E-Book, Englisch, 249 Seiten
ISBN: 978-3-95676-743-2
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
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MAXWELL GRAY
The Silence of Dean Maitland
Mary Gleed Tuttiett, the gifted lady who writes under the pseudonym of "Maxwell Gray," was born at Newport, Isle of Wight. The daughter of Mr. F.B. Tuttiett, M.R.C.S., she began her literary career by contributing essays, poems, articles, and short stones to various periodicals. With the appearance of "The Silence of Dean Maitland," in 1886, Maxwell Gray's name was immediately and permanently established in the front rank of living novelists. The story and its problem, dramatically set forth, and with rare literary art, became one of the most discussed themes of the day. Since that time Maxwell Gray has produced a number of stories, among them being "The Reproach of Annesley" (1888), "The Last Sentence" (1893), "The House of Hidden Treasure" (1898), and "The Great Refusal" (1906), and also several volumes of poems. This little version of "The Silence of Dean Maitland" has been prepared by Miss Tuttiett herself. I.--Impending Tragedy The story opens on a grey October afternoon in the Isle of Wight, in the 'sixties. Alma Lee, the coachman's handsome young daughter, is toiling up a steep hill overlooking Chalkburne, tired and laden with parcels from the town. As she leans on a gate, Judkins, a fellow-servant of her father's, drives up in a smart dog-cart, and offers her a lift home. She refuses scornfully, to the young groom's mortification; he drives off, hurt by her coquetry and prophesying that pride goes before a fall. Then a sound of bells is heard--a waggon drawn by a fine bell-team climbs the hill, and stops by Alma. She accepts the waggoner's offer of a lift, and on reaching the gate of her home in the dusk, is distressed by his insistence on a kiss in payment, when out of the tree-shadows steps Cyril Maitland, the graceful and gifted son of the rector of Malbourne, newly ordained deacon. He rebukes the waggoner, rescues Alma, and escorts her across a field to her father's cottage. There he is welcomed with respectful affection as the rector's son and Alma's former playmate. Afterwards she lights him to the gate, where a chance word of his evokes from her an innocent and unconscious betrayal of her secret love, kindling such strong response in him as he cannot conquer except by touching a letter in his breast-pocket. This letter is from Marion Everard, to whom he has been a year engaged. He walks through the dark to Malbourne Rectory, where, by the fire, he finds his invalid mother, his twin sister, Lilian, and two younger children. Here he appears the idol of the hearth--genial, graceful, gifted, beautiful, and warm-hearted. But he betrays ambition, sudden and great haste to be married, and some selfishness. He walks to his lodging in a neighbouring village, where trifling circumstances point to a refined sensuousness, self-indulgence, and sophistry in his character, leading to the neglect of serious duty. The shadow of impending tragedy is hinted at from the first line of the book. December in the following year. Cyril now an East End curate, and Henry Everard, M.D., going by rail to Malbourne. Everard asleep; manly, cheerful, intellectual, healthy in body and mind. Cyril awake; consumed by unspeakable sorrow. Everard wakes; Cyril suddenly becomes gay in response to his friend's high spirits. They chaff each other. Cyril preaches to Everard, when Henry scolds him for fasting, and his laxity of faith and practice. They pass Belminster, when Cyril betrays unconscious ambition at Everard's jesting prophecy that he would preach as bishop in the cathedral. Asceticism is defended by Cyril and condemned by Everard. Cyril speaks of the discipline of sorrow, and presses a spiked cross under his clothes into his side. Everard exalts the discipline of joy. The friends have been privately educated together, and were together at Cambridge. Henry admires Cyril's character and mental brilliance; Cyril regards Henry with condescending affection. Everard is silently in love with Lilian. Cyril and Everard in the meantime have arrived at Malbourne Rectory. Cyril and Marion, who have not met since a quarrel, are alone together. She wonders that he makes so much of the little tiff. He talks of his unworthiness, and makes her promise to cleave to him through good and evil report. At dinner, Everard asks for all the villagers, and gathers that Alma Lee is disgraced. "Alma, little Alma, the child we used to play with!" he cries afterwards to the men Maitlands. "Who is the scoundrel?" Cyril grows impatient under the discussion that follows. "After all, she is not the first!" he says at last, to Everard's indignation. Sunday. All classes meeting on the way to church, when Cyril preaches for the first time to his friends and neighbours, who throng to hear him. He preaches with passionate earnestness upon the beauty of innocence and the agony of losing it. "That once lost," he says, "the old careless joy of youth never returns." The village parliament in the moonlit churchyard after service comment with humour on the sermon, and on Cyril's eloquence, learning, and good heart. Granfer, the village oracle, prophesies that the queen will make a bishop of him. Ben Lee, talking with Judkins by the harness-room fire, supposes that Cyril was thinking of Alma in his sermon. "He always had a kind heart." But Judkins speaks of his suspicions of Everard as Alma's betrayer, alludes to his frequent visits to Mrs. Lee during her illness some months ago, and his constant meeting with Alma. Lee is convinced of Everard's guilt. "I'll kill him!" he cries furiously. II.--Sin-Engendered Sin It is a lovely winter's day, and Cyril, Lilian, and Everard are walking through the woods at the back of Lee's cottage. Cyril puts something into a hollow tree, and intimates a chaffinch's call. Another bird replies. Cyril walks on to Oldport, leaving Everard and Lilian, between whom there follows a warm love scene and betrothal. During this episode Mrs. Lee, Alma's stepmother, tells her husband that Alma is gone to meet her unknown lover in the wood at the signal of a chaffinch's call. Lee follows, and finds Alma there alone. He picks up a paper she had torn and dropped; it contains an assignation for that evening at dusk. Before luncheon Everard changes the grey suit he was wearing, and had stained in a muddy ditch. He goes to a lonely cottage on the downs in the afternoon; returning in the evening, he gets a black eye while romping with little Winnie Maitland. After bathing the eye, he sponges the stained suit, and is surprised to find blood on it. Cyril has been absent in Oldport all day, and on his return goes to bed with a headache, speaking to nobody. A man in Henry's grey suit passes through the hall at dusk, followed by the cat, who never runs after anyone but Lilian and Cyril. That evening, New Year's eve, there is a gay party of rustics at the wheelwright's house. In the midst of Granfer's best story in rushes Grove, the waggoner, crying that Ben Lee had just been found murdered in the wood. The same night Alma gives birth to a son. Next day, Cyril, in great mental anguish, goes to Admiral Everard's house, and incidentally puts to a brother clergyman there a case of conscience: Should a man who has acted unwisely, and is guilty of unintentional homicide, imperil a useful and brilliant career by confession? Not if he had such great gifts and opportunities of doing good as Cyril has, he is told. By this pronouncement and a love scene with Marion, Cyril is much comforted. In the meantime, Ben Lee's death is by many being imputed to Everard, who is quite unconscious of these suspicions. He is much surprised at the appearance of policemen at the rectory that afternoon, and still more so at being arrested on the charge of murdering Lee. After due examination, Everard is committed for trial on the charge of murder. His best witness, Granfer, who had seen and spoken with him in the village at the moment of the alleged murder, greatly discredited his evidence by his circumlocution and stupidity, purposely affected to set the court in a roar. He admitted that Everard gave him money and tobacco. Judkins swore that at three o'clock Lee told him Everard had asked Alma to meet him at dusk that evening in the wood, and that he--Lee--meant to follow Everard there and exact reparation from him; that Alma and Everard were known to be together in the wood on the morning of Lee's death (when Everard was with Lilian), and that he himself had seen them meet often clandestinely in the spring during Mrs. Lee's illness, when letters, books, and flowers had passed between them. On the eve of Lee's death he had seen Everard go into the copse at dusk carrying a heavy stick. Ingram Swaynestone, Grove, the waggoner, and Stevens, the Sexton, all saw Everard going on the upland path to Swaynestone. But the blacksmith swore to seeing him in the village street at the same hour. A keeper saw him going to the copse at the same time that a shepherd met him on the down going in another direction. At five o'clock two rectory maids saw Everard run in by the back door and upstairs, followed by the cat; he made no reply when Miss Maitland spoke to him. An hour later, Everard asked the cook for raw meat for a black eye, which he said he got by running against a tree in the dark. Blood was found in a basin in his room, and on the grey suit, which was much stained and torn, as if by a struggle. A handkerchief of Everard's was found in the wood, also a stick he had been seen with in the morning. Everard's evidence at the inquest was that he left Malbourne Rectory about four, wearing a black coat, met the blacksmith in the village, and the shepherd on the down, and finding the...
