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Page 43
It sent a handful of petals from the wilted rose showering down into her
lap. The coin dropped back into her purse as she made an instinctive
grab to save them from going to the floor. Then blushing and embarrassed
as the plate paused in front of her, she fumbled desperately in her
purse to regain the dropped quarter. The instant the coin left her
fingers she saw the mistake she had made, and reached out her hand as if
to snatch it back. But it was too late, even if she had had the courage
to reclaim it. She had dropped her English shilling into the plate
instead of the quarter! Her precious talisman from the bride's cake,
that she had carried as a pocket piece ever since Eugenia's wedding.
Betty, who sat next to her, was the only one who saw her confusion, and
her sudden movement towards the plate after it passed. She glanced at
her curiously, wondering at her agitation, but the next moment forgot it
in listening to the wonderful voice that took up the solo.
But the solo, as far as Mary was concerned, might have been a siren
whistle or a steam calliope. She was watching the man of the bald head
and the double chins, who had walked off with her shilling. Down the
central aisle went the pompous gentleman at last in company with two
others, and the three plates were received by the rector and blessed and
deposited on the altar, all in the most deliberate fashion, while Mary
twisted her fingers and thought of desperate but impossible plans to
rescue her shilling.
If she had been alone she would have hurried to the front at the close
of the service, and watched to see who became the custodian of the alms.
Then she could have pounced upon him and begged to be allowed to rectify
her mistake. But Phil and the girls would think she had lost her mind if
they should see her do such a thing, unless she explained to them.
Somehow she shrank from letting anybody know how highly she valued that
shilling. All at once she had grown self-conscious. She had not known
herself, just how much she cared for it until it was gone beyond recall.
Aside from the sentiment for which she cherished it she had a
superstitious feeling that her fate was bound up with it in such a way
that the gods would cease to be propitious if she lost the talisman that
influenced them.
No feasible plan occurred to her, however. The choir passed out in slow
recessional. The congregation as slowly followed. Mary loitered as long
as possible, even going back for her handkerchief, which she had
purposely dropped in the pew to give her an excuse to return. But her
anxious glances revealed nothing. The vestry door was closed, and nobody
was inside the chancel rail.
As they passed down the steps Phil turned to glance at a small bulletin
board outside the door, on which the hours of the service were printed
in gilt letters. "Dudley Eames, Rector," he read in a low tone. "Strange
I never can remember that man's name, when Stuart is always quoting him.
They are both great golf players, and were eternally making engagements
with each other over the phone, when I was here last summer. I heard it
often enough to remember it, I'm sure."
He did not see the expression of relief which his remark brought to
Mary's face. It held a suggestion which she resolved to act upon as soon
as she could find opportunity. She would telephone to the rector about
it.
CHAPTER IX
THE BRIDE-CAKE SHILLING COMES TO LIGHT
All the way home she kept nervously rehearsing to herself the
explanation which she intended to make, so absorbed in her thoughts,
that she started guiltily when the girls laughed, and she found that
Phil had asked her a question three times without attracting her
attention. When they reached the house it was some time before she could
slip upstairs unobserved. No amateur burglar, afraid of discovery, ever
made a more stealthy approach towards his booty than she made towards
the telephone. At any moment some one might come running up to the
nursery. Three times she started out of her door, and each time the
upstairs maid came through the hall and she drew back again.
When she finally screwed up her courage to sit down at the desk and find
the rector's number, her heart was beating so fast that her voice
trembled, as if she were on the verge of tears. Luckily the Reverend
Eames had just returned to his study and answered immediately. In her
embarrassment she plunged as usual into the middle of her carefully
prepared speech, explaining so tremulously and incoherently that for a
moment her puzzled listener was doubtful of his questioner's sanity.
Finally, when made to understand, he was very kind and very sympathetic,
but his answer merely sent her on another quest. She would have to apply
to the treasurer, he told her, Mr. Charles Oatley, who always took
charge of all collections of the church, depositing them in the bank in
the city, in which he was a director. That was all the information he
could give her about it. Yes, Mr. Oatley lived in the country, near the
village, at Oatley Crest. As this was a holiday, probably he would not
take the money to the bank until the following morning.
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