That moment in her bedroom altered for Maggie the course of all her future life. She had never before been, consciously, a rebel; she had, only a week before, almost acquiesced in the thought that she would remain in her aunts' house for the rest of her days; now Mr. Magnus, the Warlocks, and her new dress had combined to fire her determination. She saw, quite suddenly, that she must escape at the first possible moment.
The house that had been until now the refuge into which she had escaped became the jumping-off place for her new adventure.
Until now the things in the house had been there to receive her as one of themselves; from this moment they were there to prevent, if possible, her release. She felt everything instantly hostile. They all—Thomas the cat, Edward the parrot, the very sofas and chairs and cushions—were determined not to let her go.
She saw, more than ever before, that her aunts were preparing some religious trap for her. They were very quiet about it; they did not urge her or bully her, but the subtle, silent influence went on so that the very stair-carpet, the very scuttles that held the coal, became secret messengers to hale her into the chapel and shut her in there for ever. After her first visit there the chapel became a nightmare to her—because, at once, she had felt its power. She had known—she had always known and it had not needed Mr. Magnus to tell her—that there was something in this religion—yes, even in the wretched dirt and disorder of her father's soul—but with that realisation that there was indeed something, had come also the resolved conviction that life could not be happy, simple, successful unless one broke from that power utterly, refused its dictates, gave no hearing to its messages, surrendered nothing—absolutely nothing—to its influence. Had not some one said to her once, or was it not in her little red A Kempis, that "once caught one might never escape again"?
She would prove that, in her own struggle and independence, to be untrue. The chapel should not have her, nor her father's ghost, nor the dim half-visualised thoughts and memories that rose like dark shadows in her soul and vanished again. She would believe in nothing save what she could see, listen to nothing that was not clear and simple before her. She was mistress of her own soul.
She did not, in this fashion, think things out for herself. To herself she simply expressed it that she was going to lead her own life, to earn her own living, to fight for herself; and that the sooner she escaped this gloomy, damp, and ill-tempered house the better. She would never say her prayers again; she would never read the Bible again to herself or any one else; she would never kneel on those hard chapel kneelers again; she would never listen to Mr. Warlock's sermons again—once she had escaped.
Meanwhile she said nothing at all to herself about Martin Warlock, who was really at the root of the whole matter.
She began at once to take steps. Two years before this a lady had paid, with her sister, a short visit to St. Dreots and had taken a great liking to Maggie. They had made friends, and this lady, a Miss Katherine Trenchard, had begged Maggie to let her know if she came to London and needed help or advice. Miss Trenchard divided her life between London and a place called Garth in Roselands in Glebeshire, and Maggie did not know where she would be now—but, after some little hesitation, she wrote a letter, speaking of the death of her father and of her desire to find some work in London, and directed it to Garth.
Now of course she must post it herself—no allowing it to lie on the hall-table with old Martha to finger it and the aunts to speculate upon it and finally challenge her with its destiny.
On a bright evening when the house was as dark as a shut box and an early star, frightened at its irregular and lonely appearance, suddenly flashed like a curl of a golden whip across the sky, Maggie slipped out of the house. She realised, with a triumphant and determined nod of her head, that she had never been out alone in London before—a ridiculous and shameful fact! She knew that there was a pillar-box just round the corner, but because she had a hat upon her head and shoes upon her feet she thought that she might as well post it in the Strand, an EXCITING river of tempestuous sound into which she had as yet scarcely penetrated. She slipped out of the front door, then waited a moment, looking back at the silent house. No one stirred in their street; the noise of the Strand came up to her like wind beyond a valley. She must have felt, in that instant, that she was making some plunge into hazardous waters and she must have hesitated as to whether she would not spring back into the quiet house, lock and bolt the door, and never go out again. But, after that one glance, she went forward.
She had never before in her life been on any errand alone, and at this evening hour the Strand was very full. She stood still clinging to the safe privacy of her own street and peering over into the blaze and quiver of the tumult. In the Strand end of her own street there were several dramatic agencies, a second-hand book and print shop with piles of dirty music in the barrow outside the window, a little restaurant with cold beef, an ancient chicken, hard-boiled eggs and sponge cakes under glass domes in the window; everywhere about her were dim doors, glimpses of twisting stairs, dusty windows and figures flitting up and down, in and out as though they were marionettes pulled by invisible strings to fulfil some figure.
These were all in the dusk of the side-street; a large draper's with shirts and collars and grinning wax boys in sailor suits caught with its front windows the Strand lamps. It was beside the shop that Maggie stood for an instant hesitating. She could see no pillar-box; she could see nothing save the streams of human beings, slipping like water between the banks of houses.
She hesitated, clinging to the draper's shop; then, suddenly catching sight of the pillar-box a few yards down the street, she let herself go, had a momentary sensation of swimming in a sea desperately crowded with other bodies, fought against the fierce gaze of lights that beat straight upon her eyes, found the box, slipped in the letter, and then, almost at once, was back in her quiet quarters again.
She turned and, her heart beating, hurried home. The house door was still ajar. She pushed it back, slipped inside, caught her breath and listened. Then she closed the door softly behind her, and with that little act of attempted secrecy realised that she was now a rebel, that things could never be, for her, the same again as they had been a quarter of an hour ago. That glittering crowd, the lamps, the smells, the sounds, had concentrated themselves into a little fiery charm that held her heart within a flaming circle. She felt the most audacious creature in the world—and also the most ignorant. Not helpless—no, never helpless—but so ignorant that all her life that had seemed to her, a quarter of an hour ago, so tensely crowded with events and crises was now empty and barren like the old straw-smelling cab at home. She did not want to offend her aunts and hurt their feelings, but she was a living, breathing, independent creature and she must go her own way. Neither they nor their chapel should stop her—no, not the chapel nor any one in it.
She was standing, motionless, in the dark cold hall, wondering whether any one had heard her enter, when she was suddenly conscious of two eyes that watched her—two steady fiery eyes suspended as it seemed in mid air. She realised that it was the cat. The cat hated her and she hated it. She had not realised that before, but now with the illumination of the lighted street behind her she realised it. The cat was the spirit of the chapel watching her, spying upon her to see that she did not escape. The cat knew that she had posted her letter and to whom she had posted it. She advanced to the bottom of the stair and said: "Brr. You horrid thing! I hate you!" and instantly the two fiery eyes had vanished, but now in their place the whole house seemed to be watching, so silent and attentive was it—and the odour of damp biscuits and wet umbrellas seemed to be everywhere.
Just then old Martha came out with a lamp in her hand, and standing upon a chair, lit the great ugly gas over the middle of the door.
"Why, Miss Maggie," she said in her soft, surprised whisper, looking as she always did, beyond the girl, into darkness.
"I've been out," said Maggie, defiantly.
"Not all alone, miss?"
"All alone," said Maggie. "Why not? I can look after myself."
"Well, there's your uncle waiting in the drawing-room—just come," said the old woman, climbing down from the chair with that silent imperturbable discontent that always frightened Maggie.
"Uncle Mathew! Here! in this house!" Maggie, even in the moment of her first astonishment, was amazed at her own delight. That she should ever feel THAT about Uncle Mathew! Truly it showed how unhappy she had been, and she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and pushed back the drawing-room door.
"Uncle Mathew!" she cried.
Then at the sight of him she stood where she was. The man who faced her, with all his old confusion of nervousness and uneasy geniality, was, indeed, Uncle Mathew, but Uncle Mathew glorified, shabbily glorified and at the same time a little abashed as though she had caught him in the act of laying a mine that would blow up the whole house. He was wearing finer clothes than she had ever seen him in before—a frock coat, quite new but fitting him badly, so that it was buttoned too tightly across his stomach and loose across the back. He had a white flower in his button-hole, and a rather soiled white handkerchief protruded from his breast-pocket. One leg of his dark grey trousers had been creased in two places, and there were little spots of blood on his high white collar because he had cut himself shaving. His complexion was of the same old suppressed purple, but his little eyes were bright and shining and active; they danced towards Maggie. His scanty locks had been carefully brushed over his bald head, and his hands, although they were still puffed and swollen, were whiter than Maggie had ever seen them.
But it was in the end his attitude of confused defiance that made her pause. What had he been doing, or what did he intend to do? He was prosperous, she could see, and knowing him as she did, she was afraid of his prosperity. She had never in her life realised so clearly as she did now that he was a wicked old man—and still she was glad to see him. He was an odd enough creature in that room, and that, she was aware, pleased her.
"Well, my dear," he said very genially, as though they met again after an hour's parting, "how are you? I'm very glad to see you—looking so well too. And quite smart. Your aunts dressed you up. I thought I must look at you. I'm staying just round the corner, and my first thought was 'I wonder how she's getting on in all that tom-foolery. You bet she's keeping her head.' And so you are. One can see at a glance."
She went up to him, kissed him, and smelt whisky and some scent that had geraniums in it. He put his arm round her, with his old unsteady gesture, and held her to him for a moment, then patted her back with his large, soft hand.
"Your aunt's a long time. I've been waiting half an hour."
"They've been to some meeting." She stood looking at him with her fine steady gaze that had always made him afraid of her, and did so, to his own surprise, again now. He had thought that his clothes would have saved him from that; his fingers felt at his button-hole. Looking at him she said:
"Uncle, I want to get away—out of this—at once. No, they aren't horrid to me. Every one's been very kind. But I'm afraid of it all—of never getting out of it—and I want to be independent ..." She stopped with a little breathless gasp because she heard the hall-door close. "Ah, they're here! Don't tell them anything. We'll talk afterwards ..."
His eyes glittered with satisfaction. "I knew you would, my dear. I knew you wouldn't be able to stand it ... I'll get you out of it ... Trust me!"
The door opened and Aunt Anne came in. She had been prepared by Martha for her visitor, and she came forward to him now with the dignity and kindly patronage of some lady abbess receiving the miscreant and boorish yokel of a neighbouring village. And yet how fine she was! As Maggie watched her, she thought of what she would give to have some of that self-command and dignity and decision. Was it her religion that gave her that? Or only her own self-satisfaction? No; there was something behind Aunt Anne, something stronger than she, something that Mr. Warlock also knew ... and it was this something that Uncle Mathew met with his own hostility as he looked up now at his sister and greeted her:
"Why, Mathew! You never told us. I would have hurried back, and now Elizabeth, I'm afraid, has gone on to see some friends. She will be so disappointed. But at least you've had Maggie to entertain you."
A quick glance was exchanged between uncle and niece.
"Yes," he said, "we've had a talk, Anne, thank you. And it doesn't matter about Elizabeth, because I'm staying close here in Henrietta Street, and I'll be in again if I may. I just looked in to ask whether Maggie might come and have dinner with me at my little place to-night. It's a most respectable place—I'll come and fetch her, of course, and bring her back afterwards."
Of course Aunt Anne could not refuse, but oh! how Maggie saw that she wanted to! The battle that followed was silent. Uncle Mathew's eyes narrowed themselves to fiery malicious points; he dropped them and moved his feet restlessly on the soft carpet.
"Quite respectable!" he repeated.
Aunt Anne smiled gently. "Why, of course, Mathew. I know you'll look after Maggie. It will be a change for her. She's been having rather a dull time here, I'm afraid."
Then there was silence. Maggie wanted to speak, but the words would not come, and she had the curious sensation that even if she did find them no one would hear them.
Then Uncle Mathew suddenly said good-bye, stumbled over his boots by the door, shot out, "Seven o'clock, Maggie"—and was gone.
"Well, that will be nice for you, Maggie," said Anne, looking at her.
"Yes," said Maggie. "You don't mind, do you?"
"No dear, of course not."
"What do you want me to do?" Maggie broke out desperately. "I know I'm not satisfying you and yet you won't say anything. Do tell me—and I'll try—anything—almost anything ..."
Then the sudden memory of her own posted letter silenced her. Was that readiness to do "anything"? Had that not been rebellion? And had she not asked Uncle Mathew to help her to escape? The consciousness of her dishonesty coloured her cheek with crimson. Then Aunt Anne, very tenderly, put her hand on her shoulder.
"Will you really do anything—for me, Maggie—for me?" Her voice was gentle and her eyes had tears in them. "If you will—there are things very close to my heart—"
Maggie turned away, trembling. She hung her head, then with a sudden movement walked to the door.
"You must tell me," she said, "what you want. I'll try—I don't understand."
Then as though she was aware that she was fighting the whole room which had already almost entrapped her and that the fight was too much for her, she went.
When she came to her own room and thought about her invitation she wished, with a sudden change of mood, that she had a pretty frock or two. She would have loved to have been grand to-night, and now the best that she could do was to add her coral necklace and a little gold brooch that years ago her father had given her, to the black dress that she was already wearing. She realised, with a strange little pang of loneliness, that she had not had one evening's fun since her arrival in London—no, not one—and she would not have captured to-night had Aunt Anne been able to prevent it.
Then as her mind returned back to her uncle she felt with a throb of excited anticipation that perhaps after all this evening was to prove the turning-point of her life. Her little escape into the streets, her posting of the letter, had been followed so immediately by Uncle Mathew's visit, and now this invitation!
"No one can keep me if I want to go," and the old cuckoo-clock outside seemed to tick in reply:
"Can no one keep her if she wants to go?"
She finished her preparations; as she fastened the coral necklace round her neck the face of Martin Warlock was suddenly before her. He had been perhaps at her elbow all day.
"I like him and I think he likes me," she said to the mirror. "I've got one friend," and her thought still further was that even if he didn't like her he couldn't prevent her liking him.
She went down to the drawing-room and found Uncle Mathew, alone, waiting for her.
"Here I am, Maggie," he said. "And let's get out of this as quick as we can."
"I must go and say good-night to the aunts," she said.
She went upstairs to Aunt Anne's bedroom. Entering it was always to her like passing into a shadowed church after the hot sunshine—the long, thin room with high slender windows, the long hard bed, of the most perfect whiteness and neatness, the heavy black-framed picture of "The Ascension" over the bed, and the utter stillness broken by no sound of clock or bell—even the fire seemed frozen into a glassy purity in the grate.
Her aunt was sitting, as so often Maggie found her, in a stiff-backed chair, her hands folded on her lap, staring in front of her. Her eyes were like the open eyes of a dead woman; it was as though, with a great effort of almost desperate concentration, she were driving her vision against some obstinate world of opposition, and the whole of life had meanwhile stayed to watch the issue.
A thin pale light from some street lamp lay, a faintly golden shadow, across the white ceiling.
Maggie stood by the door.
"I've come to say good-night, aunt."
"Ah, Maggie dear, is that you?" The pale oval face turned towards her.
"You won't be very late, will you?"
"Hadn't I better have a key, not to bother Martha?"
"Oh, Martha won't have gone to bed."
Maggie felt as though her whole evening would be spoilt did she know that Martha was waiting for her at the end of it.
"Oh, but it will be such a pity—"
"Martha will let you in, dear. Come and kiss me; I hope that you'll enjoy yourself."
And then the strangest thing happened. Maggie bent down. She felt a tear upon her cheek and then the thin strong arms held her, for an instant, in an almost threatening embrace.
"Good-night, dear aunt," she said; but, outside the room, she had to stand for a moment in the dark passage to regain her control; her heart was beating with wild unreasoning terror. Although she had brushed her cheek with her hand the cold touch of the tears still lingered there.
Outside the house they were free. It looked so close and dark behind them that Maggie shivered a little and put her arm through her uncle's.
"That's all right," he said, patting her hand. "We're going to enjoy ourselves."
She looked up and saw Martin Warlock facing her. The unexpected meeting held both of them silent for a moment. To her it seemed that he had risen out of the very stones of the pavement, at her bidding, to make her evening wonderful. He looked so strong, so square, so solid after the phantom imaginations of the house that she had left, that the sight of him was a step straight into the heart of comfort and reassurance.
"I was just coming," he said, looking at her, "to leave a note for Miss Cardinal—from my father—"
"She's in," Maggie said.
"Oh, it wasn't to bother her—only to leave the note. About some meeting, I think."
"We're just going out. This is my uncle—Mr. Warlock."
The two men shook hands.
Mathew Cardinal smiled. His eyes closed, his greeting had an urgency in it as though he had suddenly made some discovery that gratified and amused him. "Very glad to meet you—very glad, indeed, sir. Any friend of my niece's. I know your father, sir; know him and admire him."
They all turned down the street together. Uncle Mathew talked, and then, quite suddenly, stopping under a lamp-post as though within the circle of light his charm were stronger, he said:
"I suppose, Mr. Warlock, you wouldn't do me the great, the extreme, honour of dining with myself and my niece at my humble little inn to-night? A little sudden—I hope you'll forgive the discourtesy—but knowing your father—"
Martin looked straight into Maggie's eyes.
"Oh, please do!" she said, her heart beating, as it seemed, against her eyes so that she dropped them.
"Well—" he hesitated. "It's very good of you, Mr. Cardinal—very kind. As a matter of fact I was going to dine alone to-night—just a chop, you know, somewhere—if it's really not inconvenient I'll be delighted—"
They walked on together.
As they passed into Garrick Street, she knew that she had never in all her life been so glad to be with any one, that she had never so completely trusted any one, that she would like to be with him often, to look after him, perhaps, and to be looked after by him.
Her feeling for him was almost sexless, because she had never thought, as most girls do, of love and the intrigue and coquetry of love. She was so simple as to be shameless, and at once, if he had asked her then in the street to marry him she would have said yes without hesitation or fear, or any analysis. She would like to look after him as well as herself—there were things she was sure that she could do for him—and she would be no burden to him because she intended, in any case, to lead her own life. She would simply lead it with a companion instead of without one.
He must have felt as he walked with her this trust and simplicity. She was certainly the most extraordinary girl whom he had ever met, and he'd met a number ...
He could believe every word she said; he had never known any one so direct and simple and honest, and yet with that she was not a fool, as most honest girls were. No, she was not a fool. He would have given anything to be as sure of himself ...
She was plain—but then was she? As they passed beneath the light of a street lamp his heart gave a sudden beat. Her face was so GOOD, her eyes so true, her mouth so strong. She was like a boy, rather—and, of course, she was dressed badly. But he wanted to look after her. He was sure that she knew so little of the world and would be so easily deceived ...But who was he to look after any one?
He knew that she would trust him utterly, and trust him not only because she was ignorant of the world, but also because she was herself so true. At the thought of this trust his heart suddenly warmed, partly with shame and partly with pride.
They walked very happily along laughing and talking. They turned into Henrietta Street, misty with lamps that were dim in a thin evening fog, and at the corner of the street, facing the Square, was Uncle Mathew's hotel. It was a place for the use, in the main, of commercial gentlemen, and it was said by eager searchers after local colour, to have retained a great deal of the Dickens spirit. In the hall there was a stout gentleman with a red nose, a soiled waiter, a desolate palm and a large-bosomed lady all rings and black silk, in a kind of wooden cage. Down the stairs came a dim vapour that smelt of beef, whisky and tobacco, and in the distance was the regular click of billiard-balls and the brazen muffled tones of a gramophone. Uncle Mathew seemed perfectly at home here, and it was strange to Maggie that he should be so nervous with Aunt Anne, his own sister, when he could be so happily familiar with the powdered lady in the black silk.
"We're to have dinner in a private room upstairs," said Uncle Mathew in a voice that was casual and at the same time important. He led the way up the stairs.
Maggie had read in some old bound volume at home a very gruesome account of the "Life and Misdeeds of Mr. Palmer, the Rugeley Poisoner." The impression that still remained with her was of a man standing in the shadowy hall of just such an hotel as this, and pouring poison into a glass which he held up against the light. This picture had been vividly with her during her childhood, and she felt that this must have been the very hotel where those fearful deeds occurred, and that the ghost of Mr. Palmer's friend must, at this very moment, be writhing in an upstairs bedroom—"writhing," as she so fearfully remembered, bent "like a hoop."
However, these reminiscences did not in the least terrify her; she welcomed their definite outlines in contrast with the shadowy possibilities of her aunts' house. And she had Martin Warlock ... She had never been so happy in all her life.
A dismal little waiter with a very soiled shirt and a black tie under his ear, guided them down into a dark passage and flung open the door of a sitting-room. This room was dark and sizzling with strange noises; a gas-jet burning low was hissing, some papers rustled in the breeze from the half-opened window, and a fire, overburdened with the weight of black coal, made frantic little spurts of resistance.
A white cloth was laid on the table, and there were glasses and knives and forks. A highly-coloured portrait of her late Majesty Queen Victoria confronted a long-legged horse desperately winning a race in which he had apparently no competitors. There was a wall-paper of imitation marble and a broken-down book-case with some torn paper editions languishing upon it. Beyond the open window there was a purple haze and a yellow mist—also a bell rang and carts rattled over the cobbles. The waiter shut out these sights and sounds, gave the tablecloth a stroke with his dirty hand, and left the room.
They continued their cheerful conversation, Martin laughing at nothing at all, and Maggie smiling, and Uncle Mathew stroking his mouth and sharpening his eyes and standing, in his uneasy fashion, first on one leg and then on the other. Maggie realised that her uncle was trying to be most especially pleasant to young Warlock. She wondered why; she also remembered what he had said to her about Martin's father ... No, he had changed. She could not follow his motives as she had once been able to do. Then he had simply been a foolish, drunken, but kindly-intentioned old man.
Then Mr. Warlock on his side seemed to like her uncle. That was an extraordinary thing. Or was he only being friendly because he was happy? No, she remembered his face as he had joined them that evening. He had not been happy then. She liked him the more because she knew that he needed help ... The meal, produced at last by the poor little waiter, was very merry. The food was not wonderful—the thick pea-soup was cold, the sole bones and skin, the roast beef tepid and the apple-tart heavy. The men drank whiskies and sodas, and Maggie noticed that her uncle drank very little. And then (with apologies to Maggie) they smoked cigars, and she sat before the dismal fire in an old armchair with a hole in it.
Martin Warlock talked in a most delightful way about his travels, and Uncle Mathew asked him questions that were not, after all, so stupid. What had happened to him? Had Maggie always undervalued him, or was it that he was sober now and clear-headed? His fat round thighs seemed stronger, his hands seemed cleaner, the veins in his face were not so purple. She remembered the night when he had come into her room. She had been able to manage him then. Would she be able to manage him now?
After dinner he grew very restless. His eyes wandered to the door, then to his watch, then to his companions; he smiled uneasily, pulling his moustache; then—jumping to his feet, tried to speak with an easy self-confidence.
"I must leave you for a quarter of an hour ... A matter of business, only in this hotel. Downstairs. Yes. A friend of mine and a little matter. Urgent. I'm sure you'll forgive me."
For a moment Maggie was frightened. She was here in a strange hotel in a strange room with a man whom she scarcely knew. Then she looked up into young Warlock's face and was reassured. She could trust him.
He stood with his arm on the shabby, dusty mantelpiece, looking down upon her with his good-natured kindly smile, so kindly that she felt that he was younger than she and needed protection in a world that was filled with designing Uncle Mathews and mysterious Aunt Annes and horrible Miss Warlocks.
He, on his side, as he looked down at her, was surprised at his own excitement. His heart was beating, his hand trembling—before this plain, ordinary, unattractive girl! Unattractive physically—but not uninteresting. One of the most interesting human beings whom he had ever met, simply because she was utterly unlike any one else. He felt shame before her, because he knew that she would believe every word that he said. In that she was simple, but "he would be bothered if she was simple in anything else." She had made up her mind—he knew it as well as though she had told him—to trust him absolutely, and he knew well enough how little he was to be trusted. And because of that faith and because of that trust he felt that she was more reliable than he could have believed that changing fickle human being would ever be. How secure he might feel with her!
Then, as he thought that, he realised how troubled he was about his life at home during the last weeks. Amy hated him, his mother hid herself from him, and his father's love frightened him. Already he had found himself telling lies to avoid the chapel services and the meetings with Thurston and the rest. His father's love for him had something terrible in it, and, although he returned it, he could not live up to that fire and heat.
No; he saw that he would not be able to remain for long at home. On the other hand, go back to the old wandering life he would not. He had had enough of that and its rotten carelessness and shabbiness. What a girl this would be to settle down with somewhere! So strange that she would be always interesting, so faithful that she would be always there! Nor was he entirely selfish. Her childishness, her ignorance, appealed to him for protection. She had no one but those old aunts to care for her, she was poor and rebellious and ignorant. Warlock was kind-hearted beyond the normal charity of man—much of his weakness came from that very kindness.
As he saw which way he was going he tried to pull himself back. He could not protect her—he had the best of reasons for knowing why. He could do her nothing but harm ... and yet he went on.
He took a chair close to her and sat down. He, who had known in his time many women, could see how happy she was. That happiness excited him. Suddenly he held her hand. She did not remove it.
"Look here," he began, and he was surprised at the hoarseness of his voice, "your uncle will be back in a moment, and we never have a chance of being alone. I've wanted to talk to you ever since I first saw you."
He felt her hand move in his. That stir was so helpless that he suddenly determined to be honest.
"I think you'll trust me, won't you?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Well, you mustn't," he went on hurriedly, his eyes on the door. "I'm not worse, I suppose, than other men, but all the same I'm not to be trusted. And when I say I'm not to be trusted I mean that I myself don't know whether I'll keep my word from one minute to another. I'm sure you don't know very much about men. I could see it at once from the way you spoke."
She looked up, her clear, unconfused, unquestioning eyes facing him.
"I knew my father well," she said. "We were quite alone for years together. And then Uncle Mathew—"
"Oh, your father, your uncle," he answered quickly. "They don't count. What I mean is that you mustn't think men are scoundrels just because they act badly. I swear that nine out of ten of them never mean to do any harm."
"And they think they're speaking the truth at the time. But anything 'does' for them and then they're in a mess, and all they think about is how to get out of it. Then it's every man for himself ..."
Maggie shook her head.
"I've always known that I'd have to manage for myself," she said. "I've never expected any one to do anything for me, so I'm not likely to be disappointed now."
He moved a little closer to her and held her hand more firmly; even as he did so something in his heart reproached him, but now the reproach was very far away, like an echo of some earlier voice.
"Do you know you're a wonderful girl?" he said. "I knew you were from the first moment I saw you. You're the most independent person I've ever known. You can't guess how I admire that! And all the same you're not happy, are you? You want to get out of it, don't you?"
She thought for a little while before she nodded her head.
"I suppose as a fact." she said, "I do. If you want to know—and you mustn't tell anybody—I've posted a letter to a lady whom I met once who told me if ever I wanted anything to write to her. I've asked her for some work. I've got three hundred pounds of my own. It isn't very much, I know, but I could start on it ... I don't want to do wrong to my aunts, who are very kind to me, but I'm not happy there. It wouldn't be true to say I'm happy. You see," she dropped her voice a little, "they want to make me religious, and I've had so much of that with father already. I feel as though they were pressing me into it somehow, and that I should wake up one morning and find I should never escape again. There's so much goes on that I don't understand. And it isn't only the chapel. Aunt Anne's very quiet, but she makes you feel quite helpless sometimes. And perhaps one will get more and more helpless the longer one stays. I don't want to be helpless ever—nor religious!" she ended.
"Why, that's just my position," he continued eagerly. "I came home as happily as anything. I'd almost forgotten all that had been when I was a boy, how I was baptized and thought I belonged to God and was so proud and stuck up. That all seems nonsense when you're roughing it with other men who think about nothing but the day's work. Then I came home meaning to settle down. I wanted to see my governor too. I've always cared for him more than any one else in the world ... but I tell you now I simply don't know what's going on at home. They want to catch me in a trap. That's what it feels like. To make me what I was as a kid. It's strange, but there's more in it than you'd think. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've thought of my young days since I've been home. It's as though some one was always shoving them up in front of my face. All I want, you know, is to be jolly. To let other people alone and be let alone myself. I wouldn't do any one any harm in the world—I wouldn't really. But it's as though father wanted me to believe all the things he believes, so that he could believe them more himself. Perhaps it's the same with your aunt ..." Then he added, "But they're sick people. That explains a lot."
"Sick?" asked Maggie.
"Yes. My governor's got heart—awfully bad. He might go off at any moment if he had a shock. And your aunt—don't you know?"
"No," said Maggie.
"Cancer. They all say so. I thought you'd have known."
"Oh!" Maggie drew in her breath. She shuddered. "Poor Aunt Anne! Oh, poor Aunt Anne! I didn't know."
She felt a sudden rush of confused emotion. A love for her aunt, desire to help her, and at the same time shrinking as though she saw the whole house which had been, from the first, unhappy to her was now diseased and evil and rotten. The hot life in her body told her against her moral will that she must escape, and her soul, moving in her and speaking to her, told her that now, more than ever, she must stay.
"Oh, poor, poor Aunt Anne," she said again.
He moved and put his arm around her. He had meant it simply as a movement of sympathy and protection, but when he felt the warmth of her body against his, when he realised how she went to him at once with the confidence and simplicity of a child, when he felt the hot irregular beat of her heart, his own heart leapt, his arm was strengthened like a barrier of iron against the world.
He had one moment of desperate resistance, a voice of protest calling to him far, far away. His hand touched her neck; he raised her face to his and kissed her, once gently, kindly, then, passionately again and again.
She shivered a little, as though surrendering something to him, then lay quite still in his arms.
"Maggie! Maggie!" he whispered.
Then she raised her head and herself kissed him.
There was a noise on the door. They separated; the door opened and in the sudden light a figure was visible holding a glass.
For a blind instant Maggie, returning from her other world, thought it the figure of Mr. Palmer of Rugeley.
It was, of course, Uncle Mathew.
Uncle Mathew saw Maggie back to her door, kissed her and left her. On their way home he did not once mention Martin Warlock to her.
He left her as he heard the bolt turn in the door, hurrying away as though he did not want to be seen. Maggie went in to find old Martha with her crabbed face watching her sourly. But she did not care, nothing could touch her now. Even the old woman, cross with waiting by the fading kitchen fire, noticed the light in the girl's eyes. She had always thought the girl hard and ungracious, but now that face was soft, and the mouth smiling over its secret thoughts, and the eyes sleepy with happiness.
Maggie could have said: "I'm wild with joy, Martha. I know what love is. I had never thought that it could be like this. Be kind to me because it's the greatest night of my life."
Martha said: "There's some milk hotted for you, Miss, and some biscuits. There on the table by the stairs."
"Oh, I don't want anything, Martha, thank you!"
"Your aunt said you was to have it."
Maggie drank it down, Martha watching her. Then she went upstairs softly, as though her joy might awaken the whole house. She lay wide-eyed on her bed for hours, then fell into a heavy sleep, deep, without dreams.
When, in the quieter light of the morning, she considered the event, she had no doubts nor hesitations. She loved Martin and Martin loved her. Soon Martin would marry her and they would go away. Her aunt would be sorry of course, and his father, perhaps, would be angry, but the sorrow and anger would be only for a little while. Then Martin and she would live happily together always—happily because they were both sensible people, and her own standard of fidelity and trust was, she supposed, also his. She did not think very deeply about what he had said to her; it only meant that he wanted to escape from his family, a desire in which she could completely sympathise. She had loved him, as she now saw, from the first moment of meeting, and she would love him always. She would never be alone again, and although Martin had told her that he was weak, and she knew something about men, she was aware that their love for one another would be a thing apart, constant, unfaltering, eternal. She had read no modern fiction; she knew nothing about psychology: she was absolutely happy ...
And then in that very first day she discovered that life was not quite so simple. In the first place, she wanted Martin desperately and he did not come; and although she had at once a thousand sensible reasons for the impossibility of his coming, nevertheless strange new troubles and suspicions that she had never known before rose in her heart. She had only kissed him once; he had only held her in his arms for a few moments ...She waited, looking from behind the drawing-room curtains out into the street. How could he let the whole day go by? He was prevented, perhaps, by that horrible sister of his. When the dusk came and the muffin-man went ringing his bell down the street she felt exhausted as though she had been running for miles ...
Then with sudden guilty realisation of the absorption that had held her all day she wondered how much her aunt had noticed.
During the afternoon when she had been watching the streets from behind the curtain Aunt Elizabeth had sat sewing, Thomas the cat lumped before the fire, the whole room bathed in afternoon silence. Maggie had watched as though hypnotized by the street itself, marking the long squares of light, the pools of shadow, the lamp-posts, the public-house at the corner, the little grocer's shop with cases of oranges piled outside the door, the windows on the second floor of the dressmaker's, through which you could see a dummy-figure and a young woman with a pale face and shiny black hair, who came and glanced out once and again, as though to reassure herself that the gay world was still there.
The people, the horses and carts, the cabs went on their way. Often it seemed that this figure must be Martin's—now this—now this ... And on every occasion Maggie's heart rose in her breast, hammered at her eyes, then sank again. Over and over she told to herself every incident of yesterday's meeting. Always it ended in that same wonderful climax when she was caught to his breast and felt his hand at her neck and then his mouth upon hers. She could still feel against her skin the rough warm stuff of his coat and the soft roughness of his cheek and the stiff roughness of his hair. She could still feel how his mouth had just touched hers and then suddenly gripped it as though it would never let it go; then she had been absorbed by him, into his very heart, so that still now she felt as though with his strong arms and his hard firm body he was around her and about her.
Oh, she loved him! she loved him! but why did he not come? Had he been able only to pass down the street and smile up to her window as he went that would have been something. It would at least have reassured her that yesterday was not a dream, an invention, and that he was still there and thought of her and cared for her ...
She pulled herself together. At the sound of the muffin-man's bell she came back into her proper world. She would be patient; as she had once resolved outside Borhedden Farm, so now she swore that she would owe nothing to any man.
If she should love Martin Warlock it would not be for anything that she expected to get from him, but only for the love that she had it in her to give. If good came of it, well, if not, she was still her own master.
But more than ever now was it impossible to be open with her aunts. How strange it was that from the very beginning there had been concealments between Aunt Anne and herself. Perhaps if they had been open to one another at the first all would have been well. Now it was too late.
Tea came in, and, with tea, Aunt Anne. It was the first time that day that Maggie had seen her, and now, conscious of the news that Martin had given her, she felt a movement of sympathy, of pity and affection. Aunt Anne had been in her room all day, and she seemed as she walked slowly to the fire to be of a finer pallor, a more slender body than ever. Maggie felt as though she could see the firelight through her body, and with that came also the conviction that Aunt Anne knew everything, knew about Martin and the posted letter and the thoughts of escape. Maggie herself was tired with the trial of her waiting day, she was exhausted and was beating, with all her resolve, against a disappointment that hammered with a thundering noise, somewhere far away in the recesses of her soul. So they all drew around the fire and had their tea.
Aunt Anne, leaning back in her chair, her beautiful hands stretched out on the arms, a fine white shawl spread on her knees, asked Maggie about last night.
"I hope you enjoyed yourself, dear." "Very much, Aunt Anne. Uncle Mathew was very kind."
"What did you do?"
Maggie flushed. It was deceit and lies now all the time, and oh! how she hated lies! But she went on:
"Do you know, Aunt Anne, I think Uncle Mathew is so changed. He's younger and everything. He talked quite differently last night, about his business and all that he's doing. He's got his money in malt now, he says."
"Whose money?" asked Aunt Anne.
"His own, he says. I never knew he had any. But he says yes, it's in malt. It's not a nice hotel, though, where he lives."
"Not nice, dear?"
"No, I didn't like it. But it's only for men really of course."
"I think he'd better take you somewhere else next time. I'll speak to him. By the way, Maggie dear, Martha tells me you went out yesterday afternoon all alone—into the Strand. I think it would be better if you were to tell us."
Maggie's cheeks were hot. She set back her shoulders.
"How does Martha know?" she asked quickly. "I only went for a moment—only for a little walk. But I'm grown up, Aunt Anne. Surely I can go out by myself if ..." she stopped, looking away from them into the fire.
"It isn't that, dear," Aunt Anne said very gently. "It's only that you've been so little a time in London that you can't know your way about yet. And London's a strange place. It might be unpleasant for you alone. I'd rather that you told us first."
Then Maggie delivered her challenge.
"But, aunt, I won't be always here. I'm going off to earn my living soon, aren't I?"
Aunt Elizabeth drew her breath in sharply. Aunt Anne said quietly:
"You are free, dear, quite free. But whilst I am not quite myself—I don't want to be selfish, dear—but you are a great comfort to us, and when I am stronger certainly you shall go ... even now if you wish, of course ... but my illness."
Even as she spoke—and it was the first time that she had ever mentioned her illness—she caught at her breast and pressed her hand there as though she were in great pain. Maggie sprang to her side. She caught the girl's hand with hers and held her. Maggie could feel her swift agonized breathing. Then with a little sigh the moment had passed. Maggie still knelt there looking up into her aunt's face.
Martha's voice was heard at the door.
"Mr. Martin Warlock, Miss. Could you see him? ..."
"Yes, Martha," said Aunt Anne, her voice calm and controlled. "Ask him to come up."
She had abandoned so completely any idea that he might still come that she could not now feel that it was he. She withdrew from her aunt's side and stood in the shadow against the wall.
Although her heart beat wildly her whole mind was bent upon composure, upon showing nothing to her aunts, and on behaving to him as though she scarcely knew him, but so soon as he entered the room some voice cried in her: "He is mine! He is mine!" She did not stir from her wall, but her eyes fastened upon him and then did not move. He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday; his tie was different, it had been black and now it was dark blue. He looked quiet and self-possessed and at his ease. His rough stiff hair was carelessly brushed as always; good-humour shone from his eyes, he smiled, his walk had the sturdy broad strength of a man who is absolutely sure of himself but is not conceited. He seemed to have no trouble in the world.
He greeted the aunts, then shook hands with Maggie. He gave her one glance and she, suddenly feeling that that glance had not the things in it that she had wanted, was frightened, her confidence left her, she felt that if she did not have a word alone with him she would die.
He sat down near Aunt Anne.
"No, thank you, I won't have any tea," he said. "We're dining very early to-night because Father and Amy have a meeting right away over Golders Green way somewhere. It's really on a message from him that I came."
He did not look at her, placed like a square shadow against the dusky wall. He sat, leaning forward a little, his red-brown hand on his knee, his leg bulging under the cloth of his trouser, his neck struggling behind his collar—but his smile was pleasant and easy, he seemed perfectly at home.
"My father wonders whether you will mind some friends of Miss Avies sitting with you in your pew to-morrow evening. She has especially asked—two of them ... ladies, I believe. But it seems that there will be something of a crowd, and as your pew is always half empty— He would not have asked except that there seems nowhere else."
Aunt Anne graciously assented.
"But, of course, Mr. Warlock, Maggie will be going with us, but still there will be room. Mr. Crashaw is going to speak after all, I hear. I was afraid that he would have been too ill."
Martin laughed. "He is staying with us, you know, and already he is preparing himself. He's about the oldest human being I've ever seen. He must be a hundred."
"He's a great saint," said Aunt Anne.
"He's always in a terrible temper though," said Martin. "He mutters to himself—and he eats nothing. His room is next to mine, and he walked up and down all night talking. I don't know how he keeps alive."
Perhaps Aunt Anne thought Martin's tone irreverent. She relapsed into herself and seemed suddenly, with a spiritual wave of the hand, to have dismissed the whole company.
Martin took his leave. He barely touched Maggie's hand, but his eyes leapt upon hers with all the fire of a greeting too long delayed. His lips did not move, but she heard the whisper "Soon!" Then he was gone.
Soon! She felt as though she could not wait another instant but must immediately run after him, follow him into the street, and make clear his plans both for himself and her.
Then, continuing her struggle of the long day, she beat into herself endurance; she was in a new world, in a world with roads and cities, mountains, rivers, seas and forests that had to be traversed by her, to be learnt and remembered and conquered, and for the success of this she must have her own spirit absolutely aloof and firm and brave. She loved him. That must be enough for her, and meanwhile she need not lose her common sense and vision of everyday life ...But meanwhile it hurt. She was now twice as lonely as she had been before because she did not know what he intended to do, and always with her now there was something strange and unknown that might at any moment be stronger than she.
But by next morning she had conquered herself. She would see him at Chapel that night and perhaps have a word with him, and so already she had arrived at her now lover's calendar of dates and seasons. There was the time before she would see him and the time after—no other time than that.
The trouble that weighed upon her most heavily was her deceitfulness to the aunts. Fifty times that day she was on the edge of speaking and telling them all, but she was held back by the vagueness of her relations to Martin. Were they engaged? Did he even love her? He had only kissed her. He had said nothing. No, she must wait, but with this definite sense of her wickedness weighing upon her—not wickedness to herself, for that she cared nothing, but wickedness to them—she tried, on this day, to be a pattern member of the household, going softly everywhere that she was told, closing doors behind her, being punctual and careful. Unhappily it was a day of misfortune, it was one of Aunt Anne's more worldly hours and she thought that she would spend it in training Maggie. Very good—but Maggie dropped a glass into which flowers were to have been put, she shook her pen when she was addressing some envelopes so that some drops of ink were scattered upon the carpet, and, in her haste to be punctual, she banged her bedroom door so loudly that Aunt Anne was waked from her afternoon nap.
A scene followed. Aunt Anne showed herself very human, like any other aunt justly exasperated by any other niece.
"I sometimes despair of you, Maggie. You will not think of others. I don't wish to be hard or unjust, but selfishness is the name of your greatest weakness."
Maggie, standing with her hands behind her, a spot of ink on her nose and her short hair ruffled, was hard and unrepentant.
"You must send me away," she said; "I'm not a success here. You don't like me."
Aunt Anne looked at Maggie with eyes that were clear and cold like deep unfriendly waters. "You mustn't say that. We love you, but you have very much to learn. To-night I shall speak to Miss Avies and arrange that you go to have a talk with her sometimes. She is a wise woman who knows many things. My sister and I are not strong enough to deal with you, and we are weakened perhaps by our love for you."
"I don't want to go to-night," Maggie said, then she burst out: "Oh, can't I lead an ordinary life like other girls—be free and find things out for myself, not only go by what older people tell me—earn my living and be free? I've never lived an ordinary life. Life with Father wasn't fair, and now—"
Aunt Anne put out her arm and drew her towards her. "Poor Maggie ... Aren't you unfair to us? Do you suppose really that we don't love you? Do you think that I don't understand? You shall be free, afterwards, if you wish—perfectly free—but you must have the opportunity of learning what this life is first, what the love of God is, what the companionship of Him is. If after you have seen you still reject it, we will not try to keep you. But it is God's will that you stay with us for a time."
"How do you know that it is God's will?" asked Maggie, melted nevertheless, as she always was by any sign of affection.
"He has told me," Aunt Anne answered, and then closed her eyes.
Maggie went away with a sensation of being tracked by some stealthy mysterious force that was creeping ever closer and closer upon her, that she could only feel but not see. For instance, she might have said that she would not go to Chapel to-night, and she might have taken her stand upon that. And yet she could not say that. Of course she must go because she must see Martin, but even if she had known that he would not be there she would have gone. Was it curiosity? Was it reminiscence? Was it superstition? Was it cowardice? Was it loneliness? All these things, perhaps, and yet something more than they ...
All through the afternoon of the lovely November day she anticipated that evening's services as though it were in some way to be a climax. She knew that it was to be for all of them an especial affair. She had heard during the last days much discussion of old Mr. Crashaw. He was an old man with, apparently, a wonderful history of conversions behind him. His conversions had been, it seemed, of the forcible kind, seizing people by the neck and shoving them in; he was a fierce and militant kind of saint; he believed, it seemed, in damnation and eternal hell fire, and could make you believe in them too; his accent was on the tortures rather than the triumphs of religion.
But Maggie had other thoughts, in this, outside Mr. Crashaw. She had never lost the force of that first meeting with Mr. Warlock; she had avoided him simply because she was afraid lest he should influence her too much, but now after her friendship with Martin she felt that she could never meet old Mr. Warlock frankly again. What he would say to her if he knew that she meant to take his son away from him she knew well enough. On every side there was trouble and difficulty. She could not see a friend anywhere unless it was Caroline, whom she did not completely trust, and Mr. Magnus, whom her deception of her aunt would, she knew, most deeply distress. Meanwhile she was being pushed forward more and more into the especial religious atmosphere of the house, the Chapel and the Chapel sect. Of no use to tell herself that this was only a tiny fragment of the whole world, that there, only five yards away from her, in the Strand, was a life that swept past the Chapel and its worshippers with the utmost, completest indifference. She had always this feeling that she was caught, that she could only escape by a desperate violent effort that would hurt others and perhaps be, for herself, a lasting reproach. She wanted so simple a thing ... to be always with Martin, working, with all this confusing, baffling, mysterious religion behind her; this simple thing seemed incredibly difficult of attainment.
Nevertheless, when they started that evening for the Chapel she felt, in spite of herself, a strange almost pleasurable excitement. There was, in that plain, ugly building some force that could not be denied. Was it the force of the worshippers' belief? Was it the force of some outside power that watched ironically the efforts of those poor human beings to discover it? Was it the love of a father for his children? No, there was very little love in this creed—no more than there had been in her father's creed before. As she walked along between her aunts her brain was a curious jumble of religion, Martin, and how she was ever going to learn to be tidy and punctual.
"Well, I won't care," was the resolution with which she always brought to an end her discussions and misgivings. "I'm myself. Nobody can touch me unless I let them."
It was a most lovely evening, very pale and clear with an orange light in the sky like the reflection of some far distant towering fire. The air was still and the rumble of the town scarcely penetrated into their street; they could hear the ugly voice of the little Chapel bell jangling in the heart of the houses, there was a scent of chrysanthemums from somewhere and a very faint suggestion of snow—even before they reached the Chapel door a few flakes lazily began to fall.
Maggie was thinking now only of Martin. There was a gas-lamp already lighted in the Chapel doorway, and this blinded her eyes. She had hoped that he would be there, waiting, so that he might have a word with her before they went in, but when they were all gathered together under the porch she saw with a throb of disappointment that he was not there. She saw no one whom she knew, but it struck her at once that here was a gathering quite different from that of the first time that she had come to the Chapel. There seemed to be more of the servant class; rather they were older women with serious rapt expressions and very silent. There were men too, to-night, four or five gathered together inside the passage, standing gravely, without a word, not moving, like statues. Maggie was frightened. She felt like a spy in an enemy's camp, and a spy waiting for an inevitable detection, with no hope of securing any news. As she went up the aisle behind her aunts her eyes searched for Martin. She could not see him. Their seat was close to the front, and already seated in it were the austere Miss Avies and two lady friends.
Maggie was maliciously pleased to observe that Miss Avies had not expected these additions to her number and was now in danger of an uncomfortable squashing; there was, indeed, a polite little struggle between Miss Avies and Aunt Anne as to who should have the corner with a wooden arm upon which to rest. Miss Avies' two friends, huddled and frightened like fledglings suddenly surprised by a cuckoo, stirred Maggie's sympathy. She disliked Miss Avies from the very first moment. Miss Avies had a pale, thin, pointed face with no eyebrows, grey eyes dim and short-sighted, and fair colourless hair brushed straight back under a hard, ugly black hat.
At the same time she was nervous, emotional, restless; something about her was always moving—her lips, her hands, her shoulders, her eyes. She was fierce and hostile and ineffectual, one felt, so long as she was by herself. Maggie did not, of course, notice all this at the time, but in after years she always looked back on the pale, thin, highly-strung Miss Avies as the motive of most of the events that followed this particular evening. It was as though she felt that Miss Avies' weight, not enough in itself to effect any result, when thrown into the balance just turned everything in one direction. It had that result, at any rate, upon Maggie herself.
She soon lost, however, consideration of Miss Avies in the wider observation of the Chapel and its congregation. It was, as it had been on the occasion of her first visit to it, stuffy, smelling of gas and brick and painted wood, ugly in its bareness and unresponsiveness—and, nevertheless, exciting. The interior of the building had the air of one who has watched some most unusual happenings and expects very shortly to watch them again. Even the harmonium seemed to prick up its wooden ears in anticipation. And to-night the congregation thrilled also with breathless expectation. As Maggie looked round upon them she could see that they were throbbing with the anticipation of some almost sensuous delight. By now they had filled the Chapel to its utmost limits, but there was not one human being there who did not seem to have the appearance of having been especially selected from other less interesting human beings. It was not that the forces that surrounded her were especially interesting, but she felt that all of them had taken on some especial dramatic character from the occasion. Such personalities as Aunt Anne and Miss Avies were in any case vivid and dramatic, but to-night Aunt Elizabeth and the placidly rotund Mrs. Smith, who was sitting in the front row with her mouth open, and simple little Miss Pyncheon, Aunt Anne's friend, were remarkable and exceptional.
Then suddenly Maggie caught sight of Martin. He was sitting in the extreme right next the wall; his ill-tempered sister was next to him. Maggie could only see his head and shoulders, but she realised at once that he had been, for a long time, trying to catch her eye. He smiled at her an intimate peculiar smile that sent the blood flooding to her face and made her heart beat with happiness. At the moment of her smiling she realised that Miss Avies' dim eye was upon her. What right had Miss Avies to watch over her? She set back her shoulders, sat up stiffly, and tried to look as old as she might—that was not, unhappily, very old. That smile exchanged with Martin had made her happy for ever. Miss Avies was of less than no importance at all ...
The little bell ceased its jangling, the harmonium began a quavering prelude, and from a door at the back, behind the little platform and desk, three men entered: first Mr. Thurston; then a little crooked man who must, Maggie knew, be Mr. Crashaw; finally, in magnificent contrast, Mr. Warlock. A quiver of emotion passed over the Chapel—there was then a hushed expectant pause.
"Brothers and sisters, let us pray," said Mr. Thurston.
Maggie had not seen him before; she wondered what strange chance had led him and Mr. Warlock to work together. In every movement of the body, in every tone of the voice, Thurston showed the professional actor—his thoughts were all upon himself and the effect that he was making. So calculated was he in his attitude that his eyes betrayed him, having in their gleam other thoughts, other intentions very far away from his immediate business in the Chapel. Maggie, watching him, wondered what those thoughts were. His voice was ugly, as were all his movements; his sharp actor's face, with the long rather dirty black hair, the hooked nose, the long dirty fingers which moved in and out as though they worked of themselves—all these things were false and unmoving. But behind his harsh voice, gross accent and melodramatic tone there was some power, the power of a man ambitious, ruthless, scornful, self-confident. He did not care a snap of his fingers for his congregation, he laughed at their beliefs, he made use of their credulity.
"Oh God," he prayed, his voice now shrill and quivering and just out of tune, so that it jarred every nerve in Maggie's body, "Thou seest what we are, miserable sinners not worthy of Thy care or goodness, sunk deep in the mire of evil living and evil 'abits, nevertheless, oh God, we, knowing Thy loving 'eart towards Thy sinful servants, do pray Thee that Thou wilt give us Thy blessing before we leave this Thy 'ouse this night; a new contrite 'eart is what we beg of Thee, that we may go out into this evil world taught by Thee to search out our ways and improve our thoughts, caring for nothing but Thee, following in Thy footsteps and making ready for Thy immediate Coming, which will be in Thine own good time and according to Thy will."
"This we pray for the sake of Thy dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins upon the bloody Cross."
"Amen."
From between her hands Maggie watched those two strange eyes wandering about the Chapel, picking up here a person, there a person, wondering over this, wondering over that, and always, in the end, concerned not about these things at all but about some other more ultimate loneliness, fear or expectation, something that set him apart and made him, as are all men in the final recesses of their spirit, as lonely as though he were by himself on a desert island.
The thrill of anticipation faded through the Chapel as Thurston continued his prayer. He had not to-night, at any rate, power over his audience—the thing that they were waiting for was something that he could not satisfy. A restlessness was abroad; coughing broke out once, twice, then everywhere; chairs creaked, sighs could be heard, some one moved to the door. Thurston seemed to realise his failure; with a sudden snap of impatience he brought prayer to an end and rose to his feet.
"We will sing," he said, "No. 341. 'Bathed in the blood of the Lamb.'"
The singing of the hymn roused the excitement of the congregation to even more than its earlier pitch. The tune was a moving one, beginning very softly, beseeching God to listen, then, more confident, rising to a high note of appeal:
By all Thy sores and bloody pain Come down and heal our sins again;
falling, after that, to a note of confidence and security in the last refrain:
By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee—
In spite of the crudity of the words and the simplicity of the tune Maggie had tears in her eyes. The whole Chapel was singing now, singing as though the sins of the world could be redeemed only by the force and power of this especial moment. Maggie was caught up with the rest. She found herself singing parts of the second verse, then in the third she was carried away, had forgotten herself, her surroundings, even Martin. There was something real in this, something beyond the ugliness of the Chapel and its congregation. She remembered what Mr. Magnus had said: "If there's something of great value, don't think the less of it because the people, including yourself, who admire it, aren't worth very much. Why should they be?"
She looked for a moment at Aunt Anne and saw her in an ecstasy, singing in her cracked tuneless voice, a smile about her lips and in her eyes, that gazed far, far beyond that Chapel. Maggie felt the approach of tears; she stopped singing—softly the refrain of the last verse came:
By the blood, by the blood, by the blood of the Lamb We beseech Thee!
The hymn over, Mr. Warlock read the Bible and then offered up a long extempore prayer. Strangely enough Mr. Warlock brought Maggie back to reality—strangely because, on an earlier occasion, he had done exactly the opposite. She realised at once that he was not happy to-night. Before, he had been himself caught up into the mood that held the Chapel; to-night he was fighting against a mood that was then outside him, a mood with which he did not sympathise and in which he could not believe.
She saw that he was unhappy, he spoke slowly, without the spontaneity and force that he had used before; once he made a long pause and you could feel throughout the Chapel a wave of nervous apprehension, as though every one were waiting to see whether he would fight his way through or not. Maggie felt her earlier emotion sentimental and false, it was as though he had said to her: "But that's not the true thing; that's cheap sham emotion. That's what they're trying to turn our great reality into. I'm fighting them and you must help me."
He was fighting them. She could imagine Mr. Thurston's scornful lip, hidden now by his hands. As Mr. Warlock went on with his dignified sentences, his restraint and his reverence, she could fancy how Thurston was saying to himself: "But what's the good of this? It's blood and thunder we want. The old feller's getting past his work. He must go."
But it was Mr. Warlock's reality of which she was afraid. As he continued his prayer she felt all her old terror return, that terror that she had known on the night her father died, during the hours that she had watched beside his dead body, at the moment when she had first arrived at the house in London, during her first visit to the Chapel, when she had said good-night to her aunt before going out with Uncle Mathew ... And now Mr. Warlock was sweeping her still farther inside. The intensity of his belief forced hers. There was something real in this power of God, and you could not finish with it simply by disregarding it. She felt, as she had felt so often lately, that some one was suddenly going to rise and demand some oath or promise from her that she, in her panic, would give her word and then would be caught for ever.
"By the love of Thy dear Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the promise of Thy second coming, we beseech Thee" ... finished Mr. Warlock.
During all this time the atmosphere of the Chapel had been growing hotter and hotter and closer and closer. It had always its air of being buried deep under ground, bathed in a kind of sunken heat that found its voice in the gas that hissed and sizzled overhead; near the door was a long rail on which coats might be hung, and now these garments could be seen, swaying a little to and fro, like corpses of condemned men.