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Page 30
"Be sure they will explain it."
"If they do not I shall be tempted to leave altogether. Indeed, I
may do so in any case. Mary will never reconcile herself to live
here now."
"Don't bother about the future, don't think about it. Consider
yourself, and take a little rest this afternoon. Everybody is very
concerned for you, they mean to be awfully decent in their way; but
I know how they try you. They can't help it. Such a thing takes
them out of their daily round, and beggars their experience, and
makes them excited and tactless. There's no precedent for them,
and you know how most people depend on precedent and how they're
bowled over before anything new."
"I will go to Mary, I think. Has the undertaker been?"
"Yes, uncle."
"I want him to be buried with us here. I should not suppose his
father will object."
"Not likely. Mary would wish it so."
"It was so typical of Mary to think of Septimus May before everybody.
She put her own feelings from her that she might soften the blow
for him."
"She would."
"Are you equal to telling the clergyman at the station that his
son is dead, or can't you trust yourself to do it?"
"I expect he'll know it well enough, but I'll tell him everything
there is to tell. I remember long ago, after the wedding, that he
was interested in haunted rooms, and said he believed in such
things on Scriptural grounds."
Sir Walter took pause at this statement.
"That is news to me. Supposing he--However, we need not trouble
ourselves with him yet. He will, of course, be as deeply concerned
to get to the bottom of this as I am, though we must not interfere,
or make the inquiry harder for Hardcastle than he is bound to find
it."
"Certainly nobody must interfere. I only hope we can get Peter
Hardcastle."
"Tell them to call me when Mr. May arrives, and not sooner. I'll
see Mary, then lie down for an hour or two."
"You feel all right? Should you care to see Mannering?"
"I am right enough. Say 'Good-bye' to Vane and Miles Handford for
me. They may have to return here presently. One can't tell who
may be wanted, and who may not be. I don't know--these things are
outside my experience; but they had better both leave you their
directions."
"I'll ask them."
Sir Walter visited his daughter, and changed his mind about
sleeping. She was passing through an hour of unspeakable horror.
The dark temple of realization had opened for her and she was
treading its dreary aisles. Henceforth for long days--she told
herself for ever--sorrow and sense of unutterable loss must be her
companions and share her waking hours.
They stopped together alone till the dusk came down and Mannering
returned. He stayed but a few minutes, and presently they heard
his car start again, while that containing the departing guests
and Henry Lennox immediately followed it.
In due course Septimus May returned to Chadlands with him. The
clergyman had heard of his son's end, and went immediately to see
the dead man. There Mary joined him, and witnessed his self-control
under very shattering grief. He was thin, clean-shaven--a grey man
with smouldering eyes and an expression of endurance. A fanatic
in faith, by virtue of certain asperities of mind and a critical
temperament, he had never made friends, won his parish into close
ties, nor advanced the cause of his religion as he had yearned to
do. With the zeal of a reformer, he had entered the ministry in
youth; but while commanding respect for his own rule of conduct and
the example he set his little flock, their affection he never won.
The people feared him, and dreaded his stern criticism. Once
certain spirits, smarting under pulpit censure, had sought to be
rid of him; but no grounds existed on which they could eject the
reverend gentleman or challenge his status. He remained, therefore,
as many like him remain, embedded in his parish and unknown beyond
it. He was a poor student of human nature and life had dimmed his
old ambitions, soured his hopes; but it had not clouded his faith.
With a passionate fervor he believed all that he tried to teach,
and held that an almighty, all loving and all merciful God
controlled every destiny, ordered existence for the greatest and
least, and allowed nothing to happen upon earth that was not the
best that could happen for the immortal beings He had created in
His own image. Upon this assurance fell the greatest, almost the
only, blow that life could deal Septimus May. He was stricken
suddenly, fearfully with his unutterable loss; but his agony turned
into prayer while he knelt beside his son. He prayed with a fiery
intensity and a resonant vibration of voice that scorched rather
than comforted the woman who knelt beside him. The fervor of the
man's emotion and the depth of his conviction, running like a
torrent through the narrow channels of his understanding, were
destined presently to complicate a situation sufficiently painful
without intervention; for a time swiftly came when Septimus May
forced his beliefs upon Chadlands and opposed them to the opinions
of other people as deeply concerned as himself to explain the death
of his son.
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