‘As a matter of fact,’ said Dixson readily, ‘I came intending to stay a few days and look around here. I’ve always had a hankering to see the place properly, and in any case I don’t find that living in London suits me. So I shall hope to see over the church when it’s most convenient to you.’
‘Oh, you intend staying? I didn’t—I mean, not seeing any luggage, I inferred that you were just here for the afternoon. Of course—er—any time I shall be really delighted.’
‘I left my traps up at the station. I must find a room and then I can have them sent over. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t stand London any longer. I have hardly slept a wink for the last two nights. Perhaps you could put me in the way of a place where they let apartments?’
It was a very natural request in the circumstances—nothing could have been more so—but for some reason the vicar did not reply at once, nor did his expression seem to indicate that he was considering the most suitable addresses. Actually, one might have guessed that he had become slightly embarrassed.
‘Almost any sort of a place would suit me—just simple meals and a bedroom,’ prompted Dixson, without apparently noticing his acquaintance’s difficulty. ‘On the whole I prefer a private house—even a workman’s—to an inn, but that is only a harmless fancy.’
‘Awkwardly enough, a room is practically unobtainable either at a private house or even at one of the inns,’ at length admitted Mr Galton with slow reluctance. ‘It’s an unusual state of things, I know, but there are special circumstances and the people here have always been encouraged to refuse chance visitors. The consequence is that nobody sets out to let apartments.’
‘“Special circumstances”? Does that mean—?’
‘Evidently you have not heard of the Tapsfield paper mill, Mr Dixson. The particular circumstance is that all the paper used in the printing of Bank of England notes is made here in the village.’
‘You surprise me. I should have imagined that they would be printed in a strongroom at the Bank itself or something of that sort. Surely—?’
‘Printed, yes,’ assented the vicar. ‘I believe they are. But the peculiar and characteristic paper is all made within a stone’s throw of where we are. It is really our only local industry and practically all the people are either employed there or dependent on the business. Of course it is a very important and confidential—I might almost say dangerous—position, and although there is no actual rule, newcomers do not find it practicable to settle here and strangers are not accommodated.’
‘Newcomers and strangers, eh?’ The visitor laughed with a slightly wry good humour.
‘I know, I know,’ admitted the vicar ruefully. ‘It is we who are really the interlopers and newcomers compared with your status. But the difficulty is that owing to the established order of things it is out of these good people’s power to make exceptions.’
‘But what am I to do about it?’ protested Mr Dixson rather blankly. ‘You see how I am placed now?… I can’t go back to London for another wretched night, and it would be too late to get on to some other district … I never dreamt of not finding any sort of lodgings. Surely there must be someone with a room to spare, even if they don’t make it a business. Then if you wouldn’t mind putting in a word—’
‘Now let me think; let me think,’ mused the good-natured pastor. ‘It would be really deplorable if you of all people should find yourself cold-shouldered out of Tapsfield. As you say, there may be someone—’
Since the moment when chance had brought them into conversation, the two men had been walking together towards the village of which the only evidence so far had been an ancient tower showing above a mass of trees, where a querulous congregation of rooks incessantly put resolutions and urged amendments. Now a final bend of the devious lane laid the main village street open before them, and so near that they were in it before Mr Galton’s cogitation had reached any practical expression.
‘There surely might be someone—?’ he repeated hopefully, for by this time, what with one slight influence and another, the excellent man felt himself almost morally bound to get Dixson out of his dilemma. ‘I have it!—at least, there’s really quite a good chance there—Mrs Hocking.’
‘Splendid,’ acquiesced Dixson with an easy assumption that this was as good as settled. ‘Mrs Hocking by all means.’
‘She is an aunt of the youth I mentioned—the one who has gone to Sydney. He lived there, so that she ought to have a bedroom vacant. And I expect that she would like to hear about Australia, so that might make it easier.’
‘Quite providential,’ was Dixson’s comment, and rather inconsequently he could not refrain from adding: ‘How lucky that I didn’t come from Canada! I am sure that if you would kindly introduce me and put in a good word on the score of respectability, that—coupled with a willingness to pay in advance—would make it all right with Mrs Hocking.’
‘We can but see,’ agreed Mr Galton. ‘I will use my utmost powers of persuasion. She is really a most hospitable woman—I believe she provides the buns for the Guild Working Party tea regularly every other Wednesday.’
‘I happen to be very fond of buns,’ said Dixson gravely. ‘I am sure that we shall get on together famously.’
‘Oh, really? As a matter of fact, I never touch them—flatulence. However, her cottage is only just there over the way. Now, had we better—no, perhaps on the whole if you waited by the gate while I broached the matter—what do you think?’
‘I am entirely in your hands,’ said Dixson diplomatically. ‘It’s most tremendously good of you. Is there only a Mrs Hocking?’
‘Oh, no. She has a husband and a daughter as well—an extremely worthy family—but as they work at the mill, like nearly everyone else here, she will probably be the only one at home just now.’
‘Perhaps I had better wait as you suggest then,’—really a non sequitur, thought the vicar—‘and, if it’s any inducement, I’m doing pretty well at home, you know, so that I shouldn’t mind something above the ordinary in the circumstances.’
The gesture that Mr Galton threw back as he turned into the formal little garden of a painfully modern cottage might have implied that it would be or it wouldn’t—or indeed any other meaning. Dixson strolled on as far as an intersecting lane. It began with a couple of rows of hygienic cottages on the severe plan of Mrs Hocking’s, but in the distance a high wall indicated premises of a different use, and from this direction came the regular but not too discordant beat of machinery at work. Less in keeping with the rural scene than this mild evidence of industry was the presence of a sentry-box before what was apparently the principal gate of the place. Plainly a strict guard was kept, but the picket himself was too far away or not sufficiently in view for the actual force he was drawn from to be determined. It was the first indication that Tapsfield held anything particular to safeguard and Dixson experienced a momentary flicker of excitement.
‘So that’s that,’ he summarised as he turned back without betraying any further symptom of interest. He had not long to wait for his new acquaintance’s reappearance.
‘Our efforts have been crowned with success,’ announced Mr Galton, beaming with satisfaction. ‘Mrs Hocking only stipulates for no late cooking.’
‘Famous,’ replied Dixson, a little more careless of his speech now that he had secured quarters. ‘I never tackle a heavy meal after sunset myself—insomnia.’
‘The question