The Shuttle Part 75

Betty laid her package of sewing cotton and knitting wool quietly on the blue and white checked tablecloth.

"Who--is he?" she asked.

"His lordship--and him just saved all Dunstan parish from death--to go like this!"

In Stornham village and in all others of the neighbourhood the feminine att.i.tude towards Mount Dunstan had been one of strongly emotional admiration. The thwarted female longing for romance--the desire for drama and a hero had been fed by him. A fine, big young man, one that had been "spoke ill of" and regarded as an outcast, had suddenly turned the tables on fortune and made himself the central figure of the county, the talk of gentry in their grand houses, of cottage women on their doorsteps, and labourers stopping to speak to each other by the roadside. Magic stories had been told of him, beflowered with dramatic detail. No incident could have been related to his credit which would not have been believed and improved upon. Shut up in his village working among his people and unseen by outsiders, he had become a popular idol.

Any sc.r.a.p of news of him--any rumour, true or untrue, was seized upon and excitedly spread abroad. Therefore Mrs. Bester wept as she talked, and, if the truth must be told, enjoyed the situation. She was the first to tell the story to her ladyship's sister herself, as well as to Mrs.

Welden and old Doby.

"It's Tom as brought it in," she said. "He's my brother, miss, an' he's one of the ringers. He heard it from Jem Wesgate, an' he heard it at Toomy's farm. They've been keepin' it hid at the Mount because the people that's ill hangs on his lordship so that the doctors daren't let them know the truth. They've been told he had to go to London an' may come back any day. What Tom was sayin', miss, was that we'd all know when it was over, for we'd hear the church bell toll here same as it'd toll at Dunstan, because they ringers have talked it over an' they're goin' to talk it over to-day with the other parishes--Yangford an'

Meltham an' Dunholm an' them. Tom says Stornham ringers met just now at The Clock an' said that for a man that's stood by labouring folk like he has, toll they will, an' so ought the other parishes, same as if he was royalty, for he's made himself nearer. They'll toll the minute they hear it, miss. Lord help us!" with a fresh outburst of crying. "It don't seem like it's fair as it should be. When we hear the bell toll, miss----"

"Don't!" said her ladyship's handsome sister suddenly. "Please don't say it again."

She sat down by the table, and resting her elbows on the blue and white checked cloth, covered her face with her hands. She did not speak at all. In this tiny room, with these two old souls who loved her, she need not explain. She sat quite still, and Mrs. Welden after looking at her for a few seconds was prompted by some sublimely simple intuition, and gently sidled Mrs. Bester and her youngest into the little kitchen, where the copper was.

"Her helpin' him like she did, makes it come near," she whispered.

"Dessay it seems as if he was a'most like a relation."

Old Doby sat and looked at his G.o.ddess. In his slowly moving old brain stirred far-off memories like long-dead things striving to come to life.

He did not know what they were, but they wakened his dim eyes to a new seeing of the slim young shape leaning a little forward, the soft cloud of hair, the fair beauty of the cheek. He had not seen anything like it in his youth, but--it was Youth itself, and so was that which the ringers were so soon to toll for; and for some remote and unformed reason, to his scores of years they were pitiful and should be cheered.

He bent forward himself and put out his ancient, veined and knotted, gnarled and trembling hand, to timorously touch the arm of her he worshipped and adored.

"G.o.d bless ye!" he said, his high, cracked voice even more shrill and thin than usual. "G.o.d bless ye!" And as she let her hands slip down, and, turning, gently looked at him, he nodded to her speakingly, because out of the dimness of his being, some part of Nature's working had strangely answered and understood.

CHAPTER XLVI

LISTENING

On her way back to the Court her eyes saw only the white road before her feet as she walked. She did not lift them until she found herself pa.s.sing the lych-gate at the entrance to the churchyard. Then suddenly she looked up at the square grey stone tower where the bells hung, and from which they called the village to church, or chimed for weddings--or gave slowly forth to the silent air one heavy, regular stroke after another. She looked and shuddered, and spoke aloud with a curious, pa.s.sionate imploring, like a child's.

"Oh, don't toll! Don't toll! You must not! You cannot!" Terror had sprung upon her, and her heart was being torn in two in her breast. That was surely what it seemed like--this agonising ache of fear. Now from hour to hour she would be waiting and listening to each sound borne on the air. Her thought would be a possession she could not escape. When she spoke or was spoken to, she would be listening--when she was silent every echo would hold terror, when she slept--if sleep should come to her--her hearing would be awake, and she would be listening--listening even then. It was not Betty Vanderpoel who was walking along the white road, but another creature--a girl whose brain was full of abnormal thought, and whose whole being made pa.s.sionate outcry against the thing which was being slowly forced upon her. If the bell tolled--suddenly, the whole world would be swept clean of life--empty and clean. If the bell tolled.

Before the entrance of the Court she saw, as she approached it, the vicarage pony carriage, standing as it had stood on the day she had returned from her walk on the marshes. She felt it quite natural that it should be there. Mrs. Brent always seized upon any fragment of news, and having seized on something now, she had not been able to resist the excitement of bringing it to Lady Anstruthers and her sister.

She was in the drawing-room with Rosalie, and was full of her subject and the emotion suitable to the occasion. She had even attained a certain modified dampness of handkerchief. Rosalie's handkerchief, however, was not damp. She had not even attempted to use it, but sat still, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears, which, when she saw Betty, brimmed over and slipped helplessly down her cheeks.

"Betty!" she exclaimed, and got up and went towards her, "I believe you have heard."

"In the village, I heard something--yes," Betty answered, and after giving greeting to Mrs. Brent, she led her sister back to her chair, and sat near her.

This--the thought leaped upon her--was the kind of situation she must be prepared to be equal to. In the presence of these who knew nothing, she must bear herself as if there was nothing to be known. No one but herself had the slightest knowledge of what the past months had brought to her--no one in the world. If the bell tolled, no one in the world but her father ever would know. She had no excuse for emotion. None had been given to her. The kind of thing it was proper that she should say and do now, in the presence of Mrs. Brent, it would be proper and decent that she should say and do in all other cases. She must comport herself as Betty Vanderpoel would if she were moved only by ordinary human sympathy and regret.

"We must remember that we have only excited rumour to depend upon," she said. "Lord Mount Dunstan has kept his village under almost military law. He has put it into quarantine. No one is allowed to leave it, so there can be no direct source of information. One cannot be sure of the entire truth of what one hears. Often it is exaggerated cottage talk.

The whole neighbourhood is wrought up to a fever heat of excited sympathy. And villagers like the drama of things."

Mrs. Brent looked at her admiringly, it being her fixed habit to admire Miss Vanderpoel, and all such as Providence had set above her.

"Oh, how wise you are, Miss Vanderpoel!" she exclaimed, even devoutly.

"It is so nice of you to be calm and logical when everybody else is so upset. You are quite right about villagers enjoying the dramatic side of troubles. They always do. And perhaps things are not so bad as they say.

I ought not to have let myself believe the worst. But I quite broke down under the ringers--I was so touched."

"The ringers?" faltered Lady Anstruthers

"The leader came to the vicar to tell him they wanted permission to toll--if they heard tolling at Dunstan. Weaver's family lives within hearing of Dunstan church bells, and one of his boys is to run across the fields and bring the news to Stornham. And it was most touching, Miss Vanderpoel. They feel, in their rustic way, that Lord Mount Dunstan has not been treated fairly in the past. And now he seems to them a hero and a martyr--or like a great soldier who has died fighting."

"Who MAY die fighting," broke from Miss Vanderpoel sharply.

"Who--who may----" Mrs. Brent corrected herself, "though Heaven grant he will not. But it was the ringers who made me feel as if all really was over. Thank you, Miss Vanderpoel, thank you for being so practical and--and cool."

"It WAS touching," said Lady Anstruthers, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g over again.

"And what the villagers feel is true. It goes to one's heart," in a little outburst. "People have been unkind to him! And he has been lonely in that great empty place--he has been lonely. And if he is dying to-day, he is lonely even as he dies--even as he dies."

Betty drew a deep breath. For one moment there seemed to rise before her vision of a huge room, whose stately size made its bareness a more desolate thing. And Mr. Penzance bent low over the bed. She tore her thought away from it.

"No! No!" she cried out in low, pa.s.sionate protest. "There will be love and yearning all about him everywhere. The villagers who are waiting--the poor things he has worked for--the very ringers themselves, are all pouring forth the same thoughts. He will feel even ours--ours too! His soul cannot be lonely."

A few minutes earlier, Mrs. Brent had been saying to herself inwardly: "She has not much heart after all, you know." Now she looked at her in amazement.

The blue bells were under water in truth--drenched and drowned. And yet as the girl stood up before her, she looked taller--more the magnificent Miss Vanderpoel than ever--though she expressed a new meaning.

"There is one thing the villagers can do for him," she said. "One thing we can all do. The bell has not tolled yet. There is a service for those who are--in peril. If the vicar will call the people to the church, we can all kneel down there--and ask to be heard. The vicar will do that I am sure--and the people will join him with all their hearts."

Mrs. Brent was overwhelmed.

"Dear, dear, Miss Vanderpoel!" she exclaimed. "THAT is touching, indeed it is! And so right and so proper. I will drive back to the village at once. The vicar's distress is as great as mine. You think of everything.

The service for the sick and dying. How right--how right!"

With a sense of an increase of value in herself, the vicar, and the vicarage, she hastened back to the pony carriage, but in the hall she seized Betty's hand emotionally.

"I cannot tell you how much I am touched by this," she murmured. "I did not know you were--were a religious girl, my dear."

Betty answered with grave politeness.

"In times of great pain and terror," she said, "I think almost everybody is religious--a little. If that is the right word."

There was no ringing of the ordinary call to service. In less than an hour's time people began to come out of their cottages and wend their way towards the church. No one had put on his or her Sunday clothes. The women had hastily rolled down their sleeves, thrown off their ap.r.o.ns, and donned everyday bonnets and shawls. The men were in their corduroys, as they had come in from the fields, and the children wore their pinafores. As if by magic, the news had flown from house to house, and each one who had heard it had left his or her work without a moment's hesitation. They said but little as they made their way to the church.

Betty, walking with her sister, was struck by the fact that there were more of them than formed the usual Sunday morning congregation. They were doing no perfunctory duty. The men's faces were heavily moved, most of the women wiped their eyes at intervals, and the children looked awed. There was a suggestion of hurried movement in the step of each--as if no time must be lost--as if they must begin their appeal at once.

Betty saw old Doby tottering along stiffly, with his granddaughter and Mrs. Welden on either side of him. Marlow, on his two sticks, was to be seen moving slowly, but steadily.

Within the ancient stone walls, stiff old knees bent themselves with care, and faces were covered devoutly by work-hardened hands. As she pa.s.sed through the churchyard Betty knew that eyes followed her affectionately, and that the touching of foreheads and dropping of curtsies expressed a special sympathy. In each mind she was connected with the man they came to pray for--with the work he had done--with the danger he was in. It was vaguely felt that if his life ended, a bereavement would have fallen upon her. This the girl knew.

The vicar lifted his bowed head and began his service. Every man, woman and child before him responded aloud and with a curious fervour--not in decorous fear of seeming to thrust themselves before the throne, making too much of their pet.i.tions, in the presence of the gentry. Here and there sobs were to be heard. Lady Anstruthers followed the service timorously and with tears. But Betty, kneeling at her side, by the round table in the centre of the great square Stornham pew, which was like a room, bowed her head upon her folded arms, and prayed her own intense, insistent prayer.

"G.o.d in Heaven!" was her inward cry. "G.o.d of all the worlds! Do not let him die. 'If ye ask anything in my name that I will do.' Christ said it.

In the name of Jesus of Nazareth--do not let him die! All the worlds are yours--all the power--listen to us--listen to us. Lord, I believe--help thou my unbelief. If this terror robs me of faith, and I pray madly--forgive, forgive me. Do not count it against me as sin. You made him. He has suffered and been alone. It is not time--it is not time yet for him to go. He has known no joy and no bright thing. Do not let him go out of the warm world like a blind man. Do not let him die. Perhaps this is not prayer, but raging. Forgive--forgive! All power is gone from me. G.o.d of the worlds, and the great winds, and the myriad stars--do not let him die!"