The Man with a Shadow

“No; of course you could not, being ill in bed, where you’d better go again. Burglary, my boy. We’re getting on.”

“Burglary?”

“Yes: sacrilegious burglary, sir. One of those King’s Hampton rascals – one of May’s lambs – broke into the vestry last night.”

It was on North’s lips to say furiously, “There, speak out, man! If you know all about this, say so at once;” but the words seemed to halt there, and he only gazed wonderingly as Salis talked on in his easy, good-tempered way.

“Moredock came up to tell me this morning.”

“Moredock?”

“Yes; we were to have had the vestry meeting, you know.”

“Of course: I said I was too ill to come,” said North hoarsely.

“So you are. Well, the old fellow went up to dust and put the place straight, and he found that some one had broken in by the window, and had evidently been interrupted, for my gown was torn down and thrown on the floor, and they had carried off my new surplice.”

“Carried off your surplice!” stammered North.

“Yes,” said the curate, looking at his friend wonderingly, and thinking how ill he seemed. “Nearly new surplice, sir; and I shall have to come round in forma pauperis for subscriptions to get another. You will have to fund up among the rest, if you don’t want to see your poor parson in rags, or sister Mary working her poor little fingers to the bone to keep the old one darned. Ah! here we are.”

The curate uttered a sigh of relief, for he had been chattering away with a purpose – to keep his friend’s attention from his state, for, as he held his arm, he could feel him reel from time to time.

“Thank Heaven!” muttered North, as he staggered in at the gates of the Manor. “Good-bye, Salis, good-bye.”

“Yes, I’ll say good-bye presently, old chap. It’s no use disguising the fact. You’re ill, and ought not to have come out. I shall see you to bed, and you must tell me what to do.”

“No, no; I can manage,” protested North.

But Salis would not go.

“My dear boy, it’s of no use. You know how obstinate I am. I should stop with you if it were small-pox, so just hold your tongue. Hah! Now Mrs Milt, the doctor’s got his turn after laughing at us poor mortals so long. Let’s get him to bed, and you must help me to keep him there.”

“I’m not a bit surprised,” began Mrs Milt, in a vinegary, snappish way; and then the tears started to her eyes, and she caught North’s hand in hers and kissed it. “Oh, my poor, dear master!” she sobbed.

It was all momentary. The spasm passed off, and in a busy, tender, matter-of-fact way, she helped the half-delirious man to bed, when, acting upon a hint or two he gave, the old housekeeper and Salis laid their heads together to prescribe.

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty.

A Parcel by Carrier

Dr Benson drove over daily from King’s Hampton to attend Sir Thomas Candlish, and, to do Dr Benson justice, he made a very good professional job of the injury to the young baronet, both from his own and the ordinary point of view.

Tom Candlish protested, but the doctor was inexorable.

“No, sir,” he said, “injuries like yours require time. Nature must be able to thoroughly mend the damage done. I could have helped her to patch you up – to cobble you, so to speak; but the tender spot would break out again. I must do my work thoroughly.”

“But your drives over here – your bill will be monstrous.”

“Large, but not monstrous, my dear sir,” said Dr Benson, smiling; “and what are a few pounds compared to your valuable life?”

Tom Candlish lay thinking that there was something in this, and that it was far better to pay even a hundred pounds than to have been carried to the Candlish mausoleum, and without paying out North for the injuries he had received.

“How’s North?” he said.

“Oh, very well, I believe. Dr North and I do not meet very often. A clever young man, though – a very clever young man.”

“Humph! Don’t believe in him,” said Tom Candlish. “But he has been very ill.”

“Little touch of sunstroke, or something of that kind, sir. I saw his patients for two days only; then he was about again.”

“Humph!” ejaculated Tom Candlish. “Doctor, I’m low to-day; I must have some champagne.”

“My dear sir! out of the question.”

“Brandy, then!”

“Worse and worse.”

“But I’m sinking. This cursed low feeling is horrible.”

“Well, well!” said the doctor smoothly, as, after a moment’s consideration, he felt that the wine would only throw his patient back for a few days, and give him a longer period for attendance; “perhaps a drop – say, half a glass – would not hurt you, but I would not exceed half a glass; champagne glass, mind. Good morning.”

Dr Benson took his departure, perfectly aware that the young baronet would be exceedingly ill the next morning; and so he was, for Tom Candlish had a medical sanction for taking a little champagne; and the butler produced the bottle – one of many dozens laid in by Squire Luke, who had purchased them through a friend as a special brand.

It was a special brand of paraffin quality, well doctored with Hambro’ spirit; and as, after the first glass, Tom Candlish argued that the rest would be wasted or drunk by the servants, an opened bottle of the effervescent wine being useless if not utilised at once, he, in spite of the protestations of the butler, finished the bottle, and threw himself back for another week.

At the Rectory, matters had settled down somewhat, the hours gliding by without any discovery being made; and, after the first excitement and dread, Leo began to feel that she would soon be able to resume her meetings with her lover.

North had ceased to call at the Rectory, and they had not yet come face to face. But this troubled Leo less and less. As the days had passed on, and the éclaircissement had halted, so had her strength of mind and feeling of defiance increased.

“He dare not face me after his brutal treatment of poor Tom,” she had said; “and he knows the contempt in which I hold him. He cannot be so pitiful as to tell Hartley, intimate as he and my brother are. I have nothing to fear.”

She feared, though, all the same, though she did not know from whence the stroke she anticipated would fall. Dally was extremely pert, but then she always had been. She could know nothing; and in a defiant spirit, Leo settled herself down in a fool’s paradise, eagerly waiting for the recovery of the squire.

The one policeman from King’s Hampton had been over and discoursed with the one policeman of Duke’s Hampton re the sacrilege at the church, and they had taken into their counsel the one policeman stationed at Chidley Beauwells, a village five miles away, but they had made nothing out of that. There was the attack, though, upon the squire, which seemed very promising, and the trio waited upon him as soon as he was pronounced well enough to be seen.

The injury must have had an acerbating effect upon Tom Candlish, for, to use the constables’ words, they came down out of the bedroom with fleas in their ears; and after having a horn of ale apiece, went back to the village.

Their way was by the churchyard, where Moredock was sunning himself by leaning over the wall, so that the heat could play well upon his back, and he entered into conversation with the three myrmidons of the law in a questioning spirit.

“Wouldn’t give you any information, would he?”

“No,” said he of King’s Hampton. “Told us to go to – you know.”

“No, I don’t,” said Moredock grimly, as if the allusion to this knowledge at his time of life was unsavoury. “But why wouldn’t he tell you? Don’t he want who it was caught?”

“Said it was nothing of the kind,” said he of Chidley Beauwells.