THERE was no denying that the arrival of these two spirited young women had caused a great flutter among the bachelors of Rishton and its neighborhood. For it is to be noted that if, on the one hand, the remarkable beauty of the mistress attracted the attentions of the elite of the male population, the rosy cheeks and saucy independence of the maid began very soon to make havoc in humbler masculine hearts, so that by the time Sunday came round, and with it the great weekly gathering time, the whole village was in a mild ferment of excitement over the prospect of a close inspection of the strangers—and in their best clothes.
The little church stood on the very summit of the hill on the slope of which one side of the village lay. Its foundations and part of its walls were very ancient; but after having been allowed to fall into neglect and decay, it had been carefully restored, under its present vicar, into a faultlessly trim and yet picturesque little building, the fanciful gray stone tower of which could be seen from the Matherham high road, rising like a coronet above the trees which grew thickly on the crest of the hill. The churchyard was kept like a garden. One of its gates led to the Vicarage, one end of which overlooked it; a second led through fields by a long and circuitous route down to the village; the third and principal entrance opened on to a little green, well shaded by trees, on which, close under the churchyard wall, the old village stocks, green with damp and a trifle infirm from age and neglect, stolidly survived its time of active service. A long two-storeyed cottage, green with untrimmed ivy and yew trees, which were suffered to overshadow the small willows, stood at right angles with the Vicarage, facing the green. Leaning over the wall of the front garden was a weather-beaten board, bearing the information that the cottage was “To let.”
When Olivia, attended by the faithful Lucy, arrived at the church on Sunday morning, she was at once accosted by the clerk, a small and sanctimonious-looking old man, who smelt of spirits, and inducted into a seat, close under the pulpit, which was, he informed her in a low whisper, “the ’all pew.” It was too far forward for Olivia to be able to see many of her fellow-worshippers, but one party, occupying the opposite pew to her, could not fail to catch her eye. It consisted of two very showily dressed young women, who entered with much rustling and whispering, and were a long time settling themselves; of a much younger brother and sister, whom they hustled into a very small corner of the pew; and of Mat Oldshaw, who occupied the outside seat, and who appeared to be bashfully conscious the whole time of Miss Denison’s presence, though he never once dared to look in her direction.
Olivia was one of the first of the congregation to arrive, and in the interval before the service commenced, she could not help regarding with some interest such of her new neighbors as came within her range of vision. The Oldshaw family, with the exception of Mat, she knew she should not like, but in a large pew in front of them sat a lady whose appearance attracted her greatly. She was not very young or very pretty; she was dressed with great simplicity in a dark costume and a long seal-skin jacket; and the word by which a stranger would have described her was “lady-like.” It was impossible to help contrasting her with the two fidgety women behind; and Olivia was growing more and more sure that she should like to know her when, to her surprise, she suddenly heard a loud, hoarse whisper, “Here, gee up, Soosan,” and looking round, she saw the quiet-looking lady move up the pew at the behest of the odious Frederick Williams.
As Olivia turned her head, she met this young man’s admiring eyes turned upon her with their usual vacant stare. He was attired this morning like the “swell” of the comic scenes of a pantomime, the salient points of his costume being an overcoat lined with otter, a pink-striped shirt, light gaiters, and brick-colored gloves. Olivia fancied also that he had had his hair curled. He bestowed upon Miss Denison a nod, a smile, and a wink, and appeared quite unabashed by the fact that she vouchsafed him no sign of recognition in return. He ensconced himself in the outer corner of the pew, and watched her persistently until a heavy and measured tread up the aisle, followed by short, pattering steps, announced two new comers, and he had to make way for an elderly couple whom Olivia rightly guessed to be his parents.
Not that they bore any but the faintest family likeness to Olivia’s dashing admirer. The gentleman was an erect and handsome man of sixty or more, pompous and dignified; his wife was short, stout, good-humored-looking, and well dressed. Just as she noticed these facts the church bells ceased ringing, and a small choir of surpliced boys came out of the vestry, followed by Mr. Vernon Brander.
“Isn’t he a dear?” Miss Denison heard one of the fidgety ladies whisper to the other, enthusiastically.
Mr. Brander conducted the service with no assistance but that of the choir and the clerk, who was evidently a privileged person; for he put everybody out who was within a dozen feet of his nasal voice. Olivia was impressed by the sermon, but she was hardly sure whether the impression was altogether favorable. For the preacher did not speak “as one having authority,” but rather as the servant than the teacher of his hearers; as one who was bound to keep them in mind of truths which they knew already, rather than as one who held up their duty before them with all the weight of a respected and honored pastor.
When the service was over, Olivia lingered a little in the churchyard, looking at the gravestones, not unwilling to give the much-discussed Mr. Brander an opportunity of proving that no rumors could affect her behavior to one who had been kind to her; but he would not avail himself of it. On coming out of the church, which he did with extraordinary little delay, Mr. Brander seemed purposely to avoid glancing towards the spot where she was standing, but at once, with quick steps, made for the gate at which the lady, whose appearance had attracted Olivia, was waiting. Her party, including the ill-mannered Frederick, had gone, as they had come, without her.
Olivia, who, like all young girls, could see a great deal without looking, knew that the clergyman and the lady were talking about her, and she would not pass out at the gate while they stood there. So she continued her inspection of the tombstones, with a heart beating rather faster than usual, for the very few minutes that the tete-a-tete lasted. Now, surely, she might have a chance of speaking to him; in common civility he would come, if only, as his note expressed it “as his brother’s representative,” to ask how she was getting on with her furnishing, and whether her friends were coming soon to relieve her of her responsibilities. He passed quite near to her on his way to the Vicarage gate. She raised her head with a smile and a heightened color, ready to give him her prettiest greeting; but he looked away with a persistency which she could no longer doubt was intentional, and it was with a blush of the deepest mortification that Olivia, whose burning eyes no longer saw inscriptions, or tombstones, or anything but a particularly tactless and unobservant clergyman, whose conduct in not allowing her to lessen her obligation to him by an expression of her gratitude was, Olivia felt, highly reprehensible. She was so hurt, so indignant, that when the pleasant-looking lady, who stood by the gate and watched her approach, made a movement forward as if to address the young stranger, Olivia turned her head stiffly away. She would give no opening to the friend of the man who had so deeply offended her.
But anger in Olivia’s breast was a feeling which could not last. Before she was half-way down the hill she was sorry for her hasty action and ashamed of her disappointment. With the exaggerated feeling of an impulsive young girl, she blamed herself as ungracious and ungrateful, and decided that the avoidance of a man as kindly and chivalrous as Mr. Brander had proved himself to be could only proceed from the most honorable motives.
The observant Lucy, perhaps, detected a lightening of the cloud on her young mistress’ face, for, at this point of the latter’s reflections, she broke the silence she had discreetly kept since leaving the churchyard.
“It’s a lot to do to take the service here in the morning, and at St. Cuthbert’s in the afternoon, and a young men’s class four miles away at night, isn’t it, ma’am?” she asked, glibly.
Lucy had already collected as much local information as if she had been settled in Rishton three months, and could have enlightened Miss Denison on a good many points of local gossip if she had been encouraged to do so.
“Why, who does all that, Lucy?”
“Mr. Brander, ma’am. He holds a meeting of colliers belonging to some pit at night, and he says ‘he goes to them because they wouldn’t all come to him.’”
Olivia looked at her in astonishment. Here was the little maid quoting with perfect confidence the clergyman’s own words.
“But how did you pick up all this information?”
“Oh, one hears things, ma’am,” said Lucy, who was an inveterate gossip, but who did not care to own that butcher, grocer, old woman at the village shop, nay, even the small boy who brought the afternoon ha’porth of milk from Mrs. Briggs’, who kept a cow at the other end of the village, all were laid under contribution to keep her well informed. “And they do say, Miss Olivia, that the difference between St. Cuthbert’s Church and this is something which must be seen to be believed,” she added.
Miss Denison said nothing to this. She herself was longing to see St. Cuthbert’s, and would have found out the place and gone to service there that very afternoon if a feeling of shyness had not restrained her. Church once a day had always been enough for her at Streatham; therefore it could only be curiosity which was urging her to break through her custom now, she said to herself. So she stayed at home that afternoon and wrote reluctantly enough to her father to tell him that everything was ready for the arrival of the rest of the family. If only Mrs. Denison would take it into her head that the air of Yorkshire was too keen for her sensitive frame, and would allow papa to come without her, what a happy life they two might lead together, thought Olivia. She loved her easy-going father passionately, and as passionately resented the subjection in which he was kept by his second wife; but her utopian dream was not to be fulfilled. On the Wednesday following she received a long letter from her step-mother, announcing that they would all arrive next day, and giving rambling but minute directions as to the preparation for their coming.
Olivia put down the letter with a sigh, called Lucy, and in a doleful voice informed her that the reign of peace and freedom was nearly over. The little maid’s face fell.
“Lor, Miss Olivia, how she will fuss and worrit, to make up for not having been able to get at us for a week!” was her first comment.
“Well, we must try to give her no cause,” said Olivia, trying to keep grave.
“She’d find cause to grumble, Miss, if she was in heaven, and we was all angels a flying about of her errands. I’ll warrant before she’s been in the house ten minutes she’ll take a fancy to the scullery for her bedroom, and say that we ought to have made this room the coal cellar,” said Lucy with ill-humor that was not all affected.
There was enough truth in the girl’s comic sketch for Olivia to give a sigh at the prospect, though she stifled it instantly, and started briskly on a tour of the house to see whether she had left any loophole for complaints on the part of her step-mother. She could find none. She had prepared the largest and best room for her father and Mrs. Denison; the next best for the two children; the third in order of merit she had fitted up as a spare room, leaving only two little rooms scarcely larger than cupboards, the one for herself, and the other for her brother Ernest, on his rare visits. The two rooms in the wing she left unappropriated and untouched, not from any superstitious scruples, for she would have liked the larger one for herself; but she knew if she were to take possession of it, her step-mother would certainly never cease “nagging” at her for helping herself to so spacious a room.
Thursday morning came, and Olivia rose with a doleful sense that the fun and the freedom of the week were nearly over. Her energies had found delightful vent in the unaccustomed work and responsibility; she began to feel that even if she had been still in the old home at Streatham, a contented return to lawn tennis and crewel work would have been impossible. Would Mrs. Denison, who was lazy as well as fretful, and who would now have to do without a housekeeper, be inclined to trust her with the reins of management? As Olivia had always until now been known to have the utmost horror of any household duties, she was not without a hope that, if she kept secret the change in her own feelings, Mrs. Denison might herself make some such proposal, being amiably anxious to make those around her feel as acutely as she did herself the alteration in the family fortunes.
They were to arrive about six o’clock. Olivia, who was only anxious to see her father, would not go to meet them. She would get old papa all to himself in the evening, and have a long talk, and tell him all her adventures. He was not himself while within range of the querulous voice and cold eyes of his second wife. Olivia thought she would have a very early dinner and a long walk to brace herself for her fall from autocracy. So at two o’clock she was on the Sheffield Road, walking fast against a keen wind, under a leaden sky that promised snow within a few hours. She did not care for that. Protected by a hooded waterproof and a thick pair of boots, the healthy girl was quite ready to do battle with rain, snow, or wind; and the object of her walk was quite interesting enough for her to think little of the cold.
Olivia was going to St. Cuthbert’s. She knew where the church was. She had seen its dilapidated, patched-up tower, a very marvel of make-shift architecture, far away on the plain below her as she walked to Matherham by the longest and prettiest road. After walking for about a mile and a half along this road, which was on high ground and afforded a wide view of hill and plain, she had only to turn to the left and descend the hill by a steep and narrow lane, and walk on until she came to it. A feeling of shyness brought the bright blood to the girl’s cheeks as she turned into the lane. She hoped she should not meet Mr. Brander. The whisper of one of the Misses Oldshaw in church on Sunday had made known that it was the fashion among a section of the village ladies to worship him; and Miss Denison, having always held “curate adorers” in stern and lofty contempt, was most anxious not to be confounded with that class. It was just the time, however, when she thought an active clergyman would be going his rounds in the parish.
She had indeed met no one the whole way except a lame tramp, who was approaching her along the Sheffield Road as she turned into the lane. The whole country-side seemed to be asleep except for the occasional distant shriek of a railway engine as it disappeared between the hills a mile away.
At last Olivia drew near to the church and the Vicarage, standing together, with no other buildings near, on a slightly rising ground in the centre of the plain. The Vicarage came first. It was a large, plain, hideous house, like a great stone box, sheltered by no ivy and no trees, with an uncared-for square of garden in front of it, and a plain stone wall all round. Only three of the windows in the front part of the house were curtained; the rest were blank and bare, as if the place had been uninhabited. Close to the garden wall came the churchyard, a mildewed wilderness in which broken and displaced headstones had been suffered to take what positions they pleased, and lay flat, or stood sideways, or leaned against each other without hindrance. The church itself was the most extraordinary pile Olivia had ever seen. It was built of stone, and very, very old and ruinous. But no care, no taste, no skill had been for years employed in its restoration. As harm came to it from wear or weather, it had simply been repaired in the cheapest and speediest way with whatever substance came first to hand. Thus, the glass of one window, having been irretrievably damaged, had been replaced by bricks, which filled up the blank spaces between the scarcely injured tracery. In the early years of the century, a storm had brought down the central tower, which in its fall, had crushed through the roof of the south aisle, breaking through the outer wall and making one-third of the whole church an almost shapeless ruin. As that storm had left it, so through sixty years it had remained, with only this difference, that the shattered tower had been brought up to the height of a few feet above the roof with irregular layers of wood and brick and stone, and surmounted by a pointed roof of slate; while the spaces between the arches on the southern side of the nave had been bricked up to form an outer wall to the church, leaving the ruined aisle outside, exposed to every chance of wind and weather. At the south-east corner, a portion of the roof, no longer either very solid or very safe, still kept in its place. At the south-west angle a rough hole in the ground and a dozen rude and broken steps had formerly led into a small crypt with a vaulted roof, which extended about half-way under the southern aisle; but the opening having, not without reason, been declared dangerous, had been filled up, ten years ago, with bricks and stones and earth, over which the grass and weeds had now grown.
The gate of the churchyard was locked; but Olivia was not going to be deterred by such an obstacle from the closer inspection her curiosity craved. Choosing a place where the high stone wall had irregularities on its rough surface large enough to afford a footing, she climbed to the top, and let herself down with a jump among the gravestones on the other side. The three doors of the church were also locked; this she had expected. She made the tour of the building very slowly, trying to decipher the dates on the weather-beaten headstones. Before she had gone half-way round, the snow, which had been threatening all day, began to fall in large flakes, so that, by the time she again reached the ruined aisle, Olivia was glad to take shelter under the remaining bit of the old roof. This formed a very complete place of refuge; for a sort of inner buttress had been formed with some of the loose stones, which supported the remaining portions of wall and roof, and made the enclosed corner safe from wind or rain. She was debating whether it would not be wiser to make the best of her way home at once, in spite of the snow, before the short day began to draw in, when she heard the key turn in the lock of the gate, and, peeping between the stones, saw the Reverend Vernon Brander enter, and, leaving the gate open behind him, disappear round the west end of the church. From his grave, stern, absorbed expression, Olivia guessed that he was unaware of the presence of another human being. In a few minutes she heard the rattle of the key in the lock of the north-west door of the church, and then Mr. Brander’s tread, on the stone floor inside.
Olivia did not wish to see him. She decided to wait a few minutes, in case he should only have gone in to fetch something; she could hear him walking about, opening the ventilators of some of the windows, and closing those of others; then for a few minutes she heard no further sound. She would escape now, while he was engaged inside. Just as she was drawing the hood over her hat, preparing for a smart walk back through the snow, she caught sight of another figure at the gate, whom she recognized as the lame tramp she had seen near the entrance of the lane. He was a man whose age it was impossible to determine, with coarse features, and an expression not devoid of intelligence. He had a wooden leg and walked moreover with the aid of a stick.
Olivia was so much struck by the expression of vivid interest and curiosity with which he scanned every object round him, from the shambling tower above to the gravestones at his feet, that, instead of coming out from her shelter, she remained watching him, convinced that the place had some special interest for him. That interest her mind connected, with a lightning flash of vivid perception, with the story of Nellie Mitchell’s disappearance. The man came towards the ruined aisle, treading more slowly and cautiously with every step, and gradually turning his attention entirely to the ground on which he trod. He did not come so far as the roofed corner, but suddenly turned his steps back in the direction of the blocked-up entrance to the crypt. Against the roughly piled stones he struck his stick sharply, with an abrupt exclamation in a loud and grating voice.
Just at the moment he uttered this, Mr. Brander appeared round the western corner. His pale face turned to a livid color and his lips twitched convulsively at sight of the man, whom he appeared instantly to recognize. The tramp, on his side, took matters much more lightly. Saluting the clergymen with a touch of his cap, he said, in a voice which became hoarse in his endeavor to make it mysterious—
“Eh, Maister Brander, but it’s a long time since we’ve met. Eleven year come next seventh of July.”
Olivia held her breath; the seventh of July was the date of Nellie Mitchell’s disappearance. She would have given the world to run away, to escape hearing what she knew must be a confession; but there was no way out except by passing the two men. Brave as she was Olivia dared not face them. She shrank back in her corner and vainly tried not to hear.