Chapter V

MARION awoke at dawn, into that complete clarity of mind into which often those do awake who have fallen asleep in a state of great mental conflict. The moment she opened her eyes she had all the considerations before her, as well as a very vivid memory of that strange experience of terror and a painful kind of pleasure that had come to her as she knelt in church. She knew, too, that her mind was not yet made up, and that a decision had yet to be formed.

She listened for a minute or two to Jenny's measured breathing; and suddenly had a desire for a complete physical solitude: it had been the beginning of that instinct last night that had made her try to recall the suggestion that the girl should sleep in her room. Then a bird asked a loud sweet question from the garden; and she made up her mind, and slipped out of bed.

She opened a wardrobe noiselessly, and took out from it an old travelling cloak, with a hood, which she occasionally wore on rainy days in the garden; and put this on. Then she put on her stockings, still without a sound, and carrying her shoes in her hand, opened the door and went out. Immediately opposite was the door of Maggie's room; and as she saw it, for an instant a little shiver of fear ran through her, a reminiscence of last night. Then, ashamed of herself, she opened the door and looked in.

A minute later she was going downstairs; and there were tears in her eyes. She carried a single white flower that had fallen from the bed and lain there unnoticed since yesterday.

The little house looked strange to her in that strange light, at once familiar and unknown. Rhadamanthus' cage was on the chest in the hall, and she tapped gently on the green baize cover as she came down to it. A single hoarse complaint came from within; and then the sudden ruffle of feathers. She was smiling, as she unlatched the house-door and slipped out.

Ah! this was what she wanted.

Before her lay the garden, glimmering grey in the light that brings in the dawn. Far away, beyond the stream, were the low-backed Hertfordshire hills, with the two windmills, clear cut against the great gash of yellow that the dawn was beginning to make in the night sky. All tints above a certain point in the scale of colour were paler than by day: all below it, darker. The grass was a quiet grey with green stealing through; the yews were black, as were also the shadows below the trees on either side. The last roses, some nearly black, some all but luminous, dotted themselves amongst their own grey foliage. The morning star shone high on her right, like a crumb of diamond.

Again the bird asked his question; but there was no one yet to answer, as she stepped out into that divine freshness and felt the silence rest on her like a caress. This was what she wanted — an absolute physical loneliness. She had great things to think of: and a decision to make. Other decisions too began faintly to show themselves to her mind.

Yet, as she went up and down the dewy grass, once more these great things began to recede, and a yet greater to absorb her. Again, as last night, it was not that these problems did not remain unsolved, but rather that it was no longer that their solution was urgent. One thing she had done last night; though at present she did not realise its significance, and that was to write an answer to thank Max for his note, and say she would send a line a day or so later to suggest a meeting place, but an answer that omitted any reference to Maggie's bequest. At present she did not see the significance of this; she had thought only that she must have more time to think; and yet, now that she was out in the silence and the life of the awakening world — a world that had slowly opened its eyes, but was still lying quiet — she felt less inclined than ever to settle it.

Then, as she walked there came on her a memory of Lohengrin- — of that scene in the Second Act, when the dawn is breaking and the question has been asked on which all depends. Exteriorly there seemed little enough in common between the two — between the hot stage, and the low glare of the footlights and the great throbbing orchestra on the one side, and the inexpressible coolness and peace of this garden on the other. Yet, beneath, there was something that united the two; there was expectation, there was a certain sense of almost luxurious fear; there was a hint of impending loneliness.

Loneliness! That was the word she wanted; and as she dwelt on it, for the first time she understood that the word did not imply desolation, since while it meant the absence of very much, it might mean — even if it practically did not already mean — the presence of something else. For, somehow, the utter loneliness became a positive thing; it was like the darkness and silence of the little church last night; so far from being mere emptiness, all else seemed empty beside it. It was like... it was like — (she hesitated for an illustration) — like the loneliness of that Morning Star set in blue enamel; like... like the loneliness of the glimmering light, seen through the lancet window.

As the sun showed its bright rim beyond the windmills, and all colours sprang again to life, she went back into the little house, still carrying with her the white flower she had brought out. The birds, too, were beginning to answer....

Mrs. Grant was so much exercised in her mind as to the little scene of last night, that she slipped upstairs herself to see whether all was well, after hearing from Jenny that Miss Marion was still fast asleep, when she had come down. All seemed very well indeed: Miss Tenterden did not move or speak as she softly opened the door. She went away again quietly.

All round, in fact, Mrs. Grant was feeling exercised. For example, she did not know in the least whether she would be wanted here, or whether, indeed, if she was wanted, that she would consent to remain. Miss Brent had been easy enough to manage, though irritating at times: Miss Tenterden could not be managed at all. It was not that she was unreasonable, but that she was positive: she knew what she wanted, and assumed that she would get it. Yet she was not a complaining mistress. There was also the question of wages: she doubted very much whether Miss Tenterden could afford to pay her what she had been receiving from Miss Brent. On the whole she thought that she would see how the land lay, as soon as possible: she must be thinking about other plans if she were not to remain here. Accordingly she was more than a little snappish towards poor Jenny.

Her chance fell straight into her hands after breakfast; for Marion herself opened the subject, so soon as the small household consultation had been held in the parlour.

" By the way, Mrs. Grant," said Marion; " there is one other point — about your remaining on here? What do you wish to do yourself? I shall quite understand if you wish to go: though I don't in the least want you to, myself."

" Well, Miss " said Mrs. Grant; and stopped.

She wanted information, not questioning.

" I'll tell you exactly how things stand," went on Marion quietly. " My plans are at present in complete disorder. Two or three things may happen: but I am afraid I ought to say that the probabilities on the whole " — she stopped — " No: I really don't know that I can say that. I think the best thing I can say is that you will be doing me a real kindness if you will at any rate remain for the present. But, if you have any permanent position, equally good, offered you, I think I ought to advise you to take it."

This was pretty vague, thought Mrs. Grant. Well; it was what she was herself. " Thank you, Miss," she said. " Well: shall we leave it like that? " " Thank you, Miss."

" Will you say the same thing to Jenny? " "Yes, Miss." " Then I think that's all," said the girl.

It was a certain relief to Marion to contemplate spending most of that morning in business. For, first of all there were all Maggie's papers to be gone through, in accordance with the lawyers' information.

There was a bureau in Maggie's old room — supposed in the owner's lifetime to be very private and important; but never yet had Marion seen any of the drawers locked.

Naturally, therefore, it was not locked to-day; and in a few minutes all the drawers were laid out on the floor, with their contents, released at last, beginning to overflow and slip over the edges.

Marion had never seen such confusion in her life. Bills, letters, picture postcards, pamphlets, and receipts, sometimes fastened together, and more frequently loose, presently began to litter the floor; and, for two hours, the girl did nothing at all but range these into coherent heaps. (She first laid on one side a leather-bound diary which she found in a top drawer. ) Very touching and pathetic little details caught her eye now and again. There were a quantity of letters, obviously from the servant-maids to whom Maggie had ministered, occasionally annotated in her all but illegible hand.

" Very deceitful, poor thing! " was written on one. " She means well, I am sure," on another. " Send her mother at once to Ramsgate for a fortnight," on a third.

There was a paragraph cut out of a paper, very crumpled, and marked in emphatic side-lines, containing instructions as to Diseases of Parrots; there were numbers of little French cards, portraying saints and holy groups, fringed with lace-patterns: there were worn little books of devotion with their covers half off: there were two pamphlets by Anglican divines, marked all over with notes of exclamation and sarcastic comments: there was a smah1 cardboard box, with a broken lid, crammed to bursting with hideous little medals made of white metal; there were beads from broken rosaries running perpetually about the corners of drawers as she lifted out their contents. Finally, with very real emotion that drove away the beginnings of laughter to which some of her other discoveries inclined her, Marion found a complete set of letters from herself to Maggie, written from Munich, from the more formal ones beginning " Dear Miss Brent," down to the excited familiarities of " Dearest Maggie " — all fastened together in a packet with green string, sealed, and labelled " From my dear child — Munich." These, surely, could be destroyed now. Still sitting on the floor she cut the string, scraped off the sealing-wax and began to read.

Ill

It is strange how human nature is, usually, far more profoundly touched by small things than by great. A war of continents means very little to the imagination: the broken toy of a dead child, a great deal.

By the time that Marion had finished reading, half an hour before lunch, she had at any rate made up her mind on one of her two great questions: and was aware how utterly impossible it was to contemplate any longer, even in theory, the acceptance of Maggie's legacy. There was no one dramatic instant in which she decided; yet, as she laid down the last letter, and looked up, with swimming eyes, she understood that the decision had been made.

For what had been brought before her, with a vividness which recent events and emotions had obscured, was the peculiar relationship that had existed even up to eighteen months ago, between Maggie and herself. For the last year, at any rate, she had been, so to speak, emancipating herself: she had found her own feet, or had thought she had; her star had waxed brighter and larger, while Maggie's had remained the same. She had become something of a personage; Maggie had abode in her lovable obscurity.

But eighteen months ago their relations had been very nearly those of mother and child. It was Maggie who had sent her to Munich and kept her there: it had been to Maggie that she come home, vacation by vacation; it was this funny, generous, tiresome, talkative, devote woman, of abounding charity whom, little by little, she had come to regard lately with a kind of good-humoured patronage: she had laughed over her, though not exactly unkindly, with Max: her last view of her, before the shadow of death had darkened all false lights, had been one of anger and resentment for her interference. And yet if any human being could ever have had a claim to " interfere " with her, it was surely Maggie. And, in the very act of that loving intervention, she had met her death.

There was a little while before lunch. She would not haye to write to any one before the evening post. So, once more she went down into the garden to think out the consequences of her decision. She took with her the small leather-bound diary that she had set aside. On her way she met Maximilian on the stairs; she cried out a little, caught him up and went on.

It need hardly be said that Jenny had an adoration for Miss Tenterden, resembling that of a dog for his master.

Jenny was very typical of her class. She was of the country, and regarded the town with awe: she was aged eighteen, therefore she was sentimental: her sex was feminine, and therefore the chances in any case would be that she regarded an actress with secret admiration. Evidently, then, Miss Tenterden, as a traveller and a town dweller, and an operatic singer, who said kind things to her now and then, was the proper object for adoration, if not for envy; and the humble Jenny was incapable of envying any one so supremely exalted above her own station.

It was not so inevitable, but it happened to be true, that Charlie also loved Miss Tenterden from afar — which usually meant from beyond the low yew-hedge, where he was perpetually moving about in his heavy; boots and dealing with a clay soil.

These two, therefore, had many opportunities for observing their goddess — Jenny, as she passed by the open door between the kitchen and the dining-room, preparing for lunch; and Charlie as he lifted his head from his cabbages so often as he thought the young lady was looking the other way.

First Jenny noticed that Miss Marion began by sitting down, with a little book in her lap and the cat, clasping her hands under her chin, and looking meditative. (Charlie would have corroborated this, if he had been consulted.)

The next change of attitude was that Miss Marion was reading the book, not indeed carelessly, but a little rapidly. The cat was gone from her lap. Jenny saw the flash of paper twice, as she paused at the open door, and peeped out.

Next, Charlie noticed that Miss Tenterden was reading very hard indeed. She was absolutely motionless, even when Maximilian came and rubbed against her.

It was Jenny's function to ring a small handbell at the cottage door to announce to those in the garden that it was one o'clock — for the ladies to come in to lunch; and for Charlie to scrape the mud off his boots on the top of his spade and to tramp off to his mother's cottage for dinner. At one o'clock she did this: and then noticed that Miss Tenterden was no longer sitting down, but, on the contrary, walking very quickly up and down the paved path with her hands clasped behind her.

Five minutes later Mrs. Grant rebuked Jenny for not ringing loud enough, and bade her go and do it again, and to go on doing it till Miss Marion showed some sign of having heard it. This time Miss Marion, still walking, did appear to hear it; for she waved to Jenny, and went on walking for a good five minutes more, before, at last, they both heard her go into the dining-room.

There seemed to be delay after delay to-day. It was the vocation of the small handbell, having been rung at the cottage door, to be placed on the table in the dining-room for the purpose of summoning Jenny when the plates were to be changed. Yet minute after minute went by, and no summons sounded.

" Go in, child," commanded Mrs. Grant at last. " Miss Marion's forgotten to ring; and the pudding'll be burned."

" Oh! yes: come in," said Miss Marion, as Jenny appeared.

" Are you ready, Miss? "

"Ready? What for? Oh, yes; I forgot."

This was highly mysterious to Jenny. No book was visible as she took away the plates; it certainly was not absorption in any reading that had made Miss Marion forget how time was going on. After lunch Miss Marion again went into the garden.

Father Denny was often very drowsy after supper, and considered it quite compatible with zeal to doze for a few minutes then if he felt so inclined. In fact it was through this habit of his that he had been a little late, on the night of poor Miss Brent's funeral, in locking up the church; and it was through this same habit that he was even later to-night, for when he awoke at last, and looked, with the sudden alarmed alertness of a sleepy person, at the tin clock on his mantelpiece, he saw that it was nearly half-past nine.

This would never do: he had not said Matins and Lauds yet, either. However the locking of the church must come first: he seized his biretta and ran out.

His conversation with Miss Tenterden, of a few-weeks ago, had lain more heavily on his mind than it is possible for any one to understand who has not known intimately the life of a Catholic priest in an English country-village. Not only does every soul count, but every soul counts for a great deal more than anywhere else, except perhaps in the Foreign Mission Field. For the eyes of the community, always quick in English villages, are simply searching when Catholics are in question. To each and every one is committed the honour and reputation of Catholicism.

Now Father Denny was a very earnest little man, and took his duties extremely seriously. He had inherited his position from another priest who was not so earnest; and ever since his coming had set himself, with endless conscientiousness, not only to gather his sheep, but to fold them with particular care. It had been an enormous satisfaction to him when these two Catholic ladies had taken the house next the church; and the satisfaction had grown steadily when he discovered that one of them was only too anxious and proud to take entire charge of the sacristy, and that the other was willing to exercise a general supervision over the music. There had been a perceptible increase of assurance in his walk and his voice six months after the arrival of Miss Brent and Miss Tenterden.

Then, suddenly, this appalling bomb had exploded: and he had been informed by Miss Tenterden herself that she intended marrying a Protestant without even applying for a dispensation; in plain language, as he would have said, contracting a union that was not a marriage at all, and throwing off her faith to do so.

His first blind instinct had been to get rid of her at any price. If such appalling things were to happen, for heaven's sake let them happen somewhere else — but not in Standing. Yet how was he to do it? He had been informed of this under the strictest confidence — so strict indeed that he must not use his knowledge in any way; he could not hint even to Miss Tenterden herself, unless she deliberately opened the subject again, of how important it was that Standing should escape the scandal. For a few days he hoped that Miss Brent might solve the problem: but she continued to be so smiling and voluble and unconscious, that it was obvious that Miss Tenterden had told her nothing. The poor man, therefore, had nothing whatever to do, but to await the catastrophe in patience; for, from Miss Tenterden's manner, he saw that he had nothing to hope from her.

Then the second blow fell; and Miss Brent was killed.

There were mixed considerations here.

First he was extremely upset at her death, honestly, not only because it would be a dreadful trouble to get any one so energetic again to look after the sacristy; but because, in his way, he was attached to Miss Brent; that is to say, he regarded with satisfaction and pride this excellent example of the devotion of the female sex, and felt entirely confident that she, at least, would never behave in anything but an edifying manner.

There had been, however, at first one glimmer of light; and that, that it was just conceivable that Miss Tenterden now would leave Standing and go and commit her crime somewhere else. Yet even this glimmer of light, it seemed, was being extinguished; since Mrs. Mulligan had told him that Mrs. Grant had told her that poor Miss Tenterden would never be able to keep up both houses, and that it was certain that the London flat would be the one to be relinquished.

It was an appalling problem: he woke with it on his mind; he went to sleep still pondering it: he made pauses, during his mass, of unusual length.

This evening he came out in some haste. It was necessary for him — or he thought it was, to lock the sacristy door; and, as the ingenuous architect had made no entrance into the church from the presbytery, it was further necessary for him to go right up the church to get at it.

He went swiftly; and suddenly gave a kind of yelp: for, as he was putting his hand on the book-rest of the top pew on the left, he felt something move beneath it, and simultaneously became aware that something white was looking at him from below.

" I beg your pardon, Father," said Miss Tenterden's voice. " I have been waiting for you."

"I — oh! well," said Father Denny. (He thought it might not be edifying to say that he had been asleep*.)

" I am sorry to bother you, Father," said Marion without any further introduction; " but may I go to confession? Now. At once, please."

He stared at her. He remembered what he had said to her in the music-room. Then he led the way to the confessional, without a word, switching on the light as he went in.