Uncle Mathew had a bad headache and would not come down to breakfast. She felt indignant with him but also indulgent. He had shown himself hopelessly lacking in good taste, and good feeling, but then she had never supposed that he had these things. At the same time the last support seemed to have been removed from her; it might well be that her Aunt Anne would not care for her and would not wish to have her in her house. What should she do then? Whither should she go? She flung up her head and looked bravely into the face of Ellen, the cook, who came to remove the breakfast, but she had to bite her lip to keep back the tears that WOULD come and fill her eyes so that the world was misty and obscure.
There was, she fancied, something strange about Ellen. In HER eyes some obscure triumph or excitement, some scorn and derision, Maggie fancied, of herself. Had the woman been drinking? . . .
Then there arrived Mr. Brassy, her father's solicitor, from Cator Hill. He had been often in the house, a short fat man with a purple face, clothes of a horsy cut, and large, red, swollen fingers. He took now possession of the house with much self-importance. "Well, Miss Maggie" (he blew his words at her as a child blows soap- bubbles). "Here we are, then. Very sad indeed--very. I've been through the house--got the will all right. Your aunt, you say, will be with us?"
"My aunt from London. Miss Anne Cardinal. I expect her in half an hour. She should have arrived at Clinton by the half-past nine train." "Well, well. Yes--yes--indeed, your uncle is also here?"
"Yes. He will be down shortly."
"Very good, Miss Maggie. Very good."
She hated that he should call her Miss Maggie. He had always treated her with considerable respect, but to-day she fancied that he patronised her. He placed his hand for a moment on her shoulder and she shrank back. He felt her action and, abashed a little, coughed and blew his nose. He strutted about the room. Then the door opened and Ellen the cook looked in upon them.
"I only wished to see, Miss, whether I could do anything for you?"
"Nothing, thank you," said Maggie.
"Been with you some time that woman?" said Mr. Brassy.
"Yes," said Maggie, "about five years, I think."
"Hum! Hum--name of Harmer."
"Yes. Harmer."
"Not married?"
"No," answered Maggie, wondering at this interest.
"Not so far as you know."
"No. She's always Miss Harmer."
"Quite so--quite so. Dear me, yes."
Other people appeared, asked questions and vanished. It seemed to have been all taken out of her hands and it was strange how desolate this made her. For so many years she had had the management of that house, since her fourteenth birthday, indeed. Ugly and dilapidated though the place had been, it had grown, after a time, to belong to her, and she had felt as though it were in some way grateful to her for keeping it, poor thing, together. Now it had suddenly withdrawn itself and was preparing for the next comer. Maggie felt this quite definitely and thought that probably it was glad that now its roof would be mended and its floors made whole. It had thrown her off . . . Well, she would not burden it long.
There were sounds then of wheels on the gravel. The old dilapidated cab from Clinton with its ricketty windows and moth-eaten seats that smelt of straw and beer was standing at the door, the horse puffing great breaths of steam into the frozen air. Her aunt had arrived. Maggie, standing behind the window, looked out. The carriage door opened, and a figure, that seemed unusually tall, appeared to straighten itself out and rose to its full height on the gravel path as though it had been sitting in the cab pressed together, its head upon its knees.
Then in the hall that was dark even on the brightest day, Aunt Anne revealed herself as a lady, tall indeed, but not too tall, of a fine carriage, in a black rather shabby dress and a black bonnet. Her face was grave and sharply pointed, with dark eyes--sad rather, and of the pale remote colour that the Virgin in the St. Dreot's east end window wears. Standing there in the dusky hall, quietly, quite apart from the little bustle that surrounded her, she seemed to Maggie even in that first moment like some one wrapt, caught away into her own visions.
"I paid the cabman five shillings," she said very softly. "I hope that was right. And you are Maggie, are you?"
She bent down and kissed her. Her lips were warm and comforting. Maggie, who had, when she was shy, something of the off-hand manner of a boy, said:
"Yes. That's all right. We generally give him four and six."
They went into the dining-room where was Mr. Brassy. He came forward to them, blowing his words at them, rubbing his hands:
"Miss Cardinal--I am honoured--my name is Brassy, your brother's lawyer. Very, very sad--so sudden, so sudden. The funeral is at twelve. If there is anything I can do--"
Miss Cardinal did not regard him at all and Maggie saw that this annoyed him. The girl watched her aunt, conscious of some strange new excitement at her heart. She had never seen any one who in the least resembled this remote silent woman. Maggie did not know what it was that she had expected, but certainly it had not been this. There was something in her Aunt's face that recalled her father and her uncle, something in the eyes, something in the width and height of the forehead, but this resemblance only accentuated the astounding difference. Maggie's first impression was her ultimate one--that her aunt had strayed out of some stained-glass window into a wild world that did not bewilder her only because she did not seriously regard it. Maggie found herself wondering who had fastened her aunt's buttons and strings when she rose in the morning, how had she ever travelled in the right train and descended at the right station? How could she remember such trifles when her thoughts were fixed on such distant compelling dreams? The pale oval face, the black hair brushed back from the forehead, the thin hands with long tapering fingers, the black dress, the slender upright body--this figure against the cold bright winter sunlight was a picture that remained always from that day in Maggie's soul.
Her aunt looked about her as though she had just awaked from sleep. "Would you care to come up to your room?" asked Maggie, feeling the embarrassment of Mr. Brassy's presence.
"Yes, dear, thank you--I will," said Miss Cardinal. They moved from the room, Aunt Anne walking with a strange, almost clumsy uncertainty, halting from one foot to the other as though she had never learnt to trust her legs, a movement with which Maggie was to become intensely familiar. It was as though her aunt had flown in some earlier existence, and had never become accustomed to this clumsier earthly fashion.
The spare bedroom was a bright room with a broad high window. The view was magnificent, looking over the hill that dropped below the vicarage out across fields and streams to Cator Hill, to the right into the heart of the St. Dreot Woods, to the left to the green valley through whose reeds and sloping shadows the Lisp gleamed like a burnished wire threading its way to the sea. There was a high- backed old-fashioned chair by the window. Against this Miss Cardinal stood, her thin body reflected, motionless, as though it had been painted in a long glass behind her. She gazed before her.
Maggie saw that she was agitated, passionately moved. The sun catching the hoar-frost on the frozen soil turned the world to crystal, and in every field were little shallows of blue light; the St. Dreot Woods were deep black with flickering golden stars.
She tried to speak. She could not. Tears were in her eyes. "It is so long . . . since I . . . London," she smiled at Maggie. Then Maggie heard her say:
The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing.
He shall feed me in a green pasture; and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.
He shall convert my soul, and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness, for His Name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, they rod and thy staff comfort me.
Thou shalt prepare a table before me against them that trouble me: thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full.
But thy loving--kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
There was a pause--then Maggie said timidly, "Won't you take off your bonnet? It will be more comfortable." "Thank you, my dear." She took off her bonnet and laid it on the bed. Then she resumed her stand at the window, her eyes lost in the sunny distance. "I did wrong," she said, as though she were speaking to herself. "I should not have allowed that quarrel with your father. I regret it now very deeply. But we always see too late the consequences of our proud self-will." She turned then.
"Come here, dear," she said.
Maggie came to her. Her aunt looked at her and Maggie was deeply conscious of her shabby dress, her rough hands, her ugly boots. Then, as always when she was self-critical, her eyes grew haughty and her mouth defiant.
Her aunt kissed her, her cool, firm fingers against the girl's warm neck.
"You will come to us now, dear. You should have come long ago."
Maggie wanted to speak, but she could not.
"We will try to make you happy, but ours is not an exciting life."
Maggie's eyes lit up. "It has not," she said, "been very exciting here always." Then she went on, colour in her cheeks, "I think father did all he could. I feel now that there were a lot of things that I should have done, only I didn't see them at the time. He never asked me to help him, but I wish now that I had offered--or-- suggested."
Her lips quivered, again she was near tears, and again, as it had been on her walk with Uncle Mathew, her regret was not for her father but for the waste that her life with him had been. But there was something in her aunt that prevented complete confidence. She seemed in something to be outside small daily troubles. Before they could speak any more there was a knock on the door and Uncle Mathew came in. He stood there looking both ashamed of himself and obstinate.
He most certainly did not appear at his best, a large piece of plaster on his right cheek showing where he had cut himself with his razor, and a shabby and tight black suit (it was his London suit, and had lain crumpled disastrously in his hand-bag) accentuating the undue roundness of his limbs; his eyes blinked and his mouth trembled a little at the corners. He was obviously afraid of his sister and flung his niece a watery wink as though to implore her silence as to his various misdemeanours.
Brother and sister shook hands, and Maggie, as she watched them, was surprised to feel within herself a certain sympathy with her uncle. Aunt Anne's greeting was gentle and kind but infinitely distant, and had something of the tenderness with which the Pope washes the feet of the beggars in Rome.
"I'm so glad that you were here," she said in her soft voice. "It must have been such a comfort to Maggie."
"He has been, indeed, Aunt Anne," Maggie broke in eagerly.
Her uncle looked at her with great surprise; after his behaviour of last night he had not expected this. Reassured, he began a voluble explanation of his movements and plans, rubbing his hands together and turning one boot against the other.
He had a great deal to say, because he had seen neither of his sisters for a very long time. Then he wished to make a good impression because Maggie, the heiress, would be of importance now. What an idiot he had been last night. What had he done? He could remember nothing. It was evident that it had been nothing very bad-- Maggie bore him no grudge--good girl, Maggie. He felt affectionate towards her and would have told her so had her aunt not been present. These thoughts underlay his rambling history. He was aware suddenly that his audience was inattentive. He saw, indeed, that his sister was standing with her back half-turned, gazing on to the shining country beyond the window. He ceased abruptly, gave his niece a wink, and when this was unsuccessful, muttering a few words, stumbled out of the room.
The whole village attended the funeral, not because it liked the Rev. Charles, but because it liked funerals. Maggie was, in all probability, the only person present who thought very deeply about the late Vicar of St. Dreot's. The Rev. Tom Trefusis who conducted the ceremony was a large red-faced man who had played Rugby football for his University and spent most of his energy over the development of cricket and football clubs up and down the county. He could not be expected to have cared very greatly for the Rev. Charles, who had been at no period of his life and in no possible sense of the word a sportsman. As he conducted the service his mind speculated as to the next vicar (the Rev. Tom knew an excellent fellow, stroke of the Cambridge boat in '12, who would be just the man) the possibility of the frost breaking in time for the inter-county Rugby match at Truxe, the immediate return of his wife from London (he was very fond of his wife), and, lastly, a certain cramp in the stomach that sometimes "bowled him over" and of which the taking of a funeral-- "here to-day and gone to-morrow"--always reminded him.
"Wonder how long I'll last," he thought as he stood over the grave of the Rev. Charles and let his eyes wander over the little white gravestones that ran almost into the dark wall of St. Dreot Woods as though they were trying to hide themselves. "Wish the frost 'ud break--ground'll be as hard as nails." The soil fell, thump, thump upon the coffin. Rooks cawed in the trees; the bell tolled its cracked note. The Rev. Charles was crammed down with the soil by the eager spades of the sexton and his friend, who were cold and wanted a drink.
Maggie, meanwhile, watched the final disappearance of her father with an ever-growing remorse. Ever since her declaration to her uncle during their walk yesterday this new picture of her father had grown before her eyes. She had already forgotten many, many things that might now have made her resentful or at least critical. She saw him as a figure most disastrously misunderstood. Without any sentimentality in her vision she saw him lonely, proud, reserved, longing for her sympathy which she denied him. His greed for money she saw suddenly as a determination that his daughter should not be left in want. All those years he had striven and his apparent harshness, sharpness, unkindness had been that he might pursue his great object.
