The Village by the River Part 26

"I would never have forgiven her!" said Paul, bitterly.

"Yes, you would. You would have done much as I did, I expect; I let her work out her repentance. She is the nurse who has devoted herself to Kitty like a mother, and who mourns for her like one, too. We can never be separated; where I go she will go. And now she has not Kitty she will help me to look after some of the sick children in my parish."

"So you have decided to go?"

"Yes; I think I have scarcely a choice in the matter."

The Vicar was not one to keep his people long in ignorance of a decision which affected both him and them so largely, and, on the following Sunday morning, he told them in a few words that he must leave them.

"Dear people," he said, "the decision has been sharp and sudden, and the pain of it still lingers in my heart as I talk to you to-day; but I dare not have it otherwise lest, in hesitating, my will should cross the will of G.o.d, for, as soldiers must obey the command of their captain, nor ask the reason why, so I, Christ's soldier and servant, must be ready at His Word to pa.s.s on to where the battle is most fierce, and where, maybe, the army needs reinforcement. Shall I be less brave than Abraham, who, at the call of G.o.d, left home and kindred to settle in a strange land amongst an alien people? Dear friends, as clearly as G.o.d's message came to Abraham in those far-off days, it has seemed to come to me, telling me to leave the home and people that I love, and to go, work for Him in another part of His vineyard.

Therefore I obey."

There were tears on the upturned faces that listened, and, when the people left the church, there was an almost universal wail of lamentation. But reticent natures like the Macdonalds could find no relief in words; they walked silently side by side with tears in their eyes and an untold aching in their hearts.

"Life won't be the same again, John; we shan't get another like the good man," said Mrs. Macdonald, as they neared home.

"No," said John, slowly. "But if he don't make a fuss about it, no more won't we; he's sure about the call, and he dursn't disobey. But now we'll save for the collectin'!"

"What collectin'?"

"They'll make him a present. They are sure to make him a present; and we'll be ready when they call," said John.

But, with all his brave words, John's dinner was pushed away untouched, and his broad back was turned resolutely to his wife so that she might not guess that he was crying!

CHAPTER XIV.

A CHANGE OF MIND.

Three months later Paul Lessing stood, one morning in March, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, looking out of his sitting-room window. His eyes rested on the little plot of ground before him, with its borders of snowdrops and crocuses, and the road beyond, along which the village children in their scarlet cloaks hurried to school: a narrow boundary to a narrow life, he told himself--and lonely, since Sally had left him a week or two ago. He was intolerably dull, and Sally's letter, which lay open on the table, brimful as it was of new energies and interests, had set him wondering whether he could continue his present course of life much longer. There was positively no one left in the village, at present, with whom he could interchange an idea.

Mr. Curzon, with whom, in the last three months, he had become fairly intimate, had gone to his new field of work, leaving a blank behind him in every house in the place; his successor had not yet arrived. "And we are not likely to have much in common when he does come," Paul thought, with a smile. May Webster, after manfully fulfilling her purpose of helping in the village until the trouble and distress, brought by the fever, had pa.s.sed away, had returned to London; and it was little enough that Paul had seen of her whilst she had been there.

And that very day Paul had received a letter from Mrs. Webster to tell him that at Michaelmas she wished to vacate the Court, which she now kept on as a yearly tenant.

"It cannot matter to me," Paul said to himself. "In many ways, of course, it is the best thing that could happen." And yet he found himself thinking of nothing but the utter desolation of Rudham, when May's bright presence should be removed from it, when he could no longer hope for a pa.s.sing glimpse of her in the street.

"I have vegetated down here until I run a risk of softening of the brain," he said aloud. "I must have change. I'll be off to London for a week, put up at my club, see a few of my friends, and unearth Sally in her new quarters."

The thought had scarcely formed itself before he began to carry it into execution: putting together his papers, looking out a convenient train.

And, shoving his head inside the door of the Macdonald's sitting-room, he enlisted Mrs. Macdonald's help in the matter of packing.

"Rather sudden, sir, isn't it?" she said, as she knelt upon the floor in the centre of the clothes which Paul had pulled out of his drawers and littered about in hopeless confusion. "It's bad enough to lose Miss Sally, but John and I won't know ourselves when you've gone too."

"It won't be for very long," said Paul, good-humouredly, grateful to discover that anybody would miss him, and careful to suppress the fact that he was dull.

Arrived in London the stir and bustle of the streets was as refres.h.i.+ng to him as water to a thirsty man, and to find himself once more amongst his fellows in the club, where many a man greeted him with a friendly nod, was simply delightful, One friend asked him to dinner that night, another made an appointment for the play on the night following; his presence was demanded at an important political meeting, where he was requested to speak on the labour question. And again the thought forced itself upon him how much better he felt fitted to cope with the ma.s.ses, and work at the big social problems of the day, than to deal with the individual lives of the people of Rudham. And the parliamentary career for which he longed was absolutely within his grasp, for a seat belonging to his political party was to be vacated in the autumn, and his name was already mentioned as that of the likely candidate; but there was no course open to him but to refuse the offer if it came. It took more means than he had at his disposal to do his duty by Rudham.

He found Sally keen and happy over her work, and was satisfied that she had discovered her proper vocation.

The last day of his London visit had come, and, late in the afternoon, Paul found himself walking down Park Lane; and he hesitated for a moment, when he came to the house which he knew to be the Websters, wondering whether he would call and answer Mrs. Webster's note in person. That, at any rate, would be the ostensible reason for his visit; he scarcely cared to admit that it was the longing for a sight of May's face that made it impossible for him to pa.s.s the door. In another minute he had mounted the steps and rung the bell, and was handed into a room crammed with people--society people, all talking society gossip over their tea. Many of them bestowed a pa.s.sing glance upon Paul as he made his way towards Mrs. Webster, but their interest died down when they discovered that he was not of their set.

"Mr. Lessing!" exclaimed Mrs. Webster. "Quite a welcome surprise! You are not often in London, are you? So good of you to call. Have you had any tea? Yes? Pray have some more."

Then another visitor demanded her attention, and Paul found himself stranded in a room full of people of whom he knew not one. May was nowhere to be seen; but, as Paul sidled his way past chairs and tables, making for the door, he found himself face to face with her as she led a party of people from the conservatory back to the drawing-room. She was talking with that brilliant, rapid fluency which had marked the earlier stages of their acquaintance; but at sight of him she coloured and stretched out her hand with unmistakable cordiality.

"This is indeed an unexpected honour," she said, letting her other guests move on, and taking up her own position by Paul. "I should not have thought wild horses would have dragged you to a tea-fight."

"And they would not have done," Paul answered, with a laugh, "had I known that such a thing was in process; but, finding myself in London, I came to call in answer to a note of your mother's."

A professional singer at the far end of the room rose preparatory to singing, and May gave an impatient little exclamation.

"Come into the conservatory and talk; I'm tired of all these people.

You bring a whiff of country air with you."

As she spoke she led the way towards two easy-chairs, placed by the fountain in the middle of the conservatory, and, sinking into one herself, she motioned Paul to the other. From the half-open door of the drawing-room came the confused murmur of voices, dominated by the tenor soloist; but to Paul that society life seemed miles distant. He was enfolded by a sense of enchantment: for him, at that moment, there was but two people in the world--himself and May. To speak would be to break the brief spell of enjoyment, so he sat silent and content.

"We are wasting the time; I brought you here to talk," said May, turning towards him with a smile. "How do things fare at Rudham now Mr. Curzon has gone?"

"Badly; there is a sense of flatness. He embodied the life of the village in a way one could not believe unless one had lived there.

I've seen a lot of him in the last few months; we were fairly driven into each other's society."

"How do you get on together?"

"To know Curzon intimately goes halfway towards converting one to his way of thinking," said Paul, slowly.

May looked up quickly.

"I don't mean that I am fully prepared to accept his opinions, but I have modified my views concerning them," Paul went on. "A man like Curzon, and his enormous power for good, cannot be ignored. His creed, which makes him what he is, must be reckoned with as a motive-force in the world. I said to myself at one time that, starting from opposite poles, he and I worked for the same end--the good of the race. But where I seem only to scratch the surface, he gets below it. Look at Burney, for example. I believed I had made a man of him by restoring his self-respect and giving him a fresh chance--by trusting him, in fact. It did well enough for a time, but then he broke out worse than ever. Then, from what Tom told me, Curzon stepped in, saved him from suicide, and saved him from himself; and has given him, apparently, some principle to live by that will turn him into a fine character yet--at any rate, I get excellent accounts of him."

"I did not know he had tried to kill himself," said May; "perhaps that is what has sobered poor Rose Lancaster so effectually. She told me the other day that she would marry no one but Tom. By the way, what brought you to London?"

"Mixed motives. Sheer dulness for one thing."

"You once aired a theory that only stupid people could be dull."

"Then, I suppose, I have grown stupid; I have not enough to occupy me, for one thing. If I could carry out all my whims I could be busy enough; but I have had to abandon that scheme for rebuilding a good many of my cottages from want of money, and that same want stands between me and my one ambition: a seat in Parliament. I might have had a chance of a vacancy in the autumn. By the way, as you intend to throw me over, I trust that amongst your numerous friends you will find me another tenant for the Court."

"I don't understand what you are talking of! Who is going to throw you over?"

"Your mother has written to say that she wishes to leave at Michaelmas.

Her letter was my excuse for calling."

May did not answer for a minute; she was busily pondering what her mother's reason could have been for arriving at this decision without consulting her. It might be that the relations between themselves and the Blands being somewhat strained, she had thought it wise to go somewhere else, or--and here May's heart quickened its beating--it might be that she feared a rival in Paul Lessing.

"I hope you are sorry to lose us," she said.

"Am I to tell the conventional falsehood or the truth?" Paul asked.