God's Good Man - Marie Corelli (i want to read a book .txt) 📗

it is only a weakness of nature,—a sense of regret and loss,— a knowledge of something I have missed in life,—all surely pardonable if quelled in the beginning. She,—Maryllia Vancourt—is only at woman,—I am only a man. There is more than at first seems apparent in that simple qualification ‘only’! She, the woman, has charm, and is instinctively conscious of her power, as why should she not be?—she has tried it, and found it no doubt in every case effectual. I, the man, am long past the fervours and frenzies of life,—and charm, whether it be hers or that of any other of her sex, should have, or ought to have, no effect upon me, particularly in my vocation, and with my settled habits. If I am so easily moved as to be conscious of a certain strange glamour and fascination in this girl,—for she is a girl to me, nay almost a child,—that is not her fault, but mine. As well expect the sun not to shine or a bird not to sing, as expect Maryllia Vancourt not to smile and look sweet! Walking with her in her rose-garden, where she took me with such a pretty air of confiding grace, to show me her border of old French damask roses, I listened to her half-serious, sometimes playful talk as in a dream, and answered her kindly questions concerning some of the sick and poor in the village as best I could, though I fear I must occasionally have spoken at random. Oh, those old French damask roses! I have known them growing in that border for years,—yet I never saw them as I saw them to-day,—never looked they so darkly red and glowing!—so large and open-hearted! I fancy I shall smell their fragrance all my life! ‘Are they doing well, do you think?’—she said, and the little white chin perked up from under the pink ribbon which tied her hat, and the dark blue eyes gleamed drowsily from beneath their drooping lids,—and the lips parted, smiling—and then—then came the devil and tempted me! I was no longer middle-aged John Walden, the quiet parson of a country ‘cure,’—I was a man unknown to myself,—possessed as it were, by the ghost of a dead youth, clamouring for youthful joy! I longed to touch that delicate little pink-and-white creature, so like a rose herself!—I was moved by an insane desire—yes!—it was insane, and fortunately quite momentary,—such impulses are not uncommon”—and here, as he unravelled, to his own satisfaction, the tangled web of his impressions, his brow cleared, and he smiled gravely,—“I was, I say, moved by an insane desire to draw that dainty small bundle of frippery and prettiness into my arms—yes,—it was so, and why should I not confess it to myself? Why should I be ashamed? Other men have felt the same, though perhaps they do not count so many years of life as I do. At any rate with me the feeling was momentary,—and passed. Then,—some moments later,—under the cedar- tree she dropped a rose from the cluster she had gathered,—and in giving it back to her I touched her hand—and our eyes met.”

Here his thoughts became disconnected, and wandered beyond his control. He let them go,—and listened, instead of thinking, to the notes of the nightingale singing in his garden. It was now being answered by others at a distance, with incessant repetitions of a flute-like warble,—and then came the long sobbing trill and cry of love, piercing the night with insistant passion.

“The Bird of Life is singing on the bough, His two eternal notes of ‘I and Thou’— O hearken well, for soon the song sings through, And would we hear it, we must hear it Now.”

A faint tremor shook him as the lines quoted by Cicely Bourne rang back upon his memory. He rose to go indoors.

“I am a fool!”—he said—“I must not trouble my head any more about a summer day’s fancy. It was a kind of ‘old moonlight in the blood,’ as Hafiz says,—an aching sense of loss,—or rather a touch of the spring affecting a decaying tree!” He sighed. “I shall not suffer from it again, because I will not. Brent’s letter has arrived opportunely,—though I think—nay, I am sure, he has been misinformed. However, Miss Vancourt’s affairs have nothing to do with me,—nor need I interest myself in what is not my concern. My business is with those who depend on my care,—I must not forget myself—I must attend to my work.”

He went into the house,—and there was confronted in his own hall by a big burly figure clad in rough corduroys,—that of Farmer Thorpe, who doffed his cap and pulled his forelock respectfully at the sight of him.

“‘Evenin’, Passon!” he said—“I thought as ‘ow I’d make bold to coom an’ tell ye my red cow’s took the turn an’ doin’ wonderful! Seems a special mussy of th’ A’mighty, an’ if there’s anythin’ me an’ my darter can do fur ye, ye’ll let us know, Passon, for I’m darn grateful, an’ feels as ‘ow the beast pulled round arter I’d spoke t’ye about ‘er. An’ though as ye told me, ‘tain’t the thing to say no prayers for beasties which is worldly goods, I makes a venture to arsk ye if ye’ll step round to the farm to-morrer, jest to please Mattie my darter, an’ take a look at the finest litter o’ pigs as ever was seen in this county, barrin’ none! A litter as clean an’ sweet as daisies in new-mown hay, an’ now’s the time for ye to look at ‘em, Passon, an’ choose yer own suckin’ beast for bilin’ or roastin’ which ye please, for both’s as good as t’other,—an’ there ain’t no man about ‘ere what desarves a sweet suckin’ pig more’n you do, an’ that I say an’ swear to. It’s a real prize litter I do assure you!—an’ Mattie my darter, she be that proud, an’ all ye wants to do is just to coom along an’ choose your own!”

“Thank you, Mr. Thorpe!” said Walden with his usual patient courtesy—“Thank you very much! I will certainly come. Glad to hear the cow is better. And is Miss Thorpe well?”

“She’s that foine,”—rejoined the farmer—“that only the pigs can beat ‘er! I’ll be tellin’ ‘er you’ll coom to-morrer then?”

“Oh yes—by all means! Certainly! Most kind of you, I’m sure! Good- evening, Thorpe!”

“Same t’ye, Passon, an’ thank ye kindly!” Whereat John escaped at last into his own solitary sanctum.

“My work!” he said, with a faint smile, as he seated himself at his desk—“I must do my work! I must attend to the pigs as much as anything else in the parish! My work!”

XVIII

It was the first Sunday in July. Under a sky of pure and cloudless blue the village of St. Rest lay cradled in floral and foliage loveliness, with all the glory of the morning sunshine and the full summer bathing it in floods of living gold. It had reached the perfect height of its annual beauty with the full flowering of its orchards and fields, and with all the wealth of colour which was flung like spray against the dark brown thatched roofs of its clustering cottages by the masses of roses, red and white, that clambered as high as the tops of the chimneys, and turning back from thence, dropped downwards again in a tangle of blossoms, and twined over latticed windows with a gay and gracious air like garlands hung up for some great festival. The stillness of the Seventh Day’s pause was in the air,—even the swallows, darting in and out from their prettily contrived nests under the bulging old-fashioned eaves, seemed less busy, less active on their bright pinions, and skimmed to and fro with a gliding ease, suggestive of happy indolence and peace. The doors of the church were set wide open,—and Adam Frost, sexton and verger, was busy inside the building, placing the chairs, as was his usual Sunday custom, in orderly rows for the coming congregation. It was about half-past ten, and the bell-ringers, arriving and ascending into the belfry, were beginning to ‘tone’ the bells before pealing the full chime for the eleven o’clock service, when Bainton, arrayed in his Sunday best, strolled with a casual air into the churchyard, looked round approvingly for a minute or two, and then with some apparent hesitation, entered the church porch, lifting his cap reverently as he did so. Once there, he coughed softly to attract Frost’s attention, but that individual was too much engrossed with his work to heed any lesser sound than the grating of the chairs he was arranging. Bainton waited patiently, standing near the carved oaken portal, till by chance the verger turned and saw him, whereupon he beckoned mysteriously with a crook’d forefinger.

“Adam! Hi! A word wi’ ye!”

Adam came down the nave somewhat reluctantly, his countenance showing signs of evident preoccupation and harassment.

“What now?” he demanded, in a hoarse whisper-‘“Can’t ye see I’m busy?”

“O’ coorse you’re busy—I knows you’re busy,”—returned Bainton, soothingly—“I ain’t goin’ to keep ye back nohow. All I wants to know is, ef it’s true?”

“Ef what’s true?”

“This ‘ere, wot the folks are all a’ clicketin’ about,—that Miss Vancourt ‘as got a party o’ Lunnon fash’nables stayin’ at the Manor, an’ that they’re comin’ to church this marnin’?”

“True enough!” said Frost—“Don’t ye see me a-settin’ chairs for ‘em near the poopit? There’ll be what’s called a ‘crush’ I can tell ye!- for there ain’t none too much room in the church at the best o’ times for our own poor folk, but when rich folks comes as well, we’ll be put to it to seat ‘em. Mister Primmins, he comes down to me nigh ‘arf an hour ago, an’ he sez, sez he: ‘Miss Vancourt ‘as friends from Lunnon stayin’ with ‘er, an’ they’re comin’ to church this marnin’. ‘Ope you’ll find room?’ An’ I sez to ‘im, ‘I’ll do my best, but there ain’t no reserve seats in the ‘ouse o’ God, an’ them as comes fust gits fust served.’ Ay, it’s true enough they’re a comin’, but ‘ow it got round in the village, I don’t know. I ain’t sed a wurrd.”

“Ill news travels fast,”—said Bainton, sententiously, “Mister Primmins no doubt called on his young ‘ooman at the ‘Mother Huff’ an’ told ‘er to put on ‘er best ‘at. She’s a reg’ler telephone tube for information—any bit o’ news runs right through ‘er as though she was a wire. ‘Ave ye told Passon Waldon as ‘ow Miss Vancourt an’ visitors is a-comin’ to ‘ear ‘im preach?”

“No,”—replied Adam, with some vigour—“I ain’t told ‘im nothin’. An’ I ain’t goin’ to neither!”

Bainton looked into the crown of his cap, and finding his handkerchief there wiped the top of his head with it.

“It be powerful warm this marnin’, Adam,”—he said—“Powerful warm it be. So you ain’t goin’ to tell Passon nothin’,—an’ for why, may I ask, if to be so bold.”

“Look ‘ere, Tummas,”—rejoined the verger, speaking slowly and emphatically—“Passon, ‘e be a rare good man, m’appen no better man anywheres, an’ what he’s goin’ to say to us this blessed Sunday is all settled-like. He’s been thinkin’ it out all the week. He knows what’s what. ‘Tain’t for us,—‘tain’t for you nor me, to go puttin’ ‘im out an’ tellin’ ‘im o’ the world the flesh an’ the devil all a- comin’ to church. Mebbe he’a been a-prayin’ to the Lord A’mighty to put the ‘Oly Spirit into ‘im, an’ mebbe he’s got it—just THERE.” And Adam touched his breast significantly. “Now if I goes, or you goes and sez to ‘im: