Chapter VII

" How early you're down," said Maggie, coming into the music-room after her interview with the housekeeper next morning, and finding Marion at the piano. " Why, my dear! Is anything the matter? "

The girl rose.

"I think not," she said. "But... but I'm not quite sure."

Maggie regarded her.

" There! it's all right," said Marion, putting an arm over the other's shoulders. " But I suddenly got nervous. Maggie! If I don't get my voice back, I think I should die."

" My dearest! What in the world has put that into your head? "

Maggie craned her head round to see Marion's face; her eyes looked strained and anxious.

" I couldn't sleep very well," said the girl quickly, moving off to the hearth: " I suppose I got excited yesterday — all that talk about Lohengrm."

" My darling; but Sir John never said a word:

" No: I know he didn't. That's just it: and I didn't dare to ask him, after the first day or two."

" You're getting morbid," pronounced Maggie.

" I daresay."

" You're getting morbid. Why, thousands of people have their tonsils cut, and you'd never know the difference. I think I had my own cut when I was a child.

Oh! no, that was adenoids; but it comes to the same thing."

She talked on rapidly. Marion said nothing at all. She stood quite quietly by the hearth, now looking at Maggie who flowed on without a pause, now letting her eyes stray round the tall room, now resting them for a meditative moment on the big chest where her music was kept.

The girl did not quite know when her anxiety had begun. She had asked, immediately before the operation, and as soon as she was allowed to speak after it, whether there was any real risk of losing her voice, and had been told emphatically, by the greatest throat specialist in London that there was no sort of reason to fear anything at all. Then by an act of will she had put away even the suggestion of forebodings, and had serenely made her arrangements, cancelling all autumn engagements and forming a new provisional agreement, to be confirmed on the first of September, to sing again at Covent Garden in the following January. It was an act of faith that she made, simply because any other prospect was intolerable. Then she had come down to Standing, and little by little, forebodings had returned. They had culminated this morning.

She had awakened early, just in that short period before the dawn, when the sun is not risen, but yet the world is visible — in that period when birds begin to call to one another in sudden questioning phrases, as if for reassurance that the resurrection has indeed come. She had crept to the window and looked out, pulling aside the yellow curtains, upon that grey, motionless, dew-soaked lawn. Not a thing moved: the roses hung, each heavy and still upon the stalk. A faint mist lay over the further end of the garden, rising from the invisible stream. Against the yellow wash of colour over the eastern hills the apse of the church jutted out, stern and forbidding, like the prow of an antique ship.

It is a strange death-like time; there is no joy in it, unless the mind is on a high and secure plane: to those who do not live from within but lean on exterior support, the effect is that of a pale face with open eyes, that asks no questions, but is in itself one doubt. She shivered and went back to bed.

Then, indeed, the questions had begun; for she was beginning to understand, in the silence of the country, how passionately she had become absorbed, not merely in the actual life of the stage, though that was the centre and mainspring of all, but in the whole life for which it stood; and there is no doubt but that in that particular hour of the early morning, before the reassuring sounds and sights bring the mind back again to sanity as some would say, to conventional illusion, as others would say, the power of self-torment is at its climax.

As she lay there in the faint yellow light, not only did the memory of these last few months reassert itself with an immense force, so that she saw herself, as she had seldom realised herself at the time, the centre of that particular kind of romantic attention which the stage alone can give; but she also perceived, with a dreary vividness of which she was quite incapable at other times, what her life would be in the future, should those horrible forebodings, never far from the surface (however resolutely she had crushed them down), justify themselves. Not only would there go from her, once and for all, the passionate interest of her art in itself, the intoxicating excitement of those scenes in which her duty demanded that she should play upon her own nature as upon an organ, drawing out strange stops seldom used in real life, forming combinations for which experience has only a very exceptional use, but she would also lose practically ah1 she knew of the world, since the one condition on which she had found entrance into it, would be violated. And all depended on a few little vessels and sinews and muscles in her throat, which had lately felt the shock of the knife.

Then indeed she turned to the image of Max in a kind of despair — since he was the one fragment of that world that would remain to her, the one reality in it which she had made her own. All else, she was clear sighted enough to understand, would no longer be hers, if she once lost that which had introduced her to it. All those men that hung round her, all the women that flattered her — these, she knew well enough, were interested in the prinma donna not in Marion Tenterden. Max alone would be left. Not Norah; not Gerald: no one. And, even as she regarded Max, a doubt came upon her so sickening in its intensity that she dared face it no more....

She had fallen asleep again about six: when she woke, the room was bright with sunshine, and Jenny was bringing in the breakfast tray. Yet just so much of the nightmare remained as to cause her to get up an hour before her usual time, and to go down, restless, to the piano. That, at least, might reassure her.

"Well," she said, when Maggie had run down at last, " suppose we don't talk about it any more. What about going up and looking at Mr. Cholmondeley's church this morning? "

" My dear! " answered Maggie. " I simply can't. I've promised Father Denny to clean out the sacristy."

*'Ah! well, I think I shall stroll up," said Marion. " I'll be back before twelve."

Mr. Cholmondeley was extremely gratified when, as he strolled round his garden with a pipe and the Times newspaper before going in to deal with a sermon for Sunday, he heard the clash of the gate and saw Miss Tenterden, looking very graceful and cool, with a white parasol over her head, coming up the path.

He was a perfectly intelligent man, and knew quite well that Miss Tenterden was become something of a personage in a certain section of life; and he had sufficient sound worldliness to appreciate that section. His type is not in the present day a very common one among the English clergy: he was not perhaps very deep, but he did not pretend to be, and he had wide sympathies: for instance, he dressed for the evening like a layman; he had a small kennel of very well-bred bull-terriers; he visited London for at least three or four weeks, all told, every year, when he would frequent the theatres and even condescend to the music-halls: he had been known to be present at a prize-fight and was not in the least ashamed of it: he treated his fellow-clergy with a tolerant humour, and was treated by them as something of a good-natured and therefore dangerous heretic. With all this he was an admirable pastor to his people, though he resembled a small squire rather than an ecclesiastic: he preached shrewd and homely little sermons, chiefly about the domestic virtues, and, though he had no wife or family, practised what he preached. He was an excellent shot, and had been accustomed to ride to hounds, until his bishop remonstrated, upon which he good-humouredly desisted. He was, finally, a fair musician; and had been known, when the damp little organ in his church refused to stop ciphering, to interrupt his reading to address his female organist in a perfectly natural and unabashed voice to try pushing in the stopped diapason. In appearance he was rather like an actor, and also rather like an American.

" This is most kind of you," he said. " Good morning, Miss Tenterden. You have taken me at my word, I see."

'* Miss Brent couldn't come," she said; " she promised to do something for Father Denny. And I suddenly felt I had to come. You don't mind? "

" I am simply delighted."

Marion had no precise or formulated object in coming up this morning, beyond a general desire for a very vague kind of reassurance about things as a whole; and it occurred to her, from her memories of the Rector's visit, that perhaps he might supply it. An indefinable sense of isolation was beginning to creep over her: she felt as a child feels when twilight comes on and finds him alone in a distant part of a big garden. For she was beginning to be aware that the step she contemplated meant the severing of a good many acquaintanceships and associations, and that there was not at present secured to her any great number of new ones to take their place. A Catholic can never be quite lonely: at any rate there is always the local priest when needs become desperate; there is always that Presence in Catholic churches which is the very heart of that religion. And now the girl was beginning to understand that these things were receding from her, and that in a few months she would have no claim at all upon them. Her terrors of this morning had brought these sensations to a point.

But she tried to observe with intelligent interest the details that the Rector pointed out to her, as soon as they had crossed the garden and entered the churchyard.

" That is called the paruice, I believe," he said, indicating the little room, with a window, built over the big porch. " They are not very common. It is supposed that they were used perhaps as studies, or places where books were kept: perhaps even a sacristan or a priest might sleep there. But I don't know much about it. I don't think any one does."

" Ah! I don't know either," said Marion; " but I can't imagine one of our present-day priests consenting to sleep there."

He glanced at her with kindly humour.

" And I am quite sure that none of our Rectors would," he said. " You see the niche below the window. That is supposed to have held an image of St. Giles, the patron-saint. I can't think why they pulled him down. He can't have done much harm to any one. And there you see the broken holy-water stoup. That's another instance of our stupidity. It seems to me that the idea of holy water is a very beautiful and suggestive one: though I suppose you and I wouldn't agree as to details in that matter."

" Oh! I don't know," said Marion. " I daresay we should."

He unlocked the gates of the porch, and they went in.

" I'm sorry to have to keep it locked," he said, " but you see our people don't have the same reverence as yours. I found a party of haymakers here, one day, eating their dinners in the chancel, and one of them was in the pulpit — imitating me, I suppose. They were not my own parishioners."

" How disgusting! " said Marion.

" Oh! well: our country people are very like children. One mustn't be hard on them. But I thought it mustn't happen again."

In the same genial and tolerant manner he went on to comment on all the other things that he showed her; on the traces of an old " Doom " painted in distemper over the chancel arch; on the blocked up door that once had led to the rood loft; on the vast Elizabethan tomb that occupied the end of the south aisle; on the fragments of old glass, leaded together indiscriminately in one of the nave-windows.

" You know," he said, " I do honestly feel a terrible ruffian when I minister here. I'm neither a theologian nor a historian; but I've got common sense, I hope: and it's very plain indeed to me that this church wasn't built for the kind of worship that I conduct here. That ' Doom,' you know: of course it's very nai've and simple: but I'm afraid it doesn't represent the kind of thing which, personally, I believe. Then those empty niches: artistically, of course, I should be delighted if they could have saints in them; I cannot conceive how they could possibly injure anybody's religion: but then, you know, if they were there, I am afraid I shouldn't think about them quite as you do. You'll think me a dreadful Modernist, I'm afraid. And I suppose that's really what I've always been, though I never knew till lately that it had such a fine name. Like the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, isn't it? — the man who had always talked prose without knowing it."

Marion said nothing. He glanced at her again.

" However, I've talked too much about myself."

" No: do go on, Mr. Cholmondeley."

He laughed quietly.

" 'Come and look at this brass," he said. " One of your old priests, you know."

Ill

" Mr. Cholmondeley," said the girl, as they came out again and stood in the sunshine, " have you ever heard of a Roman Catholic becoming a Protestant? "

" Oh, yes," he said. " My neighbour in the next parish was once one of your priests, I am sorry to say."

"Sorry? Why? And why did I never know that?"

" I'm sorry," said the Rector, " because I don't think it was a very worthy cause that brought him over. He married within a month, you know."

Marion's heart stood still for a moment.

" You think that unworthy? " she said in a low voice.

" Why: surely. He was bound by vows, wasn't he? "

" Yes: of course. But suppose he really changed his mind, too? "

" Well, let us hope that he really did," said the Rector; " and that he was uninfluenced by any consideration except a desire for truth. That is more charitable, certainly. (Let me put up that parasol for you, Miss Tenterden.) "

" But don't you think, perhaps," said Marion, as they walked slowly down the shaded path, " that it really may have been genuine — I mean that his falling in love may have been not exactly the direct cause of his leaving the Church, but the occasion of his looking into his religion again to see if he honestly believed it; and then that he found he didn't."

The Rector chuckled audibly.

" Miss Tenterden; either you're the most broad-minded and charitable Catholic I've ever heard of, or else you're the most sarcastic."

" How do you mean? "

"Well, it's rather odd, isn't it, that I should be attacking one of your priests for joining my own Church, and that you should be defending him? "

Marion stopped a moment under a great chestnut tree. Then she laughed, a little nervously.

" I suppose it is," she said. <k But I like to be fair."

" You are more than fair: you are kind," he said.

" But I do honestly think that it may have been that," she said. " I have heard of another case like it, though not of a priest. Imagine that all consolation in religion absolutely went, so that the whole thing became unreal. Well, I suppose that for a time he would think it his duty to go on and persevere. And then there would suddenly come this — this emotion;

•and that would wake him up, and he'd begin to ask himself whether he really believed anything at all. Well, suppose he found he didn't; or at any rate that he didn't believe everything that, as a Catholic, he was bound to. What is he to do? Is he to say good-bye to all hopes of happiness, just for fear of what people will say? "

" No, not just for fear of that," said the Rector.

"Well, what then? " asked the girl, looking straight at him.

" I think he should be very distrustful, at any rate, of his conclusions, if self-interest was so wrapped up in them. But I don't profess to be a psychologist," he added, smiling.

" Yes: I quite agree that he should move very slowly," said Marion; " but if he did; and if he really found that he hadn't enough belief left, you wouldn't blame him then, would you? "

" Miss Tenterden; I'm not a controversialist. I hate controversy and taking sides; and I dislike changing sides, even more. I'm a man of peace. I think controversy is feverish and unsettling. I prefer just to try to do my duty, and to trust to God to forgive me my omissions. I hate the denominational spirit."

Marion again looked at him.

" Ah! An old man whom I respect very much was saying the very same thing to me the other day. He told me to try to be broad-minded."

The Rector smiled.

" I don't think he can have known you very well," he said, " if he thought it necessary to say that."

Marion flushed a little.

" Why do you say that? "

" I think you one of the most broad-minded people I have ever met. Think how you've been defending a man whom you would call an apostate. Come, Miss Tenterden; you don't really believe all you've been saying? It was very skilful, I allow. I shall begin to think you've got designs on -my own conversion."

" I don't think you ought to say that to me," said the girl a little sharply.

IY

Maggie came out of the churchyard gate, after her labours in the sacristy, just as Marion came down the little village street. Maggie was a little dusty and hot, and very strenuous and fervent. Manual labour in sacred places was to her as is the call of a trumpet to an old war-horse. Every fibre in her thrilled with energy.

" Well, have you seen him? " she asked. " Did he take you round? "

Marion nodded: she too was a little hot, and looked troubled.

" What's the matter, my dearest? " said the elder woman, following her through the cool little hall into the yet cooler parlour. " Are you tired? "

" Just a little," said the girl as she sat down and stretched her hands over the cool arm-bosses of the old Cromwell chair.

" It's been dreadfully hot. You must have a long rest after lunch. Rhadamanthus has been very cross too," pursued Maggie: " I left him in the shade, and the sun crept round, and even when I was in church I heard him saying the most dreadful things all across the garden, till I remembered and called out to Jenny over the wall to take him in. I hardly like to go and see him, now, he'll be so angry with me. I certainly ought to have remembered about the sun; only I'm so stupid about those things, and only think about myself and my own comforts." (Marion's lips flickered into a smile. ) " Yes: I know I do: but I really am going to make some new resolutions and try to think a little about other people as well. And here have I been letting you go up in that hot sun all alone, when really I might have come with you quite well, if I'd only got up early this morning, as I meant to, and done all my cleaning then; only I'm so dreadfully idle and self-indulgent. Yes: put up your feet, my dear. There! sit still, and I'll move the chair.... That's better. And did you have a good talk to Mr. Cholmondeley? "

"Yes: we talked."

" I must go up myself, now that we've broken the ice on both sides. Talking of ice, there's another thing I've forgotten, and that is to order the ice from the fishmonger's. Never mind, I'll drive in this afternoon and fetch it myself, and we'll have it by dinner-time, anyhow. And he showed you all the church? I hope you told him what you thought about it all, and how it once belonged to us — oh! I forgot, he acknowledged that himself; though I don't know that it makes it much better that he should enjoy all that stolen property with his eyes open instead of shut. Really it makes it all the worse, I think, instead of better. I shall point that out to him, when I go up. Did he show you his dogs? "

" No, we just saw the church: and we talked."

" Of course if he was a real priest it would be dreadful for him to keep dogs • — at least that sort of dog — bull-terriers, aren't they? I wouldn't mind if they were sheep-dogs or spaniels, or something like that. But bull-terriers! I really don't think it's quite nice. However, he's not a real priest at all, poor man, so I daresay it doesn't matter so much. But I can't imagine Father Denny keeping bull-terriers. And you had a nice talk, dearest? And you liked him? Perhaps you'll come up with me, when I go up. Will you?"

" No," said Marion slowly. " I don't think I will. I don't think I like Mr. Cholmondeley as much as I thought I did."