Works of Ellen Wood, page 665
“It’s not in, Prattleton. Hurrah! It will be thousands of pounds in our pocket. When the other side brought forth the lame tale that there was such a thing, we thought it was a bag of moonshine. Here’s your register. Put it up.”
Henry stole silently towards the church door, hoping to get out: he dared not show himself to those two swindlers. He was fortunate: though the door was locked, the key was in, and he passed out, leaving it open. What he was to do with himself till morning, he knew not: he might sit down on the gravestones; but he had had enough of graves; he supposed he must pace the town.
The gentlemen set things straight in the vestry, and also came, in due course, to the door. They had left it locked, and now it was open! Each looked at the other in amazement.
“What possessed you to do that?” demanded Rolls, in a fiercer tone than was consistent with politeness.
“I do it! that’s good,” retorted Prattleton. “It was you locked it, or pretended to.”
“I did lock it. You must have opened it when you came down for the matches.”
“I wish we may be dropped upon if I did! I should be an idiot to open the door and give nightbirds a chance of scenting what we were up to.”
“Psha!” impatiently uttered Rolls, “a locked door could not open of itself. But there’s no harm done; so blow out the light, and let’s get off.”
Thus disputing — for in truth the open door had struck something like terror on the heart of both — George Prattleton and his friend quitted the church, leaving all secure. Mr. George had to carry the key home with him; he could not fling it into the clerk’s house, as Lewis had done, for the house was fastened up; most houses are at two in the morning. He had successfully executed a little ruse to get the key, unsuspected by the clerk: watching his opportunity, he had arrived at the clerk’s house when that official had gone out for his supper-beer, ostensibly to put a question in regard to the time that a funeral was to take place on the morrow; and while talking to the old dame, he managed to abstract the key, hanging one that outwardly resembled it in its place. The Reverend Mr. Prattleton often took the duty at St. James the Less for the head master; and George was tolerably familiar with its ways and places.
They went along with stealthy steps, their eyes peering fitfully into dark corners, lest any should be abroad and see them. Once in the more frequented streets it did not so much matter; they might be going home from some late entertainment, as Mr. George and his latch-key were not infrequently in the habit of doing. Rolls was in a glow of delight; and even an odd fear of detection now and then could not check it.
“I was as sure there was no entry there as sure can be. Our side was sure of it also; only it was well to look and see. I’m more glad than if anybody had put a hundred pounds in my hand.”
“Who is your side?” asked George Prattleton. “You have not told me anything, you know, Rolls.”
“Well, it would not be very interesting to you. It’s an old dispute about a tithe cause; the name’s Whiffam.”
Not a very lucid explanation; but George Prattleton was tired and cross, and not really overcurious. At the corner of a street he and Rolls parted, and Mr. George went home and let himself in with his latch-key, deeming nobody the wiser for the night’s exploit.
CHAPTER XVI.
PERPLEXITY.
Henry Arkell had ample leisure that night for reflection. He got into a newly-built house, whose doors were not yet in, glad of even that shelter. The precise object of what he had seen he did not presume to guess; but, that some bad deed had been transacted, there could be no doubt. And what ought to be his course in it? — it was that that was puzzling him. He could not go to Mr. Wilberforce, the incumbent of the church, and denounce George Prattleton — as he would have done had this stranger, Rolls, been the sole offender. Of all the people in Westerbury, that it should have been George Prattleton! — the brother of that kind man from whom his family had received so many obligations. Gratitude towards Mr. Prattleton seemed to demand his silence as to George; and Henry Arkell had an almost ultra sense of the sin of ingratitude.
There was no one of whom he could take counsel; his father was still absent, and he did not like to betray what he had seen to others. Once, the thought crossed him to ask Travice Arkell; but he knew how vexed George Prattleton would be; and he came to the final resolution of speaking to George himself. The mystery of locking him in seemed to be clear now. He supposed George had done it to get possession of the key, not knowing he was in the church.
With the first glimmering dawn of morning — not very early, you know, in November — Henry was hovering about the precincts of the clerk’s house. He had no particular business there; but he was restless, and thought he might, by good luck, see or find out something, and he could not hope yet to get in at the master’s. Hunt came out to fasten back his shutters.
“What’s it you, sir?” exclaimed the old man, in surprise. “You be abroad betimes.”
“Ay. How’s the rheumatism?”
“Be you going to pay for that chaney saucer you broke?” asked Hunt, allowing the rheumatism to drop into abeyance.
“What saucer?”
“Why that chaney saucer. It was on the floor with the cat’s milk, when you flung the key in last night and broke it. The missis is as vexed as can be — she have had it for years; and if it were cracked a bit, it did for our cat.”
“I never broke it,” returned Henry. “At least,” he added, recollecting himself, and afraid of making some admission that might excite inquiries, “I did not know that I did.”
“No, you weren’t perlite enough to stop and see what damage you’d done; you made off as fast as your legs would take you. Here’s the pieces on the dresser,” added the clerk; “you can come and look at the smash you’ve made. The missis began a talking of getting ’em jined. ‘Jine seven pieces,’ says I; ‘it would cost more nor a new one of the best chaney; and run out then.’”
He hobbled indoors as fast as he could for his lameness, and Henry followed him. The church key hung on its nail in the niche. Henry stared at it with open eyes; he did not expect to see it there. Had George Prattleton returned it to the clerk in the middle of the night? and was the old man an accomplice? But, as he gazed, his keen eye detected something not familiar in its aspect, and he raised his hand and turned the wards into the light. It was not the church key, though it closely resembled it.
He went into the kitchen: the old man was putting the broken pieces in a row. “There they be, sir; you can count ’em for yourself; and they ought to be replaced with a new one. A common delf would be better than none, for we be short of saucers, and the missis don’t like a animal to drink out of the same as us Christians.”
“You shall have a saucer,” said Henry, somewhat dreamily. “Who threw in the key?”
“Who threw it in?” echoed the clerk.
“I meant to ask what time it was thrown in.”
“Why, about five, or a little after: we was at tea. Didn’t you know what time it was, yourself, with the clock going the quarters and the halves in your ears while you was at the organ? The missis —— Who’s that!”
The “who’s that!” referred to a thumping at the house door, which Henry Arkell had closed when he came in. The clerk went and opened it. It was Lewis. Henry recognised his voice, and drew back out of sight.
Now, however uncomfortably Henry Arkell had passed the night, the author of his misfortune had passed it more so. Conscience, especially at the midnight hours, does indeed make cowards of us all, and it had made a miserable one of the senior Lewis. Not that he repented of what he had done, for the ill in itself, or from a better feeling towards his schoolfellow; but he feared the consequences. Suppose Henry Arkell, locked up with the dead, should die of fright, or turn mad? Lewis remembered to have heard of such things. Suppose he should, by a superhuman effort, reach one of the high and narrow windows, and, impelled by terror, propel himself through it and be killed? Why he, Lewis, would be hung; or, at the very least, transported for life. These flights of imagination, conveniently suppressing themselves during the evening, worked him into a state of indescribable dread and agitation, when alone at night. How he lay through it he could not tell, and as soon as the master’s servants were astir, he got up and sneaked out of the house, with the intention of looking after Arkell, and what the night might have brought forth for him, administering first of all a preliminary beating to his brother as an instalment of what he would get, if he opened his mouth to tell of Arkell’s absence.
“Why, what do you want?” uttered the clerk, when he saw Lewis. “We shall have the whole rookery of you college gents here presently.”
Lewis paid no attention to what the words might imply; indeed, it may be questioned if he heard them, so great was his state of suspense and agitation. “Old fellow,” said he, “I want the key of the church. Do lend it me: I’ll bring it back to you directly.”
“The key of the church!” returned the clerk; “you’ll come and ask me for my house next. No, no, young master; I have not got the rector’s orders to trust it to any but the two what practises. What do you want in the church?”
“Only to look after something that’s left there. It’s all right. I won’t keep it five minutes.”
“No, that you won’t, sir, for you won’t get it. If the master says you may have it, well and good; but you must get his orders first.”
Lewis was desperate. He saw the key hanging in its place, rushed forward, took it from the hook, and made off with it in defiance.
“I won’t have this,” uttered the discomfited old man. “One a breaking our cat’s saucer, and t’other a thieving off the key in my very face! I’ll complain to Mr. Wilberforce. Sir, what do that senior Lewis want in the church? He looked as resolute as a lion, and his breath was a panting. What’s he after?”
“It is beyond my comprehension,” replied Henry, who was preparing to depart, more mystified than before. “If Lewis can get out, I can get in,” he thought to himself, “and by dint of some great good luck, they may not have missed me.”
Calling out a good morning to Hunt, he hastened away in the direction of the master’s, wondering much what Lewis wanted in the church, but not believing it could have reference to his own incarceration.
The next actor on the scene was George Prattleton. He softly entered the clerk’s passage, and stretched his hand up to the niche. But there he halted as if dumbfounded, and a key which he held he dropped back into his pocket again.
“What the mischief has been at work now?” muttered he. “How can the old man’s eyes have been so quick? I must face the matter boldly, and persuade him his eyes are wrong. Hunt,” cried he, aloud, pushing open the kitchen door, “where’s the key of the church?”
“Where indeed, sir!” grumbled Hunt. “One of them senior college rebels have just been in and clawed it. But I promise him he won’t do it twice: Mr. Wilberforce shall know the tricks they play me, now I’m old. Did you want it, sir?”
“No,” returned George Prattleton, carelessly. “I saw it was not on its nail, that’s all. I came to know the hour fixed for the funeral. Mr. Prattleton desired me to ascertain, and I looked in last evening, but you were out.”
“The missis told me you had been, sir, but I had only just stepped out for our supper beer. Three o’clock to-day is the hour, sir: I thought the missis told you.”
At this juncture, in came Lewis, very pale. “Hunt, this is not the key; it won’t undo it; and — —”
Lewis stopped in consternation, for his eyes had fallen on Mr. George Prattleton. The latter took the key from his unresisting hand.
“If Hunt is to let you college boys have the key at will, and you get tampering with the lock, no wonder it will not undo it. I had better keep it for him,” he added, slipping it into his own pocket. “What did you want with the key, Lewis?”
Lewis did not answer.
“Here, Hunt, I’ll give you up possession,” continued Mr. Prattleton, putting the key on the hook; “but you know if any damage is done to the church, through your allowing indiscriminate entrance to these college gentlemen, you will be held responsible.”
“I allow ‘em!” returned the indignant clerk. “But Mr. Wilberforce shall settle it.”
“That’s not the church key,” said Lewis, staring at the one just hung up.
Mr. Prattleton heard the assertion with equanimity, and began whistling a popular air as he left the house. Hunt just glanced upwards, and saw it was the veritable church key. “It is the key,” he said. “What do you mean?”
“It must have been my shaking hand then,” debated Lewis. “Old Hunt must know the key, and George Prattleton too. Hunt,” he added, aloud, “you will lend me the key again for five minutes.”
“No, sir,” raved out the old clerk, “and I hope you’ll be flogged for having took it in defiance, though you be a senior, and a’most six foot high.”
He pushed Lewis out at the door as he spoke, fearing another act of defiance, and closed it.
Lewis stood in irresolution; his terror for the fate of Henry Arkell was strong upon him. He flew after George Prattleton.
“Will you do me a favour?” he panted, completely out of breath in his haste and agitation. “I want to get into the church, and Hunt has turned obstinate about the key. Will you get it from him for me?”
Mr. Prattleton stopped and gazed at him. “You cannot want anything in the church, Lewis. What are you up to?”
“Do get the key for me,” he entreated, unable to help betraying his emotion. “I must go in; I must, Mr. Prattleton. It may be a matter of life or death.”
“You are ill, Lewis; you are agitated. What is all this?”
“I am not ill. I only want to get into the church.”
“For what purpose?”
“It’s a little private matter of my own.”
“You can tell me what it is.”
“No, I cannot do that.”
“Then I cannot help you.”
Lewis was pushed to his wits’ end. George Prattleton was walking on, but turned again and waited. He was not free from some inward wonder and agitation himself, remembering his own adventure of the past night.
“If I trust a secret to you, will you promise, on your honour, not to tell it again?” asked Lewis. “It’s nothing much; only a lark, concerning one of us college boys.”
“Oh, I’ll promise,” readily answered George Prattleton, who was rarely troubled with scruples of any sort, and used to be fond of “larks” himself; rather too much so.
“Well, then, I locked Harry Arkell in the church last night, and I want to go and see after him, for fear he should be dead of fright, or something of that, you know.”
“In there all night? in the church all night?” stammered George Prattleton, as if he could not take in the meaning of the words.
“He went in to practise after school yesterday evening, and I turned the key upon him, and took it back to old Hunt’s, and he has been in there ever since, fastened up with the ghosts. I did it only for a lark, you know.”
George Prattleton’s arms dropped powerless by his side, and his face turned of some livid colour between white and green. Would the previous night’s exploit — his exploit — come out to the world through this miserable fellow’s ill-timed “joke?” But all they could do now was to see after Henry Arkell.
They went back to the clerk’s, and George Prattleton took the key from the hook.
“Something has been dropped in the church, Hunt,” he carelessly said; “I’ll go myself with Lewis, and see that he meddles with nothing.”
“Something dropped in the church?” repeated the old man; “then, I suppose, that was what the other college gent has been after; though he didn’t say nothing of it. He was here afore I had opened our shutters.”
“Which of them was that?” asked George Prattleton, pausing, with the key in his hand.
“It were Mr. Arkell, sir; him what goes in to practise on the organ. He were in yesterday practising, and he flung the key back when he’d done, and broke our cat’s chaney saucer, and then made off. I’ve been a showing him the mischief he went and done.”
“Was that Mr. Arkell, do you say? Has Arkell been here this morning?”
“Why, it ain’t two minutes since, sir. He cut up that way as if he was going straight home.”
And as the man spoke, there flashed into George Prattleton’s mind the little episode that had so startled him and his friend Rolls in the night — the finding of the church door open, when they had surely locked it. It must have been then that Henry Arkell got out of the church. How much had he witnessed of the scene in the vestry? had he recognised him, George Prattleton?
George Prattleton exchanged a look with Lewis, and hung the key up again, making some vague remark to the clerk, that Mr. Arkell had probably found what they were about to look for, if he had been to practise so recently as yesterday evening. Shutting the door behind him, he walked away with Lewis, whose senses were in a state of hopeless perplexity.
“He has got out, you hear, Lewis.”
“But how could he get out?” returned Lewis. “He’s not a fairy, to get through the keyhole, and he couldn’t have got down from the windows! It’s an impossibility.”
“These apparent ‘impossibilities’ turn out sometimes to have been the most straightforward trifles in the world,” observed George Prattleton, carelessly. “How do we know but old Hunt may have gone into the church himself last evening, to dust it, or what not? It is — —”
“But then, Arkell would have come home,” debated the perplexed Lewis, who truly thought some incomprehensible magic must have been at work.
“Well, Lewis, I don’t think it much signifies how he got out, provided he is out; and were I you, I should not inquire too closely into particulars. You had better keep as quiet as you can in the matter; that’s my advice to you; Mr. Wilberforce might not be disposed to treat your exploit as a ‘joke,’ should it come to his ears.”
