Beatrix could not refuse so small a favour, so she went on staring at the fire; while the three workers hastened the finish of their task, with their heads close together, like the three fatal sisters intent upon the web of some particular destiny which Jove had ordered them to hurry to its conclusion.
‘There,’ said the three simultaneously, ‘it’s done.’
Five minutes later Mrs. Dulcimer was standing before her cheval glass, buttoned into her new gown, and trying to make it look as if it belonged to her, every fold having the stiffness, strangeness, and awkwardness which are characteristic of a new garment.
Beatrix had to assist at the discussion as to whether the sleeve should not be shortened a quarter of an inch, or the shoulder seam taken up a little, or the waist tightened, or the skirt lengthened. When she found herself free to depart the church clock was striking the quarter after four. The sky, which had brightened a little in the afternoon, was yellow in the west, where the sun would soon go down behind yonder black ridge of moor. The wind had dropped, and there was a mildness in the air like the sweet breath of early spring.
There was a circuitous way to the Water House, through meadows that lay behind the churchyard. It was a solitary walk, that Beatrix liked at all times, and which particularly suited her humour just now. She went in at the wicket gate in the angle of the churchyard, and followed the narrow path between the crowded headstones,—commonplace memorials of harmless uneventful lives.
The pathway took her by the side of the fine old parish church, close by the vestry, which was curiously squeezed in at an angle between transept and chancel, under the diamond-paned casement, beside which the white surplices were hanging, past the sunken door.
Just as she came to the door it opened, and a man came out.
She gave a little cry, and the whole scene seemed to rock before her eyes, the old gray wall, the crumbling tablets, the leafless elm branches, the tall black poplars, which rose like watch-towers between her and the sky. For a moment all seemed in tumultuous motion, as if a whirlwind had risen. Then, with a great effort, she clasped the railings of a tomb close by, and commanded brain and body to be still.
A hand was held out to her, and she took it with a mechanical air. Her lips moved slowly.
‘Cyril.’