CHAPTER XLII.

WALKING TO ST. SYLVESTER'S.

Bertie Lisle was sorely driven and perplexed for a few days after his triumphant performance on the organ. His letter was not a failure, but further persuasion was required to make his success complete; and during the brief interval he was persecuted by Gordon's brother.

Mr. William Gordon, when amiable and flattering, had an air of rough and hearty friendliness which was very well as long as you held him in check. But when, though still amiable, he thought he might begin to take liberties, it was not so well. He was hard, coarse-tongued and humorous. And when Mr. William Gordon had the upper hand he showed himself in his true colors, as a bully and a blackguard. Bertie Lisle, not yet two-and-twenty, was no match for this man of thirty-five. He owed him money--no great sum, but more than he could pay. Now that matters had come to this pass, Lisle was heartily ashamed of himself, his debts and his associates; but the more shame he felt the more anxious he was that nothing should be known. He had sought the society of these men because he had wearied of the restraints of his home-life. Judith checked and controlled him unconsciously through her very guilelessness. He might have had his liberty in a moment had he chosen, but the assertion of his right would have involved explanations and questions, and Bertie hated scenes. He found it easier to coax Lydia than to face Judith.

But this state of affairs could not go on. Bertie had once fancied that he saw a possible way out of his difficulties, and had hinted to Gordon, with an air of mystery, that though he could not pay at once he thought he might soon be in a position to pay all. If he hoped to silence his creditors for a while with this vague promise, he was mistaken. Gordon continually reminded him of it. He had not cared to inquire into the source of the coming wealth, but if Lisle meant to rob somebody's till or forge Mr. Clifton's name to a cheque, no doubt Gordon thought he might as well do it and get it over. If you are going to take a plunge, what, in the name of common sense, is the good of standing shivering on the brink?

Unluckily, Lisle's idea presented difficulties on closer inspection. But as he had gone so far that it was his only hope, he made up his mind to risk all. He saw but one possible way of carrying out his scheme. It was exactly the way which no cautious man would ever have dreamed of taking, and therefore it suited the daring inexperience of the boy. Therefore, also, it was precisely what no one would dream of guarding against. In fact, Bertie was driven by stress of circumstances into a stroke of genius. He took his leap, and entered on a period of suspense, anxiety and sustained excitement which had a wild exhilaration and sense of recklessness in it. He suffered much from a strong desire to burst into fits of unseasonable laughter. His nerves were so tensely strung that it might have been expected he would be irritable; and so he was sometimes, but never with Judith.

Thorne listened night after night for the man with the latch-key, but he listened in vain. He was only partly reassured, for he feared that matters were not going on well at St. Sylvester's. Indeed, he knew they were not, for Bertie had strolled into his room one day with a face like a thundercloud. The young fellow was out of temper, and perhaps a little off his guard in consequence. When Gordon amused himself by baiting him, Lisle was forced to keep silence; but in this case it was possible, if not quite prudent, to allow himself the relief of speech.

"What is the matter?" said Percival, looking up from his book.

Bertie, who had turned his back on him, stood looking out of the window and tapping a tune on the pane. "What's the matter?" he repeated. "Clifton has taken it into his stupid head to lecture me about some rubbish he has heard somewhere. Why doesn't some one lock him up in an idiot asylum? The meddling fool!"

"If that is qualification enough--" Thorne began mildly, but Bertie raged on:

"What business is it of his? I'm not going to stand his impudence, as I'll precious soon let him know. A likely story! He didn't buy me body and soul for his paltry salary, though he seems to think it. The old humbug in a cassock! It's a great deal of preaching and very little practice with him, _I_ know."

(He knew nothing of the kind. Mr. Clifton was a well-meaning man, who had never disturbed his mind by analyzing his own opinions nor any one else's, and who worked conscientiously in his parish. But no doubt Bertie had too much respect for truth to let it be mixed up with a fit of ill-temper.)

"Take care what you are about," said Percival as he turned a leaf. He looked absently at the next page. "I don't want to interfere with you--"

"Oh, _you!_ that's different," said Lisle without looking round. "Not that I should recommend even you--"

"Don't finish: I hope the caution isn't needed. Of course you will do as you think best. You are your own master, but I know you'll not forget that it is a question of your sister's bread as well as your own. That's all. If you can do better for her--"

Bertie half smiled, but still he looked out of the window, and he did not speak. Presently the fretful tapping on the pane ceased, and he began to whistle the same tune very pleasantly. At last, after some time, the tune stopped altogether. "I believe I'm a fool," said Lisle. "After all, what harm can Clifton do to me? And, as you say, it would be a pity to make Judith uneasy. Bless the stupid prig! he shall lecture me again to-morrow if he likes. He hasn't broken any bones this time, and I dare say he won't the next." The young fellow came lounging across the room with his hands in his pockets as he spoke. "I suppose he has gone on preaching till it's his second nature. Talk of the girl in the fairy-tale dropping toads and things from her lips! Why, she was a trifle to old Clifton. I do think he can't open his mouth without letting a sermon run out."

Thorne was relieved at the turn Bertie's meditations had taken, but he could not think that the young fellow's position at St. Sylvester's was very secure. Neither did Judith. Neither did Bertie himself. The thought did not trouble him, but Judith was evidently anxious.

"You do too much," said Percival one day to her. They were walking to St. Sylvester's, and Bertie had run back for some music which had been forgotten.

"Perhaps," said Judith simply. "But it can't be helped."

"What! are they all so busy at Standon Square?"

"Well, the holidays, being so near, make more work, and give one the strength to get through it."

"I'm not so sure of that. I'm afraid Miss Crawford leaves too much to you, and you will break down."

"I'm more afraid Miss Crawford will break down. Poor old lady! it goes to my heart to see her. She tries so hard not to see that she is past work; and she is."

"Is she so old? I didn't know--"

"She was a governess till she was quite middle-aged, and then she had contrived to scrape together enough to open this school. My mother was her first pupil, and the best and dearest of all, she says. She had a terribly up-hill time to begin with, and even now it is no very great success. Though she might do very well, poor thing! if they would only let her alone."

"And who will not let her alone?"

"Oh, there is a swarm of hungry relations, who quarrel over every half-penny she makes; and she is so good! But you can understand why she is anxious not to think that her harvest-time is over."

"Poor old lady!" said Percival. "And her strength is failing?"

Judith nodded: "She does her best, but it makes my heart ache to see her. She comes down in the morning trying to look so bright and young in a smart cap and ribbons: I feel as if I could cry when I see that cap, and her poor shaky hands going up to it to put it straight." There were tears in the girl's voice as she spoke. "And her writing! It is always the bad paper or the bad pen, or the day is darker than any day ever was before."

"Does she believe all that?" the young man asked.

"I hardly know. I think she never has opened her eyes to the truth, but I suspect she feels that she is keeping them shut. It is just that trying not to see which is so pathetic, somehow. I find all manner of little excuses for doing the writing, or whatever it may happen to be, instead of her, and then I see her looking at me as if she half doubted me."

"Does the school fall off at all?"

"I'm not sure. Schools fluctuate, you know, and it seems they had scarlet fever about six months ago. That might account for a slight decrease in the numbers: don't you think so?"

"Oh, certainly," said Percival, with as much confidence as if boarding-school statistics had been the one study of his life. "No doubt of it."

They walked a few paces in silence, and then Judith said, "Perhaps she will be better after the holidays. I think she is very tired, she is so terribly drowsy. She drops asleep directly she sits down, and is quite sure she has been awake all the time. I'm so afraid the girls may take advantage of it some day."

"But even for Miss Crawford's sake you must not do too much," urged Percival.

"I will try not. But it is such a comfort to me to be able to help her! If it were not for that, I sometimes question whether I did wisely in coming here at all."

"If it is not an impertinent question--though I rather think it is--what should you have done if you had not come?"

"I should have stayed with an aunt of mine. She wanted me, but she would not help Bertie, and I fancied that I could be of use to him. But I doubt if I can do him much good, and if I lost my situation I should only be a burden to him."

"Perhaps that might do him more good than anything," Percival suggested. "He might rise to the occasion and take life in earnest, which is just what he wants, isn't it? For any one can see how fond he is of you."

"He's a dear boy," Judith answered with a smile, and looked over her shoulder. The dear boy was not in sight.

"Plenty of time," said Percival. "But it is rather a long way for him, so often as he has to go to St. Sylvester's."

"He doesn't mind that. He says he can do it in less than ten minutes, only to-day he had to go back, you see."

"It isn't so far as it would be to St. Andrew's," Thorne went on. "By the way, have you ever been to your parish church?"

"Never. I don't think your description was very inviting."

"Oh, but it would be worth while to go once. The first time I went I thought it was like a quaint, melancholy dream. Such a dim, hollow, dusty old building, and little cherubs with grimy little marble faces looking down from the walls. When the congregation began to shuffle in each new-comer was more decrepit and withered than the last, till I looked to see if they could really be coming through the doorway from the outer world, or whether the vaults were open and they were the ghosts of some dead-and-gone congregation of long ago. And when I looked round again, there was the clergyman in a dingy surplice, as if he had risen like a spectre in his place. He stared at us all with his dull old eyes, and turned the leaves of a great book. And all at once he began to read, in a piping voice so thin and weak that it sounded just like the echo of some former service--as if it had been lost in the dusty corners, and was coming back in a broken, fragmentary way. It was all the more like an echo because the old clerk is very deaf, and he begins in a haphazard fashion when he thinks it is time for the other to have done. So sometimes there is a long pause, and then you have their two old voices mixed up together, like an echo when it grows confused. It is very strange--gives one all manner of quaint fancies. You should go once. Nothing could be more utterly unlike St. Sylvester's."

"I think I will go," said Judith. "I know a church something like that, only not quite so dead. There is a queer old clerk there too."

"Where is that?"

"Oh, it isn't anywhere near here. A little old-fashioned country town--Rookleigh."

Percival turned eagerly: "Where did you say? _Rookleigh_?"

"Yes. Why, do you know anything of it?"

"Tell me what you know of it."

"My aunt, Miss Lisle, lives there--the aunt I was telling you about, who wanted me to stay with her."

"And you were there last summer?"

"Yes. In fact, I was there on a visit when I heard that--that our home was broken up. I stayed on for some time: I had nowhere to go."

"Miss Lisle lives in a red house by the river-side," said Percival, prompted by a sudden impulse.

It was Judith's turn to look surprised: "Yes, she does. But, Mr. Thorne, how do you know?"

"The garden slopes to the water's edge," he went on, not heeding her. "And there is a wide gravel-path down the middle, cutting it exactly in two. It is all very neat--it is wonderfully neat--and Miss Lisle comes down the path, looking right and left to see whether all the carnations and the chrysanthemum-plants are tied up properly, and whether there are any snails."

"Mr. Thorne, who told you--? No, you must have seen."

"But you didn't walk with her. There was a cross-path behind some evergreens."

"Yes," said Judith: "I hated to be seen then. I couldn't go beyond the garden, and I used to walk backward and forward there, so many times to a mile--I forget how many now. But, Mr. Thorne, tell me, how do you know all this?"

"It is simple enough," he said. "I was at Rookleigh one day, and I strolled along the path by the river. You can see the house from the farther side. I stood and looked at it."

"Yes, but how did you know whose house it was?"

"I hadn't the least idea. But it took my fancy--why I don't know. And while I was looking I saw that some one came and went behind the evergreens."

"Then it was only a guess when you began to describe it?"

"Well, I suppose so. It must have been, mustn't it?" he said, looking curiously at her. "But it felt like a certainty."

They were just at St. Sylvester's, and Bertie ran up panting, waving his music. "Lucky I've not got to sing," said the young fellow in a jerky voice, and rushed to the vestry-door, where Mr. Clifton fidgeted, watch in hand. After such a race it was natural enough that the young organist should be somewhat flushed as he went up the aisle with a surpliced boy at his heels. But Judith had not hurried--had rather lingered, looking back. What was the meaning of that soft rosy glow upon her cheeks? And why was Thorne so absent, standing up and sitting down mechanically, till the service was half over before he knew it?

He was recalling that day at Rookleigh--the red houses by the water-side, the poplars, the pigeons, the old church, the sleepy streets, the hot blue sky, the gray glitter of the river through the boughs, and the girl half seen behind the evergreens. She had been to him like a fair faint figure in a dream, and the airy fancies that clustered round her had been more dreamy yet. But suddenly the dream-girl had stepped out of the clouds into every-day life, and stood in flesh and blood beside him. And the nameless fascination with which his imagination had played was revealed as the selfsame attraction as that which his soul had known when, years before, he first met Judith Lisle.