Chapter 50

"Don't ye answer unless ye like, Passon!" he observed, sagaciously-- "I don't want to make ye say things which ain't orthodox! You keep a still tongue, an' I shall understand!"

John took the hint. He 'kept a still tongue'--and turned back from the garden into the house. Bainton chuckled softly.

"Passon can't lie!" he said to himself--"He couldn't do it to save his life! That's just the best of 'im! Now if he'd begun tellin' me that he was sure that blackhearted rascal 'ad gone to keep company with the angels I'd a nigh despised im!--I would reely now!"

That same morning, when John walked up to the Manor again, he entered it as a privileged person, invested with new authority. Cicely ran to meet him, and frankly put up her face to be kissed.

"A thousand and one congratulations!" she said--"I knew this would come!--I was sure of it! But the credit of the first guess is due to the Mooncalf,--Julian, you know!--he's a poet, and he made up a whole romance about you and Maryllia the first day he ever saw you with her!"

"Did he?"--and Walden smiled--"Well, he was right! I am very happy, Cicely!"

"So am I!" And the 'Goblin' clasped her hands affectionately across his arm--"You are just the very man I should have chosen for Maryllia!--the only man, in fact--I've never met anybody else worthy of her! But oh, if she were only strong and well! Do you know that Dr. Forsyth is bringing another specialist to see her this afternoon?"

"Yes, I know!"

"And there's other news for you this morning"--pursued Cicely, a broad smile lighting up her face and eyes--"Very amusing news! Lord Roxmouth is married!"

"Married!" exclaimed Walden, incredulously--"Not possible!"

"Come and see the wedding cards!"--and Cicely, laughing outright, caught his hand, and pulled him along into the morning room, where Maryllia, with her couch turned so that she could see the first glimpse of her lover as he entered the doorway, was eagerly awaiting his approach--"Maryllia, here's John! Prove to him at once please that Mrs. Fred's millions are lost to you forever!"

Maryllia laughed, and blushed sweetly too, as John bent over her and kissed her with a very expressive look of tenderness, not to say proprietorship.

"It's true, John!" she said--"Lord Roxmouth has married Aunt Emily!"

John's blue eyes lighted with sudden laughter.

"Well done!" he exclaimed, gaily--"Anything for the millions, evidently! What a comfort to think he has secured them at last! And so you have become the niece instead of the wife of the future duke, my Maryllia! When and where were they married?"

"Last week at the Embassy in Paris. Cicely wrote to Aunt Emily at New Year, telling her that though I was much better, the doctors had said I should be a cripple for life. Well, we never had any answer at all to that letter,--not a word of regret, or affection or sympathy. Then,--this morning--behold!--the Roxmouth wedding cards!"

She took a silver-bordered envelope lying on a little table close beside her, and drawing out from it the cards in question, held them up to his view. Walden glanced at them with a touch of contempt.

"Shall I wire our united heartiest congratulations?" he queried, smiling--"And add that we are engaged to be married?"

"Do!" said Maryllia, clasping his hand in her own and kissing it-- "Go and send the wire off through dear old Mrs. Tapple! And then all the village will know how happy I am!"

"How happy WE are,"--corrected John--"I think they know that already, Maryllia! But it shall be well impressed upon them!"

Later on, when he was in the village, making his usual round of visits among the sick and poor, and receiving the affectionate good wishes of many who had heard the news of his betrothal, he saw Dr. Forsyth driving up to the Manor in his gig with another man beside him, who, as he rightly guessed, was no other than the celebrated Italian specialist, Santori. Forsyth had promised to come and tell him the result of the consultation as soon as he knew it himself, and Walden waited for him hour after hour with increasing impatience. At last he appeared,--pale, and evidently under the influence of some strongly suppressed excitement.

"Walden,"--he said, without preface or hesitation--"are you prepared to face a great crisis?"

Walden's heart almost stood still. Had anything happened to Maryllia in the short space of time which had elapsed since he saw her last?

"What do you mean?!" he faltered--"I could not bear to lose her-- now---"

"You must lose her in a year at the utmost, if you do not run the risk of losing her to save her now,"--said Forsyth, bluntly-- "Santori has seen her--and--keep cool, John!--he says there is just one chance of restoring her to her former health and activity again, but it is a chance fraught with imminent danger to her life. He will not risk it without her full consent,--and (knowing you are her betrothed husband)--yours. It is a very serious and difficult operation,--she may live through it, and she may not."

"I will not have it!" said Walden, quickly, almost fiercely, "She shall not be touched---"

"Wait!" continued Forsyth, regarding him steadily--"In her present condition, she will die in a year. She must. There is no help for it. If Santori operates--and he is quite willing to undertake it-- she may live,--and not only may she live, but she may be absolutely strong and well again,--able to walk and ride, and enjoy her life to the full. It rests with her and with you to decide,--yes or no!"

Walden was silent.

"I may as well tell you,"--went on Forsyth--"that she--Miss Vancourt herself,--is ready to risk it. Santori has gone back to London to- night,--but if we agree to place her under his hands he will come and perform the operation next week."

"Next week!" murmured Walden, faintly--"Must it be so soon?"

"The sooner the better,"--said Forsyth, quietly, yet firmly, "Come, John, face this thing out! I am thinking of the chance of her happiness as well as yours. Is it worth while to sacrifice the whole of a young life's possible activity for the sake of one year's certainty of helplessness with death at the end? Wrestle the facts out with yourself;--go and see her to-night. And after you have talked it over together, let me know."

He went out then, and left Walden alone to face this new dark cloud of anxiety and suspense that seemed to loom over a sky which he imagined had just cleared. But when he saw Maryllia that evening, her face reflected nothing but sunshine, and her eyes were radiant with hope.

"I must take this chance, John!" she said--"Do not withhold your consent! Think what it means to us both if this great surgeon is able to set me on my feet again!--and he is so kind and gentle!--he says he has every hope of success! What happiness it will be for me if I can be all in all to you, John!--a real true wife, instead of a poor helpless invalid dependent on your daily care!--oh John, let me show you how much I love you by facing this ordeal, and trying to save my life for your sake!"

He drew her into his arms, and folded her close to his heart.

"My child--my darling! If you wish it, it shall be done!" he murmured brokenly--"And may God in His great mercy be good to us both! But if you die, my Maryllia, I shall die too--so we shall still be together!"

So it was settled; and Dr. Forsyth, vacillating uneasily between hope and fear, communicated the decision at once to the famous Italian surgeon, who, without any delay or hesitation responded by promptly fixing a day in the ensuing week for his performance of the critical task which was either to kill or cure a woman who to one man was the dearest of all earth's creatures. And with such dreadful rapidity did the hours fly towards that day that Walden experienced in himself all the trembling horrors of a condemned criminal who knows that his execution is fixed for a certain moment to which Time itself seems racing like a relentless bloodhound, sure of its quarry. Writing to Bishop Brent he told him all, and thus concluded his letter:--

"If I lose her now--now, after the joy of knowing that she loves me- -I shall kneel before you broken-hearted and implore your forgiveness for ever having called you selfish in the extremity of your grief and despair for the loss of love. For I am myself utterly selfish to the heart's core, and though I say every night in my prayers 'Thy Will be done,' I know that if she is taken from me I shall rebel against that Will! For I am only human,--and make no pretence to be more than a man who loves greatly."

During this interval of suspense Cicely and Julian were thrown much together. Every moment that Walden could spare from his parish work, he passed by the side of his beloved, knowing that his presence made her happy, and fearing that these days might be his last with her on earth. Maryllia herself however seemed to have no such forebodings. She was wonderfully bright and cheerful, and though her body was so helpless her face was radiant with such perfect happiness that it looked as fair as that of any pictured angel. Cicely, recognising the nature of the ordeal through which these two lovers were passing, left them as much by themselves as possible, and laid upon Julian the burden of her own particular terrors which she was at no pains to conceal. And unfortunately Julian did not, under the immediate circumstances, prove a very cheery comforter.

"I hate the knife!" he said, gloomily--"Everyone is cut up or slashed about in these days--there's too much of it altogether. If ever a fruit pip goes the way it should not go into my interior mechanism, I hope it may be left there to sprout up into a tree if it likes--I don't mind, so long as I'm not sliced up for appendicitis or pipcitis or whatever it is."

"I wonder what our great-grandparents used to do when they were ill?" queried Cicely, with a melancholy stare in her big, pitiful dark eyes.

"They let blood,"--replied Julian--"They used to go to the barber's and get a vein cut at the same time as their hair. Of course it was all wrong. We all know now that it was very wrong. In another hundred years or so we shall find out that twentieth-century surgery was just as wrong."

Cicely clasped her hands nervously.

"Oh, don' you think Maryllia will come through the operation all right?" she implored, for about the hundredth time in the course of two days.

Julian looked away from her.

"I don't know--and I don't like to express any opinion about it,"-- he answered, with careful gentleness--"But there is danger--and--if the worst should happen---"

"It won't happen! It shan't happen!" cried Cicely passionately.

"Dear little singing Goblin, I wish you could control fate!" And, taking her hand, he patted it affectionately. "Everything would be all right for everybody if you could make it so, I'm sure!--even for me! Wouldn't it?"

Cicely blushed suddenly.

"I don't know,"--she said--"I never think about you!"

He smiled.

"Don't you? Well,--perhaps some day you will! When you are a great prima donna, you will read the poems and verses I shall write about you in all the newspapers and magazines, and you will say as you take kings' and emperors' diamonds out of your hair: 'Who is this fellow? Ah yes! I remember him! He was a chum of mine down in the little village of St. Rest. I called him Mooncalf, and he called me Goblin. And--he was very fond of me!'"

She laughed a little, and drew away her hand from his.

"Don't talk nonsense!" she said--"Think of Maryllia--and of Mr. Walden!"

"I do think of them,--I think of them all the time!" declared Julian earnestly--"And that is why I am so uneasy. For--if the worst should happen, it will break Walden's heart."

Cicely's eyes filled with tears. She hurried away from him without another word or glance.

The fateful morning dawned. Walden had parted from Maryllia the previous night, promising himself that he would see her again before she passed into the surgeon's hands,--but Forsyth would not permit this.

"She does not wish it, John,"--he said--"And she has asked me to tell you so. Stay away from the Manor--keep quiet in your own house, if you feel unable to perform your usual round of work. It will be best for her and for you. I will let you know directly the operation is over. Santori is already here. Now"--and he gave Walden's hand a close and friendly grip--"steady, John! Say your prayers if you like,--we want all the help God can give us!"

The door opened and closed again--he was gone. A great silence,--a horrible oppression and loneliness fell upon Walden's heart. He sank into his accustomed chair and stared before him with unseeing eyes,- -mechanically patting his dog Nebbie while gently pushing the animal back in its attempts to clamber on his knee.

"My God, my God!" he muttered--"What shall I do without her?"

Someone opened the door again just then. He started, thinking that Forsyth had returned perhaps to tell him something he had forgotten. But the tall attenuated form that confronted him was not that of Forsyth. A look of amazed recognition, almost of awe, flashed into his eyes.

"Brent!" he cried,--and he caught at the pale hands extended to him,--hands like those of a saint whose flesh is worn by fasting and prayer;--then, with something of a sob, exclaimed again--"Harry! How--why did you come?"

Brent's eyes met his with a world of sympathy and tenderness in their dark and melancholy depths.

"I have come,"--he said,--and his musical voice, grave and sweet, trembled with deep feeling--"because I think this is your dark hour, John!--and because---perhaps---you may need me!"

And John, meeting that sad and steadfast gaze, and shaken beyond control by his pent-up suffering and suspense, suddenly fell on his knees.

"Help me!" he cried, appealingly, with the tears struggling in his throat--"You are right--I need you! Help me to be strong--you are nearer God than I am! Pray for me!"

Gently the Bishop withdrew his hands from the fevered clasp that held them, and laid them tenderly on the bowed head. His lips moved, but he uttered no words. There was a solemn pause, broken only by the slow ticking of the clock in the outer hall.

Presently, rising in obedience to his friend's persuasive touch, Walden stood awhile with face turned away, trying to master himself, yet trembling in every nerve, despite his efforts.

"Brent,"--he began, huskily--"I am ashamed that you should see me like this---so weak---"

"A weakness that will make you stronger by and by, John!" and the Bishop linked a friendly arm within his own--"Come into the church with me, will you? I feel the influence of your enshrined Saint upon me! Let us wait for news, good or bad, at the altar,--and while waiting, we will pray. Do you remember what I said to you when you came to see me last summer? 'Some day, when we are in very desperate straits, we will see what your Saint can do for us'? Come!"

Without a word of demur, John obeyed. They passed out of the house together and took the private by-path to the church. It was then about noon, and the sun shone through a soft mist that threatened rain without permitting it to fall. The faint piping of a thrush in the near distance suggested the music of the coming Spring, and the delicate odour of plant-life pushing its way through the earth gave a pungent freshness to the quiet air. Arriving at the beautiful little sanctuary, they entered it by the vestry, though the public door stood open according to invariable custom. A singularly brilliant glare of luminance reflected from the plain clear glass that filled the apertures of the rose-window above the altar, struck aslant on the old-world sarcophagus which doubtless contained the remains of one who, all 'miraculous' attributes apart, had nobly lived and bravely died,--and as the Bishop moved reverently round it to the front of the altar-rails, his eyes were uplifted and full of spiritual rapture.

"Kneel here with me, John!" he said--"And with all our hearts and all our minds, let us pray to God for the life of the beloved woman whom God has given you,--given, surely, not to take away again, but to be more completely made your own! Let us pray, as the faithful servants of Christ prayed in the early days of the Church,--not hesitatingly, not doubtingly, not fearingly!--but believing and making sure that our prayers will, if good for us, be granted!"

They knelt together. Walden, folding his arms on the altar-rails, hid his face,--but the Bishop, clasping his hands and fixing his eyes on the word 'Resurget' that flashed out of the worn alabaster-- wherein the unknown 'Saint' reposed, seemed to gather to himself all the sunlight that poured through the window above him, and to exhale from his own slight worn frame something like the mystic halo of glory pictured round the figure of an apostle or evangelist.

The minutes slowly ebbed away. The church clock chimed the half-hour after noon--and they remained absorbed in a trance of speechless, passionate prayer. They were unaware that some of Walden's parishioners, moved by the same idea of praying for Maryllia while she was undergoing the operation which was to save or slay, had come to the church also for that purpose, but were brought to a pause on the threshold of the building by the sight they saw within. That their own beloved 'Passon' should be kneeling at the altar in the agony of his own heart's Gethsemane was too much for their simple and affectionate souls,--and they withdrew in haste and silence, many of them with tears in their eyes. They were considerably awed too by the discovery that no less a personage than the Bishop of the diocese himself was companioning Walden in his trouble,--and, moving away in little groups of twos and threes, they stood about here and there in the churchyard, waiting for they knew not what, and all affected by the same thrill of mingled suspense, hope and fear. Among them was Bainton, who, when he had peered into the white silence of the church and had seen for himself that it was indeed his master who was praying there beside his Bishop, made no pretence to hide his emotion.

"We be all fools together,"--he said to Adam Frost in hoarse accents, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand--"We ain't no stronger nor wiser than a lot o' chitterin' sparrows on a housetop! Old Josey, he be too weak an' ailin' to get out in this kind o' weather, but he sez he's prayin' 'ard, which I truly believe he is, though he ain't in church. All the village is on its knees this marnin' I reckon, whether it's workin' in fields or gardens, or barns or orchards, an' if the Lord A'mighty don't take no notice of us, He must be powerful 'ard of 'earin'!"

Adam Frost coughed warningly,--jerked his thumb in the direction of the church, and was silent.

Suddenly a lark sang. Rising from the thick moss and jgrass which quilted over the grave of 'th' owld Squire,' Maryllia's father, the bird soared hoveringly aloft into the sun-warmed February air,--and by one common impulse the villagers looked up, watching the quivering of its wings.

"Bless us! That's the first skylark of the year!" said Mrs. Frost, who, holding her blue-eyed 'Baby Hippolyta,' otherwise Ipsie, by the hand, stood near the church porch--"Ain't it singin' sweet?"

"Fine!" murmured one or two of her gossips near her,--"Seems a good sign o' smilin' weather!"

There was a silence then among the merely human company, while the bird of heaven sang on more and more exultingly, and soared higher and higher into the misty grey-blue of the sky.

All at once the clock struck with a sharp clang 'one.' Inside the church, its deep reverbation startled the watchers from their prayers with an abrupt shock--and Walden lifted his head from his folded arms, showing in the bright shaft of strong sunshine that now bathed him in its radiance, his sad eyes, heavy and swollen with restrained tears. Suddenly there was a murmur of voices outside,--a smothered cry,--and then a little flying figure, breathless, hatless, with wild sparkling eyes and dark hair streaming loose in the wind, rushed into the church. It was Cicely. "It's all over!" she cried.

Walden sprang up, sick and dizzy. Bishop Brent rose from his knees slowly, his delicate right hand clutching nervously at the altar rail. Like men in a dream, they heard and gazed, stricken by a mutual horror too paralysing for speech.

"All over!"--muttered John, feebly--"My God!--my God! All over!"

Cicely sprang to him and caught his arm.

"Yes!--Don't you understand?" and her voice shook with excitement-- "All over! She is safe!--quite safe!--she will be well!--Mr. Walden!--John!--don't look at me like that! oh dear!" and she turned a piteous glance on Bishop Brent who was, to her, a complete stranger--"He doesn't seem to hear me--please speak to him!--do make him understand! Everything has been done successfully--and Maryllia will live--she will be her own dear bright self again! As soon as I heard the good news, I raced down here to tell you and everybody!-- oh John!--poor John!"

For, with a great sigh and a sudden stretching upward of his arms as though he sought to reach all Heaven with his soul's full measure of gratitude, John staggered blindly a few steps from the altar of the Saint's Rest and fell,--senseless.

* * * * * * * *

Again the merry month of May came in rejoicing. Again the May-pole glorious with blossoms and ribbons, made its nodding royal progress through the village of St. Rest, escorted by well-nigh a hundred children, who, with laughter and song carried it triumphantly up to Abbot's Manor, and danced round it in a ring on the broad grassy terrace facing the open windows of Maryllia's favourite morning room, where Maryllia herself, sweet and fair as a very queen of spring, stood watching them, with John Walden at her side. Again their fresh young voices, gay with the musical hilarity of happiness, carolled the Mayer's song:--

"We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day; And now returning back again, We bring you in the May!

A branch of May we have brought you, And at your door it stands, 'Tis but a sprout, But 'tis budded out, By the work of our Lord's hands.

The heavenly gates are open wide, Our paths are beaten plain; And if a man be not too far gone, He may return again!"

"That's true!" said John, slipping an arm round his beloved, and whispering his words in the little delicate ear half-hidden by the clustering gold-brown curls above it--"If a man be not too far gone as a bachelor, he may perhaps 'return again' as a tolerable husband? What do you think, my Maryllia?"

Her eyes sparkled with all their own mirth and mischief.

"I couldn't possibly say--yet!" she said--"You are quite perfect as an engaged man,--I never heard of anybody quite so attentive--so-- well!--so nicely behaved!" and she laughed, "But how you will turn out when you are married, I shouldn't like to prophesy!"

"If the children weren't looking at us, I should kiss you," he observed, with a suggestive glance at her smiling lips.

"I'm sure you would!" she rejoined--"For an 'old' bachelor, John, you are quite an adept at that kind of thing!"

Here the little village dancers slackened the speed of their tripping measure and moved slowly round and round, allowing the garlands and ribbons to drop from their hands one by one against the May-pole, as they sang in softer tones--

"The moon shines bright, and the stars give light, A little before it is day, So God bless you all, both great and small, And send you a merrie May!"

Ceasing at this, they all gathered in one group and burst out into an ecstatic roar.

"Hurra! Three cheers for Passon!"

"Hurra! Hurra! Hurra!"

"Three cheers for Miss Vancourt!"