CHAPTER XXIV.
If he come not, the play is marred.--_Midsummer Night's Dream._
Rufus Lyon was very happy on that mild November morning appointed forthe great conference in the larger room at the Free School, betweenhimself and the Reverend Theodore Sherlock, B.A. The disappointment ofnot contending with the rector in person, which had at first beenbitter, had been gradually lost sight of in the positive enjoyment of anopportunity for debating on any terms. Mr. Lyon had two grand elementsof pleasure on such occasions: confidence in the strength of his case,and confidence in his own power of advocacy. Not--to use his ownphrase--not that "he glorified himself herein;" for speech andexposition were so easy to him, that if he argued forcibly, he believedit to be simply because the truth was forcible. He was not proud ofmoving easily in his native medium. A panting man thinks of himself as aclever swimmer; but a fish swims much better, and takes his performanceas a matter of course.
Whether Mr. Sherlock were that panting, self-gratulating man, remained asecret. Philip Debarry, much occupied with his electioneering affairs,had only once had an opportunity of asking his uncle how Sherlock goton, and the rector had said, curtly, "I think he'll do. I've suppliedhim well with references. I advise him to read only, and declineeverything else as out of order. Lyon will speak to a point, and thenSherlock will read: it will be all the more telling. It will givevariety." But on this particular morning peremptory business connectedwith the magistracy called the rector away.
Due notice had been given, and the feminine world of Treby Magna wasmuch more agitated by the prospect than by that of any candidate'sspeech. Mrs. Pendrell at the Bank, Mrs. Tiliot, and the Church ladiesgenerally felt bound to hear the curate, who was known, apparently by anintuition concerning the nature of curates, to be a very clever youngman; and he would show them what learning had to say on the right side.One or two Dissenting ladies were not without emotion at the thoughtthat, seated on the front benches, they should be brought near to oldChurch friends, and have a longer greeting than had taken place sincethe Catholic Emancipation. Mrs. Muscat, who had been a beauty, and wasas nice in her millinery as any Trebian lady belonging to theEstablishment, reflected that she should put on her best embroideredcollar, and that she should ask Mrs. Tiliot where it was in Duffieldthat she once got her bed-hanging dyed so beautifully. When Mrs. Tiliotwas Mary Salt, the two ladies had been bosom friends; but Mr. Tiliotlooked higher and higher since his gin had become so famous; and in theyear '29 he had, in Mr. Muscat's hearing, spoken of Dissenters assneaks--a personality which could not be overlooked.
The debate was to begin at eleven, for the rector would not allow theevening to be chosen, when low men and boys might want to be admittedout of mere mischief. This was one reason why the female part of theaudience outnumbered the males. But some chief Trebians were there, evenmen whose means made them as independent of theory as Mr. Pendrell andMr. Wace; encouraged by reflecting that they were not in a place ofworship, and would not be obliged to stay longer than they chose. Therewas a muster of all Dissenters who could spare the morning time, and onthe back benches were all the aged Churchwomen who shared the remnantsof the sacrament wine, and who were humbly anxious to neglect nothingecclesiastical or connected with "going to a better place."
At eleven the arrival of listeners seemed to have ceased. Mr. Lyon wasseated on the school tribune or dais at his particular round table;another round table, with a chair, awaited the curate, with whosesuperior position it was quite in keeping that he should not be thefirst on the ground. A couple of extra chairs were placed farther back,and more than one important personage had been requested to act aschairman; but no Churchman would place himself in a position soequivocal as to dignity of aspect, and so unequivocal as to theobligation of sitting out the discussion and the rector had beforehandput a veto on any Dissenting chairman.
Mr. Lyon sat patiently absorbed in his thoughts, with his notes inminute handwriting lying before him, seeming to look at the audience,but not seeing them. Every one else was contented that there should bean interval in which there could be a little neighborly talk.
Esther was particularly happy, seated on a side-bench near her father'sside of the tribune, with Felix close behind her, so that she could turnher head and talk to him. He had been very kind ever since that morningwhen she had called at his home, more disposed to listen indulgently towhat she had to say, and less blind to her looks and movements. If hehad never railed at her or ignored her, she would have been lesssensitive to the attention he gave her; but as it was, the prospect ofseeing him seemed to light up her life, and to disperse the olddullness. She looked unusually charming to-day, from the very fact thatshe was not vividly conscious of anything but of having a mind near herthat asked her to be something better than she actually was. Theconsciousness of her own superiority amongst the people around her wassuperseded, and even a few brief weeks had given a softened expressionto her eyes, a more feminine beseechingness and self-doubt to hermanners. Perhaps, however, a little new defiance was rising in place ofthe old contempt--defiance of the Trebian views about Felix Holt.
"What a very nice-looking young woman your minister's daughter is?" saidMrs. Tiliot in an undertone to Mrs. Muscat, who, as she had hoped, hadfound a seat next her quondam friend--"quite the lady."
"Rather too much so, considering," said Mrs. Muscat. "She's thoughtproud, and that is not pretty in a girl, even if there was anything toback it up. But now she seems to be encouraging that young Holt, whoscoffs at everything, as you may judge by his appearance. She hasdespised his betters before now; but I leave you to judge whether ayoung man who has taken to low ways of getting a living can pay for finecambric handkerchiefs and light kid gloves."
Mrs. Muscat lowered her blonde eyelashes and swayed her neat head justperceptibly from side to side, with a sincere desire to be moderate inher expressions, notwithstanding any shock that facts might have givenher.
"Dear, dear," said Mrs. Tiliot. "What! that is young Holt leaningforward now without a cravat? I've never seen him before to notice him,but I've heard Tiliot talking about him. They say he's a dangerouscharacter, and goes stirring up the workingmen at Sproxton. And--well,to be sure, such great eyes and such a great head of hair--it is enoughto frighten one. What can she see in him? Quite below her."
"Yes, and brought up a governess," said Mrs. Muscat; "you'd have thoughtshe'd knowed better how to choose. But the minister has let her get theupper hand sadly too much. It's a pity in a man of God. I don't denyhe's _that_."
"Well, I am sorry," said Mrs. Tiliot, "for I meant her to give my girlslessons when they came from school."
Mr. Wace and Mr. Pendrell meanwhile were standing up and looking roundat the audience, nodding to their fellow-townspeople with the affabilitydue from men in their position.
"It's time he came now," said Mr. Wace, looking at his watch andcomparing it with the schoolroom clock. "This debating is a new-fangledsort of thing; but the rector would never have given in to it if therehadn't been good reasons. Nolan said he wouldn't come. He says thisdebating is an atheistical sort of thing; the Atheists are very fond ofit. Theirs is a bad book to take a leaf out of. However, we shall hearnothing but what's good from Mr. Sherlock. He preaches a capitalsermon--for such a young man."
"Well, it was our duty to support him--not to leave him alone among theDissenters," said Mr. Pendrell. "You see everybody hasn't felt that.Labron might have shown himself, if not Lukyn. I could have allegedbusiness myself if I had thought proper."
"Here he comes, I think," said Mr. Wace, turning round on hearing amovement near the small door on a level with the platform. "By George!it's Mr. Debarry. Come now, this is handsome."
Mr. Wace and Mr. Pendrell clapped their hands, and the example wasfollowed even by most of the Dissenters. Philip was aware that he wasdoing a popular thing, of a kind that Treby was not used to from theelder Debarrys; but his appearance had not been long premeditated. Hewas driving through the town toward an engagement at some distan
ce, buton calling at Labron's office he had found that the affair whichdemanded his presence had been deferred, and so had driven round to theFree School. Christian came in behind him.
Mr. Lyon was now roused from his abstraction, and, stepping from hisslight elevation, begged Mr. Debarry to act as moderator or president onthe occasion.
"With all my heart," said Philip. "But Mr. Sherlock has not arrived,apparently?"
"He tarries somewhat unduly," said Mr. Lyon. "Nevertheless there may bea reason of which we know not. Shall I collect the thoughts of theassembly by a brief introductory address in the interval?"
"No, no, no," said Mr. Wace, who saw a limit to his powers of endurance."Mr. Sherlock is sure to be here in a minute or two."
"Christian," said Philip Debarry, who felt a slight misgiving, "just beso good--but stay, I'll go myself. Excuse me, gentlemen: I'll driveround to Mr. Sherlock's lodgings. He may be under a little mistake as tothe time. Studious men are sometimes rather absent-minded. You needn'tcome with me, Christian."
As Mr. Debarry went out, Rufus Lyon stepped on to the tribune again inrather an uneasy state of mind. A few ideas had occurred to him,eminently fitted to engage the audience profitably, and so to wrest someedification out of an unforeseen delay. But his native delicacy made himfeel that in this assembly the Church people might fairly decline any"deliverance" on his part which exceeded the programme, and Mr. Wace'snegative had been energetic. But the little man suffered from imprisonedideas, and was as restless as a racer held in. He could not sit downagain, but walked backward and forward, stroking his chin, emitting hislow guttural interjections under the pressure of clauses and sentenceswhich he longed to utter aloud, as he would have done in his own study.There was a low buzz in the room which helped to deepen the minister'ssense that the thoughts within him were as divine messengers unheeded orrejected by a trivial generation. Many of the audience were standing;all, except the old Churchwomen on the back seats, and a few devoutDissenters who kept their eyes shut and gave their bodies a gentleoscillating motion, were interested in chat.
"Your father is uneasy," said Felix to Esther.
"Yes; and now, I think, he is feeling for his spectacles. I hope he hasnot left them at home: he will not be able to see anything two yardsbefore him without them;--and it makes him so unconscious of what peopleexpect or want."
"I'll go and ask him whether he has them," said Felix, striding over theform in front of him, and approaching Mr. Lyon, whose face showed agleam of pleasure at this relief from his abstracted isolation.
"Miss Lyon is afraid that you are at a loss for your spectacles, sir,"said Felix.
"My dear young friend," said Mr. Lyon, laying his hand on Felix Holt'sfore-arm, which was about on a level with the minister's shoulder, "itis a very glorious truth, albeit made somewhat painful to me by thecircumstances of the present moment, that as a counterpoise to thebrevity of our mortal life (wherein, as I apprehend, our powers arebeing trained not only for the transmission of an improved heritage, asI have heard you insist, but also for our own entrance into a higherinitiation in the Divine scheme)--it is, I say, a very glorious truth,that even in what are called the waste minutes of our time, like thoseof expectation, the soul may soar and range, as in some of our dreamswhich are brief as a broken rainbow in duration, yet seem to comprise along history of terror or joy. And again, each moment may be a beginningof a new spiritual energy; and our pulse would doubtless be a coarse andclumsy notation of the passage from that which was not to that which is,even in the finer processes of the material world--and how muchmore----"
Esther was watching her father and Felix, and though she was not withinhearing of what was being said, she guessed the actual state of thecase--that the enquiry about the spectacles had been unheeded, and thather father was losing himself and embarrassing Felix in the intricaciesof a dissertation. There was not the stillness around her that wouldhave made a movement on her part seem conspicuous, and she was impelledby her anxiety to step on the tribune and walk up to her father, whopaused a little startled.
"Pray see whether you have forgotten your spectacles, father. If so, Iwill go home at once and look for them."
Mr. Lyon was automatically obedient to Esther, and he began immediatelyto feel in his pockets.
"How is it that Miss Jermyn is so friendly with the Dissenting parson?"said Christian to Quorlen, the Tory printer, who was an intimate of his."Those grand Jermyns are not Dissenters surely?"
"_What_ Miss Jermyn?"
"Why--don't you see?--that fine girl who is talking to him."
"Miss Jermyn! Why, that's the little parson's daughter."
"His daughter!" Christian gave a low brief whistle, which seemed anatural expression of surprise that "the rusty old ranter" should have adaughter of such distinguished appearance.
Meanwhile the search for the spectacles had proved vain. "'Tis agrievous fault in me, my dear," said the little man, humbly; "I becomethereby sadly burdensome to you."
"I will go at once," said Esther, refusing to let Felix go instead ofher. But she had scarcely stepped off the tribune when Mr. Debarryre-entered, and there was a commotion which made her wait. After alow-toned conversation with Mr. Pendrell and Mr. Wace, Philip Debarrystepped on to the tribune with his hat in his hand and said, with an airof much concern and annoyance--
"I am sorry to have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that--doubtlessowing to some accidental cause which I trust will soon be explained asnothing serious--Mr. Sherlock is absent from his residence and is not tobe found. He went out early, his landlady informs me, to refresh himselfby a walk on this agreeable morning, as is his habit, she tells me, whenhe has been kept up late by study; and he has not returned. Do not letus be too anxious. I shall cause enquiry to be made in the direction ofhis walk. It is easy to imagine many accidents, not of a gravecharacter, by which he might nevertheless be absolutely detained againsthis will. Under these circumstances, Mr. Lyon," continued Philip,turning to the minister, "I presume that the debate must be adjourned."
"The debate, doubtless," began Mr. Lyon but his farther speech wasdrowned by a general rising of the Church people from their seats, manyof them feeling that, even if the cause were lamentable, the adjournmentwas not altogether disagreeable.
"Good gracious me!" said Mrs. Tiliot, as she took her husband's arm, "Ihope the poor young man hasn't fallen into the river or broken his leg."
But some of the more acrid Dissenters, whose temper was not controlledby the habits of retail business, had begun to hiss, implying that intheir interpretation the curate's absence had not depended on any injuryto life or limb.
"He's turned tail, sure enough," said Mr. Muscat to the neighbor behindhim, lifting his eyebrows and shoulders, and laughing in a way thatshowed that, deacon as he was, he looked at the affair in an entirelysecular light.
But Mrs. Muscat thought it would be nothing but right to have all thewaters dragged, agreeing in this with the majority of the Church ladies.
"I regret sincerely, Mr. Lyon," said Philip Debarry, addressing theminister with politeness, "that I must say good-morning to you, with thesense that I have not been able at present to contribute to yoursatisfaction as I had wished."
"Speak not of it in the way of apology, sir," said Mr. Lyon, in a toneof depression. "I doubt not that you yourself have acted in good faith.Nor will I open any door of egress to constructions such as anger oftendeems ingenious, but which the disclosure of the simple truth may exposeas erroneous and uncharitable fabrications. I wish you good-morning,sir."
When the room was cleared of the Church people, Mr. Lyon wished tosoothe his own spirit and that of his flock by a few reflectionsintroductory to a parting prayer. But there was a general resistance tothis effort. The men mustered round the minister and declared theiropinion that the whole thing was disgraceful to the Church. Some saidthat the curate's absence had been contrived from the first. Others morethan hinted that it had been a folly in Mr. Lyon to set on foot anyprocedure in common with Tor
ies and clergymen, who, if they ever apedcivility to Dissenters, would never do anything but laugh at them intheir sleeves. Brother Kemp urged in his heavy bass that Mr. Lyon shouldlose no time in sending an account of the affair to the _Patriot_; andbrother Hawkins, in his high tenor, observed that it was an occasion onwhich some stinging things might be said with all the extra effect of an_apropos_.
The position of receiving a many-voiced lecture from the members of hischurch was familiar to Mr. Lyon but now he felt weary, frustrated, anddoubtful of his own temper. Felix, who stood by and saw that this man ofsensitive fibre was suffering from talkers whose noisy superficialitycost them nothing, got exasperated. "It seems to me, sirs," he burst in,with his predominant voice, "that Mr. Lyon has hitherto had the hardpart of the business, while you of his congregation have had the easyone. Punish the Church clergy, if you like--they can take care ofthemselves. But don't punish your own minister. It's no business ofmine, perhaps, except so far as fair-play is everybody's business; butit seems to me the time to ask Mr. Lyon to take a little rest, insteadof setting on him like so many wasps."
By this speech Felix raised a displeasure which fell on the minister aswell as on himself; but he gained his immediate end. The talkers droppedoff after a slight show of persistence, and Mr. Lyon quitted the fieldof no combat with a small group of his less imperious friends, to whomhe confided his intention of committing his argument fully to paper,and forwarding it to a discriminating editor.
"But regarding personalities," he added, "I have not the same clearshowing. For, say that this young man was pusillanimous--I were butill-provided with arguments if I took my stand even for a moment on sopoor an irrelevancy as that because one curate is ill furnishedtherefore Episcopacy is false. If I held up any one to just obloquy, itwould be the well-designated Incumbent of this parish, who, callinghimself one of the Church militant, sends a young and weak-kneedsubstitute to take his place in the fight."
Mr. Philip Debarry did not neglect to make industrious enquiryconcerning the accidents which had detained the Reverend TheodoreSherlock on his morning walk. That well-intentioned young divine wasseen no more in Treby Magna. But the river was not dragged, for by theevening coach the rector received an explanatory letter. The ReverendTheodore's agitation had increased so much during his walk, that thepassing coach had been a means of deliverance not to be resisted; and,literally at the eleventh hour, he had hailed and mounted the cheerfulTally-ho! and carried away his portion of the debate in his pocket.
But the rector had subsequently the satisfaction of receiving Mr.Sherlock's painstaking production in print, with a dedication to theReverend Augustus Debarry, a motto from St. Chrysostom, and otheradditions, the fruit of ripening leisure. He was "sorry for poorSherlock, who wanted confidence"; but he was convinced that for his ownpart he had taken the course which under the circumstances was the leastcompromising to the Church. Sir Maximus, however, observed to his sonand brother that he had been right and they had been wrong as to thedanger of vague, enormous expressions of gratitude to a Dissentingpreacher, and on any differences of opinion seldom failed to remind themof that precedent.