The Rector was puzzled.
“Perhaps the Bishop is under some misconception; perhaps he thinks that this house is still an inn—the Hand of God, you know.”
“Perhaps,” said the organist; and there was a little pause.
“I hope you will consider the matter. May I not tell Mrs Parkyn that you will urge the Bishop to lunch at the Rectory—that you both”—and he brought out the word bravely, though it cost him a pang to yoke the Bishop with so unworthy a mate, and to fling the door of select hospitality open to Mr Sharnall—“that you both will lunch with us?”
“I fear not,” the organist said; “I fear I must say no. I shall be very busy preparing for the extra service, and if I am to play ‘See the Conquering Hero’ as the Bishop enters the church, I shall need time for practice. A piece like that takes some playing, you know.”
“I hope you will endeavour to render it in the very best manner,” the Rector said, and withdrew his forces re infecta.
The story of Mr Sharnall’s mental illusions, and particularly of the hallucination as to someone following him, had left an unpleasant impression on Westray’s mind. He was anxious about his fellow-lodger, and endeavoured to keep a kindly supervision over him, as he felt it to be possible that a person in such a state might do himself a mischief. On most evenings he either went down to Mr Sharnall’s room, or asked the organist to come upstairs to his, considering that the solitude incident to bachelor life in advancing years was doubtless to blame to a large extent for these wandering fancies. Mr Sharnall occupied himself at night in sorting and reading the documents which had once belonged to Martin Joliffe. There was a vast number of them, representing the accumulation of a lifetime, and consisting of loose memoranda, of extracts from registers, of manuscript-books full of pedigrees and similar material. When he had first begun to examine them, with a view to their classification or destruction, he showed that the task was distinctly uncongenial to him; he was glad enough to make any excuse for interruption or for invoking Westray’s aid. The architect, on the other hand, was by nature inclined to archaeologic and genealogic studies, and would not have been displeased if Mr Sharnall had handed over to him the perusal of these papers entirely. He was curious to trace the origin of that chimera which had wasted a whole life—to discover what had led Martin originally to believe that he had a claim to the Blandamer peerage. He found, perhaps, an additional incentive in an interest which he was beginning unconsciously to take in Anastasia Joliffe, whose fortunes might be supposed to be affected by these investigations.
But in a little while Westray noticed a change in the organist’s attitude as touching the papers. Mr Sharnall evinced a dislike to the architect examining them further; he began himself to devote a good deal more time and attention to their study, and he kept them jealously under lock and key. Westray’s nature led him to resent anything that suggested suspicion; he at once ceased to concern himself with the matter, and took care to show Mr Sharnall that he had no wish whatever to see more of the documents.
As for Anastasia, she laughed at the idea of there being any foundation underlying these fancies; she laughed at Mr Sharnall, and rallied Westray, saying she believed that they both were going to embark on the quest of the nebuly coat. To Miss Euphemia it was no laughing matter.
“I think, my dear,” she said to her niece, “that all these searchings after wealth and fortune are not of God. I believe that trying to discover things”—and she used “things” with the majestic comprehensiveness of the female mind—“is generally bad for man. If it is good for us to be noblemen and rich, then Providence will bring us to that station; but to try to prove one’s self a nobleman is like star-gazing and fortune-telling. Idolatry is as the sin of witchcraft. There can be no blessing on it, and I reproach myself for ever having given dear Martin’s papers to Mr Sharnall at all. I only did so because I could not bear to go through them myself, and thought perhaps that there might be cheques or something valuable among them. I wish I had burnt everything at first, and now Mr Sharnall says he will not have the papers destroyed till he has been through them. I am sure they were no blessing at all to dear Martin. I hope they may not bewitch these two gentlemen as well.”