CHAPTER V

BERYL HAS PERPLEXING THOUGHTS

THE next day was Sunday, and at breakfast Mr. Hollys told Beryl that he was going to church, and would take her with him if she could be ready in time.

"May Coral go too, papa?" asked Beryl eagerly.

"Yes, I suppose so, if the child likes to go," he said, shrugging his shoulders at the idea of his taking charge of two children; "but perhaps she would rather stay with her mother?"

And upon Lucy's being consulted, it was thought better that Coral should stay at home, so that Mrs. Despard might have her child's company, if she wished for it.

Miss Hollys had decided that she was "not equal" to church that morning, so Beryl set out alone with her father.

They walked through the village and up the steep road to the church. The day was bright, and though a boisterous breeze blew from the sea, neither Beryl nor Mr. Hollys thought it too rough. Despite the fineness of the weather, there was but a small congregation gathered in the church, for the clergyman very old man and a dull preacher, so that most of the fisher-folk preferred to worship in the Methodist chapel at the foot of the hill.

Beryl seldom paid much attention to the service when she was at church. She liked the singing well enough, though it was often trying to cultivated ears, but the rest of the service was wearisome to her. She had devised a number of little diversions for her entertainment whilst the lessons were being read, or the sermon, which Mr. Trevor did not attempt to deliver with expression, but read in a hurried, indistinct monotone, with the manuscript held close to his failing eyes. Sometimes Beryl would occupy herself in counting the tiny diamond panes in the large window opposite to her father's pew, or she would endeavour to count the congregation, with a view to ascertaining whether there were more men than women, or more women than men in the church. This question decided, she would perhaps have recourse to studying the mural tablets about her, and trying to gather from the descriptions they gave some idea of what the deceased were like when they walked this earth. Or she would take some long word, such as remembrance or commandment and try how many little words she could make out of the letters.

But to-day, as she sat by her father's side in the large square pew, Beryl used none of these devices for passing away the time. Her mind was full of thoughts of Coral and her mother, and of the sad burial in the churchyard which she had seen yesterday. Somehow these thoughts led her to pay more attention to the service than she generally did. She bent her head over her Prayer-book, and tried to follow the clergyman and to join with the congregation in the responses. When the Apostles' Creed was repeated, Beryl became aware of what she had not before observed,—the fact that the words with which the confession of faith ended were the same as those inscribed on her mother's tombstone. She looked up eagerly at her father as she made this discovery, and he caught the meaning of her glance, for his thoughts too had flown to that marble cross as he repeated the familiar words.

This incident sent Beryl wondering again about the resurrection. How she longed to know what it meant! Was it anything very hard and difficult, she wondered?

When the text of the sermon was announced, Mr. Hollys found the place, and handed Beryl his Bible, that she might read the words. Now Beryl often refused to read the text when Lucy wished her to do so, but she could not behave in that way to her father; so she took the book and slowly read the words, without in the least grasping their meaning, however. She kept the Bible on her lap, and began carelessly turning over the leaves. Suddenly her eye lighted on the word the meaning of which so perplexed her. What was said about it here? The leaves had opened at the eleventh chapter of St. John's Gospel, and the words which met her eager glance were the ever-memorable ones,—

"Jesus said unto her, 'I am the resurrection and the life.'"

Beryl was so surprised to meet with the word thus; so full of the sense that she had made a great discovery, though a mysterious one to her, that she felt obliged to draw her father's attention to the verse. Moving nearer to him, she touched his sleeve to attract his attention, and then pointed to the place in the Bible. Mr. Hollys bent towards the child, and read the words which had so surprised her. His face changed for a moment, then he nodded and smiled, as if to intimate that he understood what, in fact, he was very far from understanding, and turning away, looked steadfastly at the preacher, as though he were much interested in his discourse. But, in truth, he heard scarce a word of the brief sermon, for his mind was wholly occupied by a strange train of thought to which Beryl's action had given rise.

Beryl was very quiet as they walked home from church. On reaching home she hastily threw off her hat and jacket, and then went to the sick-room, where Coral was keeping her mother company. The invalid welcomed her with a smile. The milder weather had helped her to rally a little, though no permanent recovery was possible.

"So you have been to church, my dear," she said, looking at Beryl. "I wish you would tell me about it. It is long since I entered a church; though I can well remember how I use to go every Sunday with my mother when I was a girl. Did you have a nice sermon this morning? What was the text?"

"'Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life,"'" repeated Beryl.

"Why, Miss Beryl, it was nothing of the kind; how can you say such a thing!" exclaimed Lucy, who had just come in, having also attended church that morning. "The sermon was about being subject unto the higher powers."

"Oh, was it!" said Beryl. "Well, I thought that was the text; but I remember now that papa showed me another first, and I found that one for myself."

"'I am the resurrection and the life,'" repeated Mrs. Despard slowly. "What made you think of those words child?"

"They are like what is written on the cross at mamma's grave," said Beryl softly. "'I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.' I wish I could understand them. What is the resurrection?"

"I think it means that the dead will be raised; that they will live again at some future time," said Mrs. Despard; "but I do not rightly understand these things. I wish I did; for then, perhaps, I should not be so afraid of death." She shivered as she spoke. Alas, she knew that death was drawing near to her, and dark and terrible was the thought of meeting that "last enemy."

"But Jesus said that He was the resurrection," said Beryl; "and Jesus was a man, was He not?"

"Oh, Miss Beryl!" exclaimed Lucy, shocked at the irreverence of which the child in her ignorance seemed to her to be guilty. "Surely you know better than that! Jesus was the Son of God, 'who for us men and our salvation came down from heaven.'"

"But what does it mean about the resurrection?" persisted Beryl. "Will dead people, will my mamma live again? Shall I see her? Do tell me, Lucy!"

"Oh, hush! Miss Beryl; you are talking too fast," said Lucy, giving a warning glance at the bed, as she felt herself unable to answer the child's questions.

"You should ask your clergyman those questions, my dear," said Mrs. Despard, gently.

"Oh, I could not ask him anything," said Beryl emphatically.

No one spoke for some minutes after this. Beryl was disturbed by an irritating sense of mystification. Lucy was uncomfortably conscious that she, as a good Church-woman and regular communicant, ought to be able to give a satisfactory explanation of the truth she professed to believe. As for the sick woman, she was as anxious as Beryl to know all that was meant by the words the child had repeated. Coral was the only one at ease; and as she sat on the bed close to her mother's pillow, her large dark eyes were turned on the others with the open gaze of childish wonder.

Thus Mr. Hollys found them when he came to enquire how Mrs. Despard was.

"You are looking rather better to-day," he said to her; "do you feel so?"

"Yes, I am a little stronger," she replied; "if only my mind were at peace. I have been thinking a great deal about my brother this morning. Do you think there is any possibility of finding him? Although he could not forgive me, he might be kind to little Coral for my sake."

"I do not know; but we can make enquiries," said Mr. Hollys. "I will do what I can to find him. But make your mind easy about the child; if he does not claim her, I will be her friend. She shall have a home here as long as she needs one."

"Oh, thank you; how good you are!" cried the poor woman, bursting into tears in her sudden sense of relief from anxiety. "I cannot thank you as I should; but God will bless you for your goodness to the stranger."

"No thanks are needed," he returned hastily; and without saying more, he quitted the room, for the sight of the dying woman's emotion affected him painfully. Beryl slipped after her father. Though he had lowered his voice in speaking to Mrs. Despard, she had heard enough to enable her to guess what it was that he had said which gave Coral's mother such comfort.

"Oh, papa!" she cried, as she hastened after him, "How good you are! Thank you so much for saying that Coral may stay with us. You cannot think how glad I am."

"Not so fast, little woman," he said, smiling fondly on her; "you are taking things too much for granted. It is by no means certain that Coral will remain here. If we find her uncle, he will probably take charge of her."

"Then I hope he will not be found," said Beryl. "I want to keep Coral."

"Now, I wonder if I have done a very foolish thing," said Mr. Hollys to himself as he walked away. "I fancy most people would say that I have. Well, I have committed myself now, and must take the consequences."

But as yet he appeared to have little dread of unpleasant results, and his face did not wear the look of a man who regretted an act of folly.