XLII
There is no rood-screen in Garth church. The one aisle down the middle of the nave goes straight from the west door to the chancel-rails.
Standing by the west door, behind the font, Rowcliffe had an uninterrupted view of the chancel.
The organ was behind the choir stalls on the north side. Alice was seated at the organ. Jim Greatorex stood behind her and so that his face was turned slantwise toward Rowcliffe. Alice's face was in pure profile. Her head was tilted slightly backward, as if the music lifted it.
Rowcliffe moved softly to the sexton's bench in the left hand corner.
Sitting there he could see her better and ran less risk of being seen.
The dull stained glass of the east window dimmed the light at that end of the church. The organ candles were lit. Their jointed brackets, brought forward on each side, threw light on the music book and the keys, also on the faces of Alice and Greatorex. He stood so close to her as almost to touch her. She had taken off her hat and her hair showed gold against the drab of his waist-coat.
On both faces there was a look of ecstasy.
It was essentially the same ecstasy; only, on Alice's face it was more luminous, more conscious, and at the same time more abandoned, as if all subterfuge had ceased in her and she gave herself up, willing and exulting, to the unspiritual sense that flooded her.
On the man's face this look was more confused. It was also more tender and more poignant, as if in soaring Jim's rapture gave him pain. You would have said that he had not given himself to it, but that he was driven by it, and that yet, with all its sensuous trouble, there ran through it, secret and profoundly pure, some strain of spiritual longing.
And in his thick, his poignant and tender half-barytone, half-tenor,
Greatorex sang:
"'At e-ee-vening e-er the soon was set,
The sick, oh Lo-ord, arou-ound thee laay—
Oh, with what divers pains they met,
And with what joy they went a-waay—'"
But Alice stopped playing and Rowcliffe heard her say, "Don't let's have that one, Jim, I don't like it."
It might have passed—even the name—but that Rowcliffe saw Greatorex put his hand on Alice's head and stroke her hair.
Then he heard him say, "Let's 'ave mine," and he saw that his hand was on Alice's shoulders as he leaned over her to find the hymn.
"Good God!" said Rowcliffe to himself. "That explains it."
He got up softly. Now that he knew, he felt that it was horrible to spy on her.
But Greatorex had begun singing again, and the sheer beauty of the voice held Rowcliffe there to listen.
"'Lead—Kindly Light—amidst th' encircling gloo-oom,
Lead Thou me o-on.
Keep—Thou—my—feet—I do not aa-aassk too-oo see-ee-ee
Ther di-is-ta-aant scene, woon step enoo-oof for mee-eea.'"
Greatorex was singing like an angel. And as he sang it was as if two passions, two longings, the earthly and the heavenly, met and mingled in him, so that through all its emotion his face remained incongruously mystic, queerly visionary.
"'O'er moor and fen—o'er crag and torrent ti-ill——'"
The evocation was intolerable to Rowcliffe.
He turned away and Greatorex's voice went after him.
"'And—with—the—morn tho-ose angel fa-a-ce-es smile
Which I-i—a-ave looved—long since—and lo-ost awhi-ile.'"
Again Rowcliffe turned; but not before he had seen that Greatorex had his hand on Alice's shoulder a second time, and that Alice's hand had gone up and found it there.
The latch of the west door jerked under Rowcliffe's hand with a loud clashing. Alice and Greatorex looked round and saw him as he went out.
Alice got up in terror. The two stood apart on either side of the organ bench, staring into each other's faces.
Then Alice went round to the back of the organ and addressed the small organ-blower.
"Go," she said, "and tell the choir we're waiting for them. It's five minutes past time."
Johnny ran.
Alice went back to the chancel where Greatorex stood turning over the hymn books of the choir.
"Jim," she said, "that was Dr. Rowcliffe. Do you think he saw us?"
"It doesn't matter if he did," said Greatorex. "He'll not tell."
"He might tell Father."
Jim turned to her.
"And if he doos, Ally, yo' knaw what to saay."
"That's no good, Jim. I've told you so. You mustn't think of it."
"I shall think of it. I shall think of noothing else," said Greatorex.
* * * * *
The choir came in, aggrieved, and explaining that it wasn't six yet, not by the church clock.