Читать книгу The Lost Angel - Katharine Tynan - Страница 6

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AT half-past seven o'clock on that mid-August Sunday, a few minutes after Mr. Agar had begun his sermon, his old clerk, Saunders, scurried up to the pulpit and made a communication to him.

The rector immediately closed his book.

"My brethren," he said, "the river is rising fast. There will be no sermon this evening."

About a quarter of an hour after the congregation had dispersed, the rector and the clerk following them hurriedly,—the river Holme rose with extraordinary rapidity once it had made up its mind—a couple of cyclists stopped at the field-gate from which an asphalted pathway sloped down to the little church.

They were mere casual acquaintances of the road. Amy Greville had punctured a tyre, and was mending it with an insufficient amount of solution when John Tregaskis overtook her, and with an honest blush that did his good looks no discredit asked permission to help her.

A couple of hours back they had had tea at the same inn, and he had wondered at her impatience when there had been a little delay, since her face seemed framed for serenity. She had looked tired even then. Her skirt was splashed with the mud of the heavy road and her bicycle when he caught a glimpse of it was muddy all over its brightness.

She had eaten and drunk hurriedly when the meal was brought and had ridden away. He had enjoyed his meal at leisure; and riding on at leisure had come on his recent companion of the tea-table working away at her tyres with the same air of feverish impatience. While he helped her she stood by with compressed lips as though she were in an anguish to be gone.

The whole country was wet as a sponge. The sodden grey sky was hung with ominous-looking blobs of ragged cloud. As they came up to the gate that led to the church it began to rain heavily.

"Better shelter!" he said to her. He had the oddest distaste for leaving her in this forlorn place, with not a habitation in sight, and night closing in about her. "Better shelter! There is a light in the church; perhaps there is a service going on."

"There is great need for my hurrying," she said, turning her beautiful, limpid, grey eyes on him.

"My darling little sister is ill. I am on my way to her. I only heard this morning, and as trains were impossible on Sunday I was obliged to ride. I have been at it all day. Judging by my map I can't be more than ten miles from the place."

"If you get drenched it will impede you," he said.

The sky seemed to take a visible darkness before their eyes. There was a flash of lightning, and the flood-gates of Heaven were opened.

"Come," he said, holding the gate open. She went through obediently, pushing her bicycle before her.

The path led them down into a dip of ground. They crossed the wooden hand-bridge over the swollen river, from which the path ascended now, till they reached the little Church of St. Mary of the Isles, high and dry amid the pale swamped fields. If they had known its name it might have suggested something to them, but they did not.

The lightning came again and again, terrific flashes of forked lightning, with deafening peals of thunder. The evening had suddenly turned to night, and the distant hills stood out black against a firmament of running fires. Amy was terrified of lightning. The little church was at the moment indeed an ark of refuge.

The light shone from the vestry window. Old Saunders, the clerk, in his hurry—he had to cross the Holme twice on his way back to the village—had forgotten the light in the vestry as he had forgotten to lock the door.

John Tregaskis pushed open the door and they went in. A glance showed him that the little church beyond was dark and silent, only lit now and again by the flashing of the lightning.

"No one would refuse us hospitality on such a night," he said gently. "Won't you sit down? Ah, the stove is alight. That is pleasant. If you will sit here you can dry your skirts."

She moved and came nearer the fire, taking the chair he set for her.

"You think it will soon be over?" she asked anxiously.

"I hope so. I am going to ask you when it is over to let me accompany you to your destination. You ought not to ride alone after nightfall in this lonely country, and the roads will be worse than ever after this deluge."

She looked up at him and a little colour came into the clear cheek under the big hat-brim.

"I ought not to—" she began.

"Accept the escort of a stranger," he finished for her. "You can trust me, madam. I shall not ask to be less a stranger after I have seen you safely. I once had a sister who died. She had eyes like yours."

She looked up at him and her colour was steady.

"Thank you; I will trust you," she said.

He sat watching her without speaking for a long time. The storm showed no sign of abating. Now and again he saw her clench her hands in agitation. Her profile showed clear against the light, a beautiful profile, a delicate little nose, a firm chin, a mouth at once strong and tender. He had noticed at the inn the waves and ripples of her hair behind her ears.

"Will it ever be over?" she said to him at last.

"It will soon be over," he answered comfortingly: and then he stood up. "Do you hear the little river roaring?" he asked, and his face wore a startled look.

He went to the door, unlatched it and looked out. The lightning was dying away in distance and a wild moon was showing herself through the ragged clouds and the heavy rain that was still falling. As he looked he whistled sharply between his teeth, a whistle of consternation.

"What is it?" she asked, coming to his side.

"Look!"

He indicated the fields without. Since they had come in the waters had risen with tremendous rapidity. They were all about them. The little river beyond the graves was running like a mill-race. Now that the thunder slackened it was like thunder in their ears. The bridge they had crossed by stood islanded in the middle of floods. And it was still rising.

"Oh!" she uttered a little cry. "What are we to do? Can't we cross? It can't be so deep between us and the bridge already!"

"There is a tremendous current," he said, looking down at the swirl of the waters. "I'm afraid it would be madness to attempt it."

"Let us try the other door," she said.

He took the hanging lamp from the wall, and they crossed the church to its doors. Before he could take down the bolts he heard the shouting of the waters outside.

"I'm afraid we are on an island," he said. "All around us is the river valley, and this little hill is in the loop of the river. Ah, I feared as much!"

The bolt had fallen with a heavy clang, and when he opened the door the river was within a foot of them.

"I am so sorry," he said, "but I'm afraid we shall have to stay till help comes or till it abates. I know this kind of river. It rises with extraordinary rapidity. All the streams are tumbling into it from the hills, and doubtless it takes the overflow from some lake or lakes up there. The only consolation is that it falls as quickly as it rises. What a good thing we have light and fire!"

They went back to the vestry and he replenished the fire. Fortunately he found plenty of fuel. When he had made it cheerful he looked around at his companion.

"Come and sit nearer," he said. "Won't you take off your hat and hang it on the parson's hat peg. We must make the best of the fix we find ourselves in. After all it might be worse. Ah!"

She was sitting with her face in the shadow of her hand and he had not suspected tears, but he had seen a shining globule drop suddenly as though from long lashes.

"Ah!" he said again, with the most curious tenderness. "Is it so bad as that?"

"I'm not afraid," she said in a low voice. "It is...that I am thinking of Kitty. It is...suffering not to be with her, not to know how things are going."

He caught his own breath as sharply as she had caught hers.

"That is bad," he said, "but then she is in the hands of the good God."

"You believe that?" she asked with eagerness.

"Yes," he answered, "don't you?"

"There was a time when I might have said no," she said, "but that time is gone. I have been through deep waters and I have come out on the other side."

"That is the great thing," he said with simple heartiness, "to have come out on the other side."

Only her need would have wrung from him that word of comfort. He found it as difficult to talk of the religion that lay close to his heart as any other ordinary-minded young man. Now he turned the conversation to every-day topics, setting himself with all of art his kind heart could teach him to distract her from her griefs and anxieties. She understood, and looked at him with a bewildering gratitude. She did not know herself how it shone in her beautiful eyes or she might have kept them veiled.

He talked in a slow, deliberate, gentle way, feeling all the time the blood in his veins running as strongly as the river outside. Not for worlds would he have let her see that the chance that had thrown them together was a delightful one for him. In fact he said to himself sternly that he was a brute and various other things to be glad of the chance that meant suffering to her, as well as a good deal of awkwardness for both.

His talk was as soothing to Amy Greville as the flowing of a quiet stream. How kind he was, how considerate! She was not used to being treated with this air of tender deference. Perhaps as a teacher in a Girls' High School she put on an armour of office to conceal her weakness; anyhow she had always been treated as a strong-minded person. They did not know the ache there always was in her breast for little Kitty, the one creature who loved her and clung to her and protected her and understood her. Oh! Kitty, Kitty! The name was like a sword in her heart. She turned resolutely from thinking of Kitty. That was a subject that would not bear thinking on.

What was he talking of? Of his boyhood and the mother he adored. Why she too had had a mother she adored; but she was gone and there was an uncongenial woman in her place, whom even motherhood had not softened, who had not wanted Amy and did not want Kitty. It was Amy's dream of Heaven to have a little spot of earth somewhere where she could make a home for Kitty. It did not seem very realisable, considering the amount of Amy's salary. And perhaps, after all, Kitty would never want it. A lump came in her throat.

"Hello!" said her companion, looking down on the floor at his feet. Something like a black snake moved in the dimness. "The water is coming under the door," he said.

"Fortunately," she answered, "there is always the organ-loft."

He looked at her reflectively.

"You are thinking the church would not stand it?" she said, in a half whisper.

"It is very old. But it must have been in many floods like this."

"It has not known many summers like this."

"The old builders built strongly."

"Let us drink to the old builders!" she said, with a little touch of reckless gaiety, filling the parson's glass with water from the water-bottle and lifting it to her lips.

"Yes, let us drink," he said. "I have some sherry in my flask and some sandwiches."

"And I," she said, "have some chocolate. We shall not be starved out."

"When you feel hungry we shall have a meal," he said.

"I don't feel like feeling hungry," she replied.

She looked at him wistfully. Then she said with her face averted:—

"I should like, if you do not mind, to say the prayer for those in sickness."

"I do not mind, not at all," he said cheerfully. "Supposing we go into the church. It is dryer than this."

They knelt side by side in one of the dark pews, and said aloud the prayer for the sick. Then he whispered to her. "Let us pray for those in peril on the sea: that would be ourselves, you know."

They said the prayer, and they returned to the vestry, she feeling oddly comforted.

"I begin to feel...what you said...about Kitty being in the hands of the good God," she said in a little whisper.

"The river has stopped rising," he said, looking down at the water on the floor. "See, it has gone no further. Presently it will begin to fall."

She bent down and poked the fire.

"Let us talk!" she said, "if we talk the time will go more quickly."

"Certainly," he assented. "What shall we talk about?"

"What would you like to talk about?"

The flames lit up soft fires in the depths of her eyes, and sparkled in the little jewel at her white throat.

"Will you tell me about yourself?" he said diffidently.

"I have so little to tell," she answered with a start.

"I said an hour ago," he went on with quiet steadiness, "that after to-night if you willed it we might return to being strangers. But I hope you will not will it. People thrown together as we have been can hardly ever be strangers again."

"Friends then?" she said, with a quiet joyousness in her voice.

"Yes, friends," he answered. "Tell me about yourself. Then I shall tell you about myself. Friends ought to know about their friends."

He settled himself to listen, leaning back, with his hands clasped behind his comely young head. As she had said there was so little to tell, just the brief bright memory of a happy childhood, then the eclipse of the sun in the sky with the mother's death; the coming of the stepmother, the hard unloving, unsympathetic rule; Amy's going to school, her record of hard work, with always that dream of making a home for Kitty to spur her on; her life at the High School; then Kitty's illness. The history stopped short there: there was really very little to tell.

She told it all with simple frankness. Plainly there was nothing in the background, no lover; he was relieved there was no lover: plainly that dream of the home for Kitty filled the place in her life which might have been occupied by a lover.

"Thank you," he said simply when she had finished. "And now here goes for myself."

His story was hardly more eventful than hers. He was an artist by profession, his work chiefly lying in the direction of posters and black and white work for the illustrated papers. She knew his name quite well when he had told it to her. He painted pictures, too, which hitherto had brought him a little reputation among those who knew, but less money. He lived in a house among fields not far from London, and was looked after by an old housekeeper. He had no relatives at all except a couple of maiden aunts who lived at Tunbridge Wells. He had no end of male friends, and was very busy, too busy to feel lonely, he added.

It seemed easy to talk in this quiet dropping desultory fashion. The night turned round slowly, and the candle flickered and went out. Fortunately there was plenty of fuel, and he was indefatigable in building the fire.

Once he asked her if he should leave her. He could make himself very comfortable in a pew in the church if she desired to sleep. But her eyes asked him to stay. The graves crowding to the church-doors, and more tangible fears, were but awaiting his absence to terrify her.

"I couldn't sleep indeed," she said.

"Very well then," he answered. "I was afraid you'd get tired of me. Supposing we have a sandwich and some of the sherry now! How lucky that I was cautious enough to take them!"

They became quite cheerful over the little meal, and afterwards she closed her eyes unawares. Opening them presently she found her companion watching her in the cold light of dawn.

"I fell asleep," she said with contrition.

"You've had three hours of it," he said brightly; "and the river is falling."

"And you have not slept at all."

"I dared not; I am such a fellow to sleep once I go off. I had to watch the fire."

"How good you have been to me," she said gratefully.

He turned from her gaze, went to the door and threw it open. The wind blew in with the coolness of the waters in it, and she came and stood by his side.

"In about two hours," he said, "it will have sunk sufficiently to allow us to escape."

There was something like regret in his voice.

"It is now...I have let my watch run down."

"Six o'clock."

"We shall be at Hersley by...half-past nine or ten. But perhaps you are not going to Hersley?"

"That is just as you wish."

The blood rushed across her face in a great flood.

"My stepmother...would not understand...She would think it was my indiscretion. It was always like that."

"She need not know. No one need know. We can keep it to ourselves."

She breathed a great sigh of relief.

"You think so? She can say such biting things."

"No one need know but ourselves. Let me go with you as far as Hersley. I want to have news of Kitty. What about your bicycle?"

"I will take it to the inn, and leave it there. I have had to stay at the inn before. The house is so full always. There is no room for me."

"Then I shall come on after you and wait for news. I can hang about till you find time to bring it to me."

"It will not be very long," she said sadly. "I have to return this afternoon."

He fell back when they were about a mile from Hersley and let her ride on to the inn. There was but one. If there had been two, he would have gone to the other to make her position easier. He delayed a little while and then followed her to the Red Lion.

As he went in through the courtyard with its couple of orange-trees in tubs, she beckoned to him from a window. Her face was transfigured. What could have happened to her to make it so joyful?

"Come in here," she said. "I have good news, and want to tell it to you."

He made his way into this one of the range of little old-fashioned sitting-rooms that looked into the green court, and took her hands.

"I met Dr. Pendered," she said, letting him keep them, "outside the inn door. He had been there all the night with Kitty. At last she sleeps. The worst of the danger is over. She only wants careful nursing now. Oh, Kitty!" She turned away her face: then with a shaking voice went on. "I thought that after all, my stepmother being what she is, I had better present myself with the wear and tear of the road and the night washed away from me. I have ordered breakfast."

"Am I to order breakfast, too?" he asked wistfully. "In another of these little rooms?"

"Why," she said, "I am happy enough to throw prudence to the winds. Why should I not have recognised a friend? In fact...I had ordered your breakfast. I said a friend was following me."

"Amy," said he, suddenly calling her by her Christian name: "supposing, supposing, you were to say that...I was...your accepted lover. Wouldn't that make things right?"

She turned away her head shyly.

"It would be a very wild thing to do. There would be more to explain afterwards."

"Supposing it were true?" he whispered. "I don't dare think that you feel anything about me, except perhaps a fellow-feeling for one caught by the floods like yourself. But I know what I feel. I love you, Amy, and I am going to go on telling you so till you say you love me. We could take in Kitty, darling. There is a room overlooking the garden—"

"Oh," she said, "it isn't a piece of wild generous folly because the flood shut us in together?"

He smiled his scorn at the idea, looking more than ever a delightful, gracious boy.

"I was never as wise in my life before. I'm not a person to excite love at first sight, so I don't ask you to love me yet, Amy, only to trust me, and by-and-by,—I shall try so hard to earn it that the love will come."

"I love you now," she said, with shining eyes. "You don't know how beautifully you behaved when we were imprisoned. Any woman must have loved you."

"Then it is not for Kitty's sake," he said radiantly.

"For my own," she replied.

Old Saunders rubbed his eyes when he found on the table in the vestry the morning following the flood a five-pound Bank of England note, in an envelope inscribed, "In thanksgiving for a refuge ". From that and other signs he gathered that someone had taken refuge there from the floods. About two months later, a second offering was received with the inscription: "St. Mary of the Isles, a thank-offering for twelve hours and what they brought ". It was impossible to associate this with anything, much less with a marriage which took place in Hersley, about ten miles away, that same morning. So the notes and their donor passed into the region of unsolved mysteries.