At last they started for the motor-car, which was to drive them in pomp three hundred yards to the Hall. Some delay occurred. Another motor-car at the church gate would not start, and had to be drawn out of the way. Three or four of the nurses from the hospital and certain local ladies surrounded Isobel, and burst into talk and congratulations, thus separating her from Godfrey.
Overhearing complimentary remarks about himself, he drew back a little from the porch into the church which had now emptied. As he stood there someone tapped him on the shoulder. The touch disturbed him; it was unpleasant to him and he turned impatiently to see from whom it came. There in front of him, bundled up in a rusty black cloak of which the hood covered the head, was a short fat woman. Her face was hidden, but from the cavernous recesses of the hood two piercing black eyes shone like to those of a tiger in its den. After all those years Godfrey recognised them at once; indeed subconsciously he had known who had touched him even before he turned. It was Madame Riennes.
“Ah!” she said, in her hateful, remembered voice, “so my little Godfrey who has grown such a big Godfrey now—yes, big in every way, had recognition of his dear Godmamma, did he? Oh! do not deny it; I saw you jump with joy. Well, I knew what was happening—never mind how I knew—and though I am so poor now, I travelled here to assist and give my felicitations. Eleanor, too, she sends hers, though you guess of what kind they are, for remember, as I told you long ago, speerits are just as jealous as we women, because, you see, they were women before they were speerits.”
“Thank you,” broke in Godfrey; “I am afraid I must be going.”
“Oh! yes. You are in a great hurry, for now you have got the plum, my Godfrey, have you not, and want to eat it? Well, I have a message for you, suck it hard, for very, very soon you come to the stone, which you know is sharp and cold with no taste, and must be thrown away. Oh! something make me say this too; I know not what. Perhaps that stone must be planted, not thrown away; yes, I think it must be planted, and that it will grow into the most beautiful of plum trees in another land.”
She threw back her hood, showing her enormous forehead and flabby, sunken face, which looked as though she had lived for years in a cellar, and yet had about it an air of inspiration. “Yes,” she went on, “I see that tree white with blossom. I see it bending with the golden fruit—thousands upon thousands of fruits. Oh! Godfrey, it is the Tree of Life, and underneath it sit you and that lady who looks like a queen, and whom you love so dear, and look into each other’s eyes for ever and for ever, because you see that tree immortal do not grow upon the earth, my Godfrey.”
The horrible old woman made him afraid, especially did her last words make him afraid, because he who was experienced in such matters knew that she had come with no intention of uttering them, that they had burst from her lips in a sudden semi-trance such as overtakes her sisterhood from time to time. He knew what that meant, that Death had marked them, and that they were called elsewhere, he or Isobel, or both.
“I must be going,” he repeated.
“Yes, yes, you must be going—you who are going so far. The hungry fish must go after the bait, must it not, and oh! the hook it does not see. But, my leetle big Godfrey, one moment. Your loving old Godmamma, she tumble on the evil day ever since that cursed old Pasteur”—here her pale face twisted and her eyes grew wicked—“let loose the law-dogs on me. I want money, my godson. Here is an address,” and she thrust a piece of paper upon him.
He threw it down and stamped on it. In his pocket was a leather case full of bank-notes. He drew out a handful of them and held them to her. She snatched them as a hungry hawk snatches meat, with a fierce and curious swiftness.