“Dinah?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll talk to father on Saturday night when he’s flushed with his dubious triumphs. Did you get my letter?”
Dinah’s hand floated to her breast.
“Darling,” whispered Henry. “Yours, too. We can’t wait any longer. After to-morrow?”
“After to-morrow,” murmured Dinah.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Vignettes
i
I have sinned,” said Miss Prentice, “in thought, word and deed by my fault, by my own fault, by my most grievous fault. Especially I accuse myself that since that last confession, which was a month ago, I have sinned against my neighbour. I have harboured evil suspicions of those with whom I have come in contact, accusing them in my heart of adultery, unfaithfulness and disobedience to their parents. I have judged my sister-woman in my heart and condemned her. I have listened many times to evil reports of a woman, and because I could not in truth say that I did not believe them—”
“Do not seek to excuse rather than to condemn yourself,” said the rector from behind the Norman confessional that his bishop allowed him to use. “Condemn only your own erring heart. You have encouraged and connived at scandal. Go on.”
There was a brief silence.
“I accuse myself that I have committed sins of omission, not performing what I believed to be my bounden Christian duty to the sick, not warning one whom I believe to be in danger of great unhappiness.”
The rector heard Miss Prentice turn a page of the note-book where she wrote her confessions. “I know what she’s getting at,” he thought miserably. But because he was a sincere and humble man, he prayed: “Oh, God, give me the strength of mind to tackle this woman. Amen.”
Miss Prentice cleared her throat in a subdued manner and began again. “I have consorted with a woman whom I believe to be of evil nature, knowing that by doing so I may have seemed to connive at sin.”
“Our Lord consorted with sinners and was sinless. Judge not that you be not judged. The sin of another should excite only compassion in your heart. Go on.”
“I have had angry and bitter thoughts of two young people who have injured someone who is — ”
“Stop!” said the rector. “Do not accuse others. Accuse only yourself. Examine your conscience. Be sure that you have come here with a contrite and humble heart. If it holds any uncharitable thoughts, repent and confess them. Do not try to justify your anger by relating the cause. God will judge how greatly you have been tempted.”
He waited. There was no response at all from his penitent. The church, beyond the confessional, seemed to listen with him for the next whisper.
“My daughter, I am waiting,” said the rector, and was horrified when he was answered by a harsh, angry sobbing.
ii
In spite of her cold, Miss Campanula was happy. She was about to make her confession, and she felt at peace with the world and quite youthful and exalted. The terrible black mood that had come upon her when she woke up that morning had vanished completely She even felt fairly good-humoured when she thought of Eleanor playing her “Venetian Suite” at the performance to-morrow evening. With that Place on her finger, Eleanor was likely enough to make a hash of the music, and then everybody would think it was a pity that she, Idris Campanula, had not been chosen. That thought gave her a happy, warm feeling. Nowadays she was never sure what her mood would be. It changed in the most curious fashion from something like ecstasy to a dreadful irritation that came upon her with such violence and with so little provocation that it quite frightened her. It was as if, like the people in the New Testament, she had a devil in her, a beast that could send her thoughts black and make her tremble with anger. She had confessed these fits of rage to Father Copeland (she and Eleanor called him that when they spoke of him together), and he had been kind and had prayed for her. He had also, rather to her surprise, suggested that she should see a doctor. But there was nothing wrong with her health, she reflected, except lumbago and the natural processes attached to getting a little bit older. She pushed that thought away quickly, as it was inclined to make her depressed, and when she was depressed the beast took advantage of her.
Her chauffeur drove her to church, but she was a few minutes early, so she decided that she would look in at the parish hall and see if the committee of the Y.P.F.C. had begun to get it ready for to-morrow night. The decorating, of course, would all be done in the morning under her supervision; but there were floors to be swept, forms shifted and tables moved. Perhaps Eleanor would be there — or even Father Copeland on his way to church. Another wave of ecstasy swept over her. She knew why she was so happy. He would perhaps be at Pen Cuckoo for this ridiculous “run through for words” at five o’clock; but, better than that, it was Reading Circle night in the rectory dining-room, and her turn to preside. After it was over she would look in at the study, and Father Copeland would be there alone and would talk to her for a little.
Telling her chauffeur to wait, she marched up the gravelled path to the hall.
It was locked. This was irritating. She supposed those young people imagined they had done enough for one day. You might depend upon it, they had made off, leaving half the work for to-morrow. She was just going away again when dimly, from within, she heard the sound of strumming. Someone was playing chopsticks very badly, with the loud pedal on. Miss Campanula felt a sudden desire to know who had remained inside the hall to strum. She rattled the doors. The maddening noise stopped immediately.
“Who’s in there?” shouted Miss Campanula, in a cold-infected voice, and rattled again.
There was no answer.
“The back door!” she thought. “It may be open.” And she marched round the building. But the back door was shut, and although she pounded angrily on it, splitting her black kid gloves, nobody came to open it. Her face burned with exertion and rising fury. She started off again and completed the circuit of the hall. The frosted windows were all above the level of her eyes. The last one she came to was open at the bottom. Miss Campanula returned to the lane and saw that her chauffeur had followed her in the car from the church.
“Gibson!” she shouted. “Gibson, come here!”
He got out of the car and came towards her. He was a wooden-faced man with a fine physique; very smart in his dark maroon livery and shiny gaiters. He followed his mistress around the front of the hall to the far side.
“I want you to look inside that window,” said Miss Campanula. “There’s somebody in there who’s behaving suspiciously.”
“Very good, miss,” said Gibson.
He gripped the window sill. The muscles under his smart tunic swelled as he raised himself until his eyes were above the sill.
Miss Campanula sneezed violently, blew her nose on her enormous handkerchief drenched in eucalyptus, and said, “Cad you see annddythingk?”
“No, miss. There’s nobody there.”
“But there bust be,” insisted Miss Campanula.
“I can’t see any one, miss. The place is all tidied up, like, for to-morrow.”
“Where’s the piano?”
“Down on the floor, miss, in front of the stage.”
Gibson lowered himself.
“They bust have gone into one of the back rooms,” muttered Miss Campanula.
“Could whoever it was have come out at the front door, miss, while you were round at the back?”
“Did you see addybody?”
“Can’t say I did, miss. Not round the hall. But I was turning the car. They might have gone round the bend in the lane before I would notice.”
“I consider it bost peculiar and suspicious.”