The Man with a Shadow

“Yes,” said the Duke’s Hampton man; “said it was an accident, old boy – a fall.”

“Hi! Yes. I s’pose it would be,” said Moredock drily. “Squire had a nasty accident before – a fall. Some people do have accidents of that sort.”

“Well,” said the Duke’s Hampton policeman, “we’ve done our duty, and that’s enough for us.”

“Ay,” said Moredock. “You’ve done your dooty, and that’s enough for you.”

They parted, and Moredock chuckled.

“Bats is nothing and moles is telescopes to ’em. Uniforms seems to make constables blind. Well, all the better for me. Hallo! where’s carrier going to-day? Doctor’s, p’raps, with some new stuff.”

The carrier was, however, not going to the doctor’s, but passed on.

“Don’t quite know what to make of him,” muttered Moredock. “That crack o’ the head don’t seem to have healed up, for he looks queer sometimes. I don’t like the look of things, somehow; but we shall see – we shall see. Why don’t Dally come down, too? I wanted to know how things is going there, and she ought to ha’ got that shirt made by now.

“Hi! hi! hi!” the old man laughed. “Make me two noo best shirts o’ fine linen as a man may be proud on. Ill wind as blows nobody any good.”

The old man went chuckling away, as he thought over the two new Sunday shirts he was to have made out of the surplice, which, after unpicking and cutting off edgings, he had washed and dried and handed as so much new material to Dally to make up, long immunity from detection having made him daring enough to trust the linen to the very place that, to an ordinary observer, would have seemed most dangerous.

But the shirts were not made yet, for Dally had declared it to be all bother, and had put the roll of linen in her drawer, inspired by a feeling that gran’fa couldn’t live much longer, and then the linen would do for her.

Oddly enough, as Moredock mused upon the whiteness and coolness of the coming undergarments, the carrier stopped at the Rectory gate, and delivered a parcel, carriage paid by North Midland Railway to King’s Hampton station, but sixpence to pay for the ten miles by cart.

“Dear me!” said Salis, turning over the package, which was evidently a box done up in very stout brown paper. “‘The Reverend Hartley Salis, Duke’s Hampton Rectory, Warwickshire. By N.M. Rail and Thompson, carrier. Carriage paid to King’s Hampton.’ Well, that’s plain enough, Mary.”

“Yes, dear; it’s evidently for you.”

“Yes, evidently for me; eh, Leo?”

“Yes,” said Leo, looking up from her book for a moment, and dropping her eyes again without displaying any further interest.

“It’s very curious,” said Salis, rather excitedly. “‘From Irish and Lawn, robe makers, Southampton Street.’ Why, surely – bless my soul, I never sent. I – ”

He busily cut the string, and opened the paper and the neatly-tied box within, to find, as, after reading the label, he had expected, that the contents consisted of a new surplice of the finest quality with a note pinned thereto, and written within, in a tremulous, disguised hand:

“From an admirer.”

The word “admirer” had been lightly scratched across, and “constant attendant” placed above.

Salis looked at the note, and then at his sister Mary, colouring with excitement as ingenuously as a girl.

“Why, Mary,” he said, “who could have sent this? Do you know?”

Mary shook her head, but her eyes brightened with pleasure, as she felt how gratified her brother would be.

“Did not you and Leo contrive this as a surprise?”

Mary shook her head again, and Leo looked up languidly.

“What is it?” she said. “A present? No,” she added, with a frown, as she saw what it was, and lowered her eyes to her book to read apparently with great interest.

“Then it must be one of North’s tricks,” cried Salis. “It’s very kind and thoughtful of him, but I cannot think of letting him give me such a present as this. Look, Mary, dear. It is his writing disguised, is it not?”

Mary’s hand trembled a little as she took the note and glanced at it, to detect the writer at once from a peculiarity which had not been concealed.

“Well,” cried Salis, “I am right?”

Mary shook her head again.

“No, Hartley, it is certainly not Mr North’s writing.”

“Then, in the name of all that’s wonderful, whose is it? The people would not subscribe for it. Besides, it says ‘from a constant attendant.’ Why, good heavens! it cannot be from – ”

Mary glanced at Leo, who was intent upon her reading, and then looked back at her brother, with a half-mischievous and amused smile, as she nodded her head.

“You think so, too,” he exclaimed, in a whisper. “Oh!”

There was a look of trouble and perplexity in his face that was intensely droll, for, though no name had been mentioned, both had hit upon the donor; and as the trouble deepened in the curate’s face, Mary stretched out her hand to him, and he took it, and sat down by her side.

“It’s impossible,” he whispered. “I could not think of taking it. How could she be so foolish?”

“It seems cruel to call it foolish,” said Mary gently. “The idea was prompted by a very kindly feeling.”

“Of course, of course; but, my dear Mary, it is putting me in a false position.”

“Not if you treat it as an anonymous gift.”

“How can I, when I feel certain that she sent it?”

“But even if you are, I think you might keep it, Hartley. See how common it is for ladies of a congregation to present the curate with slippers or braces.”

“Yes,” said Salis drily; “and all out of gratitude to their spiritual teacher. Bless ’em, they throw their gifts, and the weak man thinks they are bladders to enable him to float lightly along the social current of air, when, lo! and behold, he finds, poor weak, fluttering butterfly, that one of the fair naturalists has stuck a pin through him, right into the cork, and he is ‘set up’ for life.”

“Nonsense, you vain coxcomb!”

“No, my dear Mary, I am not a vain man; but I can generally tell which way the wind blows. I have a certain duty to perform in connection with my two sisters – a sort of paternal rôle to play, and consequently I am rather afraid of Mrs Berens.”

“Hartley, dear!”

“Yes, Mary. This surplice is going to be paid for by H. Salis, clerk in holy orders, ill as he can afford to do it, or it is going back to the donor.”

“But what can she do with it if your idea is correct?”

“Cut it up to make little garments for the poor children, if she likes. Bother the woman: I wish she would go.”

Volume Two – Chapter Twenty One.

Dr North is Startled