He sat and smoked on a bench by the sea front, however, all unaware of the opportunity that was rushing past him, never to return. At the last insistent "Come!" Caroline caught sight of Lillie with a young man rounding the next bend of the road, and the idea of being pitied for her solitary condition made her march straight up the flagged path to the church door, as if she had meant going ever since leaving home.
But once inside the church, she experienced a gradual cessation of that prickling awareness of other people's thoughts and other people's eyes which had been so uncomfortable on the road. For she was familiar with the service—having gone to the Sunday school in childhood and attended church at times since, though the Creddles were chapel folk—so that the places in the Prayer Book came automatically to her fingers, and the soothing flow of the words gave her a chance to come to herself. She did not worship in any real sense of the word, but her mind was, despite itself, attuned to peace. "From all the perils and dangers of this night——" Then, after an interval during which the sunset struck golden across a tomb in the chancel: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ … now and for evermore. Amen."
She rose from her knees and her glance fell upon Miss Ethel, who sat a fair distance away in the sparsely filled side aisle. She wondered whether Miss Ethel were a really religious sort or not—you never heard her mention a word about it, and she seemed so up against everything——
Then the hymn—old-fashioned because the Vicar was away and the elderly organist who had chosen it liked that kind best. Perhaps he knew that all religion must at the last be a matter of feeling and not of reason, for he had lived such a long time in the world and really loved God. But the strange preacher who was going to occupy the pulpit looked down the church at the congregation singing and felt they required a great deal of sound teaching. So, being a good man with a high ethical standard, he stepped up into the pulpit and did his best during the opportunity which was at his disposal to correct the effect of what he considered sentimental doggerel.
But as Caroline listened to him, she felt his explanations of a reasonable faith washing away from her mind all the beautiful pictures which had been stored there and had formed part of her life, though she had not valued them. No doubt he meant well; still the explanations took away and gave nothing to fill the empty place. Soon her mind wandered and she caught sight of a hat trimmed in a way that was exceedingly smart and easy enough to copy; so that occupied her attention until she heard the familiar rustle among the congregation and the "Now" which gives release.
The clergyman stood near the east window to give the blessing with a side light slanting across his white surplice, and a thought darted into Caroline's mind, turning her hot from head to foot—Why, that was just how the Vicar would stand with the bride and bridegroom before him at the altar-rails in three weeks' time! And a vision of Laura in her veil beside Wilson's broad, strong figure gave her a queer, unhappy feeling of irritation and pain; yet somehow she wanted to indulge the pain—to press it in upon her senses by dwelling on it.
Then her healthier instincts suddenly revolted. "It's nothing to me. I aren't jealous of another girl getting married! I could be married myself to-morrow if that's all." But deep within her she felt it was not all; so rising abruptly she went out, not looking again at the chancel.
Miss Ethel came forth more deliberately, nodding to one here and there among the townspeople as she passed under the porch into the cool evening, but her salutations were not acknowledged with the appearance of gratification or respect which she had seen accorded to her parents years ago—young people from shops and post-offices nodded off-handedly back, or at most gave a somewhat condescending "Good evening, Miss Wilson," feeling in their confident youth and independence that it was they who had done her the favour.
It was all so different; that constant burden of her thoughts—— And as she walked home through the end of the sunset, the forlorn restlessness of the cat turned out of its basket and forced to wander in cold, strange places seized upon her again. She could not formulate her unease excepting by that one phrase: it was all so different.
When she reached home, Mrs. Bradford looked up with a sort of solid expectancy: "Well, did you have a good sermon?"