'You will not think so when you see our little one's countenance, sealed with his Alleluia! The vacancy is gone, and there is a wonderful depth in his face, as if his Ephphatha had come to the guileless lips. Sibby and I have been dressing him in his surplice, and laying him under the Cross in the Oratory with his broom blossoms in his hand. Sibby says he was still clutching them when Felix gave him to her. Poor Sibby, she says her heart stood still then; but she would not cease from trying to restore him till long after we all knew it was vain; and when I made her desist, for the sake of young Light, who must be kept quiet, I thought she would have broken her heart; but at last she seemed to feel the soothing awe of the dear little face; and she has got her beads, and means to keep her vigil over him all night.'
'Doesheknow?'
'Wilmet fancies not, and is on the watch for his asking; but I am sure he understood, when I thought he was fast going, and told him Theodore was "safe home." I am sure it made it easier;' and as Cherry winced and shuddered, he added, 'This calmness after the suspense was over was really what did him most good. He is better every hour, and no one else of ourselves at all the worse except Lance. When the alarm was over, we found him shivering violently, and hardly able to hold up his head. I believe that his danger was the greatest of all, and that he could not have been saved but for John; the stream was carrying him down against the bridge.'
'O Clem! help me to be thankful! But is not one poor fellow really taken?'
'Yes, a fine young lad about Bernard's age. He had been under water so long, that we never had much hope; but the whole frame seemed so made for vigour, that Page thought there might be a return, and went on with Krishnu's help for four hours—nor did Sibby leave off till after that. They were a party of clerks and shopmen from Spiers and Hart's. The four who are gone home are very subdued and grateful. The father of one came out in a fly and took them all back, though I thought it rather a risk for the lad who had been so long insensible.'
'Then there is one in the red-room.'
'He had had some blow, and was too much done up to move; but Page says he will be all right to-morrow. I am more afraid for the one in the laundry, and have got Kerenhappuch to sit up with him. The poor boy who is lying by our dear child was a clerk of Hart's; Audley was going to see about sending to his people. He went off in his skiff a couple of hours ago.'
'There's eleven o'clock! O Clem, I ought not to keep you from resting.'
'This is rest, Cherry.'
'Only leave me something to rest on.'
'What shall I say to you?'
'What you like. There are matches.'
'I need not read.'
And he murmured over her Psalm, Collect, thanksgiving, and prayer, half quoted, half from his own heart, and then stood to give her his blessing of peace, and his kiss, which left her hushed, softened, comforted, attuned to meet whatever might be coming.
Again he was at her door in early morning, with tidings of reassurance. Felix had spent a quiet night, without recurrence of bleeding, and though too feeble almost for speech, and unable to make the least movement without pain, he had so far surmounted the first danger, that Professor May meant to go away on the return of the carriage he had sent home at night, and, unless telegraphed for, would not come again till Thursday, only enforcing absolute quiescence though not forbidding speech. Clement had seen a great improvement in looks, and Wilmet had consented to lie down on her husband's coming to take charge of the patient.
'And Lance?'
'He is getting up to come to Church, though he has had a bad night, and he looks anything but fit for it. He says he must come even if he has to go back to his bed.'
'Surely it is too great a risk.'
'So I told him, but he declares he has caught no cold, and that it is all headache and feverishness, which fresh air will relieve. I don't know, but I can't withhold him.'
'Whit-Tuesday! I had forgotten. Sunday seems to have been ages ago!'
'And how are you, Cherry? Did you sleep?'
'In a sort of way; I am quite well, if only any one would come and help me to get up! I can't bear lying here any longer. Do try to send me one of the maids. I can't disturb that poor little dear; she is asleep at last. Take my heart with you, Clement! After all, it is a sacrifice of thanksgiving this morning.'
Clement was wont to gather his small daily congregation in the Lady Chapel, where never since the family migration had the early Holy-day Celebration been so scantily attended. It was in unison with the many beyond that he made his Commemoration, his oblation, his intense intercession, in the dewy light of the early summer morning, his apparently low yet really powerful deep-pitched voice sounding far down the aisles and among the pillars in the nave.
The blessing echoed beyond the enclosing screen, and presently Lance rose from his knees and moved slowly westwards. If for a space he had felt some of the joy of holy comfort on the renewal of the sacrifice of self, soul and body, love and hope, before the Lord of life and death, yet he was more conscious of the oppression of the sickly odour of the drooping greenery and faded flowers that hung trailing on column and poppy-head, and which compelled him to leave the Church, though every step down the nave seemed to increase the load of sorrow, anxiety, and wounded affection, beneath which head and heart had burnt and throbbed the long night through. If he had reinforced patience and resolution, he could not yet feel the benefit.
A slight sound made him raise his eyes. Whom did he see catching at a bench for support, with white cheek and dilated eye? Whose voice exclaimed, 'You! you safe then!' Whose hand, so strangely cold, grasped his with convulsive eagerness, as her lips formed but did not utter the inquiry, 'Who?'
'Our poor little Theodore,' he said. 'My brother is better this morning.'
'Theodore! I never thought of him!' she gasped. 'Two lives—one in great danger—the note said—Tom's man could not tell which—I could not bear it—I had behaved so ill to—'
And she was cut short by a violent though hushed fit of weeping, while he exclaimed incoherently, 'No! no! don't think—I was a fool—oh! don't cry—don't—it is all over now—and this is so good and precious! Oh! please don't cry! Come in to Cherry! Take my arm.'
'Oh!' between her sobs, in a panting whisper. 'I never meant that. But I should have died if I had not come with the carriage to find out. I went in here to wait. I meant no one to know.'
'You must come in now. Cherry is well, and up.'
'I can't! I ought not! Don't let any one know.'
'Indeed you must come in! Think of the comfort to Cherry. Besides, you will hear of them all. Come.'
The tone was most persuasive, and Gertrude felt that she must yield; indeed, she trembled so much as to need the support of his arm as he took her along the cloister into the darkened house, up the stairs to the Prior's room, where he was glad to find preparations for breakfast; and placing Gertrude on the sofa, he was knocking at Cherry's door, when he heard the tap of her stick as she came along the gallery from a visit to Felix.
She had only been allowed to give him ocular demonstration that she was well and afoot, and exchange a kiss and five fond words; but the welcoming smile of gladness had so enlightened his face, that she was cheerful enough to be able to meet Lance's eager face and gesture as he threw his arm round her, whispering, 'She's here, Cherry. She's come in May's carriage. That most dearest—!'
And before she had fairly recollected who was most dearest to Lance, she was borne away into the room, to see tearful eyes, and crimson face, find them hidden against her, and be almost stifled in Gertrude May's embrace.
The explanation was made in more detail than in the church. Tom May, on finding that he must stay, had scribbled a pencil-line to his wife—'Terrible boat accident; two lives gone, fears for two more. Send the other horse for me to-morrow morning.'
The groom was only sure that it was the Squire of whom scarcely a hope was given, and another brother drowned, which he could not say, except that it was not the clergyman. Dr. May and Ethel were spending the night at Abbotstoke; and Gertrude, after hours of tossing under remorse for her discourtesy, and misery of suspense, found waiting unendurable, and obeyed the impulse to rise and go with the carriage.
'Indeed,' she said, looking up to Lance, 'it was very wrong. I could not believe anything so exquisite had been done for me.'
'As if anything—'
'But haven't I been punished!' she went on, not pausing. 'Oh! to think I never—never could unsay it, nor ask your pardon!'
'Pardon!' he gasped, turning as red as before he had been pale, and holding a chair for support; and before he could say another word, the impulsive girl cried, 'And oh! it is all my selfishness, bothering him when he looks so dreadfully ill.'
'No, no,' broke out Lance, afraid he was frightening her away, and still almost beside himself. 'This is perfect healing.'
'Don't talk nonsense,' broke in Cherry, half comprehending, but a good deal alarmed, and therefore assuming authority with some peremptoriness; 'the truth is, you are both famished, and must have some breakfast this instant.' She poured out coffee, and then moved to provide eatables. Lance's instinct was of course to help her, but his hand shook so much that he had to relinquish the bread-knife. 'Yes,' said Cherry, as she took it from him; 'no wonder! When did you eat last?'
'I—can't tell. Somebody made me swallow something hot and abominable when I came in, and my head has never stopped going round ever since; but I don't care now.'
'No doubt it saved you from something worse.—You know he was longer in the water than any of us.'
'I don't know anything,' said Gertrude. 'I thought Mr. Underwood—'
Then it had to be explained—that is, as much as Cherry and Lance knew. 'Some tipsy fellows racing us—the shock—the helpless plunge;' then Cherry had felt the instant security of Clement's arm, and was drawn up the bank.
'How beautiful it was!' said Gertrude softly, 'that care for poor little Theodore first, and then you!'—and softer tears came into her eyes. 'It is just like all his life.'
'Just,' they both said, gratefully.
'And how does he look?'
'Perfectly white, dear fellow—lips and all,' said Cherry; 'and he speaks so slowly, and only just above his breath; but his eyes watch one about with all their grave brightness.'
'Grave brightness,' whispered Gertrude to herself, while a sweet satisfied look passed over her face. 'Did he know how it was with the poor little one before he—was ill?'
'No,' said Lance; but he could now add that when Felix had seen Clement about to go to church, he had said, 'Remember me, and give thanks—above all for dear Baby.'
Never perhaps had Gertrude shown such soft shy tenderness; and Lance confirmed the trust that Theodore could scarcely have felt a pang, for he said that in his own case the drowning had been far preferable to the coming back to life, when Wilmet had seemed a cruel tormentor.
'Who was it that brought you out?'
'Who, Cherry? I never asked!'
'Oh!' emphatically exclaimed Gertrude; then in a murmur under her breath, 'or what would it not have been to me?'
'It was John Harewood,' said Cherry.
There was a knock. Professor May, at his principal patient's entreaty, had come to inspect Miss Underwood. His amazement at the spectacle of her companions was unbounded, and did not make him merciful to Lance, whom he meant to have next visited in bed, and whose throbbing pulses, varying complexion, heavy eyes, aching limbs, palpitating breath, and untasted meal, all indicated that he ought to have been there. The reproof was not like the rough uncompromising scolding Rugg was wont to bestow; but with quiet irony Dr. Tom impressed on Lance that getting up had been a recklessly foolish pastime, in which he might have been permitted to indulge so far as his own insignificant welfare was concerned, but that he could not be permitted to inflict another serious illness on his family. The only thing that was proper by them was immediately to repair to his bed, and there await the upshot of his imprudence, so as to mitigate the effect as much as possible.
And then summarily carrying off his sister, Tom began as soon as they were outside the gate, 'This is simply the most extraordinary proceeding I ever heard of.'
Gertrude held her tongue.
'May I ask whether my father is in the habit of permitting these freaks when he is visiting his patients?'
'I beg your pardon,' she answered. 'I forget the unapproachableness of your patients when they are my dearest friends.'
'Oh, indeed!' Then presently, and as if for fear the groom should hear—'Les demoiselles font beaucoup de choses mal à propos à l'heure qu'il est, mais je vous conseille de ne pas avouer votre préférence à si haute voix.'
'I don't care,' she said, scorning the veil, 'who knows that I glory in appreciating heroism.'
'The heroism of getting upset in a boat!'
She deigned no reply; and he waited, trusting to her feminine nature to make her begin again, but silence was her only refuge from angry tears or words, and she kept it till the Church Ewe station was in sight.
'Thank you,' she said. 'I'll go home by train.'
He had visits to make, and was glad to be quit of her, but with elaborate cold care came to the station, found that a train was nearly due, and waited with her. He must have done so for the purpose of saying, 'Mind! these are estimable persons, but that is no reason for dropping self-restraint.' Then, as her pout nettled him, 'Nothing is more disgusting or unmaidenly than pursuit of one in a lower walk of life.'
'Walks of life are what men make them.' And they treated each other with dignified silence till the train came.
'Well,' said Dr. May, on hearing his son's story, 'the Press is king now-a-days, and one daughter is his tribute.' The Doctor still liked to tease Tom.
Meantime, Lance, in no condition to resist, had betaken himself to his own chamber, but only to find the housemaid had left the bed in the most approved sanitary state—so long as it was not to be lain on. Not sorry for a dispensation from captivity, he extracted his private horse-hair pillow from the pile of bed-clothes, and came back to the painting-room, where Cherry cleared her large sofa, and covered him up with her Indian silk quilt, he smiling blissfully, and observing, 'Isn't she the dearest girl in the world?' Cherry might have heard a great deal, had it been possible to her to sit and talk when innumerable messages were coming for her. When she had answered the first, he began again with 'So sweet and generous.' Then came the second which involved a note. When she looked at him again, he only smiled. She next had to go down to the kitchen; and on her cautious return she found him asleep, breathing like a child, and a colour—not fever—coming into his cheek.
'Poor fellow!' she sighed to herself. 'I wonder if there is any hope for him; but if the notion only bears him through to-day, it is a blessing!'
Poor Cherry! Such as this was all the nursing she was good for. Her nerves made her not to be trusted alone in a sick-room, not to do equal damage to herself and the patient; and she could only sit with the door ajar, writing notes, and acting as referee to countless questions, all in an undertone out of respect to Lance's slumbers.
And there meanwhile sat Angela, trusted to fan Felix, refresh him with a strawberry or spoonful of iced lemonade, bathe his face with eau-de-cologne, or catch his slightest wish, cares so congenial, that she liked them for a stranger, how much more delightful for 'my brother;' and though she knew more clearly than anyone save John and Clement how precarious his state was, youthful buoyancy viewed the danger as the cause of future triumph. To be a lady-doctor was surely her vocation! What a pity Charlie was heir to a baronetcy! And he had finally saved her—though she had kept herself afloat—hemight be allowed the honour of her rescue; and if it made him her fate, Lady Audley, M.D., should obtain a magnificent triumph over conventionality, far beyond all her former conceptions.
When Clement came into the room at noon, she would not give up her place. Felix looked up to him, and said, 'You are seeing to things!'
'Yes—' interrogatively.
'Try how near that willow it can be.'
'I will.'
'How about the inquest?'
'At the Rood this afternoon. Never mind about that.'
'Only see there is no injustice to those poor lads! It was our own doing;' and as Clement looked amazed, 'if our boat had not swung round;' but the earnestness with which the words were spoken brought a thrill of pain that cut him short; and they wiped his brow, and sprinkled him with scent, and watched anxiously till the lines about the eyes and mouth began to relax, and he smiled thanks back, then closed his eyes.
Clement left the room unheard, for the heat of the day compelled the opening of window and doors. He had only just became conscious that from the moment of the accident he had never had leisure to consider the cause; and he went across to the painting-room, where he did not find Cherry; but Lance awoke at his entrance, sat up, and in answer to his apology and inquiry pronounced, 'There's wonderful virtue in sleep. I don't think any of the ills Tom May threatened me with are coming to pass.'
'Your head?'
'No worse than I'm well used to, thank you. How is it in there?'
Clement told him what had just passed, adding, 'What do you remember?'
'My notion,' said Lance, 'was simply that we were overtaken by a lot of scamps too excited to perceive what they were about, and egged on by Angel's unlucky song.'
'I doubt the "excitement" being of the technical kind, unless the water had a very sudden sobering effect.'
'Indeed! Well, considering that you were in your shirt-sleeves, their not perceiving that we weren't in their style was not so wonderful. So Felix says we ought to have cleared them. Ay, I do remember the swinging round now.'
'An oar must have missed the stroke, and brought her stern foul of the other.'
'He must have seen who it was,' said Lance.
'Yes, but as the point is to exonerate these fellows, there seems no need to drive it close home among ourselves.'
'No,sheneed never know exactly what she has done,' said Lance.
'I did not say she never should,' returned Clement; 'but the public need not. In fact, we have nothing to say. Felix, in the stern, may have seen, but I did not.'
'And Charlie Audley?'
'If he knows no more positively than we do, you may be sure he will not draw inferences. I wonder he has not been here yet, by-the-by.'
'You don't mean to forewarn him?'
'Certainly not.'
'No, it would not be right. All we determine is that it shall not be known through us, if we can keep truth and justice without,' said Lance; 'and if appearances are to be trusted, he is likely to be as ready—or more so—to shield her as any one of us.'
'I believe that is as great an absurdity as any of the rest,' said Clement, gloomily.
'But the little Stars we found (out)Down amongst the Underwood.'Jean Ingelow.
Even while Lance and Clement were in discussion, Charles Audley had paddled up the river, and mooring his little craft at the landing-place, had taken the path to the garden.
There, beyond the cedar, so as to be hidden from any one upon the river, sat Stella, decking a cross with lilies-of-the-valley and white lilacs. Scamp was lying by her, and her doves parading and cooing on the grass and cedar boughs beside her; but the utter droop and dejection of her young figure were altogether out of keeping with the summer surroundings; the shining head was bowed, and the heavy eyelids with broad red rings around them showed that she had wept and wept on for hours. She did not hear the step on the soft grass, for her low sad voice was murmuring, 'My Tedo, my darling, my baby, is this the last thing I shall ever do for him?'
Then Scamp wagged his tail and crested his ears in greeting, and the doves circled about, and perched higher upon the cedar tree, while Charles, holding one of the flat sweeping boughs back, stood looking down at her, as hardly knowing how to greet her, and with a tear gathering in his eyes. She stood up, and looked up to him meekly and sweetly, with a touching sort of welcome, as she held out her hand, saying simply, 'You saved me, and I never thanked you yesterday.'
Instead of speaking, Charles lifted the little hand in both his to his lips and cheek for a moment, as if nothing else could express how he prized that chance; but if Stella thought at all, it was that it was a kind action of comforting.
'Your brother is better,' he said, having inquired at Page's door.
'Yes, he is better. I saw him, and he just spoke; but he does look so bad!'
'He will soon mend now,' said Charles, with the confidence of one who knew nothing about it. 'And you are all alone?'
'They are all busy or resting or something, and I want to do it all for Theodore myself—my own own darling!' The last words were a moan to herself, as she sat down in her low chair and resumed the little cross.
'May not I help alittle?' softly entreated Charles, sitting down on the grass and quietly handing her the flowers, ready arranged in bunches, with a leaf. She did not speak, but seemed to like it. There was a loneliness about her that again struck him, so that he could not help half blaming those who had left her to herself; and to account for their absence asked after Lance.
'He is up, but he seems very poorly still,' she said; 'he is lying down in the Prior's room.'
'And they have left you all to yourself?'
'I like to be alone. Nobody did care for him like me. They were all very kind to him. I don't think he knew the sound of a rough word, my dear little gentle Tedo! but nobody understood him like me, nobody could make him understand—' and she rocked herself backwards and forwards under the load of her first real grief. It was very sad to the young man to watch, and he hardly knew what to say, as again he took her hand. 'Well, now he can't have any troubles, you know, Stella, he's a great deal happier than ever you could make him.'
'Oh yes, I know that. Only it is foolish. I can't think how he gets on all alone! I know it is very wrong, but if Felix or I had gone with him it would not seem so strange for him. Yes, it is very silly,' she added, half laughing, but crying again, 'but itwillseem hard to fancy he does not want me.'
'He is not the only one to want you,' muttered Charles.
'Oh no! There are plenty of them. I want to be thankful, indeed I do, but no one ever can be so dear! Never mind,' she added in her unselfishness, perceiving that her exceeding sorrow was causing grief and perplexity, 'it can't be helped; I do know he is happy, and I'll learn to bear the being left alone.'
'Never! if dearest love can make up to you—dearest, sweetest little one!' cried Charles. 'There!' as he took both her hands, and her wistful wondering eyes were raised, 'don't you see some one who wants you every moment, and that all your brothers put together can't love you a quarter as much as I do? There! there! Only do just promise, Stella, never to talk again of being left all alone while you have Charlie.'
'I don't think I can,' said Stella, in a dreamy wondering voice, 'for you are so kind.'
'And you'll let me try to comfort you?'—a dangerous proposal, for he did not in the least know how he should have set about it if she had not answered, 'I think you do,' as if it rather surprised her, bringing such an approach to caressing as would have startled her at any moment when her heart was not so yearning for tenderness and sympathy. And there was a reaction the next moment, as finding herself guilty of forgetting Theodore and his cross, she gave a moan of pain—'Oh, my Tedo!' and went on with her work; but she let him wait on her with the flowers, and now and then a little squeeze of the hand, and he knew he must be content with that much. Presently she said that she ought to make something for 'that other poor one, or it would look so unkind when his mother came.' In this task she could brook more help, and she spoke more over it, with a sweet soft languor that had an infinite pathos, as if somehow the acute anguish of her loss had been softened, and she were resting in the strange new peace which she did not yet know for joy, but which had filled her heart. She was so very young, so very pure, so very unconscious, that Charlie, almost as young and not much less simple and innocent, was as tender and reverent of her and her grief, and the state of her guardian brother, as though she had been one of her own white flowers—those last sprays she let him take from her hand when all was done, and they went together to carry the wreaths and crosses to the Oratory.
The large heavy curtains that separated the hall from the long room were let down, and the screen, a tall wooden one, as usual cut off the Oratory. Here the chairs had been removed to make room; and close under the Cross, to the eastward, were the two tables that had been covered with white to receive the two who had so lately gone forth full of life.
On one of the chairs sat Cherry, endeavouring to obtain some record of that unearthly loveliness of expression, chiefly for Felix's sake. She had just done all she durst, and produced a drawing that would not look like such an utter failure away from the original, when these two came in, Stella leading the way in gentle awe, very sad indeed, but still not with that utterly drooping downcast look of leaden grief which had in the morning shrunk from all comforters who could only believe, not enter into, the intensity of her mourning for her twin.
Cherry, in the corner, almost hidden by the chairs, could not tell whether her presence were perceived; but in truth the child was so simple, that she would probably have done exactly the same whether her sister was present or not, and Charles had no eyes for aught save her. She knelt down for a moment, with her face in her hands; then she kissed the white brow set in fair hair, and seemed to expect Charles to do the same, as a great favour to him, after which she let him help her to lay her cross with the wreath round it on the breast, and change the now closed Star of Bethlehem that lay under the waxen fingers, as well as that withered spray of broom. Once more she knelt, and whispered the Lord's Prayer: and he did the same, imitating her in everything, a grave kind of light on his young brow. It was very solemn and beautiful to see them, and Cherry watched them almost with awe.
When they rose, Stella placed her decorations on the longer broader form on the other table, but whispered that Clement had bidden her not to look at that face.
They went away hand in hand, and parted upon the lawn, for precious as each other's presence was, they, in their reverence and inexperience, felt as if his coming in to the family meal might be an intrusion, which neither could propose. So he bade her tell her brothers that he should meet them at the Rood.
'I shall hardly see you just yet,' he said, 'though I shall come to the door every day, but never—never think yourself alone, dearest, dearest, dearest one!' And after holding both the little hands for some moments in his, he drew her up to him for one second, then was gone.
No one saw Angela standing at the garden door, with contracted brows and bitten lip. As she crossed the hall, there was an entrance at the front door; but she darted up-stairs, and it was Stella who first greeted Bernard, who had been telegraphed for by Charlie, and came home awed, subdued, and terribly alarmed by the report he had heard at Church Ewe. 'But I see it was all clack, after all, and no harm done,' he said, as he looked at his little sister's face. 'Only why do you frighten a fellow by having all the blinds down?'
And Stella, horrified at her own disloyalty, could hardly find utterance to explain that it was but too true; and when she led Bernard to the Oratory, somehow it was all the happy and glorious side of her twin's removal that dwelt with her, while he, who had been in a rough way very fond of the little helpless one, and had never faced death before, broke entirely down with 'Poor little chap! I wish I'd been better to him! I meant to have got him a new thingumijig last half—but I spent—I wish I hadn't now. It seems so odd not to hear him humming.' And he yielded at last to a fit of crying; and when Stella spoke softly of the present joyful songs, he said, 'Ay! ay! that's all very well for you that were always good to him, and never kicked him about; but if I'd only known—'
And yet it had always been the most hopeful part of Bernard's character that he had never been really unkind to Theodore, and very rarely even impatient, even when teased by a fit of imitation.
The mid-day meal was the first family assembly since the same hour the previous day, and it did not collect all the members at the same time. Angela was only sent down after every one else had done, constrained by Wilmet's command, enforced by a word from Felix. Cherry had lain in wait for her, to ask necessary questions about her mourning, for no circumstances were likely to make Angela brook the having orders for her dress given without consulting her.
'There's a box of hats and bonnets in Sibby's room, if you would look at them. The bonnets are all one worse than another; but if you would see if you would like one like mine or like Stella's—'
Angela jumped as if she had been stung. 'Stella's! certainly not.'
'I have not chosen a very childish one for her. This will make her more of a woman.'
'Don't go chattering on!' broke out Angela. 'Don't you thinkI'venot got enough upon me without your worrying me out of my life with that little humbug!'
'I don't think you know what you are saying.'
'Youdon't, Cherry. That's the way people are always taken in by a little sham softness and simplicity. I hate such snakes.'
It struck Cherry that Angela must have drawn the same conclusion as had occurred to her for one moment as she saw the hands clasped. The bitter word applied to their darling Fair-Star offended her not a little, but she made a great effort to ask kindly, 'Has anything vexed you, Angel?'
'Vexed!' as if the word were utterly inadequate. 'No, not one thing more than another! Have done, Cherry! You mean it well, but I can't stand it!—No more! I've had enough to keep me going;' and she threw down her knife and fork, and gulped down a tumbler of beer.
'You need not hurry. Wilmet is with Felix.'
'As if I didn't know that!'
There was a look and tone about her as if she were brimming over with inconceivable misery, to which every word added; and Cherry felt quite powerless to deal with her as she darted up-stairs.
And just then came the feet of many men, treading as gently as they could. John Harewood regretted for a moment that Stella and Clement had not delayed their arrangements till after this inspection, yet it might be well that these rougher spirits should see how little gloomy they had made the sleep of the innocent. The young men too were evidently struck by seeing that their comrade had not been neglected any more than the child of the house, and Stella's cares were thus not thrown away.
Clement, Bernard, and John Harewood had just crossed the churchyard, and were turning up the road to the village inn, when Clement perceived that Angela had joined them, and turning back to her, he said, 'My dear, you are not thinking of coming?'
'I am.'
'There is no need. Here are quite witnesses enough.'
'No. No one knows what I do,' she said, with face as hard set as marble.
'Has Felix spoken to you?' he said, understanding better.
'Only what you heard. That was enough.'
'It is a right purpose, Angela,' he said, kindly: 'but really you need not expose yourself to this. We can quite exonerate the others by showing that our boat swung round at the last moment, and that is all that signifies. We neither saw nor knew why.'
'And I did,' said Angela.
To check her was plainly impossible. There was the sort of seared look of misery about her face which had before struck Cherry, as if she were perfectly indifferent what might happen to her, and hardly heard what was said; and Clement could only make a gesture indicating that he had no choice, when he met the astonished glances of the others.
The Rood was almost as old as the Priory itself, and the inquest was held in a curious old pannelled room. The other boat's crew had brought an attorney to watch the proceedings, evidently anticipating that undue blame would be imputed to them, to the damage of their character even if nothing more came of it.
The first to tell his story was the Reverend Edward Clement Underwood, who merely explained the manner in which they were seated, the sudden challenge from the six-oar, and how just as he had thought the boat clear, he had felt whirled round in the eddy, the boat was struck in the stern, and went down. His brother Theodore was instantly taken out; Francis Yates, the other sufferer, not till the last, he could not say how long.
Charles Audley then spoke of the shouts and violence of the pursuit—admitting, however, that it would have been harmless had not the boat turned so as to expose her stern in the midst of the two streams. An oar must have missed the stroke, but whose it was he could not say; and he finally mentioned having brought out poor Yates, who had been sucked down by the eddy, and carried to the opposite bank. The Coroner asked in a complimentary voice whether he had not been more successful in other cases; and Charlie, colouring, allowed that he had brought two more out of the river.
There Angela started up. Clement had tried to keep her till she was called for, but the Coroner, seeing her agitation, courteously expressed himself willing to take her evidence. Her cheeks were crimson, and she spoke breathlessly. 'I only want to say it was nobody's fault but mine. They would not have raced with us if I had not begun singing. And then they would have cleared us, but I got frightened when we came to the meeting of the currents, and my stroke failed. That made the stern swing round. And I am ready to take the consequences.'
'No consequences need be apprehended, Miss Underwood,' said the Coroner, a kind old man. 'No one can impute blame to a young lady for a very natural alarm; and every one must feel this voluntary explanation extremely honourable to you.'
He was making a cruel cut if he had only known it, but he was full of consideration for her; and the young men themselves gave their evidence in a very different style from the defensive and offensive one intended; nor was the question of their sobriety, on which they had brought up the landlord of the Hook and Line, even alluded to, before the verdict of accidental death was returned.
Clement had the feeling that this was the most generous action of Angela's life, and yet she had carried it out in so defiant a manner that it was not easy to give her full credit; and before he could address her, she had sped away, between skimming and striding, and was across the churchyard before he had reached the door.
Bernard relieved himself by a low whistle.
'Well,' said Charlie, 'I thought her pluck indomitable. I never supposed that she capsized us.'
'Why, whom did you think it could be?'
'Well, if you must know, I thought Lance just the spoon to do it—a musician, and he'd been looking moon-struck all day.'
'Much you know about Lance! Why, I'd have taken my oath beforehand it was nobody's doing but Angel's. It's just the way with that sort of girl that runs into what she's no call to—'
Lance meantime was having a brief transaction with the reporter of the Ewmouth paper, and then was detained by warm expressions from the other boat's crew, who had been quite disarmed, and were eager to tell of their sorrow and their sense of the kindness and 'handsomeness' of the treatment they had received—speaking to him, indeed, a great deal more freely than they could have done to his brother the Vicar, as a being far less removed from their own sphere, and giving him valuable data for dealing with their comrade, young Light, who still lay very ill. Clement had visited him in the morning, and had found him gruff and reserved, and showing decided objections to clerical visits as such.
These lads seemed more careless than free-thinking, as they allowed that Light certainly was; and they were now much impressed, and eager to speak of poor Yates's steadiness and goodness. Indeed, he had not even meant to go to the Maying, and they had been in the act of chaffing him for the abstinence which they now longed to have shared. It was the greater comfort, because his poor mother had just been brought over by her son's master, who would take charge of her till the funeral. She was in the strange mixture of fuss and grief that never shows to advantage, and when taken to see her boy was divided between gratitude at the honours paid to him and dread of their novelty, and the ground where it was easiest to meet her was his real dutifulness and affection.
Attention to the poor woman and other calls hindered Clement from any interview with Angela, whom indeed he hardly saw till the night vigil which he was to share with her. The day had not been unfavourable, except from the exhaustion produced by the afternoon heat; and Bernard's brief visit had exceedingly dismayed him. He declared that he had never seen any one look likethatbut a fellow who had been really killed by a disastrous blow at foot-ball, and put all his auditors in the lowest spirits by a series of tragic anecdotes; until Mr. Page, at his evening visit, declared that he saw more real improvement than he had dared to expect.
Felix could not bear to see two watchers losing their whole night's rest; and as Angela was unpersuadable, Clement, to content him, lay down dressed on the bed in the next room, and being thoroughly tired, was fast asleep, when in the middle of the night an access of pain returned, probably from some inadvertent movement in slumber. Felix forbade Angela to summon his brother; but ere long the agony increased so much, that, with a lip stiff and straightened by the struggle to suppress a cry, he said, 'Help me!' and as thinking he wanted to change his posture, she offered her arm and neck, he released another sob of anguish, and answered, 'No! no! Say—prayers—what I can't recollect.'
Her lips quivered, but no sound came. However, Clement, with true nursing instinct, had been roused, and stood over him, uttering at intervals the supplications after which he had been feeling in the distraction of acute pain, and the look of having lost something passed away. The fomentations were renewed; and at last, just as Lance was dressing to go for Mr. Page, a faint but free voice said, 'Don't go, it is getting better;' and in ten minutes more, the paroxysm had passed into a sweet sleep, which lasted till long after morning had risen.
Clement would not leave him again, but Angela refused every sign of dismissal, and sat cold, hard, stiff as a statue, with open fixed eyes, and cheeks so wan as to be almost green in the light of dawn. He watched her with almost as much anxiety as the sleeper; and when at four o'clock their watch was relieved by John and Wilmet, he followed her to her own door, and said, 'Angel, my dear child, I am afraid you are very unhappy.'
'Well, why not? Good-night, or morning.'
'Should we not both be better able to rest if you would let me do what I can for you?'
She laughed—a horrid painful scornful laugh it was. 'Much good that would do. Such a trouble as this!'
'Yet, Angel, would you but try! There is no grief or penitence too vast—'
The laugh again. 'So one says till one tries, and then one finds that one hates it all! all! all! No, I tell you, Clement, I won't be bothered now! I can't stand it.'
And she locked her door.
Even Felix, who in spite of that one attack was evidently stronger, must have remarked her manner, for he asked Wilmet whether there were anything amiss with Angel. 'She is grieving over her share in the accident,' said Wilmet. 'I hope it may be a turning-point with her.'
No doubt he thought over this; for later in the day, when Angela was sponging his face and hands with warm water, and exclaimed at sight of a red mark on his arm, 'Did you hurt yourself there, Felix?' he answered, 'No, it is the old scald. Do you remember our talk then?'
'You can't go on as you did then,' she hurriedly said.
'Then don't look as you did then,' he said. 'Remember, visible results are often merciful aids to correction.'
She perpetrated a hard stiff smile; and from that time shunned being left alone with him, and sometimes when the exterior family thought her in the sick-room was really shut up in her own, for she avoided the presence of the others as much as possible, and when among them showed an irritability and unkindness to Stella that Cherry could hardly bear to see. She could hardly answer an inquiry after Felix from her with common courtesy, and roughly took things out of her hands to prevent her bringing them into the room, when a moment's sight of her sweet face would have been no harm but rather good to her patient.
By Thursday much of the pain, tenderness, and disability to move were gone; and Tom May was well satisfied, not only thinking the first danger over, and ascribing the chief remaining damage to a sprain, but wishing that Felix should be lifted to a couch, where he could be a good deal cooler than in his bed. It was lucky that Wilmet and Cherry had resisted Clement's desire to present all the old Squire's invalid machinery to the hospital, for there was great comfort in the easy-going wheeled couch with angles of every inclination on which he was brought to the window. Bernard longed to draw up the blind, instead of his 'seeing nothing but that black cross and the old trumpeting angel under it,' as he said.
'My trumpeting angel is a dear friend,' said Felix. 'He says a great deal.'
Felix was obedient to the order to be moved, and showed that he was less prostrate in strength than had been anticipated; but his passiveness struck those who knew him best as not so much the langour of weakness as of sorrow. What Clement had rightly deemed no ill news in what seemed his own last struggle, was a sore grief in his recovery. Little Theodore's loving dependence was greatly missed, and saddened the thought of returning to the family.
Nor was he the only mourner. The first practice of the choir-boys without him ended in a positive howl; one of them was reported to have said Master Theodore was a little angel among them; and the intimation of Stella's desire for broom blossom brought in such an accumulation of golden flowers as might have covered the whole family.
Sibby added to Clement's perplexities by announcing her intention of not going to mass any more barring at Church. She would cast in her lot with her own children, the darlin' above all that was the Lord's own lamb; and she hadn't need go further, when here was Master Clem, as good a praste as any of her own clergy that was.
Though this was precisely Master Clem's own view, he could not tell whether he were encouraging an act of schism or an act of Catholicity; and he had not much choice, for praste as she owned him, he knew that the least opposition would make him in his old nurse's eyes no more than the long white boy she had victimized and allowed to be victimized by all his brothers. He wondered whether to write to the Priest at Ewmouth, who had certainly never attended to Sibby like his brother at Bexley, nor exerted himself to encourage her weekly tramp to mass. Altogether, though touched and warmed, he was by no means so elated about his convert as Clan Hepburn would have thought proper.
Those good ladies, in spite of their belief that there was a regularchapelle ardenteround poor Theodore, and that the Vicar and the Papist woman spent their time there in telling beads and sprinkling holy-water, were too kind-hearted not to come daily to inquire, and some one always went down to them. On Friday, when they were shown into the drawing-room, they found Angela kneeling by the hearth, burning some papers in the fire-place.
'Felix was better,' she said; 'he was being dressed, and was to be taken into the painting-room, it was so much cooler;' but even as she spoke, the hard silent misery of her face went to their hearts.
'You look sadly worn, my dear,' said Miss Bridget kindly. 'I hear you are the best of nurses, but you must not be overtired.'
'Oh! nothing hurts me!' with her horrid little laugh.
'Fatigue of body is a rest to pain of mind,' said Miss Isabella; 'but there is even a better rest, if you only knew your way to it, my poor child.'
'And I fear it is studiously overlaid and concealed,' sighed Miss Bridget.
Angela looked from one to the other; then exclaimed, 'There's not a bit of help or comfort in anything! It is of no use talking. Nothing—nothing will ever touch it.'
The vast grief she meant, and Miss Isabella understood her. 'Yes, truly there are times when all we have trusted in falls—falls away and leaves us alone.'
'And hating the humbug!' cried Angela, though even as she spoke she was startled at her words; but the hard wretchedness of the past days, when all she had been wont to hear of as comfort seemed but child's play to the intensity of her grief, had exacerbated her against the whole system in which she had been bred, so that the very sight of Clement brought an angry sense of mockery.
Miss Bridget was shocked at the language; but her sister understood better. 'Yes, Bridget, the dear child is feeling the desolation that sooner or later comes to all who have been content with unrealities! Most cruel, but better than the delusion.'
Bridget quoted, 'He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?'
'Ashes! ashes indeed!' cried Angela passionately, as she looked at the black paper with grey crumbling edges that had once been a song, where she thought she met Charlie's heart. 'The more one cares the more hateful it all grows!' and she crushed the fragments into tinder with the paper as she spoke.
'Dear, dear girl!' cried Isabella Hepburn; 'even as you crush that paper, throw aside all these vain shows that cannot profit, and simply cast yourself where Help is to be found!'
The real tender kindness, the promise of help, attracted the heart weary of its misery, and yet spurning all the love and help that had longed to aid all these days. She could in some strange way open to a fresh person when the heart was closed to her own kindred; besides, it was better to have the circumstances blamed than herself, and the effect of the good lady's appeal was to make her groan, with tightly compressed hands, 'Oh! no one can tell—no one can reach near the depth of this unhappiness. Think what I have done! and what it has cost me! And then it all seems—words—words—words—'
'Words—yes, till you find Him only in whom is Power to comfort. Is he not rousing your heart by this utter destitution and powerlessness to comfort, so as to bring you at once to lay the load on Him?'
The fervour of her voice carried force; and Angela said, 'If I could—Not to find it all words again—'
'Poor child! Did He ever turn from such as come to Him? Take your Bible in your hand, and at the foot of the Cross—not the material cross, of which you have been taught to make a plaything, but the spiritual Cross—cast your sorrows and your sins; believe, and be healed.'
'Believe! believe!' broke forth the girl. 'I suppose I do believe! I very nearly didn't when I found it all sounded so inadequate and empty!'
'He only can be her Teacher,' whispered Miss Bridget; but her sister, with true warmth of love and hope, said, 'He is teaching her;—but, dear Angela, we will do our best by praying for or with you, or pointing the way to the best of our power.'
At that moment Stella came in, and after quietly giving her hand to the visitors, she said, 'Please, Angel, Clement wants to know if you have the key of the walnut-press.'
'No! I don't know,' she crossly said, after feeling in her pocket in vain.
'Most likely it is in the pocket of your blue skirt,' said Stella. 'May I go and look?'
'No! I won't have my things pulled about! I don't believe it's there. What does he want?'
Stella reluctantly answered, 'We are getting the Church ready; he wants the pulpit-banner with the triangles.'
To the visitors this sounded like profane play at such a time. 'Poor child!' they said; 'are these the devices that fritter away the deep lessons of grief?'
'Stella has devices enough,' muttered Angela under her breath; but the little maiden answered, 'We don't want to be sad;' but, spite of the pensive gentle tone, it seemed to the Hepburn sisters mere levity and desire to escape sorrow.
However, they rose to take leave, telling Angela they would always be at her service; and as she accompanied them through the hall, came Clement on the wake of his messenger, in distress for the key. She dashed impetuously up-stairs—found it where Stella had suggested, and flew down again with it.
'There! I've done with it! I'm sick of it all!'
'What?' asked the astonished Clement.
'I loathe it all,' she repeated. 'It is all of a piece—all ashes instead of bread.'
'You are not mimicking the Hepburns,' said her brother. 'I beg your pardon,' he instantly added.
'Mimicking! No, but like them I have learnt to rate all this frippery at its worth! If you had any depth of feeling, you would loathe it as I do. But that's the way you palter with truth and reality—deceiving and deceived.'
The voice and flash in her eyes directed these last words on Stella; but cutting short the reply that Clement was beginning, she again flew up-stairs, leaving the other two aghast.
'This is a new phase!' said Clement.
'I wonder if grief drives people into a sort of distraction,' said Stella, in a tone of excuse.
'Had the Hepburns been talking to her?'
'Yes; I thought she looked, when I came in, as if they had been some comfort to her.'
'Ah!'
She had never heard such a sigh from him. In amaze she said, 'They are so good. I thought great troubles made little differences be forgotten.'
'True! It is their genuine goodness that makes me fear.'
'If that made her quite—in earnest?' asked Stella.
'I wish Mr. Fulmort could have come before Monday!' ejaculated Clement. 'She's past me!'
Then it struck him that he was talking to little Stella as to a woman, and looking to see whether she had become one, he saw new depths in her eyes. 'Well, Stella, if she deserts I must trust to you,' he said. 'Have you seen much of her state of mind?'
'Not much,' said Stella. 'I think,' and her eyes filled with tears, 'that it is so much worse for her than for any of us—that she is like one bruised all over, who can't bear the least touch, and it comes on her all the more to-day, because she has been occupied by Felix hitherto, and now he wants her less.'
'But is not she specially unkind to you, Stella?'
'Oh! don't call it that. I believe she can't bear to see me, because I put her so in mind of dear Baby.' And the bright tears dropped.
The simple-hearted child had no idea of any deeper and more personal cause of irritation; nor was it possible to pursue the subject, for whereas the innocent's entrance to Paradise was not to cost the central feast of the Christian year one wreath, Angela's defection threw much toil upon her. The funeral was to be late on the Saturday afternoon, for the convenience of poor Yates's friends; and all must be finished before, with the help of Bernard, Lance, and Will Harewood, who had come down, like the brother he was, and was a welcome assistant to Clement, just as Angela's secession seemed like the last straw that would break the camel's back!
The best exhilaration was perhaps an occasional visit to the painting-room, where Felix and Geraldine were so peacefully thankful to be together again, that they hardly breathed a word to one another. And there was comfort too in finding how much the tone of young Light was softening from its hard defiance. Lance, who had a good deal of experience, and was to the young tradesmen at Bexley much what he had been to the choristers at Minsterham, had devoted himself to the sick lad, and had certainly produced an effect upon him.
Felix was recovering strength quickly. As there was an awkward step into the painting-room, he begged the next day to perform the journey on his own feet; and though he needed both the balustrade and Clement's arm, and was still sharply pained by any sidelong movement, this was wonderful progress in so few days. Here he meant to be during the funeral, and to hear the service through the window opening into the transept. There were many dissuasions, but he was for the first time resolute on his own will, both to listen and to be alone. 'It is not nearly so likely to overcome me,' he said, 'as if any one were with me. I shall lie quietly back, and listen as to a most soothing strain!'
'Yes,' argued Cherry; 'but why risk it?'
'I cannot do the last thing for my boy, but it is the nearest I can come to it! The son of my right hand, as Father said! So he has been; I only know now what an incentive his dependence was, and how this loosens me from the world.'
'Please don't say that! We have been too much frightened, and you are getting well so fast.'
'I think so!' he acquiesced, but without much elasticity. 'Yet it was a great element of thankfulness that night, and is so still, though the air seems empty without his constant music.'
Many a note of praise was to come to his ears that day, as the choir preceded their little member across the lawn to the Church gate. Their voices predominated in the Psalms; and the Lesson, read by Mr. Colman, the vicar of poor Yates's parish at Ewmouth, was almost inaudible through the window; but the Lord's Prayer at the graves came to his ear like 'the voice of many waters;' and the final hymn, the same which had been last on Theodore's lips, was sung by the tones of a multitude, and thrilled mightily through the summer air.
Felix was not the worse, though afterwards three doctors came up and tormented him, ending by allowing him to do whatever suited his own feelings and discretion, only bidding him not persevere in what pained him, and to rest thoroughly between every exertion. He asked no questions, and seemed quite satisfied; but Clement was more explicit in his inquiries in private, and was told that where there was so little power of examination, it was impossible to certify whether any harm was done beyond the undoubted sprain, and that this might make itself felt for months, even years, without anything but muscles being in fault; nor could either of the May physicians detect any cause for alarm, except a vague impression that the countenance was more changed than was accounted for by the pain or loss of blood. There had been from the first an indescribable stricken look, less evident now as the face varied with animation, but recurring in repose, and taking away that youthfulness that had endured so long.
Nothing of all this was said beyond Clement's study; the others remained happy in the verdict of remarkable improvement. Dr. May had brought a note from his daughter.
DEAREST CHERRY,I long to come, and dare to think I should be welcome, but Tom will not let Papa bring me. At least I know it is all right. I knew it would be. Lives with so many bound up in them are not so lightly wrenched away. The world cannot grow dark by losing the selfless. All my soul is with you. Your dear little Theodore has not lived in vain. Your ways—all of you—to him have been bitter reproof to me. Write to me all I cannot pick out of Papa. I hope Lancelot is looking better. Tell him I shall try his 'Lightning Messages,' as soon as I can play them without my eyes swimming or my voice getting upon the howl.With my dear love,Your affectionateG.M. MAY.
DEAREST CHERRY,
I long to come, and dare to think I should be welcome, but Tom will not let Papa bring me. At least I know it is all right. I knew it would be. Lives with so many bound up in them are not so lightly wrenched away. The world cannot grow dark by losing the selfless. All my soul is with you. Your dear little Theodore has not lived in vain. Your ways—all of you—to him have been bitter reproof to me. Write to me all I cannot pick out of Papa. I hope Lancelot is looking better. Tell him I shall try his 'Lightning Messages,' as soon as I can play them without my eyes swimming or my voice getting upon the howl.
With my dear love,Your affectionateG.M. MAY.
Cherry gave the note to Lance to read, expecting to hear no more of it; but he brought it out in the late evening as she was settling some Pursuivant business with him, in preparation for his departure by the early train on the Monday. 'Do you want this?' he asked.
'You may keep it if you like.'
He sighed, holding it close. 'I say—does he know—the Squire?'
'Of her coming over? No; I don't think any one saw her.'
'He ought. I had begun to think so before, but this note convinces me on whose account she came.'
'I don't imagine she knew she came on any one's account in particular.'
'All the nicer of her, but so much the worse for me. Look here, Cherry. Did you know I had been at Stoneborough on Monday? Well, she showed plain enough how it was. Every hope seemed gone—crushed—done for. I was so dazed, that if you said it was I who upset the boat, I shouldn't wonder. I had lived upon the thought ever since Christmas. O Cherry, I do love her so!' cried the poor lad, quite beyond his usual reserved self-control.
'Yes; she is very bright and sweet,' said Cherry, by way of sympathy.
'The Daisy! the light of every place she goes to!' he went on. 'How different she made it all last winter! and I was fool enough to think—Well, it is no good to talk of Monday morning, but it was just falling from Paradise to the abyss; and all the night after I was savage with them all for having dragged me back—nearly mad more than once, I believe. Then in the morning, when I had just stumbled out into church, not able to put two thoughts together, but with only sense enough to know that if I laid my love and my life on the Altar as best I could, God would take them and make the right thing of them somehow—I looked up, and saw her in the morning sunshine clinging to me—the dear thing—then I did believe God had given her to me.'
'Dear Lance! still—'
'No; I understand now. The fancy bore me up from I don't know what, till I had got myself in hand again; but when I look at it reasonably, I see she was glad to find me alive, out of common humanity, and because she thought she had vexed me; but as to the real feeling, this note shows plainly enough where that goes.'
'If it were so, there would hardly be such openness of expression.'
'Do you think so?' (eagerly, then catching himself up). 'No; it is only that the consciousness has never been brought out.'
'I don't believehewill ever voluntarily bring out anybody's consciousness.'
'Then he ought! Why is he to debar himself from happiness, and disregard other people's feelings? I tell you, it is positively wrong to keep hanging about him and hampering him. You would do much better to leave him to be happy, and come and let us get on together as we can at home. You might make it just tolerable!'
'My poor Lancey,' said Cherry, smiling, 'things are hardly so far advanced; but if they were, you would be my best dependence.'
'But you'll tell him? And let no fancy stand in the way of his—of their happiness.'
'Tell? You mean of her coming over? Very well, if you think it right. Nay, indeed, it is not the wish to keep him to myself, but the assurance of his resolution—and, dear old Lancey, I don't like your going back to the old mill without the bird in your bosom.'
He hid his face in both his arms as he sat over the table, but recovering himself, said, 'Never mind! Hoping for him issomehope, and there's too much on hand for being down in the mouth. It will all come right somehow,' he repeated, secure in that faith, even under his sense of disappointment; but after all, is not a generous consent the best balm in disappointment?
After this conversation, Cherry and Lance were struck, amid a somewhat astonished congregation, when the next day, the Vicar in his pulpit gave out in his clear ringing voice, like a trumpet proclamation, his text, 'And His Banner over me is Love.'
The church was quite full. The beauty of its musical services had of late rendered it a resort from Ewmouth, and the present occasion had attracted every one connected with the persons concerned in the accident, as well as many of the curious. Mr. Colman, whose despair was the young clerkhood of Ewmouth, had protested against having to preach; and indeed Clement felt that he had a word to say, for had not the week been one of intensified feeling, and deepened experience? Yet even his brothers and sisters were not only sorry when they found this task unexpectedly lapsing on him, but feared that he was hardly adequate to the occasion. In general he was a careful preacher, very exact, and rather tediously accurate in citing arguments, much given to similitude and mystical interpretation, and instructive and interesting in a certain degree; but without much fire or individuality, and, as the Hepburn clique asserted, deficient in the root of the matter.
But his voice made Cherry look at him, and his countenance not only glowed with unusual colour, but had a dignity and impressiveness that assured her that she should hear something different from usual, after a text so unlikely for a funeral discourse.
After twice proclaiming that Banner under which he served, he slowly and distinctly spoke those other words, '"One shall be taken and another left. They say unto Him, Where, Lord?" Yes! Strange, startling, arbitrary, as seem often the calls to the soldiers in Christ's army, each is at its true time, for the choice is made in Love.' Then came the description of the mighty host, of their Leader and their conflict, steadfast in the Name that the day's Feast glorified, going forth conquering and to conquer, but, strange contradiction! under the Banner of Love. Love, by which their Captain had won, the work to which all were enlisted, the weapon wherewith each was to fight. Love had been their Captain's weapon, but they needed another, namely, Faith—for who could fight for a vision—who, without reliance on his general? Cause and Captain, and His power to save to the uttermost, were dwelt on in a few ardent words; and then came the picture of the serried ranks, standing fast in one army, warring as one band against darkness, foulness, cruelty, and all other evils, each fighting his individual battle in private, yet even thus striking as much for the cause as for himself. So they stood, soldiers in a campaign, aware that any moment might snatch them out of the ranks, yet also aware that not one would be taken save at the right moment when his warfare had come to the crisis. Our forefathers of old believed in glorious maidens who floated over the battle-field as choosers of the slain, and bore hero-spirits away to the Home of Triumph in chariots of light, to dwell among the brave. Like them we believe in the Triumphant Home, where dwell the brave who have stood steadfast in faith, joyful through hope, rooted in charity, bright in purity, dashing down the arrows of temptation that glint against their armour. Like them, we believe in a Chooser of the slain, bearing us, one by one, from our several posts, with longer or shorter warning, exactly when our warfare is accomplished, our individual battle is, or ought to be, won.
'Is or ought to be! That is the point. That is it on which depends the awful question, "Where, Lord?" which He who has seen beyond the grave, left unanswered. Where? Less than a week ago, on one of the days especially given to us for joy and gladness, in the very height of our mirth, came the moment of danger to fifteen of us. For thirteen of us, thanks have been today returned. "Where, Lord?" has not been said of us, but has not its echo been with us? Where? When I look back on duties neglected, on self-complacencies, on purposes fulfilled on the surface but not in the spirit, on cold-hearted devotions, on a thousand treasons against the Banner of Love, I can only cry out, "Where Lord?" and bless Him that it is the Lord my Redeemer, Who looks mercifully on His unprofitable servants, of whom the question is asked, and Who has spared me for a little space. He calls in due season. But whether the summons be welcome or the reverse, does not depend on its finding us in sunshine summer pleasure, or upon a bed of pain. No—it depends on whether we are really in our camp, our face to the foe, our ensign above us, no treason or desertion at heart. Then, spite of short-comings and failures, with the Banner over us that is Love, we shall know that death is victory; and "Where, Lord?" will be answered for ever by "Him Who liveth and was dead, and is alive for evermore."'
Felix, from his window, caught the texts, and noted the breathless hush. The Vicar of Ewmouth said, as he took leave, 'Thank you. You have touched hearts I could not reach.'
And Lance followed Clement to the library, and begged for the sermon for the Pursuivant. 'I know they would read it at Bexley, and if they care for it as I do, it ought to tell. I never heard you go on like that!'
'Here are my notes, but they will do you little good; I could not write last night.'
'You came up late enough, though!'
'I had to make it up in thought and prayer.'
'A better thing, it seems,' said Lance. 'It is a sermon to set one going, however things look!'
He was nearly at Bexley the next morning by the time Felix had fulfilled his intention of coming down-stairs, and had taken his seat in the Squire's chair before the writing-table, but with his back to the door whence the musical hum would never more issue. Cherry wanted to have put it off; and Clement had proposed an exchange of sitting-rooms; but he had said such things were best faced at once, while no association made much difference.
Cherry was with him, looking over the letters of inquiry and condolence, and sorting out those which she would answer at once, or he undertake by degrees—looking too at the first Pursuivant in which for at least twelve years he had had no share, and which, he said, told him more about the accident than he had yet known.
'Lance has fared better than could have been hoped,' he said. 'I feared for both chest and head.'
'I believe he was very ill the first night,' said Cherry.
'Then—was it my fancy, or did not I hear Gertrude May's voice?'
'How could you hear it?'
'Through the open window, at the hall-door, as Tom May was going. Did she come over with the carriage, good girl?'
'Yes; but we never guessed that you knew it.'
'Many things were borne in on me in a passive sort of way,' said Felix, 'and among them the trust that she was as good an elixir to the boy as in the winter.'
'Quite true! I believe the glow she excited saved him from an illness; but he has come to another conclusion since.'
'Well—what?'
'I should not tell you, but for his entreaty. He thinks she cares less for him than for you.'
'Nonsense! He may put that out of his head, poor boy.'
The colour mounted in his bloodless cheek, but the decision of the tone satisfied Geraldine.
At that moment, however, the door was gently opened, and Stella, her cheeks more deeply tinted than their wont, quietly said, 'Brother, Captain Audley is here. He wants to know whether you are well enough to see him.'
Cherry divined what was coming; but Felix exclaimed, 'Captain Audley! How kind! Tell him I am quite ready.—But you had better make yourself scarce, Cherry; the poor man has met one lady already, and I can't answer for the consequences of his falling in with another.'
There he was interrupted by her contention with his instinctive impulse to rise and give her his arm—a token of improvement; for whereas yesterday he had apologised whenever she crossed the room without him, to-day he began getting up, but was checked by the twinge betrayed by lips and brow, and as Lord Gerald had been fortunately left ashore, Cherry professed to have her most constant supporter.
Another moment, and Captain Audley crossed her, and bowed to her, as she repaired to the drawing-room, from the window of which she saw the two young things, not idling—Stella never dawdled—but cutting flowers, and filling the whole stock of vases which she had brought out, to renew the cheerfulness of the house for its convalescent master.