“And do you say your prayers softly, or do you shout them out at the top of your voices? To my mind, it is just as unseemly to shout when singing in church, as it would be when praying. This church has been like nothing lately but the ranter’s chapel. There, take your seats, and look out the places in your Prayer-books.”
I watched the different groups walk into church. Our people were pretty early. Tod slipped aside as they went up the aisle to whisper me a question—Had Fred got clear away? I told him I thought so, hearing and seeing nothing to the contrary. When the parson’s children came in, Mrs. Holland was with them, so that Edna Blake was enabled to join the singers, as she did when she could. But it was not often Mrs. Holland came to church. Edna had dark circles round her eyes. They looked out at mine with a painful inquiry in their depths.
“Yes, I think it is all right,” I nodded in answer.
“Mr. Holland has missed his church-key,” she whispered. “Coming along to church, Charley suddenly called out that he remembered hiding it in Mr. Fred Westerbrook’s coat-pocket. Mrs. Holland seemed quite put out about it, and asked me how I could possibly have allowed him to come into the study and sit there.”
“There’s old Westerbrook, Edna! Just look! His face is fiercer than usual.”
Mrs. Westerbrook was with him, in a peach-coloured corded-silk gown. She made a point of dressing well. But she was just one of those women that no attire, good or bad, would set off: her face common, her figure stumpy. And so, one after another, the congregation all came in, and the service began. It caused quite a sensation when Mr. Holland made a pause, after turning to the Litany, and read out the announcement: “Your prayers are requested for Walter Gisby, who is dangerously ill.” Men’s heads moved, and bonnets fluttered.
“How I wish you played for us always, Johnny!” cried Miss Susan Page, looking in upon me to say it, as she passed out from her pew, when the service was over.
“Why, my playing is nothing, Miss Susan!”
“Perhaps not. I don’t know. But it has this effect, Johnny—it sends us home with a feeling of peace in our hearts. What with Richards’s crashing and the singers’ shouting, we are generally turned out in a state of irritation.”
After running through the voluntary, I found a large collection of people in the churchyard. Old Westerbrook was holding forth on the subject of Fred’s iniquities to a numerous audience, the Squire making one of them. Mrs. Westerbrook looked simply malicious.