“Is that the man?” replied the other. “Why, Clara Tyrwhitt was my greatest chum at school, and I haven’t seen her for years. I must ask about her. Does anybody know him?”
“I believe his aunt’s coming presently — Lady Bilbury. And there’s Clara’s cousin Mary right across the lawn. We’ll speak to her.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Harry Benyon, who had not seen the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice since he left Oxford, strolled across with his two friends and accosted the exile.
“Why, Aubrey, old chap!” said Harry Benyon. “I hardly knew you!”
“Wotcheer!” replied the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice, looking up quickly and continuing his walk. “Cheer-oh!”
“Why, I don’t believe you know me,” answered Benyon, following and offering his hand. “You remember Harry Benyon, surely?”
“What-ho! Don’t I rather!” responded the reverend gentleman, shaking hands vigorously. “Good ol ‘Arry! An’ ‘ow’s yerself?”
“First-rate, thanks. But, I say, you are East-end, you know!”
“What d’ you think? Right in it! I’m one o’ the nuts down ‘Oxton!”
“I’m sure you are. But do you keep it up always?”
“Keep it up? Not ‘arf! Always keep it up. I’m a-thinkin’ out a sermon now.”
Benyon and his friends looked at each other blankly, and then at the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice.
“Well,” said one, “if you deliver ‘em like that I’d like to come and hear one.”
“Right-o, ol’ cockalorum! Come whenever you like. Any old sinner’s welcome; an’ bring a bob for the whack round. We don’t often get a toff.”
“We’ll all come,” said Benyon, “and all bring our bobs for the — the what-d’ye-call-it. But now just you forget that sermon and the East-end for a bit and be yourself again. This function’s going to be dull — we’ll keep together.”
“Garn — cheese it, ‘Arry!” replied the Reverend Mr. Fitzmaurice. “What price my sermon? I got to think it over, I tell ye. See ye later on, matey.”
The reverend gentleman sheered off to a quieter part and left the three friends somewhat perplexed.
“They told me he’d gone East-end mad,” remarked Benyon, “and by Jove he has! Who’d have dreamed he’d have played it as low as that — he, of all men? Making oneself popular in the parish is all very well, but — hang it all!”
“There may be something in it,” observed one of the others. “I’ve heard they’re very suspicious of strange ways down there, and the Oxford manner they won’t stand at any price.”
“But, my dear chap—”
“Oh, of course I know he’s got it pretty rank, but it’s only more extreme than some of the others. Some of them do all sorts of wild things and play it most amazin’ low to catch the fancy of the Eastenders. There was even a bishop—”
“Oh, yes, we know about that; but Aubrey isn’t an advertising bishop, and, more he was never that sort at all. I believe it’s actual mania — I do, positively. He is East-end mad, that’s plain. But we’ll see him again in course of the afternoon.”
Meanwhile, the lady who had been Mrs. Fitzmaurice’s greatest chum at school and her friend, Miss Cust, had lost sight of Mrs. Fitzmaurice’s cousin Mary, but presently found her in another part of the grounds.
Before they could speak of the thing themselves she said: “Do you know, Clara’s husband’s here somewhere? Harry Benyon’s been talking to him. He’s gone clean East-end mad, it seems — worse than the Bishop of Limehouse. Talks just like a costermonger. Isn’t it quaint? I can’t think what aunt will say!”
“Oh, we must speak to him,” said Miss Cust’s friend. “Indeed, we were looking for you to introduce him. I never saw him before; I haven’t seen Clara for years.”
“I don’t know him myself; the engagement was very short, and we were away in Egypt at the time of the wedding. Harry Benyon promised to find him again for me. Harry says he’s become quite a curiosity. I hope he won’t swear very much!”
At this moment Harry Benyon hove in sight, hauling with him the reluctant Aubrey.
“I tell y’ I’m a-thinkin’ out a sermon!” he was heard to protest as he approached.
“Here you are — I’ve found him,” said Harry Benyon. “Mr. Aubrey Fitzmaurice — Mrs. Fitzmaurice’s cousin Mary, Miss Cust and Miss Peyton.”
“What-oh! ‘Ow do?” said the Reverend Aubrey, shaking hands all round. “My ol’ pal ‘Arry ‘ere, ‘e won’t let me think out my sermon, blimy. Still, as it’s laidies—”
“We’ve been longing to see you for ages.” said Miss Tyrwhitt. “Tell us all about Clara. Why isn’t she here?”
“Washin’ day,” said the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice.
“What? you don’t mean to say that poor Clara does her own washing?”
“Lummy, no — not all of it. ‘Tain’t likely is it?”
“I shouldn’t have thought so. I suppose she does a little, just as a sort of example to the poor women in the parish?”
“Right-o! Got it in once. She does lead the fashions — no kid!”
“Well, you must both be very devoted I’m sure. And does Clara talk that funny way, too?”
“Talk funny? Rats! No more’n what me an’ you do.”
“Oh, well! But doesn’t she find it very dull?”
“Dull? Blimy, no! I ain’t the sort to be dull with. She don’t ‘ave time to be dull.”
“Of course, I suppose there’s a lot of visiting?”
“Not ‘arf! She goes a-visitin’ every day — except washin’ day, o’ course. An she ‘aves ‘er pals in to tea, too, sometimes— ‘Oxton pals, I mean. Dull? Why, the Paragon an’ the Britannia’s close by, an’ a corkin’ movin’-picture show just raand the corner — on’y a dee a time!”
“Poor Clara! But there, no doubt she likes it as much as you. I suppose it is necessary to be so very East-end? I expect you find the people appreciate it?”
“Fair knocks ‘em. Me an’ the ol’ Dutch—”
“Old what?”
“Ol’ Dutch; the delo elrig, you know — the storm an’ strife; the missis, I mean — Clara.”
“Clara? Oh, don’t call her such things as that!”
“Don’t? Well, what would you call ‘er? But stow all this — no ‘ank, I must think out that sermon. So long! See you later.”
“But surely you don’t think out sermons in places like this! And here comes your aunt; I expect she’s looking for you. Lady Bilbury, we’ve just been introduced to Aubrey, and he’s such an East-ender!”
Lady Bilbury, stout, imposing, and peering through an ivory-handled lorgnon, came sailing toward the group. The Reverend Aubrey, with an air of resignation, stayed his departure, and then smiled cheerfully as he met Lady Bilbury’s gaze and plunged to meet her.
“Wotcheer, auntie!” he cried, and kissed her with a loud smack.
Lady Bilbury, her lorgnon knocked into one eye, choked with fury.
“Go away, Aubrey, you fool!” she gasped. “It’s plain you are mad, as everybody says. You neglect us all for two years, and then make a disgusting public exhibition of yourself like this! You’re not fit to be at large!”
“‘Ere, cheese it, auntie!” protested the reverend gentleman, somewhat abashed for Lady Bilbury could be a very terrible person on occasion. “Draw it mild. Don’t go chewin’ the rag afore company. I’ll do a bunk till your monkey climbs down. Got to think out a sermon. Tooraloo!”
“The creature’s mad!” said Lady Bilbury flushed and indignant, as her nephew’s back view vanished in the crowd. “Hopelessly crazy! It’s not safe to let him go about!”
“He does certainly seem very strange,” observed Miss Tyrwhitt. “He’s been saying the most extraordinary things in the most peculiar language. I wonder if it’s safe for Clara to be with him?”
“It’s the sort of thing some of them do,” said one of Benyon’s friends, who had joined the party. “Do in Rome as the Romans do, you know, and all that. They call
their parishioners ‘blokes’ and that, and they say it goes down wonderfully. There’s the Bishop of Limehouse, now—”
“Oh, of course, we know the Bishop of Limehouse,” said Lady Bilbury, smoothing her ruffled plumage; “but he’s no excuse for Aubrey, and the Bishop does draw the line somewhere. He doesn’t behave like a drunken bargee among his friends. No, it’s actual mental derangement, I’m sure, and what I’ve expected all along. These absurd enthusiasms always lead to something of the sort. Something must be done, and quickly; he mustn’t be allowed to go about disgracing his family.”
“Shall we wire to Clara?”
“That would scarcely be of much use. This affair would be all over long before she could get here. Besides, we’re not sure how Clara might take it. I hate to say it, my dear but I’ve a horrid fear she may he almost as bad herself, if it’s only from constant association with him. She worshipped him, you know, and we’ve seen nothing of them for ever so long, since they went so mad over this East-end business. No, the family must interfere, and we must really do something to restrain him among all these people. There will he a perfect scandal. What can we do? We can scarcely ask Sir Hudson Bagg to have him turned out; that would make a scene at once. But we really must do something.”
“He keeps saying he wants to think out a sermon,” remarked Harry Benyon. “I’ve heard him say it half-a-dozen times at least — the sort of cranky, persistent thing they’re apt to say, you know. I think that’s the side to take him on. Get Sir Hudson Bagg to lend him his study to do his sermon, and then lock him in.”
“Excellent, Mr. Benyon — a really admireable suggdstion. I’ll see Sir Hudson Bagg at once.” And Lady Bilbury, with recovered dignity, sailed off in search of her host.
Lady Bilbury was one of the great captures of the occasion, and Sir Hudson Bagg, under Lady Bagg’s instructions, would gladly have lent her the whole house for a week if she had asked for it. Consequently the mere request of the study for an hour or two was met with alacrity, and the faithful Benyon was dispatched to decoy the Reverend Mr. Fitzmaurice into the toils. The task was easy, for nothing, it seemed, could have pleased the sermon cogitator better.
“That’s a little bit of all right,” he observed gratefully. “I’m gettin’ fed up with all this noisy push outside, an’ I must get on some’ow with that sermon.”
He was seen safely into the study, and a trusty servitor of the house was placed just without the study door. And with that Harry Benyon sought Lady Bilbury to report that her reverend nephew was safely withdrawn from public notice.
“It’s all right now,” he said. “He’s put away in the study with a new pen and a pile of foolscap. I found him talking to a newspaper man.”
“A newspaper man, Mr. Benyon?” exclaimed Lady Bilbury. “But that will never do. We shall have all his insanities published broadcast — and exaggerated, if that is possible. We must find that newspaper man and forbid him absolutely forbid him — to print anything about Aubrey. Where is he?”
Harry Benyon knew where the newspaper man had been, but he was not there now, nor anywhere else to be seen. The fact was he had found the meeting rather dull copy and, having hit on something much more attractive, had now vanished to write up his little scoop.
Meantime, the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice was somewhat restless in the study as the trusted servitor in the passage could hear. After a little while he appeared suddenly at the door, stared at the servitor for a moment, and then retreated. The servitor — called ordinarily simply a footman — had been made somewhat apprehensive by the mysterious instructions given him; and when, ten minutes later, the door once again opened, and once more the clerical gentleman glared wildly at him and again disappeared, his apprehensions vastly increased. He grew firmly convinced that he was deputed to guard a dangerous madman, and on the whole he judged it expedient to turn the key of the study door, which he did, with a loud click that refused to be stifled. At once the door was tried from the inside; the footman retreated to an angle of the passage and watched; and the sequel was witnessed from the grounds.
The study window opened on a balcony, which made a roof for the veranda of the ground floor. The butler was in the act of emerging from the veranda, bearing a very large tray of ices, when he was suddenly rooted to the spot by the apparition of a pair of human legs depending from the balcony and kicking within an inch of his nose. The next instant the legs, the body thereto attached, the ices, the tray, and the butler were involved in one cataclysmal smash, from the thick of which rose the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice, splashed and veined in pink and cream, and darted across the lawn for the nearest shrubbery.
“Stop him!” screamed Lady Bilbury, her worst fears realized and doubled.
But nobody made the attempt save one portly dean, who, chancing to be in the line of flight, extended his arms and for one second danced before the fugitive as of yore danced the Bishop of Rum-ti-foo. In the next second the dean had turned three-quarters of a somersault, and the Reverend Mr. Fitzmaurice vanished like a harlequin through an arbutus.
II.
NEXT day’s issue of that bright little paper the Telephone, contained a bright little personal article, contributed by the journal’s representative at the meeting of the Philanthropic Society for Harassing the Indigent. He had, it appeared, “enjoyed an unusual opportunity of a chat with that fascinating and interesting personality, the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice, whose devoted work among the poor of his East London parish has made his name familiar to all who are interested in the upraising of the masses. Amid a thousand calls of duty the reverend gentleman gladly gave ‘‘arf a mo,’ to use his own picturesque expression, to a few remarks on his opinions and experiences. In spite of his high connections and his University education, he has become one of the people, sharing their joys and sorrows, and adopting their simple manners and earnest vocabulary. By dint of continued perseverance he has completely succeeded in eliminating the noxiously undemocratic consonant ‘h’ from his speech, and he has as carefully assimilated the expressive locutions of the down-trodden toiler. As he himself says, he finds Stepney a fair knock-out, and, although he wears a black ‘I’m afloat’ and ‘round the ‘ouses’ — playful synonyms for coat and trousers — he is truly right in the push at ‘Oxton. Questioned as to the prevalent views as to the localities he loves, the reverend gentleman replied with the pregnant monosyllable ‘Rats!’ As for himself and his old Dutch — an affectionate reference to Mrs. Fitzmaurice — residence anywhere else would speedily drive them balmy on the crumpet.
“In regard to the type of pulpit discourse he considered best fitted to his parishioners Mr. Fitzmaurice expressed no very particular views, beyond a general opinion that the preacher should chuck it off his chest with no hank and serve it up very OT — or, as you might say, peas in the pot.”
Several more paragraphs followed, in which a pleasant picture was drawn, from the Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice’s own information, of the devoted vicar traversing his parish in cheerful guise, reproving an acquaintance who seemed elephant’s trunk in one place, correcting an unruly parishioner elsewhere with one on the I suppose, and farther along encountering a tragedy that wrung his raspberry tart; all explained as being translatable on the usual principles of rhyming slang. ‘And, finally, the vicar was represented as he tore himself away from his interviewer to prepare an urgently needed sermon. “Don’t forget,” were the parting words of this remarkable man, accompanied by a cordial shake of the hand, “whenever you’re near the vicarage, be sure to knock at the Rory O’More and give us a chyike!”
The Reverend Aubrey Fitzmaurice did not see the Telephone that day till he returned to the vicarage from a round of visits in the afternoon. He read the opening lines of the article with some surprise, the rest with a growing sense of gasping stupefaction. He blinked, gazed at the familiar furniture about him, rubbed his eyes, looked at the paper again, and finally groped his way to the door and called for his wife.
“Clara,” he said
, “do read this article and tell me what in the world it means, or if I’m mad or dreaming.”
“Yes, dear,” his wife replied. “I didn’t know you were in. There are two gentlemen waiting to see you in the drawing-room; they were told to call by Lady Bilbury, they say. They seem to be doctors, and they’ve been asking the oddest questions about you. And I’ve had a strange letter from my cousin Mary. She wants to know if you’ve been home since yesterday, and says she’s terribly afraid that your work here has upset yours mental balance!”
“Has it? Perhaps it has,” replied the distracted vicar. “I shouldn’t have believed it till five minutes ago, when I read that paper. Just look at it, Clara, and tell me — do tell me — what it all is. Either I am mad or somebody writing there is.”
III.
THREE streets away from the vicarage, in the darkest corner of the bar of the Feathers, Snorkey Timms was bitterly reproaching Dido Fox for the failure of an attempt on Sir Hudson Bagg’s household valuables.
“I said what it ‘ud be.” snarled Snorkey. “You an’ your Reverend Aubrey! There’s bin no ‘oldin’ you since that parson come down here and everybody began callin’ you Aubrey. If I’d ‘a’ done it, like I wanted, it ‘ud ‘a’ bin all right. I wouldn’t ‘a’ bin nobody in particular, ‘cept an anonymarious parson in them clothes you’ve got to pay Ikey Cohen for. I’d ‘a’ gone in easy enough with all that mob an’ made no ‘ank, an’ got in the place an’ done it neat an’ quiet. Nobody ‘ud ‘a’ come talkin’ to me, an’ if they did I wouldn’t ‘a’ give meself away like that. ‘Tain’t enough to wear a parson’s clobber, you idjit!”
“But look what a chance it was,” protested Dido— “me lookin’ the very livin’ spit of ‘im when I’ve ‘ad a wash an’ a shave.”
“Chance? Rats! It’s lookin’ like the parson that’s busted the show. So mighty proud o’ yerseif an’ yer Aubrey, once you got the togs you must go an dress up in ‘em an’ fancy yourself, I s’pose! So o’ course the first thing somebody thinks ‘e knows you, an’ o’ course the next thing you go a-jawin’ up an’ down an’ — Why, what’s the good o’ lookin’ like a parson unless you talk like one? That’s where I’d ‘a’ come in. I’d ‘a’ chucked ‘em the proper dialogue. I may not look like any partic’ler parson, but I can sling orf a few words classy.”
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 280