But Maggie had other thoughts, in this, outside Mr.Crashaw.She had never lost the force of that first meeting with Mr.Warlock; she had avoided him simply because she was afraid lest he should influence her too much, but now after her friendship with Martin she felt that she could never meet old Mr.Warlock frankly again.What he would say to her if he knew that she meant to take his son away from him she knew well enough.On every side there was trouble and difficulty.She could not see a friend anywhere unless it was Caroline, whom she did not completely trust, and Mr.Magnus, whom her deception of her aunt would, she knew, most deeply distress.
Meanwhile she was being pushed forward more and more into the especial religious atmosphere of the house, the Chapel and the Chapel sect.Of no use to tell herself that this was only a tiny fragment of the whole world, that there, only five yards away from her, in the Strand, was a life that swept past the Chapel and its worshippers with the utmost, completest indifference.She had always this feeling that she was caught, that she could only escape by a desperate violent effort that would hurt others and perhaps be, for herself, a lasting reproach.She wanted so simple a thing...to be always with Martin, working, with all this confusing, baffling, mysterious religion behind her; this simple thing seemed incredibly difficult of attainment.
Nevertheless, when they started that evening for the Chapel she felt, in spite of herself, a strange almost pleasurable excitement.
There was, in that plain, ugly building some force that could not be denied.Was it the force of the worshippers' belief? Was it the force of some outside power that watched ironically the efforts of those poor human beings to discover it? Was it the love of a father for his children? No, there was very little love in this creed--no more than there had been in her father's creed before.As she walked along between her aunts her brain was a curious jumble of religion, Martin, and how she was ever going to learn to be tidy and punctual.
"Well, I won't care," was the resolution with which she always brought to an end her discussions and misgivings."I'm myself.
Nobody can touch me unless I let them."
It was a most lovely evening, very pale and clear with an orange light in the sky like the reflection of some far distant towering fire.The air was still and the rumble of the town scarcely penetrated into their street; they could hear the ugly voice of the little Chapel bell jangling in the heart of the houses, there was a scent of chrysanthemums from somewhere and a very faint suggestion of snow--even before they reached the Chapel door a few flakes lazily began to fall.
Maggie was thinking now only of Martin.There was a gas-lamp already lighted in the Chapel doorway, and this blinded her eyes.She had hoped that he would be there, waiting, so that he might have a word with her before they went in, but when they were all gathered together under the porch she saw with a throb of disappointment that he was not there.She saw no one whom she knew, but it struck her at once that here was a gathering quite different from that of the first time that she had come to the Chapel.There seemed to be more of the servant class; rather they were older women with serious rapt expressions and very silent.There were men too, to-night, four or five gathered together inside the passage, standing gravely, without a word, not moving, like statues.Maggie was frightened.She felt like a spy in an enemy's camp, and a spy waiting for an inevitable detection, with no hope of securing any news.As she went up the aisle behind her aunts her eyes searched for Martin.She could not see him.Their seat was close to the front, and already seated in it were the austere Miss Avies and two lady friends.
Maggie was maliciously pleased to observe that Miss Avies had not expected these additions to her number and was now in danger of an uncomfortable squashing; there was, indeed, a polite little struggle between Miss Avies and Aunt Anne as to who should have the corner with a wooden arm upon which to rest.Miss Avies' two friends, huddled and frightened like fledglings suddenly surprised by a cuckoo, stirred Maggie's sympathy.She disliked Miss Avies from the very first moment.Miss Avies had a pale, thin, pointed face with no eyebrows, grey eyes dim and short-sighted, and fair colourless hair brushed straight back under a hard, ugly black hat.
At the same time she was nervous, emotional, restless; something about her was always moving--her lips, her hands, her shoulders, her eyes.She was fierce and hostile and ineffectual, one felt, so long as she was by herself.Maggie did not, of course, notice all this at the time, but in after years she always looked back on the pale, thin, highly-strung Miss Avies as the motive of most of the events that followed this particular evening.It was as though she felt that Miss Avies' weight, not enough in itself to effect any result, when thrown into the balance just turned everything in one direction.It had that result, at any rate, upon Maggie herself.
She soon lost, however, consideration of Miss Avies in the wider observation of the Chapel and its congregation.It was, as it had been on the occasion of her first visit to it, stuffy, smelling of gas and brick and painted wood, ugly in its bareness and unresponsiveness--and, nevertheless, exciting.The interior of the building had the air of one who has watched some most unusual happenings and expects very shortly to watch them again.Even the harmonium seemed to prick up its wooden ears in anticipation.And to-night the congregation thrilled also with breathless expectation.