One merit the place had in summer, it was cool, and when the barouche that was the envy of Hornham drove up at Malakoff gates, Miss Pritchett rushed into the drawing-room, and, sinking into an arm-chair of purple plush, fanned a red and angry face with her handkerchief.
The companion followed her meekly.
"Wait there, Miss Davies," said the spinster sharply; "stand there for a moment, please, till I can get my breath."
Miss Davies remained standing before her patroness in meek obedience. After a minute or two, Miss Pritchett motioned with her hand towards an adjacent chair. Gussie Davies sat down.
It was part of the spinster's life to subject her companion to a kind of drill in this way. The unfortunate girl's movements were regulated mathematically, and in her more genial and expansive moments Miss Pritchett would explain that her "nerves" required that this should be so – that she should have absolute control over the movements of any one who was in the room with her.
There had been spirited contests between Miss Pritchett and a long succession of girls who had refused to play the part of automaton, but in Gussie Davies, the lady had found a willing slave. She paid her well, and in return was served with diligence and thorough obsequiousness. Gussie was adroit, more adroit than her somewhat lymphatic appearance would have led the casual observer to suppose. Properly trained, she might almost have made a psychologist, but her opportunities had been limited. However, for several years, she had directed a sharp brain to the study of one person, and she knew Miss Pritchett as Mr. Sponge knew his Mogg. Her influence with that lady was enormous, the more so in that it was not at all suspected by the object, who imagined that the girl was hers, body and soul. But, nevertheless, Miss Davies, who hailed from Wales and had a large share of the true Cymric cunning, could play upon her mistress with sure fingers, and, while submitting to every form of petty tyranny, and occasionally open insult, she ruled the foolish woman she was with.
Gussie sat down. Miss Pritchett did not speak at once, and the girl judged, correctly enough, that she was meant to open the ball.
"O Miss Pritchett!" she said with a little shudder, "what a relief it must be to you to be back in your own mansion!"
Nothing pleased the spinster more than the word mansion as applied to her house. Gussie used the term with discretion, employing it only on special occasions, unwilling to be prodigal of so sure a card.
"You may well say that, child," Miss Pritchett answered faintly.
"Now you must let me ring for a glass of port for you," the young lady continued. "You need it, indeed you do. I'll take the responsibility on myself."
She rose and rang the bell. "Two glasses," said Miss Pritchett when the answering maid had received her order. "You shall have a glass, Gussie, for I feel I am to blame in taking you to such a place. I have seen the world, and I have met women of that class before, I am sorry to say. But hitherto I have managed to shield you from such contamination."
Gussie sighed the sigh of innocence, a sigh which the young men with whom she larked about in Alexandra Gardens never heard.
"I wish I had your knowledge of the world," she said. "But, of course, I've never mixed in society, not like you."
The port arrived and in a minute or two the experienced damsel saw that her patroness was settling down for a long and confidential chat. The moment promised a golden opportunity, of which she meant to take advantage if she possibly could. She had a big scheme in hand; she was primed with it by minds more subtle than her own. The image of Sam Hamlyn was before her and she burned to deserve that gentleman's commendation.
"Yes," said Miss Pritchett, "as a girl, when I used to go to the Lord Mayor's balls at the Mansion House with papa and mamma, I saw what society really was. And it's worse now! That abandoned hussy at the vicarage is an example of what I mean. I must not go into details before you, child, but I know what I know!"
"How awful, Miss Pritchett! I saw her making eyes at all the gentlemen before you went up to her."
"All's fish that comes to the net of such," replied Miss Pritchett. "An earl's toy, the giddy bubble floating on the open sewer of a London season, or the sly allurer of an honest young city gentleman. Anything in trousers, child, is like herrings to a cat!"
"How awful! Miss Pritchett," repeated Gussie, wondering what it would be like to be an earl's toy, and rather thinking she would enjoy it. "I suppose you'll go to the vicarage just as usual, though, – on parish business, I mean."
This, as the girl expected, provoked a storm, which she patiently endured, certain that she was in a way to gain her ends. At length, the flow of voluble and angry words grew less. Miss Pritchett was enjoying herself too much to risk the girl's non-compliance with her mood.
"There, there," she said eventually, "it's only your ignorance I know, Gussie, but you do aggravate me. You don't understand society. Never shall I set foot in that man's house again!"
Gussie gasped. Her face expressed fervent admiration at such a daring resolve, but slight incredulity as well.
The bait took again. "Never, as I'm a living lady!" said Miss Pritchett, "and I don't know as I shall ever drive up to the church doors in my carriage on a Sunday morning more! Opinions may change. I may have been – I don't say I have been, yet, mind you – I may have been led away by the false glitter of Roman doctrine and goings on."
The idea seemed to please the lady. She saw herself picturesque in such a situation.
Gussie started suddenly.
"What's the matter, child?" she was asked tartly; "do you think no one's got any nerves? Keep still, do!"
"I'm very sorry, Miss Pritchett, but when you said that, I remembered something I was reading last night in the Hornham Observer."
"I was keeping it for Sunday afternoon," said Miss Pritchett. "I did mean to go to morning service and then read Mr. Hamlyn's side of last Sunday's proceedings at home, comfortable like. But what's in the paper?"
"A great deal that will interest you, dear Miss Pritchett, though I do not know if you will be pleased."
"Pleased? What do you mean?"
"Your name is mentioned several times."
"Is it, indeed! We'll soon see about that! Fetch the paper at once and read what it says. If Mr. Hamlyn's been foolish enough to talk about his betters, I'll very soon have him turned neck and crop out of the place. He's a man I've never spoken to more than twice, and he must be taught his place in Hornham."
Gussie went out to fetch the paper. She smiled triumphantly as she came into the hall. All was going well and, moreover, her quick ear had caught the slight trace of wavering and alarm in the concluding words of her mistress. Miss Pritchett, like many other people, was never able to rid herself of a superstitious reverence for print. She devoutly believed the cheap romances that formed her literary food, and even a small local newspaper was not without a strong influence on one whose whole sympathies and interests were local.
Gussie came back with the paper. "There's two whole pages about the St. Elwyn's business," she said, "column after column, with great big letters at the top. Shall I begin at the beginning?"
"No, no; read the bits about me, of course. Read what it was that made you jump like a cat in an oven just now."
"That particular bit did not mention your name, Miss Pritchett, but it chimed in so with what you said just now. I wonder if I can find it? – ah, here it is —
"'And so I think I have accounted for the reason of the popularity of such services as go on at St. Elwyn's among the poorer classes. A wealthy clergyman can buy attendance at any idolatry, and who would blame a starving brother, desperate for food, perhaps, for attendance at a mummery which is nothing to him but the price of a much-needed meal? Not I. Tolerance has ever been the watch-word of the Observer, and, however much I may regret that even the poorest man may be forced to witness the blasphemous and hideous mockery of Truth that takes place at St. Elwyn's, I blame not the man, but the cunning of a priesthood that buys his attendance and then points to him as a convert to thinly veiled Romanism.'"
Gussie stopped for a moment to take breath. Miss Pritchett's face was composed to pleasure. This was hot and strong indeed! She wondered how Father Blantyre liked this!
Worthy Mr. Hamlyn, indeed, had heard of the little incident of the navvy and Father King, and knew that the erstwhile antagonist was now housed in the vicarage. Hence the preceding paragraph. Gussie went on:
"'But what shall we say when we find rank and fashion, acute intelligence and honoured names bowing down in the House of Rimmon? How shall we in Hornham regard such a strange and – so it seems to us – unnatural state of affairs?
"'The Scarlet Woman is powerful indeed! It would be idle to attempt to deny it. The drowsy magic of Rome has permeated with its subtle influence homes where we should have hoped it would never enter. And why is this? I think we can understand the reason in some measure. Let us take an imaginary case. Let us suppose that there is among us a woman of high station, of intellect, wealth, and charm. She sees a struggling priesthood establish itself in a Protestant neighbourhood. The sympathy that woman will ever have for the weak is enlisted; she visits a church, not realising what its sham and ceremony leads to, under what Malign Influence it is carried on. And then a gracious nature is attracted by the cunning amenities of worship. The music, the lights, the flowers, the gorgeous robes, appeal to a high and delicate nature. For a time, it passes under the sway of an arrogant priesthood, and, with that sweet submission which is one of the most alluring of feminine charms, bows before a Baal which it does not realise, a golden calf that it would abhor and repudiate were it not blinded by its own charity and unsuspicious trust! Have I drawn a picture that is too strong? I think not. It is only by analogy that we can best present the Truth.
"'Nevertheless we do not hesitate to assert, and assert with absolute conviction, that, if such a clouding of a fine nature were temporarily possible, it would be but transient. Truth will prevail. In the end, we shall see all those who are now the puppets and subjects of a Romanising attempt come back to the clear sunlight of Protestantism, away from the stink-pots and candles, the toys of ritual, the poison of a painted lie.'"
Gussie read the paragraphs with unction. She read them rather well. As she made an end, her guilty conscience gave her a fear that the unusual emphasis might have awakened some suspicion in Miss Pritchett's mind. But with great relief she saw that it was not so. That lady was manifestly excited. Her eyes were bright and there was a high flush on the cheek-bones. Truth to tell, Miss Pritchett had always suspected that there were depths of hidden gold in her nature. But they had never been so vividly revealed to her before.
"Give me the paper," she said in a tremulous voice; "let me read it for myself!"
Her unguarded words showed Miss Davies how completely the fortress was undermined. The spinster read the words through her glasses and then handed the paper back to her companion.
"The man that wrote that," she said, "is a good and sincere man. He knows how the kind heart can be imposed upon and deceived! I shall take an early opportunity of meeting Mr. Hamlyn. He will be a great man some day, if I am any judge."
"He must have had his eye on the Malakoff," Gussie said. "Why, dear Miss Pritchett, he has described you to a T. There is no one else in Hornham to whom it could apply."
"Hush, child! It may be as you say. This worthy man may have been casting his eye over the parish and thought that he saw in me something of which he writes. It is not for me to deny it. I can only say that in his zeal he has much exaggerated the humble merits of one who, whatever her faults, has merely tried to do her duty in the station to which she has been called. And if Providence has placed that station high, it is Providence's will, and we must not complain!"
"How beautifully you put it, Miss Pritchett!"
The chatelaine of Malakoff wiped a tear from her eye. The excitement of the afternoon, the glass of port, the periods of Mr. Hamlyn's prose, had all acted upon nerves pampered by indulgence and tightened with self-irritation.
"I believe you care for me, child," said Miss Pritchett with a sob.
"How it rejoices me to hear you say so, Miss Pritchett," Gussie replied, seeing that her opportunity had now come. "But your generous nature gives way too easily. You are unstrung by the wanton insults of that woman! Let me read you the concluding portion of Mr. Hamlyn's article. It may soothe you."
"Read it," murmured the spinster, now lost in an ecstasy of luxurious grief, though she would have been puzzled to give a reason for it.
Gussie took up the paper once more. Now that her battle was so nearly won, she allowed herself more freedom in the reading. The Celtic love of drama stirred within her and she gave the pompous balderdash ore rotundo.
"'And in conclusion, what is our crying need in England to-day? It is this: It is the establishment of a great crusade for the crushing of the disguised Popery in our midst. One protest has been made in Hornham, protests should be made all over England. A mighty organisation should be called into existence which should make every "priest" tremble in his cope and cassock, tremble for the avalanche of public reprobation which will descend upon him and his.
"'I may be a visionary and no such idea as I have in my mind may be possible. But I think not. Who can say that our borough of Hornham may not become famous in history as the spot in which the second Reformation was born!
"'Much needs to be done before such a glorious movement can be inaugurated; that it will be inaugurated a band of earnest and determined men and women live in the liveliest hope.
"'I am confident that a movement having its seed in the borough, if widely published and made known to patriotic English people, would be supported with swift and overwhelming generosity by the country at large. The public response would appal the Ritualists and even astonish loyal sons of the Church of England. But, in order to start this crusade, help is required. Some noble soul must come forward to start the machine, to raise the Protestant Flag.
"'Where shall we find him or her? Is there no one in our midst willing to become the patron of Truth and to earn the praise of thousands and a place in history?
"'Once Joan of Arc led the forces of her country to victory. A Charlotte Corday slew the monster Marat, a Boadicea hurled herself against the legions of Rome! Who will be our Boadicea to-day, who will come forward to crush the tyranny of Rome in our own England? For such a noble lady, who will revive in her own person the undying deeds of antiquity, I can promise a fame worth more than all the laurels of the old British queen, the heartfelt thanks and love of her countrymen, and above all of her country-women – over whose more kindly and unsuspicious natures the deadly Upas-tree of Romanism has cast its poisonous shade. Where is the Jael who will destroy this Sisera?'"
Miss Davies ceased. Her voice sank. No sound was heard but the snuffle that came from the plush arm-chair opposite, where Miss Pritchett was audibly weeping. Mr. Hamlyn's purple prose had been skilfully introduced at the psychological moment. The woman's ill-balanced temperament was awry and smarting. Her egregious vanity was wounded as it had rarely been wounded before. She had been treated as of no account, and she was burning with spite and the longing for revenge.
Gussie said nothing more. She let the words of the newspaper do their work without assistance.
Presently Miss Pritchett looked up. She wiped her eyes and a grim expression of determination came out upon her face.
"I see it all!" she said suddenly. "My trusting nature has been terribly deceived; I have been led into error by evil counsellors; the power of the Jesuits has been secretly brought to bear upon one who, whatever her failings, has scorned suspicion!"
"Oh, Miss Pritchett, how awful!" said Gussie.
"Yes," continued the lady with a delighted shudder, "the net has been thrown over me and I was nigh to perish. But Providence intervenes! I see how I am to be the 'umble instrument of crushing error in the Church. I shall step into the breach!"
"Oh, Miss Pritchett, how noble!"
"Miss Davies, you will kindly put on your jacket and walk round to Mr. Hamlyn's house. See Mr. Hamlyn and tell him that Miss Pritchett is too agitated by recent events to write personally, but she begs he will favour her with his company at supper to discuss matters of great public importance. Tell Jones to send up some sweetbreads at once, and inform cook as a gentleman will be here to supper, and to serve the cold salmon."
Gussie rose quickly. "Oh, Miss Pritchett," she cried, "what a great day for England this will be!"
CHAPTER VII
THE OFFICES OF THE "LUTHER LEAGUE" – AN INTERIOR
On the first floor of a building in the Strand, wedged in between a little theatre and a famous restaurant, the offices of the "Luther League" were established, and by late autumn were in the full swing of their activity.
Visitors to this stronghold of Protestantism mounted a short flight of stairs and arrived in a wide passage. Four or five doors opening into it all bore the name of the association in large letters of white enamel. The first door bore the legend:
"PUBLISHING AND GENERAL OFFICE INQUIRIES"This room, the one by which the general public were admitted to the inner sanctuaries, was a large place fitted up with desks and glass compartments in much the same way as the ordinary clerks' office of a business house. A long counter divided the room, and upon it were stacked piles of the newly published pamphlet literature of the League. Here could be seen that stirring narrative, Cowed by the Confessional; or, The Story of an English Girl in the Power of the "Priests." This publication, probably the cheapest piece of pornography in print at the moment, was published, with an illustration, at three pence. Upon the cover a priest – for some unexplained reason in full eucharistic vestments – was pointing sternly to the armour-plated door of a grim confessional, while a trembling lady in a large picture hat shrunk within.
This little book was flanked by what appeared to be a semi-jocular work called Who Said Reredos? and bore upon its cover the already distinguished name of Samuel Hamlyn, Jr. The eye fell upon that popular pamphlet in a wrapper of vivid scarlet – now in its sixtieth thousand – known as Bow to the "Altar" and Light Bloody Mary's Torture Fires Again.
As Soon Pay the Devil as the Priest lay by the side of a more elaborately bound volume on which was the portrait of a lady. Beneath the picture appeared the words of the title, My Escape; or, How I Became a Protestant, by Jane Pritchett.
Two clerks wrote in the ledgers on the desks, attended to visitors, and looked after what was known in the office as the "counter trade" – to distinguish it from the sale of Protestant literature in bulk, which was managed direct from the "Luther League Printing Works, Hornham, N."
A second room opening into the general office was tenanted by the assistant secretary of the League, Mr. Samuel Hamlyn, Junior. Here the walls were decorated with scourges, horribly knotted and thonged; "Disciplines," which were belts and armlets of sharp iron prickles, designed to wear the skin of the toughest Ritualist into an open sore after three days' wear. There were also two hair shirts, apparently the worse for wear, and a locked bookcase of Ritualistic literature with a little index expurgatorius in the neat, clerkly writing of Sam Hamlyn, and compiled by that gentleman himself.
In this chamber of horrors, the assistant secretary delighted to move and have his being, and three or four times a day it was his pleasing duty to show friends of the League and its yearly subscribers, the penitential machinery by which the priest-ridden public was secretly invited to hoist itself to heaven.
The innermost room of all was where Mr. Hamlyn, Senior, himself transacted the multifarious and growing business of his organisation. The secretary sat at a large roll-top desk, and a substantial safe stood at his right hand. An air of brisk business pervaded this sanctum. The directories, almanacs, and account-books all contributed to it, and the end of a speaking-tube, which led to the outer office, was clipped to the arm of the revolving chair.
Three portraits adorned the wall. From a massive gold frame the features of that fiery Protestant virgin, Miss Pritchett, stared blandly down into the room. Opposite it was a large photograph of Mr. Hamlyn himself, with upraised hand and parted lips – in the very act and attitude of making one of his now familiar protests. The third in this trio of Protestant champions was a drawing of Martin Luther himself, "representing the Reformer," as Mr. Hamlyn was wont to say, "singing for joy at the waning power of Rome." The artist of this picture, however, being a young gentleman of convivial tastes, had portrayed the "Nightingale of Wittemberg" in a merry mood, remembering, perhaps, Carlyle's remark, "there is laughter in this Luther," or perhaps – as is indeed most probable – remembering little of the great man but his authorship of the ditty that concludes:
Who loves not women, wine, and songWill be a fool his whole life long.Fortunately, Mr. Hamlyn, whose historical studies had been extremely restricted, did not know of this effort – just as he did not know that to the end of his life the student of Erfurt steadily proclaimed his belief in the Real Presence in the Eucharist.
About ten o'clock on a grey, cold November morning, the two Hamlyns arrived at the offices of the Luther League together, walked briskly up the stairs, and, with a curt "good morning" to the clerks, entered the innermost room together.
People who had known the father and son six months ago, seeing them now, would have found a marked, though subtle, difference in both of them.
They were much better dressed, for one thing. The frock-coats were not made in Hornham, the silk hats were glossy and with the curly brims of the fashion. Both still suggested a more than nodding acquaintance with religious affairs in their costume, some forms of Christianity always preferring to evince themselves by the style of a cravat or the texture of a cloth.
Confidence had never been lacking in either of the two, but now the sense of power and success had increased it, and had also imposed a certain quietness and gravity which impressed people. Here, at any rate, were two men of affairs, men whose names were beginning to be known throughout the land, and Mr. Hamlyn's manner of preoccupation and thought was only natural after all in one who (as his son would remark to Protestant visitors) "practically held the fortunes of the Church in his hands, and was destroying the Catholic wolves with the sword of Protestant Truth."
The two men took off their overcoats and hung them up. Then Mr. Hamlyn, from mere force of old habit, pulled at his cuffs – in order to lay them aside during business hours. Finding that he could not withdraw them, for increasing position and emolument had seemed to necessitate the wearing of a white shirt, he sat down with a half sigh for the freedom and comfort of an earlier day and began to open the large pile of correspondence on the table before him.
"We'll take the cash first, Sam," he said, pulling a small paper-knife from a drawer.
Sam opened a note-book in which the first rough draughts of matter relating to this most important subject were entered, preparatory to being copied out into one of the ledgers in the outer office.
Hamlyn began to slit up the letters with a practised hand. Those that contained the sinews of war he read with a running comment, others were placed in a basket for further consideration.
"'Well-wisher,' five shillings; 'Well-wisher,' £2 0 0, by cheque, Sam. 'Ethel and her sisters,' ten and six – small family that, I should think! 'Protestant,' five pounds – a note, Sam, take the number. It's curious that 'Protestant' always gives most. Yesterday seven 'Protestants' totalled up to fourteen, twelve, six, while five 'Well-wishers' worked out at slightly under three shillings a head. What's this? Ah! cheque for a guinea and a letter on crested paper! Enter up the address and make a note to send half a dozen Bloody Marys, one Miss Pritchett's Escape, and a few Pay the Devils. During the last week or two, the upper classes have been rallying to the flag. They're the people. I'll send this woman the ten-guinea subscription form and ask her to be one of the vice-presidents. Listen here:
