The girl who was drinking rose up with a little start, and stood blushing and embarrassed. Luke appeared entirely at his ease. He leant negligently against the edge of the stone trough, and pushed his hat to the back of his head. In this particular pose he resembled to an extraordinary degree the famous Capitolian statue.
“It is hardly wasting the water, Mr. Clavering,” he said with a smile, “offering it to a beautiful mouth. Why don’t you curtsey to Mr. Clavering, Annie? I thought all you girls curtsied when clergymen spoke to you.”
The priest frowned. The audacious aplomb of the young man unnerved and disconcerted him.
“Water in a stone fountain like this,” went on the shameless youth, “has a peculiar charm these hot evenings. It makes you almost fancy you are in Seville. Seville is a place in Spain, Annie. Mr. Clavering will tell you all about it.”
“I think Annie had better run in to her mother now,” said the priest severely.
“Oh, that’s all right,” replied the youth with unruffled urbanity. “Her mother has gone shopping in Yeoborough and I have to see that Annie behaves properly till she comes back.”
Clavering looked reproachfully at the girl. Something about him — his very inability perhaps to cope with this seductive Dionysus — struck her simple intelligence as pathetic. She made a movement as if to join her companion, who remained roguishly giggling a few paces off. But Luke boldly restrained her. Putting his hand on her shoulder he said laughingly to the priest “She will be a heart-breaker one of these days, Mr. Clavering, will our Annie here! You wouldn’t think she was eighteen, would you, sir?’
Under other circumstances the young clergyman would have unhesitatingly commanded the girl to go home. But his recent experiences had loosened the fibre of his moral courage. Besides, what was there to prevent this incorrigible young man from walking off after her? One could hardly — at least in Protestant England — make one’s flock moral by sheer force.
“Well — good-night to you all,” he said, and moved away, thinking to himself that at any rate there was safety in publicity. “But what a dangerous person that Andersen is! One never knows how to deal with these half-and-half people. If he were a village-boy it would be different. And it would be different if he were a gentleman. But he is neither one thing or the other. Seville! Who would have thought to have heard Seville referred to, in the middle of Nevilton Square?”
He reached the carved entrance of the House with its deeply-cut armorial bearings — the Seldom falcon with the arrow in its beak. “No more will that bird fly,” he thought, as he waited for the door to open.
He was ushered into the spacious entrance hall, the usual place of reception for Mr. Romer’s less favoured guests. The quarry-owner was alone. He shook hands affably with his visitor and motioned him to a seat.
“I have come about that question of the Social Meeting—” he began.
Mr. Romer cut him short. “It is no longer a question,” he said. “It is a ‘fait accompli.’ I have given orders to have the place pulled down next week. I want the space for building purposes.”
Clavering turned white with anger. “We shall have to find another room then,” he said. “I cannot have those meetings dropping out from our village life. They keep the thoughtful people together as nothing else can.”
Mr. Romer smiled grimly. “You will find it difficult to discover another place,” he remarked.
“Then I shall have them in my own house,” said the vicar of Nevilton.
Mr. Romer crossed his hands and threw back his head; looking, with the air of one who watches the development of precisely foreseen events, straight into the sad eyes of the little Royal Servant on the wall.
“Pardon such a question, my friend,” said he, “but may I ask you what your personal income is, at this moment?”
“You know that well enough,” returned the other. “I have nothing beyond the hundred and fifty pounds I receive as vicar of this place.”
“And what,” pursued the Quarry-owner, “may your expenditure amount to?”
“That, also, you know well,” replied Clavering. “I give away about eighty pounds, every year, to the poor of this village.”
“And where does this eighty pounds come from?” went on the Squire. The priest was silent.
“I will tell you where it comes from,” pronounced the other. “It comes from me. It is my contribution, out of the tithes which I receive as lay-rector. And it is the larger part of them.”
The priest was still silent.
“When I first came here,” his interlocutor continued, “I gave up these tithes as an offering to our village necessities; and I have not yet withdrawn them. If this Social Meeting, Mr. Clavering, is not brought to an end, I shall withdraw them. And no one will be able to blame me.”
Hugh jumped up on his feet with a gesture of fury. “I call this,” he shouted, “nothing short of sacrilege! Yes, sacrilege and tyranny! I shall proclaim it abroad. I shall write to the papers. I shall appeal to the bishop — to the country!”
“As you please,” said Mr. Romer quietly, “as you please. I should only like to point out that any action of this kind will tie up my purse-strings forever. You will not be popular with your flock, my friend. I know something of our dear Nevilton people; and I shall have only to make it plain to them that it is their vicar who has reduced this charity; and you will not find yourself greatly loved!”
Clavering fell back into his chair with a groan. He knew too well the truth of the man’s words. He knew also the straits into which this lack of money would plunge half his benevolent activities in the parish. He hung his head gloomily and stared at the floor. What would he not have given, at that moment, to have been able to meet this despot, man to man, unencumbered by his duty to his people!
“Let me assure you, my dear sir,” said Mr. Romer quietly, “that you are not by any means fighting the cause of your church, in supporting this wretched Meeting. If I were bidding you interrupt your services or your sacraments, it would be another matter. This Social Meeting has strong anti-clerical prejudices. You know that, as well as I. It is conducted entirely on noncomformist lines. I happen to be aware,” he added, “since you talk of appealing to the bishop, that the good man has already, on more than one occasion, protested vigorously against the association of his clergy with this kind of organization. I do not know whether you ever glance at that excellent paper the Guardian; but if so you will find, in this last week’s issue, a very interesting case, quite parallel to ours, in which the bishop’s sympathies were by no means on the side you are advocating.”