My plans were largely facilitated by the departure of Mr. and Mrs. Gascoyne for Italy, taking Edith with them. They had long wished to make a habit of evading the English winter, which agreed with neither of them. They had intended to do so the following year, leaving the business entirely in my hands, but the doctor suddenly ordered Mrs. Gascoyne south.
She and her husband wished to leave Miss Gascoyne behind, but I declined to hear of such a thing. I was only too glad to have her out of London for the winter. She, on her part, directly she discovered that Mr. and Mrs. Gascoyne wished her to accompany them, insisted on going.
“Israel and I will see quite enough of each other after next spring,” she said laughingly, in reply to their remonstrances.
They departed early in October and I was left free to carry out my plans. They intended to be away seven months, and I was to join them at Christmas on the Riviera. The arrangement had another good point. Sibella was delighted at the prospect of a long winter with me all to herself.
The first Saturday after the Gascoynes’ departure I went down to Lincolnshire. It was an Indian summer, and as balmy as June. My sensations were very different from those which the moral reader will no doubt think ought to have animated the mind of a murderer. They were entirely exhilarating and happy, and the pleasant Lincolnshire landscape with the sunlit emerald of its far-stretching flats, intersected by the glistening silver threads of canals, filled me with the delight in Nature which only a thoroughly artificial mind can feel. It may seem odd, but I was genuinely appealed to by the quaint, brown barges with their gay notes of colour in green and red, the trampling horses and the towing-line hauled taut, the jerseyed helmsman alternately blowing at his pipe and whistling a tune. These things I loved as much as the veriest Cockney artist let loose for the first time among the joys of Nature with a sketch-book.
I was in a curious mood for one whose mission was death, and when I caught sight of the tower of Lye Church above the stately elms which were swaying in the fresh October breeze I felt almost sentimental. It was not my intention to stay there, however, and I passed Lye Station and alighted some three or four miles further on at a place called Cumber. Here there was a very comfortable little inn, almost an hotel.
After dark I walked over to Lye, and hung round the comfortable Rectory. Once I ventured a few paces on to the lawn, whence I could see the Rector at dinner with his sister and niece. They appeared to live prodigiously well, and it was very diverting to watch their gestures and the process of mastication as they devoured something they particularly liked, or to observe the Rector say something over his shoulder to the butler, who immediately hurried forward to fill his master’s glass.
I could not help reflecting that the silver candlesticks, the gilt-framed pictures on the walls, the elaborate dishes, the obsequious servants, were the appanage of one who had given a special undertaking to imitate Christ and do His work by example. I was even led into some no doubt highly foolish and irreverent reflections as to which of us was the greater criminal—I, who at any rate told no lies to myself, or this polished, good-natured hypocrite who had never tested a single action by His teaching.
The meal over, the ladies left the room. Apparently no social convention was omitted in this house of spiritual direction. When the butler had placed a box of cigars on the table, and filled his master’s glass, he also withdrew, and the Reverend Henry lit a cigar, and, leaning back in his chair, half closed his eyes in ecstatic enjoyment. At this point a step scrunched on the gravel path, and then there was a ring at the front-door bell. In another minute or two a gentlemanly-looking curate was shown into the room. He was evidently an embryo Reverend Henry, and he was cordially waved to a seat. From the way he filled his glass and accepted the proffered cigar he was none of your blue-ribboned, fasting weeds. Indeed, it is not to be supposed that the comfortable Rector would have tolerated such an one in his parish. On reflection, I think, perhaps, that I must admit to being the greater criminal of the two, for he had the merit of being unconscious.
Later, the Rector and his curate left the dining-room and passed into the drawing-room, from which there had already proceeded the sounds of a piano. A nocturne by Chopin came to an abrupt ending as the two men entered. Tea was then brought in—the taking of tea instead of coffee after dinner always seems to vouch for the respectability and antiquity of a family, recalling the traditions of piquet and spadille. The curate then warbled ‘The Message’ in a by no means unfinished way. Mr. Gascoyne’s niece played his accompaniments, and the two older people slept right through half a dozen of his performances, only awaked by the percussion of a sudden silence.