The Ffolliots of Redmarley Part 6

'Grantly's gone to the shop,' she said, 'to learn to be a soldier'; and I said, 'Well, the gentry's got more sense than I thought for, if they gives 'em a trade as well.' And Miss Mary she said again, he'd gone to a shop right enough, and went off laughing."

"But that's impossible," said Eloquent. "He must have gone either to Sandhurst or Woolwich; there's nowhere else he could go."

"She never mentioned neither of those names. 'Shop,' she said . . .

you needn't look at me like that, Eloquent . . . I'm positive."

"You were telling me how many children there were," Eloquent remarked pacifically, "Grantly, the eldest son, and then . . . ?"

"I'm getting warm," his mind kept saying.

"Then Miss Mary, just a year younger, very like her mother she is . . .

in looks, but she hasn't got the gumption of Mrs Ffolliot. That'll come, perhaps . . . later. A bit of a tomboy she's bin, but she's settling down."

"I suppose she is nearly grown up?"

"Between seventeen and eighteen, she'll be, but not done up her hair yet--that's Mr Ffolliot's doin's; he's full of fads as an egg's full o'

meat. Then there's the twins, Uz and Buz they calls 'em. They're at Rugby School, they are, but they'll be home for the holidays almost directly. I can't say I'm partial to scripture names myself, and only last time he was here I asked Mr Grantly what they called them that for, when there was so many prettier names in our language, and he said, quite solemn like, 'Uz his first-born and Buz his brother, that's why, you see.' And I said, 'but they're twins, sir'; and he said, 'but Uz was born five minutes before Buz, so it's quite correct,' and went off laughing. They're always laughing at something, those children."

"Then are there just the four?' asked Eloquent, who knew perfectly well there were more.

"Oh, bless you, no; there's Master Ger; now I call him the pick of the bunch, the most conformable little chap and full of sense: he'll talk to you like one of yourselves; he's everybody's friend, is Master Ger.

Miss Kitten's the youngest, and a nice handful she is. She and Master Ger does everything together, and they do say as she's the only one as don't care two pins for her papa; nothing cows her, she'd sauce the king himself if she got the chance."

"From what you say, I gather that they seem to do pretty much as they like," Eloquent remarked primly.

"Outside they do, but in the house they say those poor children's hushed up something dreadful. Mr Ffolliot's a regular old Betty, he never ought to have had one child, let alone six. He's always reading and writing and studying and sitting with his nose in a book, and then he complains of nerves. I'd nerve him if I was his wife--but she's all for peace, poor lady, and I suppose she makes the best of a bad job."

"Is she unhappy?" Eloquent demanded, with real solicitude.

"If she is, she don't show it, anyhow. She goes her way, and he goes his, and her way's crowded with the children, and there it is."

"Are you thinking of going to church, Aunt Susan?"

Miss Gallup looked surprised.

"Well, no, not if you don't want to come. I generally go, but I'm more than willing to stop with you."

"But I'd like to go," Eloquent a.s.serted, and got very red in the face as he did so. "I don't think I've ever been in the church here."

"Well, there's no chapel as you could go to if you was ever so minded.

Old Mr Molyneux mayn't be so active as some, but there's never been no dissent since he was vicar, and that's forty years last Michaelmas."

"What about my father?" Eloquent suggested.

"Your dear father got his dissenting opinions and his politics in Marlehouse, not here."

"Then I'm afraid I shan't get many votes from this village," said Eloquent, but he said it cheerfully, as though he didn't care.

"That's for you to see to," Miss Gallup said significantly; "there's no tellin' what a persuasive tongue mayn't do."

As Eloquent walked through the darkness with his aunt, he heard her cheerful voice go rippling on as in a dream. He had no idea what she talked about, his whole mind was concentrated in the question: "Will she be there?"

CHAPTER V

THE IMPRESSIONS ARE INTENSIFIED

The service at Redmarley Church was "medium high." It boasted an organist and a surpliced choir, and the choir intoned the responses.

"The old Vicar," as Mr Molyneux liked to be called, was musical, and saw to it that the Sunday services were melodiously and well rendered.

Very rarely was there a week-day service. The villagers would have regarded them in the light of a dangerous innovation; yet, notwithstanding the lack of daily services, the church stood open from sunrise to sunset always, and though very few people ever entered it during the week, they would have been most indignant had it ever been shut.

The church was too big for the village: it was built early in the fourteenth century when the Manor House was a monastery, and at a time when Redmarley was the religious centre for half a dozen outlying villages that now had churches of their own. Therefore, it was never full, and even if every soul in the village had made a point of going to divine service at the same time, it would still have appeared but spa.r.s.ely attended.

Miss Gallup's seat, with a red cus.h.i.+on and red footstools and everything handsome about it, was about half-way up the aisle on the left.

On the right, one behind the other, were two long oaken pews next the chancel steps belonging to the Manor House. In the one, there were three young women, obviously servants; the front one was empty.

Eloquent began to wish he had not come.

People bustled and creaked and pattered up the aisle after their several fas.h.i.+ons. The organist started the voluntary, and the choir came in.

The congregation stood up, when suddenly his aunt gave Eloquent's elbow a jerk, and whispered: "There's Mr Grantly and Miss Mary."

As if he didn't know!

Just the same leisurely, unconscious, strolling walk that got over the ground so much more quickly than one would have thought.

She had changed her clothes and looked, he noted it with positive relief, much more Sundayish. In fact, her costume (Eloquent used this dreadful word) now compared quite favourably with those of the other young ladies of his acquaintance. Not that she in the least resembled them. Not a bit. Her things were ever so much plainer, but Eloquent's eagle eye, trained to acute observation by his long service in the outfitting line, grasped at once that plain as was the dark blue coat and skirt, it was uncommonly well made. She wore blue fox furs, too, hat and stole and m.u.f.f all matching, and her hair was tied twice with dark blue ribbon, at the nape of the neck and about half-way down.

Yes, M. B. Ffolliot was very tidy indeed. Behind her followed a youth ridiculously like her in feature, but he was half a head taller. He walked with quick, short steps, and had a very flat back and square shoulders. His appearance, even allowing for the high seriousness of an outfitter's point of view, was eminently satisfactory. There was no fleck or speck of fluff or dust or mud about _his_ clothes. He was, Eloquent decided grimly, a "knut" of the nuttiest flavour; from the top of his exceedingly smooth head to his admirable grey spats and well-shaped boots, a thoroughly well-dressed young man.

"Shop, indeed!" thought Eloquent. "He's never seen the wrong side of a counter in his life."

"Rend your hearts and not your garments," so the Vicar adjured the congregation in his agreeable monotone, and the service began.

Eloquent could see Mary's back between the heads of two maids: her hair shone burnished and bright in the lamplight. Just before the psalms she turned and whispered to her brother, and he caught a glimpse of her profile for the s.p.a.ce of three seconds.

When the psalms ended, the "knut" came out into the aisle, mounted the steps leading to the lectern, and started to read the first lesson.

"Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled," Grantly Ffolliot began in a voice of thunder. The congregation lifted startled heads, and looked considerably surprised. Grantly was nervous. He read very fast, and so loud that Mary was moved to cover her ears with her hands; and Eloquent saw her and sympathised.

Now here was a matter in which he could give young Ffolliot points and a beating. He longed pa.s.sionately to stand up at that bra.s.s bird and read the Bible to the people of Redmarley; to one person in particular.

He knew exactly the pitch of voice necessary to fill a building of that size.

"He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes. . . ."

How curiously applicable certain of Isaiah's exhortations are to the present day, thought Eloquent. . . . The "knut" had somewhat subdued his voice, and even he could not spoil the music and the majesty of the words, "a place of broad rivers and streams wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant s.h.i.+p pa.s.s thereby." Two more verses, and the first lesson was ended, and Grantly Ffolliot, flushed but supremely thankful, made his way back to his seat.