And now a cloud of heavy sorrow and foreboding hung over the little
village. All its inhabitants were oppressed by a dreary sense of
helpless wretchedness and personal loss. Maryllia was not dead,--but
it was to be feared that she was dying,--slowly, and by inches as it
were, yet nevertheless surely. A great specialist had been summoned
from London by Dr. Forsyth, and after long and earnest consultation,
his verdict upon her case had been well-nigh hopeless. Thereupon
Cicely Bourne was immediately sent for, and arrived from Paris in
all haste, only to fall into a state of utter despair. For there
seemed no possible chance of saving the dear and valuable life of
her beloved friend and protectress to whom she owed all her
happiness, all her future prospects. And thus confronted with a
tragedy more dire and personal than any she had ever pictured in her
wildest imaginative efforts, she sat by Maryllia's bedside, hour
after hour, day after day, night after night, stunned by grief,
watching, weeping, and waiting for the least glimmer of returning
consciousness in that unconscious form which lay so terribly inert,
like a figure of life-in-death before her, till she became the mere
gaunt, little ghost of herself, her large melancholy dark eyes alone
expressing the burning vital anguish of her soul. A telegram
conveying the sad news of her niece's accident had been sent to Mrs.
Fred Vancourt at the Gezireh Palace Hotel, Cairo, to which, with the
happy vagueness which so often characterizes the ultra-fashionable
woman, Mrs. Fred had replied direct to Maryllia herself thus:
"So glad to know where you really are at last, but sorry you have
met with a spill. Hope you have a good doctor and nurses. Will write
on return from expedition to Luxor. Lord Roxmouth much regrets to
hear of accident and thinks it lucky you are back in your own home."
Of course this 'sympathetic' message was not read by its intended
recipient at the time of its arrival. Maryllia lay blind, deaf and
senseless to all that was going on around her, and for many days
gave no sign of life whatever save a faint uneasy breathing and an
occasional moan. Cicely was left alone to face all difficulties, to
receive and answer all messages and to take upon herself for the
time being the ostensible duties of the mistress of Abbot's Manor.
She bent her energies to the task, though she felt that her heart
must break in the effort,--and with tears blinding her eyes, she
told poor Mrs. Spruce, who was quite stupefied by the sudden crash
of misfortune that had fallen upon the household, that she meant to
try and do her best to keep everything going on just as Maryllia
would wish it kept, "till--till--she gets better,"--she faltered
sobbingly--"and you will help me, dear Mrs. Spruce, won't you?"
Whereupon Mrs. Spruce took the poor child into her motherly arms,
and they both cried and kissed each other, moved by the same common
woe.
The Manor was soon besieged with callers. Everyone in the county
flocked thither to leave cards, and express their sympathy for the
unfortunate mischance that had overtaken the bright creature who had
been the cynosure of all eyes for her beauty and grace on the
morning of the first fox-hunt of the year. All the ill-natured
gossip, all the slanderous tittle-tattle which had been started by
Lord Roxmouth and fostered by Miss Tabitha Pippitt, ebbed and died
away in the great wave of honest regret and kindly pity that
pervaded the whole neighbourhood. Even Sir Morton Pippitt, smitten
by compunction for certain selfish motives which had inspired him to
serve Lord Roxmouth as a willing tool, was an indefatigable, almost
daily enquirer as to Maryllia's condition, for though pompous,
blusterous, and to a very great extent something of a snob, his
nature was not altogether lacking in the milk of human kindness like
that of his daughter Tabitha. She, still smarting under the jealous
conviction that John Walden was secretly enamoured of the Lady of
the Manor, had heard the strange story of his having so far
forgotten his usual self as to wander out bareheaded in the evening
air and recite the commencement of the burial service like a man
distraught when Maryllia's crushed body had been brought home, and
she thought of it often with an inward rage she could scarcely
conceal. Almost,--such was her acrimony and vindictiveness--she
wished Maryllia would die.
"Serve her right!" she said to herself, setting her thin lips
spitefully together--"Serve her right!"
There are a great many eminently respectable ladies of Miss
Tabitha's temperament who always say 'Serve her right,' when a
pretty and charming woman, superior to themselves, meets with some
misfortune. They regard it as a just dispensation of Providence.
John Walden meanwhile had braced himself to face the worst that
could happen. Or rather, as he chose to put it, strength, not his
own, had been given him to stand up, albeit feebly, under the shock
of unexpected disaster. Pale, composed, punctilious in the
performance of all his duties, and patiently attentive to the needs
of his parishioners, he went about among them as usual in his own
quiet, sympathetic way just as if his heart were not crying out in
fierce rebellion against inexorable destiny,--and as if he were not
wildly clamouring to be near her whom, now that she was being taken
from him, he knew that he loved with an ardour far deeper and
stronger than with the same passion common to men in the first flush
of their early manhood. And though he sent Bainton every day up to
the Manor to make enquiries about her, he never went near the place
himself. He could not. Brave as he tried to be, he could not meet
Cicely Bourne. He knew that one look into the little singer's
piteous dark eyes would have broken him down completely.
Every night Dr. 'Jimmy' Forsyth came to the rectory with the latest
details respecting Maryllia's condition,--though for weeks there was
no change to report. She was suffering from violent concussion of
the brain, and was otherwise seriously injured, but Forsyth would
not as yet state how serious the injuries were. For he guessed
Walden's secret, and was deeply touched by the quiet patience and
restrained sorrow of the apparently calm, self-contained man who,
notwithstanding his own inward acute agony, never forgot a single
detail having to do with the poor or sick of the parish,--who
soothed little Ipsie Frost's bewildered grief concerning her 'poor
bootiful white lady-love,'--and who sat with old Josey Letherbarrow
by his cottage fire, trying as best he could to explain, ay, even to
excuse the mysterious ways of divine Providence as apparently shown
in the visitation of cruel affliction on the head of a sweet and
innocent woman. Josey was a little dazed about it all and could not
be brought to realise that 'th' owld Squire's gel' might never rise
from her bed again.
"G'arn with ye!" he said, indignantly, to the melancholy village
gossips who came in to see him and shake their heads generally over
life and its brief vanities--"Th' Almighty Lord ain't a pulin',
spiteful, hoppitty kicketty devil wot ain't sure of 'is own mind! He
don't make a pretty thing just to break it agin all for nowt! Didn't
ye all come clickettin' to me about the Five Sister beeches, an'
ain't they still stannin'? An' Miss Maryllia 'ull stan' too just as
fast an' firm as the trees,--you take my wurrd for't! She ain't
goin' to die! Why look at me--just on ninety, an' I ain't dead yet!"
But a qualm of fear and foreboding came over him whenever 'Passon'
visited him. John's sad face told him more than words could express.
"Ain't she no better, Passon?" he would ask, timidly and
tremblingly.
And John, laying his own hand on the old brown wrinkled one, would
reply gently,
"No better, Josey! But we must hope,--we must hope always, and
believe that God will be merciful."
"An' if He ain't merciful, what'll we do?" persisted Josey once,
with tears in his poor dim eyes.
"We must submit!" answered John, almost sternly--"We must believe
that He knows what is wise and good for her--and for us all! And we
must live out our lives patiently without her, Josey!--patiently,
till the blessed end--till that peace cometh which passeth all
understanding!"
And Josey, looking at him, was awed by the pale spiritual serenity
of his features and the tragic human grief of his eyes.
One person in the neighbourhood proved himself a mainstay of help
and consolation during this time of general anxiety and suspense,
and this was Julian Adderley. He was always at hand and willing to
be of service. He threw his 'dreams' of poesy to the winds and
became poet in earnest,--poet in sympathy with others,--poet in
kindly thought,--poet in constant delicate ways of solace to the man
he had learned to respect above all others, and whose unspoken love
and despair he recognised with more passionate appreciation than any
grandly written tragedy. He had gone at once to the Manor on
Cicely's arrival there, and had laid himself, metaphorically so to
speak, at her feet. When she had first seen him, all oppressed by
the weight of her sorrow as she was, she had burst out crying,
whereat he had, without the slightest hesitation or embarrassment,
taken her in his arms and kissed her. Neither he nor she seemed the
least surprised at the spontaneity of their mutual caress,--it came
quite naturally. "It was so new--so fresh!" said Julian afterwards.
And from that eventful moment, he had installed himself more or less
at the Manor, under Cicely's orders. He wrote letters for her,
answered telegrams, drew up a formal list of 'Callers' and
'Enquiries,' kept accounts, went errands for the two trained nurses
who were in day and night attendance on the unconscious invalid
upstairs, and made himself generally useful and reliable. But his
'fantastic' notions were the same as ever. He would not, as he put
it, 'partake of food' at the Manor while its mistress was lying
ill,--nor would he allow any servant in the household to wait upon
him. He merely came and went, quietly to and fro, giving his best
services to all, and never failing to visit Walden every day, and
tell him all the latest news. He even managed to make friends with
the great dog Plato, who, ever since Maryllia's accident, had taken
up regular hours of vigil outside her bedroom door, regardless of
doctor and nurses, though he would move his leonine body gently
aside whenever they passed in or out, showing a perfectly
intelligent comprehension of their business. Plato every now and
again would indulge in a walk abroad with Julian, accompanying him
as far as the rectory, where he would enter, laying his broad head
on Walden's knee with a world of sympathy in his loving brown eyes,
while Nebbie, half-jealous, half-gratified, squatted humbly in the
shadow of his feathery tail. And John found a certain melancholy
pleasure in caressing the very dog Maryllia loved, and would sit,
thoughtfully stroking the animal's thick coat, while Adderley and
Dr. Forsyth, both of whom were now accustomed to meet in his little
study every evening, discussed the pros and cons of what was likely
to happen when Maryllia woke from her long trance of insensibility.
Would her awakening be to life or death? John listened to their
talk, himself saying nothing, all unaware that they talked merely to
cheer him and to try and put the best light they could on the face
of affairs in order to give him the utmost hope.
The weary days rolled on in rain and gloom,--Christmas came and went
with a weight and dullness never before known in St. Rest. Every
Sunday since the accident, Walden had earnestly requested the
prayers of his congregation for Miss Vancourt, 'who was seriously
ill'--and on Christmas Day, he gave out the same request, with a
pathetic alteration in the wording, which as he uttered it, caused
many people to sob as they listened.
"The prayers of this congregation," he said--"are desired for
Maryllia Vancourt, who has been much beloved among you, and whose
life is now in imminent peril!"
A chill seemed to strike through the church,--an icy blast far
colder than the wintry wind,--the alabaster sarcophagus in front of
the altar seemed all at once invested with a terrible significance,-
-death, and death only was the sovereign ruler of the world! And
when the children's choir rose to give the 'Hark the herald angels
sing, Glory to the new-born King'--their voices were unsteady and
fell out of tune into tears.
Maryllia was indeed in 'imminent peril.' She had become suddenly
restless, and her suffering had proportionately increased. At the
earliest symptom of returning consciousness, the attention of the
watchers at her bedside became redoubled;--should she speak, they
were anxious to hear the first word that escaped her lips. For as
yet, no one knew how she had come by her accident. None of the
hunters had seen her fall, and Bennett the groom, stoutly refused to
believe that the mare had either missed her jump, or thrown her
mistress.
"She couldn't have done it,"--he declared--"And if she could, she
wouldn't! She's too sensible, and Miss Vancourt's too sure a rider.
Something's at the bottom of it all, and I'd give a good deal to
find out what it is, and WHO it is!"
Thus said Bennett, with many dark nods of meaning, and gradually the
idea that Maryllia had been the victim of foul play, took root in
the minds of all the villagers who heard him. Everyone in the place
was on the watch for a clue,--a whisper,--a stray suggestion as to
the possible cause of the mischief. But so far nothing had been
discovered.
On the night before the last of the year, Maryllia, who had been
tossing uneasily all the afternoon, and moaning piteously, suddenly
opened her eyes and looked about her with a frightened air of
recognition. Cicely, always at hand with the nurse in attendance,
went quickly to the bedside in a tremour of hope and fear.
"Maryllia! Dearest, do you know me?"
She stared vaguely, and a faint smile hovered about her lips. Then
her brows suddenly knitted into a perplexed, pained frown, and she
said quite clearly--
"It was Oliver Leach!"
Cicely gave a little cry. The nurse warned her into silence by a
gesture. There was a pause. Maryllia looked from one to the other
wistfully.
"It was not Cleo's fault," she went on, speaking slowly, but
distinctly--"Cleo never missed. Oliver Leach took the hedge just
behind us. It was wrong! He meant to kill me. I saw it in his face!"
She shuddered violently, and her eyelids closed. "He was cruel--
cruel!" she murmured feebly--"But I was too happy!"
She drifted again into a stupor,--and Cicely, her whole soul
awakened by these broken words into a white heat of wrath and desire
for vengeance, left the room with sufficient information to set the
whole village in an uproar. Oliver Leach! In less than four-and-
twenty hours, the news was all over the place. The spreading wave of
indignation soon rose to an overwhelming high tide, and had Leach
shown himself anywhere in or near the village he would have stood an
uncommonly good chance of being first horsewhipped, and then
'ducked' in the river by an excited crowd. Oliver Leach! The hated,
petty upstart who had ground down the Abbot's Manor tenantry to the
very last penny that could be wrested from them!--who had destroyed
old cherished land-marks, and made ugly havoc in many once fair
woodland places in order to put money in his own pocket,--even he,
so long an object of aversion among them, was the would-be murderer
of the last descendant of the Vancourts! The villagers talked of
nothing else,--quiet and God-fearing rustics as they were, they had
no patience with treachery, meanness and cowardice, and were the
last kind of people in the world to hold their peace on a matter of
wickedness or injustice, merely because Leach was in the employ of
several neighbouring land-owners, including Sir Morton Pippitt.
Murmurs and threats ran from mouth to mouth, and Walden when he
heard of it, said nothing for, or against, their clamour for
revenge. The rage and sorrow of his own soul were greater than the
wrath of combined hundreds,--and his feeling was all the more deep
and terrible because it found no expression in words. The knowledge
that such a low and vile creature as Oliver Leach had been the
cause, and possibly the intentional cause of Maryllia's grievous
suffering and injury, moved him to realise for the first time in his
life what it was to be conscious of a criminal impulse. He himself
longed to kill the wretch who had brought such destruction on a
woman's beauty and happiness!--and it was with a curious sort of
satisfaction that he found himself called upon in the ordinary
course of things to read at evening service during the first week in
January, the Twenty-eighth Psalm, wherein David beseeches God to
punish the ungodly.
"Reward them according to their deeds, and according to the
wickedness of their own inventions!
"Recompense them after the work of their hands: pay them
that they have deserved!"
Such demands for the punishment of one's enemies may not be
'Christian,' but they are Scriptural, and as such, John felt himself
justified in pronouncing them with peculiar emphasis and fervour.
Meanwhile, by slow degrees, the 'imminent peril' passed, and
Maryllia came back to her conscious self,--a self that was tortured
in every nerve by pain,--but, with the return of her senses came
also her natural sweetness and gentleness, which now took the form
of a touching patience, very sad, yet very beautiful to see. The
first little gleam of gladness in her eyea awoke for Cicely,--to
whom, as soon as she recognised her, she put up her lips to be
kissed. Her accident had not disfigured her,--the fair face had been
spared, though it was white and drawn with anguish. But she could
not move her limbs,--and when she had proved this for herself, she
lay very still, thinking quietly, with a dream-like wonder and
sorrow in her blue eyes, like the wistfulness in the eyes of a
wounded animal that knows not why it should be made to suffer.
Docile to her nurses, and grateful for every little service, she
remained for some days in a sort of waking reverie, holding Cicely's
hand often, and asking her an occasional question about the house,
the gardens and the village. And January was nearly at an end, when
she began at last to talk connectedly and to enquire closely as to
her own actual condition.
"Am I going to die, Cicely?" she asked one morning--"You will tell
me the truth, dear, won't you? I would rather know."
Cicely choked back her tears, and smiled bravely.
"No, darling, no! You are better,--but--but you will be a long time
ill!"
Maryllia looked at her searchingly, and sighed a little.
"What have they done with Cleo?" she murmured.
"Cleo is all right,"--said Cicely--"She was badly hurt, but Bennett
knows how you love her, and he is doing all he can for her. She will
never hunt again, I'm afraid!"
"Nor shall I!" and Maryllia sighed again, and closed her eyes to
hide the tears that welled up in them.
There was a dark presentiment in her mind,--a heavy foreboding to
which she would not give utterance before Cicely, lest it should
grieve her. But the next day, when Dr. Forsyth paid her his usual
visit, and said in his usual cheery way that all was 'going on
well'--she startled him by requesting to speak to him alone, without
anyone else in the room, not even the attendant nurse.
"It is only a little question I want to ask!" she said with the
faint reflex of her old bright smile on her face--"And I'm sure
you'll answer it!"
'Jimmy' Forsyth hesitated. He felt desperately uncomfortable. He
instinctively knew what her question would be,--a question to which
there was only one miserable answer. But her grave pleading glance
was not to be resisted,--so, making the best of a bad business, he
cleared the room, shut the door, and remained in earnest
conversation with his patient for half-an-hour. And at the end of
that time, he went out, with tears in his keen eyes, and a
suspicious cough catching his throat, as he strode away from the
Manor through the leafless avenues, and heard the branches of the
trees rattling like prison chains in an angry winter's wind.
The worst was said,--and when it was once said, it was soon known.
Maryllia was not to die--not yet. Fate had willed it otherwise. But
she was to be a cripple for life. That was her doom. Never again
would her little feet go tripping through the rose gardens and walks
of her beloved home,--never would her dainty form be borne, a
weightless burden, by 'Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt' through the
flowering woods of spring,--from henceforth she would have to be
carried by others up and down, to and fro, a maimed and helpless
creature, with all the physical and healthful joys of living cut
away from her at one cruel blow! And yet--it was very strange!--she
herself was not stricken with any particular horror or despair at
her destiny. When, after the doctor had left, Cicely came in,
trembling and afraid,--Maryllia smiled at her with quite a sweet
placidity.
"I know all about myself now,"--she said, quietly--"I'm sorry in a
way,--because I shall be so useless. But--I have escaped Roxmouth
for good this time!"
"Oh my darling!" wept Cicely--"Oh my dear, beautiful Maryllia! If it
were only me instead of you!"
Maryllia drew the dark head down on the pillow beside her.
"Nonsense! Why should it have been you!" she said, cheerfully--"You
will be a delight to the world with your voice, Cicely,--whereas I
am nothing, and never have been anything. I shall not be missed---"
Her voice faltered a moment, as the thought of John Walden suddenly
crossed her mind. He would perhaps--only perhaps--miss her! Anon, a
braver and purely unselfish emotion moved her soul, and she began to
be almost glad that she was, as she said to herself, 'laid aside.'
"For now,"--she mused--"they can say nothing at all about him at MY
expense. Even Roxmouth's tongue must stop calumniating me,--for
though many people are very heartless, they do draw the line at
slandering a crippled woman! It's all for the best,--I'm sure it's
all for the best!"
And a serene contentment took possession of her,--a marvellous peace
that brought healing in its train, for with the earliest days of
February, when the first snowdrops were beginning to make their
white way through the dark earth, she was able to be moved from her
bed, and carried down to the morning room, where, lying on her
couch, near a sparkling fire, with a bunch of early flowering
aconites opening their golden eyes in a vase beside her, she looked
almost as if she were getting well enough soon to rise and walk
again. She was bright and calm, and quickly managed to impart her
own brightness and calmness to others. She summoned all the servants
of the household to her in turn, and spoke to them so kindly, and
thanked them so sweetly for the trouble and care they had taken and
were taking on her behalf that they could scarcely hide their tears.
As for poor Mrs. Spruce, who had nervously hesitated to approach her
for fear of breaking down in her presence, she no sooner made her
appearance than Maryllia stretched out her arms like a child, with a
smile on her face.
"Come and kiss me, Spruce!" she said, almost playfully--"and don't
cry! I'm not crying for myself, you see, and I don't want anyone
else to cry for me. You'll help to make the cripple-time pleasant,
won't you?--yes, of course you will!--and I can do the housekeeping
just the same as ever--nothing need alter that. Only instead of
running about all over the place, and getting in the way, I shall
have to keep still,--and you will always know where to find me.
That's something of an advantage, Spruce! And you'll talk to me!--oh
yes!--trust you for talking, you dear thing!--and I shall know just
as much about everybody as I want to,--there Spruce!--you WILL cry!-
-so run away just now, and come back presently when you feel better-
-and braver!" Whereat Mrs. Spruce had kissed her on the cheek at
her own request, and had caught her little hand and kissed that, and
had then hurried out of the room before her rising sobs could break
out, as they did, into rebellious blubbering.
"Which the Lord Almighty's ways are 'ard to bear!" she wailed. "An'
that they're past findin' out, no sensible person will contradict,
for why Miss Maryllia should be laid on 'er back an' me left to
stan' upright is a mystery Gospel itself can't clear! An' if I could
onny see Passon Walden, I'd ask 'im what it all means, for if
anybody knows it he will,--but he won't see no one, an' Dr. Forsyth
says best not trouble 'im, so there I am all at sea without a life-
belt, which Spruce bein' 'arder of 'earin' than ever, don't
understand nohow nor never will. But if there's no way out of all
this trouble, the Lord Himself ain't as wise as I took 'im for, for
didn't He say to a man what 'ad crutches in the Testymen 'Arise an'
walk'?--an' why shouldn't He say 'Arise an' walk' to Miss Maryllia?
I do 'ope I'm not sinful, but I'm fair mazed when I see the Lord
'oldin' off 'is hand as 'twere, an' not doin' the right thing as 'e
should do!"
Thus Mrs. Spruce argued, and it is to be feared that 'not doing the
right thing' was rather generally attributed to 'the Lord,' by the
good folk of St. Rest at that immediate period. Most of them were
thirsting to try a little 'right' on their own account as concerned
Oliver Leach. For the whole story was now known,--though had
Maryllia not told it quite involuntarily in a state of semi-
consciousness, she would never have betrayed the identity of her
cowardly assailant. But finding that she had, unknowingly to
herself, related the incident as it happened, there was nothing to
be done on her part, except to entreat that Leach might be allowed
to go unpunished. This, however, was a form of ultra-Christianity
which did not in any way commend itself to the villagers of St.
Rest. They were on the watch for him day and night,--scouts
traversed the high road to Riversford from east to west, from north
to south in the hope of meeting him driving along to the town as
usual on his estate agency business, but not a sign of him had been
seen since the evening of the fox-hunt, when Maryllia's body had
been found in Farmer's Thorpe's field. Then, one of Adam Frost's
eldest boys had noticed him talking to the Reverend Putwood Leveson
at the entrance of the park surrounding Badsworth Hall, but since
that time he had not shown himself, and enquiries at his cottage
failed to elicit other information than that he was 'not at home.'
The people generally suspected him of being 'in hiding,' and they
were not far wrong.
One day, soon after her first move from her bedroom to the morning
room, and when she had grown in part accustomed to being carried up
and down, Maryllia suddenly expressed a wish to hear the village
choir.
"I should like the children to come and sing to me,"--she said to
Cicely--"You remember the hymn they sang on that one Sunday I went
to church last summer--'The Lord is my Shepherd'? You sang it with
them, Cicely,--and it was so very sweet! Couldn't they come up here
to the Manor and sing it to me again?"
"Of course they could if you wish it, darling!" said Cicely,
blinking away the tears that were only too ready to fall at every
gentle request proffered by her friend--"And I'm sure they will!
I'll go now and tell Miss Eden you want them."
"Yes, do!" said Maryllia, eagerly--"And, Cicely,--wait a minute!
Have you seen Mr. Walden at all since I've been ill?"
"No,"--replied Cicely, quietly--"He has not been very well himself,
so Dr. Forsyth says,--and he has not been about much except to
perform service on Sundays, and to visit his sick parishioners---"
"Well, I am a sick parishioner!" said Maryllia--"Why should he leave
me out?"
Cicely looked at her very tenderly.
"I don't think he has left you out, darling! I fancy he has thought
of you a great deal. He has sent to enquire after you every day."
Maryllia was silent for a minute. Then, with her own quaint little
air of authority and decision, she said--
"Well!--I want to see him now. In fact, I must see him,--not only as
a friend, but as a clergyman. Because you know I may not live very
long---"
"Maryllia!" cried Cicely, passionately--"Don't say that!"
"I won't, if you don't like it!" and Maryllia smiled up at her from
her pillows--"But I think I should like to speak to Mr. Walden. So,
as you will be passing the rectory on your way to fetch Miss Eden
and the children, will you go in and ask him if he will come up and
see me this afternoon?"
"I will!" And Cicely ran out of the room with a sense of sudden,
inexplicable excitement which she could scarcely conceal. Quickly
putting on her hat and cloak, she almost flew down the Manor avenue,
regardless of the fact that it was raining dismally, and only
noticing that there was a scent of violets in the air, and one or
two glimmerings of yellow crocus peeping like golden spears through
the wet mould. Arriving at the rectory, she forgot that she had not
seen Walden at all since Maryllia's accident, and scarcely waiting
for the maid Hester to announce her, she hastened into his study
with startling suddenness. Springing from his chair, he confronted
her with wild imploring eyes, and a face from which ever vestige of
colour had fled.
"What is it?" he muttered faintly--"My God spare me!--she--she is
not dead?"
"No, no!" cried Cicely, smitten to the heart with self-reproach at
her own unthinking impetuosity--"No--no--NO! Oh what an utter idiot
I am! Oh, Mr. Walden, I didn't think--I didn't know--oh, dear Mr.
Walden, I'm so sorry I have alarmed you--do, do forgive me!---" And
she began to cry bitterly.
He looked at her vaguely for a moment,--anon his face relaxed, and
his eyes softened. Advancing to her, he took both her hands and
pressed them.
"Poor little Cicely!" he said, kindly--"So it is you, is it? Poor
dear little singer!--you have had so much anxiety--and I--" He broke
off and turned his head away. Then, after a pause, he resumed--"It's
all right, Cicely! You--you startled me just a little--I scarcely
knew you! You look so worn out, dear child, and no wonder! What can
I do to cheer you? Is she--is she still going on well?"
Cicely raised her dark, tear-wet eyes to his in a kind of wistful
wonder. Then she suddenly stooped and kissed the hands that held her
own.
"Homage to a brave man!" she said, impulsively--"You ARE brave!--
don't contradict me, because I won't stand it!" She detached her
hands from his and tried to laugh. "Is she going on well, you ask?
Yes,--as well as she can. But--you know she will be a cripple--
always?"
Walden bent his head sadly.
"I know!"
"And it's all through those terrible 'Five Sister' beeches!" she
went on--"If Oliver Leach had been allowed to cut them down,
Maryllia would never have gone out to save them that morning, or
given the wretched man his dismissal. And he wouldn't have cursed
her, or tried to murder her!"
Walden shuddered a little.
"Then it is quite as much my fault as anybody else's, Cicely,"--he
said, wearily--"For I had something to do with the saving of the old
trees. At any rate, I did not exercise my authority as I might have
done to pacify the villagers, when their destruction was threatened.
I feel somehow that I my share of blame in the disaster."
"Nonsense!" snapped out Cicely, sharply, almost angrily--"Why should
you take the sins of everyone in the parish on. your shoulders?
Broad as they are, you can draw the line somewhere surely! You might
as well blame poor old Josey Letherbarrow. He was the one who
persuaded Maryllia to save the Five Sisters,--and if you were to
tell him that all the trouble had come through him, he'd die! Poor
old dear!" She laughed a trifle hysterically. "It's nobody's fault,
I suppose. It's destiny."
John sighed heavily.
"Of course," went on Cicely desperately--"Maryllia may live a long
time,--or she may not. She thinks not. And because she thinks not,
she wants to see you."
He started nervously.
"To see ME?"
"Yes. It's perfectly natural, isn't it? Isn't it your business to
visit the sick,--and---" He interrupted her by a quick gesture.
"Not dying,"--he said--"I will not have the word used! She is not
dying--she will not die! She shall not!"
His eyes flashed--he looked all at once like an inspired apostle
with the gift of life in his hand. Cicely watched him with a sudden
sense of awe.
"If you say so,"--she faltered slowly--"perhaps she will not. Go and
see her!"
"To-day?"
"Yes,--this afternoon. She has asked for the school children to come
and sing to her,--I shall try to get them about four. If you come at
five, she will be able to see you--alone."
A silence fell between them.
"I will come!" said John, at last.
"That's right! Good-bye till then!"
And with a glance more expressive than words, Cicely went.
Left to himself, John threw open his study windows, and stepping out
into his garden all wet with rain, made his way to its warmest
corner, where, notwithstanding inclement weather, the loveliest
sweet violets were thickly blossoming under his glass frames. He
began to gather them carefully, and massed them together in bunches
of deep purple and creamy white,--while Bainton, working at a little
distance off, looked up in surprise and gratification at the sight
of him. For it was many weary weeks since 'Passon' had taken any
interest in his 'forced blooms.' Nebbie, having got thoroughly
draggled and muddy by jumping wildly after his master through an
exceedingly wet tangle of ivy, sat demurely watching him, as the
little heap of delicately scented blossoms increased.
"The violets are doing wonderfully well this year, Bainton,"--he
presently said, with his old kind smile, addressing his gardener--"I
am taking these to Miss Vancourt this afternoon."
Bainton lifted his cap respectfully.
"God bless her!" he said,--"An' you too, Passon!"
And John, holding the fragrant bunch of small sweet flowers tenderly
in his hand, answered gently--
"Thank you, my friend! I hope He will!"