The Rosery Folk Part 36

Jack Scales wondered more and more as they walked on along the shadowy lane to where the little ivy-covered church stood, with its ancient wall and lychgate, stones, and wood memorials sinking sidewise into the earth, and a general aspect everywhere of calm moss-grown decay.

"Hah!" exclaimed the doctor, as he stood gazing at the lichen-covered stones, and the lights and shadows thrown upon the ruddy-tiled mossy roof. "I wish I were an artist. What a place to paint!"

"Yes," said Aunt Sophia, standing with her hands clasped, gazing in a rapt dreamy way before her; "it is a beautiful old place." She moved to the gate, and held it open for him to pa.s.s through as well, pausing while he stopped to examine a wonderfully old yew-tree, about which a rough oaken seat had been placed, one that had been cut and marked by generations with initials. Then, as he turned, she went on again to the old south porch with its seat on either side, and through it into the church, which struck cool and moist as the doctor entered, taking off his hat and gazing about impressed by its ancient quaintness.

"I ought to have come before," he said. "How old and calm everything seems! What a place for a man to be buried in, when the lifework's done!"

"And the fight, and strife, and turmoil at an end," said Aunt Sophia, in a low sweet voice, that made the doctor start, for it did not seem like hers.

Aunt Sophia went on along the little aisle with its few old pews on either side, and past the worm-eaten altar screen, beyond which were some venerable stalls, in one of which she sat down, motioning her companion to another at her side.

He took the seat, and the strangely solemn calm of the place impressed him as he noted the well-worn pavement, composed of the memorial stones of the pa.s.sed away, dyed in many hues by the sunlight that streamed through the old east window. Before him were the remains of a bra.s.s relating to the founder of the church; beyond that were more of the old worm-eaten stalls, in which, in bygone days, the monks of the neighbouring priory must have sat, long enough before the huge linden that had grown to maturity, and now dappled the sunbeams that fell upon the floor, had been planted where it stood, at the chancel end.

As the doctor looked along the aisle with its soft dim light, the suns.h.i.+ne that streamed in through the southern windows and the light that came from the open door seemed to cut into the faint gloom, and mark out for themselves a place; while clearly heard from without came the twittering of swallows that circled about the little low tower, the chirping of sparrows in the ivy, and the clear trill of a lark somewhere poised in air hard by.

"I shall end by being a lover of the country, and coming here to live, Miss Raleigh," said Scales at last, breaking the solemn silence, for his companion had not spoken since she took her place within the chancel.

"Not to fire from trouble?" she said with a smile.

"No," he replied; "not to flee from trouble. But there is such a sweet sense of tranquillity here, that one seems to feel at rest, and the ordinary cares of life are forgotten.--Hark!" he said, as the note of the lark grew louder and clearer in the ringing arch of heaven. And then he sat back, listening for a time, wondering at last why his companion had brought him there. Then he fell to glancing casually at the two or three tablets on the wall. One was to the memory of a former vicar; another told of the virtues of the Squire of a neighbouring Hall, who had gone to his account followed by the prayers and blessings of the whole district--so the tablet seemed to say. Lastly, his eyes lighted upon a simple square marble tablet, raised upon another of black, and read the inscription: "To the Memory of Charles Hartly, Lieutenant of Her Majesty's --th Regiment of Foot, who fell at Delhi, when bringing in a wounded comrade lying in front of the enemy's lines."

"Forty years ago," said the doctor thoughtfully. "Poor fellow! he died a hero's death."

"He was to have been my husband," said Aunt Sophia in a low sweet voice, "had he but lived. Forty years ago! Is it so long?"

Jack Scales was a man pretty well inured to trouble. He had seen grief in many phases, and his sympathies to some extent were dulled; but as he heard those calmly uttered words, and saw the old face that was raised half reverently towards the tablet upon the wall, there was a something seemed to catch his breath, and the white marble grew dim and blurred, as did the softened face that was by his side; and as Aunt Sophia rose, he once more raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, the look he gave her asking forgiveness, which was accorded with a smile.

As they walked slowly back, the doctor's manner towards his companion was entirely changed. He felt that here was a woman whom a man might be proud to call friend; and when they reached the gate leading into the meadows, and she turned to him with a smile, and said to him, "And how is Lady Martlett?" he started slightly, and then uttered a sigh of relief.

"Hah!" he exclaimed. "You still take an interest in that?"

"O yes, doctor," she said. "I have from the beginning. Well, is it to be a match?"

"No, no. I'll be frank with you. I like the woman--well, I love her as well as a man should one whom he would make his wife; but it is impossible."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; impossible," he said gloomily; "even if she were not playing with me."

"I don't think she is, doctor--not if I understand anything about women.

Her pride is a.s.sumed, on account of your off-hand way to her. Why, you jeer and laugh at her. I have seen you insult her."

"Well, yes, I have. What else could I do? She wanted to bring me to her feet, to make me her slave, and to throw me over, as she has served a dozen more."

"Fops and fortune-hunters."

"Yes, that's it," he said excitedly, and quite carried out of his ordinary mood; "fortune-hunters. She thinks me one of that despicable brood. Hang it all, Miss Raleigh! it is out of the question."

"Why?"

"Why, my dear madam? Now come. You know me pretty well by this time.

Do you think I'd go hanging after such a woman for the sake of her money, and be the miserable reptile who married her for that?"

"No; I think you like her for herself alone."

"I wish she hadn't a penny; and then again, if she hadn't, I couldn't marry her."

"Indeed?"

"Now, how could I drag such a woman down from a life of refinement and luxury, to be the wife of a poor doctor? No, madam; it is all a dream.

We shall go on, sneering on her part, laughing and defiant on mine, and, I believe, all the time with sore hearts hidden beneath it all. There, you have my secret out bare before you. Now, you can laugh at the misogynist of a doctor, and think as little of him as you like."

"Yes," said Aunt Sophia, laying her hand upon his arm softly, and looking almost tenderly in his face, "you are a strange couple.--And now," she continued, "tell me about my poor nephew. Tell me frankly, have you any hope of his becoming the man he was?"

"Hope? Yes," he replied gloomily; "but little more. I have done and am doing all I can; but the human frame with all its nerves is a terrible mystery, in whose darkness one moves with awe."

"Then you give him up?"

"Give him up!" said Scales, with a short laugh--"give him up? Miss Raleigh; you don't know me yet. I'll never give him up. He's my study--the study of my life, and I shall fight on out of sheer obstinacy. I've plenty of _amour propre_, and it's touched here. I've learned one thing about him, and that's my lighthouse by which I steer."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Nature will perform the cure if cure there is to be; but Nature will not do it alone without a little guiding and calling upon at important times."

"I wish you success," said Aunt Sophia softly, as they came once more in sight of Arthur Prayle, now seated in one of the garden-seats, still deep in his book; and as she spoke her eyes were fixed upon the reader.

"I will help you, doctor, and you must help me. Now, I am going on with my gardening." She left him, and walked straight back to her slug scissors, resuming her task as if nothing had happened, while the doctor stood looking after her.

"Old maid!" he said to himself. "I called her an old maid. Good heavens! Why, the woman is a saint!"

Volume 2, Chapter X.

NICE TASK FOR AN OLD MAID.

"I declare," said Aunt Sophia to herself, "it is quite ridiculous as well as shocking. Here I seem to be set up as the head of a sort of wedding bureau, for everybody seized with the silly complaint."

"Oh, aunt, dear, it isn't a silly complaint--it's a very bad one,"

sobbed Naomi, who had sought the old lady in her bedroom.

"Oh, stuff and nonsense, child!"

"But it is, aunt; it's dreadful--worse than anything. You never knew how bad it was."

"No, child," said Aunt Sophia softly--"so people say;" and she laid her hand tenderly upon the head of the sobbing girl.

"It--it's bad enough when--when you think--he loves you--and you--you-- you--you are waiting--for him to speak; but--when--wh--wh--when he doesn't speak at all, and--and you find out--he--he loves some one else--it--it breaks your heart," sobbed poor Naomi. "I shall never be happy again."

"Hush, hush, my darling. Not so bad as that, I hope. And pray, who is is that you love, and who loves some one else?"