The Chapel of Ease

Dunstan Times, Issue 2336, 18 June 1906, Page 3

The Chapel of Ease

By Harriet Riddle Davis

CHAPIER XIX —(Continued)

• The doctor has gone, sir: ho told mo to lay, when you came in, that he sees nothing alarming in Mrs Cecil’s condition ; that, so far as ho can judge, she is nervously exhausted, but he thinks she will be all right with rest and care. After you went out, sir, she recovered consciousness, and asked for yon, and when told you were not hero she became so excited that the doctor was obliged to give her something to quieten herShe has dropped off to sleep. If she wakes again, you may see her; but there mast be absolute quiet ; there must be nothing to excite her.’ John stepped softly past the nurse into the dimly lighted room. She followed him, and whispered, cautioningly,— ‘ You must not wake her on any account, sir.’ John shook his head in silence and quietly took up a position where he could see her face. It seemed to him that it was the ghost of Hester, the ghost of bis love, that lay before him. Her face was white and exhausted; her yellow hair had been gathered off her face, evidently in hurried fashion, and lay in a rope over the pillow. Her half-open hands lay nervously on the counterpane, and there were traces of Buffering in them and in every line of the face. As ho noted them, there swept over him a feeling of emotion that threatened to overmaster him. He could feel the swift tide rise from his heart and spread straight to his lips, which quivered beneath it, and to his eyes which became suddenly dim. He had to shat his hands to keep down the flood gates. Everything that had been wretched and horrible in the events of the day fell away from him completely. He wondered how anything on earth could ever have mattered to him when balanced against Hester’s life and love: it all seemed so little, and pitiful, aud mean. He was so lost in contemplation of her face and in the thoughts and emotions that came crowding to his brain that he did not know how long he had been stanuing, nor realize how worn ont and overwrought he was, until the nurse quietly brought him a chair, and, placing it by the heds’de, motioned him to sit down. He gratefully accepted it, and leaned his tired head against the side of the bed, and his long vigil began. Once, later, the nurse came again to him, and said, — -%

; ‘ You look very th. j&, sir; you had better jgo to bed. I will call you if she wakes.’ ! But John shook hia head. He would not {sleep until Hester should opeo her eyes again £»d look at kirf.; He could not forget the

butt terrible expression he had seen in them when aho had turned her face to him aftei the service was over in the church; A little after midnight Hester became very restless, and began to mutter broken, disjointed words. Finally she opened her oyar and looked eagerly round the room, and called John’s name in a frightened voice. He instantly bent over her. She was bo startled when she saw his eyes looking into hers that John’s heart stood still. Ho thought that she did not know him; but almost immediately the startled look died out of her face, tears gathered slowly in her eyes, she tried to speak, her Ups quivered, and finally she turned her face from him. ‘ What is it, Hester ?’ he said, anxiously, though softly. She made an effort to keep back the tears, and said, slowly and brokenly, ‘ Why wouldn’t you hear lay explanation f Why did you give me up P’ It was evident that she had either forgotten or had not sensed the marriage service. Her mind had not gone beyond the scene with John in the vestibule of the church ; everything else had been blotted out. John lifted up her nerveless hands in his, pressed his lips to them, and said, quietly,— ‘ I did not give you up; we were married, Hester; you are my wife; that is why I am bet o beside you.’ She turned her face eagerly towards him ; a life came to her eyes. She was about to speak again, but the nurse came to the bod and made a warning gesture, which John understood. He bent his head close to Hester’s, and, kissing her softly, said, in a hushed voice,— 1 Don’t try to talk any more now, Hester; I shall watch beside you all through the night; I shall not leave you for a moment, and I am strong and happy in my love for yon.’ The look of relief which spread over her face was instantaneous. She asked no further questions ; she did not want to talk ; John was beside her, he had said that he would not leave her. She dimly understood that he know everything, and she could rest at last. With a sigh of infinite content, she smile! into Lis eyes, then her own closed heavily and she sank: into a deep sleep. Her slender, nervous fingers clung to hia hand and never relaxed their, hold all through the silent peaceful night. And John kept his vigil at her side. When the mail-bag was opened a few days later at Chapel House, there were two letters in John’s handwriting. One was for Aunt Jenifer, and one was for Carey Aunt Jenifer wiped her spectacles, adjusted them carefully, and proceeded to open hers, wondering what John could find to write to her about. Oirey carried hers over to the window in order to spell out John’s queer handwriting, but her attention was immediately attracted by a big bluebottle fly which had somehow managed to defy the cold weather aud was buzzing and humming around with ail the cheerfulness and confidence appropriate to a day iu Juuo. Carey could not attend to her letter, even though it was from John, till she had despatched this exciting fly. She determined to cut him in two with Aunt Jenifer’s shears, and she was just beginning a lively chase up and down the window paues, when she was astonished to see Aunt Jenifer rise suddenly from her chair, upset her work-basket, and call out in a sharp voice to the entire household, although no one was present bat Carey,— ‘Carey! Becky! Jasper! all of you! They’ve gone and got married in town !’ ‘ Who’s gone and gob married in town ?’ asked Carey, mak'ng dabs at the fly with the shears. «Why, John Cecil’s gone and married Hester, to bo sure. Well! well! I never hoard the like ot it.’ ‘ John and Hester got married ?’ echoed Carey, dropping the shears and suddenly sitting down on the settle with & thump. ‘ 1 don’t b’lievo it,’ she exclaimed, ‘ Yes, hero it is : John says, ‘ Dear Aunt Jenifer,’ (‘ Dear Aunt,’ indeed !* she sniffed, though it was clear from the pucker around her lips that John’s adoption of her as a relative was highly pleasing to her,) ‘ I may as well tell you without any flourish lb-»t Hester and I were married on Wednesday at St Paul’s Canrch, and, barring the fact that Hester has had an attack similar to the one when she fainted last winter, and that 1 have been awfully worried and upset about her, wo are the two happiest people I know of. Wo don’t know when we shall return. I hope you will pacify Carey before we como; I shall probably have to give her half of my possessions in order to _ appease her. Hester sends her love, and will write very soon. * Yours affectionately, ‘ John Wokthxnqton Chou. f It’s the meanest, snoakin’eat, most lowdown thi-g lever heard of, to go off and get married all by themselves and leave as all out, and then stay in town and have a good time ; ’twould been a heap more fun for ’em to ’vo had me aud Jasper and the dog along. I just tell you, Aunt Jenifer, I'm goin’ real 1 mad about it; I ain’t goin’ to speak to ’em !or notice ’em when they do get back, and I guess they’ll wish they behaved better,’ angrily exclaimed Carey. Then she was silent while she tried to adjust ber mind to the new order of things. At last she broke out again: ‘l’ll just make John fork over lots of things; I’ll make him gimme the new beagle puppies, and his double-bladed jack-knife, and his best pair of dividers, and I guess I might as well speak for the yearling colt while I’m ’bout it,’ she wound up. jumping up from the settle and already full of the idea of her new possessions, which, under the circumstances, she know she could wheedle out of John. _ ' ‘Well, I know what Carolia-j Jenifer’s goin’ to do,’ said Aunt Jenifer, arranging the contents of her work-basket, taking off her apron, and picking the threads off her gown. There was determination in her tone and a flush on her smooth, pink face. ‘ I’m goin’ to march myself to Dorset, and I’m going to toll every man, woman and child in that village that John and Hester are married. and I’ll wager that before night it will be known all over Dorset parish and the whole country to boot; and if some of those people yonder don’t feel about the size of a pea when I’m done with ’em, then my name ain’t Caroline Jenifer.’ And Aunt Jenifer, with skirts tacked up, and her sturdy feel encased in goloshes, was toon splashing her way over the muddy road to spread the news of John and Hester’s marriage. Her triumph was complete. The villagers stared in one another’s faces. There was no trath in the dreadful stories, and there never had been ; Colonel Brent was dead, and Hester had been a widow after all. and John Cecil had known all the time what ho was about. Everybody agreed that it was the most suitable match that had been made in the county for years; and the whole pariah was iu an idyllic state of delight over the marriage of John and Hester, and their anticipated return to Capel House, destined to be to them, in a new sense, truly a Chapel of ease. (The End,)