The Beautiful Wretch, William Black [digital ebook reader .TXT] 📗

still in the little nosegay. Madge made no secret of her intention. She opened up the nosegay on the counter of the shop; took out the piece of forget-me-not; put it in the folded sheet of paper; and then carefully--but with fingers no longer trembling--closed the envelope. When they had come out again, and gone and posted the letter, they found themselves at a standstill.

'Now I know you would like a longer walk, Nan,' said the younger sister, 'and I am sure you won't mind if I go back at once. I do so want to write a long letter to Mary. And I haven't told Edith yet, you know.'

To this also Nan consented; and so Madge departed. Nan, left to herself, looked for a moment or two, somewhat wistfully, at the far breadths of the shining water; and then turned and walked slowly and thoughtfully along one of the wider thoroughfares leading up from the sea. The world seemed too bright and eager and busy out here; she wished to be alone, and in the dusk; and in this thoroughfare there was a church, spacious and gloomy, that was kept open all the week round. Half unconsciously to herself she walked in that direction. So absorbed was she that, when she reached the entrance, she scarcely perceived that there were some persons standing about. From the clear light of the sun she passed into a long covered way that was almost dark; there was a low sound of music issuing from the building; it was a refuge she was seeking; and she vaguely hoped that there would be few people within.

But just as she gained the entrance proper, and was about to enter the dark and dusky place before her, behold! here was a great smiling throng coming along the aisle, headed by a bridegroom and a white-clothed bride. The music that was gaily pealing through the building was the 'Wedding March' that no familiarity robs of its majestic swing and melody. Nan had suddenly a sort of guilty self-consciousness. She felt she had no business even to look on at bridal processions. She passed in by another door into that space of dark and empty pews; and very soon the bridal people were all gone from the place, and apparently no one was left but the white-surpliced performers at the organ in the choir.

That choir was a beautiful thing away beyond the dusk. The sunlight entering by the stained-glass windows filled it with a softly golden glory; so that the splendours of the altar, and the tall brass candlesticks, and the seven swinging lamps, and the organ itself, were all suffused with it, and seemed to belong to some other world far away. And then, after the 'Wedding March' was over, there was a pause of silence, and a slight sound of feet in the echoing building behind; and then the music began again--something distant, and sad, and yearning, like the cry of a soul seeking for light in the dark, for comfort in despair. Nan, in her solitary pew, bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. This music was less picturesque, perhaps, than that she had heard in the cathedral at Lucerne, but it had more of a human cry in it; it was an appeal for guidance--for light--for light in the darkness of the world. The tears were running down Nan's face. And then there came into a neighbouring pew a woman dressed in a peculiar costume, all in black; and she, too, knelt down, and covered her face with her hands. And Nan would fain have gone to her and said--

'Oh, sister, take me with you and teach me. You have chosen your path in the world--the path of charity and good-will and peace; let me help you; let me give myself to the poor and the sick. There must be something somewhere for me to do in the world. Take me into your sisterhood; I am not afraid of hardship; let me be of some little use to those who are wretched and weary in heart.'

By and by that lady in black rose, went into the open space fronting the altar, knelt one knee slightly, and then left. Presently Nan followed her, her head bent down somewhat, and her heart not very light.

Just as she was leaving the interior of the church, some one stepped out of the vestry, followed her for a second, and then addressed her. She turned and recognised Mr. Jacomb. He had not been officiating; he was in ordinary clerical costume; and there was something in the primness of that costume that suited his appearance. For he was a singularly clean-looking man; his face smooth shaven; his complexion of the fairest white and pink; his hair yellow almost to whiteness; his eyes gray, clear, and kindly. For the rest, he was about six-and-thirty; of stoutish build; and he generally wore a pleasant and complacent smile, as if the world had treated him kindly, despite his experiences in that poor parish in the south-east of London, and as if, whatever might happen to him, anxiety was not likely to put a premature end to his existence.

'Dear me,' said he, 'what a coincidence! I saw your sister Madge about twenty minutes ago. She seemed very happy about something or other.'

'Mr. Jacomb,' said Nan, 'do you know the lady who left a minute ago?'

'No,' said he, wondering a little at the earnestness--or rather the absentness--of her manner. 'I only caught a glimpse of her. She belongs to one of the visiting sisterhoods.'

Nan was silent for a second or two.

'You came to the wedding, of course?' continued Mr. Jacomb, cheerfully. 'A capital match, that, for young De la Poer. She will have 18,000 pounds a year when her mother dies; and she is pretty too. She puts a little side on, perhaps, when she's talking to strangers; but that's nothing. His brother was at Oxford when I was there, I remember--an awfully fast fellow; but they say all the sons of clergymen are; the other swing of the pendulum, you know. There's a medium in all things; and if one generation gives itself over too much to piety, the next goes as far the other way. I suppose it's human nature.'

This air of agreeable levity--this odour of worldliness (which was in great measure assumed)--did not seem to accord well with Nan's present mood. She was disturbed--uncertain--yearning for something she knew not what--and the echoes of that strange cry in the music were still in her soul. Mr. Jacomb's airs of being a man of the world--of being a clergyman who scorned to attach any esoteric mystery to his cloth, or to expect to be treated with a particular reverence--might put him on easy terms of friendship with Nan's sisters; but they only made Nan regretful, and sometimes even impatient. Did he imagine the assumption of flippancy made him appear younger than he really was? In any case it was bad policy so far as Nan was concerned. Nan was a born worshipper. She was bound to believe in something or somebody. And the story she had heard of the Rev. Charles Jacomb's assiduous, earnest, uncomplaining labour in that big parish had at the very outset won for him her great regard. He did not understand how he was destroying her childlike faith in him by his saturnine little jokes.

'Mr. Jacomb,' said Nan, timidly, 'I should be so greatly obliged to you if you could find out something more for me about those sisterhoods. They must do a great deal of good. And their dress is such a protection; they can go anywhere without fear of rudeness or insult. I suppose it is not a difficult thing to get admission----'

He was staring at her in amazement.

'But not for you--not for you!' he cried. 'Why, it is preposterous for you to think of such a thing. There are plenty who have nothing else in the world to look forward to. You have all your life before you yet. My dear Miss Anne, you must not indulge in day-dreams. Look at your sister Madge. Oh, by-the-way, she said something about your mamma having sent me a note this morning, asking me to dine with you on Friday evening; and then remembering, after the note was posted, that on that evening you had taken a box for the pantomime. Well, there needs be no trouble about that, if I may join your party to go there also.'

Nan said nothing; but perhaps there was the slightest trace of surprise, or interrogation in her look. Immediately he said--

'Oh, I very much approve of pantomimes, from a professional point of view--I do, really. You see, the imagination of most people is very dull--it wants a stimulus--and I am perfectly certain, if the truth were known, that the great majority of people in this country have derived their pictorial notions of heaven from the transformation-scenes in pantomimes. I am certain of it. John Martin's pictures--the only other alternative--are not striking enough. So, on the whole, I very much approve of pantomimes; and I shall be very glad to go with you on Friday, if I may.'

Nan made some excuse, shook hands with him, and went. She walked home hurriedly, she knew not why; it almost seemed as though she wanted to leave something well behind her. And she was very kind to her sisters for the remainder of that day; but somewhat grave.

Meanwhile, Madge's letter to her married sister in London had been sent. And the first answer to it was contained in a postscript to a letter addressed by Mary Beresford to her mother. This was the postscript:--

'_What is this nonsense Madge writes to me about herself and Holford King? Has Captain King got it into his head that he would like to marry his deceased wife's sister?_'

Lady Beresford threw the letter aside with a sigh, wishing people would not write in conundrums.


CHAPTER XVII.


THE ACCEPTED SUITOR.

'Oh, Nan, here is the cab. What shall I say to him? What am I to say to him?'

'I think you ought to know yourself, dear,' said Nan, gently, and then she slipped away from the room, leaving Madge alone and standing at the window.

But after all it was not so serious a matter. Some one came into the room, and Madge turned.

'May I call you Madge?' said he, holding both her hands.

She answered, with her eyes cast down--

'I suppose I must call you Frank.'

That was all, for at the same moment Mr. Tom was heard calling to his mother and sisters that Captain King had arrived; and directly after, Lady Beresford and Edith entered the room, followed by Mr. Tom, who was declaring that they must have dinner put forward to six o'clock, if they were all to go to the pantomime.

There was a little embarrassment--not much. Frank King kept looking towards the door. He wondered why Nan had not come with the others. He was curious to see how much she had changed. Perhaps he should not even recognise her? Without scarcely knowing why, he was hoping she might not be quite like the Nan of former days.

Mr.