A Dozen Ways Of Love Part 8

The elm trees were in the squire's park, and the curate looked at them sadly and thought of Herbert who had died.

Up a little lane at the end of the street he found the entrance to a low square hall. There was a small ante-room to the place of service, and in this a dull-looking man was seated polishing a candlestick. He was a crossing-sweeper by trade and a friend of the curate.

'Well, Issachar; so you've got your synagogue open again!'

The man Issachar made some sound meant for a response, but not intelligible.

'How many Jews will there be in the town?'

'Twenty that are heads of families, and two grown youths,' said Issachar.

'That's enough to keep up a service, for some of them will be rich?'

'Some are very rich,' said Issachar, wrinkling his face with satisfaction when he said the words.

'Then how is it you don't always keep up the service?'

But Issachar had no explanation to give. He polished his candlestick the more vigorously, and related at some length what he knew of the present reader, which was, in fact, nothing, except that he was a foreigner and had only offered to read while he was visiting the town.

'I have come for the service,' said the curate.

'Better not,' said Issachar; 'it's short to-night, and there'll not be many.'

The curate answered by opening the inner door and entering. There were some high pews up and down the sides of the room. There was a curtain at the farther end and a reading desk in the centre, both of which were enclosed in a railing ornamented by bra.s.s k.n.o.bs, and in which were set high posts supporting gas-lamps, nine in all, which were lit, either for heat or ceremony, and turned down to a subdued light. The evening light entered through the domed roof. Hebrew texts which the curate could not decipher were painted on the dark walls. He took off his hat reverently and sat down. There was no one there. He felt very much surprised at finding himself alone. To his impressible nervous nature it seemed that he had suddenly entered a place far removed in time and s.p.a.ce from the every-day life with which he was so familiar. He sat a long time; it was cold, and the evening light grew dim, and yet no one came. Issachar entered now and then, and made brief remarks about sundry things as he gave additional polish to the k.n.o.bs on the railing, but he always went out again.

At length a side door opened and the reader came in from his vestry. He had apparently waited in hope of a congregation, but now came in to perform his duty without their aid. Perhaps he was not so much disappointed as the curate was. It would have been very difficult to tell from looking at him what his emotions were. He was a stout large man with a coa.r.s.e brown beard. There was little to be seen of his face but the hair upon it, and one gathered the suggestion, although it was hard to know from what, that the man and his beard were not as clean as might be. He wore a black gown and an ordinary high silk hat, although pushed much farther back on his head than an Englishman would have worn it. He walked heavily and clumsily inside the railing, and stood before the desk, slowly turning over backward the leaves of the great book.

Then suddenly he began to chant in the Hebrew tongue. His voice fell mellow and sweet upon the silence, filling it with drowsy sound, as the soft music of a humble-bee will suddenly fill the silence of a woodland glade. There was no thought, only feeling, conveyed by the sound.

Issachar had gone out, and the Anglican priest sat erect, gazing at the Jew through the fading light, his attention painfully strained by the sense of loneliness and surprise. From mere habit he supposed the chant to be an introduction to a varied service, but no change came. On and on and on went the strange music, like a potent incantation, the big Jew swaying his body slightly with the rhythm, and at long intervals came the whisper of paper with the turning of the leaf.

The curate gazed and wondered until he forgot himself. Then he tried with an effort to recall who he was, and where he was, and all the details of the busy field of labour he had left just outside the door.

He wished that the walls of the square room were not so thick, that some sound from the town might come in and mingle with the chant. He strained his ear in vain to catch a word of the Hebrew which might be intelligible to him. He wondered much what sort of a man this Jew might be, actuated by what motives, impelled by what impulses to his lonely task. All the sorrow of a hope deferred through ages, and a long torture patiently borne, seemed gathered in the cadence; but the man--surely the man was no refined embodiment of the high sentiment of his psalm! And still the soft rich voice chanted the unknown language, and the daylight grew more dim.

The curate was conscious that again he tried to remember who he was, and where; and then the surroundings of the humble synagogue fell away, and he himself was standing looking at a jewel. It was a purple stone, oval-shaped and polished, perhaps about as large as the drop of dew which could hang in a harebell's heart. The stone was the colour of a harebell, and there was a ray of light in it, as if in the process of its formation the jewel had caught sight of a star, and imprisoned the tiny reflection for ever within itself. The curate moved his head from side to side to see if the ray within the stone would remain still, but it did not, turning itself to meet his eye as if the tiny star had a life and a light of its own. Then he looked at the setting, for the stone was set in steel. A zigzag-barred steel frame held it fast, and outside the zigzag bars there was a smooth ring, with some words cut upon it in Hebrew. The characters were very small; he knew, rather than saw, that they were Hebrew; but he did not know what they meant. All this time he had been stooping down, looking at this thing as if it lay very near the ground. Then suddenly he noticed upon what it was lying.

There was a steel chain fastened to it, and the chain was around the neck of a woman who lay upon the earth; the jewel was upon her breast.

But how white and cold the breast was! Surely there was no life in it.

And he observed with horror that the garments which had fallen back were oozing with water, and that the hair was wet. He hardly saw the face; for a moment he thought he saw it, and that it was the face of a Jewess, young and beautiful, but the vision pa.s.sed from him. The chant had ceased, and the rabbi was kissing his book.

Very solemnly the Jew bowed himself three times and kissed the book, and then in the twilight of the nine dim lamps he stumbled out and shut the door, without giving a glance to his one listener.

As for the young Christian priest, he was panic-stricken. When our senses themselves deceive us we are cut off from our cheerful belief in the reality of material things, or forced to face the unpleasant fact that we hold no stable relationship to them. He rushed out into the street. Issachar was at the entrance as he pa.s.sed, and he fancied he saw the face of the reader peeping at him from the vestry window, but he crushed his hat hard down on his head and strode away, courting the bl.u.s.ter of the wind, striving by the energy of action to cast off the trance that seemed to enslave him.

When he reached his own door he found the baker's wife sitting on the doorstep. It was quite dusk; perhaps that was the reason he did not recognise her at first.

'La, sir, I found them two m.u.f.fins lying unbeknown in the corner of the shelf, so I brought them round, thinking you mightn't 'ave 'ad your tea.'

'm.u.f.fins?' said the curate, as if he were not quite sure what m.u.f.fins might be. Then he began to wonder if he was really losing his wits, and he plunged into talk with the woman, saying anything and everything to convince himself that he was not asleep or mad. 'Do you know, Mrs.

Yeander, that I am going to be married?'

'Well, I am sure, sir,' said she, curtseying and smiling. 'It's a great compliment to me to hear it from your own lips; not that it's unexpected. Miss Violetta's a sweet saint, just like her ma, she is, an'

her ma's a saint if there ever was one. Mr. Higgs, the verger, says that to see her pray that length of time on her knees after the service is over in church is a touching sight.'

'But I don't think Miss Violetta is like her mother,' said the curate.

'Well no, sir; now that you mention it, perhaps she's not--at least, not in looks. But lor' sir, she's wonderful like her ma when it comes to paying a bill, not but what they're to be respected for keeping a heye on the purse. I often tell Yeander that if we were a bit more saving, like the vicar's lady, we'd lay by a bit for our old age.'

'Yes, Mrs. Yeander, yes; that would be an excellent plan,' said the curate, fumbling with his latch-key in the door. 'Suppose you come in and make my tea for me, Mrs. Yeander. I'm all alone to-night.'

'I bethought I might do that, sir, when I came along. Yeander was in the shop, and I said, Mrs. Jones having gone to see her son, that you'd 'ave no one, so I just says to Yeander, "I'll step round, an' if I'm asked I'll make tea."'

The curate lit his lamp and poked his fire, and the portly woman began to toast his m.u.f.fins. The flame lit up the placid wrinkles of her face as she knelt before it:

'But I don't think Miss Violetta is in the least like her mother,' said he again.

'Lor' sir, don't you? Well, you ought to know best. They do say what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh; but it'll be none the worse for you if she looks sharp after the spending. You're not much given to saving.'

The curate walked nervously up and down his small room.

'Make the tea strong to-night,' he said.

'Mr. Higgs, the verger, do hate the vicar's lady, sir--he do, and no mistake--but he says anybody could see with 'alf a heye that she was a real saint. The subscriptions she puts down to missions and church restorings--it's quite wonderful.'

The curate ran his hand wearily through his hair. He felt called upon to say something. 'I have the highest respect for Mrs. Moore,' he began. 'I know her to be a most devoted helpmeet to the vicar, and a truly good woman. At the same time'--he coughed--'at the same time, I should wish to say distinctly that after being n.i.g.g.ardly in her domestic affairs, which is unfortunately the case, I do not think it adds to her stock of Christian virtues to give the money thus saved to church work.'

The curate cleared his throat. It was because he was flying from himself that he had let the woman talk until this speech of his had been made necessary; but at all times his humble friends in this town were well nigh irrepressible in their talk. This woman was in full tide now.

'They do say, sir, there's a difference between honest saving and greed.

Mr. Higgs said to Yeander one day, says he, "Mrs. Moore's folks far back made their money by sharp trading, and greed's in the family, and it's the worst sort of greed, for it grasps both at 'eaven and earth, both at this life and the 'eavenly. And," says he, "no one could doubt that the lady's that way const.i.tuted that she couldn't cut a loaf of bread in 'alf without giving herself the largest share, even if it were the bread of life."'

'My good Mrs. Yeander----' began the curate in stern rebuke.

'Oh, no, sir, Mr. Higgs don't mean no harm. He only gets that riled at Mrs. Moore sometimes that he kind of lets off to Yeander and me.'

'And I don't think, Mrs. Yeander,' said the curate, for the third time, 'that Miss Violetta is at all like her mother.'

'She's young yet, sir,' said the woman. Then she went away, leaving the curate to interpret her last remark as he chose.

CHAPTER II

About a week after that there was a fine dinner given at the vicarage to welcome the curate into the family. The old squire was invited, but he refused to come. Violetta's mamma wrote and asked some of her relatives to come down from town. 'Our chosen son-in-law is not rich,' she wrote, 'but he comes of an old family, and that is a great thing. Dear Violetta will, of course, inherit my own fortune, which will be ample for them, and his good connections, with G.o.d's blessing, will complete their happiness.' So they came down. There was the vicar's brother, who was a barrister, and his wife. Then there were two sisters of Mrs. Moore, who were both very rich. One was an old maid, and one was married to a dean--she brought her husband. 'You see,' said Violetta's mamma to the curate, 'our relatives are all either law or clergy.'

There were very grand preparations made for the dinner, and Mrs. Higgs, the wife of the verger, came to the curate's rooms the day before and took away his best clothes, that she might see they were well brushed for the occasion. She did up his collar and wristbands herself, and gave them a fine gloss. Higgs brought them back just in time for the dinner.

'It's just about five years since they had such a turn-out at the vicarage,' said Higgs in a crisp little voice. 'Miss Violetta was nineteen then; she'll be twenty-four now.'