XXII

Let the reader now picture Priscilla coming downstairs the next morning, a golden Sunday morning full of Sabbath calm, and a Priscilla leaden-eyed and leaden-souled, her shabby garments worn out to a symbol of her worn out zeals, her face the face of one who has forgotten peace, her eyes the eyes of one at strife with the future, of one for ever asking “What next?” and shrinking with a shuddering “Oh please not that,” from the bald reply.

Out of doors Nature wore her mildest, most beneficent aspect.  She very evidently cared nothing for the squalid tragedies of human fate.  Her hills were bathed in gentle light.  Her sunshine lay warm along the cottage fronts.  In the gardens her hopeful bees, cheated into thoughts of summer, droned round the pale mauves and purples of what was left of starworts.  The grass in the churchyard sparkled with the fairy film of gossamers.  Sparrows chirped.  Robins whistled.  And humanity gave the last touch to the picture by ringing the church bells melodiously to prayer.

Without doubt it was a day of blessing, supposing any one could be found willing to be blest.  Let the reader, then, imagine this outward serenity, this divine calmness, this fair and light-flooded world, and within the musty walls of Creeper Cottage Priscilla coming down to breakfast, despair in her eyes and heart.

They breakfasted late; so late that it was done to the accompaniment, strangely purified and beautified by the intervening church walls and graveyard, of Mrs. Morrison’s organ playing and the chanting of the village choir.  Their door stood wide open, for the street was empty.  Everybody was in church.  The service was, as Mrs. Morrison afterwards remarked, unusually well attended.  The voluntaries she played that day were Dead Marches, and the vicar preached a conscience-shattering sermon upon the text “Lord, who is it?”

He thought that Mrs. Jones’s murderer must be one of his parishioners.  It was a painful thought, but it had to be faced.  He had lived so long shut out from gossip, so deaf to the ever-clicking tongue of rumour, that he had forgotten how far even small scraps can travel, and that the news of Mrs. Jones’s bolster being a hiding-place for her money should have spread beyond the village never occurred to him.  He was moved on this occasion as much as a man who has long ago given up being moved can be, for he had had a really dreadful two days with Mrs. Morrison, dating from the moment she came in with the news of the boxing of their only son’s ears.  He had, as the reader will have gathered, nothing of it having been recorded, refused to visit and reprimand Priscilla for this.  He had found excuses for her.  He had sided with her against his son.  He had been as wholly, maddeningly obstinate as the extremely good sometimes are.  Then came Mrs. Jones’s murder.  He was greatly shaken, but still refused to call upon Priscilla in connection with it, and