Part 36 (1/2)

The Dean looked gloomy again. But at this moment a long howl, more frenzied, more fiendish than any which had preceded it, seemed to proclaim that the dog knew that his reign was menaced, and, like Sardanapalus, was determined to go out right royally. It was more than the Dean could stand. With an involuntary movement of his hands to his ears, he nodded and fled in haste to a place less exposed, where he could in a seemly and deca.n.a.l manner relieve his feelings.

The best-laid plans even of lawyers will go astray, and when they do so, the havoc is generally of a singularly wide-spread description.

The meeting in the Chapter-house proved stormy from the first. Whether it was that the writ in the right-of-way case had not yet reached Mr.

Swainson, so that he clung to his only split-straw, or that the Dean was soured by want of sleep, or that the Bishop was not thorough enough--whatever was the cause, the spirit of compromise was absent; and the discussion across the Chapter-house table threatened to make matters worse and not better. Whether the Dean first called Mr.

Swainson's enclosure the ”toadstool of a night,” or Mr. Swainson took the initiative by styling the Dean the ”mushroom of a day” (the Dean was not of old family), was a question afterwards much and hotly debated in Bicester circles. Be that as it may, the high powers rose from the table in dudgeon and much confusion.

There was behind the Dean at the end of the Chapter-house a large window. It looked immediately-upon what he, in the course of the discussion, had termed ”The Profanation,” and since the eventful day of Mr. Swainson's match at croquet it had been, by the Dean's order, kept shuttered, that he might not, when occupied in the Chapter-house, have the Profanation directly before his eyes. At the meeting the shutter remained closed; it may be that this phenomenon had weakened Mr. Swainson's doubtful inclination towards peace.

The Dean was a choleric man. As the party rose, he stepped to this shutter and flung it back. He turned to the others and cried with indignation--

”Look, sir; look, my lord! Is that a sight becoming the threshold of a cathedral? Is that a thing to be endured on consecrated ground?”

They stepped towards the window, a wide low-browed Tudor cas.e.m.e.nt, and looked out. The Dean himself stood aside, grasping the shutter with a hand which shook with pa.s.sion. His eyes were on the others'

faces. He expected little show of shame or contrition on that of Mr.

Swainson, but he did wish to bring this hideous thing home to the Bishop, who had not been as thorough in the matter as he should have been. Yet surely, as a bishop, he could not see that thing in its horrid reality and be unmoved!

No, he certainly could not. Slowly, and as if reluctantly, his lords.h.i.+p's face changed; it broke into a smile that broadened and rippled wider and wider, second by second as he looked. His colour deepened, until he became almost purple! And Mr. Swainson? His face was the picture of horror; there could not be a doubt of that.

Confusion and astonishment were stamped on every feature. The Dean could not believe his eyes. He turned in perplexity to the lawyer, who was peeping between the others' heads. His shoulders were shaking, and his face was puckered with laughter.

The Bishop stepped back. ”Really, gentlemen, I think it is hardly fair of us to--to use this window. This is no place for us.” He was a kindly man; there never was a more popular bishop in Bicester, and never will be.

At this the Canon and the lawyer lost all control over themselves, and their laughter, if not loud, was deep. The Dean was puzzled--confused, perplexed, wholly angry. He did at last what he should have done at first, instead of striking that att.i.tude with the shutter in his hand.

He looked through the window. It was dusty, and he was somewhat nearsighted, but at length he saw; and this was what he saw.

In the further comer of the enclosure, a couple of lovers billing and cooing; about and round them Mr. Swainson's big dog cutting a hundred uncouth gambols. Bad enough this; but it was not all. The ingenuous couple were Frank Swainson and--the Dean's daughter. Frank's arm was around her, and as the Dean looked, he stooped and kissed her, and Clive, raising her face, returned his gaze with eyes full of love, and scarcely blushed.

When the Dean turned he was alone.

Was it very wrong of them? There was nowhere else, since this miserable fracas had begun, where freed from others' eyes, they could steal a kiss. But into Mr. Swainson's plot no window, save a shuttered one, could look; the door, too, was close to one of the side doors of the cathedral, and they could pop in and out again unseen, and as for the big dog, Frank and Tiger were great friends. So if it was very wrong, it was very easy and very sweet and--_facilis descensus Averni_.

For one hour the Dean remained shut up in his study. At the end of that time he put on his hat and walked across the Close. He knocked at Mr. Swainson's door, and, upon its being opened, went in, and did not come out again for an hour and five minutes by Mrs. Canon Rowcliffe's watch. I have not the slightest idea of what pa.s.sed between them. More than two score different and distinct accounts of the interview were current next day in Bicester, but no one, and I have examined them all with care, seems to me to account for the undoubted results. First the disappearance next day from Mr. Swainson's plot of the famous h.o.a.rding, which was not replaced even by the old iron railing.

Secondly, the marriage six weeks later of King Pepin and Sweet Clive.

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

FAMILY PORTRAITS.

On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a shoe-lace, having taken advantage for that purpose of the step of a corner house in St. James's Square, when a man pa.s.sing behind me stopped.

”Well!” said he, after a short pause during which I wondered--I could not see him--what he was doing, ”the meanness of these rich folk is disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be ashamed to own a house and leave it like that!”

The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the house. It was a great stone mansion with a bal.u.s.trade atop, with many windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too--a little red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. ”It is just possible,” I suggested, ”that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order.”