THE Town Hall was crowded and exceedingly hot. AsCharity marched into it third in the white muslin fileheaded by Orma Fry, she was conscious mainly of thebrilliant effect of the wreathed columns framing thegreen-carpeted stage toward which she was moving; andof the unfamiliar faces turning from the front rows towatch the advance of the procession.
But it was all a bewildering blur of eyes and colourstill she found herself standing at the back of thestage, her great bunch of asters and goldenrod heldwell in front of her, and answering the nervous glanceof Lambert Sollas, the organist from Mr. Miles'schurch, who had come up from Nettleton to play theharmonium and sat behind it, his conductor's eyerunning over the fluttered girls.
A moment later Mr. Miles, pink and twinkling, emergedfrom the background, as if buoyed up on his broad whitegown, and briskly dominated the bowed heads in thefront rows. He prayed energetically and brieflyand then retired, and a fierce nod from Lambert Sollaswarned the girls that they were to follow at once with"Home, Sweet Home." It was a joy to Charity to sing: itseemed as though, for the first time, her secretrapture might burst from her and flash its defiance atthe world. All the glow in her blood, the breath ofthe summer earth, the rustle of the forest, the freshcall of birds at sunrise, and the brooding middaylanguors, seemed to pass into her untrained voice,lifted and led by the sustaining chorus.
And then suddenly the song was over, and after anuncertain pause, during which Miss Hatchard's pearl-grey gloves started a furtive signalling down the hall,Mr. Royall, emerging in turn, ascended the steps of thestage and appeared behind the flower-wreathed desk. Hepassed close to Charity, and she noticed that hisgravely set face wore the look of majesty that used toawe and fascinate her childhood. His frock-coat hadbeen carefully brushed and ironed, and the ends of hisnarrow black tie were so nearly even that the tyingmust have cost him a protracted struggle. Hisappearance struck her all the more because it was thefirst time she had looked him full in the face sincethe night at Nettleton, and nothing in his graveand impressive demeanour revealed a trace of thelamentable figure on the wharf.
He stood a moment behind the desk, resting his finger-tips against it, and bending slightly toward hisaudience; then he straightened himself and began.
At first she paid no heed to what he was saying: onlyfragments of sentences, sonorous quotations, allusionsto illustrious men, including the obligatory tribute toHonorius Hatchard, drifted past her inattentive ears.
She was trying to discover Harney among the notablepeople in the front row; but he was nowhere near MissHatchard, who, crowned by a pearl-grey hat that matchedher gloves, sat just below the desk, supported by Mrs.
Miles and an important-looking unknown lady. Charitywas near one end of the stage, and from where she satthe other end of the first row of seats was cut off bythe screen of foliage masking the harmonium. Theeffort to see Harney around the corner of the screen,or through its interstices, made her unconscious ofeverything else; but the effort was unsuccessful, andgradually she found her attention arrested by herguardian's discourse.
She had never heard him speak in public before,but she was familiar with the rolling music of hisvoice when he read aloud, or held forth to theselectmen about the stove at Carrick Fry's. Today hisinflections were richer and graver than she had everknown them: he spoke slowly, with pauses that seemed toinvite his hearers to silent participation in histhought; and Charity perceived a light of response intheir faces.
He was nearing the end of his address..."Most of you,"he said, "most of you who have returned here today, totake contact with this little place for a brief hour,have come only on a pious pilgrimage, and will go backpresently to busy cities and lives full of largerduties. But that is not the only way of coming back toNorth Dormer. Some of us, who went out from here inour youth...went out, like you, to busy cities andlarger duties...have come back in another way--comeback for good. I am one of those, as many of youknow...." He paused, and there was a sense of suspensein the listening hall. "My history is withoutinterest, but it has its lesson: not so much for thoseof you who have already made your lives in otherplaces, as for the young men who are perhapsplanning even now to leave these quiet hills and godown into the struggle. Things they cannot foresee maysend some of those young men back some day to thelittle township and the old homestead: they may comeback for good...." He looked about him, and repeatedgravely: "For GOOD. There's the point I want tomake...North Dormer is a poor little place, almost lostin a mighty landscape: perhaps, by this time, it mighthave been a bigger place, and more in scale with thelandscape, if those who had to come back had come withthat feeling in their minds--that they wanted to comeback for GOOD...and not for bad...or just forindifference....
"Gentlemen, let us look at things as they are. Some ofus have come back to our native town because we'dfailed to get on elsewhere. One way or other, thingshad gone wrong with us...what we'd dreamed of hadn'tcome true. But the fact that we had failed elsewhereis no reason why we should fail here. Our veryexperiments in larger places, even if they wereunsuccessful, ought to have helped us to make NorthDormer a larger place...and you young men who arepreparing even now to follow the call of ambit............