Chapter 49

"After I met you that morning," she went on--"I heard many things about you in the village. Everyone seemed to love you!--yes, even the tiniest children! The poor people, the old and the sick, all seemed to trust you as their truest and best friend! And when I knew all this I began to think very earnestly about the religious faith which seemed to make you what you are. I didn't go to church to hear you preach--you know that!--I only went once--and I was late--you remember?--So it has not been anything you have said in the pulpit that has changed me so much. It is just YOU, yourself! It is because you live your life as you do that I want to learn to live the rest of mine just a little bit like it, even though I am crippled and more or less useless. You will teach me, won't you? I want to have your faith--your goodness---"

He interrupted her.

"Do not call me good!" he said, faintly--"I cannot bear it--I cannot!"

She looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes.

"I'm afraid you will have to bear it!" she said, softly--"For you ARE good!--you have always been good to ME! And I do honestly believe that God means everything for the best as you say, because now I am a cripple, I have escaped once and for all from the marriage my aunt was trying to force me into with Lord Roxmouth. I thank God every minute of my life for that!"

"You never loved him?"

John's voice was very low and tremulous as he asked this question.

"Never!" she answered, in the same low tone. "How could you think it?"

"I did not know--I was not quite sure---" he murmured.

"No, I never loved him!" she said, earnestly--"I always feared and hated him! And he did not love me,--he only cared for the money my aunt would have left me had I married him. But I have always wanted to be loved for myself--and this has been my great trouble. If anyone had ever really cared for me, I think it would have made me good and wise and full of trust in God--I should have been a much better woman than I am--I am sure I should! People say that the love I want is only found in poems and story books, and that my fancies are quite ridiculous. Perhaps they are. But I can't help it. I am just myself and no other!" She smiled a little--then went on--"Lord Roxmouth has a great social position,--but, to my mind, he has degraded it. I could not have married a man for whom I had no respect. You see I can talk quite easily about all this because it is past. For of course now I am a cripple, the very idea of marriage for me is all over. And I am really very glad it is so. No one can spread calumnies about me, or compromise my name any more. And even the harm Lord Roxmouth meant to try and do to YOU, has been stopped. So this time God HAS answered my prayers."

John looked up suddenly.

"Did you pray---?" he began in a choked voice-then checked himself, and said quickly--"Dear child, I do not think Lord Roxmouth could have ever done me any harm!"

"Ah, you don't know him as I do!" and she sighed--"He stops at nothing. He will employ any base tool, any mean spy, to gain his own immediate purposes. And--and--" she hesitated--"you know I wrote to you about it---he saw us in the picture gallery---"

"Well!" said John, and his eyes kindled into a sudden light and fire--"What if he did?"

"You were telling me how much you disliked seeing women smoke"--she faltered--"And--and--you spoke of Psyche,--you remember---"

"I remember!" And John grew bolder and more resolute in spirit as he saw the soft rose flush on her cheeks and listened to the dulcet tremor of her voice--"I shall never forget!"

"And he thought--he thought---" here her words sank almost to a whisper--"that I--that you---"

He turned suddenly and looked down upon her where she lay. Their eyes met,--and in that one glance, love flashed a whole unwritten history. Stooping over her, he caught her little hands in his own, and pressed them against his heart with strong and passionate tenderness.

"If he thought I loved you,"--he said--"he was right! I loved you then--I love you now!--I shall love you for ever--till death, and beyond it! My darling, my darling! You know I love you!"

A half sob, a little smile answered him,--and then soft, broken words.

"Yes--I know!--I always knew!"

He folded his arms about her, and drew her into an embrace from which he wildly thought not Death itself should tear her.

"And you care?" he whispered.

"I care so much that I care for nothing else!" she said--then, all suddenly she broke down and began to weep pitifully, clinging to him and murmuring the grief she had till now so bravely restrained--"But it is all too late!" she sobbed--"Oh my dearest, you love me,--and I love you,--ah!--you will never know how much!--but it is too late!-- I can be of no use to you!--I can never be of use! I shall only be a trouble to you,--a drag and a burden on your days!--oh John!--and a little while ago I might have been your joy instead of your sorrow!"

He held her to him more closely.

"Hush, hush!" he said softly, soothing her as he would have soothed a child,--and with mingled tenderness and reverence, he kissed the sweet trembling lips, the wet eyes, the tear-stained cheeks--"Hush, my little girl! You are all my joy in this world--can you not feel that you are?" And he kissed her again and yet again. "And I am so unworthy of you!--so old and worn and altogether unpleasing to a woman--I am nothing! Yet you love me! How strange that seems!--how wonderful!--for I have done nothing to deserve your love. And had you been spared your health and strength, I should never have spoken--never! I would not have clouded your sunny life with my selfish shadow. No! I should have let you go on your way and have kept silence to the end! For in all your vital brightness and beauty I should never have dared to say I love you, Maryllia!"

At this she checked her sobs, and looked up at him in vague amazement.

"You would never have spoken?"

"Never!"

"You would have let me live on here, quite close to you, seeing you every day, perhaps, without a word of the love in your heart?"

He kissed her, half-smiling.

"I think I should!"

"Then"--said Maryllia, with grave sweetness--"I know that God does mean everything for the best--and I thank Him for having made me a cripple! Because if my trouble has warmed your heart,--your cold, cold heart, John!"--and she smiled at him through her tears--"and has made you say you love me, then it is the most blessed and beautiful trouble I could possibly have, and has brought me the greatest happiness of my life! I am glad of it and proud of it,--I glory in it! For I would rather know that you love me than be the straightest, brightest, loveliest woman in the world! I would rather be here in your arms--so--" and she nestled close against him--"than have all the riches that were ever counted!--and--listen, John!" Here, with her clinging, caressing arms, she drew his head down close to her breast--"Even if I have to die and leave you soon, I shall know that all is right with my soul!--yes, dear, dear John!-- because you will have taken away all its faults and made it beautiful with your love!--and God will love it for love's sake, almost as much as He must love you for your own, John!"

There was only one way--there never has been more than one way--to answer such tender words, and John took that way by silencing the sweet lips that spoke them with a kiss in which the pent-up passion of his soul was concentrated. The shadows of the winter gloaming deepened;--the firelight died down to a mass of rosy embers;-and when Cicely softly opened the door an hour later, the room was almost dark. But the scent of violets was in the air--she heard soft whisperings, and saw that two human beings at least, out of all a seeking world, had found the secret of happiness. And she stole away unseen, smiling, yet with glad tears in her eyes, and a little unuttered song in her heart--

"If to love is the best of all things known, We have gain'd the best in the world, mine own! We have touch'd the summit of love--and live God Himself has no more to give!"

XXXII

The prime of youth is said to be the only time of life when lovers are supposed by poets and romancists to walk 'on air,' so as John Walden was long past the age when men are called young, it is difficult to determine the kind of buoyant element on which he trod when he left the Manor that evening. Youth!--what were its vague inchoate emotions, its trembling hesitations, its more or less selfish jealousies, doubts and desires, compared to the strong, glowing and tender passion which filled the heart of this man, so long a solitary in the world, who now awaking to the consciousness of love in its noblest, purest form, knew that from henceforth he was no longer alone! A life,--delicate and half broken by cruel destiny, hung on his for support, help and courage,--a soul, full of sweetness and purity, clung to him for its hope of Heaven! The glad blood quickened in his veins,--he was twice a man,--never had he felt so proud, so powerful, and withal so young. Like the Psalmist he could have said 'My days are renewed upon the earth'--and he devoutly thanked God for the blessing and glory of the gift of love which above all others makes existence sweet.

"My darling!" he murmured, as he walked joyously along the little distance stretching between the lodge gates of the Manor and his own home--"She shall never miss one joy that I can give her! How fortunate it is that I am tall and strong, for when the summer days come I can lift her from her couch and carry her out into the garden like a little child in my arms, and she will rest under the trees, and perhaps gradually get accustomed to the loss of her own bright vitality if I do my utmost best to be all life to her! I will fill her days with varied occupations and try to make the time pass sweetly,--she shall keep all her interests in the village--nothing shall be done without her consent--ah yes!--I know I shall be able to make her happier than she would be if left to bear her trouble quite alone! If she were strong and well, I should be no fit partner for her--but as it is--perhaps my love may comfort her, and my unworthiness be forgiven!"

Thus thinking, he arrived at his rectory, and entering, pushed open the door of his study. There, somewhat to his surprise, he found Dr. 'Jimmy' Forsyth standing in a meditative attitude with his back to the fire.

"Hullo, Walden!" he said--"Here you are at last! I've been waiting for you ever so long!"

"Have you?" and John, smiling radiantly, threw off his hat, and pushed back his grey-brown curls from his forehead--"I'm sorry! Anything wrong?" Dr. 'Jimmy' shrugged his shoulders.

"Nothing particular. Oliver Leach is dead,--that's all!"

Walden started back. The smile passed from his face, for, remembering the scarcely veiled threats of his parishioners, he began to fear lest they should have taken some unlawful vengeance on the object of their hatred.

"Dead!" he echoed amazedly--"Surely no one--no one has killed him?"

"Not a bit of it!" said Forsyth, complacently--"It just happened!"

"How?"

"Well, it appears that the rascal has been lying low for a considerable time in the house of our reverend friend, Putwood Leveson. That noble soul has been playing 'sanctuary' to him, and no doubt warned him of the very warm feeling with which the villagers of St. Rest regarded him. He has been maturing certain plans, and waiting till an opportunity should arise for him to get away to Riversford, where apparently he intended to take up his future abode, Mordaunt Appleby the brewer having offered him a situation as brewery accountant. The opportunity occurred last night, so I hear. He managed to get off with his luggage in a trap, and duly arrived at the Crown Inn. There he was set upon in the taproom by certain old friends and gambling associates, who accused him of wilfully attempting to injure Miss Vancourt. He denied it. Thereupon they challenged him to drink ten glasses of raw whiskey, one on top of another, to prove his innocence. It was a base and brutal business, but he accepted the challenge. At the eighth glass he fell down unconscious. His companions thought he was merely drunk--but--as it turned out--he was dead." [Footnote: This incident happened lately in a village in the south of England.]

Walden heard in silence.

"It's horrible!" he said at last--"Yet--I cannot say sorry! I suppose as a Christian minister I ought to be,--but I'm not! I only hope none of my people were concerned in the matter?"

"You may be quite easy on that score,"--replied Forsyth--"Of course there will be an inquest, and a severe reproof will be administered to the men who challenged him,--but there the affair will end. I really don't think we need grieve ourselves unduly over the exit of one scoundrel from a world already overburdened with his species." With that, he turned and poked the fire into a brighter blaze. "Let us talk of something else"--he said. "I called in to tell you that Santori is in London, and that I have taken the responsibility upon myself of sending for him to see Miss Vancourt."

Walden was instantly all earnest attention.

"Who is Santori?" he asked.

"Santori," replied Forsyth, "is a great Italian, whose scientific researches into medicine and surgery have won him the honour of all nations, save and except the British. We are very insular, my dear Walden!--we never will tolerate the 'furriner' even if he brings us health and healing in his hand! Santori is a medical 'furriner,' therefore he is generally despised by the English medical profession. But I'm a Scotsman--I've no prejudices except my own!" And he laughed--"And I acknowledge Santori as one of the greatest men of the age. He is a scientist as well as a surgeon--and his great 'speciality' is the spine and nerves. Now I have never quite explained to you the nature of Miss Vancourt's injuries, and there is no need even now to particularise them. The main point of her case is that in the condition she is now, she must remain a cripple for life,--and" here he hesitated,--"that life cannot, I fear, be a very long one."

Walden turned his head away for a moment.

"Go on!" he said huskily.

"At the same time," continued Dr. Forsyth, gently--"there are no bones broken,--all the mischief is centred in damage to the spine. I sent, as you know, for Wentworth Glynn, our best specialist in this country, and he assured me there was no hope whatever of any change for the better. Yesterday, I happened to see in the papers that Santori had arrived in London for a few weeks, and, acting on a sudden inspiration, I wrote him a letter at once, explaining the whole case, and asking him to meet me in consultation. He has wired an answer to-day, saying he will be here to-morrow."

Walden's eyes were full of sorrowful pain and yearning.

"Well!" he said, with a slight sigh--"And what then?"

"What then?" responded Dr. 'Jimmy' cheerfully--"Why nothing,--except that it will be more satisfactory to everyone concerned,--and to me particularly--to have his opinion."

There was a pause. John gazed down into the fire as though he saw a whole world of mingled grief and joy reflected in its crimson glow. Then, suddenly lifting his head, he looked his friend full in the face.

"Forsyth,"--he said--"I think I ought to tell you--you ought to know--I am going to marry her!"

Without a word, 'Jimmy' gripped his hand and pressed it hard. Then he turned very abruptly, and walked up and down the little room. And presently he drew out his glasses and polished them vigorously though they were in no need of this process.

"I thought you would!" he said, after a while--"Of course I saw how the land lay! I knew you loved her---"

"I suppose that was easy to guess!" said John, a warm flush of colour rising to his brows as he spoke--"But you could not have imagined for a moment that she would love me! Yet she does! That is the wonder of it! I am such an old humdrum fellow--and she is so young and bright and pretty! It seems so strange that she should care!"

Dr. Forsyth looked at him with an appreciative twinkle in his eye. Then he laid a friendly hand upon his shoulder,

"You are a quaint creature, John!" he said--"Yet, do you know, I rather like your humdrum ways? I do, positively! And if I were a woman, I think I should esteem myself fortunate if I got you for a husband! I really should! You certainly don't suffer from swelled head, John--that's a great point in your favour!"

He laughed,--and John laughed with him. Then, drawing their chairs to opposite sides of the fire, they talked for an hour or more on the subject that was most interesting to them both, John was for marrying Maryllia as soon as possible--"in order that I may have the right to watch over her," he urged, and Forsyth agreed.

"But wait till Santori has seen her, and given his opinion,"--he said--"If he comes, as his telegram says he will to-morrow, we can take him entirely into our confidence, to decide what is best for her peace and pleasure. The ceremony of marriage can be gone through privately at the Manor,--by the way, why don't you ask your friend the Bishop to officiate? I suppose he knows the position?"

"He knows much, but not all,"--said John--"I wrote to him about the accident of course--and have written to him frequently since, but I did not think I should ever have such news to tell him as I have now!" His eyes darkened with deep feeling. "He has had his own tragedy--he will understand mine!"

A silence fell between them,--and soon after, Forsyth took his leave. Walden, left alone, and deeply conscious of the new responsibility he had taken upon his life, set to work to get through his parish business for the evening, in order to have time to devote to Maryllia the next day, and, writing a long letter to Bishop Brent, he told him all the history of his late-found happiness,--his hopes, his sorrows, his fears--and his intention to show what a man's true love could be to a woman whom unkind destiny had deprived of all the natural joys of living. He added to this letter a few words referring to Forsyth's information respecting the Italian specialist, Santori, who had been sent for to see Maryllia and pronounce on her condition--"but I fear," he wrote, "that there is nothing to be done, save to resign ourselves to the apparently cruel and incomprehensible will of God, which in this case has declared itself in favour of allowing the innocent to suffer."

Next morning he awoke to find the sun shining brightly from a sky almost clear blue, save for a few scattered grey fleecy clouds,-- and, stepping out into his garden, the first thing he noticed was a root of primroses breaking shyly into flower. Seeing Bainton trimming the shrubbery close by, he called his attention to it.

"Spring is evidently on the way, Bainton!" he said cheerily, "We are getting past the white into the gold again!"

"Ay, Passon, that we be!" rejoined Bainton, with a smile--"An' please the Lord, we'll soon get from the gold into the blue, an' from the blue into the rose! For that's allus the way o' the year,-- first little white shaky blossoms wot's a bit afraid of theirselves, lest the frost should nip 'em,--and then the deep an' the pale an' the bright gold blossoms, which just laughs at dull weather--an' then the blue o' the forget-me-nots an' wood-bells,--an' the red o' the roses to crown all. An' mebbe," he continued, with a shrewd upward glance at his master's face--"when the roses come, there'll be a bit of orange-blossom to keep 'em company---"

John started,--and then his kind smile, so warm and sunny and sweet, shone like a beam of light itself across his features.

"What, Bainton!" he said--"So you know all about it already!"

Bainton began to chuckle irrepressibly.

"Well, if the village ain't a liar from its one end to its t'otherest, then I knows!" he declared triumphantly--"Lord love ye, Passon, you don't s'pose ye can keep any secrets in this 'ere parish? They knows all about ye 'fore ye knows yerself!--an' Missis Spruce she came down from the Manor last night in such a state o' fluster as never was, an' she sez, all shakin' like an' smilin'-- 'Miss Maryllia's goin' to be married,' sez she, an' we up an' sez to 'er--'What, is the Dook goin' to 'ave her just the same though she can't walk no more?' an' she sez: 'Dook, not a bit of it! There's a better man than any Dook close by an' it's 'im she's goin' to 'ave an' nobody else, an' it's Passon Walden,' sez she, an' with that we all gives a big shout, an' she busts out cryin' an' laughin' together, an' we all doos the same like the nesh fools we are when a bit o' news pleases us like,--an'--an'---" Here Bainton's voice grew rather husky and tremulous as he proceeded--"so of course the news went right through the village two minutes arterwards. An' it's all we could do to keep from comin' up outside 'ere an' givin' ye a rousin' cheer 'fore goin' to bed, onny Mr. Netlips 'e said it wouldn't be 'commensurate,' wotever that is, so we just left it. Howsomever, I made up my mind I'd be the first to wish ye joy, Passon!--an' I wish it true!"

Silently Walden held out his hand. Bainton grasped it with affectionate respect in his own horny palm.

"Not that I'd 'ave ever thought you'd a' bin a marryin' man, Passon!" he averred, his shrewd eyes lighting up with the kindliest humour--"But it's never too late to mend!"

Walden laughed.

"That's true, Bainton! It's never too late to repent of one's follies and begin to be wise! Thank you for all your good wishes-- they come from the heart, I know! But"--and his smile softened into an earnest gravity of expression--"they must be for her--for Miss Maryllia--not for me! I am already happier than I deserve--but she needs everyone's good thoughts and prayers to help her to bear her enforced helplessness--she is very brave--yet--it is hard---"

He broke off, not trusting himself to say more.

"It's hard--it's powerful hard!" agreed Bainton, sympathetically-- "Such a wife as she'd a' made t'ye, Passon, if she'd been as she was when she come in smilin' an' trippin' across this lawn by your side, an' ye broke off a bit o' your best lilac for her! There's the very bush--all leafless twigs now, but strong an' 'elthy an' ready to bloom again! Ah! I remember that day well!--'twas the same day as ye sat under the apple tree arter she was gone an' fastened a threepenny bit with a 'ole in it to ye're watch chain! I seed it! An' I was fair mazed over that 'oley bit,--but I found out all about it!--hor-hor-hor!" and Bainton began to laugh with exceeding delight at his own perspicuity--"A few minutes' gossip with old Missis Tapple at the post-office did it!--hor-hor-hor! for she told me, bless 'er heart!--as 'ow Miss Vancourt 'ad given it t'ye for fun, as a sort o' reward like for sendin' off some telegrams for 'er! Hor- hor! There's naught like a village for findin' out everybody's little secrets, an' our village beats every other one I ever heard tell on at that kind o' work, it do reely now! I say, Passon, when they was spreadin' all the stories round about you an' Miss Vancourt, I could a' told a tale about the 'oley bit, couldn't I?"

"You could indeed!" laughed John, good-naturedly--"and yet--I suppose you didn't!"

"Not I!" said Bainton, stoutly--"I do talk a bit, but I ain't Missis Spruce, nor I ain't turned into a telephone tube yet. Mebbe I will when I'm a bit older. 'Ave ye heard, Passon, as 'ow Oliver Leach is dead?"

"Yes,--Dr. Forsyth told me last night."

"Now d'ye think a man like 'im is gone to Heaven!" demanded Bainton- -"Honest an' true, d'ye think the Lord Almighty wants 'im?"

John was rather non-plussed. His garrulous gardener watched his face with attentive interest.