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Notwithstanding

<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2> <blockquote>"Even the longest lane has a turning, though the path trodden by some people is so long and so straight that it seems less like a lane than 'a permanent way.'"—Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler. </blockquote> Time moves imperceptibly at Riff, as imperceptibly as the Rieben among its reeds. To Janey it seemed as if life stood stock-still. Nevertheless, the slow wheel of the year was turning. The hay was long since in, standing in high ricks in the farmyards, or built up into stacks in lonely fields with a hurdle round them to keep off the cattle. The wheat and the clover had been reaped and carried. The fields were bare, waiting for the plough. It was the time of the Harvest Thanksgiving. Janey had been at work ever since breakfast helping to decorate the church, together with Harry and Miss Black, and her deaf friend Miss Conder, the secretary of the Plain Needlework Guild. Miss Conder's secretarial duties apparently left her wide margins of leisure which were always at the disposal of Miss Black. Except for the somewhat uninspiring presence of Miss Black and Miss Conder and her ear[Pg 272] trumpet, it had all been exactly as it had been ever since Janey could remember. As she stood by the Ringers' Arch it seemed to her as if she had seen it all a hundred times before: the children coming crowding round her, flaxen and ruddy, with their hot little posies tied with grass,—the boys made as pretty posies as the girls,—and Hesketh, "crome from the cradle," limping up the aisle with his little thatched stack under his arm; and Sayler with his loaf; and the farmers' wives bringing in their heavy baskets of apples and vegetables. Sometimes there is great joy in coming home after long absence and finding all exactly as we left it and as we have pictured it in memory. We resent the displacement of a chair, or the lopping of one of the cedar's boughs, and we note the new tool-shed with an alien eye. But it is not always joyful, nay, it can have an element of despair in it, to stay at home, and never go away, and see the wheel of life slowly turn and turn, and re-turn, and yet again re-turn, always the same, yet taking every year part of our youth from us. The years must come which will strip from us what we have. Yes, we know that. But life should surely give us something first, before it begins to take away. Janey was only five-and-twenty, and it seemed to her that already the plundering years had come. What little she had was being wrested from her. And an immense distaste and fatigue of life invaded her as she made her[Pg 273] lily and maiden-hair cross for the font. How often she had made it, as she was making it now! Should she go on for ever, till she was sixty, making crosses for the font at Harvest Homes, and putting holly in the windows at Christmas, and "doing the reading-desk" with primroses at Easter? Harry working beside her, concocting little sheaves out of the great bundle of barley which Roger had sent in the night before, was blissfully happy. He held up each sheaf in turn, and she nodded surprise and approbation. It seemed to her that after all Harry had the best of the bargain, the hard bargain which life drives with some of us. It was all as it had always been. Soon after eleven, Miss Amy Blinkett, a little fluttered and self-conscious, appeared as usual, followed up the aisle by a wheelbarrow, in which reposed an enormous vegetable marrow with "Trust in the Lord" blazoned on it in red flannel letters. These "marrer texes," as the villagers called them, were in great request, not only in Riff, but in the adjoining parishes; and it was not an uncommon thing for "Miss Amy's marrer" to be bespoken, after it had served at Riff, for succeeding Harvest Homes in the neighbourhood. It had been evolved out of her inner consciousness in her romantic youth, and in the course of thirty years it had grown from a dazzling novelty to an important asset, and was now an institution. Even the lamentable[Pg 274] Mr. Jones, who had "set himself against" so many Riff customs, had never set himself against "Miss Amy's marrer." And an admiring crowd always gathered round it after service to view it reclining on a bed of moss beneath the pulpit. By common consent, Miss Amy had always been presented with the largest vegetable marrow that Riff could produce. But this year none adequate for the purpose could be found, and considerable anxiety had been felt on the subject. Mrs. Nicholls, who sent in the finest, had to own that even hers was only about fourteen inches long. "No bigger nor your foot," as she expressed it to Janey. Fortunately, at the last moment Roger obtained one from Sweet Apple Tree, about the size of a baby, larger than any which had been produced in Riff for many years past. That Sweet Apple Tree could have had one of such majestic proportions when the Riff marrows had failed, was not a source of unmixed congratulation to Riff. It was feared that the Sweet Applers "might get cocked up." The suspense had in the meanwhile given Miss Amy a sharp attack of neuralgia, and the fact that the marrow really came up to time in the wheelbarrow was the result of dauntless and heroic efforts on her part. This splendid contribution was wheeled up the aisle, having paused near the font to receive Janey's tribute of admiration, and then a few[Pg 275] minutes later, to her amazement, she saw it being wheeled down again, Miss Amy walking very erect in dignified distress beside it. With cold asperity, and without according it a second glance, Miss Black had relegated it—actually relegated "Miss Amy's marrer"—to the Ringers' Arch. The other helpers stopped in their work and gazed at Miss Black, who, unconscious of the doubts of her sanity which had arisen in their minds, continued rearing white flowers against the east window, regardless of the fact that nothing but their black silhouettes were visible to the congregation. At this moment Mr. Black came into the church, so urbane, and so determined to show that he was the kind of man who appreciated the spirit in which the humblest offerings were made, that it was some time before Janey could make him aware of the indignity to which Miss Amy's unique work of art had been subjected. "But its grotesqueness will not be so obvious at the Ringers' Arch," he said. "It's impossible, of course, but it has been a labour of love, I can see that, and I should be the last man in the world to laugh at it." He had to work through so many sentiments which did him credit that Janey despaired of making him understand, of ever getting him to listen to her. "Miss Blinkett's marrow is always under the pulpit," she repeated anxiously. "No, the Ringers' Arch is not considered such an [Pg 276]important place as the pulpit. The people simply love it, and will be disappointed if they don't see it there as usual. And Miss Blinkett will be deeply hurt. She is hurt now, though she does not show it." At last her words took effect, and Mr. Black was guided into becoming the last man to wound the feelings of one of his parishioners. Greatly to Janey's relief, the marrow was presently seen once more to ascend the aisle, was assisted out of its wheelbarrow by Mr. Black himself and installed on a bed of moss at the pulpit foot; Miss Black standing coldly aloof during the transaction, while Miss Conder, short-sighted and heavy-footed, walked backwards into an arrangement of tomatoes and dahlias in course of construction round the reading-desk. Mr. Black and his sister had had an amicable discussion the evening before as to the decoration of the church, and especially of the pulpit, for this their first Harvest Thanksgiving at Riff. They had both agreed, with a cordiality which had too often been lacking in their conversations of late, that they would make an effort to raise the decoration to a higher artistic level than in the other churches in the neighbourhood, some of which had already celebrated their Harvest Thanksgivings. Miss Black had held up to scorn the naïve attempts of Heyke and Drum, at which her brother had preached the sermon, and he had smiled indulgently and had agreed with her. [Pg 277] But Riff was his first country post, and he had not been aware until he stepped into it, of the network of custom which surrounded Harvest decoration, typified by Miss Blinkett's vegetable marrow. With admirable good sense, he adjusted himself to the occasion, and shutting his ears to the hissing whispers of his sister, who for the hundredth time begged him not to be weak, gave himself up to helping his parishioners in their own way. This way, he soon found, closely resembled the way of Heyke and Drum, and presently he was assisting Mrs. Nicholls to do "Thy Will be Done" in her own potatoes, backed by white paper roses round the base of the majestic monument of the Welyshams of Swale, with its two ebony elephants at which Harry always looked with awe and admiration. As he and Janey were tying their bunches of barley to its high iron railings, a telegram was brought to her. Telegrams were not so common twenty years ago as they are now, and Janey's heart beat. Her mind flew to Roger. Had he had some accident? She knew he had gone to Noyes about the bridge. She opened it and read it, and then looked fixedly at Harry, stretching his hand through the railing to stroke the elephants and whisper gently to them. She almost hated him at that moment. She folded up the telegram and sought out Mr. Black, who, hot and tired, and with an earwig[Pg 278] exploring down his neck, was now making a cardboard dais for Sayer's loaf of bread. "My brother Dick is dead," she said. "I must go home at once. Harry can stay and finish the railings. He knows exactly how to do them, and he has been looking forward to helping for days." Harry looked towards her for approval, and her heart smote her. It was not his fault if his shadowy existence was the occasion of a great injustice. She went up to him and patted his cheek, and said, "Capital, capital! What should we do without you, Harry?" "I'm taking my place, aren't I?" he said, delighted. "That's what Nurse is always saying. I must assert myself and take my place." <hr /> [Pg 279] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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