FullReads

‘It is clearly written. What makes you say it is not to be taken literally?’

Mr Evans shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

‘Why, don’t you see it would be impossible? The world couldn’t go on. How do you expect your children to live if you give this money away?’

‘”Look at the lilies of the field. They toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.”‘….

‘Oh, my dear sir, you make me lose my patience. You’re full of the hell-fire platitudes of a park spouter, and you think it’s religion…. I tell you all these things are allegorical. Don’t you understand that? You mustn’t carry them out to the letter. They are not meant to be taken in that way.’

Mr Clinton smiled a little pitifully at the curate.

‘And think of yourself–one must think of oneself. “God helps those who help themselves.” How are you going to exist when this little money of yours is gone? You’ll simply have to go to the workhouse…. It’s absurd, I tell you.’

Mr Clinton took no further notice of the curate, but he broke into a loud chant,–

‘”Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”‘ Then, turning on the unhappy curate, he stretched out his arm and pointed his finger at him. ‘Last Sunday,’ he said, ‘I ‘eard you read those very words from the chancel steps. Go! go! I tell you, go! You are a bad man, a wolf in sheep’s clothing–go!’ Mr Clinton walked up to him threateningly, and the curate, with a gasp of astonishment and indignation, fled from the room.

He met Mrs Clinton outside.

‘I can’t do anything with him at all,’ he said angrily. ‘I’ve never heard such things in my life. He’s either mad or he’s got into the hands of the Dissenters. That’s the only explanation I can offer.’

Then, to quiet his feelings, he called on a wealthy female parishioner, with whom he was a great favourite, because she thought him ‘such a really pious man,’ and it was not till he had drunk two cups of tea that he recovered his equilibrium.

XI

Mrs Clinton was at her wit’s end. Her husband had sold out his shares, and the money was lying at the bank ready to be put to its destined use. Visions of debt and bankruptcy presented themselves to her. She saw her black satin dress in the ruthless clutches of a pawnbroker, the house and furniture sold over her head, the children down at heel, and herself driven to work for her living–needlework, nursing, charing–what might not things come to? However, she went to the doctor and told him of the failure of their scheme.

‘I’ve come to the end of my tether, Mrs Clinton; I really don’t know what to do. The only thing I can suggest is that a mental specialist should examine into the state of his mind. I really think he’s wrong in his head, and, you know, it may be necessary for your welfare and his own that he be kept under restriction.’

‘Well, doctor,’ answered Mrs Clinton, putting her handkerchief up to her eyes and beginning to cry, ‘well, doctor, of course I shouldn’t like him to be shut up–it seems a terrible thing, and I shall never ‘ave a moment’s peace all the rest of my life; but if he must be shut up, for Heaven’s sake let it be done at once, before the money’s gone.’ And here she began to sob very violently.

The doctor said he would immediately write to the specialist, so that they might hold a consultation on Mr Clinton the very next day.

So, the following morning, Mrs Clinton again put on her black satin dress, and, further, sent to her grocer’s for a bottle of sherry, her inner consciousness giving her to understand that specialists expected something of the kind….