no right to let the glebe on a building lease, even if you were willing, and high ecclesiastical authority would call upon you at once to have the nuisance removed.”
“Nuisance, my lord!” said Mr. Puddleham, who had seen with half an eye that the son was by no means worthy of the father.
“Well, yes—placed in the middle of the Vicar’s ground! What would you say if Mr. Fenwick demanded leave to use your parlour for his vestry room, and to lock up his surplice in your cupboard?”
“I’m sure he’d try it on before he’d had it a day,” said the Vicar, “and very well he’d look in it,” whereupon the minister again raised his hat, and again frowned.
“The long and the short of it is,” continued the lord, “that we’ve, among us, made a most absurd mistake, and the sooner we put it right the better. My father, feeling that our mistake has led to all the others, and that we have caused all this confusion, thinks it to be his duty to pull the chapel down and build it up on the site before proposed near the cross roads. We’ll begin at once, and hope to get it done by Christmas. In the meantime, Mr. Puddleham has consented to go back to the old chapel.”
“Why not let him stay here till the other is finished?” asked the Vicar.
“My dear sir,” replied the lord, “we are going to transfer the chapel body and bones. If we were Yankees we should know how to do it without pulling it in pieces. As it is, we’ve got to do it piecemeal. So now, Mr. Hickbody,” he continued, turning round to the builder from Salisbury, “you may go to work at once. The Marquis will be much obliged to you if you will press it on.”
“Certainly, my lord,” said Mr. Hickbody, taking off his hat. “We’ll put on quite a body of men, my lord, and his lordship’s commands shall be obeyed.”
After which Lord St. George and Mr. Fenwick withdrew together from the chapel and walked into the vicarage.
“If all that be absolutely necessary—” began the Vicar.
“It is, Mr. Fenwick; we’ve made a mistake.” Lord St. George always spoke of his father as “we,” when there came upon him the necessity of retrieving his father’s errors. “And our only way out of it is to take the bull by the horns at once and put the thing right. It will cost us about £700, and then there is the bore of having to own ourselves to be wrong. But that is much better than a fight.”
“I should not have fought.”
“You would have been driven to fight. And then there is the one absolute fact;—the chapel ought not to be there. And now I’ve one other word to say. Don’t you think this quarrelling between clergyman and landlord is bad for the parish?”
“Very bad indeed, Lord St. George.”
“Now I’m not going to measure out censure, or to say that we have been wrong, or that you have been wrong.”
“If you do I shall defend myself,” said the Vicar.
“Exactly so. But if bygones can be bygones there need be neither offence nor defence.”
“What can a clergyman think, Lord St. George, when the landlord of his parish writes letters against him to his bishop, maligning his private character, and spreading reports for which there is not the slightest foundation?”
“Mr. Fenwick, is that the way in which you let bygones be bygones?”
“It is very hard to say that I can forget such an injury.”
“My father, at any rate, is willing to forget—and, as he hopes, to forgive. In all disputes each party of course thinks that he has been right. If you, for the sake of the parish, and for the sake of Christian charity and goodwill, are ready to meet him halfway, all this ill-will may be buried in the ground.”
What could the Vicar do? He felt that he was being cunningly cheated out of his grievance. He would have had not a minute’s hesitation as to forgiving the Marquis, had the Marquis owned himself to be wrong. But he was now invited to bury the hatchet on even terms, and he knew that the terms should not be even. And he resented all this the more in his heart because he understood very well how clever and cunning was the son of his enemy. He did not like to be cheated out of his forgiveness. But after all, what did it matter? Would it not be enough for him to know, himself, that he had been right? Was it not much to feel himself free from all pricks of conscience in the matter?
“If Lord Trowbridge is willing to let it all pass,” said he, “so am I.”
“I am delighted,” said Lord St. George, with spirit; “I will not come in now, because I have already overstayed my time, but I hope you may hear from my father before long in a spirit of kindness.”
LXXI
The End of Mary Lowther’s Story
Sir Gregory Marrable’s headache was not of long duration. Allusion is here made to that especial headache under the acute effects of which he had taken so very unpromising a farewell of his nephew and heir. It lasted, however, for two or three days, during
