Now, in the gas-lit bustle of the hall, after an interval of about twenty years, he beheld again his enemy, his bugbear, his loathed oppressor, the living symbol of all that his soul condemned.

Said Mrs. Hamps:

"I reminded Mr. Peartree that you used to attend his Bible-cla.s.s, Edwin.

Do you remember? I hope you do."

"Oh, yes!" said Edwin, with a slight nervous laugh, blushing. His eye caught Clara's, but there was no sign whatever of the old malicious grin on her maternal face. Nor did Maggie's show a tremor. And, of course, the majestic duplicity of Auntie Hamps did not quiver under the strain.

So that the Rev. Mr. Peartree, protesting honestly that he should have recognised his old pupil Mr. Clayhanger anywhere, never suspected the terrific drama of the moment.

And the next moment there was no drama.... Teacher and pupil shook hands. The recognition was mutual. To Edwin, Mr. Peartree, save for the greying of his hair, had not changed. His voice, his form, his gestures, were absolutely the same. Only, instead of being Mr.

Peartree, he was a man like another man--a commonplace, hard-featured, weary man; a spare little man, with a greenish-black coat and bluish-white low collar; a perfunctory, listless man with an unpleasant voice; a man with the social code of the Benbows and Auntie Hamps; a man the lines of whose face disclosed a narrow and self-satisfied ignorance; a man whose destiny had forbidden him ever to be natural; the usual sn.o.bbish man, who had heard of the importance and the success and the wealth of Edwin Clayhanger and who kowtowed thereto and was navely impressed thereby, and proud that Edwin Clayhanger had once been his pupil; and withal an average decent fellow.

Edwin rather liked the casual look in Mr. Peartree's eyes that said: "My being here is part of my job. I'm indifferent. I do what I have to do, and I really don't care. I have paid tens of thousands of calls and I shall pay tens of thousands more. If I am bored I am paid to be bored, and I repeat I really don't care." This was the human side of Mr.

Peartree showing itself. It endeared him to Edwin.

"Not a bad sort of cuss, after all!" thought Edwin.

All the carefully tended rage and animosity of twenty years evaporated out of his heart and was gone. He did not forgive Mr. Peartree, because there was no Mr. Peartree--there was only this man. And there was no Wesleyan chapel either, but only an ugly forlorn three-quarters-empty building at the top of Duck Bank. And Edwin was no longer an apologetic rebel, nor even any kind of a rebel. It occurred to n.o.body, not even to the mighty Edwin, that in those few seconds the history of dogmatic religion had pa.s.sed definitely out of one stage into another.

Abel Peartree nonchalantly, and with a practised aplomb which was not disturbed even by the vision of George's heroic stallion, said the proper things to Edwin and Hilda; and it became known, somehow, that the parson was re-visiting Bursley in order to deliver his well-known lecture ent.i.tled "The Mantle and Mission of Elijah,"--the sole lecture of his repertoire, but it had served to raise him ever so slightly out of the ruck of 'Supers.' Hilda patronised him. Against the rich background of her home, she a.s.sumed the pose of the grand lady. Abel Peartree seemed to like the pose, and grew momentarily vivacious in knightly response. "And why not?" said Edwin to himself, justifying his wife after being a little critical of her curtness.

Then, when the conversation fell, Auntie Hamps discreetly suggested that she and the girls should "go upstairs." The negligent Hilda had inexcusably forgotten in her nervous excitement that on these occasions arriving ladies should be at once escorted to the specially-t.i.tivated best bedroom, there to lay their things on the best counterpane. She perhaps ought to have atoned for her negligence by herself leading Auntie Hamps to the bedroom. But instead she deputed Ada. "And why not?" said Edwin to himself again. As the ladies mounted Mr. Peartree laughed genuinely at one of Albert Benbow's characteristic pleasantries, which always engloomed Edwin. "Kindred spirits, those two!" thought the superior sardonic Edwin, and privately raised his eyebrows to his wife, who answered the signal.

II

Somewhat later, various other guests having come and distributed themselves over the reception-rooms, the chandeliers glinted down their rays upon light summer frocks and some jewellery and coats of black and dark grey and blue; and the best counterpanes in the best bedroom were completely hidden by mantles and cloaks, and the hatstand in the hall heavily cl.u.s.tered with hats and caps. The reception was in being, and the interior full of animation. Edwin, watchful and hospitably anxious, wandered out of the drawing-room into the hall. The door of the breakfast-room was ajar, and he could hear Clara's voice behind it. He knew that the Benbows and Maggie and Auntie Hamps were all in the breakfast-room, and he blamed chiefly Clara for this provincial clannishness, which was so characteristic of her. Surely Auntie Hamps at any rate ought to have realised that the duty of members of the family was to spread themselves among the other guests!

He listened.

"No," Clara was saying, "we don't know what's happened to him since he came out of prison. He got two years." She was speaking in what Edwin called her 'scandal' tones, low, clipped, intimate, eager, blissful.

And then Albert Benbow's voice:

"He's had the good sense not to bother us."

Edwin, while resenting the conversation, and the Benbows' use of "we"

and "us" in a matter which did not concern them, was grimly comforted by the thought of their ignorance of a detail which would have interested them pa.s.sionately. None but Hilda and himself knew that the bigamist was at that moment in prison again for another and a later offence.

Everything had been told but that.

"Of course," said Clara, "they needn't have said anything about the bigamy at all, and n.o.body outside the family need have known that poor Hilda was not just an ordinary widow. But we all thought--"

"I don't know so much about that, Clary," Albert Benbow interrupted his wife; "you mustn't forget his real wife came to Turnhill to make enquiries. That started a hare."

"Well, you know what I mean," said Clara vaguely.

Mr. Peartree's voice came in:

"But surely the case was in the papers?"

"I expect it was in the Suss.e.x papers," Albert replied. "You see, they went through the ceremony of marriage at Lewes. But it never got into the local rag, because he got married in his real name--Cannon wasn't his real name; and he'd no address in the Five Towns, then. He was just a boarding-house keeper at Brighton. It was a miracle it didn't get into the _Signal_, if you ask me; but it didn't. I happen to know"--his voice grew important--"that the _Signal_ people have an arrangement with the Press a.s.sociation for a full report of all matrimonial cases that 'ud be likely to interest the district. However, the Press a.s.sociation weren't quite on the spot that time. And it's not surprising they weren't, either."

Clara resumed:

"No. It never came out. Still, as I say, we all thought it best not to conceal anything. Albert strongly advised Edwin not to attempt any such thing." ("What awful rot!" thought Edwin.) "So we just mentioned it quietly like to a few friends. After all, poor Hilda was perfectly innocent. Of course she felt her position keenly when she came to live here after the wedding." ("Did she indeed!" thought Edwin.) "Edwin would have the wedding in London. We did so feel for her." ("Did you indeed!" thought Edwin.) "She wouldn't have an At Home. I knew it was a mistake not to. We all knew. But no, _she would not_. Folks began to talk. They thought it strange she didn't have an At Home like other folks. Many young married women have two At Homes nowadays. So in the end she was persuaded. She fixed it for August because she thought so many people would be away at the seaside. But they aren't--at least not so many as you'd think. Albert says it's owing to the General Election upset. And she wouldn't have it in the afternoon like other folks.

Mrs. Edwin isn't like other folks, and you can't alter her."

"What's the matter with the evening for an At Home, anyhow?" asked Benbow the breezy and consciously broad-minded.

"Oh, of course, _I_ quite agree. I like it. But folks are so funny."

After a momentary pause, Mr. Peartree said uncertainly:

"And there's a little boy?"

Said Clara:

"Yes, the one you've seen."

Said Auntie Hamps:

"Poor little thing! I do feel so sorry for him--when he grows up--"

"You needn't, Auntie," said Maggie curtly, expressing her att.i.tude to George in that mild curtness.

"Of course," said Clara quickly. "We never let it make any difference.

In fact our Bert and he are rather friends, aren't they, Albert?"

At this moment George himself opened the door of the dining-room, letting out a faint buzz of talk and clink of vessels. His mouth was not empty.

Precipitately Edwin plunged into the breakfast-room.

"h.e.l.lo! You people!" he murmured. "Well, Mr. Peartree."

There they were--all of them, including the parson--grouped together, lusciously bathing in the fluid of scandal.

Clara turned, and without the least constraint said sweetly:

"Oh, Edwin! There you are! I was just telling Mr. Peartree about you and Hilda, you know. We thought it would be better."

"You see," said Auntie Hamps impressively, "Mr. Peartree will be about the town to-morrow, and a word from him--"

Mr. Peartree tried unsuccessfully to look as if he was n.o.body in particular.

"That's all right," said Edwin. "Perhaps the door might as well be shut." He thought, as many a man has thought: "My relations take the cake!"