Wood and Stone (63 page)

The tolling of the bell, which hitherto had gone on, monotonously and insistently, across the drowsy lawn, suddenly stopped.

Vennie started and ran hurriedly to the door.

“They are burying James Andersen,” she cried, “and I ought to be there. It would look unkind and thoughtless of me not to be there. Good-bye, mother! We’ll talk of this when I come back. I’m sorry to be so unsatisfactory a daughter to you, but perhaps you’ll feel differently some day.”

Left to herself, Valentia Seldom rose and went back to her letter. But the pen fell from her limp fingers, and tears stained the already written page.

The funeral service had only just commenced when Vennie reached the churchyard. She remained at the extreme outer edge of the crowd, where groups of inquisitive women are wont to cluster, wearing their aprons and carrying their babies, and where the bigger children are apt to be noisy and troublesome. She
caught a glimpse of Ninsy Lintot among those
standing
quite close to where Mr. Clavering, in his white surplice, was reading the pregnant liturgical words. She noticed that the girl held her hands to her face and that her slender form was shaking with the stress of her emotion.

She could not see Luke’s face, but she was conscious that his motionless figure had lost its upright grace. The young stone-carver seemed to droop, like a sun-flower whose stalk has been bent by the wind.

The words of the familiar English service were borne intermittently to her ears as they fell from the lips of the priest who had once been her friend. It struck her poignantly enough,—that brave human defiance, so solemn and tender, with which humanity seems to rise up in sublime desperation and hoist its standard of hope against hope!

She wondered what the sceptical Luke was feeling all this while. When Mr. Clavering began to read the passage which is prefaced in the Book of Common Prayer by the words, “Then while the earth be cast upon the Body by some standing by, the priest shall say,”—the quiet sobs of poor little Ninsy broke into a wail of passionate grief, grief to which Vennie, for all her convert’s aloofness from Protestant heresy, could not help adding her own tears.

It was the custom at Nevilton for the bearers of the coffin, when the service was over, to re-form in solemn procession, and escort the chief mourners back to the house from which they had come. It was her knowledge of this custom that led Vennie to steal away before the final words were uttered; and her hurried departure from the churchyard saved her
from being a witness of the somewhat disconcerting event with which the solemn transaction closed.

The bringing of James’ body to the church had been unfortunately delayed at the start by the wayward movements of a luggage-train, which
persisted
in shunting up and down over the level-crossing, at the moment when they were carrying the coffin from the house. This delay had been followed by others, owing to various unforeseen causes, and by the time the service actually began it was already close upon the hour fixed for the confirmation.

Thus it happened that, soon after Vennie’s
departure
, at the very moment when the procession of bearers, followed by Luke and the station-master’s wife, issued forth into the street, there drove up to the church-door a two-horsed carriage containing Gladys and her mother, the former all whitely veiled, as if she were a child-bride. Seeing the bearers troop by, the fair-haired candidate for confirmation clutched Mrs. Romer’s arm and held her in her place, but leaning forward in the effort of this movement she presented her face at the carriage window, just as Luke himself emerged from the gates.

The two young people found themselves looking one another straight in the eyes, until with a
shuddering
spasm that shook her whole frame, Gladys sank back into her seat, as if from the effect of a crushing blow received full upon the breast.

Luke passed on, following the bearers, with
something
like the ghost of a smile upon his drawn and contorted lips.

I
T was not towards her mother’s house that Vennie directed her steps when she left the churchyard. She turned sharp to the west, and walked rapidly down the central street of the village into the square at the end of it.

Here she found an arena of busy and stirring confusion, dominated by hissing spouts of steam, hoarse whistlings from the “roundabout” engines, and occasional bursts of extravagant melody, as the circus-men made their musical experiments, pending the opening of the show.

Vennie’s intention, in crossing the square, was to pay a morning visit to Mr. Quincunx, whose absence from Andersen’s funeral had struck her mind as extraordinary and ominous. She feared that the recluse must be ill. Nothing less than illness, she thought, would have kept him away from such an event. She knew how closely he and the younger stone-carver were associated, and it was inconceivable that any insane jealousy of the dead could have held him at home. Of course it was possible that he had been compelled to go to work at Yeoborough as usual, but she did not think this likely.

It was, however, not only anxiety lest her mother’s queer friend should be ill that actuated her. She felt,—now that her ultimatum had been delivered,—
that the sooner she entered the Catholic Church and plunged into her novitiate, the better it would be. When events had
happened
, Mrs. Seldom accepted them. It was during the days of uncertain waiting that her nerves broke down. Once the daughter were actually a postulant in a convent, she felt sure the mother would resign herself, and resume her normal life.

Valentia was a very independent and self-sufficient woman. With her favourite flowers and her favourite biographies of proconsular personages, the girl felt convinced she would be much less heart-broken than she imagined.

Her days in Nevilton being thus numbered, Vennie could not help giving way to a desire that had lately grown more and more definite within her, to have a bold and unhesitating interview with Mr. Quincunx. Perhaps even at this last hour something might be done to save Lacrima from her fate!

Passing along the outskirts of the circus, she could not resist pausing for a moment to observe the
numerous
groups of well-known village characters, whom curiosity had drawn to the spot.

She was amazed to catch sight of the redoubtable Mr. Wone, holding one of his younger children by the hand and surveying with extreme interest the setting up of a colossal framework of gilded and painted wood, destined to support certain
boat-shaped
swings. She felt a little indignant with the worthy man for not having been present at
Andersen’s
funeral, but the naive and childlike interest with which, with open mouth and eyes, he stood gaping at this glittering erection, soothed her anger into a
smile. He really was a good sort of man, this poor Wone! She wondered vaguely whether he intended himself to indulge in the pastime of swinging in a boat-shaped swing or whirling round upon a wooden horse. She felt that if she could see him on one of these roundabouts,—especially if he retained that expression of guileless admiration,—she could really forgive him everything.

She caught a glimpse of two other figures whose interest in the proceedings appeared extremely vivid, no less persons than Mr. John Goring and his
devoted
henchman, Bert Leerd. These two were engaged in reading a glaring advertisement which
depicted
a young woman clad in astounding spangles dancing on a tight-rope, and it was difficult to say whether the farmer or the idiot was the more absorbed.

She was just turning away, when she heard
herself
called by name, and from amid a crowd of women clustering round one of Mr. Love’s bric-a-brac stalls, there came towards her, together, Mrs. Fringe and Mrs. Wotnot.

Vennie was extremely surprised to find these two ladies,—by no means particularly friendly as a rule,—thus joined in partnership of dissipation, but she supposed the influence of a circus, like the influence of religion, has a dissolvent effect upon human
animosity
. That these excellent women should have preferred the circus, however, to the rival
entertainment
in the churchyard, did strike her mind as
extraordinary
. She did not know that they had, as a matter of fact, “eaten their pot of honey” at the one, before proceeding, post-haste, to enjoy the other.

“May we walk with you, miss, a step?”
supplicated
Mrs. Fringe, as Vennie indicated her intention of moving on, as soon as their salutations were over.

“Thank you, you are very kind, Mrs. Fringe. Perhaps,—a little way, but I’m rather busy this morning.”

“Oh we shan’t trouble you long,” murmured Mrs. Wotnot, “It’s only,—well, Mrs. Fringe, here, had better speak.”

Thus it came about that Vennie began her advance up the Yeoborough road supported by the two
housekeepers
, the lean one on the left of her, and the fat one on the right of her.

“Will I tell her, or will you tell her?” murmured the plump lady sweetly, when they were clear of the village.

Mrs. Wotnot made a curious grimace and clasped and unclasped her hands.

“Better you; much, much better, that it should be you,” she remarked.

“But ’twas thy tale, dearie; ’twas thy tale and surprisin’ discoverin’s,” protested Mrs. Fringe.

“Those that knows aren’t always those that tells,” observed the other sententiously.

“But you do think it’s proper and right the young lady should know?” said Mr. Clavering’s housekeeper.

Mrs. Wotnot nodded. “If ’taint too shameful for her, ’tis best what she’d a’ ought to hear,” said the lean woman.

Vennie became conscious at this moment that whenever Mrs. Wotnot opened her mouth there issued thence a most unpleasant smell of brandy, and
it flashed upon her that this was the explanation of the singular converging of these antipodal orbits. In the absence of her master, Mrs. Wotnot had evidently “taken to drink,” and it was doubtless out of her protracted intoxication that Mrs. Fringe had derived whatever scandalous piece of gossip it was that she was now so anxious to impart.

“I’ll tell ’ee, miss,” said Mrs. Fringe, “with no nonsense-fangles and no shilly-shally. I’ll tell ’ee straight out and sober,—same as our dear friend did tell it to me. ’Tis along of Miss Romer,—ye be to understand, wot is to be confirmed this same blessed day.

“The dear woman, here, was out a-gatherin’
laurel-leaves
one fine evenin’, long o’ some weeks since, and who should she get wind of, in the bushes near-by, but Mr. Luke and Miss Gladys. I been my own self ere now, moon-daft on that there lovely young man, but Satan’s ways be Satan’s ways, and none shall report that I takes countenance of
such
goings on. Mrs. Wotnot here, she heerd every Jack word them sinful young things did say,—and shameful-awful their words were, God in Heaven do know!

“They were cursin’ one another, like to split, that night. She were cryin’ and fandanderin’ and he were laughin’ and chaffin’. ’Twas God’s terror to hear how they went on, with the holy bare sky over their shameless heads!”

“Tell the young lady quick and plain,” ejaculated Mrs. Wotnot at this point, clutching Vennie’s arm and arresting their advance.

“I
am
’a tellin’ her,” retorted Mrs. Fringe, “I’m a tellin’ as fast as my besom can breathe. Don’t ’ee
push a body so! The young lady ain’t in such a tantrum-hurry as all that.”

“I am
rather
anxious to get on with my walk,” threw in Vennie, looking from one to another with some embarrassment, “and I really don’t care very much about hearing things of this kind.”

“Tell ’er! Tell ’er! Tell ’er!” cried Mrs. Wotnot.

Mrs. Fringe cast a contemptuous look at her rival house-keeper.

“Our friend baint quite her own self today, miss,” she remarked with a wink at Vennie, “the weather or summat’ ’ave moved ’er rheumatiz from ’er legs, and settled it in ’er stummick.”

“Tell her! Tell her!” reiterated the other.

Mrs. Fringe lowered her voice to a pregnant whisper.

“The truth be, miss, that our friend here heered these wicked young things talk quite open-like about their gay goings on. So plain did they talk, that all wot the Blessed Lord ’is own self do know, of such as most folks keeps to ’emselves, went burnin’ and shamin’ into our friend’s ’stonished ears. And wot she did gather was that Miss Gladys, for certin’ and sure, be a lost girl, and Mr. Luke ’as ’ad ’is bit of fun down to the uttermost drop.”

The extraordinary solemnity with which Mrs. Fringe uttered these words and the equally
extraordinary
solemnity with which Mrs. Wotnot nodded her head in corroboration of their truth had a
devastating
effect upon Vennie. There was no earthly reason why these two females should have invented this squalid story. Mrs. Fringe was an incurable scandal-monger, but Vennie had never found her a
liar. Besides there was a genuine note of shocked sincerity about her tone which no mere morbid
suspicion
could have evoked.

The thing was true then! Gladys and Luke were lovers, in the most extreme sense of that word, and Dangelis was the victim of an outrageous betrayal.

Vennie had sufficient presence of mind to avoid the eyes of both the women, eyes fixed with ghoulish and lickerish interest upon her, as they watched for the effect of this revelation,—but she was uncomfortably conscious that her cheeks were flaming and her voice strained as she bade them good-bye. Comment, of any kind, upon what they had revealed to her she found absolutely impossible. She could only wish them a pleasant time at the circus if they were returning thither, and freedom from any ill effects due to their accompanying her so far.

When she was alone, and beginning to climb the ascent of Dead Man’s Lane, the full implication of what she had learnt thrust itself through her brain like a red-hot wedge. Vennie’s experience of the treacherousness of the world had, as we know, gone little deeper than her reaction from the rough
discourtesy
of Mr. Clavering and the evasive aloofness of Mr. Taxater. This sudden revelation into the brutishness and squalour inherent in our planetary system had the effect upon her of an access of physical nausea. She felt dizzy and sick, as she toiled up the hill, between the wet sun-pierced hedges, and under the heavy September trees.

The feeling of autumn in the air, so pleasant under normal conditions to human senses, seemed to
associate
itself just now with this dreadful glance she
had had into the basic terrors of things. The whole atmosphere about her seemed to smell of decay, of decomposition, of festering mortality. The pull and draw of the thick Nevilton soil, its horrible demonic gravitation, had never got hold of her more
tenaciously
than it did then. She felt as though some vast octopus-like tentacles were dragging her
earthward
.

Vennie was one of those rare women for whom, even under ordinary conditions, the idea of sex is distasteful and repulsive. Presented to her as it was now, mingled with treachery and deception, it
obsessed
her with an almost living presence. Sensuality had always been for her the one unpardonable sin, and sensuality of this kind, turning the power of sex into a mere motive for squalid pleasure-seeking, filled her with a shuddering disgust.

So this was what men and women were like! This was the kind of thing that went on, under the “covert and convenient seeming” of affable lies!

The whole of nature seemed to have become, in one moment, foul and miasmic. Rank vapours rose from the ground at her feet, and the weeds in the hedge took odious and indecent shapes.

An immense wave of distrust swept over her for everyone that she knew. Was Mr. Clavering himself like this?

This thought,—the thought of what, for all she could tell, might exist between her priest-friend and this harlot-girl,—flushed her cheeks with a new emotion. Mixed at that moment with her virginal horror of the whole squalid business, was a pang of quite a different character, a pang that approached,
if it did not reach, the sharp sting of sheer physical jealousy.

As soon as she became aware of this feeling in herself it sickened her with a deeper loathing. Was she also contaminated, like the rest? Was no living human being free from this taint?

She stopped and passed her hand across her
forehead
: She took off her hat and made a movement with her arms as if thrusting away some invisible assailant. She felt she could not encounter even Mr. Quincunx in this obsessed condition. She had the sensation of being infected by some kind of odious leprosy.

She sat down in the hedge, heedless of the still clinging dew. Strange and desperate thoughts whirled through her brain. She longed to purge herself in some way, to bathe deep, deep,—body and soul,—in some cleansing stream.

But what about Gladys’ betrothed? What about the American? Vennie had scarcely spoken to Dangelis, hardly ever seen him, but she felt a wave of sympathy for the betrayed artist surge through her heart. It could not be allowed,—it could not,—that those two false intriguers should fool this innocent gentleman!

Struck by a sudden illumination as if from the unveiled future, she saw herself going straight to Dangelis and revealing the whole story. He should at least be made aware of the real nature of the girl he was marrying!

Having resolved upon this bold step, Vennie
recovered
something of her natural mood. Where was Mr. Dangelis at this moment? She must find that out,—
perhaps Mr. Quincunx would know. She must make a struggle to waylay the artist, to get an interview with him alone.

She rose to her feet, and holding her hat in her hand, advanced resolutely up the lane. She felt happier now, relieved, in a measure, of that odious sense of confederacy with gross sin which had weighed her down. But there still beat vaguely in her brain a passionate longing for purification. If only she could escape, even for a few hours, from this
lust-burdened
spot! If only she could cool her forehead in the sea!