At a quarter to nine a shrill, jangling bell rang out and Maggie hurried down the dark staircase.She did not know where the dining-room was, but by good chance she caught sight of Aunt Elizabeth's little body moving hurriedly down the passage and hastened after her.She arrived only just in time.There, standing in a row before four chairs, their faces red and shining, their hands folded in front of them, were the domestics; there, with a little high desk in front of her, on the other side of the long dining-room table was Aunt Anne; here, near the door, were two chairs obviously intended for Aunt Elizabeth and Maggie.
Maggie in her haste pushed the door, and it banged loudly behind her; in the silent room the noise echoed through the house.It was followed by a piercing scream from Edward, whom, Maggie concluded, it had awakened.All this confused her very much and gave her anything but a religious state of mind.
What followed resembled very much the ceremonies with which her father had been accustomed to begin the day, except that her father, with one eye on the bacon, had gabbled at frantic pace through the prayers and Aunt Anne read them very slowly and with great beauty.
She read from the Gospel of St.John: "These things I command you, that ye love one another..."; but the clear, sweet tones of her voice gave no conviction of a love for mankind.
Maggie looking from that pale remote face to the roughened cheeks and plump body of the kitchen-maid felt that here there could be no possible bond.When they knelt down she was conscious, as she had been since she was a tiny child, of two things--the upturned heels of the servants' boots and the discomfort to her own knees.These two facts had always hindered her religious devotions, and they hindered them now.There had always been to her something irresistibly comic in those upturned heels, the dull flat surfaces of these cheap shoes.In the kitchen-maid's there were the signs of wear; Martha's were new and shining; the house-maid's were smart and probably creaked abominably.The bodies above them sniffed and rustled and sighed.The vacant, stupid faces of the shoes were Aunt Anne's only audience.Maggie wondered what the owners of those shoes felt about the house.Had they a sense of irritation too or did they perhaps think about nothing at all save their food, their pay and their young man or their night out? The pain to her knees pierced her thoughts; the prayers were very long?--Aunt Anne's beautiful voice was interminable.
Breakfast was quiet and silent.Edward, who received apparently a larger meal on Sundays than at ordinary times, chattered happily to himself, and Maggie heard him say complacently, "Poor Parrot?--Poor Parrot.How do you do? How do you do?""Service is at eleven o'clock, dear," said Aunt Anne."We leave the house at ten minutes to eleven."Maggie, not knowing what to do with the hour in front of her, went up to her bedroom, found the servant making the bed, came down into the drawing-room and sat in a dark corner under a large bead mat, that, nailed to the wall, gave little taps and rustlings as though it were trying to escape.
She felt that she should be doing something, but what? She sat there, straining her ear for sounds."One always seems to be expecting some one in this house," she thought.The weather that had been bright had now changed and little gusts of rain beat upon the windows.She thought with a sudden strange warmth of Uncle Mathew.
What was he doing? Where was he? How pleasant it would be were he suddenly to walk into that chilly, dark room.She would not show him that she was lonely, but she would give him such a welcome as he had never had from her before.Had he money enough? Was he feeling perhaps as desolate amongst strangers as she? The rain tickled the window-panes.Maggie, with a desolation at her heart that she was too proud to own, sat there and waited.
She looked back afterwards upon that moment as the last shivering pause before she made that amazing plunge that was to give her new life.
The sound of a little forlorn bell suddenly penetrated the rain.It was just such a bell as rang every Sunday from chapels across the Glebeshire moors, and Maggie knew, when Aunt Elizabeth opened the door and looked in upon her, that the summons was for her.
"Oh! my dear (a favourite exclamation of Aunt Elizabeth's) and you're not ready.The bell's begun.The rain's coming down very hard, I'm afraid.It's only a step from our door.Your things, dear, as quick as you can."The girl ran upstairs and, stayed by some sudden impulse, stood for a moment before the long mirror.It was as though she were imploring that familiar casual figure that she saw there not to leave her, the only friend she had in a world that was suddenly terrifying and alarming.Her old black dress that had seemed almost smart for the St.Dreot funeral now appeared most desperately shabby; she knew that her black hat was anything but attractive.
"What do I care for them all!" her heart said defiantly."What do they matter to me!"She marched out of the house behind the aunts with her head in the air, very conscious of a hole in one of her thin black gloves.
The street, deserted, danced in the rain; the little bell clanged with the stupid monotony of its one obstinate idea; the town wore its customary Sunday air of a stage when the performance is concluded, the audience vanished and the lights turned down.The aunts had a solemn air as though they were carrying Maggie as a sacrifice.All these things were depressing.
