When the Dean bade good-night to Rosamund he said:
“Your music and you mean a great deal to Welsley.”
“Not half as much as Welsley means to me,” she replied with earnest sincerity.
“We are all looking forward to greeting your gallant, self-sacrificing husband presently, very soon I hope. Good-night to you. It has been”—he paused, looked at Rosamund and gently pressed her hand,—“a most fragrant evening.”
A most fragrant evening! When Beattie and Rosamund had eaten their sandwiches, and drunk their still lemonade and claret, and when Beattie had gone to bed, Rosamund slipped out alone into the dear walled garden, and paced up and down in the moonlight.
Yes, there was something fragrant here, something that infected the soul, something of old faiths and old holy aspirations, a murmur and a perfume of trust and love. There might be gossip, trickling jealousies in this little world, mean actions, even, perhaps, ugly desires and ugly fulfilments of desire. Rosamund scarcely noticed, or did not notice, these things. With her people were at their best. That night, when Beattie was going to bed, Rosamund had said to her:
“I can’t think why Mrs. Dickinson is called ‘the cold douche.’ I find her so warm-hearted and so amusing!”
And so it was with them all. Rosamund had the magic touch which drew the best out of every one in Welsley, because she was happy there, and sincerely loved the place.
“How can I leave Welsley?” she thought now, as she walked up and down in the garden, and heard presently the chiming of midnight and the voice of the watchman beyond the Dark Entry. God seemed very near to her in Welsley, God and the happiness of God. In Welsley she felt, or was beginning to feel, that she was almost able to combine two lives, the life she had grasped and the life she had let go. Here she was a mother and at moments she was almost a religious too. She played with her boy, she trained him, watched over his small body and his increasing soul; and she meditated between the enclosing walls, listening to bells and floating praises, to the Dresden Amen, and to the organ with its many voices all dedicated to the service of God. Often, when she walked alone in the garden, or sat alone in some hidden corner under the mossy walls, she felt like a nun who had given up the world forever, and had found the true life in God. In imagination, then, she lived the life of which she had dreamed as a girl before any man had brought her his love.
She could never, even in imagination, live that life truly, without effort, in London. Welsley had made her almost hate London. She did not know how she would be able to bear the return to it. Yet, if Canon Wilton were right in what he had said to her that afternoon, Dion might come back very soon, and therefore very soon she might have to leave Welsley.