Part 3 (1/2)
Her head fell back upon the pillow. It was clear that her strength had already been well tried before our entrance, for on a table near the bed were the bell, light, and cross of the Blessed Sacrament, with the pyx wrapped in linen. But at the interruption Dr Burton stopped; his face darkened, and forth went his arm, pointing to the door.
”All leave the room,” cried he with a gruff brogue.
I saw Miss Emily's face go rosy, while Langler's eyes dwelt upon the Doctor, and he asked, with a smile: ”but why so, Dr Burton?”
”Do it, sir!” cried the doctor in a startling manner; whereupon for perhaps thirty seconds it lasted, the doctor pointing, Langler smiling, till Langler turned, and said ”come” to Miss Emily and to me.
We went out, the two villagers following us, leaving the doctor and the Franciscan alone with the dying woman. But in the outer room Miss Emily sat on a chair, saying: ”I mean to wait here till Dr Burton chooses to go away. Send John to me, and don't expect me home until all is over.”
”Well, then,” said Langler; and he and I started off to go back to Swandale, night now falling as we pa.s.sed through Ritching and thence on up the rising land towards Swandale, and half way up we halted, and turned together, surveying the scene of the valley, veiled now in the hazes of the Sabbath evening: Ritching church-spire could be seen standing out of a garland of wood; so could a part of Goodford village far in the north-west, and there, too, just vanis.h.i.+ng out of sight, a church-spire; and presently there was wafted up to us from the valley a charming noise--church-bells chiming for Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Langler said then to me in a low voice: ”Arthur, to me it is very touching, such a scene; that Goodford church always reminds me of Bemerton, where George Herbert walked and talked with his Lord, and on the whole, what a language do they speak, those spires, those bells, how n.o.ble an expression of men's n.o.blest thoughts of this world through twenty ages! One knows that for the new phasis of the world the old expression will not do; but for myself, though I tolerate the sun, give me Iris and the Gotterdammerung. Certainly, she was rather lovely, this old church of the Nazarene, with a loveliness that was so useful, too, to lure and lever the world. Who could have foretold that just in sorrow would have been born such a charm, that the moan alone of a saint could more ravish the sense than the rose of Sharon? And through such a roll of generations, Arthur! The beauty that could so long baffle the law 'they all shall change,' what a charm of life must have informed her! If we who now see her mouthing her mumblings in her extreme age, garishly rouged and dizened with trumperies, can still by an effort live again in her youth, how vital a youth must that have been! But that extreme age is really here apparently. Surely the rouge cracks now, and beneath peers the very saffron of death and putrescence imminent. Look where you like, from the event at Canterbury to our 'now I am happy all the day,'
and do not the signs bode the pa.s.sing-bell and the s.e.xton? Judging only from our experiences of to-day, may we not say with some a.s.surance that we now listen to those chimes for about the last time?”
CHAPTER V
THE TRAIL
Langler, let me repeat here, was a man of some luck in prophecy; and though those bells of Ritching, which he said that we then listened to for about ”the last time,” were about to clash over Europe carillons of summons, shaking the hearts of men, yet even here, it will be said, he was not quite at fault: for death more often than not is forerun by this very kind of flickering: slow decay, then a rage and show of life, then the end and darkness--that appears to be the way.
On the Monday morning after our visit to Ritching, as I entered the breakfast-room a few minutes early, there at a cas.e.m.e.nt stood Miss Emily, and I see her once more as she was then, as fresh as the morning, or as the twines of roses that climbed within the small marble cas.e.m.e.nt.
Like her brother, she was not tall, but her figure was highly spirited, with a quite French outpush of bust, reminding one always of Gainsborough's ”d.u.c.h.ess.”
We two were speaking together in low voices when I heard the steps of Langler coming. I may say that I had been begging her for a rose, but she had not given it me. I had prayed, and she was saying, ”but I thought that 'blue is the hue for folk who hope,'” when I heard the steps of Langler, and whispered her, ”then some forget-me-nots.”
The room was gaily feted out with flowers, and she glanced round to find what I had asked for; but there were none, and she was saying, ”there are none; it is rather late--” when Langler walked in. I was angry with fate, for it was an anniversary date with her and me; and _jealous_, for into _his_ jacket she pinned a rosebud.
On sitting to table she said to her brother: ”Aubrey, Mrs Edwards wants you and me to go over to Goodford. I have just answered that we have a guest, and, of course, she will ask us to bring him too.”
”Would you care?” Langler asked me: ”they are crude but worthy folk, as you know, and their guests are often well chosen.”
I said that I should be glad to go.
”But as to Mrs Robinson?” asked Langler of his sister.
”She died just before nine,” answered Miss Emily. ”I came home with John after eleven, so wouldn't disturb you, as I had made all the arrangements. Dr Burton went away at seven, came back after Compline, frowned excommunications at me, sprinkled the body, said a prayer from the Alexandrine Liturgy of St Basil, and groaned 'poor sheep!' with the very tenderness of the Good Shepherd. I should revere that man, if I didn't despise him.”
”Ah? is that so?” asked Langler, with his smile.
We spoke through breakfast of Mrs Robinson and her missing son, of the Prime Minister's guests at Goodford, of our probable visit to him, and again of the missing man.
”Do you know,” said Miss Emily in her dry way, hardly meaning, I think, to be taken seriously, ”I have my theory of Robinson? Given a village like Ritching, where nothing odd ever happens, when two odd things happen in it those two will be related. Is that a fair statement of a law of probability?”
”Excellent, I think,” I answered.
Langler did not answer, but was listening, one could see, attentively.
”Then,” said Miss Emily, ”I say that three tourists at the Calf's Head is one thing, and Robinson's disappearance is another thing; and my theory is that these strangers have kidnapped Robinson.”
”But with what motive?” asked Langler, glancing sharply at her.