Читать книгу Caroline Terrace - Warwick Deeping - Страница 10

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Major Miller, having been told that Dr. Rollinson had driven to Holywell, trotted in that direction. His horse was a speedy beast, and rounding a corner he saw ahead of him another rider jogging along, the Rev. Nicholas Parbury. Major Miller drew level with the parson, and hatted him. Respect for the cloth might outweigh dislike for the person.

‘Well, well, you seem in a hurry, Miller.’

‘Trying to catch Rollinson. There has been an accident.’

‘What, what! Anything serious?’

‘The Pankridge child. If you don’t mind I’ll get on.’

But Mr. Parbury dug his heels into his horse, and kept the Major company.

‘Anything serious, what?’

‘I don’t quite know. Their governess appealed to me.’

Mr. Parbury had somewhat of a lower-deck sense of humour.

‘Did she? Tut-tut, Major. A damned pretty girl. Why don’t you marry her?’

Major Miller looked straight ahead. Mr. Parbury was famous for his doubtful stories, and would blurt them out over the card-table on Saturday nights, and on one occasion the mild Major had protested.

‘How you can do this sort of thing, Parbury, before serving the sacrament passes my understanding.’

Mr. Parbury had squinted down his red nose.

‘My dear sir, I’m a man of the world, and not a tame curate.’

So they rode on between the harvest fields that were yellow stubble, and here and there gleaners were out. Mr. Parbury, full of himself and his affairs, chattered like a jackdaw.

‘Going to see Turnbull. Fact is I’m overworked. Think of getting a curate.’

Major Miller showed no sympathy, for the cure of souls in Mr. Parbury’s parish was a perfunctory affair.

‘Too much tied, you know. Can’t get about. Hallo, there’s the doctor’s gig. Excuse me if I push on.’

Major Miller did not reply. If a man wanted to waste words on you, you could leave it at that. He held up a white-gloved hand to halt the doctor, and to give him his message.

‘My dear fellow, you are wanted. The Pankridge house. I said I would try and find you.’

Dr. Rollinson and the Major were dear fellows to each other, but the doctor did not welcome the message.

‘Anything urgent? I’m busy.’

‘The child’s had a fall. The governess seemed to be in a state about it.’

‘Oh, well, I’ll look in. Thanks, Miller,’ and they parted.

Mr. Pankridge meanwhile had returned to an agitated house, and been stationed on the balcony to watch for the doctor. Clarissa had poured out her soul to him, with characteristic exaggeration. Mrs. Pankridge was convinced that Miss Luce had been flirting with Mr. Travers, and that while they had been carrying on together the accident had happened. Poor dear Victoria’s face might be terribly and permanently disfigured. Mr. Pankridge was hardened to his wife’s hurricanes, and he sat down and lit a cigar, and was not pleased with Miss Luce’s behaviour. He would have preferred to have been the recipient of tender glances. Impudent young pup, Mr. Travers.

‘Hullo, Pa!’ cried the voice of his son.

Mr. Pankridge had been looking towards the Royal Hotel and Mr. Travers and Albert had returned from the direction of the cliffs. Mr. Pankridge rose with some dignity to discover Handsome George holding the boy’s hand.

‘Ha, Mr. Travers. I fear we are all rather upset.’

‘I am afraid it was all my fault, sir.’

‘So I gather.’

‘The children and I had been playing “Chivy-Chase”.’

Mr. Pankridge became sarcastic.

‘And was Miss Luce also playing “Chivy-Chase”?’

‘Oh, no, sir. She was sitting on a seat, reading.’

Mr. Pankridge was somewhat mollified.

‘Ah—well, accidents will happen. We are waiting for the doctor. My wife—of course—is considerably upset.’

‘Please convey my sincere regrets to her. Hullo, here is the doctor’s gig. I am going to buy Victoria a paper of sweets.’

‘Me too,’ said Albert.

Mr. Pankridge disappeared from the balcony to reassure Clarissa and to meet Dr. Rollinson. He called to his wife: ‘The doctor is here, my dear.’ Then, with some speed, he took himself and his cigar down the stairs to the front door. It had been left open, and Dr. Rollinson was out of the gig and pulling off his gloves.

‘Very glad to see you, sir. You will find Mrs. Pankridge upstairs with the child.’

The little doctor did not like Mr. Pankridge, and he wasted no words on him, but deposited his hat and gloves on the hall table and trotted up the stairs. Clarissa was waiting for him.

‘Thank God you have come, doctor. My little darling has had a terrible fall.’

She swept him into the bedroom, and the little darling, propped up on pillows, greeted Dr. Rollinson with vigorous screams. She put her fists to her bruised face, and turned away from him. Miss Luce, sitting on her bed, could hear the uproar.

‘There, there, darling, the dear doctor has come to make you well. She has been so frightened. Now, darling, come to Mother.’

Victoria was in a fighting temper, and Dr. Rollinson in a hurry. He was a great lover of children, and humane in his handling of them, but the Victoria breed was not to his liking. He had been known to smack spoilt children into behaving as they should. The vigour of Miss Pankridge’s struggling fury did not suggest that her injuries were serious. He picked Victoria off the bed, and thrust her kicking and struggling at her mother.

‘Sit down and hold her, madam. I’m afraid I have a very busy morning.’

Clarissa gave him an astonished glare, but she obeyed him, and Victoria, after a few final kicks and yells, became sufficiently subdued for the doctor’s examination. Nor were her injuries very serious, a superficial cut on the cheek, a swollen lower lid, a bruised lip.

‘Put her to bed,’ said the doctor, ‘and keep her there for a day or two. I will send you a soothing lotion, but keep it out of her eyes. Nothing serious, I am glad to say.’

Mrs. Pankridge cooed.

‘Oh, what a relief! There, there, darling, you are soon going to be well. Will you wash her sweet little face, doctor?’

‘I think, madam, I can leave that to you. Warm water and a clean flannel. I have an urgent case waiting for me.’

‘You will come in again, doctor?’

‘Yes, I will look in this evening,’ and he patted Victoria’s sound cheek, and Victoria smiled upon him. Tantrums have a way of surrendering to firmness.

Dr. Rollinson found Mr. Pankridge smoking his cigar and chatting with Joe Clements.

‘Nothing very serious, I’m glad to say.’

Mr. Pankridge extended a pink fat hand.

‘Very much obliged to you, doctor. A great relief, I’m sure.’

Mr. Parbury had arrived at the gate of the Turnbull rectory. The gate was a faded blue in colour and studded with Gothic nails, and it opened in one of those generous red Georgian walls with a string-course and a brick coping. Apple trees aglow with fruit showed above the wall, and the rectory windows looked out upon a peaceful world where man was not wholly vile.

Mr. Parbury did not appreciate the subtle virtues of walls. Why shut yourself in? Walls were unsympathetic to gapers and gossips. Mr. Parbury was all for a balcony over life’s Grand Canal with gondolas laden with beauty and scandal passing to and fro below you. After all, gossip and scandal fell within a priest’s orbit, and were part of his prerogative. The vicar of St. John’s rode on to the stable gates, to find them open, and a groom washing the wheels of a carriage.

‘Hullo, there! The rector in?’

The man touched a ginger forelock.

‘He be, sir, or he was.’

‘Take my horse.’

And Mr. Parbury dismounted.

Formal entries were not of his persuasion, and he passed from the stable yard into a walled garden, to discover the rector in his shirt-sleeves picking William pears from an old pear tree on a wall. The Canon was wearing a large straw hat with the brim turned down. He might have been a gardener and not a dignitary of the Church.

‘Morning, Turnbull.’

The Canon discovered his visitor, and no great pleasure in the discovery.

‘Good morning, Parbury. Have a pear.’

He lobbed one to Mr. Parbury, and Mr. Parbury fumbled the catch, and had to recover the pear from a thicket of lavender.

‘What’s the breed?’

‘William. Nothing to beat it, in my opinion. Well, what can I do for you?’

Mr. Parbury stood holding the pear as though he did not know what to do with it.

‘I want a curate.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I’m finding myself too tied by the leg.’

‘Which leg?’

‘Both, my dear fellow. You may know of a curate, a mild fellow who can trot around and save me some of the—routine.’

Canon Turnbull put his teeth into a pear. It was juicy, as juicy as his ironic and human approach to the occasion. So Parbury wanted a tame curate to function while he shot and hunted and played cards, and chattered here, there and everywhere. Canon Turnbull had been a wild youngster in his college days, and he was somewhat prejudiced in favour of guts and mischief, for they were the virile soil out of which good manhood might mature, and prigs and little swots were of no account in a harvest field or a ship when gales blew.

‘Find yourself overworked, Parbury? Maid of all work in God’s house?’

‘Verbum sap. I’d like a fellow who could scrub the floor, so to speak.’

The Canon caressed his beard, and there was mischief in him.

‘Well, as a matter of fact I do know of a young man. London cure. Not quite in sympathy with his vicar. Oh, yes, mild as milk. Desires a change. Would you like me to approach him?’

‘I should be much obliged.’

‘He is not a looker, but he is a worker, name of John Jordan. Cambridge man.’

‘A gentleman—then?’

‘Oh, completely. He could come down and be interviewed.’

‘Married?’

‘No, no encumbrances.’

Mr. Parbury blew his nose.

‘Sounds just what I want. He can come and see me.’

When Mr. Parbury had gone the Canon continued to pick pears, and he did so with chuckles. The Rev. John Jordan—what!—had been a broth of a boy. Sent down from Cambridge for uproarious ragging. But now Mr. Jordan was very much for Christ and in a vigorous fashion. Preached with his fists, if necessary. Mild? And Mr. Turnbull chuckled. Well, well, he would have to inoculate into John the virtues of mildness. Yes, John had a sense of humour and an appreciation of human values. He would write a letter to the Rev. John Jordan and invite him to stay at the rectory, and advise him as to the prejudices and peculiarities of Mr. Parbury.

That night, when the house had gone to bed, Miss Luce placed the candlestick in her basin, and held the torn-out page to the candle-flame. She held it until three-quarters of the page had been consumed, and then dropped the fluttery black ghost into the basin, and watched the last corner burn. But no fire could consume a bitter memory, and suddenly a spasm of contrition shook her. She put her hands to her face, and the wetness of tears showed between her fingers. Oh, silent and solitary anguish, sobbings that had had to be smothered lest some unfriendly ear should hear them. Never had she felt more alone than with that film of crumpled ash, and the dead hand that had penned a tragic name upon a piece of paper.

But that ash had to be disposed of. She opened the lower sash of her window, and, holding the bowl between the drawn curtains, put her face close and blew like a child blowing the white puff-bowl of a dandelion. The black ash floated out into the night, and, replacing the bowl and setting the candle on its bracket, she began to undress, strangely unconscious of the tears which still ran down her cheeks.