“Oh, mamma, here is Mr. Deane. Mr. Deane, you haven’t met my mother?” said Elizabeth, who was, for some foolish and obscure reason, a little nervous.
“No – er – I am very glad – that is – I am sorry – at least, I mean to say I am delighted to meet you now,” said Andy, who, for some equally foolish and obscure reason, was nervous too.
Mrs. Atterton beamed placidly on him.
“Sorry I did not see you when you called, Mr. Deane, but it was one of my bad days. My back – ” She paused, as if that explained all, and Andy filled in the blank with a sympathetic —
“Of course. I’m afraid you are a great sufferer.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Atterton pleasantly, “it is not that I have any great pain, but I collapse. Don’t I, Elizabeth?”
“Mamma is so patient,” said Elizabeth, with loving sincerity. “She hates to make us feel – ”
“Come, come, come! Bring that cup of tea! Bring that cup of tea!” interrupted William, croaking hideously.
“Poor Aunt Arabella! Couldn’t you fancy you heard her voice from the grave?” murmured Mrs. Atterton, shedding an easy tear.
“William belonged to my great-aunt, Mr. Deane,” explained Elizabeth.
Then it swept over Andy again with renewed force, how everybody here was connected in some way with everybody else. He had always known in a general way, of course, as we all do, that if you slip on a banana skin and use expressions better left unemployed you may influence some one for evil in central China – but he had never before come near enough to the principle to be able to see the working of it with the naked eye.
“I thought when I first came to Gaythorpe that William was a person,” said Andy, noticing the pink nails of Elizabeth’s ungloved hand upon the carriage door.
“Well, poor Aunt Arabella always did say he had an immortal soul – and you never know,” said Mrs. Atterton, willing to give everything created the benefit of the doubt.
Then the fat coachman, who was tired of waiting, made one of his fat charges stamp idly on the ground in a perfunctory manner, and Mrs. Atterton said the horses were growing restive and it was time to go.
“So glad we are to see you on Thursday evening,” she said, over her shoulder. “Good-bye, Mr. Deane. Good afternoon, Emma. Let me know how William is, please.”
The farewells of Andy and Elizabeth were somehow merged in the salutations of Mrs. Atterton, and the responses of Mrs. Petch, but they looked at each other just as the carriage went off with a direct glance which held more than either of them could yet understand of young hope and joy and question.
“What was it?” that look said. They didn’t know – they didn’t know – only something glorious!
Andy stood staring after the carriage until at last Mrs. Petch’s voice from behind penetrated his understanding.
“Cars are all very well,” she said, “but there is a something about a carriage and pair – however, they own motor-cars – it isn’t that.”
Andy understood that the wealth and standing of the Atterton family were being defended, and replied at once —
“Of course. All the same, I can’t understand when you have a Limousine – ”
“Mrs. Atterton’s back won’t stand motor-cars,” said Mrs. Petch gravely, but if so perfectly behaved a gardener’s wife could have ever winked, Andy would have said she winked then. However, he felt the light must have dazzled his eyes.
“Quite so,” he said. “It is a great affliction.”
“Yes, sir. It is, indeed,” responded Mrs. Petch at once. “Everything in life, as you may say, and yet a back to spoil it all.”
“There’s always – er – something,” said Andy, feeling he ought to improve the occasion.
“There is, indeed,” sighed Mrs. Petch, with a sort of serious cheerfulness. “No rose without a thorn in this world, sir, and we can’t expect any different. We should never want to go to another if we’d everything we wanted here.”
“Nice, right-thinking woman!” reflected Andy, as he went up the road.
He was on his way to visit a woman called old Mrs. Werrit, an obscure connection of the Werrit family who had drifted near them again in her extreme old age, and Andy had been told that day that she was dying. But he was ready enough to help any old person to die, just as he was ready to help any young one to live, and he went up some crooked stairs to the bedroom, full of confidence in himself and his office.
For some time the old woman said nothing in response to his remarks, and allowed a daughter of Mrs. Will Werrit’s to answer for her. Maggie Werrit felt rather glad that her aged relative was not in a talkative mood because she lacked that polish which the best boarding-school in Bardwell had imparted to the latest generation of the family, and the new Vicar would look down on them all if he heard one of them talk about ‘ankerchers.’
“I hope you don’t suffer much?” said Andy, sitting down beside the bed.
Then Mrs. Werrit opened her eyes, and he was surprised to find how full of life they were in that sunken, dull old face.
“I did suffer,” she said, “but that’s over now,” and she shut her eyes again.
Andy took out his little book and prepared to read, when Mrs. Werrit looked at him once more.
“The others are all gone first,” she said. “Every one of us six but me.”
“I’m sorry,” said Andy, very gently.
“You needn’t be,” said old Mrs. Werrit. “It doesn’t matter now.” She paused, and added after a moment, “You’ll find out – all that matters at the very end – is how near you’ve gotten to God in your life.”
Then she closed her eyes again, and Andy shut his little book and put it in his pocket without a word, and crept reverently down the crooked stairs as if he were leaving the presence of some one very great.
When he was far down the village street, and too far from the little house to go back again, he realised that, for the first time in his professional career, he had failed in his ministration to the aged poor. He fingered his little book, feeling inclined to go back again, and all the way home something within him smarted and burned underneath his wandering thoughts.
Youth knows nothing more unpleasant than those secret growing pains of the soul of which it does not understand the meaning.
Perhaps it was these – or it might have been the dull evening after a day of clouds and storms – anyway, Andy felt driven forth after supper to tramp restlessly up and down the garden path by the churchyard hedge. Had he chosen the right life? Was he fitted for a country parson?
New and perplexing doubts of himself began to assail him for the first time as he tramped up and down, casting a glance at Brother Gulielmus every now and then over the churchyard hedge.
Had he tramped up and down here too? For the garden dated back to that time, though the house was modern. Had he wondered and felt restless too?
But gradually the regular motion quieted Andy’s nerves, and he began to notice how the crimson rambler had grown, and to feel the freshness of the dew-laden air.
Then, quite suddenly, for no reason at all, he remembered with wonderful vividness how Elizabeth’s hand had looked upon the door of the carriage. His mental picture of her face was indistinct, but her hand seemed painted on the summer darkness, and he felt an intense longing to take it in his own.
That was all he wanted – so exquisite a thing is the first beginning of young love.
“Mr. Deane! Mr. Deane! Will you have eggs and bacon for