Thorne Guy
A Lost Cause

Miss Pritchett came up to Lucy, and Father Blantyre introduced her. Then, with an apologetic murmur, he hurried away to another part of the garden.

"Won't you sit down?" Lucy said, looking at the chair that had been left vacant by her late companion.

"Thank you, Miss Blantyre, but I've been sitting in my carriage. I should prefer to stand, if it's the same to you," said Miss Pritchett.

Lucy rose. "Perhaps you would like to walk round the grounds?" she asked.

"Probably I know the grounds better than you," the elder woman answered with a patronage which was bordering on the purely ludicrous. "This residence was one of my dear father's houses, as were many of the Hornham houses. When the vicar acquired the property, the brewery trustees sold it to him, though I think it far from suitable for a parish clergyman."

"Well, yes," Lucy answered. "It certainly is a dingy, gloomy old place, but what else can you expect down here?"

Miss Pritchett flushed and tossed her head till the aigrette in her smart little bonnet shook like a leaf.

"One is liable to be misunderstood," she said. "Your brother's small private means enable him to live in a house which the next vicar or any ordinary clergyman could hardly hope for."

"It is very good of Bernard to come down here and spend his life in such an impossible place," Lucy said. She was thoroughly angry now and quite determined to give the woman a lesson. Her impertinence was insufferable. To hear this creature speak of Bernard's income of three thousand a year – every penny of which he gave away or spent for good – in this way was unendurable.

Miss Pritchett grew redder than ever. She was utterly incapable of bearing rebuff or contradiction. Her local eminence was unquestioned. She had never moved from Hornham, where her wealth and large interests secured for her that slavish subserviency that a vain and petty spirit loves. For months past, she had been gradually gathering up cause for quarrel and bitterness with the clergy of St. Elwyn's. She had found that once within the portals of the church she was just as anyone else. She could not lord it over the priests as she wished to do. For once, she was beginning to find that her money was powerless, there was no "high seat in the synagogue" that it could buy.

"The place has been good enough for me," she said angrily, never doubting that this was final.

"Ah, yes," Lucy answered. "That, Miss Pritchett, I can quite understand." The Hornham celebrity was a stupid woman. Her brain was as empty as a hen's, and she was not adroit enough to seize upon the real meaning of this remark. She had an uneasy suspicion that it was offensive, and that was all.

"What you may mean by 'impossible' I am not aware," she continued. "I speak plain English myself. But those that don't know of a place didn't ought to speak unfavourable of it. As for your brother, I've always said that he was a worthy person and acted as well as he might, until late months, when I've felt it my duty to say a word or two in season as to some of the church matters."

"I hope he profited, Miss Pritchett."

"I fear that he did not receive my words as he should, coming from a lady of standing in the place – and him only here three years. I'm beginning to think that there's something in the popular agitation. Upon my word! Priests do take a good deal on themselves nowadays. It wouldn't have been allowed when I was a girl."

"Things have altered very much for the better during the last fifty years," Lucy said pointedly.

This the lady did immediately apprehend. She lifted the lorgnette and stared at her companion in speechless anger. The movement was meant to be crushing. It was thus, Miss Pritchett knew from her reading, that women of the aristocracy crushed inferiors.

It was too much for Lucy. She endeavoured to control her feelings, but they were irresistible. She had not seen anything so funny as this vulgar and pompous old thing for years. A smile broadened out upon her face, and then, without further ado, she burst out into peal after peal of laughter.

The flush on Miss Pritchett's face died away. It grew perfectly white with passion.

She turned round. Her companion had been walking some three yards behind them in a listless and dejected fashion, looking with greedy eyes at the allurements on every side, and answering the furtive greetings of various male friends with a pantomime, expressive of contempt, irritation, and hopeless bondage in equal parts.

Miss Pritchett stepped up to her, and caught hold of her arm. Her fingers went so deep into the flesh that the girl gasped and gave a half-smothered cry.

"Take me to the carriage," Miss Pritchett said. "Let me leave this place of Popery and light women!"

The obedient Gussie Davies turned and, in a moment or two, both women had disappeared.

Lucy sought her brother. She found him eating a large pink ice in company with a florid, good-humoured matron in maroon, with an avalanche of lace falling from the edges of her parasol. "Hallo, dear!" he said. "Let me introduce you to Mrs. Stiffe, Dr. Hibbert's sister. And where's Miss Pritchett?"

"She's gone," Lucy answered. "And, I'm very much afraid, in a towering rage. But really she was so insolent that I could not stand it. I would do most things for you, Ber, but, really, that woman!"

"Well, it can't be helped, I suppose," the vicar said with humorous resignation. "It was bound to come sooner or later, and I'm selfish enough to be glad it's you've given me lady the congé and not me. Mrs. Stiffe here knows her, don't you, Mrs. Stiffe?"

"I do, Mr. Blantyre," the stout lady said. "I've met the woman several times when I've been staying down here with my brother. A fearful old cat I call her! I wonder that you put up with her so long!"

"Policy, Mrs. Stiffe – ye know we're all Jesuits here, the local paper says so in yesterday's issue – policy! You see, when I first came here Miss Pritchett came to church. She's a leading person here and I made no doubt others would follow her. Indeed, they did, too! and when they saw what the Catholic Church really was they stayed with us. And then, again, Miss Pritchett was always ready to give us a cheque for any good work, and we want all the money we can get! Oh, there's a lot of good in Miss Pritchett!"

"I fail to see it on a short acquaintance," Lucy remarked; "if she gave generously, it was only to flatter her vanity. I'm sure of that."

"It's a great mistake to attribute unworthy motives to worthy deeds," the vicar said. "We've no right to do it, and it's only giving ourselves away when we do, after all!"

"Oh, it's all very well, Vicar," said good Mrs. Stiffe; "we know you never say anything against any one. But if Miss Pritchett is such an angel, what's the reason of her behaviour now? My brother told me that things were getting very strained."

"Ah, that's a different matter entirely," Blantyre said. "She began to interfere in important things. And, of course, we couldn't have that. I'd have let her manage the soup-kitchens and boss the ladies' guilds till the sky fell. But she wanted to do more than that. Poor dear King offended her in some way – he's not what ye'd call a ladies' man – and she wrote to me to send him away at once! And there were other incidents. I've been doing my best to meet her views and to keep in with her, but it's been very difficult and I felt the storm would burst soon. I wanted to keep her in the Faith for her own silly sake! She's not a very strong-minded person beneath her manner, and she's just the sort of woman some spiritualistic quack or Christian Science gentleman would get hold of and ruin her health and happiness. I did hope she'd find peace in the Church. Well, it can't be helped," he ended with a rather sad smile, for his heart was tender for all his flock and he saw far down into the human soul and loved it. Then he changed suddenly. "What am I doing!" he cried, "talking parochial politics at a garden party! Shame on me! Come on, Mrs. Stiffe, come on, Lucy, Mr. Chaff, the piano-entertainer, is going to give his happy half-hour at Earl's Court."

They went merrily away with him. As they approached the rows of chairs in front of the piano, he turned suddenly to his sister.

"Why didn't ye knock her down?" he said suddenly, with an exaggerated brogue and real comic force. Both ladies burst out laughing.

"You ought to have been on the music-hall stage, Vicar," Mrs. Stiffe said, "you're wasted in Hornham."

"So I've been told," he said. "I shall think seriously of it. It's a pity to waste a talent."

CHAPTER VI
BOADICEA, JOAN OF ARC, CHARLOTTE CORDAY, JAEL, AND MISS PRITCHETT OF HORNHAM

People of taste are never without wonder at the extraordinary lack of it that many well-to-do folk display. It was but rarely that a person of taste entered Malakoff Lodge, where Miss Pritchett dwelt, but when such an event did happen, the impression was simply that of enormous surprise. The drawing-room into which visitors were shown was an immense place and full of furniture. In each of the corners stood a life-sized piece of statuary painted in "natural colours." Here one saw an immense negro, some six feet high, with coffee-coloured skin, gleaming red lips, and a gaudy robe of blue and yellow. This monster supported a large earthenware basket on his back, painted, of course, in correct straw-colour, from which sprang a tall palm that reached to the ceiling. In other corners of the room were an Egyptian dancing-girl, a Turk, and an Indian fakir, all of which supported ferns, which it was part of Miss Gussie Davies' duty to water every morning.

The many tables, chiefly of circular or octagonal form, which stood about the room, bore a multitude of costly and hideous articles which should have been relegated to a museum, to illustrate the deplorable taste of the middle classes during the early and mid-Victorian era. Here, for example, was a model of the leaning tower of Pisa done in white alabaster, some two feet in height, and shielded from harm by a thick glass case. There, the eye fell upon a bunch of very purple grapes and a nectarine or two, made of wax, with a waxen bee settling upon them, all covered with glass also. Literary tastes were not forgotten. Immense volumes of Moore's poems, the works of Southey or Robert Montgomery lay about on the tables. These were bound in heavy leather boards, elaborately tooled in gold representations of Greek lyres and golden laurel crowns. The shining gilt edges were preserved from the profanation of a casual opening by two or three immense brass clasps which imprisoned the poet's thoughts within.

The time in which these things were made was a sentimental age, and it was well reflected in its bijouterie. Innumerable nymphs and shepherdesses stood about offering each other hearts, madrigals, and other dainties. But they had none of the piquant grace that Watteau would have given them, or the charm the white-hot fires of Dresden might have burnt into them. They were solid, very British nymphs, whose drapery was most decorously arranged that one thick ankle might be visible, but no more; – nymphs and shepherdesses who, one might imagine, sat happily by the bank of some canal, singing the pious ditties of Dr. Watts as the sun went down, – nymphs, in short, with a moral purpose. The hangings of Miss Pritchett's room, the heavy window curtains that descended from baldachinos of gleaming gold, were all of a rich crimson, an extraordinary colour that is not made now, and the wall-paper was a heavy pattern in dark ultramarine and gold. Indeed, there was enough gold in this mausoleum to have satisfied Miss Killmansegg herself.

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!"