XXII

Time was pa.s.sing. One Sunday morning in November, while the vicar of St.

Saviour's preached a sermon about immortality, she looked at the familiar faces of the congregation and thought sadly of the impermanence of all earthly things.

So many of the people she had known were gone; so few remained, and these each showed so plainly the havoc and the change wrought by the flying years. She glanced at the card in the metal frame that was half hidden by her prayer-books--"Mrs. Marsden, two seats." Once the writing on the card read "Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, three seats," and she had sat there with her husband and mother. Then the writing changed again--"Mrs.

Thompson, two seats." How many years she and Enid had been here together!

And the other people in the pew--a man and a wife, with little children who had slowly grown into men and women; two elderly ladies; a widower and his sister--all had gone. She glanced across the side aisle at a white-haired feeble old man, and a wizened monkey-like old dame who nodded and shook unceasingly--Mr. Bennett, the High Street butcher, and his palsied helpmate;--and she thought of what they were when first she came to St. Saviour's: a hearty vigorous couple in the prime of life, the man seeming big enough to knock down one of his bullocks, and the woman singing the hymns so loudly that her neighbours could not hear the choir. Now they had dwindled and shrunk to this--nerveless arms, bloodless hues, and frozen silence.

Wherever she turned her eyes, she saw the same signs and could read the same story--bowed backs, bald heads, blue-veined hands. Everyone had grown old, everyone had grown feeble, of those who had seen her as a young bride, as a young mother. And no new faces seemed to have replaced the faces that had vanished. Fashion in recent years had leaned steadily towards the other church. Holy Trinity possessed lighted candles on its altars, embroidered copes on its priests, stringed instruments in its organ loft: it was there that all the young people went--to be thrilled with strange music, to be charmed with smart hats, to be set throbbing with irrelevant dreams of courtship and love. Only the old and the worn out had been true to quiet peaceful St. Saviour's.

She herself was absolutely faithful to the church that she had used and loved for so long. It had become her place of rest, her harbour of refuge. It was only here that she ever felt quite at peace. She knew that here she was safe for an hour at least; while the service lasted no one could molest her; no one could even speak to her: during this brief hour she belonged to herself.

She could not forget the outside world, but she resolutely tried not to think of it. Just now she had driven away a thought of Marsden. He was lying in bed; perhaps he would sleep till late afternoon; perhaps he would be lazily getting ready for his food when she returned to the house;--but she need not think of him. He would not join her here. She folded her hands, and listened to the kind old vicar as he told her of things that are incomprehensible, immutable, and everlasting.

A man had come up the side aisle, and was stupidly staring at the people in the pews. Mrs. Marsden, glancing at him inattentively, vaguely wondered why he didn't take one of the many empty seats and sit down.

She knew him very well. He was a loafer of the better cla.s.s; and on Sundays he regularly made his beat up and down St. Saviour's Court, picking up odd six-pences by running off to fetch cabs, bringing forgotten umbrellas, or retailing second-hand newspapers to laggards who had missed the paper-boy.

Presently he discovered Mrs. Marsden's pew, entered it, and whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"You're wanted at the house. The gentleman said you was to come at once."

Followed by this seedy messenger, she hastened from the church.

"What is it?" she asked him when they got outside.

"I dunno. The gentleman hollered to me from the door, and sent me to fetch you."

The house door stood ajar; and her husband, in his dressing-gown and slippers, was anxiously waiting for her and guarding the foot of the stairs.

"All right," he said to the loafer. "I'll remember you another time;"

and he shut the door and bolted it.

From the top of the stairs there came a sound of wailing and lamentation.

"Jane, look here. I want you to stop this fool's mouth--what's her name--Susan. I've somehow upset her. And that infernal cook is encouraging her to squall the house down."

Without a word Mrs. Marsden hurried upstairs. The cook, a sour-visaged woman of thirty-five, was on the threshold of the kitchen; and Susan, the apple-cheeked housemaid, was clinging to cook's arm, and sobbing and howling.

"Emily--Susan," said Mrs. Marsden quietly, "what _is_ all this noise and fuss about?"

"The master frightened her," said the cook, very sourly, "and she wishes to go to the police."

"The police! What nonsense! Why?"

"The master rang, and she took up his shaving water--and what happened frightened her."

"Where's father and mother?" cried Susan. "I want my mother. Take me home to tell father. Or let me go to the police station, and I'll tell them."

Marsden had followed his wife upstairs, and he showed himself at the kitchen door. At sight of him, Susan ceased talking and began to howl again.

"She's frightened to death," said the cook.

Mrs. Marsden was patting the girl's shoulder, studying her tear-stained face eagerly and intently.

"There, there," she said gently, as if rea.s.sured by all that the red cheeks and streaming eyes had told her. "I think this is a great noise about nothing at all."

"Of course it is," said Marsden, at the door.

"Don't leave me alone with him," bellowed Susan. "I won't be kep' a prisoner. I want to see my mother--and my father."

"Hush--Susan," said Mrs. Marsden, soothingly. "Compose yourself. There is no need to cry any more."

"No need to have cried at all," said Marsden.

Obviously he was afraid: he alternately bl.u.s.tered and cringed.

"You silly girl," he said cringingly, "what rubbish have you got into your head? I pa.s.s a few chaffing remarks--and you suddenly behave like a raving lunatic." And then he went on bl.u.s.teringly. "Talk about going!

It's _us_ who ought to dismiss you for your impudence, and your disrespect."

"You did something to frighten her, sir," said the cook.

"It's a lie--a d.a.m.ned lie."

"If so," said the cook, with concentrated sourness, "why not let her go to the police, as she wishes?"

"No," shouted Marsden. "I can't have my servants libelling and scandalizing me. I've a public position in this town--and I won't have people sneaking out of my house to spread a lot of innuendos against their employers."

Then he beckoned his wife, and spoke to her in a whisper. "For G.o.d's sake, shut her up. Give her a present--square her. Shut her mouth somehow.... It's all right, you know--but we mustn't give her the chance of slandering me;" and he went out of the kitchen.

But he returned almost immediately, to beckon and whisper again.

"Jane. Don't let her out of your sight."

So this was her task for the remainder of the day of rest--to sit and chat with a blubbering housemaid until a pacification of nerves and mind had been achieved.

She performed the task, but found it a fatiguing one. Susan made her labours arduous by returning to the starting point every time that any progress had been made.

"I'd sooner go back 'ome at once, ma'am."

"I think that would be a pity, Susan. If you leave me like this, I may not be able to get you another place. Why should you throw up a comfortable situation?"

"It isn't comfortable."

"Susan, you shouldn't say that. Haven't I treated you kindly?"