Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 22

"Of course, of course!" said Mr. Medwin, soothingly--"I quite understand! Please say I called! Mr. Clifford--"

A figure stepped out from the interior darkness of the shadowed hall towards him.

"I am here," said Robin, gently--"Did you wish to speak to me? This is a house of heavy mourning to-day!"

The young man's voice shook,--he was deadly pale, and there was a strained look in his eyes of unshed tears. Mr. Medwin was conscious of nervous embarra.s.sment.

"Indeed, indeed I know it is!" he murmured--"I feel for you most profoundly! So sudden a shock too!--I--I thought that perhaps Miss Jocelyn--a young girl struck by her first great loss and sorrow, might like to see me--"

Robin Clifford looked at him in silence for a moment. The consolations of the Church! Would they mean anything to Innocent? He wondered.

"I will ask her," he said at last, abruptly--"Will you step inside?"

Mr. Medwin accepted the suggestion, taking off his hat as he crossed the threshold, and soon found himself in the quaint sitting-room where, but two days since, Hugo Jocelyn had told Innocent all her true history. He could not help being impressed by its old-world peace and beauty, furnished as it was in perfect taste, with its window-outlook on a paradise of happy flowers rejoicing in the sunlight. The fragrance of sweet lavender scented the air, and a big china bowl of roses in the centre of the table gave a touch of tender brightness to the old oak panelling on the walls.

"There are things in this room that are priceless!" soliloquised the clergyman, who was something of a collector--"If the place comes under the hammer I shall try to pick up a few pieces."

He smiled, with the pleased air of one who feels that all things must have an end--either by the "hammer" or otherwise,--even a fine old house, the pride and joy of a long line of its owners during three hundred years. And then he started, as the door opened slowly and softly and a girl stood before him, looking more like a spirit than a mortal, clad in a plain white gown, with a black ribbon threaded through her waving fair hair. She was pale to the very lips, and her eyes were swollen and heavy with weeping. Timidly she held out her hand.

"It is kind of you to come," she said,--and paused.

He, having taken her hand and let it go again, stood awkwardly mute. It was the first time he had seen Innocent in her home surroundings, and he had hardly noticed her at all when he had by chance met her in her rare walks through the village and neighbourhood, so that he was altogether unprepared for the refined delicacy and grace of her appearance.

"I am very sorry to hear of your sad bereavement," he began, at last, in a conventional tone--"very sorry indeed--"

She looked at him curiously.

"Are you? I don't think you can be sorry, because you did not know him--if you had known him, you would have been really grieved--yes, I am sure you would. He was such a good man!--one of the best in all the world! I'm glad you have come to see me, because I have often wanted to speak to you--and perhaps now is the right time. Won't you sit down?"

He obeyed her gesture, surprised more or less by her quiet air of sad self-possession. He had expected to offer the usual forms of religious consolation to a sort of uneducated child or farm-girl, nervous, trembling and tearful,--instead of this he found a woman whose grief was too deep and sincere to be relieved by mere talk, and whose pathetic composure and patience were the evident result of a highly sensitive mental organisation.

"I have never seen death before," she said, in hushed tones--"except in birds and flowers and animals--and I have cried over the poor things for sorrow that they should be taken away out of this beautiful world.

But with Dad it is different. He was afraid--afraid of suffering and weakness--and he was taken so quickly that he could hardly have felt anything--so that his fears were all useless. And I can hardly believe he is dead--actually dead--can you? But of course you do not believe in death at all--the religion you teach is one of eternal life--eternal life and happiness."

Mr. Medwin's lips moved--he murmured something about "living again in the Lord."

Innocent did not hear,--she was absorbed in her own mental problem and anxious to put it before him.

"Listen!" she said--"When Priscilla told me Dad was really dead--that he would never get off the bed where he lay so cold and white and peaceful,--that he would never speak to me again, I said she was wrong--that it could not be. I told her he would wake presently and laugh at us all for being so foolish as to think him dead. Even Hero, our mastiff, does not believe it, for he has stayed all morning by the bedside and no one dare touch him to take him away. And just now Priscilla has been with me, crying very much--and she says I must not grieve,--because Dad is gone to a better world. Then surely he must be alive if he is able to go anywhere, must he not? I asked her what she knew about this better world, and she cried again and said indeed she knew nothing except what she had been taught in her Catechism. I have read the Catechism and it seems to me very stupid and unnatural--perhaps because I do not understand it. Can you tell me about this better world?"

Mr. Medwin's lips moved again. He cleared his throat.

"I'm afraid," he observed--"I'm very much afraid, my poor child, that you have been brought up in a sad state of ignorance."

Innocent did not like being called a "poor child"--and she gave a little gesture of annoyance.

"Please do not pity me," she said, with a touch of hauteur--"I do not wish that! I know it is difficult for me to explain things to you as I see them, because I have never been taught religion from a Church. I have read about the Virgin and Christ and the Saints and all those pretty legends in the books that belonged to the Sieur Amadis--but he lived three hundred years ago and he was a Roman Catholic, as all those French n.o.blemen were at that time."

Mr. Medwin stared at her in blank bewilderment. Who was the Sieur Amadis? She went on, heedless of his perplexity.

"Dad believed in a G.o.d who governed all things rightly,--I have heard him say that G.o.d managed the farm and made it what it is. But he never spoke much about it--and he hated the Church--"

The reverend gentleman interrupted her with a grave uplifted hand.

"I know!" he sighed--"Ah yes, I know! A dreadful thing!--a shocking att.i.tude of mind!' I fear he was not saved!"

She looked straightly at him.

"I don't see what you mean," she said--"He was quite a good man--"

"Are you sure of that?" and Mr. Medwin fixed his shallow brown eyes searchingly upon her. "Our affections are often very deceptive--"

A flush of colour overspread her pale cheeks.

"Indeed I am very sure!" she answered, steadily--"He was a good man.

There was never a stain on his character--though he allowed people to think wrong things of him for my sake. That was his only fault."

He was silent, waiting for her next word.

"I think perhaps I ought to tell you," she continued--"because then you will be able to judge him better and spare his memory from foolish and wicked scandal. He was not my father--I was only his adopted daughter."

Mr. Medwin gave a slight cough--a cough of incredulity. "Adopted" is a phrase often used to cover the brand of illegitimacy.

"I never knew my own history till the other day," she said, slowly and sadly. "The doctor came to see Dad, with a London specialist, a friend of his--and they told him he had not long to live. After that Dad made up his mind that I must learn all the truth of myself--oh!--what a terrible truth it was!--I thought my heart would break! It was so strange--so cruel! I had grown up believing myself to be Dad's own, very own daughter!--and I had been deceived all my life!--for he told me I was nothing but a nameless child, left on his hands by a stranger!"

Mr. Medwin opened his small eyes in amazement,--he was completely taken aback. He tried to grasp the bearings of this new aspect of the situation thus presented to him, but could not realise anything save what in his own mind was he pleased to call a "c.o.c.k-and-bull" story.

"Most extraordinary!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, at last--"Did he give you no clue at all as to your actual parentage?"

Innocent shook her head.

"How could he? A man on horseback arrived here suddenly one very stormy night, carrying me in his arms--I was just a little baby--and asked shelter for me, promising to come and fetch me in the morning--but he never came--and Dad never knew who he was. I was kept here out of pity at first--then Dad began to love me--"

The suppressed tears rose to her eyes and began to fall.

"Priscilla can tell you all about it," she continued, tremulously--"if you wish to know more. I am only explaining things a little because I do want you to understand that Dad was really a good man though he did not go to Church--and he must have been 'saved,' as you put it, for he never did anything unworthy of the name of Jocelyn!"

The clergyman thought a moment.

"You are not Miss Jocelyn, then?" he said.

She met his gaze with a sorrowful calmness.

"No. I am n.o.body. I have not even been baptised."

He sprang up from his chair, horrified.

"Not baptised!" he exclaimed--"Not baptised! Do you mean to tell me that Farmer Jocelyn never attended to this imperative and sacred duty on your behalf?--that he allowed you to grow up as a heathen?"