Part 24 (1/2)

”They are rowing to church, the whole family,” said Vashti. ”We can follow as slowly as we choose.”

She listened a moment, but the oars in the boat ahead continued their regular plash. It may be that Tregarthen had failed to discern the small sail astern of him in the gloom of the land. She lowered it quietly, stowed it, found and inserted the thole-pins, and s.h.i.+pped the paddles. Yet it seemed that she was in no hurry to row. She but dipped a blade twice to check the boat from swinging broadside-on to the tide, and so rested silent for minute after minute, gazing through the gloom towards the bright sea-lights.

And it seemed to the Commandant, seated and watching her, that he could read some of the thoughts behind her gaze. His own went back again to the night of his first coming to the Islands, when, as at sunset he supposed himself to have discovered them, all of a sudden they discovered him--reef after reef opening a great s.h.i.+ning eye upon him; and some of the eyes were steady, but most of them intermittent, and all sent long gleaming rays along the floor of the sea; a dozen sea-lights and eleven of them yellow, but the twelfth (that upon North Island) a deep glowing crimson. Since then and for fifteen years they had been his friends. Nightly he watched them for minutes from his window before undressing for bed; and in fanciful moments they seemed to draw a circle of witchcraft around the Islands.

If they meant so much to him what must they mean to her who had left home, dear ones, and all memories of youth?--and who, returned from exile, stood with her hand upon the latch of the old cupboard!

”Ruth will have changed,” said Vashti, speaking aloud, but to herself.

”It is impossible that she has not changed.”

She dipped her paddles and began to pull, gently at first and almost languidly; but by and by strength came into her arms and the boat began to move at a pace that astonished the Commandant.

Brefar Church stands on a green knoll close by the water's edge and only a few yards above a s.h.i.+ngly beach where the Islanders bring their boats to sh.o.r.e. Its bell had ceased ringing long before its windows came into view with the warm lamp light s.h.i.+ning within; and the beach lay dark under the shadow of the tamarisks topping the graveyard wall.

Vashti, not in the least distressed by her exertions, sprang ash.o.r.e and sought about for a good mooring-stone. She had found one almost before the Commandant, following, could offer to help her in her search.

Together they hauled the boat a few yards up from the water.

”Are we to go inside?” the Commandant asked, looking up at the lighted building.

Before Vashti could answer a reedy harmonium sounded within and the congregation broke into the ”Old Hundredth” hymn--

”All people that on earth do dwell, Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice----”

The incongruity of it, sung by a handful of fisherfolk here on an islet of the Atlantic--the real congruity (if indeed the Church be, as the Bidding Prayer defines it, ”the whole body of Christian people dispersed throughout the world”)--was probably less perceptible to the Commandant after fifteen years' sojourn on the Islands than to Vashti, newly returned from great continents and crowded cities. But if she smiled the darkness did not betray her. The Commandant saw her lift a hand beckoning him to follow, and followed her up the knoll to a whitewashed gate glimmering between the dark ma.s.ses of the tamarisks.

She opened it and disappeared into the churchyard. He followed, stumbling along the narrow path, and overtook her at the angle of the south porch. She was in the act of mounting upon a flat tombstone which lay close in the wall's shadow. A panel of light streamed from the window directly above, and fell on Vashti's face as she drew herself erect upon the slab and leaned forward, her fingers resting on the granite mullions; but a light not derived from this shone in her eyes a moment later. With a little sob of joy she pressed her forehead close against the leaded panes.

The Commandant heard the sound, and guessed the cause of it. The light in her eyes he could not see. He stood among the dark nettles, looking up at her, waiting for the hymn to conclude.

The ”Amen” came at last. He heard the shuffling of feet as the congregation knelt to pray ... and, with that, Vashti turned and bent to whisper to him.

”She is there--almost abreast of us, standing by the pillar. She is kneeling now--my own Ruth--and her face is hidden.”

He supposed that she bent to step down from the slab, and he put up a hand to help her. A tear fell on the back of his fingers, as it were a single raindrop out of the night.... But she turned impulsively, and pressed her face again to the gla.s.s.

”She is praying. She will not look up again.... She would not turn her eyes just now, though her own sister stood so close! They were lifted to the lights in the chancel and to the dark window.” Then, as it seemed, with sudden inconsequence, she added: ”Forgive me, sir! You have been kind to me, and it is so many years--so many years----”

”My dear,” said the Commandant, gravely, as he handed her down, ”you honour me more than I can tell. All my life I shall remember that you have so honoured me.”

But it did not appear that she heard him. Letting go his hand, she seated herself on the edge of the tombstone, and looked up at him with eyes that, barely touched by the light from the window, seemed to him strangely, almost pitifully childish--eyes of a child that had lost its mother young.

”Her face was not changed, or a very little; far less than I feared.

She is beautiful, my own Ruth--beautiful as she is good.”

”And happy?” he found himself asking.

”Happy and unhappy. Happy in her good man, in her children?--oh, yes.