God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

after the hunt had started, he had heard everyone talking of Miss Vancourt’s unexpected return, and how she had been the ‘queen’ of the meet that morning. Besides, she had passed him on the road, riding at full gallop. He wiped his forehead now and smiled pleasantly.

“Queens are very soon discrowned!”—he said to himself—“And, fortunately, vacant thrones are soon filled! Now if that sneak Walden were here---”

He paused considering. The remembrance of the indignity he had suffered at the hands of Julian Adderley was ever fresh with him,— an indignity brought about all through the very woman who was now perhaps dying before his eyes, if she was not already dead. Suddenly, pushing his way through the broken hedge, he approached ‘Cleopatra’ cautiously. The malignant idea entered his brain that if he could make the animal start and plunge, her hoofs would crush the body of her mistress more surely and completely. Detestable as the impulse was, it came quite naturally to him. He had helped to kill butterflies often—why not a woman? The murderous instinct was the same in both cases. He tried to snatch the mare’s bridle-rein, but she jerked her head away from him, and stood like a rock. He could not move her an inch. Only her great soft eyes kindled with a warning fire as he hovered about her,—and a decided movement of one of her hind hoofs suggested that possibly he might have the worst of any attempt to play pranks with her. He paused a moment, considering.

“Oliver Leach came this way,”—he mused—“He passed me almost immediately after she did. Is this his work, I wonder?” Here he drew out his always greasy pocket-handkerchief and wiped his face with as much tender care as though it were a handsome one—“I shouldn’t be surprised,”—he continued, in a mild sotto-voce—“I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he had arranged this little business! Clever—very! Fatal accidents in the hunting-field are quite common. He knows that. So do I. But I shall find out,—yes!—I shall find out---”

Here he almost jumped with an access of ‘nerves’—for ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt’ suddenly stretched out her long arched neck and whinnied with piteous, beseeching loudness. A pause of intense stillness followed the mare’s weird cry,—a stillness broken only by the slow pattering of rain. Then from the near distance came the baying of hounds and a far echo of the hunting horn.

Seized by panic, the Reverend ‘Putty’ scrambled quickly out of the ploughed field, through the broken hedge and on to the high-road again, where taking himself to his bicycle again, he scurried away like a rat from falling timber. He had been on his way to Riversford when he had stopped to look at the little fallen heap of violet and gold,—guarded so faithfully by a four-footed beast twenty times more ‘Christian’ in natural feeling than his ‘ordained’ clerical self,—and he now resumed that journey. And though, as he neared the town, he met many persons of the neighbourhood on foot, in carts, and light-wheeled traps, he never once paused to give news of the accident, or so much as thought of sending means of assistance.

“I am not supposed to have seen anything,”—he said, with a fat smile—“and I am not supposed to know! I shall certainly not be asked to assist at the funeral service. Walden will attend to that!”

He cycled on rapidly, and arriving at Riversford went to tea with the brewer’s wife, Mrs. Mordaunt Appleby, at Appleby Hall, and was quite fatherly and benevolent to her son, a lumpy child of ten, the future heir to all the malt, hops, barrels, vats, and poisonous chemicals comprising the Appleby estates in this world.

The afternoon closed in coldly and mournfully. A steady weeping drizzle of rain set in. Some of the hunters returned through St. Rest by twos and threes, looking in a woeful condition, bespattered up to their saddles with mud, and feeling, no doubt, more or less out of temper, as notwithstanding a troublesome and fatiguing run, the fox had escaped them after all. It was about five o’clock, when Walden, having passed a quiet day among his books, and having felt the sense of a greater peace and happiness at his heart than he had been conscious of since the May-day morning of the year, pushed aside his papers, rose from his chair, and, looking out at the dreary weather, wondered if the ‘Guinevere’ of the hunt had got safely home from her gallop across country.

“She will be wet through,”—he thought,—the tender smile that made his face so lovable playing softly round his lips—“But she will not mind that! She will laugh, and brush out her pretty hair all ruffled and wet with the rain,—her cheeks will be glowing with colour, and her lips will be as red as the cherries when they first begin to ripen,—her eyes will be bright with health and vitality,—and life- young life-life full of joy and hope and brightness will radiate from her as the light radiates from the sun. And I shall bask in the luminance of her smile—I, cold and grey, like a burnt-out ember of perished possibilities,—I shall warm my chill soul at the sweet fire of her presence—I shall see her to-morrow!”

He went to the hearth and stirred the smouldering logs into a bright blaze. He was just about to ring for fresh fuel, when there came a sudden, alarmed knocking at the street door. Somewhat startled, he listened, his hand on the bell. He heard the light step of Hester the housemaid tripping along the passage quickly to answer the imperative summons,—there was a confused murmur of voices—and then a sudden cry of horror,—and a loud burst of sobbing.

“Whist—whist!—be quiet, be quiet!” said a hoarse trembling voice which it was difficult to recognise as Bainton’s; “For the Lord’s sake, don’t make that noise, gel! Think o’ Passon!—do’ee think o’ Passon! We must break it to ‘im gently like---” But the hysterical sobbing broke out again and drowned all utterance.

And still Walden stood, listening. A curious rigidity affected his nerves. Something had happened—but what? His dry lips refused to frame the question. All at once, he roused himself. With a couple of strides across his little study he threw open the door and went out into the passage. There stood Hester with her apron thrown over her head, weeping convulsively—while Bainton, leaning against the ivied porch entrance to ths house, was trembling like a woman in an ague fit.

“What’s the matter?” said Walden, in a voice of almost peremptory loudness,—a voice that sounded harsh and wild on his own ears— “What has happened?”

“Oh-oh—Oh-oh!” wailed Hester—“Oh, Mr. Walden, oh, sir, I can’t tell you! I can’t indeed!—it’s about Miss Vancourt—oh—poor dear little lady I can’t—I can’t say it! I can’t!”

“Don’t ye try, my gel!”—said Bainton, gently—“You ain’t fit for’t,—don’t ye try! Which I might a’known a woman’s ‘art couldn’t abear it,—nor a man’s neither!” Here he turned his pale face upon his master, and the slow tears began to trickle down his furrowed cheeks.

“Passon Walden,”—he began, in shaking accents—“Passon Walden, sir, I’m fair beside myself ‘ow to tell ye—but you’re a brave man wot knows the ways o’ God an’ ‘ow mortal ‘ard they seems to us all sometimes, poor an’ rich alike, an’ ‘ow it do ‘appen that the purttiest flowers is the quickest gone, an’ the brightest wimin too, for that matter,—an’—an’---” Here his rough halting voice broke into a hoarse sob—“Oh, Passon, it’s a blow!—it’s a mortal ‘ard blow!—she was a dear, sweet lady an’ a good one, say what they will, an’ ‘ow they will—an’ she’s gone, Passon!—we won’t never see her no more!—she’s gone!”

A swirling blackness came over Walden’s eyes for a moment. He tried to realise what was being said, but could not grasp its meaning. Making a strong effort to control his nerves he spoke, slowly and with difficulty.

“Gone? I don’t understand you,—I---”

Here, as he stood at the open doorway, he saw in the gathering dusk of evening a small crowd of villagers moving slowly along the road. Some burden was being carried tenderly between them,—it was like a walking funeral. Someone was dead then? He puzzled himself as to who it could be? He was the parson of the parish,—he had received no intimation! And the hour was late,—they must put it off till to- morrow! Yes—till to-morrow, when he would see Maryllia! Startled by the sudden ghastly pallor of his master’s face, Bainton ventured to lay a hand on his arm.

“She was found two hours ago,”—he said, in hushed tones—“Up on Farmer Thorpe’s ploughed field—all crushed on the clods, an’ no one nigh ‘er ‘cept the mare. An’ the mare was as sensible as a ‘uman, for she was a-whinnyin’ loud like cryin’ for ‘elp—an’ Dr. Forsyth ‘e came by in his gig, drivin’ ‘ome from Riversford an’ he ‘ad his man with ‘im, so ‘tween them both, they got some ‘elp an’ brought ‘er ‘ome—but I’m feared it’s too late!—I’m awesome feared it’s too late!”

Walden looked straight down the road, watching the oncoming of the little crowd.

“I think I begin to know what you mean,” he said, slowly. “There has been an accident to Miss Vancourt. She has been thrown—but she is not dead! Not dead. Of course not! She could not be!”

As he spoke, he pushed aside Bainton’s appealing hand gently yet firmly and walked out bareheaded like a man in a dream to meet the little ghost-like procession that was now approaching him nearly. He felt himself trembling violently,—had he been called upon to meet his own instant destruction at that moment, he would have been far less unnerved. Low on the wet autumnal wind came the sound of men’s murmuring voices, of women’s suppressed sobbing;—in the semi- obscurity of fading light and deepening shadow he could discern and recognise the figure of his friend the local doctor, ‘Jimmy’ Forsyth, who was walking close beside a hastily improvised stretcher composed of the boughs of trees and covered with men’s coats and driving-rugs,—and he could see the shadowy shape of ‘Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt,’ being led slowly on in the rear, her proud head drooping dejectedly, her easy stride changed to a melancholy limping movement,—her saddle empty. And, as he looked, some nerve seemed to tighten across his brows,—a burning ache and strain, as if a strong cord stretched to a tension of acutest agony tortured his brain,— and for a moment he lost all other consciousness but the awful sense of death,—death in the air,—death in the cold rain—death in the falling leaves—death in the deepening gloom of the night,—and death, palpable, fierce and cruel in the solemn gliding approach of that funeral group,—that hearse-like burden of the perished brightness, the joyous innocence, the sunny smile, the radiant hair, the sweet frank eyes—the all of beauty that was once Maryllia! Then, unaware of his own actions, he went forward giddily, blindly and unreasoningly---till, coming face to face with the little moving group of awed and weeping people, all of whom halted abruptly at sight of him, he suddenly stretched forth his hands as though they held a book at arm’s length, and his voice, tremulous, yet resonant, struck through the hush of sudden silence.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die!”

A tragic pause ensued. Every face was turned upon him in tearful wonder. Dr. Forsyth came quickly up to him.

“Walden!” he said, in a low tone—“What is this? What are you saying? You are not yourself! Come home!”

But John stood rigidly inert. His tall slight figure, fully