The morrow was a Sunday, when, according to immemorial custom, everybody belonging to Rosham Hall was expected to go to church once in the day – a rule, however, from which visitors were excused. Henry made up his mind that Mr. Levinger and his daughter would avail themselves of this liberty of choice and stay at home. There was something so uncommon about both of them that he jumped to the conclusion that they were certainly agnostics, and in all probability atheists. Therefore he was somewhat surprised when at breakfast he heard Mr. Levinger making arrangements to be driven to the church – for, short as was the distance, it was farther than he could walk – and Emma announced her intention of accompanying him.
Henry walked down to church by himself, for Sir Reginald had driven with his guests and his mother and sister were not going until the afternoon. Finding the three seated in the front pew of the nave, he placed himself in that immediately behind, where he thought that he would be more comfortable, and the service began. It was an ordinary country service in an ordinary country church celebrated by an ordinary rather long-winded parson: conditions that are apt to cause the thoughts to wander, even in the best regulated mind. Although he did his utmost to keep his attention fixed, for it was characteristic of him that even in such a matter as the listening to ill-sung psalms his notions of duty influenced him, Henry soon found himself lost in reflections. We need not follow them all, since, wherever they began, they ended in the consideration of the father and daughter before him, and of all the circumstances connected with them. Even now, while the choir wheezed and the clergyman droned, the respective attitudes of these two struck him as exceedingly interesting. The father followed every verse and every prayer with an almost passionate devotion, that afforded a strange insight into an unsuspected side of his character. Clearly, whatever might have been the sins of his youth, he was now a religious devotee, or something very like it, for Henry felt certain that his manner was not assumed.
With Emma it was different. Her demeanour was one of earnest and respectful piety – a piety which with her was obviously a daily habit, since he noticed that she knew all the canticles and most of the psalms by heart. As it chanced, the one redeeming point in the service was the reading of the lessons. These were read by Sir Reginald Graves, whose fine voice and impressive manner were in striking contrast to the halting utterance of the clergyman. The second lesson was taken from perhaps the most beautiful of the passages in the Bible, the fifteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, wherein the Apostle sets out his inspired vision of the resurrection of the dead and of the glorious state of them who shall be found alive in it. Henry, watching Emma’s face, saw it change and glow as she followed those immortal words, till at the fifty-third verse and thence to the end of the chapter it became alight as though with the effulgence of a living faith within her. Indeed, at the words “for this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality,” it chanced that a vivid sunbeam breaking from the grey sky fell full upon the girl’s pale countenance and spiritual eyes, adding a physical glory to them, and for one brief moment making her appear, at least in his gaze, as though some such ineffable change had already overtaken her, and the last victory of the spirit was proclaimed in her person.
Henry looked at her astonished; and since in his own way he lacked neither sympathy nor perception, in that instant he came to understand that this woman was something apart from all the women whom he had known – a being purer and sweeter, partaking very little of the nature of the earth. And yet his sister had said that she was half in love with him! Weighing his own unworthiness, he smiled to himself even then, but with the smile came a thought that he was by no means certain whether he was not “half in love” with her himself.
The sunbeam passed, and soon the lesson was finished, and with it the desire for those things which are not yet, faded from Emma’s eyes, leaving in the mind of the man who watched her a picture that could never fade.
At lunch Ellen, who had been sitting silent, suddenly awoke from her reverie and asked Emma what she would like to do that afternoon. Emma replied that she wished to take a walk if it were convenient to everybody else.
“That will do very well,” said Ellen with decision. “My brother can escort you down to the Cliff: there is a good view of the sea there; and after church I will come to meet you. We cannot miss each other, as there is only one road.”
Henry was about to rebel, for when Ellen issued her orders in this fashion she invariably excited an opposition in his breast which was sometimes unreasonable; but glancing at Miss Levinger’s face he noticed that she seemed pleased at the prospect of a walk, or of his company, he could not tell which, and held his peace.
“That will be very pleasant,” said Emma, “if it does not bore Captain Graves.”
“Not at all; the sea never bores me,” replied Henry. “I will be ready at three o’clock if that suits you.”
“I must say that you are polite, Henry,” put in his sister in a sarcastic voice. “If I were Miss Levinger I would walk by myself and leave you to contemplate the ocean in solitude.”
“I am sure I did not mean to be otherwise, Ellen,” he replied. “There is nothing wrong in saying that one likes the sea.”
At this moment Lady Graves intervened with some tact, and the subject dropped.
About three o’clock Henry found Emma waiting for him in the hall, and they started on their walk.
Passing through the park they came to the high road, and for some way went on side by side in silence. The afternoon was cloudy, but not cold; there had been rain during the previous night, and all about them were the evidences of spring, or rather of the coming of summer. Birds sang upon every bush, most of the trees were clothed in their first green, the ashes, late this year, were bursting their black buds, the bracken was pushing up its curled fronds in the sandy banks of the roadway, already the fallen blackthorn bloom lay in patches like light snow beneath the hedgerows, while here and there pink-tipped hawthorns were breaking into bloom. As she walked the promise and happy spirit of the spring seemed to enter into Emma’s blood, for her pale cheeks took a tinge of colour like that which blushed upon the May-buds, and her eyes grew joyful.
“Is it not beautiful?” she said suddenly to her companion.
“Well, it would be if there were some sunshine,” he replied, in a somewhat matter-of-fact way.
“Oh, the sunshine will come. You must not expect everything in this climate, you know. I am quite content with the spring.”
“Yes,” he answered; “it is very pleasant after the long winter.”
She hesitated a little, and then said, “To me it is more than pleasant. I cannot quite tell you what it is, and if I did you would not understand me.”
“Won’t you try?” he replied, growing interested.
“Well, to me it is a prophecy and a promise; and I think that, although perhaps they do not understand it, that is why almost all old people love the spring. It speaks to them of life, life arising more beautiful out of death; and, perhaps unconsciously, they see in it the type of their own spiritual fortune and learn from it resignation to their fate.”
“Yes, we heard that in the lesson this morning,” said Henry. “‘Thou fool! that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die.’”
“Oh, I know that the thought is an old one,” she answered, with some confusion, “and I put what I mean very badly, but somehow these ancient truths always seem new to us when we find them out for ourselves. We hit upon an idea that has been the common property of men for thousands of years, and think that we have made a great discovery. I suppose the fact of it is that there are no new ideas, and you see each of us must work out his own salvation. I do not mean in a spiritual sense only. Nobody else’s thoughts or feelings can help us; they may be as old as the world, but when we feel them or think them, for us they are fresh as the spring. A mother does not love her child less because millions of mothers have loved theirs before.”
Henry did not attempt to continue the argument. This young lady’s ideas, if not new, were pretty; but he was not fond of committing himself to discussion and opinions on such metaphysical subjects, though, like other intelligent men, he had given them a share of his attention.
“You are very religious, Miss Levinger, are you not?” he said.
“Religious? What made you think so? No; I wish I were. I have certain beliefs, and I try to be – that is all.”
“It was watching your face in church that gave me the idea, or rather assured me of the fact,” he answered.
She coloured, and then said: “Why do you ask? You believe in our religion, do you not?”
“Yes, I believe in it. I think that you will find few men of my profession who do not – perhaps because their continual contact with the forces and dangers of nature brings about dependence upon an unseen protecting Power. Also my experience is that religion in one form or another is necessary to all human beings. I never knew a man to be quite happy who was devoid of it in some shape.”
“Religion does not always bring happiness, or even peace,” said Emma. “My experience is very small – indeed, I have none outside books and the village – but I have seen it in the case of my own father. I do not suppose it possible that a man could be more religious than he has been ever since I can remember much about him; but certainly he is not happy, nor can he reconcile himself to the idea of death, which to me, except for its physical side, does not seem such a terrible matter.”
“I should say that your father is a very nervous man,” Henry answered; “and the conditions of your life and of his may have been quite different. Everybody feels these things according to his temperament.”
“Yes, he is nervous,” she said; then added suddenly, as though she wished to change the subject, “Look! there is the sea. How beautiful it is! Were you not sorry to leave it, Captain Graves?”
By now they had turned off the main road, and, following a lane which was used to cart sand and shingle from the beach, had reached a chalky slope known as the Cliff. Below them was a stretch of sand, across which raced the in- coming tide, and beyond lay the great ocean, blue in the far distance, but marked towards the shore with parallel lines of white-crested billows.
Hitherto the afternoon had been dull, but as Emma spoke the sunlight broke through the clouds, cutting a path of glory athwart the sea.
“Sorry to leave it!” he said, staring at the familiar face of the waters, and speaking almost passionately: “it has pretty well broken my heart – that is all. I loved my profession, it was everything to me: there I was somebody, and had a prospect before me; now I am nobody, and have none, except – ” And he stopped.
“And why did you leave?” she asked.
“For the same reason that we all do disagreeable things: because it was my duty. My brother died, and my family desired my presence, so I was obliged to retire from the Service, and there is an end of it.”
“I guessed as much,” said Emma softly, “and I am very sorry for you. Well, we cannot go any farther, so we had better turn.”
Henry nodded an assent, and they walked homewards silently, either because their conversation was exhausted, or because they were lost in their own thoughts.
It may be remembered that Mr. Milward had announced his intention of attending Rosham church that afternoon. As Ellen knew that he was not in the habit of honouring any place of worship with his presence, this determination of her admirer gave her cause for thought.
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