A trim maid opened the door.
“Is the vicar in?”
“No, miss. He went out half an hour back.”
Maud was as baffled for the moment as her brother Percy, now leaning against the vicarage wall in a state of advanced exhaustion.
“Oh, dear!” she said.
The maid was sympathetic.
“Mr. Ferguson, the curate, miss, he’s here, if he would do.”
Maud brightened.
“He would do splendidly. Will you ask him if I can see him for a moment?”
“Very well, miss. What name, please?”
“He won’t know my name. Will you please tell him that a lady wishes to see him?”
“Yes, miss. Won’t you step in?”
The front door closed behind Maud. She followed the maid into the drawing-room. Presently a young small curate entered. He had a willing, benevolent face. He looked alert and helpful.
“You wished to see me?”
“I am so sorry to trouble you,” said Maud, rocking the young man in his tracks with a smile of dazzling brilliancy–(“No trouble, I assure you,” said the curate dizzily)–“but there is a man following me!”
The curate clicked his tongue indignantly.
“A rough sort of a tramp kind of man. He has been following me for miles, and I’m frightened.”
“Brute!”
“I think he’s outside now. I can’t think what he wants. Would you–would you mind being kind enough to go and send him away?”
The eyes that had settled George’s fate for all eternity flashed upon the curate, who blinked. He squared his shoulders and drew himself up. He was perfectly willing to die for her.
“If you will wait here,” he said, “I will go and send him about his business. It is disgraceful that the public highways should be rendered unsafe in this manner.”
“Thank you ever so much,” said Maud gratefully. “I can’t help thinking the poor fellow may be a little crazy. It seems so odd of him to follow me all that way. Walking in the ditch too!”
“Walking in the ditch!”
“Yes. He walked most of the way in the ditch at the side of the road. He seemed to prefer it. I can’t think why.”
Lord Belpher, leaning against the wall and trying to decide whether his right or left foot hurt him the more excruciatingly, became aware that a curate was standing before him, regarding him through a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez with a disapproving and hostile expression. Lord Belpher returned his gaze. Neither was favourably impressed by the other. Percy thought he had seen nicer-looking curates, and the curate thought he had seen more prepossessing tramps.
“Come, come!” said the curate. “This won’t do, my man!” A few hours earlier Lord Belpher had been startled when addressed by George as “sir”. To be called “my man” took his breath away completely.
The gift of seeing ourselves as others see us is, as the poet indicates, vouchsafed to few men. Lord Belpher, not being one of these fortunates, had not the slightest conception how intensely revolting his personal appearance was at that moment. The red-rimmed eyes, the growth of stubble on the cheeks, and the thick coating of mud which had resulted from his rambles in the ditch combined to render him a horrifying object.
“How dare you follow that young lady? I’ve a good mind to give you in charge!”
Percy was outraged.
“I’m her brother!” He was about to substantiate the statement by giving his name, but stopped himself. He had had enough of letting his name come out on occasions like the present. When the policeman had arrested him in the Haymarket, his first act had been to thunder his identity at the man: and the policeman, without saying in so many words that he disbelieved him, had hinted scepticism by replying that he himself was the king of Brixton. “I’m her brother!” he repeated thickly.
The curate’s disapproval deepened. In a sense, we are all brothers; but that did not prevent him from considering that this mud-stained derelict had made an impudent and abominable mis-statement of fact. Not unnaturally he came to the conclusion that he had to do with a victim of the Demon Rum.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said severely. “Sad piece of human wreckage as you are, you speak like an educated man. Have you no self-respect? Do you never search your heart and shudder at the horrible degradation which you have brought on yourself by sheer weakness of will?”