Around the great fireplace in the dining-room, the squire and three or four gentlemen of the Marsh were sitting, and had been gravely discussing the tragedy of the wreck. On a small table stood an enormous punch bowl full of steaming 'bishop', from which Sir Antony kept ladling generous allowances in order that his friends should recover from their exertions on the rope. The depression they had felt through dragging ashore the dead body of Abel Clouder was now increased at the news of the parson's death. They had hoped that since the parson's life-line had been cut by the plunging forward of the brig, that perhaps some miracle had saved him, and their hopes had been dashed by the news of the recovery of the body brought by the fisherman who stood respectfully drinking a glass of the warming punch, before being dismissed to the kitchens by a side door to get a bite of food.
When he had gone, the squire went on expatiating to his hearers concerning Parson Bolden on much the same lines as the footman had done already.
“So history repeats itself again,” he said gloomily. “As you know, Sennacharib (for the doctor was of the party) my father was just as unfortunate in the bestowal of the living. Just as soon as he got a man he liked, he was preferred elsewhere, and it has been the same with me. I really did think that since poor Bolden liked the place that we were settled with him for life, and now his life has been sacrificed in this heroic, tragic fashion. If you are visiting patients Burmarsh way to-morrow, Sennacharib, you might ride to the vicar and ask him to conduct our service on Sunday morning, for there will be no time to get anyone else at such notice.”
“I'll do that,” replied the doctor. “You are quite right. We have been less fortunate than Burmarsh, certainly. Have you no one in mind that you would wish to appoint in poor Bolden's place?”
“I shall have to depend on the choice of the Archbishop, I suppose,” said the squire. “There's only one man I can think of—and he is one I think of daily—to whom I would as gladly offer the living to, as I verily believe, he would gladly accept it, but whether he is alive or dead, God alone knows. Whoever I have could not satisfy me as he could. He had all the sterling qualities of Bolden that makes for popularity with the people here, and in addition a scholarship and a gentlemanly accomplishment that would be very acceptable to the gentry. He would now be my own age, but when I knew him he was even younger than Bolden. It was an understood thing that he should become vicar of Dymchurch, for he loved the place as we all loved him. He used to stay here during the Oxford vacations.”
“I recollect the man surely,” said Sennacharib Pepper. “He was an undergraduate with you at Queen's.”
“That's the man,” nodded the squire. “He was given a Fellowship, which he vowed he would hang on to till the living here was vacant.”
“I talked with him often,” said the doctor. “A brilliant young man.”
“I should think he was,” agreed the squire, turning to a glass-fronted bookcase at the side of the chimneypiece. “There's a book here somewhere—yes, here it is.” He opened the glass door and drew out a leather-bound volume, which he opened at the title leaf. “A Solemn Discourse on Religious Assemblies and the Public Service of God, According to Apostolical Rule and Practice. What it all means, I can't explain. It's beyond me. But the book made such an impression upon Oxford that the University, despite his youth, conferred on him the title of Doctor of Divinity,” added the squire.
“He was a fine horseman, too. He hunted here,” added the doctor.
“And as magnificent with the sword as with the pistol,” went on the squire. “He winged Bully Tappitt, the Squire of Iffley, in Magdalen Fields one morning. Fortunately, Tappitt was a notorious duellist, and we were able to prove that he had offered the affront, otherwise it would have gone hard with our friend. As it was, the affair made him the admiration of all, from the chancellor to the town's boys. What a supper we had at his acquittal. I remember so well that he was the only one who remained sober, though I swear he drank as much as any.”
“What happened to him then?” asked another of the party.
“He went to America under distressing circumstances,” said the squire. “But that was a few years later, after he had married the most beautiful girl you ever saw. Unfortunately, her beauty was but skin deep and she ran off with a blackguard, named Nicholas Tappitt, the nephew of the man he'd killed. I never heard what happened, for after telling me that he found life in England unendurable, he went abroad. I never heard from him again, but it is believed he was killed by Indians, for after much inquiry I learned that he went amongst them on a mission and has never been heard of since.”
“What was his name?” asked Dr. Pepper.
The squire's eyes were filled with tears, and to hide his emotion he pointed to the fly-leaf of the volume and handed it to Dr. Pepper, who read the name of the author and nodded. “Of course, yes, I remember now. A good many years ago.”
“What was his name?” asked one of the other gentlemen, as they both got up to look over the doctor's shoulders at the book.
The squire, after clearing his throat, said: “His name was—”
“Doctor Syn,” announced the voice of the footman.
The squire spun around as though he had been shot, while the others looked up sharply from the name on the book, the name which they had just read, and which they had simultaneously heard announced.
In contrast to the bright livery of the footman who stood against the white panelling of the door which he held open, the sombre figure framed in the dark doorway seemed unreal. A shudder of superstition passed through the blood of everyone in the room as they gazed. No one moved, for concentration was riveted upon this tall, slim stranger. He had removed his heavy overcoat and thrown it over one shoulder, where it hung like a cloak. One long arm hung by his side and held a large, three-cornered hat, while the other was bent so that the white hand with its long, tapering and sensitive fingers rested lightly against his heart, as though he were about to bow in greeting. But he did not move, and until he did no one else had the power to. They looked at his face, pale and long, with fascinating lines cut into it, each one challenging the onlooker to respect his romance. A face carved by that master sculptor, Experience. The lofty brow, the queer but shapely head framed in a mass of raven hair. Eyes deep and piercing that seemed to each man in the room to be searching out the secrets of his soul. The nose was high with an aquiline droop. The cheeks hollow. Gaunt jaws that seemed to hold the whole decision of his destiny. A thin upper lip and fuller under one gave the mouth an expression of alert determination. The strong neck and full throat were shapely, exactly right to the carriage of such a living head. Though standing deathly still, every limb and feature conveyed quick and splendid movement momentarily arrested at the man's iron will. Showing no embarrassment at the silence, he showed no intent to break it, only allowing a gentle smile to twinkle in his eyes and gather at the corner of his mouth. It seemed almost as though he enjoyed their consternation and relished the thought that he was master of their sudden helplessness.
It was perhaps natural that the footman, being the only one not in a position to grasp the significance of the situation, should be the means of breaking the spell.
“The gentleman seems to be the only survivor of the wreck, sir.”
“And consequently must ask your indulgence, gentlemen, for his appearance,” added the stranger. “It has been a nasty night to swim in.”
That he was still a stranger as far as the squire went was obvious, for all he did was to stare and mutter such phrases as: “No—no. Impossible. Asking too much. Incredible—”
“I hardly expected you to recognise me immediately,” went on the stranger. “We have so many years to span, and a hard life alters most men. Although Time has dealt most generously with you, I have not yet quite captured from your features the gay and pleasant Tony that I knew. But I shall get him any moment, just as you will suddenly get me.”
The jolly face of the squire was all puckered up into a vast frown, as he once more shook his head. He looked again and said: “Yes, it's more years than one imagines. But it would be too strange. Yet, wait, there is just something reminiscent. Of course, the room's confoundedly dark. Suppose we light another candle sconce.”
“The room is light enough,” protested the other gently, “at least to me who for many weeks have spent my nights reading the classics at a tallow dip, and if my poor features cannot convince you, I think the room can, for the last time I was here your father stood where you are standing, and with some nervousness I asked him to accept a book of mine. He stood there glancing at it, then sat me at that table and told me to inscribe it. Being my first inscription, I remember it. 'To Sir Charles Cobtree Baronet, of New Hall, Dymchurch, from his humble servant and admirer the Author.' He put it there, next to the Odyssey of Mr. Pope.” He crossed to the bookcase. “Yes, there it is—the Odyssey—but where my book was—a space.”
“We were but now admiring it, sir,” said Sennacharib Pepper.
Mechanically the physician handed the volume to the squire, who passed it to the author. He, in his turn, looked at the title-page with a grim smile. “My faith, I must have been in a solemn mood when I penned this.”
The squire could never decide afterwards whether it was the extra light supplied by one of the gentlemen carrying a candelabra from the further end of the room or some trick that the stranger had in handling a book, but it was certain that he suddenly brought his fist crashing down on the table.
“Gad,” he thundered, “I see him now. Why, yes, I'd recognise him anywhere. The brow, the nose, the chin, the eyes. A little older. Those white streaks in the black locks are deceptive, but I can take my oath that this is my old friend, Christopher Syn, mercifully restored. Sennacharib, you are always boasting of your eyesight. Do you mean to say you cannot recognise him? You met him years ago.”
“I think I recognised the gentleman before you, Sir Antony, but you gave me no chance of expressing my opinion,” replied the physician.
“My dear friend,” cried the squire, ignoring the physician and placing his hands upon Syn's shoulders. “My dear Doctor, welcome home.” But feeling the wetness of his coat, he became immediately the bustling host. “My poor fellow, you're wet through. Positively soaked.”
“I've been swimming, Tony,” smiled Syn.
“Of course. Yes. And what's that? Your sea-chest? How the devil you managed to swim with that I don't know. And what are you standing there for, blockhead?” he asked the footman. “Run upstairs, tell them to light a fire in the best room available, to get busy with the warming pans, and ask her ladyship to step down here at once, and if the young ladies are in bed, tell her ladyship that they must be wakened immediately. Three daughters, my dear Doctor. Faith, to think you're not acquainted with my family, and you my best friend.
“Oh, and you (to the footman) come here. If my son is awake with the toothache or whatever it is that makes him cry at night, tell the nursemaid to bring him down. Yes, my dear Doctor, my dear friend, I have a son and heir, at last. Three strapping grown lasses, and a wee boy. It's true, ask Doctor Pepper about him, for he had the bringing of him into this world. Yes, that's right, Sennacharib, give the doctor some warm drink. Some smoking bishop for the Doctor of Divinity, eh? I suppose you're still a parson, eh, Doctor? Of course, once a parson always a parson unless you're unfrocked, which in your case is not likely. But you must be starved. I'll get food. Where's that blockhead gone? Here, where's anybody?” He tugged the long bell-rope vigorously. “And dry clothes you must have. A warm dressing-gown. Come to the fire and dry yourself.”
Dr. Sennacharib Pepper, having shaken hands with his old acquaintance, suggested that he should relieve the ladies of their nursing and go up and visit the patient. “A poor girl who lost her husband in the rescue work of the wreck, Dr. Syn. I have administered a sleeping draught, but will go up and see that all is well. Someone must be with her.”
On his leaving the other two gentlemen called for their horses, in order to leave the squire with his new-found old friend.
In a few minutes the whole house appeared to be alive with people hurrying this way and that on various errands, but on tiptoe out of respect for the invalid, and by the time Dr. Syn had been taken with his chest to a comfortable bedroom, had been arrayed in dry shirt and breeches of the squire's and wrapped in a red quilted dressing-gown, had been presented to the Cobtree family, especially to Charlotte, who was his godchild, and whom he remembered as a baby, and had insisted that the new baby should not be awakened, a magnificent cold supper was awaiting him in the dining-room, where he did full justice to a game pie and a bottle of claret.
Dr. Syn had told the squire that he had seen the body of the captain lying on the sea-wall, and as he was eating, news was brought that it had been carried with other bodies they had recovered to Sycamore Barn. Maintaining that his own story could wait, Dr. Syn wanted to know all the news of the village, merely satisfying their curiosity about his own doings by telling them he had been in the wildest parts of America preaching the gospel to the Indians.
“You must not expect the doctor to tell you all his adventures at one sitting,” the squire said to his daughters. “I warrant that if he talks hard every evening, he will not be able to tell you half this side of Christmas.”
Dr. Syn chuckled to himself and thought this more than likely, but aloud he said: “I have had adventures—yes, for I suppose to you it is an adventure to hear first-hand stories of the Indians. But you must not expect too much. You must remember that I was a preacher, not a gentleman adventurer.”
“And none of your experiences could be stranger than the shipwreck,” went on the squire. “A very strange thing. Here we were, talking of you, and in you walk. And there you were, wondering when the living of Dymchurch would be vacant, and the living vicar swimming out to rescue you is killed.”
They all nodded gravely, and Dr. Syn said: “Yes, it seems like fate.”
“Seems? It is,” exclaimed the squire. “It seems as if poor Bolden had to go. Of course, we should have found some way out of the difficulty, but not easily. Bolden was popular. Anyone but you following him here would have been unfairly dealt by in comparison.”
“He was obviously a very gallant fellow,” said Dr. Syn. “Young?”
“Too young really; as least, I found him so,” replied the squire. “These young ladies will probably not agree. He took his work seriously, but not with a long face. No, he was merry enough, laughed a good deal, but never drank. Now I'm of an age when I like a man to crack a bottle with me. Not that he was a prig. Far from it. He had no objection to others drinking, and he had something about him that made you respect even his crazy notions. A simple, good, jolly young man. He lived here, you know. Couldn't cope with the vicarage, though I furnished it for him. And you know it's when you live under the same roof with a man that you learn the worst about him. But there was nothing to find out about him. I'd have seen any other young parson a good deal further before letting him live here with these young girls about. They might have put ideas into his head, whereas with Bolden, good-looking as he was, why the three of them just mothered him, didn't you, young ladies?”
Charlotte nodded. She was the eldest, a beautiful blonde of nineteen. She wondered just how much she was going to miss the young parson, whom she had been content to mother because no other treatment had been possible, because it never entered the parson's head that it might be.
Maria, of seventeen, fair like her sister, and Cicely of fifteen, somewhat darker, had not quite realised the tragedy of the evening. It did not occur to them that the young parson had gone for ever. They knew something had happened, but her ladyship had told Charlotte not to tell them till the morning, and at present they were both thrilled with this strange man that had come up from the sea.
Charlotte, though experiencing a numbed feeling of bereavement which she hardly tried to understand, felt also a strange thrill in the presence of this newcomer. The pale, tragic face, the sad smile that was so ingratiating. “Yes,” thought Charlotte, 'here is a man, a sad lonely man, who is unselfish enough to appear jolly, but a man of whom any woman in the world would feel proud.”
Dr. Syn surprised the look that such thoughts wrote upon her guileless face, and he read an interest there, an admiration innocent enough, but yet a warning to him of something which this girl, the daughter of his friend and patron would never know, and it was this look that influenced him that very night to take a certain course. But this was after the household had settled down to quiet after the excitement of the storm. The physician had left his patient in Lady Cobtree's care, who had arranged to share the watches with Charlotte and the old housekeeper. After another bottle of port between the three of them, Pepper at length went home and the squire carried Dr. Syn's candles into his room.
“It's strange, too,” said the squire, “that the servants got ready his room. I didn't mean to tell you, but I see you would have found it out.”
The squire pointed to a wig and gown that hung behind the door. “He brought home the wig to have it dressed, I suppose, for he would only wear it in the church, and there only as a badge of his office. But why did he bring the Geneva gown? He always put that on just before preaching.”
“He tore it on the chancel rail last Sunday, Papa. I noticed it and told him to bring it back for me to mend.”
They turned and saw Charlotte standing in the doorway with a black coat over her arm.
“And what are you doing here, miss?” asked her father.
“I have been mending the sleeve of Dr. Syn's coat. I noticed it was badly torn when they were drying it, so I thought I had better do it at once. You will find the rest of your clothes hanging up. They are dry.”
“That's very kind of you,” said the doctor, taking the coat and examining the damage. “Now that is very beautifully done, Miss Charlotte. I have had to learn to work with a needle myself out of necessity, so I know when I see a thing done better.”
“So you are starting in already to mother the doctor, are you, miss?” laughed the squire.
This had been a daily joke with the squire over the young parson, and it had never affected Charlotte. So that she was the more puzzled and perhaps annoyed that the same old joke with reference to Dr. Syn should make her blush. To hide this, she walked away to hang up the coat which Dr. Syn had put down on a chair.
“It seems that someone must mother the poor gentleman,” she laughed, “for he very cleverly thinks of a way to save his sea-chest there, and then forgets to unpack it. I suppose you know, Doctor, that your clothes in there are most likely to be wringing wet.”
The doctor shook his head. “I suppose my nice new young mother will be very disgusted to hear that my sea-chest is full of old books. My clothes, other than I swam ashore in, I am afraid were all destroyed in the fire, for they were hanging in my cabin. But I have a few guineas that will take me to the tailors.”
“But your precious books?” she asked.
“All wrapped round in oilskin, my dear,” he chuckled. Besides, I can assure you that this is a sea-chest worthy of the name. I have known it dropped into a river, and when rescued the contents were bone dry.”
“What things you have seen,” whispered Charlotte with awe.
“Well, yes, but there's not much to see in an old chest being fished out of the river. I'll perhaps tell you a real story one day. An exciting one.”
“Do,” she answered. “Were there crocodiles in the river?”
“And now off to bed,” commanded the squire. “If you are not sitting with the invalid, you ought to be sleeping.”
“Good night, Tony's daughter,” said Dr. Syn, bowing over her hand. Then he straightened himself and laying both hands gently on her firm young shoulders, he smiled, and kissed her on the cheek, saying: “Good night, little mother.”
Once more Charlotte found herself blushing, so with a hurried curtsey she left the room.
“You have nice children, Tony,” remarked Dr. Syn.
“Wait till you see young Dennis in the morning,” replied the squire, glowing with pride. “In the meanwhile, I think here is all you require save to be left alone to sleep. I ordered a cool jug of small beer for you. It is refreshing if one should wake, though I doubt not you'll sleep well enough.” He opened a door in the oak panelling. “This is the powder closet. Why, the blockhead put the beer there. The worst spot for a beverage. Powder dust as a 'head'. Not that much powder has been scattered here since poor Bolden had this room. He thought it an affectation if he thought of it at all. Once he reproved my Charlotte—the only time, I think. He found her dressing his clerical wig. It's a good wig, she says, though you'd never notice it. Poor Bolden had no vanities, except perhaps in his swimming. See, I'll put the jug here beside the bed. Poor Bolden. It seems the text has been reversed, Doctor, 'The Lord as taken away, but the Lord gives'. Much as I regret the passing of poor Bolden, and a splendid passing it was, I thank God for your happy restoration, Doctor.” And with a few more fervent good nights and God bless you's, the squire went to the door.
Before closing it, he pointed to another door. “That, by the way, leads into the next room, but it is locked and bolted. However, should the logs jump out of your fireplace and set fire to the room, you can get out through this door or through the powder chest. To-morrow we'll inspect the vicarage and you can see what you want before you settle in. I'll write to the Archbishop. Of course, you are welcome to live here if you would, but I think you should keep the vicarage up for your own dignity. Besides, as you say, you want your own library. Well, we'll talk of it more to-morrow—good night.”
“God bless you,” replied Dr. Syn, and after listening to the retreating footsteps he tiptoed across the room and very quietly locked and bolted the door.
The squire went off to his room and did not notice that the outer door of Syn's powder closet was wide open, and as for the doctor, he never gave it a thought, but it was the means of giving food for thought to Charlotte Cobtree for a long time to come.
