MISS SILEXA
THE small town of St. Elvis was early astir the following morning with
tidings of the wreck. Dick Rees, from Clythwr Farm, half-way down the
valley, had been among the first to bring the news, and knots of eager
talkers and listeners soon gathered in the principal street, round
the steps of the old stone cross, to add to the gossip which grew as
rapidly as a rolling snowball.
"Who could she be? What would happen to the child? Who would be at the
inquest? And when would the burying take place?" were the foremost
among the questions on that autumn morning.
The small corner shop, kept by Meg Evans, the postmistress, was soon
filled to overflowing, and Nancy Lewis found herself a most important
personage, as she let out, bit by bit, all the slower in proportion to
the anxiety of her hearers, the particulars of the sad scene of the
night before.
"She's a lady, whatever they may say," repeated Nancy, "for her hands
are as white as yon cloud, and never been used to hard work, for sure;
and her beautiful long hair was a-hanging about her like seaweed when
they brought her in, and the baby bleating like a lamb for its mother.
Indeed, it's as sweet a corpse as ever I looked upon."
"Ah well, ah well, poor thing, her troubles are over now." "Indeed
and indeed, I'm sorry from my heart," said one and another, while
each woman secretly resolved to visit Lettice Gwynne's cottage before
the day was much further advanced; for a death in St. Elvis or its
peculiarly healthy neighbourhood was such a rare event that the sight
of the body was not to be resisted.
Old John Jenkins, the pew-opener, discussed the matter with Will Jones,
the ancient gravedigger, who stood leaning on his spade just inside the
churchyard gate. And Old Dinah Jones, wife to the latter, lost no time
in hurrying up in high hat and cloak, stick in hand, from Porthmynwr to
the Rectory kitchen.
There Miss Silexa Pryse found her scaring Molly the servant with facts,
which Dinah affirmed to be a perfect fulfilment of her prophecies
concerning corpse-lights and ghost-funerals. The girl stood, kettle
in hand, with wide staring eyes of fright and wonder, watching her
narrator, while Eudora, a little child of six years old, crouched
beside the dresser, terrified by this dismal story of death and
drowning.
The effect of Miss Silexa's entrance was like that of a flash of
lightning.
"What are you standing staring there for, you great goose?" said she,
angrily facing the petrified girl. "Get on with your work, and remember
life's short enough to do it in; that's 'your' lesson for to-day if
you'll learn it, you idle wench."
"Eh! But, Miss Pryse—have you heard?" interrupted Old Dinah.
"Heard!" screamed Silexa. "Who could help hearing, I should like to
know; with all the women like a pack of crows over a bit of meat, and
the men with their tongues wagging like a thirsty dog's? Of course we
have heard. You didn't think but that the Rectory would be the first to
be told. And now I suppose you've been gabbling on to Molly all your
pack of lies and nonsense about corpse-candles and such-like rubbish,
and you think it all true because God in His wise providence has chosen
to take that poor soul unto Himself, and her body is to lie with us
here at St. Elvis. 'Tis a pity you have not got something better to
think about.
"Here, Dora, child, run and feed the fowls; they are calling for their
breakfast. You will find the corn-basket on the store-room table.
"I should have thought you would have known better," she added, as the
child ran off, "than to talk such stuff before that baby, who is as
frightened as a bird at all times, with that scared look in her blue
eyes. Go home, Di. I've no charing to be done to-day, and you only
hinder Molly if your hands are not scrubbing or carrying, and she's
idle enough as it is. Here, wait a minute."
And the mistress dived into the larder, reappearing in the space of
time that the old woman took to hobble across the kitchen to the door.
"I expect you haven't had your breakfast; gossip is as satisfying as
food, no doubt. Take this plate of potatoes and this bit of dripping,
and fry yourself a good meal, and to-morrow there'll be a day's work
for you here, for we shall be busy."
Old Dinah grasped the plate with a thankful clutch as her bright
eyes twinkled greedily over it, but with her thanks there mingled
disappointed mutterings about the news she thought she had been the
first to bring, and Miss Silexa's reception thereof.
Miss Pryse waited until her old pensioner had hobbled across the
courtyard, and out at the gate, then she shut the door with a sharp,
decisive slam, as if setting the seal to what she had been saying, and
stepped briskly through the now empty kitchen.
Molly, at the present juncture of things, thought it prudent to be out
of the way. So, quickly putting on the kettle, she vanished into the
front parlour to set the breakfast.
Her mistress did not follow her there, but turned into her father's
study, where we will take a sketch of her for the reader's benefit.
The peculiarities of her morning toilet did not set off her tall, gaunt
figure to the best advantage—the faded calico lining pinned up round
her waist being all that was seen of the skirt of her dress. An old
brown woollen shawl, crossed and tied behind in a clumsy knot, covered
the body, and a pocket-handkerchief was bound closely over her hair in
lieu of a cap. She was nearly forty, but her keen grey eyes still kept
the restless activity of youth, and only the purest truth could stand
before their penetrating gaze. The broad forehead, the aquiline nose,
and firm, decisive lips, still bore testimony to the beauty of former
days, though time had robbed her face of its freshness. She was a lady
born—no one could doubt it who looked at her for an instant—but one who
utterly scorned appearances, or what people might say or think of her.
The sun rarely caught her napping; for generally long before his rays
had warmed the shady corner of the valley in which the old house stood,
she was attending to her live stock in the farmyard, or, as she termed
it, "getting beforehand with the day."
Sometimes there were visitors staying at the Rectory, but though it
were my Lord Bishop himself, it made no difference to Silexa Pryse—her
broom would be heard thumping down the staircase as usual, and her
voice calling to the luckless Molly to come hither and thither. St.
Elvis would have thought something had surely happened to the good
lady, if it had not seen her day by day tramp in high pattens to and
from the village well, with arms bared to the elbow, carrying her
dripping buckets, or holding her apron full of vegetables culled from
the kitchen garden on the opposite side of the road. Her hand, rough
and red with honest labour, was stretched out in friendly clasp, alike
to rich and poor, for a hearty shake.
She was a general favourite, in spite of her sharp manner and still
sharper tongue, for no case of real poverty or deserving distress
was ever disregarded by her, though she was altogether merciless and
without pity, where virtue was held lightly or deceit discovered.
Kind-hearted to the very core, she yet lacked tenderness in manner;
and this it was that made little children tremble and turn away, and
the timid shrink from telling her their troubles. The hard, uninviting
shell held a sound kernel, but those who failed to penetrate the
outside would never know the worth concealed within.
The study of the Rev. Theophilus Pryse appeared to have been furnished
nearly a century ago. The carpet scarcely revealed the straggling
pattern on its shabby thread-worn surface; the table with its numerous
clawed legs seemed ever on the defensive, and the straight-backed
chairs were about as hard and uncomfortable as wood and horsehair
combined could make them. Nevertheless, Silexa's duster still made its
daily careful circuit over the most superannuated furniture until the
last speck of dust sped swiftly off to settle elsewhere.
On one side of the fireplace, against the dingy red and buff paper,
hung a framed sampler, which informed the inquiring reader that one
Margaret Pryse achieved this work of art early in the century. The
design was unique. Two trees of the candelabrum type stood on either
side of a square house, above the smoking chimneys of which rose an arc
of birds and flower-buds of rainbow-hues, surmounted by two crab-like
cherubs, who struggled to support between them a golden crown twice as
large as themselves. The words, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I
will give thee a crown of life," and "Gloria in excelsis," filled the
remaining space, beyond which an elaborate border completed the whole.
Corresponding to this, on the other side of the old-fashioned chimney
mirror, was a portrait of a young girl roughly sketched in chalks.
Silexa remembered watching her brother draw every line of it, and as
she looked, the long, dreary distance of years seemed suddenly spanned,
and her only sister was standing beside her again. The story of the
wreck and the motherless babe at Porthmynwr recalled the history of
another life so vividly, that ere she was aware, tears had stolen into
her eyes, and she sunk down on the nearest seat, covering her face with
her hands.
But the sound of the child's footsteps in the garden at once restored
her frigid dignity, and she hastily rose, vexed with herself for
having yielded to her feelings. No one should ever see her sorrow; it
was sacred, and invited no sympathy. None but God knew of the well of
tenderness that lay so deep beneath the still surface.
Meanwhile Eudora, on being dismissed from the kitchen, gladly escaped
into the dewy sunshine of the garden. The little lawn lay green and
sparkling in morning light. And though the storm of the previous night
had snapped the fastenings of the rose-trees nailed against the wall
of the house, leaving trailed and draggled branches desolate on the
ground, and leaves and twigs hurled and scattered about, there still
swayed a cluster of monthly rosebuds above the study window, freshly
opening in pearly pink, and shaking off showers of shimmering drops as
the breeze tossed them to and fro.
The sight of sunshine and flowers brought a smile into the pale,
frightened, little face, their life and beauty dismissing some of the
fear that held her spellbound while listening to Di's dismal tale. On
she ran, brushing past the wet bushes until she came to the farmyard,
when the cackling chorus that always greeted the corn-basket began
at once, bringing more and more cheer into the child's heart, as she
watched the fluttering fowls scuffle and scramble for the scattered
seed. But while the small hand let the grain fall, her heart pondered
the words she had heard in the kitchen. How she longed to run to
Lettice Gwynne and ask her all about the matter!—Dear, kind Lettice,
whose cottage was of all others the retreat she loved best.
But Di had said the dead body was lying there! Perhaps it was stretched
out beside the old chest where she and Davie played, and arranged their
seaweed and shells. No, she could not go there. But the dear little
baby! Di said there was a baby. Oh, how she had longed for a little
sister to play with and love in her lonely hours. She could remember
Ruth, and how Lettice used to let her hold her in her arms as she
sat on a low stool beside the cottage hearth, and now there was only
a daisy-dappled grave, and baby had gone away to God. Had God sent
Lettice this baby instead? Oh, if Davie would come and tell her. She
dared not ask Aunt Silexa. How could she find out?
The child sauntered slowly back to the rustic seat beneath the willow
tree, thinking, thinking, until she was suddenly startled from her
reverie by her aunt's sharp voice calling her to come to breakfast. As
she ran lightly across the sward to obey the summons, Miss Pryse cast
another lingering look at the picture on the wall, mentally comparing
it with the one in the garden. The same blue eyes, shaded by soft,
silky hair, looked up towards the window, but the face of the little
one was paler and more thoughtful.
"Come, Dora, be quick, and see that you rub your shoes clean before you
come in. There is always so much mud brought into the house, one would
need to be for ever cleaning here."
The words fell chill and cold on the child's heart; she longed to ask
about the little baby at the cottage, as she came forward to join her
aunt, but the question died on her lips. Miss Silexa's reserved and
thorny manner drove little Dora daily farther from her, and prevented
her belief in the tender self-sacrificing love that in spite of all
really existed for her. Slowly, she followed her aunt into the parlour,
and in another moment the trembling hand of her grandfather was laid
lovingly upon the flaxen head. She timidly looked up into the face,
furrowed more deeply by affliction than by time, though his scanty
silver locks and bent frame hinted that the appointed time of man's
days on earth had nearly run.
It needed no scrutinising glance to see that a heavy life-sorrow had
helped to dim the brightness of eyes that looked out with a settled
expression of calm sadness. A great grief was bringing down his grey
hairs with sorrow to the grave; his heart was heavy with the anguish
of a bereavement which is sometimes more terrible than a blank left by
death.
"Well, my little love," he said, kissing the child; "I have been
waiting for you. Where have you been? Ah, Silexa," he added, turning to
open with trembling fingers the Bible for family worship, "this is sad
news from Porthmynwr."
"Don't speak of it now, father," interrupted Silexa, glancing towards
the child, whose eyes were eagerly fixed on his face; "she has heard
too much already. I am going down to Lettice Gwynne's after breakfast
to hear the rights of the story; there are too many tongues clacking up
here; one cannot tell how much to believe."
The elderly man sighed heavily and was silent. Then turning to the Book
of Revelation as Molly entered to take her place, he read,—
"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John
saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice
out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and
He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself
shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears
from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are
passed away."
The voice read on, though unsteady with emotion, and Eudora's eyes
filled with tears. Molly looked at the grey church tower opposite,
and watched the crowds of cawing rooks alight on the turrets and
grass-tufted niches. Miss Silexa sat stern and erect in her chair
with a determined expression on her face, and only He who knoweth the
secrets of all hearts saw her soul bow in its sorrow when they knelt
to join in fervent prayer for the unknown mourners of the brave men
who had been engulfed in the depths of the mighty waters, and for the
orphan baby cast up by the waves helpless and forlorn.