She loved sometimes to tantalize and trouble him by relating incidents which brought herself and her American fiancé into close association in his mind. She would wistfully confide to him, for example, how sometimes she grew weary of love-making, begging him to tell her whether, after all, she were wise in risking the adventure of marriage.
By these arts, and others that it were tedious to enumerate, the girl gradually reduced the unfortunate clergyman to a condition of abject slavery. The worst of it was that, though his release from her constant presence was rapidly approaching — with the near date of the ceremonies for which he was preparing her — instead of being able to rejoice in this, he found himself dreading it with every nerve of his harassed senses.
Clavering had felt himself compelled, on more than one occasion, to allude to the project of Lacrima’s marriage, but his knowledge of the Italian’s character was so slight that Gladys had little difficulty in making him believe, or at least persuade himself he believed, that no undue pressure was being put upon her.
It was of Lacrima that he suddenly found himself thinking as, hustled and squeezed between two obstreperous factory-girls, he watched the serene and self-possessed Luke enjoying with detached amusement the vivid confusion round him. The fantastic idea came into his head, that in some sort of way Luke was responsible for those sinister rumours regarding the Italian’s position in Nevilton, which had thrust themselves upon his ears as he moved to and fro among the villagers.
He had learnt of the elder Andersen’s recovery from Mrs. Fringe, but even that wise lady had not been able to associate this event with the serious illness of Ninsy Lintot, to whose bed-side the young clergyman had been summoned more than once during the last week.
Clavering felt an impulse of unmitigated hatred for the equable stone-carver as he watched him bandying jests with this or the other person in the crowd, and yet so obviously holding himself apart from it all, and regarding the whole scene as if it only existed for his amusement.
A sudden rush of some extreme partisans of the popular cause, making a furious attempt to overpower the persistent taunts of a group of young farmers who stood above them on a raised portion of the pavement, drove a wedge of struggling humanity into the midst of the crowd who surrounded the irritable priest. Clavering was pushed, in spite of his efforts to extricate himself, nearer and nearer to his detested rival, and at last, in the most grotesque and annoying manner possible, he found himself driven point-blank into the stone-carver’s very arms. Luke smiled, with what seemed to the heated and flustered priest the last limit of deliberate impertinence.
But there was no help for it. Clavering was forced to accept his preferred hand, and return, with a measure of courtesy, his nonchalant greeting. Squeezed close together — for the crowd had concentrated itself now into an immoveable mass — the fortunate and the unfortunate lover of Gladys Romer listened, side by side, to the deafening shouts, which, first from one party and then from the other, heralded the appearance of the opposing candidates upon the balcony above.
“I really hardly know,” said Luke, in a loud whisper, “which side you are on. I suppose on the Conservative? These radicals are all Nonconformists, and only waiting for a chance of pulling the Church down.”
“Thank you,” retorted the priest raising his voice so as to contend against the hubbub about them. “I happen to be a radical myself. My own hope is that the Church will be pulled down. The Church I believe in cannot be touched. Its foundations are too deep.”
“Three cheers for Romer and the Empire!” roared a voice behind them.
“Wone and the People! Wone and the working-man!” vociferated another.
“You’ll be holding your confirmation soon, I understand,” murmured Luke in his companion’s ear, as a swaying movement in the crowd squeezed them even more closely together.
Hugh Clavering realized for the first time in his life what murderers feel the second before they strike their blow. He could have willingly planted his heel at that moment upon the stone-carver’s face. Surely the man was intentionally provoking him. He must know — he could not help knowing — the agitation in his nerves.
“Romer and Order! Romer and Sound Finance!” roared one portion of the mob.
“Wone and Liberty! Wone and Justice!” yelled the opposing section.
“I love a scene like this,” whispered Luke. “Doesn’t it make you beautifully aware of the contemptible littleness of the human race?”
“I am not only a radical,” retorted Clavering, “but I happen also to be a human being, and one who can’t take so airy a view of an occasion of this kind. The enthusiasm of these people doesn’t at all amuse me. I sympathize with it.”
The stone-carver was not abashed by this rebuke. “A matter of taste,” he said, “a matter of taste.” Then, freeing his arm which had got uncomfortably wedged against his side, and pushing back his hat, “I love to associate these outbursts of popular feeling with the movements of the planets. Tonight, you know, one ought to be able to see—”
Clavering could no longer contain himself. “Damn your planets!” he cried, in a tone so loud, that an old lady in their neighbourhood ejaculated, “Hush! hush!” and looked round indignantly.
“I beg your pardon,” muttered the priest, a little ashamed. “What I mean is, I am most seriously concerned about this contest. I pray devoutly Wone will win. It’ll be a genuine triumph for the working classes if he does.”
“Romer and the Empire!” interpolated the thunderous voice behind them.
“I don’t care much for the man himself,” he went on, “but this thing goes beyond personalities.”
“I’m all for Romer myself,” said Luke. “I have the best of reasons for being grateful to him, though he is my employer.”
“What do you mean? What reasons?” cried Clavering sharply, once more beginning to feel the most unchristian hatred for this urbane youth.
“Oh, I’m sure I needn’t tell you that, sir,” responded Luke; “I’m sure you know well enough how much I admire our Nevilton beauty.”
Gladys’ unhappy lover choked with rage. He had never in his life loathed anything so much as he loathed the way Luke’s yellow curls grew on his forehead. His fingers clutched convulsively the palms of his hands. He would like to have seized that crop of hair and beaten the man’s head against the pavement.
“I think it’s abominable,” he cried, “this forcing of Miss Traffio to marry Goring. For a very little, I’d write to the bishop about it and refuse to marry them.”
The causes that led to this unexpected and irrelevant outburst were of profound subtlety. Clavering forgot, in his desire to make his rival responsible for every tragedy in the place, that he had himself resolved to discount, as mere village gossip, all the dark rumours he had heard. The blind anger which plunged him into this particular outcry, sprang, in reality, from the bitterness of his own conscience-stricken misgivings.
“I don’t think you will,” remarked Luke, lowering his voice to a whisper, though the uproar about them rendered such a precaution quite unnecessary. “It is not as a rule a good thing to interfere in these matters. Miss Gladys has told me herself that the whole thing is an invention of Romer’s enemies, probably of this fellow Wone.”
“She’s told me the same story,” burst out the priest, “but how am I to believe her?”