Poor Gwen's death had caused quite a pleasurable excitement in the
village.
There can be no question that to all save the immediate few whose
natural emotions are involved, most deaths bring a quicker tide of
life to the living.
It has been said, indeed, that funerals are often the preludes to
marriage. Be that as it may, Gwen, despite her gift of grace, had
lived all her short life on such a different plane from the rest of
the village girls that, except in the little shepherd's cottage amid
the hills, few real tears were shed over her dramatic death.
And it was so dramatic! To die in full song--to shed her life-blood in
trying to bring the glad news to other souls. Surely that must avail!
Surely that sacrifice must turn those sinful souls to peace.
Though they did not know it, and for Mr. Sylvanus Smith's prospect of
peace, it was as well he did not, both Aura and her grandfather were
special objects of intercession at many hundreds of chapels the very
next Sunday. For the story naturally grew in the telling.
Meanwhile Gwen, poor soul, was laid with much fervour beside her baby,
the rector duly officiating; for the old shepherd and his wife,
thinking of their own funerals to come, held fast to tradition.
Whatever else you might be in life, death brought you back to the
Church, back to the solemn old service in which dust is reverently
committed to dust, ashes to ashes.
Nearly all the village attended, for, in a way, it was proud of Gwen.
There was but one notable absence. Alicia Edwards was not there to
take her part in singing "Day of Wrath" over her dead friend. She was
in bed or at any rate confined to her room; for the dramatic death on
New Year's morning had apparently been too much for her nerves.
The gossips of the village went in and out, condoling with her, and
applauding her sensibility, and retailing to her all the affecting
particulars of the funeral, the wreaths, the remembrances from souls
saved by the dead girl's singing, the excellence of the mournings
provided by Myfanwy Jones, and the apparently real grief of Mervyn
Pugh, who went about looking like a lost soul himself.
Only over the latter statement did Alicia Edwards commit herself so
far as to say with sphinxlike gravity, "I do not wonder. Mervyn and
Gwen were always friends. Yes, indeed! even at school they were
friends."
Looking back from her new knowledge concerning Gwen's past, Alicia's
only wonder was, indeed, that no one had ever suspected Mervyn. And
yet, who could suspect Mervyn? Mervyn, the pattern of the village;
Mervyn, among whose perfections her own facile heart had been
entangled these many years past. Nor was she alone. Half the village
girls would have given their eyes to secure him for their own.
And now that he had fallen from his high pedestal, it seemed to her,
woman-like, that she desired him more than ever. That desire, in
truth, was the cause of her seclusion. She was not ill--simply she
could not make up her mind what to do. One-half of her asserted that
she ought to denounce Mervyn; that it was wrong for her to allow him
thus to play the hypocrite, that it would be good for his soul's
health to do penance in sackcloth and ashes; the other half found
excuses for him beneath the cloak of consideration for the slur which
would be cast by the unrighteous over the whole revival, could it be
shown that one of the most prominent in starting it was--so to
speak--an unrepentant castaway; for repentance in such a case as this
meant the confession for which the elders of the congregation had
clamoured, the lack of which had sent an unbaptized child to the
happily infinite mercy--seat of God.
Alicia knew all this. She had been well brought up, well drilled by
her father in the catechisms, and in her inmost soul--a very
conventional, placid, harmless soul--she was quite shocked at Mervyn's
stony-heartedness. For all that, she could not make up her mind to
denounce him. She would give him time. He knew that she knew his
secret, and that she was the only person in the world now who knew
it--at least of this world; for the "wild girl of Cwmfairnog," as the
village had dubbed Aura, had not even attended the inquest. Martha had
given her evidence, and Martha had known nothing. So there was no
likelihood of the truth coming out except through her, Alicia. Perhaps
Mervyn, knowing this, would come to her and unburden his soul.
Undoubtedly, if Providence had not intended her to denounce the
sinner--and of this, as the days went on, she became more and more
certain--it must have had some other purpose in making her the sole
recipient of the terrible knowledge.
What purpose?
For to her, as to Morris Pugh, as to nearly all these traffickers in
cheap marvels, the impulse to see some hidden meaning, some direct
dealing of the Creator with His creature man, had become almost an
obsession.
What purpose, then, could Providence have had in thus choosing Alicia
Edwards out of all the village to be this sole recipient?
The answer was easy. That Mervyn might come to her as a sort of
mediator, as he might have come to a father confessor.
So, as the time wore on, Alicia waited for Mervyn; but Mervyn never
appeared, not even after she came down, becomingly dressed in deep
mourning, to sit in the back parlour and receive her friends. Myfanwy
Jones, whose holiday had been extended over the funeral by reason of
the many orders she had successfully placed for it, looked in several
times, but there was not much love lost between the two nowadays. So
when, on the morning after the funeral, Myfanwy came to say good-bye,
Alicia was relieved. She felt the influence of this big, beautiful,
worldly creature to be malign; and, once it was removed, she was sure
that Mervyn would surely return to the holder of his secret.
"You will be going by the midday carrier," said Alicia cheerfully;
"you will have a fine drive to Llanilo whatever."
"A beautiful drive," assented Myfanwy; "I was trying to make Mervyn
Pugh take it with me for a change, but he prefers to mope. I did not
know him such a friend of poor dead Gwen."
She challenged Alicia with her bold black eyes, and Alicia felt
herself flush.
"When people spend their lives together in holy work, Myfanwy dear,"
she replied in a purring voice, "it is very close they grow to each
other, very close indeed."
"If they spend their lives together anyway," retorted Myfanwy
with a superior laugh, "they often grow very close--very close
indeed--sometimes too close."
But Alicia was prepared for her, and smiled sweetly. "You do not
understand religion, Myfanwy. As Mervyn says, it is such a pity--but
we must hope for the best--it will come some day."
"So will Christmas," replied Myfanwy with a sphinxlike smile; "but I
am not fond of waiting, whatever you may be. Well, good-bye, dear. Do
not be frightened when Williams and Edwards send in their bill--it
need not be paid till you are married, remember."
Alicia paled. The memory of that bill was more to her now than the
mere fact that when it came, it would mean a demand for money. That
she might manage; but how about the claim on her character? For it
would be a big bill, a record of much extravagance. One comfort was
that, if she married Mervyn--which seemed not so unlikely now as it
had seemed a short time ago--he would not be so terribly shocked; or
at any rate he would not be in a position to throw so many stones!
It was a lovely afternoon, one of those early January days when earth
and sea and sky combine to play a trick on the world, and cheat it
into the belief that winter is over. The air, too, felt lighter, more
wholesome to Alicia, now that Myfanwy Jones had presumably left the
village; presumably, because, though Alicia had not actually seen her
go, her boxes had certainly been in the carrier's cart.
Alicia had almost made up her mind that if the mountain would not come
to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. Another Sunday must not
pass without an explanation between her and Mervyn; it would not be
right to allow him to remain without reproof and exhortation.
It required a good deal of courage, for she was by nature timid; but
by making a duty of it, and assuring herself that his soul's good was
her only object, she succeeded in bracing herself up to sufficient
virtue for her task. So, feeling there was no time like the present,
she spent half an hour in making herself look as attractive as she
could in her singing dress--and that had been designed with
considerable care for appearances--and set off on her mission. She did
not go straight to the minister's house, which stood at the further
end of the village--a most incongruous, unhappy-looking villa, such as
one sees by dozens in the suburbs of any large town, all stucco, bow
windows, and gable ends--for that might have provoked attention. She
branched off to the left and so, going up the School Road, was
prepared to make her visit on the return journey by going down a
pathway which led from the school towards the house. She had often
returned from class thus with Mervyn, choosing the longer road for the
sake of the handsome boy's company. The thought made her mind drift
back to those long years during which she had been taught, and had
taught, so many things. What a relief it had been to escape from
living by rule; so much time for this, so much time for that; duty
punctual as the clock, dependent on the machinery, certain to run down
and stop unless it received some continual impetus from without.
--'That which cometh from without.'--
The words came back to her vaguely. Yes! she had been taught so many
things. What had she herself learnt? How many four shillings' worth of
stamps, for instance, had she not saved up herself, or caused her
pupils to save up. Every child in the village had a post-office
savings' bank book. They had been taught thrift. But every one of the
girls would do as she had done--run into debt over their clothes--or
at least put their money on their backs. She was tired of it all. She
was hungering for her natural work. She wanted to be the wife of some
strong man, bear him children, and live immersed in household details.
That was her _metier_; she felt drawn to that.
So, as she turned in at the back entrance of the minister's house, her
heart was soft; she felt in a sentimental mood. The past was past.
Most men's lives held something that was not quite--well, quite
respectable--but in this case there would be earnest repentance to
make that past more--more presentable.
And then through the window of the dining-room she saw a group of two
people standing, their faces to the fire, their backs towards her; but
there could be no doubt as to the skin--tight black sheen of the waist
round which Mervyn's arm circled in all the security of possession. It
was Myfanwy's--Myfanwy in her best dress also!
In a second all the hot Cymric blood which lay hidden somewhere behind
Alicia's almost phlegmatic calm had leapt up in resentment; and almost
before she realised what she was doing, she had passed the entrance
and stood in the room, challenging those two. The table was laid for
tea; there was an air of placid comfort, of as it were collusion,
which gave the finishing-touch to her anger.
"So you have not gone with the carrier, Myfanwy Jones?" she said.
Mervyn's arm left the black-satin waist hastily, but Myfanwy did not
budge. She simply threw a backward glance over her shoulder.
"Oh! good afternoon, Alicia! No! I did not go. Mervyn and I are to
drive over to Llanilo in Thomas's waggonette, as soon as we have had
our tea."
In an instant it resolved itself into a duel between these two women
for the possession of the man who stood, his beauty somewhat blurred
by anxiety, looking like a fool between them.
"But I have come," replied Alicia firmly, "to have a talk with Mervyn
about--about something; so, perhaps, you will drive alone to Llanilo,
Myfanwy. It might be better." She fixed Mervyn with an eye that held
in it a world of entreaty besides some indignation.
His inward uneasiness felt the threat. "Perhaps it would be better,
Myfanwy," he said helplessly. "We have much to talk over and arrange
before we start again on--on our work."
Myfanwy turned on him like a flash. "Will you hold your tongue, Mervyn
Pugh," she said magnificently. "This is between Alicia Edwards and
me." Then she turned back again to her adversary, "Say what you will
to him now, Alicia. We are engaged to be married, so you can say to me
what you will say to him."
Alicia gave a little cry of real dismay. "Oh Mervyn! Say it is not
true;--think of poor silly Gwen, but just dead!" she pulled herself
up, being in truth still but half-hearted in her desire to denounce.
Myfanwy shot a swift glance at Mervyn; she was really and honestly
fond of him, and the idea, at any rate, which Alicia's words suggested
was not new to her. Still no matter what she said to him about it in
the future, this was the time for defence--quick, ready defence.
"Yes!" she said. "Gwen is dead, so why should you drag her out of the
grave, poor soul! 'Let the dead past bury its dead,' Alicia, you
learnt that in school, I am sure. And, whatever happens, I am going to
marry Mervyn--of that you may be sure."
It was then that Alicia, feeling the inward certainty that this was
true, that her bolt had failed of its mark, gave the rein to
denunciation.
"But I must speak to him! Oh Mervyn! Think," she cried, her voice
ringing with a perfect medley of emotion, "you who have saved so many,
think of your own soul. Think how the soul of your child, think how
the soul of poor Gwen cry out against you!"
A man's step on the gravel outside made Myfanwy start forward with a
muffled exclamation.
"Be quiet, will you! you will be overheard--you--you will ruin him!
Will you hold your tongue?" she cried.
But Alicia was past worldly wisdom; even with Myfanwy's strong hand
threatening her, she stood her ground, and her voice rose--
"Let them hear! Let all the world know that Mervyn Pugh--Mervyn the
good, the righteous, is Gwen's seducer, the father of her child!"
Then, even her anger failed before the knowledge that Morris Pugh
stood at the door listening.
With a muffled cry Mervyn turned and flung himself down on the sofa,
his face crushed into the hard horsehair cushions; vaguely he felt
their hardness to be a shelter.
Myfanwy, looking as if she could have killed Alicia, moved to him and
laid her hand softly, protectingly on his shoulder.
"Do not fret, Mervyn," she said coldly, "it will soon be over."
So for a space there was silence. Then Morris Pugh braced himself to
the task which was his, as pastor of these wandering sheep.
"As you stand before your Maker, Alicia Edwards," he said, bringing
his hand down on the table to grip it with clenched nervous force, "is
this accusation true?"
Her answer was a sudden burst of tears, "Don't--don't ask me," she
sobbed.
"Is it true?"
His voice insistent, almost cold in its very insistence, would take no
denial.
"Yes!" The assent could scarcely be heard for the sobs.
Morris Pugh gave a sigh. It was almost as if all that was human in him
left his body with that long, laboured breath, for an instant
afterwards he was the accuser, the judge.
"And you--Mervyn Pugh--God forgive you for bearing my father's
honoured name--have done this wrong without repentance. You have stood
by your child's grave and said never a word--never a word even to me,
your spiritual guide, although I asked you, remember that! I asked
you; and you have stood before the Lord all these long months, eating
at His Table, drinking of His Blood, with this sin lying unconfessed
in your heart! And you and the partner of your sin have stood together
before the Great White Throne, your voices mingling in God's praise
while your bodies----"
Mervyn started to his feet.
"Morris! Morris! before Heaven, that is not true--no! I am not so bad
as that!"
Checked in the full flow of his superhuman blame, the minister paused,
and something of the man came back to him.
"I will say nothing of myself," he went on, "of--of the shame. But
have you any excuse? Can you show just cause why I should not deal
with you, alas!--a thousand times alas!--my brother--as a minister of
God must deal with the unrepentant sinner, with the hypocrite, with
the man who has defiled the innermost sanctuary of God's temple?"
There was silence. Only round Myfanwy's full lips showed a certain
impatience, a weariness for this necessary fuss to subside, and leave
room for common sense.
"So you have no excuse. Then prepare for the condemnation of the
congregation. Prepare to be humbled to the dust before the Lord."
Myfanwy shifted impatiently. "What good will that do? It will only
humble the congregation," came her clear, full voice; "It will only be
a paragraph in the papers."
Morris Pugh winced. "I thought of that before," he muttered. "God
forgive me, I thought of it before--too much, perhaps. No!" he added
firmly, "the shame must be faced! Yes, Mervyn, it must be faced, even
if our mother----"
And then, with a cry, Morris Pugh himself was on his knees by the
table, his hands clutching at its rim, his head between them sinking
to the very dust.
"Oh, God forgive him! Oh God, for my sake, for her sake, forgive
him!--for the sake of her many prayers and tears, forgive him!"
Mervyn stood pale as death. Alicia, her little part long since played,
sobbed softly in a corner; only Myfanwy looked at them all three
almost with distaste.
"Mervyn is very sorry, I am sure of that--it could not have been worth
all this--this fuss," she said hardly; "but why should shame be faced
when--when every one is dead and buried? Mervyn can go away."
"The living and the dead are one, woman, in the sight of the Lord!"
replied Morris, his righteous wrath re-aroused by her words. "Mervyn
may go if he likes, but I, his brother, will denounce him before the
congregation."
His lips, his hands, were trembling, but his voice was firm.
Mervyn sat down on the sofa again and covered his handsome face with
his hands. His mind was in a whirl, its chief thought being abject
remorse for his brother's sake--for his mother's.
"It is best so, Myfanwy," he muttered hoarsely; "Go--it--it is all I
can do for--for them now."
She took up her cloak and hat without a word. There was no use in
trying to persuade people when they were so exalted.
"Yes, I will go," she said, "but you are very silly, Mervyn. Come,
Alicia! You have done enough mischief for one day, I am sure."
Alicia followed her meekly, feeling not in the least ashamed of the
role she had played; for these violent emotions were to her part of
the religious stock-in-trade. By and by they would quiet down, Mervyn
would make a noble confession, and eventually he would rise superior
to all these troubles; above all, rise superior to Myfanwy.
The girls did not say one word to each other as they went back to the
village together. Any one meeting them might have judged them the best
of friends; only as Myfanwy branched off to the smith's cottage she
paused a moment to say with a smile--
"Some day I will pay you out for this, Alicia Edwards--so, mark my
words, you will pay!"
"May you be forgiven, Myfanwy Jones," retorted Alicia with spirit; "I
have but done my duty."
Left alone by themselves the brothers reverted of necessity to more
humble, more homely relations. The righteous wrath gave place to real
grief, the blank, hopeless remorse to real regret.
By the time that the housekeeper came in to clear away the almost
untouched tea, they had both accepted the position in so far as it
could be accepted. There was nothing for it but to face this public
confession, and by so doing make what reparation could be thus tardily
made. Mervyn, indeed, was by far the more cheerful when the time came
to say good-night. He had barely had time to think; the relief of
having touched bottom, as it were, was great; he felt, in fact, as a
repentant criminal might do on his last night on earth, as if the
morrow which was to bring expiation must also bring pardon and peace.
They had spent the evening together on the highest possible plane of
religious exaltation, and it was Mervyn who gripped his brother's hand
and said "Courage!" out of the fulness of his emotion. His face looked
almost saintly as he said it.
An hour later, indeed, when Morris--who had lingered near the dying
fire, beset, now he was alone, by almost unbearable grief--looked in
to see if his brother were asleep, he found him lying like a child,
smiling in his dreams.
Morris gave a faint sob, and Mervyn stirred in his sleep. "Mother," he
said hurriedly, softly--"Mother, dear, dear mother--I must."
Instinctively Morris blew out the light he held, lest it might wake
the dreamer from his dream; so in the moonlight he stood, torn asunder
by love and grief, watching the dim peaceful form upon the bed.
Suddenly he turned and, closing the door silently behind him, went
downstairs once more. Outside the narrow walls of the house, the
moonlight slumbered peacefully upon the everlasting hills. Surely
somewhere beyond the narrow walls of this world's judgment slept
eternal Peace.
An instant afterwards the front door closed softly, and Morris Pugh,
leaving his brother asleep, had gone to find wisdom where he had often
sought it of late in the temple not made with hands.
It must have been an hour later that Mervyn woke, roused by a pebble
at his window. He sat up with blurred consciousness, wondering vaguely
what it was, until another pebble struck the pane, and a voice cried
in a soft whisper, "Mervyn!"
Myfanwy! by all that was strange! Then in a second the whole memory of
what had happened came back to him; but it came back to find him, as
it were, a giant refreshed with sleep. None of us are really the same
for two consecutive hours, and many a man will brave that in the
morning, from which he would shrink at night. And there, as he peered
through the curtain, was Myfanwy, sure enough, beckoning to him to
come down. A sight sufficient to bring combativeness to any young
blood, even without those two hours of blessed rest in sleep.
"Mervyn," she said, when five minutes after, their lips met in a long
kiss; "I have come for you. See how I love you, to do this thing which
might ruin any poor girl's reputation. You have done wrong, my poor
boy, very wrong; but so have many of the others who are so saintly.
And why should you stay to be prayed over by them--by Alicia Edwards
too! I will not have it! There will be no more _me_ if you stop,
Mervyn. Come now with me to Blackborough, the waggonette is waiting up
the road at the bridge; we can catch the three o'clock mail at
Llanilo. If you come, Mervyn, I will marry you in three days at the
registrar's office."
"But," he gasped, half-drunk with her kisses, half-stunned by his
remembrances.
She stamped her foot. "You must decide. I cannot stop here all night,
some one may come. Oh! Mervyn! Mervyn! do you not feel that you were
not made for this narrow life? You--you are no worse than others, and
you have brains. You can make money if you will in the world, but not
here."
Those two hours of blessed sleep! How they had obliterated that stress
of over-wrought emotion, and how his young blood leapt up in assent.
But Morris----
Her instinct was keen--"And see you, Mervyn, it will be better for
Morris, too! If you go, why should he speak? What is confession
without a culprit? Come! you can write to him from Blackborough.
Come--or there is no more me for you from to-night."
When Morris Pugh returned from the temple that is made without hands
an hour later, the house lay very still in the moonlight. He paused at
his brother's door to listen. There was no sound. So he passed on to
his own room, took his father's Bible, his mother's picture, the few
odd pounds he had in the house, and so passed downstairs again to the
writing-table in the study, where he had thought out so many sermons,
so many appeals to his wandering flock. But it was neither a sermon
nor an appeal which he set down on paper and left lying where Mervyn
would see it next morning. Rather was it a confession, for this is how
it ran:--
"Wisdom has come to me among the eternal hills, brother. Go your way.
Be one of the saints in light. I will go mine since I cannot stay and
remain silent. May God in His mercy preserve you always from the
judgment of men, and give you His Grace."
It lay there all night with the moonlight shining on it. Then the
moonbeams faded and the greyness of the false dawn found it lying
there still.
But the breath of the real dawn winning its way through the door
opened by the housekeeper who came to set the room in order, tilted it
into the waste-paper basket, whence swiftly it made its way to the
fire by the hands of tidiness.
Thus Mervyn would have had no chance of seeing it, even if he had been
there.
But he was not.