intrigues of society. He felt himself now in a manner debased by having had to listen with enforced patience to Bainton’s rambling account of the gossip going on in the neighbourhood, and despite that worthy servitor’s disquisition on the subject, he could not imagine how it had arisen, unless his quarrel with Putwood Leveson were the cause. It was all so sudden and unlooked for! Maryllia had gone away,–and that fact of itself was sufficient to make darkness out of sunshine. He could not quite realise it. And not only had she gone away, but some slanderous story had been concocted concerning her in connection with himself, which was being bandied about on all the tongues of the village and county. How it had arisen he could not understand. He was, of course, unaware of the part Lord Roxmouth had played in the matter, and in his ignorance of the true source of the mischief, tormented his mind with endless fancies and perplexities, all of which helped to increase his annoyance and agitation. Pacing restlessly up and down his study, his eyes presently fell on the little heap of letters which had accumulated on his table during his brief absence, all as yet unopened. Turning them over indifferently, he came suddenly on one small sealed note, inscribed as having been left ‘by hand,’ addressed to him in the bold frank writing to which he had once, not so very long ago, felt such an inexplicable aversion when Mrs. Spruce was the recipient of a first letter from the same source. Now he snatched the little missive up with a strangely impulsive ardour, and being quite alone, indulged himself in the pleasure of kissing the firm free pen- strokes with all the passion of a boy. Then opening it, he read:
“DEAR MR. WALDEN,–You will be surprised to find that I have gone away from the dear home I love so well, and I daresay you will think me very capricious. But please do not judge me hastily, or believe everything you may hear of me from others. I am very sorry to go away just now, but circumstances leave me no other choice. I should like to have bidden you good-bye, as I could perhaps have explained things to you better, but old Josey Letherbarrow tells me you have gone to see the Bishop on business, so I leave this note myself just to say that I hope you will think as kindly of me as you can now I am gone. Please go into the Manor gardens as often as you like, and let the sick and old people in the village have plenty of the flowers and fruit. By doing this you will please me very much. My agent, Mr. Stanways, will be quite at your service if you ever want his assistance. Perhaps I ought just to mention that Lord Roxmouth overheard our conversation in the picture-gallery that night of the dinner-party. He was very rude about it. I tell you this in case you should see him, but I do not think you will. Good-bye! Try to forget that I smoked that cigarette!–Your sincere friend,” “MARYLLIA VANCOURT.”
As he perused these lines, Walden alternately grew hot and cold–red and pale. All was clear to him now!-it was Lord Roxmouth who had played the spy and eavesdropper! He recalled every little detail of the scene in the picture-gallery and at once realised how much a treacherous as well as jealous and vindictive man could make of it. Maryllia’s hand laid so coaxingly on his arm,–Maryllia’s face so sweetly and pleadingly upturned,–Maryllia’s half-tender tremulous voice with its ‘Will you forgive me?’–and then–his own impetuous words!–the way he had caught her hand and kissed it!–why his very look must have betrayed him to the ‘noble and honourable’ detective, part of whose distinguished role it was to listen at doors and afterwards relate to an inquisitive and scandal-loving society all that he heard within. By degrees he grasped the whole situation. He realised that his name and honour lay at the mercy of this man Roxmouth, who under the circumstances of the constant check put upon his mercenary aims, would certainly spare no pains to injure both. And he felt sick at heart.
Locking Maryllia’s note carefully in his desk, he stepped into his garden and walked up and down the lawn slowly with bent head, Nebbie trotting after him with a sympathetically disconsolate air. And gradually it dawned upon him that Maryllia had possibly–nay very probably–gone away for his sake,–to make things easier for him–to remove her presence altogether from his vicinity-and so render Roxmouth’s tale-bearing, with its consequent malicious gossip, futile, till of itself it died away and was forgotten. As this idea crossed his mind and deepened into conviction, his eyes filled with a sudden smarting moisture.
“Poor child!” he said, half aloud–“Poor little lonely child!”
Then a fresh thought came to him,–one which made the blood run more quickly through his veins and caused his heart to pulsate with quite a foolish joy. If–if she had indeed gone away out of a sweet womanly wish to save him from what she imagined might cause him embarrassment or perplexity, then–then surely she cared! Yes–she must care for him greatly as a friend,–though only as a friend–to be willing to sacrifice the pleasure of passing all the summer in the old home to which she had so lately returned, merely to relieve him of any difficulty her near society might involve. If she cared! Was such a thing–could such a thing be possible? Tormented by many mingled feelings of tenderness, regret and pain, John pondered his own heart’s problem anxiously, and tried to decide the best course to pursue,–the best for her–the best for himself. He was not long in coming to a decision, and once resolved, he was more at ease.
When he celebrated the evening service that Sunday the garrulous Bainton saw, much to his secret astonishment, that the effect of his morning’s communication had apparently left no trace on his master’s ordinary demeanour, except perhaps to add a little extra gravity to his fine strong features, and accentuate the reserve of his accustomed speech and manner. His habitual dignity was even greater than usual,–his composed mien and clear steadfastness of eye had lost nothing of their quelling and authoritative influence,–and so far as his own manner and actions showed, the absence or presence of Miss Vancourt was a matter to him of complete unconcern. His visit to his friend the Bishop had ‘done ‘im a power o’ good’–said his parishioners, observing him respectfully, as, Sunday being over and the week begun, he went about among them on his accustomed round of duty, enquiring after the poultry and the cattle with all the zeal expected of him. The name of Miss Vancourt seldom passed his lips,– when other people spoke of her, either admiringly, questioningly or suggestively, he merely listened, offering no opinion. He denied himself to all ‘county’ visitors on plea of press of work,–he never once went to Abbot’s Manor or entered the Manor grounds–and the only persons with whom he occasionally interchanged hospitalities were Julian Adderley and the local doctor, ‘Jimmy’ Eorsyth. Withdrawing himself in this fashion into closer seclusion than ever, his life became almost hermit-like, for except in regard to his daily parish work, he seldom or never went beyond the precincts of his own garden.
Days went on, weeks went on,–and soon, too soon, summer was over. The melancholy autumn shook down the once green leaves, all curled up in withering death-convulsions, from the branches of the trees now tossing in chill wind and weeping mists of rain. No news had been received by anyone in the village concerning Maryllia. The ‘Sisters Gemini,’ Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby, had departed from Abbot’s Manor when the time of their stay had concluded, and neither of the twain had given the slightest hint to any enquirer, as to the probable date of the return of the mistress of the domain. Sir Morton Pippitt at last got tired of talking scandal for which there seemed no visible or tangible foundation, and even his daughter Tabitha began to wonder whether after all there was not some exaggeration in the story Lord Roxmouth had given her to sow like rank seed upon the soil of daily circumstance? She never saw Walden by any chance,–on one occasion she ventured to call, but he was ‘out’ as usual. Neither could she persuade Julian Adderley to visit at Badsworth Hall. A veil of obscurity and silence was gradually but surely drawn between St. Rest and the outlying neighbourhood so far as its presiding ruler John Walden was concerned, while within the village his reticence and reserve were so strongly marked that even the most privileged person in the place, Josey Letherbarrow, awed at his calm, cold, almost stern aspect, hesitated to speak to him except on the most ordinary matters, for fear of incurring his displeasure.
Meanwhile the village sorely missed the bright face and sweet ways of ‘th’ owld Squire’s gel’–and many of the inhabitants tried to get news of her through Mrs. Spruce, but all in vain. That good lady, generally so talkative, was for once in her life more than discreetly dumb. All that she would say was that she “didn’t know nothink. Miss Maryllia ‘ad gone abroad an’ all ‘er letters was sent to London solicitors. Any other address? No–no other address. The servants was to be kep’ on–no one wasn’t goin’ to lose their places if they behaved theirselves, which please the Lord, they will do!”– she concluded, with much fervour. Bennett, the groom, was entrusted with the care of the mares Cleo and Daffodil, and might be seen exercising them every day on the open moors beyond the village, accompanied by the big dog Plato,–and so far as the general management of affairs was concerned, that was ably undertaken by the agent Stanways, who though civil and obliging to all the tenantry, had no news whatever to give respecting the absence or the probable return of the lady of the Manor. The Reverend Putwood Leveson occasionally careered through the village on his bicycle, accompanied by Oliver Leach who bestrode a similar machine, and both individuals made a point of grinning broadly as they passed the church and rectory of St. Rest, jerking their fingers and thumbs at both buildings with expressively suggestive contempt.
And by and by the people began to settle down, into the normal quietude which had been more or less their lot, before Maryllia, with her vivacious little musical protegee Cicely Bourne had awakened a new interest and animation in the midst of their small community,–and they began to resign themselves to the idea that her ‘whim’ for residing once more in the home of her childhood had passed, and that she would now, without doubt, marry the future Duke of Ormistoune, and pass away from the limited circle of St. Rest to those wider spheres of fashion, the splendours of which, mere country-folk are not expected to have more than the very faintest glimmering conception. Even in that independent corner of opinion, the tap-room of the ‘Mother Huff,’ her name was spoken with almost bated breath, though Mr. Netlips was not by any means loth to spare any flow of oratorical eloquence on the subject.
“I think, Mr. Buggins,” he said one evening, addressing ‘mine host’ with due gravity–“I think you will recall to your organisation certain objective propositions I made with regard to Miss Vancourt, when that lady first entered into dominative residence at Abbot’s Manor. Personally speaking, I have no discrepancies to suggest beyond the former utterance. Matters in which I have taken the customary mercantile interest have culminated with the lady to the satisfaction of all sides. Nothing has been left standing controversially on my books. Nevertheless it would be repudiative to say that I have sophisticated my previous opinion. I said then, and I confirm the observation, that a heathen cannot enjoy the prospective right of the commons.”
“I s’pose,”–said Mr. Buggins, meditatively in reference to this outburst–“you means, Mr. Netlips, that Miss Vancourt is a kind of heathen?”
Mr. Netlips nodded severely.
“‘Cos she don’t go to church?” suggested Dan Ridley, who as usual was one of the tap-room talkers. Again Mr. Netlips nodded.
“Well,” said Dan, “she came to church once an’ brought her friends– -“
“Late,–very late,”–interposed Mr. Netlips, solemnly–“The tardiness of her entrance was marked by the strongest decorum. The strongest, the most open decorum! Deplorable decorum!”
“What’s decorum?” enquired Mr. Buggins, anxiously.
Mr. Netlips waved one fat hand expressively.
“Decorum,”–he said–“is–well!–decorum.”
Buggins scratched his head dubiously. Dan Ridley looked perplexed. There was a silence,–the men listening to the wailing of a rising wind that was beginning to sweep round the house and whistle down the big open chimney, accompanied by pattering drops of rain.
“Summer’s sheer over,”–said a labourer, lifting his head from his tankard of ale–“Howsomever, we’re all safe this winter in the worst o’ weather. Rents are all down at ‘arf what they was under Oliver Leach, thanks to the new lady, so whether she’s a decorum or not don’t matter to me. She’s a right good sort–so here’s to her!”
And he drained off his ale at one gulp with a relish, several men present following his example.
“Passon Walden,”–began Dan Ridley–“Passon Walden—“
But here there was a sudden loud metallic crash. Buggins had overturned two empty pewter-mugs on his counter.
“No gossiping o’ Passon Walden allowed ‘ere,”–he said,–“Not while I’m master o’ this public!”
“Leeze majestas,”–proclaimed Mr. Netlips, impressively–“You’re right, Buggins–you’re quite right! Leeze majestas would be entirely indigenous–entirely so!”
An awkward pause ensued. ‘Leeze majestas’ in all its dark incomprehensibility had fallen like a weight upon the tavern company, and effectually checked any further conversation. It was one of those successful efforts of Mr. Netlips, which, by its ponderous vagueness and inscrutability, produced an overwhelming effect. There was nothing to be said after it.
The gold and crimson glory of autumn slowly waned and died,–and the village began to look very lonely and dreary. Heavy rains fell and angry gales blew,–so that when dark November came glooming in, with lowering skies, there was scarcely so much as a leaf of russet or scarlet Virginian creeper clinging to roof or wall. The woods around Abbot’s Manor were leafless except where the pines and winter laurel grew in thick clusters, and where several grand old hollies showed their scarlet berries ripening among the glossy green. The Manor itself however looked wide-awake and cheerful,–smoke poured up from the chimneys and glints of firelight sparkled through the windows,– all the shutters, which had been put up after the departure of the ‘Sisters Gemini,’ were taken down–blinds were raised and curtains drawn back,–and as soon as these signs and tokens were manifested, people were not slow in asking Mrs. Spruce whether Miss Vancourt was coming back for Christmas? But to all enquiries that estimable dame gave the same answer. She ‘didn’t know nothink.’ The groom Bennett was equally reticent. He had received ‘no orders.’ Mr. Stanways, the agent, and his wife, both of whom had become very friendly with all the villagers, were cheerfully talkative on every subject but one,– that of Miss Vancourt and her movements. All they could or would say was that her return was ‘quite uncertain.’ Fires were lighted in the Manor–oh yes!–to keep the house well aired–and windows were opened for the same purpose,–but beyond that–‘really,” said Mr. Stanways, smiling pleasantly–‘I can give no information!’
The days grew shorter, gloomier and colder,–and soon, when the chill nip of winter began to make itself felt in grim damp earnest, the whole county woke up from the pleasant indolence into which the long bright summer had steeped it, and responded animatedly to the one pulse of vitality which kept it going. The hunting season began. Old, otherwise dull men, started up into the semblance of youth again, and sprang to their saddles with almost as much rigour and alertness as boys,–and Reynard with his cubs ruled potently the hour. The first ‘meet’ of the year was held at Ittlethwaite Park,– and for days before it took place nothing else was talked of. Hunting was really the one occupation of the gentry of the district,–everything else distinctly ‘bored’ them. Many places in England are entirely under the complete dominion of this particular form of sport,–places, where, if you do not at least talk about hunting and nothing BUT hunting, you are set down as a fool. Politics, art, literature,–these matters brought into conversation merely excite a vacuous stare and yawn,–and you may consider yourself fortunate if, in alluding to such things at all, you are not considered as partially insane. To obtain an ordinary reputation for common-sense in an English hunting county, you must talk horse all day and play Bridge all night,–then and then only will you have earned admission into these ‘exclusive’ circles where the worth of a quadruped exceeds the brain of a man.
The morning of the meet dawned dully–yet now and then the sun shone fitfully through the clouds, lighting up with a cold sparkle the thick ivy, wet with the last night’s rain, which clung to the walls of Walden’s rectory. There was a chill wind, and the garden looked bleak and deserted, though it was kept severely tidy, Bainton never failing to see that all fallen leaves were swept up every afternoon and all weeds ‘kep’ under.’ But there was no temptation to saunter down the paths or across the damp lawn in such weather, and Walden, seated by a blazing fire in his study, with Nebbie snoozing at his feet, was sufficiently comfortable to be glad that no ‘parochial’ duties called him forth just immediately from his warm snuggery. He had felt a little ailing of late–‘the oncoming of age and infirmity,’ he told himself, and he looked slightly more careworn. The strong restraint he had imposed upon himself since he knew the nature of the scandal started by Lord Roxmouth, and the loyal and strict silence he had maintained on the subject that was nearest and dearest to his own heart, had been very trying to him. There was no one to whom he could in any way unburden his mind. Even to his closest friend, Bishop Brent, he had merely written the briefest of letters, informing him that Miss Vancourt had left Abbot’s Manor for a considerable time,–but no more than this. He longed passionately for news of Maryllia, but none came. The only person to whom he sometimes spoke of her, but always guardedly, was Julian Adderley. Julian had received one or two letters from Cicely Bourne,–but they were all about her musical studies, and never a word of Maryllia in them. And Julian was almost as anxious to know what had become of her as Walden himself, the more so as he heard constantly from Marius Longford, who never ceased urging him to try and discover her whereabouts. Which request proved that, for once. Lord Roxmouth had been foiled, and that even he with all his various social detectives at work, had lost all trace of her.
On this particular morning of the opening of the hunting season, Walden sat by the fire reading,–or trying to read. He was conscious of a great depression,–a ‘fit of the blues,’ which he attributed partly to the damp, lowering weather. Idly he turned over the leaves of a first edition of Tennyson’s poems,–pausing here and there to glance at a favourite lyric or con over a well-remembered verse, when the echo of a silvery horn blown clear on the wintry silence startled him out of his semi-abstraction. Rising, he went instinctively to the window, though from that he could see nothing but his own garden, looking blank enough in its flowerless condition, the only bright speck in it being a robin sitting on a twig hard by, that ruffled its red breast prettily and blinked its trustful eye at him with a friendly air of sympathy and recognition. He listened attentively for a moment and heard the approaching trot and gallop of horses,–then suddenly recalling the fact that the hounds were to meet that day at Ittlethwaite Park, he took his hat and went out to see if any of the hunters were passing by.
A wavering mass of colour gleamed at the farther end of the village as he looked down the winding road;–scarlet coats, white vests and buckskin breeches showed bravely against the satiny brown and greys of a fine group of gaily prancing steeds that came following after the huntsmen, the hounds and the whippers-in, and a cheery murmur of pleasant voices, broken with an occasional musical ring of laughter, dispersed for a time the heaviness of the rainy air. Something unusually pleasant seemed to animate the faces of all who composed the hunting train as they came into view,–Miss Arabella Ittlethwaite, for example, portly of bulk though she was, sat in her saddle with an almost mirthful lightness, her good-natured fat face all smiles,–while her brother Bruce, laughing heartily over something which had evidently tickled his fancy, looked more like thirty than sixty, so admirably did his ‘pink’ become him, and so excellently well did he ride. Walden saluted them as they passed, and they gave him a pleasant ‘good-day.’ But,–what was that sudden flash of deep purple, which the fitful sun, peering sulkily through grey clouds, struck upon quickly with a slanting half-smile of radiance? What–and who was the woman riding lightly, with uplifted head like a queen, in the midst of the company, surrounded by all the younger men of the neighbourhood who, keeping their horses close on either side of her, appeared to be trying to outrival each other in eager attentions, in questions and answers, in greetings and hat- liftings, and general exchange of courtesies? Walden rubbed his eyes, and gazed and gazed,-anon his heart gave a wild leap, and he felt himself growing deadly pale. Had the portrait of ‘Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt’ in Abbot’s Manor come visibly to life?–or was it, could it be indeed,–Maryllia?
He would gladly have turned away, but some stronger force than his own held him fast where he stood, stricken with surprise, and a gladness that was almost fear. The swaying gleam of purple came nearer and nearer, and resolved itself at last into definite shape,- -Maryllia’s face, Maryllia’s eyes! Almost mechanically he half opened his gate as all the hunters went trotting by, and she alone reined in her mare ‘Cleopatra’ and spoke to him.
“How do you do, Mr. Walden!”
He looked up–and looking, smiled. What a child she was after all!– full of quaint vanities surely, and naive coquetry! For her riding- dress was the exact copy of that worn by her pictured ancestress “Mary Elia,’–even to the three-cornered hat and the tiny rose fastened in the bodice which was turned back with embroidered gold revers,–so that the ‘lady in the vi’let velvet’ appeared before him as it were, re-incarnated,–and the pouting lips, sweet eyes and radiant hair were all part of the witch-glamour and mystery! Mastering his thoughts with an effort, he raised his hat in his usual quietly courteous way.
“This is a great surprise, Miss Vancourt!” he said, lightly, though his voice trembled a little–“And a happy one! The villagers will be delighted to see you back again! When did you return?”
“Last night,”–she answered, fixing her frank gaze fully upon him and noting with a sharp little pang of compunction that he looked far from well–“I felt I MUST be here for the first meet of the season! I’ve been staying in an old convent on the Breton coast,– such a dear quaint place! And I think,”–here she nodded her pretty head wisely–“I THINK I’ve brought you enough stained glass to quite finish your rose-window! I’ve been busy collecting it ever since I left here. Gently, Cleo!–gently, my beauty!”–this, as her mare pawed the ground restlessly and sprang forward–“Come and see me to- morrow, Mr. Walden! I shall expect you!”
Waving her gloved hand she cantered off and rejoined the rest of the hunters going on ahead. Once she turned in her saddle and looked back,–and again waved her hand. The sun came out fully then, and sweeping aside the grey mists, ehed all its brightness on the graceful figure in the saddle, striking a reflex of rose from the soft violet riding-dress, and sparkling against the rippling twists of gold-brown, hair,–then,–as she disappeared between two rows of leafless trees,–withdrew itself again frowningly and shone no more that day.
Walden re-entered his house, hardly able to sustain the sudden joy that filled him. He felt himself trembling nervously, and was angry at his own weakness.
“I am more foolish than any love-sick boy!” he said to himself with inward remonstrance–“And God knows I am old enough to know better! But I cannot help being glad she has come home!–I cannot help it! For with her presence it seems to me that ‘the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come’! She is so full of life and brightness!-we shall know nothing of dull days or gloomy skies in St. Rest if she stays with us,–though perhaps for me it might be wiser and safer to choose the dull days and gloomy skies rather than tempt my soul with the magical light of an embodied spring in winter-time! But I shall be careful,–careful of myself and of her,- -I shall guard her name in every way, on my side–and if–if I love her, she shall never know it!”
He resumed his former seat by the study fire, and again took up his volume of Tennyson. And opening the book at hazard, his glance fell on that exquisite ‘Fragment’ which perhaps excels in its own way all the ‘Idylls of the King’–
“As she fled fast thro’ sun and shade, The happy winds upon her play’d,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid: She look’d so lovely as she sway’d
The rein with dainty finger-tips. A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.”
“Quite true!” he said, as he read the lines half aloud, a tender smile lighting up the gravity of his deep thoughtful eyes–“True to the life, so far as the Guinevere of to-day is concerned! But let the simile stop there, John, my boy! Don’t carry it any further! Don’t deceive yourself as to your own demerits! You are nothing but an old-fashioned country parson–a regular humdrum, middle-aged fogey!–that’s what you are!–so, even though you HAVE fallen in love (which at your time of life is a folly you ought to be ashamed of), don’t for Heaven’s sake imagine yourself a Lancelot, John!–it won’t do!”
XXIX
Over the moist ground, and under the bare branches that dripped slow tears of past rain, the brilliant hunting train swept onward, Maryllia riding in the midst, till they came out on a bare stretch of moorland covered with sparse patches of gorse and fir. Here they all paused, listening to the cry of the huntsman in the bottoms, and watching the hounds as they drew up wind.
The eyes of every man present wandered now and again to Maryllia in admiration,–none of them had ever seen her look so lovely, so bright, so entirely bewitching. She was always at her best in the saddle. When she had paid her first visit to America with her uncle and aunt as a girl of sixteen, she had been sent for the benefit of her health to stay with some people who owned a huge Californian ‘ranch,’ and there she learned to ride on horses that were scarcely broken in, and to gallop across miles and miles of prairie, bareheaded to the burning sun, and had, in such pastime, felt the glorious sense of that savage and splendid freedom which is the true heritage of every child of nature,–a heritage too often lost in the tangled ways of over-civilisation, and seldom or never regained. The dauntless spirit of joyous liberty was in her blood,–she loved the fresh air and vigorous exercise, and was a graceful, daring rider, never knowing what it was to feel a single pulse of fear. Just now she was radiantly happy. She was glad to be at home again,–and still more glad that her plans for eluding the pursuit of Lord Roxmouth had completely succeeded. He had been left absolutely in the dark as to her whereabouts. His letters to her had been returned unanswered, through her solicitors, who declined to make any statement with regard to her movements, and, growing weary at last of fruitless enquiry, he bad left England to winter in Egypt with a party of wealthy friends, her aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, being among the number. She owed this pleasing news to Louis Gigue, who had assisted her in her flight from the persecution of her detested wooer. Gigue had, through his influence, managed to introduce her under an assumed name, as a friend of his own to certain poor nuns In a Brittany convent, who were only too willing to receive her as a paying guest for a couple of months, and to ask no questions concerning her. There she had stayed with exemplary patience and resignation,–lonely indeed, yet satisfied to have made good her escape for the time being, and, as she imagined, to have saved John Walden from any possibility of annoyance chancing to him through her, or by her means. She would not consent to have even Cicely with her, lest any accidental clue to her hiding-place might be found and followed.
As soon, however, as she heard that Roxmouth had actually left England, she made haste to return at once to the home she had now learned to love with a deep and clinging affection, and she had timed her reappearance purposely for the first meet of the hunting season. She would show herself, so she resolved, as a free and independent woman to all the county,–and if people had gossiped about her, or were prone to gossip, they would soon find out the error of their ways. Hence the ‘creation’ of the becoming violet velvet riding-dress, copied from the picture of her ancestress in Abbot’s Manor gallery. She had determined to make an ‘effective’ entrance on the field,–to look as pretty and picturesque as she possibly could, and to show that she was herself and nobody else, bound to no authority save her own.
In this purely feminine ambition she certainly accomplished her end. She was the centre of attraction,–all the members of the Riversford Hunt dispersed round and about her in Hear or distant groups, discussed her in low tones, even while watching the working of the pack, and scanning every yard of open ground for the first sign of a fox. Gradually the crowd of horses and riders increased,–men from the county-town itself, farmers from the more outlying parts of the neighbourhood, and some of the Badsworth Hall tenantry, having arrived too late at Ittlethwaite Park for the actual meet, now came hurriedly galloping up, and among these last was Oliver Leach. It was the first time Maryllia had seen her dismissed agent since her rescue of the Five Sister beeches, and she had thought of him so little that she would not have recognised him now had not his horse, a vicious-looking restive creature, started plunging close to her own hunter ‘Cleopatra,’ and caused that spirited animal to rear almost upright on her haunches. In the act of reining the mare out of his way she looked at him, while he, in his turn stared full at her in evident astonishment. As he appeared gradually to recognise her identity, his face, always livid, grew more deeply sallow of hue, and an ugly grin made a gargoyle of his mouth and eyes. She, as soon as she recollected him, remembered at the same time the curse he had flung at her–‘a May curse,’ she thought to herself with a superstitious little shudder–‘and a May curse always begins to work in November, so the gossips say!’
Moved by an instinctive distrust and dislike of the man, she turned her back upon, him, and patting Cleopatra’s neck, cantered quickly ahead to join the rest of the field which was now moving towards another cover, while the hounds ran through some low thickets of brushwood and tangled bracken.
She was in a curious frame of mind, and found her own emotions difficult to analyse. The momentary glimpse she had just had of John Walden had filled her with a strangely tender compassion. Why did he look so worn and worried? Had he missed her? Had her two months and more of absence seemed as long to him as they had to her? She wondered! Anon, she asked herself why she wondered! What did it matter to her what he thought, or how he passed his days? Then a sudden rush of colour warmed her cheeks, and a light came into her eyes. It DID matter!–there was no getting away from it,–it did matter very much what he thought, and it had become of paramount importance to her to know how he passed his days!
Deep in her heart a secret sweet consciousness lay nestled,–a consciousness, subtly feminine, which told her that she was held in precious estimation by at least one man,–and that she had advanced towards her most cherished desire of love so far as to have become ‘dear to someone else.’ And that ‘someone else’–who was he? Oh, well!–nobody in particular!–only a country clergyman,–a poor creature, so the world might say, to build romances upon! Yet she was building them fast. One after the other they shaped themselves like cloud-castles in the airy firmament of her dreams, and she permitted herself to dwell on the possible joys they suggested. Very simple joys too!–such as the completion of the rose-window in the church of St. Rest,–he would be pleased if that were done–yes!– she was sure he would be pleased!–and she had managed, during her sojourn in Brittany, to secure some of the loveliest old stained glass, dating from the twelfth century, which she meant to give him to-morrow when he came to see her. To-morrow! What a long time it seemed till then! And suppose he did not come? Well, then she would go and see him herself, and would tell him just why she had gone away from home, and why she had not written, to him or to anybody else in the neighbourhood,–and then–and then—
Here she started at the sound of a sudden ‘tally-ho!’–the hounds had rallied–a fox was ‘drawn,’–the whole field was astir, and with a musical blast of the horn, the hunt swept on in a flash of scarlet and white, black, brown and grey, across the moor. Maryllia gave herself up to the excitement of the hour, and galloped along, her magnificent mare ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt’ scenting sport in the wind and enjoying the wild freedom allowed her by a loose rein and the light weight she bore. On, on!–with the wet chill perfume of fallen leaves rising from the earth on which the eager hoofs of the horses trampled,–on, always on, in the track of stealthy Reynard, over dips and hollows in the ground and shallow pools fringed with gaunt sedges and twisted brambles,–on, still on, crossing and re- crossing lines of scent where the hounds appeared for the moment at a loss, till they dashed off again towards the farther woods. Putting her mare to a fence and clearing it easily, Maryllia crossed a meadow, which she knew to be the shortest way to the spot where she could just see the pack racing silently ahead,–and, coming out on one of the high-roads between St. Rest and Riversford, she drew rein for a moment. Several of the hunters had chosen the same short- cut, and came out of the meadow with her, calling a cheery word or two as they passed her and pressed on in the ardour of the chase.
Quickly resuming her gallop, and yielding to the exhilaration of the air and the pleasure of movement, she urged her mare to a pace which would have been deemed reckless by all save the most skilled and daring riders, unaware of the unpleasant fact that she was being closely followed by Oliver Leach. He rode about twenty paces behind her, every now and then gaining on her, and anon pulling back his horse in an apparent desire not to outstrip her. The rest of the hunting party were well ahead, and they had the road to themselves, with the exception of a fat man on a bicycle, who was careering along in front of them, looking something like a ton on wheels. Maryllia soon flew past this moving rotundity, and even if she had had time to look at it, she would not have known that it was the Reverend Putwood Leveson, as she had never seen that gentleman. Catching a glimpse of the hounds, now racing round the edge of a sloping hill, she galloped faster and faster,–while Oliver Leach, with an odd set expression in his face and eyes, and his hat well pulled down on his brows, followed her at an almost equally flying speed. A ploughed field lay between them, and the smooth dark slope of land edged with broken furze, where the pack could be plainly seen racing for blood. A moderately low, straggling hedge intervened. Such an obstacle was a mere trifle for ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt’ to clear, and Maryllia put her to it with her usual ease and buoyancy. But now up came Oliver Leach on his ill-formed but powerful beast;–and just as the spirited mare, with her lightly poised rider on her back, leaped the hedge, he set his own animal at precisely the same place in deliberate defiance of all hunting rules, and springing at her like a treacherous enemy from behind, closed on her haunches, and pounded straight over her! Maryllia reeled in her saddle,–for one half second, her blue eyes wide with terror, turned themselves full upon her pursuer–she raised her hand appealingly–warningly–in vain! With a crash of breaking brushwood the mare went down under the plunging hoofs that came thudding so heavily upon her,–there was a quick shriek–a blur of violet and gold hurled to the ground–and then,–then Leach galloped on–alone! He dared not look back! His nerves throbbed–his heart beat high,– and his evil soul rejoiced in its wickedness as only the soul of a devil can.
“Verdict–accidental death!” he muttered, with a fierce laugh–“No doubt it will be thought singular that the daughter should have met the same end as her father! And nothing more will be said. But suppose she is not killed, since every cat has nine lives? No matter, she will be disfigured for life! That will suit me just as well!”
He laughed again, and passed on in the wake of the hunt which had now swept far ahead round the bend of the hill.
Meanwhile, ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt,’ rendered stunned and dizzy by her fall, began to recover her equine senses. Sniffing the air and opening her wild bright eyes, she soon perceived her loved mistress lying flung about three yards distant from where she herself had rolled over and over on the thick wet clod of the field. With a supreme effort the gallant beast attempted to rise,–and presently, with much plunging and kicking, in which struggles however, she with an almost human intelligence pushed herself farther away from that prone figure on the ground, so that she might not injure it, she managed to stand upright, quivering in every strained, sore limb. Lifting her head, she whinnied with a melancholy long-drawn plaintiveness, and then with a slow, stiff hobble, moved cautiously closer to Maryllia’s fallen body. There she paused and whinnied again, while the grey skies lowered and rain began to ooze from the spreading leaden weight of cloud.
And now assistance seemed near, for the Reverend Putwood Leveson, having had to lead his bicycle up a hill, and being overcome with a melting tallow of perspiration in the effort, hove in sight like an unwieldy porpoise bobbing up on dry land. Approaching the broken gap in the hedge, he quickly spied the mare, and realised the whole situation. Now was the chance for a minister of Christ to show his brave and gentle ministry! He had a flask of brandy in his pocket,– he never went anywhere without it. He felt it, where it was concealed, comfortably pressed against his heart,–then he peered blandly over the hedge at the helpless human creature lying there unconscious. He knew who it was,–who it must be,–for, as he had cycled through the village after the hunt had started, he had heard everyone talking of Miss Vancourt’s unexpected return, and how she had been the ‘queen’ of the meet that morning. Besides, she had passed him on the road, riding at full gallop. He wiped his forehead now and smiled pleasantly.
“Queens are very soon discrowned!”–he said to himself–“And, fortunately, vacant thrones are soon filled! Now if that sneak Walden were here—“
He paused considering. The remembrance of the indignity he had suffered at the hands of Julian Adderley was ever fresh with him,– an indignity brought about all through the very woman who was now perhaps dying before his eyes, if she was not already dead. Suddenly, pushing his way through the broken hedge, he approached ‘Cleopatra’ cautiously. The malignant idea entered his brain that if he could make the animal start and plunge, her hoofs would crush the body of her mistress more surely and completely. Detestable as the impulse was, it came quite naturally to him. He had helped to kill butterflies often–why not a woman? The murderous instinct was the same in both cases. He tried to snatch the mare’s bridle-rein, but she jerked her head away from him, and stood like a rock. He could not move her an inch. Only her great soft eyes kindled with a warning fire as he hovered about her,–and a decided movement of one of her hind hoofs suggested that possibly he might have the worst of any attempt to play pranks with her. He paused a moment, considering.
“Oliver Leach came this way,”–he mused–“He passed me almost immediately after she did. Is this his work, I wonder?” Here he drew out his always greasy pocket-handkerchief and wiped his face with as much tender care as though it were a handsome one–“I shouldn’t be surprised,”–he continued, in a mild sotto-voce–“I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he had arranged this little business! Clever–very! Fatal accidents in the hunting-field are quite common. He knows that. So do I. But I shall find out,–yes!–I shall find out—“
Here he almost jumped with an access of ‘nerves’–for ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt’ suddenly stretched out her long arched neck and whinnied with piteous, beseeching loudness. A pause of intense stillness followed the mare’s weird cry,–a stillness broken only by the slow pattering of rain. Then from the near distance came the baying of hounds and a far echo of the hunting horn.
Seized by panic, the Reverend ‘Putty’ scrambled quickly out of the ploughed field, through the broken hedge and on to the high-road again, where taking himself to his bicycle again, he scurried away like a rat from falling timber. He had been on his way to Riversford when he had stopped to look at the little fallen heap of violet and gold,–guarded so faithfully by a four-footed beast twenty times more ‘Christian’ in natural feeling than his ‘ordained’ clerical self,–and he now resumed that journey. And though, as he neared the town, he met many persons of the neighbourhood on foot, in carts, and light-wheeled traps, he never once paused to give news of the accident, or so much as thought of sending means of assistance.
“I am not supposed to have seen anything,”–he said, with a fat smile–“and I am not supposed to know! I shall certainly not be asked to assist at the funeral service. Walden will attend to that!”
He cycled on rapidly, and arriving at Riversford went to tea with the brewer’s wife, Mrs. Mordaunt Appleby, at Appleby Hall, and was quite fatherly and benevolent to her son, a lumpy child of ten, the future heir to all the malt, hops, barrels, vats, and poisonous chemicals comprising the Appleby estates in this world.
The afternoon closed in coldly and mournfully. A steady weeping drizzle of rain set in. Some of the hunters returned through St. Rest by twos and threes, looking in a woeful condition, bespattered up to their saddles with mud, and feeling, no doubt, more or less out of temper, as notwithstanding a troublesome and fatiguing run, the fox had escaped them after all. It was about five o’clock, when Walden, having passed a quiet day among his books, and having felt the sense of a greater peace and happiness at his heart than he had been conscious of since the May-day morning of the year, pushed aside his papers, rose from his chair, and, looking out at the dreary weather, wondered if the ‘Guinevere’ of the hunt had got safely home from her gallop across country.
“She will be wet through,”–he thought,–the tender smile that made his face so lovable playing softly round his lips–“But she will not mind that! She will laugh, and brush out her pretty hair all ruffled and wet with the rain,–her cheeks will be glowing with colour, and her lips will be as red as the cherries when they first begin to ripen,–her eyes will be bright with health and vitality,–and life- -young life–life full of joy and hope and brightness will radiate from her as the light radiates from the sun. And I shall bask in the luminance of her smile–I, cold and grey, like a burnt-out ember of perished possibilities,–I shall warm my chill soul at the sweet fire of her presence–I shall see her to-morrow!”
He went to the hearth and stirred the smouldering logs into a bright blaze. He was just about to ring for fresh fuel, when there came a sudden, alarmed knocking at the street door. Somewhat startled, he listened, his hand on the bell. He heard the light step of Hester the housemaid tripping along the passage quickly to answer the imperative summons,–there was a confused murmur of voices–and then a sudden cry of horror,–and a loud burst of sobbing.
“Whist–whist!–be quiet, be quiet!” said a hoarse trembling voice which it was difficult to recognise as Bainton’s; “For the Lord’s sake, don’t make that noise, gel! Think o’ Passon!–do’ee think o’ Passon! We must break it to ‘im gently like—” But the hysterical sobbing broke out again and drowned all utterance.
And still Walden stood, listening. A curious rigidity affected his nerves. Something had happened–but what? His dry lips refused to frame the question. All at once, he roused himself. With a couple of strides across his little study he threw open the door and went out into the passage. There stood Hester with her apron thrown over her head, weeping convulsively–while Bainton, leaning against the ivied porch entrance to ths house, was trembling like a woman in an ague fit.
“What’s the matter?” said Walden, in a voice of almost peremptory loudness,–a voice that sounded harsh and wild on his own ears– “What has happened?”
“Oh-oh–Oh-oh!” wailed Hester–“Oh, Mr. Walden, oh, sir, I can’t tell you! I can’t indeed!–it’s about Miss Vancourt–oh–poor dear little lady!–oh-oh! I can’t–I can’t say it! I can’t!”
“Don’t ye try, my gel!”–said Bainton, gently–“You ain’t fit for’t,–don’t ye try! Which I might a’known a woman’s ‘art couldn’t abear it,–nor a man’s neither!” Here he turned his pale face upon his master, and the slow tears began to trickle down his furrowed cheeks.
“Passon Walden,”–he began, in shaking accents–“Passon Walden, sir, I’m fair beside myself ‘ow to tell ye–but you’re a brave man wot knows the ways o’ God an’ ‘ow mortal ‘ard they seems to us all sometimes, poor an’ rich alike, an’ ‘ow it do ‘appen that the purttiest flowers is the quickest gone, an’ the brightest wimin too, for that matter,–an’–an’—” Here his rough halting voice broke into a hoarse sob–“Oh, Passon, it’s a blow!–it’s a mortal ‘ard blow!–she was a dear, sweet lady an’ a good one, say what they will, an’ ‘ow they will–an’ she’s gone, Passon!–we won’t never see her no more!–she’s gone!”
A swirling blackness came over Walden’s eyes for a moment. He tried to realise what was being said, but could not grasp its meaning. Making a strong effort to control his nerves he spoke, slowly and with difficulty.
“Gone? I don’t understand you,–I—“
Here, as he stood at the open doorway, he saw in the gathering dusk of evening a small crowd of villagers moving slowly along the road. Some burden was being carried tenderly between them,–it was like a walking funeral. Someone was dead then? He puzzled himself as to who it could be? He was the parson of the parish,–he had received no intimation! And the hour was late,–they must put it off till to- morrow! Yes–till to-morrow, when he would see Maryllia! Startled by the sudden ghastly pallor of his master’s face, Bainton ventured to lay a hand on his arm.
“She was found two hours ago,”–he said, in hushed tones–“Up on Farmer Thorpe’s ploughed field–all crushed on the clods, an’ no one nigh ‘er ‘cept the mare. An’ the mare was as sensible as a ‘uman, for she was a-whinnyin’ loud like cryin’ for ‘elp–an’ Dr. Forsyth ‘e came by in his gig, drivin’ ‘ome from Riversford an’ he ‘ad his man with ‘im, so ‘tween them both, they got some ‘elp an’ brought ‘er ‘ome–but I’m feared it’s too late!–I’m awesome feared it’s too late!”
Walden looked straight down the road, watching the oncoming of the little crowd.
“I think I begin to know what you mean,” he said, slowly. “There has been an accident to Miss Vancourt. She has been thrown–but she is not dead! Not dead. Of course not! She could not be!”
As he spoke, he pushed aside Bainton’s appealing hand gently yet firmly and walked out bareheaded like a man in a dream to meet the little ghost-like procession that was now approaching him nearly. He felt himself trembling violently,–had he been called upon to meet his own instant destruction at that moment, he would have been far less unnerved. Low on the wet autumnal wind came the sound of men’s murmuring voices, of women’s suppressed sobbing;–in the semi- obscurity of fading light and deepening shadow he could discern and recognise the figure of his friend the local doctor, ‘Jimmy’ Forsyth, who was walking close beside a hastily improvised stretcher composed of the boughs of trees and covered with men’s coats and driving-rugs,–and he could see the shadowy shape of ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt,’ being led slowly on in the rear, her proud head drooping dejectedly, her easy stride changed to a melancholy limping movement,–her saddle empty. And, as he looked, some nerve seemed to tighten across his brows,–a burning ache and strain, as if a strong cord stretched to a tension of acutest agony tortured his brain,– and for a moment he lost all other consciousness but the awful sense of death,–death in the air,–death in the cold rain–death in the falling leaves–death in the deepening gloom of the night,–and death, palpable, fierce and cruel in the solemn gliding approach of that funeral group,–that hearse-like burden of the perished brightness, the joyous innocence, the sunny smile, the radiant hair, the sweet frank eyes–the all of beauty that was once Maryllia! Then, unaware of his own actions, he went forward giddily, blindly and unreasoningly—till, coming face to face with the little moving group of awed and weeping people, all of whom halted abruptly at sight of him, he suddenly stretched forth his hands as though they held a book at arm’s length, and his voice, tremulous, yet resonant, struck through the hush of sudden silence.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die!”
A tragic pause ensued. Every face was turned upon him in tearful wonder. Dr. Forsyth came quickly up to him.
“Walden!” he said, in a low tone–“What is this? What are you saying? You are not yourself! Come home!”
But John stood rigidly inert. His tall slight figure, fully erect, looked almost spectral in the mists of the gathering night. He went on reciting solemnly,–
“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another!”
Here there was a general movement of consternation in the little crowd. Parson Walden was beginning to read the burial service! Then men whispered to one another,–and some of the women burst out crying bitterly. Dr. Forsyth became alarmed.
“John!” he said, imperatively–“Rouse yourself, man! You are ill–I see you are ill,–but I cannot attend to you now! Try not to delay me, for God’s sake! Miss Vancourt is seriously injured–but I MAY save her life. She is not dead.”
Something snapped like a broken harp-string behind Walden’s temples,–the horrible tension was relieved.
“Not dead–not dead?” he muttered–“Not dead? Forsyth, are you sure?”
“Sure!”
His face changed and softened,–a sudden sweet moisture freshened his eyes.
“Thank God!” he murmured.
Then he looked about him like a man suddenly wakened from sleep. He was still unable quite to realise his surroundings or what he had done.
“Forgive me!” he said, pathetically–“I am afraid I have been a trouble to you! I’ve been studying too much this afternoon,–and– and–I don’t know why I came out here just now–I’ll–I’ll go in. Will you let me know how–how—“
Forsyth nodded comprehensively.
“You shall know everything–best or worst–to-morrow,”–he said– “But now go in and lie down, Walden! You want rest!”
At an imperative sign from him, Walden obediently turned away, not daring to look at the men that now passed him, carrying Maryllia’s senseless form back to Abbot’s Manor, the beloved home from which she had ridden forth so gaily that morning. He re-entered the still open doorway of his rectory, wholly unconscious that his parishioners, deeply affected by his strange and sudden mind- bewilderment, were now all as anxious about him as they were about Maryllia,–he was too dazed to see that the faithful Bainton still waited for him on his own threshold, or that his servant Hester was still crying as though her heart would break. He passed all and everyone–and went straight upstairs to his own bedroom, where he closed and locked the door. There, smiling down upon him was the portrait of his dead sister,–and there too, just above his bed was an engraving of the tragically sweet Head crowned with thorns, of Guido’s ‘Ecce Homo.’ On this his gaze rested abstractedly. His temples ached and throbbed, and there was a dull cold heaviness at his heart. Keeping his eyes still on the pictured face of Christ, he dropped on his knees, clasped his hands, and tried to pray, but could not. How should he appeal to a God who was cruel enough to kill a bright creature like Maryllia in the very zenith and fair flowering-time of her womanhood!–an innocent happy soul that had no thought or wish to do anyone any harm! And then he remembered his own reproaches to his friend Bishop Brent whom he had accused of selfishness for allowing his life to be swayed by the memory of an inconsolable sorrow and loss. ‘You draw a mourning veil of your own across the very face of God!’ So he had said,–and was he not ready now to do the same? Suddenly, like the teasing refrain of a haunting melody, there came back to his mind the verse he had read that morning:
“As she fled fast thro’ sun and shade, The happy winds upon her play’d,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid: She look’d so lovely as she sway’d
The rein with dainty finger-tips. A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly wealth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.”
Over and over these rhymes went, jingling their sweet concord in his brain,–till all at once the strong pressure upon his soul relaxed,- -a great sigh escaped his lips–and with the sigh came the sudden breaking of the wave of grief. A rush of scalding tears blinded his eyes–and with a hard sob of agony his head fell forward on his clasped hands.
“Spare me her life, O God!” he passionately prayed–“Oh God, oh God! Save Guinevere!”
XXX
And now a cloud of heavy sorrow and foreboding hung over the little village. All its inhabitants were oppressed by a dreary sense of helpless wretchedness and personal loss. Maryllia was not dead,–but it was to be feared that she was dying,–slowly, and by inches as it were, yet nevertheless surely. A great specialist had been summoned from London by Dr. Forsyth, and after long and earnest consultation, his verdict upon her case had been well-nigh hopeless. Thereupon Cicely Bourne was immediately sent for, and arrived from Paris in all haste, only to fall into a state of utter despair. For there seemed no possible chance of saving the dear and valuable life of her beloved friend and protectress to whom she owed all her happiness, all her future prospects. And thus confronted with a tragedy more dire and personal than any she had ever pictured in her wildest imaginative efforts, she sat by Maryllia’s bedside, hour after hour, day after day, night after night, stunned by grief, watching, weeping, and waiting for the least glimmer of returning consciousness in that unconscious form which lay so terribly inert, like a figure of life-in-death before her, till she became the mere gaunt, little ghost of herself, her large melancholy dark eyes alone expressing the burning vital anguish of her soul. A telegram conveying the sad news of her niece’s accident had been sent to Mrs. Fred Vancourt at the Gezireh Palace Hotel, Cairo, to which, with the happy vagueness which so often characterizes the ultra-fashionable woman, Mrs. Fred had replied direct to Maryllia herself thus:
“So glad to know where you really are at last, but sorry you have met with a spill. Hope you have a good doctor and nurses. Will write on return from expedition to Luxor. Lord Roxmouth much regrets to hear of accident and thinks it lucky you are back in your own home.”
Of course this ‘sympathetic’ message was not read by its intended recipient at the time of its arrival. Maryllia lay blind, deaf and senseless to all that was going on around her, and for many days gave no sign of life whatever save a faint uneasy breathing and an occasional moan. Cicely was left alone to face all difficulties, to receive and answer all messages and to take upon herself for the time being the ostensible duties of the mistress of Abbot’s Manor. She bent her energies to the task, though she felt that her heart must break in the effort,–and with tears blinding her eyes, she told poor Mrs. Spruce, who was quite stupefied by the sudden crash of misfortune that had fallen upon the household, that she meant to try and do her best to keep everything going on just as Maryllia would wish it kept, “till–till–she gets better,”–she faltered sobbingly–“and you will help me, dear Mrs. Spruce, won’t you?”
Whereupon Mrs. Spruce took the poor child into her motherly arms, and they both cried and kissed each other, moved by the same common woe.
The Manor was soon besieged with callers. Everyone in the county flocked thither to leave cards, and express their sympathy for the unfortunate mischance that had overtaken the bright creature who had been the cynosure of all eyes for her beauty and grace on the morning of the first fox-hunt of the year. All the ill-natured gossip, all the slanderous tittle-tattle which had been started by Lord Roxmouth and fostered by Miss Tabitha Pippitt, ebbed and died away in the great wave of honest regret and kindly pity that pervaded the whole neighbourhood. Even Sir Morton Pippitt, smitten by compunction for certain selfish motives which had inspired him to serve Lord Roxmouth as a willing tool, was an indefatigable, almost daily enquirer as to Maryllia’s condition, for though pompous, blusterous, and to a very great extent something of a snob, his nature was not altogether lacking in the milk of human kindness like that of his daughter Tabitha. She, still smarting under the jealous conviction that John Walden was secretly enamoured of the Lady of the Manor, had heard the strange story of his having so far forgotten his usual self as to wander out bareheaded in the evening air and recite the commencement of the burial service like a man distraught when Maryllia’s crushed body had been brought home, and she thought of it often with an inward rage she could scarcely conceal. Almost,–such was her acrimony and vindictiveness–she wished Maryllia would die.
“Serve her right!” she said to herself, setting her thin lips spitefully together–“Serve her right!”
There are a great many eminently respectable ladies of Miss Tabitha’s temperament who always say ‘Serve her right,’ when a pretty and charming woman, superior to themselves, meets with some misfortune. They regard it as a just dispensation of Providence.
John Walden meanwhile had braced himself to face the worst that could happen. Or rather, as he chose to put it, strength, not his own, had been given him to stand up, albeit feebly, under the shock of unexpected disaster. Pale, composed, punctilious in the performance of all his duties, and patiently attentive to the needs of his parishioners, he went about among them as usual in his own quiet, sympathetic way just as if his heart were not crying out in fierce rebellion against inexorable destiny,–and as if he were not wildly clamouring to be near her whom, now that she was being taken from him, he knew that he loved with an ardour far deeper and stronger than with the same passion common to men in the first flush of their early manhood. And though he sent Bainton every day up to the Manor to make enquiries about her, he never went near the place himself. He could not. Brave as he tried to be, he could not meet Cicely Bourne. He knew that one look into the little singer’s piteous dark eyes would have broken him down completely.
Every night Dr. ‘Jimmy’ Forsyth came to the rectory with the latest details respecting Maryllia’s condition,–though for weeks there was no change to report. She was suffering from violent concussion of the brain, and was otherwise seriously injured, but Forsyth would not as yet state how serious the injuries were. For he guessed Walden’s secret, and was deeply touched by the quiet patience and restrained sorrow of the apparently calm, self-contained man who, notwithstanding his own inward acute agony, never forgot a single detail having to do with the poor or sick of the parish,–who soothed little Ipsie Frost’s bewildered grief concerning her ‘poor bootiful white lady-love,’–and who sat with old Josey Letherbarrow by his cottage fire, trying as best he could to explain, ay, even to excuse the mysterious ways of divine Providence as apparently shown in the visitation of cruel affliction on the head of a sweet and innocent woman. Josey was a little dazed about it all and could not be brought to realise that ‘th’ owld Squire’s gel’ might never rise from her bed again.
“G’arn with ye!” he said, indignantly, to the melancholy village gossips who came in to see him and shake their heads generally over life and its brief vanities–“Th’ Almighty Lord ain’t a pulin’, spiteful, hoppitty kicketty devil wot ain’t sure of ‘is own mind! He don’t make a pretty thing just to break it agin all for nowt! Didn’t ye all come clickettin’ to me about the Five Sister beeches, an’ ain’t they still stannin’? An’ Miss Maryllia ‘ull stan’ too just as fast an’ firm as the trees,–you take my wurrd for’t! She ain’t goin’ to die! Why look at me–just on ninety, an’ I ain’t dead yet!”
But a qualm of fear and foreboding came over him whenever ‘Passon’ visited him. John’s sad face told him more than words could express.
“Ain’t she no better, Passon?” he would ask, timidly and tremblingly.
And John, laying his own hand on the old brown wrinkled one, would reply gently,
“No better, Josey! But we must hope,–we must hope always, and believe that God will be merciful.”
“An’ if He ain’t merciful, what’ll we do?” persisted Josey once, with tears in his poor dim eyes.
“We must submit!” answered John, almost sternly–“We must believe that He knows what is wise and good for her–and for us all! And we must live out our lives patiently without her, Josey!–patiently, till the blessed end–till that peace cometh which passeth all understanding!”
And Josey, looking at him, was awed by the pale spiritual serenity of his features and the tragic human grief of his eyes.
One person in the neighbourhood proved himself a mainstay of help and consolation during this time of general anxiety and suspense, and this was Julian Adderley. He was always at hand and willing to be of service. He threw his ‘dreams’ of poesy to the winds and became poet in earnest,–poet in sympathy with others,–poet in kindly thought,–poet in constant delicate ways of solace to the man he had learned to respect above all others, and whose unspoken love and despair he recognised with more passionate appreciation than any grandly written tragedy. He had gone at once to the Manor on Cicely’s arrival there, and had laid himself, metaphorically so to speak, at her feet. When she had first seen him, all oppressed by the weight of her sorrow as she was, she had burst out crying, whereat he had, without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment, taken her in his arms and kissed her. Neither he nor she seemed the least surprised at the spontaneity of their mutual caress,–it came quite naturally. “It was so new–so fresh!” said Julian afterwards. And from that eventful moment, he had installed himself more or less at the Manor, under Cicely’s orders. He wrote letters for her, answered telegrams, drew up a formal list of ‘Callers’ and ‘Enquiries,’ kept accounts, went errands for the two trained nurses who were in day and night attendance on the unconscious invalid upstairs, and made himself generally useful and reliable. But his ‘fantastic’ notions were the same as ever. He would not, as he put it, ‘partake of food’ at the Manor while its mistress was lying ill,–nor would he allow any servant in the household to wait upon him. He merely came and went, quietly to and fro, giving his best services to all, and never failing to visit Walden every day, and tell him all the latest news. He even managed to make friends with the great dog Plato, who, ever since Maryllia’s accident, had taken up regular hours of vigil outside her bedroom door, regardless of doctor and nurses, though he would move his leonine body gently aside whenever they passed in or out, showing a perfectly intelligent comprehension of their business. Plato every now and again would indulge in a walk abroad with Julian, accompanying him as far as the rectory, where he would enter, laying his broad head on Walden’s knee with a world of sympathy in his loving brown eyes, while Nebbie, half-jealous, half-gratified, squatted humbly in the shadow of his feathery tail. And John found a certain melancholy pleasure in caressing the very dog Maryllia loved, and would sit, thoughtfully stroking the animal’s thick coat, while Adderley and Dr. Forsyth, both of whom were now accustomed to meet in his little study every evening, discussed the pros and cons of what was likely to happen when Maryllia woke from her long trance of insensibility. Would her awakening be to life or death? John listened to their talk, himself saying nothing, all unaware that they talked merely to cheer him and to try and put the best light they could on the face of affairs in order to give him the utmost hope.
The weary days rolled on in rain and gloom,–Christmas came and went with a weight and dullness never before known in St. Rest. Every Sunday since the accident, Walden had earnestly requested the prayers of his congregation for Miss Vancourt, ‘who was seriously ill’–and on Christmas Day, he gave out the same request, with a pathetic alteration in the wording, which as he uttered it, caused many people to sob as they listened.
“The prayers of this congregation,” he said–“are desired for Maryllia Vancourt, who has been much beloved among you, and whose life is now in imminent peril!”
A chill seemed to strike through the church,–an icy blast far colder than the wintry wind,–the alabaster sarcophagus in front of the altar seemed all at once invested with a terrible significance,- -death, and death only was the sovereign ruler of the world! And when the children’s choir rose to give the ‘Hark the herald angels sing, Glory to the new-born King’–their voices were unsteady and fell out of tune into tears.
Maryllia was indeed in ‘imminent peril.’ She had become suddenly restless, and her suffering had proportionately increased. At the earliest symptom of returning consciousness, the attention of the watchers at her bedside became redoubled;–should she speak, they were anxious to hear the first word that escaped her lips. For as yet, no one knew how she had come by her accident. None of the hunters had seen her fall, and Bennett the groom, stoutly refused to believe that the mare had either missed her jump, or thrown her mistress.
“She couldn’t have done it,”–he declared–“And if she could, she wouldn’t! She’s too sensible, and Miss Vancourt’s too sure a rider. Something’s at the bottom of it all, and I’d give a good deal to find out what it is, and WHO it is!”
Thus said Bennett, with many dark nods of meaning, and gradually the idea that Maryllia had been the victim of foul play, took root in the minds of all the villagers who heard him. Everyone in the place was on the watch for a clue,–a whisper,–a stray suggestion as to the possible cause of the mischief. But so far nothing had been discovered.
On the night before the last of the year, Maryllia, who had been tossing uneasily all the afternoon, and moaning piteously, suddenly opened her eyes and looked about her with a frightened air of recognition. Cicely, always at hand with the nurse in attendance, went quickly to the bedside in a tremour of hope and fear.
“Maryllia! Dearest, do you know me?”
She stared vaguely, and a faint smile hovered about her lips. Then her brows suddenly knitted into a perplexed, pained frown, and she said quite clearly–
“It was Oliver Leach!”
Cicely gave a little cry. The nurse warned her into silence by a gesture. There was a pause. Maryllia looked from one to the other wistfully.
“It was not Cleo’s fault,” she went on, speaking slowly, but distinctly–“Cleo never missed. Oliver Leach took the hedge just behind us. It was wrong! He meant to kill me. I saw it in his face!” She shuddered violently, and her eyelids closed. “He was cruel– cruel!” she murmured feebly–“But I was too happy!”
She drifted again into a stupor,–and Cicely, her whole soul awakened by these broken words into a white heat of wrath and desire for vengeance, left the room with sufficient information to set the whole village in an uproar. Oliver Leach! In less than four-and- twenty hours, the news was all over the place. The spreading wave of indignation soon rose to an overwhelming high tide, and had Leach shown himself anywhere in or near the village he would have stood an uncommonly good chance of being first horsewhipped, and then ‘ducked’ in the river by an excited crowd. Oliver Leach! The hated, petty upstart who had ground down the Abbot’s Manor tenantry to the very last penny that could be wrested from them!–who had destroyed old cherished land-marks, and made ugly havoc in many once fair woodland places in order to put money in his own pocket,–even he, so long an object of aversion among them, was the would-be murderer of the last descendant of the Vancourts! The villagers talked of nothing else,–quiet and God-fearing rustics as they were, they had no patience with treachery, meanness and cowardice, and were the last kind of people in the world to hold their peace on a matter of wickedness or injustice, merely because Leach was in the employ of several neighbouring land-owners, including Sir Morton Pippitt. Murmurs and threats ran from mouth to mouth, and Walden when he heard of it, said nothing for, or against, their clamour for revenge. The rage and sorrow of his own soul were greater than the wrath of combined hundreds,–and his feeling was all the more deep and terrible because it found no expression in words. The knowledge that such a low and vile creature as Oliver Leach had been the cause, and possibly the intentional cause of Maryllia’s grievous suffering and injury, moved him to realise for the first time in his life what it was to be conscious of a criminal impulse. He himself longed to kill the wretch who had brought such destruction on a woman’s beauty and happiness!–and it was with a curious sort of satisfaction that he found himself called upon in the ordinary course of things to read at evening service during the first week in January, the Twenty-eighth Psalm, wherein David beseeches God to punish the ungodly.
“Reward them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their own inventions!
“Recompense them after the work of their hands: pay them that they have deserved!”
Such demands for the punishment of one’s enemies may not be ‘Christian,’ but they are Scriptural, and as such, John felt himself justified in pronouncing them with peculiar emphasis and fervour.
Meanwhile, by slow degrees, the ‘imminent peril’ passed, and Maryllia came back to her conscious self,–a self that was tortured in every nerve by pain,–but, with the return of her senses came also her natural sweetness and gentleness, which now took the form of a touching patience, very sad, yet very beautiful to see. The first little gleam of gladness in her eyea awoke for Cicely,–to whom, as soon as she recognised her, she put up her lips to be kissed. Her accident had not disfigured her,–the fair face had been spared, though it was white and drawn with anguish. But she could not move her limbs,–and when she had proved this for herself, she lay very still, thinking quietly, with a dream-like wonder and sorrow in her blue eyes, like the wistfulness in the eyes of a wounded animal that knows not why it should be made to suffer. Docile to her nurses, and grateful for every little service, she remained for some days in a sort of waking reverie, holding Cicely’s hand often, and asking her an occasional question about the house, the gardens and the village. And January was nearly at an end, when she began at last to talk connectedly and to enquire closely as to her own actual condition.
“Am I going to die, Cicely?” she asked one morning–“You will tell me the truth, dear, won’t you? I would rather know.”
Cicely choked back her tears, and smiled bravely.
“No, darling, no! You are better,–but–but you will be a long time ill!”
Maryllia looked at her searchingly, and sighed a little.
“What have they done with Cleo?” she murmured.
“Cleo is all right,”–said Cicely–“She was badly hurt, but Bennett knows how you love her, and he is doing all he can for her. She will never hunt again, I’m afraid!”
“Nor shall I!” and Maryllia sighed again, and closed her eyes to hide the tears that welled up in them.
There was a dark presentiment in her mind,–a heavy foreboding to which she would not give utterance before Cicely, lest it should grieve her. But the next day, when Dr. Forsyth paid her his usual visit, and said in his usual cheery way that all was ‘going on well’–she startled him by requesting to speak to him alone, without anyone else in the room, not even the attendant nurse.
“It is only a little question I want to ask!” she said with the faint reflex of her old bright smile on her face–“And I’m sure you’ll answer it!”
‘Jimmy’ Forsyth hesitated. He felt desperately uncomfortable. He instinctively knew what her question would be,–a question to which there was only one miserable answer. But her grave pleading glance was not to be resisted,–so, making the best of a bad business, he cleared the room, shut the door, and remained in earnest conversation with his patient for half-an-hour. And at the end of that time, he went out, with tears in his keen eyes, and a suspicious cough catching his throat, as he strode away from the Manor through the leafless avenues, and heard the branches of the trees rattling like prison chains in an angry winter’s wind.
The worst was said,–and when it was once said, it was soon known. Maryllia was not to die–not yet. Fate had willed it otherwise. But she was to be a cripple for life. That was her doom. Never again would her little feet go tripping through the rose gardens and walks of her beloved home,–never would her dainty form be borne, a weightless burden, by ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt’ through the flowering woods of spring,–from henceforth she would have to be carried by others up and down, to and fro, a maimed and helpless creature, with all the physical and healthful joys of living cut away from her at one cruel blow! And yet–it was very strange!–she herself was not stricken with any particular horror or despair at her destiny. When, after the doctor had left, Cicely came in, trembling and afraid,–Maryllia smiled at her with quite a sweet placidity.
“I know all about myself now,”–she said, quietly–“I’m sorry in a way,–because I shall be so useless. But–I have escaped Roxmouth for good this time!”
“Oh my darling!” wept Cicely–“Oh my dear, beautiful Maryllia! If it were only me instead of you!”
Maryllia drew the dark head down on the pillow beside her.
“Nonsense! Why should it have been you!” she said, cheerfully–“You will be a delight to the world with your voice, Cicely,–whereas I am nothing, and never have been anything. I shall not be missed—“
Her voice faltered a moment, as the thought of John Walden suddenly crossed her mind. He would perhaps–only perhaps–miss her! Anon, a braver and purely unselfish emotion moved her soul, and she began to be almost glad that she was, as she said to herself, ‘laid aside.’
“For now,”–she mused–“they can say nothing at all about him at MY expense. Even Roxmouth’s tongue must stop calumniating me,–for though many people are very heartless, they do draw the line at slandering a crippled woman! It’s all for the best,–I’m sure it’s all for the best!”
And a serene contentment took possession of her,–a marvellous peace that brought healing in its train, for with the earliest days of February, when the first snowdrops were beginning to make their white way through the dark earth, she was able to be moved from her bed, and carried down to the morning room, where, lying on her couch, near a sparkling fire, with a bunch of early flowering aconites opening their golden eyes in a vase beside her, she looked almost as if she were getting well enough soon to rise and walk again. She was bright and calm, and quickly managed to impart her own brightness and calmness to others. She summoned all the servants of the household to her in turn, and spoke to them so kindly, and thanked them so sweetly for the trouble and care they had taken and were taking on her behalf that they could scarcely hide their tears. As for poor Mrs. Spruce, who had nervously hesitated to approach her for fear of breaking down in her presence, she no sooner made her appearance than Maryllia stretched out her arms like a child, with a smile on her face.
“Come and kiss me, Spruce!” she said, almost playfully–“and don’t cry! I’m not crying for myself, you see, and I don’t want anyone else to cry for me. You’ll help to make the cripple-time pleasant, won’t you?–yes, of course you will!–and I can do the housekeeping just the same as ever–nothing need alter that. Only instead of running about all over the place, and getting in the way, I shall have to keep still,–and you will always know where to find me. That’s something of an advantage, Spruce! And you’ll talk to me!–oh yes!–trust you for talking, you dear thing!–and I shall know just as much about everybody as I want to,–there Spruce!–you WILL cry!- -so run away just now, and come back presently when you feel better- -and braver!” Whereat Mrs. Spruce had kissed her on the cheek at her own request, and had caught her little hand and kissed that, and had then hurried out of the room before her rising sobs could break out, as they did, into rebellious blubbering.
“Which the Lord Almighty’s ways are ‘ard to bear!” she wailed. “An’ that they’re past findin’ out, no sensible person will contradict, for why Miss Maryllia should be laid on ‘er back an’ me left to stan’ upright is a mystery Gospel itself can’t clear! An’ if I could onny see Passon Walden, I’d ask ‘im what it all means, for if anybody knows it he will,–but he won’t see no one, an’ Dr. Forsyth says best not trouble ‘im, so there I am all at sea without a life- belt, which Spruce bein’ ‘arder of ‘earin’ than ever, don’t understand nohow nor never will. But if there’s no way out of all this trouble, the Lord Himself ain’t as wise as I took ‘im for, for didn’t He say to a man what ‘ad crutches in the Testymen ‘Arise an’ walk’?–an’ why shouldn’t He say ‘Arise an’ walk’ to Miss Maryllia? I do ‘ope I’m not sinful, but I’m fair mazed when I see the Lord ‘oldin’ off ‘is hand as ’twere, an’ not doin’ the right thing as ‘e should do!”
Thus Mrs. Spruce argued, and it is to be feared that ‘not doing the right thing’ was rather generally attributed to ‘the Lord,’ by the good folk of St. Rest at that immediate period. Most of them were thirsting to try a little ‘right’ on their own account as concerned Oliver Leach. For the whole story was now known,–though had Maryllia not told it quite involuntarily in a state of semi- consciousness, she would never have betrayed the identity of her cowardly assailant. But finding that she had, unknowingly to herself, related the incident as it happened, there was nothing to be done on her part, except to entreat that Leach might be allowed to go unpunished. This, however, was a form of ultra-Christianity which did not in any way commend itself to the villagers of St. Rest. They were on the watch for him day and night,–scouts traversed the high road to Riversford from east to west, from north to south in the hope of meeting him driving along to the town as usual on his estate agency business, but not a sign of him had been seen since the evening of the fox-hunt, when Maryllia’s body had been found in Farmer’s Thorpe’s field. Then, one of Adam Frost’s eldest boys had noticed him talking to the Reverend Putwood Leveson at the entrance of the park surrounding Badsworth Hall, but since that time he had not shown himself, and enquiries at his cottage failed to elicit other information than that he was ‘not at home.’ The people generally suspected him of being ‘in hiding,’ and they were not far wrong.
One day, soon after her first move from her bedroom to the morning room, and when she had grown in part accustomed to being carried up and down, Maryllia suddenly expressed a wish to hear the village choir.
“I should like the children to come and sing to me,”–she said to Cicely–“You remember the hymn they sang on that one Sunday I went to church last summer–‘The Lord is my Shepherd’? You sang it with them, Cicely,–and it was so very sweet! Couldn’t they come up here to the Manor and sing it to me again?”
“Of course they could if you wish it, darling!” said Cicely, blinking away the tears that were only too ready to fall at every gentle request proffered by her friend–“And I’m sure they will! I’ll go now and tell Miss Eden you want them.”
“Yes, do!” said Maryllia, eagerly–“And, Cicely,–wait a minute! Have you seen Mr. Walden at all since I’ve been ill?”
“No,”–replied Cicely, quietly–“He has not been very well himself, so Dr. Forsyth says,–and he has not been about much except to perform service on Sundays, and to visit his sick parishioners—“
“Well, I am a sick parishioner!” said Maryllia–“Why should he leave me out?”
Cicely looked at her very tenderly.
“I don’t think he has left you out, darling! I fancy he has thought of you a great deal. He has sent to enquire after you every day.”
Maryllia was silent for a minute. Then, with her own quaint little air of authority and decision, she said–
“Well!–I want to see him now. In fact, I must see him,–not only as a friend, but as a clergyman. Because you know I may not live very long—“
“Maryllia!” cried Cicely, passionately–“Don’t say that!”
“I won’t, if you don’t like it!” and Maryllia smiled up at her from her pillows–“But I think I should like to speak to Mr. Walden. So, as you will be passing the rectory on your way to fetch Miss Eden and the children, will you go in and ask him if he will come up and see me this afternoon?”
“I will!” And Cicely ran out of the room with a sense of sudden, inexplicable excitement which she could scarcely conceal. Quickly putting on her hat and cloak, she almost flew down the Manor avenue, regardless of the fact that it was raining dismally, and only noticing that there was a scent of violets in the air, and one or two glimmerings of yellow crocus peeping like golden spears through the wet mould. Arriving at the rectory, she forgot that she had not seen Walden at all since Maryllia’s accident, and scarcely waiting for the maid Hester to announce her, she hastened into his study with startling suddenness. Springing from his chair, he confronted her with wild imploring eyes, and a face from which ever vestige of colour had fled.
“What is it?” he muttered faintly–“My God spare me!–she–she is not dead?”
“No, no!” cried Cicely, smitten to the heart with self-reproach at her own unthinking impetuosity–“No–no–NO! Oh what an utter idiot I am! Oh, Mr. Walden, I didn’t think–I didn’t know–oh, dear Mr. Walden, I’m so sorry I have alarmed you–do, do forgive me!—” And she began to cry bitterly.
He looked at her vaguely for a moment,–anon his face relaxed, and his eyes softened. Advancing to her, he took both her hands and pressed them.
“Poor little Cicely!” he said, kindly–“So it is you, is it? Poor dear little singer!–you have had so much anxiety–and I–” He broke off and turned his head away. Then, after a pause, he resumed–“It’s all right, Cicely! You–you startled me just a little–I scarcely knew you! You look so worn out, dear child, and no wonder! What can I do to cheer you? Is she–is she still going on well?”
Cicely raised her dark, tear-wet eyes to his in a kind of wistful wonder. Then she suddenly stooped and kissed the hands that held her own.
“Homage to a brave man!” she said, impulsively–“You ARE brave!– don’t contradict me, because I won’t stand it!” She detached her hands from his and tried to laugh. “Is she going on well, you ask? Yes,–as well as she can. But–you know she will be a cripple– always?”
Walden bent his head sadly.
“I know!”
“And it’s all through those terrible ‘Five Sister’ beeches!” she went on–“If Oliver Leach had been allowed to cut them down, Maryllia would never have gone out to save them that morning, or given the wretched man his dismissal. And he wouldn’t have cursed her, or tried to murder her!”
Walden shuddered a little.
“Then it is quite as much my fault as anybody else’s, Cicely,”–he said, wearily–“For I had something to do with the saving of the old trees. At any rate, I did not exercise my authority as I might have done to pacify the villagers, when their destruction was threatened. I feel somehow that I my share of blame in the disaster.”
“Nonsense!” snapped out Cicely, sharply, almost angrily–“Why should you take the sins of everyone in the parish on. your shoulders? Broad as they are, you can draw the line somewhere surely! You might as well blame poor old Josey Letherbarrow. He was the one who persuaded Maryllia to save the Five Sisters,–and if you were to tell him that all the trouble had come through him, he’d die! Poor old dear!” She laughed a trifle hysterically. “It’s nobody’s fault, I suppose. It’s destiny.”
John sighed heavily.
“Of course,” went on Cicely desperately–“Maryllia may live a long time,–or she may not. She thinks not. And because she thinks not, she wants to see you.”
He started nervously.
“To see ME?”
“Yes. It’s perfectly natural, isn’t it? Isn’t it your business to visit the sick,–and—” He interrupted her by a quick gesture.
“Not dying,”–he said–“I will not have the word used! She is not dying–she will not die! She shall not!”
His eyes flashed–he looked all at once like an inspired apostle with the gift of life in his hand. Cicely watched him with a sudden sense of awe.
“If you say so,”–she faltered slowly–“perhaps she will not. Go and see her!”
“To-day?”
“Yes,–this afternoon. She has asked for the school children to come and sing to her,–I shall try to get them about four. If you come at five, she will be able to see you–alone.”
A silence fell between them.
“I will come!” said John, at last.
“That’s right! Good-bye till then!”
And with a glance more expressive than words, Cicely went.
Left to himself, John threw open his study windows, and stepping out into his garden all wet with rain, made his way to its warmest corner, where, notwithstanding inclement weather, the loveliest sweet violets were thickly blossoming under his glass frames. He began to gather them carefully, and massed them together in bunches of deep purple and creamy white,–while Bainton, working at a little distance off, looked up in surprise and gratification at the sight of him. For it was many weary weeks since ‘Passon’ had taken any interest in his ‘forced blooms.’ Nebbie, having got thoroughly draggled and muddy by jumping wildly after his master through an exceedingly wet tangle of ivy, sat demurely watching him, as the little heap of delicately scented blossoms increased.
“The violets are doing wonderfully well this year, Bainton,”–he presently said, with his old kind smile, addressing his gardener–“I am taking these to Miss Vancourt this afternoon.”
Bainton lifted his cap respectfully.
“God bless her!” he said,–“An’ you too, Passon!”
And John, holding the fragrant bunch of small sweet flowers tenderly in his hand, answered gently–
“Thank you, my friend! I hope He will!”
XXXI
The rain cleared off in the afternoon and a bright glint of sunshine shone through the slowly dispersing clouds, enabling the children of the village choir to put on their best frocks and hats for the important function to which Cicely had summoned them. There was great excitement among these little people. That they should be specially asked to sing to Miss Vancourt was to them an unexpected and unprecedented honour, and filled them with speechless delight and pride. They were all very shy and nervous, however, and it was with quite a trembling awe that they scraped their feet on the polished oak floors of the Manor, and dragged them hesitatingly and timidly along into the morning room where Maryllia lay peacefully resting, and awaiting their approach. Her nurses had attired her freshly and becomingly, and had wrapped her in soft pale rose cashmere with delicate ribbons of the same hue tying it about her, while her lovely hair, loosely knotted on the top of her head, was caught together by a comb edged with pink coral which gave just the contrasting touch of colour to the gold-brown curls. She turned a smiling happy face on the children as they entered, and to Miss Eden and her young assistant, Susie Prescott, she held out her hand.
“It is so good of you to humour me in my fancy!” she said; “I loved the little hymn you all sang on the Sunday I came to church with my friends–don’t you remember?–and I want to hear it again. I came in late to service that day, didn’t I?–yes!–it was so wrong of me! But I should never do it again if I had the chance. Unfortunately we are always sorry for our wrong-doings too late!” She smiled again, and in answer to murmured words of sympathy from Miss Eden, and the sight of tears in the eyes of Susie Prescott, made haste to say–“Oh no!–I’m not in any pain just now. You need not think that. I am just helpless–that’s all. But I’ve got all my reasoning faculties back, thank God!–and my sight has been spared. I can read and write, and enjoy music,–so you see how many blessings are still left to me! Will you ask the children to begin now, please? There is not a piano in this room,–but Cicely will play the accompaniment on the old spinet–it’s quite in tune. And she will sing with you.”
In another moment they were all grouped round the ancient instrument of Charles the Second’s day, and Cicely, keeping her hands well pressed on the jingling ivory keys, managed to evoke from them something like a faint, far-off organ-like sound. Falteringly at first, and then more clearly and steadily, as Cicely’s full round voice assisted them, the children sang–
“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me down to lie
In pleasant fields where the lilies grow, And the river runneth by.”
Maryllia listened, watching them. The declining sunlight, pale as it was, shed luminance upon the awkward stumpy boys, and bashfully shrinking girls, as with round, affectionate eyes fixed upon her, they went on tunefully–
“The Lord is my Shepherd; He feedeth me, In the depth of a desert land,
And, lest I should in the darkness slip, He holdeth me by the hand.
“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want, My mind on Him is stayed,
And though through the Valley of Death I walk, I shall not be afraid!”
Here, something like a sob interrupted the melody. Some one in the little choir broke down,–but Cicely covered the break with a tender chord, and the young voices rose above it.
“The Lord is my Shepherd; O Shepherd sweet, Leave me not here to stray,
But guide me safe to Thy heavenly fold, And keep me there, I pray!”
With each verse, the harmony grew sweeter and more solemn, till Maryllia, lying back on her pillows with closed eyes through which the tears would creep despite herself, began to feel earth very far away and heaven very near. At the ‘Amen,’ she said:
“Thank you! That was beautiful! Do you mind singing the third verse over again?”
They obeyed, looking at Cicely for the lead.
“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want; My mind on Him is stayed,
And though through the Valley of Death I walk, I shall not be afraid!”
There was a silence.
“Now,” breathed Cicely softly–“now the Amen!”
Full and grave came the solemn chord and the young fresh voices with it,–
“A–men!” And then Cicely went up to Maryllia and bent over her.
“Are you pleased, dearest?”
She was very quiet. There were tears in her eyes, but at the question, she smiled.
“Very pleased! And very happy! Take the children away now and give them tea. And thank them all for me,–say I will see them again some day when I am stronger–when I do not feel inclined to cry quite so easily!”
In a few minutes all the little scuffling shuffling feet had made their way out of the room, and Maryllia was left to herself in the deepening twilight,–a twilight illumined brightly every now and again by the leaping flame of a sparkling log fire. Suddenly the door which had just been closed after the children, gently opened again, and Cicely entering, said in rather a tremulous voice–
“Mr. Walden is here, Maryllia.”
Whereat she quickly disappeared.
Maryllia turned her head round on her pillows and watched John’s tall straight figure slowly approaching. A delicate, Spring-like odour floated to her as he came, and she saw that he carried a bunch of violets. Then she held out her hand.
“I am very glad to see you, Mr. Walden!”
He tried to speak, but could not. Without a word he laid the violets gently down on the silk coverlet of her couch. She took them up at once and kissed them.
“How sweet they are!” she murmured–“The first I have had given to me this year!”
She smiled up at him gratefully, and pointed to a chair close beside her.
“Will you sit near me?” she said–“And then we can talk!”
Silently he obeyed. To see her lying there so quietly resigned and helpless, nearly unmanned him, but he did brave battle with his own emotions. He took her little offered hand and gently kissed it. If to touch its soft smooth whiteness sent fire through his veins, there was no sign of feeling in his face. He was grave and strangely impassive.
“I am grieved to see you like this—” he began.
“Yes, I am sure you are!” she quickly interrupted him–“But please do not talk about it just now! I want to forget my poor crippled body altogether for a little while. I’ve had so much bother with it lately! I want to talk to you about my soul. That’s not crippled. And you can tell me just what it is and what I am to do with it.”
He gazed at her in a kind of bewildered wonder.
“Your soul!”–he murmured,
“Yes.” And a shadow of sad and wistful thought darkened her features–“You see I may not live very long,–and I ought to be properly prepared in case I die. I know you will explain everything that is difficult to me,–because you seem to be sure of your faith. You remember your sermon on the soul, when I came to church just that once?”
He bent his head. He could find no words with which to interrupt her.
“Well, I have often thought of it since,–and I have longed–oh, so much!–to make a confession to you! But may I ask you one or two questions first?”
His dry lips moved–and he whispered, rather than spoke–
“You may! But are you not distressing yourself about matters which– which perhaps–could wait—?”
Her blue eyes regarded him with a wonderful courage.
“Dear Mr. Walden, I don’t think I ought to wait,”–she said, very earnestly–“Because really no one has ever done anything for me in a religious sense,–and if I AM to die, you are the only person in the world who can help me.”
He tried to rouse his wandering, ebbing energies.
“I will do my best,”–he said, slowly–“My best, I mean, to answer your questions.”
“You will?–As a clergyman, as a friend and an honest man?–yes, I felt sure you would!” And she spoke with almost passionate eagerness–“I will put you through your catechism, and you shall, if you like, put me through mine! Now to begin with,–though it seems a strange thing to ask a clergyman-do you really believe in God?”
He started,–wakened from his trance of mind by sheer amazement.
“Do I really believe in God? With all my soul, with all my heart, I believe in Him!”
“Many clergymen don’t,”–said Maryllia, gravely studying his face,– “That is why I asked. You mustn’t mind! You see I have met a great many Churchmen who preach what they do not practise, and it has rather worried me. Because, of course, if they really believed in God they would he careful not to do things which their faith forbids them to do.”
He was silent.
“My next question is just as audacious as my first,”–she went on after a pause–“It is this–do you believe in Christ?”
He rose from his chair and stood tenderly looking down upon her. His old authoritative energy inspired him,–he had now recovered himself sufficiently to be able to trample down his own clamorous personal emotions for the time and to think only of his spiritual duty.
“I believe in Him as the one Divine Man ever born!” he said.
“Is that quite sufficient for orthodoxy?” And she looked up at him with a half smile.
“Perhaps not! But I fear orthodoxy and I are scarcely the best of friends!” he replied–“Must I really tell you my own private form of belief?”
“Ah yes!–please do so!” she answered gently–“It will help me so much!”
He paused a moment. Then he said–
“I believe this,–that Christ was born into the world as a Sign and Symbol of the life, death and destined immortality of each individual human soul. Into the mystery of His birth I do not presume to penetrate. But I see Him as He lived,–the embodiment of Truth–crucified! I see Him dead,–rising from the grave to take upon Himself eternal life. I accept Him as the true manifestation of the possible Divine in Man–for no man before or after Him has had such influence upon the human race. And I am convinced that the faithful following of His Gospel ensures peace in this world, and joy in the world to come!”
He paused, and drew nearer to her. “Will that suffice you?”
Her eyes were turned away from his, but he could see a sparkle as of dew on her lashes.
“Sit down by me again,”–she said in a low uncertain voice–“You do believe!–and now that I know this for certain, I can make my confession to you.”
He resumed his seat beside her couch.
“Surely you have nothing to confess–” he said, gently.
“Why yes, I have!” she declared–“I’ve not been good, you know!”
He smiled.
“Have you not?” But his voice trembled a little–“Well! I suppose I must believe you–but it will be difficult!”
She looked down at the bunch of violets she held, and touched the purple and white blossoms tenderly.
“I don’t mean,”–she continued softly–“that I have been downright wicked in a criminal sense. Oh no!–I haven’t anything to confess that way! What I mean is that I haven’t been religious. Now please let me go straight on and explain–will you?”
He made a slight gesture of assent.
“Well now, to begin with,” she said–“of course when I was quite a child, I was taught to say prayers, and I was taken to church on Sundays just in the usual way. But I never could quite believe there was anyone to listen to my prayers, and going to church bored me and made me dreadfully sleepy. All the clergymen seemed to talk and preach in exactly the same way, and they all spoke in the same sing- song voice. I found it very dull and monotonous. I was told that God lived up in the sky, and that He loved me very much and would take care of me always,–but I never could make out why, if God loved me, He should not tell me so Himself, without the help of a clergyman. Because then I should have understood things better. I daresay it was a very wicked idea,–but it used to come into my head like that, and I couldn’t help it. Then, everything in my life as a child came to an end with a great crash as it were, when my father was killed. I adored my father! He was always kind to me,–always tender!–he was the only man in the world that ever loved me! And when he was taken away suddenly from me like that, and I was told it was God’s will, I hated God! I did really! You know unless you are a born angel, it is natural to hate anyone who takes away the dearest and most beloved thing you have to live for, isn’t it?”
John turned his head a little away, and looked straight before him into the glowing embers of the fire. A deep sigh involuntarily escaped him.
“I suppose it is natural!” he said, slowly–“But we must fight against nature. We must believe that God knows best!”
Her eyes, blue as flax-flowers, turned towards him wistfully.
“You believe that?” she asked–“You are sure that God means everything for the best, even when He makes you suffer for no fault of your own?”
At this his heart was sorely troubled within him, but he answered quietly and firmly–
“Yes! I am sure that God means everything for the best, even when He makes me suffer for no fault of my own!”
His voice, always soft and mellow, dropped to a tenderer cadence, as,–like a true servant of the Master he served,–he faithfully asserted his belief, that even in personal sorrow, the Divine will is always a Divine blessing.
A pause of silence ensued. Then Maryllia went on somewhat hesitatingly–
“Well, I was wicked, you see! I could NOT believe that God meant it for the best in killing my father! And I know that my father himself never could understand that God was at all good in allowing my mother to die when I was born. So that I was quite set against God,