第 三 章 · THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

. THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

On Sunday it was Lewisham's duty to accompany the boarders twice to

church. The boys sat in the gallery above the choirs facing the organ

loft and at right angles to the general congregation. It was a

prominent position, and made him feel painfully conspicuous, except in

moods of exceptional vanity, when he used to imagine that all these

people were thinking how his forehead and his certificates

accorded. He thought a lot in those days of his certificates and

forehead, but little of his honest, healthy face beneath it. (To tell

the truth there was nothing very wonderful about his forehead.) He

rarely looked down the church, as he fancied to do so would be to meet

the collective eye of the congregation regarding him. So that in the

morning he was not able to see that the Frobishers' pew was empty

until the litany.

But in the evening, on the way to church, the Frobishers and their

guest crossed the market-square as his string of boys marched along

the west side. And the guest was arrayed in a gay new dress, as if it

was already Easter, and her face set in its dark hair came with a

strange effect of mingled freshness and familiarity. She looked at him

calmly! He felt very awkward, and was for cutting his new

acquaintance. Then hesitated, and raised his hat with a jerk as if to

Mrs. Frobisher. Neither lady acknowledged his salute, which may

possibly have been a little unexpected. Then young Siddons dropped his

hymn-book; stooped to pick it up, and Lewisham almost fell over

him.... He entered church in a mood of black despair.

But consolation of a sort came soon enough. As _she_ took her seat she

distinctly glanced up at the gallery, and afterwards as he knelt to

pray he peeped between his fingers and saw her looking up again. She

was certainly not laughing at him.

In those days much of Lewisham's mind was still an unknown land to

him. He believed among other things that he was always the same

consistent intelligent human being, whereas under certain stimuli he

became no longer reasonable and disciplined but a purely imaginative

and emotional person. Music, for instance, carried him away, and

particularly the effect of many voices in unison whirled him off from

almost any state of mind to a fine massive emotionality. And the

evening service at Whortley church--at the evening service surplices

were worn--the chanting and singing, the vague brilliance of the

numerous candle flames, the multitudinous unanimity of the

congregation down there, kneeling, rising, thunderously responding,

invariably inebriated him. Inspired him, if you will, and turned the

prose of his life into poetry. And Chance, coming to the aid of Dame

Nature, dropped just the apt suggestion into his now highly responsive

ear.

The second hymn was a simple and popular one, dealing with the theme

of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and having each verse ending with the

word "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 across

the chancel and met her eyes for a brief instant....

He stopped singing abruptly. Then the consciousness of the serried

ranks of faces below there came with almost overwhelming force upon

him, and he dared not look at her again. He felt the blood rushing to

his face.

Love! The greatest of these. The greatest of all things. Better than

fame. Better than knowledge. So came the great discovery like a flood

across his mind, pouring over it with the cadence of the hymn and

sending a tide of pink in sympathy across his forehead. The rest of

the service was phantasmagorial background to that great reality--a

phantasmagorial background a little inclined to stare. He,

Mr. Lewisham, was in Love.

"A ... men." He was so preoccupied that he found the whole

congregation subsiding into their seats, and himself still standing,

rapt. He sat down spasmodically, with an impact that seemed to him to

re-echo through the church.

As they came out of the porch into the thickening night, he seemed to

see her everywhere. He fancied she had gone on in front, and he

hurried up the boys in the hope of overtaking her. They pushed through

the throng of dim people going homeward. Should he raise his hat to

her again?... But it was Susie Hopbrow in a light-coloured dress--a

raven in dove's plumage. He felt a curious mixture of relief and

disappointment. He would see her no more that night.

He hurried from the school to his lodging. He wanted very urgently to

be alone. He went upstairs to his little room and sat before the

upturned box on which his Butler's Analogy was spread open. He did not

go to the formality of lighting the candle. He leant back and gazed

blissfully at the solitary planet that hung over the vicarage garden.

He took out of his pocket a crumpled sheet of paper, smoothed and

carefully refolded, covered with a writing not unlike that of

Frobisher ii., and after some maidenly hesitation pressed this

treasure to his lips. The Schema and the time-table hung in the

darkness 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 the

stars until he came over the hill behind the town again, and clambered

up the back to the stile in sight of the Frobishers' house. He

selected the only lit window as hers. Behind the blind, Mrs.

Frobisher, thirty-eight, was busy with her curl-papers--she used

papers because they were better for the hair--and discussing certain

neighbours in a fragmentary way with Mr. Frobisher, who was in

bed. Presently she moved the candle to examine a faint discolouration

of her complexion that rendered her uneasy.

Outside, Mr. Lewisham (eighteen) stood watching the orange oblong for

the best part of half an hour, until it vanished and left the house

black and blank. Then he sighed deeply and returned home in a very

glorious mood indeed.

He awoke the next morning feeling extremely serious, but not clearly

remembering the overnight occurrences. His eye fell on his clock. The

time was six and he had not heard the alarum; as a matter of fact the

alarum had not been wound up. He jumped out of bed at once and

alighted upon his best trousers amorphously dropped on the floor

instead of methodically cast over a chair. As he soaped his head he

tried, according to his rules of revision, to remember the overnight

reading. He could not for the life of him. The truth came to him as he

was getting into his shirt. His head, struggling in its recesses,

became motionless, the handless cuffs ceased to dangle for a

minute....

Then his head came through slowly with a surprised expression upon his

face. He remembered. He remembered the thing as a bald discovery, and

without a touch of emotion. With all the achromatic clearness, the

unromantic colourlessness of the early morning....

Yes. He had it now quite distinctly. There had been no overnight

reading. He was in Love.

The proposition jarred with some vague thing in his mind. He stood

staring for a space, and then began looking about absent-mindedly for

his collar-stud. He paused in front of his Schema, regarding it.