“Then I’ll go now,” he said. “There will be time before dinner. You see, I’m sorry just now.”
“Yes, go now,” she said.
“And I may tell Peggy to-morrow?” he asked.
Hugh left her at once, and went quickly down through the field below the house and struck into the footpath which led across to St. Olaf’s. As he got near the church, he saw the congregation beginning to stream out, and knew that if he waited by the door from the vestry he would catch his brother-in-law, after he had taken off his surplice and counted the offertory, the gifts of Alexander the coppersmith, as he had once said, when his appeal for foreign missions had provoked too great a proportion of coin of the low denomination. From within, with the congregation there poured out the melodious din of the organ, and that, with the effect of the stained-glass windows, lit from within, reminded Hugh irresistibly of the church-scene in “Faust,” when Mephistopheles waits outside for Marguerite, exactly as he himself was doing. In that case Canon Alington must be Marguerite, and he shook with an internal spasm of laughter at the thought, that for the moment made him forget his humiliating errand.
He was standing in the shadow close to the porch by which the Faust-congregation were coming out, with one eye on them, one on the vestry door, from which small choir-boys occasionally popped out like rabbits, and ran across the grave-yard with a swift reaction toward ordinary life after the two long services of the day. Ambrose, who had lately been admitted to the choir (his father had compiled a short service for the induction of a cantator) came out among them, but without racings and leapings, for he always had a bad accession of virtuous musings on Sunday evening, and walked round to the main door to meet his mother, with his boots creaking and the starlight shining on his spectacles, humming to himself in a husky treble the hymn that had just been sung. His mother always came out last from the Vicarage pew, and Ambrose had to wait while the remainder of the congregation dispersed.
Hugh had turned his back on the door, for he really could not bear that his nephew should recognise him just then, when a strangely and dreadfully familiar voice close behind him struck on his ear. Mrs. Owen had hardly waited to get outside the porch before she spoke.
“Oh! Mrs. Alington,” she said; “such good news. I must just tell you before I go round to see dear Canon Alington and tell him, too. I was with the Graingers till nearly seven, talking it all over, and dear Mrs. Grainger quite sees our point of view now. She is so anxious now to do the right thing, and she will be sure to have a paper ready by Friday which shall not touch on that dreadful subject. We were all of one mind about it—quite a family party.”
Then Agnes’s precise tones broke in.
“I am sure we are all very much obliged to you for your part in it, Mrs. Owen,” she said. “It must have required a great deal of tact and sympathetic treatment. I am afraid, however, that my brother allowed himself to speak very violently and rudely to the Canon. Could you do anything with him?”
It struck Hugh at this moment that he was eaves-dropping, but he felt perfectly incapable of moving. What richness might not be in store for him in Mrs. Owen’s reply! She was quite capable of implying, anyhow, that her tact had been at work here, too. She gave her little peal-of-bells laugh.