A Safety Match Part 6

_Non sine pulvere_, however. Ally, as already related, had proved fairly tractable, but Nicky (who just at present stood badly in need of the services of a competent exorcist) had almost evaded ecclesiastical conscription by a new and ingenious device. At ten-fifteen precisely she had fallen heavily down a flight of two steps and sprained her ankle. Unsympathetic Daphne, experienced in the detection of every form of malingering, had despatched her upstairs with a bottle of Mr Elliman's strongest embrocation--the property of Ally--with instructions to anoint the injured member and report herself for duty at ten-forty-five prompt. At the appointed hour Nicky, limping painfully and smiling heroically, had joined the rest of the family in the hall.

Presently Ally remarked casually--

"Rotten stink here. Furniture polish, or something."

"Yes--filthy reek!" agreed Stiffy.

"It's turpentine," cried Cilly, crinkling her nose.

"It's Elliman," said Tony.

"It's _you_, Nicky!" said everybody at once.

Daphne, who was drawing on her gloves, peeled them off again with some deliberation, and took her youngest sister by the shoulders.

"Nicky," she inquired, "how much Elliman did you use?"

That infant martyr, wincing ostentatiously, delicately protruded a foot, and exhibited a long black leg heavily swathed from knee to instep under her stocking with a bandage of colossal dimensions.

"Not more than I could help, Daph," she said. "I found one or two other bruises on my--all over me, in fact: so I--I just put a little Elliman on each. I didn't want to be a trouble to any one, so----"

"Run upstairs, Stiffy," Daphne interpolated swiftly, "and see how much Elliman is left in the bottle."

By this time Cilly had thrown open the front door and staircase windows, and the remainder of the Vereker family were fanning themselves with their Sunday hats and ostentatiously fighting for breath--an exercise in which they persevered until Stiffy reappeared carrying an empty bottle.

"Two bobs' worth!" shouted Ally. "And I meant it to last for months!

Nicky, you little _sweep_!"

Daphne glanced at the hall clock.

"Fourteen minutes!" she calculated frantically. "Yes, it can just be done. Nicky, my cherub, you shall come to church this morning if I have to _sc.r.a.pe_ you. Go on, you others! I'll follow myself as quickly as I can."

The last sentence was delivered far up the staircase, which Miss Vereker was ascending with flying feet, a tearful and unwilling appendage trailing behind her. Next moment the bathroom door banged, and the departing worshippers heard both taps turned on.

At two minutes past eleven precisely Daphne and Nicky, the former cool, collected, and as prettily dressed as any woman in the congregation, the latter scarlet as if from recent parboiling, walked demurely down the aisle just as the choir entered the chancel, l.u.s.tily bellowing a hymn which drew attention to the advantages accruing in the next world to that Servant of the Lord who should be found Waiting in his Office, in a Posture not specified--Tony used often to wonder what would happen if the Day of Judgment should fall upon a Bank holiday or Sat.u.r.day afternoon--and joined the rest of the family in the Rectory pew.

A sermon, we all know, offers unique facilities for quiet reflection.

As their father's silvery voice rose and fell in the cadences of his discourse--he had soared far above the heads of his bucolic audience, and was now disporting himself in a delectable but quite inaccessible aether of his own, where the worshippers (such of them as had not yielded to slothful repose) followed his evolutions with mystified and respectful awe, much as a crowd of citizens in a busy street gape upwards at the gambols of an aeroplane--the Rectory children wedged themselves into their own particular nooks of the pew, and prepared to get through the next twenty minutes in characteristic fashion.

Ally closed his eyes and a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of slumber, as befitted his years and dignity. But he was not asleep. He did not look comfortable. Perhaps his breakfast had disagreed with him, or possibly he was contemplating within himself the vision of a receding University and an all-too-adjacent office-stool. Daphne, with her eyes fixed on the wall opposite and her brow puckered, was pondering some domestic problem--her own extravagantly small feet, mayhap, or Wednesday's hypothetical leg of mutton. Despite her burden of care, her face looked absurdly round and childish under her big beaver hat.

One hand supported her chin in a characteristic pose, the other controlled the movements of the restless Anthony, who was impersonating something of a vibratory nature. Cilly, with glowing eyes and parted lips, was reading the Marriage Service in her Prayerbook. Nicky, whose recent ablutions had apparently purged her of outward sin only, had pulled forward two long wisps of black hair from behind her ears, and by crossing these under her nose had provided herself with a very realistic and terrifying pair of moustaches, by portentous twistings of which, a.s.sisted by the rolling of a frenzied eye, she was endeavouring to make poor Stiffy laugh. That right-minded youth, though hard pressed, had so far withstood temptation by resolutely reciting to himself a favourite excerpt from Bradshaw's Railway Guide, beginning "Brighton (Central), Preston Park, Burgess Hill, Ha.s.socks" ... and ending with ... "Grosvenor Road, Victoria,"--a sedative exercise to which he was much addicted at moments of bodily anguish or mental stress; but it was plain that his defence was weakening.

Fortunately, the approaching explosion, which would have been of a cataclysmal nature,--Stiffy was not a boy to do things by halves,--was averted by a change of demeanour on the part of the temptress. Her quick ear had caught some unaccustomed sound behind her. Letting go her moustaches, which immediately a.s.sumed a more usual position, she squirmed round in her seat and gently parted the red rep curtains which separated the Rectory pew from that of Kirkley Abbey. An excited gurgle apprised her fellow-worshippers of the fact that some unusual sight had met her eyes.

What Nicky saw was this.

Immediately opposite to her improvised peep-hole sat a man--a large man with square shoulders and an immobile face. He was clean-shaven, with two strong lines running from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth--a mouth which even in repose looked determined and grim. He possessed a square jaw and rather craggy brows. It was difficult to decide if he were sleeping or no, for though his eyes were closed there was none of the abandon of slumber about his pose. His most noticeable feature was the set of his eyebrows, which, instead of being arched or level, ran upwards and outwards in a diagonal direction, and gave him a distinctly Satanic appearance--a circ.u.mstance which Nicky noted with sympathetic approval. He was dressed in the somewhat _degage_ Sabbath attire affected by Englishmen spending the week-end in the country, and his feet were perched upon the seat opposite to him.

Presently, for some cause unknown--possibly Nicky's hard breathing--he opened his eyes.

Immediately in front of him the stranger beheld a small excited face, a pair of saucer-like blue eyes, and a wide but attractive mouth--the whole vision framed in dusty red rep. The face was flushed, the eyes glowed, and the mouth was wide open.

The picture, suddenly surprised in its inspection by a pair of the shrewdest and most penetrating eyes it had ever beheld, dropped hurriedly out of its frame and disappeared. If Nicky had waited a moment longer she would have received a less one-sided impression of the stranger, for almost simultaneously with the discovery of the apparition in the peep-hole the man smiled. Instantly his whole face changed. The outer corners of his eyebrows descended, the crease between them disappeared, and magnificent teeth gleamed for a moment in the dim religious light of the pew.

Nicky leaned across to her eldest sister and whispered huskily:--

"There's somebody in the other pew. I think it's the Devil. Look yourself!"

But Daphne, deep in domestic mental arithmetic, smiled and shook her head; and Nicky received little more encouragement from the rest of the family. The profession of scare-monger and exploiter of mares'

nests, though enjoyable on the whole, has its drawbacks: if you get hold of a genuine scare or an authentic mare's nest, n.o.body believes you.

The sermon began to draw to a close, and a few minutes later the Rector descended from the clouds and gave out the final hymn, prefacing his announcement by an intimation that the offertory that day would be devoted to the needs of the Children's Cottage Hospital in the neighbouring county town. His appeal was characteristic.

"Money," he mused, "is the most hampering and perplexing thing in this life. It is so artificial and unnecessary. I often sigh for a world where all commerce will be in kind--where a cheque on the Bank of Grat.i.tude will settle the weekly bills, and 'I thank you!' be regarded as legal tender up to any amount. But there is no give and take in these days. Everything, from Life and Love down to the raiment we wear, is duly appraised and ticketed, and if we stand in need of these things we must render a material tale of pounds and pence or go without. No wonder men call this the Iron Age! But, though money as a rule brings nothing in its train but disappointment and regret (and therefore it is better to have too little than too much), there are times and seasons when it is permitted to us to purchase happiness with it. To-day gives us one of these opportunities. Do not let that opportunity slip. _Post est Occasio calva._" (Respectful intake of breath on the part of the congregation.) "I do not urge you to give on the plea put forward in a hymn that you will find in your books--a hymn written by a man who should have known better--a hymn which shall never, so long as I am Rector of this parish, emerge from the obscurity of the printed page--advocating generosity in almsgiving on the ground that contributions to the offertory on earth will be refunded at the rate of a hundred thousand per cent in heaven. I do not ask you to give either much or little. Very few of us here are over-burdened with this world's goods. Still, we can each afford to buy _some_ happiness to-day, at a very low rate. And it will not be transitory or temporary happiness either; for every time hereafter that your daily task or a country walk takes you past the Children's Hospital at Tilney, that happiness will blossom again with ever-reviving fragrance in your hearts. Let us sing Hymn number three hundred and sixty-nine--

'Thine arm, O Lord, in days of old Was strong to heal and save....'"

There was a general upheaval of the congregation and a clatter of rustic boots; the little organ gave a premonitory rumble, and the hymn began.

The hymn after the sermon is not, as a rule--to-day was an exception--an impressive canticle. _Imprimis_, it is of abnormal length and little coherence, having apparently been composed for the sole purpose of lasting out the collection of the offertory; _item_, the congregation is furtively engaged in retrieving umbrellas from under seats and gliding into overcoats. Hence it was always a pleasant diversion to the Rectory children to follow the movements of the two churchwardens as they ran their G.o.dly race up the aisle in the pursuit of alms and oblations. They even risked small sums on the result. When the Squire and Mr Murgatroyd (Stationer and Dealer in Fancy Goods) stepped majestically from their respective pews and set to work on this particular morning, Daphne produced five sixpences and handed them to her brothers and sisters. Nicky, in her anxiety to see what sum the stranger in the Kirkley Abbey pew would contribute to the total, received her own contribution with such nonchalance that the coin slipped from her hand, and was being hunted for among ha.s.socks upon the floor at the moment when Mr Murgatroyd reached the stranger's pew.

Nicky found her sixpence, and resumed an upright att.i.tude just in time to hear (in a pause between two verses) a faint papery rustle on the other side of the curtain.

A moment later Mr Murgatroyd opened the door of the Rectory pew, with his usual friendly air of dropping in for a cup of tea, and presented the bag. The children put in their sixpences one by one. Nicky's turn came last. She peered into the bag, and her sharp eyes caught sight of something white protruding from amid the silver and copper.

Taking the bag from Mr Murgatroyd's hands--she controlled that indulgent bachelor as she willed: he counted it a pleasure to turn his stock inside out on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon whenever Miss Veronica came in with a penny to spend--Nicky deliberately drew out a piece of folded crinkly white paper. This, laying the offertory bag upon the baize-covered table in the middle of the pew, she carefully unfolded, and perused the staring black legend inscribed upon the flimsy white background. When she raised her eyes they were those of an owlet suffering from mental shock.

"Golly!" she observed in bell-like tones. "The Devil has put in a ten-pound note!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

A SABBATH-DAY'S JOURNEY.

The Rectory children, washed and combed for Sunday dinner, sat at ease in the old nursery--promoted to schoolroom since Tony went into knickerbockers--and discussed the munificent stranger of the morning.

Their interest in his movements and ident.i.ty had been heightened by the fact that after service was over he had proceeded to the right instead of the left on leaving the Kirkley Abbey pew, and, turning his broad back upon an undisguisedly interested congregation, had stalked up the chancel and disappeared through the door leading to the vestry.

"I _wonder_ what he went for," said Cilly for the third time.

"Perhaps he was going to give Dad more banknotes," suggested the optimistic Stiffy.