Everybody in the village knew you had been jilted. Mrs. Waugh and Miss
Frewin knew it, and Mr. Horn, the grocer, and Mr. Oldshaw at the bank.
And Mr. Belk, the Justice of the Peace--little pink and flaxen gentleman,
carrying himself with an air of pompous levity--eyes slewing round as you
passed; and Mrs. Belk--hard, tight rotundity, little iron-grey eyes
twinkling busily in a snub face, putty-skinned with a bilious gleam;
curious eyes, busy eyes saying, "I'd like to know what she did to be
jilted."
Minna and Sophy Acroyd, with their blown faces and small, disgusted
mouths: you could see them look at each other; they were saying, "Here's
that awful girl again." They were glad you were jilted.
Mr. Spencer Rollitt looked at you with his hard, blue eyes. His mouth
closed tight with a snap when he saw you coming. He had disapproved of
you ever since you played hide-and-seek in his garden with his nephew. He
thought it served you right to be jilted.
And there was Dr. Charles's kind look under his savage, shaggy eyebrows,
and Miss Kendal's squeeze of your hand when you left her, and the sudden
start in Dorsy Heron's black hare's eyes. They were sorry for you because
you had been jilted.
Miss Louisa Wright was sorry for you. She would ask you to tea in her
little green-dark drawing-room; she lived in the ivy house next door to
Mrs. Waugh; the piano would be open, the yellow keys shining; from the
white title page enormous black letters would call to you across the
room: "Cleansing Fires." That was the song she sang when she was thinking
about Dr. Charles. First you played for her the Moonlight Sonata, and
then she sang for you with a feverish exaltation:
"For as gold is refined in the _fi_-yer,
So a heart is tried by pain."
She sang it to comfort you.
Her head quivered slightly as she shook the notes out of her throat in
ecstasy.
She was sorry for you; but she was like Aunt Lavvy; she thought it was a
good thing to be jilted; for then you were purified; your soul was set
free; it went up, writhing and aspiring, in a white flame to God.