Chapter XX: A Return

"In vain Remorse and Fear and Hate
Beat with bruised hands against a fate,
Whose walls of iron only move
And open to the touch of love.
He only feels his burdens fall,
Who, taught by suffering, pities all."--WHITTIER.

"How dismal the place looks!" exclaimed Carlo, as, after service the next day, he walked with Sardoni through the quiet streets, with their shuttered shop-fronts and deserted roads, to the station. "A good thing, I daresay, to have the shops closed and to give the people a rest, but there is such a sleepy air about it all; they don't seem to enjoy it."

Sardoni laughed. "Sunday afternoon is always a sleepy time in England, I don't know why; I assure you the most orthodox and energetic may be caught napping that one day of the week."

"They don't seem to know how to enjoy," said Carlo, feeling quite oppressed, as foreigners always do by the extreme quiet. "Ah, here comes a band, that makes it a little more lively! _Giusto cielo!_ What is this? A revolutionary club? See! they have 'Blood and Fire' on their banner, that's rather too strong."

"That, my dear Valentino, is the pet abomination of the true respectable Briton,--it is the Salvation Army, a band of religious workers."

"They will at any rate rouse up the sleepers," said Carlo, laughing. "They make it seem a little less like a city stricken with the plague, I must say. It is cool to criticise your national customs after being here so short a time; but really your Sunday does seem to me rather too drowsy-respectable; it has little of the _Festa_ about it."

"That all depends on your definition of a _Festa_," said Sardoni. "The average Briton, who has been religiously brought up, goes to church morning and evening, eats a heavier dinner than usual in the middle of the day for the sake of sparing his servants, abuses the Salvation Army for disturbing the Sabbatical calm, and nods serenely through the afternoon over a volume of sermons."

"They read sermons to themselves, do you mean, besides hearing two in the churches?" asked Carlo, with an air of such ingenuous astonishment that Sardoni burst into a laugh.

"Why, yes, to be sure; many of them wouldn't think it Sunday without," he replied.

"Poor things! poor things!" said Carlo, with a pity, which to the Englishman was highly comic.

"One man's meat is another man's poison, you see," said Sardoni. "But, look here, don't be too outspoken on these subjects, for, to tell you the truth, your sort of saintliness is not likely to be understanded of a northern people. We like to take our pleasures sadly and our religion, too."

"We sang the Jubilate this morning," said Carlo, reflectively; "but certainly this doesn't look much like it."

"For goodness' sake do hide your light under a bushel," said Sardoni; "for if you come out with all these broad notions in the place I'm going to take you to, it will be all over with me. I'm taking you as a sample of the troupe, and if you shock the prejudices of the natives you'll be worse than useless."

"Where in the world are we going?" asked Carlo, looking perplexed.

By this time they had reached the station, and for reply Sardoni handed him his railway ticket. This conveyed to him nothing at all, and in silence he followed his friend to a smoking carriage, and, knowing intuitively that Sardoni did not care to talk, lit a cigar and gave himself up to the enjoyment of the beautiful wooded country through which they were passing.

Sardoni watched him silently.

"After all, I doubt whether he'll make any impression on them," he thought to himself. "Now if he were a stiff, churchly-looking fellow, with a cross on his watch-chain and the ascetic type of face, there might be some good in his coming; or, on the other hand, if he were one of your priggish-looking, truly-pious young men, then I might gain a sort of reflected respectability. But there's no classifying Valentino, he won't fit any of the conventional notions. Imagine my father here at this moment; what would he see in him? Merely a very handsome Italian in a delightfully easy and comfortable attitude, travelling reprehensibly on a Sunday afternoon, idly enjoying the scenery and a cigar. And yet that fellow is a hero, if there ever was one, and a saint of the real sort, and no mistake. I could wish for this one afternoon to shake him into the goody-goody mould though; that, at any rate, has the merit of catching the eye of the respectable and virtuous, and getting a good deal more credit than it deserves. Now Valentino, looked at casually, might be anything. I believe if he thought more highly of himself he would get the credit he deserves, but, confound it, he never seems to think of himself at all."

They got out at a small wayside station, and making their way up a steep hill found themselves on a wide, deserted-looking common, where here and there a solitary horse or cow grazed, and where the mingled heather and gorse, set like jewels in the smooth green of the turf, unloosed Carlo's tongue.

"How beautiful!" he exclaimed; "I never saw anything like it before."

Sardoni seemed pleased by his admiration.

"You see we have something besides chimney-pots in England," he said, with a laugh. "Look there."

And he pointed to the rugged and rather wild-looking hills in the background. These, however, seemed to be much less to Carlo's taste than the smiling common with its near beauty and its glow of rich warm color. He did not care much to look at them; but the narrow, winding lane into which they soon passed charmed him, and he seemed to find pleasure, which quite amused Sardoni, in the high hedges with their tangled growth of blackberry bushes, travellers' joy, and red hips and haws.

"A hedge like this is quite a novelty to me," he said. "We have nothing of this sort. Do you know this part of the country well?"

"I know every inch of the ground," said Sardoni. "Down there to the right is the village--look; you can just see the church tower through those trees."

He leant over a field gate and gazed down on the little country place with a softened look in his eyes, which Carlo was quick to note.

"This is Sardoni's old home," he thought to himself; but he only said, "It is a perfect little place, just like the English villages I have read of. I'm glad you brought me out here."

"We'll cross this field," said Sardoni, not quite in his natural voice. "I don't want to pass through the village, for some one is sure to recognize me. This is where I used to live, you know."

"And you are going home?"

Sardoni nodded. Just at that moment he could not have spoken a word to save his life.

Carlo, too, was silent, but his silence was perfect sympathy. It was the Englishman who first broke the pause.

"It's your doing, old fellow!" he said, rather huskily. "I should never have come if it hadn't been for you!"

He did not explain himself, and Carlo asked no questions, only looked glad and surprised; and quickly putting himself in Sardoni's place said,--

"Let me wait for you here; you had better be alone."

"No," said Sardoni, with a forced laugh. "Alone, there is no knowing what I might do; I must have you, Valentino, to keep me up to it. I can assure you there'll be none of the fatted-calf business. I'm nothing but a disgrace to them, and this is the hardest day's work I've had for an age."

Glad as Carlo was at his friend's resolve to seek out his people, he was sorely perplexed as to the part he himself was to play. Naturally enough he felt that he would be very much _de trop_ in a family reconciliation, nor could he understand how Sardoni could tolerate the presence of a comparative stranger at such a time. However, he was too unselfish to object on his own account, and wise enough to let Sardoni choose his own way of setting to work. They crossed the field, walked through a little copse, entered a sunny-looking garden and made their way towards the Vicarage, a pretty, gray old house with many gables and a moss-grown, red-tiled roof. Carlo could guess how his friend's heart was beating, as with heightened color he walked steadily up the well-kept drive; but Sardoni spoke not a word till they stood in the porch and heard the bell echoing in the quiet house. Then he turned to his companion and said, with a touch of his ordinary jesting tone,--

"The cat will be out of the bag at last--my name will no longer be a secret!"

As he spoke, steps were heard within, and through the half-glass door they could see a neat maidservant crossing the hall. Sardoni was relieved to see a strange face: it would have humiliated him dreadfully to be recognized by the parlor-maid.

"Is Mr. Postlethwayte at home?" he asked, in his strong, decided voice.

A look of perplexity came over the maid's face.

"No, sir; there's no one of that name living here," she replied.

"What! is he gone then?" exclaimed Sardoni, turning pale. "The vicar--who is vicar, now?"

"Mr. Stanley is vicar now," said the maid. "Will you come in and see master, sir? He could, perhaps, tell you what you want to know. You see, sir, I've only been here in this situation a few days myself, so I don't know the names hereabout."

"Thank you--no--I'll not come in," said Sardoni; and he turned away and walked down the drive again with never a word.

"_Amico mio!_" said Carlo, when he ventured at last to beak the silence; "what can I do for you? Shall I go and make inquiries in the village?"

They had by this time left the Vicarage garden, and were in the little copse; Sardoni threw himself down in the shade of an old elm-tree.

"I wish you would, old fellow," he said, in a broken voice.

Carlo was just about to go when it suddenly occurred to him that he should have to master that extraordinary name which Sardoni had spoken at the door.

"It's stupid of me," he said, "but I couldn't quite catch the surname. Say it over to me more slowly."

"Postlethwayte," said Sardoni, not turning his head.

"Pothelswayte," repeated Carlo, with infinite pains.

Spite of his trouble Sardoni laughed.

"You'll not ask me to call you that?" said Carlo, when, after many practisings and corrections, he had at length arrived at the right pronunciation.

"No, it is too crack-jaw a name for an Italian; besides, I prefer to go _incog._ with the troupe. But I'll not be Sardoni any more with you: call me Jack."

"One thing," said Carlo, as he prepared to go. "How much am I to ask?"

"Ask when my father left, and why, and where he has gone; but give no reason for asking. Don't let them think you are my messenger."

Carlo promised to do his best, and taking the path pointed out to him by Sardoni made his way through the quiet little churchyard and across a stile into the village street. For a moment he felt rather at a loss to know how to proceed, and half afraid lest the villagers might talk some unintelligible _patois_; however, he went boldly up to a group of big boys who were idling about and asked whether they could tell him where the sexton lived. Their dialect puzzled him not a little, but he managed to make out which house it was, and walking through the pretty strip of garden, with its hollyhocks and dahlias, knocked at the door. A little bent old man, with a weather-beaten face and a friendly but toothless smile, opened it.

"You keep the keys of the church, I am told. Am I permitted to see it?" asked Carlo.

"Yes, sir; certainly, sir," mumbled the toothless old man. "Fine day, sir! Step in a minute, will ye, sir?"

Carlo stepped in, and found himself in a snug little room which smelt strongly of apples. The old man took a couple of large keys from a nail, and then, with a great effort, tried to reach his hat from a peg on the wall.

"Allow me," said Carlo, handing it to him in his pleasant, courteous way.

"Thank ye, sir," said the old sexton, turning a kindly look on the handsome stranger. "Time was when that there hook warn't a bit too high for me,--not a bit, sir; but, what with the rheumatiz and old age, why I be agoin' down as fast as my grandchilder be acomin' up."

"You've been here a long time, I daresay?" said Carlo, feeling rather like a detective.

"Oh! ay, sir; that I have, sir, that I have! Why, I've been sexton here these forty years past, and born and bred in the place, too! Six vicars I've seen in this here parish. Our late Vicar's son, bless him, he used to say, 'Why, Johnson, you're like the brook! Vicars may come and vicars go, but you go on for ever!' But lor! I never rightly understood which brook it was he meant."

"Wasn't there some one named Postlethwayte here once?" asked Carlo, bringing out the name with laudable precision.

"Why, yes, sir. It was poor Master Jack as I was just telling on. Aw! he was a rare one for a jest, he was! The poor Vicar never held his head up again after he left."

"Did the Vicar die?" asked Carlo.

"Aw no, sir, he didn't die; he be alive and well, bless him! But there was trouble with Master Jack--the old story, sir; the old story!--a pretty girl to put him off his balance; and then, when it all came out, he, just desperate-like at the blame he got at home, made away with some money that warn't his, and rushed off and was never heard of no more."

Carlo could hardly have regulated his expression to the casual interest of a stranger had not his profession taught him to command his face and make it answer at all times to his will. He was glad that the sexton was silent for a minute while he fitted the key in the heavy oak-door of the church.

"That's a sad story," he said at length. "What became of the poor Vicar?"

"He couldn't stay here, sir; he felt the disgrace so bad he went away to foreign parts; and it's my belief, sir, that he had hopes of finding Master Jack, though other folks said different. However, I never heard as how they met, and the Vicar he be back in England now, and I wish we'd got him here again. Not but what Mr. Stanley is a good young man in his way, you understand, sir; but he ain't our old Vicar, and nothink won't make him."

"Has he taken some new living, then?" asked Carlo.

"Ay, sir, he be just settled in since midsummer; the parish o' Cleevering in Mountshire--that's his new sitooation, and not a patch upon this parish, as far as money goes--at least, so folk say. "Now, sir, just you step and see our monument. That's Sir Gerald Fitzgerald, as was killed in the Civil War; Naseby or Marston Moor I b'lieve it was,--at any rate, the last battle before King Charles was taken. Belike you know, sir, how it was called; I'm not much of a scholard myself."

"Nor I," said Carlo, not at all desiring to be put through an examination in English history, and feeling extremely shaky as to dates.

He stayed long enough to please the sexton, and duly admired the village church, then, having gladdened the old man's heart with a shilling, he bade him good-day, and rejoined Sardoni, whom he found still stretched at full length under the elm-tree.

He got up quickly as Carlo drew near, and looked anxiously into his face.

"Well?" he exclaimed, in the sharpened voice of fear and apprehension.

"It is all right," said Carlo, reassuringly. "Your father has got a new living. He is just settled down at Cleevering in Mountshire."

"How did you find out? Did they suspect anything?"

"No; but they spoke of you. I learnt it from the old sexton."

"What! dear old Johnson! Is he still alive? Did you really see him?"

"He seemed very fond of you all, specially of you, and he spoke so warmly of your father. But, Jack, you must forgive me, I couldn't help hearing it, for the old fellow would ramble on, and I couldn't shut him up without making him suspicious, I heard--well, what you wouldn't tell me that day at Naples."

He looked up at him apologetically.

"'Pon my soul!" exclaimed Sardoni, "you're the oddest fellow I ever knew. You look as if it were you that was to blame, not me!"

"I was sorry to know it, since you didn't wish me to know."

"All right, Val--all right!" said Sardoni, in a choked voice. "I might have known it wouldn't turn you against me! As I told you yesterday, you would make excuses for the devil himself--and so would old Johnson! Tell me just what he said."

They sat down again in the shade, and Carlo repeated the whole conversation, Sardoni listening with averted face, and nervously crushing in his fingers the fallen leaves which lay on the grass beside him.

"As to the money," he said, when Carlo paused, "I swear to you, Donati, I didn't know what I was doing! I was mad!--if not, is it likely that, to escape my father's blame, I should have done what the world would blame a thousand times more? Embezzlement is an unpardonable crime, but to ruin a girl is an offence very easily condoned by society."

"That's true--to our shame be it spoken!" said Carlo, with a gleam of indignant light in his eyes.

"I was mad--desperate!" resumed Sardoni. "It all came out at her death--and I--why I felt like a murderer! My father was not one to spare a fellow in such a case. I couldn't stand it; to stay at home was more than a fellow could bear; I was bound to get away from him. And then came a mad impulse to take this money which was within my reach, and break off with the old world altogether and rush to America."

"And in America you met Merlino?"

"Yes. I got on much better than I deserved. But, somehow, a thing like that makes a fellow think, and when I saw the game Comerio was playing, and how helpless and friendless your sister was, I couldn't help feeling sorry for her, and angry to think that I was the last sort of man who could help her."

"You did help--we owe everything to you!" said Carlo, warmly.

"Well, when your name was announced that day at Naples, I had just an impulse to see you and tell you the truth, and somehow,--there's a bit of the magician about you, Val,--you stung me up far worse than my father had ever done, and to some purpose. Hulloa! you are shivering with cold; let us walk on."

He looked back sadly enough at the old home which his wrong-doing had desolated, then, turning away with a heavy sigh, left the copse and re-crossed the field. Carlo said little, but took his arm, and as they walked back to the station wondered in his own mind what would be the wisest thing for his friend to do.

"We are not very far from Mountshire, I suppose, here," he said at length. "Shall you go there or shall you write?"

"Neither," said Sardoni. "I can't go through a day like this again, Val."

"But if, as the old sexton thought, your father had been trying to find you all these years? Surely you could at least write."

"And send him a playbill?" said Sardoni, sarcastically. "No, no; that idea of old Johnson's won't hold water. I know my father better than he does. He's one of the best men in the world, and also one of the hardest. I won't run the risk of reviving the old disgrace in a new parish; I will hold my peace, and be to every one, except you, just Sardoni the tenor."

Carlo was sorry that his friend had made this decision, but he knew that had he been in Sardoni's place arguments would only have irritated him. So he held his peace, and comforted himself with the reflection that in so small a country as England the chances were greatly in favor of a meeting between the father and son.