The Captives [135]
and gasping for breath in the fireplace, stuffy hot clamminess beating about the unopened windows. Along the breadth of the faded brown carpet some fifty cane-bottomed chairs were pressed tightly in rows together, and in front of the window, facing the chairs, was a little wooden table with a chair beside it, on the table a glass of water and a Bible.
When Maggie and her aunts entered the chairs were almost all occupied and they were forced to sit at the end of the last row but one. The meeting had apparently not yet begun, and many heads were turned towards them as they took their places. Maggie fancied that the glances directed at herself were angry and severe, but that was very possibly her imagination. She soon recognised people known to her--Miss Pyncheon, calm and placid; Mrs. Smith, Caroline's mother, very stout, hot, and self-important; Amy Warlock, proud and severe; and Miss Avies herself standing, like a general surveying his forces, behind the table.
The room was draughty and close and had a confused smell of oil- cloth and geraniums, and Maggie knew that soon she would have a headache. She fancied that already the atmosphere was influencing the meeting. From where she sat she could see a succession of side faces, and it was strange what a hungry, appealing look these pale cheeks and staring eyes had. Hungry! Yes, that's what they all were. She thought, fantastically, for a moment, of poor Mr. Magnus's Treasure Hunters, and she seemed to see the whole of this company in a raft drifting in mid-ocean, not a sail in sight and the last ship's biscuit gone.
They were not, taken altogether, a very fine collection, old maids and young girls, many of them apparently of the servant class, one or two sitting with open mouths and a vacancy of expression that seemed to demand a conjurer with a rabbit and a hat. Some faces were of the true fanatic cast, lit with the glow of an expectancy and a hope that no rational experience had ever actually justified. One girl, whom Maggie had seen with Aunt Anne on some occasion, had especially this prophetic anticipation in the whole pose of her body as she bent forward a little, her elbows on her knees her chin on her hands, gazing with wide burning eyes at Miss Avies. This girl, whom Maggie was never to see again hung as a picture in the rooms of her mind for the rest of her life--the youth, the desperate anxiety as of one who throws her last piece upon the gaming-table, the poverty of the shabby black dress, the real physical austerity and asceticism of the white cheeks and the thin arms and pale hands-- this figure remained a symbol for Maggie. She used to wonder in after years, when fortune had carried her far enough away from all this world, what had happened to that girl. But she was never to know.
There were faces, too, like Miss Pyncheon's, calm, contented, confident, old women who had found in their religion the panacea of all their troubles. There were faces like Mrs. Smith's, coarse and vulgar, out for any sensation that might come along, and ready instantly to express their contempt if the particular "trick" that they were expecting failed to come off; other faces, again, like Amy Warlock's, grimly set upon secret thoughts and purposes of their own, faces trained to withstand any sudden attack on the emotions, but eager, too, like the rest for some revelation that was to answer all questions and satisfy all expectations.
Maggie wondered, as she looked about her, how she could have raised in her own imagination, around the Chapel and its affairs, so formidable an atmosphere of terror and tyrannic discipline. Here gathered together were a few women, tired, pale, many of them uneducated, awaiting like children the opening of a box, the springing into flower of a dry husk of a seed, the raising of the curtain on some wonderful scene. Maggie, as she looked at them, knew that they must be disappointed, and her heart ached for them all, yes, even for Amy Warlock, her declared enemy. She lost, as she sat there, for the moment all sense of her own personal history.
When Maggie and her aunts entered the chairs were almost all occupied and they were forced to sit at the end of the last row but one. The meeting had apparently not yet begun, and many heads were turned towards them as they took their places. Maggie fancied that the glances directed at herself were angry and severe, but that was very possibly her imagination. She soon recognised people known to her--Miss Pyncheon, calm and placid; Mrs. Smith, Caroline's mother, very stout, hot, and self-important; Amy Warlock, proud and severe; and Miss Avies herself standing, like a general surveying his forces, behind the table.
The room was draughty and close and had a confused smell of oil- cloth and geraniums, and Maggie knew that soon she would have a headache. She fancied that already the atmosphere was influencing the meeting. From where she sat she could see a succession of side faces, and it was strange what a hungry, appealing look these pale cheeks and staring eyes had. Hungry! Yes, that's what they all were. She thought, fantastically, for a moment, of poor Mr. Magnus's Treasure Hunters, and she seemed to see the whole of this company in a raft drifting in mid-ocean, not a sail in sight and the last ship's biscuit gone.
They were not, taken altogether, a very fine collection, old maids and young girls, many of them apparently of the servant class, one or two sitting with open mouths and a vacancy of expression that seemed to demand a conjurer with a rabbit and a hat. Some faces were of the true fanatic cast, lit with the glow of an expectancy and a hope that no rational experience had ever actually justified. One girl, whom Maggie had seen with Aunt Anne on some occasion, had especially this prophetic anticipation in the whole pose of her body as she bent forward a little, her elbows on her knees her chin on her hands, gazing with wide burning eyes at Miss Avies. This girl, whom Maggie was never to see again hung as a picture in the rooms of her mind for the rest of her life--the youth, the desperate anxiety as of one who throws her last piece upon the gaming-table, the poverty of the shabby black dress, the real physical austerity and asceticism of the white cheeks and the thin arms and pale hands-- this figure remained a symbol for Maggie. She used to wonder in after years, when fortune had carried her far enough away from all this world, what had happened to that girl. But she was never to know.
There were faces, too, like Miss Pyncheon's, calm, contented, confident, old women who had found in their religion the panacea of all their troubles. There were faces like Mrs. Smith's, coarse and vulgar, out for any sensation that might come along, and ready instantly to express their contempt if the particular "trick" that they were expecting failed to come off; other faces, again, like Amy Warlock's, grimly set upon secret thoughts and purposes of their own, faces trained to withstand any sudden attack on the emotions, but eager, too, like the rest for some revelation that was to answer all questions and satisfy all expectations.
Maggie wondered, as she looked about her, how she could have raised in her own imagination, around the Chapel and its affairs, so formidable an atmosphere of terror and tyrannic discipline. Here gathered together were a few women, tired, pale, many of them uneducated, awaiting like children the opening of a box, the springing into flower of a dry husk of a seed, the raising of the curtain on some wonderful scene. Maggie, as she looked at them, knew that they must be disappointed, and her heart ached for them all, yes, even for Amy Warlock, her declared enemy. She lost, as she sat there, for the moment all sense of her own personal history.