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Sally Bishop. E. Temple Thurston
more in the vestry he took another sip of wine. The sentiments which that man had expressed were half rankling in his mind. They made him feel careless, reckless. He did not really think of what he was doing. He took another sip—it was most palatable—and another—it was certainly very good to the taste. With the little food that he had taken that day, he felt it warm within him. It was considerably more than half-finished now. He waited again, and really he felt no bad effects.
Once more he looked at his watch. They were actually sitting down to dinner now. He walked down the floor of the vestry and back again, and his steps were quite steady; so he took another sip. Then he breathed into his open hand held up against his face—as he had once seen an undergraduate do at Oxford—but he could detect no perfume of the wine in his breath. Possibly it would be all right. And he was looking forward so intensely to meeting the bishop. He felt that he would be able to convince him of the need for his little alterations.
Once again he looked into the cup. Then he finished the wine at a draught—elbow tilted at an angle on a level with his head—and hurriedly put the chalice away.
It was done now. And he felt quite all right. He began to take off his surplice, and when he trod on the end of it and stumbled a little, it seemed quite a natural accident. He smiled—laughed even, but very gently—at the fears he had entertained. Evidently he must have a very good head to be able to take so much wine. His hat dropped from his hand as he was raising it to his head; but that was nothing. It was quite a simple thing to stoop and pick it up again. If a man were intoxicated he could not do that. He would probably fall. Mr. Bishop only knocked his elbow against the vestry table as he stood upright.
He looked round the room. Was everything put away? What a delightful service that was at morning prayer on Easter day. It was quite true what he had said in his sermon—this was a day of promise, of good hope. He felt that within himself.
Ah! the cupboard that contained the bottle of wine had not been locked. He walked across to it, quite steadily, perhaps a little slowly. The bottle was there all right. How much had they used of it? He remembered that it had been full to the base of the neck. Now? He took it out and looked at it. It was more than half empty! He had practically consumed half a bottle of strongly intoxicating wine! How could he be sober? He laughed. He heard the laugh within himself, as though he were standing by, a spectator to his own actions. Then he knew he was drunk. He said so—to himself—aloud.
"I'm drunk."
At that instant the door of the vestry opened, and in walked Mr. Windle, followed by the bishop. They saw him there, standing with gently swaying movements by the cupboard, with the black bottle of wine in his hands.
"Mr. Bishop," said the warden, "I have brought his lordship to your assistance. I could find no one on my way home."
The Rev. Samuel put down the bottle and bowed uncertainly.
"I'm afraid it's too late," he said humbly.
The two men looked at him with growing suspicion, then his lordship said in austere tones, "So I should imagine, Mr. Bishop." He turned to his companion. "Shall we get back to dinner, Mr. Windle?"
They moved to the vestry door.
"Mr. Bishop," he said, turning round as they departed, "I would advise you to go back quietly to the vicarage."
Then the door closed and the little man sat down upon the nearest form. The bishop would never hear of his little alterations now; he would never think well of them, even if he did.
He burst into tears, and for some moments sat there with his head buried in his hands. Then he looked up, saw the bread which also had been kept over from the service, and, reaching forward, began pathetically to put the little squares one by one into his mouth.
CHAPTER V
That incident in itself is sufficient. There is no need to lead a way down the steps that brought the Rev. Samuel Bishop to his final degradation and ultimate death. The generous offer of the chaplaincy of a small union, the withdrawal of his son from Oxford, the dismissal of the tutelary services of the lady who had charge of his daughter's education, the replacing of a better man in the rectory at Cailsham—all these stages of the little tragedy have no intimate importance in themselves, except that they formed the first evolutionary periods of the development of Sally's life. These were the press-gang of circumstances that forced her into the service of her sex; these, the shrilling calls of the bugle that bid her strap the haversack to her slender shoulders and march out to war against the sea of trouble.
In a living and moving institution such as the Christian Church, you cannot afford to be lenient to incompetency. And the Rev. Samuel was incompetent. There is no doubt about that.
In such circumstances as these, assuming them up to the point where the obliging chauffeur had found the door closed in his face, a competent man would have lifted reason above his faith. Calmly, he would have told himself, as did the chauffeur, "This is the juice of the grape; it is in nowise altered in composition because these hands of mine—which have done many things—have been laid upon it. It is better to mix it again with unconsecrated wine, than pour it down the sacrilegious throat of an unbelieving chauffeur; I will put it back in the bottle."
So a competent man would have acted, presuming that he had ever allowed himself to be so far caught in such a predicament. But the Rev. Samuel was too fully possessed of that first characteristic of faith, which the Christian Church demands. It only argues that you must take no man absolutely at his word, even when he presumes to speak, inspired with the voice of God. Nothing has yet been written, nothing has yet been said, which can be made to apply without deviation to the law of change, and also indiscriminately of persons.
And so, for this unswerving faith of the Rev. Samuel, Sally Bishop is made to suffer. Very shortly after the removal from Cailsham, she made her declaration of independence.
"Mother," she said, one morning at breakfast, "I'm going to earn my own living." The baby lines of her mouth set tight, and her chin puckered.
Mrs. Bishop laid down her piece of toast. "I wish you wouldn't talk nonsense, Sally," she said.
The young man down from Oxford ejaculated—
"Rot!"
"It's not rot—it's not nonsense!"
Her voice was petulant; there were tears in it. It was not a decision of strength. Here the press-gang was at work driving the unwilling conscript. She was going; there was no doubt about her going; but it was a hard struggle to feel resigned.
"But it is nonsense," said Mrs. Bishop.
"How do you think you could earn your living?" said the young man. He knew something about the matter; he was trying to find employment himself—he, a 'Varsity man—and as yet nothing had offered itself. "If I can't get anything to do," he added sententiously, "how on earth do you think you're going to?"
"She doesn't mean it," said Sally's eldest sister. "She only thinks it sounds self-sacrificing."
"Is that the kindest thing you can think of?" asked Sally. "I do mean it. I've written to London and I've got the prospectus here of one of the schools for teaching shorthand and typewriting. For eight pounds they guarantee to make any one proficient in both—suitable to take a secretaryship. Doesn't matter how long you'll stay; they agree for that sum to make you proficient, and they also half promise to get you a situation."
"And where are you going to get the eight pounds from?" said her little sister.
"And where are you going to get the cost of your living up in Town?" asked the wise young man, who knew how London could dissolve the money in one's pocket.
"Oh, she's all right there," said the eldest sister bitterly. "I know what she's thinking about. She's going to draw that money that grandmama left her—that fifty pounds. I guessed she'd spend that on herself one of these days."
"And who else was it left to?" asked