God's Good Man Part 45

With an impatient exclamation Roxmouth suddenly changed the subject; but Longford was satisfied that he had sown a seed, which might,-- time and circ.u.mstances permitting,--sprout and grow into a tangible weed or flower.

Maryllia meantime had made good her escape from the scene of Sir Morton Pippitt's 'afternoon-tea' festivity. Gently moving through the throng with that consummate grace which was her natural heritage, she consented to be introduced to the 'county' generally, smiling sweetly upon all, and talking so kindly to the Mandeville Poreham girls, that she threw them into fluttering ecstasies of delight, and caused them to declare afterwards to their mother that Miss Vancourt was the sweetest, dearest, darlingest creature they had ever met! She stood with patience while Sir Morton Pippitt, over-excited by the presence of the various 't.i.tled' personages in his house, guffawed and bl.u.s.tered in her face over the 'little surprise' he had prepared for her in the unexpected appearance of Lord Roxmouth; she listened to his "Ha!-ha!-ha! My dear lady! We know a thing or two! Handsome fellow,--handsome fellow! Think of a poor old plain Knight when you are a d.u.c.h.ess! Ha! ha! ha! G.o.d bless my soul!"---and without a word in confirmation or denial of his blatant observations, she managed to slip gradually out of the drawing-room to the hall and from thence to the carriage drive, where she found, as she thought she would, Lord Charlemont looking tenderly into the mechanism of his motor-car, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g this, peering into that, and generally hanging round the vehicle with a fatuous lover's enthusiasm.

"Would you mind taking me back to St. Rest now?" she enquired--"I have an appointment in the village--you can do the journey in no time."

"Delighted!" And Charlemont got his machine into the proper state of spluttering, gasping eagerness to depart. "Anyone coming with you?"

"No--n.o.body knows I am leaving." And Maryllia mounted lightly into the car. "You can return and fetch the others afterwards. Put me down at the church, please!"

In a moment more the car flashed down the drive and out of Badsworth Hall precincts, and was soon panting and pounding along the country road at most unlawful speed. As a rule Maryllia hated being in a motor-car, but on this occasion she was glad of the swift rush through the air; had the vehicle torn madly down a precipice she would scarcely have cared, so eager was she to get away from the hateful vicinity of Lord Roxmouth. She was angry too--angry with Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, whose hand she recognised in the matter as having so earnestly begged her to go to Badsworth Hall that afternoon,--she despised Sir Morton Pippitt for lending himself to the scheme,--and with all her heart she loathed Mr. Marius Longford whom she at once saw was Roxmouth's paid tool. The furious rate at which Lord Charlemont drove his car was a positive joy to her--and as he was much too busy with his steering gear to speak, she gave herself up to the smouldering indignation that burned in her soul while she was, so to speak, carried through s.p.a.ce as on a panting whirlwind.

"Why can they not leave me alone!" she thought pa.s.sionately--"How dare they follow me to my own home!--my own lands!--and spy upon me in everything I do! It is a positive persecution and more than that,--it is a wicked design on Aunt Emily's part to compromise me with Roxmouth. She wants to set people talking down here in the country just as she set them talking in town, and to make everyone think I am engaged to him, or OUGHT to be engaged to him. It is cruel!--I suppose I shall be driven away from here just as I have been driven from London,--is there NO way in which I can escape from this man whom I hate!--NO place in the world where he cannot find me and follow me!"

The brown hue of thatched roofs through the trees here caused Lord Charlemont to turn round and address her.

"Just there!" he said, briefly--"Six minutes exactly!"

"Good!" said Maryllia, nodding approvingly--"But go slowly through the village, won't you? There are so many dear little children always playing about."

He slackened speed at once, and with a weird toot-tootling of his horn guided the car on at quite a respectable ambling-donkey pace.

"You said the church?"

"Yes, please!"

Another minute, and she had alighted.

"Thanks so much!" she said, smiling up into his goggle-guarded eyes.

"Will you rush back for the others, please? And--and--may I ask you a favour?"

"A thousand!" he answered, thinking what a pretty little woman she was, as he spoke.

"Well--don't--even if they want you to do so,--don't bring Lord Roxmouth or Mr. Marius Longford back to the Manor. They are Sir Morton Pippitt's friends and guests--they are not mine!"

A faint flicker of surprise pa.s.sed over the aristocratic motor- driver's features, but he made no observation. He merely said:

"All right! I'm game!"

Which brief sentence meant, for Lord Charlemont, that he was loyal to the death. He was not romantic in the style of expressing himself,--he would not have understood how to swear fealty on a drawn sword--but when he said--'I'm game,'-it came to the same thing. Reversing his car, he sped away, whizzing up the road like a boomerang, back to Badsworth Hall. Maryllia watched him till he was out of sight,--then with a sigh of relief, she turned and look wistfully at the church. Its beautiful architecture had the appearance of worn ivory in the mellow radiance of the late afternoon, and the sculptured figures of the Twelve Apostles in their delicately carved niches, six on either side of the portal, seemed almost life-like, as the rays of the warm and brilliant suns.h.i.+ne, tempered by a touch of approaching evening, struck them aslant as with a luminance from heaven. She lifted the latch of the churchyard gate,--and walking slowly with bent head between the rows of little hillocks where, under every soft green quilt of gra.s.s lay someone sleeping, she entered the sacred building. It was quite empty. There was a scent of myrtle and lilies in the air,--it came from two cl.u.s.ters of blossoms which were set at either side of the gold cross on the altar. Stepping softly, and with reverence, Maryllia went up to the Communion rails, and looked long and earnestly at the white alabaster sarcophagus which, in its unknown origin and antiquity, was the one unsolved mystery of St. Rest. A vague sensation of awe stole upon her,--and she sank involuntarily on her knees.

"If I could pray now,"--she thought--"What should I pray for?"

And then it seemed that something wild and appealing rose in her heart and clamoured for an utterance which her tongue refused to give,--her bosom heaved,--her lips trembled,--and suddenly a rush of tears blinded her eyes.

"Oh, if I were only LOVED!" she murmured under her breath--"If only someone could find me worth caring for! I would endure any suffering, any loss, to win this one priceless gift,--love!"

A little smothered sob broke from her lips.

"Father! Mother!" she whispered, instinctively stretching out her hands--"I am so lonely!--so very, very lonely!"

Only silence answered her, and the dumb perfume of the altar flowers. She rose,--and stood a moment trying to control herself,--a pretty little pitiful figure in her dainty, garden-party frock, a soft white chiffon hat tied on under her rounded chin with a knot of pale blue ribbon, and a tiny cobweb of a lace kerchief in her hand with which she dried her wet eyes.

"Oh dear!" she sighed--"It's no use crying! It only shows what a weak little idiot I am! I'm lonely, of course,--I can't expect anything else; I shall always be lonely--Roxmouth and Aunt Emily will take care of that. The lies they will tell about me will keep off every man but the one mean and slanderous fortune-hunter, to whom lies are second nature. And as I won't marry HIM, I shall be left to myself--I shall be an old maid. Though that doesn't matter-- old maids are often the happiest women. Anyhow, I'd rather be an old maid than d.u.c.h.ess of Ormistoune."

She dabbed her eyes with the little handkerchief again, and went slowly out of the church. And as she stepped from the shadow of its portal into the suns.h.i.+ny open air, she came face to face with John Walden. He started back at the sudden sight of her,--then recollecting himself, raised his hat, looking at her with questioning eyes.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Walden!" she said, affecting a sprightly air-- "Are you quite well?"

He smiled.

"Quite. And you? You look---"

"As if I had been crying, I suppose?"--she suggested. "So I have.

Women often cry."

"They do,--but---"

"But why should they?--you would say, being a man,"--and Maryllia forced a laugh.--"And that's a question difficult to answer! Are you going into the church?"

"Not for a service, or on any urgent matter,"--replied John--"I left a book in the vestry which I want to refer to,--that's all."

"Fetch it," said Maryllia--"I'll wait for you here."

He glanced at her--and saw that her lips trembled, and that she was still on the verge of tears. He hurried off at once, realising that she wanted a minute or two to recover herself. His heart beat foolishly fast and uncomfortably,--he wondered what had grieved or annoyed her.

"Poor little soul!" he murmured, reflecting on a conversation with which Julian Adderley had regaled him the previous day, concerning some of the guests at Abbot's Manor--"Poor, weary, sweet little soul!"

While Maryllia, during his brief absence was thinking--"I won't cry, or he'll take me for a worse fool than I am. He looks so terribly intellectual--so wise and cool and calm!--and yet I think--I THINK he was rather pleased to see me!"

She smoothed her face into a smile,--gave one or two more reproving taps to her eyelids with her morsel of a kerchief, and was quite self-possessed when he returned, with a worn copy of the Iliad under his arm.

"Is that the book you wanted?" she asked.

"Yes--" and he showed it to her--"I admit it had no business to be left in the church."

She peeped between the covers.

"Oh, it's all Greek!"--she said--"Do you read Greek?"

"It is one of the happiest accomplishments I learned at college,"-- he replied. "I have eased many a heartache by reading Homer in the original."

She looked meditative.

"Now that's very strange!" she murmured--"I should never have thought that to read Homer in the original Greek would ease a heartache! How does it do it? Will you teach me?"

She raised her eyes--how beautiful and blue they were he thought!-- more beautiful for the mist of weeping that still lingered about their soft radiance.

"I will teach you Greek, if you like, with pleasure!"--he said, smiling a little, though his lips trembled--"But whether it would cure any heartache of yours I could not promise!"