It was such an awful shock to Plant and Rivaulx, and, for the matter of that, to his lordship the Bishop of Spilsborough, that they all gasped dreadfully. Plant took the bishop by the sleeve. Rivaulx lay down upon the grass under the dean's window, and howled as he tore at the turf. The dean said:
"I'll come out! This is becoming serious!"
He came out, and, as he opened the door, the light of the hall lamp fell upon Bob's face.
"Good heavens!" said the bishop, "I thought I knew the voice. Is that you, Robert Goring?"
Bob said it was, but added that he didn't know the bishop.
"Boy, I christened you," said the bishop. "Is all this trouble about Penelope Brading, whom I also christened?"
"Yes," replied Bob; "shall I tell you about it?"
"Let us retire a few paces, and you can tell me," said the bishop. "In the meantime, Mr. Dean, I beg you to exercise patience with the French nobleman on the grass. Come, Bob."
"Well, it's awful rot, you know," said Bob, speaking very rapidly. "We don't know where we are in the family, and grandmother is lying on a sofa screaming."
"Why, Bob?"
"You must have heard of it."
The bishop had heard a great deal, but not all.
"Pen says she's married and has a kid," said Bob, "and she won't say who it is. And all these jossers, including Plant, he's the American over there, and the marquis chewing the grass, said they had married her themselves. Do you see, sir,—my lord, I mean?"
"I see," said the bishop, putting his finger-tips together. "It was, I think, very noble of them."
"But granny said it was very trying, and it made her ill, for she wasn't any further than before, unless Pen had married them all. And grandfather, who kept cool, said that was unlikely."
"It certainly seems unlikely," said the bishop. "But when you came to us, you made some very astonishing remarks about a groom, one Bunting, I think. Now what is there to know about him?"
"Weekes said that, the beast!" cried Bob.
"Who is the beast Weekes?" asked the bishop.
Bob told him who Miss Harriet Weekes was.
"And not an hour after these had said they were married to Pen, this Weekes woman came in black and in a cab and said she must see granny. And granny saw her, and is now in fits, with the doctor feeling her pulse and giving her brandy. For Weekes was very solemn (I listened), and she said: 'Your Grace, I shall reveal the truth, which lies upon my bosom like a tombstone. Her ladyship treated me cruel, and gave me the sack moreover, and I've no call to be silent no more 'avin' diskivered the truth.' She talks like that. Weekes is an uneducated beast, and why Pen ever had her as a maid I can't tell. And granny was confused with the others, having said they were all married to Pen, and she waggled her head awfully. 'I shall surprise your Grace,' said Weekes, and granny said she wouldn't. And she said, 'I shall surprise your Grace, for I've to reveal that I know the man, the serpent, that her ladyship 'as married.' And granny smiled very curiously, and said, 'Weekes, who do you say it is?' And then Weekes cried, the crocodile, and she said that Penelope had married Timothy Bunting, the groom, and that Timothy had been engaged to her, and had as good as told her that he was looking high and despised a public-house at a corner. I don't know what she meant. And she was so solemn and furious that granny believed her, and went off into fit after fit most awful, my lord, and they sent for the doctor, and I came away, for I knew the others would fight when they learnt that all of them had said the same thing. And I believe it is Timothy myself."
"Dear, dear me!" said the bishop, "this is even more remarkable than I anticipated from the very strange reports in the papers. But I think you have done well, Robert, and I do not regret having christened you by any means, which is more than I can say for some of the aristocracy. Let us return to the dean, who is, I am afraid, having some trouble with the French marquis. He is not accustomed to foreign noblemen and to Americans, except when they come here to see his cathedral."
They turned toward the deanery, where Rivaulx was still rolling on the grass.
"Do you think it is Timothy?" asked Bob.
The bishop shook his head gently.
"I do not see what grounds we have to go on, Robert. Here we have an American who states, if I understand you rightly, that he has married my poor Penelope, and a French marquis of high repute who also states the same. And there are others—"
"Five or six!" said Bob.
"And there are five or six others who commit themselves to the same statement. And then a lady's maid says she knows that Penelope has married a groom. I do not see what logical grounds we have for concluding anything more than that some one has told a lie, or that Penelope has been breaking the law by marrying more than one man at a time. Speaking a priori, I think this latter alternative unlikely, and, as a matter of probability, I am forced to believe that only one at least out of seven (is it seven?) gentlemen of unblemished reputation has told the truth."
It was all very sad. But there were practical details to be attended to. Though the marquis had ceased to raise the echoes of the stilly night, to say nothing of the echoes of the cathedral's west front, he was still in a fearfully mournful condition. He was now weeping in the dean's arms, and the dean was endeavouring to soothe him as best he could. When the bishop came back, Mr. Dean seemed much relieved.
"Don't you think you could get them to go away, bishop?" he inquired, pathetically. "This kind of thing is beyond my experience, and I am extremely fatigued by it."
"I will do my best," replied the bishop.
Turning to the marquis, he said:
"Get up, marquis. I will walk with you to the hotel. Mr. Plant, please follow with Robert, and be good enough to take care of those lethal instruments, which are, I rejoice to say, little understood in a quiet cathedral town. It appears to me we are all in a state of mind which needs repose. On the morrow, after I have slept upon it, I shall be happy to receive you all and give you the best advice in my power. Now, marquis, I am waiting for you. The grass is damp."
And they walked to the hotel, leaving the dean staring open-mouthed.
"This is very unusual," sighed the dean. "I cannot recollect anything exactly like it in my long experience."
No more could the bishop. Plant was in the same state of mind. Rivaulx wept silently. Bob was in the seventh heaven of delight, in spite of Bunting. He thoroughly believed in what Harriet Weekes said. Neither Plant nor Rivaulx knew that he knew they both claimed to be Pen's husband.
"This story of Bunting is a goldarned lie," said Plant, hoarsely. Bob did not reply. He was sorry for them all, and relied on the bishop. What he relied on him for he did not know. All he did know was that the bishop seemed fully equal to the situation.
"How many more of you are there, Mr. Plant?" he asked at length.
"Gordon and Goby and De Vere," replied Plant, miserably.
"I must see Mr. Gordon," said Bob. And then they came to the Angel. By this time Rivaulx and the bishop were great friends, for Rivaulx was a clerical in his heart of hearts, and, if there wasn't a Catholic bishop to lean on, a Protestant one was a good substitute. He stopped weeping, and held the bishop's hand.
"You are a good man, sare bishop," he said. "I wish I was a good bishop, but I cannot. Life is a very terrible thing. I wish I could cut my throat. I am weary."
"I should go to bed," said the bishop, "and I'll look in and see you in the morning. Bed is the best place when one is weary. I assure you that I am not wholly ignorant of the world, or of the desire to cut my throat, but I find that after a good night's rest the wish to do so evaporates, and one determines to live for another twelve hours at least. But before you go, I hope you will give me your word that you will cut no one else's."
"I give it," said Rivaulx. "The desire to kill Mr. Plant has left me. I am no longer furious, even with Bramber. I am simply sad and fearfully mournful. I thank you, sare; good night."
"Good night," said the bishop. "Stay, marquis, I think Mr. Plant has the weapons."
The marquis waved them off.
"I have no need of them. I give them you, sare bishop. Take them."
And when the bishop had bidden Plant and Bob good night, and had arranged to see Bob in the morning, the curious sight might have been witnessed of a great ornament of the Episcopal bench walking through the precincts of the cathedral to his palace, with a couple of duelling-swords under his arm.
"This has been a very interesting evening," said the bishop. "I very much wonder what Ridley will think when he sees me come in. A butler's mind is naturally limited."
He went in and gave the swords to Ridley.
"Take these," said his lordship.
"Yes, m'lord," said Ridley, stolidly.
"I think you can hang them up in the dining-room, Ridley."
"Yes, m'lord."
"They are trophies, Ridley."
"So I perceive, m'lord," said Ridley.
"What are trophies, Ridley?"
"These, m'lord," said Ridley.
"Exactly so," said his lordship.
And while he was taking off his gaiters and thinking of Penelope, Bob was sitting on the edge of Gordon's bed and telling him all about it.
"Why are you here?" asked Bob.
"She sent me a telegram," said poor Gordon.
"I say, what about?"
"Sayin' I wath a noble character and so on," replied Gordon, miserably, "and I came here at onth becauth the telegram came from here."
As the sleep went out of his eyes, he talked less Hebraically.
"I thought she might be here," he added, shaking his curly head.
Bob thought very hard.
"I say, this is awfully mixed, Mr. Gordon, because I know you told granny you were married to Pen!"
Gordon gulped something down. It was probably very bad language.
"So—so I am," he said, sternly, without looking at Bob.
"Rivaulx says so, too."
"The devil!" cried Gordon.
"And so does Goby and Rivaulx and Bramber and De Vere and all of 'em!"
Gordon fell back on his pillows.
"So you see," said Bob, "we're no further than we were, except that Weekes, who used to be Pen's maid, came to granny this afternoon and told her, the beast, that Pen had married Timothy Bunting!"
Gordon bounced out of bed in his night-shirt.
"Who the devil is Timothy Bunting?" he roared.
Bob told him.
"It's a lie—a lie!"
"Of course it must be, if you've married her, as you say," said Bob. "But perhaps I'm disturbing you. Would you like to go to sleep?"
"Very much indeed," replied Gordon. "I should like to go to sleep and stay asleep. I wish you'd go and serve Goby and De Vere as you've served me!"
"I'm so sorry," said Bob, "but you always said you wanted any news, and that's why I told you first."
Gordon held out his hand, and Bob shook it warmly.
"By the way," he asked, "what about the hair restorer?"
"What hair restorer?" asked the astonished Hebrew.
"The one you put ninety pounds of mine in, sir."
"It wasn't in a hair restorer. What makes you say so?"
"Well," replied Bob, "I thought it was. You said it would make my hair curl. How much did it make, whatever it was?"
A glow of pleasure spread over Gordon's sad countenance. Making money was something even in despair.
"My boy, I bought you Amalekites at half a crown, five hundred and sixty of 'em, and now they're at £4."
"Dear me," said Bob, "how much does that make? Why, it's £2,240."
"Less commission," agreed the financier.
"By Jove, that's a very, very good beginning," said Bob. "Do you think they will go up more, Mr. Gordon?"
Gordon looked at him and sighed.
"They might. But don't you think it would be safer to get out now, Bob?"
Bob shook his head.
"I'll follow your advice, sir, of course. If it was only myself, I'd take the money, but I'm thinking of Goring, when my father and grandfather and uncle die. What I want is fifty thousand, at least. Grandfather often says that is the least that can put the house on its legs again. Let me see, £2,240 is eight times four times £90. That's thirty-two times £90. What's thirty-two times £2,240?"
"Seventy-one thousand six hundred and eighty," replied Gordon, promptly.
"That would do very well indeed," said Bob. "Please go on, sir, till it's that. Or shall I take half and ask Mr. Plant to do something with it? He offered to help me."
"Certainly not," replied Gordon, angrily. "Plant's a reckless speculator and a liar, and he'll wake up some day worth half a million less than nothing. I'll do my best for you and Goring, Bob."
"I'm sure you will, sir," said Bob. "Good night, Mr. Gordon. I'm sorry if I've worried you."
And he went off to worry Goby. Gordon walked up and down the room weeping.
"If I only had a boy like that!" he cried. "By Moses and all the prophets, I'll put Amalekites up sky-high, and squeeze the bears till they howl. Oh, Pen, Pen!"