Dorrien of Cranston

“At First Sight!”

The Church of Saint Peter and the Holy Cross at Wandsborough is full from end to end for the great service of the forenoon. It is Whitsun Day and the High Celebration is about to commence.

A noble building is this old parish church, with its splendid chancel and columned aisles and long spacious nave. Windows, rich in stained glass, throw a network of colour upon the subdued and chastened light within, and a great number of saints and martyrs, in glowing pane and canopied niche, would seem to afford representation of the whole court, and company of Heaven, whichever way the eye may turn; and here and there, glimpsed through a foreground of graceful arches, the red gleam of a lamp suspended in some side chapel imparts an idea of mystery and awe to the half-darkened recess where it burns.

To-day, the chancel is magnificently decorated. The high altar, ornamented with a profusion of choice flowers and ablaze with many lights, stands out a prominent and striking object, and visible to nearly everybody in the building. Large banners, wrought in exquisite needlework, setting forth the image of saint, or mystery, or some historical event in the annals of Christianity, are ranged around the walls. A perfume of incense is in the air, and, as the great bell ceases tolling, a low sweet melody, gurgling forth from yon illuminated organ pipes, seems specially designed to attune the minds of the awaiting multitude to the solemnity which is about to begin.

The seat nearest the light gilded railing which divides the choir from the nave is occupied by three graceful and tastefully attired girls. Two of them are apparently in devout frame of mind enough, but the third suffers her gaze to wander in a way which, all things considered, is not as it should be. Not to put too fine a point upon it, she is evidently given to looking about her. But the sternest of ecclesiastical martinets would find it difficult to be hard on the owner of that face. It is a face to be seen and remembered. A perfect oval, its warm paleness is lit up by the loveliest of hazel eyes, long-lashed, expressive, lustrous. Delicate features, and the faintest suspicion of a smile ever lurking about the corners of the sweetest little mouth in the world, complete the picture – a picture of dark piquante beauty which is more than winning. So think, for the hundredth time, more than one in its owner’s immediate vicinity. So thinks for the first time one in particular, who, from the moment he entered, has done little else but furtively watch that faultless profile, as well as he is able and under difficulties, for he is nearly in line with the same. Who can she be? he is wondering. Is it the Rectory pew, and can it be that the owner of that rare face is one of the rector’s daughters? It may as well be stated that the stranger’s surmise is correct.

And now the congregation rises in a body as a long double file of surpliced choristers emerges from a side chapel. Then follow the three officiating clergy in their rich red vestments, attended by acolytes and taper-bearers in scarlet and lawn; and advancing to the steps of the high altar, all kneel. The great organ thunders forth like the surging of many waters, as the first verse of Veni Creator is solemnly chanted. Then, rising, choristers and priests advance in procession down the chancel. A thurifer goes first, flinging his censer high in the air, and the lights, borne one on each side of the great silver crucifix, gleam redly through a misty cloud. Bright banners move aloft at intervals above the shining pageant, which is closed by the richly vested celebrant and his attendants. Quickly the crowded congregation takes up the grand old plainsong hymn, joining in heartily as the stately procession wends its way slowly down the nave – a glow of light and colour – and, making a complete circuit of the spacious building, re-enters the chancel. The choristers file into their stalls; the celebrant and his assistants ascend to the altar and incense it in every part, as amid a great volume of choral harmony the service begins.

He to whom we have made brief reference watches the ceremonial with some interest. That he is a stranger is evident, and this, coupled with his striking appearance, is, we grieve to say, a fact which occupies the attention of many a fair devotee there present far more than it should, remembering the time and place. That it engrosses a sufficient share of that of the young lady in the front seat we grieve still more to be obliged to chronicle, remembering that she is an occupant of the Rectory pew. But the stranger does not reciprocate the general attention of which he is the object, for he has an eye for but one face amid that assembly of faces. Stay, though; another there attracts his interest to a tolerably vivid degree, and it is that of no less a personage than the celebrating priest himself; a strikingly handsome man of lofty stature, and whose forking grey beard descends, like that of Aaron, even to the skirts of his embroidered clothing – or nearly so. And in the countenance of this imposing ecclesiastic he detects a strong family likeness to the lovely brunette who first attracted his eye.

The service, magnificent in its artistic adjuncts, and impressive in its well-ordered ceremonial, proceeds. The stately altar, aglow with lights and gorgeous draperies; the solemn chant of the celebrant and jubilant response from choir and organ; the ever-changing postures and picturesque groupings; clouds of incense and the silvery ringing of bells at the culmination of the solemnity – all go to make up an imposing whole. But it is over at last. Choristers, acolytes and priests retire amid a stirring voluntary from the great organ, and the sunlight, intercepted and subdued by lancets of stained glass, falls in a hundred changing gleams upon the now empty chancel.

The occupants of the Rectory pew linger in their seats, and while the other two are busy gathering up their books and sunshades preparatory to a move, the girl whom we have noticed, turning half round, scans the departing congregation. As she does so she meets the stranger’s glance and there is a meaning in it which renders her slightly confused – perhaps a little angry.

“Now, Olive dear, we’d better go,” whispers a remonstrant voice. With a start and a half blush the girl recollects herself, and the three haste to follow in the wake of the now thinning crowd, which is streaming out through the west door.

“Ah-h! what a relief to be outside again!” exclaimed she who had been addressed as “Olive,” as the three girls wended their way beneath the tall feathery elms which shaded the churchyard walk. “I declare I thought it was never going to end.”

“Hush, dear I don’t talk like that,” answered the eldest of the three, with a slightly scared look around. “If anyone were to hear you, what would be said?”

“That a man’s foes are they of his own household,” came the reply with a merry, ringing laugh. “That if our dad must give us such a long and elaborate function on so heavenly a morning as this, he might at least let us off a twenty minutes sermon.”

Even more startled looked the remonstrant, as at the moment some acquaintances passed within earshot. What if they should have heard?

“It’s no use shaking your solemn old head at me, Margaret,” went on the first speaker. “I meant what I said, and I don’t care who knows it. Now we shan’t have time for a walk.”

Margaret Ingelow made no reply. She was a fair, good-looking girl of twenty-five, with a thoughtful, refined face. Her bright young sister’s levity often jarred upon her uncomfortably when exercised upon sacred or ecclesiastical subjects, for which she herself entertained the profoundest reverence. Left motherless at an early age, upon her had devolved the care of the younger children, and this, combined with her position as head of the household, had endowed the rector’s eldest daughter with a gravity of thought and manner beyond her years.

“Olive, look! Who is that, I wonder!” exclaimed Sophie, aged seventeen.

“That” was a masculine figure a little in front on the opposite side of the street, for they had left the churchyard now. Olive, following her sister’s glance, recognised the stranger who had attracted her notice in church.

“Perhaps someone down here for the Whitsun holidays,” struck in Margaret’s quiet voice. But for some occult reason the remark was received by Olive with a little frown.

“In other words, something between a cheap trippist and a bank clerk,” she said. “No – not exactly.”

“Keep your temper, Olive dear,” laughed Sophie maliciously. “We didn’t know the subject was a tender one or we’d have – ”

“Why, what a pace you girls walk at!” cried a cheery voice behind them. “I thought I should have to return home in my own sweet society.”

“Oh, father, there you are at last,” cried Margaret, stopping as the rector joined them. “We quite thought it would be of no use waiting.”

“That tiresome Mr Barnes always keeps you prosing in the vestry for half an hour,” struck in Sophie. “What an old bore he is! I can’t see the use of churchwardens at all.”

“Our friends at the Radical club do, dear,” rejoined her father with a twinkle in his eyes. “How on earth would they emphasise their arguments without a goodly number of ‘churchwardens’ to smash?”

“Now, father, you know I don’t mean that kind of churchwarden, so don’t try and be sarcastic,” cried Sophie. And the rector burst into a hearty laugh.

It is a pleasant sight that quartette wending homewards along the sunny street already given over to the stillness of a provincial town at the Sunday dinner hour. The girls in their light, tasteful summer dresses looking as fresh and cool as roses on which the dew yet lingers, grouped around the tall upright form of their father, who, with one hand thrust in easy attitude through the sash of his long flowing cassock, walked among them looking supremely happy and contented, now and again bestowing a nod and a pleasant smile in response to the greeting of some passer-by.

“Father,” said Olive, thrusting her hand through the rector’s arm and nestling up to his side with the most bewitchingly affectionate gesture. “Do you know you’re a dear, sweet old dad, and I’m very proud of you?”

“And wherefore this sudden honour, darling?” enquired he, gazing down into her upturned face with a fond smile. He was afraid to own to himself how he loved this beautiful, wayward second daughter, who tyrannised over him in all things domestic, to an incredible extent. For the fact must be recorded that this one was the spoilt child of the house.

“You sang the service beautifully to-day – and it was worth something to hear you,” she replied. “And yet you want to make us believe you are losing your voice – like Mr Medlicott, who can’t even monotone on G without getting flat.”

“My dear little critic, perhaps it is that Medlicott has more to worry him than I. Though to be sure he is spared such a dreadful little plague as this,” rejoined the rector with his sunny laugh, pressing the arm, passed through his, to his side.

“Oh, indeed! Well then, for that let me tell you you gave us too long a sermon,” she retorted.

“Did I? It was only eighteen minutes.”

“Far too long. Look now. We are done out of our walk all through that. And just look what a heavenly day it is.”

“Poor little things!”

Margaret, turning her head, encountered her father’s ruefully comic, mock-penitent glance, and was hardly reassured. She regarded his sacred office as so great – so tremendous – a thing, that to hear him taken to task by this giddy child in his discharge of it always grated upon her. And all accustomed to this kind of talk as she was, yet she felt uncomfortable under it. For she was pre-eminently one of those who took life seriously. But the rector and his favourite daughter thoroughly understood each other.

“Goodness!” cried Sophie, as a neat brougham drawn by a pair of fine greys swept past them. “Why if that isn’t the Dorriens’ carriage.”

“Surely they weren’t in church!” said Margaret wonderingly.

“Hardly, I think,” said the rector, with a lurking smile and a flash of quiet merriment in his dark eyes. “Poor Mrs Dorrien looks upon the parish church as a very well of iniquity – and myself, the Pope, and a certain personage who shall be nameless, as an excellently matched trio.”

“Old pig!” muttered Olive to herself.

“Why then, it must have been Hubert Dorrien after all,” said Sophie. “I thought it was, but he was too far back to be sure. Every time I looked round I caught that detestable eyeglass glaring at me.”

“‘Every time’ – ahem! And pray how many times was that?” said her father, drily.

“Oh, there now, I’ve done it,” cried Sophie with a laugh and a blush. “But it was only once or twice as the procession was coming round, and that was all behind us, so we couldn’t see anything of it unless we did look back. Will that satisfy you, dad, dear?”

“Well explained!” said the rector with a hearty laugh. “We must let her down easily on a great occasion, mustn’t we, Margaret?”

“But all the same that Hubert Dorrien angers me – he looks so conceited and supercilious always,” went on Sophie. “He’s a horrid boy?”

“‘Boy!’ Why hear her! Why he’s five years older than you, Sophie,” laughed her father.

“Well then he doesn’t look it,” retorted she. “And he’s always tied to his mother’s apron-string.”

“I wonder what Roland, the eldest one, is like,” said Margaret; “the one in America. I wonder he doesn’t come home.”

“Perhaps he doesn’t get on well at home,” suggested Olive. “But I wish he would come. He’s sure to be nice, if only as a change from his utterly horrid family. And nice people – or at any rate nice men – are conspicuous here by their absence.”

The rector frowned ever so slightly – for his favourite daughter added to her other peccadilloes a decided penchant for flirtation. But like a wise man he said nothing, and by this time they had reached the gates of their pretty and cheerful-looking home.