'On childing women that are forlorn,
And men that sweat in nothing but scorn--
That is, on all that ever were born--
Miserere, Domine.'
H. B.
I
The next morning poor Cecily felt strangely forlorn. Somehow, this did
not seem like Christmas Day. Wantley, haggard, but smiling, after his
long night's vigil, had declared that the state of the roads made it out
of the question that they should drive the six miles to the nearest
Catholic church, and she had submitted without a word, only insisting
that he should have some hours of sleep.
And then, after having knelt down by the fire in the spacious room which
had been prepared for her, when she had read the service of the Mass and
said her rosary, she sent a message to Lady Wantley asking if she could
come to her.
The mistress of Marston Lydiate was still in bed, and in the wintry
morning light Cecily saw with a pang how aged and how ailing her old
friend had become, but the look of intolerable distress and terror had
gone from the pale, delicate face.
'Do you know, my dear, what day this is--I mean, what day this is to
me?'
'Yes,' said Cecily, smiling: 'I know that it is Penelope's birthday, as
well as Christmas Day.'
Lady Wantley raised herself in bed. She put her arms round the younger
woman and kissed her. 'I know how it is with you,' she whispered, 'and,
oh, I am so glad! Do you know how long I myself had to wait?' And then,
receiving no answer, she added: 'Nineteen years! That was the only
shadow on my singularly happy, blessed life; but it was a shadow which
sometimes darkened everything. I only once spoke to him--to my husband,
I mean--on the matter, for in those days we women seldom spoke of our
feelings. I had been ill, some trifling ailment, and he came and sat by
me in this room, just where you are sitting now, and suddenly I told him
of my longing for a child. I was foolish and repining, alas! for you
must know, my dear, that I grieved for his sake as well as for my own. I
have often thought, this last year, lying here, of what he answered. He
looked at me so kindly. "Am I not more to thee than ten sons?" he asked;
and I felt infinitely comforted.
'And then'--Cecily spoke softly--'Penelope was born?'
'Ah no, not then!' said Lady Wantley, with the literalness which
sometimes suddenly came to her. 'Many years had to go by first. But when
she came it was on Christmas morning.' She shaded her eyes with her left
hand. 'Not a day like this,' she whispered. 'It was a warm, sunny,
green Christmas that year; I remember it all so well. Ludovic's mother
came up to see me after church. You know we were never really intimate;
I fear she did not like me. But she was very kind that day. All women
feel in sympathy with one another on such days, and Mrs. Wantley's love
for her own son made her know what my daughter would be to me.' Lady
Wantley hesitated, and then, as if speaking to herself, added: 'How
often I have looked at my beloved child--my beautiful gifted
Penelope--and prayed God to comfort childless women.' Then suddenly the
speaker's face contracted, and she looked at Cecily as if wishing to
compel her to speak truly. 'Is it well with my child?' she asked. 'Tell
me what you think, what you know of her? I know you love her dearly.'
'I know nothing, and cannot tell what to think.' The answer was slow,
reluctant, and truthful.
Lady Wantley turned and searched under her pillow. Silently she handed
Cecily a letter, wistfully watched her read it. 'Doubtless she writes
more fully to you, her friend, than to me, her mother,' she said at
last; but Cecily remained silent while glancing perplexed, over the
short, dry, though not unaffectionate note. 'There is a postscript on
the other side of the sheet. Perhaps you knew already that David
Winfrith was with her?'
On the last sheet of foreign note-paper were written in Mrs. Robinson's
clear, pointed handwriting the words: 'David Winfrith is in Bombay. He
is coming up to see me in a few days.'
'We acted very wrongly,' said Lady Wantley, in a low tone. 'He--my
husband--now knows that we were not rightly guided in the matter. We
were swayed by considerations of no real moment. She loved David then;
she was very steadfast. It was he who gave way. Lord Wantley sent for
him and made him withdraw his offer. Do you think that now---- Ah,
Cecily, if I could only hope to leave Penelope in so safe a haven!'
Cecily's lips quivered. Not even to comfort her old friend could she, or
would she, say what she believed to be false. To her simple heart such
love as that once avowed to herself by Penelope for Downing could not
change or die away. It might be thrust back out of sight at the call of
conscience, but the void could never be filled by another man.
David Winfrith? Why, Penelope had often laughed at him in the old happy
days when she, Cecily, was first at the Settlement. Oh no! David
Winfrith might follow Mrs. Robinson all over the world, but Penelope
would ever keep outside the haven offered by him, if, indeed--and again
a flash of remembrance crossed her mind--such haven was still open to
her.
She could say nothing comfortable, and so kept silent, but her troubled
look answered for her. Lady Wantley drew a long, sharp breath. 'I cannot
hope,' she muttered, 'to be wholly forgiven.'
II
There are certain days and festivals when every association of the heart
confirms the truth of the old saying that any company is better than
none. So felt Wantley and Cecily sitting down to their lonely Christmas
dinner--or lunch, as Mr. Jenkins more genteelly put it--in the vast
dining-room, where, as the same authority assured Cecily, 'fifty could
sit down easy.'
Had these two not been at Marston Lydiate, they would now have been at
the Settlement, Wantley doubtless grumbling, man-like, to himself
because he was not spending Christmas Day alone, by his own fireside,
with his own wife. But to-day even he felt the silence of the great
house oppressive, and early in the afternoon he assented with eagerness
to Cecily's proposal that they should walk down to the village and see
the church where, as she reminded him, he had been baptized.
Mrs. Moss, the housekeeper, and Mr. Jenkins, the butler, standing
together by the window in the butler's pantry--which was from their
point of view most agreeably situated, for it commanded the entrance to
the house--watched the young couple set off from under the portico.
They were talking together rather eagerly, Cecily flushed and smiling.
'It's easy to see they have not long been married,' said the housekeeper
with a soft sigh. 'Still plenty to say, I expect.'
But young Lady Wantley was shaking her head, and as she and her husband
passed on their way, within but a few feet of the window behind which
stood the couple who were looking at them with such affectionate
interest, she exclaimed rather loudly: 'Oh, Ludovic, how can you say
such a thing! I don't agree with you at all!'
'Ho, ho, a tiff!' whispered Mr. Jenkins with gloomy satisfaction; but
Mrs. Moss turned on him very sharply.
'Stuff and nonsense!' she said; 'that's only to show she's not his
slave. Why, that girl Charlotte Pidder--her ladyship's lady's-maid I
suppose she fancies herself to be, though, from what I can make out, she
can't neither do hairdressing nor dressmaking--was telling me this
morning that they fairly dote on one another. There now, look at them!
There's a pretty sight for you!'
The walkers had come to a standstill, and Wantley taking his wife's
hand, was trying to put it through his arm. 'I will not touch your
sacred idol!' the eavesdroppers heard him say, 'In future I will always
keep my real thoughts to myself.'
'Well, of all things! If the old lord could only hear them!' whispered
Mrs. Moss, now really scandalized. 'It do seem a pity that such a nice
young lady should be a Papist, and should try and make him a worshipper
of idols, too.' And she turned away, for the two outside had quickened
their steps, and were no longer within earshot.
Cecily was still indignant. 'I only wish,' she said, her voice trembling
a little, 'that you were right and I wrong. If only Penelope would marry
Mr. Winfrith, and live happy ever after----'
'I did not promise you that,' said Wantley mildly, 'though, mind you, I
think she would have a better chance with him than with anyone else.'
'But why should she marry at all?' cried Cecily. 'I quite understand why
her mother would like her to do so, but surely, after all that
happened----'
Wantley shot a keen glance at his companion. 'Wonderful,' he murmured,
'the effect of even one night's good country air! You look much better,
and even prettier, that you did yesterday.'
Cecily smiled. Praise from him always sounded very sweetly in her ear,
but, 'No, no!' she said, 'I won't let you off! Tell me why Penelope is
not to remain as she is if she wishes to do so?'
'There are a hundred reasons, with most of which I certainly shall not
trouble you; but the best of them all is that, however much she wishes
it, she will not be able to do so.'
'And pray, why not?' asked Cecily.
'If Winfrith doesn't succeed in carrying her off, someone infinitely
less worthy certainly will, and then all our troubles will begin again.
Don't you see--or is it, as I sometimes suspect, that you won't
see?'--his voice suddenly grew grave--'that Penelope is never content,
never even approximately happy, unless she is'--he hesitated, then went
on, avoiding as he spoke the candid eyes lifted up to his in such eager,
perplexed inquiry--'well, unless she has some man, or, better still,
several men, in play? Now, that sort of game--oh! but I mean it: with
her it has always been a game, and a game only becomes absorbing and
exciting when there is present the element of danger--generally ends in
disaster.'
Cecily walked on in silence. 'I admit there is some truth in what you
say,' she said at last; 'but I am sure, _sure_, Ludovic, that you are
wrong about Mr. Winfrith.'
Wantley looked at her thoughtfully. 'A bet, a little bet, my dearest, is
a very good way of proving the faith that is in you. Here and now I
propose that, if I prove right and you prove wrong after, let us say,
two years----'
'Please--please,' she said, 'do not make a joke of this matter; it hurts
me.'
'Forgive me,' he cried repentantly. 'I am rather light-headed to-day,
and you know I always feel rather jealous of Penelope. After all that's
come and gone, it's rather hard that she should take also my wife from
me!'
III
Of the many ill things done in the name of beauty during the last
hundred years, none, surely, can compare in sheer wantonness with the
restorations of our old village churches. In this matter pious
iconoclasts have wrought more mischief than Cromwell and his Ironsides
ever succeeded in doing, and the lover of rural England, in the course
of his pilgrimage, has perpetually thrust on his notice the loveliness
without, wedded to the plaintive ugliness within, of buildings raised to
the glory of God in a more creative as well as in a holier age than
ours.
Here and there, becoming, however, pitifully few as time goes on, the
seeker may even now find a village church to the interior of which no
desecration has as yet been offered. But such survivals owe their
temporary lease of life either to the happy indifference of a wise
neighbourhood, or to the determined eccentricity and obstinate
conservatism of an incumbent happening to be on intimate terms of
friendship--or enmity will serve as well--with the patron of the living.
Such had been the fortunate case of the parish church of Marston
Lydiate, and Wantley felt a thrill of pleasure when he saw how
completely untouched everything had been left since the distant days of
his childhood.
Together he and his wife made their way among the square old-fashioned
pews, first to one and then to another of the holly-decked tombs and
monuments of long-dead Wantleys. At last the young man led Cecily up to
the most ancient, as also to the most ornate, of these, one taking up
the greater part of one aisle.
The monument represented Sir George Wantley, of Marston Lydiate, Knight,
who in the year 1609 had rebuilt the church. His effigy in armour,
bare-headed and kneeling, was under a pillared canopy, and at some
little distance was the statue of his wife under a similar canopy. The
inscription set forth that their married life, if brief, had been
unclouded by dissension, and that 'His lady, left alone, lived alone,'
till, having attained her eightieth year, 'she was again joined unto her
husband in this place.'
'So,' said Wantley, very soberly, 'would you wish our poor Penelope to
be. She has been left alone, and now you would condemn her to live
alone.'
But Cecily made no answer. She only looked very kindly at the stiff
figure of the steadfast dame whose name she now herself bore, and whose
conduct she so thoroughly understood and approved.
As they walked through the church gate, a boy came running up
breathless. He held a telegram in his hand, and began, in the native
dialect, an involved explanation as to why it had not been delivered
before.
'Oh, it's addressed to you,' said Wantley, handing it to his wife.
Cecily opened it. 'I don't understand,' she began, but he saw her cheeks
turn bright pink. 'I don't think it can be meant for me at all.'
Wantley looked over her shoulder. 'It certainly is not meant for you,'
he said dryly.
The message, which had been sent from Simla, consisted in the words:
'Penelope and I were married to-day by Archdeacon of Lahore. Please
have proper announcement put in _Times_.--Your affectionate son,
DAVID WINFRITH.'
Wantley and Cecily looked at one another in silence. Then, fumbling
about in his pocket, the young man finally handed the astonished and
gratified boy half a sovereign. 'It's fair that someone should win the
bet,' he said, with a queer whimsical smile, and then, after the
recipient of his bounty had gone off, he added: 'Well, Cecily?'
'You are always right, and I am always wrong,' she cried, half laughing,
and yet her eyes filling with tears. 'But, oh! do let us hurry back and
give this to Lady Wantley. I shall have to explain to her how stupid it
was of me to open it.'
They walked along in almost complete silence, till suddenly Wantley said
musingly: 'I wonder how much David Winfrith knows--I wonder if she has
told him----'
But Cecily looked up at him very reproachfully, and as if she herself
were being accused--of what? 'There was very little to know,' she said
vehemently, 'and very, very little to tell.'
'If you make half as good a wife as you are friend,' exclaimed Wantley,
'I shall be more than content.'
THE TEMPLE PRESS, PRINTERS, LETCHWORTH