the church bell toll here same as it’d toll at Dunstan, because they ringers have talked it over an’ they’re goin’ to talk it over to-day with the other parishes—Yangford an’ Meltham an’ Dunholm an’ them. Tom says Stornham ringers met just now at The Clock an’ said that for a man that’s stood by labouring folk like he has, toll they will, an’ so ought the other parishes, same as if he was royalty, for he’s made himself nearer. They’ll toll the minute they hear it, miss. Lord help us!” with a fresh outburst of crying. “It don’t seem like it’s fair as it should be. When we hear the bell toll, miss–-“
“Don’t!” said her ladyship’s handsome sister suddenly. “Please don’t say it again.”
She sat down by the table, and resting her elbows on the blue and white checked cloth, covered her face with her hands. She did not speak at all. In this tiny room, with these two old souls who loved her, she need not explain. She sat quite still, and Mrs. Welden after looking at her for a few seconds was prompted by some sublimely simple intuition, and gently sidled Mrs. Bester and her youngest into the little kitchen, where the copper was.
“Her helpin’ him like she did, makes it come near,” she whispered. “Dessay it seems as if he was a’most like a relation.”
Old Doby sat and looked at his goddess. In his slowly moving old brain stirred far-off memories like long-dead things striving to come to life. He did not know what they were, but they wakened his dim eyes to a new seeing of the slim young shape leaning a little forward, the soft cloud of hair, the fair beauty of the cheek. He had not seen anything like it in his youth, but—it was Youth itself, and so was that which the ringers were so soon to toll for; and for some remote and unformed reason, to his scores of years they were pitiful and should be cheered. He bent forward himself and put out his ancient, veined and knotted, gnarled and trembling hand, to timorously touch the arm of her he worshipped and adored.
“God bless ye!” he said, his high, cracked voice even more shrill and thin than usual. “God bless ye!” And as she let her hands slip down, and, turning, gently looked at him, he nodded to her speakingly, because out of the dimness of his being, some part of Nature’s working had strangely answered and understood.
CHAPTER XLVI
LISTENING
On her way back to the Court her eyes saw only the white road before her feet as she walked. She did not lift them until she found herself passing the lych-gate at the entrance to the churchyard. Then suddenly she looked up at the square grey stone tower where the bells hung, and from which they called the village to church, or chimed for weddings—or gave slowly forth to the silent air one heavy, regular stroke after another. She looked and shuddered, and spoke aloud with a curious, passionate imploring, like a child’s.
“Oh, don’t toll! Don’t toll! You must not! You cannot!” Terror had sprung upon her, and her heart was being torn in two in her breast. That was surely what it seemed like—this agonising ache of fear. Now from hour to hour she would be waiting and listening to each sound borne on the air. Her thought would be a possession she could not escape. When she spoke or was spoken to, she would be listening— when she was silent every echo would hold terror, when she slept—if sleep should come to her—her hearing would be awake, and she would be listening— listening even then. It was not Betty Vanderpoel who was walking along the white road, but another creature—a girl whose brain was full of abnormal thought, and whose whole being made passionate outcry against the thing which was being slowly forced upon her. If the bell tolled—suddenly, the whole world would be swept clean of life —empty and clean. If the bell tolled.
Before the entrance of the Court she saw, as she approached it, the vicarage pony carriage, standing as it had stood on the day she had returned from her walk on the marshes. She felt it quite natural that it should be there. Mrs. Brent always seized upon any fragment of news, and having seized on something now, she had not been able to resist the excitement of bringing it to Lady Anstruthers and her sister.
She was in the drawing-room with Rosalie, and was full of her subject and the emotion suitable to the occasion. She had even attained a certain modified dampness of handkerchief. Rosalie’s handkerchief, however, was not damp. She had not even attempted to use it, but sat still, her eyes brimming with tears, which, when she saw Betty, brimmed over and slipped helplessly down her cheeks.
“Betty!” she exclaimed, and got up and went towards her, “I believe you have heard.”
“In the village, I heard something—yes,” Betty answered, and after giving greeting to Mrs. Brent, she led her sister back to her chair, and sat near her.
This—the thought leaped upon her—was the kind of situation she must be prepared to be equal to. In the presence of these who knew nothing, she must bear herself as if there was nothing to be known. No one but herself had the slightest knowledge of what the past months had brought to her—no one in the world. If the bell tolled, no one in the world but her father ever would know. She had no excuse for emotion. None had been given to her. The kind of thing it was proper that she should say and do now, in the presence of Mrs. Brent, it would be proper and decent that she should say and do in all other cases. She must comport herself as Betty Vanderpoel would if she were moved only by ordinary human sympathy and regret.
“We must remember that we have only excited rumour to depend upon,” she said. “Lord Mount Dunstan has kept his village under almost military law. He has put it into quarantine. No one is allowed to leave it, so there can be no direct source of information. One cannot be sure of the entire truth of what one hears. Often it is exaggerated cottage talk. The whole neighbourhood is wrought up to a fever heat of excited sympathy. And villagers like the drama of things.”
Mrs. Brent looked at her admiringly, it being her fixed habit to admire Miss Vanderpoel, and all such as Providence had set above her.
“Oh, how wise you are, Miss Vanderpoel!” she exclaimed, even devoutly. “It is so nice of you to be calm and logical when everybody else is so upset. You are quite right about villagers enjoying the dramatic side of troubles. They always do. And perhaps things are not so bad as they say. I ought not to have let myself believe the worst. But I quite broke down under the ringers—I was so touched.”
“The ringers?” faltered Lady Anstruthers
“The leader came to the vicar to tell him they wanted permission to toll—if they heard tolling at Dunstan. Weaver’s family lives within hearing of Dunstan church bells, and one of his boys is to run across the fields and bring the news to Stornham. And it was most touching, Miss Vanderpoel. They feel, in their rustic way, that Lord Mount Dunstan has not been treated fairly in the past. And now he seems to them a hero and a martyr—or like a great soldier who has died fighting.”
“Who MAY die fighting,” broke from Miss Vanderpoel sharply.
“Who—who may–-” Mrs. Brent corrected herself, “though Heaven grant he will not. But it was the ringers who made me feel as if all really was over. Thank you, Miss Vanderpoel, thank you for being so practical and—and cool.”
