The Girl Who Had No God/Part 6

Ward brought her a cup of coffee, and stood by with satisfaction while she drank it. In his eyes there was a mixture of depression and joy. The parish house was gone, and this girl before him was to marry another man. But they would build another parish house, and who knew—

He drove her up the hill in his small car. At the top of a rise he stopped the car and looked back. The night's devastation showed clearly, a black wound in the smiling heart of the valley.

Elinor watched him.

"It means a great deal to you, doesn't it?"

"It's rather a facer— Of course we will build again, but there are things that could not be replaced. That isn't what troubles me. The fact is, I am afraid I'm responsible.

"I was there last night, alone. I have a bad habit, when I have a mental problem to worry out, of walking up and down a room and lighting one cigarette after another. I am reckless with matches."

Then perhaps, after all, Walter had not done it!

The car climbed slowly. Ward kept his eyes straight ahead. Elinor cast little shy glances at his profile.

"You said you had something to worry out?"

He drew a long breath.

"I have had an offer to go to New York to a big church. It's rather a wonderful opportunity."

Elinor made no sign except to clutch her hands as they lay ungloved in her lap.

"Then you will he leaving us?"

"No," he said. "I shall not be leaving you."

"You like it here?"

"Very much." He turned and looked down at her. It was unwise. He realized that at once. So frail she looked, so softly, tenderly feminine! And because he knew that, after the night, he had not yet got control over himself, the merest hand-clasp as she got out of the machine was all he dared. But at the top of the steps Elinor turned. "You will never know just how sorry I am," she said, and went through her garden to the house.

From that Friday morning until the evening of the following day Elinor went quite alone.

Hour after hour she spent pacing the terrace, looking down into the valley. On Friday night, unable to sleep, she threw a negligee over her  shoulders and went quietly down to her garden. The village slept quietly, but there was a light in Ward's small window near the church. She remained on the terrace until the light was extinguished.

At dinner that Saturday Boroday's empty place cast a gloom over the the meal. Walter Huff came a little late. Under the ease of his greeting there was a touch of uneasiness as he met Elinor's eyes. When the servants left the room, Talbot leaned forward to Walter.

"Now tell us about it," he said.

Huff was frankly triumphant, but he still avoided Elinor's eyes.

"It's working out exactly as I knew it would," he explained. "Having once had a parish house they cannot do without it. The vestry carried only about a third through insurance. And there's another point in our favour—the rector's away. He's got rheumatism. They are going to take up an additional purse to send him to Baden-Baden."

"When?"

"Tomorrow morning. And tomorrow being Sunday, the assistant rector, Elinor's friend, will have it in charge until Monday morning."

"I shall warn him," said Elinor suddenly.

There was silence for a moment. Talbot smiled, Lethbridge looked astounded. Huff, bending forward with his arms out before him on the table, confronted Elinor squarely.

"That's it, is it?" he said.

"I asked you not to do—what you have done. The children used it all the time. They played basketball there. Besides, my wish should mean something to you."

Huff shrugged his shoulders.

"If I had burned a tenement full of people—"

"A man was nearly killed. He was on the ridge pole of the church, and they turned the full strength of the water on him. I saw it. I—almost fainted."

"You saw it."

"I was there." said Elinor quietly.

Huff rose angrily.

"You were there! And who was it who almost fell off the roof? Your parson, I suppose."

Talbot silenced the boy. it was Lethbridge who took up the argument. He understood her position and sympathized, he said. The fire was a mistake. But now that it was done— He spoke of Boroday's critical condition, of their safety that depended on his, and finding her attitude to his unyielding, took refuge in her father's memory.

"If anything comes out, it will all come out," he reminded her. "It seems to me, Elinor, that you owe it to your father not to interfere. This isn't a new plan. Four or five years ago when the parish house was first built we talked it over here. And it isn't as though we mean to hurt this fellow Ward. It will be three to one; he'll  make no resistance."

"Yes." she said. "Three to one. "That is the way we fight. Oh, I'm one of you, I know that—but it sickens me, sometimes."

The men were astounded, frankly uncomfortable.

The conference got nowhere. Elinor acknowledged their duty to the Russian, offered all her jewels, in fact, for his defence. But she stubbornly refused to countenance the attack on  Mr. Ward. Huff lapsed into sullen silence, his eyes on her. The other men found every argument met by silence, except for one passionate outburst.

"He is my friend," she cried. "I have never had any friends, except once, years ago, a girl. It was Boroday then who used my friendship for her. It was the Rutherford matter. Walter would not remember, but the rest of you—I tell you, I won't do this thing."

Talbot tried a new method. "It's a wealthy congregation," he explained. "It is not much for them, and it's safety for us. If we let Boroday go up, and he thinks what he will about us, he can make it hot for all of us."

Elinor turned on him.

"I don't cars a rap for the congregation. Do you think he will let that money go without a struggle? The moment it goes into the offertory it ceases to be money and becomes a divine trust to him. He'll fight and—someone will be killed."

It dawned even on Talbot after a time that her attitude was for none of them. When he realized it, at last, he sat back with folded arms and frowning brows. Here was mockery, for sure; old Hilary's daughter, reared on pure violence, and in love with a parson—old Hilary's daughter and successor, defying the band in its hour of need, and quoting a divine trust, in extenuation.

In view of her attitude, there seemed to be nothing to do.

"We'll give it up, of course," said Lethbridge after a pause.

There had never been any drinking in Old Hilary's house. Only abstainers were ever taken into the band. But it was the custom of the two older men to remain at the table over their cigars, giving Walter and Elinor a half hour together. That night, when Elinor rose from the table. Huff, although he rose with the others, made no move to follow her. She looked back from the doorway, a slim, almost childish figure, with beseeching eyes.

"You must all try to think kindly of me," she said wistfully. "I care for you as much as I ever did. You are all I have, you three. It in only that I—have been thinking."

For the first time since the organization of the band, there was quarreling that night in old Hilary's paneled library. At the end of an hour Walter Huff flung out of the door, white with fury. He stumbled through the garden toward the garage, muttering as he went. In the rose alley be found Elinor.

"I was waiting for you," she said simply.

Huff stood before her, and the anger left his face.

“You're the one thing in all the world I felt sure of.” His voice was heavy with despair.

"I've been thinking about Boroday—"

“Elinor, how far have things gone between you and this man at St. Jude's?"

She recoiled.

"I hardly know him."

“You think about him.”

She looked down into the valley.

"I think of the things he stands for. It just seems to me that, when a man like that, not a dreamer at all, but human and—and keen, when he believes all that he does—"

"It was Ward on the ridge-pole, the one who nearly fell?"

"Yes."

"And you were frightened?"

"It made me sick. I—"

Quite suddenly he crushed her to him. it was as if he meant to drive away this barrier between them by sheer force of his love for her. But, although she held up her face for his kiss, he released her as suddenly, without it.

"You're crazy about him," he said thickly. "I'm not blind. I'll get him for this!"

Saturday evening it was the custom of the Bryants to entertain the rector at dinner.

Now, in his absence, it was the assistant rector who dined in the paneled Jacobean dining room of the Bryant house, swallowing much unctuous dictation as to church policy with his dinner.

Not that Ward was mild. But he had an easy way of listening to the advice of his various influential parishioners and then going ahead and doing as he liked. In nonessentials he always yielded. To him the church was so much bigger than its ritual.

That evening Mrs. Bryant had taken up the question of women in the choir.

"Frankly. Mr. Ward," she said, ignoring her fish, "I do not approve of it. It's the feminist movement, I tell you Before long they'll want to be  on the vestry."

Ward glanced up, half smiling. The pear-shaped pearl, which usually hung at his hostess's withered throat, was naturally, not there. From the pearl to the parish house, from the parish house to Elinor—thus in two leaps of Ward's mind he was far from the subject in hand.

"As president of the Chancel society," said Mrs. Bryant, "as honorary president of the Woman's guild, I protest against women in the choir."

Back to the choir with a jump came Ward's errant mind.