A MORNING SERVICE
Mr. Fregelius replied he was as well as could be expected; that the
doctor said no complications were likely to ensue, but that here upon
this very bed he must lie for at least two months. “That,” he added,
“is a sad thing to have to say to a man into whose house you have
drifted like a log into a pool of the rocks.”
“It is not my house, but my father’s, who is at present in France,”
answered Morris. “But I can only say on his behalf that both you and
your daughter are most welcome until you are well enough to move to the
Rectory.”
“Why should I not go there at once?” interrupted Stella. “I could come
each day and see my father.”
“No, no, certainly not,” said Morris. “How could you live alone in that
great, empty house?”
“I am not afraid of being alone,” she answered, smiling; “but let it be
as you like, Mr. Monk—at any rate, until you grow tired of us, and
change your mind.”
Then Mr. Fregelius told Morris what he had not yet heard—that when it
became known that they had deserted Stella, leaving her to drown in the
sinking ship, the attentions of the inhabitants of Monksland to the
cowardly foreign sailors became so marked that their consul at
Northwold had thought it wise to get them out of the place as quickly
as possible. While this story was in progress Stella left the room to
speak to the nurse who had been engaged to look after her father at
night.
Afterwards, at the request of Mr. Fregelius, Morris told the tale of
his daughter’s rescue. In the course of it he mentioned how he found
her standing on the deck of the sinking ship and singing a Norse song,
which she had informed him was an ancient death-dirge.
The old clergyman turned his head and sighed.
“What is the matter?” asked Morris.
“Nothing, Mr. Monk; only that song is unlucky in my family, and I hoped
that she had forgotten it.”
Morris looked at him blankly.
“You don’t understand—how should you? But, Mr. Monk, there are strange
things and strange people in this world, and I think that my daughter
Stella is one of the strangest of them. Fey like the rest—only a fey
Norse woman would sing in such a moment.”
Again Morris looked at him.
“Oh, it is an old northern term, and means foreseeing, and foredoomed.
To my knowledge her grandmother, her mother, and her sister, all three
of them, sang or repeated that song when in some imminent danger to
their lives, and all three of them were dead within the year. The
coincidence is unpleasant.”
“Surely,” said Morris, with a smile, “you who are a clergyman, can
scarcely believe in such superstition?”
“No, I am not superstitious, and I don’t believe in it; but the thing
recalls unhappy memories. They have been death-lovers, all of them. I
never heard of a case of one of that family who showed the slightest
fear at the approach of death; and some have greeted it with
eagerness.”
“Well,” said Morris, “would not that mean only that their spiritual
sight is a little clearer than ours, and their faith a little stronger?
Theoretically, we should all of us wish to die.”
“Quite so, yet we are human, and don’t. But she is safe, thanks to you,
who but for you would now be gone. My head is still weak from that
blow—you must pay no attention to me. I think that I hear Stella
coming; you will say nothing to her—about that song, I mean—will you?
We never talk of it in my family.”
When, still stiff and sore from his adventure in the open boat, Morris
went to bed, it was clear to his mind after careful consideration that
fortune had made him the host of an exceedingly strange couple. Of Mr.
Fregelius he was soon able to form an estimate distinct enough,
although, for aught he knew, it might be erroneous. The clergyman
struck him as a person of some abilities who had been doomed to much
disappointment and suffered from many sorrows. Doubtless his talents
had not proved to be of a nature to advance him in the world. Probably,
indeed—and here Morris’s hazard was correct—he was a scholar and a
bookworm without individuality, to whom fate had assigned minor
positions in a profession, which, however sincere his faith, he was
scarcely fitted to adorn.
The work of a clergyman in a country parish if it is to succeed, should
be essentially practical, and this man was not practical. Clearly,
thought Morris, he was one of those who beat their wings against the
bars with the common result; it was the wings that suffered, the bars
only grew a trifle brighter. Then it seemed that he had lost a wife to
whom he was attached, and the child who remained to him, although he
loved her and clung to her, he did not altogether understand. So it
came about, perhaps, that he had fallen under the curses of loneliness
and continual apprehension; and in this shadow where he was doomed to
walk, flourished forebodings and regrets, drawing their strength from
his starved nature like fungi from a tree outgrown and fallen in the
forest.
Mr. Fregelius, so thought Morris, was timid and reticent, because he
dared not discover his heart, that had been so sorely trampled by Fate
and Fortune. Yet he had a heart which, if he could find a confessor
whom he could trust, he longed to ease in confidence. For the rest, the
man’s physical frame, not too robust at any time, was shattered, and
with it his nerve—sudden shipwreck, painful accident, the fierce
alternatives of hope and fear; then at last a delirium of joy at the
recovery of one whom he thought dead, had done their work with him; and
in this broken state some ancient, secret superstition became dominant,
and, strive as he would to suppress it, even in the presence of a
stranger, had burst from his lips in hints of unsubstantial folly.
Such was the father, or such he appeared to Morris, but of the daughter
what could be said? Without doubt she was a woman of strange and
impressive power. At this very moment her sweet voice, touched with
that continual note of pleading, still echoed in his brain. And the
dark, quiet eyes that now slept, and now shone large, as her thoughts
fled through them, like some mysterious sky at night in which the
summer lightning pulses intermittently! Who might forget those eyes
that once had seen them? Already he wished to be rid of their haunting
and could not. Then her beauty—how unusual it was, yet how rich and
satisfying to the eye and sense; in some ways almost Eastern
notwithstanding her Norse blood!
Often Morris had read or heard of the bewildering power of women, which
for his part hitherto he had been inclined to attribute to shallow and
very common causes, such as underlie all animate nature. Yet that of
Stella—for undoubtedly she had power—suggested another interpretation
to his mind. Or was it, after all, nothing but a variant, one of the
Protean shapes of the ancient, life-compelling mystery? And her strange
chant, the song of which her father made light, but feared so much; her
quick insight into the workings of his own thought; her courage in the
face of danger and sharp physical miseries; her charm, her mastery.
What was he to make of them? Lastly, why did he think so much about
her? It was not his habit where strangers were concerned. And why had
she awakened in his somewhat solitary and secluded mind a sympathy so
unusual that it seemed to him that he had known her for years and not
for hours?
Pondering these things and the fact that perhaps within the coming
weeks he would find out their meaning, Morris went to sleep. When he
awoke next morning his mood had changed. Somewhat vaguely he remembered
his perturbations of the previous night indeed, but now they only moved
him to a smile. Their reasons were so obvious. Such exaggerated
estimates and thoughts follow strange adventures—and in all its details
this adventure was very strange—as naturally as nightmares follow
indigestion.
Presently Thomas came to call him, and brought up his letters, among
them one from Mary containing nothing in particular, for, of course, it
had been despatched before her telegram, but written in her usual
humorous style, which made him laugh aloud.
There was a postscript to the letter screwed into the unoccupied space
between the date line and the “Dearest Morris” at its commencement. It
ran:
“How would you like to spend our honeymoon? In a yacht in the
Mediterranean? I think that would do. There is nothing like solitude in
a wretched little boat to promote mutual understanding. If your
devotion could stand the strain of a dishevelled and seasick spouse,
our matrimonial future has no terrors for your loving
MARY.”
As Morris read he ceased to laugh. “Yes,” he thought to himself,
“‘solitude in a wretched little boat’ does promote mutual
understanding. I am not certain that it does not promote it too much.”
Then, with an access of irritation, “Bother the people! I wish I could
be rid of them; the whole thing seems likely to become a worry.”
Next he took up a letter from his father, which, when perused, did not
entertain him in the least. There was nothing about Lady Rawlins in it,
of whom he longed to hear, or thought that he did; nothing about that
entrancing personality, the bibulous and violent Sir Jonah, now so meek
and lamblike, but plenty, whole pages indeed, as to details connected
with the estate. Also it contained a goodly sprinkling of sarcasms and
grumblings at his, Morris’s, bad management of various little matters
which the Colonel considered important. Most of all, however, was his
parent indignant at his neglect to furnish him with details
sufficiently ample of the progress of the new buildings. Lastly, he
desired, by return of post, a verbatim report of the quarrel that, as
he was informed, had occurred on the school board when a prominent
Roman Catholic threatened to throw an inkstand at a dissenting minister
who, _coram populo_, called him the son of “a Babylonian woman.”
By the time that Morris had finished this epistle, and two others which
accompanied it, he was in no mood for further reflections of an
unpractical or dreamy nature. Who can wonder when it is stated that
they contained, respectively, a summary demand for the amount of a
considerable bill which he imagined he had paid, and a request that he
would read a paper before a “Science Institute” upon the possibilities
of aerial telephones, made by a very unpleasing lady whom he had once
met at a lawn-tennis party? Indeed it would not be too much to say that
if anyone had given him the opportunity he would have welcomed a chance
to quarrel, especially with the lady of the local Institute. Thus,
cured of all moral distempers, and every tendency to speculate on
feminine charms, hidden or overt, did he descend to the Sabbath
breakfast.
That morning Morris accompanied Stella to church, where the services
were still being performed by a stop-gap left by Mr. Tomley. Here,
again, Stella was a surprise to him, for now her demeanour, and at a
little distance her appearance also, were just such as mark
ninety-eight out of every hundred clergyman’s daughters in the country.
So quiet and reserved was she that anyone meeting her that morning
might have imagined that she was hurrying from the accustomed
Bible-class to sit among her pupils in the church. This impression
indeed was, as it were, certificated by an old-fashioned silk fichu
that she had been obliged to borrow, which in bygone years had been
worn by Morris’s mother.
Once in church, however, matters changed. To begin with, finding it
warm, Stella threw off the fichu, greatly to the gain of her personal
appearance. Next, it became evident that the beauties of the ancient
building appealed to her, which was not wonderful; for these old,
seaside, eastern counties churches, relics of long past wealth and
piety, are some of them among the most beautiful in the world. Then
came the “Venite,” of which here and there she sang a line or so, just
one or two rich notes like those that a thrush utters before he bursts
into full song. Rare as they might be, however, they caused those about
her in the church to look at the strange singer wonderingly.
After this, in the absence of his father, Morris read the lessons, and
although, being blessed with a good voice, this was a duty which he
performed creditably enough, that day he went through it with a certain
sense of nervousness. Why he was nervous at first he did not guess;
till, chancing to glance up, he became aware that Miss Fregelius was
looking at him out of her half-closed eyes. What is more, she was
listening critically, and with much intenseness, whereupon, instantly,
he made a mistake and put a false accent on a name.
In due course, the lessons done with, they reached the first hymn,
which was one that scarcely seemed to please his companion; at any
rate, she shut the book and would not sing. In the case of the second
hymn, however, matters were different. This time she did not even open
the book. It was evident that she knew the words, perhaps among the
most beautiful in the whole collection, by heart. The reader will
probably be acquainted with them. They begin:
“And now, O Father, mindful of the love
That bought us, once for all, on Calvary’s tree.”
At first Stella sang quite low, as though she wished to repress her
powers. Now, as it happened, at Monksland the choir was feeble, but
inoffensive; whereas the organ was a good, if a worn and neglected
instrument, suited to the great but sparsely peopled church, and the
organist, a man who had music in his soul. Low as she was singing, he
caught the sound of Stella’s voice, and knew at once that before him
was a woman who in a supreme degree possessed the divinest gift,
perhaps, with which Nature can crown her sex, the power and gift of
song. Forgetting his wretched choir, he began to play to her. She
seemed to note the invitation, and at once answered to it.
“Look, Father, look on His anointed face,”
swelled from her throat in deep contralto notes, rich as those the
organ echoed.
But the full glory of the thing, that surpassing music which set
Monksland talking for a week, was not reached till she came to the
third verse. Perhaps the pure passion and abounding humanity of its
spirit moved her. Perhaps by this time she was the thrall of her own
song. Perhaps she had caught the look of wonder and admiration on the
face of Morris, and was determined to show him that she had other music
at command besides that of pagan death-chants. At least, she sang up
and out, till her notes dominated those of the choir, which seemed to
be but an accompaniment to them; till they beat against the ancient
roof and down the depth of the long nave, to be echoed back as though
from the golden trumpets of the angels that stood above the tower
screen; till even the village children ceased from whispers and playing
to listen open-mouthed.
“And then for those, our dearest and best,
By this prevailing Presence we appeal;
O! fold them closer to Thy mercy’s breast,
O! do Thine utmost, for their souls’ true weal;
From tainting mischief keep them white and clear,
And crown Thy gifts with strength to persevere.”
It was as her voice lingered upon the deep tones of these last words
that suddenly Stella seemed to become aware that practically she was
singing a solo; that at any rate no one else in the congregation was
contributing a note. Then she was vexed, or perhaps a panic took her;
at least, not another word of that hymn passed her lips. In vain the
organist paused and looked round indignantly; the little boys, the
clerk, and the stout coach-builder were left to finish it by
themselves, with results that by contrast were painful.
When Stella came out of church, redraped in the antique and unbecoming
fichu, she found herself the object of considerable attention. Indeed,
upon one pretext and another nearly all the congregation seemed to be
lingering about the porch and pathway to stare at the new parson’s
shipwrecked daughter when she appeared. Among them was Miss Layard, and
with her the delicate brother. They were staying to lunch with the
Stop-gap’s meek little wife. Indeed, this self-satisfied and somewhat
acrimonious lady, Miss Layard, engaged Morris in conversation, and
pointedly asked him to introduce her to Miss Fregelius.
“We are to be neighbours, you know,” she explained, “for we live at the
Hall in the next parish, not more than a mile away.”
“Indeed,” answered Stella, who did not seem much impressed.
“My brother and I hope to call upon Mr. Fregelius and yourself as soon
as possible, but I thought I would not wait for that to have the
pleasure of making your acquaintance.”
“You are very kind indeed,” said Stella simply. “At present, I am
afraid, it is not much use calling upon my father, as he is in bed with
a broken thigh; also, we are not at the Rectory. Until he can be moved
we are only guests at the Abbey,” and she looked at Morris, who added
rather grumpily, by way of explanation:
“Of course, Miss Layard, you have heard about the wreck of the
Trondhjem, and how those foreign sailors saw the light in my workshop
and brought Mr. Fregelius to the Abbey.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Monk, and how they left Miss Fregelius behind, and you
went to fetch her, and all sorts of strange things happened to you. We
think it quite wonderful and romantic. I am writing to dear Miss Porson
to tell her about it, because I am sure that you are too modest to sing
your own praises.”
Morris grew angry. At the best of times he disliked Miss Layard. Now he
began to detest her, and to long for the presence of Mary, who
understood how to deal with that not too well-bred young person.
“You really needn’t have troubled,” he answered. “I have already
written.”
“Then my epistle will prove a useful commentary. If I were engaged to a
modern hero I am sure I could not hear too much about him, and,” fixing
her eyes upon the black silk fichu, “the heroine of the adventure.”
Meanwhile, Stella was being engaged by the brother, who surveyed her
with pale, admiring eyes which did not confine their attentions to the
fichu.
“Monk is always an awfully lucky fellow,” he said. “Just fancy his
getting the chance of doing all that, and finding you waiting on the
ship at the end of it,” he added, with desperate and emphatic
gallantry. “There’s to be a whole column about it in the ‘Northwold
Times’ to-morrow. I wish the thing had come my way, that’s all.”
“Unless you understand how to manage a boat in a heavy sea, and the
winds and tides of this coast thoroughly, I don’t think that you should
wish that, Mr. Layard,” said Stella.
“Why not?” he asked sharply. As a matter of fact the little man was a
miserable sailor and suspected her of poking fun at him.
“Because you would have been drowned, Mr. Layard, and lying at the
bottom of the North Sea among the dogfish and conger-eels this morning
instead of sitting comfortably in church.”
Mr. Layard started and stared at her. Evidently this lady’s imagination
was as vivid as it was suggestive.
“I say, Miss Fregelius,” he said, “you don’t put things very
pleasantly.”
“No, I am afraid not, but then drowning isn’t pleasant. I have been
near it very lately, and I thought a great deal about those
conger-eels. And sudden death isn’t pleasant, and perhaps—unless you
are very, very good, as I daresay you are—what comes after it may not
be quite pleasant. All of which has to be thought of before one goes to
sea in an open boat in winter, on the remotest chance of saving a
stranger’s life—hasn’t it?”
Somehow Mr. Layard felt distinctly smaller.
“I daresay one wouldn’t mind it at a pinch,” he muttered; “Monk isn’t
the only plucky fellow in the world.”
“I am sure you would not, Mr. Layard,” replied Stella in a gentler
voice, “still these things must be considered upon such occasions and a
good many others.”
“A brave man doesn’t think, he acts,” persisted Mr. Layard.
“No,” replied Stella, “a foolish man doesn’t think, a brave man thinks
and sees, and still acts—at least, that is how it strikes me, although
perhaps I have no right to an opinion. But Mr. Monk is going on, so I
must say good-morning.”
“Are many of the ladies about here so inquisitive, and the young
gentlemen so?”—“decided” she was going to say, but changed the word to
“kind”—asked Stella of Morris as they walked homeward.
“Ladies!” snapped Morris. “Miss Layard isn’t a lady, and never will be;
she has neither birth nor breeding, only good looks of a sort and
money. I should like,” he added, viciously—“I should like to shut her
into her own coal mine.”
Stella laughed, which was a rare thing with her—usually she only
smiled—as she answered:
“I had no idea you were so vindictive, Mr. Monk. And what would you
like to do with Mr. Layard?”
“Oh! I—never thought much about him. He is an ignorant, uneducated
little fellow, but worth two of his sister, all the same. After all,
he’s got a heart. I have known him do kind things, but she has nothing
but a temper.”
Meanwhile, at the luncheon table of the Stop-gap the new and mysterious
arrival, Miss Fregelius, was the subject of fierce debate.
“Pretty! I don’t call her pretty,” said Miss Layard; “she has fine
eyes, that is all, and they do not look quite right. What an
extraordinary garment she had on, too; it might have come out of Noah’s
Ark.”
“I fancy,” suggested the hostess, a mild little woman, “that it came
out of the wardrobe of the late Mrs. Monk. You know, Miss Fregelius
lost all her things in that ship.”
“Then if I were she I should have stopped at home until I got some new
ones,” snapped Miss Layard.
“Perhaps everybody doesn’t think so much about clothes as you do,
Eliza,” suggested her brother Stephen, seeing an opportunity which he
was loth to lose. Eliza, in the privacy of domestic life, was not a
person to be assailed with a light heart, but in company, when to some
extent she must keep her temper under control, more might be dared.
She shifted her chair a little, with her a familiar sign of war, and
while searching for a repartee which would be sufficiently crushing,
cast on Stephen a glance that might have turned wine into vinegar.
Somewhat tremulously, for unless the fire could be damped before it got
full hold, she knew what they might expect, the little hostess broke in
with—
“What a beautiful singing voice she has, hasn’t she?”
“Who?” asked Eliza, pretending not to understand.
“Why, Miss Fregelius, of course.”
“Oh, well, that is a matter of opinion.”
“Hang it all, Eliza!” said her brother, “there can’t be two opinions
about it, she sings like an angel.”
“Do you think so, Stephen? I should have said she sings like an opera
dancer.”
“Always understood that their gifts lay in their legs and not in their
throats. But perhaps you mean a prima donna,” remarked Stephen
reflectively.
“No, I don’t. Prima donnas are not in the habit of screeching at the
top of their voices, and then stopping suddenly to make an effect and
attract attention.”
“Certainly she has attracted my attention, and I only wish I could hear
such screeching every day; it would be a great change.” It may be
explained that the Layards were musical, and that each detested the
music of the other.
“Really, Stephen,” rejoined Eliza, with sarcasm as awkward as it was
meant to be crushing, “I shall have to tell Jane Rose that she is
dethroned, poor dear—beaten out of the field by a hymn-tune, a pair of
brown eyes, and—a black silk fichu.”
This was a venomous stab, since for a distance of ten miles round
everyone with ears to hear knew that Stephen’s admiration of Miss Rose
had not ended prosperously for Stephen. The poisoned knife sank deep,
and its smart drove the little pale-eyed man to fury.
“You can tell her what you like, Eliza,” he replied, for his
self-control was utterly gone; “but it won’t be much use, for she’ll
know what you mean. She’ll know that you are jealous of Miss Fregelius
because she’s so good looking; just as you are jealous of her, and of
Mary Porson, and of anybody else who dares to be pretty and,” with
crushing meaning, “to look at Morris Monk.”
Eliza gasped, then said in a tragic whisper, “Stephen, you insult me.
Oh! if only we were at home, I would tell you——”
“I have no doubt you would—you often do; but I’m not going home at
present. I am going to the Northwold hotel.”
“Really,” broke in their hostess, almost wringing her hands, “this is
Sunday, Mr. Layard; remember this is Sunday.”
“I am not likely to forget it,” replied the maddened Stephen; but over
the rest of this edifying scene we will drop a veil.
Thus did the advent of Stella bring with it surprises, rumours, and
family dissensions. What else it brought remains to be told.