Carr thought the matter out for a minute or two and then made up his mind. He would go and talk over the situation with Blantyre. With a vivid sense of how his host of the morning would call his action "bowing down in the house of Rimmon," a sense that only quickened his steps and sent a contemptuous curl to his lip, he turned and walked towards the clergy-house.
He rang the bell, and a tall and rather hulking man in livery showed him into a large drawing-room. This was the navvy, Mr. King's former assailant, who had been promoted, at his own request, to a distinctive costume, which he wore with pride and diligence. His only grief was that he was not allowed to "wipe the floor with that there Hamlyn," but he lived in hope that some fresh outrage would provide him with the necessary permission.
Carr looked round the room. There was nothing ecclesiastical about it, no flavour of the monk at home. It had been newly papered; the walls were covered with pictures so fresh and new in treatment that they might have come from the Academy of that year. The vicar of St. Luke's suddenly awoke to the fact that he was in a very charming room indeed. There was a Steinway grand piano there, a beautiful instrument; he saw that the Twelfth Nocturne of Chopin stood open upon it. Everywhere he saw a multitude of photographs in frames of silver, copper, ivory, peacock leather—every imaginable sort of frame. A great many of these photographs were signed in the corner, and looking at some of them he was surprised to see that they were of very well-known people. Here was a well-known general, there a judge, again the conscious features of a society actor beamed out at him. His eye, unobservant at first, began to take in the details of the room more rapidly. There were a hundred luxurious little trifles scattered about, numerous contrivances for comfort. He was wondering to whom this room could belong, when the door opened and his doubts were resolved.
A girl came in, a girl with a beautifully modelled face, healthy and yet without crimson in it. A pair of frank, dark eyes looked at him from beneath an overshadowing mass of dead black hair.
"How do you do, Mr. Carr," she said,—he had given the man his card,—"I am Mr. Blantyre's sister; I've only just pitched my tent in Hornham. Bernard will be in for tea in half an hour."
Rather nervously, Carr explained that he had called on a matter of parochial business. He remained standing, a little at a loss. This girl was not like the young ladies of Hornham.
"Well, you must have some tea," Lucy said with decision as she rang the bell. Carr sat down. He anticipated a somewhat trying half hour until the vicar should arrive. He was a gentleman, well bred in every way, but his life, from the time of his school days, had been lonely and without much feminine companionship.
In five minutes he found, to his own great surprise, that he was talking vividly and well, that he was quite pleased to be where he was. And the girl seemed to be interested and pleased with him. It was a very new sensation, this feeling of mutual liking, to the lonely man. The conversation turned naturally to the unrest around them. Carr said nothing as yet of his morning's experience.
"Well, I must confess, frankly, Mr. Carr," Lucy said, "that until lately I never took any interest at all in these things. They seemed humbug to me. Now, of course, I know better. It's a shame! a black shame, that Bernard and the others should be treated so by this disgusting man. If he only knew what their life was! how self-denying, how full of unceasing labour and worry, how devoted. Take Mr. Stephens, for instance: he's only a boy, yet he's killing himself with work and enthusiasm. He was up all last night with a man that has delirium tremens, yet he said Mass at half-past seven, came to breakfast as merry as a sand-boy, and was teaching in the national schools at nine. And he'll be on his feet to-day until nearly midnight without a word of complaint. He'll spend nearly the whole evening in the boys' club, boxing and playing billiards with them—oh, you can't think how the three of them work!"
She went on with a series of anecdotes and explanations, told with great vividness and power, in her new enthusiasm for the men among whom she had come. And throughout all her talk, the clergyman heard frequent references to the services that went on almost unceasingly in the great church hard by. He heard names, strange and yet familiar, startling to his ear, and yet which seemed quite natural and fitting in the place where he was. One thing he began to see clearly, and with interest: whatever these men were in opinion, a life of real and active holiness went on among them. And he noticed also, with wonder, how everything seemed to draw its inspiration from the church, how constantly the clergy were there, hearing confessions, saying services, praying, and preaching. The whole thing was new to him.