Westray smoothed away the deprecating expression with which he had felt constrained to discountenance such excesses, and set Mr Sharnall’s tongue going again with a question:
“What did you say Joliffe used to go away for?”
“Oh, it’s a long story; it’s the nebuly coat again. I spoke of it in the church—the silver and sea-green that turned his head. He would have it he wasn’t a Joliffe at all, but a Blandamer, and rightful heir to Fording. As a boy, he went to Cullerne Grammar School, and did well, and got a scholarship at Oxford. He did still better there, and just when he seemed starting strong in the race of life, this nebuly coat craze seized him and crept over his mind, like the paralysis that crept over his body later on.”
“I don’t quite follow you,” Westray said. “Why did he think he was a Blandamer? Did he not know who his father was?”
“He was brought up as a son of old Michael Joliffe, a yeoman who died fifteen years ago. But Michael married a woman who called herself a widow, and brought a three-year-old son ready-made to his wedding; and that son was Martin. Old Michael made the boy his own, was proud of his cleverness, would have him go to college, and left him all he had. There was no talk of Martin being anything but a Joliffe till Oxford puffed him up, and then he got this crank, and spent the rest of his life trying to find out who his father was. It was a forty-years’ wandering in the wilderness; he found this clue and that, and thought at last he had climbed Pisgah and could see the promised land. But he had to be content with the sight, or mirage I suppose it was, and died before he tasted the milk and honey.”
“What was his connection with the nebuly coat? What made him think he was a Blandamer?”
“Oh, I can’t go into that now,” the organist said; “I have told you too much, perhaps, already. You won’t let Miss Joliffe guess I have said anything, will you? She is Michael Joliffe’s own child—his only child—but she loved her half-brother dearly, and doesn’t like his cranks being talked about. Of course, the Cullerne wags had many a tale to tell of him, and when he came back, greyer each time and wilder-looking, from his wanderings, they called him ‘Old Nebuly,’ and the boys would make their bow in the streets, and say ‘Good-morning, Lord Blandamer.’ You’ll hear stories enough about him, and it was a bitter thing for his poor sister to bear, to see her brother a butt and laughing-stock, all the time that he was frittering away her savings. But it’s all over now, and Martin’s gone where they don’t wear nebuly coats.”
“There was nothing in his fancies, I suppose?” Westray asked.
“You must put that to wiser folk than me,” said the organist lightly; “ask the Rector, or the doctor, or some really clever man.”
He had fallen back into his sneering tone, but there was something in his words that recalled a previous doubt, and led Westray to wonder whether Mr Sharnall had not lived so long with the Joliffes as to have become himself infected with Martin’s delusions.