THE IMPRESSIONS ARE INTENSIFIED
The service at Redmarley Church was "medium high." It boasted an
organist and a surpliced choir, and the choir intoned the responses.
"The old Vicar," as Mr Molyneux liked to be called, was musical, and
saw to it that the Sunday services were melodiously and well rendered.
Very rarely was there a week-day service. The villagers would have
regarded them in the light of a dangerous innovation; yet,
notwithstanding the lack of daily services, the church stood open from
sunrise to sunset always, and though very few people ever entered it
during the week, they would have been most indignant had it ever been
shut.
The church was too big for the village: it was built early in the
fourteenth century when the Manor House was a monastery, and at a time
when Redmarley was the religious centre for half a dozen outlying
villages that now had churches of their own. Therefore, it was never
full, and even if every soul in the village had made a point of going
to divine service at the same time, it would still have appeared but
sparsely attended.
Miss Gallup's seat, with a red cushion and red footstools and
everything handsome about it, was about half-way up the aisle on the
left.
On the right, one behind the other, were two long oaken pews next the
chancel steps belonging to the Manor House. In the one, there were
three young women, obviously servants; the front one was empty.
Eloquent began to wish he had not come.
People bustled and creaked and pattered up the aisle after their
several fashions. The organist started the voluntary, and the choir
came in.
The congregation stood up, when suddenly his aunt gave Eloquent's elbow
a jerk, and whispered: "There's Mr Grantly and Miss Mary."
As if he didn't know!
Just the same leisurely, unconscious, strolling walk that got over the
ground so much more quickly than one would have thought.
She had changed her clothes and looked, he noted it with positive
relief, much more Sundayish. In fact, her costume (Eloquent used this
dreadful word) now compared quite favourably with those of the other
young ladies of his acquaintance. Not that she in the least resembled
them. Not a bit. Her things were ever so much plainer, but Eloquent's
eagle eye, trained to acute observation by his long service in the
outfitting line, grasped at once that plain as was the dark blue coat
and skirt, it was uncommonly well made. She wore blue fox furs, too,
hat and stole and muff all matching, and her hair was tied twice with
dark blue ribbon, at the nape of the neck and about half-way down.
Yes, M. B. Ffolliot was very tidy indeed. Behind her followed a youth
ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller. He
walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square
shoulders. His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of
an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory. There was no
fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud about _his_ clothes. He was,
Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top
of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and
well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed young man.
"Shop, indeed!" thought Eloquent. "He's never seen the wrong side of a
counter in his life."
"Rend your hearts and not your garments," so the Vicar adjured the
congregation in his agreeable monotone, and the service began.
Eloquent could see Mary's back between the heads of two maids: her hair
shone burnished and bright in the lamplight. Just before the psalms
she turned and whispered to her brother, and he caught a glimpse of her
profile for the space of three seconds.
When the psalms ended, the "knut" came out into the aisle, mounted the
steps leading to the lectern, and started to read the first lesson.
"Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled," Grantly Ffolliot
began in a voice of thunder. The congregation lifted startled heads,
and looked considerably surprised. Grantly was nervous. He read very
fast, and so loud that Mary was moved to cover her ears with her hands;
and Eloquent saw her and sympathised.
Now here was a matter in which he could give young Ffolliot points and
a beating. He longed passionately to stand up at that brass bird and
read the Bible to the people of Redmarley; to one person in particular.
He knew exactly the pitch of voice necessary to fill a building of that
size.
"He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth
the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of
bribes. . . ."
How curiously applicable certain of Isaiah's exhortations are to the
present day, thought Eloquent. . . . The "knut" had somewhat subdued
his voice, and even he could not spoil the music and the majesty of the
words, "a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley
with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby." Two more verses,
and the first lesson was ended, and Grantly Ffolliot, flushed but
supremely thankful, made his way back to his seat.
Eloquent registered a vow.
The vicar himself read the second lesson, and the meditations of the
assembled worshippers were undisturbed.
The vicar always preached for exactly ten minutes. He took an
old-fashioned hour-glass up into the pulpit with him, and when it ran
out he concluded his discourse. Redmarley folk highly approved this
ritual. When stray parsons came to preach, especially if they were
dignitaries of the church, a body could never tell what they might be
at, and the suspense was wearing. Why, the Dean of Garchester had been
known to keep on for half an hour.
The Redmarley worshippers rarely slept. It wasn't worth while.
Instead, they kept a wary eye upon the hour-glass. They trusted to
their vicar's honour, and he rarely failed them. As the last grains of
sand ran out he turned to the east, and most people were back home and
sitting down to supper by eight o'clock.
Miss Gallup never hurried out of church. She thought it unseemly.
Therefore, it came to pass that Eloquent was still standing in his
place as Mary Ffolliot and her brother came down the aisle. Mary
looked him full in the face as she passed, and smiled frankly at him
with friendly recognition.
The "knut" had gone on ahead.
Eloquent gave no answering smile. For one thing, he had never for one
moment expected her to take the slightest notice of him, and the fact
that she had done so raised a perfect tumult of unexpected and
inexplicable emotion.
The hot blood rushed to his face, and there was a singing in his ears.
He turned right round and stared down the aisle at her retreating form,
and was only roused to a sense of mundane things by a violent poke in
the small of his back, and his aunt's voice buzzing in an irritated
whisper: "Go on, my boy, do you want to stop here all night?"
"Mr Grantly read very nice, didn't he?"
Miss Gallup remarked complacently, as they were walking home.
"To tell you the truth, Aunt Susan, I thought he read very badly: he
bellowed so, and was absolutely wanting in expression."
"Poor young gentleman," Miss Gallup said tolerantly. "Last time he
read, back in summer it was, he did read so soft like, no one could
hear a word he said, and I know they all went on at him something
dreadful, so this time I suppose he thought as they _should_ hear him."
"Do you think," Eloquent asked diffidently, "that Mr Molyneux would
like me to read the lessons some Sunday when I'm down here?"
Miss Gallup stopped short.
"Well, now," she exclaimed, "to think of you suggestin' that, an' I was
just wonderin' at that very minute whether if I was to ask you--you'd
snap my head off, you being chapel and all."
Eloquent longed to say that he was not so wrapped up in chapel as all
that, but long habits of self-restraint stood him in good stead. Where
possible votes were concerned it did not do to speak the thought of the
moment, so he merely remarked indifferently that he'd be "pleased to be
of any assistance."
"Of course," Miss Gallup continued, as she walked on, "there's no
knowing whether, with the election coming on and all, the vicar might
think it quite suitable, though he's generally glad to get any one to
read as will."
"Surely," Eloquent said severely, "he does not carry his political
views into his religious life, to the extent of boycotting those who do
not agree with him."
"It's his church," Miss Gallup rejoined stoutly; "no one can read in it
without 'tis his wish."
"My dear aunt, you surely don't imagine that I want to read the lessons
at Redmarley except as a matter of kindness . . . assistance to Mr
Molyneux. What other reason can I have?"
"Well," said Miss Gallup, shrewdly, "it might be that you wanted to
show how well you could do it . . ." she paused.
Eloquent blushed in the darkness.
"And with an election coming on, you never know what motives folks
has," she continued. "But it's my belief Mr Molyneux'd be pleased as
Punch. He's all for friendliness, he is. I know who wouldn't be
pleased, though----"
"Who is that?" asked Eloquent, as his aunt had stopped, evidently
waiting to be questioned.
"Why, Mr Ffolliot; he don't take much part in politics, but he thinks
Redmarley belongs to him, and he'd be mighty astonished if you was to
get up and read in the parish church, and him not been told anything
about it."
"I shall certainly call on Mr Molyneux tomorrow," said Eloquent.