Part 45 (1/2)

XXII

Time was pa.s.sing. One Sunday morning in November, while the vicar of St.

Saviour's preached a sermon about immortality, she looked at the familiar faces of the congregation and thought sadly of the impermanence of all earthly things.

So many of the people she had known were gone; so few remained, and these each showed so plainly the havoc and the change wrought by the flying years. She glanced at the card in the metal frame that was half hidden by her prayer-books--”Mrs. Marsden, two seats.” Once the writing on the card read ”Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, three seats,” and she had sat there with her husband and mother. Then the writing changed again--”Mrs.

Thompson, two seats.” How many years she and Enid had been here together!

And the other people in the pew--a man and a wife, with little children who had slowly grown into men and women; two elderly ladies; a widower and his sister--all had gone. She glanced across the side aisle at a white-haired feeble old man, and a wizened monkey-like old dame who nodded and shook unceasingly--Mr. Bennett, the High Street butcher, and his palsied helpmate;--and she thought of what they were when first she came to St. Saviour's: a hearty vigorous couple in the prime of life, the man seeming big enough to knock down one of his bullocks, and the woman singing the hymns so loudly that her neighbours could not hear the choir. Now they had dwindled and shrunk to this--nerveless arms, bloodless hues, and frozen silence.

Wherever she turned her eyes, she saw the same signs and could read the same story--bowed backs, bald heads, blue-veined hands. Everyone had grown old, everyone had grown feeble, of those who had seen her as a young bride, as a young mother. And no new faces seemed to have replaced the faces that had vanished. Fas.h.i.+on in recent years had leaned steadily towards the other church. Holy Trinity possessed lighted candles on its altars, embroidered copes on its priests, stringed instruments in its organ loft: it was there that all the young people went--to be thrilled with strange music, to be charmed with smart hats, to be set throbbing with irrelevant dreams of courts.h.i.+p and love. Only the old and the worn out had been true to quiet peaceful St. Saviour's.

She herself was absolutely faithful to the church that she had used and loved for so long. It had become her place of rest, her harbour of refuge. It was only here that she ever felt quite at peace. She knew that here she was safe for an hour at least; while the service lasted no one could molest her; no one could even speak to her: during this brief hour she belonged to herself.

She could not forget the outside world, but she resolutely tried not to think of it. Just now she had driven away a thought of Marsden. He was lying in bed; perhaps he would sleep till late afternoon; perhaps he would be lazily getting ready for his food when she returned to the house;--but she need not think of him. He would not join her here. She folded her hands, and listened to the kind old vicar as he told her of things that are incomprehensible, immutable, and everlasting.

A man had come up the side aisle, and was stupidly staring at the people in the pews. Mrs. Marsden, glancing at him inattentively, vaguely wondered why he didn't take one of the many empty seats and sit down.

She knew him very well. He was a loafer of the better cla.s.s; and on Sundays he regularly made his beat up and down St. Saviour's Court, picking up odd six-pences by running off to fetch cabs, bringing forgotten umbrellas, or retailing second-hand newspapers to laggards who had missed the paper-boy.

Presently he discovered Mrs. Marsden's pew, entered it, and whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

”You're wanted at the house. The gentleman said you was to come at once.”

Followed by this seedy messenger, she hastened from the church.

”What is it?” she asked him when they got outside.

”I dunno. The gentleman hollered to me from the door, and sent me to fetch you.”

The house door stood ajar; and her husband, in his dressing-gown and slippers, was anxiously waiting for her and guarding the foot of the stairs.

”All right,” he said to the loafer. ”I'll remember you another time;”

and he shut the door and bolted it.

From the top of the stairs there came a sound of wailing and lamentation.

”Jane, look here. I want you to stop this fool's mouth--what's her name--Susan. I've somehow upset her. And that infernal cook is encouraging her to squall the house down.”

Without a word Mrs. Marsden hurried upstairs. The cook, a sour-visaged woman of thirty-five, was on the threshold of the kitchen; and Susan, the apple-cheeked housemaid, was clinging to cook's arm, and sobbing and howling.

”Emily--Susan,” said Mrs. Marsden quietly, ”what _is_ all this noise and fuss about?”

”The master frightened her,” said the cook, very sourly, ”and she wishes to go to the police.”

”The police! What nonsense! Why?”

”The master rang, and she took up his shaving water--and what happened frightened her.”