Chapter IV: 'so Near and Yet So Far!'

After that night at Number 60, Park Lane, a terrible sense of humiliation oppressed Mary, and she knew not what to do next. Such rencontres, she thought, were not likely to happen in the mighty world of London; yet the next meeting she had with Colville occurred very soon after, and gave her nearly as great a shock as that at the ball.

It was on a murky October Sunday afternoon when Mary, finding herself near Westminster Abbey, entered the vast building, lured alike by curiosity to see it and hear the service, for which the bells were tolling.

For a moment she looked about her and saw how the mighty cruciform church towered skyward above the dingy houses, shops, and streets that lie so near it on one side, and the handsome, open space, with all its railings and statues, on the other, and, tripping lightly over the flat gravestones, she entered by the gloomy northern door, and, after a little timid doubt and hesitation, proceeded to an empty pew in the north transept.

The vast height of the shafted columns, the darkened roof that sprang from them, the dusky depths and ghostly uncertainties of the edifice, which was of a size and space beyond her conception; the faint, leaden light of the London afternoon that stole through its lancet windows, and the grim aspect of the tombs which crowd and disfigure the long drawn aisles, were all solemn and oppressive to Mary, yet curiosity detained her, and she was glad to see a few persons--but how very few they seemed--gathering to hear the service, while the black-robed vergers glided about, imparting, she thought, something spectral to the vistas of the place; and to her unaccustomed eyes the white floating surplices of the officiating clergymen and of the choir-boys seemed something spectral too.

A great sense of awe came over her as she thought of all the mighty dead who lay there, the dead of ages, beneath her very feet--politicians, warriors, judges, princes, and nobles, philanthropists, actors, and physicians--the Pantheon of all the English great--who in fighting the battle of life have added to the renown of their country. For a time she was drawn from the constant sense of herself, of her own sorrows, and the contemplation of thinking how hard it was to win one's daily bread in a vast city.

Her veil was up, and had any there regarded her face, they would have seen how pale and sad it looked under the edge of her little hat, and the ripples of her golden brown hair that fell over her forehead, and how pathetic was the expression of her long-lashed, violet blue eyes.

The bells had ceased to clash overhead, and a few people were seated or kneeling on hassocks in the chancel seats, while some gas jets began to flicker out as the afternoon light faded from the pointed windows; and then the deep swell of the organ, and the sweet voices of the choristers stirred Mary's heart, and moved her to tears, she knew not why, for the solemnity of the scene soothed, while the music comforted her, and to hide her emotion she drew down her veil closely.

While the psalm was being chanted three ladies entered the pew before her, and as there was not room in it for a gentleman who accompanied them he took his seat behind them, in the pew occupied by Mary, and close to her side.

Her heart stood still, and again the sense of suffocation came with a spasm into her slender throat, for he who sat beside her was Colville, and the ladies were Blanche Galloway, Lady Dunkeld, and Mrs. Deroubigne!

She respired with difficulty, and then her heart beat fast; the service was forgotten--unheard, all save the swelling of the organ, which only seemed an element in the phantasmagoria around her now; and she strove--but that was impossible--to forget who was by her side, and almost touching her.

She wondered if he would recognise her figure; he could scarcely fail to do so, if he looked at her; but he never did so, and seemed wholly intent on looking into the dusky obscurities of the church, or was lost in his own thoughts. He had placed a hand ungloved, with a gold signet ring thereon--a ring the crest of which Mary remembered well--on the edge of the pew in which Blanche was seated; and making a half turn round, with a bright and coquettish smile, she rested her back against his fingers, as much as to say, she felt them there caressingly.

Mary observed this, and also that after a time he withdrew his hand, with an air of unconsciousness, she thought.

Blanche wore a magnificent sealskin paletot, which contrasted powerfully with Mary's somewhat faded jacket and equally faded dress. How happy and bright and well nourished she looked. There was no care, no thought, no anxiety in her sparkling dark eyes. Unlike Mary, she had no dark or dubious future looming far away before her.

Mary remembered--when was she likely to forget?--that he said he had no one to care for, and was going away to India; and yet he seemed to be on remarkably intimate and pleasant terms with these Dunkeld people. She fancied that Blanche had given him a conscious and disappointed glance, when he left her to take his seat behind her, as if she seemed to think his proper place was by her own side; and perhaps Mary might have seen a disappointed look in his face, had she seen it at the time.

They might only be friends, but somehow Blanche gave the silent watcher the bitter conviction that she was certainly something more.

Mary knew that Colville had denied being engaged to Blanche, and ridiculed the rumour as Mrs. Wodrow's gossip. True--but he might be engaged to her _now_.

'If he still cares for me,' she thought, 'what a different answer would I give him now. If not engaged, why are they thus together, and why does she give him these conscious and confident glances? Was he deceiving me at--at Birkwoodbrae?'

When Mary had taken her seat in that pew, she felt a sense of awful loneliness; but she felt many, many degrees more lonely now. She felt also far, far removed from him, and those whom he accompanied, in her homely life and sordid surroundings at Paddington. A vast gulf seemed thereby to have opened between her and Colville, such as did not exist at Birkwoodbrae; and she thought of the day when they fished together in the May, and other days of delicious walks and rambles under the drooping birches by the sparkling linn, or among the scented pine woods that were overlooked by the lovely green hills, amid the bright sunshine and the odour of the purple heather--of thoughts that came and went--of hopes that dawned, and of words that were uttered, or left unuttered. At last the service was over, and the few people who assembled to hear it--many of them strangers only come to view the church from curiosity--were hastening away.

As Mary rose, Colville did so too that she might pass him.

Still there was no recognition on his part; his eyes were on Blanche Galloway, and Mary quickly glided out of the church. The rain was beginning to fall in the chill October evening, and drawing her shawl close about her she set out on her way homeward, feeling that she would be thankful for a seat in an omnibus.

When she looked back, with an impulse she could not resist, she saw Colville come forth with Blanche, the other two ladies following, as if the arrangement was a tacit one. They all entered the stately Dunkeld carriage, the driver and servants of which wore ample fur tippets. The door was closed with a bang, and they drove off, passing Mary on the way, and bestowing on her a few spots of mud.

'To be so near--and yet so far!' she thought, with a greater bitterness of heart than she ever thought to feel--she was usually so resigned and sweetly patient; but she seemed to know the worst now, and that all was over at last.

The very circumstance of her having to wander alone and unescorted through the streets of London on such an evening seemed to impress upon her still more the difference of position, and the gulf that lay between her and those she had seen whirling away, as she doubted not, to No. 60, Park Lane.

That she had been recognised by some one there on the night of the ball, she thought she had mortifying proof when next she presented herself before the hitherto friendly proprietors of the music-shop in quest of pupils or some employment.

She found their manner curt, changed, and cold.

'You need return no more,' she was told.

'Why?'

'You failed to give satisfaction when we found you employment last.'

'In what way?' asked Mary, in a breathless voice.

'Lady Dunkeld informed us that you left the house abruptly and in a mysterious way.'

Lady Dunkeld! So she in the plentitude of her wealth, power, and position was following up with a vendetta poor Mary Wellwood.