Once, during a walk, she said to Aunt Elizabeth:
"I am trying, Aunt Elizabeth.Do you think Aunt Anne sees any improvement?"And all Aunt Elizabeth said was:
"It was a great shock to her, what you did.Maggie--a great shock indeed!"When the last day of the year arrived Maggie was surprised at the strange excitement that she felt.It was excitement, not only because of the dim mysterious events that the evening promised, but also because she was sure that this day would settle the loneliness of herself and Martin.After this they would know where they stood and what they must do.Old Warlock loomed in front of her as the very arbiter of her destiny.On his action everything turned.Oh! if only after this he were well enough for Martin to be happy and at ease about him! She was tempted to hate him as she thought of all the trouble that he had made for her.Then her mind went back to that first day long ago when he had spoken to her so kindly and bidden her come and see him as often as she could.How little she had known then what the future held for her! And now around his tall mysterious figure not only her own fate but that of every one else seemed to hang.Her aunts, Amy, Miss Pyncheon, Miss Avies, Thurston, that strange girl at the meeting, with them all his destiny was involved and they with his.
As the day advanced and the silver fog blew in little gusts about the house, making now this corner now that obscure, drifting, so that suddenly, when the door opened, the whole passage seemed full of smoke, clearing, for a moment, in the street below, showing lamp-posts and pavements and windows, and then blowing down again and once more hiding the world, she felt, in spite of herself, that she was playing a part in some malignant dream."It can't be like this really," she told herself."If I were to go to tea now with Mrs.
Mark and sit in her pretty drawing-room and talk to that clergyman Iwouldn't believe a word of it." And yet it was true enough, her share in it.As the afternoon advanced her sensations were very similar to those that she had had when about to visit the St.
Dreot's dentist, a fearsome man with red hair and hands like a dog's paws.She saw him now standing over her as she sat trembling in the chair, a miserable little figure in a short untidy frock.She used to repeat to herself then what Uncle Mathew had once told her: "This time next year you'll have forgotten all about this," but when it was a question of facing the immensities of the Last Day that consolation was strangely inapt.It was dusk very early and she longed for Martha to bring the lamp.
At last it came and tea and Aunt Elizabeth.Aunt Anne had not appeared all day.Then long dreary hours followed until supper, and after that hours again until ten o'clock.
She had not been certain, all this time, whether the aunts meant to take her to the service with them.She had supposed that her introduction to the meeting at Miss Avies's meant that they intended to include her in this too, but now, as the evening advanced, in a fit of nervous terror she prayed within herself that they would not take her.If the end of the world were coming she would like to meet it in her bed.To go out into those streets and that ugly unfriendly Chapel was a horrible thing to do.If this were to be the end of the world how she did wish that she might have been allowed to know nothing about it.And those others--Miss Pyncheon and the rest who devoutly believed in the event--how were they passing these last hours?
"Oh, it isn't true! It can't be true!" she said to herself."It's a shame to frighten them so!"By eleven o'clock the excitement of the day had wearied her so that she fell fast asleep in the arm-chair beside the fire.She woke to find Aunt Anne standing over her.
"It's a quarter past eleven.It's time to put on your things," she said.So she was to go! She rose and, in spite of herself, her limbs were trembling and her teeth chattered.To her surprise Aunt Anne bent forward and kissed her on the forehead.
"Maggie," she said, "if I've been harsh to you during these weeks I'm sorry.I've done what I thought my duty, but I wouldn't wish on this night that we should have any unkindness in our hearts towards one another.""Oh, that's all right," Maggie said awkwardly.
She went up to put on her things; then the three of them went out into the dark foggy street together.
Because it was New Year's Eve there were many people about, voices laughing and shouting through the mist and then some one running with a flaring light, then some men walking singing in chorus.The aunts said nothing as they went.Maggie's thoughts were given now to wondering whether Martin would be there.She tied her mind to that, but behind it was the irritating knowledge that her teeth were chattering and her knees trembling and that she did not maintain her courage as a Cardinal should.
As they entered the Chapel the hoarse ugly clock over the door grunted out half-past eleven.The Chapel seemed on Maggie's entering it to be half in darkness, there was a thin splutter of gas over the reading-desk at the far end and some more light by the door, but the centre of the building was a shadowy pool.Only a few were present, gathered together in the middle seats below the desk, perhaps in all a hundred persons.Of these three-quarters were women.The aunts and Maggie went into their accustomed seat some six rows from the front.
When Maggie rose from her knees and looked about her she recognised at once that only the Inside Saints were here.
Amongst the men she recognised Mr.Smith, Caroline's father, two old men, brothers, who had followed Mr.Warlock from their youth, and a young pale man who had once been to tea with her aunts.Martin she saw at once was not there.
For some time, perhaps for ten minutes, they all sat in silence, and only the gruff comment of the clock sounded in the building.Then the lights went up with a flare and Thurston, followed by Mr.