Chapter II: Miss Silexa

THE small town of St. Elvis was early astir the following morning with tidings of the wreck. Dick Rees, from Clythwr Farm, half-way down the valley, had been among the first to bring the news, and knots of eager talkers and listeners soon gathered in the principal street, round the steps of the old stone cross, to add to the gossip which grew as rapidly as a rolling snowball.

"Who could she be? What would happen to the child? Who would be at the inquest? And when would the burying take place?" were the foremost among the questions on that autumn morning.

The small corner shop, kept by Meg Evans, the postmistress, was soon filled to overflowing, and Nancy Lewis found herself a most important personage, as she let out, bit by bit, all the slower in proportion to the anxiety of her hearers, the particulars of the sad scene of the night before.

"She's a lady, whatever they may say," repeated Nancy, "for her hands are as white as yon cloud, and never been used to hard work, for sure; and her beautiful long hair was a-hanging about her like seaweed when they brought her in, and the baby bleating like a lamb for its mother. Indeed, it's as sweet a corpse as ever I looked upon."

"Ah well, ah well, poor thing, her troubles are over now." "Indeed and indeed, I'm sorry from my heart," said one and another, while each woman secretly resolved to visit Lettice Gwynne's cottage before the day was much further advanced; for a death in St. Elvis or its peculiarly healthy neighbourhood was such a rare event that the sight of the body was not to be resisted.

Old John Jenkins, the pew-opener, discussed the matter with Will Jones, the ancient gravedigger, who stood leaning on his spade just inside the churchyard gate. And Old Dinah Jones, wife to the latter, lost no time in hurrying up in high hat and cloak, stick in hand, from Porthmynwr to the Rectory kitchen.

There Miss Silexa Pryse found her scaring Molly the servant with facts, which Dinah affirmed to be a perfect fulfilment of her prophecies concerning corpse-lights and ghost-funerals. The girl stood, kettle in hand, with wide staring eyes of fright and wonder, watching her narrator, while Eudora, a little child of six years old, crouched beside the dresser, terrified by this dismal story of death and drowning.

The effect of Miss Silexa's entrance was like that of a flash of lightning.

"What are you standing staring there for, you great goose?" said she, angrily facing the petrified girl. "Get on with your work, and remember life's short enough to do it in; that's 'your' lesson for to-day if you'll learn it, you idle wench."

"Eh! But, Miss Pryse—have you heard?" interrupted Old Dinah.

"Heard!" screamed Silexa. "Who could help hearing, I should like to know; with all the women like a pack of crows over a bit of meat, and the men with their tongues wagging like a thirsty dog's? Of course we have heard. You didn't think but that the Rectory would be the first to be told. And now I suppose you've been gabbling on to Molly all your pack of lies and nonsense about corpse-candles and such-like rubbish, and you think it all true because God in His wise providence has chosen to take that poor soul unto Himself, and her body is to lie with us here at St. Elvis. 'Tis a pity you have not got something better to think about.

"Here, Dora, child, run and feed the fowls; they are calling for their breakfast. You will find the corn-basket on the store-room table.

"I should have thought you would have known better," she added, as the child ran off, "than to talk such stuff before that baby, who is as frightened as a bird at all times, with that scared look in her blue eyes. Go home, Di. I've no charing to be done to-day, and you only hinder Molly if your hands are not scrubbing or carrying, and she's idle enough as it is. Here, wait a minute."

And the mistress dived into the larder, reappearing in the space of time that the old woman took to hobble across the kitchen to the door. "I expect you haven't had your breakfast; gossip is as satisfying as food, no doubt. Take this plate of potatoes and this bit of dripping, and fry yourself a good meal, and to-morrow there'll be a day's work for you here, for we shall be busy."

Old Dinah grasped the plate with a thankful clutch as her bright eyes twinkled greedily over it, but with her thanks there mingled disappointed mutterings about the news she thought she had been the first to bring, and Miss Silexa's reception thereof.

Miss Pryse waited until her old pensioner had hobbled across the courtyard, and out at the gate, then she shut the door with a sharp, decisive slam, as if setting the seal to what she had been saying, and stepped briskly through the now empty kitchen.

Molly, at the present juncture of things, thought it prudent to be out of the way. So, quickly putting on the kettle, she vanished into the front parlour to set the breakfast.

Her mistress did not follow her there, but turned into her father's study, where we will take a sketch of her for the reader's benefit.

The peculiarities of her morning toilet did not set off her tall, gaunt figure to the best advantage—the faded calico lining pinned up round her waist being all that was seen of the skirt of her dress. An old brown woollen shawl, crossed and tied behind in a clumsy knot, covered the body, and a pocket-handkerchief was bound closely over her hair in lieu of a cap. She was nearly forty, but her keen grey eyes still kept the restless activity of youth, and only the purest truth could stand before their penetrating gaze. The broad forehead, the aquiline nose, and firm, decisive lips, still bore testimony to the beauty of former days, though time had robbed her face of its freshness. She was a lady born—no one could doubt it who looked at her for an instant—but one who utterly scorned appearances, or what people might say or think of her.

The sun rarely caught her napping; for generally long before his rays had warmed the shady corner of the valley in which the old house stood, she was attending to her live stock in the farmyard, or, as she termed it, "getting beforehand with the day."

Sometimes there were visitors staying at the Rectory, but though it were my Lord Bishop himself, it made no difference to Silexa Pryse—her broom would be heard thumping down the staircase as usual, and her voice calling to the luckless Molly to come hither and thither. St. Elvis would have thought something had surely happened to the good lady, if it had not seen her day by day tramp in high pattens to and from the village well, with arms bared to the elbow, carrying her dripping buckets, or holding her apron full of vegetables culled from the kitchen garden on the opposite side of the road. Her hand, rough and red with honest labour, was stretched out in friendly clasp, alike to rich and poor, for a hearty shake.

She was a general favourite, in spite of her sharp manner and still sharper tongue, for no case of real poverty or deserving distress was ever disregarded by her, though she was altogether merciless and without pity, where virtue was held lightly or deceit discovered. Kind-hearted to the very core, she yet lacked tenderness in manner; and this it was that made little children tremble and turn away, and the timid shrink from telling her their troubles. The hard, uninviting shell held a sound kernel, but those who failed to penetrate the outside would never know the worth concealed within.

The study of the Rev. Theophilus Pryse appeared to have been furnished nearly a century ago. The carpet scarcely revealed the straggling pattern on its shabby thread-worn surface; the table with its numerous clawed legs seemed ever on the defensive, and the straight-backed chairs were about as hard and uncomfortable as wood and horsehair combined could make them. Nevertheless, Silexa's duster still made its daily careful circuit over the most superannuated furniture until the last speck of dust sped swiftly off to settle elsewhere.

On one side of the fireplace, against the dingy red and buff paper, hung a framed sampler, which informed the inquiring reader that one Margaret Pryse achieved this work of art early in the century. The design was unique. Two trees of the candelabrum type stood on either side of a square house, above the smoking chimneys of which rose an arc of birds and flower-buds of rainbow-hues, surmounted by two crab-like cherubs, who struggled to support between them a golden crown twice as large as themselves. The words, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," and "Gloria in excelsis," filled the remaining space, beyond which an elaborate border completed the whole.

Corresponding to this, on the other side of the old-fashioned chimney mirror, was a portrait of a young girl roughly sketched in chalks. Silexa remembered watching her brother draw every line of it, and as she looked, the long, dreary distance of years seemed suddenly spanned, and her only sister was standing beside her again. The story of the wreck and the motherless babe at Porthmynwr recalled the history of another life so vividly, that ere she was aware, tears had stolen into her eyes, and she sunk down on the nearest seat, covering her face with her hands.

But the sound of the child's footsteps in the garden at once restored her frigid dignity, and she hastily rose, vexed with herself for having yielded to her feelings. No one should ever see her sorrow; it was sacred, and invited no sympathy. None but God knew of the well of tenderness that lay so deep beneath the still surface.

Meanwhile Eudora, on being dismissed from the kitchen, gladly escaped into the dewy sunshine of the garden. The little lawn lay green and sparkling in morning light. And though the storm of the previous night had snapped the fastenings of the rose-trees nailed against the wall of the house, leaving trailed and draggled branches desolate on the ground, and leaves and twigs hurled and scattered about, there still swayed a cluster of monthly rosebuds above the study window, freshly opening in pearly pink, and shaking off showers of shimmering drops as the breeze tossed them to and fro.

The sight of sunshine and flowers brought a smile into the pale, frightened, little face, their life and beauty dismissing some of the fear that held her spellbound while listening to Di's dismal tale. On she ran, brushing past the wet bushes until she came to the farmyard, when the cackling chorus that always greeted the corn-basket began at once, bringing more and more cheer into the child's heart, as she watched the fluttering fowls scuffle and scramble for the scattered seed. But while the small hand let the grain fall, her heart pondered the words she had heard in the kitchen. How she longed to run to Lettice Gwynne and ask her all about the matter!—Dear, kind Lettice, whose cottage was of all others the retreat she loved best.

But Di had said the dead body was lying there! Perhaps it was stretched out beside the old chest where she and Davie played, and arranged their seaweed and shells. No, she could not go there. But the dear little baby! Di said there was a baby. Oh, how she had longed for a little sister to play with and love in her lonely hours. She could remember Ruth, and how Lettice used to let her hold her in her arms as she sat on a low stool beside the cottage hearth, and now there was only a daisy-dappled grave, and baby had gone away to God. Had God sent Lettice this baby instead? Oh, if Davie would come and tell her. She dared not ask Aunt Silexa. How could she find out?

The child sauntered slowly back to the rustic seat beneath the willow tree, thinking, thinking, until she was suddenly startled from her reverie by her aunt's sharp voice calling her to come to breakfast. As she ran lightly across the sward to obey the summons, Miss Pryse cast another lingering look at the picture on the wall, mentally comparing it with the one in the garden. The same blue eyes, shaded by soft, silky hair, looked up towards the window, but the face of the little one was paler and more thoughtful.

"Come, Dora, be quick, and see that you rub your shoes clean before you come in. There is always so much mud brought into the house, one would need to be for ever cleaning here."

The words fell chill and cold on the child's heart; she longed to ask about the little baby at the cottage, as she came forward to join her aunt, but the question died on her lips. Miss Silexa's reserved and thorny manner drove little Dora daily farther from her, and prevented her belief in the tender self-sacrificing love that in spite of all really existed for her. Slowly, she followed her aunt into the parlour, and in another moment the trembling hand of her grandfather was laid lovingly upon the flaxen head. She timidly looked up into the face, furrowed more deeply by affliction than by time, though his scanty silver locks and bent frame hinted that the appointed time of man's days on earth had nearly run.

It needed no scrutinising glance to see that a heavy life-sorrow had helped to dim the brightness of eyes that looked out with a settled expression of calm sadness. A great grief was bringing down his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; his heart was heavy with the anguish of a bereavement which is sometimes more terrible than a blank left by death.

"Well, my little love," he said, kissing the child; "I have been waiting for you. Where have you been? Ah, Silexa," he added, turning to open with trembling fingers the Bible for family worship, "this is sad news from Porthmynwr."

"Don't speak of it now, father," interrupted Silexa, glancing towards the child, whose eyes were eagerly fixed on his face; "she has heard too much already. I am going down to Lettice Gwynne's after breakfast to hear the rights of the story; there are too many tongues clacking up here; one cannot tell how much to believe."

The elderly man sighed heavily and was silent. Then turning to the Book of Revelation as Molly entered to take her place, he read,—

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

The voice read on, though unsteady with emotion, and Eudora's eyes filled with tears. Molly looked at the grey church tower opposite, and watched the crowds of cawing rooks alight on the turrets and grass-tufted niches. Miss Silexa sat stern and erect in her chair with a determined expression on her face, and only He who knoweth the secrets of all hearts saw her soul bow in its sorrow when they knelt to join in fervent prayer for the unknown mourners of the brave men who had been engulfed in the depths of the mighty waters, and for the orphan baby cast up by the waves helpless and forlorn.