And with that Father Tasker disappeared.
‘For shame!’ cried Philip, as he prepared to follow him, ‘for shame, Frederick. You may have law on your side, but you have neither right nor conscience. You have not told me whether the rumour I mentioned is true or false, but, if it is true, and you have any such intention in your head, pause, I beseech you, before you carry it into effect, or some fearful calamity will follow it. You have defied our holy church, and God will defend her rights. I shall not come again until you send for me.’
And in another moment the room was clear.
‘Here, Watson,’ called Frederick to his man, ‘bring me a whisky-and-soda. I declare,’ he continued to himself, ‘if their twaddle has not made me quite uncomfortable. What on earth did that old fool, my godfather, mean by not making his will decisive one way or the other? I a priest, indeed! No. I mean to live a rather jollier life than that comes to. And there is only one other decent alternative, to marry the girl I love, and rear a family for the benefit of the State. And how can I do that without money? It is ridiculous to think of.’
Still, with the superstitious ideas which the Catholic religion infuses in all her followers, with the childish inbred fear of the priestly power to save or damn, with the fear of purgatory and a fiery hell, and becoming an outcast from salvation for ever, Frederick Walcheren did not feel quite comfortable, though he tried to laugh the feeling off, and was as resolute as before, that no power in heaven or earth should separate him from Jenny Crampton.
‘They are against us on every side,’ he thought, ‘but that fact will only make me the more determined to have her. My beautiful darling! The most beautiful woman, in my eyes, that I have ever met. Why, Father Tasker himself couldn’t resist her, if she stood on one side and hell on the other. What time is it, Watson? Six-thirty? By Jove! if I don’t hurry up I shall get no dinner before I start for the Bouchers’.’
‘Going to Hampstead again to-night, sir?’ asked Watson, as he laid out his master’s dress clothes upon the bed.
How well our servants know where we go, and who we go to see, and what we do it for.
‘Yes,’ replied Frederick, ‘to Mrs Bouchers’ dance. You needn’t sit up for me, Watson, for I shall be very late. Order the brougham to call for me at Simpson’s at nine o’clock. I shall go on straight from there.’
He hurried into his dress clothes, for he was determined that nothing should make him late that night, for fear he should miss the interview in the picture gallery after the fourth dance.