Love and Mr. Lewisham Read online

  CHAPTER III.

  THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

  On Sunday it was Lewisham's duty to accompany the boarders twice tochurch. The boys sat in the gallery above the choirs facing the organloft and at right angles to the general congregation. It was aprominent position, and made him feel painfully conspicuous, except inmoods of exceptional vanity, when he used to imagine that all thesepeople were thinking how his forehead and his certificatesaccorded. He thought a lot in those days of his certificates andforehead, but little of his honest, healthy face beneath it. (To tellthe truth there was nothing very wonderful about his forehead.) Herarely looked down the church, as he fancied to do so would be to meetthe collective eye of the congregation regarding him. So that in themorning he was not able to see that the Frobishers' pew was emptyuntil the litany.

  But in the evening, on the way to church, the Frobishers and theirguest crossed the market-square as his string of boys marched alongthe west side. And the guest was arrayed in a gay new dress, as if itwas already Easter, and her face set in its dark hair came with astrange effect of mingled freshness and familiarity. She looked at himcalmly! He felt very awkward, and was for cutting his newacquaintance. Then hesitated, and raised his hat with a jerk as if toMrs. Frobisher. Neither lady acknowledged his salute, which maypossibly have been a little unexpected. Then young Siddons dropped hishymn-book; stooped to pick it up, and Lewisham almost fell overhim.... He entered church in a mood of black despair.

  But consolation of a sort came soon enough. As _she_ took her seat shedistinctly glanced up at the gallery, and afterwards as he knelt topray he peeped between his fingers and saw her looking up again. Shewas certainly not laughing at him.

  In those days much of Lewisham's mind was still an unknown land tohim. He believed among other things that he was always the sameconsistent intelligent human being, whereas under certain stimuli hebecame no longer reasonable and disciplined but a purely imaginativeand emotional person. Music, for instance, carried him away, andparticularly the effect of many voices in unison whirled him off fromalmost any state of mind to a fine massive emotionality. And theevening service at Whortley church--at the evening service surpliceswere worn--the chanting and singing, the vague brilliance of thenumerous candle flames, the multitudinous unanimity of thecongregation down there, kneeling, rising, thunderously responding,invariably inebriated him. Inspired him, if you will, and turned theprose of his life into poetry. And Chance, coming to the aid of DameNature, dropped just the apt suggestion into his now highly responsiveear.

  The second hymn was a simple and popular one, dealing with the themeof Faith, Hope, and Charity, and having each verse ending with theword "Love." Conceive it, long drawn out and disarticulate,--

  "Faith will van ... ish in ... to sight, Hope be emp ... tied in deli ... ight, Love in Heaven will shine more bri ... ight, There ... fore give us Love."

  At the third repetition of the refrain, Lewisham looked down acrossthe chancel and met her eyes for a brief instant....

  He stopped singing abruptly. Then the consciousness of the serriedranks of faces below there came with almost overwhelming force uponhim, and he dared not look at her again. He felt the blood rushing tohis face.

  Love! The greatest of these. The greatest of all things. Better thanfame. Better than knowledge. So came the great discovery like a floodacross his mind, pouring over it with the cadence of the hymn andsending a tide of pink in sympathy across his forehead. The rest ofthe service was phantasmagorial background to that great reality--aphantasmagorial background a little inclined to stare. He,Mr. Lewisham, was in Love.

  "A ... men." He was so preoccupied that he found the wholecongregation subsiding into their seats, and himself still standing,rapt. He sat down spasmodically, with an impact that seemed to him tore-echo through the church.

  As they came out of the porch into the thickening night, he seemed tosee her everywhere. He fancied she had gone on in front, and hehurried up the boys in the hope of overtaking her. They pushed throughthe throng of dim people going homeward. Should he raise his hat toher again?... But it was Susie Hopbrow in a light-coloured dress--araven in dove's plumage. He felt a curious mixture of relief anddisappointment. He would see her no more that night.

  He hurried from the school to his lodging. He wanted very urgently tobe alone. He went upstairs to his little room and sat before theupturned box on which his Butler's Analogy was spread open. He did notgo to the formality of lighting the candle. He leant back and gazedblissfully at the solitary planet that hung over the vicarage garden.

  He took out of his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothed andcarefully refolded, covered with a writing not unlike that ofFrobisher ii., and after some maidenly hesitation pressed thistreasure to his lips. The Schema and the time-table hung in thedarkness like the mere ghosts of themselves.

  Mrs. Munday called him thrice to his supper.

  He went out immediately after it was eaten and wandered under thestars until he came over the hill behind the town again, and clamberedup the back to the stile in sight of the Frobishers' house. Heselected the only lit window as hers. Behind the blind, Mrs.Frobisher, thirty-eight, was busy with her curl-papers--she usedpapers because they were better for the hair--and discussing certainneighbours in a fragmentary way with Mr. Frobisher, who was inbed. Presently she moved the candle to examine a faint discolourationof her complexion that rendered her uneasy.

  Outside, Mr. Lewisham (eighteen) stood watching the orange oblong forthe best part of half an hour, until it vanished and left the houseblack and blank. Then he sighed deeply and returned home in a veryglorious mood indeed.

  He awoke the next morning feeling extremely serious, but not clearlyremembering the overnight occurrences. His eye fell on his clock. Thetime was six and he had not heard the alarum; as a matter of fact thealarum had not been wound up. He jumped out of bed at once andalighted upon his best trousers amorphously dropped on the floorinstead of methodically cast over a chair. As he soaped his head hetried, according to his rules of revision, to remember the overnightreading. He could not for the life of him. The truth came to him as hewas getting into his shirt. His head, struggling in its recesses,became motionless, the handless cuffs ceased to dangle for aminute....

  Then his head came through slowly with a surprised expression upon hisface. He remembered. He remembered the thing as a bald discovery, andwithout a touch of emotion. With all the achromatic clearness, theunromantic colourlessness of the early morning....

  Yes. He had it now quite distinctly. There had been no overnightreading. He was in Love.

  The proposition jarred with some vague thing in his mind. He stoodstaring for a space, and then began looking about absent-mindedly forhis collar-stud. He paused in front of his Schema, regarding it.