It was many weeks before Paul and May Webster met after the night of the fire. The Court was crammed with company, and although Paul and his sister were invited to dinner more than once, such invitations were politely declined.
"It's quite impossible, Sally," Paul had said, in answer to the rather wistful look in her dark eyes. "To dine there quietly by ourselves, is one thing; to go and meet a heap of smart people, who are my special abomination, is another; and I should not have thought you would have wished it either."
"It would be so much experience; I could be in it but not of it. But I expect I should not be smart enough, either in my dress or my talk; so we must decline, I suppose. What shall I say?"
"Anything you like within the limits of truth."
"Paul won't come, and I can't because I have not a proper frock," said Sally, merrily. "I am sorry, and he is not."
"Don't talk nonsense, Sally," said Paul, with an answering laugh. "Any woman can write a decent note of refusal if she chooses."
So the decent note was written and despatched, to be followed by another, rather differently worded, when the second invitation came about a week later, after which they were asked no more. Sally watched the smart carriages drive to and from the station, with their varying loads of visitors, with a passing pang of regret. It was like gazing into a shop-window when you are possessed of no money to buy the tempting wares displayed there.
Paul scarcely gave his gay neighbours a thought; his head was full of plans for the improvement of the place, and it fretted him a little that on every hand he found himself unable to carry out his wishes for the want of the necessary means.
He was not altogether popular: the poor people rather resented the extreme simplicity of his manner of living when they discovered that it was not accompanied by the open-handed liberality which Allison had half led them to expect; the tenant-farmers opposed any change that would touch their pockets; and people of his own class, few and far between in that thinly populated neighbourhood, called once, but found little to interest them in a man of such avowedly eccentric views on things social and religious, and tacitly let the acquaintance drop.
The one exception to this was May Webster, who, half-piqued, half-amused, at the barrier which Paul had chosen to erect between them, determined to break it down. She was coming out of the rectory one afternoon when she met him at the gate.
He lifted his hat, and would have opened the gate to let her pass, but she held it fast looking at him over the top.
"How are you? It is long since we met; never, I think, since the night of the meeting with its exciting close. I've not thanked you properly, by the way, for the rapid extinction of the flames."
"Oh, any one could have done it; only I happened to be the one nearest you," said Paul, carelessly. "It needs no special thanks."
"Which is a civil way of saying that you could not let me burn, but that you would rather some one else had put me out," said May, mockingly. "Even so, I'm grateful; I've been calling on your friend Kitty, who informed me with great triumph that daddy was out, but 'Mr. Paul' was coming to tea with her. Questioned further, she informed me that he often came when she was by herself, and he said he liked it."
"So I do," Paul said.
"So tea fetches you if dinner does not; or perhaps it is not the meal, but the company. Frankly speaking, why do you accord your friendship to Kitty and not to mother and me? We may be neighbours for years and years; we may just as well be friends."
"I'm not a man of many friends," Paul answered, fairly brought to bay. "As for Kitty, she carried me by storm; she is the only child who has taken to me of her own free will."
"How very odd," said May, thoughtfully.
"Oh yes; I admit the oddity."
"But, if you are going to live here, are you content to be isolated from your fellows—to have no friends?" continued May, wonderingly.
"To have many acquaintances seems to me a dreary waste of life; and the word friendship, in the mouth of a man, implies many things."
"Notably what?" asked May, a little scornfully.
"Similarity of tastes and thought."
"And, I suppose, no one down here is clever enough for you?"
"I hope I'm not such an intolerable prig as to have implied that. But, frankly, I expect that you and I, for instance, would not take the same view on any subject; and, very likely, the things that interest me would bore you to extinction."
"It would bore me pretty considerably if you persisted in urging that the whole world should be reduced to one level of ugly uniformity, which is what you are credited with believing."
"A free interpretation of a hope, on my part, to lessen the cruel gulf between the very rich and the very poor," replied Paul, quietly. "I confess, the frightful extravagance of the wealthier classes makes me sick at heart; for one section of society nothing but amusement and pleasure, and the lavish spending of money; and for the larger half the weary effort to make both ends meet—and for many quiet, hopeless starvation."
"You are talking something like the rector; only he enlists my sympathy more by speaking less severely—and he is more just too. He does not talk as if it were wicked to be better off than your neighbour; he only makes you feel the responsibility of it."
Paul gave rather a hard little laugh.
"To speak plainly, he dresses it up a little—gives it the clerical dash of sentiment. Besides, what is the good of stirring one here and there to give out of his abundance something of which he will never feel the loss, with the comfortable sense left behind that he or she has done something very big indeed. What one would strive for, rather, is to stir up the nation to its duties, to rouse Government to redress some of these glaring social grievances."
"Oh, pray keep yourself in hand! level your intellect down to mine!" cried May, with a burst of laughter. "As far as I follow you, you wish to lower my dress allowance by act of parliament. I sincerely trust you will fail. By the way you may set your mind at rest about my dressmaker; her bill is paid, and all my other outstanding accounts too. With your rather eccentric views about property, it will annoy you considerably to hear that I have had a fortune left me; so that I may not be in debt again for some considerable time."
"To her that hath," said Paul, with a glance at the elegantly clad figure. "It really seems to me as if you could not want it, and I need it so much."
"You!" echoed May. "For real inconsistency commend me to yourself!"
"I scarcely require it for my personal wants, but money is sorely needed to carry out my wishes for this village. As landlord, I feel myself responsible for many things that cannot be set right without it."
"But—but—mother always told me that Major Lessing was rich; and you are his heir."
"I can only assure you that I am poor," said Paul, simply. "Now, I hope, I have proved satisfactorily to you that circumstances, tastes, and opinions differing so greatly between us, make anything like friendship impossible. Whenever we come across each other we quarrel; we can't help it."
May flushed to the roots of her hair. "Thank you," she said haughtily. "It is kind of you to put it so clearly. I simply tried to put things on a kinder footing, as we are your tenants and your neighbours, but I see I have made a mistake. It surprises me to find you so painfully prejudiced. Good-bye. I've kept you too long from your one friend."
She opened the gate and passed on her way with never a look behind; but Paul followed with long, rapid strides.
"Miss Webster! stay one moment, please! I believe I've been behaving like a perfect brute," he said hurriedly. "At first I thought you were simply playing a game with me; but, without knowing it, we drifted into earnestness. If any word of mine has seriously vexed you, I apologize and retract."
"You could even believe it possible that I might feel a ray of interest in some of the big subjects which absorb your life," said May.
"To have made a man acknowledge himself a prig once in an afternoon is enough," retorted Paul. "I will not do it again. You know the worst of me: that I have an uncertain temper, which betrays me occasionally into blurting out unpleasant truths: that I have absolutely no small talk. I shall be at best but a rough-and-ready friend; but if in your kindness you still care to cultivate Sally and me, we will gratefully accept the cultivation, and be the better for it. There's my hand on it," and Paul stretched out his hand. And May gave him her small gloved one for an instant with a very sunny smile.
"And you will come to dinner soon and not feel you need talk down to us."
"When all the smart people have gone," Paul said smiling.
"Smart people are your pet aversion, apparently. Is that why you would not come lately?"
"Yes; if you wish to hear the truth," Paul admitted as he turned back to the rectory.
"And I have made a pretty big fool of myself this afternoon," was his mental comment as he let the gate clang behind him. "I first lost my temper, and then let a woman twist me round her finger simply because she is beautiful."
Needless to relate he made no confession of his folly to Sally when he got home that night. He resolved simply to change his tactics about the people at the Court, and preserve safe silence about his altered mind.
The following afternoon he stopped at the forge to speak to the blacksmith about some repairs that were to be set on foot on his premises. Allison stood at the open door of the smithy with his head turned in the opposite direction from the squire, looking after the rector, who had just left him, with something of the sullen satisfaction with which a bulldog might regard a vanquished foe. Indignation still simmered when Paul accosted him. One glance at the purple face showed the squire that, for some reason as yet unknown, the blacksmith was in a towering passion.
"Confound his impudence!" he said, throwing a dark look after the rector. "I've let him know once for all that I'll have no more of it! I'm not answerable to him, nor any man, for what I says and does. His business, indeed, to come and tell me, if I choose to have a bit of fun with a young fellow in a public-house. What does it hurt him to be drunk for once in his life? A lesson I call it! just a bit of a lesson as will teach him that his head ain't so strong as mine, nor likely to be till he gets seasoned a bit. I give it him straight enough, and no humbug about it. 'Look here, sir,' I says, 'you go your way, and leave me to go mine. I don't deny as you've been kind to my old mother, and she'd fret sore if she didn't see you. Psalm-singing and such comes natural-like to most women; but for my part I want nothing better than to be letted alone.'"
Allison came to a stop; breath rather than words had failed him. Paul, who had been an unwilling listener to this tirade against the rector, took advantage of the pause to turn the subject.
"Afraid I can't attend to you this afternoon sir," said Allison, when Paul stated the object of his call. "Reason why, my mates are out for a holiday, and this mare here is just brought in to be shod. I said at first I would not do her to-day; she's a savage brute to tackle alone. I don't let any one touch her but myself when the men are here. It's wonderful now what a difference there is in the tempers of horses; but I ain't come across the one I couldn't master in the forge. They feel I ain't afeared on 'em."
Boasting of his prowess in his art was fast restoring Allison's temper, which, though violent, was not enduring.
"Very well; I'll come again to-morrow," said Paul.
"And you'll thank missy for lookin' up my mother as she does," said Allison, referring to Sally's visits to the old lady, his mother. "She's one as it does you good to see, so pleasant and free-spoken. Now some on 'em," with a glance in the direction of the Court, "don't look as if they thought you good enough to black their shoes, and that don't do for me."
"She does not do herself justice," thought Paul, as he walked away, unconsciously taking up the cudgels in May Webster's defence; "she can be gracious enough when she chooses. She has insisted on our being friends, and I'll make use of the privilege to tell her the impression she conveys, before many weeks are passed. Allison is a shrewd fellow, and in his blundering fashion knocks many a right nail on the head."
The October afternoon was fading into night before Paul returned to the cottage. The curtains of the sitting-room were still undrawn, and from within he caught the cheerful glow of the fire, and Sally seated on the rug before it reading by the fitful light. She sprang to her feet as she heard his footstep, and ran to open the door; and then her merry greeting checked itself in the utterance, for her brother's face was grey with suppressed feeling, and his teeth chattered slightly.
"What is it, Paul?" she asked, in a half-frightened whisper.
"It's that poor fellow, Allison; he's dying. And I happened to pass when the accident occurred, and gave a hand in carrying him upstairs. It's ghastly to see a man in mortal agony."
"What happened?"
"A troublesome mare took to kicking as he shod her, and somehow Allison was knocked down; and, before any one could get to the rescue, he was so injured that the doctor does not think he can last through the night."
"How awful! And were you there to see it all?" Sally asked with a shiver.
"I had not left the forge very long. I had been talking to Allison, and he told me the mare was a skittish one to manage; and, as I returned, I found a group of men gathered around him, not one of whom had even had the sense of thinking of fetching the doctor. So I first helped them to get poor Allison to his room, and then I rushed to the inn, got a trap, and went and brought a doctor back with me. There is absolutely nothing to be done; but it is a satisfaction to feel that a doctor has seen him. Taken right way, he's not half a bad sort, Sally. He's bearing his pain like a man, and shook me by the hand to bid me good-bye, and even sent a message to you. 'Say good-bye to missy. I'd like to have said it myself,'" he said.
"He shall! I'll go and see him," Sally said, with a set white face. "If the sight of me can give him the smallest pleasure, I'll go."
"It's rather awful, Sally; you've not had to face death yet. I would not go if I were you."
"We all must face it some time or other. I'll go, Paul; I shan't be long. No! don't come with me, please; I'd rather go alone."
"Put on a waterproof, then, and take an umbrella; it's a wild night, and it has just come on to rain," said Paul, and, moved by an unwonted impulse, he stooped and kissed her.
The door of the blacksmith's house was open when Sally reached it, and, entering softly, she removed her wet cloak and stood in the dimly lighted parlour wondering how she should make her presence known. From overhead came the sound of voices talking in suppressed whispers, and once Sally shivered, for a long-drawn moan fell upon her ear.
"I'll go and see the old mother. Perhaps I can stay with her, and set Mrs. Allison free when I have just said good-bye to her husband," thought Sally, as she went up the stairs.
A near neighbour met her at the top.
"We're just at our wits' end, miss," she said in answer to Sally's inquiry. "The old lady's not to be told anything about it, and Mrs. Allison, poor soul! falls out of one faint into another, and can't stay in the room along with him who's dying."
"May I go to him for a minute. He wanted to see me," said Sally, with a sob.
But, ushered into the chamber of death, Sally stood for a moment overpowered by an awful terror: a chill which seemed as if it would stop the beating of her heart, a terror she could not have explained. Face to face with death! The words were familiar enough, but they had conveyed little meaning to her. This man, who lay there, unable from time to time to keep back a groan of agony, with the grey shadow deepening on his face, and the drops of perspiration standing on his forehead, would soon lie there silent and still, capable of neither speech, nor feeling, nor hearing. He would be simply an empty shell. It was awful!—inexpressibly awful. It all flashed through Sally's mind in one shuddering instant; the next, she had pulled herself together and crossed to the bedside on tip-toe, and stood looking down at the poor, prostrate form with ineffable pity in her dark eyes.
"Oh, Lord! I can't bear it!" broke in a sort of wail from the blue lips. "It can't last long; an hour or so will settle it."
The words Sally recognized as an exclamation rather than a prayer, but they brought the rector to her remembrance. If any man could help another in his last agony surely it would be he.
"Mr. Allison," she said, laying her soft hand on the grimy one that moved up and down so restlessly upon the counterpane, "I heard you wanted to see me. Let me do something. Is there no one else you would like to see? Shall I fetch Mr. Curzon?"
Allison's eyes unclosed, dimmed already by the gathering haze of death.
"Bless you, missy; this ain't no place for you, though it's good of you to come. Good-bye. God bless you! You get home again; it will hurt you to see me suffer."
Once more that half-blind appeal to the Higher Power of which Mr. Curzon had spoken, and he spoke with no uncertain sound. He seemed to know about it.
"Won't the rector come?" asked Sally again.
But Allison shook his head.
"No, no; we'd words to-day. I can't mind what about; but it don't matter much. I told 'un not to come."
But as he spoke a step fell on the stair, and the next moment Mr. Curzon pushed open the door with an expression on his face so pitiful, so strong, that in the tension of her feeling, Sally could only sob, and, withdrawing her hand, slip quietly away to the window.
The rector knelt down, bringing his face to a level with the dying man's.
"Allison, dear fellow, I only heard this minute what had happened; and I came. Will you let me stay?"
"You can please yourself," said Allison; "but you can't want to be here. We quarrelled, you and I."
"Not I," said the rector, gently.
"I'm mortal bad! I'm dying!" gasped the blacksmith. "It can't do no good to watch me."
"You'll let me say a psalm or read a prayer."
"No. Where's the use? I wouldn't say 'em living and I can't listen now I'm dying. I ain't no worse than others, and I'm better than some; and what's to see on the other side, I'll learn soon enough for myself. I'm nearly there."
"But God is here! close to you, Allison," pleaded the rector; "asking you even now to turn to Him, to look Him in the Face!"
Sally's breath came in fitful gasps; she looked round the room half expecting the visible shining of that Presence. Instead, the wind sobbed in the chimney and the rain dashed against the window-pane. Death was here, and darkness; but no God, thought Sally.
The rector's hands covered his face, and through his fingers Sally saw that great tears forced themselves in the agony of his wrestling for that soul with God.
"You can please yourself," said Allison, opening his eyes again. "It will do no good, but it won't do harm." And the rector, catching at the feeble flicker of a dawning faith, said the twenty-third Psalm slowly on his knees: "'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for Thou art with me——'"
A movement from the dying man made him pause and look up.
"I can't see nothing; give me a grip of your hand. Hold tight; I'm mortal cold."
He did not speak again. Neighbours came and went, moistening the dying lips with brandy; but the eyes had no gleam of recognition in them. For an hour or more the rector sat with the great hand clasped tightly between his own, repeating gently prayer or hymn, no word of which, he feared, could reach the numbed brain, but certain that the Great God in Heaven was looking down upon the sheep that had wandered so far from Him, but whom He still claimed as His own. And Sally waited, too, until the rector rising, bent and softly closed the eyes. Then she knew that Allison was dead, and, slipping from the room, made her way swiftly home, unconscious of the rain that beat upon her head, filled only with the remembrance of the scene she had just witnessed.
"He's dead," she said, when Paul let her in; "he's dead—whatever that may mean. It does not mean going out like a candle—I'm certain it does not mean that,—it means going somewhere else; and, if any one can teach me, I must find out where. I could not die like that, Paul; it's despairing, it's quite hopeless! I'm thankful that I'm young; that I have time to learn. If there's no hope, no light, the mere thought of dying would be enough to drive one mad."
"My poor child! I did wrong to let you see anything so painful," Paul said, gathering her into his arms. "I am afraid there is no one who can tell you about these things. Nobody knows; that is the sad part of it."
"Mr. Curzon can," said Sally, lifting her head from Paul's shoulder. "He has got hold of something that you and I have missed. There is positive conviction written on his face of the living God whom Allison in dying was vaguely feeling after."
"Oh, he's a fine fellow in his way, I don't deny it, and has the courage of his opinions; but he can't know. Nobody does," said Paul, doggedly. "And now, dear, we'll have supper. You will take a less hysterical view of life and death in the morning."
A year had passed since poor Allison's sun set so stormily. It was curious that his death marked the beginning of a new life for Sally; but so it was. It had changed her attitude of mind towards things eternal, from one of placid indifference to active inquiry. Paul's assertion that "nobody knew" satisfied no longer, and she turned from him to Mr. Curzon.
"Death can't be the end of it all," she said abruptly to the rector, when she met him a few days after Allison had passed away.
"Oh no," he answered, following her lead with quick sympathy. "Our Lord's death and resurrection teach us that it is but the beginning."
"I wish I could believe it. Can you help me? can any one help me?" Sally said.
"I may be the signpost to show you the road, and I will tell you of the things which have helped me on the road; but God is even now drawing you to Himself by His Holy Spirit," said Mr. Curzon, earnestly.
Thus, under Mr. Curzon's guidance, Sally began the course of study which ended, before many months had passed away, in the passionate conviction that in Christ alone could be found the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Paul guessed at the fact that his sister was passing through some new phase of thought, by the books he found left about the room, and by a newly developed earnestness which underlay her natural gaiety of manner.
"Poor child! Allison's death frightened her. And it is as well that she should study both sides of the question," he thought. He did not doubt that eventually she would accept his decision as final.
It was November, and Paul came into lunch one day with an unusual air of depression. His farming venture was proving a grievous failure, as far as money was concerned. On every side he found himself hampered by poverty. The summer had been a wet one, and, in common humanity, he had had to make a considerable reduction in his farm rents; improvements in his cottage property had led to an outlay for which he well knew he could receive no adequate interest, and, as he had tramped over the sodden land this morning, he had been occupied with the anxious consideration how best to make both ends meet.
The longer he lived at Rudham the less he liked it. He was deprived of the society of men of his own way of thinking; and with the rector, who in theory he cordially respected and liked, he found himself nearly always in tacit opposition. Paul's friendship with Kitty was the only connecting link between him and the rector; otherwise they would have drifted hopelessly apart before now. Then, on this particular morning, as he returned home he heard a rumour that May Webster was going to be married to a baronet who had haunted the Court pretty frequently during the last few months; and the hint had filled Paul with unreasoning irritation. Not that it mattered to him whom she married, he assured himself; but the Court had become the one bright spot to him in all the place.
Paul, having promised his friendship, had given it unstintingly, and had been proud to discover that in many of the subjects which interested him the most deeply, he had found May Webster a ready pupil; and when she differed from him she held her own with such merry defiance, that it gave her an added charm in his eyes. And now this mindless, fox-hunting squire was to carry her off, and life at Rudham would sink into one dead level of dulness. Thus it happened that he came home in a captious mood.
"What's the excitement, Sally? A wedding, I suppose, for the bells are making row enough to wake the dead."
"No, it's the Bishop," said Sally, flushing a little. "There is a Confirmation here to-day."
Paul's eyes travelled from Sally's crimsoning face to the white dress she wore.
"I can't see why the Bishop is to be welcomed like a bride, and you are to dress like one of his bridesmaids," he said. "What a singularly inappropriate garment for this dreary November day."
"I am going to be confirmed, Paul."
A long pause followed. It was the crowning vexation of a tiresome morning; but Paul did not wish to say anything that he would afterwards regret.
"It's a decided step, Sally; I wonder if you have thought it over enough? You will probably wake up from this religious craze to find yourself bound down to a creed which your reason rejects."
"It is conviction, not a craze," said Sally. "I have thought about little else for a whole year, and my mind is quite made up."
"Very well, then; I have nothing more to say. You are of age, and must decide such things for yourself; but you've sprung it upon me somewhat suddenly, Sally. I suppose it was by Mr. Curzon's advice that you kept your change of opinion dark?"
"Oh dear no! he wished me to tell you weeks ago. But I've been so happy, I cared so much, I felt as if I could not discuss things with any one who differed from me."
"Then we won't discuss it," Paul said, drawing a long breath. "What time does the thing come off? I'll go down and order the fly; I can't let you walk up to church like that."
"May is going to call for me; she is coming to the service."
"Miss Webster!" said Paul, with a rather incredulous laugh. "I should not have thought it was at all in her line."
"She's glad; she thinks I'm right," said Sally, gently.
It was on the tip of Paul's tongue to ask Sally if she had heard anything of May's rumoured engagement to Sir Cecil Bland; but some fear lest the answer should be in the affirmative held him back. When the carriage from the Court drew up at the gate, he went down to put Sally in, and was rewarded by a friendly nod and smile from May.
"Aren't you coming, too?" she asked boldly. "It would make Sally so happy if you did."
Paul shook his head. "I don't understand these things; I leave them to those that do."
"I promise to bring her back safely, and I am coming to tea," went on May, gliding over his refusal. "I've never seen that new wing of yours since it was finished. Cottage, indeed! I call it quite a mansion!" with a glance at the addition which had been lately built on to the Macdonald's house, making it about double its original size.
"A mansion you would not care to inhabit, I expect; but it will do capitally for Sally and me," said Paul.
"I'll decide that when I've seen it. Good-bye, then, till we meet later. Tell Dixon to drive to the church, please."
Paul gave the order, and went back to his new sitting-room, seating himself before his office table, as he called the one which was placed in the bow window. He opened his business ledgers, and congratulated himself on the fact of having a long, quiet afternoon of undisturbed work before him; but one more trivial interruption occurred before he was entirely left to himself. Mrs. Macdonald knocked at the door and stood before him arrayed in her Sunday best.
"Shall you be wanting anything, sir?"
"Nothing whatever, Mrs. Macdonald."
"If not, I would like to go to the church to see Miss Sally and the Bishop. I'd slip out quiet before the end, so as not to keep the ladies waiting for their tea."
"Go by all means," said Paul, smiling a little over the commotion created by a Bishop and his lawn sleeves, and a flock of girls in white dresses and caps.
Then his thoughts reverted to Sally's face, with its sweet seriousness of expression, as she had started for the church, and from Sally he passed on to May; and there his mind lingered. She was beautiful—beautiful beyond compare; and to-day there had been an added grace of tenderness in her manner to Sally: a protecting, motherly care, as if she would shield her from his want of sympathy. She seemed so much older than Sally, and yet there were but four years between them.
He pictured the room as it would appear when she entered it, and he settled which of the two easy-chairs he would draw nearer to the fire, and where he would sit himself, so that he could watch the firelight playing on her face; and then—— He covered his face with his hands and shut out the light, the better to understand the cause of the fierce pain that was gnawing at his heart.
It did not take him long to discover what had happened. He, Paul Lessing, a man who had knocked about the world and had mixed with all sorts and conditions of men and women, whose pulses had hitherto never quickened their beating at the touch of a woman's hand or the sound of a voice, found himself, at thirty-one, as helplessly and ridiculously in love as any lad of twenty.
With a smothered exclamation, he pushed back his chair, and began a restless walk up and down the room. Was ever a grown man guilty of such egregious folly before? A great gulf separated him and the woman of his dreams: a gulf that could never be bridged over. In tastes and in circumstances they were separated far as the poles. His love was perfectly hopeless; and yet the notion of her marrying another, and removing herself entirely out of his reach, was intolerable to him. But, as an effectual cure of his madness, he knew that it was the best thing that could happen to him. The remedy was a sharp one, but it would be complete.
"A few days must settle it, and, until then, I need not meet her," said Paul, aloud. "I won't stay in this afternoon; business can take me to the farm."
In another minute he had gone into the village street, almost deserted this afternoon, for most of the villagers had wandered up to the church. Paul's road lay in the same direction; and he walked along with rapid strides, his head bent upon his breast, his heart busied with his new discovery, and the thought how best to live it down. He was mingling with the crowd now, that had gathered round the church-gate waiting for the procession of clergy that was just filing out of the church. From inside came the throb of the organ and the sound of singing; but Paul went upon his way, neither lifting his head nor staying his steps, when a familiar voice close at hand arrested his attention.
"Mr. Paul! I'm so glad you've come! Ican'tsee anything; lift me up, please!"
Paul started as he saw that he had nearly tumbled over his friend Kitty, whose invalid carriage was drawn up as near to the gate as possible.
"Poor Kitty! And you want to look at the Bishop and his lawn sleeves, and the girls in their caps, like all the rest of the village," he said, bending over and lifting her high in his strong arms.
"Yes. I suppose you've come to see the Bishop too?" said Kitty, with a sigh of contentment. "He's very nice, indoors; but oh! he's lovely when he's got his scarlet coat on. But daddy says I must not think about the clothes, but about all the boys and girls whom he will bless to-day. They'll promise to be good, you know."
"Hush! hush!" said Paul, for the procession was upon them. And Kitty, carried away by the thrill of the voices, steadied herself in Paul's arms by clasping hers about his neck, and sang lustily with the rest—
"'Till with the vision gloriousHer longing eyes are blest,And the great Church victoriousShall be the Church at rest.'"
The last clergyman in the procession before the Bishop was the rector, and Paul could not but be struck by the singular beauty of his look, the joyous ring of his voice. The "vision glorious" was his at that moment; fresh soldiers had just been sworn in to that great army, whose Captain was Christ, and, though some might fall away, there were many whom he prayed would die fighting. That, and more than that, was written clearly on the rector's face.
"Did you see him? Did you see him?" whispered Kitty, eagerly. "Isn't he beautiful?"
"Yes," said Paul, absently, as he put Kitty back into her carriage. But whilst Kitty referred to the Bishop, Paul spoke of the rector.
Then he hurried on his way, anxious not to encounter Sally or May. The brief interval of sunshine was over, and wreaths of mist gathered along the banks of the river, creeping gradually to the slopes above it, dissolving into fine thick rain as the afternoon darkened into night. And still Paul lingered about his business at the farm, until he felt assured that all danger of coming across May was over: a conviction justified by the fact that he met the carriage from the Court, driving home as he returned to the village, catching a glimpse of a lady's figure inside it.
"How long has May been gone?" he asked, with studied carelessness, as he let himself into he cottage and saw a girl's figure seated on the rug before the fire.
"She's not gone! she's here, wondering why her host was so rude as to absent himself this afternoon. Since when, by the way, have you done her the honour to call her by her Christian name?" And May Webster rose from her lowly position and faced Paul with laughter in her eyes.
Paul felt himself caught at a thorough disadvantage; he was dripping with rain and covered with mud, and, confronted thus suddenly with the girl of whom his heart was full, his usual readiness of speech deserted him.
"You! you!" he stammered. "But I saw you drive by me not a quarter of an hour ago."
"And thought you had timed your homecoming so as judiciously to miss me," said May, mercilessly. "It must have been my mother; she has been spending the day at Fairfield. I told Dixon not to come back for me as I would walk home: a premature decision, for it has rained ever since, and I've been waiting for it to clear up. However, I can wait no longer; and Sally has just gone to forage out a waterproof and umbrella."
"I'll go up to the Court and tell them to send back the carriage," said Paul, preparing to depart.
"No, thank you; I will walk."
"The village fly, then?"
"It, or rather its horse, has had more than its proper work to-day. It is probably now conveying the Bishop to the station."
"I shall come with you, then; it will be quite dark before you get home."
"I'm not afraid of it. I believe you are; there's a queer, scared look about you, as if you had seen a ghost; you still think I was in that carriage. Sally," turning to the girl who had just re-entered the room, "will you tell your brother that I don't wish him to see me home? He's very damp and miserable now."
"And at the risk of being a little damper, I will come; it's ridiculous to argue the point."
With all her boasted independence May was not sorry for Paul's escort when she stepped out into the night. The rain was descending in a steady down pour, the wind came sighing up the valley, and the river swept on its way, lapping against the bark with a dreary, sobbing sound. They walked on in silence side by side until May broke it with an impatient laugh.
"The dreariness of the night has infected us both. You are not often dull. You are always either amusing or interesting. Talk, please."
"I can't talk. I've not an idea in my head except that, if the river gets much higher, there will be a flood, and no more Rudham! And personally, I should not care much if it swept it away and me with it."
"You do yourself injustice; you are very interesting. Why this fit of the blues? You are going to be ill, I expect; you looked rather ill when you came in just now."
"Not a bit of it," said Paul, with a little laugh; "draggled and wet, but not ill. Do you remember that you told me once, a year ago, that I was isolating myself from my fellows? Then I felt as if I could defy that isolation. To-day I have been conscious of it; Robinson Crusoe on his desert island could not feel more utterly lonely. I have been kicking against the pricks, wondering why I am condemned to a life and a place which I hate."
"You have no business to complain of a solitude which you have created yourself."
"Oh no; I blame no one."
"And you have Sally——"
"IhadSally. She was my disciple and satellite; but now I shall always be having to take care that I don't hurt her feelings. The slippered ease of the old relationship is dead; I can't talk out to her."
"But you can talk out to me as much as you like. I shan't agree with you; but my faith, such as it is, is not new-born like Sally's. I wish it were half as strong."
Only under cover of the dark would May have dared to say as much.
"No, I can't even talk to you; the friendship is dead too. That was the ghost I saw this afternoon; it would have been a short-lived joy, any way, for I hear you are going to leave Rudham."
"You are talking in riddles now!" cried May. "What should kill our friendship? and where am I going to?"
"To Fairfield; so rumour says."
May stopped short in her walk, and Paul heard her breath coming unevenly. When she spoke again her voice was low, but angry.
"You outstrip the limits of friendship in daring to tell me what the gossips here say of me."
"I had no intention of telling you. I suppose it slipped out because I hate to believe it true."
"You need not believe it; I am not going to marry Sir Cecil Bland," said May, coldly. "What has it to do with you, may I ask?"
"Thank Heaven!" muttered Paul, under his breath.
"What have you against him?"
"Nothing. Except that I suppose he loves you, and I love you too, and, although I know better than you can tell me, that my love is perfectly hopeless, I can bear it if I may let you live in my heart a little while, as the one woman in all the world to me, the only woman I have ever loved or ever wished to marry. That must not have been if you were pledged to marry some one else."
"Oh, stop!" said May, laying an entreating hand upon his arm; "I feel as if I had been so cruel, I would not rest until I had you for a friend, but I never dreamed of this."
"Nor I, until to-day," said Paul. "But when I heard that some one else was likely to marry you I knew."
"Put me back into the old niche. Can't we forget about to-night?"
Paul laughed a little harshly.
"Forget!" he echoed drearily. "How little women know the way a man can love? With you I shall only rank as one of the many moths that have singed their wings by flying too closely about you."
"No, no! I shall think of you always as my one man-friend, to whom I could say anything that was in my head. I shall miss him dreadfully."
"And under no circumstances can you think of me in a different light?"
"I don't know, but I think not," May said simply. "You may think it odd, or call me heartless, but I have not yet met the man I wish to marry. There! you see I trust you to the last. Good-bye, my friend."
Paul bent over the hand that was put into his own and kissed it, and went home feeling that the chill of the night had closed about his heart.
"Where have you been, May? I have been frightened to death about you."
The process was apparently a painless one, judging from the extreme comfort of Mrs. Webster's surroundings: her easy-chair drawn close to the fire but sheltered from it by a screen, the lamp on the table adjusted to a nicety behind, the illustrated papers ready cut for use, and the last new novel lying open on her lap. May seated herself leisurely and stretched out her hands to the blaze before she answered.
"I've been having tea at the cottage."
"And came home in the wet and dark by yourself?"
"No. Mr. Lessing saw me home."
"Of course; I know now that your staying at home to-day to take Sally to the confirmation was just an excuse. You did not want to come with me to Fairfield."
"No, I did not; but I honestly did want to go with Sally: she looked so pretty, mother. I've not been at a confirmation since I was confirmed myself."
"I don't want to talk of that just now, May. Lady Bland is terribly hurt at the way you have treated Cecil. He's quite ill, poor fellow!"
"I'm sorry."
"You are not," snapped Mrs. Webster, "or you would have been kinder to him!"
"Need we go over this oft-trodden ground again?" May asked rather wearily. "I can only reiterate that I really can't and won't marry any one I do not care for."
"I don't believe there is the man in creation that you will care for. It really would be wise for you to accept the one you least dislike."
"Or not marry anybody."
"That is a more than likely alternative. You are five-and-twenty now, and you might have been married over and over again."
May laughed. "I don't know why you are so keen to get rid of me. You will be dreadfully lonely without me; not to say dull."
"That's true enough," said Mrs. Webster, softening; "but a girl like you ought to marry. You won't make a good old maid."
"No," May admitted candidly.
And this question of marriage, which was sorely perplexing the mistress, was pressing hard also upon her maid, for pretty Rose Lancaster, who had successfully played off her rival suitors against each other for a year, was at last compelled to make her choice between them. Tom Burney had that day received an offer from the squire of a free passage to Tasmania, and a very good appointment on a farm there with a relation of Mr. Lessing's, where, if he gave satisfaction, he might in a few years look forward to part-ownership.
"I only propose to part with you because agriculture does not pay, or I have not learned the way to make it do so," the squire had said. "I have been making up my mind to reduce my staff; and, my cousin having lately written to me about a suitable man, it occurred to me to give you the first offer."
Tom coloured with pleasure. "Thank you, sir; it seems a great chance. It would be a certainty, wouldn't it? I could take another with me."
"Well, it would be wiser for the other fellow to get a promise of work. I might ask if there were an opening," Paul had replied.
"It's not a man as I was thinking of, sir. It was a wife!"
"Oh, I beg your pardon," the squire said laughing. "But if you care for my opinion on a subject of which I know but little, I believe quite the wisest thing you could do would be to take out a wife with you. She would make a home for you and keep you steady. I expect you have some girl in your eye, Burney."
Tom smiled rather sheepishly; it would be time enough to mention Rose when his banns were put up.
And that very afternoon when work was over, Tom had gone home and put on his best clothes; then walked boldly up to the Court and demanded an interview with Rose. She came into the servant's hall where he waited nervously by the fire, and, giving him a careless nod, seated herself and put her toes upon the fender.
"What is it, Tom? I can't stop long; I'm expecting Miss Webster in every minute."
"It's come at last: what I've waited for," stammered Tom. "I've a chance of giving you a home, Rose: a nice one, as far as I can make out."
"Where?" asked Rose, with shining eyes and parted lips, a vision of herself as a bride, in a white frock, and handsome Tom as her bridegroom, floating before her.
"In Tasmania; if you love me well enough to come with me out there. It's a wonderful offer that the squire has given me; and some day I may bring you home almost like a lady."
"But I don't know where it is, and I wouldn't go if I did—not with you nor any man! What can you be thinking of to stuff me up with nonsense like that?" Rose asked poutingly. "I'll have a home on this side of the water, or nowhere."
"And you shall," Tom declared passionately, "if you'll promise to wait until I can make you one!—but I'll have your word for it. You shall have done with Dixon and stick fast by me, or——"
"Or what?" Rose said with rather frightened eyes.
"Or I'll go where you won't be troubled by me any more. Look here! you've held me on for eighteen months now, and, if you cared for me one-half as I love you, you would be ready enough to come with me to the other side of the world, when I can make you an honest offer of a home. I'd follow you to the world's end; ill or well, rich or poor I'd love you just the same; you should not have a trouble that I could keep from you. I've told you so before, and I tell you so to-night; but it's the last time. You can take me or leave me; but I'll know now which it is to be. It don't matter much to me where you want to live, except that, if I don't take this offer, we must wait a bit; but I'll know your mind about it. It must be 'yes' or 'no' to-night!"
Happily for Rose, Miss Webster's bell pealed a noisy summons at that moment.
"I can't stop, Tom! Ireallycan't! Miss Webster is not one who can wait. I'll think it over and tell you sometime soon."
"When?" asked Tom, catching her hands and holding them so tightly that she gave a little cry.
"Sunday. Sunday night after church; you can see me home if you like," and with that promise Tom had to be content.
"Mind what you are up to, Rose. Don't play with me too far," he said.
And as Rose sat stitching in the housekeeper's room that night, her mind busied itself over Tom's words, and the difficulty of making a decision. It had never entered Rose's pretty head to lay this question of marriage before God. Had she done so she would have been saved from making a mistake, which was to leave its mark upon the whole of her future life. Her heart drew her one way, and her ambition another. Undoubtedly Tom, with his warm heart and openly expressed devotion, was the man she loved the best of the many who had paid her attention; but she might have to wait for him for years, whilst, if Dixon chose to offer it, he could give her a home to-morrow that any girl in the village might envy; but he had never spoken out as Tom had spoken to-night. His wooing had not been so manly and so straight as poor Tom's. Rose had almost made up her mind to tell him on Sunday that she would wait for him, when a voice waked her from her reverie; and the voice was Dixon's.
"I suppose you don't happen to know if the carriage will be wanted to take the ladies to the station to-morrow? I heard some talk about their going out, but I haven't had any orders."
"I'm not the one to ask! you'll find Mr. Wheeler in the pantry," said Rose, a little sharply.
"What's put you out to-night, I wonder?" said Dixon, coming a little further into the room and closing the door behind him. "Had some quarrel with that peppery lad Burney, I expect? Anyway you've been crying about something; and ten to one it's Burney. I saw him coming away from here, and I had the biggest mind to ask him what business he had to be prowling round a place where he was turned off for unsteadiness."
"You'd best mind what you say about him!" Rose said, stitching away with feverish rapidity. "He wants me to marry him."
"Does he now? Banns put up on Sunday, I suppose?" said Dixon, with a palpable sneer.
"No; we should wait," faltered Rose.
"I should not have thought you were of the waiting sort. Then it's good-bye to me."
"It will be good-bye if I promise; he'll be all or nothing. He's just mad about me."
"Then you've not promised yet?" asked Dixon, eagerly. "You've not been silly enough to do that, Rose?"
"He won't wait; I'm to tell him on Sunday night. And oh! I'm miserable: I don't know what to do!" And Rose let her work fall in her lap, and burst into sobbing.
"Don't cry! don't take on! I'll tell you what to do, my dear. Promise to marry me instead of that hot-headed fool, Burney. Settle it all right away, and don't fash your head any more about it. There need be no waiting—I'll go and see the vicar about the banns,—and if so be that we can't get the rooms over the stables to ourselves, I'll ask Mr. Lessing to give us a cottage. There! you see I'm in earnest. It would be grand to hear your name given out in church the next Sunday as ever is, now wouldn't it?" and Dixon pulled away Rose's hands from her face, and smiled down on her.
"Oh, I couldn't!" Rose said. "There's Tom."
"That would settle Tom fast enough."
Rose never knew quite how it happened; but half an hour later Dixon left without any order for the carriage on the morrow, but with Rose's promise that she would marry him as soon as he liked, and with her consent that the banns should be published on the following Sunday. Rose's silly little head was in such a whirl of delightful excitement that, for the time being, Tom and his misery were forgotten. There was the wedding to think of, and the clothes that must be made, and the question of hat versus veil, for the wedding-day loomed large in the foreground. She wondered how Miss Webster would look when she gave her a month's notice that night; and whether Mrs. Webster would offer to have the wedding breakfast at the Court. It was almost certain that as Dixon was coachman, he would have the loan of the carriage; and she would be driven to the church that day for all the world just like a lady, and half the village would turn out to see her married. And then Tom's large, reproachful eyes, with their expression of dumb pain, stared at her out of the brilliant picture which her imagination conjured. Poor Tom! how would he bear it? She comforted herself a little with the thought that he would be quite certain now to accept the offer of that situation abroad of which he had spoken, and she would not be vexed by the sight of his unhappiness.
"I must not let him meet me on Sunday night. I must write and tell him that Dixon and I have settled it, and that he must not mind too much," thought Rose.
The letter was not an easy one to write, and Rose shelved it. She had a way of shelving unpleasant subjects; but when Saturday night came she could put it off no longer, so, fetching down her writing-case, she spoiled a dozen sheets of paper in the effort to make her news fairly palatable, finally dashing off an unsatisfactory scrawl, badly written and lamely expressed; and, having folded and directed it, she flew out into the yard to find a messenger to take it. The first who presented himself was the groom.
"It would be doing me a real favour if you would let Burney have this note to-night," she said. "It's very particular;" and with the note she shoved sixpence into the man's hand.
He laughed as he pocketed the coin, and was laughing still when he went back into the saddle-room, where Dixon sat smoking over the fire.
"What's the joke, mate?"
"A note from your girl to Burney—'very particular' she called it! I'll warrant it's to tell him he'd better not come this way any more."
"I dare say it is," replied Dixon, slowly. "Hand it over; I'm going down to the village, and I'll leave it myself."
The groom hesitated. "I think I'll stick to it; she gave me sixpence to make sure he got it, and I wouldn't like to cheat her."
"Stick to the sixpence but give me the letter. Who's a better right to it than I, I should like to know? I'm as good as married already," said Dixon, stretching out his hand.
"You'll promise not to forget."
"I'm not one as forgets," said Dixon, with an odd laugh.
"And if there's any mistake you'll settle it?"
"Yes; I'll settle it."
The groom gave the note and went out whistling; he was not quite easy in his mind about the missive. Left to himself, Dixon turned the envelope round in his fingers, examining it back and front. The blotted writing gave evidence of hurry, the blistered paper testified to tears, and Dixon broke into an oath.
"The little jade!—that's the second time she's cried about him this week to my certain knowledge," he said aloud. "She would not dare to chuck me now, though, even if she does love the other one; but I've more than half a mind to put this in the fire. It may be to tell him that she's settled things with me; but it would not be a bad joke to let him hear it for himself in church, and her telling him nothing about it, good or bad, would let him know she did not care much for him."
In another moment there was a brief blaze in the fire, and Rose's note was reduced to ashes.
The next morning Tom Burney rose with the feeling that he trod on air, such a strange exhilaration of spirit possessed him.
He had heard nothing from Rose during the week, and her very silence filled him with hope. If she meant to refuse him, he was almost sure that she would have put him out of his misery before this. He was not generally a vain fellow, but to-day his toilet was a matter of moment; his tie was re-adjusted half a dozen times, and he asked his landlady to give him a chrysanthemum for his buttonhole.
"Goin' courtin'?" she said, with a laugh as she pinned it in for him. And Tom coloured rosy red, but said nothing.
He started early for church, hoping that he might catch a glimpse of Rose as she passed in with the other servants from the Court; but either she had got there before him, or, for some unknown cause, she had been detained at home. Dixon presently appeared, smart and neat, giving Tom an affable nod as he passed up the path to the church; but Tom's eyes were fixed straight in front of him, and he ignored the greeting.
"I'll not pretend to be friends when I ain't," he said to himself.
Presently the hurrying bell warned the outside group of stragglers to make their way into church; and Tom took his usual seat at the end of the nave. It is to be feared that his thoughts that morning were not occupied with devotion. Prayer and psalm passed unheeded over his head; but when, at the end of the second lesson, there was a pause, and the rector turned over the leaves of a book in front of him, Tom lifted his head and waited for the banns that would follow. Before long he might be listening to the publishing of his own.
"I publish the banns of marriage between William Dixon, bachelor, and Rose Lancaster, spinster, both of this parish.…"
Was it some ghastly nightmare, Tom wondered, as he clutched at the seat in front of him? But the suppressed grin on the faces near him, the foolish smile with which the publishing of banns is so often received in a village church, convinced him that he had heard aright. The blood was rioting to his brain, and the beating in his throat made him put up his hand with the vain endeavour to loosen his collar lest he should choke there and then with the passion that could find no outlet. For one instant he was possessed by a wild wish to stand up and forbid the banns; but what end would be gained by making himself a greater laughing-stock to the village than he was at present, for already he felt the derisive finger of scorn pointed at him as the man whom Rose had jilted. Even now he saw one or two of the lads nudge each other and look at him with curious eyes. To be watched at such a moment was torture, and, like an animal in pain, Tom longed for solitude. He groped blindly under the seat for his hat, made his way to the door and slipped out. He stumbled on like a man in delirium, looking neither to the right nor left, but following instinctively the path across the fields which led to the river. The turbulence of its grey waters, as it rushed on to the sea, seemed most in keeping with the wild, wicked thoughts that surged unchecked through his brain, and were bearing him he knew not whither. He threw himself upon the long, rank grass on the bank, still wet with the heavy mist of night, and, pillowing his chin in his hands, watched with dilating eyes the swirling river as it swept by. A giddiness dimmed his vision, a singing filled his ears.
"If I slipped over and was carried along with it, there'd be an end of it all," thought Tom. And the chill wind came sighing across the water, and shook the heavy rushes at the edge, which seemed whisperingly to echo his thought, "an end of it all."
Then Tom half-angrily roused himself, and pressed his hands to the eyes that burned like fire, and tried to collect his bewildered senses. What!—slip out of life like a drowned rat and never see Rose again, nor tell her what he knew of the man she had chosen in preference to him. She would be glad to know he was dead, he told himself with fierce bitterness. She had played with him like a cat with a mouse for more than a year but in the long run the mouse died squeaking. Surely she could not be so false-hearted as to break faith with him to-night; she would meet him and say good-bye? Sheshouldmeet him, whether she liked it or not; and if Dixon were with her so much the better,—and Tom's fists clenched involuntarily.
For hours and hours he wandered, following the windings of the river, until, as the November sun paled and sank in a bank of grey cloud, he discovered that he was some six or eight miles from Rudham, and that his knees were knocking together with mingled emotion and fatigue. A wayside inn seemed a haven of refuge to him in his exhausted condition. Through the red blind of the bar a light shone cheerily, and Tom entered the door without knocking, and, seating himself on the settle by the fire, ordered sixpennyworth of brandy.
"Hot water or cold? You'll have it hot, if you take my advice," said the landlady, with a glance at the bloodshot eyes that glared so strangely out of the deathly white face.
"Neither, thanks," said Tom, tossing off the raw spirit at a gulp.
It tasted to him like so much water; it did not muddle his brain, it cleared it, it nerved him for that interview with Rose.
"Another sixpennyworth, please," he said, laying down a shilling on the table.
The landlady paused, and coughed behind her hand; she had sons of her own.
"I wouldn't if I was you," she said, pushing him back sixpence. "You've took as much as is good for you, and ne'er a drop of water.
"You can serve me or leave it alone," said Tom, angrily. "I'm ill; I need it. It tastes like so much water."
The landlady shook her head but gave him the brandy, and Tom, having swallowed it, bade her a civil good night and went on his way.
The landlady hurried to the door and looked after him; he was walking very fast but quite straight.
"It may have gone to his head, but it's not got into his legs," she said, a note of admiration in her voice.
Tom meanwhile hurried on to the station, which he knew to be not more than half a mile away. He was just in time to catch the one down-train that ran on Sunday evening, which would land him in Rudham in time for evening service—not that Tom meant to go to church that night. He would walk outside and wait for Dixon and for Rose. Many a time the two men had escorted Rose back to the Court, one on either side. This would be the last.