On her way back to the Court her eyes saw only the white road before her feet as she walked. She did not lift them until she found herself passing the lych-gate at the entrance to the churchyard. Then suddenly she looked up at the square grey stone tower where the bells hung, and from which they called the village to church, or chimed for weddings—or gave slowly forth to the silent air one heavy, regular stroke after another. She looked and shuddered, and spoke aloud with a curious, passionate imploring, like a child's.
“Oh, don't toll! Don't toll! You must not! You cannot!” Terror had sprung upon her, and her heart was being torn in two in her breast. That was surely what it seemed like—this agonising ache of fear. Now from hour to hour she would be waiting and listening to each sound borne on the air. Her thought would be a possession she could not escape. When she spoke or was spoken to, she would be listening—when she was silent every echo would hold terror, when she slept—if sleep should come to her—her hearing would be awake, and she would be listening—listening even then. It was not Betty Vanderpoel who was walking along the white road, but another creature—a girl whose brain was full of abnormal thought, and whose whole being made passionate outcry against the thing which was being slowly forced upon her. If the bell tolled—suddenly, the whole world would be swept clean of life—empty and clean. If the bell tolled.
Before the entrance of the Court she saw, as she approached it, the vicarage pony carriage, standing as it had stood on the day she had returned from her walk on the marshes. She felt it quite natural that it should be there. Mrs. Brent always seized upon any fragment of news, and having seized on something now, she had not been able to resist the excitement of bringing it to Lady Anstruthers and her sister.
She was in the drawing-room with Rosalie, and was full of her subject and the emotion suitable to the occasion. She had even attained a certain modified dampness of handkerchief. Rosalie's handkerchief, however, was not damp. She had not even attempted to use it, but sat still, her eyes brimming with tears, which, when she saw Betty, brimmed over and slipped helplessly down her cheeks.
“Betty!” she exclaimed, and got up and went towards her, “I believe you have heard.”
“In the village, I heard something—yes,” Betty answered, and after giving greeting to Mrs. Brent, she led her sister back to her chair, and sat near her.
This—the thought leaped upon her—was the kind of situation she must be prepared to be equal to. In the presence of these who knew nothing, she must bear herself as if there was nothing to be known. No one but herself had the slightest knowledge of what the past months had brought to her—no one in the world. If the bell tolled, no one in the world but her father ever would know. She had no excuse for emotion. None had been given to her. The kind of thing it was proper that she should say and do now, in the presence of Mrs. Brent, it would be proper and decent that she should say and do in all other cases. She must comport herself as Betty Vanderpoel would if she were moved only by ordinary human sympathy and regret.
“We must remember that we have only excited rumour to depend upon,” she said. “Lord Mount Dunstan has kept his village under almost military law. He has put it into quarantine. No one is allowed to leave it, so there can be no direct source of information. One cannot be sure of the entire truth of what one hears. Often it is exaggerated cottage talk. The whole neighbourhood is wrought up to a fever heat of excited sympathy. And villagers like the drama of things.”
Mrs. Brent looked at her admiringly, it being her fixed habit to admire Miss Vanderpoel, and all such as Providence had set above her.
“Oh, how wise you are, Miss Vanderpoel!” she exclaimed, even devoutly. “It is so nice of you to be calm and logical when everybody else is so upset. You are quite right about villagers enjoying the dramatic side of troubles. They always do. And perhaps things are not so bad as they say. I ought not to have let myself believe the worst. But I quite broke down under the ringers—I was so touched.”
“The ringers?” faltered Lady Anstruthers
“The leader came to the vicar to tell him they wanted permission to toll—if they heard tolling at Dunstan. Weaver's family lives within hearing of Dunstan church bells, and one of his boys is to run across the fields and bring the news to Stornham. And it was most touching, Miss Vanderpoel. They feel, in their rustic way, that Lord Mount Dunstan has not been treated fairly in the past. And now he seems to them a hero and a martyr—or like a great soldier who has died fighting.”
“Who MAY die fighting,” broke from Miss Vanderpoel sharply.
“Who—who may——” Mrs. Brent corrected herself, “though Heaven grant he will not. But it was the ringers who made me feel as if all really was over. Thank you, Miss Vanderpoel, thank you for being so practical and—and cool.”
“It WAS touching,” said Lady Anstruthers, her eyes brimming over again. “And what the villagers feel is true. It goes to one's heart,” in a little outburst. “People have been unkind to him! And he has been lonely in that great empty place—he has been lonely. And if he is dying to-day, he is lonely even as he dies—even as he dies.”
Betty drew a deep breath. For one moment there seemed to rise before her vision of a huge room, whose stately size made its bareness a more desolate thing. And Mr. Penzance bent low over the bed. She tore her thought away from it.
“No! No!” she cried out in low, passionate protest. “There will be love and yearning all about him everywhere. The villagers who are waiting—the poor things he has worked for—the very ringers themselves, are all pouring forth the same thoughts. He will feel even ours—ours too! His soul cannot be lonely.”
A few minutes earlier, Mrs. Brent had been saying to herself inwardly: “She has not much heart after all, you know.” Now she looked at her in amazement.
The blue bells were under water in truth—drenched and drowned. And yet as the girl stood up before her, she looked taller—more the magnificent Miss Vanderpoel than ever—though she expressed a new meaning.
“There is one thing the villagers can do for him,” she said. “One thing we can all do. The bell has not tolled yet. There is a service for those who are—in peril. If the vicar will call the people to the church, we can all kneel down there—and ask to be heard. The vicar will do that I am sure—and the people will join him with all their hearts.”
Mrs. Brent was overwhelmed.
“Dear, dear, Miss Vanderpoel!” she exclaimed. “THAT is touching, indeed it is! And so right and so proper. I will drive back to the village at once. The vicar's distress is as great as mine. You think of everything. The service for the sick and dying. How right—how right!”
With a sense of an increase of value in herself, the vicar, and the vicarage, she hastened back to the pony carriage, but in the hall she seized Betty's hand emotionally.
“I cannot tell you how much I am touched by this,” she murmured. “I did not know you were—were a religious girl, my dear.”
Betty answered with grave politeness.
“In times of great pain and terror,” she said, “I think almost everybody is religious—a little. If that is the right word.”
There was no ringing of the ordinary call to service. In less than an hour's time people began to come out of their cottages and wend their way towards the church. No one had put on his or her Sunday clothes. The women had hastily rolled down their sleeves, thrown off their aprons, and donned everyday bonnets and shawls. The men were in their corduroys, as they had come in from the fields, and the children wore their pinafores. As if by magic, the news had flown from house to house, and each one who had heard it had left his or her work without a moment's hesitation. They said but little as they made their way to the church. Betty, walking with her sister, was struck by the fact that there were more of them than formed the usual Sunday morning congregation. They were doing no perfunctory duty. The men's faces were heavily moved, most of the women wiped their eyes at intervals, and the children looked awed. There was a suggestion of hurried movement in the step of each—as if no time must be lost—as if they must begin their appeal at once. Betty saw old Doby tottering along stiffly, with his granddaughter and Mrs. Welden on either side of him. Marlow, on his two sticks, was to be seen moving slowly, but steadily.
Within the ancient stone walls, stiff old knees bent themselves with care, and faces were covered devoutly by work-hardened hands. As she passed through the churchyard Betty knew that eyes followed her affectionately, and that the touching of foreheads and dropping of curtsies expressed a special sympathy. In each mind she was connected with the man they came to pray for—with the work he had done—with the danger he was in. It was vaguely felt that if his life ended, a bereavement would have fallen upon her. This the girl knew.
The vicar lifted his bowed head and began his service. Every man, woman and child before him responded aloud and with a curious fervour—not in decorous fear of seeming to thrust themselves before the throne, making too much of their petitions, in the presence of the gentry. Here and there sobs were to be heard. Lady Anstruthers followed the service timorously and with tears. But Betty, kneeling at her side, by the round table in the centre of the great square Stornham pew, which was like a room, bowed her head upon her folded arms, and prayed her own intense, insistent prayer.
“God in Heaven!” was her inward cry. “God of all the worlds! Do not let him die. 'If ye ask anything in my name that I will do.' Christ said it. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth—do not let him die! All the worlds are yours—all the power—listen to us—listen to us. Lord, I believe—help thou my unbelief. If this terror robs me of faith, and I pray madly—forgive, forgive me. Do not count it against me as sin. You made him. He has suffered and been alone. It is not time—it is not time yet for him to go. He has known no joy and no bright thing. Do not let him go out of the warm world like a blind man. Do not let him die. Perhaps this is not prayer, but raging. Forgive—forgive! All power is gone from me. God of the worlds, and the great winds, and the myriad stars—do not let him die!”
She knew her thoughts were wild, but their torrent bore her with them into a strange, great silence. She did not hear the vicar's words, or the responses of the people. She was not within the grey stone walls. She had been drawn away as into the darkness and stillness of the night, and no soul but her own seemed near. Through the stillness and the dark her praying seemed to call and echo, clamouring again and again. It must reach Something—it must be heard, because she cried so loud, though to the human beings about her she seemed kneeling in silence. She went on and on, repeating her words, changing them, ending and beginning again, pouring forth a flood of appeal. She thought later that the flood must have been at its highest tide when, singularly, it was stemmed. Without warning, a wave of awe passed over her which strangely silenced her—and left her bowed and kneeling, but crying out no more. The darkness had become still, even as it had not been still before. Suddenly she cowered as she knelt and held her breath. Something had drawn a little near. No thoughts—no words—no cries were needed as the great stillness grew and spread, and folded her being within it. She waited—only waited. She did not know how long a time passed before she felt herself drawn back from the silent and shadowy places—awakening, as it were, to the sounds in the church.
“Our Father,” she began to say, as simply as a child. “Our Father who art in Heaven—hallowed be thy name.” There was a stirring among the congregation, and sounds of feet, as the people began to move down the aisle in reverent slowness. She caught again the occasional sound of a subdued sob. Rosalie gently touched her, and she rose, following her out of the big pew and passing down the aisle after the villagers.
Outside the entrance the people waited as if they wanted to see her again. Foreheads were touched as before, and eyes followed her. She was to the general mind the centre of the drama, and “the A'mighty” would do well to hear her. She had been doing his work for him “same as his lordship.” They did not expect her to smile at such a time, when she returned their greetings, and she did not, but they said afterwards, in their cottages, that “trouble or not she was a wonder for looks, that she was—Miss Vanderpoel.”
Rosalie slipped a hand through her arm, and they walked home together, very close to each other. Now and then there was a questioning in Rosy's look. But neither of them spoke once.
On an oak table in the hall a letter from Mr. Penzance was lying. It was brief, hurried, and anxious. The rumour that Mount Dunstan had been ailing was true, and that they had felt they must conceal the matter from the villagers was true also. For some baffling reason the fever had not absolutely declared itself, but the young doctors were beset by grave forebodings. In such cases the most serious symptoms might suddenly develop. One never knew. Mr. Penzance was evidently torn by fears which he desperately strove to suppress. But Betty could see the anguish on his fine old face, and between the lines she read dread and warning not put into words. She believed that, fearing the worst, he felt he must prepare her mind.
“He has lived under a great strain for months,” he ended. “It began long before the outbreak of the fever. I am not strong under my sense of the cruelty of things—and I have never loved him as I love him to-day.”
Betty took the letter to her room, and read it two or three times. Because she had asked intelligent questions of the medical authority she had consulted on her visit to London, she knew something of the fever and its habits. Even her unclerical knowledge was such as it was not well to reflect upon. She refolded the letter and laid it aside.
“I must not think. I must do something. It may prevent my listening,” she said aloud to the silence of her room.
She cast her eyes about her as if in search. Upon her desk lay a notebook. She took it up and opened it. It contained lists of plants, of flower seeds, of bulbs, and shrubs. Each list was headed with an explanatory note.
“Yes, this will do,” she said. “I will go and talk to Kedgers.”
Kedgers and every man under him had been at the service, but they had returned to their respective duties. Kedgers, giving directions to some under gardeners who were clearing flower beds and preparing them for their winter rest, turned to meet her as she approached. To Kedgers the sight of her coming towards him on a garden path was a joyful thing. He had done wonders, it is true, but if she had not stood by his side with inspiration as well as confidence, he knew that things might have “come out different.”
“You was born a gardener, miss—born one,” he had said months ago.
It was the time when flower beds must be planned for the coming year. Her notebook was filled with memoranda of the things they must talk about.
It was good, normal, healthy work to do. The scent of the rich, damp, upturned mould was a good thing to inhale. They walked from one end to another, stood before clumps of shrubs, and studied bits of wall. Here a mass of blue might grow, here low things of white and pale yellow. A quickly-climbing rose would hang sheets of bloom over this dead tree. This sheltered wall would hold warmth for a Marechal Niel.
“You must take care of it all—even if I am not here next year,” Miss Vanderpoel said.
Kedgers' absorbed face changed.
“Not here, miss,” he exclaimed. “You not here! Things wouldn't grow, miss.” He checked himself, his weather-toughened skin reddening because he was afraid he had perhaps taken a liberty. And then moving his hat uneasily on his head, he took another. “But it's true enough,” looking down on the gravel walk, “we—we couldn't expect to keep you.”
She did not look as if she had noticed the liberty, but she did not look quite like herself, Kedgers thought. If she had been another young lady, and but for his established feeling that she was somehow immune from all ills, he would have thought she had a headache, or was low in her mind.
She spent an hour or two with him, and together they planned for the changing seasons of the year to come. How she could keep her mind on a thing, and what a head she had for planning, and what an eye for colour! But yes—there was something a bit wrong somehow. Now and then she would stop and stand still for a moment, and suddenly it struck Kedgers that she looked as if she were listening.
“Did you think you heard something, miss?” he asked her once when she paused and wore this look.
“No,” she answered, “no.” And drew him on quickly—almost as if she did not want him to hear what she had seemed listening for.
When she left him and went back to the house, all the loveliness of spring, summer and autumn had been thought out and provided for. Kedgers stood on the path and looked after her until she passed through the terrace door. He chewed his lip uneasily. Then he remembered something and felt a bit relieved. It was the service he remembered.
“Ah! it's that that's upset her—and it's natural, seeing how she's helped him and Dunstan village. It's only natural.” He chewed his lip again, and nodded his head in odd reflection. “Ay! Ay!” he summed her up. “She's a great lady that—she's a great lady—same as if she'd been born in a civilised land.”
During the rest of the day the look of question in Rosalie's eyes changed in its nature. When her sister was near her she found herself glancing at her with a new feeling. It was a growing feeling, which gradually became—anxiousness. Betty presented to her the aspect of one withdrawn into some remote space. She was not living this day as her days were usually lived. She did not sit still or stroll about the gardens quietly. The consecutiveness of her action seemed broken. She did one thing after another, as if she must fill each moment. This was not her Betty. Lady Anstruthers watched and thought until, in the end, a new pained fear began to creep slowly into her mind, and make her feel as if she were slightly trembling though her hands did not shake. She did not dare to allow herself to think the thing she knew she was on the brink of thinking. She thrust it away from her, and tried not to think at all. Her Betty—her splendid Betty, whom nothing could hurt—who could not be touched by any awful thing—her dear Betty!
In the afternoon she saw her write notes steadily for an hour, then she went out into the stables and visited the horses, talked to the coachman and to her own groom. She was very kind to a village boy who had been recently taken on as an additional assistant in the stable, and who was rather frightened and shy. She knew his mother, who had a large family, and she had, indeed, given the boy his place that he might be trained under the great Mr. Buckham, who was coachman and head of the stables. She said encouraging things which quite cheered him, and she spoke privately to Mr. Buckham about him. Then she walked in the park a little, but not for long. When she came back Rosalie was waiting for her.
“I want to take a long drive,” she said. “I feel restless. Will you come with me, Betty?” Yes, she would go with her, so Buckham brought the landau with its pair of big horses, and they rolled down the avenue, and into the smooth, white high road. He took them far—past the great marshes, between miles of bared hedges, past farms and scattered cottages. Sometimes he turned into lanes, where the hedges were closer to each other, and where, here and there, they caught sight of new points of view between trees. Betty was glad to feel Rosy's slim body near her side, and she was conscious that it gradually seemed to draw closer and closer. Then Rosy's hand slipped into hers and held it softly on her lap.
When they drove together in this way they were usually both of them rather silent and quiet, but now Rosalie spoke of many things—of Ughtred, of Nigel, of the Dunholms, of New York, and their father and mother.
“I want to talk because I'm nervous, I think,” she said half apologetically. “I do not want to sit still and think too much—of father's coming. You don't mind my talking, do you, Betty?”
“No,” Betty answered. “It is good for you and for me.” And she met the pressure of Rosy's hand halfway.
But Rosy was talking, not because she did not want to sit still and think, but because she did not want Betty to do so. And all the time she was trying to thrust away the thought growing in her mind.
They spent the evening together in the library, and Betty read aloud. She read a long time—until quite late. She wished to tire herself as well as to force herself to stop listening.
When they said good-night to each other Rosy clung to her as desperately as she had clung on the night after her arrival. She kissed her again and again, and then hung her head and excused herself.
“Forgive me for being—nervous. I'm ashamed of myself,” she said. “Perhaps in time I shall get over being a coward.”
But she said nothing of the fact that she was not a coward for herself, but through a slowly formulating and struggled—against fear, which chilled her very heart, and which she could best cover by a pretence of being a poltroon.
She could not sleep when she went to bed. The night seemed crowded with strange, terrified thoughts. They were all of Betty, though sometimes she thought of her father's coming, of her mother in New York, and of Betty's steady working throughout the day. Sometimes she cried, twisting her hands together, and sometimes she dropped into a feverish sleep, and dreamed that she was watching Betty's face, yet was afraid to look at it.
She awakened suddenly from one of these dreams, and sat upright in bed to find the dawn breaking. She rose and threw on a dressing-gown, and went to her sister's room because she could not bear to stay away.
The door was not locked, and she pushed it open gently. One of the windows had its blind drawn up, and looked like a patch of dull grey. Betty was standing upright near it. She was in her night-gown, and a long black plait of hair hung over one shoulder heavily. She looked all black and white in strong contrast. The grey light set her forth as a tall ghost.
Lady Anstruthers slid forward, feeling a tightness in her chest.
“The dawn wakened me too,” she said.
“I have been waiting to see it come,” answered Betty. “It is going to be a dull, dreary day.”
--
It was a dull and dreary day, as Betty had foreseen it would be. Heavy rain clouds hung and threatened, and the atmosphere was damp and chill. It was one of those days of the English autumn which speak only of the end of things, bereaving one of the power to remember next year's spring and summer, which, after all, must surely come. Sky is grey, trees are grey, dead leaves lie damp beneath the feet, sunlight and birds seem forgotten things. All that has been sad and to be regretted or feared hangs heavy in the air and sways all thought. In the passing of these hours there is no hope anywhere. Betty appeared at breakfast in short dress and close hat. She wore thick little boots, as if for walking.
“I am going to make visits in the village,” she said. “I want a basket of good things to take with me. Stourton's children need feeding after their measles. They looked very thin when I saw them playing in the road yesterday.”
“Yes, dear,” Rosalie answered. “Mrs. Noakes shall prepare the basket. Good chicken broth, and jelly, and nourishing things. Jennings,” to the butler, “you know the kind of basket Miss Vanderpoel wants. Speak to Mrs. Noakes, please.”
“Yes, my lady,” Jennings knew the kind of basket and so did Mrs. Noakes. Below stairs a strong sympathy with Miss Vanderpoel's movements had developed. No one resented the preparation of baskets. Somehow they were always managed, even if asked for at untimely hours.
Betty was sitting silent, looking out into the greyness of the autumn-smitten park.
“Are—are you listening for anything, Betty?” Lady Anstruthers asked rather falteringly. “You have a sort of listening look in your eyes.”
Betty came back to the room, as it were.
“Have I,” she said. “Yes, I think I was listening for—something.”
And Rosalie did not ask her what she listened for. She was afraid she knew.
It was not only the Stourtons Betty visited this morning. She passed from one cottage to another—to see old women, and old men, as well as young ones, who for one reason or another needed help and encouragement. By one bedside she read aloud; by another she sat and told cheerful stories; she listened to talk in little kitchens, and in one house welcomed a newborn thing. As she walked steadily over grey road and down grey lanes damp mist rose and hung about her. And she did not walk alone. Fear walked with her, and anguish, a grey ghost by her side. Once she found herself standing quite still on a side path, covering her face with her hands. She filled every moment of the morning, and walked until she was tired. Before she went home she called at the post office, and Mr. Tewson greeted her with a solemn face. He did not wait to be questioned.
“There's been no news to-day, miss, so far,” he said. “And that seems as if they might be so given up to hard work at a dreadful time that there's been no chance for anything to get out. When people's hanging over a man's bed at the end, it's as if everything stopped but that—that's stopping for all time.”
After luncheon the rain began to fall softly, slowly, and with a suggestion of endlessness. It was a sort of mist itself, and became a damp shadow among the bare branches of trees which soon began to drip.
“You have been walking about all morning, and you are tired, dear,” Lady Anstruthers said to her. “Won't you go to your room and rest, Betty?”
Yes, she would go to her room, she said. Some new books had arrived from London this morning, and she would look over them. She talked a little about her visits before she went, and when, as she talked, Ughtred came over to her and stood close to her side holding her hand and stroking it, she smiled at him sweetly—the smile he adored. He stroked the hand and softly patted it, watching her wistfully. Suddenly he lifted it to his lips, and kissed it again and again with a sort of passion.
“I love you so much, Aunt Betty,” he cried. “We both love you so much. Something makes me love you to-day more than ever I did before. It almost makes me cry. I love you so.”
She stooped swiftly and drew him into her arms and kissed him close and hard. He held his head back a little and looked into the blue under her lashes.
“I love your eyes,” he said. “Anyone would love your eyes, Aunt Betty. But what is the matter with them? You are not crying at all, but—oh! what is the matter?”
“No, I am not crying at all,” she said, and smiled—almost laughed.
But after she had kissed him again she took her books and went upstairs.
She did not lie down, and she did not read when she was alone in her room. She drew a long chair before the window and watched the slow falling of the rain. There is nothing like it—that slow weeping of the rain on an English autumn day. Soft and light though it was, the park began to look sodden. The bare trees held out their branches like imploring arms, the brown garden beds were neat and bare. The same rain was drip-dripping at Mount Dunstan—upon the desolate great house—upon the village—upon the mounds and ancient stone tombs in the churchyard, sinking into the earth—sinking deep, sucked in by the clay beneath—the cold damp clay. She shook herself shudderingly. Why should the thought come to her—the cold damp clay? She would not listen to it, she would think of New York, of its roaring streets and crash of sound, of the rush of fierce life there—of her father and mother. She tried to force herself to call up pictures of Broadway, swarming with crowds of black things, which, seen from the windows of its monstrous buildings, seemed like swarms of ants, burst out of ant-hills, out of a thousand ant-hills. She tried to remember shop windows, the things in them, the throngs going by, and the throngs passing in and out of great, swinging glass doors. She dragged up before her a vision of Rosalie, driving with her mother and herself, looking about her at the new buildings and changed streets, flushed and made radiant by the accelerated pace and excitement of her beloved New York. But, oh, the slow, penetrating rainfall, and—the cold damp clay!
She rose, making an involuntary sound which was half a moan. The long mirror set between two windows showed her momentarily an awful young figure, throwing up its arms. Was that Betty Vanderpoel—that?
“What does one do,” she said, “when the world comes to an end? What does one do?”
All her days she had done things—there had always been something to do. Now there was nothing. She went suddenly to her bell and rang for her maid. The woman answered the summons at once.
“Send word to the stable that I want Childe Harold. I do not want Mason. I shall ride alone.”
“Yes, miss,” Ambleston answered, without any exterior sign of emotion. She was too well-trained a person to express any shade of her internal amazement. After she had transmitted the order to the proper manager she returned and changed her mistress's costume.
She had contemplated her task, and was standing behind Miss Vanderpoel's chair, putting the last touch to her veil, when she became conscious of a slight stiffening of the neck which held so well the handsome head, then the head slowly turned towards the window giving upon the front park. Miss Vanderpoel was listening to something, listening so intently that Ambleston felt that, for a few moments, she did not seem to breathe. The maid's hands fell from the veil, and she began to listen also. She had been at the service the day before. Miss Vanderpoel rose from her chair slowly—very slowly, and took a step forward. Then she stood still and listened again.
“Open that window, if you please,” she commanded—“as if a stone image was speaking”—Ambleston said later. The window was thrown open, and for a few seconds they both stood still again. When Miss Vanderpoel spoke, it was as if she had forgotten where she was, or as if she were in a dream.
“It is the ringers,” she said. “They are tolling the passing bell.”
The serving woman was soft of heart, and had her feminine emotions. There had been much talk of this thing in the servant's hall. She turned upon Betty, and forgot all rules and training.
“Oh, miss!” she cried. “He's gone—he's gone! That good man—out of this hard world. Oh, miss, excuse me—do!” And as she burst into wild tears, she ran out of the room.
. . . . .
Rosalie had been sitting in the morning room. She also had striven to occupy herself with work. She had written to her mother, she had read, she had embroidered, and then read again. What was Betty doing—what was she thinking now? She laid her book down in her lap, and covering her face with her hands, breathed a desperate little prayer. That life should be pain and emptiness to herself, seemed somehow natural since she had married Nigel—but pain and emptiness for Betty—No! No! No! Not for Betty! Piteous sorrow poured upon her like a flood. She did not know how the time passed. She sat, huddled together in her chair, with hidden face. She could not bear to look at the rain and ghost mist out of doors. Oh, if her mother were only here, and she might speak to her! And as her loving tears broke forth afresh, she heard the door open.
“If you please, my lady—I beg your pardon, my lady,” as she started and uncovered her face.
“What is it, Jennings?”
The figure at the door was that of the serious, elderly butler, and he wore a respectfully grave air.
“As your ladyship is sitting in this room, we thought it likely you would not hear, the windows being closed, and we felt sure, my lady, that you would wish to know——”
Lady Anstruthers' hands shook as they clung to the arms of her chair.
“To know——” she faltered. “Hear what?”
“The passing bell is tolling, my lady. It has just begun. It is for Lord Mount Dunstan. There's not a dry eye downstairs, your ladyship, not one.”
He opened the windows, and she stood up. Jennings quietly left the room. The slow, heavy knell struck ponderously on the damp air, and she stood and shivered.
A moment or two later she turned, because it seemed as if she must.
Betty, in her riding habit, was standing motionless against the door, her wonderful eyes still as death, gazing at her, gazing in an awful, simple silence.
Oh, what was the use of being afraid to speak at such a time as this? In one moment Rosy was kneeling at her feet, clinging about her knees, kissing her hands, the very cloth of her habit, and sobbing aloud.
“Oh, my darling—my love—my own Betty! I don't know—and I won't ask—but speak to me—speak just a word—my dearest dear!”
Betty raised her up and drew her within the room, closing the door behind them.
“Kind little Rosy,” she said. “I came to speak—because we two love each other. You need not ask, I will tell you. That bell is tolling for the man who taught me—to KNOW. He never spoke to me of love. I have not one word or look to remember. And now—— Oh, listen—listen! I have been listening since the morning of yesterday.” It was an awful thing—her white face, with all the flame of life swept out of it.
“Don't listen—darling—darling!” Rosy cried out in anguish. “Shut your ears—shut your ears!” And she tried to throw her arms around the high black head, and stifle all sound with her embrace.
“I don't want to shut them,” was the answer. “All the unkindness and misery are over for him, I ought to thank God—but I don't. I shall hear—O Rosy, listen!—I shall hear that to the end of my days.”
Rosy held her tight, and rocked and sobbed.
“My Betty,” she kept saying. “My Betty,” and she could say no more. What more was there to say? At last Betty withdrew herself from her arms, and then Rosalie noticed for the first time that she wore the habit.
“Dearest,” she whispered, “what are you going to do?”
“I was going to ride, and I am going to do it still. I must do something. I shall ride a long, long way—and ride hard. You won't try to keep me, Rosy. You will understand.”
“Yes,” biting her lip, and looking at her with large, awed eyes, as she patted her arm with a hand that trembled. “I would not hold you back, Betty, from anything in the world you chose to do.”
And with another long, clinging clasp of her, she let her go.
Mason was standing by Childe Harold when she went down the broad steps. He also wore a look of repressed emotion, and stood with bared head bent, his eyes fixed on the gravel of the drive, listening to the heavy strokes of the bell in the church tower, rather as if he were taking part in some solemn ceremony.
He mounted her silently, and after he had given her the bridle, looked up, and spoke in a somewhat husky voice:
“The order was that you did not want me, miss? Was that correct?”
“Yes, I wish to ride alone.”
“Yes, miss. Thank you, miss.”
Childe Harold was in good spirits. He held up his head, and blew the breath through his delicate, dilated, red nostrils as he set out with his favourite sidling, dancing steps. Mason watched him down the avenue, saw the lodge keeper come out to open the gate, and curtsy as her ladyship's sister passed through it. After that he went slowly back to the stables, and sat in the harness-room a long time, staring at the floor, as the bell struck ponderously on his ear.
The woman who had opened the gate for her Betty saw had red eyes. She knew why.
“A year ago they all thought of him as an outcast. They would have believed any evil they had heard connected with his name. Now, in every cottage, there is weeping—weeping. And he lies deaf and dumb,” was her thought.
She did not wish to pass through the village, and turned down a side road, which would lead her to where she could cross the marshes, and come upon lonely places. The more lonely, the better. Every few moments she caught her breath with a hard short gasp. The slow rain fell upon her, big round, crystal drops hung on the hedgerows, and dripped upon the grass banks below them; the trees, wreathed with mist, were like waiting ghosts as she passed them by; Childe Harold's hoof upon the road, made a hollow, lonely sound.
A thought began to fill her brain, and make insistent pressure upon it. She tried no more to thrust thought away. Those who lay deaf and dumb, those for whom people wept—where were they when the weeping seemed to sound through all the world? How far had they gone? Was it far? Could they hear and could they see? If one plead with them aloud, could they draw near to listen? Did they begin a long, long journey as soon as they had slipped away? The “wonder of the world,” she had said, watching life swelling and bursting the seeds in Kedgers' hothouses! But this was a greater wonder still, because of its awesomeness. This man had been, and who dare say he was not—even now? The strength of his great body, the look in his red-brown eyes, the sound of his deep voice, the struggle, the meaning of him, where were they? She heard herself followed by the hollow echo of Childe Harold's hoofs, as she rode past copse and hedge, and wet spreading fields. She was this hour as he had been a month ago. If, with some strange suddenness, this which was Betty Vanderpoel, slipped from its body——She put her hand up to her forehead. It was unthinkable that there would be no more. Where was he now—where was he now?
This was the thought that filled her brain cells to the exclusion of all others. Over the road, down through by-lanes, out on the marshes. Where was he—where was he—WHERE? Childe Harold's hoofs began to beat it out as a refrain. She heard nothing else. She did not know where she was going and did not ask herself. She went down any road or lane which looked empty of life, she took strange turnings, without caring; she did not know how far she was afield.
Where was he now—this hour—this moment—where was he now? Did he know the rain, the greyness, the desolation of the world?
Once she stopped her horse on the loneliness of the marsh land, and looked up at the low clouds about her, at the creeping mist, the dank grass. It seemed a place in which a newly-released soul might wander because it did not yet know its way.
“If you should be near, and come to me, you will understand,” her clear voice said gravely between the caught breaths, “what I gave you was nothing to you—but you took it with you. Perhaps you know without my telling you. I want you to know. When a man is dead, everything melts away. I loved you. I wish you had loved me.”
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