Blanche: A Story for Girls

Across the street the same subject was being discussed.

“I feel quite tired,” laughed one of the pretty girls to the man beside her. “Do you know, for once in my life, I really listened to the sermon?”

“You don’t mean to say so,” he replied. But something in his tone made her glance up at him archly.

“Why do you seem so conscious?” she said. “Were you asleep?”

“No, I scarcely think so. I was very sleepy at the beginning, it was so hot. But there was something rather impressive in that fellow’s voice. To confess the truth, I caught myself listening, like you.”

“If one could always listen, it would make church-going less wearisome,” said the girl. “As a rule, I never attempt it; they always say the same thing.”

“And there was nothing particularly new in what that pale-faced young man had to say this morning, after all,” said her companion. “It was the mere accident of his having an unusually good voice.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” replied the young lady, indifferently, “though I’ve really forgotten what it was about – there are too many other things to think about when one is young and – ”

“Lovely,” interrupted her companion. “Yes – and for my part I don’t see what we’re in the world for, if it isn’t to make ourselves as happy as we can. That’s my religion.”

“A very pleasant one, if it has no other merit,” the girl replied, with a laugh.

At that moment a carriage passed them. It had but one occupant – an elderly lady. Her face, though worn and even prematurely aged, was sweet and calm. Her glance fell for an instant on the upturned laughing face of the girl.

“Something in her recalls my Margaret,” thought the lady; “but Margaret was more serious. How is it that they all seem to have been so near me to-day? All my dead children who have left me – I am so glad I went to church. I have not felt so near them all for years. I could almost fancy that young man knew something of my sorrows, his glance rested on me once or twice with such sympathy. How beautiful and how strengthening were his words! Yes – we are not really separated – I am content to wait while God has work for me to do here. And I am glad I am rich when I feel how many I can help. God bless that preacher, whoever he is, for the strength and comfort he has given me to-day.”

Mildred in her place sat quietly waiting till the congregation had dispersed. Then she rose and went forward to speak to the verger.

“Will you tell the clergyman,” she said, “Mr Lyle is his name – that I hope he will return with me to the rectory to luncheon. I will wait here till he comes out.”

The man went with her message. But in a moment or two he reappeared looking somewhat surprised.

“He has gone, ma’am,” he said. “I can’t make out how he went off so quickly. No one seems to have seen him.”

“He must have hurried off at once. No doubt I shall find him at home,” she said, feeling nevertheless a little disappointed. She had looked forward to the few minutes’ talk with the preacher who had so impressed her; she would have liked to thank him without delay.

“I shall feel too shy to say it to him before Reginald, I am afraid,” she thought. “I am a little surprised he did not tell me more of this Mr Lyle.”

And she set off eagerly to return home. At the church door she almost ran against one of the curates, an honest and hard-working, but dictatorial young man, with whom she did not feel much sympathy. He accompanied her a few steps down the street.

“And how did you like the sermon?” he said.

Mildred replied by repeating his own question, hoping thus to escape a discussion she felt sure would not be to her mind.

“How did you like it, Mr Grenfell?” she asked.

He smiled in a superior way, conscious to his fingertips of his unassailable theology.

“I daresay he may come to be something of a preacher in time,” he said. “But he was crude – very crude – and I should say he would do well to go through a good course of divinity. He evidently thinks he knows all about it; but if I could have a talk with him I could knock his arguments to shivers, I could – ”

“Mr Grenfell,” said Mildred, feeling very repelled by his manner, “do you think religion is only theology of the Schools? If you could not feel the love of God, and love to man – the ‘enthusiasm of humanity,’ if you like to call it so – breathing through Mr Lyle’s every word and look and tone, I am sorry for you.”

Mr Grenfell grew very red.

“I am sorry,” he began, “I did not mean – I will think over what you say. Perhaps it is true that we clergy get into that way of thinking – as if religion were a branch of learning more than anything else. Thank you,” and with a shake of the hand he turned away.

A step or two further on, Mildred overtook a young man – a cripple, and owing to his infirmity, in poor circumstances, though a gentleman by birth. She was passing with a kindly bow, when he stopped her.

“Might I ask the name of the clergyman who preached this morning?” he asked, raising his face, still glowing with pleasure, to hers.

“Mr Lyle,” she replied; “at least,” as for the first time a slight misgiving crossed her mind, “I feel almost sure that is his name.”

“Thank you,” the cripple said. “I am glad to know it, though it matters little. Whoever he was, I pray God to bless him, I little knew what I was going to church to hear this morning; I felt as if an angel had unawares come to speak to us.”

And in the relief of this warm sympathy Mildred held out her hand.

“Thank you, Mr Denis, for speaking so,” she said; “you are the first who seem to have felt as I did.”

Then she hurried on.

She found her husband on the sofa, but looking feverish and uneasy.

“How?” he began, but she interrupted him.

“Is Mr Lyle not here?” she said.

“Mr Lyle!” Reginald repeated. “What do you mean? You had scarcely gone when a special messenger brought this from him;” and he held out a short note of excessive regret and apology from the young priest, at finding the utter impossibility of reaching Saint X’s in time for the morning service. “I have been on thorns,” said the Rector, “and I could do nothing. There was no one to send. Did Grenfell preach, or was there no sermon?”

Mildred sat down, feeling strangely bewildered.

“I cannot explain it,” she said. “Reginald, tell me what is Mr Lyle’s personal appearance? Can he have come after all? even after despatching his message? Is he slight and fair – rather tall and almost boyish-looking, but with most sweet yet keen eyes, and a wonderful voice?”

The Rector could hardly help smiling.

“Lyle,” he replied, “is slight, but short, and dark – very dark, with a quick lively way of moving, and a rather thin, though clear voice. He has not a grain of music or poetry in his composition.”

Nothing could be more unlike the preacher of that morning.

Mildred told her husband all she could recollect of the sermon. Its vivid impression remained; but the words had grown hazy, and curiously enough she could not recall the text. But Reginald listened with full sympathy and belief.

“I wish I could have heard it,” he said. “Were the days for such blessed visitations not over, I should think.” But there he hesitated.

Mildred understood, and the words of the cripple, Mr Denis – “an angel unawares” – returned to her memory.

The events I have related were never explained, nor of the many who had been present that Sunday morning at Saint X’s did any ever again look upon the fair face of the mysterious stranger.

But – till the matter had passed from the minds of all but two or three – the Rector had to listen with patience to much fault-finding with the sermon, and with its preacher.

The End