“Is he alive, may I ask?” the curate pursued, looking at the title-page as if he saw something curious there—though, indeed, what he saw was not new to him; only from it he had suddenly deduced a thought.
“No, he died about a year ago—nearly a year ago, I think,” Lindo answered carelessly, and without the least suspicion. “He was always particularly kind to me, and I use that book a good deal. I must have it rebound.”
“Yes,” Clode said mechanically; “it wants rebinding if you value it.”
“I shall have it done. And a lot of these books,” the rector continued, looking at old Mr. Williams’s shelves, “want their clothes renewing. I shall have them all looked to, I think.” He had a pleasant sense that this was in his power. The cost of the furniture and library had made a hole in his not very large private means; but that mattered little now. Eight hundred a year, paid quarterly, will bind a book or two.
Had the curate been attending, he would have read Lindo’s thoughts with ease. But Clode was pursuing a train of reflections of his own, and so was spared this pang. “Your uncle was an old man, I suppose,” he said. “I think I observed in the Clergy List that he had been in orders about forty years.”
“Not quite so long as that,” Lindo replied. “He was sixty-four when he died. He had been Lord Dynmore’s private tutor you know, though they were almost of an age.”
“Indeed,” the curate rejoined, still with that thoughtful look on his face. “You knew Lord Dynmore through him, I suppose, then, Mr. Lindo?”
“Well, I got the living through him, if that what you mean,” Lindo said frankly. “But I do not think that I ever met Lord Dynmore. Certainly I should not know him from Adam.”
“Ah!” said the curate, “ah! indeed!” He smiled as he gazed into the fire, and stroked his chin. In the other’s place, he thought, he would have been more reticent. He would not have disclaimed, though he might not have claimed, acquaintance with Lord Dynmore. He would have left the thing shadowy, to be defined by others as they pleased. Thinking thus, he got up somewhat abruptly, and wished Lindo good-night. A cool observer, indeed, might have noticed—but the rector did not—a change in his manner as he did so—a little accession of familiarity, which did seem not far removed from a delicate kind of contempt. The change was subtle, but one thing was certain. Stephen Clode had no longer any intention of leaving Claversham in a hurry. That resolve was gone.
Once out of the house, he passed quickly from the churchyard by a narrow lane leading to an irregular open space quaintly called “The Top of the Town.” Here were his own lodgings, on the first-floor over a stationer’s; but he did not enter them. Instead, he strode on toward the farther and darker side of the square, where were no buildings, but a belt of tall trees stood up, gaunt and rustling in the night wind above a line of wall. Through the trees the lights of a large house were visible. He walked up the avenue which led to the door and, ringing loudly, was at once admitted.