Part 3 (1/2)

She had said it all without emotion, almost without one note of feeling in her voice; but the mere words themselves were sufficient to strike terror into Mrs. Throgmorton's heart. That terror showed itself undisguised in her face.

”My dear--my dear--” she whispered--”I pray G.o.d you never do feel so, or if it be His will you should, that you will never forget your modesty or your self-respect so much as to reveal it to any man however much you may love him.”

To these four girls in that square, white house in Bridnorth, this was such an influence as still reigned in undisputed sway. The eyes of their parents from those portraits still looked down upon them at their prayers or at their meals. Still the voice of Mrs. Throgmorton whispered in Mary's ears--”I pray G.o.d you will never forget your modesty or your self-respect.” Still, even when she was twenty-nine, Mary's eyes would lift to her father's face gazing down from the wall upon her, wondering if he had ever known the life she had suspicion of from the books she read. Still she would glance at them both, prepared to believe that, however dominant it was in their home, the expression of their lives had been only the husk of existence.

And then perhaps at that very moment the coach might pa.s.s by on its way to the Royal George and the horses' hoofs would sing as they beat upon the road--”Life is ours--we are here to live--Life is ours--we are here to live.”

Yet there in Bridnorth at twenty-nine, no greater impetus had come to her to live than the most vague wonderings, the most transient of dreams.

VIII

It was the Sunday before Christmas of the year 1894. No coach had come to Bridnorth for three weeks. The snow which had fallen there was still lying six inches deep all over the countryside and on the roads where it had been beaten down at all, was as hard as ice. Footmarks had mottled it. It shone in the sun like the skin of a snow leopard.

The hills around Bridnorth and all the fields as far as eye could see were washed the purest white. Every hedge had its mantle, every tree and every branch its sleeves of snow. The whole world seemed buried.

Scarce one dark object was to be seen. Only the sea stretched dark and gray like ice water, the little waves in that still air there was, falling on the beach with the brittle noises of breaking gla.s.s.

Only for this, a silence had fallen everywhere. Footsteps made no sound.

The birds were hidden in the hearts of the hedges and even when hunger drew them forth in search of berries, it was without noise they went, in swift, dipping flights--a dark thing flas.h.i.+ng by, no more.

Every one put on goloshes to climb or descend the hill to church. The Vicar and his wife came stepping over from the Vicarage close by like a pair of storks and when the bell stopped ringing it was as though another cloak of silence had been flung over Bridnorth village. The Vicar felt that additional silence as acutely as any one. It seemed to him it fell to prepare the way for wors.h.i.+p in the house of G.o.d and the sermon he was about to preach.

The attendance that morning was no different from what it would have been had the roads been clear. Going to church in the country is a comfortable habit. At their midday meal afterwards the subject of the attendance would crop up at the Vicar's table as it always did, ever full of interest as is the subject of the booking-office returns to a theatrical manager. He would congratulate himself upon the numbers he had seen below him from that eminence of the pulpit and would have been hurt beyond degree had any one suggested it was largely habit that brought them there.

The Throgmorton family would no more have thought of staying away because of the weather than they would have thought of turning the two portraits in the dining-room with their faces to the wall.

They collected in the square hall of the square, white house. They put on their gloves and their goloshes; they held their prayer books in their hands; they each looked for the last time to see that their threepenny bits were safe in the palms of their gloves. Then they set off.

The church in the country is a meeting place in a sense other than that of wors.h.i.+p. You may desire at most times the quietness of your own home, but you like to see the world about you in a public place.

They wors.h.i.+pped G.o.d, those people in Bridnorth. Who could hope to maintain that they did not? They were close enough to Him in all conscience and fact on those Devon hills. But that wors.h.i.+p was more in the silence of their own hearts, more on the floor at their own bedside than ever it was at the service conducted by the Vicar as so many services are conducted by so many Vicars in so many parishes throughout the length and breadth of the whole country.

The interest of seeing a fresh face, of even seeing an old face if it be under a new hat; the mere interest of human contact, of exchanging a word as they went in or mildly criticizing as they came out; the mild necessity of listening to what the Vicar said from the pulpit, the sterner necessity of trying to understand what he meant; the excitement of wearing a new frock, the speculations upon the new frock worn by another, these were more the causes of a good attendance in the worst of weather, these and that same consciousness of being overlooked, of having one's conduct under the gaze of all who chose to satisfy themselves about it.

As the Vicar climbed the pulpit steps, the congregation settled themselves down with that moving in their pews with all customary signs of that spirit of patience every priest believes to be one of interest.

Leaning her square, strong shoulders against the upright back of the Throgmorton pew, Mary composed her mind with mild attention. f.a.n.n.y s.h.i.+fted her ha.s.sock to the most restful position for her feet. That sharp interrogative look of criticism drew itself out in the line of Jane's lips and steadied itself in her eyes. Hannah was the only one upon whose face a rapt expression fell. With all her gray hair and her forty years, she was the youngest of them all, still cheris.h.i.+ng her ideals of the infallible priest in the man of cloth; still believing that the voice of G.o.d could speak even through the inferior brain of a country Vicar. Above all there were her children who the next morning would ask her what the sermon meant. It was necessary if only for their sakes she should not lose a word that was said.

After that pause on his knees when the Vicar's head was bent in prayer, he rose to his feet and, as he spread out the pages of his sermon before him, cast a significant glance around the church. This was preliminary to every sermon he preached. It was as though he said--”I cannot have any signs of inattention. If your minds have wandered at all during the service, they must wander no more. I feel I have got something to say which is vital to all of you.”

All this happened that December morning, just as it had occurred every morning for the twenty years he had been the shepherd of their souls.

It was almost as long as Mary could remember.

Having cast that glance about him, he cleared his throat--the same sounds as Jane once caustically remarked they had heard one thousand times, allowing two Sundays in the year for a _loc.u.m tenens_.

Then he gave out his text: ”And the Angel said unto her--'Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with G.o.d.'”

IX