The Sunday was the thirteenth after Trinity, and the afternoon service
at Carriford was nearly over. The people were singing the Evening Hymn.
Manston was at church as usual in his accustomed place two seats forward
from the large square pew occupied by Miss Aldclyffe and Cytherea.
The ordinary sadness of an autumnal evening-service seemed, in
Cytherea’s eyes, to be doubled on this particular occasion. She looked
at all the people as they stood and sang, waving backwards and forwards
like a forest of pines swayed by a gentle breeze; then at the village
children singing too, their heads inclined to one side, their eyes
listlessly tracing some crack in the old walls, or following the
movement of a distant bough or bird with features petrified almost to
painfulness. Then she looked at Manston; he was already regarding her
with some purpose in his glance.
‘It is coming this evening,’ she said in her mind. A minute later, at
the end of the hymn, when the congregation began to move out, Manston
came down the aisle. He was opposite the end of her seat as she stepped
from it, the remainder of their progress to the door being in contact
with each other. Miss Aldclyffe had lingered behind.
‘Don’t let’s hurry,’ he said, when Cytherea was about to enter the
private path to the House as usual. ‘Would you mind turning down this
way for a minute till Miss Aldclyffe has passed?’
She could not very well refuse now. They turned into a secluded path on
their left, leading round through a thicket of laurels to the other gate
of the church-yard, walking very slowly. By the time the further gate
was reached, the church was closed. They met the sexton with the keys in
his hand.
‘We are going inside for a minute,’ said Manston to him, taking the keys
unceremoniously. ‘I will bring them to you when we return.’
The sexton nodded his assent, and Cytherea and Manston walked into the
porch, and up the nave.
They did not speak a word during their progress, or in any way interfere
with the stillness and silence that prevailed everywhere around them.
Everything in the place was the embodiment of decay: the fading
red glare from the setting sun, which came in at the west window,
emphasizing the end of the day and all its cheerful doings, the mildewed
walls, the uneven paving-stones, the wormy pews, the sense of recent
occupation, and the dank air of death which had gathered with the
evening, would have made grave a lighter mood than Cytherea’s was then.
‘What sensations does the place impress you with?’ she said at last,
very sadly.
‘I feel imperatively called upon to be honest, from very despair of
achieving anything by stratagem in a world where the materials are such
as these.’ He, too, spoke in a depressed voice, purposely or otherwise.
‘I feel as if I were almost ashamed to be seen walking such a world,’
she murmured; ‘that’s the effect it has upon me; but it does not induce
me to be honest particularly.’
He took her hand in both his, and looked down upon the lids of her eyes.
‘I pity you sometimes,’ he said more emphatically.
‘I am pitiable, perhaps; so are many people. Why do you pity me?’
‘I think that you make yourself needlessly sad.’
‘Not needlessly.’
‘Yes, needlessly. Why should you be separated from your brother so much,
when you might have him to stay with you till he is well?’
‘That can’t be,’ she said, turning away.
He went on, ‘I think the real and only good thing that can be done for
him is to get him away from Budmouth awhile; and I have been wondering
whether it could not be managed for him to come to my house to live for
a few weeks. Only a quarter of a mile from you. How pleasant it would
be!’
‘It would.’
He moved himself round immediately to the front of her, and held her
hand more firmly, as he continued, ‘Cytherea, why do you say “It would,”
so entirely in the tone of abstract supposition? I want him there: I
want him to be my brother, too. Then make him so, and be my wife! I
cannot live without you. O Cytherea, my darling, my love, come and be my
wife!’
His face bent closer and closer to hers, and the last words sank to a
whisper as weak as the emotion inspiring it was strong.
She said firmly and distinctly, ‘Yes, I will.’
‘Next month?’ he said on the instant, before taking breath.
‘No; not next month.’
‘The next?’
‘No.’
‘December? Christmas Day, say?’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘O, you darling!’ He was about to imprint a kiss upon her pale, cold
mouth, but she hastily covered it with her hand.
‘Don’t kiss me--at least where we are now!’ she whispered imploringly.
‘Why?’
‘We are too near God.’
He gave a sudden start, and his face flushed. She had spoken so
emphatically that the words ‘Near God’ echoed back again through the
hollow building from the far end of the chancel.
‘What a thing to say!’ he exclaimed; ‘surely a pure kiss is not
inappropriate to the place!’
‘No,’ she replied, with a swelling heart; ‘I don’t know why I burst out
so--I can’t tell what has come over me! Will you forgive me?’
‘How shall I say “Yes” without judging you? How shall I say “No” without
losing the pleasure of saying “Yes?”’ He was himself again.
‘I don’t know,’ she absently murmured.
‘I’ll say “Yes,”’ he answered daintily. ‘It is sweeter to fancy we
are forgiven, than to think we have not sinned; and you shall have the
sweetness without the need.’
She did not reply, and they moved away. The church was nearly dark now,
and melancholy in the extreme. She stood beside him while he locked
the door, then took the arm he gave her, and wound her way out of the
churchyard with him. Then they walked to the house together, but the
great matter having been set at rest, she persisted in talking only on
indifferent subjects.
‘Christmas Day, then,’ he said, as they were parting at the end of the
shrubbery.
‘I meant Old Christmas Day,’ she said evasively.
‘H’m, people do not usually attach that meaning to the words.’
‘No; but I should like it best if it could not be till then?’ It seemed
to be still her instinct to delay the marriage to the utmost.
‘Very well, love,’ he said gently. ‘’Tis a fortnight longer still; but
never mind. Old Christmas Day.’