The Captives Part 44

For some while he sat there, Martin's hand in his; Martin did not know whether he were asleep or not.

At about ten he ate and drank. At eleven he started with Amy and Thurston for the Chapel.

CHAPTER XI

THE CHARIOT OF FIRE

When Jane, scolded by Aunt Anne for an untidy appearance, gave notice and at once departed, Maggie felt as though the ground was giving way under her feet.

A week until the New Year, and no opportunity of hearing from Martin during that time. Then she laughed at herself:

"You're losing your sense of proportion, my dear, over this. Laugh at yourself. What's a week?"

She did laugh at herself, but she had not very much to base her laughter upon. Martin's last letters had been short and very uneasy.

She had already, in a surprising fas.h.i.+on for one so young, acquired a very wise and just estimate of Martin's character.

"He's only a boy," she used to say to herself and feel his elder by at least twenty years. Nevertheless the thought of his struggling on there alone was not a happy one. She longed, even though she might not advise him, to comfort him. She was beginning to realise something of her own power over him and to see, too, the strange mixture of superst.i.tion and self-reproach and self-distrust that overwhelmed him when she was not with him. She had indeed her own need of struggle against superst.i.tion.

Her aunts continued to treat her with a quiet distant severity. Aunt Elizabeth, she fancied, would like to have been kind to her, but she was entirely under the influence of her sister, and there, too, Maggie was generous enough to see that Aunt Anne behaved as she did rather from a stern sense of duty than any real unkindness. Aunt Anne could not feel unkindly; she was too far removed from human temper and discontent and weakness. Nevertheless she had been deeply shocked at the revelation of Maggie's bad behaviour, and it was a shock from which, in all probability she would never recover.

"WE'LL never be friends again." Maggie thought, watching her aunt's austere composure from the other side of the dining-table. She was sad at the thought of that, remembering moments--that first visit to St.

Dreot's, the departure in the cab, the night when she had sat at her aunt's bedside--that had given glimpses of the kind human creature Aunt Anne might have been had she never heard of the Inside Saints.

Maggie, during these last days, did everything that her aunts told her.

She was as good and docile as she could be. But, oh! there were some dreary hours as she sat, alone, in that stuffy drawing-room, trying to sew, her heart aching with loneliness, her needle always doing the wrong thing, the clock heavily ticking, Thomas watching her from the mat in front of the fire, and the family group sneering at her from the wall-paper.

It was during these hours that superst.i.tious terrors gained upon her.

Could it be possible that all those women whom she had seen gathered together in Miss Avies's room really expected G.o.d to come when the clock struck twelve on the last night of the year? It was like some old story of ghosts and witches that her nurse used to tell her when she was a little girl at St. Dreot's. And yet, in that dark dreary room, almost anything seemed possible. After all, if there was a G.o.d, why should He not, one day, suddenly appear? And if He wished to spare certain of His servants, why should He not prepare them first before He came? There were things just as strange in the Old and New Testament.

But if He did come, what would His Coming be like? Would every one be burnt to death or would they all be summoned before some judgment and punished for the wicked things they had done? Would her father perhaps return and give evidence against her? And poor Uncle Mathew, how would he fare with all his weaknesses? Her efforts at laughing at herself rescued her from some of the more incredible of these pictures.

Nevertheless the uncertainty remained and only increased her loneliness. Had Martin been there in five minutes they would, together, have chased all these ghosts away. But he was not there. And at the thought of him she would have to set her mouth very firmly, indeed, to prevent her lips from trembling. She took out her ring and kissed it, and looked at the already tattered copy of the programme of the play to which they had been, and recalled every minute of their walks together.

Christmas Day was a very miserable affair. There were no presents and no festivities. They went to Chapel and Mr. Thurston preached the sermon. Maggie did, however, receive one letter. It was from Uncle Mathew. He wrote to her from some town in the north. He didn't seem very happy, and asked her whether she could possibly lend him five pounds. Alluding with a characteristic vagueness to "business plans of the first importance that were likely to mature very shortly."

She told Aunt Anne that she wanted five pounds of her money, but she did not say for what she needed them.

Aunt Anne gave her the money at once without a word--as though she said: "We have given up all control of you except to see that you behave decently whilst you are still with us."

When the fog arrived it seemed to penetrate every nook and corner of the house. The daily afternoon walk that Maggie took with Aunt Elizabeth was cancelled because of the difficulty of finding one's way from street to street and "because some rude man might steal one's money in the darkness," and Maggie was not sorry. Those walks had not been amusing, Aunt Elizabeth having nothing to say and being fully occupied with keeping an eye on Maggie, her idea apparently being that the girl would suddenly dash off to freedom and wickedness and be lost for ever. Maggie had no such intention and developed during these weeks a queer motherly affection for both the aunts, so lost they were and helpless and ignorant of the world! "My dear," said Maggie to herself, "you're a bit of a fool as far as common-sense goes, but you're nothing to what they are, poor dears." She tried to improve herself in every way for their benefit, but her memory was no better. She forgot all the things that were, in their eyes, the most important--closing doors, punctuality for meals, neat st.i.tches, careful putting away of books and clothes.

Once, during a walk, she said to Aunt Elizabeth:

"I am trying, Aunt Elizabeth. Do you think Aunt Anne sees any improvement?"

And all Aunt Elizabeth said was:

"It was a great shock to her, what you did. Maggie--a great shock indeed!"

When the last day of the year arrived Maggie was surprised at the strange excitement that she felt. It was excitement, not only because of the dim mysterious events that the evening promised, but also because she was sure that this day would settle the loneliness of herself and Martin. After this they would know where they stood and what they must do. Old Warlock loomed in front of her as the very arbiter of her destiny. On his action everything turned. Oh! if only after this he were well enough for Martin to be happy and at ease about him! She was tempted to hate him as she thought of all the trouble that he had made for her. Then her mind went back to that first day long ago when he had spoken to her so kindly and bidden her come and see him as often as she could. How little she had known then what the future held for her! And now around his tall mysterious figure not only her own fate but that of every one else seemed to hang. Her aunts, Amy, Miss Pyncheon, Miss Avies, Thurston, that strange girl at the meeting, with them all his destiny was involved and they with his.

As the day advanced and the silver fog blew in little gusts about the house, making now this corner now that obscure, drifting, so that suddenly, when the door opened, the whole pa.s.sage seemed full of smoke, clearing, for a moment, in the street below, showing lamp-posts and pavements and windows, and then blowing down again and once more hiding the world, she felt, in spite of herself, that she was playing a part in some malignant dream. "It can't be like this really," she told herself. "If I were to go to tea now with Mrs. Mark and sit in her pretty drawing-room and talk to that clergyman I wouldn't believe a word of it." And yet it was true enough, her share in it. As the afternoon advanced her sensations were very similar to those that she had had when about to visit the St. Dreot's dentist, a fearsome man with red hair and hands like a dog's paws. She saw him now standing over her as she sat trembling in the chair, a miserable little figure in a short untidy frock. She used to repeat to herself then what Uncle Mathew had once told her: "This time next year you'll have forgotten all about this," but when it was a question of facing the immensities of the Last Day that consolation was strangely inapt. It was dusk very early and she longed for Martha to bring the lamp.

At last it came and tea and Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Anne had not appeared all day. Then long dreary hours followed until supper, and after that hours again until ten o'clock.

She had not been certain, all this time, whether the aunts meant to take her to the service with them. She had supposed that her introduction to the meeting at Miss Avies's meant that they intended to include her in this too, but now, as the evening advanced, in a fit of nervous terror she prayed within herself that they would not take her.

If the end of the world were coming she would like to meet it in her bed. To go out into those streets and that ugly unfriendly Chapel was a horrible thing to do. If this were to be the end of the world how she did wish that she might have been allowed to know nothing about it. And those others--Miss Pyncheon and the rest who devoutly believed in the event--how were they pa.s.sing these last hours?

"Oh, it isn't true! It can't be true!" she said to herself. "It's a shame to frighten them so!"

By eleven o'clock the excitement of the day had wearied her so that she fell fast asleep in the arm-chair beside the fire. She woke to find Aunt Anne standing over her.

"It's a quarter past eleven. It's time to put on your things," she said. So she was to go! She rose and, in spite of herself, her limbs were trembling and her teeth chattered. To her surprise Aunt Anne bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.

"Maggie," she said, "if I've been harsh to you during these weeks I'm sorry. I've done what I thought my duty, but I wouldn't wish on this night that we should have any unkindness in our hearts towards one another."

"Oh, that's all right," Maggie said awkwardly.

She went up to put on her things; then the three of them went out into the dark foggy street together.

Because it was New Year's Eve there were many people about, voices laughing and shouting through the mist and then some one running with a flaring light, then some men walking singing in chorus. The aunts said nothing as they went. Maggie's thoughts were given now to wondering whether Martin would be there. She tied her mind to that, but behind it was the irritating knowledge that her teeth were chattering and her knees trembling and that she did not maintain her courage as a Cardinal should.

As they entered the Chapel the hoa.r.s.e ugly clock over the door grunted out half-past eleven. The Chapel seemed on Maggie's entering it to be half in darkness, there was a thin splutter of gas over the reading-desk at the far end and some more light by the door, but the centre of the building was a shadowy pool. Only a few were present, gathered together in the middle seats below the desk, perhaps in all a hundred persons. Of these three-quarters were women. The aunts and Maggie went into their accustomed seat some six rows from the front.

When Maggie rose from her knees and looked about her she recognised at once that only the Inside Saints were here.

Amongst the men she recognised Mr. Smith, Caroline's father, two old men, brothers, who had followed Mr. Warlock from their youth, and a young pale man who had once been to tea with her aunts. Martin she saw at once was not there.

For some time, perhaps for ten minutes, they all sat in silence, and only the gruff comment of the clock sounded in the building. Then the lights went up with a flare and Thurston, followed by Mr. Warlock, entered. It was at that moment that Maggie had a revelation. The faces around her seemed to be suddenly gathered in front of her, and it was with a start of surprise that she suddenly realised: "Oh, but they don't believe in this any more than I do!" The faces around her were agitated, with odd humble beseeching looks, as though they were helpless utterly and were hoping that some one would suddenly come and lead them somewhere that they might be comfortable again and at ease.

There was not to-night, as there had been on other occasions (and especially during that service that Mr. Crashaw had conducted), any sign of religious and mystical excitement. The people seemed huddled together in the cold and draughty place against their will, and the very fact that the Chapel was only half full chilled the blood. No drama of exultation here, no band of G.o.d's servants gloriously preparing to meet Him, only the frightened open-mouthed gaze of a little gathering of servant girls and old maids. That was Maggie's first impression; then, when the service began, when the first hymn had been sung and Thurston had stumbled into his extempore prayer. Maggie found herself caught into a strange companions.h.i.+p with the people around her. Not now ecstasy nor the excitement of religious fanaticism nor the superst.i.tious preparation for some awful events--none of these emotions now lifted her into some strained unnatural sphere--no, nothing but a strange sympathy and kindness and understanding that she had never known in all her life before. She felt the hunger, the pa.s.sionate appeal: "Oh G.o.d come! Prove Thyself! We have waited so long.

We have resisted unbelievers, we have fought our own doubts and betrayals, give us now a Sign! something by which we may know Thee!"

and with that appeal the conviction in the hearts of almost all present that nothing would happen, that G.o.d would give no sign, that the age of miracles was past.

"Oh, why did He want to be so definite," she thought. "Why couldn't He have left them as they were without forcing them to this."

They were sitting down now, and Thurston, with his cheap sense of the dramatic and false emphasis, was reading from the New Testament. Maggie looked to where Mr. Warlock was, a little to the right of Thurston, in his black gown, his head a little lowered, his hands on his lap.

When she saw him she was touched to the very heart. Why, he had aged in the last month a hundred years! He looked, sitting there, so frail and helpless that it seemed wonderful that he should have been able to get there at all.

His hair seemed to have an added intensity of whiteness to-night, and his beard lay against the black cloth of his gown with a contrast so sharp that it was unreal. Maggie fancied, as she watched him, that he was bewildered and scarcely knew where he was. Once he looked up and round about him; he put his hand to his brow and then let it fall as though he had no longer any control over it.

She was now so touched by the pathos of his helplessness that she could think of nothing else and longed to go to him and comfort him. Time stole on and it was now ten minutes to twelve. They sang another hymn, but the voices were very weak and feeble and the words quivered round the building in a ghostly whisper. Then Thurston came to the Master and gave him his arm and led him to the reading-desk. The old man seemed for a moment as though he would fall, then, holding to the front of the desk, he spoke in a very weak and faltering voice. Maggie could not catch many of his words: "My children--only a little time--Our preparation now is finished ... G.o.d has promised ... Not the least of these His little ones shall perish ... Let us not fear but be ready to meet Him as our Friend ... our Friend ... G.o.d our Father ..." Then in a stronger voice: "Now during these last minutes let us kneel in silent prayer."

They all knelt down. Maggie had no thoughts, no desire except that the time might pa.s.s; she seemed to kneel there asleep waiting for the moment when some one should tell her that the time had gone and she was safe. The moments dragged eternally; a thrilling suspense like a flood of water pouring into an empty s.p.a.ce had filled the Chapel. No one moved. Suddenly into the heart of the silence there struck the first note of the clock tolling the hour. With Maggie it was as though that sound liberated her from the spell that had been upon her. She looked up; she saw the master standing, his hands stretched out, his face splendid with glory and happiness.

He looked beyond them all, beyond the Chapel, beyond the world. He gave one cry: