'Sooner or later that organ will shake the Cathedral to bits: the vibrations were fearful. I thought there was a great deal too much noise. You lose effect when you pile up the agony like that: people only want to stop their ears to prevent their heads being split.'
So they chatted on. But what was it that Nan, who had accompanied them, had heard as she sat in the great, empty, dimly-lit Cathedral, with her hands clasped, her head bent forward on them, her eyes closed? Or, rather, what was it that she saw?—for this seemed to be a picture in music. She saw a small chapel far away up in the mountains, the trembling red rays in the windows looking strange above the snow. She heard the monks at their midnight chanting—low, and sad, and distant. And then it seemed, as she listened, as if the stars overhead were being blurred out, and a murmuring wind came down the gorge, and the air grew cold. The darkness deepened; the wind rose and moaned through the pine forests; then an angry gust swept along, so that the intoning of the monks was lost altogether. There was a rumble of distant thunder—overhead, among the unseen peaks. But still, unconscious of the threatening storm, those within the small building went on with their holy office, and there were snatches of the clear singing of boys—so faint that you could scarcely hear; and again the strong, sad, sombre voices of the men. Then the tempest broke, fierce and terrible: the elements seemed mingled together. She lost sight of the chapel in the whirling snow; the heavens rattled overhead; and the wind swept down so that the whole earth trembled. A horror of wrath and darkness has overwhelmed the world; and what of the patient choristers now? No longer are their voices heard amid the appalling fury of the hurricane; the sudden lightning-flash reveals nothing in the blackness; the powers of evil have overcome; and the universe has lost its hope. But now there comes a lull; and suddenly—far away, and faint, and triumphant—rises the song of reliance and joy. The demons of the night mutter and moan; but the divine song rises clearer and more clear. It is the voice of faith, silver-toned and sweet; and the very heavens themselves seem to listen; and the thunders rumble away into the valleys; and the stars, shining, and calm, and benignant, come out again over the mountain-peaks. And lo! once more she can descry the faint red rays above the snow; and she can almost see the choristers within the little building; and she listens to the silver-clear song; and her heart is filled with a strange new gladness and trust. What must she do to keep it there for ever? By what signal self-sacrifice—by what devotion of a whole life-time—by what patient and continuous duty—shall she secure to herself this divine peace, so that the storms and terrors and trials of the world may sweep by it powerless and unregarded?
When she rose and blindly followed her sisters, she was all trembling, and there was a great lump in her throat. She was, indeed, in that half-hysterical state in which rash resolves are sometimes made that may determine the course of a human life. But Nan had the sense to know that she was in this state; and she had enough firmness of character to enable her to reason with herself. She walked, silent, with her sisters from the Cathedral to the hotel; and she was reasoning with herself all the time. She was saying to herself that she had had a glimpse, an impression of something divinely beautiful and touching, that at some time or other might influence or even determine her course of life. When that time came she could remember. But not now—not now. She was not going to resolve to become a Catholic, or join a sisterhood, or give herself up to the service of the poor, merely because this wonderful music had filled her heart with emotion. It was necessary that she should think of something hard and practical—something that would be the embodiment of common sense. She would force herself to think of that. And, casting about, she determined to think—about Singing Sal!
It was rather hard upon Sal, who had a touch of vanity, and was quite conscious of what she deemed the romantic side of her way of life, that she should be taken as the sort of incarnation of the prosaic. Nevertheless, all through that table d'hôte dinner, Nan kept to her self-imposed task, and was busying herself about the wages of the coastguardsmen, and the probable cost of mackerel, and the chances of Sal's having to face a westerly squall of wind and rain when she was breasting the steep hill rising from Newhaven. Was Sal singing that night before the Old Ship? Or was she in the little cul-de-sac near the Town-hall where the public-house was that the fishermen called in at on their way home? Nan was apparently dining at the table d'hôte of a hotel in Lucerne; but in reality she spent that evening in Brighton.
And she was still thinking of Brighton when, as has been related, there was a migration from the dining-saloon to the verandah outside; so that she did not hear much of what her sisters were saying.
'We are certainly going to have a real thunderstorm after the imitation one,' Miss Beresford repeated. 'Do you hear that?'
There was a low rumble of thunder; likewise some pattering of rain-drops on the leaves outside.
'It won't be half as fine though,' said the musical sister.
There was a sudden white flash of light that revealed in a surprising manner the sharp outline of Pilatus; then darkness and a crashing peal of thunder. The rain began to pour; and some passers by took shelter under the densely-foliaged trees fronting the gravelled terrace of the hotel. The light that came through the tall windows fell on those dark figures; but dimly.
Nan had been thinking so much of Brighton, and Sal, and the downs, and ships and sailors, that when this orange glow fell on a gentleman whom she thought she recognised as Lieutenant Frank King she was scarcely astonished. She looked hard through the dusk; yes, surely it was he.