I
It could not be said the Church Leet chimes brought good when they rang
out that night at midnight, as the old year was giving place to the
new. Mrs. Carradyne, in her superstition, thought they brought evil.
Certainly evil set in at the same time, and Captain Monk, with all his
scoffing obstinacy, could not fail to see it. That fine young lad, his
son, fell through the window listening to them; and in the self-same
hour the knowledge reached him that Katherine, his eldest and dearest
child, had flown from his roof in defiant disobedience, to set up a home
of her own.
Hubert was soon well of his bruises; but not of the cold induced by
lying in the snow, clad only in his white night-shirt. In spite of all
Mr. Speck's efforts, rheumatic fever set in, and for some time Hubert
hovered between life and death. He recovered; but would never again be
the strong, hearty lad he had been--though indeed he had never been very
physically strong. The doctor privately hoped that the heart would be
found all right in future, but he would not have answered for it.
The blow that told most on Captain Monk was that inflicted by Katherine.
And surely never was disobedient marriage carried out with the
impudent boldness of hers. Church Leet called it "cheek." Church Leet
(disbelieving the facts when they first oozed out) could talk of nothing
else for weeks. For Katherine had been married in the church hard by,
that same night.
Special licenses were very uncommon things in those days; they cost too
much; but the Reverend Thomas Dancox had procured one. With Katherine's
money: everybody guessed that. She had four hundred a-year of her own,
inherited from her dead mother, and full control over it. So the special
license was secured, and their crafty plans were laid. The stranger
who had presented himself at the Hall that night (by arrangement),
asking for Mr. Dancox, thus affording an excuse for his quitting the
banquet-room, was a young clergyman of Worcester, come over especially
to marry them. When tackled with his deed afterwards, he protested that
he had not been told the marriage was to be clandestine. Tom Dancox went
out to him from the banquet; Katherine, slipping on a bonnet and shawl,
joined them outside; they hastened to the rectory and thence into the
church. And while the unconscious master of Leet Hall was entertaining
his guests with his good cheer and his stories and his hip, hip, hurrah,
his Vicar and Katherine Monk were made one until death should them part.
And death, as it proved, intended to do that speedily.
At first Captain Monk, in his unbounded rage, was for saying that a
marriage celebrated at ten o'clock at night by the light of a solitary
tallow candle, borrowed from the vestry, could not hold good. Reassured
upon this point, he strove to devise other means to part them. Foiled
again, he laid the case before the Bishop of Worcester, and begged his
lordship to unfrock Thomas Dancox. The Bishop did not do as much as
that; though he sent for Tom Dancox and severely reprimanded him. But
that, as Church Leet remarked, did not break bones. Tom had striven to
make the best of his own cause to the Bishop, and the worst of Captain
Monk's obdurate will; moreover, stolen marriages were not thought much
of in those days.
An uncomfortable state of things was maintained all the year, Hall Leet
and the Parsonage standing at daggers drawn. Never once did Captain Monk
appear at church. If he by cross-luck met his daughter or her husband
abroad, he struck into a good fit of swearing aloud; which perhaps
relieved his mind. The chimes had never played again; they pertained to
the church, and the church was in ill-favour with the Captain. As the
end of the year approached, Church Leet wondered whether he would hold
the annual banquet; but Captain Monk was not likely to forego that.
Why should he? The invitations went out for it; and they contained an
intimation that the chimes would again play.
The banquet took place, a neighbouring parson saying grace at it in the
place of Tom Dancox. While the enjoyment was progressing and Captain
Monk was expressing his marvel for the tenth time as to what could have
become of Speck, who had not made his appearance, a note was brought in
by Rimmer--just as he had brought in one last year. This also was from
Mrs. Carradyne.
"_Please come out to me for one moment, dear Godfrey. I must say a
word to you._"
Captain Monk's first impulse on reading this was to send Rimmer back to
say she might go and be hanged. But to call him from the table was so
very extreme a measure, that on second thoughts he decided to go to her.
Mrs. Carradyne was standing just outside the door, looking as white as a
sheet.
"Well, this is pretty bold of you, Madam Emma," he began angrily. "Are
you out of your senses?"
"Hush, Godfrey! Katherine is dying."
"What?" cried the Captain, the words confusing him.
"Katherine is dying," repeated his sister, her teeth chattering with
emotion.
In spite of Katherine's rebellion, Godfrey Monk loved her still as the
apple of his eye; and it was only his obstinate temper which had kept
him from reconciliation. His face took a hue of terror, and his voice a
softer tone.
"What have you heard?"
"Her baby's born; something has gone wrong, I suppose, and she is dying.
Sally ran up with the news, sent by Mr. Speck. Katherine is crying aloud
for you, saying she cannot die without your forgiveness. Oh, Godfrey,
you will go, you will surely go!" pleaded Mrs. Carradyne, breaking down
with a burst of tears. "Poor Katherine!"
Never another word spoke he. He went out at the hall-door there and
then, putting on his hat as he leaped down the steps. It was a wretched
night; not white, clear, and cold as the last New Year's Eve had been,
or mild and genial as the one before it; but damp, raw, misty.
"You think I have remained hard and defiant, father," Katherine
whispered to him, "but I have many a time asked God's forgiveness on my
bended knees; and I longed--oh, how I longed!--to ask yours. What should
we all do with the weight of sin that lies on us when it comes to such
an hour as this, but for Jesus Christ--for God's wonderful mercy!"
And, with one hand in her father's and the other in her husband's, both
their hearts aching to pain, and their eyes wet with bitter tears, poor
Katherine's soul passed away.
After quitting the parsonage, Captain Monk was softly closing the garden
gate behind him--for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and
a bang--when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong,
hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company
with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike
twelve. The little doctor, Speck, who had left the house but a minute
before, was standing at the churchyard fence close by, his arms leaning
on the rails, probably ruminating sadly on what had just occurred.
Captain Monk halted beside him in silence, while the clock struck.
As the last stroke vibrated on the air, telling the knell of the old
year, the dawn of the new, another sound began.
Ring, ring, ring! Ring, ring, ring!
The chimes! The sweet, soothing, melodious chimes, carolling forth
The Bay of Biscay. Very pleasant were they in themselves to the ear.
But--did they fall pleasantly on Captain Monk's? It may be, not. It may
be, a wish came over him that he had never thought of instituting them.
But for doing that, the ills of his recent life had never had place.
George West's death would not have lain at his door, or room been made
by it for Tom Dancox, and Katherine would not be lying as he had now
left her--cold and lifeless.
"Could _nothing_ have been done to save her, Speck?" he whispered to
the doctor, whose arms were still on the churchyard railings, listening
to the chimes in silence--though indeed he had asked the same question
indoors before.
"Nothing; or you may be sure, sir, it would have been," answered Mr.
Speck. "Had all the medical men in Worcestershire been about her, they
could not have saved her any more than I could. These unfortunate cases
happen now and then," sighed he, "showing us how powerless we really
are."
Well, it was grievous news wherewith to startle the parish. And Mrs.
Carradyne, a martyr to belief in ghosts and omens, grew to dread the
chimes with a nervous and nameless dread.