“Certainly, certainly,” said the occupant of the spinal carriage, with an alert, almost eager smile. “If there’s any way in which I can be of the slightest use, or any way in which you think I can I shall be only too delighted.”
“I hate having to bother you with a matter of this kind. But it is likely that you know something about it. And I am greatly in need of advice, which I hope you may be able to give.”
“I hope I may.” The vicar’s gravity was not lost upon Brandon. “Perhaps you would like to discuss it in the library?”
“If you don’t mind.”
VI
To the library the spinal carriage was taken. When it had been wheeled into the sunny embrasure of that wonderful room, which even the vicar never entered without a slight pang of envy, the nurses retired, leaving the two men together.
The library of Hart’s Ghyll was richly symbolical of the aristocracy of an old country. It had once been part of a monastery which had been set, as happened invariably when religion had a monopoly of learning and taste, in the fairest spot the countryside could offer for the purpose. From the large mullioned window the view of Hart’s Ghyll and its enchanted vistas of hill, stream and woodland beyond was a miracle of beauty. And the walls of the room displayed treasures above price, such a collection of first editions and old masters as even a man so insensitive as the vicar sometimes recalled in his dreams. Their present owner, who in the vicar’s opinion had imbibed the modern spirit far too freely, had often said that he could not defend possession in such abundance by one who had done nothing to earn it. In an ideal state, had declared this advanced thinker, these things would be part of the commonweal—a theory which Mr. Perry-Hennington considered fantastic. To his mind, as he had informed niece Millicent, it was perilously like an affront to the order of divine providence.
The spirit of place seemed to descend upon the vicar, as in a hushed, rather solemn tone, he asked Brandon whether the sun would be too much for him.
“Not for a man who has been grilled in Gallipoli,” answered Brandon with a stoic’s smile. “But if you will open that window a little wider and roll me back a bit, I shall have my own piece of earth to look at. Give me this and you may take the rest of Christendom. It’s been soaked into my bones, into my brain. One ought to be a Virgil or a Wordsworth.”
“Which I hope you may presently prove, my dear fellow,” said the vicar, touched by a sense of the man’s heroism.