Olivia was going to St. Cuthbert’s. She knew where the church was. She had seen its dilapidated, patched-up tower, a very marvel of make-shift architecture, far away on the plain below her as she walked to Matherham by the longest and prettiest road. After walking for about a mile and a half along this road, which was on high ground and afforded a wide view of hill and plain, she had only to turn to the left and descend the hill by a steep and narrow lane, and walk on until she came to it. A feeling of shyness brought the bright blood to the girl’s cheeks as she turned into the lane. She hoped she should not meet Mr. Brander. The whisper of one of the Misses Oldshaw in church on Sunday had made known that it was the fashion among a section of the village ladies to worship him; and Miss Denison, having always held “curate adorers” in stern and lofty contempt, was most anxious not to be confounded with that class. It was just the time, however, when she thought an active clergyman would be going his rounds in the parish.
She had indeed met no one the whole way except a lame tramp, who was approaching her along the Sheffield Road as she turned into the lane. The whole country-side seemed to be asleep except for the occasional distant shriek of a railway engine as it disappeared between the hills a mile away.
At last Olivia drew near to the church and the Vicarage, standing together, with no other buildings near, on a slightly rising ground in the centre of the plain. The Vicarage came first. It was a large, plain, hideous house, like a great stone box, sheltered by no ivy and no trees, with an uncared-for square of garden in front of it, and a plain stone wall all round. Only three of the windows in the front part of the house were curtained; the rest were blank and bare, as if the place had been uninhabited. Close to the garden wall came the churchyard, a mildewed wilderness in which broken and displaced headstones had been suffered to take what positions they pleased, and lay flat, or stood sideways, or leaned against each other without hindrance. The church itself was the most extraordinary pile Olivia had ever seen. It was built of stone, and very, very old and ruinous. But no care, no taste, no skill had been for years employed in its restoration. As harm came to it from wear or weather, it had simply been repaired in the cheapest and speediest way with whatever substance came first to hand. Thus, the glass of one window, having been irretrievably damaged, had been replaced by bricks, which filled up the blank spaces between the scarcely injured tracery. In the early years of the century, a storm had brought down the central tower, which in its fall, had crushed through the roof of the south aisle, breaking through the outer wall and making one-third of the whole church an almost shapeless ruin. As that storm had left it, so through sixty years it had remained, with only this difference, that the shattered tower had been brought up to the height of a few feet above the roof with irregular layers of wood and brick and stone, and surmounted by a pointed roof of slate; while the spaces between the arches on the southern side of the nave had been bricked up to form an outer wall to the church, leaving the ruined aisle outside, exposed to every chance of wind and weather. At the south-east corner, a portion of the roof, no longer either very solid or very safe, still kept in its place. At the south-west angle a rough hole in the ground and a dozen rude and broken steps had formerly led into a small crypt with a vaulted roof, which extended about half-way under the southern aisle; but the opening having, not without reason, been declared dangerous, had been filled up, ten years ago, with bricks and stones and earth, over which the grass and weeds had now grown.
The gate of the churchyard was locked; but Olivia was not going to be deterred by such an obstacle from the closer inspection her curiosity craved. Choosing a place where the high stone wall had irregularities on its rough surface large enough to afford a footing, she climbed to the top, and let herself down with a jump among the gravestones on the other side. The three doors of the church were also locked; this she had expected. She made the tour of the building very slowly, trying to decipher the dates on the weather-beaten headstones. Before she had gone half-way round, the snow, which had been threatening all day, began to fall in large flakes, so that, by the time she again reached the ruined aisle, Olivia was glad to take shelter under the remaining bit of the old roof. This formed a very complete place of refuge; for a sort of inner buttress had been formed with some of the loose stones, which supported the remaining portions of wall and roof, and made the enclosed corner safe from wind or rain. She was debating whether it would not be wiser to make the best of her way home at once, in spite of the snow, before the short day began to draw in, when she heard the key turn in the lock of the gate, and, peeping between the stones, saw the Reverend Vernon Brander enter, and, leaving the gate open behind him, disappear round the west end of the church. From his grave, stern, absorbed expression, Olivia guessed that he was unaware of the presence of another human being. In a few minutes she heard the rattle of the key in the lock of the north-west door of the church, and then Mr. Brander’s tread, on the stone floor inside.
Olivia did not wish to see him. She decided to wait a few minutes, in case he should only have gone in to fetch something; she could hear him walking about, opening the ventilators of some of the windows, and closing those of others; then for a few minutes she heard no further sound. She would escape now, while he was engaged inside. Just as she was drawing the hood over her hat, preparing for a smart walk back through the snow, she caught sight of another figure at the gate, whom she recognized as the lame tramp she had seen near the entrance of the lane. He was a man whose age it was impossible to determine, with coarse features, and an expression not devoid of intelligence. He had a wooden leg and walked moreover with the aid of a stick.
Olivia was so much struck by the expression of vivid interest and curiosity with which he scanned every object round him, from the shambling tower above to the gravestones at his feet, that, instead of coming out from her shelter, she remained watching him, convinced that the place had some special interest for him. That interest her mind connected, with a lightning flash of vivid perception, with the story of Nellie Mitchell’s disappearance. The man came towards the ruined aisle, treading more slowly and cautiously with every step, and gradually turning his attention entirely to the ground on which he trod. He did not come so far as the roofed corner, but suddenly turned his steps back in the direction of the blocked-up entrance to the crypt. Against the roughly piled stones he struck his stick sharply, with an abrupt exclamation in a loud and grating voice.
Just at the moment he uttered this, Mr. Brander appeared round the western corner. His pale face turned to a livid color and his lips twitched convulsively at sight of the man, whom he appeared instantly to recognize. The tramp, on his side, took matters much more lightly. Saluting the clergymen with a touch of his cap, he said, in a voice which became hoarse in his endeavor to make it mysterious—
“Eh, Maister Brander, but it’s a long time since we’ve met. Eleven year come next seventh of July.”
Olivia held her breath; the seventh of July was the date of Nellie Mitchell’s disappearance. She would have given the world to run away, to escape hearing what she knew must be a confession; but there was no way out except by passing the two men. Brave as she was Olivia dared not face them. She shrank back in her corner and vainly tried not to hear.