"Well, well. Yes--yes--indeed, your uncle is also here?"
"Yes. He will be down shortly."
"Very good, Miss Maggie. Very good."
She hated that he should call her Miss Maggie. He had always treated her with considerable respect, but to-day she fancied that he patronised her. He placed his hand for a moment on her shoulder and she shrank back. He felt her action and, abashed a little, coughed and blew his nose. He strutted about the room. Then the door opened and Ellen the cook looked in upon them.
"I only wished to see, Miss, whether I could do anything for you?"
"Nothing, thank you," said Maggie.
"Been with you some time that woman?" said Mr. Bra.s.sy.
"Yes," said Maggie, "about five years, I think."
"Hum! Hum--name of Harmer."
"Yes. Harmer."
"Not married?"
"No," answered Maggie, wondering at this interest.
"Not so far as you know."
"No. She"s always Miss Harmer."
"Quite so--quite so. Dear me, yes."
Other people appeared, asked questions and vanished. It seemed to have been all taken out of her hands and it was strange how desolate this made her. For so many years she had had the management of that house, since her fourteenth birthday, indeed. Ugly and dilapidated though the place had been, it had grown, after a time, to belong to her, and she had felt as though it were in some way grateful to her for keeping it, poor thing, together. Now it had suddenly withdrawn itself and was preparing for the next comer. Maggie felt this quite definitely and thought that probably it was glad that now its roof would be mended and its floors made whole. It had thrown her off ... Well, she would not burden it long.
There were sounds then of wheels on the gravel. The old dilapidated cab from Clinton with its ricketty windows and moth-eaten seats that smelt of straw and beer was standing at the door, the horse puffing great breaths of steam into the frozen air. Her aunt had arrived. Maggie, standing behind the window, looked out. The carriage door opened, and a figure, that seemed unusually tall, appeared to straighten itself out and rose to its full height on the gravel path as though it had been sitting in the cab pressed together, its head upon its knees.
Then in the hall that was dark even on the brightest day, Aunt Anne revealed herself as a lady, tall indeed, but not too tall, of a fine carriage, in a black rather shabby dress and a black bonnet. Her face was grave and sharply pointed, with dark eyes--sad rather, and of the pale remote colour that the Virgin in the St. Dreot"s east end window wears. Standing there in the dusky hall, quietly, quite apart from the little bustle that surrounded her, she seemed to Maggie even in that first moment like some one wrapt, caught away into her own visions.
"I paid the cabman five shillings," she said very softly. "I hope that was right. And you are Maggie, are you?"
She bent down and kissed her. Her lips were warm and comforting.
Maggie, who had, when she was shy, something of the off-hand manner of a boy, said:
"Yes. That"s all right. We generally give him four and six."
They went into the dining-room where was Mr. Bra.s.sy. He came forward to them, blowing his words at them, rubbing his hands:
"Miss Cardinal--I am honoured--my name is Bra.s.sy, your brother"s lawyer. Very, very sad--so sudden, so sudden. The funeral is at twelve.
If there is anything I can do--"
Miss Cardinal did not regard him at all and Maggie saw that this annoyed him. The girl watched her aunt, conscious of some strange new excitement at her heart. She had never seen any one who in the least resembled this remote silent woman. Maggie did not know what it was that she had expected, but certainly it had not been this. There was something in her Aunt"s face that recalled her father and her uncle, something in the eyes, something in the width and height of the forehead, but this resemblance only accentuated the astounding difference. Maggie"s first impression was her ultimate one--that her aunt had strayed out of some stained-gla.s.s window into a wild world that did not bewilder her only because she did not seriously regard it.
Maggie found herself wondering who had fastened her aunt"s b.u.t.tons and strings when she rose in the morning, how had she ever travelled in the right train and descended at the right station? How could she remember such trifles when her thoughts were fixed on such distant compelling dreams? The pale oval face, the black hair brushed back from the forehead, the thin hands with long tapering fingers, the black dress, the slender upright body--this figure against the cold bright winter sunlight was a picture that remained always from that day in Maggie"s soul.
Her aunt looked about her as though she had just awaked from sleep.
"Would you care to come up to your room?" asked Maggie, feeling the embarra.s.sment of Mr. Bra.s.sy"s presence.
"Yes, dear, thank you--I will," said Miss Cardinal. They moved from the room, Aunt Anne walking with a strange, almost clumsy uncertainty, halting from one foot to the other as though she had never learnt to trust her legs, a movement with which Maggie was to become intensely familiar. It was as though her aunt had flown in some earlier existence, and had never become accustomed to this clumsier earthly fashion.
The spare bedroom was a bright room with a broad high window. The view was magnificent, looking over the hill that dropped below the vicarage out across fields and streams to Cator Hill, to the right into the heart of the St. Dreot Woods, to the left to the green valley through whose reeds and sloping shadows the Lisp gleamed like a burnished wire threading its way to the sea. There was a high-backed old-fashioned chair by the window. Against this Miss Cardinal stood, her thin body reflected, motionless, as though it had been painted in a long gla.s.s behind her. She gazed before her.
Maggie saw that she was agitated, pa.s.sionately moved. The sun catching the h.o.a.r-frost on the frozen soil turned the world to crystal, and in every field were little shallows of blue light; the St. Dreot Woods were deep black with flickering golden stars.
She tried to speak. She could not. Tears were in her eyes. "It is so long ... since I ... London," she smiled at Maggie. Then Maggie heard her say:
The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing.
He shall feed me in a green pasture; and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort.
He shall convert my soul, and bring me forth in the paths of righteousness, for His Name"s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, they rod and thy staff comfort me.
Thou shalt prepare a table before me against them that trouble me: thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full.
But thy loving--kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
There was a pause--then Maggie said timidly, "Won"t you take off your bonnet? It will be more comfortable." "Thank you, my dear." She took off her bonnet and laid it on the bed. Then she resumed her stand at the window, her eyes lost in the sunny distance. "I did wrong," she said, as though she were speaking to herself. "I should not have allowed that quarrel with your father. I regret it now very deeply. But we always see too late the consequences of our proud self-will." She turned then.
"Come here, dear," she said.
Maggie came to her. Her aunt looked at her and Maggie was deeply conscious of her shabby dress, her rough hands, her ugly boots. Then, as always when she was self-critical, her eyes grew haughty and her mouth defiant.
Her aunt kissed her, her cool, firm fingers against the girl"s warm neck.
"You will come to us now, dear. You should have come long ago."
Maggie wanted to speak, but she could not.
"We will try to make you happy, but ours is not an exciting life."
Maggie"s eyes lit up. "It has not," she said, "been very exciting here always." Then she went on, colour in her cheeks, "I think father did all he could. I feel now that there were a lot of things that I should have done, only I didn"t see them at the time. He never asked me to help him, but I wish now that I had offered--or--suggested."
Her lips quivered, again she was near tears, and again, as it had been on her walk with Uncle Mathew, her regret was not for her father but for the waste that her life with him had been. But there was something in her aunt that prevented complete confidence. She seemed in something to be outside small daily troubles. Before they could speak any more there was a knock on the door and Uncle Mathew came in. He stood there looking both ashamed of himself and obstinate.
He most certainly did not appear at his best, a large piece of plaster on his right cheek showing where he had cut himself with his razor, and a shabby and tight black suit (it was his London suit, and had lain crumpled disastrously in his hand-bag) accentuating the undue roundness of his limbs; his eyes blinked and his mouth trembled a little at the corners. He was obviously afraid of his sister and flung his niece a watery wink as though to implore her silence as to his various misdemeanours.
Brother and sister shook hands, and Maggie, as she watched them, was surprised to feel within herself a certain sympathy with her uncle.
Aunt Anne"s greeting was gentle and kind but infinitely distant, and had something of the tenderness with which the Pope washes the feet of the beggars in Rome.
"I"m so glad that you were here," she said in her soft voice. "It must have been such a comfort to Maggie."